"You sleep like you fight."

The deep rumble characteristic of a retired masked vigilante sounded heavenly in his ears. They weren't words to him, just a string of syllables. Syllables that his supercomputer of a brain should be able to process naturally.

Clark couldn't, because his Kryptonite-induced hallucinations had taken the form of… Bruce.

Sunlight streamed between the thick curtains. Golden rays poured into the room. A black-clad figure was standing between Clark and the source of light. For a vision his mind had conjured and assembled over drugs and a raging concussion, his Bruce was the most stunning sight since... It has been six months since I watched someone pour dirt onto a closed coffin. He realized with startling agony.

Bruce, his hauntingly beautiful hallucination, was standing just two feet away from him. Clark was close enough to reach out a hand and touch that ghostly pale skin. But that courage did not come to him. He feared the moment his fingertip brushed against the illusion, it would melt away. He would be left alone again. That fear gripped him hard, suffocated him. It reminded him that once he grew accustomed to this hallucination, there was no getting out.

But he would reject nothing so beautiful as his mind's projection of Bruce, would he? His vision of Bruce was alive, healthy, at the prime of his life. Looking every bit as invulnerable as a Kryptonian on Earth.

"That is an awfully long response time." Bruce's voice again, low and snark. Even the biting sarcasm was true to his personality.

Clark decided that he quite liked his morning intrusion. He was wrong to push this hallucination away the night before. His imaginary friend would be a good companion to have around.

"Come into the light." Clark whispered.

"I'm already in it."

"You're blocking it. Come closer, where I can see your face." He raised his head from the pillow, hoping to ever so subtly close their distance. There was a disconcertingly pleading note in his voice.

Bruce took a small step towards him. His knee brushed against the bed. He angled himself slightly. In that instant, sunlight poured across his face, lighting up his strikingly handsome features.

Clark smiled warmly. His hand was aching to touch that face, but he maintained his restraints. "I said I wouldn't see you again in the morning, but now that you're here, I was hoping you would stay."

For a moment, Bruce looked thoughtful. "It depends," he concluded.

Clark frowned. Was this his hallucination being deliberately difficult? "On what?"

"On who you're asking." Damn Bruce for his enigmatic responses.

"You. I'm asking you." Clark emphasized despite his puzzlement.

"A hallucination?" Bruce thrown it like an accusation at Clark's face. Then his expression softened by a fraction. "Or a person?"

"We've been through this last night." Clark sat up against the headboard and hugged his knees. He inched just a tiny distance away from his illusionary interrogator. He summoned a smile, but it was a weak, wry stretch of his facial muscles. "What am I saying?" He muttered to himself. "We'd probably go through this again and again. You don't even know last night happened."

Bruce snorted. "I have memories. I think we need to establish that I am also fully capable of independent thinking."

"I don't…" Clark shut his eyes, feeling incredibly weary. Not even the morning sunlight could recover his strength.

"You don't believe me." Bruce finished for him. "I know. But I am not a hallucination."

"Are you going to repeat that every morning?" Clark snapped, his glare now sharp. He was bracing himself, anticipating the hurt. "Is that your idea of torture?"

"Until you believe me. Besides, who knows how long I'll be here?" Bruce said nonchalantly. He sat down on Clark's bed. Clark tried not to think about the sinking of the mattress that looked and felt so real to his senses. That proved nothing. Bruce continued wryly, "I can prove it. Would you like me to?"

The despondent inner voice that had become his decision maker spoke sourly into his mind. He can't prove it. He can't. He can only lie for so long. But the fresh optimistic part of him that he had suppressed for as long as he remembered rose to the challenge. But what if he can? Clark's heart hammered in his chest. "How?"

Bruce turned to regard him with the same calculating, penetrating eyes. "How is your x-ray vision?"

"It's recovered." Clark answered hopefully. "Until my next Kryptonite exposure."

Whatever Bruce thought of that statement, his eyes betrayed no emotion. "Can you still see from one end of the universe to the other?"

Clark shrugged. "From end to end within the solar system, I can." He felt slightly relieved. His vision had deteriorated slightly with age, despite his more or less unchanged appearance. His first and only sign of mortality in his near-immortal life.

"Good." Bruce watched him sternly. "I'm going to tell you something you have no way of knowing. It's happening real time, so it's not a past event that your brain can have researched or known by accident. Neither you, your subconsciousness, nor your hallucination has known this. If your vision proves me correct, I am an entity of independent thinking."

Clark nodded numbly. He grasped the unspoken faster than he consciously wanted to. But it doesn't prove you're flesh and blood. It suddenly occurred to Clark that maybe this Bruce did not know either, whether he was a walking corpse, a humanized robot, or just a damn pretty holographic projection. He only insisted that he had memories and a working mind. And, as he had repeatedly established, that he was not a hallucination.

Bruce caught his attention with another steely gaze. "Focus your attention on MedStar Washington Hospital Center." He instructed. "Steve Trevor has just woken up from his bed and Diana Prince is standing on his bed side."

Clark tapped into his super senses, reawakening the muscles that he had abandoned for months. D.C. was a swarm of colorful visions and noises. He trained his eyes onto MedStar, scanning the floors for a familiar mass of curly dark hair. Room 406… 407… 408. Diana. Steve was sitting on the bed, his face gaunt with sickness, but his eyes were glinting of content.

Bruce threw him an object. It was a crudely made comm link. "Call her," he instructed. "Keep your eyes on her."

Shakily Clark activated the private line and dialed Diana's code. He watched obediently as Diana raised her hand to her ear. Her expression was equally suspicious and hopeful.

"Superman to Wonder Woman." Clark spoke with such unfamiliarity. He had forgotten his own voice as a superhero and a commander.

"Kal." Her slightly agape expression matched perfectly with her voice. She pushed her earpiece further inwards, as though she could not get enough of his voice. "Superman."

"Ask her if she has seen Bruce Wayne." Bruce stated clearly.

Clark swallowed. "Diana. I need to ask you something... something very important."

"He is real." Diana paused and turned. She was looking straight towards Kansas, at Clark, behind millions of solid walls. "Bruce… I saw him too. I talked to him. He is not a figment of your imagination."

Clark stole a glance at Bruce. He wore an expression that said I told you so. "Thank you, Diana. Please give Steve my kindest regards."

"I will, Kal. Take care."

Clark unclasped the comm link and held it out with an outstretched arm. Yet when Bruce leaned in to retrieve it, Clark gripped his forearm and pulled him close.

"I didn't lie." Bruce said blandly. He watched the mixed emotion pass in Clark's eyes. Confusion at his sudden arrival. Fright at the possibility that he might disappear. Disbelief that he existed before his very eyes. Above all, the wonderful, rapturous delight that overwhelmed all his negativity.

"You didn't." He echoed softly. "Let me touch you." He didn't wait for an answer. His hand traced Bruce's face from his defined cheekbone to his chin. His touch was endearing and careful. He relished the texture of flesh, the warmth of his skin. "You feel so warm. So alive."

Bruce struggled to stay put. It was surprisingly awkward, sharing such an intimate moment with Clark. He reached up and held Clark's hand, felt his fingers shaking, and gently set it down on Clark's lap.

"I last remember being in a fight with Bane." Bruce explained, remembering his conversation with Diana. This was something that he would find handy to recite to everyone he met. "I fell unconscious in an underground tunnel. Then I ended up out there, in the fields."

Clark didn't seem to follow his explanation. He was merely captured in his own prayers, muttering "thank Rao for his generosity" in Kryptonian.

"Do you remember that event?" Bruce tried again. It was an ill-masked attempt to remind Clark that they had a different history. Clark might remember them as a couple, but Bruce... To him, Clark was a good friend. A very good friend. But their relationship was still platonic.

Clark looked dazed for a moment, then he seemed to be replaying the conversation in slow motion. "Yes." He said, a mix of anger and pain filling his voice. "You didn't wake for six months."

Bruce ignored the raw hatred that had seeped into Clark's voice. "I need to get back to that time." He said sternly. "I don't belong here."

The pain that contorted Clark's face was instant. "But you've just come back."

"I didn't 'come back', Clark." Bruce explained patiently. He hated hurting Clark, but it was a necessary explanation. The more false hope he gave Clark, the more he would hurt him in the end. "I belong in the past. I must return to it."

"Stay." Clark's eyes were doing the begging that his voice refrained from. He hardly noticed the grip he had on Bruce's wrist, but he felt Bruce's pulse responding to his fear. "Please."

Bruce pulled away, masking his discomfort. "If I stayed, who would return to the hospital bed thirty years ago?" He muttered. "If I did not return, your past would disintegrate. Your memories of us, thirty years of it, would be wiped clean."

Liar. Voices chanted in his mind, repeating the accusation. Liar. Liar.

Clark's shoulders slumped. He seemed reluctant, but ultimately, convinced. "What do you have to do to return?"

"I don't know, yet." Bruce admitted. "But if I want to find answers, my leads will be in the Batcave."

The unvoiced question was evident from Clark's expression.

"Batman owns the largest collection of time travel theories." Bruce explained. And the most information on how to wake from a post-battle coma.

Clark nodded. "I'll take you to Gotham," he said. But his expression was sorrowful, and seemed to be saying much more. If you're going to leave so soon, I would rather you have pretended to be a hallucination.

Bruce ignored the undercurrent of grief and denial. "Swing me by the GCPD. Someone holds the key to the Batcave. I wouldn't want to trigger all the security systems installed by the older me."

Clark climbed out of bed reluctantly as Bruce headed for the door.

"One more thing," Bruce turned back at him. There was a smirk playing at his lips that was heartbreakingly reminiscent of the man in Clark's memories. "I know you own a Kryptonite-laced razor. Go shave."

The door closed behind him, leaving Clark rubbing his chin dumbly in his bedroom.