I know...everyone is positively sick of Alt-Clark finding his Alt-Lois, right? I guess it's almost impossible to put a new spin on this topic...but I like a challenge!!!
The standard disclaimer applies. I do not own any rights to Lois & Clark, or any of the other characters which solely belong to D C Comics and Warner Bros.
Jungle Love
Chapter One
The Alternate Universe – March 2003
Brazzaville, Republic of Congo
Lois couldn’t believe that the war was finally over. Agreements had been signed, the “rule of law” would be restored. Ten years of living in many different refugee camps, always on the run, fighting and bloodshed all around her, had hardened her. Companions had been killed, raped, died of illness. Contacts to the “outside world” had disappeared in the middle of the night. Just her dumb luck that she somehow lived through it!
Now it was time to find her life’s purpose again. It might actually be safe to try to go home. Home. Metropolis. Where rumors of her death had been greatly exaggerated. Where she would have one helluva first-hand account of the horrors of the Republic of Congo. Not exactly the story she came there to write, though.
She had read that Luthor was dead. His goons had made sure that she never got back to the ‘States. Her family had been threatened, had she published the story she traveled to Brazzaville to write. Luther Corp was supplying weapons to the rebels. She had been lead on a wild goose chase, the primary purpose of which was to get her out of the United States.
She let herself be censured, simply because it was safer for everyone she loved. It broke her heart to let them think she was dead. Rather than murder her, she had been stripped of her identity – no passport, Visa, driver’s license, no credit cards, nothing to verify to anyone that Lois Lane had ever existed. Left in an unfriendly, hostile, war-torn country, her return airplane ticket destroyed. Truly a punishment worse than death.
She was Linda, to anyone that asked her. No last name, not that it mattered or that she needed one. How the heck could she leave this God-awful place with no way to verify her identity? Even if she had the money to buy a ticket, she would have to produce a photo I.D. just to pick up her ticket and board the plane. What a disaster. Ten years of her life sucked up in a black hole!
The infrastructure in the Republic of Congo left quite a bit to be desired. Communication lines were poor. While there were some cellular phone services, no one but the extremely weathly had the internet or a computer in their home. She had been able to read a few Brazzaville newspapers, particularly Le Choc. She liked the name of that paper because it reminded her of her love for chocolate. Funny how something so silly can remind you of home. Le chocolate. Oui oui!
It was also a blessing of sorts that she had been forced to take 4 years of French in high school, since English and other language translators were non-existent. She found it easier to read than to speak at first, but after 10 years she was quite fluent.
Brazzaville had been named the world’s worst city to live in. Well, a decade of civil unrest will do that to a place, huh? Even after the Ninja rebels ceased their warring with the government, there were still many injustices occurring. Famine, disease, AIDS, rape. This was not a woman-friendly place. The average Congolean woman lived to be 50. Of course the life expectancy for a man was 47, mostly because of the many wars.
How she missed the “peace and quiet” of Metropolis. Metropolis to Brazzaville was like comparing some back-water town in say, Kansas, to Metropolis. “Hmmmm”, she wondered to herself, “why did I pick Kansas? I’ve never been there. Oh yeah, that’s where that Superman/Clark Kent that I read about is from”. Guess that full-body picture of him in Le Choc had made quite an impression! She smiled, something she hadn’t done in a long time. Her facial muscles silently thanked her.
OK, how to get home? Write to Lucy or her parents (if they hadn’t moved in 10 years, a big IF) and tell them to wire her money to buy an airplane ticket to Metropolis? (Even still, could they find her birth certificate too so she could get a Visa and a passport?)
Or should she try to find an internet café and sign up for a web-based E-mail address and – then what?- send the Daily Planet general mailbox an E-mail message? They will probably think she’s a - what do they call it? spammer. That’s it. The world had changed in 10 years, and the internet and Email was the primary form of communication. Le Choc had said that “spamming was the 21st century’s bad version of a door to door salesman”. She couldn’t wait to experience it firsthand. Right about now, any kind of mail – electronic or otherwise…would be a welcome friend.
Well, it was worth a try. Tomorrow, she’d try to get to an internet café, stand in line for hours, and look up the Daily Planet’s web site. She just hoped there was someone still working there who knew who she was. She would also try to search on-line for her parents’ and Lucy’s addresses, as a back-up plan. Omigod! What if her parents were no longer alive? Why hadn’t that thought occurred to her before? A sickening feeling came over her. She needed to go home. ASAP.
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Metropolis, New Troy
Clark looked at his watch. Oops. Due in Smallville 45 minutes ago. Ha, no problem, there was a one hour time difference and he could get there in less than 10 minutes. Lana’s baby boy was due to be christened, and he was to be the Godfather. He pondered on the irony of his being the Godfather, when he was almost the father, instead. But he was happy she had married Pete and he was happy to be part of an extended family to their son, Christopher. Ma and Pa would be there too. He couldn’t wait to bite into one of Ma’s freshly baked apple pies. Family stuff kept him grounded.
He made the mistake of looking at her picture again before he flew off. The picture that had been taken of her in the crowd, back in 1996, that he had had enlarged. Blurry as it was, every time he looked at it his heart skipped a beat. In the seven years that had passed since he last saw her, he had tried to move on. He didn’t date anyone, but he kept busy with freelance writing for the Planet and his Superman duties. He resigned himself to the fact that he was, in his heart and soul, a one-man woman. Even if the woman was not accessible to him.
Herb had stopped by right before the new Millennium. He had promised Clark that he would look for “his” Lois, but the research he had done indicated that there was no way he could survive in the Congo. A Caucasian older man with a bowler hat in the middle of Ninja rebel fighters? He suggested to Clark that if it was meant for him to be with “his” Lois, it would have to happen by the hand of fate, not by the hand of Wells.
Somehow, he felt that Herb actually knew more than he had disclosed. After all, he could travel into the future and would know if Lois reappears or not!! Herb’s ominous comment about “fate” indicated to him that he was afraid of changing history by "spilling the beans". The Lois-beans!
Clark had done his own cursory search, but he was bound by his agreement with the United Nations not to get involved in a country’s civil unrest. Like Herb, a flying man in bright blue spandex in a war zone was not an easy thing to hide. His Superman persona existed to save lives, and he was bound by oath not to get involved in politics. And the unfriendly terrain of the area made it difficult to search for one lone woman.
In his mind, he had given up on “his” Lois being alive. He also knew that “Clark’s” Lois could never be his. So he had conjured up a fantasy Lois, one that existed just for him. He didn’t have to share her with anyone. She was already in love with him. They complemented and completed each other.
He shared his horror stories with her after a particularly challenging rescue mission. An entire conversation took place in his mind. She provided comfort to him when he felt he wasn’t fast enough, or clever enough.
When a part of him wanted to curl up in the fetal position and cry for hours, she saved his sanity and his soul, and enabled Superman to be there for the next tragedy. He drew his strength from her.
He could feel her warm body cradled in his arms when he slept at night. His dreams of being with her were so vivid he actually felt he was communing with her on a higher level. He hated waking up in the morning, because that was when he had to say goodbye to her.
He lived his days one at a time, and his bed became his Fortress of Solitude, where he could be one with the woman he would always love. There was a part of him that realized that some would think he was crazy!
It was OK to be an 8 year old child who had “pretend friends” and carried on conversations with them in their rooms at night by themselves. But when you are in your late thirties, it seemed to be quite pathetic. Nonetheless, it kept him going. Superman? No, he was Super-Fool-In-Love.
Nonetheless, he didn’t focus on or plan on Lois showing up alive some day. He just knew that there was a connection, real or imagined, between his soul and hers.
TBC
