Clark lay flat on his back, listening to his own breath and Bruce's beside him, listening to the rush of the water. Then he turned on his side, pushed himself up. "I'm going in," he said.

"What?"

"See what I can salvage."

Bruce said something but Clark ignored him, wading into the icy water. When it was halfway up his thighs, he turned around, saw Bruce watching, propped on his elbows. Bruce yelled at him, cupping his hands around his mouth, then gave up and pointed, and Clark nodded, heading that way. He dogpaddled and treaded water, trying to feel for the river and flow of current, and then he dove when he got to the place in the river he'd been aiming for anyway, even before Bruce tried to micromanage. It took him three tries before he found anything at all of their supplies, but then he hit a small pile of them, jumbled across the silted murk of the river bottom, and he hauled up what he could, dragging it back to the shore in heavy armfuls, letting it thud to the sandy ground with more force than was probably necessary.

Bruce watched him, gaze flinty, then gave up, letting himself lie back on the sand, eyes closed again.

Clark's chest tightened as he stood to go in again, because at least that was something. It was something he could do and maybe it would keep him from going crazy. He lost count of how many dives he made, feeling his way, but finally his hand struck something square and metal and that he yanked out and pulled back to shore, too. The sun felt good, even though he was still shivering with the shock of the water, and he stepped a few steps away to shake himself off the best he could before falling to a seat to take inventory. Bruce was useless, out of it, lying silent with his eyes closed, and Clark fought to control the cresting wave of frustration that was trying to overtake him.

He had managed to pull up seven cans of food and, ridiculously, his cape, which had been caught beneath a few of them, maybe it had been wrapped around them - he didn't know and it didn't matter. Mindless to what he was doing physically, he lined the cans up in a neat row next to the soaked radio and tried to figure out what to do next. After a while he found himself sitting with his legs folded, elbows on his thighs and head in his hands, and then he finally sat up straight, ready. "Bruce," he said, shaking him a little by the shoulder, but only a little, because it didn't actually matter. He didn't need Bruce conscious to do this.

Still, Bruce opened his eyes, staring at him groggily.

"I need to see how bad your leg is."

"Leave my leg alone."

Clark ignored him completely, because that much belligerence only meant real trouble and because he really didn't want to lose his temper right now. He leaned down to unwrap bandages. "You've done a pretty good job hiding it," he said as he worked. "Been what, three or four days at least since I've even seen it. You ihave been changing it, right? You haven't given up…"

Clark didn't look up, because he was getting more and more worried as he exposed more and more skin, red and swollen both above and below the wrap of now wet cloth, but he could hear the exasperation in Bruce's voice when he answered. It was good to hear, normal and reassuring. "Of course I've been changing it."

But then he unwound more of the cloth. "I'm going to —oh, god," he said, catching a glimpse of newly revealed skin. "I'm going to bend your knee up." Clark rubbed at his calf in apology, watching Bruce's face. "To get underneath."

Bruce's eyes shut tightly, his face a grimace as Clark lifted, crooking his leg so that he could unwind bandage. The flesh above and below was red and tight, angry, and Clark was sure that if he touched it, the skin would be hot. He steeled himself for what he might see when the actual wound was revealed, and still he wasn't ready, not really. How could you be ready for that? He must've given something away when he saw it, livid and angry, infected and oozing yellow pus, because Bruce propped himself up on his elbows to look himself, only for a second. Then he let his head fall back to the ground again. "Got worse," was all he said.

Clark suddenly realized that he wanted to hit him, and how unreasonable was that? Anger, though, a kind edged in panic, rose in his chest and his fist clenched uselessly in the sand. "I thought we were in this together," he said, his voice just a whisper, because if he started yelling he doubted he'd be able to stop. So he sat back for a minute, counted to ten.

"We're out of antibiotics, right?" he finally said, louder, because apparently Bruce wasn't going to answer him unless he asked directly and because he couldn't not say it, although he knew the answer. Of course they were. They had to be or they wouldn't be here right now. The thing was he couldn't even figure out what they'd used them on. Maybe it'd happened before he even got here. Bruce better hope he'd used them before he got here.

"Yes," was all Bruce said, and Clark just couldn't help it, he couldn't help it, which just made him madder at himself because it didn't matter but he had to know. The words came out in a rush, running together. "You used them on me, didn't you?"

And Bruce knew him well enough to not answer. He knew him well enough to pretend not to hear him, and even in the midst of all this, suddenly Clark wanted to laugh. "Even though I didn't have an infection, you—"

That got him, that got Bruce. "The reason," he said, opening his eyes and glaring, "the reason you didn't get an infection is because I took preventative measures. Injuries like that can quickly turn toxic—animal bites, puncture wounds, cat bites in particular, and that was the biggest cat possible—all highly dangerous, which you'd know if you ever had to actually deal with anything." ,Bruce propped himself up, the better to yell at him, he guessed, which made it even easier to keep snapping back, because he sure as hell didn't know what to do to fix it.

"You're compromising the mission, Bruce. Because you sacrificed something I didn't need, for me when—"

Bruce's lips were a thin line. "I did the best I could and I'd do it again. You are not, as much as you'd like to believe the opposite, invincible. Not right now anyway. You never have been, there's always been something. Kryptonite or mind control or some damn Lexcorp—"

"That laser ray was only a fluke."

"Yeah." Bruce's mouth quirked up into a rueful smile. "See? You can't even let that one go. Now. While you're actually vulnerable, you're still making excuses for—" he waved a hand at him, doing that thing he did that was almost an eyeroll. "Meanwhile, welcome to the real world. The small, real world the rest of us have to live in."

Clark didn't know what to say for a minute and Bruce just kept going anyway. "You can't have it both ways, Clark. You can't both grieve the loss of your powers and ignore that they're gone simultaneously." He snorted and flopped down on his back, glaring up at the sky.

"You…" Clark started, and then his eyes narrowed. "Oh, no you don't," he said, suddenly flashing on the last fight he had with Lois. "Oh no. You don't get to try to make me feel guilty when you're the one who already sacrificed—his leg, from the looks of it—so I could maybe avoid an infection, and you don't get to hide this for days and then try to change the subject so I won't notice how you didn't even have the courtesy…" He trailed off, speechless for a second while he tried to make a coherent sentence, and then he realized the one he was looking for. "You've compromised the mission, Bruce." Clark folded his arms and waited for that to sink in.

All it did was make Bruce laugh, and that made Clark angrier. "So what are we going to do now? You can't walk and we're going to be lucky if you can keep your leg. Our raft is destroyed and we need to make a lot of distance in the next few days but," he couldn't help it, this needed repeating, "you can't walk! Because you used antibiotics on someone else and now you don't have them for yourself."

"Sorry Clark, I know it's painful for you, but it's true. Some of us aren't super. We just do the best we can."

"Shut up," Clark growled. "Just shut up." Clark picked up the disgusting, encrusted bandages and threw them toward the river. "This isn't about that and you absolutely know it. This is about you not even trusting me enough to be honest with me."

"What? Of course I trust you."

"Your actions say otherwise." Clark put his forearm against the man's clammy forehead and tried to gauge how high the fever was. All he could ascertain, through his fear and his anger, was that it wasn't nearly as hot as the leg itself.

"I'll be back, Bruce," he said, and got up to go to work.

—

Bruce slept. He didn't know how long but it was pitch dark the first time he woke, shaking, and at first he thought what was happening was part of the nightmare he'd been having. He lay there shivering, blinking at a fire, and the flames seemed to laugh and sputter at him but surely that wasn't real and then something cool was being wrapped around his sore leg. It was cold - he was cold, freezing, despite the heat of the fire—but the cool helped numbed the raging scream in his leg and the imps in the flames receded, so maybe the cold was worth it.

Hands were on his face, cupping his cheeks, then his forehead and then he was cursing and fighting because he was being hauled up and half-dragged, half carried away from the firepit. "Sorry, Bruce," a voice, Clark's voice because who else had there even been for months except in dreams, and then they were going downhill, through tall grass. His heels bumped along soft sand and he only realized where this was going a second or two before the shock of cold water hit him, surrounded him, surrounded them both. He gasped in shock at the feel of it, the unwelcome, freezing wet, and flailed and fought.

"Come on, Bruce," Clark was saying, and Bruce couldn't think except to push away but Superman held him fast. "Be still," he said, his voice an angry growl and he held him, shaking, pinned but held like a baby, cradled in the icy water, head up, the rest of him submerged in the dark, wet cold.

Bruce shuddered and shook. So cold. He tried to get away from Superman but there wasn't any strength in him - no strength at all and all he could do, in the end, was blink up at the stars in the dark sky and try to curl into Superman's body heat, because the water was like ice and he was so, so cold. It wasn't any help at all that Clark was drawing up water with his hand and letting it spill over his forehead. Though realizing that did make him realize he had a chance. Since he was only being held with one hand, instincts kicked in and he shoved at the dense wall of muscle - Clark's chest, hands skittering over cold wet cloth and skin as he pushed as hard as he could.

"Knock it off," Clark said, but he kept pushing, finally kicking out with his good leg. It hit, made impact and he slipped out of Clark's hold, but then there was nothing to support him and he flailed, going under and getting a mouth and noseful of river water. "Damn it, Bruce." Clark hauled him up. "Cough it out," he said, slapping his back. "Now be still." Clark leveraged him down to let the back of his skull rest in the cold water. "You're burning up with fever."

—

Unsurprisingly, Bruce was not an easy patient, but Clark was starting to hope he could save his leg, so he put up with him. He opened another can of peaches, one that he'd salvaged when the raft went down. Beside him on one side lay Bruce, still with some fever but less than he'd had last night finally, and on the other side of him was the radio, open and cannibalized, disassembled with its parts drying in the sun.

He woke Bruce enough to get the peaches down him, and they didn't require much chewing, which helped. He fed them with his fingers, following that by tipping the can they'd been in, but the few drops of syrup he hadn't stolen already ran down Bruce's face, so he cleaned it off and made him wake up a little more fully so he didn't drown on what came next.

"Up," he said, pulling Bruce to half-sit. "Drink this."

"What is it?" Bruce said, smacking his lips and having the nerve to give him a look like maybe Clark was trying to poison him. The look of suspicion combined with bedhead and a terrible looking beard made him laugh and that made Bruce scowl more, only making Clark laugh harder.

"Water." Clark made him drink a few swallows.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing. It's stress, I think." Clark smiled at himself. "I'm glad you're better."

"How do you know I'm better?" Bruce's voice was rasping and hoarse, and his eyes were still skeptical.

"Just a hunch," Clark was saying when Bruce's eyes went wide and he sat up, angrily waving an arm at the radio parts.

"What the hell, Clark?"

"What?"

"The batteries? You've opened up the batteries?"

Clark just stared at him. "Yes, Bruce. Yes I did."

"That radio was going to save us," Bruce said quietly.

"It is saving us. And don't you remember? It got wet anyway."

"Radios can dry out!"

Clark wasn't sure if he'd ever heard Bruce so ridiculous. He almost said so but thought better of it. "Call me crazy, but I thought the battery acid would do more good saving your leg than maybe working again when maybe we get in range."

Bruce frowned, suspicion back in full force. "What are you talking about?"

"You're not the only one with some tricks up his sleeve. I made activated charcoal."

"Activated charcoal," Bruce parroted, obviously not able to figure out what to do with that information, and it was obvious to Clark that he'd officially become petty, because Bruce being confused about Clark's genius pleased him. Until he realized it might still be an effect of the residual fever, and that was enough to snap him back to something a little closer to normal.

"Sugar from the syrup in the peaches, charcoal activated by sulphuric acid," he said, a little sharper than was necessary, because even if Bruce did have a fever, he was a very unpleasant patient. "Made a poultice. Your leg's still infected, but it's not septic."

Bruce, jerk that he could be, just squinted at him. He looked at the fire, which was dead, and then past it, to a large, partially-hollowed log in which a small, controlled fire burned. "Pretty fancy."

"Yeah?" Clark nodded, exhaling and sitting back to see it the same way Bruce must: still a bit fever-addled, not as the man who'd broken his back for the last three days and nights working on it. "That's what's going to get us out of here."

—

Logbook Day 137: S for B. Canoe finished. Leaving at dawn. 3 days left to escape.