PREVIOUSLY...
“Vicky! Where is she?” Lois demanded a second time.
“I don’t...” Martha’s voice trailed off as she looked to her baffled husband.
“She’s not here, Lois,” Clark said softly, coming up behind Lois, his hands on her shoulders.
“But...” Lois looked around at the people in the room. Suddenly, she was struck with a new thought. “Did she go to spend the night with Cathy? I know she likes to visit Cathy when she comes here. So... is that where she is?” Then she stared expectantly at Martha, her heart in her throat. That had to be the answer. It just... had to be.
“Uhh...” Martha glanced at her husband before looking back at Lois. Then her gaze shifted to her son. “Clark, maybe you should tell us what’s going on here. What are you wearing? And... who’s she?” She pointed at Lois on the last question.
All the air seemed to leave Lois’ lungs on the final question. “Clark?” she whimpered. In response, Clark wrapped his arms around her from behind. She instantly turned, burying her face in his strong shoulder, praying that in a moment, she’d wake and this whole nightmare would be behind her.
AND NOW...
* * * * * * * * *
Chapter Three
* * * * * * * * *
Martha brought a cup of steaming liquid over to the distraught, young woman currently sitting at her kitchen table. She still hadn’t managed to get any answers out of her son as to the young woman’s identity. Nor was she certain why her son was dressed in a flashy pair of tights and a cape. Really! A cape! Maybe it was some sort of Halloween costume... at this time of year! Or maybe he’d been at a costume ball or... well, or something.
Of course, once she’d pointed out what he was wearing he’d done something she’d never seen before. After getting the young woman settled at the table, he’d spun so fast that he became nothing more than a swirl of colors and then... he’d stood in front of her, dressed in black jeans and a black top, his glasses once again firmly in place. Fortunately, the young woman seated at the table, staring blankly at her hands, didn’t seem to have noticed. She’d have to take Clark aside later and warn him about using his powers in front of strangers.
Although... Glancing between the young woman and her son, Martha couldn’t help but feel that they were hardly strangers - that Clark knew her quite well, in fact.
“Here,” Martha said gently, handing the tea to the woman. “You look like you could use it.”
The woman looked up as if not really seeing her for a moment, before reaching automatically for the tea. She wrapped her hands around it, as if trying to soak up the warmth coming from the cup, but didn’t raise it to her lips.
“It’s Lois, isn’t it?” Martha said, taking a seat beside her. “At least, I think that’s what Clark called you.”
The young woman just stared back at her. Her mouth moved slightly, as if she was trying to answer, before she seemed to give up.
“It will be okay, Lois,” Clark said, taking a seat beside the woman and reaching up to untangle one of her hands from the stranglehold it had on the cup.
She turned to him then, fire flashing in her eyes for the first time since she’d collapsed against Clark in the living room. “How can you say that?” she demanded. “I’ve just lost...” Her eyes darted towards the stairway, up which their daughter should have been, and then towards Martha and Jonathan. “...everything I’ve ever cared about.”
“Not everything,” Clark responded firmly, raising her hand to his face. “You haven’t lost me.”
“No? So... how long before I do? If we changed the past how long before our memories change to match... whatever has happened here? How does this work, Clark? Because I can’t see our memories remaining intact when everything else has changed? So how long? How long before... I lose you, too?” Her voice on the final words was not much more than a strangled whisper. Her hand slipped out of Clark’s and she began gently tracing the line of his jaw as if to memorize it. “How long before I lose you, too?” she repeated, her voice breaking and tears slipping unheaded down her cheeks.
Martha glanced at her son, who had gone pale as something the woman had said seemed to slice through his heart.
“Okay, I think it’s about time someone filled us in here,” Martha said, determinedly taking control of the rapidly deteriorating situation.
Clark looked over at her, his eyes so full of pain that Martha had to stop herself from gasping.
“Mom... Dad... This is Lois Lane...” He paused slightly. “...Kent. Your daughter-in-law. My wife. And the mother of my child.”
* * * * * * * * *
“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Jonathan said after they finished filling his parents in on the remarkable details of their day. “This morning when you woke up, you two were married, were living in a particular brownstone and you had a daughter...”
“Vicky,” Clark filled in.
“Then you stole this thing from Star Labs...” He pointed at the device lying between them on the table and shot a reproving look at Clark.
“It wasn’t really stealing, Dad,” Clark jumped in. “We were just taking it to hold onto it for the person or people who do own it.”
“People from the future,” Jonathan clarified.
“Right. We weren’t planning to keep it. We just wanted to make sure that future technology didn’t end up in the wrong hands.”
“So you stole it,” Jonathan repeated, obviously not satisfied with his son’s excuse for stealing.
“I think we’re getting a little off track here,” Martha said. “So you woke up this morning with all that and then, you used the device and... went into the past?”
“Well, we don’t know if it was our past or...” Clark began.
“It had to be our past, Clark,” Lois said, interrupting him. “Given...” She again swept her hand vaguely around the room. “How else do you explain it?”
“I suppose. But let’s not write off the possibility that this is an alternate reality.”
“If it is an alternate reality, then there has to be an alternate version of us,” Lois said. “So... I guess that’s one thing we will need to check out. If there isn’t... then I guess the most obvious conclusion is that this is our reality... after we changed the past.”
“Either way,” Jonathan continued, “when you got back, everything had changed.”
“Right. So...”
“Wait! Clark, what if, for some reason, we didn’t jump back to our own time? What if we are still in the past?”
Hope shone in Clark’s eyes. “Then, it would make sense that Mom and Dad wouldn’t know who you are! We wouldn’t have even met yet.”
“And we wouldn’t have had Vicky. And all we’d have to do is figure out how to get back to our own time. That’s just got to be it!” Her eyes turned to Martha and Jonathan. “What’s the date?”
“Uhh...” Jonathan looked at his wife. “May...”
“Well, it would be the nineteenth now.”
“The year,” Lois demanded impatiently. “What’s the year?”
“Two thousand and one.”
Lois’ heart dropped. “But... But...” She looked at Clark for help.
“I take it that isn’t the past to you,” Martha said quietly, reaching out to lay her hand over the one the distressed young woman had laying on the table.
“No,” Clark said slowly. “It’s very much our present.” He quickly pushed past the depression that was threatening to encompass him. “So what we need to do is to concentrate on getting it back?”
Lois gave him a quick nod, quite obviously pulling herself together.
“Couldn’t you just go into the past again and... fix whatever you changed?” Jonathan asked.
“But we didn’t change anything,” Clark objected.
“We must have changed something,” Lois said. “What we need to do is to figure out ‘what’ we changed.”
“And then what? It’s not as if we can go back to the exact same moment. That would just leave four of us there instead of two.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Martha said resolutely, giving Lois’ hand a squeeze. “Because I’m not losing my daughter-in-law.”
Lois gave Martha a grateful smile.
“Okay,” Jonathan said determinedly. “So where do we start?”
“Okay,” Lois said, pushing aside her feelings of self-pity to concentrate on the problem, “the first thing we need to do is to find out if there are alternate versions of ourselves here. So... Martha, why don’t you try giving Clark a call. Given the hour, he’s bound to be home. If he’s not there, you can leave a message.”
Martha immediately got up to do as requested. A moment later she returned. “Not home, but I left the message for him to call, like you suggested.”
Lois let out a breath. She had suspected that. This was their reality. She just knew it. “Okay, so what we need to do next is to figure out what changed and why. Then we figure out how to go back and fix it. So... Martha... Jonathan... we’re going to need you to tell us what your memories are of the last seven years. And then, Clark, we’re going to have to go back to Metropolis to fill in the remaining pieces.”
Lois took a breath before continuing. “So, Martha, I take it from your reaction to seeing Clark in the suit...”
“Suit?” she asked.
“The spandex thingy with a cape,” Lois clarified. “...that there is no Superman here?”
“What’s a Superman?” Jonathan asked.
“I thought so,” Lois said even as Clark spoke.
“There’s no Superman?” he asked in disbelief.
“What’s a Superman?” Martha asked, repeating her husband’s question.
“Clark went public with his powers seven years ago...” When both Martha and Jonathan looked horrified, Lois rushed to continue. “Not as Clark. No one knows that Clark is Superman. You invented the suit. You said that when he wore it, no one would be looking at his face.” She actually smiled at the way Martha’s eyebrows rose. “And you were right.” She looked over at her husband, running her eyes down his body to emphasize her point.
“I’m the one who invented the cape?” Martha asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, Mom. That was all you.”
“But why would I...” Martha’s voice trailed off. “On the other hand, I bet it looks really good when you’re flying.”
Clark smiled. “That’s what you said at the time, too.”
“Anyway, for some reason, I guess that never happened.”
“When was this supposed to have happened?” Martha asked.
“Shortly after Clark came to work at the Planet.”
“The Planet?” asked Jonathan, looking at his wife for a moment before looking back at Lois. “Do you mean the Daily Planet?”
Lois felt a tension rising in her chest. What had happened to the Daily Planet? What if because of their changes to the past, Lex had succeeded in destroying the Daily Planet? “What happened to the Planet?” she asked cautiously, bracing herself for the worst.
“Clark doesn’t work for the Daily Planet,” Martha explained. “He never has. When he moved to Metropolis, he went to work for The Star.”
It took a moment for the information to sink in. Lois and Clark looked at each other in silence for a long moment before Clark turned back to his mother.
“But when I went to Metropolis... I had an interview lined up with Perry White - the editor of The Daily Planet.”
“You may have,” Jonathan said. “I really can’t remember all that well. I know you said you had an interview lined up with someone, but... I’m sorry, son. I can’t remember who. Do you, Martha?”
Martha shook her head. “But I don’t remember you mentioning anyone at the Daily Planet. You called us later that night to say that you had gotten a job at The Star. Although, I do remember you sounding a little down.”
“Did I say why?”
“No, but I remember thinking it had something to do with a woman.”
Clark leaned forward in his chair. “Did I say anything else?”
Martha and Jonathan looked at each other before shaking their heads.
“I just remember that I said I’d send you some money to tide you over until you got your first paycheque,” Jonathan said.
“Do you remember anything else? Anything at all?”
“Yes,” Martha said as something else popped into her mind. “I remember you saying something about saving someone. But I can’t remember the details. And your dad warned you about using your powers in the big city.”
“That must have been the bus I stopped,” Clark said. “I’ll fill you in later,” he said to Lois when she looked at him expectantly. “But I was on my way to my interview with Perry White when I stopped the bus, so... What could have happened after that to stop my interview?”
“Clark, we don’t know that anything happened to stop the interview,” Lois said. “After all, if you recall correctly, you didn’t get the job when you first went to see Perry. He turned you down.”
“And if I was feeling down about a woman... Well, that certainly suggests to me that we at least met,” Clark added. “Which certainly suggests that I went to the Daily Planet. So whatever changed, it must have been after that.”
Lois nodded. It made sense after all. But that still didn’t tell them ‘what’ had changed. So how did they find out?
“I think it’s time for us to head back to Metropolis,” Lois said, moving towards the door.
“Wait!” Martha said, stopping both Lois and Clark in their tracks. “It’s...” She glanced at the clock. “...almost three a.m. Don’t you think you should get some sleep first? You can head back first thing in the morning.”
“No time,” Lois said, picking up her jacket and slipping it on.
“Lois,” Clark said, coming up behind her. His hands landed on her shoulders and he turned her towards him. “Mom has a point. We’ve been up for... well, at least twenty hours now - and that doesn’t include the time we spent in the past. I know I’m only running on half-cylinders at the moment. We really do need some sleep if we’re going to be thinking clearly enough to figure this out.”
“But...” She looked at Clark.
“We’ll get up at seven. But we need a few hours.”
She felt tears spring to her eyes, but still she nodded. He was right. They were going to both need every ounce of brainpower they possessed before all this was over. And to do that, they needed to recharge.
“Okay,” Martha said. “Lois, you can take Clark’s room. Clark, you’ll be sleeping...”
Lois grasped Clark’s arm.
“...on the couch.”
“Your mom turned the guest bedroom into an artist studio,” Jonathan explained, misinterpreting the look he saw on his son’s face.
“Clark...” Lois said, her eyes finding his. She couldn’t be separated from him - not now.
“Mom,” Clark said firmly. “We’re married. We’ve been married for about...”
“Oh, right!” Martha said, finally cluing into the problem. “I forgot. So... I guess you’ll be staying in Clark’s room? I should warn you, it only has a single bed, but... You’re welcome to share it.”
Relief instantly broke through the very tense atmosphere that had descended on the room.
“Thanks, Martha,” Lois said quietly.
“It’s okay, honey,” Martha said. “I hate to sleep apart from Jonathan, too. So... Why don’t you two head on upstairs? We’ll make sure there is a good breakfast ready for you in the morning.”
“You don’t have to...”
“Yes. We do. And we’ll do whatever else is needed to help straighten out this mess.”
Lois came over and shocked the older woman slightly by giving her an intense hug. “Thank you, Martha,” Lois whispered.
Martha smiled at her when the younger woman finally stepped away. “Oh, it’s my pleasure.” She looked at Lois for a moment before adding, “You know, I’ve been so worried that Clark would never find someone who would understand him, accept him for who he is. He’s had to hide so much, never being able to let people know what he can do.” Her voice wobbled slightly. “I’m so happy he finally has you.” She sniffed slightly. “You know, this is so nice - more than thirty years and you’re the first woman I’ve ever been able to talk to about my boy.”
Lois gave a watery laugh. “That’s what you said last time, too.”
“Then I guess I must have meant it,” Martha responded.
* * * * * * * * *
Going to Clark’s room was bitter-sweet for Lois. Sweet because they wouldn’t be separated, but bitter because of how different the room was in this altered version of reality. It still looked much like it had the first time Lois had been to Smallville. Trophies, pictures of childhood friends, various models and other childhood treasures. The quilt on the top of the bed was even made up of squares containing pictures of various sailboats - just like it had been during that first visit.
But in Lois’ reality, that was not what the room should have looked like now. The blues in the quilt should have been pink, with various dolls replacing the pictures of sailboats. The trophies and models should have been gone, replaced by a wide variety of stuffed animals. In short, the room should have looked as if it belonged to a little girl. And the guest bedroom should have been converted back into a guest bedroom - complete with a comfortable double bed instead of the super single that graced this room.
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Clark said, coming up behind her.
“I just miss her so much, Clark,” Lois said softly.
“I do, too. But we’ll get her back.”
Lois nodded firmly, refusing to let herself give into these feelings lest they consume her.
“Come on. Let’s get some sleep and...” Clark slipped past Lois, walking over to the desk to begin removing his shirt. “...then we’ll be well rested to solve this when we wake up in the morning.”
Although he couldn’t see her, Lois shook her head. There was something she needed now - more than sleep. She slowly came up behind Clark, running her hands slowly over the oh so familiar muscles of his well-sculpted back. How long before she no longer remembered what he looked like without his shirt on? How long before she could no longer trace every muscle in her mind or remember how they felt, flexing and moving beneath her hands as they made love?
“Lois?” Clark said, jerking around to face her. “What...”
“Make love to me, Clark,” she whispered, meeting his eyes, even as her hands began to trail down his chest.
“As much as I’d love to, we really do need...”
His words were cut off by Lois’ fingers on his lips.
“What I need more than anything right now,” Lois whispered, “is to be with my husband.”
Clark was silent for a long moment - two different needs warring within him. They needed sleep, but she was right. They needed each other, too.
“Make love to me,” she whispered again, her hands drifting down his chest to begin slowly pulling at the buckle on his belt.
He let out a breath, finally giving in. His hands came up to cup her face as his lips descended on hers. There was nothing rushed about the kiss. It was incredibly intense, and incredibly sad, as if each participant were trying to memorize the feel, the taste and the sounds of the other - to imprint them on their souls in a way that would never allow them to be erased.
Their exploration of each other’s bodies was much the same. Touches were given and received with the same intensity. No words were spoken as they sought both forgetfulness and remembrance in each other’s arms. Tears flowed freely, but were never mentioned. No promises were given - they were simply understood. They concentrated on each other and in that moment, they found forever.
“Be here when I wake up, Clark,” Lois whispered when they finally settled down to get some much-needed sleep.
“I will, Lois,” Clark whispered back, understanding her fear because he shared it. “I swear I will.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
