Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic In time, somewhere 18 fire, fire burning bright

Lois lunged forward. If Clark had slipped through an invisible gateway in time, there was no telling how long it would stay opened. Staying here alone would be a nightmare.

Waving her arms, Lois suspected that anyone watching would assume she was a madwoman, assuming they weren’t watching what was happening in the hotel.

Despite her best efforts, Lois felt nothing.

For a moment, she felt a sense of hopelessness. After everything they’d been through together, were they going to be separated just like that?

Why had Clark been telling her some strange story about being an alien? If he wanted to leave her, there were easier ways without coming up with a story so fantastic that no one would ever believe it.

Of course, the only aliens he would have read about would be tentacle d monstrosities from H.G. Wells and his contemporaries. The idea of a human looking alien wouldn’t appear…Lois wasn’t sure, but she suspected for thirty or forty years.

He was ahead of his time, but he’d never shown signs of being that creative.

The alternative, though, that he’d been telling the truth…

She reached up and touched the letters on the post, jerking her hand away quickly. They were still hot. Sniffing her fingers, Lois didn’t smell any kind of chemical residue.

Shouting from the front of the hotel caught her attention.

Lois blinked; she could see flames rising up from the back, by the kitchen. A moment later she saw a figure carrying someone out onto the front lawn. She stiffened; although it was hard to tell, it looked like Clark.

She was running before she realized it.

Had he vanished into a short term portal and was already back? If not, how had he managed the disappearing act?

None of the gravitational effects had been apparent; she was sure now that she would never forget them after the first time she fell through the tunnel. If he hadn’t fallen through a tunnel, what had he done?

Had she blacked out for a moment? Maybe there were neurological effects to the portal that hadn’t been discovered yet. It couldn’t be healthy, being blasted all over time and space.

Maybe he was telling the truth.

The thought kept nagging at her. As far as she could tell, Clark had always been honest with her. She considered herself a good judge of character, and he’d seemed utterly sincere when he told her that he hadn’t been born on this planet.

Yet she’d examined every inch of him earlier, and there was nothing inhuman about him. She’d have expected a tail, or a tentacle or something to set him apart from ordinary men.

Still…He’d vanished before her eyes.

Could he teleport? If he could do that, just what else could he do?

If he was telling the truth, what did it mean for the two of them?

All she knew was that she had to be with him, no matter what. He was her last chance at getting back to her own time, and with any luck they’d go together.

She reached the front entrance just as Clark came out. He had one of the cooks, a large man, slung over his shoulders. In his arms he was carrying a waitress. Together they had to have weighed three hundred pounds, but he carried them as though they were weightless. He sat the waitress down on the lawn, and then slid the cook carefully off his shoulders.

“Clark!” she said, running up to him.

“There are more people inside,” he said. “Wait here.”

He was gone before she could reply.
Staring after him, Lois tried to remember what had been said about him back in the future. He’d saved several people, then went back in one last time and vanished.

It looked as though he’d already saved five people. Lois wasn’t sure how many several was, but she couldn’t afford to wait for him.

Grimacing, she raced into the building, ducking the desk clerk who tried to grab her.

“You can’t go in there, miss!”

All traces of condescension were gone; all she could see was concern as Arthur and his mother huddled behind him.

People were streaming down the stairs. The smoke was already thick, and Lois saw one woman fall to her knees. Two men stopped to pull her up between them.

“Over here!” she shouted. The smoke was already getting thick and several people seemed dazed and bewildered.

With a glance toward the dining room, Lois scowled and then ran toward the group.

“This way!” she said, grabbing one woman by the arm. The woman’s children were clinging to her legs through her dress.

She led first one group, then the next to the front.

The smoke was rising, so the upper floors had to be even worse.

It seemed forever before the crowd coming down the stairs began to thin. Lois didn’t see Clark among them, and she began to worry.

Where was he?

Had he gotten hurt? It was easy to get disoriented in the middle of a fire, especially if you didn’t know to stay low to the ground where the air was better.

She asked one of the stragglers if he’d seen Clark. The man shook his head impatiently and pulled past her.

The fire had started in the kitchen; her only choice was to get closer to see if she could find Clark.

She coughed as she approached the dining room. Black smoke filled the air and it was getting hard to see.

“Clark!” she called out.

She could see flames rising from the kitchen and she grimaced. She could already feel the heat on her face and she was reluctant to get any closer. Was he inside?

Nothing could survive that kind of heat, not without protective clothing.

The flames were spreading much faster than she would have expected, and the smoke was black and fast moving. No one had heard of flame resistant materials or building codes, apparently, and Lois didn’t doubt that the ventilation system was primitive.

When she was a teenager, she’d had a fast food job. She remembered how permeated with grease everything had gotten, and that was with proper ventilation. The grease ducts over the stoves had been periodically cleaned and gallons of grease had been collected.

Lois suspected that grease ducts hadn’t been invented yet. Grease would have gotten into the walls, and now with the fire and improper ventilation…

It was alarming that the smoke was as thick as it was. The ceilings were high, and she’d have expected it to take longer to fill the air.

She crouched, trying to get below the smoke.

Lois slowly began to back away from the fire. The heat was getting worse and it was getting hard to see.

She grimaced. Where was he?

If anything the smoke seemed to be moving faster. She coughed again.

“Clark!” she yelled.

There was no way he was still in the kitchen, not alive. Her only choice was to head outside and hope that he’d gotten out.

Beginning to back away in the direction she’d come from, she dropped to a crouch and began to move back to the door. It was getting hard to see even at this lower level, and Lois found herself reaching back blindly.

She heard a creaking sound from above her.

As she saw the roof falling, she screamed.

***********

Staring up at the aurora, Lois wondered if she was dead. One moment the fire had been washing over her, and another moment she was here, staring up at the sky.

The fact that she was in Clark’s arm didn’t even register at first. It took her a moment to realize that she was alive and that wherever they were she was safe.

She lunged forward and hugged him tightly.

For a long moment all she could do was hold him tightly, her eyes closed as she simply breathed. Her heart was racing and she knew from experience that her hands would be shaking if she let go of him, so she didn’t.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Lois admitted finally. The fact that losing him would have meant more than losing the future was no longer as surprising as it once had been.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Wherever you go, I’ll find you.”

“Where were you?” she asked.

“There were people trapped on the second and third floor,” Clark said. “I had to get them out.”

“How did you…” she began, but then she shrieked.

Clark was holding her cradled in his arms, but he was floating unsupported in mid-air. She grabbed him even more tightly.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and then said, “I guess this was one of the things you were going to show me to prove that you aren’t from around here?’

He nodded.

“I need to set you down now,” he said.

Lois shook her head. “If we get separated…”

“Then put your fingers in your ears,” he said.

She hesitated, and then looked down. The fire was burning, smoke rising from the hotel. Finally she nodded and stuck her fingers in her ears.

He pursed his lips and a moment later a sound like a tornado made Lois wince.

She could feel an intense cold even without being in the path of whatever it was coming from his lips. It continued for a long moment before he finally stopped.

She looked down; the smoke was dispersing.

“Why didn’t you do that before?” she asked.

“I had to get all the people out first,” Clark said. “And there was a two thousand gallon grease trap under the floor of the kitchen that was on fire. I couldn’t risk scattering the burning grease until I knew everyone was safe.”

Lois stared up at him. “I guess history played out just like it did last time, but we’re still here.”

Clark was silent. “I wouldn’t have minded seeing your time.”

“Now you won’t have to,” Lois said. She hugged him again.

She felt giddy. It was probably the adrenaline still pumping from her near death experience, combined with the relief from finding Clark again, but she felt like laughing out loud.

It almost felt as though her whole body was thrumming, like being at a concert where the bass was set far too deeply.

Clark’s hair, short as it was, began to rise and Lois could see her own hair floating, almost like they were in free fall.

A quick glance toward the ground showed that they were stationary, not falling as she’d feared.

Her eyes met Clark’s, and she saw the sudden moment of realization in his eyes.

Portals in time didn’t have to only exist at ground level.

A massive yank and both of them were pulled into the vortex.

**************

Everything flickered around them, like a time lapse movie set to fast forward. Clark held Lois, but an irresistible force kept pulling her away from him.

Unlike the thug, Clark had no trouble in holding on, but as they traveled the force pulling them apart grew. Lois cried out in pain as Clark’s arms around her back pressed into her like metal bars.

The pain only grew worse the longer it lasted.

She stared into his eyes, trying to hide her pain but unable to stop from crying out as the pressure pulling on her grew.

Clark spun them around so that his entire body pressed against her instead of just his arms. That helped for a little while, but as the pressure continued to grow, Lois found it harder and harder to breathe.

Clark seemed to be struggling to fly backward, to take the pressure off her, but the pressure was growing faster than he could fly. She couldn’t understand why the force pulling on her wasn’t affecting him at all.

She looked back at Clark, then down at the earth below.

Sunrise followed sunset in rapid succession, with only the stars being constant.

Lois’s vision began to turn gray. She stared at Clark and she saw the look of regret in his eyes. Although her hearing was muffled, she could see his lips move as he said, “I’m sorry.”

For a moment she was confused; then she realized that he was turning. A moment later she was pulled from his arms and the pressure was gone.

She stared back at him. He was following her a look of determination in his eyes, with his hands outstretched.

He was keeping up with her! Lois felt suddenly optimistic. He’d promised to find her no matter what happened, and he was going to keep that promise.

He was yanked to one side, almost as though he was being battered by some invisible force.

A moment later, he was gone.