Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Northern Lights -- Part Two

This part should join together the three distinct sections from Part One.

Part Two

Smallville, Kansas

"Son, tell us again how you found this spaceship," said Jonathan Kent as he stood with his wife, son and daughter-in-law in the barn staring at a spaceship that was similar in size and shape to the one he had found thirty years earlier.

"I was flying in concentric circles outward from the epicentre of the earthquake looking and listening for signs of life, for anyone who needed help. I often do that during a disaster. Sometimes, someone gets trapped further away from where most of the damage occurred. I hadn’t seen or heard anything for a few minutes, so I was thinking about heading back to speak to the rescue workers.

"For some reason, probably like when you hear your own name spoken by people far away, something caught my attention. The greyish, metallic hues seemed incongruous in the brown earth, like high tech in the middle of a rocky wilderness. When I flew in closer, I recognized the shape and then the etchings which were the same as the glyphs I had seen on my own spaceship. At first, I tried to figure out what my spaceship was doing in central China, but as I got closer, I realized that it wasn’t the same. It didn’t have the S-shield on it. Otherwise, you can see for yourselves, it’s exactly the same."

Lois brushed her hand over the writing on the ship. "Do you have any idea of what it says?"

"No." He put his hand on Lois’s and squeezed gently. They turned simultaneously and looked each other in the eyes.

"What does it mean?"

Martha’s question snapped him back to the object of their discussion. "That I wasn’t the only one who came here. I might not be the only one."

"Maybe there’s some clue inside like the globe Clark found on his own spaceship," Jonathan suggested.

Clark stood staring at the miniature-sized capsule a few seconds longer. Everyone else stood by silently, waiting patiently for Clark to unveil some clue that he wasn’t alone in this world.

His hands lovingly examined the spaceships surface, searching every inch carefully for a latch or a handle that would open the hood. He remembered that his proximity to his own capsule had opened it. Nothing was budging.

"Mom. Dad. Do either of you remember how my capsule opened?"

"No dear," Martha said. "It was open when we first saw it and there you were, so beautiful, wrapped in your blue blanket..."

"Martha! Not now, dear."

Clark ignored his parents, once more running his hand over the hood of the capsule. He looked at Lois hopefully; she nodded to him. As his fingers felt the smooth surface, it went over a small, almost imperceptible gap. He pressed gently around the gap, and slowly, he heard a pop of air.

He stepped back and watched as the hood lifted.

"Oh my goodness," Martha gasped as she moved closer.

Lois, grasping Clark’s hand, moved closer to her husband.

As Clark stood and stared at the opened space capsule, Martha broke the silence. "You‘d think we would have known if there was someone else like you out there."

"Maybe not," said Clark as he stared inside the ship. "It looks like this person didn’t make it." He touched the fragile blanket that covered the skeletal remains of what must have once been a baby.

"He wasn’t as lucky as I was."

Martha and Jonathan stepped forward to put their arms around their son.

"Instead of becoming a life raft, the ship became a coffin," Martha said. "Poor child. Probably never knew what happened."

The family stood around the small ship, each mourning the child who never had a chance to live.

Lois was the first to move, searching the ship for some kind of a clue to what happened. "Is there something like the globe here?"

Clark used his x-ray vision to scan the inside of the cradle. "No. Nothing." His voice was barely a whisper.

Once again the Kent family stood staring at what could have been, looking for answers to questions that wouldn’t be available to them, which had been buried and would have to remain buried.

"What are you going to do with this now?" asked Jonathan. "Do you want me to help you bury it?"

"No. Maybe there’s still more to learn," Clark said looking at Lois.

"Dr. Klein?" asked Lois as if she was reading Clark’s mind.

"He’d be able to give us more information about the remains. At least he’d be able to tell us if the baby had Kryptonian DNA, maybe how the baby died, and how long it’s been on Earth."

"Clark, if you take this to Dr. Klein and he finds out that this baby arrived here thirty years ago, he may put two and two together and realize that you’ve been on Earth much longer than he’s suspected," Martha said.

"That’s right, Clark. Dr. Klein is a very bright man," his father added.

"I know. Dad, Mom. Lois and I have talked about letting Dr. Klein know who I am, and it may be something he’ll need to know. I..." he took Lois’s hand, "...we trust him."

"He’s a scientist son..."

Clark heard the old fear in his father’s voice. ‘He’ll dissect you like a frog.’ "Dad, there’s nothing to worry about. Dr. Klein knows a lot about Superman and only does what I ask him. He’s never let me down before."

Jonathan nodded his head. "If you trust him, son, then I do, too."

Once Clark and Jonathan had put the coverings back on the tiny spaceship, Clark cradled it gently and took off into the sky. Within a half an hour, he returned.

"I’ve left it with Doc Klein. He says that it will take time to run tests on it. I’ll get in touch with him to find the results."


****************
Metropolis, New Troy
A Week Later

Clark spun out of his Superman suit and entered the Daily Planet. Glancing around the bullpen, he spotted Lois in the conference room with a woman who was in tears. Lois caught his eye and motioned for him to come into the conference room.

"Clark, this is Shelley Hamilton. She’s a college friend of mine," she explained as soon as Clark closed the door.

"Ms Hamilton." Clark held out his hand, but Shelley was too distraught to notice.

"Shelley came to see me because her husband’s been missing for a week, and she doesn’t know what to make of it."

"Did she go to the police?"

"She went to Missing Persons. They took the pertinent information, but they keep on hinting that maybe he took off with another woman and he doesn’t want to be found."

"Why would they think that?"

"Because he packed to go away for the week-end, and he hasn’t come back."

"Would you mind going over your story for me one more time?" Clark asked.

Shelley Hamilton glanced over at Lois and then at Clark. "If it will help finding Jeremy, I don’t mind. It’s just so frustrating."

Lois patted her friend’s hand and nodded. "Go ahead. I’ll take notes while you tell us."

"Jeremy packed up a bag with a few overnight items and said that he’d be back in a couple of days. He occasionally had to go out of town for a few nights on business, but he had more time to prepare than he did this time. The other major difference was that he only packed pyjamas, underwear and toothbrush, toothpaste, things like that. He wore jeans, a plaid flannel shirt and a lightweight ski jacket. Usually when he goes on business, even overnight, he wears a business suit and takes a couple of extra shirts."

"What does Jeremy do for a living?" Clark asked.

"He’s an accountant." Shelley waited for a moment to see if Clark wanted any additional information related to Jeremy’s work, but when she saw that he wasn’t asking anything, she continued. "He told me that he’d be back in a few days, and that he’d call me if he could. He never called, and he never came back."

"When did you start to get worried?"

"He left on Thursday night. On Monday, our son, Matthew, had an important basketball game and Jeremy promised to be there at the game. Jeremy always made it to games and recitals and plays for the kids. If he couldn’t make it, he usually phoned to let us know what was happening. He didn’t this time."

"So what did you do?"

"I phoned Denise, his secretary, and asked if she knew how to contact him. She said that she didn’t. He had let her know on Thursday that he wouldn’t be at work on Friday and that he’d be back on Monday. She didn’t have a clue where he went. She thought he was having a long week-end at home because he’d put in all those extra hours a few weeks back for an important client."

"Who was the client?"

"I’m not even sure. Jeremy didn’t talk about the specifics of his job at home. He wanted to forget about work when he came home."

"Was anything bothering him at home? Were you fighting or anything?"

"No. We get along really well." Shelley stilled. Then tears began flowing down her cheeks. It was the first time that she had broken down in front of the two reporters. "The police," Shelley hiccoughed, "also wanted to know if we were fighting or if we had a bad marriage." She dug in her purse and pulled out a tissue. "You have to believe me. We’re happy. We love each other. There is nothing wrong with the marriage. Sometimes we disagree with the way one of us handles a situation with the children or about some financial issue, but we generally don’t have major fights."

"Was anything upsetting Jeremy before he disappeared?" Lois asked.

"Nothing unusual. His brother was calling more often than he had in the past, but he tended to do that when he got one of his harebrained ideas into his head." Shelley fiddled with her purse. "Jeremy did seem to get annoyed…no, not annoyed…agitated after he spoke to Emil."

"Emil? Emil Hamilton?" Lois and Clark both asked at the same time.

"Do you know Emil?"

"We came into contact with Emil years ago when he was cloning gangsters."

"Not one of his finest hours," said Shelley.

"Not one of mine, either," replied Clark, looking regretfully at Lois.

"We dealt with that a long time ago, honey," she said as she squeezed his hand. "Who knows what Emil is up to these days? Where can we get in touch with him?"

"It won’t help. He’s in Met General. He had a stroke and right now he can’t speak or move his left side. The doctors say there’s a good chance that he’ll recover his speech, but it may take several months."

"Why do I have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that this involves Emil?" asked Clark.

"We’ll do what we can, Shelley, but we can’t promise anything," offered Lois.

"Meanwhile keep reminding the police and keep in touch with us. If we find anything out, we’ll let you know."

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

Algonquin Park, Ontario
One Month Later

Loon’s Road, a paved two lane road ended and forked in three different directions, each dirt road, whose tracks had been carved by years of summer vacationers heading toward cabins and cottages, led to Loon Lake. In the summer months, the lake, surrounded by tall pine trees, was a busy place with children splashing and screaming in the water, motor-boats dragging athletic water-skiers, wind-surfers skimming the lake and the occasional fisherman hoping for a bite in the early morning hours. Once the summer season ended, the boats were pulled in and the docks were taken apart until the following spring. The lake froze over and the paths leading from Loon’s Road were abandoned to the falling leaves and then the accumulating snow.

Sergeant Anna McLaren of the Ontario Provincial Police drove up to the fork in Loon’s Road and found the rusty Honda Civic sitting exactly where Shawna Steeles had told her it would be. Shawna had reported that she had seen the car when she drove out to the Bryson place over the course of the month. Nancy Bryson was pregnant and due to give birth. When she mentioned the Honda to Luke Bryson, he agreed that the car hadn’t moved in a month, but he didn’t think too much of it. Neither Shawna nor Luke had any idea who the car belonged to or how long the car had been sitting there.

When Anna reached the car, it was covered in browned maple leaves that had fallen on the car and then been plastered down by the first snowfall. She took out her Polaroid from her car and began to snap pictures. She then put on a pair of surgical gloves, methodically cleared away the debris and opened the driver’s side. The car wasn’t locked. Surprisingly, the key was still in the ignition. The gas tank was three-quarters full and there was no indication that there was anything wrong with the oil. She started up the engine. No problem. The car ran smoothly.

Anna took Polaroids of the interior of the car which had personal items-- a toothbrush, toothpaste, a pair of men’s pyjamas size large, a razor--scattered on the front seat, but no suitcase, backpack or even a plastic grocery bag. As she continued to search she found a few gas receipts and a mixture of Canadian and American coins that had fallen between the cushions of the seat.

According to Shawna, the car hadn’t moved in at least four weeks. Anna called Hank Jenkins to tow the car to the OPP’s back lot for the time being. While she waited for Hank to appear, she bagged the contents of the car, then walked around the car to write down the license plate number.

However, there were no plates on the car, either on the front or the back. She peered closely at the front. No discoloration or evidence that a license plate was ever on the front. That meant that the car was out of province since Ontario cars carried plates on both the front and the back of the car.

The back area of the car had evidence of wear and rust where there had once been a license plate. Anna brushed away the snow from the bumper and found a bolt. She held the lone bolt in her hand, tossing it lightly in the air. If there was one, there must be more. She looked around the snow covered ground, then bent down sweeping away the accumulated layers of snow. More nuts and bolts. She figured the plate had been taken after the car had been abandonned.

Well, even if there were no plates, there should be a registration number. The glove compartment was empty. Not even the ubiquitous owner’s manual was there. To her frustration, the registration number etched in the car had been filed away. Nothing.

Back in her office, Anna decided that, for once, doing the paper work might help her figure out what the story behind the abandonned Civic was, but first she told her assistant, Pete Byford, to check with the auto theft database if any cars were reported missing in the area.

Organizing the facts and evidence as she knew it, along with the Polaroids she had taken, was like shovelling snow in a blizzard, as soon as one patch was cleared up it was covered in snow again. Anna was sure that whoever abandonned the car didn’t want its owner to be found. No plates, no registration number, no ownership papers.

She stared at the bags on her desk. Crest toothpaste, Gillette shaving cream, a Bic razor, Head and Shoulders shampoo. The guy she was looking for had dandruff...or according to the commercials, no longer had dandruff. She smirked at the ridiculousness of her observation.

But something drew her to the items...something not right. She flattened the bag of coins on her desk and, keeping the money in the bag, began to separate the American from the Canadian coins. "Damn those pennies," she said aloud.

Anna leaned back, replaiting her single dark brown braid and letting it fall down to the middle of her back. She kept staring at the toothpaste. "That’s it! There’s no French." She stood up and went to the door of her office.

"Pete," she called.

"Yes, Sergeant."

"Expand your search for missing vehicles into the States."

"Why ma’am?"

"The driver was American," she said lifting the bag of toothpaste in front of his eyes.

"American?"

"No French on the packaging...on anything."

Pete smiled at his superior. "I’ll expand that search immediately."

Anna returned to her desk, picking up the coins and shaking them up. She wondered how much it mattered that the driver may have been American. Probably complicated everything more.

"Boss," the familiar voice of David Morrow interrupted her thoughts which, she thought weren’t going anywhere in particular.

"Dr. Morrow, I’m not your boss. How many times do I have to tell you. You’re an independent contractor hired by the police department."

"And you hired me, Boss."

"No. I didn’t. The province of Ontario did."

"Represented by you" Ignoring her sneer, he sat down on the chair facing her desk. "And in this envelope I have..." He drummed his fingers on the desk, a poor imitation of a drum roll. "...Jesse Sherman’s death certificate." He placed the envelope on her desk.

"Heart attack, right?"

"I’m wounded. You didn’t have to slave over the medical books, hours of interning, residency..."

"The whole town knew that Jesse was a walking time-bomb, a heart attack waiting to happen."

"And your point is?"

Tired of the silly bantering, Anna waved the envelope at David. "You didn’t have to bring this over personally. You could have sent it over with your receptionist."

"I needed a break, and I was hoping that you’d come out for dinner with me. Swiss Chalet is offering a Toblerone chocolate bar with a quarter chicken dinner for only $6.95."

Just as Anna was going to remind him that she had told him at least a dozen times that she wouldn’t go out on a date with him, David said, "It’s not a date. It’s business."

"What kind of business?"

"Maybe I can help you figure out who the Honda Civic belongs to."

****************
tbc