In a Better Place, from part 10...
“Did I... do something wrong?” Andrus asked in a breathless voice. Petal had not let him go, and despite his height and weight advantage, she was practically dragging him through the woods.
“Shut up, Andrus,” Madge spat.
The shocked silence which followed should have shamed her, but it didn’t. What did it matter when they were all on the verge of total collapse?
And now...
***
“Let go of it,” Clark said to Silas, sounding as if he knew it was exactly what they were supposed to do. “If you just let it hover, that will get it started.”
Lois moved in between them. “Are you sure?” she asked, not taking her eyes off the glowing object held in Silas’s trembling grasp. “What if it drops and breaks?”
The words weren’t out of her mouth when the globe split at the seams. They all blinked hard against the bright white light pouring from it. Under its own power it pulled from Silas’s still reaching hand and moved above them, peeling apart and projecting a stream of crisp, vivid images into the small office space.
Lois felt Clark go slack against her. She slipped an arm around his waist, and he leaned in close enough for her to feel his shaking. “I’ve got you,” she whispered, her face blushing hotly even as she registered the words, hoping suddenly he hadn’t heard them.
The likeness of a man who had to be his father filled the room, rising above the ocean of other images. Lois saw the resemblance immediately. The lines of the jaw, the nose, the mouth...
On her other side, Silas stood at mute attention, eyes wide and unblinking. Glancing between the three men, as she did, Lois could now see similarities which were impossible to miss.
Jor-el’s image grew and expanded, covering the walls and much of the ceiling. His eyes tracked the room with an intelligence that was unmistakable. His presence went beyond ethereal. In the moment, in the room, he seemed as real as they did. And Lois would swear he looked right at her, if only fleetingly. But in that glance had been... recognition.
Before she could decide that was impossible, Clark shivered, and she moved her other arm around him, just as Jor-el’s searching gaze found his son.
His eyes, settled now on Clark, filled with knowingness- simply that. Across the miles, across the universes, and now across the centuries, he spoke. “Kal-el, my son...”
Silas slumped against his desk. Lois was pretty sure she was the only thing keeping Clark upright. And Jor-el told his child about the destruction of their home, the frantic research which had preceded the decision to launch him into space. His mother’s sorrow. Jor-el’s own fears. And the hopes that had been riding on his son’s small ship.
“... if you are seeing this, you have started to meet your destiny. You have taken up your powers for the good of others, just as we wished for you...”
Clark seemed unaware of the tears on his cheeks. Lois blinked hard against her own. His hand found its way into hers, clinging tightly. And she understood.
She understood him in a way she might never have if she hadn’t been here to witness this. Or maybe she understood him in a way she one day would, was destined to, given years to know him, to know them, to learn his heart. She understood they fit, just as their hands did.
And like a puzzle, once worked, the big picture seemed obvious.
The way she had felt the first night at EPRAD. He had sat down across from her and tried not to look nervous about her questions. He’d expressed his desire to help but not be famous. In response, she had done something she had never done before. Something she would have sworn she was incapable of. In the face of a big story, a huge story, she had relented. Instead of looking across the desk and seeing her Pulitzer, she had seen...him.
Later, after Tempus, after everything, when they had been in the park, it had happened again. The story of her career, of any reporter’s career, and she had feared for him. Feared that despite his abilities, his goodness might render him far too vulnerable to the world.
He was super-powered, yes. Strong and gifted. Able to do what no one else was...
But he was just one person. One person, who alone carried the legacy of an entire world on his shoulders. One person who only days before- at the colonists’ launch- had taken on responsibility for his adopted world as well.
No matter who he was or what he could do, how could one person operate under that kind of weight?
He couldn’t. He wouldn’t be able to. Not without someone to share it with. Not without a partner. She had said it to him that first night, and now she felt its echo whisper in her heart.
"You're going to need help."
Lois closed her eyes for just a moment and let it all sink in.
Had she ever really been needed?
Maybe she was needed by the citizens of Metropolis, though they didn’t know it. She worked on their behalf daily, doing what she could to root out corruption, expose unfair practices, find ways to make their city a better place to live. It wasn’t a job that others couldn’t do, but she liked to think she brought a unique talent and energy to it.
On the personal level, Lucy needed her. Since they were children she had been Lucy’s only reliable ‘parent.’ Despite their different outlooks and lifestyles, and Lucy’s stubborn streak, which rivaled Lois’s - though she pretended it didn’t- she was still a source of emotional support for Lucy.
This, however, was an entirely different kind of need. It was hard to imagine its scale and scope. If they managed to get back to their lives, what Clark would need from her would be life-changing, all encompassing. It would require everything she had to give. And no doubt much more than that, many times over.
It's too much, an all-too familiar voice inside her head insisted. Too hard. Too complicated. Too risky...
But she was good at hard. Great at complicated. Hell, risk taking was what she did best. Maybe not in matters of the heart, exactly, but still, it was the ordinary which so often tripped her up. Ordinary, every day relationships had always been something of a mystery to her, something she couldn’t quite seem to manage the way everyone else did.
But her life with Clark would be anything but ordinary. So... maybe, just maybe, that made her uniquely suited to being the partner of a superhero.
Lois opened her eyes, looked into the face of Clark’s father, and before she could talk herself out it, she decided. She silently promised Jor-el to be family to the son he had been forced to abandon to the stars. To help him as he steered his course.
And to love him as she did so.
“But there will be no hair bow on the wedding veil,” she murmured to herself. “A girl’s got to draw the line somewhere.”
***
“It’s a very important assignment,” Madge said gravely. “And it may take some time, as we haven’t much to go on.”
“I won’t disappoint you,” Andrus vowed, hanging on her every word, ignoring the mug of tea he held in his grip.
Madge stood up from her desk and walked over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You must find Herb and save him.”
Andrus’s eyes widened, huge and unblinking. “Is he is danger?”
“Tempus has... stored him somewhere.” Madge moved back to her desk and picked up the copy of Tempus’s comments on Herb’s whereabouts Anna had just brought in.
Andrus looked them over and frowned. “That’s all we have to go on? The 1980s? And high schools? There must be... hundreds of them.”
“Hundreds of thousands,” Madge said apologetically. “However, we do know you can narrow your search to the summer months of that decade. Tempus gave us that much.”
Andrus swallowed hard. “So, I must go to every high school? Search every locker for ten years?”
“Herb is counting on you. As is the Ministry. If there is anyone more suited for this difficult assignment, Andrus, I can’t think who.”
Andrus sat back with a proud, nervous smile. “You flatter me.”
Madge shook her head solemnly. “I haven’t said a word that isn’t the literal truth.”
“Right, then.” He stood and slapped his mug down on the edge of her desk, not noticing the splash he left on her vid screens.
Madge sighed.
“Wish me luck!”
“The very best,” Madge said fervently, moving to the door and opening it. “And whatever you do, don’t come back until you have him, ok, dear?”
***
Slowly he became aware Lois had said his name. That she had been saying his name for some time now. With effort, he pulled his gaze from where the hologram of Jor-el had been.
His father.
“Are you all right?” Lois asked, worry in her eyes. “Are both of you?” she added, as another pair of anguished brown eyes, nearly identical in shade to the first, turned to meet his.
“Yeah,” said Clark starting in surprise when Lois’s hands brushed over his face, wiping away tears he hadn't felt. He cleared his throat, tried to steady his voice. “How about you, Silas?”
Silas merely looked at them. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, and settled for nodding.
Clark tried to put himself in his young relative’s shoes. He couldn’t begin to imagine it. Or maybe he could. Maybe his and Lois’s presence here in Silas’s office was as amazing to Silas as Jor-el’s had been to Clark. He didn’t know. Nor did he have any idea how to begin the conversation they needed to have.
He didn’t get a chance to debate it. Lois, as she did in all things, went with the direct approach.
“We’re Lois Lane and Clark Kent... genuine articles.”
This time Silas gulped audibly, but still, he didn’t speak.
“And what is your relation to us, exactly, Junior?”
Clark moved to offer a seat, and Silas, as if not fully aware of it, collapsed into the chair pushed towards him.
“Gr- great grandson,” he said in a choked whisper. “My great, great, great, eight greats in all, grandmother was... your ...” He stopped and lowered his elbows to his knees, raking his hands through his hair.
“Our daughter,” Lois supplied.
Clark looked at her sharply. She had said that so easily. She hadn’t screamed, fainted, or... hit anyone. In fact, she had sounded almost as if... she believed it.
She shrugged, noticing the look he was doing a bad job of hiding. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
This time he was the one who opened his mouth, closed it, and then settled for the mute nod.
“So, you’re...” Silas lifted his head. “...them.”
“Yes,” he and Lois said as one.
“Oh,” Silas said. “I guess, in a way, that... explains some things.”
“And makes some other things more confusing,” said Clark with great sympathy. At this point, he knew a thing or two about confusing.
“Are you here from...uh...Heaven? Come to pay a...visit? See how we’re all doing?”
“Like ghosts?” Lois asked with a small grin. “Or maybe angels?”
“Lois, don’t,” Clark said softly. “It’s a lot to take in.”
“Oh god,” Silas moaned, the color, which had been returning to his face, leaving again. “I was... you were so...” He gestured mutely to Lois. “I... I had this thing for you and you’re my... dead great-grandmother!”
The look he shot Clark was horror-filled and decidedly shamed.
Clark only laughed and shook his head. “That just shows me how smart you are, Silas.”
Silas nodded weakly and cleared his throat. “Smart. Right.”
“And we’re not ghosts and definitely not angels.” Clark shot Lois a reproving stare. “But we are your family. And we do need your help.”
“We aren’t here from the great beyond,” Lois added. “We’re here from our own time and place. Tempus sent us.”
The words weren’t so much as out of her mouth when Silas’s eyes rolled back, the white of them showing just as he slumped off the chair and crumpled to the floor.
***
“...definitely doesn’t get that from me.”
“Oh, come on, Lois. We hit him with it all at once. The globe. Who we are. You can hardly blame him.”
“I’m just saying it’s becoming more and more apparent how a superman such as yourself needs someone exactly like me in his life. To toughen him up and help him with... with...”
“Please, don’t stop. You were getting to the good stuff.”
“He’s moving.”
“Silas?”
“Silas?”
“Let’s sit him up. He’s coming around.”
“God, he weighs a ton! He doesn’t look it.”
“Dense molecular structure. I got him, don’t hurt yourself.”
Strong hands lifted him to a reclining position. He felt a cushion at his back. Recognized it as the one he had gone to fetch for Lorraine- who was not Lorraine- on their first meeting. For an instant, he considered faking it. Keeping his head rolled to the side and simply lying there until they lost interest and went away.
But if they really were Lane and Kent, the actual ones, in the flesh, and they wanted something from him, they wouldn’t leave him alone. Ever.
“His eyes are opening.”
Silas blinked. Lois was leaning over him. She was so close her hair was touching his face and he could smell the mix of soap and coffee that lingered on her. He inhaled deeply. She frowned and speared him with a concerned stare. “Beautiful,” he breathed before he could stop himself.
“What did he say?”
“He said you’re beautiful.”
“He’s delirious. Maybe he hit his head.”
“He’s got a good eye.”
“He’s a kid.”
“Hardly a kid, Lois.”
“We’re at least six years older than he is.”
“Two hundred and six years older, don’t forget.”
“You really enjoy that, don’t you?”
Silas blinked rapidly a few times more, clearing his vision. He was awake. No denying it. And if he didn’t indicate as much, he knew they would never stop talking, and already his head was pounding. “What happened?”
“You fainted.”
“Are you ok?”
“Fainted?” Silas struggled to sit upright, as Lois moved aside and Clark steadied him with a firm grip on his shoulders.
“Passed out cold, and your Gramps and Gram were worried about you.”
“Lois, don’t tease him.”
“This is all a bad dream,” Silas said, looking at them defiantly, willing them to dissipate into a mist. “Or bad gin, maybe?” he added hopefully when they remained, looking stubbornly solid and three-dimensional.
“Does alcohol affect you?” Clark asked him quietly.
“Well... no,” Silas acknowledged. “And I researched that quite a bit my freshman year in college.”
“It doesn’t affect you either?” Lois asked Clark. “What about hallucinogens? Could we be given something that scrambled our minds? Made us think we’d time-traveled? Because that’s a theory we should give some thought to. Maybe we’re all just drugged and dreaming. Maybe none of this is really happening, maybe-”
“Drugs don’t affect me, Lois,” Clark cut-in firmly. “At all. In no way. My mind is... scramble proof.”
Lois uttered something that sounded like “...not how it looked when you met Cat Grant.”
Before they could get started again, Silas cleared his throat noisily. “Ok. I’m finished freaking out. What can I do for you both?”
“You can tell us everything you know about Tempus,” Lois said quickly.
He closed his eyes again, felt the room start to sway.
“Lois, stop doing that. The name seems to...”
“Make him pass out.”
“No, no. I’m not passing out.” Silas clenched his jaw and planted his hands on the floor on either side of him. “I’m just... confused. You’re here. You’re... real.”
“Flesh and blood,” Clark added helpfully.
“Here. In Utopia. In the Superman Museum,” Silas clarified. “Have I got that much right?”
“Exactly right.” Clark again.
“And you’re saying that... Tempus the Time-Traveler ... sent you here.”
At their nods he grimaced and shook his head, immediately sorry he had done so, as the dizziness returned. “That isn’t possible. Tempus isn’t real. He’s just a... a... fictional character. Like the boogeyman or... the Loch Ness Monster. The bad guy in one of those stories told around the campfire to scare little kids. There is no such thing as a Tempus.”
Clark frowned and Lois scowled. For just one minute, there was blessed silence. It didn’t last. They started right up again.
“But there is such a person.”
“We met him.”
“I thought he was the janitor.”
“He pointed a beam at us and-”
“Zap!” said Clark.
“More like Zzzst,” Lois countered. “Well, it was!”
“No matter what it sounded like, we landed here. In Centennial Park, two hundred years in the future, and really, really clueless.”
“No way,” said Silas, aware that his heart was pounding unnaturally hard. “No way. You’ve got it wrong, somehow. Tempus isn’t real. He isn’t. He can’t be! If he was then... then... the world as we know it is... is... oh... dear God...” He paused, unable to compute the consequences of a real Tempus.
“What?” Lois prompted.
“...in terrible danger,” Silas finished in a low, shaky voice. He surged to his feet, moving somewhat unsteadily behind his desk. “Please tell me you’re kidding. That this is some horrible, twisted, unfunny joke Nate is playing on me because he knows how bored I am working here.”
“Your brother isn’t behind this.” Clark stood and offered a hand up to Lois.
Silas rifled through his desk drawers, tossing folders and comments cards to the floor without noticing.
“He uses my filing system,” he was dimly aware of Lois commenting with some pride.
“Here!” He pulled a rumpled comic book from the bottom of the third drawer. “When you asked about him earlier and I said I would show you what I had, this is what I was talking about. This is the best issue they ever did. Issue one hundred seventeen. ‘Time-Traveling Tempus Meets Doomsday in the Ultimate Battle of Brains versus Brawn.’ This one sold out in one afternoon.”
He shoved the comic across the desk. “And I have dozens more. I’ve collected them since I was a kid. So... see? He’s a comic book villain. There are movies, too. Action figures. Halloween costumes. But that’s all. And really, he’s mainly a cautionary tale. A way to teach kids to be happy where they are, appreciative of the here and now. That trying to change things can lead to trouble.”
“Trying to change things can lead to trouble? What kind of propaganda is that!” demanded Lois.
Silas ignored her, directing his words to Clark, instead. “So, whoever you think you saw...”
“It was Tempus,” Clark finished for him gently. “I’m sorry, Silas. He’s real. And he transported us here. And you need to tell us what you meant by the world as you know it being in danger.”
“More like *endangered*... on the verge of... extinction.” Silas lowered himself slowly into his chair, studying the determined and calm face of the man in front of him.
Superman.
He didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it before. How many holograms were there of this man on record? How many personal family photos had Silas seen over his twenty years? Hundreds, maybe thousands.
But it was all in the expression, Silas realized now. In the eyes. In the solidness that radiated from them. Things that couldn’t be captured in vids and holophotos, no matter what their quality. He looked so capable standing there.
Silas hoped with all his heart he was a capable as he looked. That he was everything legend heralded him to be. God help them all if Superman couldn’t save them.
***
tbc on Saturday
Thank you to Pam for saying those three little words: 'Yeah, it works.' <sniff> And to Lynn, for saying the same, only adding so sweetly and very correctly, 'But your grammar needs work.' I *heart* you guys!
