In a Better Place, from part 8...
***
“Ok,” he said. “Let’s go to my office. You tell me what you’re doing here. Why I keep finding you. And I’ll show you everything I’ve got on the Time-Traveler.”
“You’ll...” Lorraine’s mouth dropped open, the man beside her gasped and tightened his arm around her.
“You’ve got information on Tempus?”
“Sure,” Silas said, humoring them, barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “You get what you want. I get what I want. Deal?”
He was pleased by their quick, silent nods of consent. Maybe he was finally getting the upper-hand here. He crooked his head towards the fifth floor hallway and his office. “Follow me.”
And now...
***
“I told you we should have had him declared a criminal. An enemy of the state.” Hank marched into the room and threw the latest committee report onto the table between them.
“Hello yourself, dear,” answered Madge, unperturbed. “Long day?”
“Long, senseless meeting in which it was once again concluded that no one can find HG Wells anywhere. That man has vanished.”
Madge chewed thoughtfully on her brownie. Her really good brownie. Andrus must have been reassigned again. “Do you think Tempus got him? Before he arrived at EPRAD?”
Hank sank wearily to the sofa next to her. She held out the other half of her brownie and he took it.
“Maybe,” he said with his mouth full.
“I know Tempus is a terrible man,” Madge said, her heart aching for her young assistant. The lines of strain in his face were growing more noticeable by the hour. “But he’s never been an out and out murderer. He enjoys the game too much for that.”
“He’s not the only villain here,” said Hank darkly. “If I’d had my way last year, we would have had Herb locked up. Or at least under house arrest. That way, when we needed him, like now, we’d have him.”
“I know your feelings on Herb,” Madge said quietly. “And they are not... unpopular.”
Hank closed his eyes and dropped his head back against the headrest. “He started this. He couldn’t leave well enough alone. Couldn’t just travel and see the worlds without picking up Tempus- of all people. Telling him everything there is to know about dimension hopping and time-travel.”
“You know how clever Tempus is. And for all his books smarts, how... unclever... Herb is. He was tricked. And he has apologized many times over.”
“I don’t care.” Hank’s eyes, wide open now, stared hard into hers. “And I want him found. If we can’t stop this, if he can’t help us...”
“I honestly don’t see how he could,” Madge interjected. “I’ve been round and round on it, and I don’t see what he could do that we haven’t.”
“Then he should be here,” Hank said simply. “To watch it all go up in smoke. See the demise of Utopia. He was instrumental in bringing it about.”
“There isn’t going to be any demise-” Madge began.
“Don’t,” Hank cut in. “Just... don’t, ok?”
She reached her hand across the space that separated them. He grabbed it and held on. “How about you go home? Be with Elise. If anything changes overnight, I’ll call you.”
For a moment she thought he might refuse. “I think I will,” he said finally. “You’ll call?”
“You know I will,” she assured him.
“And when Wells turns up...?”
Madge smiled, taking small comfort in his choice of words. ‘When’ Wells turns up, not ‘if.’ For all his pessimism, Hank still held to a thread of hope just as she did.
“I will tell him you would like to have a word with him personally.”
Hank smiled. His first genuine smile in three days. “You tell him I have a jail cell with his name on it.”
“Utopia has no jail cells,” she called to him as he moved across the room and pulled open the door. “No need for them, remember?”
“Maybe that’s part of our problem, Madge. Did you ever think of that?”
“I don’t see how zero crime is a problem,” Madge protested, rising to her feet.
“Zero crime, zero criminal minds. Nothing but good citizens raised on the ideals of Superman and Lois Lane. People who know only truth and justice. Who can’t imagine evil. Can’t see it coming. Can’t protect themselves.”
“They don’t have to,” Madge said in a low voice. “They have us for that.”
“Are we really any better?” he asked gently. “The scientists with Tempus’s ring are completely baffled. How are they supposed to figure out how it works, if they can’t even imagine how or why a person would use such a thing? Same with the soul tracer programmers. If they can’t fathom anyone trying to outsmart the device, how can they build it to guard against that?”
Madge pressed her hands together firmly under the sleeves of her robe. She was trembling, shaken by Hank’s words. By the horrible truth she recognized in them. Still, she didn’t want to flinch, didn’t want Hank, or Petal, who now hovered uncertainly in the doorway, to see her as anything but rock solid and completely assured.
“Tempus has not won,” she said clearly. “And he will not. Not while I have breath in my body.”
Hank smiled, the emptiness in his eyes replaced with a warm affection. “When Wells shows up, tell him I’m building that jail cell with my bare hands.”
“And I’ll search the basement files for a sizable lock,” she answered him.
And she would, she vowed to herself. Right after she saved the world.
***
“Cozy,” said Lois, looking around at the small, bare office Silas had led them to.
“And it isn’t red, blue, or yellow,” added Clark, a rush of gratitude coming over him. “Thank God.”
“Yeah, the color scheme downstairs does kind of... grate,” Silas answered with a low laugh.
“Then why allow it?” Lois asked. “Why doesn’t your family do something about it? And about the...” Clark noticed the look she was giving him. “Tea towels and toothbrushes and...”
“Wind chimes,” he filled-in weakly, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, she was grinning at him. “Enjoying this?” he asked between clenched teeth.
“A tiny bit,” she breathed.
“We would love to do it differently,” Silas said, moving into the room and behind his desk. The space was too small for the three of them to stand in front of it.
“Then why don’t you?” Clark asked, his curiosity genuine.
“As much as they belong to us, Clark Kent and Lois Lane belong to the world. We have to share them, even when it includes...wind chimes,” he said with a shrug. “It’s been hard learned, but over the years we’ve decided to choose our battles. To only fight for what we feel needs protecting.”
“For example?” Clark prompted, lowering himself into the chair across from the Silas.
Silas looked back at him thoughtfully. “Why should I tell you?”
He couldn’t think of a good answer to that, besides the obvious. And one glance at Lois told him all he needed about her feelings on that option. Not yet. Or... ever, from the look she was sending his way. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “We’re new here. Trying to find our way. I guess I would just appreciate.... knowing.”
He spent a long, uncomfortable minute under Silas’s stare, until Lois settled the matter for them. She leaned in, drawing Silas’s eyes onto her. “*We* would appreciate it very much,” was all she said. And despite the war of reluctance on Silas’s features, Clark saw the moment he was snagged in her web, dangling and helpless. Something he knew a little bit about, himself.
“For example,” Lois prompted Silas again, this time with a small encouraging smile.
“You won’t find Jonathan or Martha Kent impersonators,” Silas blurted immediately. “They’re true heroes, but during his lifetime Clark Kent felt strongly their privacy should be respected, even long after he and they were gone.”
Clark shifted a bit uneasily, not sure how he felt hearing both himself and his parents referred to in the past tense. As if he had telegraphed his discomfort, Lois put her hand on his arm.
“They must have been really close, then,” Lois said, stealing a glance at him. “Clark Kent and his parents.”
Silas nodded. “If it wasn’t for those two people, their kindness and generosity, none of us Lane-Kents would be around to complain about the color scheme or anything else.”
“Why doesn’t Lois get the same consideration?” Clark asked, feeling Lois’s surprise as her grip tightened on him. “You have a whole wing down there that’s about nothing but her... her....”
“Difficult childhood?” Silas asked. “I know it seems like a contradiction, and once upon a time it wasn’t there, but women like my grandmother and my great aunts said it should be. Said it isn’t fair to show where he came from and not her. She’s just as much a part of the hero as he was. And according to their argument, Lois was fine with all of it. She’d gotten over it.”
“She’d... gotten over it?” Lois echoed, skepticism filling the words. “How would they know that?”
“Lois Lane didn’t believe in sugar-coating anything,” Silas said simply. “Her childhood was what it was. And in the end, she lived a happy life.”
“A happy life,” Clark repeated aloud, not really meaning to. He looked over at the woman next to him, at the hand folded in his. He had no memory of reaching for it, though he must have. Their hands looked right together, felt right together, intertwined as they were.
Again, almost as if reading his mind, Lois pulled gently away, reddening under his gaze. He looked down. It wasn’t fair to her. This whole thing. She couldn’t even think the words ‘wife’ and ‘mother’ without flinching. So, for her to imagine all this...
Clark shook his head. He didn’t know how she was able to hold it together. She had reserves of strength he knew he couldn’t compete with. Because for him, the words ‘husband’ and ‘father’ came all too easily. The products of his life’s dream, and yet more than he had ever dreamed. More and better than anything he could have written for himself.
Their experiences here were completely different. Hers was completely nightmarish. And his, despite his acute embarrassment over the gift shop and utter overkill of the Superman image, was completely... amazing.
They hadn’t asked Silas about Tempus yet. Hadn’t heard what he had to say, seen what he had to show them, and for a crazy minute, Clark almost wished they wouldn’t. That they could conclude what had turned out to be an interesting conversation, stand up and leave and...
What?
Go back upstairs to the attic and live there forever?
Would that be so bad? whispered a voice he had come to know well since the day he had met her. It was insistent, persistent, and lately always present. It wanted one thing: to be near Lois. And stuck here, like this, strangers in a world that wasn’t theirs, husband and wife...
If they were stranded and there was no way back, would that really be the worst thing ever?
They couldn’t stay in the attic, but they could find a place of their own, maybe. Earn money by taking Silas up on his initial offer, working here at the museum. They were certainly more than qualified to give input...
“What other things does the family protect?” Lois asked, interrupting his train of thought, and just in time, he realized wryly. He had been mentally building the picket fence.
“The Departure Room,” Silas said. “This office is on the same floor for a reason. We don’t want it to be disrespectful. And we discourage young kids from entering, unless they’re accompanied by their parents. Stuff like that.”
“The Departure Room?” Clark felt himself growing cold, and beside him, Lois shivered, her hand somehow back in his.
“Even superheroes don’t live forever,” Silas said matter-of-factly. “And Lois was as human as you guys are, so... well, no one is immortal. Their deaths are recorded simply, though. There isn’t anything exploitive in there. No giant holograms or special effects, just accounts of how they met their-”
“Oh god,” said Clark, surging to his feet. He got to the office doorway one step in front of Lois. One critical step, as she slammed right into him when he stopped where he was.
He knew what he would see when she lifted her face. Knew the look she would give him, the burning, avid interest that would be in her eyes. That reporter’s spark he had seen on the very first day, that very first second, when she had swept into Perry’s office, already talking, already thinking, planning, moving.
He gripped the doorframe tightly. “No.” He said it just before she could get her words out, whatever she had been going to say. Her mouth was already open. “We shouldn’t.”
“What’s going on?” Silas asked, moving to his feet as well.
“What’s going on is this is the first we’ve heard of the Departure Room, and *we* want to see it,” Lois rapped out, her eyes skewering Clark’s as she tried to squeeze around him.
He held her off with no difficulty. “*We* do not want to see the Departure Room,” he said over her head to Silas. “Because there are some things *we* should not know.”
“Interesting,” said Lois loudly, turning and addressing her remarks to Silas now, as well. “If I remember correctly that is the exact argument *we* used to discourage *us* from diving head first into the Happily Ever After room!”
Silas ran his hands through his hair. “Sometimes you guys seem so normal, maybe in need of a little help, but... normal,” he practically whimpered to himself. “And other times you just... lose it.”
“No one is losing it,” Clark barked. And maybe the bark wasn’t a good choice, but Lois had both hands against his chest, feet planted in the floor, and she was pushing hard. “And no one is looking in the Departure Room, because that room and the HEA room are two entirely different things.”
“How?” Lois stopped abruptly and crossed her arms over her chest. “Exactly, precisely *how* are they different?”
“They just are!” he said, again too loudly. “And... we’re bothering Silas.”
“Are you bothered?” Lois hurled at Silas, who stepped back until he hit the wall behind him.
“N-no.”
“See?” she said, one brow arched. “He’s not bothered. In fact, I think he would find it enlightening if you would explain to him why *you* can go see the HEA room and that’s ok, but *I* can’t see the Departure Room.”
“There are some things that aren’t good to know,” Clark said, lowering his voice and imploring her with his eyes. “Some things a person isn’t meant to know; that are too hard to see.”
“Maybe that’s how I felt about the wedding and the kids and that damn family tree which takes up one entire wall-”
“A family tree? Where is that?” he blurted, unwisely, he knew.
“Outside of the Generations room,” Silas offered into the charged silence.
“I see,” Clark breathed. “An entire family tree? Up to present day?”
“It goes as far as me,” Silas said, obviously relieved they had moved back onto saner ground, “and Elise and Nate, and Nate’s kids.”
“Elise and Nate?” Clark asked.
“My brother and sister. In fact,” Silas said, just a touch too casually, “I was thinking of giving Nate a call. Seeing if he’d like to come... meet... you both.”
“We’ve freaked out Junior,” Lois said scathingly.
He moved his hands to her shoulders, tilted his head to meet her eyes. “Please don’t look,” he asked her softly. “Not yet. Not like this. Think about it for a while. For tonight, at least. If you feel the same in the morning-”
He knew she had relented before she said so. Her body, rigid and tense, uncoiled slowly under his palms. She blew out a long breath and nodded curtly.
His thank you was heartfelt.
“Is everything... ok, now?” Silas asked, worry etched on his brow.
Clark and Lois shared a long look. “Yes,” she said, finally looking away. “We haven’t gotten what we came here for anyway.”
She turned back and sat down, all business, as if nothing had taken place.
Silas lowered himself warily back to his own seat.
Clark did the same. “Sorry about that,” he said with a weak smile. “We just... didn’t know.”
“You did know they’re dead, right? Because I could swear it was news to you, and it’s not exactly hot off the presses.”
“Of course,” Clark answered, feeling ridiculous and wishing Lois would come to their rescue. She was faster on her feet than he was.
“That’s just really interesting. We didn’t realize the family went to pains to keep certain things somewhat dignified,” she lied smoothly. So smoothly he looked over at her with pure admiration. “First your respect for Martha and Jonathan and now this.” She cleared her throat and hit Silas with a smile that should not have been legal. The poor kid didn’t stand a chance under its onslaught.
Clark heard Silas’s heart rate kick up another notch and had to laugh. It was genetic, then.
“And don’t forget the globe,” Silas said, leaning towards Lois eagerly. “That’s the one relic that keeps me here.”
***
Hank let himself through the front entrance the old-fashioned way. He overrode the automatic lift and pushed the door open manually. It only took an extra minute, but it was an extra minute he needed. An extra minute he didn’t have to look at his wife and wonder if or... when... she was going to disappear, literally evaporate from his life.
He paused in the foyer, shivering, even though the day was mild. He could hear Elise singing in the cook-unit and a familiar scorched food smell permeated their small living space.
He smiled. And just as quickly the smile fell away.
The things he would miss. He couldn’t number them; they were countless. Elise’s cooking experiments, which were her way of relieving stress after a long, frustrating meeting as Head of the Family Council. The stench they left behind. The horrible heartburn he went to bed with the first Monday of every month.
Hank leaned heavily against the nearest wall, closed his eyes, and enjoyed the horrid smell. He listened to his wife’s voice as she sang. Tragically, it rivaled her cooking in quality. And he wished with all his heart he would always hear it. Everyday for the rest of his life.
For the millionth time he groped for the answers. How did he keep things as they were? What could he do to keep hell from his door?
He was so afraid the answer was simply... nothing. That there was nothing he could do. The constant bombardment to his nervous system, the alarmed feeling zinging through his veins, never left him now. Not for a moment.
Every one at the Ministry felt it. It was a ghostly presence over the entire operation. But not one else was married to a family member. No one else went home after a long, hopeless day, and stood outside their home and wondered... if the person they loved most in the world... still existed.
He wasn’t sure he could face her tonight. Not without breaking down and telling her everything. And though Madge had given her blessing for him to do just that, he still hadn’t.
Every time he had tried, words, any words at all, failed him completely. He was starting to have more understanding for the Ministry’s policy of keeping the family members in the dark. Would it really do his wife any good to know? Was it just himself he was trying to make feel better? He wanted so badly to unburden. Yearned to lay his head in her lap and rid himself of every last detail.
But that would merely shift the heavy weight onto her.
So, was that honesty or selfishness?
Until he decided, he knew he couldn’t begin to let her in on his mind’s turmoil. Though she knew it was there. She had been watching him closely for the last two days, long looks quietly taking his measure.
She knew this was part of being married to him. That he couldn’t talk about his job. Couldn’t be anything more than vague. In the early days of their courtship, that fact of his life had threatened to sink them. He had vowed to her he would be honest in all things he was able to. But that at some point, she was just going to have to trust he couldn’t say any more.
He had waited a nerve wracking two weeks before she had shown up on his doorstep one day and put him out of his misery. And married him. She’d told him it was probably a fair trade. She would put up with not knowing, and he’d have the headache of being married to a family member who was dedicated to all the obligations which went with that.
Hank heard her coming and straightened quickly, checking that his features were coaxed into something of a smile.
By the time she rounded the corner, he was as together as he was going to be.
“Hey, you.” She moved forward to kiss him. When she would have stepped away, he grabbed her and brought her back to him.
“You’re home early.” She relaxed against him, letting him know it was ok to hold her, to keep her there. “Another bad one, I take it.”
“Pretty much,” he said lightly. “And since I was useless, the boss sent me home for some R&R.”
“You were useless to Madge? Why do I find that hard to believe?”
He rested his head on top of hers, his eyes burning with tears he had no intention of letting her see. She felt so good in his arms. Solid. Steady. Here.
Still here and still his to love.
“And by the smoke billowing from the cook-unit, I gather this evening’s Family Council wasn’t the most productive?”
“The smoke...?” She pulled away, looking offended. “Very funny. There’s no- oh, shoot! That dish was going to be edible, Hank, I swear!”
She took off and disappeared around the corner, the sounds of pots clanging and water running playing a familiar medley.
He moved into the room to join her and to surreptitiously survey the damage. “What are the Lane-Kents debating now?”
He perched on the edge of the counter while she told him. At some point he tuned out the exact words- they rarely varied from meeting to meeting- and simply soaked her in. Her rambling explanations, her energetic movements, her exasperated sighs and laughter. Just her. The woman he loved. The woman he wanted to grow old with.
***
“Tell me again,” Andrus said with a pleading look, “why Hank couldn’t come with us?”
“He was needed elsewhere,” Madge answered briskly, winding her scarf tighter against the frigid wind.
“Well,” said Petal, looking around, “this place is certainly beautiful. The vegetation is so thick and lush. And look at the sky.”
“Looks like snow,” Madge said, and she and her assistant shared a secret smile. “And I think the temperature has dropped no less than ten degrees since we arrived.”
“So, where do you think he is?” Andrus asked. “And if we don’t find him in the next half-hour, do you mind if I go back to the portal? I can’t feel my toes.”
“You can go back now, dear,” Madge said quickly. She and Petal had been circling pointlessly for the last several minutes hoping for just this request. “In fact, I would feel better if I knew you were guarding the portal for us.”
Andrus’s answering smile was so pleadingly grateful, she almost felt guilty for the manipulation.
Almost, not completely. Desperate times called for desperate measures. There were, of course, nearly a dozen guards standing by the portal, obscured by the vegetation, anticipating Tempus might try to leave the way they had come. But Andrus didn’t need to know that.
“Perhaps I need a... weapon?” he asked somewhat haltingly. “In case... well... just in case...”
The three of them grew silent while Madge weighed the question in her mind. Once more Andrus had come uncomfortably close to her own thoughts. Before leaving on this expedition, she had given serious consideration to searching the basement archives and finding... something. Something to give the guards. Perhaps something to slip into the folds of her robe when she confronted Tempus. A little added insurance.
Desperate times...
But the idea of actually doing it, of actually holding a weapon of any sort on Tempus curdled her blood. Because he would love it. And he would know, in the very instant, that he had won. Utopia, though still existing, would be defeated if any of them had to resort to violence to defend it.
It was the ultimate ethical dilemma. And Madge still wasn’t certain she had the right handle on it.
Instead, she had packed their time portal full of able bodies. Counting on strength in numbers. Which was how they had ended up with Andrus. The same elders, who had allowed her to keep her job, had insisted Andrus be given another chance to prove his usefulness. That, or they were just looking for an excuse to be rid of him for a few hours.
As for Hank, Madge wasn’t entirely confident he would see things as she did, that using violence against Tempus was anathema to everything Superman was. So, she had sent him home and left without his knowing.
He would be beyond furious with her in the morning, but it was her dearest wish that she could diffuse his anger by telling him her gamble had paid off, and all was finally well.
“No weapon,” Madge spoke softly now, even as Andrus was breaking a branch off a nearby tree. “Just watch the portal and call on your zip-com if you see him.”
Somewhat guiltily, Andrus let go of the tree branch. It swung back wildly, nearly slapping her and Petal across their faces. Only their quick ducking saved them.
“Right, then. Good luck.” Andrus took his leave from them at last.
She and Petal stood still for a few minutes and watched his progress, making sure he was headed in the right direction. Madge didn’t even want to think about what would happen if he got lost... the time they would waste finding him...how tempted she would be to leave him behind...
“I put a signal on him,” Petal said, reading her mind, and proving to her, once again, why she was such a grand assistant. “It’s in his shoe.” She held up the signal tracker and showed her the moving, blinking light.
“Very good. And now, let’s go see him, shall we?”
“After you,” Petal said, and the excitement in her voice drew Madge up short.
“Try to tone down that enthusiasm when we’re with him,” she remarked dryly.
“I will,” Petal vowed, her dimples flashing, making her look exactly like the young go-getter that she was. “But I can’t help it. I can’t believe I’m really going to meet him. Talk to him. After years of studying his every move, anticipating his every thought, tracking his patterns. This is... well, I wish I could tell my cadet class. They would die!”
“This isn’t a game,” Madge said severely. “Don’t lose sight of that. The stakes are precious. And Tempus is not a.... a... what do you call those entertainers, dear? The ones who wailed and wiggled around so much in the previous century?”
“Rock stars,” Petal said. “And I know, Madge. Believe me, if anyone knows, I do.”
“Let’s do this, then.” Madge pushed off in the direction of the cave they knew Tempus to be housed in.
***
tbc on Tuesday!
And big thanks to Lab and Erin for their help!
