What's this?! The next part is up, finally?
That's right, FoLCS! Part Seven is done and betad (and posted, as you can obviously see), part eight is only waiting for Beta Goodness, and I even have a good idea of where part Nine is going!
...Sorta.
Thanks to my Betas for putting up with my constant nagging! Not much happens in this chapter, but the next is chock-full of devious goodness!
***
Part Seven
Lois was furious.
After Superman, or Clark, or whoever the heck he was, had left, she had not been able to go back to sleep. Instead, she had done what had gotten her through many times when she was upset.
Now that the kitchen grout was spotless and most of the dust around the house had been eradicated, she was still angry.
Actually, truth be told, she had managed to calm down some after she had finished wiping away the last bits of dust from the living room. Then, as she was moving a chair back into place, she had bumped her elbow quite hard near the edge of a wall. Without warning, a part of the wall had spun, knocking over several bottles of cleaning agents to the floor, to reveal a secret compartment full of flashy blue suits and red capes. It was then that her anger had returned.
What had he been thinking, keeping this from her? And what had he been thinking, dashing off as he had? He was a stubborn man to be sure, one that she would love nothing more than to slap some sense back into.
For a moment, as she bent to retrieve the fallen cleaning supplies, she had wondered if she had been in on the secret. Had he kept it hidden from her, for all the years that they had apparently known each other? But then, as she thought about it, she realized that there was no way that he could have kept something like this from her. For one, he seemed far too in need of her support; too in need of her. And then, there was no way that she could see him actually keep something of this magnitude from her for a long period of time, especially when they lived together. She had too much faith in her investigative skills.
After attacking a smudge on the coffee table, she threw the rag down onto the sofa before continuing on to the bathroom. Once there, Lois sprayed some Windex across the reflective surface of the mirror before wiping it clean with old newspapers from the classifieds section.
She paused at the mirror as she put the window cleaner on the counter. Her hair, which she had once kept at a short bob, was even shorter than she remembered. When she had first seen the new length, and how it seemed to fit her, it had been the first clue that she was outside her own time. Now, she barely noticed it, but sometimes, like now, it was a reminder that she was not the woman that she used to be.
Sighing, Lois returned the cleaning supplies to the place where she had found them, in the entry way closet, before heading for upstairs. She was on a mission now; to find out more about her life, and subsequently, the life of her so called husband. There was a box in the closet that she had seen while pulling out some clothes for her day of cleaning. She knew from the bold lettering of ‘Superman’ in her own handwriting on top of the box, that it must be full of something useful.
She still felt weird in this room. It seemed to hold a part of her, and she could clearly make out where she had had a hand in the decorating. The low stand beneath the window where the stereo was kept had been in her room back in her old apartment. The nightstands next to the obviously new bed had been right next to the stand. And there were pictures hanging on the walls all throughout the house that she knew had been hers as well. There seemed to be an odd mixture of her and Clark scattered throughout the house, but it was more blaringly obvious in the master bedroom.
Lois went over to the closet and pulled out the box, taking a seat on the floor as she opened the lid. Her assumption had been correct; inside was a stack of newspaper clippings that threatened to spill out onto the floor.
She picked up the first article, oddly pleased to find that it held her own byline.
-
Antarctica should be colder than this.
These were Clark’s thoughts as he trudged through the ice and snow in nothing but the black suit he hadn’t worn since his time with the people from New Krypton. The thin material of the outfit should not have been able to hold back the bitter climate of the desolate continent.
Obviously, he wasn’t as powerless as he had originally assumed. He wondered how this could have been, or why he had not noticed before now.
Unfortunately, he found himself unable to fly. There were no blasts of laser vision to melt snow, no freezing breath to turn the patch of snow into a thing sheet of ice.
He wondered how it was that he had gotten here, and in this particular suit, no less. Was he experiencing some form of sleep-flying? It would explain Lois’ claims that he had not been in bed the other night.
Thoughts of his wife forced him into a run. He had to get back home, to keep her safe and to figure out what had happened. Both to her, and to himself.
-
An hour and twenty-odd articles later, Lois had to stand up and stretch. Apparently, she had been the main person to write articles on the superhero. There were a couple that had been written by other reporters, and even some that had Clark Kent's name on the byline. There was even a stack written by both Clark and herself, which a part of her felt odd at seeing her name beside someone else’s on more than one or two pieces.
Feeling hungry, she grabbed a couple of clippings and headed downstairs to make a sandwich. One of the articles was about a diverted tsunami, with an artist’s rendition of Superman burrowing through the wall of water. The next was actually a series written primarily by Clark, and apparently she had been the object of the articles. Apparently, it involved the ex-wife of Lex Luthor, a man that she had almost married – what had she been thinking? - a woman made to look just like her, and a dead plastic surgeon.
Lois shook her head as she bit into her pastrami on rye, wondering at how she had been able to stay alive all these years. As she pulled a carton of milk from the fridge and drank from the container, her eyes kept going back to where the articles rested on the table. Something about it struck a chord as her reporter’s instinct began to tingle slightly. There was something there, she just didn’t know what it was yet.
Grabbing a notepad from beside the phone, she sat down at the breakfast nook – and how weird was it that they actually had one of those? – and tapped a pen against a blank sheet, trying to figure out what it was that was causing her hair to stand on end.
-
The small encampment did not seem to be bustling with people, but then, this was Antarctica. Whoever it was that was here was probably doing the smart thing by staying inside.
Shuffling through the snow and ice, Clark slowly made his way closer. As he neared the small base, he saw two forms bundled in layers of clothing exit one of the buildings.
“I’m telling you, John, there is nothing wrong with the generator aside from the fact that it’s freaking cold down here,” a feminine voice drifted towards him.
“You’re just too used to warmer climates, Evie,” John said as they went to work on the offending piece of equipment.
“See? I told you. It’s just too cold!”
As he got closer, he could tell that the taller one was Evie. John was shorter, though by no means a short person. Evie was apparently quite tall for a woman, and was probably as tall as he was.
“Excuse me,” he said when he got closer. “Can either of you tell me where I can get to the nearest airstrip?”
His voice startled the two in the quiet tundra. John’s head shot up from the generator before giving him a wary eye, and Evie scrambled behind the generator before she looked up to see who the intruder was. While John continued to stare with caution, his companion’s face seemed to light up.
“Hey! You’re Superman, right? Where have you been?” She walked out from behind the generator. “My mom told me last month that you weren’t around much anymore, but I haven’t really spoken to her since. And we don’t get that much information down here until a couple weeks after it happened, so…”
She trailed off when John touched her on the arm, shaking his head. “Leave the man be, Evie.”
“I was just curious,” Evie countered reproachfully as she shook his hand off. Then she tilted her head as she looked back towards Superman. “Aren’t you cold in that?”
Clark glanced down at the thin black costume. Actually, he felt the cold, knew that he should be freezing, but his toes weren’t even numb. “Maybe a little,” he mumbled.
“We might have some clothes,” Evie offered, her eyes wide and helpful behind her thick goggles.
John snorted beside her. “The only person who has clothes big enough is you, Evie.”
Evie turned towards John, hands on her hips. “What exactly is it that you are implying?”
John sighed heavily, little puffs of condensation billowing from around the thick protective mask covering his face. “What I’m implying is that you’re the only one here tall enough to have anything that might fit him.”
Clark actually found himself smiling at their bantering, despite the predicament he was in. “It’s fine,” he insisted, raising his hands slightly in supplication. “I just need to find a way back to the States. Or a phone, if you have one available.”
He hoped that these two wouldn’t question Superman needing to use a phone. Or wonder why he couldn’t just fly home himself. Fortunately, while John seemed a bit reluctant to help, Evie seemed more than eager to help him out.
She showed him inside. Apparently, they were part of a group of scientists who studied ice samples taken from a drill. The young scientist talked about it to a certain extent as she led him through a few rooms, all the while ignoring the open stares of her fellow colleagues. Clark was out of practice when it came to dealing with people in the guise of Superman, and right now, he wasn’t exactly the Man of Steel.
“This room is private, so you can call who ever you want without having to worry about any nosy coworkers. I use it when I call my fiancé.” Evie blushed slightly and grinned.
“Your fiancé?” he inquired amicably.
“Yes, Rick,” she replied, trying to stifle a giggle. She had that same look that he had seen on his own face more than once, whenever he thought about Lois. “We’re going to marry this fall.”
“Congratulations,” Clark said. He hoped that the two of them had only half the trials that he and Lois had.
“Thanks.” She stood there for a moment longer, and then seemed to realize that he may want some privacy. “The line is also secure,” she added. “At least, I hope it is. So I’ll just leave you to it.”
He smiled as she left. Then, when he knew that he was alone, he dialed a very familiar number. The phone rang for awhile on the other end, and he almost hung up when he heard the phone being picked up.
“Hello?” Lois’ voice through the distance filled Clark’s heart with a sense of peace. He had known that he had missed her, but until that moment, he hadn’t noticed that he had been all but holding his breath until he heard her voice again.
“Lois?” he breathed into the phone.
“Clark? Is that you?” she let out a sigh that was both impatient and relieved. “Damn it, Clark, do you have any idea how much I want to hit you right now?”
“Yeah, I know. It’s just… I went to bed and I woke up here.” He didn’t say where exactly here was, because if he did, it would raise too many questions on her part.
“Well, after you fell asleep, you decided to fly around, moonlighting as a superhero. You know, that would have been a very nice conversation to have beforehand, you know? ‘Hi honey, I’m your husband. And oh, by the way, I’m also Superman!’ Didn’t you think that it was even slightly relevant to let me know that the man I apparently married is actually an alien?”
He winced at the last part. He tried not to take the defensive, but the word seemed to trigger some latent feelings of inadequacy. “Look, I’m sorry it never came up over coffee that I’m from another planet, but it’s not really something that I slip into normal everyday conversations! Not to mention, I'm not him anymore!”
“Oh, Clark,” she sighed into the receiver, sounding contrite. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just a lot to take in, and then I found out that you are that crazy guy from the alley, and then there are all these newspaper clippings, and I got to wondering just how in the world I would have been able to survive if Superman hadn’t come swooping in every ten seconds…”
As she continued to ramble, Clark closed his eyes to soak it all in. He had missed this quality of hers, the way she got when she allowed her mouth to run away from her. Although annoying at times, it was a quality that was quintessentially her.
“And what was that all about?” her irate tone jerked him back, and he realized that she had still been talking while his mind had drifted off.
He tried to recall what she had said, but it had all seemed to melt together. “What was what all about?”
She huffed petulantly. “Just swanning off like you did!”
“Lois, I don’t even remember seeing you last night before I went to bed. How can I remember something like that?”
“So then what you’re saying is that you have no memory, whatsoever, of swooping in here like some caped crusader and scaring the crap out of me? Or being all Mr. Mopey and saying things about how you can’t be Superman anymore, or Clark. Or my personal favorite, how you thought you killed me? That's also something that would have been nice to know!”
Clark’s heart stopped in his chest. He had never wanted her to find out. He could still clearly see his hands around her throat every time he closed his eyes. The glassy look in her eyes still haunted his dreams when he had them. He hadn’t even wanted to think about it, let alone confess it to her. And how he could have even told her about it, when he had so carefully tried to keep it locked away, was beyond him.
“And then! As if that little bombshell wasn’t bad enough, you just fly off to where ever it is that you fly off too, with no explanation as to how, or why, not even bothering to stick around!” Lois huffed angrily. “So now, not only have I married Mr. Superhero of the World, you’re now telling me that you’re entangled in some twisted version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”
Events that he couldn’t before explain suddenly began to make sense; waking up with dirt and debris on his clothes, finding his wedding band on his finger when he knew he had taken it off, the inexplicable exhaustion that he had attributed to depression, and Lois’ insistence that he had not been in bed the other day. But the question was, why? It was a frightening thought. He had believed that his powers had deserted him, and he knew that he had been vulnerable. He had injured his hips when he had fallen to the floor shortly before finding out that Lois had come home. He still remembered the ache in his joints. “Honestly, Lois, I’m not sure what’s going on.”
“Well, you’d better find out, buddy!” That was the last thing he heard before the dial tone rang in his ears.
-
Martha sat back on the couch, nestled in the crook of her husband’s arm, enjoying the break between morning and evening chores. The television was turned off, but then it hadn’t really been a large factor in their lives aside from news report of their son’s heroics. Before that, they would occasionally watch the news in the fear that some of their son’s more obvious heroics would make the news without the safety of a disguise. She sighed happily, finding a brief moment of peace with the man she loved. Turning her head up slightly, she studied him as he was engrossed in his magazine. On an impulse, she leaned up and gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek.
He turned from his magazine to smile softly down at her. “What was that for?”
She shrugged lightly, unable to stop the small grin she gave him in return. “No reason,” she replied. In response, Jonathan lovingly squeezed his arm around her before kissing her forehead. Martha snuggled in closer, content with just being there and reading over his shoulder.
Suddenly, the phone started to ring, and the mood was broken. With a sigh, Martha patted her husband on the knee. “I’ll get it,” she said before slowly getting up.
“Hello?” she asked as she picked up the phone.
“Oh, Martha,” the distraught voice of her daughter-in-law filled her ears. “I’m sorry to call you like this, but I didn’t know who else to call. I hung up on Clark.”
“Lois honey, you’re more than welcome to call at anytime. Now what’s this about your hanging up on Clark?”
Through Lois’ rambling, Martha was filled in. She took in the news, and at one point she turned towards Jonathan while covering the mouthpiece. “We’re going to need to call our travel agent. It’s a good thing we’re already packed.” She had a feeling that her daughter-in-law and her son would both need some parental guidance. Or a shoulder to lean on.
-end Part Seven
