PREVIOUSLY IN OOPS: THE DESTRUCTION OF UTOPIA:
“We’ve got another time quake coming in. This one is even more substantial.”
“Clark again?”
“No. This one was caused by Lois. Apparently she also leapt back in time and gave past Clark some information that enabled him to prevent Mayson Drake’s death.”
“Who’s Mayson Drake?” William asked.
“Isn’t she the woman who became interested in Clark when Lois was still vacillating about her feelings?” Remi asked.
“This could be a disaster,” Laddy said, maintaining his tradition of being the voice of gloom and doom. “At the very least, if Mayson goes on to have children, the time quake will significantly change the structure of our society - by possibly creating a whole line of people who should never have been born. At the worst, if she and Clark get together, then Utopia itself could be in danger of collapsing.”
Still, in spite of his overly-negative prediction, no one disagreed. Instead, they all looked towards Andrus who was listening intently to his ear piece.
AND NOW... PART THREE
“When will we know?” Remi asked.
“They are just searching the records now. We should know...” Andrus’ voice trailed off as he again listened to something only he could hear.
Everyone seemed to hold his breath as he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
As if one, they all let out their own breaths when Andrus sighed in relief.
“What?” William immediately demanded.
“It seems...” Andrus fell silent again as he listened once more to his earpiece. “Okay,” Andrus said with a smile, addressing the council again. “It seems we’re all right. Mayson Drake didn’t get in the way of the Lois/Clark courtship.”
“So Utopia survives,” Laddy said. “But what about children?”
“Well, she did marry,” Andrus continued. “In fact, after Lois told Dan Scardino that she wasn’t interested, Scardino got involved with Mayson Drake.”
“Daniel Scardino married Mayson Drake?” Remi asked.
Andrus nodded.
“What about children?”
“Apparently, they never had children.”
“Oh, thank god,” William breathed. “So what’s causing this?” he asked once everyone calmed down again.
“We’re working on that, sir. But as of yet... The only thing we know is that on the day they returned to work from their honeymoon, Lois and Clark seem to have leapt back time. It seems they have each only leapt once, but well... when they left the past... I’m afraid we don’t know if they leapt back into their correct time or not.”
“So we have no idea if there will be other time quakes,” Laddy said. “And we have no idea if they are back in their correct times or what might be causing this?”
“That about sums it up, I’m sorry to say,” Andrus informed the suddenly silent council.
“Brace for incoming time quake,” said a voice over the intercom.
Everyone braced as a small earthquake shook the foundations of the building. Everyone let out a sigh of relief when it stopped and everything still appeared to be pretty much in tact. The first quake was followed by a second, more powerful quake. Once it was over, everyone looked around to see that they had all, once again, survived. Although, for some unknown reason, the color paint used on the walls had changed.
* * * * * * * * *
Lois gave her head a shake as the dizziness receded. Where was she now? Or maybe more importantly, when was she? Because she knew where she was. She was also pretty sure what had happened. She’d leapt into an entirely different time in her life. But past or future?
She glanced around, trying to orient herself. She was sitting on a park bench in Centennial Park. Clark was standing nearby. It was a beautiful spring day. Clark looked young to her. And his suits... It was before he started dressing more G.Q. It suddenly occurred to her that particular change had occurred about the same time as they started dating. The new glasses. The new clothes. A small smile played at the corners of her mouth. He’d been trying to impress her. Well, it must have worked. After all, she’d married him, hadn’t she? Not for the clothing, of course. But because he was Clark - sloppy suits and loud ties notwithstanding.
She forced her mind back on track. So... when was it? Sometime in the first year they had known each other perhaps?
She silently studied Clark’s face as he stared beyond her. He looked devastated. She could remember that look, but when?
“You should probably be getting back to work,” Clark said. “I doubt your boss at LNN is as tolerant as Perry.”
He turned and began to walk away when it finally struck her when she was. She was working at LNN. She and Clark were in a park. He was looking devastated. It was the day when Clark had finally told her he loved her. This was her chance to do things differently. She’d hurt him so badly that day, compounding the pain when she’d immediately asked him to tell Superman she was looking for him. How many times had she wished she’d handled things differently that day?
“Clark!” she yelled after him.
He didn’t turn. Didn’t acknowledge that he even heard her - although she knew he must have.
“Clark, come back.” She jumped to her feet but found the residual dizziness from her leap forced her to grab onto the back of the park bench for support. “We need to talk,” she yelled at his quickly retreating figure.
He was already half way across the park and he was moving at a pace that would make it impossible for her to catch him - especially when it was obvious he didn’t want to be caught.
She let out a breath. She’d jumped in too late. She’d already told him she didn’t love him. What was the point of leaping into the past if one couldn’t change those things that mattered? Not that she’d seen any point to this random leaping so far.
So... what to do? A slow smile lit up her face when an idea struck her.
* * * * * * * * *
Oh, god. No. No. Anywhere but here! Clark would rather be lying in Luthor’s kryptonite cage listening to the Wedding March play on the loud speakers than right here, right now. At least he knew that had a happy ending - or, well, sort of. But this... How could this be anything but a disaster?
He groaned as he watched Lois remove the first blue veil and begin dancing closer, looking at him through a slit in the material.
It had been hard enough resisting her the first time. In fact, even then he’d almost given in. But now that he knew the taste of her body, the smell of her skin when she was aroused; now that he knew those intoxicating little sounds she made when he touched her; now that he knew what it felt like to be inside her; now that he knew what it was like to make love to Lois Lane, how was he supposed to resist her now?
“Lois,” he began even as his body reacted violently to her sensuous movements, “you don’t know how much I want to do this... but it’s not real. What you’re feeling isn’t real. It’s the pheromone compound Miranda sprayed everyone with. It made the whole newsroom drunk... on love. Please, please. I’m begging you here. I don’t know if I can resist you this time. Please... stop.”
Ignoring his pleas, she continued to glide and swirl her way towards him, dancing with the veil between them, staring deeply into his eyes. “You know, it’s remarkable. I never noticed it before. You look a lot like Superman.”
Clark groaned. “Lois, every woman in love thinks her man looks like Superman.”
“See, Clark, that just proves it. My feelings are real. I’m in love with you.” She draped the first veil over his shoulder and proceeded to untie the second veil, dancing with it backwards, away from him again. “Crazily, hopelessly, dizzyingly, eternally in love.” She spun around, showing exactly how dizzying it was.
Clark groaned when the action gave him tantalizing glimpses of the body beneath the remaining veils.
She tossed the second veil in his direction and began removing a third. He felt a further burst of passion when her action exposed even more of the body Clark had come to know so well in the past two weeks. He took an unconscious step towards her.
“Come to me, my darling. Take me. I’m yours.”
Her comment brought his unexpected movement to a halt. The last time she’d performed this dance he’d been in part aroused, and yet another part of him had been embarrassed. It had been that part more than anything that had kept him from acting on her offers. But now... without that embarrassment brought about by his lack of sexual experience... how was he supposed to resist now?
“What is stopping you, my darling?” she asked, dancing her way back over to him so that she could flip the third veil around his neck and pull him into her dance.
“Look, Lois, I want to. You have no idea how much I want to...”
“Then do,” Lois purred, brushing her body against his, bringing every part she touched to life.
“But I can’t. I don’t know why I’m back here. Or how to get home. But something tells me that I can’t do anything that would drastically change my past. And trust me, this would definitely change my past.”
“And your future,” she purred, swirling her tongue around his Adam’s apple.
“You’re going to wake up tomorrow and then...”
“I’ll be basking in the afterglow.” She finally let go of the thin material that was holding him to her and began undoing a fourth veil.
He groaned as his body grew even harder. Maybe she was right. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt anything if he took her up on what she was so freely offering. He was a newlywed after all. And she was his wife. Maybe it would be okay if he just... let it happen.
She nipped on his earlobe and suddenly something inside Clark snapped. He pulled her into his arms as his lips descended on hers. He wrapped one arm around her body, pulling her tight against him, while the other made its way into his hair as he coaxed her mouth open, exploring every inch of her mouth with his tongue. Her moan sent another rush of blood south and her outfit did nothing to keep him from feeling every inch of her body.
* * * * * * * * *
Lois sat on her couch, a romance novel open in front of her as she waited for Superman. She’d recreated that night as best she could. Not that it had been easy. But looking through her nightgowns, she found a red one that she thought might be the same one as she’d worn that night so long ago. Spaghetti straps. Long, flowing. A tad too revealing. But honestly, she really hadn’t been expecting Superman. After all, she hadn’t seen him that afternoon. And she hadn’t known if Clark had spoken to him.
As for standing on the rooftop yelling, ‘Help, Superman!’ she had rejected that idea almost the moment it came to her. She knew he would come if she yelled for him. He always came when she was in jeopardy. But if she started using it when she wasn’t in danger, she had feared that he wouldn’t think it was an emergency when she did need him. The story of the little boy who cried wolf came to mind.
Knowing what she knew now, of course, she would have expected Superman to appear that evening. After all, she had told Clark that she needed him. Then... then she’d been completely clueless.
She felt somewhat vulnerable in the nightgown. But it was probably best to create things as closely to that past as she could. At least that way, she would know what to expect.
Besides, she wasn’t entirely sure how much of the past she should be trying to change. In that sense, it might have been just as well that she’d leaped into this time frame when she had. If she had confessed her feelings to Clark in the park, at a time before she’d been ready to make that type of declaration, they might not be where they were now - crazy in love and just back from their honeymoon.
After all, months later, when Clark had finally worked up the nerve to ask her out, she’d been so skittish she’d actually slammed the door in his face after their first date. Now... No, she wouldn’t have been ready. And if her first leap into the past had taught her anything, it was that she had no real idea how long she might be there. No. Every step in their relationship, even the painful ones... maybe especially the painful ones... had brought them to the position of trust they shared today.
But there was one thing she could do, or at least, she hoped so, without doing any major damage to their history - and yet saving both herself and Clark a lot of unnecessary grief. She could handle her meeting with Superman differently this time than she had before.
A gust of wind coming from the direction of her window told her that it was time for the show. She took a deep breath, set down her book and stood up, turning towards the man now standing in her living room.
“Superman,” Lois breathed. God, this was going to be harder than she imagined. What she really wanted to do right now was strip every last piece of that suit off his body and have her way with him. She was a newlywed, after all. It should be her right. And this was the first time she’d seen him in that all too revealing suit since they had finally become intimate.
“I heard you wanted to see me,” Superman said, his voice void of emotion.
She frowned, studying his face. Why hadn’t she seen it the first time? He was so emotionless - even more so than Superman usually was - as if he would rather be anywhere but her apartment. Yet she’d been too head-over-heals crazy about him to even notice and had plunged in with declarations of love that had pushed him even further away.
And yet, even now, it was all she could do not to throw herself at him again - this time perhaps even using a full-press physical attack to wear down his resistance. Still, she pushed those thoughts away. Not here. Not now. “Yes,” she said, trying to remember what came next. The robe. Right. “Please come in. I’ll just put on a robe.”
“Unless it’s lead-lined, Lois, it’s a waste of time.”
She crinkled her eyebrows, remembering how foolish his comment had made her feel at the time. On the other hand... “So what are you saying?” she asked. “Are you saying that you normally x-ray my clothes?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then why would I have to line them with lead?” she demanded, folding her arms across her chest.
“I just meant...”
“What did you mean, Cl... Superman? After all, it sounded to me like you were saying that if I put on a robe, you would just x-ray it anyway.” She tapped her foot on the ground, waiting for a response.
“I just... I meant... I...”
She raised an eyebrow as she watched him flounder. Finally, she decided to put him out of his misery. “I think I’ll just put on that robe now,” she said, turning and, without waiting for his response, heading to her bedroom.
Okay, good. She had him off balance. “Now to change things,” she whispered to herself as she closed her bedroom door.
* * * * * * * * *
“No! No!” Andrus exclaimed. “She is planning to change things! We have to stop her! And with Clark kissing Lois... Did you see how passionate that kiss is? He’s out of control! He’ll never be able to stop now! We have to...” Each sentence was louder and higher than the one before it.
“Andrus!” William exclaimed. “Get ahold of yourself, man. We need to stay focused. And we need your help. You can fall apart later, I promise.” He considered slapping Andrus to snap him out of his panic. And, god help him, if Andrus didn’t get a grip on himself, that was exactly what he was going to have to do. Panic like that could be contagious. He knew that. Still, the very thought terrified William. After all, when was the last time anyone had inflicted violence in Utopia? And to have the person who finally did be the head of the counsel, would that, in itself, not be enough to radically alter their society?
He let out a breath of relief when Andrus seemed to get control - if one could call it that.
“Help, right. Fall apart later, right,” Andrus said, turning back to the problem at hand. As long as he could fall apart later, he’d be all right.
* * * * * * * * *
to be continued...
ML
