Thanks, as always, to Alisha, Nancy and Beth.
Warning: info dump coming right up
Last time:
Lois
"You're a sight for sore eyes," he said softly, running his hands up and down my nearly bare back.
My hands found their way under his shirt and I pushed it up. "So are you," I whispered as he pulled it off over his head.
He kissed me and I knew he was trying to be considerate of me and what I'd been feeling and how I'd been sick, but I was having none of that.
I practically attacked him.
"I've missed you," I told him a little while later as he lay on his side next to me, one hand rubbing over my expanding belly. "I've missed making love to you."
He looked up at me and shifted until he could kiss me again. "Same here. I love you, Lois Lane-Kent-Kent."
I giggled. "I love you." I turned serious. "I want to go home, Clark."
He sighed. "I know, sweetheart. I know. I want to, too, but..."
He stopped and his head tilted to one side.
"What?" I asked him.
"He thinks he's got something."
*~*35*~*
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
I had missed her more than I would have ever thought possible. It wasn't the 'taking our time' lovemaking we both wanted, but it was something we both needed. We could take our time later.
I scooted my pillow down and rested my head near her stomach, one hand rubbing gently over it. I'd still managed to miss part of this pregnancy – not as much as I had the other two but...
Sam and Ellen had graciously allowed me to live at the house – in the room next to Lucy and Jimmy. Lois and I had spent lots of time together, but not being able to kiss her like I really wanted to and do... other things with her... That hadn't been fun, but neither one of us really felt right about that. Not because *we* weren't married, but because technically, Clark was married to Lana.
"I've missed you," she told me, one hand brushing through my hair. "I've missed making love to you."
I looked up at her and moved until I could kiss her. "Same here. I love you, Lois Lane-Kent-Kent." I grinned at that and she giggled.
"I love you, Clark Kent," she said, turning serious again as she ran a hand through my hair. "I want to go home, Clark."
I sighed and settled in next to her, pulling her closer to me. "I know, sweetheart. I know. I want to, too, but..." My voice trailed off and my head jerked up.
<Clark, I think I got something,> Bernie's voice sounded in my head.
"What?" Lois asked.
"Hethinks he's got something."
She just stared at me.
<Actually, Ashley may have something – you know we work much better together than we ever did apart. Why on earth did we break up? I missed her. She missed me. We work so....>
<Bernie!> I said sharply.
<You found something? Or Ashley? I don't care if the man on the moon found something – what is it?>
<We're on our way back to the cabin now. We'll be there in a few minutes.>
<We'll be waiting,> I promised.
"What?" Lois whispered.
"Bernie said he thinks Ashley found something."
She struggled to sit up, already encumbered some by the baby she was carrying. "They're here?"
"On their way."
We hurriedly pulled clothes on and Lois finger combed her hair, pulling it into a loose ponytail and we headed out to the living room.
"There's the newlyweds," Jimmy said with a smirk.
"Bernie told Clark Ashley found something," Lois told them.
"What?!"
The word was spoken in unison by everyone in the room.
"They're on their way," I told them, moving behind her and wrapping my arms around her. My hands rested on her stomach and I could feel our baby moving underneath them.
A thump outside the front door indicated they had arrived.
I knew Lois was biting her lip as they walked in – Ellen was, too. I had to remind myself to breathe.
"What did you find?" Lois asked. I knew she was scared to get her hopes up, but it was hard not to.
Bernie took the device out and hit the program button. We gathered around him and I helped Lois onto a barstool.
The display looked the same as it always had.
"See this?" Ashley said pointing to a very small circular... button, for lack of a better word, in the bottom corner. It had an arrow, the end at the top and swinging to the right with the arrow at the bottom. It looked similar to the 'back a page' button on some Internet browsers.
"Yeah," I said. "I noticed it, but I had no idea what it did."
"Neither did we," Ashley told us, "but today we decided to push it anyway. It's only available for about thirty seconds or so when you first turn it on so it's not like it's just been sitting there the whole time we've messed with it."
She did just that and the numeric keypad – with three date, time, location option buttons at the top and the 'open window' button at the bottom – disappeared and was replaced by a nearly standard keyboard. The numeric keypad was on the right and the same as it had been.
"Wow," Sam said. "It makes sense that there's a keyboard somewhere but I never would have guessed..."
"If you're having problems with a computer program, what do you do?"
"Hit F1," Jimmy said. "Or call me – one of the two."
"Right. So I hit F1." Ashley did.
A FAQ popped up.
"Once I was in here, I figured out how to disable the time window so you can still use the display but you can't accidentally open a window or anything. I've got it turned off now."
We nodded.
"So I looked around some more and found that you *can* set it to switch universes. The numeric keypad doesn't have that option, but the keyboard does. Probably some kind of failsafe. The thing is..." She took a deep breath. "You have to know the alphanumeric code for the universe you want it to go to."
"We don't," Lois whispered.
"We *didn't*," Ashley said triumphantly. "I think we do."
"What?" Lois breathed. Her grip on my hand tightened.
"It's like the call log on your cell phone," she explained, punching another F button. "It shows the last ten or twenty or however many calls you made – depending on your phone and your carrier and all that. Well, according to the FAQ, this can store up to a hundred of the last places, times, whatever you've been. We accessed that and think we've figured out which universe is yours."
"You have?" I asked, the band constricting around my heart and grateful Lois couldn't actually hurt me when she squeezed tighter.
Ashley nodded. "Look." She pointed to the screen. "This device only has a few entries, and I think most of them are yours – from when you two were using it. The last one was on the morning after Christmas and the beginning and ending times were about ten minutes apart."
"The pillow," Sam said.
"Right," Ashley confirmed. "There's quite a bit of information when you double click on one of them. This screen only shows the alphanumeric code of the universe and the destination time, but when you click on it..." She jabbed her finger at it quickly, twice in a row. It disappeared and it was replaced with another screen filled with numbers. "This screen shows the originating and destination universes – in this case they're the same because you just tossed the pillow ten minutes into the future. It has both dates and times and locations using latitude and longitude so I'd guess you can't end up on another planet."
We nodded our understanding.
"Okay, so we searched these backwards. The last one was the pillow. The one before that you came from 1994 to here. The 1994 code is different than this one."
"Wait," I said suddenly. "I need to go get my parents. They need to be here for this." I looked at Lois. "Call them while I head that way?" She nodded. "Bernie, will you make sure they get home if something happens and I can't?"
"Of course."
I was gone in a flash.
A few minutes later, I landed quietly outside the farmhouse and found Mom and Dad quickly getting a few things together.
"Clark," Mom said, giving me a big hug. "I'm so glad they think they figured this out."
I held her for a long minute. "Me, too."
"Let's go," Dad said. "If they really think they've got it, we can say our good-byes later."
I wrapped an arm around each of them and we took off for the cabin.
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
As soon as Clark left, Mom came over and stood behind me, putting her arms around me.
"I'm going to miss you," I told her, leaning my head back to rest it against her. "If this works, I'm really going to miss all of you."
"We'll miss you, too, sweetie."
Everyone talked quietly with the box and screen just sort of hanging in mid-air. I just enjoyed the feeling of being with my mom again, knowing it could well be one of the last times I got to be held by her.
It wasn't long before Clark and his parents came in. He held my hand, but Mom stayed where she was.
He'd apparently filled them in on the way back because he told Ashley to pick up where she left off.
"So this device has a number of different trips recorded in its memory," she went on. "By knowing what this one is and looking at the times and information you gave us about your trips among other things, we can figure out pretty much what the others are." She pointed to one of the entries – the twelfth. "This one, for instance, you left on January 1, 2004 from Greece and went to December 25, 2006 still in Greece. So that's the one where you helped Lois and Clark get married and then ate and slept on one of the little Greek islands. When you got to 2006, that Lois and Clark were separated and talking about possibly reconciling."
I nodded. "That makes sense. So when do we get to the part where you know what our original universe is?"
"The first time it was used it went from one universe very early Christmas morning to this one at the same time. 1994 was the only other time that code appears. My guess is since that was the original universe and that guy changed it, it has the same alphanumeric code all the way through."
Daddy nodded thoughtfully. "That makes sense. I mean, as much sense as any of the rest of this."
"So why did we end up here?" Clark asked, his thumb running over the back of my hand. "Why didn't we stay in that universe?"
"I did some more digging through the FAQ," Bernie said. "Super speed – or as fast as I could – you'd think future technology could keep up." He rolled his eyes. "There's a couple of relevant things. Martha, you were right. Unless the universe code is set – and you can't do that from the numeric keypad – the participants will be sent to a timeline that diverges from their present point. The timeline they go to is one that doesn't have their... life force, I guess, but is supposed to. So they wouldn't be sent to a time where they were supposed to be dead – as long as they stay within their lifespan."
He took a deep breath. "It also says that pregnant women are discouraged from using the device, but if necessary for them to, it is deemed safe. One of those things like one glass of wine every now and then is probably fine, but it's best to just avoid it."
"Right," Lois said, and I could hear the fear in her voice.
"It said that the gestation of the pregnancy is not affected by the travel. So if you were to jump ahead a year, you'd still be four months pregnant."
We all nodded our understanding.
"I'm hesitant to send you back to Christmas," Bernie said. "I think we should probably send you back to today."
I knew Lois was fighting tears. I think we both figured that if they ever got it sorted out, we'd go back 'today', whenever 'today' was, but it was still a bit of a letdown to know that we would have missed nearly four months of our sons' lives, of our lives. I was sure that the other Lois and Clark wouldn't have 'ruined' them or anything – by quitting our jobs or committing heinous crimes or anything like that – but... Still.
We'd done that to them, I realized again, but I didn't know what other choice we would have had. Clark would come back to find himself divorced from Lana and Lois had talked to Joe a few days earlier and he actually had a date – with Debbie. His fiancé in our universe.
"I'm not sure I want Lois testing this," I said suddenly. "I'd rather make sure we're going to the right place first."
"I think that's a good plan," Sam agreed.
"Can you leave the window open while you go check it out?" Lois asked.
Bernie and I looked at each other. "I guess I could go through real quick and check it out and come back and get you," I told her.
She shook her head. "No. If it is the right place, and if it's okay with these guys, I'd like to stay one more day. I know that doesn't make any sense since I've been bawling about missing my babies, but if this is the last time I'm ever going to see Mom and Lucy and Dave..." Her voice trailed off and she wiped at her tears. "I'd like to stay another day if it's okay with them."
Ellen squeezed her slightly. "Of course, sweetie. We miss our Lois and Clark, too, but we can certainly understand where you're coming from."
I could tell Lois was forming some kind of plan, but I wasn't sure what it was.
"Besides, we need to get some stuff in order for them when they get back. You should probably call Lana and I should probably call Joe..."
"We'll take care of calling Lana," Mom said suddenly.
"And I'll call Joe," Jimmy said.
Lois nodded. "Thank you. We'll come up with some things tonight that they'll need when they get back and won't want to search for and all that – checkbook, debit card pin that got changed, computer passwords, things like that."
"I'm sure they'll appreciate that," Sam said quietly. I got the feeling that he was going to miss Lois at least a little bit and hurting for her – she was going back to a world without Ellen, Lucy or Dave. And even though we'd be getting our sons back, she'd lose another part of her family.
"I'm sure they're going to wish we figured it out sooner," I said, squeezing Lois' hand. "Legally, they'll be married when they get here."
"They'll understand," Lucy said quietly. "If Clark and Lana or Lois and Joe had ended up there, they would have done the same thing. They might have waited longer to find a solution because of the kids, but it would have happened."
"Ready to test this?" Bernie asked me.
I nodded. "Ready as I'll ever be." I was nervous. I didn't like leaving Lois by herself. Well, not by herself but without me. "You okay with this?" I asked her, looking down at her tear filled eyes.
She nodded. "Be careful." She stood up and I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close to me. "I love you," she said, looking up at me. "No matter what happens, I will *always* love you."
"And I'll always love you." I was aware that everyone was watching but I kissed her anyway – and not the kind of kiss I'd usually give her in front of people. "I love you," I whispered.
She nodded, tears flowing too fast for her to really respond.
"Um, listen," Bernie said. "I think we should leave from the house – or near the house – and do it in real time."
"It might be a couple hours, okay?" I told her. "In case they're not home or whatever." I wiped her cheeks. "Don't worry if I'm gone a little while, okay?"
She nodded. "I'll try not to."
I kissed her again. And then again.
And then we left.
*****
TBC
