Wow, DJ, this is just
great!!! Do you know what I, the long-time comic book fan, most loved to read in the comics? It was the "imaginary tales", the "Elseworlds" stories, where Clark finds himself in a different setting, a different world with slightly different rules. I always, always waited for him to find Lois in those stories, and when he did, it was usually so sweet and romantic. You've sure gotten my hopes up with this, DJ!!!
The opening paragraph of this story is a killer, I have to say. i just love, LOVE,
LOVE it:
Clark awoke from sleep with a start. Images were flashing through his brain. An attractive, young woman with short, dark hair; she was in trouble. He wasn’t really sure who she was and yet he seemed to know her at the same time, like you knew an old friend. Her mouth formed the words, “Help me, Superman.” Then there were more images; flashes of a house that he’d never been in, and yet it seemed so familiar to him, like he’d lived there before. Again, more images of the woman. Her smile, her eyes, they looked so loving, so warm and inviting. And then the vision was gone.
WOW!!! Don't you know I love dreams? Me, the super-skeptic, I love to fantasize about the predictive power of dreams, though I'd never believe in them for real. In stories, however, I adore them. And here Clark is dreaming about Lois, but he doesn't know her, and he's dreaming about their home, but he doesn't recognize that, either. Wow!!! Was I hooked or was I hooked?
And this, how adorable:
Clark reached over to feel the space in the bed next to him. It was empty. Where was she? Huh? Who? Who did he think was going to be there? He slept alone. He shook off the weird feeling and looked around the room disoriented. He was in his bed in the same loft apartment that he had lived in for almost four years. But for some reason it looked so alien to him right now like he didn’t really belong here, like he was supposed to wake up somewhere else, with someone else. It was the dream; it had really shaken him up.
In his dream, Clark knew that he was married, and some sort of residual knowledge of his marriage is still there is his brain. I love it that he expected Lois to lie next to him in his bed, even though his waking mind - heck, maybe even his sleeping mind - didn't know her, at least not her name.
And all of this, his confusion:
Clark got out of bed and walked around his apartment. Everything looked the same, was where it should be. He took a deep breath, running his hand through his hair. He shouldn’t have eaten that entire large triple-cheese, double-pepperoni pizza last night. At least, that’s what he thought he ate last night, or had it been chicken cacciatore? No, why would he have eaten that? He never fixed food like that when he ate alone. Hadn’t he eaten alone? Why couldn’t he remember?
He walked into the kitchen and was greeted by an open pizza box. The remnants of some hardened cheese and a few scraps of pepperoni were all that remained inside. So he had eaten pizza last night, like he’d first thought. He shook his head again trying to clear his thoughts. Everything seemed so hazy.
I have to wonder, DJ, did something really happen to him the night before? How cool it would be if he was somehow snatched from his life with Lois and then dumped in an alternative reality, where he has to be Clark Kent on other terms, and live the life of the Clark Kent who belongs in that dimension (sorry about the comic-book speak - in the comics the alternative worlds were always said to be in other dimensions).
Okay, though, here we come to the first little detail that I don't like (but I'm not at all sure that others agree with me):
Clark spent the next few minutes getting ready for work. He used his heat vision to cook a couple of eggs and then to shorten up the beard that he’d grown during the night. He took a quick shower and got dressed. He knew where every item was, right down to where to find a new tube of toothpaste when he discovered the old tube was depleted. And yet he still had a strange, disconnected feeling. Normally the after effects of a dream didn’t last this long.
He shortened his beard that he'd grown during the night???? Ugh, I don't like Clark with a beard, so please get rid of it! And he just shortened it? He didn't shave? And he'd grown the beard during the night?
Oh well, as long as that's my only complaint - and who knows, maybe there are loads of FoLCs out there who love hirsute faces....
Ah, but this is great - Jimmy is at the door to pick up Clark for work:
There was a knock at the door and Clark *looked* outside to see who was there. It was Jimmy. What was he doing here? Clark ran up the stairs and opened the front door.
“Morning, Jimmy,” he greeted him.
“Morning, CK. Are you ready to go?”
“Go?” Clark asked and then he remembered. Jimmy was here to pick him up for work.
“Uh, yeah...to work? Like we do every morning?” Jimmy had a puzzled look on his face. “You feeling okay, CK?” he asked him.
“Yeah, just a little disoriented. I had a really weird dream last night.”
“Well, tell me about it on the way. Perry will have my hide if either of us is late this morning. We’ve got a staff meeting first thing, remember?”
How sweet! How satisfyingly alternative reality! And Jimmy sure is his nice old self.
Actually, Clark didn’t remember, not until Jimmy mentioned it. It was coming back to him, though. It had only been a couple of months ago that Perry had asked Clark to be Jimmy’s partner. Jimmy’s writing had been steadily improving, and he’d even managed to beat Clark to a couple of exclusive stories on Superman.
Of course, to be fair, Clark couldn’t have written the stories while he was in the middle of performing the actual rescue. Jimmy had lucked out and had been in the right place at the right time. He’d gotten a few really good pictures and managed to write a couple of great articles. They had been unpolished of course, but Clark had been able to help him round them off. When Perry saw how well they had worked together on those stories, he had tried pairing them up on a few other ones.
Wow, Clark and Jimmy are partners! How perfectly alternative reality, now that Lois isn't there!
Since Clark didn’t have a car and they had begun to work together more, Jimmy had offered to pick him up in the mornings and give him a lift to work. Clark didn’t really need a lift, but it gave them some time to go over their notes together.
Clark locked the door to his apartment and followed Jimmy to his Mustang – oh good, Jimmy had the top up this morning; Clark wasn’t really in the mood for the *windblown* look today.
Hmm, DJ, tell Clark to get a shave and a windblown look, okay? But hey, I like the sweetness of Jimmy picking Clark up for work!
All right, then there's a long stretch of Luthor-centered A-plot, so I'll leave it to others to comment on that, okay? But, hey, what's this?
Clark had spent the rest of the morning going over notes and facts on the case with Jimmy, shaping it into a story, when a pair of arms had wrapped themselves around his chest from behind. A pair of lips kissed him softly on his neck just below his ear.
“Guess who?” a female voice whispered into his ear. It was a very familiar voice, but Clark couldn’t place it. Uh oh, the feeling was back. The weird disjointed feeling he’d had that morning. He knew deep down that he knew the voice, should recognize it immediately; and she seemed confident that he would know it too. What could he say?
Oh wow! You made me feel it might be Lois who embraced him!
Her hands pulled away as she spun him around to look at her, and he found himself face to face with a ghost. Mayson Drake was standing in front of him, smiling broadly. He blinked. A ghost? Hardly. Why had that thought popped into his mind? Of course, she *could* have been a ghost, would have been one, if Clark hadn’t gotten there in time to stop that car bomb from going off.
What? Mayson Drake? (*disappointment*)
Clark thought back briefly to when he had first met Mayson, over a year and a half ago. He had responded to a fire at a small restaurant in the downtown district. He used his super-breath to put the fire out and had changed back into his street clothes in an alley behind the restaurant. As he came out he’d seen a man, later identified as Baby Rage, standing over an older man who had been badly beaten.
Apparently the restaurant owner, Mike something - Clark couldn’t remember his last name - had caught the hoodlum setting the fire and had gone after him. Baby Rage had beaten him so badly that he died later at the hospital. Clark felt guilty that he hadn’t been able to save him. But Clark’s testimony had helped put Baby Rage away for life without possibility of parole.
Mayson had been the D.A. assigned to work the case, and, at least for her, it had been love at first sight. That’s what she’d told him later on, anyway. Clark had offered to stand trial and testify against Baby Rage, and Mayson had found that to be so heroic.
The odd thing about Mayson, though, was that, while she found Clark to be a hero, she was annoyed and irritated by his visits to her as Superman. She had refused Superman’s help on the Baby Rage case and even seemed to distrust him, and the situation hadn’t gotten any better.
Yes, well, with my shaky knowledge of the episodes, this still sounds like LnC canon to me. Mayson falls in love with Clark at first sight, but she hates Superman, blah, blah, blah. It's a good thing Clark doesn't love her back, though. Surely you don't love Mayson, Clark?
It was a very difficult spot for Clark to be in. He had grown to love Mayson, deeply; she had made it difficult for him not to. He hadn’t readily responded to her advances, but that hadn’t dissuaded her. She had kept working on him until she finally had won him over.
What??? He does love her???? NO!!!! Clark!!!!!
And then he's going to have lunch with Mayson. Gaah! He has no taste in women! But - hah! - there's going to be a little distraction first:
“Chinese sounds great,” Clark replied, and then he heard it. Oh no, not right now. Mayson was going to kill him. But he couldn’t ignore the voice that was screaming for help. He had to go.
“Actually, though,” Clark began, backing away from his desk. “I need to uh...run by the dry cleaners first. I have a suit that I have to get to them by noon. I’ll just meet you at The House of Hunan, okay?” Clark asked her as he continued his trek away from his desk and towards the door to the stairwell.
“Huh? Dry cleaners? Clark! Wait, I’ll go with...” was all he heard as the door to the stairwell shut behind him. She was going to be mad. He knew it, but it couldn’t be helped. He changed into his suit as he flew down the stairs.
So, okay, Clark flies away to save a man who's about to fall from some scaffolding. But hey, why is the place so familiar?
Superman came up underneath the man, gently securing him with one arm. With his other arm he grabbed a hold of the dangling rope that had secured the other side of the scaffolding. He flew both the rope and his passenger up to the roof. After setting the man down, he quickly re-attached the rope to the anchor and tested it to make sure the platform could once more hold the man.
“Oh, thank you, Superman. I thought I was a goner for sure,” the man told him, shaking his hand gingerly.
Clark absent-mindedly shook his hand and said your welcome. This building seemed oddly familiar. Where was he?
“Excuse me sir, do you mind if I ask you what building this is?”
“Not at all. It’s just an apartment building on Carter Avenue, why?” the man asked him.
“No reason. It just seems really familiar to me. I was getting a strange feeling of déjà vu, hovering outside those windows down there.”
Right, Clark gets a strange feeling of déjà vu, hovering outside the windows here. I wouldn't pretend to know the street address of Lois's apartment, but could it by any chance be Carter Avenue?
Well, Clark flies off to the restaurant where he promised to meet Mayson, and he fully expects her to blow her top at him for running out on her:
As he walked up to the restaurant he saw Mayson sitting at one of the tables on the outside veranda. He veered off from the entrance and instead entered the veranda from the outside gate. Mayson was concentrating – a little too intensely, Clark thought – on the menu in front of her.
“Hi, hon,” he greeted her and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Sorry about the detour.”
She closed her eyes and took a breath. Uh oh. Clark braced himself. “That’s okay. I mean I wish you had let me finish talking. I was going to tell you that we could go together, but you obviously were in a hurry. Let’s just figure out what we want to eat, okay?”
Clark wasn’t sure why, but he’d been expecting her to blow up at him. To bawl him out for all the times he ran off leaving her talking to herself. But she didn’t. She never did, even though he most assuredly deserved it. She loved him for all he was and wasn’t; she just seemed to accept his seeming *oddities*. Why had he thought this time would be different?
What? It didn't happen? She didn't get mad? Why had he expected her to? Ah, because he was remembering all those times when he returned to Lois after having run out on her! Of course!
Well, Clark and Mayson talk, and Mayson is politely asking Clark to open up to her and trust her. And then she says something bad about Superman again, and Clark can't take it, so he leaves and flies home to Mommy. Mommy greets him with watermelon and salt -
salt????? You're joking, right? - and he tells his parents about his strange dream that morning. But instead of sympathizing, they want him to talk about Mayson:
“I’m sure it’s nothing, Mom. That’s not the only reason I came. I just needed someone to talk to, I guess. I had lunch with Mayson today...”
“Oooh. How did that go? Are you getting excited?” Martha asked him enthusiastically.
Martha, you traitor!!! You are encouraging him?
And just listen to this:
“When are you going to tell her the truth?” Martha asked.
“Soon. I probably should have already told her, but when she says stuff like she did today, part of me thinks she’s not ready for the truth, not yet.”
“So when will she be ready? Do you think you’re ready to spend you’re life with someone who’s not been allowed to know you, completely?”
Clark squirmed uncomfortably under his mother’s scrutiny. “I know what you’re thinking, Mom,” Clark began, his thoughts drifting to a certain small box in his bedroom back home in Metropolis.
Martha wants him to tell Mayson that he's Superman?
And he has a small box waiting at home in his bedroom in Metropolis? Oh, no no, Clark. You are
not getting engaged to Mayson, you hear?
Oh, but at least Martha has one smart suggestion for her boy:
“No. I’m not saying another word and neither is your father. It’s your business. She’s a smart girl, and she loves you a lot. She’ll come around...one way or the other,” his mom said with a funny grin on her face. She got up and grabbed a notepad off the counter. “Now, I want you to take this and keep it next to your bed tonight. If you have that dream again, write it down before you can forget it.”
Right, that's it, Clark. Write down your dreams, every last bit of them!
And then Clark returns to the Daily Planet, and some time later he walks home:
Clark opted to walk home and enjoy the cool, crisp onset of the evening air. His meandering walk took him past Centennial Park, and he stopped for a moment at the fountain, watching the streams of water gurgle and splash. Emotion suddenly flooded through him, hard this time. Feelings of anxiety and fear gripped the pit of his stomach, but then beyond that there was such an extreme feeling of hope and love that it almost overwhelmed him. He sat down next to the fountain, closing his eyes and feeling the emotions as they swept over his body.
Wow! Excuse me, the LnC illiterate, but isn't that fountain in Centennial Park the place where he proposed to her? To Lois, I mean, of course!
Clark could feel unshed tears in his eyes. He had loved someone here, at this very spot. But he hadn’t. He had never come here with someone he loved. And while he was in love now, he’d never felt these feelings before. Where were they coming from? They felt so real, and they were so strong they were almost suffocating. He had to get away from here.
Hah! Clark may think he loves Mayson, but she has never been able to evoke a glimmer of the feelings he had for Lois!
What was happening to him? Was he losing his mind? Why did everything seem so wrong, so out of place all of the sudden? Clark wanted now more than anything to see that dream again. Everything had been fine until that dream. There had to be an explanation in it somewhere.
Yes, good idea, Clark. You have to dream about Lois again, and you have to find out why she was calling for help!
He got up and fixed himself a hot cup of soothing mint tea. It usually did the trick to relax him before bed, and he was ready to go to bed and see what his mind had in store for him tonight.
Hmmm... a beard, salted water melons and mint tea... not that there aren't a few things we need to change about you, Clark. Where's the Oolong tea?
Clark brushed his teeth, splashed some water on his face and lay down in bed, trying to will himself to sleep. His mind was still going a mile a minute. It took a little while but sleep finally found him; and he dreamt.
Yay!!! He's dreaming again!!!
Wowch! I feel like a drooling puppy. Is this the kind of stuff I like, or is it the kind of stuff I like? Come back here with more soon, DJ!!!
Ann
So no, don't imagine him with a beard, he doesn't have one - he shaved off the stubble. 
![[Linked Image]](http://www.cosgan.de/images/midi/konfus/a015.gif)
What could have happened to change Lois & Clark world in a Loisless world? <<shudders>> Tempus? H. G. Wells messing with time? Switch between dimensions? Travel to past? 
He's dating a woman that don't put up with Superman and is "in love" with her? 
Wake up! Wait, don't! ![[Linked Image]](http://www.cosgan.de/images/smilie/muede/d035.gif)
Congo? Alt-world? Time warp? ![[Linked Image]](http://www.cosgan.de/images/midi/konfus/c035.gif)
Please, Clark, go sleep! ![[Linked Image]](http://www.cosgan.de/images/smilie/muede/a050.gif)
Dream again and write it down. Don't forget a detail, did you hear? 
![[Linked Image]](http://www.cosgan.de/images/midi/konfus/c015.gif)
