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As the policeman pulled back the sheet, she knew immediately that the man lying on the cold morgue table was not her partner.
"It's not Clark." Lois shook her head, not knowing if she should feel relieved, realizing that this meant that Clark was still out there somewhere.
He must be so cold.
Her body shivered, and she tucked her hands into Perry's coat that he had thrown across her shoulders earlier that evening. She only had a vague recollection of him meeting her outside the club and pulling her into his arms while she sobbed her partner's name.
"Are you absolutely sure, ma'am? He was found in an alley two blocks from the club you and your partner were at tonight." The policeman asked, not bothering to look at her, his eyes on the clipboard in his hands.
Lois took a shuddery breath, willing herself not to start sobbing again. "Are you kidding me? Do you think I don't know what the man I've worked with every day for two years looks like? This is not Clark Kent!" She shouted hoarsely.
"Yes, ma'am." The policeman nodded, moving to pull the sheet over the body.
Perry cleared his throat from behind her. "So, there's no leads then?" He stepped forward, putting an arm around her shoulders.
"If they dumped the body in the city, we'll find it." The officer shrugged. He clicked his pen and held out his clipboard toward Lois. "Please sign here."
Lois stared at him blankly for a moment, her insides twisting as bile rose into her throat. "Excuse me, I'm going to be sick." She ran from the room, hurrying along the long, cold morgue corridor, trying to find a bathroom.
After throwing up and dry heaving for at least fifteen minutes, Lois robotically rinsed her mouth and washed her face.
She didn't bother looking at herself in the mirror. She didn't care how she looked. She didn't care about anything.
Except Clark, lying there.
The body, as the police officer had called him.
Her own body shook, and she tried to suppress another bout of sobbing.
A soft knock came at the bathroom door. "Lois, you in here, honey?" It was Perry.
She managed to take a shallow breath. "Yeah," she croaked hoarsely, leaving the bathroom to join her boss in the cold corridor.
"You okay, darlin?"
"He called Clark a 'body,'" she whimpered as her tears began to spill over again.
"I know, I yelled at him," Perry said through gritted teeth.
"Is that all he is now? A body lying in the street somewhere?" She was sobbing uncontrollably again, and Perry took her in his arms.
"Come on, let's get out of here. You can stay with Alice and me."
"No." Lois shook her head, pulling away from him slightly. "I just want to be alone." She needed to be alone. At home, she could think. If she could just get her brain to work, she could figure this out.
She could fix things.
If she hadn't flinched away from Dillinger. If Clark hadn't come to her defense.
If they hadn't gone to the club.
He wouldn't be dead. He wouldn't be a body.
"Honey, that's not a good idea," Perry said, breaking her away from her thoughts.
"I want to go home." Lois insisted, brushing her tears away. "I need to think…"
"Honey…"
"Please, just take me home, Perry!" She was louder this time. Her throat was burning, and her chest was aching, and she realized it was from all the crying.
"Okay, okay, I'll take you home." Perry relented with a sigh, wrapping his arm around her again. He gently guided her from the building. "Then I better call the Kent's. Damn, they are going to be devastated…"