Okay, since Ann asked so nicely, and LLWB has perked my curiosity, I managed to get this part on out here tonight. I hope the conclusion doesn't disappoint!
I'll reserve the thankyou's till the end of the post.
Table of Contents **********
From Part 5: **********
“No, Lois, please don’t do this. You’ve got to fight. Stay with me,” he said, openly crying now as he lifted her off the ground and out of the rubble as gently as he possibly could.
“Clark...I...” She tried once more, and then she was gone.
Clark hugged her body to him gently, rocking back and forth. “No! No, don’t leave me. Please,” he begged her. He lay her down in a patch of soft grass and began administering mouth to mouth. Over and over he tried to breathe life, push life, back into her lungs, but there was no response; she was gone.
Clark felt nauseous; the world seemed to be spinning, and he passed out.
**********
PART SIX: **********
The sound of distant sirens awakened Clark; but, as he came to, he wished he hadn’t. He wished he could have slept forever. The images came back into his mind. Lois waving, the explosion, her crumpled body. Why couldn’t *these* images have been a dream? A nightmare? He turned slowly on his side and looked at his wife lying next to him on the grass...as much as he willed them to be, the images weren’t dreams; they were real.
Tears began rolling freely down his face. He sat up, scooting over next to her and lifted her body up into his arms. She was so beautiful, even now.
The sound of the sirens was getting closer. Obviously someone had seen the explosion and called the police. They were coming, coming to take Lois away from him. They would take her body and, revulsion swept through Clark, they would do an autopsy. They would examine her body for evidence of what had happened; who had done this. They would try, but they would fail.
He reached a hand out to her face and brushed the hair from her eyes. Oh how he wished he could just scoop her up and take her away from here, from this. They wouldn’t understand; they didn’t know how much she meant to him. To them he was just Superman, a godlike entity impervious to harm. But inside that outer facade there was Clark, the man who had only truly loved this one extraordinary woman.
Clark carefully lowered Lois’ body back down to the grass. He hated to leave her here, but there was nothing more he could do for her here. He climbed unsteadily to his feet, willing his body to move. *They* would fail, but he would not. He needed to find something that would show him who Lois’ attacker had been. He would not fail. He would find them, and they would pay. He began to sweep the area for prints, for any evidence of who had been there. He flew in and out of the house, looking for something, anything; he didn’t have much time.
The phone inside Lois’ house began to ring. It rang and kept ringing. It stopped; then it immediately began ringing again. Clark, frustrated with his efforts to find any evidence, picked up the phone.
“He...Hello,” he stammered out, not quite finding his voice.
“Clark? Well, Clark, it *is* you.” the male voice on the phone said.
His body immediately went rigid. “Who is this?”
“Oh, that’s right; you probably don’t remember me do you? That’s a shame, if I had only been standing there in front of you I could have pulled some glasses off my face or something and you’d have gotten it right away,” the voice said with a pleased sounding chuckle.
The voice sounded so familiar. Clark could almost see his face. “Tempus?”
“Oh, see there, was that so hard?”
“Tempus! You’re going to pay for this. Whatever it takes, I will find you.”
“Tsk tsk, Superman. How are you going to find me? Even if you come after me, I have a time machine. Do you? Oh, whoops, I forgot that pesky little detail. Of course you don’t. Herb’s not around to give you one anymore. Poor Herb. I really did like him, but he always insisted in meddling in my business and thwarting my plans. Just like you and Ms. Lane.”
“You’ll pay for what you’ve done, Tempus.”
“Me? This is your fault. You shouldn’t have found her, Clark. If you had just left well enough alone, she’d still be alive. It’s your fault she’s dead. I’ve been living here, in this time, for the past few years. I really like the decadence of this particular era, but I also stayed to keep an eye on things. When I noticed that Superman had shown up in New York for no apparent reason – you know they plaster stuff like that on every local television station there is - I took a quick trip back into the future and found Utopia alive and well. I knew then that you had found a way to remember her, and you had found each other - again. Ugh! So you left me with no choice but to remove her from the picture entirely. Will you be able to go on, to create a Utopian society now without your precious Lois Lane?”
Clark didn’t want to give him the pleasure of a response, and the sirens were right outside now; he had no time left. He slammed the receiver down on the cradle, crushing both items, and flew out the back door of the house. The ache inside his chest threatened to overcome him, to pull him from the sky; but he knew what he had to do now. The decision had been made for him. There was no other choice. With that knowledge, his pain began to ease and he flew back to Metropolis.
**********
If only he’d just built the time machine sooner and taken them both back, fixed their past; this would never have happened. Lois would still be here with him now. He needed her. Clark knew he couldn’t live without her, didn’t want to live without her...and he didn’t have to.
He heard the knock at the door seconds after he sensed the person just outside. He sighed, emotionally steeling himself before running up the stairs to open the door.
He opened the door, and Mayson looked up at him, her eyes full of concern. “Clark, I was so worried. What’s going on?”
“Thank you for coming. I was afraid when I called that you wouldn’t even want to speak to me after the way I’ve treated you these past few days.”
“Of course I’d come. I’ll always come.”
The words pierced his heart. He fought back tears and took her by the hand, leading her inside his apartment. “I asked you here so I could see you one last time; apologize to you before I leave.”
He knew he was doing this more for himself than for her. She wouldn’t know what he had done, but he would have to live with this decision. He needed to see her one last time.
“Leave? Where are you going?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Superman has something to do, something that has to be done, and I won’t be coming back after I leave.”
Mayson turned away from him, her eyes tearing up. “How can you do this to me? How can you propose to me one day, and then a few days later tell me that you are leaving and never coming back? Clark, I love you. I’ve come to terms with the other half of your life - Superman. Please, don’t let him take you away from me.”
It would have been easier if she had been mad at him. She had the right to be mad. This, her pleading with him not to go, this was almost unbearable. “I’m sorry, Mayson. I really am. But this is something that I have to do.”
“I hope whatever it is, it’s worth it.”
It was. Clark knew it was, but that didn’t make this any easier for him. “Me too,” he told her softly.
He wrapped her in his arms, holding her one last time. He knew that he was trading one life for another, but Lois wasn’t supposed to die. It had been Mayson who died in an explosion, not Lois.
She wouldn’t know, he told himself. Neither Lois nor Mayson would know. They wouldn’t know what had happened, what he had done. But this wasn’t actually something *he* was doing. He was only correcting something that Tempus had done. He kept telling himself that, over and over. It was the only way he could face what he had to do.
“I know that I haven’t always been honest with you, but please know that I love you; and that this hurts me more than you’ll ever know,” he told her softly.
She wrapped her arms around him tighter, not wanting to let him go.
“Goodbye, Mayson,” he said, pulling away from her. He kissed her gently on the cheek and then stepped away from her, spinning into his suit. He smiled sadly at her and flew out the open door behind her.
“I love you,” he heard her whisper softly. Then he was gone, shooting up through the clouds.
***********
Clark sat in the shadows watching Ellen Lane’s house. Lois had told him that her mom was attacked when she came home that night, the night that Clark had arrived here on. It seemed to Clark that Tempus must have broken into her house and waited for her to get home and then attacked her.
His thoughts turned back to Mayson. The ache in his chest hadn’t subsided yet. Could he live with himself? With the decision he’d made? Clark didn’t know. Could he really justify condemning one woman to death to save another? He had to. It was Lois. There was no other choice.
But did he have to? Could he maybe...save Mayson, too? He did have a time machine. He could go to that fateful night, stop her from getting in that car. The thought made the pain in his chest ease a little. First, he had to get the future back on track. He wouldn’t be able to make the attempt to save her until after he had set things right - here.
Clark's mind continued to wander while he waited. Yes, he could go through time and save Mayson, it was possible. But, so many things could change by tampering through time travel. Tempus had changed one thing and completely rewritten the future. Clark could justify coming here to stop Tempus. He wasn’t really changing history as much as he was preventing someone else from changing it.
But was it his *right* to change real history? Even if it saved Mayson’s life? What if it caused someone else to die somehow? What if it changed things between him and Lois? He sighed. It was something he would need to talk to Mr. Wells about the next time he saw him, if he saw him.
Clark directed his attention back to Ellen’s house, still no sign of Tempus. He felt sure if he waited long enough he’d see Tempus breaking into her house. Unless...unless he was already in there. Was he? Clark focused in on the house, scanning it, and found him. He was inside sitting arrogantly in one of her living room chairs, drinking what looked like a cup of tea. Clark felt the anger swelling inside him.
It was now or never. He didn’t want to risk Ellen coming home. Clark took off with a purposeful stride across the street. He walked straight up to the front door and moved through it without stopping, forcing it open.
“Tempus this ends here,” he said, moving menacingly towards him. It was taking all of his self-control to not pick him up and physically hurl him out of the house – maybe hurl him off the planet.
“You are so right,” Tempus said, agreeing with him. “It does end here, Clark.” Tempus rose up out of his chair pulling a box out from behind him. Clark cut the distance between them as Tempus grabbed an object from inside the box and shoved it at him. “For you.”
Clark felt pain go shooting through him and staggered under the effects of the Kryptonite.
“Do you think I’m *stupid*?” Tempus asked him. “Did you honestly think I would come unprepared? It seems I never know when you’re going to show up or where. My little trip to the alternate universe provided me with this little piece of home. What’s the matter, Clark? Feeling a little homesick?” he asked him with an amused chuckle.
“What have you done with H.G. Wells?” Clark managed to ask him as he backed away from the deadly rock.
Tempus made no move to stop him. “Herb? I’m afraid I had to hit him over the head pretty hard to subdue him after I jumped through the time window with him. He’s out cold on the floor behind me.”
“What are you going to do with him?” Clark asked, trying to keep him talking so he could move further away from the poison leaching through his system.
It didn’t work this time. Tempus got up and walked toward him causing Clark to sink to his knees on the floor. The pain was so intense that it was making it hard to breathe.
“I’m going to kill him, after I kill you of course. I had planned to kill him all along; though, I really didn’t plan on killing you, not this time. My plan was to separate you and Lois. I was hoping if the two of you never got together that there would be no Utopia. If I let Herb live, he’d no doubt rectify that situation and ruin my whole plan. And yet, now you’re here and about to die, so I guess my plans have changed,” Tempus smirked.
“Your plan...wouldn’t have...succeeded,” Clark said through clenched teeth. His vision was blurring, and his ears were ringing; but he kept talking, kept fighting. For Lois’ sake, he had to fight this. “I came here...to stop you...Lois and I...still remembered.”
“Really? Darn, I had really hoped I was on to something. Oh, well, I suppose it doesn’t matter now, anyway; though it would have been nice to know my plan would have succeeded. Okay, boy wonder, it’s time for you to say goodnight. There’s no little goodie-goodie Miss Lane here to stop me tonight.”
“No, but I will stop you Tempus, if it takes my last breath!” came the voice of H.G. Wells as he hurled himself at Tempus from behind.
Tempus was caught off-guard and the chunk of Kryptonite went flying from his hand and across the room as Wells’ body made contact with first his arm and then the rest of his body, knocking him to the ground.
Clark got up as fast as his weakened body would allow and grabbed hold of Tempus, using his remaining strength to pin him securely to the floor. “Mr. Wells, get the Kryptonite and get it back inside that case.”
H.G. Wells complied, finding the Kryptonite and entombing it back inside the protective case.
“Come on, we need to get him out of here before Ellen Lane comes home. We need to make this like it never happened,” Clark explained hauling Tempus up off the floor and out the front door. Mr. Wells followed close behind them.
**********
Once they were back at the location of Clark’s time machine and had Tempus safely tied up and perched on the front seat, Mr. Wells took Clark out of earshot from Tempus and asked him the question Clark had been waiting to hear.
“What happened, my boy?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Clark responded.
“Oh, my, yes I guess you could. Well, I had decided to pay Tempus a visit, back in your present day, to make sure he was still in prison and not causing any more trouble. You remember he had been imprisoned for bank robbery after that fiasco Lois and I had with him in the alternate universe. I came to inform him that the Utopian courts had finally brought his case to trial and they would be coming to get him shortly to take him back to face judgment for his crimes.”
“You went to see him in your time machine? How did you get it inside the prison?”
“Oh, goodness no. I borrowed a time window from a man named Andrus; he’s a peacekeeper in Utopia. Amazing little device, which reminds me,” Wells said, walking over to Tempus and pulling a small device out of his inside jacket pocket. He held it up allowing Clark to inspect it.
“Oh come on, Herb, you don’t really need two time machines now do you? That’s just getting greedy,” Tempus said, squirming against the ropes that held him to his chair.
With one look Clark silenced him and put a stop to his efforts to struggle. Tempus slouched in his seat, a look of resignation on his face.
“But on the subject of the time machine, how did you manage upon this one?” Wells asked him, pointing to the time machine Clark had built.
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, I think at this point we have all the time we need. Why don’t you start at the beginning.”
**********
“The one thing I don’t understand is why I couldn’t save her? I can fly around the world in a matter of minutes, why couldn’t I move fast enough to save Lois from that explosion? It’s like something...I don’t know, almost like something prevented me.”
Wells was nodding his head. “The curse.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your memories should be coming back, now that we’ve successfully stopped Tempus. Remember your wedding night, Clark? I came to your apartment to stop you from, uh, well...” Wells broke off, blushing.
Clark remembered that part; H.G. Wells had interrupted their honeymoon to stop them from making love. What happened after that was a little fuzzy, but it was slowly coming back to him. In fact, memories seemed to be coming in and out of his mind, changing and rearranging. It was a little disconcerting. But that particular night he remembered. Wells had said if they had consummated their marriage that Lois would die because of a curse that had been put on her. They had gone back in the past to stop Baron Tempos from having the curse cast on Sir Charles and Lady Loisette.
“I remember. But we stopped that curse from being cast.”
“Yes, you did, in the original version of history. But by Tempus coming back here and stopping you and Lois from ever meeting, and you said he also killed me, he changed the history we knew. Because I was dead, I never came to you to take you back to the past to stop that curse.”
“So when Lois and I...” Clark broke off, realizing what had happened. “By finding her and reuniting with her, I condemned her to death.” His knees buckled and he sat down hard on the ground. It had been his fault.
“Don’t beat yourself up about it, my boy. There was nothing you could have done. How could you have known? You couldn’t. And now it’s all behind you. We’ll take you back to your own time and it will be as if nothing ever happened.”
“Will it? Will I remember this?” Clark felt like he had already begun to forget some of it. It seemed foggy, not real.
“Hmm. I don’t know; that’s difficult to say. Since memories leaked through to you of your previous history, I don’t know if you will remember this or not. On my best guess, though, I don’t think you will. This reality was never meant to happen, and we’ve prevented it from happening. I believe these memories will disappear once you get back to your own time and future.”
“But how did I, and Lois, remember our other lives? If Tempus came back here and successfully changed things, how could we remember things that never happened?”
Wells’ brow was furrowed in deep concentration. “To be honest, I don’t really know my boy. In my time travels I’ve run into many unexplainable and mystifying events, things I couldn’t really justify through science. In this case, it may have something to do with the deep connection that exists between the two of you. One thing I’ve learned about time, though, is that it is always in motion. But, even though it is always in motion, parts of it always remain constant.”
“What do you mean, constant?”
“For every person who lives there is always a past, and always a future, but there is also always a *present*. Tempus went back in the past and changed things, but from your *present* mind’s perspective you went to sleep one night and woke up the next morning with different memories, everything had suddenly changed. And there is also the connection that you and Miss Lane have which seems to be a constant down through the ages; you have a love that spans across time. I have a feeling that, because of the bond you share, your minds simply rebelled.”
Clark didn’t exactly follow everything Mr. Wells was telling him, but he realized one thing...when it came right down to it; it didn’t matter. All that really mattered was that it was finished, and Lois was safe.
“But, on that thought,” Wells was continuing, “We need to figure out exactly when to return you. What was the last thing you remember?”
Clark thought back, what was the last thing he remembered happening? When the memory came to him his face flushed, better to not start with that immediate memory. “The last event I remember was that there had been an incident in the news about Lois having an affair with Superman. They had faked a picture of us, uh, in a very friendly pose.”
A reddish hue came into Wells face.
“The last actual day that I remember, there had been a press conference that Superman attended to expose the photo as a fraud and to assure everyone that Superman was not having an *illicit* affair with Lois. Now, the last actual moment I remember...” Clark broke off, feeling that initial flush come back into his face, “was later that night. Lois and I had sat next to a roaring fire in our fireplace at home and then had done a little celebrating of Superman’s vindication. Then, I guess we must have gone to sleep. The next thing I remember clearly was waking up in my bed at my apartment, feeling confused.”
“Well, I shall do my best to return you to that exact time, while you were sleeping. We’ll use the time machine you built to take you back, and then I’ll take care of it from there.”
Wells began to walk back towards the time machine. Clark looked at the time machine. Something was nagging at the back of his mind. It seemed important. Hadn’t there been something he’d wanted to ask Mr. Wells? Clark closed his eyes, trying to concentrate. He was sure there had been something he wanted to do, but it just wasn’t coming to him. So many memories were changing or slipping away...like a dream that he was quickly forgetting.
Clark finally sighed in frustration. It was no use; it wasn’t going to come to him. Had it really been that important? He had stopped Tempus and saved Lois, and they were going back. That was the important thing. Clark followed Wells to the time machine and climbed in next to Tempus.
Tempus.
“What are you doing to do about him?” Clark asked, concerned.
“I’m going to take him back to the point that he abducted me...”
“Yeah, yeah, back to prison, I know,” Tempus said, interrupting him. “But you have to admit, it was a good plan. I still think it has merit, the idea of separating you and Lois. It just needs a little more work. Next time...” Tempus said, smiling smugly at Clark.
“There will be no next time,” Wells said, scolding him. “You won’t get another chance to try this again. Andrus will be along shortly to take you back to Utopia to face your medicine.”
“Oh, don’t be such a killjoy, Herb. Besides, not even you know exactly what the future holds.” And with that last statement they were gone, traveling through time back to the lives that were waiting for them.
***********
Lois was standing there in a doorway just out of Clark’s reach. “Goodbye, Clark,” she said. Goodbye? What? Where was she going? “I love you,” she said through tears. Clark started towards her and then, suddenly, the room began to stretch in an unearthly manner. As the room continued stretching, Lois was being pulled away from him. What was happening? Clark started running towards her, his arm extended, trying desperately to reach her. He began running faster and faster until finally he was flying, but still he wasn’t any closer. Lois, no! He reached even harder, and she reached out for him, too. For one brief, hopeful moment their fingertips almost touched; if he stretched just a little more maybe he could grab hold of her hand. But then a figure appeared in the shadows behind Lois and grabbed her, wrenching her away from Clark’s grasp. Lois, no! Lois! The figure pulled her away from him through the doorway into weird shimmering, swirling air. Clark continued to struggle, trying to get to the doorway; but, before he could reach it, the door slammed shut. She was gone.
Clark woke up, breathing hard, his mind trying desperately to hold on to the last few images of the dream. Where had the dream taken place? Who had pulled Lois away? Argh! He hated waking up to a disturbing dream and not being able to remember what it was about or what had happened. Especially, when it felt so real and seemed so important.
He shook off the cold chill that had settled on him and reached over in bed to wrap his arms around Lois. But she wasn’t beside him. He immediately sat up feeling around for her, scanning the room for her. She wasn’t there.
“Lois!” he shouted.
No answer. God no, he thought, what had happened?
“Lois!” he tried again. He headed for the doorway on a dead run to go look for her and almost knocked her down as she came walking into the room.
“Oh! Clark! You scared me. What’s wrong? I’m right here, stop yelling; you’re going to wake the neighbors.” Lois told him.
Clark relaxed. What *was* wrong? Well, he’d had a nightmare, but he just had the nagging feeling that it was more than that. Like he’d come close to losing her, somehow. It all felt like a bad dream, and he didn’t want to think about it anymore. She was here, and she was safe; and that was all that mattered.
“It was nothing, honey, just a bad dream. I’m sorry I scared you,” he said, pulling her into a close embrace and kissing her deeply.
“Mmm, didn’t get enough earlier, huh? On second thought maybe we shouldn’t worry about waking the neighbors,” she said, giggling, searching for his mouth again with hers.
Clark couldn’t have agreed with anything more.
**********
The End
A big thank you goes out to the one and only beta I had on this story, Sue. Thank you for all your comments, and for helping me choose the right path sometimes, and for letting me bug you with all those extra changes after the fact. I really appreciate your hard work.
And to all of you out there who read my story and gave me such wonderful feedback, thank you. Your comments were so appreciated and enjoyed.
I hope you enjoyed the ride!
