Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Wrong Clark (63/??)

Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found Here

Author’s Note: Due to the semi-graphic nature in one of the following scenes I am issuing a WHAM warning. If you want to skip that scene, I recommend jumping the second of the Italicized sections from where it slips from canon into something else and start reading again when the italics end. You’ll miss some information, but if you’ve read Another Lois you should be fine on plotting. If you haven’t read Book 1, that’s okay too; it’s just a reminder of what could’ve happened.

Part 62

Part 63

“All right. I’m going to grant this injunction, pending further scientific study,” Judge Diggs announced, writing down her findings. “Superman, you are hereby ordered to cease and desist any super activity until further notified. Do you wish to contest?”

Superman took a step back. “‘Pending further scientific study’?” he repeated, a waver to his voice. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you are to report directly to LexLabs and allow them to run whatever tests they deem necessary to see if you are the cause of this heat wave,” the judge said, signaling for guards to approach.

“Tests?” Superman shook his head as his shoulders slumped. “You want me to submit to testing?” His hands were shaking now as they ran back through his hair.

Lois wanted to jump out of her seat and embrace him, reassure him they would fight this, but Perry held her back.

“I’m sorry, Your Honor, but I cannot allow that,” Superman said, standing back to his full height.

“It really isn’t up to you, Superman,” the judge informed him. “You’re going whether you want to or not. I do have the means to make you comply with my judgment, Superman.” With another wave of her hand, the courtroom doors burst open, and a tall man with sandy blond hair entered. He held a baseball sized green glowing rock in his fist.

“Tempus!” Superman hissed, before collapsing into a heap on the floor, writhing in pain. “No!”

Clark sat up, suddenly awake, and hit his head on the ceiling. He fell back to the bed beneath him. His breathing was labored and he was beaded with sweat, neither of which had anything to do with the rise in temperatures due his unauthorized super activity. Was it just a nightmare about when Tempus had ruined his life during the mayoral elections, or a holdover flashback to Trask dosing him with Kryptonite last month in Kansas, or did he feel guilty about going back against his word?

He had broken Judge Diggs injunction again when he went and saved that commuter train the previous evening. Three hundred and twenty-five people from the train, and countless others from the Main Metropolis terminal, were still alive because of him.

The judge had trusted Superman not to break her injunction again. Perry had trusted him by affirming that Superman wouldn’t use his powers.

Clark and Lois had gone together to the terminal, only to be “separated” by the crowds of people running away. The momentary look of misery in her eyes after Superman pushed that train to a stop, felt akin to the disappointment Clark often saw whenever she looked at him. How could a man go against the person she had always known him to be?

Lois had been fighting all week for Superman, standing up for him, and here he was going against his word. How could he have done that to her? On the other hand, how could Superman have left those people die? As he told the City Attorney, life and death was more important than not breaking his word. Lois knew this, which was why she was still trying to find a way to save her hero.

Clark had known what was going to happen next. If the temperatures had gone up again, which they had, the judge and City Attorney would politely ask Superman to volunteer to leave Metropolis on his own. The judge had warned him that would happen, if he broke her injunction again. He didn’t want that, but Clark had given up being Superman when Luthor shot Lois. Now, he had volunteered to give up being Superman to save that part of himself. There was no way Clark could ever abandon Lois. He would just have to find a way to stuff that part of himself back inside, until Superman was free to return.

Despite being after one a.m., Clark knew there was no way, he would ever be able to get back to sleep. He needed to return to the office and help Lois figure out those heat displacement maps and save Superman. They had only until noon the next day, or actually today now, before Clark would have to hang up his uniform until Superman’s name could be cleared.

Since Superman was already slotted to leave, and because he knew he had nothing to do with the heat wave gripping the city, Clark took a two-minute shower and spun back into his clothes from earlier that day.

***

“Tempus!” Superman hissed, before collapsing into a heap on the floor, writhing in pain. “No!”

Tempus? Lois thought. A flash of an image crossed her mind of a laughing, bearded man in an electric blue suit with a silver vest and holster.

“You thought you could hide from me,” Tempus cackled with laughter. “You’ll never escape your destiny, Superman. We are linked, you and I. There can’t be one of us without the other.”

“No! Tempus, you’re wrong,” Superman said, between groans as he curled up into a ball.

“Stop it! Stop it!” Lois demanded, jumping to her feet. “You’re hurting him.”

The whole courtroom from the judge to the City Attorney to the people in the gallery, including Perry, burst into laughter; a slow, echoing laughter.

“We need a way to control this monster,” Tempus said, his eyes burning into hers. He held out the Kryptonite rock for her to see. “This little baby allows us to do that.”

Another image of bearded Tempus placing rock after green-glowing rock around a blue blanket covered brown-haired babe zipped across her mind.

“No!” Lois growled, kicking up her leg. She kicked Tempus’s hand, causing the Kryptonite to go flying. She didn’t care where it landed, only about Superman. She rushed to his side, wrapping her arms around him. “Superman? Are you all right?”

He reached up and cradled her chin in the palm of his hand. “I’m sorry, Lois, so sorry. I never meant to hurt you,” he said. “I don’t want to leave you, but I must. I can’t stay here any longer.” He stood up, placed his lips to hers in a gentle kiss, and then disappeared in a shatter of glass through the courthouse windows.

“No!” Lois cried.

“It’s going to blow!” Jimmy screamed, jumping onto the piece of Kryptonite that landed near him.

Suddenly, per his prediction, the whole building shook and filled with smoke.

“Clark?” Lois called, pushing her way through the smoke. “Perry? Jimmy? Cat?” Why in hell was she calling for Cat? She shook off this thought when she saw Jimmy, lying on a stretcher outside of an ambulance, coughing. She rushed to his side. “Jimmy?”

He was cradling his arm. “The Daily Planet,” he groaned. “It’s gone.”

She turned around and sure enough, it wasn’t the courthouse, which had blown up, but the Daily Planet.

Someone shook her shoulder; it was Clark. She raised her head from the physics book open on her desk. “I must have fallen asleep,” she told him. “I had the strangest dream.”

“It’s late, Lois. You should go home,” Clark murmured.

“There’s no time,” she said, standing up and piling physics books for Clark to look through. “Here. Take these over to your desk and…” She looked over at his desk, but it was bare, with the exception of a large cardboard box. Even his computer and telephone were missing. “What are you doing?”

“I’m leaving Metropolis,” Clark replied.

Lois groaned. “Clark, I’m a little too tired for jokes.”

“It’s no joke.”

“Leaving?” she repeated, trying to get her mind around that one word. It didn’t make sense. Clark couldn’t leave. “As in quitting?”

Clark looked embarrassed, so she must have hit the nail on the head. “I’m going to work for the Smallville Post, Managing Editor. I guess I’m not cut out for big city life.”

“Well, nobody’s cut out for big city life, Clark,” Lois said, dismissing his excuse and sitting back down. “That’s what makes it so exciting.”

“Look, I know that there’s no good time…”

“We’re in the middle of a crisis. Superman is on the line, and you’re out of here?” she accused.

“I just wanted to say ‘goodbye’,” Clark replied.

“‘Goodbye’? We’re partners!” she scoffed.

Clark sat down to gaze into her eyes. “You don’t need a partner, Lois. You never did.”

“Well, maybe not,” Lois had to agree with him. “But I was… starting to like having one.” Not just anyone, she liked having Clark as her partner. He had become her best friend. How could he leave? “I get it,” she continued. “It’s obvious, Clark. I mean, nobody gives up a great job in the middle of the night because they have the chance of the lifetime to edit the Smallville Gazette…”

“Post,” Clark corrected gently.

“Whatever! This isn’t about a job. Did you really think I hadn’t figured out what it was between you and Superman?” Lois asked him.

He shook his head, as panic rose in his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“You idolize the man, Clark. Now, he’s in trouble, and you share his pain,” she said, standing up and starting to organize her notes again. “Look, we all feel bad about Superman, but the only way to make it right is to fight like crazy. Don’t give up on him because he wouldn’t give up on us.”

“Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think you do, Lois,” Clark said, standing up as well.

“This is stupid, Clark. Go unpack your stuff, and let’s get to work,” she said, sitting back down and starting to flip through her physics book again.

Clark just stood there, staring at her.

“You’re not a quitter,” she reminded him.

He turned towards his desk and picked up his box of stuff.

She watched as he slowly returned to her side, cupped her jaw in the palm of his hand, and placed a soft, yearning kiss on her lips. It was just like the kiss Superman had given her in her dream.

“Goodbye, Lois,” he said and walked out of her life.

Months passed and neither Clark nor Superman were ever seen or heard from again. Her discovery of a leak in the LexCorp Nuclear Plant, being the cause of the heat wave, shut the plant down and temperatures in Metropolis to return to normal.

Still neither man returned.

Soon, it became as if neither of them had ever existed. Only Lois could remember how Clark would get that sheepish smile whenever she caught him gazing at her with love, or how she felt in Superman’s arms as he flew her above the city and away from harm. James Olsen disappeared, only to be replaced with his cousin Jimbo. Try as she might, she still couldn’t shake that feeling that something, or someone, was missing in her life.

Late one night, she was home, unwinding from another grinding day at the office, when there was a knock on her door. She had ordered Chinese, so she hadn’t thought anything about it. Opening the door, while looking through her wallet, she found herself faced with Ralph, not the deliveryman. “Ralph? What are you doing here?”

“There’s been a break in the dock strike. Perry wanted me to come get you,” the man said.

That didn’t make sense. Perry would have phoned. Maybe he had while she was on the phone with the take-out place. She turned away from the door. “What kind of break? Let me just go grab my jacket,” she said, reaching for her coat draped over the arm of her sofa. “Did they finally reach a deal?” Hearing her door close, she turned back around to find Ralph right behind her, a lustful look in his eye.

“I lied,” he said, pushing her down onto the sofa, his mouth pressed against hers. He tasted of cigarettes, bad breath, and alcohol.

“Get off me!” she tried to yell only to have his tongue forced inside her mouth. She pushed him off, but he pulled her with him to the floor, rolling her over and banging her head into the leg of the coffee table. She felt numb and unable to move as he held her hands over her head with one hand and tore open her shirt with his other hand.

“No,” she groaned, trying to work up the energy to shout. There was someone she used to call whenever she was in trouble, wasn’t there? “Don’t.”

Ralph, his legs between hers, shifted his position enough to push up her skirt up. “I know you want this as much as I do.” His yellow teeth grinned at her.

“No,” Lois whispered. “Don’t.” The more she spoke the more her head hurt.

He started to unbuckle his belt.

“Super…” she said, more forcibly. Her head felt like it was going to explode. “Superman.”

“Yeah, baby, I’m a super man. See, I told you that you wanted it,” Ralph crowed as her front door slammed open and the hall light bathed them in brightness, blinding her.

“Help,” Lois called out to whoever was there, but her voice sounded weak and rough. “Help!”

There was a thud, and her hands were free and she could breathe again. She grabbed her blouse and scooted back away from the door into a sitting position.

“Hey, man, that’s no way to treat a classy lady like Lois,” Jimbo’s voice screamed at Ralph. Maybe he hadn’t screamed but with the ringing in her ears, it sure sounded like he had.

“Buzz off, Olsen. Lois is mine! I saw her first. She thinks I’m a super man. She said so herself,” Ralph yelled back. “She wants me.”

“No,” Lois said again, covering her ears from the screaming and the pain.

“You heard the lady say ‘no!’” Jimbo said.

There was another thud and the front door slammed.

“Lois, sweetie, you okay?” Jimbo’s voice said from beside her.

“No, I’m not okay, Jimmy,” she growled, pushing him away. “And I’m not your ‘sweetie’!”

“Of course, you are, Lois. You are wonderful, strong, and intelligent and the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. You deserve to be worshipped, high upon a pedestal with flowers strewn at your feet,” Jimbo said with a breathy tone to his voice.

Had everyone, but her, gone crazy? Lois wondered, blinking her eyes and trying to focus them on her assistant.

“I’ll call the police and the ambulance. You’ve been hurt, my love. You deserve the best treatment possible,” Jimbo said, rushing to the phone. “That scum needs to be locked away for a hundred years and his privates fed to crows.”

She blinked a few more times and Jimbo came into focus. Her gaze slid away from him to a bouquet of flowers lying on the floor. Had Jimbo come to woo her? Everyone had gone crazy!

“No, no, Jimmy,” Lois said, trying to get to her feet.

Instantly he was back by her side.

She pushed him away. “I can do this.”

“Of course, my love. I just want to help you. I’ll do anything to make you feel better. Anything,” he insisted. “Tell me what to do.”

Lois pointed to her kitchen. “Ice, for my head.” That would get him away long enough for her to stand.

“Right away, sweetie,” he said, dashing off.

She bent her knees and turning on to them, raised herself up to a kneeling position. That was when she noticed her skirt and tugged it down from her hips. She sniffled as she wiped her wet eyes. She wouldn’t cry. She would not cry. She pushed up to her feet, knocking off her heels as she did so, not feeling stable enough to walk in them. A sob caught in her throat. She wouldn’t cry.

Jimbo returned with a bag of ice.

“Thanks, Jimmy,” she said, taking the bag with her free hand and holding it to her head. “I’m going to bed.”

“You might have a concussion, Lois sweetie. We should take you to the hospital,” he said, looking like he wanted to touch her head, but thankfully resisted.

“No. No hospitals,” she insisted. “No one is to ever know about this. This didn’t happen. Got it?” She could just hear what the newsroom would say about the great Mad Dog having lost her bite, or worse Ralph having gotten a bite of her.

“Got it,” Jimbo said with a nod.

There was a knock at the door and Lois backed away, her eyes wide. Had Ralph come back?

Jimbo went to the door and glanced through the peephole. “Who is it?”

“Delivery! Chen Fang’s Palace,” a voice called.

“Dinner,” Lois whispered with relief.

“I’ve got this, sweetie. Why don’t you go freshen up?” Jimbo said, reaching for his wallet.

Lois nodded. Backing into her bedroom, she closed the door. She locked and bolted her bedroom door, and pressed a chair up against the knob. Then she peeled off her clothes, stepped into the hottest shower of her life, and started to cry.

There was a flash of light. Lois blinked her eyes and she was staring into the eyes of a lanky man in a hotel uniform. Gasping, she glanced down, but she was no longer in the shower but in a pretty, white lace dress. Jimbo stood at her side in a dark suit. He had a rose boutonniere in his lapel.

“Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Olsen. On behalf of the Lexor Hotel, let me introduce you to our honeymoon suite,” the man said. “Would you like to carry your bride over the threshold for your video memories?”

Mr. and Mrs. WHAT? Lois looked at Jimbo, and he smiled sheepishly. She turned back to the bellhop. “We’ll skip that step.”

Instead, she and Jimbo walked into the suite, hand in hand.

“This is it, honey,” Perry’s voice said from beside her. She felt his arm encircle her shoulders.

Lois turned to see that she hadn’t walked into the honeymoon suite, as she had thought, but into the office. They stood in front of the bank of televisions with Jimbo to her other side. It was tuned in to LNN, and there was a countdown with 5… 4…3… 2… 1… seconds left.

Silence. They were all waiting for something to happen, something momentous.

Perry turned to her and grinned. “It didn’t hit.”

Jimbo started whooping in cheers.

In a daze, Lois heard more cheers from outside. She walked to the windows and saw a crowd, gathered in the streets looking skywards. They were embracing each other and dancing.

What didn’t hit?

She turned back to Perry and saw that someone had handcuffed him to a chair. Two armed gunmen dragged Lex’s formally dressed and inert body into the conference room.

“Sit down, Missy,” the angry looking woman said, pointing her gun at Lois.

Lois decided to comply. They handcuffed her wrists to Lex’s with her back to his. “Lex, are you okay?”

“Shot, shoulder,” he mumbled, barely audible.

“He needs a doctor,” Lois called to the gunmen.

“He should’ve thought of that before he tried to escape,” the leader retorted, before shutting the door as he left.

“Luthor, you idiot! Do you always have to think of yourself?” Perry grumbled.

“I wasn’t thinking, Mr. White. Lois. I was thinking of Lois,” gasped Lex.

Lois couldn’t see how he was thinking of her by escaping and leaving her still a hostage.

“Lois,” Lex whispered, tilted his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Shhhh, Lex. Save your strength,” Lois whispered. She had to think of a plan to get them to escape.

“Lois, darling, I…” Lex coughed. “I… I… love… you.”

Her eyes widened. Lex loved her? Lex Luthor? Third richest man in the world? Loved her? Lois Lane? No, she wasn’t interested in him like that. Well, not really. Sure, they had been dating on and off since they met before Dr. Baines captured Lois and Jimbo’s cousin, Jimmy, in the Messenger Hanger, and Jimmy was killed and Lois hospitalized, but… love? No, no, that wasn’t right. She didn’t love Lex Luthor. She hardly knew him. Anyway, hadn't she just married Jimbo?

“Lex?” she nudged him with her shoulder. “Lex?”

His head rolled forward and he didn’t speak.

“Perry?” Lois gasped, looking over at her boss as tears filling her eyes.

Perry scooted his chair closer to Lois and reached his hand to Luthor’s wrist, twisting Lois’s arm painfully in the process, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want Lex to be dead. She didn’t want any more people to die.

The Chief dropped Lex’s wrist and shook his head. “I’m sorry, honey.”

Lois closed her eyes in a wince.

Lex Luthor’s last thought was of her, was that he loved her. He wouldn’t have even been at the Planet that night if they hadn’t had a date to the opera. She had killed him. Not directly, of course, but indirectly, Lex was dead because of her.

Someone shook her shoulder; it was Clark. She raised her head from the physics book open on her desk. “I must have fallen asleep,” she mumbled. “I had the strangest dream.”

“It’s late, Lois. You should go home,” Clark murmured.

“There’s no time,” she said, standing up and piling physics books for Clark to look through. “Here. Take these over to your desk and…” She looked over at his desk and saw a cardboard box sitting on top. Dread filled her. Her dream was coming true. “What are you doing?”

Clark shook his head, confused. He pointed toward the stairwell. “I’m going to meet a source, and maybe get some food,” he said, returning to his desk and picking up the box. “I shouldn’t be too long. Do you want anything?”

Lois grabbed the box out of his hands. “What’s this? Are you trying to slip out in the dark of night? Not even say goodbye as you disappear into the ether,” she accused. “Well, I won’t let you. Not this time, Smallville. I don’t care if you don’t think you’re cut out for the big city life, or if they’ve made you Managing Editor of the Metropolis Star, you’re not leaving.”

He took the box out of her hands and set it down on her desk. “Hey. Hey. Calm down. What’s going on?” he asked, caressing her cheek, ending by cupping her jaw, just as he had before he had kissed her goodbye in her dream.

She batted away his hand. “Don’t touch me!” she screamed.

Clark held up his hands. “Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry, Lois. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I can’t lose you, too,” she said, hitting his chest. “I can’t lose you both again. I can’t.” The tears she had been holding at bay, since seeing that box, flooded out of her. “I can’t.”

“Whoa, there, Lois,” Clark murmured, and surrounded her with his arms, pulling her to his chest to stop her from hitting him. “I’m not going anywhere, and most certainly not to the Met Star.” He ran a hand over her head. “And Superman isn’t going anywhere either. We’ll find out the real culprit and clear Superman’s reputation, I promise. If anyone can do it, you can.”

Lois melted into his chest. It felt so good to have Clark hold her again. It had been so long, but he had lied to her. Just as Ralph had lied to her to get into her apartment. No, Clark wasn’t like Ralph. He would never treat her like that, but still Clark hadn’t told her the truth.

She had only just gotten the information back from her source at the Veteran’s Administration on where Jerome Kent, Jonathan Kent’s uncle, had been stationed in Italy during WWII. Clark couldn’t leave. She hadn’t yet begun to search in Italy for his past. It was just too large a country, with way more Kents living there than she had imagined, and that was only if Jerome Kent had had time to marry his sweetheart before being killed. It was entirely possible that Clark’s full name was Clark Jerome Kent something else, or Jerome Clark Kent XXX. This would be so much easier if he would just tell her what she wanted to know.

“You’re just tired. You’ve been working yourself to the bone,” Clark said, reassuring her. “Let me get you something, anything you want.”

She looked up at him. “You.” No! She couldn’t fall for Clark’s charms again. She had been doing so well, too, resisting this attraction between them.

A smile slipped onto his lips. “You already have me.”

“Don’t go. Don’t leave me. Please. I know that Superman is your best friend and you two have this…” She wasn’t quite sure how to describe it. “Connection, but I need you more.” Wow, Lane, you big puddle of water, great way to have a backbone, she told herself. “For the article… Investigation. We need to save Superman and find the real cause of the heat.” Her brow furrowed. Wait. There had been something about that in her dream. She reached for it with her brain but it was like trying to take hold of fog.

Clark sat her down in her chair and took a seat in the chair next to her desk. “Lois, you can do this. You and I both know that you don’t really need a partner.”

The words came to her lips without her able to stop them. “Well, maybe not, but I was starting to like having one.” That was what she had said in her dream, when Clark had left her. He kissed her and left… never to be heard from again. Then Ralph… and Jimbo… and Perry… and Lex… “No!” she screamed, grabbing her head. “I know this. You’re leaving me. I know you are. I just know it. Stop lying to me.”

Clark sighed. “I’m not lying to you, Lois. You’re acting hysterical,” he said, standing up and taking his box off her desk. “Go home and get some sleep. I’ve got a source to meet.”

“Yeah, then. What’s in the box?” she said, grabbing it out of his hands once more. “All the personal stuff from… from… from…” She glanced over at Clark’s desk. His computer, telephone, and lamp were still in place. His mug of pens and pencils, his calendar, and his pencil sharpener, all still littered his desk. Notes still were stuck to his computer monitor. His notebooks and files still covered his blotter. His desk wasn’t empty as it had been in her dream. She glanced down at the box in confusion. If he hadn’t cleared off his desk, what was in the box?

He pressed his lips together in annoyance. “If you must know, some stuff I was planning on donating to the Fifth Street Mission.”

Lois opened the flaps of the box and peered inside. She stuck her hand inside and pulled out the maroon tie he had been wearing when they had gone to the Bureau 39 warehouse. “Clothes?”

“Yes, clothes, Lois. All those old ties that you, Cat, and everybody else, apparently hate. A jacket, some slacks, and a couple of shirts,” he said, pulling the box out of her hands once more. “Am I free to go now?”

“You’re not leaving me?” she said, in disbelief. It had all been a dream, a horrible, horrible nightmare. “You’re not leaving me!” she squealed and wrapped her arms around him.

“I may do some stupid things, Lois,” Clark whispered into her hair. “But that’s never going to be one of them.”

Now that Lois knew that he wasn’t really going to leave her as he had in her dream, she calmed down and stepped away. Now that she knew that Clark wasn’t leaving, she knew the other stuff, Ralph attacking her, marrying Jimbo, the world-ending cataclysmic event, and Lex dying weren’t going to happen either. It was all a dream… all a horrible, horrible…

Her brow furrowed. “Your source isn’t with a LexCorp Nuclear Plant employee, is it?” Lois asked as something, a mere hint of a memory of her dream, flitted across her mind.

Clark looked interested. “No, why? Have you heard something?”

Hesitantly, she shook her head. “No, no. Just something, I…” She shook her head with determination. “It’s nothing.”

“Lois, your hunches aren’t ‘nothing’,” he reminded her.

She waved him off. “Go. Meet your source. I’m going to look into something.”

As Clark started walking towards the stairwell with his box, his steps faltered and stopped. “Lois, promise me you aren’t going to down to the LexCorp Nuclear Power Plant or call Luthor while I’m out,” he asked, before adding as an afterthought. “Please.”

Lois flicked her hand in the air again. “Don’t be ridiculous, Clark, it’s 2 a.m., I’m not calling Lex at this hour.”

He took another step and stopped. “Or go to the LexCorp Nuclear Plant?”

She rolled her eyes. “Or go to the LexCorp Nuclear Power Plant,” she echoed snidely. “Dad.”

“Thank you. I’ll be back before long, Sweet Pea.”

“Stop trying to come up with a nickname for me; it isn’t going to happen,” she called over her shoulder as she sat down. He didn’t respond, and she glanced towards the exit, but he was already gone.

*

Clark slowed down at the base of the stairwell to walk through the lobby at normal speed. He saw Herb waiting on a bench, next to the closed newsstand, reading that evening’s edition of the Daily Planet.

Clark had already decided to once again forego his nightly patrol and just fly over the city to visit some of those hot spots Jimmy had discovered. Maybe with this new heat map Superman could discover the source of the heat. He had just finished straightening up his desk and grabbing that box of donations, which he had brought to work earlier in the week, when Herb walked in from the stairwell and waved. It had completely slipped Clark’s mind that he had been in this new dimension six months now and to expect Herb’s next visit. Thankfully, Wells had given him time to let Lois know he was heading out.

After her reaction when Clark woke her up, he wondered if he should have just let her sleep. No, then she would have awoken to find him missing, so he was glad he did. She was nervous wreck about the city of Metropolis forcing Superman to leave, especially for a crime they both knew could have nothing to do with the Man of Steel. At least, he reassured her that he wasn’t deserting her. He hoped she didn’t do anything rash while he was out talking with Wells. He’d make sure to keep their meeting short.

“You were wearing this the first time we kissed, Chuck,” Lois’s voice whispered from above.

Clark stopped in front of the time-traveler and held up a finger to ask him to wait a moment. He tilted down his glasses and looked up through the different floors to the bullpen.

In her hand, Lois still held the plain maroon tie she had repeatedly told him that she hated. She leaned back in her chair and ran it through her fingers. “I can’t believe you were going to throw it out.”

The side of Clark’s mouth tilted upward as the vice-grip around his heart loosened.

She might never admit it to his face, but Lois missed kissing him, too.

***End of Part 63***

Part 64

What does all this information mean for Lois? Comments?