You can find the
Another Dimension, Another Time, Another Lois[/i] TOC here.
Where we left off in Part 16 …[i]You’re the one who proposed, Clark reminded her playfully.
I’ve already done my part on the ‘not even death will us part’ portion of our lives. Top that!“I never gave up on you,” she murmured.
Clark faded into silence again but even so she could feel his guilt. It wasn’t her guilt. She
had nothing to feel guilty about, so it must be his.
It wasn’t until she rounded the corner on the work road and could see his parents’ farmhouse that he spoke again.
This relationship isn’t healthy for you, Lois. If you can’t figure out a way to go into the past…“Thanks for the vote of confidence there, Kent,” she replied through pressed lips.
Clark continued on as if she hadn’t interrupted,
I don’t want to hold you back from having a real life, of having a real relationship with a real flesh and blood man, whom you can hold and touch and with whom you can have children… He paused and she heard him sigh before reluctantly admitting
… with someone like Scardino.Lois stopped and threw her hands into the air. “Dan? I broke up with Dan because of Dan, not because of you,” she shouted. “And at this moment, sex and children are the last thing I need. What I need to know is whether you’ll be there for me, Clark, or if you’re going to abandon me every time this gets hard?”
As long as you want me, Lois, I’ll be around.“Ha!” She started stomping on down the road. “Do you love me?”
I’ve never stopped loving you.“Then stop making decisions regarding my life without consulting me. If I decide that
this relationship is unhealthy for me or that I could do better, you’ll be the first to know.”
Got it.“Until then, we’re in this together.” She lowered her voice as she got closer to the farmhouse.
I just want you to be happy, Lois, Clark told her.
“Happy? I am happy!” she growled. “I have a man who loves me more than life itself. What makes you think I’m not happy?”
She could hear Clark’s chuckles echoing inside her head.
No idea.Part 17Lois could see her stuff on the porch piled next to the front door before she even walked up the steps. She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Pulling open the screen door, she tried to open the main door. Locked.
She picked up her purse and found that Martha had removed the keys she had given to Lois a couple of days before. No, wait. Lois had put them in the pocket of her jeans after she had locked her bedroom door that morning. She felt her pocket and then remembered, she had left them next to her plate on the breakfast table. Crap.
Tossing the strap of her purse over her head and across her chest, Lois knocked on the door. There was a twitch on the living room curtain, but the door remained closed. “Martha? Jonathan?” she called.
More silence.
~So, this is where you picked it up? The silent treatment?~
Maybe we should just go…~I’m not walking away, Smallville.~
“Martha, I found Clark’s grave,” Lois said to the door. “I know he died as a baby. Please, I need to talk to you about this.” She waited a minute before continuing, “Clark wasn’t supposed to die. He was supposed to live and grow up, be a reporter with me – my partner at the Daily Planet.” Her annoyance at their lack of response got the better of her. “I told you that he wasn’t one hundred percent at the moment!” she yelled.
Lois, please, Clark coaxed.
“I would never do anything to hurt him or you.” Lois took another deep breath and went on. “He wasn’t supposed to die back in 1966. Someone killed him. I’m just trying to figure out how, why, and who. There might be a way for me to bring him back, to save him…” Her voice trailed off. They weren’t ever going to believe that she could travel back in time and save their son. She hardly believed it. She closed her eyes and laid her head against the door. “Please. His ghost speaks to me.”
Is that what you think I am? A ghost?~You got a better term?~ Lois retorted.
No. I guess ghost will do, but aren’t they supposed to have like a noncorporeal body or something?~Not really the time, Clark.~
Right. Sorry.“I know that this all sounds surreal. Trust me, it’s even harder for me to believe. I’m someone who believes in facts, not magic or fairytales. But Clark talks to me,” Lois said, speaking once more to the closed door. “He loves you and misses you. I’m sorry that you never got a chance to know him, because he’s everything I told you about last night – this morning – and more. He really is the best man I have ever…” Dreamed of meeting? Met in her dreams? “I wish you could remember him.”
When there was still no answer, she accepted her fate. From her briefcase she removed all but twenty dollars in cash from her wallet. She wrote her home phone number on the back of one of her business cards and stuck it into an envelope with the money. She looked around the door in vain for a mail slot or place to put the envelope. Not finding anything, she pushed the envelope into the doorframe.
“The money is to cover the cost of my room and board for the past couple of days. If you change your mind and want to talk to me about Clark, I’ve also enclosed my contact information. Please, I would love to tell you what a wonderful man your son was supposed to grow up to be,” Lois said, taking one last shot. She waited another minute, but when it seemed that the Kents were definitely not coming to the door, Lois picked up her stuff and headed to her rental car.
“I guess it’s just you and me, kid,” she said to that voice inside her head as she sat down behind the steering wheel.
One more minute, Lois. Can we just wait one more minute? Clark pleaded softly.
Lois could hear the raw pain in his voice. He loved his parents and could only remember them ever loving him. He didn’t have memories of them disappointing him, or not being there for him, like she had of her parents. Ever the optimist, Clark still held out hope that they would open the door and call her back. Just for him, she yearned for the same thing, to feel Martha’s arms surround her and hold her, hug her for Clark, to have someone believe her about this voice inside her head.
After another two minutes of staring at the closed front door of the Kents’ farmhouse, Lois turned the key and backed up the car.
***
“Whooo-Hooo! Olsen, you owe this old Memphis newshound twenty dollars, son,” Perry called as Lois slunk into work two days later. Her boss wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “I knew you couldn’t stay away for two weeks. Jimmy here thought you’d make it a week.” The Chief nudged the photographer who joined them at Lois’ desk.
“I couldn’t stay away,” Lois echoed softly, not really wishing to be there, but not knowing where else to go. She didn’t know how to even start progressing on how to save Clark, and just sitting around her apartment was driving her nuts. She needed to keep busy. She threw the Chief a smile that didn’t remain as soon as he turned back to his office.
Jimmy sat down on the corner of her desk. “Did you find him?”
Lois had forgotten that she had told Jimmy about Clark. “Yes and no.” Yes, she now knew Clark existed, and she had found his grave, but no, because he was still dead. She decided to change the subject. “Hey, Jimmy, get this. While I was out of town a psychic moved into my building downstairs, Star!”
Jimmy looked at her with a perplexed expression. “Star?”
“That’s her name: Star.” Lois stretched her hands out like she was showing it to him up in lights.
“Oh. Psychic, huh? Maybe she can locate your missing beau,” he suggested with a good amount of wry humor.
At least, Lois thought he was joking. They shared the same opinion when it came to psychics, right? Of course Jimmy didn’t believe in psychics… did he? “Ha, ha. Very funny, Jimmy,” she said through pressed lips, just in case he had been serious. So much for diversionary tactics.
He sighed and then smile on her friend’s lips faded. “Uh… Lois… um… while you were gone… uh…” Jimmy seemed even more uncomfortable than when he had confessed to her on the island that he loved her.
“What?” Lois asked, trying to reassure him that they were okay.
“No. It’s nothing,” he said with a shake of his head before standing up. Then he paused. “Oh! I almost forgot. Toni Taylor committed suicide.”
“What?!” Lois gasped, leaning back in her chair. “No, I don’t believe it. How?”
“Sheet through the bars on the top bunk of her cell,” he told her.
“I just…” Lois shook her head in disbelief. “I never thought she’d commit suicide. Toni seemed to fear death.” She rolled her eyes.
Who didn’t fear death? “I mean, the only thing that seemed to scare her was Lex…” Lois frowned, picking up a pencil and beginning to tap it subconsciously on her desk. “She told me that Lex had threatened to kill her if she told anyone about them, about him.” She caught Jimmy’s eye. “Now, she’s dead.”
“You’re being paranoid, Lois. Lex is dead. We were both there,” Jimmy reminded her as he sat back down.
“Right,” she agreed, if somewhat uncertainly. Lex had died in her arms, pronouncing his love for her. She hadn’t forgotten. Still… No, Jimmy was right; it was just a coincidence. Just like Miranda dying in prison a couple weeks after Ralph was found murdered; the two events didn’t necessarily tie together. Just like Lex dying and then his body being stolen from the morgue. Who would do that? No, her brain put its foot down, Lex was dead. Dead was dead; well, at least it was in this case. Not everything was a big conspiracy, Lane, let it go. She exhaled. “Whatcha been working on while I’ve been away?”
“Couple of break-ins. High end computer stuff: computer chips and something called a wave pulse amplifier, inside jobs. The people helped the robbers break in but say they don’t remember how or why,” he explained.
Lois’ brow furrowed. “That’s funny.”
“Funny – ha, ha or funny – odd?” Jimmy inquired.
“Funny – odd. Last night I dreamed of that magic show charity thing Cat dragged us to a couple of years ago,” Lois said, slowly flipping through her messages without really reading them. She was hoping for a message from the Kents. Nothing. “Remember, she was chasing after Arthur Chow, and you had Perry hypnotized.”
Jimmy rolled his eyes with a grimace. “Don’t remind me. I couldn’t call him ‘Chief’ for months after that. Every once in a while I’d forget, and he would double finger point at me and tell me I’m brilliant.”
Lois grinned. “You were lucky you weren’t fired.”
“Isn’t that when he officially assigned me to you as your partner?” Jimmy winked at her.
“What? I’m your punishment for that? Thanks, Jimbo,” Lois scoffed. “And you
weren’t my partner back then. You were my flunky,” she said the word with teasing humor and love – platonic love.
“So, you think these robberies might have something to do with magic?” Her partner was more adapt at getting off a subject than she was.
“Sounds like hypnotism, doesn’t it?” she replied.
“I’ll check into it.” Jimmy stood up and shook his head. “Amazing.”
I completely agree.“What?” Lois sputtered, momentarily distracted by hearing Clark’s voice. She glanced up at Jimmy. “What?”
“You, Lois. Back two minutes, and you crack open this case that has stymied Metropolis PD all week,” he said and then lowered his voice. “Can I start telling people we’re engaged?”
She turned her eyes to her computer to check her e-mail messages. “Not if you enjoy having your spleen.”
“Our little secret then.” He shot her a grin and bolted.
Told you it was a dinosaur bone.~Never tell me ‘you told me so’,~ Lois replied to the voice inside her head. ~I’m always right. Get used to it.~
She thought back to that dream about Superman out of control and shivered. Her dreams were becoming creepier, more like nightmares. Superman had almost drowned her. She took a deep breath and exhaled. It was only a dream.
Or had it been a repressed memory from her former life with Clark? No, it couldn’t have been, Superman wasn’t real. He was just a figment of her imagination.
They had never caught the kidnapper in real life. She and the missing child… Nick… had awoken on the carousel together at the Hobs Bay Carnival. Both of them had been hypnotized. Both of them had remembered nothing.
Lois had traced the kidnappings to that illusionist Darren Ronick but no further. Dr. Novak – the man who had hypnotized Perry – and Ronick had both died mysteriously at the Magic Mansion. Well, Novak had been murdered. They matched Ronick’s fingers to the impressions left on Novak’s neck. Ronick had fallen from a ladder at the Magic Mansion, and his death had been ruled an accident. The kidnappings had stopped, and Ronick had been blamed. Constance had taken over Ronick’s act and moved to Las Vegas, where she was still a headliner today.
In her dreams, Clark was acting strangely too. He went as her date for the charity event, but not officially; they had gone as partners. He seemed more standoffish too, like something was bothering him. He had disappeared for an entire day during their investigation. Then he acted like he had gone to the ransom drop with her and Jimmy, even though he hadn’t. Worst of all, he had stopped looking at her with admiration tinged with longing. She noticed it, and even her dream-self had noticed it. Their reactions were the opposite though.
Lois was worried that Clark really didn’t like her. In the end would she discover that the voice inside her head was just her wishful thinking and that Clark held no romantic feelings towards her at all? It would crush her if she went through all this torment and insanity only to rescue Clark from the wrong destiny and have him not return her love. Was she being that foolish to hope for more than friendship with Clark?
On the other extreme, her dream-self was thankful that Clark was still treating her with less romantic interest after he had spurned her love during Nightfall. They were work partners, friends, and nothing else. She was still denying her true feelings for Clark and had convinced herself to ‘move on’.
The most nightmarish part of the entire dream, which had caused Lois to awake with knots tied in her stomach and drenched in sweat, was that her dream-self had gone on another date with Lex Luthor.
Watching herself preen, admire, and try to impress a man set on destroying her, and all the while not be able to stop the event from unfolding, was a new type of torture for a woman Clark had aptly described as a “control freak”. She could see Lex turning away her questions with a bat of his hand, misdirecting her here, pointing her in the wrong direction there. He treated her in such a patronizing manner. Had she been so gullible in real life? She knew the answer, and it wasn’t one she liked. How could she have been so blind?
Lois was determined not be so blind with Clark. She was jumping into this relationship with both eyes wide open. Luckily for her “with Clark what you see is what you get” as Maisie had aptly told her during their trip to Smallville. During the Corn Festival. In her dreams.
***
Lois crossed her arms across her chest and raised an eyebrow. “You want to do
what?”
“Auction you off to charity,” Perry repeated and held up his hands as if showing her the headline. “Win a date with Lois Lane. All benefits going to the orphanage.”
Come on, Lois. It’s for the orphans.“I don’t like the idea of being treated like I’m a piece of meat. How is this different than prostitution?” she inquired to her boss.
“You didn’t have any problems with the bachelors auctioning off themselves for the blind a few years back,” Perry reminded her.
Lois’ belly twisted as she set her hand on his desk to steady herself. She remembered that auction well. She had bid on Lex Luthor and lost, but he had asked her on another date anyway. It had been their first official date date – not an interview. “Not really selling me on this idea, Chief,” she mumbled.
“You’ll have complete control over the date: where you go, what you’ll do... Everything,” Perry said.
“Everything except with whom I’ll be forced to spend an evening,” Lois snapped, heading out of his office.
“Just think about it, Lois. You haven’t been on a date since…” Perry started and at her sharp expression, changed tactics. “Coates Home for the orphans.”
Come on, honey. Orphans.Clark would be begging her to do this. Orphans were his pet project. Superman’s too. She sighed. Clark really was adopted, wasn’t he? That was why he felt so strongly towards the orphans.
~I can’t believe you’re encouraging me to auction myself off to the highest bidder, Clark. I would think you’d rather have me at home for an early night of one-on-one dream-dating.~
Well, when you put it that way…“Do I get to bring my pepper spray?” she asked her boss.
Perry grinned, because he knew he had her. “Wouldn’t ask you to leave home without it.”
Lois exhaled loudly. “Okay. Fine.”
I thought we agreed you weren’t going to do this.~I thought you were encouraging me to date other men.~
Lo-is, Clark groaned.
~What? Are you back on your ‘Lois needs a real man with a body’ kick?~ Lois marched out to her desk. ~You want me to date other men? See what other fish there might be out in the sea? Then fine! I’ll go. I’ll have a great time. Maybe I’ll meet Mr. Right Now. Would you like that? Seeing, hearing, and feeling me be with another man? Is
that what you really want, Clark?~
Please, Lois, don’t do this, Clark pled softly. She could hear the pain in his voice.
~It’s too late, Kent. I’ve already agreed to it. Perhaps you’ll remember that the next time you encourage me to sell myself to the highest bidder!~ she screamed at the voice inside her head.
“Lois!” Jimmy came running up to her desk. “Did you hear?”
Lois shook her head, happy to have a distraction from her argument with Clark. “What?” She followed his gaze over to the televisions. They were all tuned into a breaking news bulletin from LNN.
“This just in from the island of Pacifonesia. Every person in the capital city has disappeared, leaving only ashes where there was just this morning a city of two hundred and seventy-five thousand. Scientists are baffled by what could have caused the people, animals, and plant life to die but allow all the buildings and non-organic structures to remain intact.”“Oh, my God!” Lois mumbled, dragging her eyes away from the TV and back to Jimmy.
“Where’s Superman when you need him, huh, Lois?” he said, reaching for her hand and squeezing it.
***
Lois turned towards her partner’s desk as she waited on hold. “Clark, men and women lie to each other all the time. It’s a national pastime. I mean, sometimes it’s okay to lie.”
“It’s never ‘okay’,” Clark rebutted incredulously in his usual Boy Scout manner.
“So, you’re saying that you’ll never lie to your wife?” Lois couldn’t believe him. Every man lied to his wife. Look at her father. He made it his number one priority. Even Perry lied to Alice. Hell, Clark lied to her all the time. Not that she was his wife… maybe his work wife, but certainly not his wife, wife. Back on point. How many of those errands Clark ran really had to be done at that exact minute? Please! “That is assuming that someone is crazy enough to actually say ‘I do’ to you.”
“That’s right.”
“Transfer me to who?” Lois asked the person who finally answered the phone. “I’ve been holding for ten minutes, I don’t want to…” And she was back on hold. Argh! She hated this part of her job. She looked back at Clark. “All right, here’s the scene…”
“Yes,” Clark said politely into the telephone. “I can hold. Sure.”
Lois pressed her lips together. He was just being polite, because she hadn’t been. Mr. Contrary. “Your wife has spent the entire day at the beauty parlor. She’s dyed her hair red.”
Clark rolled her eyes in disgust. So, he didn’t like redheads, huh? Or was it that he hated dye jobs? Not that she would do either. Dye her hair red or any other color for that matter and certainly not for Clark. Either he loved her for more than her appearance, no matter how she decided she would look, or he could just blow it out his ear. How did she get onto this train of thought anyway? Clark didn’t love her; he had told her so by not saying anything at all when she had confessed she loved him during Nightfall.
“Cut it all off,” Lois continued with her beauty parlor example. “Just to please you.” As if any woman would do anything to try to please Mr. Perfect over there. “Only it looks ghastly. She comes home. You open the door, and she’s standing there all hopeful, ‘Honey, do you like it?’ What do you do?”
“My wife would know that I loved her just the way she was,” Clark replied full of himself. He would say that. It was exactly what she would want her husband to say. “Why would she dye her hair red?” he went on.
“Oh! That is just…” Lois’ train of thought was cut off with their boss walking slowly between their desks and studying the two of them carefully. She and Clark pretended to be waiting on hold patiently until he moved on. Then she leaned back and gave Clark her patented ‘you didn’t answer my question’ look.
“Okay,” Clark admitted. “I’d tell her the truth. That I love her, but that I liked her hair better the way it was before, but that if she’s happy… that’s the important thing.”
Lois could just tell he honestly thought that was the correct answer to this scenario. She was ecstatic that she no longer had romantic thoughts about him, if this way the way she would have been treated after a bad hair day. Clark clearly didn’t understand women at all.
Someone came back on her line and asked if she wanted to leave a message.
“No, I don’t want to leave a message. I’ve already left a message. Never mind,” she said and hung up her phone. “Poor woman.”
“Who?” Clark asked.
“Your wife. She’s married to Mr. Right. Mr. Always Right.”
Clark gazed at her with a sick expression. Ooooh. Had she hit a nerve? He didn’t like that he got her little test question wrong. Ha! She bet it would be keeping him awake late that night, wondering how he could be honest with his wife without telling her that her hair looks awful. Good, serves Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes right, telling his wife that he didn’t like her new haircut. Every man knows *that* was the wrong answer. It’s in the rule book. Poor Clark. Poor future Mrs. Kent.Lois sat up in bed. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. No wonder Clark wanted her to auction herself off to the highest bidder.
If they were together, and she got a bad haircut, what would he say? Would Clark tell her to shave it off? Well, she could rest assured that he certainly wouldn’t be telling her it looked good, when it didn’t. Of course, would she believe a man who told her a god-awful haircut looked good when it clearly did not? No, she would know if a man was lying to her. That was her job. And she would hate it if a man said that he liked her haircut, when he didn’t… or couldn’t possibly, because she hated it. No, she would want honesty. Just don’t tell her that it looked better before… her heart ached. No woman wanted to hear that!
How could she accuse Clark of being Mr. Right, let alone Mr. Always Right, when she herself was Ms. Always Right?
***
“All right,” Perry said from the stairwell to the upper levels of the Daily Planet bullpen. “Let’s see if we can finish up this auction without any more interruptions. Everyone dig deep into their wallets, and remember that this is for charity.”
“Uh-huh… uh… yeah… I’ll call you back,” said Lois, hanging up her telephone. She turned to Jimmy. “Another murder. Another woman cut up the same way after the robbery of Claudius’s crown last night.”
“What is this world coming to?” Jimmy asked, shaking his head.
Lois’ eyes widened as the connection crystallized in her mind. “Jimmy! Robbery then murder. Robbery then murder!”
“Huh?”
She rolled her eyes, then hissed, “What if the robberies and murders are tied together?”
“
Excuse me?” Perry said loud enough to interrupt their conversation.
Lois looked up and saw that her boss was staring right at them.
“Could you guys take a break for maybe five minutes?” he asked them, his hands held out to all the people in the newsroom for the bachelorette auction.
What? The last time he tried to interrupt her work for some charity event in the newsroom all her co-workers got drugged on pheromones. She wasn’t really looking for a repeat performance of
those events. Work over charity any day, thank you very much, Chief.
“Thank you. All right. Let’s see who’s first on the auction block this morning?”
Yeah, I bet you couldn’t be quiet for five minutes if you tried anyway, Clark grumbled soft enough, she doubted he meant for her to hear it. But that was the problem with being in someone else’s mind, they always heard what you had to say.
Clark was still being a sourpuss from the week before, like it had been
his fault that Pacifonesia had been destroyed. As if his being alive and working on the story would have stopped some madman from terrorizing countries with his “death ray”.
Lois stood up. “I think I’m next, Perry,” she announced, walking over to her boss.
“Lois?” Jimmy gaped.
Perry lowered his voice to talk to her. “Now, Lois, I thought you didn’t want to be auctioned…”
“Let’s just make some money for the kids,” she whispered, straightening out her clothes and putting on a smile for all those men she would rather not date.
Are you trying to make some kind of point with this? Clark asked.
Lois could hear the annoyance in Clark’s voice. Good!
~Life goes on, Clark,~ she retorted silently. ~If you want us just to be partners and friends…~
“All right, gentlemen. Here she is, Miss Lois Lane, our prize reporter. So, let’s start the bidding off at say… uh… twenty dollars?”
A hand automatically went up. “Twenty!”
I never said that, Lois.Perry pointed at the man and started in with his auctioneer voice, “Hey, there’s twenty. Do I hear ‘twenty-five’?”
~You didn’t
not say it, Clark.~
I love you.~Do you, Clark?~
Richie raised his hand. “Twenty-five.”
Oh, not him, Lois. Don’t go on a date with him!“Twenty-five dollars. Who will bid a thirty? Bid a thirty? A thirty? A thirty dollars for her?”
“Thirty!” this was from Jimmy.
Lois smiled as she watched Jimmy give a patented glare towards Richie.
Way to go, Jimmy!“Thirty. We’ve got thirty dollars,” Perry continued. “Who’ll bid thirty-five? A five? A five? Bid a five, a thirty-five dollars for her?”
“One hundred dollars,” said Richie, holding up a hundred dollar bill.
Really starting to dislike that guy.Jimmy’s glare at the man turned to a sneer. He turned his apologetic eyes back to Lois. Obviously her broke partner wasn’t going to save her by outbidding Richie. She was with Clark on this. She didn’t want a date with Richie either. She focused her eyes on her photographer and gave a slight nod. She would back the bid, if need be.
“One fifty,” called Jimmy.
Thank God, Jimmy had understood her telepathic message.
“Way to go, Jimmy! We’ve got one fifty. Do I hear one fifty-five? Who will bid one fifty-five? A five? A five? Bid a five, a one hundred fifty-five dollars for her?”
Ready to date other men there, Lois? Clark murmured with a hint of euphoria. He must have been really worried that she had been serious.
~For the kids, Clark,~ Lois replied, allowing a small satisfied smile grace her lips. She had gotten what she wanted out of the auction: a jealous Clark admitting that he still loved her. What she would do to get that ghost of hers to get his mind off his self-pity and back on what was important.
Perry grinned at the crowd. “Richie, you aren’t going to let Jimmy steal her away for a mere one hundred fifty dollars, are you?”
Lois turned a sharp gaze at her boss.
“Tax deductible,” coaxed Perry.
Throw her to the sharks, why doesn’t he? Thanks, Chief.
Richie shrugged and Jimmy gloated.
The crowd announced its disappointment in the end of the bidding war.
“All right. One fifty going once,” said Perry, hitting his gavel against the metal railing of the stairs. “Going twice…”
“Ten thousand!” a new voice with an Irish accent called from across the room.
Lois turned to see someone she hadn’t seen in ten years. “Patrick?”
“Ten thousand?” Perry questioned.
“Patrick?” Jimmy mouthed with a stunned expression.
Patrick?***End of Part 17*** Part 18 Comments
