Missing Lois - TOC Author’s Note: The “Lois” in Chapter 5 and 6 refers to alt-Lois. Canon Lois will be called “Lucy” to help lessen the confusion between the two characters.
Story Notes: This story is mostly set in alt-dimension, although visits to the canon dimension do happen from time-to-time.
- Clark = Alt-Clark unless otherwise noted (such as when we are in the canon dimension, then 'Clark' may also be canon Clark)
- Lucy El = pregnant canon Lois avoiding the curse by hiding out with alt-Clark, aka Lois's secret identity - also protrayed at times by alt-Lois. (sorry for the confusion)
- Kal = Lucy El's husband's name, or what Lois-Lucy and alt-Clark call canon Clark
- Lois = alt-Lois, wife of Lex Luthor
- Lola Luthor = ‘wife’ of Lex Luthor; alt-Lois, if not referring to Clois (Cloned Lois)
- Mr. Amazing = alt-Lois's nickname for Superman
- Sam Lane = alt-Lois's Dad, Lucy’s doctor & Clark’s roommate
- Ultra Woman = originally the costume Lucy/Lois wore to Perry's 'Come as Your Favorite Superhero' party; now, alt-Lois.
- Martha and Jonathan Kent = canon Clark's parents
- Mayor White = aka Perry White, former Editor-in-Chief at the DP
- James Olsen = owner of the
Daily Planet, Lois-Lucy's friend
- Lex Luthor = no explanation necessary, same bad guy as always, this time bald
- Junior = Lex Luthor, Jr., Lex's first born son, creator of the Neuroscanner
- Jaxon Xavier = Lex Luthor's son and spy at
The Planet, does website design and research for the paper, recently fired for said spying.
- Gareth McTinney = new EIC at the alt-DP.
- Barry Balson = Superman beat reporter for DP
- Mayson Drake = police detective, partner to Detective (in alt-world) Henderson, alt-Clark's ex-girlfriend
- William (Bill) Henderson = police Detective (in alt-world), partner to Mayson Drake; police Inspector (in canon world)
- Cat Grant = helped alt-Clark out with PR on his '50 dates' charity winners and former social columnist at the DP, now demoted from Acting Editor-in-Chief at the DP back to celebrity columnist.
- The only people who know canon Lois's true identity are alt-Clark, Sam, Moonbeam (alt-Star), Dr. Klein and alt-Lois. Alt-Clark told Mayson Drake that Lucy El is his sister-in-law and that he has a twin brother, but not about the other dimension.
***
Where we left Lois off at the end of Chapter 6: Part 11...“This,” she whispered, leaning forward to kiss him. At the last second, he turned away.
“I can’t, Lois. You’re married.”
Lois gasped, leaning back and nodding with closed eyes. “I understand, Clark. I didn’t really think you would. I was just hopeful.” She swallowed back her tears and whispered, “This is your last chance, Clark. I won’t offer again.”
He just looked at her, but didn’t say anything. Then he turned away, wincing as if in pain. “It’s better this way.”
“You don’t have the courage to love me, fight against the odds and be mine, I understand. Can you leave now? I have to get ready.” She pointed at the door.
Clark stood and stared at her. And she continued to point at the door without looking at him. He stepped into the hall and said, “Look, Lois… I’m sorry.”
She crossed the room in an instant to shut the door. “Me, too,” she murmured, leaning up against it. Then she heard him speaking to her under his breath and she smiled.
“I love you so much it hurts, Lois. There is you and only you and if it takes one-hundred years, I’d wait for you, because there is no one else in the world for me.”
Lois grinned in victory. Was that so hard? To tell her just what she wanted to hear?
Right. Time to take charge.
Part 12Lois stood in the window and waited. A minute later she heard Superman take off. She walked around the apartment. What else did they not want the police or Luthor to find? She searched through Lucy’s drawers again to see if she had missed a photo or note or anything. Nothing. Good. She went through her room. She checked under all the furniture, including the mattresses. She didn’t need to leave another partial letter to Kal like the one she found a couple of weeks ago. She went through the bathroom and the kitchen last. Nothing. She was amazed that two women so intimately involved with the Man of Steel left no evidence behind.
Wait! The note he wrote to her when she was blind, apologizing for not telling her who he really was. He had signed it, Love Superman. What had she done with that? She ran to her room and found it still tucked into the pocket of her robe. She would put this with the rest of the chocolate that she had already relocated to Smallville.
Lois gave Clark a two minute head start. She spun into her Ultra Woman suit, grabbed Lucy’s suitcase from the front hall closet and blew quickly through the living room window. It had taken her lots of practice to fly off, stealthily, so she wouldn’t be seen.
Flying. It was her favorite part of being Ultra Woman. She slowed down over Clark’s Smallville house and scanned it and the barn for Clark or the time machine. She found neither. She breathed a sigh of relief. Quickly, she entered the house with her stolen set of keys. When he discovered all the crimes she had committed for this little scheme of hers, she knew he would be furious. She punched in Clark’s mother’s birthdate. Flying upstairs to the Lois Lane room, she left Lucy’s suitcase in the closet and the note on the desk. Lois stood at the window and gazed out over the fields wondering just how much time she would have, before Clark returned from the other dimension.
***
Clark hastily parked the time machine in the barn and quickly covered it with the invisibility tarp. Did Lois really have so little hope left? She wrote to Martha to tell Clark that she loved him. Him – Clark Kent. That was why she wanted him to kiss her that morning. Why would she think she would be better off dead? Had he really left her believing that Superman or Clark did not care for her at all?
Clark flew past the newsroom and saw her sitting at her desk and released a breath. She was okay. She hadn’t wanted him out of the dimension to do something rash. He wanted nothing more than to land by her desk as Superman and take her in his arms, but he knew he could not. That would ruin everything.
Superman has affair with assistant! Clark could see the headline already. Lois would be exposed. Lucy would be exposed. He took a deep breath. He needed to get her alone and tell her the truth, at last.
As he went to land in the alley behind the
Daily Planet, he heard a screech of tires and took off again. A bus sliding down the street, sideways, out of control. He went to stop it. He dealt with it quickly. Finally, he could go talk to Lois. He sped into the alley again when he heard an explosion. He wasn’t getting a break. Flying up above the city, he looked around for the fire. Down at the wharf, a cargo ship was on fire. He sighed. This looked like another job for Superman.
Another hour had passed before he finally was able to spin into his Clark Kent clothes and go to work. He hoped he wasn’t too late to tell her not to give up on Superman. He would take her into the conference room, shut the blinds, and tell her he was Superman and that he still loved her. That he would always love her. Ask her not to give up on him. To give him one last chance. They would figure out a solution, something, together.
Clark jogged up the stairs, not wanting to wait for the elevator. He had waited long enough. As he arrived to the newsroom, he could tell something was up by the buzzing in the air. He tiptoed behind Lois and covered her eyes. “Guess who?”
“Clark,” she said, her voice rough and wrong. Lois’s Lucy didn’t sound quite so Texan. That sounded like… he spun her around and looked into the damp eyes of Lucy, not Lois. Damp. Why were her eyes damp? Where was Lois?
“Lucy?” he asked and she glanced away.
“Clark!” Cat Grant called to him. “I want you to give a quote on this story,” she said waving a mini tape cassette.
“Aren’t you supposed to be covering the awards circuit in Hollywood?” Clark asked perplexed that she would try to order him around after her demotion back to celebrity news from acting editor. He still hadn’t forgiven her. Cat was one of the main reasons Lois blamed him for her humiliation by her own newspaper.
“Forget Hollywood, Gareth brought me back for this. This is bigger than all that.”
“You’re no better than a piranha, Cat,” Lucy said. “No, worse, a shark.”
“Why, Lucy, thank you for the compliment.” Cat nodded at her.
“What are you talking about? What story?”
Cat grinned. “Oh, even better! You haven’t heard.” She picked up Lucy’s mini tape recorder off her desk, dumped out the tape and put in hers, pressing play.
“
Cat! I found her. I found her!” It was Lois’s voice. “
You are going to rue the day you ever tried to knock me down a peg.”
Cat looked at the machine. “Let’s just fast forward over…”
Clark grabbed the machine away from her.
“
Tried to, Lois? Succeeded is more like it,” Cat had retaliated. “
Found who?”
“
Ultra Woman, of course.”
Clark’s jaw hung open and he stumbled back to Lucy’s desk. He glanced at her and she nodded at him with wide eyes. Of all the things he thought Lois Lane capable of, this was not one of them. He was sure Lucy and Lois were the tightest of friends. Bonded over their mutual dislike of him keeping secrets from her. He could not picture Lois stepping on Lucy and him to get a story. Guess she had lied about how far she would go to get a story.
“
Yeah, right, Lois,” Cat had scoffed in return.
“
I not only found her, Cat. I released her from her prison. I rescued her from extinction.”
Clark’s brow furrowed. What in the world was Lois talking about? Ultra Woman hadn’t been locked away.
“
You rescued her? Yeah, right.”
“
You can read all about it in my exclusive article. I’m just working on the finishing touches.”
“
No?” Cat had gasped.
“
Yes. By the way, I think you misunderstood that whole destiny reference of Clark’s.”
Clark’s? She read that interview he had given to Cat about Ultra Woman? She knew the truth about him? The newsroom started to spin around in circles, making him dizzy. How long had Lois known the truth about him? Why hadn’t she said anything?
“
Oh, come on. How can anyone misunderstand destiny, Lois?”
“
It seems on Krypton infants are married off to one another, so Ultra Woman and Superman were married as infants…”
Clark’s jaw dropped as turned to Lucy and she nodded.
“
Are you saying that Ultra Woman and Superman are married?”
“
I explain it much better in my article. And wait till you hear about her secret identity, you will not believe it in a thousand years!” Lois laughed. “
I know I was shocked.”
“
Who?”
Clark got a chill down his spine.
“
It’s…”
Lois’s voice was interrupted by a series of clicks and beeps and replaced by a man’s voice. “
Hello, there, Lucy El. Here’s a gift from your local bomb maker’s union. I hear that you need to lose a few pounds… You like to dance, don’t you? Now, stay with the beat…”
Clark heard something make a tic-tic sound in a slow and easy rhythm.
“
We’ll start off nice and slow for you,” continued the man’s voice.
“
Cat,” Lois said as her voice shook a bit. “
Tell Lucy I think I accidentally took her shower this morning.”
“
Stick to the beat. If your footsteps don’t match the beat… Well, I’d hate to see what happens.”
“
Oh and Cat,” Lois continued.
“
Uh-huh,” Cat had replied.
“
Could you tell Clark I need his help, please?”
Clark stood up and handed the recorder back to Cat, but Lucy grabbed his arm and shook her head. His eyes went wide, not wanting to understand what Lucy was saying.
“
Oh, you want him to get Superman for you?” Cat had guessed.
“
No, Cat, that would be redundant,” Lois had replied. He could hear her jumping to the beat. “
Because he is Superman.”
Clark swallowed. She definitely knew.
“
You know?” Cat had also been surprised.
Lois had still been jumping to the beat. “
Cat, everybody knows. I figured it out weeks ago.”
Weeks? He glanced down at Lucy, who handed him an envelope.
“This came for you while you were out, Clark.” She sniffed and wiped her nose.
“
Once I figured out that he was Superman, I realized he wasn’t the real story, she was. That’s why I went looking for Ultra Woman. Thanks for giving me a reason to stay out of the office.”
“
Stay with the beat, Lucy,” the male recorded voice had reminded her, upping the tempo.
“
But I could really use his help soon. So, if you could give him my message, please.”
“
Tell me who Ultra Woman is!” Cat had demanded on the tape.
Clark looked over at Cat with a glare. She returned a weak smile.
“
I die and her secret dies with me, Cat. Get Clark, please,” she had begged and then had hung up.
Cat stopped the tape.
Clark opened the envelope Lucy had handed to him. The message inside read,
Boom! Best of luck replacing your assistant. Intergang“Your reaction?” Cat asked.
Clark took the mini recorder and squeezed it, turning it to dust.
“Clark, that was… never mind.” Lucy sighed with a shake of her head.
“Where is she?” he asked Lucy, turning away from Cat.
Lucy closed her eyes and looked away.
“No!” Clark roared and blew out of the newsroom through the windows above the bullpen.
Moments later he was hovering outside the blackened hole that used to be the wall to Lois Lane’s apartment. The shattered wall mirrored how his chest felt. Lois. Gone. His fault. Again. He had to see her… Superman took a breath of air into his lungs. One last time. As he tried to fly inside, Mayson Drake came to the hole and held up her hand.
“No, Clark. No.” It was the first time she had ever called Superman, Clark.
“Tell me it’s not true,” he told her. “Please, Mayson.”
“I’m sorry, Clark,” Mayson replied with tears in her eyes. “I can’t.”
He stood on the air next to the hole. “I need to see her,” he whispered to Mayson. “Please. I need to say good-bye.”
She reached out to him. “I know, Clark. But her body has just been moved to the morgue.”
Clark took her hand in his for a moment and let out a gasp of pain. He went to fly off but Mayson held his hand a second longer and spoke to him in a soft whisper. “I know what Lois means to you, Clark, but remember she’s a married woman. Watch yourself, please?”
“Thank you, Mayson,” he replied with a nod.
“Clark, wait! The body…” she called out to him, but he was gone.
Sam. Clark needed to tell Sam. He flew home, but the apartment was empty. He would wait there for Sam. He didn’t want to go back to the office. He didn’t want to go anywhere. He no longer wanted to exist. Lois died. He knew that it would be some mistake of his that would kill her and it was. He had assumed the woman he saw through the window was Lois and it had been Lucy. If he hadn’t… no, if he hadn’t saved the bus, then all those people and pedestrians would have died, too.
Lois had made up some crazy story about Ultra Woman being back and married to Superman and then she died. Blown up in a bomb from Intergang. He would deal with them later. He was too numb. He couldn’t act. He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t even fly. He walked up to his loft bed.
Sitting there on his bed was his old letterman jacket from Kansas State. He picked it up and a note fluttered into the air.
Clark,
Thank you for always being my hero. Now, it’s my turn to rescue you.
LLClark held the jacket to his chest. Oh, God. She was Lucy, the girl he saved at Mid West. He had looked for her. Flown to Metropolis U. every day for a week, two weeks. He had checked at the campus paper, the journalism classes, at the cafeterias, and finally at the hospital, where he had left her. But the campus was too large and there were too many people. No Lucy. No one knew of the girl he had rescued.
He had even broken up with Lana Lang to search for her. Clark had told her he had met someone else. But when he had returned to Kansas State, downtrodden, disillusioned and Lana was there arms open wide to take him back. Lucy was the reason he had come to Metropolis and the
Daily Planet, because she said it had been her dream to work there. He thought Lucy was lost to him forever. He hugged the jacket tighter. Now, she really was.
He jumped off the loft and returned to the living room.
There were three messages on the phone.
The first was Cat Grant’s. “
Clark? Where are you ? Lois needs your help, right now! At her apartment.”
Beep.
“
Clark.” It was Lois. “
I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it… I wasn’t really going to…” He could hear the beat box tapping out quite a fast rhythm. Much faster than when she had been talking with Cat. She sounded almost out of breath. “
It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have sent you to Martha’s. I know, Clark. I’ve known since the accident. Please, forgive me. I just wanted you to tell me.” She was quiet a couple of seconds as the beat grew faster. “
I can’t do this anymore, Clark. I… love…” Then a series of beeps and a loud explosion ended the message.
Clark fell to his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks. “No.”
Beep.
“
Clark!” This was James’s voice. “
Lucy is safe at the Planet. I’m so sorry about your friend Lois.”
Clark reached up to turn off the machine, but couldn’t quite touch the controls from the floor.
“
We were lucky more people weren’t hurt. If it weren’t for her, Lois’s neighbors could have been hurt in the blast. She said that Lois insisted on waiting for you. I know she means the world to you, Clark, but don’t blame her. Lois demanded that she save the neighbors first. I’ve told Lucy, she’s welcome to stay with me at the penthouse until she leaves. I’m sorry, again, Clark.”
Beep.
Clark shook his head. She, who? What was he talking about? He heard keys jingling in the lock of the front door of his apartment. Sam entered holding a bag of donuts. Clark doubted the man would ever eat them again.
“Hi, Clark. What are you doing home?” Sam asked. “Is that Lois’s jacket?”
“No, it’s mine.” Clark closed his eyes and covered his face.
“Clark?” Sam dropped the donut bag on the table.
“Lois. Bomb.” It was all he could say.
“What?!” Sam gasped. “A bomb? She blew herself up with a bomb?” He stumbled over to the couch.
Clark studied him. He had known. “Sam. What are you saying? You knew?”
Sam looked at him with both horror and genuine grief. “Knew? Of course, I didn’t know. She said she was going to do something big and asked me to cover for her with you. I didn’t think she’d really die.”
“You thought she was putting herself in jeopardy so I’d have to rescue her thus reveal to her that Superman is Clark Kent.”
Sam looked at him and then nodded.
That plan made sense. But why send him away then? “It was Intergang. They were targeting Lucy El and Lois got caught in the middle.”
Sam frowned. “But...” He shook his head. “I thought Lois was Lucy El now?”
That’s right, she was. Had been. Intergang had not targeted the wrong person after all. He and Lois had been working on the Luthor and Intergang connection. She must have gotten too close. Stepped on the wrong toes. She was still dead.
The phone rang. Neither of them wanted to answer it, so they let the machine catch it.
“
Hey, Clark, it’s Detective Henderson. We need to reach Sam Lane. Mayson said you’d know where to reach him.”
Sam stood up and lifted up the receiver. “This is Sam Lane.”
“
Oh! Dr. Lane…Um… Uh.”
“Clark told me about Lois,” Sam informed him.
“
I’m sorry, Dr. Lane. But I need you to come down to the morgue and identify her body.”
Clark stood up and spun into his business suit. “I’ll go.”
“
Do you need me to send a car?”
“No, Detective. Clark will bring me.”
Clark stopped at the front door and turned back to Sam as the man hung up. “You want to go?”
Sam sneered at him. “No, Clark. I don’t want to do this. But as her next of kin… Let’s get this over with.”
Clark agreed. “Cab ok?”
Sam nodded.
***
Clark and Sam stood on one side of the viewing window. Clark felt like his heart would collapse from beating so hard and fast. Don’t be her. Don’t be her, he begged, ashamed he was hoping for someone else’s death.
The curtain opened. The coroner’s assistant stood next to the sheet-covered gurney. Henderson nodded to the man and the man pulled back the sheet.
Clark’s heart exploded with relief. It wasn’t her! It wasn’t her! That was Lola, the clone. Relief was then followed by confusion. How did Lola end up at Lois’s apartment? He had buried her at the farm. Only Lois knew that. What in the world was going on?
“Yes,” Sam was saying. “That’s my daughter.”
Clark turned to Sam in shock. “Are you sure, Sam?” he asked. Lola still had long hair and Lois cut hers to match Lucy’s before the accident. Clark was positive that that body was not Lois Lane’s. Lola seemed really well preserved. No decay noticeable at all. That was probably due to the freezing temperatures in Kansas since he buried her.
Sam looked at him with gritted teeth. “Do you think I would not know my own daughter?”
“No, Sam, that’s not what I…”
“Do you have doubts that that is Lois, Clark?” Detective Henderson asked.
Clark knew he had to speak the truth. But he was still confused in what Lola was doing there. Someone thawed her out and stuck her in Lois’s apartment before detonating the bomb? It didn’t make sense. Who would replace Lois with a clone? Other than Luthor? Luthor!
“Clark.” Sam looked at him with panic. Panic? Why would Sam be afraid he would tell Henderson that this wasn’t his daughter? Unless he knew that Lola wasn’t Lois and he, too, was in on the deception? That would mean Luthor didn’t do this. Where was Lois?
“Clark?” Henderson asked, again.
Clark didn’t know what to say or think.
Sam had warned him that it was big, this plan of Lois’s.
He swallowed. “That body looks like Lois Lane.” Which was the truth. “Only without her soul,” he added, also the truth.
Sam was still glaring at him, willing him to shut up.
“She had wanted me to rescue her and I couldn’t do it. I was too late,” Clark mumbled, a tear dripping down his face. “Too late. I’ll never forgive myself.”
Henderson spun his finger in the air and the coroner’s assistant covered her up and closed the curtain.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Henderson said, leaving them alone in the viewing room.
Clark stared at the curtain. What had he just done? What was going on? He looked at Sam who also seemed in shock, staring at the curtain.
“I’m going to have nightmares about this,” Sam murmured.
Clark had forgotten that Sam had never seen Lola. Never knew how identical her clone really was.
“Let’s get you home,” Clark said as a lab technician burst in.
“Clark Kent?” she asked and with one glance at him, continued, “There’s a leak at the nuclear power plant in Philadelphia.”
Clark turned to Sam, torn.
“Go!” Sam told him. “I’ll be fine.”
Clark nodded and disappeared in a rush of wind, leaving the lab tech in awe. “That was really him!”
***
Clark arrived at Philadelphia nuclear power plant a minute later. There was work to be done. People to save. Things to distract him from thinking about Lois and whatever it was she had or had not done. He flew inside looking for workers in the steam. He found a large man coughing and sitting on the ground.
“I’ve got you,” Superman told him. “Are you injured?”
The man shook his head. “I’ll wait.”
“For what?” he asked. “You need to get out of here.”
“For her,” the man said pointing over Superman’s shoulder.
Superman turned around and stared as Ultra Woman landed next to him. “I’ve got him, Superman. You go fix the leak.”
He stared at her for a moment as she picked up the worker with ease and disappeared out the way she came. Superman shook himself out of his thoughts. The leak. He found it and sealed it up with his heat vision. Then he flew back out to where the injured workers were sitting. They were all staring up at the beautiful heroine in purple and teal.
Superman flew up to join her, but she flew up even higher, so high above Philadelphia, the people looked like dots. He stopped next to her stared at her in dumbfounded wonder.
“Lois?” he finally stammered.
“Clark.”
“You’re alive!”
She scowled. “Damn. I owe Lucy five bucks.”
He looked at her like she was bonkers.
“I was sure the first thing you would notice was the flying.” She grinned.
Superman’s brain was still absorbing it all. “You can fly?”
Ultra Woman moved closer to him. “You noticed.”
“How? Why?” He couldn’t think straight.
“The lightning strike. It copied your powers into me.”
Superman stared at Ultra Woman, his mind reeling. “You have my powers?”
Ultra Woman smiled.
“Flying. Super strength. Hearing?”
Ultra Woman nodded.
“Heat vision and x-ray vision?”
Ultra Woman nodded.
“Speed?”
Ultra Woman grinned and disappeared. He followed her. She stopped at the Smallville house. She was sitting on the front steps when he arrived. He sat down next to her.
“You’re still married,” Superman murmured.
“Lois Lane was married,” she corrected him. “I’m not her anymore. She died.”
Clark raised a brow. “Lois.”
“Lucy,” she corrected him again, holding out her hand. “Lucy El.”
Superman still looked at her skeptically. “Lucy is married, too,” he reminded her.
“Oh, no!” she gasped, smacking herself in her forehead. “I completely forgot. She’s married to Kal El.” Ultra Woman leaned over and whispered in his ear, “The last son of Krypton.”
He swallowed. “Well, yes. He is that, but no one knows that’s who he is.”
“Ah, good. You finally get a secret, secret identity.”
“But it also means that we still can’t be together. Superman can’t be seen with a married woman.”
Ultra Woman sighed. “You forgot there is another person in this relationship, Clark. One that he can be seen with. Me! Superman’s destiny.” She held up her arms in a ta-da manner, floating into the air.
Superman chuckled, floating after her. “That’s why you said that Superman and Ultra Woman were married. You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you? Lois, what am I going to do with you?” He shook his head.
“Anything you like, Mr. Amazing.” She ran a finger down his jaw. “I’m quite unbreakable, now. You don’t have to hold back.”
He caught her hand and pulled her to him. “You promise, no more dying?”
“You promise never to break my heart again?” Ultra Woman wrapped her legs around him, squeezing him tight. He couldn’t respond as she pulled him closer. “No more excuses.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. She placed her lips next to his ear. “No more delays.”
Superman pressed his lips to hers and they spun into the sky. Soon, they were up amongst the stars.
“Wow!” he murmured. “We should change your name to Wow Woman.”
“Mr. Amazing and Wow Woman back together, again.” Ultra Woman kissed down his neck. “Catch me, if you can.” She dove back down to Earth.
Clark grinned. Challenge accepted. He zoomed after her.
The End of Chapter 6
Continued in Chapter 7 – And Baby Makes Four***
CommentsChapter 7: Part 1/13
