Missing Lois - TOC Story Notes: This story is mostly set in alt-dimension, although visits to the canon dimension do happen from time-to-time and more regularly during this chapter.
- Clark = Alt-Clark unless otherwise noted (such as when we are in the canon dimension, then 'Clark' is canon Clark)
- Lucy El = pregnant canon Lois avoiding the curse by hiding out with alt-Clark, aka alt-Lois's secret identity
- Kal = Lucy El's husband's name, or what Lois-Lucy and alt-Clark call canon Clark
- Lois = canon Lois (again); unless we're in canon dimension, then Lois could be referring to the substitute Lois borrowed from canon Lois's pre-amnesia time to fill in for canon Lois while she was in alt-dimension; or the ‘deceased’ wife of alt-Luthor
- Ultra Woman = originally the costume Lucy/Lois wore to Perry's 'Come as Your Favorite Superhero' party; now, alt-Lois
- Lara = the name Lois has chosen for her daughter (after Clark’s birth mother)
- Sam Lane = alt-Lois's Dad, Lucy’s doctor & Clark’s roommate
- 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
- Dr. Bernard Klein = S.T.A.R. Labs scientist and Superman's 'doctor'
- H.G. Wells – famed author – inventor of the Time-Machine – the man who brought canon Lois to alt-Clark
- 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.
***
What's happened so far in Chapter 7... (
Chapter 7: Part 9 )
Lois had some difficulty during her delivery of her daughter, Lara, due to the curse and was saved from death with a pint of Ultra Woman's blood. After the birth, Lois seemed to withdraw within herself, deep into post-partum depression. She missed Kal/Clark and believed that upon learning of her one night with alt-Clark, her husband will take their daughter and leave her. She's also depressed because she feels no real connection with her daughter. In her depression she doesn't trust alt-Lois and alt-Clark, thinking they are out to take her daughter away from her to keep as their own. . Lois had also stopped taking care of herself, stopping eating, stopping bathing and only took care of her daughter, which included nursing. She ended up wasting away down to almost 100 pounds, so Sam told her she was no longer allowed to breastfeed as she needed to gain weight again.
Meanwhile, back in the canon dimension, canon Clark had figured out that Lois went to the other dimension because of the curse and her pregnancy with his child. He only had his mother's word that this was what truly happened. Martha told him that the woman he married was actually Lois's substitute, borrowed from the past to hold Lois's spot in time until his missing Lois could return from the other dimension. Star also told him that Lois was deeply depressed and that he and his wife would have a baby in their future.
***
Part 10Meanwhile, back at the Daily Planet
in Lois’s home dimension…Clark kissed Lois’s cheek as she returned to her desk. Then she watched as he ran towards the supply closet, loosening his tie. Her husband had seemed strange after she returned from the bookstore. Lois hoped it had nothing to do with his wrestling match with Vixen earlier. She trusted Clark. How could she not? He was Clark, the most trustworthy man she had ever met. Well, except for the big lie, but that was over a year ago. There were no more lies. Still she hated seeing that video with him rolling around with that blonde Vixen. It had shaken her to her core, seeing him like that with another woman. Especially after their no precautions love fest at breakfast.
Jimmy came up to her desk and updated her on the unbelievably stubborn FBI, who still refused to give up that ATM tape on the bank CEO’s disappearance, but then he just stood there shifting from foot to foot.
“Lois?”
She glanced up at him. “Huh?”
“Are you pregnant?”
Lois stared at him, holding in the urge to drop her jaw. “Want to run that one by me again, Jimmy?” She waited.
He swallowed. “Ah. Your friend Star was here earlier and I didn’t hear all that she said, except something about a baby, and Clark moved her into the conference room faster than Superman. So, I was wondering…”
“Oh.”
Star said something about a baby to Clark? Well, that explained her husband’s odd behavior.
“Clark doesn’t move faster than Superman, Jimmy,” Lois corrected. “That’s impossible.”
“Yeah, I know. But one moment they were by his desk and the next they were in the conference room with the door closed. I know she’s a friend of yours, Lois, so I thought you had said something to her…”
Lois smiled indulgently at him. “Jimmy, I haven’t seen Star since before Clark and I got married. I wouldn’t tell her I was having a baby before I told you.”
Jimmy exhaled.
“You’re having a baby?” Perry gasped and Lois rolled her eyes.
“This is how rumors start, people. No! No! No! Now, shoo, all of you. I’ve got real work to do.” She turned back to her computer as Jimmy and her boss scampered off.
Star had told Clark something about a baby? God, she hoped she wasn’t pregnant from their pre-breakfast bliss. She was nowhere near ready to be a mother. Truthfully, the consequences of this morning’s delight spooked her more than Superman fighting Vixen. Lois placed a hand over her stomach. What if she got pregnant? What if she was pregnant at that very moment? As Ralph would say, ‘Faster than a speeding bullet’. She shivered. Why had she thought that? She loved Clark and she had always known he would be the best father, but her as a mother? A mother of super child? A mother of regular child would be hard enough. Would she be up for the task? She knew she was no Martha. She wondered if her new parenting book that she bought,
Raising Kids in a Busy Household, would help her know if parenting was even feasible for their crazy, hectic lifestyle.
Clark returned shortly, thereafter, and Lois wrapped her arms around his neck and greeted him with a kiss.
“That was enthusiastic. Thanks, honey. I missed you, too.”
“We need to talk,” Lois said to him under her breath.
His brow furrowed.
“Star came to the newsroom to see you?” she asked.
“No, to see you. She wanted me to tell you ‘hi.’ She hadn’t seen you in awhile and…”
“I see.” Lois interrupted with a nod. “So, your conversation had nothing to do with a baby?”
“What? How did…?” Her husband gasped.
“Jimmy overheard her say something to you about a baby and then saw you take her into the conference room, and I’m quoting here, ‘faster than Superman’.”
Clark pressed his lips together. “That’s impossible. I cannot be faster than Superman.”
“I told him that. Obviously, you weren’t faster than the rumor mill though. Jimmy asked if I was pregnant. So, am I?”
“Wow! I dash out to stop one mugger and... I don’t know, Lois, are you? I think you’d know before I would.” Clark smiled sheepishly.
“So, that’s not what she told you then?”
He shook his head. “No, she just said that she saw a baby in our future.” He lowered his voice even further. “After our discussion this morning before breakfast…” He raised his brows. “I figured it was best to get her out of the bullpen.”
“Right.” Lois placed a hand on his chest and smiled reassured. “In the future, then?”
He nodded and she released a breath.
“The future I can handle; in the present, not so much.”
Clark pulled her back for another kiss, then whispered, “Do you mind if I get a little more scientific data than Star’s hunch?”
“Since it’s us…” Lois laughed. “Probably best to get a second opinion.”
***
Several weeks later at the Loises’ apartment in the other dimension…Clark opened the door to the apartment and let Moonbeam in.
“How’s she doing?” Moonbeam asked right off the bat.
Clark’s life was surrounded by females so he wasn’t quite sure to whom she referred. He cleared his throat as he considered his response.
Moonbeam pursed her lips. “Lucy.”
Well, that narrowed it down to two.
“The one that isn’t married to Lex Luthor,” she clarified again.
“Ah.” He wanted to say better, but that wasn’t quite true.
Lois got up, showered, and got dressed every day. She took care of Lara. Fed her with a bottle, changed her, and bathed her. She did everything they asked. Although she was eating, it was more because they were watching her, not because she wanted to. He didn’t even know if she was sleeping.
Lois still looked like the ghost of the woman she used to be. Gone was her vibrancy. Gone was her humor. Gone was her drive, her zest, her zeal. It was as if she had lost her soul, but the frame of its old house was still there.
Moonbeam sighed. “That bad, huh?” She clapped her hands together. “Where is she?”
Clark stepped aside. Lois was sitting on the couch behind him, staring out the window. Her body was there, but her mind was still far, far away.
“Wow. When Star said she had gone off the deep end, I didn’t know she meant into a black hole.” Moonbeam sighed again. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Who is Star?” Clark asked, confused.
Lois turned toward Moonbeam, acknowledging her presence for the first time. “You’ve spoken with Star? But I haven’t seen Star since I was married. Why would you talk to her? How could you?”
“Star can still sense you, since you belong in her universe.”
“Who is Star?” Clark asked again.
Sam spoke up from the kitchen. “Star was Moonbeam’s name before she became a lawyer and changed it.”
Why would Moonbeam talk to her old self about Lois… unless she meant…
“You can contact the other dimension?” Clark asked, surprised.
Moonbeam turned and faced him. “It’s not like making a phone call, but yes. Star doesn’t know about us, though. When she sensed that Lois was depressed, she thought it was the Lois that you left behind. She went to speak with you down at the
Planet, but she spoke to Clark instead.”
Lois grabbed Moonbeam by the shoulders. “Clark? Star talked to my Clark about me?
Me, me? He’s going to think Star’s fallen off her rocker.”
Moonbeam shrugged.
Clark suspected that Kal had already felt that way about this Star person; he felt that way about Moonbeam on the few occasions they had met. What would he have done if Moonbeam had come to him and told him that his Lucy was deeply depressed, when he knew she was just fine? He would have thought she was nuts.
“Star has been trying to contact you, but hasn’t known how to get in touch,” Moonbeam explained.
“Why?” Clark sat down across from them. “Why would she want to contact her if she doesn’t know about the other dimension or that Lois is here?”
Moonbeam ignored his questions as she held out her hand to Lois. “Give me your hand and close your eyes, Lois. I want to try something.”
They sat there holding hands with their eyes closed for a while, nothing happening as far as Clark could see. Lara woke up crying and he went to get her.
Lara was getting more beautiful every day, but she hadn’t been thrilled with the change in diet. Every time he or his Lois fed her a bottle, she would put a hand to their heads and put an image of Lois in their minds. It was her way of calling to her Mommy. He changed Lara’s diaper and brought her out to the living room to see if there was a change with Lois and Moonbeam.
They sat down across from the women, Lara on his lap and he, watching.
Eventually Moonbeam sighed and opened her eyes, shaking her head. “It was worth a shot.” She noticed the two of them across from her. “Hello, there, little one. I’m Moonbeam. A friend of your Mommy and Auntie Lucy. We were trying to contact your Daddy.”
Lara grabbed one of Clark’s fingers resting against her tummy.
“No, sweetie, that is your Uncle Clark,” Moonbeam continued. “Not Daddy.”
Lois stood up and retrieved her daughter from Clark with a sour expression.
“Hey, I never told her I was Daddy. She’s the one who calls me that,” he once again defended himself to deaf ears.
“Clark,” Moonbeam asked hesitantly. “How do you know she calls you Daddy?”
He gulped with a glance at Lois. Him and his big mouth.
“Kryptonians are telepathic. Lara can communicate with Superman and Ultra Woman that way,” Lois explained, sitting down next to their friend.
“Really? Fascinating. I wonder…” Moonbeam reached out her palm, but did not touch Lara and closed her eyes.
Both Clark and Lois looked at her. Definitely off her rocker in his book. He shook his head, standing up and heading toward the kitchen.
“I love her and I miss her and I want her to come home,” spoke Moonbeam in a voice that was not her own.
Clark turned around. Lara had grabbed Moonbeam’s thumb.
“What?” Lois swallowed.
“Wow!” Moonbeam pulled her hand back. “She’s a powerful girl, Lois. Like an amplifier.”
“What was that you just said? About the loving and missing and the back home?” Lois’s voice shook.
Moonbeam glanced over at Clark and then back at Lois. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Yes, you did. I heard it, too.”
Moonbeam swallowed. “I don’t remember saying anything.”
Lois gazed at Clark. “Clark?”
He went to take Lara, but the baby grabbed Lois’s shirt, not wanting to go. He stopped trying. “She wants you, Lois.”
Lois shook her head. “She never wants me. It must be your Lois she wants.”
“Right,” he responded sarcastically. “That’s whose shirt she’s holding onto.”
Kal’s Lois looked down at her daughter. “Do you want Mommy?” She turned her around so that they were face to face. “Mommy loves you so much, sweet Baboo.” Leaning over to rest her head against Lara’s, she kissed her and closed her eyes. She gasped, her eyes flying open and she looked at her daughter. “Oh, Lara, I love you so much. You are the best daughter in the whole wide universe.” She pulled her to her chest, rocking her, a tear dripping down her face.
“Lois?” He stared at her. Something had happened.
“I… she heard Clark.” She pressed her shaking lips together. “My Clark. Her Daddy. He said that he loves me and he misses me and he wants me to come home.” She looked up at him. “Why would he say that?”
Clark shrugged. He was as flabbergasted as her. Did Kal know she was missing? That she was here? He glanced at Moonbeam. She stood up.
“Well, my work here is done.” She smiled.
“Wait!” Lois jumped to her feet. “Can you let Star know that we got the message?”
“I don’t know, Lois. It’s not like making a telephone call.”
Lois stretched out her daughter’s hand. “Here’s your telephone. Contact her Daddy for us, please.”
Moonbeam looked at Lara’s outstretched hand and stepped back. “I can’t, Lois. She fried my circuits.”
“Oh.” Lois pulled her daughter close again.
“I did see her future in your dimension. You make it back.” She smiled and left.
Lois watched her leave and then turned to Clark. “We’re going home?”
“Well, if Mr. Wells returns to pick you up, Lara probably could return home tomorrow,” Sam said, bringing lunch out to the dining table.
“What about me?” Lois asked, rocking her daughter in a tight embrace.
Clark looked at Sam and they both shook their heads. “Lois, you need to gain at least twenty pounds, if you are going to go back to your old life without anyone knowing you were gone. What would Perry or James do, if you walked into the newsroom looking like you do?”
She swallowed. “They’d put me in a hospital.” Her hands began to shake. “I can’t go to a hospital. I can’t, Clark. You know what they’ll do to me… to Lara.”
Clark wrapped his arm around her. “That’s over, now, Lois. No one is going to hurt you like that ever again.”
“Come and have lunch,” Sam said, pulling out a chair.
“It’s the only way to see Kal,” Clark reminded her.
“Fine.” She stomped across the living room and sat down in her chair, the baby in her lap. She looked down at her sandwich. “Is this pastrami?”
Sam smiled loving at her. “Only the best for my girl.”
“My favorite, Sam. Thanks.”
***
Ultra Woman blew through the windows. “Oooh, just in time for lunch.” She gave Clark a kiss. “Hi, handsome. I just dropped James off upstairs. He’s getting tired of being guarded. He wants to know if you have anything more concrete than your hunch.”
Clark sighed. “Four CEOs of companies that refused to sell to L.I, Ltd. got indicted for embezzlement, just like in Lois’s dimension. But Perry told me that the charges were all hooey. Yet the C.E.O.s all disappeared, vanished before their names could be cleared. I don’t want that to happen to James. And as Lois told us, Kal discovered the gold specs on the videotape, Vixen’s handiwork.”
“Vixen’s dead,” Lois said between bites. “She tried to kill Superman with that electrical fireball weapon of hers and it bounced off him and struck her, disintegrating her.”
“What electrical fireball weapon?” Clark asked.
Lois finished chewing before speaking. “She does this volleyball bump move and generates some kind of electrical fireball that she shoots at anyone who ticks her off.”
Clark turned to Ultra Woman. “I don’t want you fighting her.”
“I love you, too, Clark,” she said, patting his shoulder.
“No. I’m serious, Lois. You weren’t born with these powers and I don’t know how stable they are. I don’t want you fighting her.” He rested his head against hers. “Please.”
“If anyone cares, I’m with Clark on this,” Sam said from the dining room.
Ultra Woman smiled at her father and kissed Clark’s cheek. “My men are too overprotective. OK. I’ll keep to catching normal bad guys and search and rescue only, but that means I’m leaving the crazies to you.” She shook her head. “Where’s my favorite niece? I need an energy boost.” She walked over to Lois and held out her arms. “Do you want to come to Aunt Ultra, sweetie?”
“Oh, thanks, Lois,” Lois said, handing over her daughter. Ultra Woman glanced at Clark with surprise.
“How’s my little sweetie?” Ultra Woman cooed, kissing her cheek. “What have you been up to today?” Lara touched her face.
I love her and I miss her and I want her to come home. Clark’s voice echoed in her head.
“Clark?” She looked at him. “What is this?”
“What’s what?” His brow furrowed.
“Why are you telling Lara that you love her, miss her and want her to come home? Who her?”
“You heard my voice?” He looked at Lois, curiously.
“Kal’s voice. Lara is telling you she heard her Daddy’s voice today,” Lois told her.
“What? How?”
“Moonbeam was here and together, Lara and her, were able to reach the other dimension.”
Her jaw dropped. “But that’s… Wow.” She snuggled against Lara. “He does sound like Uncle Super, doesn’t he?”
Clark spun into his Superman suit. “I’m going to see if I can find Vixen. I want to find her before she decides to throw any of those fireballs.” He kissed Lara’s head and Ultra Woman’s cheek and waved at her father and Lois, before flying through the window.
Ultra Woman sighed. “Sometimes I feel we spend less time together now. I, for one, will be happy when we take out the Vixen threat.”
Lois swayed in her chair. “Ooh, I don’t feel so well,” she said, shaking her head. “Light headed. I think I ate too fast.” She gulped, trying to stand up. “I feel weak.”
“I might not have super human strength, sweetie, but I can still help you to your bed,” Ultra Woman’s father said coming over to her.
“Thanks, Sam.”
“I can take her, Daddy, if you want to hold Lara for a moment.”
He nodded, reaching over for the precious tyke.
Ultra Woman picked up Lois, who already felt like she weighed nothing. “Has she lost more weight, Daddy? She has almost no mass at all.”
Lois’s head dropped as she passed out. “Daddy! What’s wrong with her?” Ultra Woman called. She zipped Lois into the bedroom.
Sam came in a moments later, handing Lara to her. “Take her, princess. She shouldn’t see her mother like this.”
Ultra Woman, nodded taking Lara back out to the living room. Lara started crying, uncontrollably. “She’ll be fine, sweetie. Hush, now. She’ll be fine,” she repeated, rocking the baby, trying to calm her down.
Lara seemed lighter, too. Ultra Woman glanced down and saw that she was not only lighter, but also transparent. Lara stopped crying and looked up at her. Then she disappeared completely. Ultra Woman screamed.
***
In Lois’s home dimension…“Breathe, Lois. Breathe. Come on, Lois!” Superman demanded, giving her mouth to mouth. She didn’t respond. Oh, God! What had he done? He had killed her. She still wasn’t breathing. “Lois!”
She could not die. What had he been thinking? If she died, her future self and their child over in the other dimension would die with her. Just ceased to exist. “Breathe, Lois.” This was taking too long. He took too many chances with her life. Oh, please, God! Let her live and he would never freeze her again. He would find another way. He should never have risked her life.
Lois gasped, drawing in a breath. She lived. She lived! He hadn’t killed her. “Lois!” Superman pulled her into his arms.
“Did it work?” she murmured.
“Yes,” he answered. “Lex, Jr. blew himself up.”
“I’m so cold.” She shivered.
He kissed her, breaking their cardinal rule of Superman and Lois Lane, but he didn’t care. She was alive! “I know how to warm you up. Basic survival techniques one-O-one.”
His wife smiled. “Oooh. My favorite technique.”
Superman lifted her up and took off into the air.
“Clark,” she whispered in his ear. “Not that I’m complaining, but let’s not freeze me again.”
“Don’t worry, Lois. I already made myself that promise.”
“Clark.” She rested her head against his warm chest. “Why me? Why is it always me that the psychos want?”
He kissed the top of her head with a smile. “I don’t know, Lois. You just bring out the psycho in us men.”
“Great.” Lois groaned. “How about you get me pregnant? Maybe the psychos wouldn’t want me at a one-hundred fifty pounds.”
Superman chuckled. “That’s a bad reason to start a family, Lois. Anyway, I bet you’d be the sexiest pregnant woman in the world.” He exhaled, blowing their living room windows open. He sure had found her sexy whenever she had visited him while pregnant. “Why don’t we wait to start trying, at least until Dr. Klein returns from Barbados and gives me the test results?”
“All right. I’m not ready to be a Mom, yet.”
Superman ran her upstairs and spun into his PJ shorts, climbing into bed with her. Skin to skin contact. Basic survival one-O-one.
***
Back in the other dimension…“Daddy!” Ultra Woman screamed. “Clark!”
Superman flew in the window at the same time her father arrived from Lois’s bedroom.
“What?”
“Lara disappeared. Just disappeared. One moment she was in my arms, crying, then she got lighter and then transparent and she was gone, just gone.” She was shaking, uncontrollably. “Where is my girl?”
Superman wrapped his arms around her, gazing at her father. “Sam? Where’s Lois?”
“She just disappeared in the bedroom,” he replied. The color had left Sam’s cheeks and he looked ghastly.
“What?” Ultra Woman zipped down the hall to the bedroom. “Where did they go?” She sped back to the living room. “What happened, Clark?”
“Something must have happened to her place-holder back in her dimension. When she dies, it affects the Lois here.”
“What? How could Kal let anything happen to her? Doesn’t he know he’s risking Lara’s life?”
Superman pulled Ultra Woman into his arms. “She’ll be back, Lois. She’ll be back. Otherwise, time would have shifted and it would be like she was never here. While we still remember her, she’ll be back.”
“You’ve gone through this before?” his girlfriend asked him.
Superman nodded, scooping her up into his arms and carrying her over to the sofa as she sobbed. She turned to her father and he nodded as well.
“It’s pretty scary the first time,” her father told her. “But so far, she’s come back every time.”
Ultra Woman ripped off her mask and threw it onto the floor. Tears ran down her face. She held on to Clark tightly. “My God, how many times has Lois died this year?”
Superman held her and whispered, “Too many.”
Her father went back into the bedroom to watch for Lois.
“Lois, where was Lara when she disappeared?” her boyfriend asked.
“In my arms.”
He let go of her. “Where were you standing?”
“Over there.” She flung her hand over towards the dining room.
“I need you to go back where you were and pretend you are still holding her, in case she appears back into your arms.”
Ultra Woman was shaking. “How? I’m not quite sure where I was. Oh, God! Clark, I don’t know how to do this.” She paced the area in between the sofa and the dining table.
“Just try,” he said from the living room.
“Stand with me.”
“I can’t, Lois. I don’t want be in the way, if she doesn’t appear into your arms.”
Ultra Woman started sobbing harder. “Oh, God, Clark. If I dropped her…” She fell to the floor and started feeling around with her hands. Then she stopped and buried her face in her hands. “Lara! Lara, where are you? Oh, Clark, if anything happens to her… I will never be able to live with myself. I love her so much…”
Minutes passed and nothing changed.
“Clark, how long until she comes back?”
“I don’t know, Lois. As long as it takes for Kal to save her other self.”
Ultra Woman glared at his completely unhelpful answer.
More minutes passed.
“She’s not coming back, is she?” Ultra Woman sobbed. “She has to come back. I would gladly trade my life for hers. Please, God, let Lara live.”
“Don’t give up hope, Lois.”
“Lois! Clark! She’s coming back,” her father called from the bedroom.
Ultra Woman held her arms around an imaginary baby, hoping beyond hope that Lara would reappear there. Another minute passed. Nothing. “Clark?”
He floated into the air, looking around, but shrugged.
Ultra Woman floated into the air, not wanting to touch the floor, in case Lara ended up there. What was that? She thought she saw a pile of blankets reappear on the floor, next to where she had just been sitting. “Clark! Daddy!” She landed gently onto the floor and watched as the blankets became more distinct, more solid. She scooped Lara into her arms. “Oh, sweetie. Here you are. I was so worried.” She rocked the baby back and forth, back and forth. “Clark?”
He was at her side. Her father arrived at that point.
“I don’t hear her breathing,” Ultra Woman whispered, the tears falling down her cheeks again.
“Lara,” Clark whispered, caressing her head. “Sweetheart, are you all right?”
Ultra Woman handed her to Superman. “What have I done?” she gasped, burying her face in her hands, again. “What have I done?”
Clark rubbed the baby’s back. “Sam?”
“Lie her on the floor, Clark,” her father instructed.
He did so and they all gathered around.
“Try mouth to mouth.”
Superman nodded, gently rubbing Lara’s tummy and blowing into her mouth. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. He blew again.
*** End of Part 10 *** CommentsChapter 7: Part 11
