Lois Fights For Control

Sam Lane never raised a quitter. As her mother's body merged into her own, Lois Lane fought to retain her own identity...to push back against the invading memories, the alien personality of her own mother. It was a strange, metaphysical struggle, and one that the reporter had no experience in, no preparation for.

For the first few moments, she floundered. Felt bone slide against bone as her mother's features began to slide into place over her own. Hearts beating in different rhythms slowly sinking together as capillaries, arteries, and veins intermingled. Blood ran from one to another, and they were locked together all one organism, and Lois struggled to maintain her own identity, repeating her own name in her mind, pushing back confused as she began to recall the same childhood events from two perspectives...as herself and as her mother...

In desperation, Lois focused on those memories that were solely hers. The first time she kissed a girl, in college, during a game of spin-the-bottle. The sight of Superman descending from the sky for what would be their first interview. Her mother's funeral. Walking on stage to accept the Pulitzer prize. The angry gleam in Lex Luthor's eye as she stripped out of the dress he had gifted her. When Lois and her sister Lucy had gotten drunk together for the first time, talking about boys and wondering if their father would ever remarry...which had led to them laughing and talking about when they had found the stack of pornographic magazines he kept under the bed.

The memories centered Lois Lane, grounded her...and as she held onto them tightly, her body seemed to reciprocate. She could not extricate her mother from herself, but Lois felt her features settle back into familiar forms. Her mother's memories she walled off inside of her, her mother's essence pushed deep down inside of her. Lois thought of a pearl, formed one layer after the next around some minute imperfection, and as the extra limbs were slowly absorbed, Lois sensed her mother's presence...that irritation, that alien presence...grow smaller and smaller, until it was encapsulated and walled off entirely.

She knew, somehow, that her mother would always be a part of her, but at least for now she was Lois Lane.

Mentally, at least. It took a few more moments for Lois Lane's sense of her body to return. As sensation returned to the reporter, she wondered what her body looked like...after all, even though she felt herself dominant in their merging, she had just absorbed the mass of an entire person, and she definitely felt...heavy.

Lois Lane opened her eyes...and gasped.