Epilogue: Complications

Lois Lane never saw the bus, until it hopped the curb. It had tried to take the turn too fast, too tight. Top-heavy, it toppled. The reporter looked up at the last moment, into the face of the driver, the dark eyes met hers and there was a look of such utter and implacable hate there...

Instinctively, she screamed...turned. Her hands grasped her swollen stomach protectively. Clenched unconsciously as she braced for impact, drops of Blaze's jizz squirting out of her ass.

The **** as it slammed against her was a single massive shock that travelled through her entire body, carried her off her feet. There was a pop as her ankle turned, caught under the edge of the bus as it tipped. Lost sight out of her left eye as the metal pressed hard against her face. Pain blossomed across the bridge of her nose, and she heard as much as felt the crash as the glass side-mirror shattered. Instinctively closed her eye to keep fragments out...

A high-pitched ugly scrape as she was dragged along with the bus as it slid to a halt, inertia expended. Concrete sidewalk tore road rash along her legs. Lois opened her eye to darkness.

Too late, panic set in. The air was close, yet Lois found herself trying to hyperventilate. Her left leg was trapped, her left arm wouldn't move. Her baby...

Lois Lane froze for a moment. Her heart ceased to beat. Her free hand pulled up the shirt, pressed against the swollen stomach. Sixteen weeks...she couldn't feel it. Was she supposed to? The reporter's mind went back to her baby books, the articles she had read. Stark cold fear, unfamiliar and terrible ran through her. Lois tasted blood in her mouth, bile in her throat, couldn't smell anything except gasoline, panicking but unable to move. Blaze's load leaking out of her asshole.

Then...a scent of sulfur. Something reached for her, out of the darkness, grabbed her, pulled her into the shadows. It seemed all so familiar. Lois wondered if this is what **** was like...and if her child was dead, the reporter knew she welcomed it.

"...fetus is fine, remarkably," a dry, New Jersey voice, female. "Broken arm, crushed ankle we've had to pin and set, radiating cracks in her skull from the impact and we had to operate to relieve the pressure on her brain; six broken ribs, and the sternum is fractured in two places. A great deal of bruising, but no signs of crush syndrome, and no signs of septicemia or brain damage, though we'll want to run cognitive tests later when..."

"She's awake," a familiar voice said. Her wife's voice.

Lois opened her right eye. Found herself in a hospital bed, bright blue blanket, left arm and leg wrapped up in heavy casts...and Lois could feel another across her chest, the left side of her face. She tried on a smile as Angie, in her human form, leaned over and grabbed her right hand.

"Hey, sexy," she said. "You scared us for a minute there."

"Us?" Lois managed. She turned her head...sudden blinding pain told her that was a bad idea...and saw Clark Kent and Diana near the foot of the bed.

"We came as soon as we heard," Clark said, and pushed his glasses up. "Fortunately, you were the only one seriously injured in the...accident."

Angie's smile was brittle. "It wasn't an accident. Someone did this, deliberately."

Diana's mouth was a firm line. She turned to the doctor. "Will you excuse us for a minute, doctor?"

The woman in the labcoat shuffled off.

"What do you remember about what happened?" Clark asked Lois.

Slowly, haltingly, Lois spoke. her voice sounded strange to her ears...the left side of her mouth was a bit numb, part of her tongue, too...and she hoped that was the painkillers.

"The driver," Diana said. "What did he look like?"

"Male. Maybe six feet, but he was sitting down. Dark hair, olive skin. Strongly built. Some sort of a..." Lois hesitated. "...not a suit. Like a toga? It seems so weird now. Wild hair, wild eyes, like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, and he looked at me...I'd never seen him in my life, but he knew me. He hated me. I don't..."

"There was no sign of the driver at the crash site," Clark said. "He must have fled the scene."

"It's okay," Blaze said as she rubbed her wife's arm. "He won't hurt you again. I promise. I promise."

"You know him?" Clark said.

Angie gnawed her cheeks. "I might. I need to do some divinations to be sure, but...I can't do that here. And I don't want to leave her..."

"We can set up a watch. One of us with her at all times," Diana said. The Amazon walked back into view. "I wish I could use the purple ray to speed the healing of her injuries, but with the baby..."

"It's okay," Lois managed. "I'll heal. Always have."

Angie reached over and kissed the uninjured side of her mouth.

"Blaze needs to go, and one of us should go with her. I'll take the first shift of watching Lois," Clark said, in his Superman voice. The demon and Amazon shared a glance...and then nodded. Angie gave Lois's hand one more squeeze.

"I'll be back, my love," she promised. Reached down and patted the swollen belly beneath the blanket. "For both of you."

The two took their leave. Clark settled in next to Lois. The doctor returned and went through the list of her injuries again. Lois nodded as well as she could, picked out the important things. Complete bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy, high-risk, six months to heal, etc. etc.

"No sex at all?" Lois said in dismay.

"Your wife can assist you with masturbation in a few weeks, if everything heals up nicely," the doctor said. "But quite frankly Mrs. Lane, if you had vaginal or anal sex right now you'd probably break a hip or rip your stitches."

Lois thanked her, and the doctor left. The pregnant reporter sank against the pillow and closed her eye for a moment. To enjoy the silence. Reached out her hand and Superman took it...and, unexpected, slid something onto her right ring finger. The injured reporter opened her eye to look at it.

Her wedding band.

"They had to take it off, in the operating room," he explained. "Blaze was too distraught at your condition to notice it was missing, but I knew you'd want it back."

"Clark," she said. "I..."

"When the bus was bearing down on you...there was a time you would have called for Superman," he said, voice a little sad. "But it was good you called for Blaze. She got you out of there faster and more safely than I could have."

Lois squeezed his fingers.

"So," she said. "How's your sex life with Diana?"

Clark blushed. Lois managed half a smile.

"C'mon, Smallville. Tell me everything. Don't spare the details. Does she like to be spanked? I'll bet she does..."

Lois knew she had the best friend in the world beside her. The President of the United States couldn't have been safer than she was right now. Yet a part of her...deep down inside...felt a shiver of unease. What if it wasn't a bus, next time? What if it was an airplane, or a satellite, or they just blew up the Daily Planet? She had seen the utter hatred in that man's gaze, and Lois Lane knew deep in her heart that her baby would never be safe so long as he was alive. Whoever he was.

So Lois smiled and chatted with the Man of Steel. Yet in her heart, she prayed that Angie and Wonder Woman found him first. Because they would kill him...and that was one thing Superman would never do.