This is actually part 3 of a series. If you haven't read Foreshadowing and Flashback, this will make no sense at all. Many thanks to Carol, Amber, Ray, and Bob for their help! Bob, you gave Clark a line here. Enjoy!
Previously, in ‘Flashback’:
Lois to Clark: “Oh, CJ! I do care for you. You know that.” Though Lois loved this Clark as something more than a brother, he wasn’t her husband, and he deserved better than what she could give him. “And you have so much love to give. But it’s not meant for me. I need to get back to my family, and we need to get *your* Lois back here to you. She needs that kind of love, Clark, even if she doesn’t realize it yet. And you are just the man to give it to her. We’ve just got to get everybody back where we belong.”
Now, Forward:
Herbert George Wells stood on the porch of a Kansas farmhouse on a fine November day in 1993. He knew that something terrible was about to happen to one of its occupants. Something that would change history and destroy Utopia. He just hoped he wasn’t too late. If only time weren’t quite so fluid, he might have been able to pin-point his target with more accuracy. Oh, dear, there was young Miss Lane now. She didn’t look at all well. Evidently she’d been weeping quite recently. And the elder Mr. Kent seemed to be in a state of shock as well. Perhaps he’d made a miscalculation. Perhaps he’d arrived too late to avert the catastrophe.
“Lois? Did you say that was Mr. Wells at the door?” Oh, thank goodness! He wasn’t too late after all. Because, whole and hale at Miss Lane’s shoulder, there now appeared the object of his concern. So now, it was time for Wells to do what he did best: save the world.
“Ah, Mr. Kent!” Wells greeted the younger man. Then, remembering his manners, he addressed the owner of the house, a bit belatedly, “And Mr. Kent. And the lovely Miss Lane.” Oh me, he was in such a state at the moment. With an effort, he pulled himself together. First contact was always a delicate proposition, and required his full attention. “Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is…”
For the second time in five minutes, he was interrupted by the young lady. “Wells! What took you so long?! Get in here!”
After introductions had been made and everyone settled at the kitchen table, the younger couple--he always thought of them as a couple, even when they weren’t together yet by local time-- eating eggs and sausages and Wells sipping coffee, he began his prepared speech. “I realize that you don’t know me, but…”
“Herbert George Wells!” It was Miss Lane again, in an exasperated tone. Would he never be allowed to finish a sentence? “Will you please *listen* to what you are hearing? I *do* know you. I am not the Lois who belongs in this part of the timeline. I am Lois Lane Kent, from 2003, and I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks. Don’t your assistants ever check the classifieds?”
Oh, dear. This was an unexpected complication. Ah, well, at least he needn’t convince her of his identity, nor of the urgency of his current mission. Perhaps this would actually make things simpler.
He should have known better.
****
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight.” Jonathan Kent was having a hard time getting his head around the idea of time travel, but, since he had spent more than twenty-five years raising a child who had crash-landed in a space ship, he tried to keep an open mind. “If Lois here doesn’t go back to the future with you, then my son will die late this afternoon?”
“Quite so, Mr. Kent. It seems that when Mrs. Kent, at Mrs. Lane-Kent’s behest, alerted the local authorities to the nefarious nature of the activities at the Irig farm, she inadvertently set in motion a chain of events with fatal consequences for Mr. Kent….the younger. In the original timeline, Mr. Kent recovered from his ordeal with the kryptonite in time to defeat Colonel Trask. But, having been alerted to the attention of the local authorities, it seems that the current Colonel Trask decided to expedite his plans. Being convinced of a connection between young Mr. Kent and Superman, he arrived here at your home, threatened yourself and Mrs. Kent in an effort to extract information from young Mr. Kent, and, in the ensuing struggle, shot and killed young Mr. Kent. Or, rather, he will if we don’t take measures to restore the timeline.”
“So, if Lois goes with you, then Trask doesn’t attack until after Clark’s powers return, and everyone is safe?”
“No. It’s not as simple as that.” Lois sounded upset, almost frustrated. Mr. Wells turned to her in surprise.
“Of course it is, Mrs. Lane-Kent. Mind you, it would have been even simpler if I had caught on sooner to your displacement. If I had arrived within the first twenty-four hours I could have simply used the soul-tracker to return your consciousness to its rightful body, and vice versa. Since you have been living here for several weeks, however, that will never do. The younger Miss Lane would certainly be confused to find herself suddenly advanced weeks into her future, and I’m afraid even time itself is not quite flexible enough to provide her with false memories for that long.”
“False memories?” This time it was Martha Kent who needed clarification.
“Yes, Mrs. Kent. In the past, that is, in mine and Mrs. Lane-Kent’s past, she has on occasion been temporarily transported into the bodies of her earlier incarnations, if you will. At that time, I simply held the corresponding soul in a sort of suspended animation and, once they were returned to their proper bodies, their minds supplied the requisite memories based on their previous expectations of what the next day might hold and input from their environment. The human mind has a remarkable ability to disregard input which would cause it to question the very basis of reality as we understand it. But, the longer the disruption, the more difficult it is for the mind to explain away. I’m afraid six weeks is just too long.”
“Can’t you just use your time machine to go back to the day Lois first arrived here and make the switch then?” This came from young Clark Kent, who had apparently had more time to get used to the idea of time travel than his parents.
“That is an option, Mr. Kent. It would simply be a matter of choosing the order of operations, as it were. But the soul tracker is more reliable if fewer changes have been made in the timeline. And, since I am already here, going back to October 9 now would actually remove me one more step from the original switch. It would be safer for both Miss Lanes if I could restore them to their rightful bodies first, then use the time window to replace the younger Miss Lane back into her original timeline. If I replace her in the early morning, before the switch ever occurred, she will never even know what happened.”
“You can’t do that!” Lois Lane was getting more and more agitated as this conversation progressed.
“Why ever not?” Wells inquired.
“Because if the switch never happens, then this Clark disappears. And that might be convenient for you and Utopia, but I can’t let you do that to my friend.”
Oh, dear, that did make things awkward. Wells drew Mrs. Lane-Kent aside and spoke to her in a whisper. “It is not only Utopia which is riding on this timeline, Mrs. Lane-Kent. It is also your own children’s very existence. And, need I remind you, this Clark Kent’s life as well. If we do nothing, you are trapped here and Mr. Kent will soon be dead.”
Mrs. Lane-Kent whispered back, “I’m not saying we should do nothing. I’m just saying that there has to be a way to do both; to save Clark here *and* get me back to my family.”
“Take me with you.” Evidently they hadn’t been whispering as quietly as they had thought, because young Mr. Kent had obviously heard them.
Four pairs of eyes turned in unison to Clark Kent. “Take me with you to 2003. We don’t have time to hash this all out here. We don’t know exactly when Trask will arrive. Take me with you and we can figure it out without Trask breathing down our necks. You can always bring me back, right?”
Wells turned to Mrs. Lane-Kent. Mrs. Lane-Kent turned to Wells. He thought for a moment. It should work. “Very well, Mr. Kent.” He pulled a round device, about the size of a silver dollar, from his vest pocket and placed it on the table. “This is a time beacon. It will allow me to arrive back here in precisely five minutes. Without it, I can only be accurate to within eighteen hours, and that would be too late.”
He extracted a larger device from his coat and prepared to open a time window. “Unfortunately, I don’t have a time beacon set in 2003, so, allowing for drift of plus or minus eighteen hours, and leaving a small safety margin, I’m going to aim for the morning of October 10. Mrs. Lane-Kent, Mr. Kent, if you will come with me.” So saying, he stepped through the portal. Lois and Clark were right behind him.
*****
Stepping through the time window behind Mr. Wells and Lois, Clark felt a momentary wave of disorientation, but quickly found himself in the living room of a comfortable-sized house. Before he could get a good look at his surroundings, his attention was hijacked by a squeal from Lois.
“Clark!!” She was running through an open door towards the Clark in question. Her target stepped around another woman to meet her and Lois threw herself bodily into his arms, straddling his waist with her legs so that he had no choice but wrap his arms around her and hold her up. Not that he seemed to mind. Lois was kissing him with abandon, mumbling his name between kisses, and finally pulling her head away long enough to exclaim, “God, I’ve missed you! It’s so good to be home!”
At this, the older man set her gently on her feet and held his hands at her waist, answering her with a warm chuckle, “I’m happy to see you, too. Although I must say I don’t usually get that sort of greeting after a twenty-four-hour absence.” Then, sliding his hands up and down her sides experimentally, he added, “Good Lord, woman! You are nothing but skin and bones.”
“That’s what you think,” Lois answered with a grin. This is the body you met me in, farmboy. You’ve just gotten used to more padding over the years.”
“Yeah, well, I like your curves.” He was smiling at her with warm affection.
There He was. The future self that Clark had been jealous of for weeks. He had her. To have and to hold. The funny thing was, now that he was here, Clark found that he couldn’t really hate the guy. He envied him, but how can you hate yourself? And how could he hate the man who made Lois Lane so obviously happy?
“Speaking of curves,” Lois said, “Mr. Wells, do you think that I could have my body back now?”
Her body? Oh, yes. It wasn’t until Lois mentioned it that Clark really looked at the other woman in the room. Taking a few steps toward the kitchen, toward Lois and her Clark and the other woman, Clark felt shy and out of place. He hadn’t seen her for weeks, had no idea what she thought of all this, nor even how much she had learned in her brief stay here, but he could see the resemblance, and that had to be her. “Lois?” he offered tentatively.
The woman in question had been staring at Lois and her Clark, obviously as much affected by the scene as he himself had been. At his greeting, she turned to him. She seemed as awkward as he felt. “Hi, Clark.”
At this quiet exchange, the still-embracing couple broke apart and each approached their younger counterparts, as if just now noticing that they were in the room. Lois Lane-Kent was the first to speak. “Oh, Lois, I’m so sorry! That was thoughtless and rude of me. Here you are in a strange place and all I can think of is myself. I guess after six weeks I have a bit of a one-track mind.”
The older Clark had been reaching his own hand in greeting to his younger self, but got sidetracked by his wife’s remark. “Six weeks? You’ve only been gone for a day.”
“For you, yes, but this is time travel we’re dealing with. I’ve been stuck in 1993 for six weeks.”
“Oh, honey! You must have been frantic to get home.”
“I was. But I wasn’t alone. Clark here has been a good friend.” Lois tried to convey all the gratitude she felt for her young friend in the smile she turned on him.
The older man seemed a little taken aback by this comment, but he turned back to Clark, reaching his hand out again and shaking his with a sincere “Thank you.”
“Any time,” Clark answered, utterly nonplussed at finding himself conversing with, well, himself.
Nobody seemed to know what to do or say next. After an awkward pause, the elder Clark recovered first. “Where are my manners?” Taking his wife gently by the elbow, he drew her toward her counterpart. “Honey, you know young Lois, here. Lois, my wife, Lois Lane-Kent.”
“Welcome to our home,” offered Ms. Lane-Kent.
“Thanks. Nice to meet you.” Miss Lane was evidently still a little overwhelmed, but her manners were running on autopilot.
Still addressing the young Lois (in the older Lois’s body, which was very confusing), Mr. Kent continued the introductions. “I believe you know Junior over there, and this is Mr. Wells.”
Focusing on the strange man in the bowler hat, Miss Lane seemed to come suddenly back to life. “Just a minute here. You’re the one who brought Clark and Lois here from my time? Do you have anything to do with John Doe?” Her volume was steadily rising and her tone was threatening.
“Oh, goodness, no!” the little man hastened to assure her, “Believe me, as soon as I return to Utopia I’ll have Andrus and the peacekeepers track that scoundrel down and bring him to justice.”
“Again.” The mumble came from Lois Lane-Kent.
Ignoring the interruption, Mr. Wells continued. “Now, if the preliminaries are concluded, may I suggest that we proceed with the reintegration?”
“Come again?”
In answer to Miss Lane’s query, Mr. Wells drew a small electronic device from his breast pocket.
“That’s it! That’s the thing that psycho used to send me here!” Miss Lane was advancing menacingly toward Mr. Wells again.
“Quite, quite, my dear, but please don’t be alarmed.” Wells held both hands, including the device in question, up in self defense. “This is a soul tracker. And although Tempus apparently used one to disrupt the time continuum by switching your consciousness with Mrs. Lane-Kent’s, I merely propose to use this one to restore you to your rightful body.”
Miss Lane was looking decidedly suspicious, and she looked to the older Mr. Kent for confirmation.
“It’s okay, Lois. Wells here is one of the good guys. I’ve been through one of these before; it’s perfectly safe.”
“Yes, indeed,” Mr. Wells assured her, “but the experience can be momentarily disorienting. If we are ready, may I suggest that the ladies be seated?”
At young Lois’s nod of wary acceptance, the two women sat down on either side of the kitchen table. By some unspoken agreement, the younger Clark positioned himself next to the younger-looking woman. His elder self drew the young Lois in the older body into a brief embrace.
“I’m sorry it’s been such a roller-coaster ride, Lois,” he spoke softly in her ear. “Please remember, you are always loved. Always. By me now, but also by him already. Remember what I told you. You were a week too late as it was. I have loved you from the beginning.” Finding that she couldn’t speak, Lois just nodded.
When it looked like everyone was ready, Mr. Wells pushed a button, then several more in sequence. The women both closed their eyes and a small shudder ran through each of their bodies. When they opened their eyes moments later, a wide smile broke out on the older woman’s face. “Welcome home, honey,” grinned her husband, his arm already around her shoulders.
“It’s good to be home,” she replied, reaching for her husband’s free hand.
“Wow! Lo! You look…”
“Old, I know,” Lois interrupted her young friend.
“No, I was going to say you look terrific. I mean, it’s not like you didn’t have a fantastic body before.” At this a furious blush arose in his cheeks and he very deliberately did *not* look at his young partner. “But this one just….fits. It’s you.”
Lois smiled. “Thanks, Ceej. I think.” She turned her attention to the young woman across the table. “You okay, there? It can be a bit rough, the first time.”
“It’s not my first time. I’m fine.” Oh, yes. Lois remembered this stage of her life quite clearly now. This young lady didn’t want coddling. What she wanted was respect. Well, that was something that Lois could give her. And, seeing that no one else seemed to know what to do next, it was time for Lois to take charge.
“Alright, troops. Here’s the deal. First, we’re all just going to acknowledge that this whole situation is really mind-blowing for all of us, and we’re going to cut each other some slack. Second, the name thing is going to drive me crazy. There are four of us, but only two names to go around. So you,” she pointed at her husband, “get to keep ‘Clark,’ you,” pointing at her young friend, “are stuck with ‘CJ,’ and you,” turning to her counterpart, “can take your pick. ‘Lane’ or ‘Lois’?”
“Uh, ‘Lois,’ I guess.”
“Fine. I’ll take ‘Lane.’ Now, Clark, we’re going to need another pot of coffee. And let’s bring those pastries through to the living room. This could take a while.”
