Staring up at him, Lois couldn’t help but notice that despite the chill his body was warm. As he slipped the coat over her shoulders, it was warm as well. It shouldn’t have been; he hadn’t been wearing it on the boat or on the run to the lighthouse. The day had been overcast.
Yet somehow it was.
Impossible things seemed to happen around Clark. Seeing his picture, being drawn back in time, now this. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he really had arrived on a star.
For some reason she couldn’t stop staring up at him. Her mouth felt dry suddenly and she licked her lips.
His eyes darted down to her lips and then quickly away. He flushed.
“I should have paid more attention to the weather,” he said. “I’m usually more alert, but I find myself…distracted.”
As far as Lois was concerned, knowing what the weather would be like was like reading a crystal ball even with the help of the National Weather Service. Reading the wind and the sky seemed like magic, and she couldn’t fault him for something she’d have been clueless about.
“It’s not as though you could know the weather,” Lois said.
“When I was a farmer it was my job to know. I can see farther than most,” he said. “Normally I never would have put you in this position.”
For a moment, Lois was confused. Other than a wet dress, semi-transparent as it might be, what position had he put her in?
“A man and woman alone, without a chaperone,” he said, “It can lead to some….difficulty.”
“You’re worried about my reputation?” Lois asked incredulously. She wasn’t sure why it surprised her so much.
Maybe it was the fact that she’d thought he wanted to kiss her and she was disappointed.
“A man’s reputation is easy enough to lose,” he said gently. “A woman’s is even more fragile.”
Lois supposed that was true, even in her own time. People engaged in slut-shaming, vicious gossip, back biting and professional jealousies led to other sorts of outrages. Yet in her own time, most neighbors didn’t know their neighbors, at least not in the big city.
People didn’t care what those outside their immediate circle did, unless they were a celebrity.
Now, though…Lois could only imagine how bad it would get if she was found alone with a handsome man if just showing up in the wrong dress made the concierge call her a slut.
“Well,” she said. “Maybe we aren’t alone.”
He glanced up at the ceiling and said, “I am fairly certain that we are.”
At her expression he continued. “The lighthouse keeper usually goes to breakfast at this time. His job is mostly at night and so he breaks his fast when most are having lunch.”
“So he leaves this open and unlocked? Anyone could just come in here and steal or destroy anything they want!”
“Why would they want to?” he asked, seeming puzzled. “There’s nothing of value here.”
Lois hesitated. She wanted to explain, but she’d never really understood herself why some people felt compelled to destroy beautiful things for no other reason than that they were there.
She shivered despite the warmth of the coat.
He frowned slightly, and then took her hands in his own. She hadn’t realized how cold her hands were until she felt the welcome warmth of his hands.
It was as though the sudden chill to the air didn’t affect him at all. Whereas she was shivering, his hands were rock steady.
She stared down at her hands in his, and for some reason she found herself flushing again.
He was silent, and Lois found herself searching for something to say. Somehow the silence wasn’t uncomfortable; instead it was pregnant with meaning.
“I don’t spend much time outside,” she admitted.
Clark chuckled. “I can tell. No umbrella, no gloves. Your hands feel like ice, and it’s not even all that cold.”
“I’m sure it doesn’t seem cold compared to the farm,” Lois said, pulling her hands out of his, “But winters in Metropolis are better spent indoors.”
He stared down at his hands for a moment. At first Lois thought it was because she’d pulled away, but a moment later she realized she’d misjudged him. He was rubbing the finger of one hand.
Before she could react, he grabbed her hand, turned it over and rubbed as her wrist.
Her wrist had taken longer to begin bruising than her throat, but she’d covered it with concealer as well. She wasn’t even sure when she’d gotten hurt; it might have been when the thug was holding on to her as they were making their journey backward through time.
“Who did this?” he asked.
For the first time she heard anger in his voice.
His eyes scanned up and down, as though he could somehow magically see through the makeup. His lips pursed even more.
“Being a reporter isn’t always safe,” Lois said.
“The theater pages can’t be that dangerous,” Clark protested. “Unless Metropolis is much different than every other city I’ve ever been to.”
Her Metropolis was, but Lois couldn’t go into that, of course.
“It was Robinson who assumed I worked the theater pages,” Lois said.
“Still,” Clark said.
“My editor sent me here to do an easy story, to get me out of Metropolis until it was safer,” Lois admitted. “I was reporting on organized crime, and some of the people I was reporting on were dangerous.”
“I can only imagine,” Clark said.
He kept staring at her wrists and for some reason her neck. Lois wondered if the concealer had somehow washed off in the rain. It was supposed to be waterproof, but you couldn’t always trust the label.
“A man who would do this to a woman…he isn’t a man at all.” Clark’s voice was low and controlled, but she could hear suppressed anger in it.
“You aren’t going to tell me this is why women shouldn’t get involved in real reporting?”
“The Daily Planet is one of the best newspapers in the world,” Clark said. “If its editor trusted you to report on significant news, it must mean that you are better than good at what you do.”
Lois flushed again. Praise about her looks had never meant all that much; it was superficial and she had never understood why many men thought that would be impressive. Her looks were the result of good genes. She could highlight them with makeup and clothing, but at the end of the day looks weren’t an accomplishment.
She’d worked long and hard in her career, though, and she was proud of that fact. Even though things were slowly changing, she still had to work twice as hard to get half the credit.
Of course, she’d have had to have been even better in 1912, and she felt a little guilty for misleading him.
“I work hard,” she said.
“But it occurs to me that men who would do…this wouldn’t hesitate to follow you halfway across the country if you caused them enough trouble.”
“I…” Lois said, then hesitated.
From what she knew of Clark, he was a brave man. There were records of his rushing into fire to rescue people, part of the reason he was still remembered a hundred years later, along with his ghost.
And did she really know if the thug wasn’t around somewhere? They’d gotten separated in the time stream, but he might have simply arrived a little later.
If he was feeling protective, it would only make it easier for her to stay near him until the time came for his journey out of this life. Being so manipulative never bothered her with a criminal; they deserved everything they got. She couldn’t help but feel a stab of guilt at being this way with Clark.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted.
Clark was silent for a long moment. “I promise you this…I will protect you. As long as I am with you, you will not come to harm.”
He said it as though it was some sort of great declaration.
In Lois’s world, promises were ephemeral. People broke promises almost as quickly as they made them. Nobody went around making great declarations, because the world changed too quickly.
Yet there was something about the way Clark looked at her when he said it. It was like a knight making an oath.
A chill went down Lois’s spine.
Hadn’t he kept his promise?
A half dozen times throughout her life he’d been there. Somehow, impossibly, hundreds of miles and a lifetime away, he’d found a way to keep his promise.
“I believe you,” Lois said.
He looked her in the eye for a moment, then smiled.
“Apparently we’re the lucky ones, to get the big city reporter away from the stories that matter.”
“I never said theater didn’t matter!” Lois protested. “It’s just not as…challenging…as corruption, vice or politics.”
“A great play can touch people’s hearts. It can widen their view of the world.”
As far as Lois was concerned, plays were occasionally entertaining, but rarely enlightening. Of course, she rarely had time for them.
“I haven’t seen many,” Lois admitted. At his look, she rushed to explain. “My work has been my life. It doesn’t allow a lot of time for other things.”
“You don’t even have time to go to a Nickelodeon?” Clark asked.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen even one,” Lois admitted.
She wasn’t exactly sure what Nickelodeons were; in her mind she had vague images of men in bowler
hats staring into a metal machine at hula girls.
“Although it’s a poor substitute for the theater, it’s much cheaper and more convenient,” Clark said. “A nickel, and these days, films last almost fifteen minutes.”
“I’ve always thought they were…”
“Middle class?” he asked. “There are nicer theaters now. It’s not just folding chairs in a back room anymore. You must have come from a wealthier family.”
“My father was a doctor,” Lois admitted.
“I’d have thought you’d have gotten to see more theater, then. Many doctors are very concerned about their standing in the community.”
“My father was more concerned about the work,” Lois said.
“You have no brothers?” Clark asked.
Lois shook her head.
“I suppose like many men he wanted a boy to take up the mantle once he was gone?”
Not answering was as much an admission as outright admitting to something, but Lois found that she couldn’t even look at Clark.
“What if he did?”
“You are different from any woman I’ve ever met,” Clark was silent for a moment then said, “You don’t worry about the usual things women worry about…fashion, clothes, your reputation.”
Why did everyone keep harping on her clothes?
“I’ve been around enough women to know that most worry obsessively about details men don’t notice at all. Which shoes go with what dress, which hat goes with which shawl…”
Her shoes didn’t match her dress? What kind of man noticed that?
A man in the theater, apparently.
“They worry about getting married and having children.”
“How do you know I’m not married?” Lois said, challengingly.
“You are a good woman. You wouldn’t leave a husband or children behind while you fled to safety,” he said. He glanced down at her hand, which obviously didn’t have any rings.
“How could you possibly know that? You don’t know me.”
“You are braver than most men,” Clark said. “After being assaulted, most women and many men would be overwhelmed. You act as though it is nothing more than a mild impediment.”
“There are brave people who are evil,” Lois said. She wasn’t sure why she was arguing, except that she’d had too many people make assumptions about her.
“Evil people don’t try to fight corruption, they revel in it,” Clark said. “They don’t risk themselves for others; they let others take the risks for them.”
“All you have is my word that I do any of that,” Lois said. “I could be lying.”
“I’d know,” he said firmly. “And I trust you.”
The feeling of guilt that had been gnawing at her was getting more intense the longer they talked. Clark wasn’t just innocent. Everything she saw said that he was a good man. He wasn’t just handsome; he was intelligent and perceptive.
He called her a good woman, but was she really? At the very least he was going to be displaced in time, and maybe lost forever.
Did she have the right to call herself a good person if she went along with that, even if it was to go back to her own time?
Maybe the future wasn’t immutable. Was he destined to lose everything, or could the future be changed?
Did she have any right to make that decision for him?
The urge to warn him was growing, no matter what the cost might be for her.
“Clark…” Lois said hesitantly.
She couldn’t believe she was even bringing this up. If he believed her she might lose the future. If he didn’t, she might end up in an old-time insane asylum. In no version did she see a good ending for her.
Yet if she didn’t tell him, what kind of person would she be?
