Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found Here
Where we left off in Part 200…Clark grinned, lifting the file even higher. “No. These are my notes.”
Lois rested a hand on his shoulder and momentarily stepped onto his chair to give herself the leverage to push herself higher, but Clark still managed to keep the folder out of her grasp. As gravity overtook Lois, her chest brushed against Clark’s face and she grabbed him around his neck to stop herself. Instantly, his arms surrounded her so she wouldn’t fall. He could hear her heart racing and feel her chest rise and fall against his from her exertion.
Their eyes locked and he saw a much different heat than anger shining in them.
“What’s the magic word?” he whispered, his voice rough.
“Gimme,” she replied breathlessly.
Unable to resist, he lowered his mouth to hers.
Somewhere in the background, he could have sworn he heard Jimbo cheering.
“Lois! Clark! What does this look like? The back row of Lover’s Lane?” barked Perry, causing them to jump apart as if they were two teenagers being interrupted by a porch light.
Lois moved away from Clark first, grabbed his Luckies file out of his hand, and awkwardly returned to her desk amidst the applause from their coworkers.
“Okay, okay!” Perry called, holding up his hands to quiet the newsroom. “I’m going to need more than Lane’s exposé of Dr. Carlin to fill the paper. What do the rest of you have?”
Everyone scurried away as if they were cockroaches on a kitchen floor after the open fridge flooded the kitchen with light. Perry pointed towards Clark. “You, too, Kent.”
Clark nodded towards his computer. “The gas fire over on West Side. I was just about to write it up.”
“You do that, then,” Perry growled, and tossed Lois her notepad. “Thanks, Lane. I’ll need that article now. Jimmy, how are you doing on tracking down Luthor’s marriage records?”
“On it, Chief,” Jimbo replied, lifting up the handset for his telephone.
Lois glanced over her shoulder at Clark and smiled softly. He shot her a grin as he sat down at his desk.
It was now official.
They were an item.
No more lying.
No more sneaking around.
Everything was now out in the open.
Clark felt like making loop-de-loops.
Part 201
***********************
The Truth is in the Details
***********************The days quickly slipped by. The August heat became trapped between concrete buildings and only slightly eased as September school bells started to ring in the city yet again. Lois was once more outpacing her coworkers on stories and overtime. Clark being her partner both on and off the clock had helped.
Lois refused to admit to anyone that her work ethic had anything to do with not wanting to go home at night. However, she was more than glad that she and Clark had settled into a routine where they spent more time eating dinner, watching movies, and working over at his apartment or out than at hers. She didn’t know if Clark had noticed, or even cared, that they rarely spent time over at her place.
She usually woke early to get out of the apartment before the heat of the day became insufferable and jogged to the Daily Planet. She would then work out in the exercise room, shower, and dress for the day there before heading upstairs to the office, where Clark would greet her with coffee and a chaste kiss. After a lecture from Perry about appropriate workplace behavior, they tried to limit their more passionate kisses for times and places when others wouldn’t be distracted.
Clark hadn’t done anything to forward their relationship past kissing. Their relationship remained firmly lodged at first base and Clark, unlike his pre-investigation self, seemed blissfully content to stay there.
No blisters had developed on Lois’s feet this past week and she could now jog a mile again without being winded. She might not be back to her pre-space mission strength and stamina, but she certainly wasn’t in ‘recovery’ mode any longer either. She was beginning to wonder if Clark was using that as an excuse, so as not to admit that he was still suffering from PTSD from Luthor’s torture chamber or his ex-fiancée. Lois was afraid dredging up the memories to the forefront of his mind would make him worse rather than better. If he was trying to forget what happened, perhaps time and patience were the best medicine.
She could be patient, Lois often repeated to herself.
For now.Therefore, Lois tried to stick to conversation topics they could talk about with ease. Work. Her Luthor investigation. His Luthor investigation. Their Luthor investigation. Superman rescues. Clark’s travels. Life up on the Space Station. Food. More work. Politics.
They also discussed her secret psychic source. She liked that Clark never seemed to judge her negatively for this gift. Perhaps being that he had abilities of his own made her little super power seem less out there and weird. Still, her ability seemed to baffle her.
“It doesn’t make any sense, Clark,” Lois said one evening at his apartment.
Clark had made them roast chicken breast with a Caesar salad for dinner, which tasted better than anything Chef André had ever prepared.
“I wish there was some kind of rhyme or reason to it,” she continued. “How can my ‘feeling’ about Dr. Carlin and Lex being married be spot on and, yet, Dr. Heller’s death and his body’s discovery be absolutely…” She stumbled through her inner thesaurus and couldn’t find a better term. “— not right.”
He smiled a smile she recognized and it made her pinch her lips together in annoyance. It clearly read ‘I love how you can’t admit that you’re wrong’. The love part shined strongly in his eyes, but the held back laughter of his lips was just as apparent. His smile faded slightly, before he reminded her, “Dr. Heller was found dead in the landfill.”
“I know, but that’s only because Superman went to look for him
after I told you that I was sure that he should’ve been found at the dumpster behind his office. You hypothesized that if the homeless man
hadn’t witnessed the disposal of the body, then the doctor might have ended up at the landfill. The question is why would I think that Dr. Carlin had been involved with Dr. Heller’s death in the first place? A quick check of her whereabouts the week Heller disappeared put her definitely in England attending a funeral, so she couldn’t have been involved. And while notebooks found in the bunker proved that she knew about the clone’s existence, and may even have been training him, she adamantly denies having anything to do with stealing his remains from the morgue.” Lois put her elbows down on the table and rubbed her temples. “I just don’t understand how I
know certain unknowable facts and totally mess up others. It’s so illogical.”
Clark wiped his mouth with his napkin, rubbed his chin in thought as he gazed at her, and then nodded as if coming to a decision. “I have a theory, but it’s a little bit out there.”
“Hey, at this point I’ll consider anything,” she said, and then grinned as a stray thought zipped across her mind. “Did
you give me my ability?”
“What?” he sputtered. “Why would you think…?”
Lois shrugged. “I don’t know. It sort of just started with you,
Chuck,” she said knowingly, before winking.
“Oh,” he murmured. “You didn’t before…?”
“Nope. Back before I met you, I had to ask people their names,” she said. “And then you came along…” She leaned forward and smiled. “And zowie! My life was changed forever.”
Instead of returning her smile, he glanced away and the corners of his mouth tilted downwards. He sighed and sat back in his chair. “
Minha, there’s something I need to tell you.”
He looked so serious that she tried to keep her voice light as she teased, “Oh? Are you keeping another big secret from me?”
“Yes,” he said, winced, and then corrected himself. “No, not anymore.”
She raised a brow, unsure quite how to interpret this response.
“I’m not exactly who you think I am,” he said. He stretched his hands out on the table and then pulled them back in.
“Oh?” she coaxed. She knew he was Kal-El, Superman, from Krypton. What else could he reveal?
“Before I say anything else, I should…” Clark picked up his plate and stood up.
Lois leapt to her feet and took the plate from his hand. “The dishes can wait,” she said, setting his plate back on the table. She took his hand and led him over to the couch. It was just like Clark to draw out the suspense after dropping such a hook.
“It’ll only take a minute,” he said, pointing back at the table with his thumb.
“Then it will only take a minute when we’re done,” she said, pushing him down on the couch. Sitting next to him, she took his hand in hers and gave it a loving squeeze. “Okay. Who are you, then?”
“I’m…” Clark cleared his throat. “I’m from the future,” he replied. He exhaled as if revealing some grand truth.
“The future?” Lois echoed. If she hadn’t known Clark could fly, this announcement probably would have shocked her more and made her give thanks that their relationship wasn’t presently carnally intimate. As it was, it seemed more mind numbing.
“Not that far in the future, actually. Just a few years,” he clarified.
“Uh-huh.” She didn’t mean to sound skeptical, but how else
could she sound? He was talking time travel; without proof it was unbelievable. Even from a man from another planet.
“Hear me out,” he pleaded.
“Trust me; I plan to,” Lois said, waving for him to continue.
He took another deep breath and exhaled it. “I met you there.”
“Me?” she sputtered with a shake of her head. “No, that’s not possible. I don’t exist in the future.”
Stunned amazement widened his eyes and caused his mouth to fall open. “How…How… How…?”
“I mean. Of course, I
exist,” she explained. “But if you met
me in the future and then came back into the past prior to when we met, that me,
that future me could no longer exist. That
future me who didn’t fall in love with you as I have wouldn’t exist as I do now.”
His eyes brightened and he nodded with excitement. “For the sake of this conversation, let’s say you do.”
She let go of his hand and leaned back, crossing her arms. She had read enough science fiction to know that wasn’t possible. “Okay; go on.”
He stood up and started pacing in front of her. “And this future you made me the man I am today.”
“Bonkers?”
He frowned. “You promised to listen,” he reminded her.
“I
am listening,” she said, but that didn’t mean she had to believe him.
“Remember how I told you… um, not you…uh… Amy Platt that a friend of mine made my uniform that first day when we met… well, the day you met Superman, that is?” he asked. He was starting to babble more than a brook.
However, she nodded slowly. That did sound familiar.
Clark stopped in front of her and held out his hands to her. “You!”
“I made your Super Suit?” she said, knowing he must be pulling her leg now. “I don’t sew.”
“Well, originally it was a ski suit with some modifications, but that’s not really important,” he said, waving away her objections.
“All right. What is important then?” she asked.
He stopped and knelt down in front of her. “I fell head over heels in love with you.”
“You fell in love with this future me
first?” Lois wasn’t sure what to do with that information. It was both pleasing and insulting all at once. Pleasing that he fell in love with her. Insulting that he had already been in love with her, with a
different her, before he met
this her… this just over a year ago her… the current her.
“You knew that the world needs me, and that I not only want to help, but
need to. You understood me and trusted me and accepted me straight from the get-go. Nobody else had done so before… well, my adoptive folks took me in, but not since then. How could I not love you?”
She couldn’t stop the corner of her lip curling upwards. She reached out and caressed his cheek. “I am pretty loveable,” she admitted.
Clark set his hand over hers and smiled. “That you are.”
As she gazed at him, she recalled that this unbelievable story started out as an explanation on why her psychic ability was flawed. “If you loved this future me, and I’m assuming that I fell in love with you too, why did you come back into the past to a time back before we had met?”
His face paled. “Something happened and… and… we couldn’t be together.”
Vague much? “Can you elaborate?”
Clark shook his head. “Actually, several things happened and… well, it was decided that if I went back in time and started over with you, maybe those things wouldn’t happen this time.” He smiled sheepishly as if he was begging her to please accept these unscientifically grounded facts as facts without explanation.
He should have known better.
She dropped her hand from his cheek. “What things?”
“Things…” he murmured.
“Clark,” she warned.
He looked so unsure, so scared of telling her. Fear wasn’t an expression she had ever seen on his face before. Something horrible must have happened. Something so vile he needed to reverse it.
“I don’t want to jinx…” he finally said.
Lois rolled her eyes and sat back on the couch, waiting. He had brought up this topic.
“Okay… um… someone found out that I’m Superman and announced it on television,” he finally admitted.
“Who?” she demanded. “Lex Luthor?”
He shook his head. “He doesn’t exist anymore.”
Her jaw dropped open. “What did
you do?”
“I lived as Superman twenty-four/seven and you… left… because… because we… couldn’t be together,” he said. The hesitation wasn’t a figment of her imagination. Clark didn’t want her to know the details of her so-called departure. Clark thought he was being sneaky, but she could read him like an open book… written in Kryptonian.
“No, Clark. Why doesn’t Lex exist anymore in the future? Did Luthor die?” Lois clarified.
She felt a chill go down her spine. It wasn’t a chill of familiarity, or at least, she didn’t think it was. She didn’t want to think Clark was capable of hurting anyone, but she knew if Lex had revealed Clark’s secret thereby risking her safety as Superman’s love interest, there would be no stopping him. Her eyes widened. Was that what had happened? Had Clark gone too far? Was that why they needed to start over?
“I don’t know what happened to Lex Luthor. I don’t recall him being around, as he is now. However, this other man, the man who exposed my secret, wiped himself out of existence,” Clark repeated.
She was glad to hear that about Luthor, but that point wasn’t important. She shook her head to focus her thoughts. “What does that mean? ‘He wiped himself out of existence.’ Explain it to me,” she said, taking hold of Clark's chin so that he couldn’t look away. Somehow, she knew he couldn’t lie if he was looking her in the eye.
“He was from the far off future, but he didn’t like it there,” he replied. “I’m not sure why.”
“Too violent? Too despotic?” Lois suggested.
“No,” he said hesitantly. “I think you said he found it boring because it was too utopic, but don’t quote me on that.”
“I…? Oh,
future me.” He must be paraphrasing.
I’d never use a term such as ‘utopic’, she thought. Was that even a word?
He nodded. “Yes, future you had dealt with him in your past…
her past.” For a moment, Clark appeared as confused by this so-called theory of his as she was. “Anyway, somehow this guy undid something in what technically was his past that made it possible for him to exist in the future.”
“Such as outing you on television made it so that Superman was always on duty, therefore around to save the first fiancé of his grandmother from dying, thus, she married him instead of this guy’s grandfather?”
“Essentially.”
Lois rubbed her temples again. Her mind was spinning from all the consequences. She glanced at Clark, who still knelt before her. He was waiting with an expression of anticipation on his face. She placed her palm to his cheek and wiped away the worry.
“I love you, Lois,” he whispered. “I… I couldn’t live without you in my life. I tried. It didn’t work.”
The ache in her heart told her she felt the same way about him.
She ran her thumb across his cheek. “Did the future me die?”
He turned his head away and murmured something that sounded like “Everyone dies.”
“Clark.” She tilted up his jaw so that he was looking her in the eye again. “Did the actions of this man from the future cause my future self to die before I would have otherwise?”
He closed his eyes and shrugged. “I… I…”
“Clark, yes or no.”
“Yes. His actions caused some disaster that destroyed the world… well, civilization… and if I hadn’t come back into the past…” He opened his eyes and she could see sadness filling him to his depths of his dark brown eyes.
“So, where was Superman?” she asked.
“Apparently, this will be a disaster that needs both of us to work together for it to be averted,” he explained.
It was always nice for Superman to tell her that he couldn’t save the world without her. Her brow furrowed. “Wait a minute. This sounds familiar.”
“Are you getting a psychic hunch?” he asked, moving next to her on the couch and taking her hand in his.
“No!” she snapped, pulling her hand free. “You’ve told me this before. You said that you had come here to woo me because ‘our love would save the world from destruction’. That we ‘needed to be married’.
You were joking!” She pushed him away and rose to her feet.
“I never said that we needed to be married,” he corrected. “I said that I had come here because I love you.
You lightheartedly offered to marry me to save the world, and I accepted. Big difference. You asked me to tell you my deepest, darkest secret and I told you that it was my deepest secret, but not my darkest. I
never said that I was joking.”
“You
implied it!” she roared.
He shrugged as if he couldn’t be blamed for her assumptions.
“You could have told me you were…” she yelled, pantomiming his flying signal. “Instead!”
“No, I couldn’t have, Lois,” he replied softly. “That was the night after you were shot. Superman had just told you that you two could never have a relationship.”
“But it’s okay for me and Clark to live happily ever after?” she growled.
“I hope so.”
“You could have just told me your
other secret instead of breaking my heart,” Lois said.
“Yes, I could have,” he admitted. “But after Luthor shot you, I didn’t know if I could be Superman anymore. I had come here to save you and my actions caused you to be shot.”
“No, you
numbskull. Luthor’s actions and
my actions and this stupid…” She waved her hands about her head. “— idiotic psychic ability is what got me shot.
You didn’t factor into it
at all!”
“I didn’t prevent you from being shot, either,” he said.
Lois reached over the back of the couch and grabbed his collar, shaking him. “How many times do I have to tell you that you can’t be everywhere at once?”
“The same number of times that I have to ask you to please not have me excuse my behavior from a year ago,” he replied. “I’ve accepted that I was wrong for not telling you earlier. I’m sorry about that. There isn’t anything I can do to change the past.”
She threw her hands up into the air and screamed in frustration. “You just told me that you have the ability to travel through time!”
“No, I didn’t. I said that I came from the future. I arrived here on a time machine. Don’t you think if I could travel through time easily, I would have done so already several times during our relationship?”
“You
told me that you had fixed worse mistakes prior to this try,” Lois reminded him.
Clark smiled sheepishly. “Okay, I was joking about that part.”
She groaned in aggravation. “So you have a time machine?”
“No. My friend does. He dropped me off,” Clark said.
“Convenient,” she muttered under her breath.
“Not really, no. I can’t tell you the number of times I wish I could have stopped you from doing something or myself from saying something I shouldn’t have, such as that ‘I came from the future’,” he grumbled. “If I had the ability to take myself back in time, do you think I would have let Luthor shoot you, or let him bomb the Planet, or...”
She got the point. “Who? What’s the name of the man with the time machine?”
“I’m not going to tell you,” he replied, crossing his arms like a petulant child.
“Why not? Because truth in a relationship is overrated?” she asked sarcastically. “Or because he doesn’t really exist?”
“No, because you already think I’m ‘bonkers’,” he replied. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you in the first place. I have no proof of my claims and you can’t accept my word at face value. However, it might explain why you have these psychic feelings and why they aren’t always right.”
Lois raised her shaking hands in disbelief at his nerve. “How?”
“Because some things have changed from the last time you lived this life,” he replied. “And some things haven’t.”
“That’s… That’s just…
Argh!” she screamed, grabbing her purse off his side table. “I’m going home.”
Clark stood up. “I’m trying to help. I wish you wouldn’t leave mad.”
“Get used to disappointment!” she said and stormed out his front door.
As she marched down his steps, he caught up with her. “Can I walk you home?”
“No!” she said. “But you’re free to follow me. That’s what you’re good at.”
“Lois, please. If anything were to happen…”
She turned on her heel and pointed a finger in his face. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You blame yourself for my death, don’t you?”
Clark didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. It was written across his face.
“Did
you kill me?” she demanded, knowing he hadn’t.
He took a deep breath.
Lois held up her hand to stop him. “Not indirectly. You can’t count any actions leading to my death. You can’t blame yourself for someone else pulling the trigger or for someone killing me because they knew about us. Did you yourself kill me?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Then why do you keep blaming yourself?” she demanded.
Clark was overcome with the most melancholy face as if she had asked him to relive her death repeatedly. “Because I love you and I didn’t save you.”
“Well, buck up already, Chuck. I’m very much alive and I can’t have you constantly living in fear of my future. Celebrate this living breathing woman in front of you,” she told him, tapping his chest with her still extended index finger. “— instead of mourning my future possible dem…”
Suddenly, Clark pressed his mouth to hers. He captured her top lip and sucked it gently, brushing her front teeth with his tongue. She held tightly on to him around his neck for fear of falling to the ground as her kneecaps turned once more to jelly. Her mouth opened and greedily accepted this passionate response to her words.
Lois could feel a burning heat building up inside of her. Whoever said that passion after arguing was hotter than without it, had won the description mother lode.
All she wanted to do was tear off Clark’s clothes. She couldn’t get close enough to him. No man had ever made Lois feel this passionate, she thought as her nails dug into the back of his shirt, clawing to get to his skin. Never had her desires trumped her reason and sanity. It was almost as if she were drugged on Miranda’s love drug again.
It was a delightful minute before she pushed out of his arms.
Lois raised her index finger again and panted as she searched for air. “Don’t think this means we’re okay.”
His brow furrowed in perplexity. “Huh?”
She rolled her eyes. “I still haven’t forgiven you, nor have I made any firm decisions about our relationship,” she informed him.
“What kind of decisions?” he asked, shifting his feet. He was looking nervous now.
Good!“About whether I want to be with a man who didn’t fall in love with
me, but with another
future version of me,” she explained with annoyance. Men really didn’t understand women, did they? “It really puts our whole relationship in question.”
“Why?”
Lois groaned and looked up into the sky for guidance. Not finding anything but light pollution hiding the evening sky, she said, “Because nobody likes to be a consolation prize.”
His smile appeared more confident. He really had become bolder over the summer. She hated that this newfound cockiness made him extra alluring and sexy. “You’ll forgive me,” he informed her.
“Oh, really? And why’s that, Chuck?” she asked, crossing her arms.
“Because with you I always win the grand prize,” he said. “I’m sorry to tell you, Lois, you’re the one who ended up with second best.”
“And this is supposed to make me forgive you?” she asked wryly.
“I promised you that I wouldn’t lie,” he said.
“So, telling me that I’m second best is supposed do what then? Make me worship you? Ain’t happening in any lifetime, bub.”
“No, Lois,” he said, holding up his hands. “
You’re the grand prize.
I’m second best.”
“Well, duh!” she scoffed, letting a sly smile escape. “I’ve known that since day one.”
He shot her his most adorable grin. “So have I.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You snake!” she growled and pointed back to his front door. How dare he be so loveable when she was angry with him? “I’m not ready to forgive you yet.”
“You will,” he said confidently.
“My, you think you’re all that and a cape too,” she retorted.
He chuckled. “No, trust me, I don’t. I just happen to know something.”
“Yeah, and what’s that?” she asked.
“You love me.”
She groaned, knowing that he was right, but not willing to admit it. After everything he
hadn’t told her, she decided she would let him squirm for a while. “I liked you better when you weren’t such an alpha dog.” She headed down the stairs.
“I love you, too, Lois,” she heard him call.
“Don’t you have some dishes to wash?” she shouted, continuing down the stairs.
***End of Part 201*** Part 202 So, he told her! Kinda. Sorta. Not really.
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