Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic A Future Reborn - (Lois' Story III) - part 3

previously on AFR -LS3 part 2

Lois' grim voice cut into the conversation. "It will cause untold devastation within hundreds of miles of its impact from the shock wave alone. It will raise such a cloud of dust and debris into the atmosphere as to block out the sun's rays for months, perhaps even years. It could lead to another ice age." Lois met Jenny's eyes. "It's what they call a planet killer."

Clearly aghast at what Lois had said, a tearful Jenny Olsen stood and rushed into Clark's arms. He stroked her hair as he calmed the shudders that ran through her body. Finally she pulled back a bit and turned to Lois.

"Is there nothing we can do? No escape? Get as far away from ground zero as possible?" She turned her anguished face back toward Clark. "Are we going to... die?"

"There is one hope." Lois' voice was calm. "Clark."


And Now...
A Future Reborn - (Lois' Story III) - part 3
by Tank


Lois watched the two young people closely. Clark was frowning. A teary-eyed Jenny had pulled back and was looking from Lois to Clark and back. She was clearly confused.

"Perhaps you should tell us your story," Lois said.

Clark led Jenny back to the couch. He sat next to her and stared at his feet for several moments. "There's not really that much to tell. I don't really have the answers."

He leaned back and sighed. "I'm not Jonathan and Martha Kent's natural son."

"I know you were adopted," Jenny volunteered. "You told me that a long time ago."

"Yeah, I was adopted, sort of." Clark smiled sadly at Jenny's confused look. "The story always was that I was the illegitimate child of a young niece, who wasn't prepared or capable of providing for a new life. So, since my parents weren't able to have children, they volunteered to take me in and raise me as their own."

Well, Lois thought, so far Clark's story paralleled her own husband's cover story, though she couldn't remember if it was a niece or a cousin that had supposedly birthed the baby Clark. Watching him, Lois knew that Clark was talking mostly to Jenny.

Clark hesitated. Lois could see the warring emotions flashing across his face. This was the crucial moment. "That was just a story. A story for the townsfolk and the authorities. It made it easier for my folks to legally adopt me." He paused again, running his hand trough his hair. "The truth is... I was a foundling."

"A what?" Jenny stared at Clark. "Do you mean that someone left you on the Kent's doorstep, like in some old movie?"

"Not exactly. My folks found me in Shuster's Field... in some sort of space craft." Clark immediately looked over at Lois. She knew he was looking for her reaction. She gave him none.

Jenny's voice betrayed her incredulity. "A space craft? What are you saying?"

Clark shrugged. "That was what they told me. They were coming home from a visit to the neighbor's when they saw what they thought was a shooting star blaze across the sky over Shuster's Field. Thinking it might be a meteor, they stopped and went to investigate. They found a strange looking craft half buried into the soft dirt of the field. I was inside."

Jenny was shaking her head in total confusion. "I don't understand. Who would put a baby in a rocket and shoot it into the sky?"

Clark couldn't meet her eyes. "Folks thought I might be some sort of Russian experiment."

'Experiment?"

"Well," Clark stammered a bit. "I'm not exactly... normal."

Jenny's bewilderment warred with her concern over her lover. Lois could see how torn and confused the young woman was. Lois made eye contact with Clark.

"I think you'd better show her."

"Wait!" Jenny interrupted, her tone suddenly angry. "I get it now. This is all some big joke, isn't it. The two of you cooked up this ridiculous story as a gag to play on poor gullible Jenny when she got back from Florida. How stupid do you think I am? Oh yeah, I'm going to believe that Clark came to earth as a baby in some sort of rocket ship. Well let me tell you. I don't find this at all fun - ny ..." Her tirade was cut off as her mouth dropped open. Clark was hovering in mid-air at least a foot and a half from the floor.

She jumped up from the couch and ran over to Clark as he slowly settled back to the floor. "Omigod." Her voice was a strangled whisper. She reached out and touched Clark.

Lois was waiting for the fear and awe to overcome Jenny, but was confused when she didn't see it. There definitely was some awe in the young woman's actions, but there was no fear. It seemed more like wonder and... excitement?

Jenny's voice was soft and husky. "That was so cool." A small smile slowly crept across her face. "Do it again."

"What?" Clark was clearly even more confused by Jenny's reaction than Lois was.

She motioned upward with her hand. "Do it again. Float, or levitate, or whatever it is." Clark glanced at Lois, then shrugged helplessly. He allowed himself to drift up till he was able to reach out and touch the ceiling. "How do you do that? How far up can you go? Can you do other stuff?" Jenny's questions came in rapid fire succession.

Lois bit on her lip to keep from laughing at the bewildered look on Clark's face. This certainly wasn't the reaction she had expected, and from his reaction, neither had Clark. She got up and led Jenny back to the couch.
Sitting next to the young woman, Lois waited for Clark to explain himself to his girlfriend.

Clark went into his 'aw shucks' posture and hemmed and hawed for a few moments. "Well, I don't really know how it is that I can fly..."

"You can fly! Like, for real? Like a bird, or a plane?" Jenny interrupted.

"Um, yeah. But I don't really know how it works. I just sort of will it to happen. Actually, flying was the last power I seemed to develop. It didn't happen till shortly after my eighteenth birthday."

"You have other powers? What are they?"

Clark began to pace. "Well, I'm real fast, and pretty strong. I can heat things up just by staring at them, and can cool stuff by blowing on it. I can see through most solid objects. There are some things that I can't seem to see through."

"Lead?" Lois chipped in.

Clark frowned as he considered her comment. "Yeah? Now that you mention it, lead did seem to be the common factor." Clark eyed Lois suspiciously. "How did you know? Beyond that, how did you know about me? You clearly mentioned 'powers' to me at the Planet earlier. How did you find out?"

Lois waved off the young man's questions. "That doesn't matter now. What matters is the one power you forgot to mention." Lois waited a couple of beats before she continued. "Invulnerability?"

Jenny gasped. "You're invulnerable? Does that mean nothing can hurt you?"

Clark rolled his eyes. "Why don't you ask Lois. She's the one with all the answers."

Jenny turned to Lois, expectantly. It was Lois' turn to roll her eyes. "He's pretty much indestructible, as he could tell you."

Clark gave her an accusing stare. "I don't know that, how can you know that?" He paced back and forth a couple of times, then turned back to her. "Again, how do you know about me? I never told anyone." He threw up his hands. "I never met you until a few months ago. For the last ten years you were supposedly in the Congo, lost." Suddenly a wary look came over Clark.

Jenny's head looked like one of those bobble head dolls the way it bounced back and forth between Lois and Clark. "What? What is it?"

A look came over Clark's face as if he was remembering something. "Before I came to Metropolis, I traveled around the world. There was this time a few years back when I was in central Africa. There was a huge fire outside of Brazzeville when I was there. It was a confusing time, total chaos, but I know a lot of people saw ... something. I left the next day so as not to arouse suspicions from any of the locals." Clark stared hard at Lois. "Were you there?"

Lois just raised a brow and allowed herself a small, wry, smile but refused to answer.

Clark nodded, more to himself. "Yeah, I bet that was it. You've probably been wondering why I looked familiar to you. I bet you caught me using my powers at work every now and then." He slapped himself in the head. "And I thought I was being so careful and clever. I knew I should have used the stove to heat up that pizza."

"Pizza? What pizza?" Jenny asked.

Lois put her hand on the woman's arm and shook her head when Jenny looked at her. She knew that the evening was in danger of devolving into an interrogation. A situation that she needed to avoid. There were more pressing issues to be dealt with.

Lois took a breath and stood up. It was time to take charge of the conversation. "Look, Clark, it doesn't matter what I knew or didn't. What is important is the crisis the world is facing and what you can do about it."

"Me!"

"I heard about your little escapade down in the subway this morning. It's obvious that you wish to use your gifts to help others." Lois was now the one pacing.

"Sure, I'd like to be able to help others and I do try whenever I can. But I have to be careful. Do you know what would happen if anyone ever found out about me?"

Lois had to hide a smile. "Actually I do," she said under her breath. Louder, she continued. "What? I suppose you think they'd lock you up for study and dissect you like a frog?"

Clark was sulky. "Of course not. There isn't a scalpel made that could cut my skin. But you realize that if the public knew about me that they'd never give me a moment's peace." He sighed. "Believe it or not, despite these incredible powers, I do crave a somewhat normal life."

Lois placed hand on his chest and smiled at him. "I know you do. But we have to find a way for you to do both. I'm afraid you'll have to go public in some guise. In about a week one heck of a big rock is going to collide with our planet causing untold devastation and killing millions, maybe billions." Lois' smile for him was one of understanding. "You're the only hope, Clark."

Clark turned away, then looked back over his shoulder at her. "What about the military's missile?"

Lois raised her brow. "You want to put your faith in a huge atomic bomb that will rain fallout in the form of deadly radiation all over the globe even if it's successful?"

"What can I do?" Clark shook his head. "That's an awful long way. I need to breathe like anyone else does, and though I can hold my breath a pretty long time, I can't hold it that long. And that's an awfully big rock. I may be pretty strong, but strong enough to handle that? I don't know." Clark spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

"Trust me, you can handle it." Lois ignored the skeptical look on his face.

"Besides," he said. "The government hasn't even acknowledged that there is a danger."

Lois nodded. "I know. That's something we'll have to discuss with Perry tomorrow. In the meantime we need to find a way for you to use your powers publicly, in the open. You need a disguise." The two young people just stared at Lois as if she'd lost her mind. Lois grinned at the two and gave Clark a wink. "It's time for this world to meet... Superman."

********************

Lois sat at her desk staring at but not seeing the words on her computer screen. Her mind was elsewhere. Time and circumstance had forced her hand. She hadn't wanted to have to create Superman yet, but the fates had intervened. They had no choice now. If the world was to survive, Superman had to exist.

Unlike when she'd first met the Clark from that first alternate dimension, she had been putting off bringing up the whole super powers thing to this Clark. Then, there had been an urgent need. Tempus had to be stopped, and to do that, Superman was needed. On this world there hadn't been that urgency. She could take the time to get to know the man before she had to throw his world into chaos. Time for him to get to know her well enough to trust her. At least that was what she had continued to tell herself as the weeks went by.

Now she wondered if there wasn't another reason. One that was a little more personal. It was hard enough on her heart to interact on a daily basis with the pleasant young man who was so like her own Clark when they first met. Would a Superman flying the skies of Metropolis make it that much harder to bear? Would the memories be too painful?

It was true that she had managed to survive for over five years without Clark when she was imprisoned in that first alternate world, but there she'd had no choice. Once she had been released from her confinement she had chosen to come to this world. Her own dear husband had thought her dead those many years. He had managed to move on with his life and had found comfort and happiness with another woman... another Lois. She couldn't bring herself to destroy what he and the other Lois had worked so hard to build together. It wouldn't have been fair to either of them. Even if she and Clark had been able to reconcile the situation, where would it have left the other Lois? The woman had lost her entire world, something that she could now fully appreciate. Didn't that Lois deserve her shot at happiness too?

So she had agreed to come to this world, and step into the shoes of a dead Lois Lane. But it had been a lot more difficult than she had thought. There had been so many confusing differences and twists that she had to be constantly on her guard as to not make too big a faux pas. The latest mystery, the one concerning Luthor, was a doozy. But all that could be dealt with. The hardest part was knowing that her Clark was only a switch on a 'magic box' away and not being able to do anything about it. She had agreed to this situation with her eyes open, knowing that there was no going back.

In the short time she'd been here she'd managed to make some friends. Cat had been a life-saver, and even she and Perry had managed to come to a friendly understanding. And there was Clark. She couldn't deny that there was an attraction there. She had been attracted to the first alternate Clark when they had been thrown together a couple of times. With this man it was different. He was younger, and was definitely involved with someone else. Clark had become a good friend, but he wasn't her Clark. In a way, it had been easier when she was in her cell. She'd had little human contact and there had been no constant reminders of what she was missing. She had her memories for company and the hope of being reunited if she ever got out of her incarceration.

Now she knew that the longed-for reunion was never going to happen. Clark had thought her dead. Wells told her it had been very hard for him, but eventually his heart had healed enough to let someone else in. Lois knew Clark well enough to know that he hadn't replaced her, he'd merely moved on. She needed to think of him that way. That he was, for all intents and purpose, dead to her and that she should move on. But he wasn't dead, and that made all the difference in the world.

Before she'd met and married Clark she'd have been perfectly happy with the life she lead in this world. She would have seen it as a good life. A few good friends and a job she was born to do. But now she knew that it would never be a complete life. There would always be a piece of her missing. The piece that had been Clark.

That was not to say that someday she might not find a man she could share some of herself with. A comfortable companion who could help ease the loneliness of an empty bed and a bruised spirit. She didn't think it likely. More like a dream. But people needed their dreams. You could take comfort in a dream.

"Hey, why the long face?" Cat had come up on Lois unnoticed.

Lois shrugged. "No reason, just thinking."

Cat gave her an understanding smile. "You still miss him, don't you."

It wasn't a question, and there was no confusion of who she meant. "Every day." Lois turned to face Cat. A sad smile on her face. "You don't share what we had and ever truly get over it."

Cat cocked a brow. "Apparently he did."

Lois' smile became wistful. "No, I don't think he ever did. Not really. He was confronted with a different situation. Our life together is a cherished memory for him. But he had the right to know love again. I haven't been forgotten, merely moved to a different corner of his heart."

"I don't know how you do it." Cat shook her head slowly. "I don't think I could be so understanding."

Lois shrugged. "What choice do I have? I'm glad he was able to find someone to ease his pain and heal his heart. I met the Lois from that other world. I liked her."

Cat chuckled. "Big surprise."

Lois answered her laugh with a small one of her own. "Actually, it is. I'm not sure I'd be someone I'd like to have as a friend. But this woman had suffered a lot, and she showed incredible strength in the face of daunting times. Remember, she lost her whole world."

"So have you, now."

"Yeah, but I'm a survivor, too." She swatted Cat on the arm. "Besides, I've got some good friends to help me through."

"And Clark?"

"He's a friend."

Cat leaned against Lois' computer and studied her for a few moments. "Your Clark found love and a new life with another Lois Lane. Who says you can't find the same with another Clark Kent?"

Lois bit on her lower lip, then sighed. "It's just not the same."

"Isn't it?"

*****************

Clark came out of the stairwell onto the newsroom floor. He'd surreptitiously aided a large pile up on the interstate on his way to work this morning. He'd managed to free several people from their twisted and burning vehicles without being seen. He'd set the unconscious individuals on the side of the freeway, making it look like they'd been thrown from their cars. Once the emergency services had arrived he had flown off.

Landing on the roof, too quickly to have been seen by anyone even if they'd been looking that way, he'd made his way down the stairs to the news floor. He figured he wasn't too late, and if Perry asked after him he was sure that Lois would have come up with some excuse for his tardiness.

In some ways it was nice that Lois knew about him, about his special abilities. She had known that he would occasionally be delayed by his need to perform some clandestine deed, and could cover for him like she had the other day.

He spied Lois at her desk. Cat was there and they were talking. The two women were very close, he knew that, but he wondered if Cat knew what Lois seemed to know. And that brought up the crux of his problem with Lois Lane. The woman knew too much. She knew things that she couldn't possibly know.

The more he'd thought about his actions in the Congo those few years ago, the more he was convinced that, even if she had seen him in action back then, she'd never have been able to make the connection to him now. Could she? Not only had she known about his powers, but he'd swear that she knew about the Nightfall asteroid, the true story behind it, before he had told her what he'd heard.

His brow furrowed as he approached the women. There was just no way that she could know these things before they even happened. There was something about Lois Lane that didn't quite ring true. As much as he considered her a good friend, in light of recent revelations, he thought it might be best to keep an eye on the all-knowing Ms. Lane.

Clark affected his best casual air. "Good morning, ladies. Not talking about me, I hope." He gave them a smile.

Lois rolled her eyes but Cat's grin was a bit unsettling. She ran a long fingernail across his chin. "Not exactly." She turned back to Lois. "Gotta go. I'll check back with you later." Cat rose and began to head back toward her desk. She stopped and blew Clark a kiss. "See ya, stud."

Clark frowned. "I know she's your friend, but is there something wrong with her?"

Lois just shook her head. "She just likes to push people's buttons. If you don't let it get to you, she'll get bored with it and leave you alone."

"Sure she will."

"Well, it might take a while." Lois gave her partner a searching look. "You look like crap. Didn't you get any sleep last night?" A grin snuck onto Lois' face. "The young Ms. Olsen must have missed you very much while she was away."

Clark rolled his eyes. "I wish. No, my sleep deprivation is mainly your fault."

"My fault?"

"Yes." Clark looked about, making sure that no one was close at hand. "It was all your talk about a - disguise. She's all excited about making me some sort of costume. She kept me up all night looking at sketches and discussing fabrics."

Lois had to bite her lip to keep from laughing out loud. "Well, aren't you glad that she's okay with it? That's a lot better than her being scared of you, or thinking that you're some sort of freak."

Clark frowned. "Why would she think that?"

Lois shrugged. "Not everyone would be so accepting of a strange visitor from another pla... place."

Clark stared at his blushing partner. He was sure that Lois had been about to say something else. But what? There was no denying that he felt some sort of connection to this woman, this Lois Lane, but she was a total mystery to him. There was more there than met the eye, much more. And until he figured out what, he'd best keep his wits about him.

Lois swatted Clark on the arm, bringing him out of his musings. "Come on - stud. We need to run this Nightfall story past Perry."