Mon-El

Part 2

He blinked back confusion, his blue eyes boring into mine. "You?" he shook his head. "How could you be responsible for Lar's - Lar's ... problem ...?"

Careful, I took a seat beside him, clearing my throat. There must be no mistake here. I am told that confession is good for the soul. If this is true I was about to improve the state of my soul immensely with my next painful words.

"The serum," I explained, remaining as calm as I could. "The serum I invented to cure him of his lead poisoning. It isn't working effectively anymore." The relief that flooded his youthful features was quite palpable. And most painful.

"Then all he needs to put him right is a fresh dose!" he cried. "How soon can you -"

"I'm afraid it's not that simple," I said, hiding my guilty, writhing fingers in my lap, unseen, beneath the concealing table.

Disconsolately, I wished for the familiar simplicity and safety of my lab. There I am in control. There lurks none of this emotional morass that is so very puzzling and unpredictable. The laws of physics are immutable. God does not play dice with the Universe. The same cannot be said of sentient beings. Their feelings cannot be reduced to simple quadratic equations. They are not logical. There was, to be rational, no reason that I should be experiencing such crushing guilt about this. I did my best for Mon - Lar Gand. In fact, I saved his life and released him from a thousand years of torment in the Phantom Zone. So why, then, this overwhelming sense of failure and grief?

I believe I have already observed that such things are not logical.

"The effects of the serum are cumulative," I attempted to explain. "The more he takes of it, the more of it he requires to offset the damage done to his mind and body by the lead. And the less time it takes to wear off. The serum will never be totally ineffective. He won't die." For a moment the relief was back and he let out a shaky, grateful breath. I looked away as I was once again forced to destroy his joy.

"But he is slowly, inexorably going mad."

"Well," he said bitter in his sadness and despair, "I guess you'd know about *that*, wouldn't you?"

It was the only time I ever heard him utter a hurtful word to another being. Somehow, I felt less than privileged by the honor of being his first such target. I have never known a soul more reluctant than Clark's to harm another either with his body or his mind. At first I made no reply. He was, after all, quite correct. I am intimate with the damning embrace of madness. For a moment he looked shamed by his hasty words.

"Indeed, I would," I was forced to agree. "No one knows better than I how dangerous madmen can be. As I was dangerous. Computo is living proof of that, is it not? As Lar is dangerous. And with his powers that is ... unacceptable. He is, without doubt, one of the most powerful beings in the Universe. Imagine the damage he could do. The destruction ... " He paled.

"Yes," I nodded in accord. "Frightening isn't it?"

It is sometimes difficult to believe the feats that Clark and Lar can accomplish with their vast powers. Until you have seen it for yourself as I have. And even then it is staggering. Mon-El once fetched for me a small fragment of Earth's sun for one of my experiments. Inconceivable. Yet I saw him do it. I was there. Casually, he held a piece of a star in his hands, contained in it's magnetic force shield and grinned at me.

"Where do you want it, Querl?" he asked.

"Why me?" Clark said. "Why does it have to be *me*?"

"Because you are the only one who can," I reminded him, hardening my heart once more. It was not an easy thing to do. No, it was not.

Unbidden, his fist descended upon the plasticene-duranium alloy table and shattered it. He looked on in horror for long minutes at what he had done before he collected himself. His hands shook and his lips trembled but his voice was absolutely calm. Unlike the rest of his body it did not betray him - at all. "Where is he?" he asked.

"According to the Monitor Board, he and Tasmia are in her room, sleeping." He merely nodded.

"Let's go," he said, determined to accomplish this thing and be done with it.

From the instant we stood outside Tasmia's room I sensed something dreadfully wrong. Neither of them responded to the vocomm enunciator. For an instant Clark's eyes narrowed in concentration, as if he were watching something at a distance, that no one else could see.

"Oh God!" he cried, "No, no, no, no!"

With a single motion he ripped the door from out of the wall and sent it sailing down the corridor like a feather in the maelstrom of a hurricane.

Kneeling in a spreading pool of dark Talokian blood, Mon-El clutched his lover Shadow Lass, limp in his arms, while he rocked back and forth, back and forth. When he gazed up at us the look of confusion and devastation in his eyes was wrenching. He looked so very lost.

"Ma he lan," he choked, "ma he lan ..." Daxamite is a beautiful language even when begging for forgiveness. "Ma he lan ... " he kept pleading, "Ma he lan ... " almost like a prayer. And I suppose that's exactly what it was.

Blood stained everything, lying over every surface in the room; on the floor where they huddled, on the bed where they had lain, on the walls. There were fist sized holes in the metals walls and all the furniture lay in broken ruins, flung haphazardly about the small room. Around the edges lingered faint traces of swiftly fading darkness. Tasmia fought back as best she could, apparently. Through the blood and destruction, I could see the faint, labored raise and fall of Tasmia's breathing. She was still alive. But we would have to hurry.

Frankly, I was at a loss. Mon-El was clutching her in his super strong arms like a drowning man. He couldn't seem to decide what to do with his hands. At once he was terrified of touching her and completely unable to let her go. Keening like a small, confused child whose favorite, beloved toy lies mysteriously broken from too rough play, he looked to Clark and I to set things right again. Impossible, of course. Things were never going to be right ever again. Not for Lar.

Literally faster than the eye could follow, Clark was at Lar's aside. Hands on the older youth's shoulders he shook him gently.

"Lar, listen to me," he said clearly, his voice calm and firm. "Listen to me! We need to help Tasmia. She'll be safe with us. We won't let anything happen to her, I promise. But you've got to let go of her, do you understand? You've got to let go of her. Please." Slowly, Lar released his grip on the severely injured Tasmia, giving her like a precious gift into Clark's care.

"Brainy!" cried Clark and I speedily gathered Tasmia's nude body and ran for the MedBay with her in my arms. I watched Clark tenderly wipe Tasmia's blood from Lar's face as I left. The last thing I heard was the sound of muffled sobs. I'm not sure whose they were.

Nor am I sure how much later it was before I faced Superboy again in the outer MedBay Recovery Room. Quite some time I suspect. I know that I did not see him enter with the dazed Mon-El and sedate him with an alpha wave generated sleep field. But there he was dreaming away on the tiny bed that was almost too small for his tall body. Asleep, he looked so innocent and harmless, his features devoid of the consuming rage that must have possessed him earlier.

At Lar's bedside Clark looked up at me expectantly. Gingerly, I sat down in a floating hoverchair. It would be poetic but quite false to say that my lassitude and enervation were the result of some physical malaise. No, it was not my body that was weary.

"I have her stabilized," I answered Superboy's unspoken question. "I've called for Doctor Gym'll and she'll be transported to Medicus One as soon as possible."

He breathed relief and his lips moved silently in what may have been a prayer of thanksgiving.

"Then she'll be okay?"

I nodded. "Eventually," I told him. "She's lost a lot of blood and almost every bone in her body is broken, but she'll recover."

I rubbed burning eyes and shook my head. "Tasmia isn't the problem." I pointed at the slumbering Lar to make myself plain. "What happens when he wakes?" I demanded.

"There must be something you can do!" he insisted stubbornly.

"Oh yes," I replied quietly, "with your help Doctor Gym'll could perform surgery and cut away the part of his mind where the rage lies. I believe even after a thousand years they still refer to it as a lobotomy." For a moment he looked as if he were going to be quite ill. I handed him a glass of water.

"And there are drugs," I conceded. "I have sedatives that would tranquilize an active supernova. Of course there won't be much of Lar left by the time they're done."

"But the serum," he foundered, helpless, "isn't there some way you can - "

I resisted the urge to throw something against the wall. I am as capable of anger and frustration as any sophont. I simply realize the futility of such things. But they prick me as strongly as any other being.

"The serum," I snapped, "took me years of research to develop! Years! And it was ultimately a failure. We have no time, I tell you. He's completely out of control. You saw!" His eyes darted against their will in the direction of the Main Medical Bay and Tasmia.

I forced myself back to calmness, brought my straining breath to a more even pace. He simply refused to see. There was no other explanation for it. He knew as well as I what the only viable solution was. He was, after all, the first to employ it. But he was going to make me say it. He was determined to force me into the role of cold, heartless logician by his stubborn unwillingness to face the truth. So be it. It would scarcely be the first time I endured such an inequity. Nor, I suspected, the last.

"There is only one thing *to* do," I said, my blunt words echoing off the hollowness of the Recovery Room walls. "The Phantom Zone." I saw his eyes widen in denial. "He'll be safe there," I promised, searching with feeble words for some solace with which to balm his pain. "And perhaps one day he can come home. Someday."

It was a Terran who once observed that the truth will make you free. Ridiculous. It has been my observation that the truth only brings anger and sadness in it's wake, not joy and freedom. Most sentients are ill equipped to deal with the unadorned truth and avoid it with assiduous dexterity. Ask Imra about the truth. She knows. Saturn Girl, that potent telepath, knows more truth than she ever desired. Fortunately, she keeps most of it to herself and does not burden others. But they burn her, those truths, and she must guard herself against them.

Clark shot out of his chair and sent it spinning into the wall at his back. The sound of rending, splintering metal is disturbingly similar to the sound of breaking bone.

"No!" Superboy swore, "you'll have to go through me first! You hear me? I won't *let* you do that to him! Not again!" Protectively, he stepped between my threatening body and the sleeping Lar, hovering. With surreptitious stealth I activated my impenetrable force field and began reviewing the current roster of who might be available to aid me if necessary. I am a practical man, after all.

"I won't *let* you!" Clark shouted again.

"Sure you will," said a deep level voice at our backs.

"He can't stop me!" Clark cried before he knew who had spoken.

"Maybe he can't," said Lar Gand, "but *I* can."

Clark was so startled that he lost his concentration, fell about three inches to the carpeted floor and stumbled forward before he caught himself with one hand.

"Lar? I - " he stammered.

Mon-El smiled at Clark and pushed himself painfully to a sitting position as the ergonomic bed hastened to cushion him. He lay his head on his knees for an instant, then looked up at me with steady, piercing blue eyes.

"This - this isn't going to go away, is it?" Resignation echoed in the softness of his voice.

I wasn't surprised that he discerned the problem. He is, after all, something of a scientist and engineer himself. Slowly, I shook my head in silent affirmation of his fears. He swallowed hard and looked away. But when he saw Clark's face set and harden in determination he managed a sad smile.

"Querl, I need to talk to Kal. Alone, okay?"

Lar is the only one he permits to call him Kal-El. With all others he is polite but firm in his insistence that he is Clark. I am not sure why this is so. Perhaps it is simply a mark of the kinship he feels for this time lost Daxamite who shares so many of his strengths and weaknesses. Kal-El is not a part of himself he trusts in the sometimes cruel hands of most others. Kal-El is a lonely alien who does not share much in common with Clark Kent of Smallville, Kansas. Kal-El is strange and odd, easily feared and set apart, forever exiled from his birthright. Lar Gand is the only one, I think, that Clark trusts not to reject and hurt Kal-El.

Swiftly, I retreated to the Main Medical Bay. I wrestled with my conscience for many long minutes before I turned on the main monitor in the Waiting Room. I am not a voyeur. I am not. Like my unfortunate penchant for being right, I take no pride in what I did next. It was simply ... necessary. Knowledge is power. And I had to know what they decided. What they would do.

When the monitor screen flickered silently to life, Clark perched like a nervous bird who desperately wishes to take flight on the edge of Lar's bed, feet dangling over the side. It was written in his face. He wanted to touch Mon-El. The ache of it was in his eyes. But he only stared down at his hands, entwined in the scarlet cloth of his cape, his restless fingers tying and untying busy knot after busy knot. Gentle fingers lifted the younger boy's chin, forcing him to stare into Lar Gand's eyes. Mon-El leaned forward and rested his forehead on Superboy's as if he were very tired or very frightened.

"Kal, you've got to help me here," he pleaded, his tone forlorn. "I can't do this by myself. I'm not strong enough. And Querl is right. It has to be done. So you've got to be strong for me, okay? Because I can't be. Not about this. It's cold and dark there and I'll be all alone again. And I can't do what I have to do unless I know that you're going to be all right. Promise me that. Promise me that you'll be okay. Promise me."

"I - promise," said a grieving Superboy

Lar seemed to relax then, as if a great weight had been lifted Atlas like from his shoulders. Smiling, he pulled the surprised Superboy closer to him, ghosting his lips along the tall column of his neck. "Sweet Kal," he murmured into the tanned, golden flesh of the young hero's shoulder. "Sweet, sweet Kal ..." He lowered the youth's head and kissed his night dark hair. Gentle as a breath of air, he framed Kal-El's face with those hands, capable of so much violence and destruction.

"So beautiful ..." he whispered. "The Star Child ... " Kal-El blushed furiously and gave Lar a tentative kiss in return.

"I'm not beautiful," he insisted. Lar only smiled in denial.

Mon-El lay back on the crisp sheets of the bed and turned the two of them over until Superboy was the one gazing up at him. Surprised, the younger boy couldn't seem to stop blushing. It seemed to astonish him that he was desired, quite as if this were the first time that it had happened to him. With slow languor, Mon-El's hands whispered down the length of Kal-El's arms until they reached his hands. Tightly, Mon-El entwined his fingers with the Clark's, clasping them until I thought I might hear the bones creak.

"Hang on," he urged.

As I watched, they began to raise into the air. The holocamera lost track of them for a moment, but I was suddenly the one blushing as bits and pieces of Superboy's uniform drifted down from above like bright parti-colored snow. First the boots. Then the tunic ... By the time my holocamera's found them again, Clark was naked to the waist, his back arched, spread-eagled beneath Lar's caressing hands.

"It's ... been a long time ... " Clark gasped and closed his eyes. With a small cry of pleasure, he clung to Lar.

"Too long," Mon-El husked.

His blue eyes glittered like stars. Fiercely, he tugged and, in one smooth motion, pulled the bottom half of Clark's uniform free of his body, leaving them both naked. I heard Clark moan and watched him bury his hands in Lar's hair. With a growl of hunger, Lar pulled his mouth from Clark's and kissed his way down the body offered to him. A nibble along the pulse fluttering so rapidly in Clark's neck. A hard chain of demanding kisses along the ridge of his collarbone. Long tantalizing swipes of the tongue over his younger partner's washboard stomach, dipping into his navel. A whisper of hot breath over the curve of his hip, the rising swell of his groin. Superboy's hands grasped the empty air and he moaned once more.

Disgusted with myself, I reached to switch off the monitor. To my shame I found that I could not. Transfixed, I watched them make love and could not look away. Lar kissed and caressed his way down the long muscles of Clark's back and thighs, clutching tightly at his youthful lover as though he might suddenly vanish. Wild eyed, he slid smoothly into Clark's body and Clark's voice rang off the metal walls, echoing his joy.

They drifted down to the floor but neither of them appeared to notice. For a very long time they simply lay there entwined. Clark's head rested on Lar's broad chest, encircled and protected by those strong arms. Within moments Superboy was sleeping in his lover's arms. The sound of Clark's steady, even breathing contrasted sharply with Mon-El's quick shallow ones, filling the air of my hidden vantage point with soft sighs. After a time, Mon-El looked directly into my hidden holocamera.

"Give me a few more minutes," he said. "Then ... then I'll be ready."

He had known all along that I was watching. I should have realized, of course. There is no lead in these walls nor sound bafflers to deceive his eyes or ears. Only people do that. He discerned my distrust and yet said nothing. But he had wanted someone to bear witness to his love for Clark. In shame and self disgust, I switched off the monitor. In the next hour I checked on Tasmia four times, ran a long delayed electro-spectral analysis of an ore sample from Braal, played three games of holo-chess with myself and sterilized hundreds of test tubes. I kept myself very busy.

But, not once did I go near that inviting, damning monitor screen.

But finally, I could delay no longer. Stepping into the Recovery Room, I lowered my eyes.

"Lar?" I said softly. "It's time."

Nodding, he rose and dressed quickly. Careful not to wake the slumbering Clark, he gathered him up gently and carried him to the bed and covered him with a warm blanket. Absently, he brushed that stubborn curl off the sleeping youth's forehead and smiled.

"Damned hair," he murmured when it sprang back into its former place. The kiss was chaste almost, lingering only for seconds.

"Paraihe," he whispered.

Paraihe is a purely Daxamite word. It has no Interlac or English equivalent. Roughly translated, it means, "the long goodbye". My knowledge of Daxamite is incomplete but I believe I am correct in saying that it is a mark of permanent leave taking between lovers. One does not generally say it to a lover that one will ever see again. A very sad word. Paraihe. Leave it to the gloom ridden Daxamites to coin a word specifically for such a tragedy. My heart cried for them.

"He'll be angry," I said, "if you leave without saying goodbye." He tore his eyes away from the recumbent Superboy and stared at me.

"It's for the best," he insisted. "He'll forget." I shook my head in denial.

"No he won't," I told him firmly. I cocked my head and stared into his calm, resigned eyes. "Would you really want him to?" I questioned. He smiled and ran unsteady fingers through his dark hair, still tousled with his passion for the youth dozing fitfully on the bed.

"No, I guess I wouldn't," he admitted. "Gods, I don't want to do this!" He squeezed his eyes tightly shut at the thought of the lonely imprisonment awaiting him. "Querl, I'm really scared. Is it okay to admit that do you think? I'm not sure I can do this. I need ... I need ..." His voice broke. Without hesitation, I reached for his hand and squeezed it.

"I'm right here," I assured him. "I won't leave you."

"It's not fair!" he raged. "Why doesn't this damn thing just kill me?"

There are many more futures than one strung like beads on the shining rope of time. My scientific expertise has given me glimpses of more than one of these "alternate" futures. And "alternate pasts". In one such past, separated from this one by the merest gossamer tissue of events, I once watched a seventeen year old Lar Gand, then called Valor, dying of lead poisoning. With less than a week to live, he turned to a beautiful woman who would ultimately betray him.

"What now?" said the lovely Glorith.

"I don't know," sighed that doomed Lar. "I don't have a lot of options. Or a whole lot of time. I can either lie down peacefully, or ... " The silence that descended between them was almost tangible. Then, Lar's ravaged face, thin and bruised with constant pain, smiled. It was still a beautiful sight, even then.

"Close your eyes," he invited his lover. Startled, she did. "Now think," he requested. "Think about the most horrible godsforsaken place you've ever come across in your travels. Some planet teetering on the brink of disaster. A world completely without hope. Got one?"

"Yeah," she nodded. Lar's smile broadened and his deep blue eyes sparkled with purpose.

"Then set a course," he instructed softly. "And let's go make a difference ... "

He squeezed my hand, so very gently I almost didn't notice it.

"Let's get this over with," he said.

But he stopped just short of the MedBay door. I tried not to be alarmed. But ... What if he should change his mind? Could I subdue him? No, I realized. I couldn't. Could I survive? Perhaps. I had my force shield belt but ... one touch of those hands and it would all be over. I tensed. But I needn't have worried, it seems.

"I have to say goodbye to Tasmia," he said. "Could - could I do that?" Silently, I lead him to the medibed where she slept her healing sleep and stepped back to allow him some privacy.

"She may not know you," I warned him. His eyes darted away from mine like meteors glancing off an energy shield, too ashamed to met my gaze.

"Good," he whispered.

He never touched her. Not once. His hand reached out, in the beginning, to stroke her hair, but he gritted his teeth and let it fall harmlessly to his side. Almost as if he were afraid to touch anything and perhaps harm it. He simply stood there, staring down at her. When his tears fell on her cheek she stirred briefly and smiled up at him, still drowsy from the pain killers I had administered.

"Mon," she murmured. "I had the awfullest nightmare ..."

"Shhhh," he soothed her and at the sound of his voice she relaxed, her trust in him complete. This was not an easy thing for even me to watch. I do not like to imagine what it was like for Lar.

"It's all right, lover," he assured her, his voice gaining strength, "go back to sleep. When you wake up the nightmare'll be ... gone. I promise you. I won't let it ever hurt you again." Content, she tumbled back into drugged rest.

He grabbed my hand to pull me towards the exit door. When I grimaced in pain at the unintended strength of his grip, he snatched his hand away as if he'd been burned. And perhaps he had.

But not with heat.

After that, it didn't take long. It was done very quickly. He stood calmly, almost with relief, before the Phantom Zone Projector and a press of a button later he was gone, the desolation in his eyes a fading memory.

Clark came stumbling in still groggy in the lingering embrace of sleep and Lar's warmth. He was just in time to catch sight of Mon-El's eyes as Lar ghosted away. Numbly, he stumbled back a pace or two and sat down heavily on the floor, staring at someone no longer there. I thought of Tasmia and wondered how she would deal with Lar's ... absence ... Oh Tasmia ... forgive me ... Ma he lan ... Again, I heard the sound of muffled sobbing. But this time there was no doubt of their source.

I did, after all, even in so alien a circumstance, recognize the sound of my own voice.

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dannell Lites, who died unceremoniously on 16 September, 2002, in Kansas City, MO. Other than characters, place names, etc., which are ©DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Warner Bros., WGBS or any other television/movie owner, or Wizard Magazine, all content is ©2002 Dannell Lites. Background set ©2002 by SleepyHead. Please do not use without her permission. Site url= http://dannfan.50megs.com/