I'm getting my laptop back today or tomorrow!!! Or rather my neighbor's computer store is getting it back - they may need to do some stuff! I've been without it over 3 weeks now! I so can't wait!
Anyway - thanks to Nancy, Alisha and Beth!
Last time:
Clark
"I'd realized the year before that I was falling in love with him," Lois said softly. "And then Daddy had a heart attack a few weeks later, but that night..."
I was glad she was telling this part of the story.
She took a deep breath. "I asked him to help me forget for a while and... Nate was born a month early eight months later." She swiped at her cheeks. "He's had health problems – a hard time gaining weight and had surgery when he was three and a half months old. He was doing better until he got sick last summer but he's great now. It was a long, hard road, but he's doing great."
I took over again. "Last summer, Navance was killed when the government was overthrown. Lois thought I was going to leave and that had always been the plan. When the five years was up or when he died, we'd get divorced and I'd beg Lana to take me back." They didn't look happy about that bit of information. "But I realized something Nana and Pop Pop always said. Love isn't who you can live with..."
"...it's who you can't live without," Mom finished for me.
"Right. Van-El had made his appearance and I talked to him about it all – Krypton, superheroes, Lois. Then Lois was on the colonists' transport and nearly got blown up. Eventually, I managed to convince Lois that I meant it; that I'd fallen in love with her somewhere along the way. I asked her to marry me all over again. I became a superhero, too, and last night we had our official wedding here at the house. This morning we woke up in Bizzaro World."
Mom had continued pacing, listening, but thinking as well.
She stopped and looked at us. "I think I've got it."
*~*22*~*
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I watched Martha hopefully.
She sighed. "I have an idea, that is, but if you two are here and remember all of that, where are the Clark and Lois that went to sleep here last night?"
Clark and I looked at each other.
"I have no idea," Clark said. "I don't know if there's some other universe out there somewhere with our original lives in it or if they just disappeared or what. That guy didn't say."
"If he is what he says he is," Mom pointed out, "can you believe anything he said? If he's really out to destroy all Lois and Clarks."
I sighed. "Do we have any other choice? Is there any other – remotely logical – explanation for this? I mean, if we just made up that story, it'd be one thing, but I've got the stretch marks to prove it and in a few days..." I stopped.
"In a few days what?" Jonathan asked.
"Sorry," I said to Clark. "I didn't mean to..."
"I know," he told me. "In a few days, we'll know if Lois is pregnant again."
"What?" they said simultaneously.
"We started officially trying to get pregnant again last night," I told them. "If I am, I'll be ravenous in a couple days. The first week or so of both of my pregnancies found me absolutely starving. I eat like Michael Phelps for a week or so, then it goes back closer to normal, then at about ten weeks or so I get so sick for about ten more weeks..." I stopped. "Anyway, if I am pregnant, I'll be starving again in a few days."
"I guess the timing's right?" Martha asked.
I shrugged. "No way to know. I wasn't tracking my temperature or anything and I'm not regular enough to guess. This is the first time we would have been trying to get pregnant so I figured we'd just... practice a lot and see what happened. We certainly didn't have any trouble the first two times." I looked at the ground as I said that.
"So if we end up stuck here," Clark said, "I could end up with two pregnant wives and I don't even begin to know how to deal with that."
"Don't even joke about that," I whispered, squeezing his hand.
"So, what's your idea, Martha?"
She sighed. "It's a 'Back to the Future' thing." She sat by Jonathan. "Remember how George McFly had never stood up to anyone before but then he punched Biff to protect Lorraine, right?"
We all nodded.
"Well, when Marty got back to the future, his life was similar to what he remembered, but his parents were happy together, his dad just had a novel published, his siblings were successful, he had that truck, all those things – all because George stood up to Biff."
"How does that apply to us?" I asked her. "We don't want things to change a little bit, there's some pretty major things we're talking about here."
Martha sighed. "Part of me wonders what happens to all of us if you go change things again. Will we just disappear or will a new universe be created? Or what?"
Clark shrugged. "We have no idea."
"I'll admit that worries me a bit, but I'd guess we wouldn’t really know what happened, just like none of us – except you two – knew what happened this morning. And that makes me wonder if this guy didn't create some sort of alternate timeline and mix you two up with our Lois and Clark."
"It's possible," I told her. "But he didn't say anything about universe hopping with that doodad he had. Just time travel." I blew out a breath. "Listen to us talking about time travel like it's no big deal."
Martha sighed. "If you have a time travel device, you could, at any point, go back and make sure the accident happened, right?"
"I guess," Clark said.
"So, theoretically, you could try something else first, right?"
We shrugged.
"What if..." She stood and started pacing again. "There had to be key points in your life where things change. Certain turning points. The accident was one of them. What were some others?"
Clark looked at me. "Being roommates. Bremerton and the cabin. Latislan and getting married. Sam's heart attack and making love together afterwards."
"So first one is being roommates." Martha tapped the fingers of one hand on the other. "Could you take this device and go back in time to when Lois is filling out her applications and stuff and convince her that she has to live on campus? Because our Lois didn't. She lived here during college. Convince her to move to campus and be your roommate and then go forward again and see if that fixed it."
Clark and I looked at each other. Could it be that simple?
Simple?
Time travel and convincing ourselves to do stuff was simple?
"What about you guys?" Clark asked quietly. "I want my life back – our life back – but the idea of somehow hurting you guys – any version of my parents – I don't think I can do that either."
Martha smiled at him. "You have to think of your family first, Clark. Go back. Fix things. If you can. We'll be fine, I'm sure. No one in 'Back to the Future' noticed anything weird happen to them," she pointed out.
"That's a movie," Clark reminded her.
I sighed. "Okay. That's worth a shot, I guess. And if it doesn't work, we go back to before we went and then go ahead again and end up back here or something, right?"
Martha nodded. "That's what the theory says."
I closed my eyes and rested my head against the back of the loveseat. "I'll take your word for it, Martha."
"I've read up on time travel theory over the years," she told us. "I figured if aliens and space travel and all the things you can do were possible, it might be, too."
I moved slightly so my head was on Clark's shoulder. "That's all well and good, but what about the rest of the day. Lana thinks she's married to Clark and they're trying to get pregnant and Joe's engaged to me... This story's a little too far out there to tell everyone about, especially them. It could turn their lives upside down even if they won't remember it. Especially Daddy. And Jimmy. I don't think I could tell them I was going to try to take their wives – and child or grandchild – away so I could get my life back."
"Well, we've been up here for an hour," Clark said, tilting his head so it was resting on mine. He paused for a minute. "Joe just asked Lana if he knew where you were. They're getting ready to switch movies."
"Can we get called in to work yet?" I asked him quietly. "Go somewhere and hide out until midnight? I don't think I can deal with you and Lana anymore."
"I know, sweetheart."
We still had several hours before midnight. What were going to do until then?
"What's the reasoning behind the pretense then?" Jonathan asked.
"We didn't know what was going on at first," Clark told them. "We decided that we probably just better go along with things today. I know Lana thinks something's a bit off, but you're the only one who said anything, Mom. I think she just thinks I've got something on my mind."
"I hate headaches, but I didn't take any medicine so that I could use that as an excuse to not be myself today," I told them. "And, believe me, waking up to find my kids had disappeared and my husband was married to his ex-girlfriend caused a crying fit that brought on a monster headache."
"I can't imagine," Martha said. "Finding a baby in a spaceship is one thing, finding your life – literally – completely turned upside down is another."
Clark jumped up, suddenly, and I practically fell on to the love seat as my support was removed.
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
"Lana's on her way up," I said, grimly.
Lois looked like she was going to cry all over again.
Mom stood next to me. "Take her and go. Get out of here. Hang around close enough that you can hear whatever excuse we come up with – and be quiet, no whooshing. Both of you. We'll meet you backstage later."
"Thanks, Mom." I gave her a quick hug and then gave Dad one as well. "Thanks, Dad. I know this has to be hard to believe."
"We believe you," Dad told me. "Even without the stretch marks, you wouldn't lie about something like this."
"No, I wouldn't," I promised. Lana was getting closer. "I love both of you – whether you're technically my parents or not."
"Same here," Lois said. "And thank you."
I wrapped my arms around her. "Lana'll be here in a second. Thank you." And we disappeared out the window.
I set us down inside the tree line and listened in to the conversation.
><~><~><
"Mom, Dad, have you guys seen Clark? Or Lois?" Lana asked them.
"They had to go. Work I think they said," Dad told her. "Some big story breaking or something. I think Lois got a call from one of her sources and told Clark about it and they decided it couldn't wait until tomorrow. Did they not tell you guys? They just left a few minutes ago."
"No. They didn't tell Joe either." Lana sounded perturbed, and I really couldn't blame her. I could hear her punching buttons on her cell phone.
><~><~><
The phone in my pocket buzzed.
"Do I answer it?" I whispered.
Lois shrugged as she huddled close to me. "Whatever you think. Whenever her Clark gets back, he's going to be in a world of trouble anyway."
It stopped buzzing and went to voice mail. I sighed when it buzzed again indicating she'd left me a message.
"I hate doing this to her," I told Lois. "She has no clue what's going on."
"I know." She rested her head on my chest and I wrapped my arms around her and held her close to me.
"Cold?"
She nodded. "Can we hit the tropics for a while?"
"Sure."
I tuned my ears back into my parents. "They're steering Lana back downstairs." I pulled her closer to me and rose slowly before picking up speed and heading south.
We landed on a little island in the South Pacific and Lois breathed a sigh of relief.
"Thank you," she said. "Much better. Maybe even a bit too warm."
"You have to pick," I told her with a grin.
"I really don't care as long as we're together," she told me, putting her arms around my neck.
I shifted uncomfortably. "I love you, sweetheart, but until we get all of this figured out... Right here, right now, I'm married to Lana."
"I know," she sighed. "Will you at least go get me something to eat? I didn't eat much Christmas dinner."
I chuckled. "Sure. What sounds good? China's not too far away."
"That's fine. See if they have that one spot that you found when Christopher was little."
"On my way."
I zipped off and found the restaurant in Shanghai was open – as expected – and brought back an assortment of Lois' favorite Chinese dishes.
We sat on the beach and ate in near silence.
"So what's our first time stop?" she asked as we finished.
I sighed. "I guess about the time you're filling out your college applications and stuff."
"Will the universe explode if I meet myself?" she asked.
I shrugged. "I have no idea."
"We'll have to ask your mom."
She cracked open her fortune cookie and handed it to me.
"A good horse is like a member of the family," I read, knowing she would hate it.
"I hate that. That's not a fortune and you know I love Strawberry," she said before I could say anything else.
I chuckled. "Sorry, hon." I opened mine. "You're about to go on the adventure of a lifetime," I read.
"Got that right," she muttered. "So do you think convincing me to live on campus is enough? How do we know that the same clerical errors are going to happen?"
I leaned my head against the tree behind me. "Well, I can't believe I'm suggesting this, but you could tell her to fill it out the way it's supposed to be, we could substitute her original form with one where she ends up as my roommate. Then switch it back after it's in the system."
She sighed. "I guess that's it. How do I convince me, her, whatever?"
I shrugged. "I have no idea. What would have convinced you?"
"That I have a wonderful life and I want it back but I don't want to cause the accident to make that happen. I want to do the 'Back to the Future' thing where it's the same but better."
I nodded. "Sounds good to me."
"Are we going to have to convince you of anything?" she asked.
I thought about that. "I don't think so. I can't imagine what I would do or not do if the situations are similar. I mean, I can't imagine not marrying you in Latislan so I can't imagine having to tell myself to take care of you no matter what or something, but maybe that's not a bad idea. We'll have to watch and see what happens, I guess."
We spent a long time just staring at the waves as they broke on the beach in front of us.
"What time is it?" she finally asked me.
"We have about two hours," I told her.
Her head was resting on my shoulder and our fingers were intertwined.
"Get some rest," I suggested. "Who knows when we'll get more sleep."
She closed her eyes and a few minutes later, her even breathing said she'd taken my suggestion.
It had been interesting to get a glimpse of what my life would have been like if I'd married Lana as I'd originally planned. It didn't seem like a *bad* life, but it wasn't the life I wanted. I wanted my life with Lois, with my sons, back.
If we could find a way to get our lives back *and* keep Ellen and Lucy and Dave alive...
Well, that would be ideal, wouldn't it?
As long as we managed to avoid destroying the fabric of the space time continuum in the process, we could have the best of both worlds.
Couldn't we?
I reached over with my left hand and brushed Lois' hair off her forehead. Seeing her with her mom and sister that day had been priceless. I could tell she was trying to soak up as much of them as she could, but trying to keep her distance at the same time so her heart might not break quite as much if they had to disappear to get our lives back.
As much as she loved them, I didn't think she'd trade our sons for them.
And if we did end up having to stay here for some reason, then what?
Sure she'd have her mom and sister and half-brother and niece or nephew on the way, but I'd be with Lana – unless and until I managed to leave her without completely destroying her – and she'd be with Joe, but I thought she'd have an easier time leaving him than I would Lana.
Not because I wouldn't leave Lana, but because I'd seen Lana's heart break before and I'd have to find a way to do it as easily as possible and it would be harder to let her down as gently as I could than it would be for her to let go of Joe.
Maybe we could work this all out.
I glanced at my watch and woke her up.
"It's time to go, Lois."
She opened her eyes and looked at me. "It wasn't a nightmare, was it?"
I nodded. "It's a nightmare, all right, but it's real. And it's time to get back."
She nodded. "Let's go. Let's get our lives back."
I wrapped my arms around her and took off for Metropolis.
