PREVIOUSLY IN OOPS: THE DESTRUCTION OF UTOPIA...
“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.
* * * * * * * * *
AND NOW... PART FOUR
* * * * * * * * *
Lois found her most shlumpy, but comfortable robe, and slipped it on before heading back into her living room. No point tempting fate - or her libido. After all, she wasn’t sure whom she didn’t trust more - him or her. Actually, that wasn’t really a question. She didn’t trust herself. After all, when he’d made his lead-lined crack, she’d almost been tempted to say, ‘Well, if you are x-raying my clothes anyway...’ before slipping out of her nightgown. And that was definitely not the way to handle this situation.
When she arrived back in her living room, she saw Superman still standing where she had left him earlier, looking like a lost little boy. Her heart went out to him. She knew he was hurting. She had to play this right or she was going to inflict even more hurt. That very thought killed her rampaging hormones. Still, it didn’t end her desire to wrap her arms around him and tell him that it would all be okay in the end.
But Clark wouldn’t take that as comfort. Not now. That left only one option. As she’d told Clark when they had been held in separate cages by the Lakes, ‘You can touch me with your words.’ She took a deep breath. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
“Whatever you needed to see me about, you should probably just tell me. I never know when I’ll be needed.”
Lois gave a brief nod. He obviously wanted to get out of there to... knowing Clark, he was probably planning on going somewhere and punching out an iceberg or something similar. Well, maybe she could change his immediate plans. “Fine. I assume since the only one I told that I needed to talk to you was Clark that you spoke to him.”
“That’s right,” Superman said cautiously.
“Did he tell you that Lex Luthor proposed to me?”
“I’m aware of that,” he answered carefully.
She fought the urge to smile. Clark really was such a boy scout - always trying to avoid, as much as possible, telling an outright lie. “Did he also tell you about our... talk earlier today?”
“I know what you talked about.”
“That’s why I need your help.”
“My help?” Superman asked, obviously confused.
Lois let out a breath. “Are you sure you don’t have a moment to sit down? This might take a little while and I’ve been on my feet all day.”
“Uhh, yes. The new job.”
She shot him a pointed look at the bitter tone in his voice. “Well, a paycheck is a paycheck. And some of us do need to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.”
“But I thought you loved the new job?” Superman asked, suddenly sounding much more like Clark.
Still, as far as he knew, she wasn’t aware that they were one and the same. Still, she tried to think back to what she had felt at the time. “Nothing will ever replace the Daily Planet. It’s been more than a work place for me. It’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a family. But what do you expect me to do? Sit around, crying into my coffee about how it was destroyed?”
“No, of course not.”
She let out a breath. “It doesn’t matter. That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to talk to you about Clark.”
“Clark?” Superman asked cautiously.
Since Clark still wasn’t sitting down, she decided to go ahead and take a seat. Maybe once she got started, he’d join her. If not... well, at least he was listening.
“Well, Clark and Lex actually,” she said. “But let’s start with Clark.”
“What about him?”
“Well, if you’re aware of our talk today, then I assume you know that he told me he’s in love with me.”
“Yes.”
“That’s why I can’t talk to him about Lex.”
“I don’t understand,” Superman said, finally taking a seat.
“Look, if this is going to make any sense at all, I’m going to have to explain about Clark and me.”
“That’s not...”
“Clark is my best friend. In fact, I’m probably closer to him than I am to anyone else in the world. I’m not entirely sure how it happened. I had so many barriers up when I first met him. You see, I had this belief that if I didn’t let anyone get close, then no one could hurt me.” She glanced up from where she’d been looking at her hands to see that she now had Clark’s full attention. She knew she couldn’t tell Clark she loved him. That would leave the younger her in a very awkward position when she leapt again - assuming she did leap - and in all likelihood ruin their future relationship. After all, at this particular point in time, she hadn’t realized that what she felt for Clark was, indeed, love. On the other hand, she could make Clark understand just how special he was to her. Admit those things that she had felt at this point in their relationship.
“In fact, I don’t think anyone means more to me than Clark does. When I think about the future, Clark’s there. His laugh. His strength. His friendship.”
“Friendship,” Superman said, a touch of irony in his voice.
“For me, that’s a lot. The thought of losing him... No. I could take almost anything but that.” She let out a breath.
“Wait a minute,” Superman said. “Clark means more to you than Luthor does? Then why are you marrying Luthor?”
Okay, here was where it got tricky. A tightrope she was going to have to walk that wouldn’t get her former self in trouble in the future. “I never said that I was marrying Lex. I don’t know what I’m going to do about Lex. What I do know is that Clark has made a number of... vague insinuations about Lex and I need to know what is true and what is just... jealousy.”
“Vague insinuations?” Superman asked cautiously and Lois instantly knew she’d hit her mark.
It was the one thing about the whole Lex Luthor fiasco that had always bothered her. Comments like, ‘Be careful with Luthor. You don’t know him like I do,” had always sounded more like jealousy induced rants than evidence of wrongdoing. “Vague insinuations,” she repeated. “If Clark had something on Lex, he’d tell me. But since he sticks to throwing out these little insults, what am I supposed to think except that he is jealous of Lex?”
“Maybe he can’t prove anything.”
“I’m not asking for proof,” Lois said in exasperation. “How about one decent concrete theory? One small piece of damaging information? He hasn’t given me anything except insinuations. What am I supposed to think except that he’s jealous. I mean, after all, you seem to like Lex. You’ve appeared with him at a lot of charity functions. I’ve seen you share the same stage with him. I’ve seen the two of you shake hands. You don’t have any reservations about Lex, so why does Clark? If he had anything, he’d tell me. And we’d investigate it together. It’s what we do. Otherwise, I have to conclude he is just jealous of Lex.”
She watched the astonishment grow in Superman’s eyes with every expression. Good. It was something that had troubled her for months after her almost-marriage to Lex. Why hadn’t Clark told her exactly what he suspected? For that matter, why hadn’t Superman? Comments like, ‘Go ahead and get into bed with the devil,’ although colorful, had done nothing more than to convince her of Clark’s jealousy. Why hadn’t Clark told her about Lex’s comment about ‘seizing the high ground’ - which corresponded with Antonette Baines’ similar comment. Why hadn’t Superman told her about the tests that Lex had practically admitted to being behind? Why hadn’t he given her something, anything to make her actually doubt Lex?
“Would you excuse me, Lois?” Superman suddenly said, rising to his feet. “I think... I have to go.” Without waiting for her response, Superman disappeared in a gust of wind.
“Ten, nine, eight,” Lois began. “Seven, six, five...”
There was a knock at the door.
“A little early,” she muttered as she rose to her feet and went to answer. She smiled when she looked through the peephole and saw Clark standing outside holding a large file folder. Just as she opened the door, the world began to spin around her and she felt herself beginning to fade.
* * * * * * * * *
He knew her taste; he knew her smell; he knew her body. She met his hunger with her own even as her arms slipped around his neck. His hand ran down her back and over her buttocks until he reached her leg, pulling it around his.
She groaned, a sound which sent his blood pounding through his ears. Seeming to realize the effect she was having on him, she rubbed her body even more purposely against him.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” Clark groaned, finally breaking their kiss in order to catch his breath.
The sensual smile she gave him in return told him she knew exactly what she was doing to him.
“God, you are a vixen, woman,” Clark growled before his lips began traveling over her neck.
She tilted her head back, giving him maximum access. Her hands tangled in his hair, trying to direct his head lower. He nibbled his way down her delectable neck and over her practically bare shoulder before heading down to explore her cleavage. Given how revealing the outfit already was, the remaining material didn’t prevent much exploration. Still, Clark wasn’t ready for it when her hands left his head to pull at one of the shoulder straps, causing the right side of her outfit to slither down her body.
“Oh, god,” Clark breathed, his mouth instinctively heading towards the revealed skin. “No!” he suddenly exclaimed when he realized exactly what he was doing. He was seconds away from violating her trust in the worst way possible. No matter how much he wanted her, no matter how badly his body ached for her, he couldn’t do this.
“Clark,” she groaned in protest, her hands trying to pull his head to her.
“No,” Clark said, ignoring the blood pounding in his ears. He had to do something, anything, before... His eyes drifted lower and he felt himself being drawn back in.
Quicker than she could see, he disentangled himself from her and disappeared, reappearing less than a fraction of a second later. It was a risk. Although given that he’d moved faster than the human eye could follow, he believed she would not even notice that he was gone. What she would notice, however...
“Clark, what are you doing?” she asked, even as he wrapped the blanket he was now holding around her body.
“Surviving. I can’t do this, Lois. I love you too much to betray your trust like this,” he said, wishing with all his heart that it wasn’t the truth. But if he gave in now, if he followed the desires of his body, he knew without a doubt that she would never be able to forgive him. Not at this stage in their relationship. And he wanted so much more from her than some trashy one night stand. And if he betrayed her trust, he had no doubt that was all it would ever be.
Suddenly, and much to his relief, the world began to fade around him.
* * * * * * * * *
Everyone around the council table breathed a sigh of relief.
“Looks as if we got through that leap without incident,” William said.
“Well, not completely,” Laddy said. “After all, Lois never accepted Luthor’s proposal once she heard what Clark really suspected about Luthor.”
“True,” William responded. “But then, she didn’t marry Luthor in the original time line, anyway. And it didn’t create any major changes by having them working together to bring him down.”
“And since Luthor blamed Superman when Lois turned him down,” Remi continued, “and thus trapped Superman in that kryptonite cage so that Superman couldn’t save Luthor when he leapt to his death, it seems we are still okay.”
“Actually, I’m more worried about how close Clark came to changing history,” Laddy said. “If he had broken Lois’ trust that way... How much longer can this go on before one of them does something that destroys the very fabric of our society? If we can’t stop this soon, it won’t matter how many times our past isn’t destroyed.”
The conference room fell silent as the councilors all remembered the seriousness of the situation
“Brace for incoming time quake,” said the voice over the intercom.
Everyone waited, but as predicted, it wasn’t bad. And very quickly, it passed, leaving Utopia essentially in tact.
* * * * * * * * *
Lois looked around as the dizziness receded. When the hell was she now? She glanced down at her jeans and denim shirt. What? She hadn’t owned a denim shirt since she was fifteen. So where... unless... Oh god no! She was on the camping trip from hell! She’d somehow jumped back to the weekend her parents decided they could save their marriage by sleeping in a tent and using an outhouse.
She turned slowly when she heard voices behind her.
“That’s poison ivy!” Ellen exclaimed. “You pitched our tent in a poison ivy patch.”
“That’s not poison ivy, Ellen,” Sam said. “This is a legitimate camping space. There is no way there would be poison ivy here.”
“Look at those leaves. That is definitely poison ivy.”
“How would you know? Where have you ever even seen poison ivy?”
“And what makes you the expert here?”
“Ellen, they aren’t going to have poison ivy in a campsite. It’s ludicrous.”
Lois rolled her eyes. “Believe me, Dad. It’s poison ivy,” she muttered as she turned and headed down a nearby path. She had no idea why she might have leapt here, but there was no way she intended to stay around and listen to the non-stop arguments that had taken place that weekend... or was that this weekend? Whatever!
She didn’t care. Last time she’d spent the entire weekend trying to keep the peace between her mother and father. Not that it had done any good. By the time they finally headed back to the city, her mother’s entire body had been covered with calamine lotion. Yet there had been nothing wrong with her tongue. Her father, on the other hand, hadn’t said a word the entire trip. Lucy had pretended that nothing was happening, spending her entire time coloring in a coloring book - until she finally threw up. Oh, yeah, a really great weekend had been had by all. Lois hadn’t wanted anything to do with camping since.
It was getting dark as Lois wandered down the path, past various campsites. She spotted a family with three children sitting around a campfire. The children were younger than she had been... was. She stopped just out of sight as she watched the rapt attention on the children’s faces as their father held a flashlight under his chin, shining up into his face as he told the children a ghost story. The mother was watching with definite affection on her face for the man entertaining his children.
She sighed. Why couldn’t her family have been a little more like that?
Heading further down the path, she spotted a group of men sitting around a fire, drinking beer. They had quite obviously been drinking for quite some time.
“Hey, what have we here?” one of the men asked, spotting her.
She quickened her pace. She really didn’t need this right now.
“Hey, where you going, doll? Come join us.”
As if. Please. She might be in a fifteen year old body, but she still had an almost thirty year old mind. And there was no way she intended to get anywhere near that particular crowd.
As the men yelling to her from behind faded into the background, she heard what sounded like a couple of guitars and voices singing coming from up ahead. Some of the voices weren’t that great, but together they weren’t all that bad. At least, it sounded as if they were having fun.
She stepped closer until she could see them through the trees. A group of high school students or perhaps young college students were sitting around a camp fire engaging in the time-honored tradition of singing around an open fire. Well, at least some were singing. Some were just roasting marshmallows. There were even a couple of couples who were more intent on each other than the general merriment around them.
Maybe if that had been her first exposure to camping instead of the trip from hell, she’d have fond memories of the great outdoors. She wished she had the nerve to go join them, but really, they were kids and although her body might be fifteen, her mind was still in its late twenties.
She could vaguely remember a group of teens from her last time here, but she’d never had the nerve to introduce herself. But she could still remember envying them even then. She supposed she still did. She sighed.
Her sigh seemed to attract the attention of one of the group. A young man. Maybe seventeen or eighteen. He looked up, an almost shocked expression on his face as his eyes unerringly found hers though the darkness.
She stood frozen to the spot as she stared back at him. She watched in stunned disbelief as her name formed on his lips in a silent prayer.
“Clark,” she whispered, taking in the young man’s somewhat familiar appearance and his all too familiar eyes. And if he knew her...
“Hey, babe. So this is where you took off to in such a hurry,” said a man behind her even as a hand grabbed her arm, spinning her towards the obviously drunk man. “Come back and join the party.”
Caught off guard, her mind still reeling with the unexpected encounter with Clark, and the possible implications of him knowing her name - or was she sure it was her name? - she hardly reacted to her captor. Until, of course, his lips descended to hers.
“No!” she gasped, trying to pull away from the man’s strong grip.
Before she could do more than protest, she felt the man being pulled off her and tossed to the ground, and between them stood...
“Clark,” she whispered in relief.
“I suggest you get out of here now,” Clark said to the man on the ground. “Before I set her loose on you. And trust me when I say, I’m the lesser of two evils.”
She closed her eyes. Although she’d been with Clark for at least part of every leap, for some reason knowing that the boy with her now had the mind and memories of her husband - at least that was the only explanation she could come up with for his apparent knowledge of her - brought tears to her eyes. She stepped up close behind him, slipping her arms around his waist and leaning against his back while he continued to face down her would-be Romeo. His only concession to her move was to place a hand over her arms where they slipped around in front of him - telling her that he welcomed her touch.
“Go on now,” Clark said to the man.
The man stared at the two of them for a moment more before scrambling to his feet and staggering away.
“You’ve changed your aftershave,” Lois breathed into Clark’s neck, still pressed up against his back.
“Lois...” Clark whispered, finally turning towards her and gathering her against his chest. “And you’ve changed your shampoo.”
The feel of his body was different. His height was a little different, although he was still taller than she. His smell had changed. But the moment his lips found hers, everything was the same. His kiss was the same and it still had the power to make her weak in the knees.
She tangled her hands in his hair as she took her time, slowly exploring his mouth while he did the same to her. His taste. The feel of his lips. The rumble deep in his chest that told her he approved of what she was doing. The way he kissed. She’d know it anywhere. She’d know him anywhere - no matter how he looked or dressed. She could feel his spirit, bonded to hers, drawing her, as always, closer to him.
“Clark?”
A high pitched female voice caused Lois and Clark to draw apart. Lois knew that voice. The voice was followed by the appearance of a teenage Lana Lang.
* * * * * * * * *
to be continued...
ML
