Thanks - as always to Nancy, Beth and Alisha
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Last time:
Clark
"Clark, you're scaring me," Lois said a bit louder. "What's going on?"
"I don't know," I told her honestly. "We're not home. I don't know where we are."
"What do you mean?" she asked, fear written all over her face. "Where's the boys?"
"I don't know," I whispered, agonized. "No, I think I do know. They're not here."
"What?!" Her voice raised to a shout. I shushed her, even though the closest person wasn't anywhere near us. "What?!" she said more quietly. "Did Mindy get them? Or Navance's nephew? What?"
I sighed. "Navance's nephew is dead, remember? I don't think they're here because..."
I couldn't say it. It was going to break Lois' heart. And I didn't know how to fix it.
"Because why?" she demanded.
I took a deep breath.
"Because I'm married to Lana."
*~*18*~*
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
What?
"What?" I hissed. "Lana? How are you married to Lana?"
Clark sighed. "Sit down."
"I think I'll pace." I started walking around the small backstage area. "What is going on here?"
"I don't know," Clark said, running a hand through his hair, "but look at this."
He showed me some pictures of us at the Kerths – winning one for our articles on Van-El.
"We were nominated," I reminded him. "But we didn't win."
"Here – wherever 'here' is – we did," he insisted.
And the pictures seemed to prove him right.
"What's that?" I asked, as another picture popped onto the screen.
"That's Joe proposing," he said in a voice as tight as my heart felt.
"No," I whispered. "Not that. Who's that with Jimmy?"
It couldn't be.
I knew who it looked like, but it couldn’t be.
"That's Lucy," Clark said quietly. "In whatever Bizzaro world we're in, I'm married to Lana, you're engaged to Joe, Lucy and your mom and Dave are all alive, Jimmy and Lucy have been married for nearly two years with a baby on the way."
"But Christopher... Nate..." Tears filled my eyes and quickly overflowed. "They're not here. They can't be if you're married to Lana."
"They're not," he whispered softly as he gathered me in his arms.
"How do we fix this? How do we undo whatever happened to send us here?"
I pulled away from him and started pacing again.
"Or maybe this is all a big nightmare," I said, arms flailing bit. "Maybe we're dreaming and it's a nightmare." I held my arm out towards him. "Pinch me."
"I'm not going to pinch you," he sighed.
"Well, I'm not going to pinch you," I huffed. "You'd barely feel it and I'd probably hurt myself."
The tears continued to flow. "I need my sons, Clark. And I love Joe, you know that, he's always been a good friend to me, but I don't want to marry him. I want our lives. The one where we just got married again, or still, or whatever, and Navance is dead and we live in the other wing of the house and we're talking about having another baby."
"Oh, that's still possible, Ms. Lane."
Clark and I both turned to see another man stepping through a window hanging in mid-air. Clark instantly situated himself between me and the man with the reddish beard.
We both stared.
"What do you mean?" I asked. "And who are you?"
"My name is Tempus," he announced grandly. He paused as though waiting for us to acknowledge him. "You don't know who I am?"
"No," Clark said threateningly. "But I suggest you tell us what's going on or..."
"Or what *Super*man? You'll fry me with your eyes? Or drop me off on the top of Mt. Everest and leave me there?" His voice dripped with sarcasm. "We all know Ma and Pa Kent would never approve. Just like they'd never approve of you being down here hiding out with a woman who's not your wife. Right?"
Clark glanced at me.
"So, here's the deal," he said, attempting to be dramatic. "I go around hopping through universes and destroy the Utopias created by all Lois Lanes and Clark Kents and their descendants. It's quite interesting work, actually."
"I'm sure it is," I said drily. "What did you do to us?"
"It's quite simple, Ms. Lane. I simply arranged things so that your beloved mother and adored little sister didn't die in an accident and let nature take over from there." He gave a dramatic bow. "You never lived on campus. You never saved Clark here from near death in Bremerton. He married his high school sweetheart. You see the pattern?"
I nodded slowly. "Fix it," I told him, as menacingly as I could.
"Oh, I'm going to let you do that." He tossed a small black box up and down in the air. "At midnight tonight, you'll find this little gizmo right here. You have two choices. You can go back in time and make the accident happen, killing your little sister – who right now is expecting a baby of her own with one of your best friends – and your mother – the woman who gave you life and get your life back. Complete with two little rugrats and a Christmas Eve wedding."
"Or?" Clark said quietly.
"Well, Dave dies, too then, of course. So you'd essentially kill your mother, sister and half-brother, as well as your niece or nephew." He was looking straight at me. "Or you can stay here. All three – or four – of them alive and well. Clark, you could always divorce the little missus, break her heart all over again when she finds out you've been in love with your co-worker for years – or that's what she'll think. And Lois, Joe'll be thrilled to find out you're willing to sleep with a married man, but not him until after the wedding."
"How do you know so much about us?" I demanded. "Have you been spying on us?"
He shrugged. "You're in *all* the history books. There's dozens of authorized and unauthorized biographies about both of you and Superman and Van-El..."
"There is no Superman here," Clark said.
"What?" I asked him, shocked. "You didn't become Superman after your brother appeared."
He shrugged. "I guess not."
"Oh, that's right," Tempus said, snapping his fingers. "*This* little woman is accepting of the whole alien/super powers thing, but only where no one can see you. And since the world already has one hero, why does it need another?"
He stepped back through the window. "See you at midnight."
The window shimmered then disappeared.
We both stared, slack jawed, at the spot where he'd been.
"That was..." Clark's voice trailed off.
"Exactly." I sunk to the floor. "How are we supposed to make this choice, Clark?" I looked up at him with tears streaming again. "My mom and my sister and my brother or our sons? That's an impossible decision to make."
He sat next to me and wrapped an arm around me, kissing my hair as he did. "I don't know, honey. I don't know what to do."
"Can we go to the cabin and hide? Spend all day doing what we were supposed to be doing all night last night before I freaked out?"
He let out a deep sigh. "I wish we could. Your gut was right. Something was going wrong, though I never would have imagined this."
"So let's run away for the day and come back tonight and get that device and figure out what to do."
"We can't, Lois. We can't run off together."
"Why not?" I asked between sniffles, afraid I already knew the answer.
"Because I'm married to Lana."
Yep, that was the answer I expected. But that didn't make me like it any better.
So what did I do?
I kissed him.
And he kissed me back – his fingers tangling in my hair, his hands framing my face – for long minutes.
I reached for the hem of his shirt. He was *my* husband, damn it. I didn't care what kind of weird world we were in.
He stopped as my fingers brushed his stomach. He leaned his head against mine.
"I love you, Lois," he whispered. "More than anything. More than life."
"Please, Clark."
"I can't, sweetheart. If I'm married to Lana, I made vows. I promised to be faithful to her, I'm sure, and I can't do that to her, to you, to me, to *us*."
"Will you keep your promise to be faithful to me?" I asked him, scared of the answer. "Can you not make love to her while we figure this out?"
He kissed me again, leaving no doubt where his desires lie.
"I won't," he promised. "Even if she wants to, I'll find a way not to. I promise."
"Don't be alone with her. Please. If you're not alone with her..."
"I'll do my best," he promised.
"At least I'm not sleeping with Joe," I muttered. "If Mr. Insane-o can be believed."
"We're still going to have to put on a good front today," he said, shifting us, so he was sitting next to me, his arm around me, holding me to him. "No one can know about any of this just yet."
"I'll stay as far away from Joe as I can if you'll stay as far away from Lana."
"I don't even know if Joe's here," he said. "There were two heartbeats I didn't recognize, but I never paid any attention to what his sounded like."
I sighed. "Well, we've done it before..."
"I know, but not with Joe and Lana." I leaned against him even more. "I miss you already," I whispered. "What were we thinking about the last two weeks?"
"I know."
I sniffled. "There's something I didn't tell you."
"What's that?"
"You said whenever I was ready to try to get pregnant again, you were ready, right?"
He turned and looked at me. "What are you saying?"
I sniffled again. "I meant to tell you last night at the cabin, but I was too busy freaking out."
"What?"
"I stopped taking my birth control a few weeks ago," I whispered. "After my last cycle. I guessed that I wouldn't ovulate before our two week dry spell and I don't think I have, but... I was hoping that it would be right about now, but I don't think there's any way to know yet."
"So it's possible..."
I nodded. "Yeah. I didn't mean to blindside you. I had... other stuff with me, in case you'd changed your mind but..."
"It's okay," he whispered. "I would have been ecstatic."
"I figured."
His head popped up. "People are starting to stir. I can hear your mom and dad moving around and I think Jimmy and Lucy are getting up."
"Lana's going to be looking for you," I said quietly.
"Well, she'll have to keep looking. I'm going back to the kitchen with my laptop and she can find me there or something." He looked at me. "You probably want to go clean your face up a bit though."
I nodded. "I bet I'm a mess."
"You're beautiful," he whispered.
I had a sudden thought and lifted my pajama shirt. I closed my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.
"What?"
"When you said that..." My eyes filled with ears again. "You said that the night we made Nate."
"I remember." He kissed my hair.
"I still have my stretch marks," I told him. "They didn't just disappear. Our boys are still there somewhere."
"We'll figure it out," he whispered. "I love you."
"I love you, too."
"We better go."
I wanted to kiss him again, long and sensuous and loving and promising more later.
But he wouldn't.
He wouldn't let himself when he wanted Lana when he was married to me – well, just the two times and he was guilt-ridden over those.
And he wouldn't let himself now, even though we knew we were supposed to be married.
I sighed. "We better."
I decided I didn't care and I leaned over and kissed him again, softly.
"I love you, Clark Kent."
"I love you, Lois Lane-Kent."
I sighed. "Let's go." He stood up and held out a hand to me, pulling me to him for a long hug.
"We should go different ways," he told me. "Different stairs."
I nodded against his chest. "I don't want to let go."
"We'll figure it out tonight. No time alone with Lana or Joe today and we'll figure it out tonight. We'll get a call from Perry and have to go to work or something."
"Okay."
He kissed me again. Softly. "I'll still love you tonight."
"And I'll still love you."
He tilted his head again. "I need to go – fast, so I can be in the kitchen when your mom gets there."
I squeezed for just a second then let him go. "Go," I whispered.
He disappeared in a blur and I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I carefully made my way back to my room, taking great care not to be seen by anyone.
I went into the big bathroom and splashed water on my face, deciding to take a long, hot shower.
Did we still have the pajama tradition? I should have asked Clark.
I physically missed him. This was going to be the hardest day of my life. I could pretend with Joe and be okay, but watching a married Clark and Lana... That was going to be torture.
I made the tears stay inside, willing them back into the depths inside my eyes.
I toweled off and put the pajamas that looked the most comfy. I didn’t recognize any of the clothes in any of the drawers or the closet.
I pulled my hair into a loose ponytail and headed down to the kitchen.
I stopped when I heard voices. Clark was talking to a female. Who was it? Who had he said?
Mom.
He'd said Mom was heading for the kitchen. It had been... twelve years? Thirteen years? Something like that since I'd seen her. I was going to have to keep my emotions under control – both at seeing Clark and at seeing her for the first time in well over a decade.
I took a deep breath and headed into the kitchen.
"Well, hi, Pumpkin. You're up early."
There she was smiling brightly at me as she poured another cup of coffee.
"I was just telling Clark that I figured you'd sleep in this morning. There's no little kids around to wake us all up. We'll save the early bird stuff for when the grandkids are big." She put an arm around me as I stood next to her, taking the coffee she handed me gratefully.
"Thanks," I said, carefully modulating my tone, but closing my eyes as I rested my head on her shoulder.
I could sense Clark's eyes on me. That was how in tune we'd become over the last six months since Navance's death.
"That includes your kids, Clark. You and Lana are family now, too."
"Thanks. The Lanes and Olsens are family to me, too." I could hear the strain in his voice that I was sure no one else would.
Except maybe Lana.
His wife.
I hoped she didn't pick up on anything during the day.
Or maybe she would and she'd dump Clark after a big fight or something.
I sighed and opened my eyes, without moving my head of my mom's shoulder.
I could see what I was feeling reflected in his eyes – in his feelings for me. He knew how overwhelmed I was by this meeting, how overwhelmed I would be to see Lucy and to actually meet Dave.
He turned his eyes back to his laptop, afraid, I was sure, that they would betray him and his feelings for me.
"Hey, handsome," came a familiar, and presently grating, voice. "I missed you when I woke up."
*****
TBC
(edited to fix part # in title-PJ)
