Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found
Here In Part 223, Lois received an email from her sister, Lucy. This is it:Hey, sis! I know I usually spend all my holiday breaks with you in Metropolis, but I won’t be coming for Christmas this year. I just can’t, not after what happened at our apartment last year. I know you promised that it was bug-free, but I can’t live there again. Call me wiggy if you must, I don’t care. I know Lex Luthor is in jail and yada, yada, yada, but I don’t want to be within 50 miles of that man. He just gives me the creeps. I can’t believe you still live there after what he did to you.
Don’t be mad, Lo. We both know I’d hardly see you, anyway. You’re dating Clark now and between work and him… I’d just feel like a third wheel.
I’ve spoken to Mother Arnold and she’s invited me to Philly for the holidays. Yes, I know, I’ll be bored stiff, even if Mother Arnold says she’s going to take me to her Club’s Christmas and New Year Eve’s parties, but better her than with our mother. I’m sure I won’t see anyone my age the whole time I’m there unless they’re part of the wait-staff. But after Johnny, well, that might be a good thing. I could use some me time without guys… you know? Of course, you don’t know. You’ve got Clark, one of the sweetest men ever created. He gives me hope that there’s a good guy out there for me, somewhere.
I still can’t believe James moved to Las Vegas and is MARRIED! How had I let him slip through my fingers like that? Don’t answer that!
Sooooo. How’s everything going with Clark? It must be going well because you haven’t called me in FOREVER. Oh, and don’t worry about a gift this year, because all I want for Christmas is…DETAILS! No more keeping me in the dark. TELL ME EVERYTHING! I’m your sister. Who else are you going to tell?
CALL ME SOON!
Lucy
PS: I’m not joking about the DETAILS. Also, a new CD player would be nice.***
Part 224Lois opened her email window again and re-read Lucy’s message to see if Lucy had included any details about when she was arriving in Philadelphia.
She hadn’t.
At least, Lucy had dumped that scum bucket of a boyfriend John… what was his name? Right, Corbin. Ugh. Lois had done a background check on him and it read like a rap sheet, because it
was a rap sheet. Lucy’s choices in men made Lois’s federal disasters actually look like winning Lotto tickets in comparison. What was it with Lane women and bad men?
She looked over at Clark’s empty desk. He hadn’t arrived in yet. She knew that there must have been an emergency. She glanced over at the television set in the corner, but it merely showed some LNN talking heads. Still, in the days since Clark had been shot, she couldn’t concentrate whenever he made with the disappearing acts. As the minutes ticked by, her hands would start to sweat and shake; she could feel her heart pound in her chest. What if that crazy blonde sold Kryptonite to someone else? Would Clark ever return?
Lois knew she was being paranoid. So what that there was something out there that could kill Clark? There was just the one and extremely rare thing. There were a thousand things that could kill her, but that wasn’t worrisome. She didn’t know why, but she was terrified that her highly-unlikely-to-die boyfriend would just disappear and there would be nothing she could do about it. He would just be gone as if he had never been there.
She picked up that morning’s copy of the Daily Planet. She had only been able to read the first section with her toast that morning. Reading the rest of it now would distract her until Clark sauntered in with hopefully a large coffee and a croissant filled with chocolate.
Other people’s stories about things going on in Metropolis were not nearly as important as her and Clark’s stories, and Lois usually didn’t read them slower than at a quick skim. She turned to page 4 of the City section before turning back to page 3. A glanced-at headline caught her attention.
Almost Dead Man Found at Local Cemetery.She felt a familiar tingle down her spine and read further.
A man was found sprawled over a grave early Monday morning at Perpetual Pines Cemetery. Police suspect a freak accident. Investigators say it appears that the man went to the cemetery after hours and had been caught in Sunday’s thunderstorm. The gun he was carrying exploded in his hand, possibly from a lightning strike. Investigators state that the man was lucky that he had worn his rubber-soled shoes; otherwise, the lightning strike could’ve killed him. As it was, according to an unofficial spokesperson for the hospital, the man ended up in Metropolis General Hospital with his hand blown off, gunshot wounds to his leg and abdomen, numerous lacerations and burns, and with his entire memory wiped clean. Neither the spokesperson for the MGH or the MPD would comment on the man’s identity.Lois set down the paper. “Tad.” She pulled her briefcase out of the drawer.
“Huh?” said a voice from behind her.
She turned and smiled up at Clark, who held out a cup of coffee for her.
“We’re going to the cemetery,” she announced, standing up.
“Which one?”
“Perpetual Pines.”
“May I ask why?” he said, doing just that.
She slung the strap of her briefcase over her shoulder. “We’re going to visit an old…” she paused. He wasn’t a ‘friend’. More of an annoyance, really; although, she wasn’t quite sure
why she would describe him in that way. “— acquaintance.” Business associate would work, too, in a pinch. She took the coffee from Clark’s still outstretched hand as she passed him to the bank of elevators.
“I’m so sorry, Lois. I didn’t know one of your old friends had died,” he said, following her.
“Oh, he isn’t dead…” She paused again recalling the facts of the article. “Well, not yet.”
An expression of puzzlement pinched Clark’s face. “Then shouldn’t we visit him at the hospital or…?”
“First, we have to figure out his proper name,” Lois said with a nod.
Clark’s expression only deepened. He shook his head and his face unclenched. “I love how you always keep me guessing.”
She looked up at the ceiling tiles in exasperation. “I’d tell you more, but I don’t have more to tell you.” Feelings and flashed images were difficult to describe. “Tad isn’t his proper name; it’s a nickname.”
Clark’s face lightened as they stepped onto the elevator. A hand shot through the open doors before they closed. Clark pressed the ‘open door’ button just in time, revealing Jimbo.
“Thanks, CK. I really thought I was going to miss you. Actually, I thought I already had and then I saw you guys up at the elevators…”
Lois glanced behind her at Clark and then back at Jimbo. “Is that a message?” she asked, taking the note out of his hand. “Thanks.”
“It’s from last night. Somehow, it ended up in my pile of messages this…” The elevator doors closed with Jimmy on the outside.
“I saw that,” she said to Clark, even though – technically – she hadn’t. She was staring at the note in her hand. Why would Mrs. Cox want to talk to her?
Clark swallowed. “Saw what?” he asked innocently, too innocently.
“That apologetic look you gave Jimmy while the doors were closing,” she replied. “As if you were saying you were sorry about the doors closing on him, but that it was my fault for dragging you off.”
Mrs. Cox hated Lois. The feeling was mutual. Did the woman actually think Lois had pull with the FBI? Ha! The FBI still hated Lois for proving to them that she was an investigative reporter and not a suspect. Moreover, if Lois did have influence over the FBI, she certainly wouldn’t waste it on Mrs. Cox.
“Oh,” Clark said, admitting his guilt. “Sor…”
Lois smacked his bottom with her hand. “That’s what I’m going to do every time you apologize.”
“That’s a bad idea.”
She lowered the note, tucking it into an outside pocket of her briefcase. “Why’s that?”
“Because you’ll end up getting used to it and then some day Superman will be somewhere apologizing…”
“Superman doesn’t apologize. He can’t be everywhere at once, therefore isn’t to blame should others get hurt,” Lois corrected him.
“Okay, in public giving condolences for something and you’ll smack his butt with your hand out of habit.”
She conceded the point with a shrug of one shoulder.
He wrapped a hand around her waist. “I’d much rather kiss you every time I want to apologize. A much more fitting consequence, don’t you think?” He pulled her to his chest, almost spilling her coffee, and brushing her lips with his.
Unfortunately, that was exactly when the elevator decided to reach its destination and brag about it with a loud ‘ding’.
“Rain check,” he whispered, letting go of her waist.
“Definitely,” she replied, stepping out of the elevator and starting to cross the lobby of the Daily Planet building at her usual breakneck pace in order to outrun her unfulfilled desire. She stopped at the revolving door and looked sharply back at him, before exiting. “Do you mean that I cannot control myself around Superman?”
He raised a skeptical eyebrow.
Damn. That made two points. When had she ever been able to control herself around Superman? There was something about that bright skintight suit stretched tightly over Clark’s body that she couldn’t resist. She was only human. Some people didn’t have the patience of steel.
“I mean am I getting so used to you being…” She coughed to cover up her faux pas. “— that I sometimes forget myself when I’m with
him instead of you?”
“I hope not,” he replied, but she saw a teasing twinkle in his eye. “I’ll let you know should you come close to that line.”
“How? Do you want to sneak a code word into the conversation? Octopus perhaps?” She stopped in front of her Jeep Cherokee, set her coffee cup on top of the car, and proceeded to unlock her door.
“It’s already taken,” he reminded her after she had flipped the switch to unlock his passenger side door. He opened the door and sat down. “You aren’t heading to the cemetery under duress, are you?”
Her expression explained nonverbally exactly what her words refused to do. “Batman?” she suggested.
“No. You never know if the man will decide to visit Metropolis or we’ll go to Gotham City,” Clark said, fastening his seatbelt. “How about, ‘Oh, God, woman! No!’?”
“Very funny,” she retorted dryly, but couldn’t help the slight chuckle that emerged with the image of Superman publicly rebuking her in that fashion. “Well, if only Superman says that to
all his admirers, male and female.”
“He’ll take that under advisement.”
“How about, ‘They’re not underwear; they’re shorts,’?” she suggested.
“That’s just a statement of fact.” Clark’s straight man expression lasted slightly longer than hers had. “And I might end up using that in normal conversation.”
She batted her eyelashes over at him. “Better safe than sorry.”
“Perhaps Superman could merely misspeak your name somehow?” He thought about this for a second. “Go back to calling you ‘Ms. Lane’?”
Lois pulled her car into traffic. “Or he could just call me, ‘Mrs. Kent’. That would shut everyone up, including me.” She laughed.
Oh, God! Why had she said that? Now, Clark was going to think she wanted him to propose.
Did she?
She glanced over at Clark out of the corner of her eye, and saw that the blood had appeared to drain out of his face.
“But you’re
not Mrs. Kent,” he reminded her softly.
“What? Superman can’t make an innocent mistake?”
His lips pinched together. Apparently, he didn’t find the humor in her joke. It
had been a joke.
Hadn’t it been?
The silence in the car had a ringing quality to it as if the car in front of them had exploded and their hearing hadn’t quite adjusted to the shock. “Look,
you know that,” she tried to explain to fill the air with noise again. “And
I know that. Hell, even
Jimmy knows were only dating, but Superman isn’t all knowing. For all he knew, we had run off to Vegas and got married over the previous weekend.”
Was that really what she wanted to happen? What if Clark called her bluff and suggested that they do just that?
Would she say ‘yes’ or ‘no’?
What if Clark merely called for her in the buff?
“That’s seems to be quite an assumption for him to make, don’t you think?”
Her head snapped to her right. What were they talking about again? Right. Code words. Mrs. Kent. Oh, God that had been a horrible suggestion. “Would you rather talk about your underwear?”
“Shorts,” he corrected. “And
no, I wouldn’t.”
“Mrs. Kent it is then, Mr. Kent.”
Maybe the more he heard it, the more it would… no, wait. She’d have to be making a pass at Superman for him to use this name. Why couldn’t she just keep her mouth shut?
“Well, it’s better than calling you Mrs. Luthor, that’s for sure,” she heard him mumble to himself.
“What was that?” she asked.
“How about you keep your hands off Superman, and he’ll keep his off you, and we won’t have to say anything at all?” he countered.
That wasn’t what he had said.“I guess,” she replied softly. “That makes the most sense.”
Several frosty minutes later, she drove her car through the gates of Perpetual Pines Cemetery.
***
“Resplendent Man?” Clark scoffed.
“I guess all the good names have been taken,” Lois responded. “You of all people should know how difficult naming your alter-ego is.”
They were back in her car again. She had just explained what she could recall of Tad or William Webster Waldecker. Hold on. Hadn’t his name had four W’s? Anyway, Clark was trying to keep an open mind, but her story was… and he hated to use this phrase… insane. Lois believed that lightning transferred… no, not transferred, because he still had them…
copied Superman’s abilities into someone else while the hero was taking away a man’s gun? Clark was beginning to wonder if Lois had made it up to vex him. As she had when she laughed about how shocked she would be if Superman ever called her Mrs. Kent. As if marrying Clark would be the last thing that would ever happen.
She needn’t worry. With Herb’s current rush to return, Clark thought bitterly,
it would be years before I even considered asking her again to marry me. He frowned. It had already felt as if it had been years.
Truth of the matter was that he was tired of waiting, tired of playing these games, tired of the uncertainty. He wanted to move past all this.
Clark ran an exhausted hand down his face.
Maybe that was the problem. Perhaps the curse only became active should they marry, not if they didn’t.
He cleared his throat and glanced over at Lois as he used Super strength to push this line of thought out of his mind. “It wasn’t that difficult. You named me,” he said, giving her a nudge with his elbow and a small smile.
“I feel so bad for him.
You were supposed to save him. If we had come to the cemetery last night instead of…” She looked over at him. “Well, not that I don’t regret staying in.” She shyly smiled for a moment, before it faded. “It’s not that I’m blaming you.”
“I’m having a difficult time believing that Dr. Kelly would regenerate Luthor’s clone within that crypt,” he admitted. Even if they
had seen the secret room underneath.
Lois shrugged in agreement. “He was quite soupy the last…” She shivered in disgust.
Clark had forgotten that Luthor’s clone had splattered all over her and her mother.
She stopped the car at the gates of the cemetery. “And
I don’t understand how you can remember me telling you that you’re to be called Superman but you can’t remember that you’d be shot or that Tad has a sister who thinks she’s Mary Todd Lincoln!”
“He does?” She had left that out of the story.
“I just recalled it.” She set her hand down on Clark’s arm. “We should really do something to help them.”
“Such as?”
“Oh, I don’t know. One of us has a charitable foundation that helps the unfortunate,” she said, her expression turning sharp.
Oh. Right. “Maybe we should go interview Mrs. Lincoln,” he said, curious to learn more about the strangers Lois suddenly seemed to know so well.
“WandaMae,” she corrected, putting both her hands on the steering wheel again to turn out of the cemetery. “I hope the authorities have told her about Tad.”
“I’m sure the officers at the MPD are just withholding his name from the press until they’ve been able to contact a living relative,” Clark reassured her.
“WandaMae’s the only relative he has left,” Lois replied. “And how in the hell do
I know this and
you don’t?”
Clark swallowed. “I don’t know.”
Lois stared at him. “I’m going to need a better answer than that,” she eventually said.
“But, Lois, I
don’t know why you developed this ability.”
“My psychic ability isn’t the problem here, Clark. Your current state of amnesia is. Would you like to explain?” she asked, swerving between two cars with a hair’s breadth between them.
Like to? No.“Perhaps we should wait until you’re not driving,” he suggested instead.
“Why?”
“Because you need to concentrate on your driving,” he mumbled.
“Would you like to drive?” Her words were so cool perhaps she had heard him.
Yes. “It’s your car,” he answered vaguely.
“Which is why I’m driving and you’re not, so you’re tough out of luck,” Lois replied. “Get talking.”
“It’s not my future,” he said. There. He had said it.
“It’s your past, though.”
Touché.“Are you saying that as the future changes, so does your past?” she asked.
He loved it when she hypothesized an explanation for him, so he didn’t have to. “Sounds logical enough.”
He could almost hear his mother’s voice saying, ‘
Liar-liar, pants on fire!’
“Talk to me, Clark! There has to be a logical explanation.”
Not one she would believe, Clark thought. And he had no proof of his story. He only had his word that he was speaking the truth. With all the lies and misdirections he had already told her, why would she trust him now, especially if he told her he had held back from her again? Why couldn’t she just leave his past in the past?
He sighed and bent his head. “There is a logical explanation,” he said slowly.
“I’m listening.”
Clark rubbed one thumb over the other in his folded hands. “In order for me to come here to save your life…everyone’s lives actually, I…” He looked up and saw that the car was barreling towards a stopped taxi. “
Red light!”
Lois slammed on the brakes and stopped an inch away from the bumper of that taxi. “I’m listening.”
He took a deep breath and exhaled with relief. “I can’t tell you now.”
“Why?” she demanded.
He flung his hand towards the windshield. “Because you’re driving!”
“Just like you, putting off to later what you should have done yesterday.”
“No, I just want to get to the hospital in one piece,” he explained. At her incredulous expression, he clarified, “Okay, with
you in one piece and every other driver, pedestrian, car, and bicycle along the way in one piece.”
“Are you saying that I’m a bad driver?” she said and then immediately raised her hand between them to stop him from answering. “No, you’re just trying to change the topic again.”
Actually, she had hit the nail on the head with her first guess. There was nothing worse than a distracted driver. Clark was already teetering on the edge with his logical explanation, so he refrained from saying so.
“We’re not going to the hospital,” Lois said. The light had turned green and the car was moving forward again. “We’re visiting WandaMae at the…” She paused, pinching her lips in thought. “Well, I can’t recall the exact name of her… current residence. Some kind of mental institution. I’m sure I know where it is though.”
Perhaps his logical explanation wouldn’t sound so crazy.
Who was he trying to kid? Of course it would.
Lois motioned for him to continue. “Go on!”
“In order for me to come here, to this Metropolis at the time I did, I… I…” He closed his eyes and lowered his voice. “I’ve done some things I’m not proud of.”
He let the Lois from his dimension stay dead. He gave her up forever because it was too hard, in order to save this Lois because doing so was much easier.
His heart contorted at this thought.
He came to this universe, knowing full well (or so he had thought at the time) that the Clark from this dimension had died as an infant and that this Lois was free to love him without any previous bias. It had never entered Clark’s head that he and Herb should go back in time in order to save this Lois’s true Clark from dying. He had only thought of his own heart, of what he wanted. He had been selfish.
Even when Herb had informed Clark that he might have been mistaken about this Lois never having met her true Clark, Clark hadn’t wanted to go back in time to save him... even if only momentarily. Clark had even rejoiced when he learned that this universe’s timeline was broken and they couldn’t go back far enough in time to save this dimension’s Clark.
Karma was right to impede his happiness with the curse. He deserved it. He had no right ever to call himself a hero.
Clark felt Lois’s hand on his. “Clark?”
He opened his eyes and realized that Lois had pulled the car over to the side of the street. Her full attention was on him. She squeezed his hand reassuringly. “I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as all that.”
“In order for me to come here, I had to allow two other people to die,” he said.
Lois’s jaw dropped open. “You
allowed… No. No!
No, Clark. I don’t believe it. You would
never willingly let someone be killed.”
He swallowed, looking down at their joined hands. “I didn’t save them. It amounts to the same thing.”
“But, surely, when the timeline fixed itself and this natural disaster apocalypse event was averted, they would …”
Clark shook his head. “My being here stopped them from ever being rescued.”
“Oh, Clark,” she said, resting her head against his shoulder.
It felt good to have her sympathize, even if it didn’t lessen this heavy burden. Clark had made these choices. He would have to live with them. He kissed her forehead in appreciation of her efforts.
Lois raised her head off his shoulder, frowning. “Are you saying that they would’ve died anyway without your assistance?”
“Yes, they did die, but…”
“And you’re feeling guilty for not doing anything about it?” Annoyance was back. “Clark, we’ve been over this. Even with your powers, you can’t do everything or save everyone. Some people will die. Some other people, like Tad, will be severely injured. It’s
not your fault. You save and help those you can. Sometimes it’s a matter of being at the right place at the right time.”
He shrugged, knowing she would never fully understand.
Lois crossed her arms. “What aren’t you telling me? Who couldn’t you save?”
Clark should’ve known he wouldn’t get off that easy. “Does it really matter?”
“Apparently, it does. Were they close friends of yours?” she asked.
“No,” he admitted. In truth, he hadn’t met either of these
specific people. Other versions of them, on the other hand…
She rested her jaw on her closed fist and stared at him. “You’re an odd duck, Clark.”
“Uh… thanks?”
She rotated her index finger around in a circle. “And because these two people died in order to save me, you can no longer see what will befall us but I can?”
“Yes?” If one looked at it in a roundabout way.
“How exactly is this a logical explanation?” Lois asked.
He smiled sheepishly, wishing she was driving again and not scrutinizing him fully.
Almost as if she heard his thoughts, she turned and placed her hands back on the steering wheel. “I want details. Names. Dates. Everything.”
Clark’s eyes widened. “I… I… I don’t know all the details.”
He knew names and one date, but that was about it. He didn’t know how either of them died. Herb had said that Tempus had gone back into the past to kill this dimension’s Clark as an infant, but Clark didn’t know
how exactly. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to know.
The Lois from his old dimension had died in the Congo. Her body had never been found, so her death was still a bit of a mystery to him as well. Herb had said that he had witnessed her death and that it would’ve been impossible – a word Herb hated to use – to stop without being seen, without Clark’s secret being revealed and thus changing the future.
“I… I…”
“Relax, Clark,” Lois said, pulling the car into traffic. “You don’t have to tell me now.”
Thank God!“But you’re going to have to tell me someday.”
Clark relaxed against his seat. He could live with ‘someday’. He had always planned on telling Lois everything… someday.
“Before I die would be nice,” she added wryly.
Before their wedding then. Well, good thing Lois wasn’t in any rush to get married.
“Promise?” she said, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.
He gave a resigned sigh. “I promise.”
If nothing else, telling Lois everything would be the perfect medicine any doctor could order to postpone their nuptials.
***End of Part 224*** Part 225 Comments
