"...Clark...please...save my son."

It took his brain, unused as it was to hearing desperate pleas for assistance come from under the cowl, a moment to process what had been asked of him. The water, it clicked suddenly. The plane won't get to him in time. It has to be me...

He was slamming the exterior door shut a bare second later. Surveying the world below, he found that it was shaking too violently for him to be certain of what was rock and what was Dick. He shook his head and fell into a swift dive, aiming for the general area he'd last seen his target in. He could fine-tune his flight as he got closer to the ground and things became clearer, he told himself; all he had to do was beat the river.

Halfway down, though, he realized that that wasn't going to happen. In the space of the two heartbeats that had passed since he'd sped from the cockpit a million gallons of water had exploded over the top of the falls. Behind that vanguard were billions of gallons more, all racing to catch up. Dick might have been hunched at the far end of the once-peaceful pool below the wave, but it wasn't enough distance to give Superman the edge he needed. Bruce...I can't...there's no way...

There was no way, but he had to try. He pushed as hard as he could, straining to defy the physics at work a mere three, then two, then one hundred feet away. Despite his best efforts the wave blasted by, scouring clean the spot he'd been headed for. It slammed explosively into the surrounding cliffs, then swirled in a deadly whirlpool before roaring away down the narrow river corridor. Massive chunks of mountain went with it, turning the once-crystalline flow brown with mud.

Forced to stop short lest he be washed away, Superman hovered helplessly for a moment and measured the damage. No human, surely, could survive an assault that had the earth itself shrieking and thrashing. Dick...no... His tear-dampened eyes followed the rampaging flood. Then they narrowed, the pain in them fleeing before a bolt of determined denial. No. No, damn it, not like this.

He took off again, now flying mere feet above the roiling deluge. Straight lines were impossible, as he had to weave and duck around the broken trees and house-sized boulders being borne along by the liquid locomotive. His x-ray vision was useless in such a fast-changing field, and he was wincing from the cacophony of destruction even without turning on his super-hearing. The only things he could rely on were speed, luck, and the stubborn survival instinct that his surrogate nephew had evinced since the first day they'd met. He just hoped that the trifecta would be enough.

A flail of movement caught his eye, sending a shock of joy through him. It faded an instant later when he discovered that he was looking at a soaked sheep. The animal tumbled along, vanishing under the surface and then popping back up, baaing in panic as it went. He stared, horrified but unable to look away, as the creature was thrown into a jutting section of the canyon wall. A smear of blood was all it left behind as it slipped permanently below the water. In a moment the meager marker had been erased, and it was as if nothing of interest had happened there at all.

Superman shuddered, all too well aware that Dick might have already met the same fate. Shoving the rising fear in his chest down as far as he could, he resumed his scanning.

The younger man would try to get to a bank or an eddy in normal circumstances, he was sure, but since there were none of those to be had his best bet would be to climb on top of something stable and hold tight. The further he traveled, though, the more likely he was to be crushed, impaled, pinned, or dragged under by the debris choking the water. I've already gone almost a mile, the Kryptonian gulped. What...what are the odds...?

But then, he reminded himself, he hadn't expected either Dick or Tim to have even survived the initial earthquake. Not only had they done that, they'd then navigated twisted, dangerous terrain with little equipment and almost no guidance, penetrated the villain's lair, and taken down the force field that the entire rest of the JLA couldn't make a dent in. If they could do that, he strained his eyes harder, then he couldn't give up on them now, no matter what the odds were.

A few hundred yards later his pep talk paid off. There, clinging one-handed to the trunk of a massive tree whose ends had been splintered during its journey downstream, was a human figure. "Dick!" Superman shouted as he changed course to go after him. "Hold on!"

He could only fly so fast in such a tight, obstacle-laden area, but he pushed the limits of safety as he pelted towards his quarry. It had been obvious even from a distance that the injured man's grip on his lifeline was weak, but Clark still wasn't prepared to see him slip beneath the frothing waves when they were mere inches apart. "No!" he bellowed, and dove after him.

There was no light in the thick, turbulent soup he'd plunged into, and he had no option but to view the world in x-ray. So many distractions presented themselves that the power only let him see a few feet ahead. It was enough, though; he'd been close enough to Dick when he went under that he just needed to grope a bit in the right direction to find him. Gotcha, he half-sobbed as he yanked him in and tried to shield him from the organic shrapnel all around. Just hold on...

He saw the boulder coming at them in the nick of time. Turning, he took the full force of it with his own back. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, but he shook it off with the knowledge that the rock would have flattened the man in his arms if he'd been a moment or two later. He took off before anything else could endanger the limp form he held, speeding up and away from the torrent of death. Okay, he sighed once they were airborne. We're okay now...

Deciding that he'd better make sure of that fact before he went much further, he landed in a quivering alpine meadow and laid his load down. "Dick," he urged, shaking him. Not breathing, his eyes widened. Please, no...

A wet, gasping cough interrupted his nightmare. "Breathe, pal," he encouraged, slumping with relief as he patted him on the back. "Spit it out." He winced as Dick half-exhaled and half-vomited a profusion of watery sludge into the grass. There was a thin sheen of blood mixed in with it, he noted, but they could deal with that in a bit. For now it was enough that he was drawing air, albeit roughly, on his own. "Relax," he soothed, pulling him away from the mess when he seemed to be done. "Relax. You're safe now. It's okay."

"...Ugh..."

"Yeah, I'll bet." Realizing that the body under his hands was icy, he whipped off his cape and wrapped his charge in it. "Just relax," he repeated as he tucked the fabric in. "You're safe now. It's-"

A cry of pain cut him off, and he pulled back. "What is it?!"

"...Legs..."

A quick glance in x-ray explained everything. "...Okay," he said, returning to his patient's head. "You're going to be off your feet for a while, pal. They're both broken." He slid his eyes over the rest of him, searching. "Looks like you busted up your shoulder and a couple of ribs pretty good, too. Don't move," he held him down as he tried to sit up. "You need to lay still until we can get you to the Watchtower."

"Tracy..." For the first time since he'd been pulled from the water, Dick opened his eyes. "Get Tracy...can't...can't let her die..."

Clark was torn. On the one hand, he didn't want the younger man to blame himself if the woman in question perished. Besides that, there was a good chance she had information that they would find useful in more ways than one. On the other hand, he wasn't terribly inclined to help the person who was solely responsible for the physical and emotional pain that virtually every person on the planet had gotten a taste of over the past week. "Listen, Dick-" he started.

"No." Dick jerked his head back and forth a few times. "You've got to."

"Dick-"

"Ch-charity won't-t-t forgive us," the injured man pressed, his teeth beginning to chatter. "Sh-she'll hate him for it, Uncle C-clark, she'll hate him. Give him a ch-ch-chance, ok-k-kay?"

'Charity' was obviously supposed to be a person, he puzzled, but while the name sounded familiar he couldn't understand what it had to do with saving Tracy Collins. He must have hit his head on something, he frowned. He's not making sense. "I'm taking you to the Watchtower, pal," he made to gather him up. "You need medical attention."

"No!" With a wrenching motion that Superman wasn't expecting, Dick rolled a few feet away. "Go after T-t-tracy! I'll be fine here!"

Aiming to calm him down, he nodded. "I'll go after her as soon as I know you're safe. I'm not leaving you on a shaking hillside in your condition, Dick. C'mon, you know better."

"...Fine. But t-take me t-t-to the plane, not...not the Watcht-t-tower."

"No. You need a doctor. I'll tell Batman that you're okay-"

"Not good enough."

They stared at one another for a long moment. Dick was right, Clark knew; just hearing that his son was alive and in the hands of competent people wouldn't be enough for Bruce, not after a week of worrying. "...You're as stubborn as he is, you know," he gave him an exasperated but affectionate smile.

"Good. So...plane?"

"I'll take you to the plane. Just hold still," he instructed as he lifted him. "You've been shaken up enough already."

"Right...Uncle Clark?"

"Yeah?"

"Th-thanks for saving my life."

He squeezed him a little closer as they rose into the air once more. "...Any time, pal," he whispered, his eyes growing hot. "Absolutely any time."