There’s No Place Like Home
By ML Thompson <thomplaw@tbaytel.net>
Rated: PG-13
Submitted:
Description: see poster
http://www.thompsonlawoffice.ca/There\'s%20No%20Place%20Like%20Home%204.jpg
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This is a fanfic based on the television show, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. No copyright infringement is intended. I’m borrowing these characters for a little fun and not for any profit. For a complete disclaimer, go to:
http://www.thompsonlawoffice.ca/Disclaimer.htm When including information about various episodes, I often relied on the scripts - which sometimes had different wording or additional dialogue in them which I found helpful.
My thanks, as usual, go out to Gerry and Carol for their ideas and beta reading skills for this story. Because of their input, I figured out where this story was going to go and how to get there. And then they stuck by me, through thick and thin, throughout this monstrosity. Cheering and challenging me to make this a better story. All I can say is... thanks, guys.
Thanks also to EditorJax for encouraging me to get off my butt and start editing this monstrosity. And my thanks to the people on the Fanfic Message boards for answering so many unrelated questions. You probably found yourselves wondering what exactly I was working on since one minute I was asking about radiation poisoning and the next was asking for expressions from the age of Bonnie and Clyde. Well, here is the result.
Point of Order: You will find two ** at the beginning and ending of every section where Lois and Clark are remembering an incident in the past. Also, incidents in the past are in italics.
If you enjoy this story, please let me know by writing to me at thomplaw@tbaytel.net
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There’s No Place Like Home
By ML Thompson <thomplaw@tbaytel.net>
PG-13
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Chapter One
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“Then we realized that the problem was with the flux facilitator. The calibrator was off by a few nanoseconds. I can tell you, it took our research in a completely new direction. But you probably don’t want to know about all of that. Bottom line: we fixed it and... presto! It worked! Or at least... we think it worked. All of our research indicates it does. All that’s left now is to conduct the final tests!” Dr. Klein explained enthusiastically to the two reporters who had been listening to his discourse. He finally stopped, waiting with baited breath for their response.
Lois and Clark shared a look, each silently asking the pertinent question - did the other have even the foggiest idea what the good doctor was talking about? After a moment of non-verbal communication, Clark was the one to speak.
“Dr. Klein,” he began slowly, “you’ll have to forgive us, but...”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Lois said, when Clark took too long to get to the point.
Clark glanced indulgently at his wife. She was still the spitfire he had fallen in love with. He doubted she would ever change. He certainly hoped not. Her edges might have become softer over the years, but she was still... Lois. As impatient as always. He smiled.
“Oh, didn’t I say?” Dr. Klein said, obviously thinking he’d been all too clear.
“If you did, I didn’t hear it,” Lois said, but there was no sting to her words.
During the preceding years, Lois and Clark’s relationship with Dr. Klein had altered. Friends was probably too strong a word since they never got together for purely social functions. But business acquaintances wasn’t a full summary of their relationship either. Allies in their shared fight against all the evil the world had to offer was probably the best description - even if it was a little wordy.
The change had taken place when Lois had discovered that she was pregnant, much to everyone’s surprise. After Dr. Klein had told them they couldn’t get pregnant, they had, understandably, dispensed with taking precautions - with unexpected results. Lois had become pregnant.
After long discussions about how they should handle the situation, they’d turned to Dr. Klein - deciding that, for Lois’ sake, and the baby’s, they would have to trust Dr. Klein with Clark’s secret.
The man had barely batted an eyelash, taking it completely in stride. And although he didn’t say it, Lois and Clark came to the conclusion that he’d suspected as much for quite some time. The fact that he hadn’t said anything, not even to them, had been a tremendous source of comfort. And his care of both Lois, and now of their child, had been a god-send.
So when he had called them this evening, telling them that he needed to see them immediately, Clark had flown their daughter, Victoria, out to spend the night with Martha and Jonathan and Lois and Clark had answered his summons. But after listening to a bunch of scientific gobbildeegook for the past ten minutes, both were seriously rethinking that decision.
“Uhh...” Klein said, searching for a new way to convey his thoughts. Suddenly, his face lit up. He turned away from them, searching the counters behind him until he found what he was looking for - a small, black device about the size of a cell phone. “This was brought to Star Labs after... Well, you two remember President John Doe, don’t you? Oh, of course you do. You two are the ones who stopped him from blowing up the world.
“Well, anyway, after he was arrested, this was found when his suite was searched.” Klein held up the item. “No one could figure out what it was for, so it was brought here. Now it took some time to get it working, but we discovered that it is...”
“We know what...” Clark began before being interrupted by his wife elbowing him in the ribs and speaking over him.
“What is it, Dr. Klein?” Lois asked, ignoring the confused look her husband sent her way.
“A time travel device,” Klein said proudly. “Now, I know what you’re thinking...”
“Oh, I don’t think you do,” Clark muttered.
“You’re thinking that time travel isn’t possible,” Klein said. “After all, there is the issue of paradoxes. For example, if a man went back in time and killed his great-grandfather, then how would the man ever be born? And if he’d never been born, how could he go back to kill his great-grandfather? It’s paradoxes like that that cause most people to dismiss the whole idea of time travel in the first place. But I assure you, this contraption makes all of us who have been working with it believe that time travel is quite possible - even within our reach.
“And...” he continued, pausing for effect, “we’ve also discovered that this little machine can do something else that’s quite remarkable. It can enable a person, at least in theory, to travel between dimensions.”
“So why are we here?” Lois said, ignoring the looks Clark continued to send her way. He seemed to be asking why they weren’t telling Bernard that they were already familiar with the abilities of that little black box. Still, what did he expect her to do? It wasn’t as if she could fill him in while Bernie was in the room.
“Oh, yes! Did I forget to mention? Well, we’ve sent some inanimate objects and even a couple of lab rats both forward and backward in time, and into various dimensions. Or, well, only one other dimension really since we can’t figure out yet how to change dimensions. But we’re at the point now where we need is someone to make the trip. After all, the lab rats can’t reset the controls to come home - so we can’t send them to a different dimension... or rather, we can’t get them back when we do.”
“So what does that have to do with us?” Clark asked, giving up on getting an answer out of his wife, but going along with her silent demand not to tell Dr. Klein what they already knew.
“Didn’t I say?” Klein said. “Oh, how clumsy of me. Well, we thought that maybe Superman might be willing to take the primary voyage?”
“So you want to use Cl... Superman as a guinea pig?” Lois asked.
“I assure you, Lois. It’s perfectly safe.”
“If it’s so safe, why do you need Superman?” Lois responded skeptically.
“Oh, dear. I’m really not explaining myself well, am I?” Klein said, looking distressed. “It’s not the machine we’re concerned about. It’s what might be waiting for us on the other side.”
Lois and Clark looked at each other in confusion.
“Well, none of us here are exactly... musclemen. I guess we could ask for a volunteer from the army to go... Just in case there’s trouble. Or maybe hire some muscle. But really! Is that the impression we want to make on first contact? Of course not. What we need is someone who can handle himself if there is trouble, but isn’t going to go looking for it... if you know what I mean.”
When Lois and Clark just continued to stare at him, Dr. Klein continued. “So... how about it? Are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime?”
“I think we need a chance to talk it over,” Lois said immediately, looking over at Clark.
He had his head cocked to the side, silently studying her, his eyes brimming over with questions he had the good sense not to ask.
* * * * * * * * *
“Okay, so out with it,” Clark said as he and Lois buckled themselves into the jeep.
Lois turned the key in the ignition and the engine purred to life before she looked over at her husband. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she said soberly.
“I can’t say that the idea of taking a trip into an alternate dimension using something that they don’t completely understand is leaving me with a warm fuzzy feeling either.”
“No. That’s not what I mean. If it were just us... Well, it would be kinda fun to see what the future is like or take a trip into the past or... Oh, Clark! We could even take a trip to see how Alt-Clark is doing! I’ve been worried about him. I mean, did he find his Lois? Mr. Wells sort of hinted that he might. But... well, I’d love to see for myself.” She pulled the jeep out into the street.
“Then... what’s the problem?”
Lois let out a breath. “It’s just... Well, this technology... It’s not supposed to be here. In this time, I mean. It’s future technology.”
“And if people get hold of it now, it might have devastating effects on the future.”
“Or the past. Think about it, Clark. Tempus tried once to go into the past to kill you as a baby. If people in this time find out about this technology, what’s to stop one of them from coming up with the same idea.”
“Isn’t that going to be a problem, no matter when that machine is invented?”
“Maybe. And to a degree, it obviously is. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have Tempus. But this is different. Most people in the future... Well, they won’t want to make serious changes to ancient history because of the possible implications for the present day. Tempus is the exception. Now, there might be others who don’t particularly like Utopia, but I don’t think most of them are going to want to follow in Tempus’ footsteps. After all, if they kill Superman, they could inadvertently be preventing you from saving someone who saved someone who saved one of their ancestors - causing them never to be born. And even if that’s not true, there is the asteroid problem.”
Clark’s eyebrows rose. “The asteroid problem?”
“Nightfall,” she said as if that should explain everything. When it didn’t, she let out a breath. “Think about it, Clark. If you had been killed as a baby, the world would have been destroyed by Nightfall. And even if some people did manage to survive, there wouldn’t be many. No, no one in the future is going to seriously contemplate killing Superman as a baby. And if they did, they likely would never be born in which case...”
“How could they go back and kill me as a baby,” Clark concluded.
“Exactly!” Lois exclaimed. “Although... that still doesn’t explain Tempus. I mean, surely he’s thought about these things.”
“I’ve got my own theories on Tempus,” Clark said.
When he paused, Lois looked over at him expectantly.
“Well, I’m not sure that Tempus is very bright,” Clark continued. “Either that, or he’s more interested in having fun than he is in actually destroying Utopia.”
“Okay, now you’ve lost me.”
“Well, personally, I’d probably go with the ‘not very bright for a villain’ option. But the other one... From what we know of Tempus, he finds Utopia dull. I sometimes wonder if the reason he keeps coming back, coming up with weird and bizarre ways to kill us is because he enjoys watching us figure out how to stop him.” Clark glanced over at his wife. “To relieve the boredom.”
“Clark, Tempus was going to blow up the whole world! Are you seriously trying to tell me that he was simply wanting to relieve his boredom?”
“Lois, think about it. If he had blown up the whole world, how would his parents ever been born? And if his parents had never been born, how could he blow up the whole world? And why come back to the time of Superman? He could have gone back... another fifty years, before there was a Superman and established world domination then. We wouldn’t even know he’d done it. His altered history would seem... right to us. So why confront Superman directly? Because he’s having fun.”
Lois was silent for a moment as she let that thought digest. “God, I hate being someone’s choice of after dinner entertainment,” she finally muttered.
Clark barked out a laugh. “Kinda cheapens it somehow, doesn’t it? Still, I’m not exactly sure why you think that those things wouldn’t be problems now.”
“Think about it, Clark. Oh, the asteroid thing might still be a problem. But a villain wouldn’t have to go that far back. He could have a full itinerary of every place that Superman has ever been and set a trap. Or more than one. They could know that you’d be helping out at a particular earthquake, and plant some kryptonite at the epicenter. Or that you were going to dive into a particular volcano on a particular day to stop it from erupting and put kryptonite at the entrance so that you’d encounter it the moment before entering the volcano.
“Part of the problem for even kryptonite bearing criminals is that they don’t ever know for sure where Superman is going to be - unless it’s somewhere like a charity event where you aren’t going to be in immediate danger if you suddenly find yourself powerless. After all, if you lose your powers at the latest Daughters of Metropolis luncheon, it’s not as if anything much is going to happen - except that Superman will have to catch a cab home instead of flying.
“Besides all that, it wouldn’t be too hard for a criminal with a time travel device to find some kryptonite. They could just go back in time and steal it from some other criminal who failed when they tried to use it against you. They could even go back in time and find the piece under Wayne Irig’s tree.”
Clark let out a long, slow breath. “So this technology can’t be invented until...”
“...the world is a kinder, gentler place.”
“So what are you suggesting? That we talk to Dr. Klein?”
“No!”
The immediacy and strength of Lois’ refusal caught Clark off guard and he looked at his wife, eyebrows raised.
“Think about it, Clark. I trust Dr. Klein, but he’s still a scientist. That’s why I didn’t want to let him know what we knew about time travel or other dimensions. If he knew for sure that such things were possible, he’d never quit trying to get there.”
“But according to him, this machine proves that such things are possible.”
“But didn’t Einstein theoretically prove that time travel is possible? This is the same thing. Right now they know, theoretically, that such things are possible. But that’s not the same thing as going to other times or other dimensions. It takes the ‘knowing’ to a whole new level. And from what he said, I get the impression that although they got that time travel thingy to work, they still aren’t completely sure ‘how’ it works.”
“So what are you suggesting?”
“We’ve got to steal it, Clark.”
“Steal it?”
“Of course. After all... Oh no!”
“What?”
“I just thought of another problem.” She glanced over at Clark. “If Star Labs manages to get that thing to go to other dimensions, suddenly Tempus’ comments about Clark and Superman being the same person and one of you being from another dimension don’t sound quite so crazy.”
Clark didn’t respond. He simply stared out the window in front of him. She was right. This could have serious implications for the future - not to mention what it could do to his life, to their lives, to their daughter. Still... she was suggesting that they break into Star Labs and steal something. Could he really be party to something like that?
* * * * * * * * *
It was well after midnight when Clark and Lois landed on the roof to Star Labs. Clark wasn’t entirely sure how he’d been talked into this. As he’d pointed out to Lois - persuasively, too, he thought - there was a difference between stealing evidence from a bad guy to write a story and stealing something from one of the good guys. In fact, if he thought about it now, he was pretty sure she’d agreed with his reasoning. And no matter how much he wanted to keep his identity a secret or avoid messing up the future, he wasn’t comfortable with the whole concept of stealing.
So what exactly were they doing there, dressed completely in black? Okay, so he knew why they were in black. After all, as Lois had pointed out, the red and blue of the Superman suit was a little too obvious for a clandestine mission. Whereas, dressed all in black, with caps pulled down over their eyes and Lois with that wig... no one was likely to be able to get a definitive look at the ‘thieves’ in the event that they were seen. On the other hand, how many thieves were likely to enter from the roof of Star Labs?
“Lois,” he said slowly as he set her down, “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
“Sure it is, Clark,” Lois said, turning immediately to the door to the stairway.
“No, Lois,” Clark said seriously, catching her arm. “This just... doesn’t feel right.”
She turned back then, caught by something in Clark’s tone of voice that let her know that he was having serious moral questions about their current course of action. She studied his eyes for a long moment before speaking again.
“Think of it this way, Clark. That time travel device doesn’t belong to them. We’re just taking it away from someone who has no right to it in the first place.”
“We don’t have any right to have it either,” Clark pointed out.
“True. But then, we’re just... holding on to it until the next time someone from the future shows up. Then we’ll turn it over to them to take it back to whomever it does belong to.”
Clark thought about her words. Put that way, it did make sense. He nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do this.”
“Wait!” she said as he began to turn away. She turned him back around, making sure she had eye contact before speaking again. “Are you really okay with this?” she asked, searching his eyes intently.
A grin crept slowly onto his face. “What happened to the Lois who would steamroll over everyone and everything to get her way?” he asked teasingly.
“She left the building when she started sleeping next to the guy who obsesses for days if he thinks he’s done something wrong,” she instantly replied. “The last time we crossed the street on a red light, you spent half the night obsessing about how irresponsible that was. And I lost a good night’s sleep as a result. Now... are you sure? Because I guess we could go the other route - tell Dr. Klein that he has to stop working on time travel.”
Clark shook his head. “No, you’re right. The only way we’d be able to convince Dr. Klein to turn the device over to us is to tell him everything. And even then, we’d just be asking him to do what we’re doing anyway - to steal it. After all, it isn’t his property either. It belongs to Star Labs.” He let out a breath. “So we take the device back and we put it in safe keeping until someone shows up to take it back to the future. After all, if they keep working on it...” He shrugged. “Besides, I don’t feel comfortable telling Dr. Klein that he has to stop working on time travel. After all, for all we know, he’s the one who invented it.”
She continued to search his eyes for a moment more before seeming reassured. Finally, she nodded, apparently having found what she was looking for in his gaze.
Together, they walked to the door leading down from the roof before stopping.
“Are you sure this is the best way in?” Lois asked. “I mean, couldn’t we just fly through a window or something?”
“This is the best way. None of the windows open so we’d have to break one. And for that to be a more effective way to get in, we’d have to go through one of the windows on the upper floors. After all, security is heavier on the lower floors - given that that’s where they would expect someone to break in.”
“And going through an upper story window would immediately point to Superman being the thief,” Lois added. “Okay. So why don’t you...” She made an obscure gesture with her hands.
Clark smiled and nodded before removing his glasses and sticking them in his pocket - better to leave them off for this task - and then he stared intently, first at the door and then at the floor beneath them.
“Okay, I think I have a plan. They’ve got the device stored in the safe on the tenth floor. I can’t see into the safe. I guess it’s got some sort of lead lining. But there is a note to someone named Clyde on Dr. Klein’s desk telling him to return the device to the safe. And the device isn’t on the desk, so I would assume that Clyde did what he was told.” He looked briefly at Lois. “If it isn’t there, I guess we’ll have to rethink this plan, but for now...” He shrugged and returned his gaze to the floor. “There’s no one in the room where the safe is located. The safe is locked, but that shouldn’t be a problem. But... Uhh... maybe it would be better if you let me do this alone.”
“No way, flyboy. We’re partners, remember?”
He sighed. He’d expected that. Still, he felt that he had to make at least a token effort. He picked her up in his arms.
“What about security getting into the building?”
Clark shot a quick blast of heat vision through the wall beside the door. Then, reaching over, he carefully closed the hole by pushing the concrete together with his fingers, running his finger across it to smooth it out.
“Won’t that give away who broke in?”
Clark shook his head. “It’ll just look as if a wire shorted out. It will probably short out the whole system for a moment so...”
He shifted into superspeed. The next thing she knew they were standing in a small room with a large safe covering one wall.
“Okay,” Lois said. “Do you want to tell me what just happened?”
“The security system did short our for a moment, but... Well, the back up system came on quicker than I thought. So I just floated us down the center of the stairwell and then checked to make sure the camera was turned the other way. Then...” He shrugged.
“You floated and checked?” Lois asked in disbelief. “Could have fooled me.”
Clark laughed. “After we leave though - maybe a few hours later so that they don’t connect it with the system shorting out for a moment - I’m thinking that I should break a window on the first floor - just so that they think that’s how the thieves got in when they discover that the time travel device is missing. Maybe even leave a few muddy footprints - in a different size shoe from mine - just inside the window. Piece of cake,” he said with a grin.
“It’s a good thing that you didn’t chose a profession as a cat burglar,” she said. “I’m not sure even I’d be able to catch you. So has anyone figured out that we’re here?”
He looked around and listened intently before responding. “No. Security knows that the system went down for a moment, but since it’s working fine now, they aren’t particularly worried. They’re talking about calling in the specialist in the morning to see what went wrong, but... No. They have no idea we’re here. Now...” He turned his attention to the safe. Slowly, he turned the large combination lock, listening intently as the tumblers fell into place.
A loud ‘click’ sounding in the quiet room caused Lois to jump slightly. Giving her a grin, he pulled the handle, opening the door.
The pain hit him almost instantly. He stumbled, pushing the door further open as he fell against it.
“Clark!”
He heard Lois’ gasp coming from somewhere, but her voice was distant, obstructed by a wall of pain. “The device,” he gasped when he felt her trying to pull his body away from where it was blocking the door from closing. She was obviously trying to get it closed up again. Still, if they did that... If they left without the device now, this whole trip would have been for nothing. “Get the device.”
“Not worth it,” he heard her say.
“The device, Lois,” he repeated. “You get the device and I’ll...” He forced himself onto his hands and knees.
* * * * * * * *
Realizing what he was trying to tell her, Lois leapt over his body and into the safe, searching frantically to find the time travel device as quickly as possible. He was too heavy for her to drag him far enough away from the door to allow her to close it. So while he worked on that, the least she could do was find the device.
But... where was it? She scanned the shelves, pushing things aside in her frantic attempt to find it. She wasn’t entirely sure why they hadn’t thought about the fact that Dr. Klein kept a small amount of kryptonite at Star Labs or why they hadn’t wondered why there was lead shielding on the safe. She glanced back at her husband who was still struggling to get out of the doorway. Well, damn this. If she couldn’t find the device by the time he had cleared the doorway, then device or not, she was closing the door.
“Come on. Come on,” she muttered as she continued to look.
There! Finally!
She grabbed the small black box and turned back to Clark just as he crawled back far enough for her to push her way out of the safe and slam the door, spinning the handle to ensure that it was locked just as alarms began to sound.
Okay, so what now?
“Can you move?” she asked Clark, quickly moving to his side.
He shook his head, collapsing back onto the floor.
“So I guess flying us out of here is out of the question?” she asked rhetorically as she looked around the room, hoping desperately to find an alternative.
The sound of feet running down the hallway caused Lois to spring to her feet. She rushed to the door, locking it only moments before someone tried to open it.
“Where’s the key?”
The man’s voice was all too clear. Somehow, the guards knew that this was where their culprits were. She looked around again in desperation before her eyes landed on the black box.
No. No. Absolutely not.
She scanned the room again, determined to find an alternative.
“Right here!”
She heard a shuffle of keys and then the sound of a key in a lock. She glanced over at Clark. The sweat on his face, slicking back his hair. The absence of his glasses - where were they anyway? Had he even brought them with him?
No. He couldn’t be found here. Superman could not be caught breaking and entering. And right now, he definitely looked more Superman than Clark.
But what to do? Clark appeared to have passed out now, so dragging him somewhere to hide wasn’t an option - not in the time they had left.
She looked back at the black box in her hand.
At that moment, she saw the door handle began to move. There was no time left. Without worrying about the possible repercussions, she rushed over to Clark. Grabbing onto him, she flipped on the power and pushed a button on the black box. A time window appeared. Unable to pull Clark through the window, she grabbed the window, pulling it down around them.
She let out a breath of relief when the room around them began to fade just as men with guns stormed into the room.
To be continued...
ML
