Chapter 35

She had her hands over her ears to frantically stop the incessant ringing. Her actions had no such effect as she moaned in pain. Her head throbbed and she could feel the heat from the blast lingering upon the rooftop. It took a few moments, but the ringing ceased and she was finally able to open her eyes. Her father was still sitting against the ledge with her, a grimace on his face and hand still clutching hers tightly.

The feeling of doom had passed, but sorrow was on the verge of gripping her and she fought whether or not to peak up over the ledge. She didn't get a chance to decide as both Jimmy and Chloe burst through the door with wide eyes and wobbly legs.

"Are you okay?" Chloe blurted before she saw them. When the General replied, she put a hand to her chest and took a deep breath. Quickly hurrying over to the two of them, she stared down at them. She wasn't quite sure what to do; she was happy to see them unhurt, but she had seen what had happened.

Lois let go of her father's hand and turned around, lifting herself a little so that she could rest upon her knees. She felt like falling backwards and lying on the roof as her body and mind felt horribly depleted. A thick cloud of smoke covered the sky above the ski hill, blocking out the sun and cascading them in shadow. Again she didn't want to look over the ledge, but she knew she would have to eventually. Her hands began to shake as she placed them on the top of the edge. They shook even harder as she tried to pull herself up, her legs feeling like jelly and her head still pounding.

It took a few seconds to reach the top of the ledge. Fear took her, but she fought her way through it and finally popped her head over, her eyes closed from anticipation. As soon as she was on her feet she eventually opened to her eyes. What she saw caused tears to well up and her stomach to tighten into a knot.

The hill was no more. Lay before her was a mountain with a massive divot, much like that of a golfer having made after striking a golf ball on a fairway. It wasn't overly deep, the hole stretching out from the top to almost halfway down the mountain. No more smoke rose into the air, the snow snuffing out the rest of heat and dissipating it. Looking around for any sign of life, her hopes dropped as she saw nothing but carnage. Brainiac was nowhere in sight and Clark and J'onn where undetectable.

"Come on," said Sam, "let's go search for them." He gently laid a hand on his daughters shoulder and squeezed it.

Lois nodded stiffly, a sniff erupting from her nose and a hard swallow barely passing through her throat. "Okay"

She felt her father slowly turn her around and guide her down the stairs. At the bottom of the hotel a search party had been established. It wasn't no mere search party, every person save Chloe and Jimmy were military, dressed to the nine with weapons and armor. They couldn't be too careful. If any of Brainiac's minions had survived the blast, they would have to be diligent in removing them from existence.

Along with her father they began outward and up the hill, slowly coming to the massive hole in the mountain. Everything around her seemed so significant, as if she couldn't quite grab the scope of what had happened. She wanted desperately to cry, but she knew that without definitive proof that Clark was dead she wouldn't be able to. Grief wasn't something she dealt with well, and her steel exterior drove her to mask her emotions. To those around her she may have seemed complacent, but Chloe and her father knew that she was fighting everything inside. On one hand she just wanted to fall to the earth and weep, but on the other hand she was a Lane and she knew that Clark could still be alive. It was a quickly dissipating thought, but she held onto it as long as she could.

As they finally reached the large hole, the smoke now evenly spread out among the sky, she peered into the massive hole but only found rumble. "What do we do?" she asked softly with a depleted voice.

Sam looked at his daughter with a long face. He knew it was unlikely they would find either Clark or J'onn, but they had to try. Whistling, the army reservists came to the head of the line with their search dogs beside them. "Fan out, search ever inch of this hole." No one spoke, only the sounds of feet and grunts signaling their response as they stepped over the lip of the hole and descended. He followed after them, not bothering to see if his daughter had followed after. There was no doubt in his mind that she was only a step behind.

-

Clark lay smoldering, his clothes completely burned off his body and his hair strewn about his face. There was no action from his chest, a massive scar showing his ribs. J'onn slowly knelt down and inspected the wound. It was a gruesome one, the skin peeled back like an orange and the insides spilling out onto the rock from the explosion. For the first time in his life he felt helpless, his abilities useless to save his friend. Even if he had the power to heal, it wouldn't have mattered anyways. Clark was dead.

Completely naked himself, and having transformed into human form, using almost all his energy to do so, he looked up from the small hole that he had pulled them into while the blast had hit them. Closing his eyes, he grunted in agony as his regular leather coat and jeans once again covered his body. Coughing from the exertion, he gripped his head in his hands and fell to his knees. It had taken all his concentration and strength to play dead, but now it had taken its toll. To simply cloth himself was beyond difficult.

He waited a few seconds to let the pain pass and when he felt sure that he could open his eyes without them watering, he did so. The pain was excruciating, but he had had worse. Taking a few deep breaths to calm his mind, he fell to his other knee and stared at the still form of Clark. They were surrounded by boulders and debris, the sun finally peaking through the black smoke and settling on them. He could here shouting and barking, but it seemed like an eternity away. Kal-El may have saved the world, but it had cost him his life.

He knew how to deal with the loss of those close to him, he had after all witnessed the destruction of his own race, but this felt more than that. It felt as if the universe had lost its most important agent of good. It felt as if there was a hole for evil to seep in and swallow up this planet.

Finally standing up, his legs only a little shaky, he closed his eyes and looked to the sky. The sun was its high noon position; the once large clouds that had previously shaded the hill weren't anywhere to be seen. Only the black smoke from the blast could still be seen, but even it had begun to be carried off in the wind and disappear over the other side of the mountain. Looking down, the ruble was smoking just a little, the lingering heat melting the snow and white steam arising from in-between cracks of boulders. As his eyes once again settled back onto Clark, he knew what hew was going to find. But instead of blood and gore, what was seeing before him was surely a miracle.

He knew a little about kryptonian physiology, but what he was witnessing was truly beyond imagination. Instead of torn apart Clark, the young man's body was healing itself. It shouldn't be. He was dead. Bending down, J'onn watched as the young man's entrails slowly wiggled their way back into his stomach and the skin began to close around the once horrifying wound. As the last piece of rib disappeared and the wound closed completely, he touched the skin with his fingers. He looked on in awe as the skin seemed perfect, as if there had never been a wound there. Shaking his head in marvel, J'onn looked up to the sun. Seeing Clark heal didn't necessarily mean that the young man was alive. From what he understood about the healing process of a kryptonian was that the body, even dead, could still react to its primary energy source.

What happened next almost caused him to jump back, but he didn't. Clark's chest had begun to move up and down. Almost afraid that it would stop if he moved, he watched in amazement as the breaths began to quicken and stabilize. "It can't be," he whispered as he finally moved and knelt down beside the young man. Putting his ear to Kal-El's mouth, he listened for it and was greeted with hot air. Pulling back in absolute shock, the sight before him not allowing him to blink, he leaned back on his legs and waited for something else to happen.

Before anything else could happen, barking ripped his attention away from Clark and he looked up. At the top of the small crevice stood a man dressed in army fatigues, a dog held closely on a leash. The man turned and shouted, but he didn't listen as he looked back to Clark. The young man was breathing, but his eyes wouldn't open.

"Clark!"

J'onn lifted his head to see Lois slide to a halt at the edge of the hole, tears streaming down her cheeks as she clutched her hands at her chest.

"Is he…?"

Before he could answer, he had already had his fingers on Clark's forehead. He didn't know how much power he had left, but he had to do all he could.

-

Clark drifted in a void of nothingness, gray blanketing him and soothing his pain. He knew it was likely that he was dead, but salvation seemed like a distant place. Instead of the light that so many have mentioned entering upon their death, he saw nothing but more gray. "Where am I?" he asked softly to no one.

"The void," a voice answered back.

"What?" Clark shouted in astonishment as he continued to float. It had sounded like his father's voice, but he couldn't be sure.

"You are in the void between death and life, my son,"

Relaxing a little at knowing it was his father; he took a deep breath and looked around for any sign of him. It was still all gray. "What am I doing here?"

"You are at a point where you will either die or live."

"Then how can you be here?" Clark asked.

"I'm not exactly sure, but I am. I don't hold the answers to everything."

Shaking his head, he looked around at nothing but gray. It was incredibly depressing. "What am I supposed to do?"

"That, Kal-El, is not a question easily answered. It seems you have been given the choice to live or die."

"That's a rather simple answer."

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. You'll just have to wait."

Clark frowned. "Wait for what?" There was no answer. He shouted for his father, but he was gone.

For what seemed like hours he floated in the void. It felt as if he was lounging on a cloud in the sky, gravity having disappeared along with the sun. Then suddenly he heard something. It was faint, but he could hear it. He couldn't tell if he had his abilities, mainly because there was nothing around him to equate it. When nothing around him existed, how could anything about himself exist either? Pushing aside those worries, he trained in on the sound. The more he listened the more he realized that it was a voice.

"Who's out there?" he asked.

"Kal-El?"

"J'onn?" It was a faint echo, but he recognized the voice.

"It is me," J'onn replied as his voice finally reached Clark.

"Are you in the void too?"

"Not exactly, I'm in your mind."

Frowning, Clark said. "You're alive?"

"Yes, I'm alive and just a little worse for wear."

"But how?" He knew he was speaking to J'onn, but not having a tangible person to see was difficult to fathom.

"I played dead."

"Why?"

"Because it was you who had to beat Brainiac, Kal-El."

"The general killed Fine, not me."

"No, you don't see what you did, but you killed him Kal-El. Sure, maybe not directly, but you kept him occupied until the missile arrived. If you hadn't, he would have escaped."

"So he's actually gone?" Clark asked with his spirits rising.

"He is,"

"What about Lois?"

"She is well. So are the others."

J'onn's voice hinted at something he hadn't heard from the Martian before; happiness. "How do you know?" he asked.

"She is kneeling beside me."

Clark felt his body warm as his eyes closed. Lois was safe and at the moment that was all that mattered. "How do I escape the void?" he asked a second later, not wanting to delay too long.

"You have to follow my voice, Clark, but I warn you, it will hurt."

"Hurt?" he asked with a frown, but he knew no one could see it.

"Yes. You are in the void, Clark, and because of this you have two directions; life and death. Death would be a painless transition, but to return to life you would need to pass back through the pain of what killed you."

"How much will it hurt?" Clark asked.

"I'm not sure, but you have to make your decision soon. I am weak and every moment I linger in here is another moment I might not be able to escape your mind."

"I want to live," Clark said quickly. There was too much to lose if he chose to die. There was Lois, his mother, Chloe and even Jimmy. They needed him, the world needed him.

"Are you sure?" J'onn asked.

"Why would you ask such a question?" Clark snapped back. He thought J'onn was being condescending.

"Because this is really going to hurt," J'onn replied. "Now, follow my voice."

"How?" Clark asked as he looked around himself at all the grey. He was naked, but it didn't matter. There was no one watching him. "You said it was the void, it's nothing."

"Everything is something, Kal-El. You simply have to will yourself to me."

"Fly?"

"No, it's not flying per say. There aren't any rules in the void. Anything is possible, yet people do not spend enough time in it to learn how to maneuver through it."

"And you have?"

J'onn laughed. "No, but I'm in your mind and I know what I'm doing. Things are simple unless you make them complicated. The mind is in itself a complicated place, but for one of my race it's rather easy to maneuver among a human's. You're kryptonian, so you're biology is different, but very much akin to that of those who dwell here on earth. Now, will yourself to me Clark."

"How?" Clark asked with a defeated tone.

"I don't know, but you must find a way before I falter."

J'onn's voice began to fade, pulling farther and farther away so that he almost couldn't here him. Knowing that he had to move towards it as fast as he could, he closed his eyes and tightened his stomach muscles. Nothing happened and he opened his eyes. Grunting in frustration, he did it again, and same as before nothing happened. Roaring in anger, he tried to call J'onn for help, but nothing but a whisper came back. It was getting even farther away.

Through a few curses and deep breaths he calmed himself down. As soon as he had his heartbeat back down to a normal level, he felt his body begin to vibrate. He didn't know what was happening, but he felt as if his body was about to explode. It didn't hurt, but his stomach began to heave up and down and he felt as if he was going to vomit. Then he realized he was actually moving, the tossing in his stomach signaling it. Being in a void of nothingness meant that there was nothing to pass by and signal he was actually on the move, but his body was telling him instead.

The more his stomach bounced around the louder J'onn's voice became. It echoed the same word each time. 'Live'. A smile split his lips at his accomplishment. He was moving and even though he didn't exactly know how, he was pleased with himself. Then suddenly it hit him, the pain. He looked down to his stomach through blurry eyes, blood flowing and the skin stretching. He screamed in agony as more blood began to fountain as his skin ripped apart, revealing a large wound. It was unbearable to watch, so he closed his eyes and continued to scream in pain. It was beyond anything he could imagine.

-

Lois almost had to cover her ears as Clark screamed in agony, his back arching awkwardly as every moan tore through the still afternoon. "What's happening?" she asked with a frightened voice as she looked at J'onn. The Martian had broken the mental link a few moments ago and was breathing heavily.

"He's fighting his way through the pain to get back to us. It will only last a few minutes, but to him it will seem like an eternity."

"So he's actually in pain?"

"Beyond anything you could imagine."

"What will happen next?" she asked with tears in her eyes. Her father was kneeling down on the other side of Clark, Chloe and Jimmy standing by his feet.

J'onn lifted his head and said. "He will either endure the pain and come back to us, or it will drive him mad and destroy him. It won't be long before we know."

Lois looked back to Clark as he continued to scream in agony. Her father had directed his men to go back down the hill and retrieve a litter to carry Clark's body on. Truthfully, they didn't need more people witnessing the marvels that were Clark and J'onn. Even if they were military personnel they still had a social life and were more than likely to let things slip. As the screaming finally died down she put her hands on his chest. He was still warm, but his body stopped moving. "Is he dead?" she asked with a cracked voice.

"Wait," J'onn said, but it wasn't one second later that they were all covering their ears as the mountain around them seemed to shake. It wasn't an earthquake, it was Clark. His scream had been so deafening it was almost enough to knock him over. Only his abilities helped him for the others around him were lying on the ground and clutching their ears. It lasted only a few seconds then stopped, everything deathly quiet. Still on his knees, he looked down to Clark, whose eyes were opening. "Welcome back, Kal-El,"

"J'onn?" Clark groaned as he looked up into the face of his friend. "I made it, didn't I?"

"Yes you did my friend, you made it." He decided to lighten the mood as the others began to sit up and remove their hands from their ears. "Hurts, doesn't it?" he directed at Clark.

Laughing, but still completely exhausted Clark said. "I had no idea what pain was until I felt that. It was as if I should have fainted, but it wouldn't let me." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"I know, but it was necessary."

"I don't doubt it," Clark replied with a tiny laugh. The pain had completely disappeared the instant he woke, but he still felt completely drained. Turning his head to the side he saw a very familiar face looking at him.

"Clark?" Lois whispered, her face dirty from the tears and hair sticking to it.

"Yeah?" he asked with a light smile. There wasn't anything to describe the emotion of seeing her again. The love that he felt for the woman pushed everything aside, leaving only his eyes staring at her.

"You're alive," she exclaimed as she scooted over and flung herself on top of him.

He soothed her hair as she cried on his chest, her hair covered in dirt and dust. Looking up, he noticed Sam, Chloe and Jimmy standing at his feet. All three of them were smiling. J'onn was still standing above his head, but he was also grinning.

Lois lifted her head and cupped his with her hands, quickly kissing him. "Don't you ever do that again!" she ordered between a laugh of giddiness.

"I'll try not to," he replied. Instead of saying something back, she simply kissed him again. As he wrapped a hand around her neck, his eyes went wide. He quickly broke the kiss.

"What?" Lois asked as she saw his expression.

"I can feel you," he said.

"What?"

Seeing the puzzled look on her face, he smiled and said. "The barrier from before is gone. I can feel you."

"Really?" she asked with a grin, her right hand going to rest on his left cheek. When he nodded, she kissed him again. Clark was back and if it was up to her she would never let him go. The simple thought of losing him would almost drive her into madness. He was everything to her, and from the look in his eyes she knew he felt the same way.

Clark kissed her once again. She pulled back and let her head rest on his chest as she wept. He knew it took a lot for Lois to express such emotion, but he could feel a tear or two fall from his own eyes. His throat tightened as he looked up at J'onn. "What about Brainiac?"

"Destroyed."

"Are you sure?"

J'onn looked to the sky for a moment before he peered back down at his young friend. "I'm sure that he's gone from this planet, but I doubt he's actually been destroyed. There's too much of him in the universe for him to be completely wiped out."

"But we're out of danger, right?"

J'onn grinned and nodded. "For a while yes."

Clark sighed heavily. That wasn't exactly what he wanted to hear, but it was good enough for the moment. Peering over Lois's head, he noticed Jimmy looking away awkwardly. "Something wrong Jimmy?" he asked. His friend continued to look away and cleared his throat.

Lois lifted her chin and grinned at him. "You're naked," she whispered softly.

"What!" Clark bellowed in surprise.

"Cover yourself," Sam said as he tossed a large blanket on him.

With the help of Lois, he stood up and draped the blanket around himself. His calf muscles burned in exhaustion, but he managed to stay upright with the help of J'onn and the others. It took a few minutes, but they finally got him out of the crevice. As he straightened he could see the destruction the missile had caused. Whistling low, he stared in wonder at the sheer scope of the blast.

"Are you okay?" Lois asked sincerely.

"Not yet," he replied with a smile. When she frowned, he turned to the General. "You wouldn't happen to have a phone would you?"

"I do," replied Sam, reaching into his pocket and handing Clark his cell phone.

"Who are you calling?" Lois asked as she watched Clark flip open the phone and punch in a few numbers.

Lifting the phone to his ear and listening to the ring, he said, "My mom."

"Oh, crap!" Chloe said as she slapped her forehead. "I knew I forgot to do something."

The End.