When Cark and CJ returned to the living room, they found Lane and Lois deep in consultation with Mr. Wells and Bernie Klein, now on speaker phone. The coffee table was covered in paper, with branching diagrams and arrows pointing every which way. Bernie’s voice was coming from the telephone handset in the middle of the table.
Lane looked up as the men joined the group around the table. “Bernie, Clark and CJ are here now. Could you bring them up to speed? Briefly,” she hastened to add.
“Hi Bernie,” Clark greeted his friend.
“Hi, Clark. Hello, CJ,” came the disembodied voice.
“Nice to meet you, Bernie. I’ve heard a lot about you,” CJ chimed in.
“Okay, gentlemen,” Bernie was in professor mode now, “Here’s what we’ve got so far. The four of you started out in the same timeline up until the morning of October 9, 1993. At that point the first split occurred when Tempus replaced Lois ’93 with Lois ’03 and vice-versa. So then we had two timelines running in parallel. We believe. It is possible that the switch itself was still part of the original timeline if we end up with Lois ’93 not remembering any of these events after today. In that case, there is no way to distinguish the altered timeline from the original, since Lois ’03 and Lois ‘93 would still have the same memories in either case. But, regardless of whether or not the original switch caused a timeline split, we know that a split occurred early in the ’93 timeline as soon as Clark ’93 learned that the Lois there had been switched. So, CJ, can you tell me when you first noticed something different about Lois?”
“The first day. I was at a press conference as Superman and she called me ‘Clark.’”
“And that didn’t happen in your memory, Clark?” Bernie asked.
“No. It didn’t,” Clark confirmed.
“Okay,” Bernie went on, “So we’ve got one split definitely happening on October 9. Then, we potentially have a second split a week later when Clark ’93 saved Allie’s life. And a third when he saved Mr. Mencken’s. So, by the time Mr. Wells was alerted to the danger because of CJ’s death in November of ’93, we are already at least three, and possibly more, steps removed from the original timeline.
“Now, the question Lois, I mean Lane, has posed is whether leaving those changes intact, from the point of view of Lois and Clark ’93, poses an inherent danger to Lois and Clark ’03 and their current timeline. The answer is not clear a priori.”
“Come again?” CJ inquired.
“We can’t necessarily predict the answer ahead of time,” Bernie clarified. There are competing theories about the effect of these kinds of changes on future events. One theory, which Mr. Wells has been operating under, is that any change created in the past of a person’s own timeline always affects that person. That was certainly the case when Tempus went back to 1966 to attack Clark as an infant. The adult Clark began to disappear. But there were special circumstances in that case. For one thing, the adult Clark was in the past at the time. He was necessarily in the same timeline as the infant at the time of the attack. If he had remained in his own time, it’s not necessarily true that the attack on the infant would have killed the adult. It may have, and Tempus certainly believed that it would, but other theories postulate that existing timelines are more elastic than that; that there would have been a split in the timeline, creating one new timeline with a dead infant Clark, but leaving the original timeline intact as well.”
“So you’re saying that we might not have to do anything at all? We could just send Lois and CJ back to 1993 with all their memories intact and nothing bad would happen to us as a result?” Clark asked. This was obviously what his wife was trying to accomplish, but would it work? Could he take the risk? “How do we know whether that would work? How can we tell whether our timeline has already been affected?”
Lane and CJ obviously got the same idea at the same time. They each gasped, and looked at each other in horror. CJ was immediately on his feet. He turned to Clark and with an urgent tone demanded, “Where are your suits?”
“Huh?”
“Your *suits,* man! Where do you keep the suits?” As Clark reached for the bookshelf to open the secret compartment, he realized why CJ was suddenly so desperate to become Superman.
“The children!” Clark exclaimed. Clark and CJ were both instantly transformed into whirlwinds of blending colors before they each came to a stop. As soon as the spinning stopped, the younger Superman addressed the older. “I’ll take Smallville; you check on Lara.” At the older man’s answering nod, both superheroes disappeared in a gust of wind. The patio door was left swinging behind them.
“Wow,” breathed Lois. That was all she had. Just, wow.
“Lois? Lane?” Bernie’s voice was coming from the speaker phone. “What’s going on over there?”
Lois glanced at Lane, but the older woman wasn’t really hearing anything right now. She was visibly distraught, waiting for word about her children’s well-being. So, it looked like it was up to Lois to answer the scientist.
“Um…Dr. Klein, this is Lois. ’93, that is. Superman just left. Both Supermen. They went to check on the children. Lane doesn’t look too good. She’s pretty worried.”
“Lane? Can you hear me?” Bernie asked.
“She’s nodding ‘yes,’” supplied Lois.
“Listen to me, Lane. Your kids are going to be okay. Even if the change has started to affect them, it can still be reversed. All we have to do is follow Mr. Wells’ original plan and put Lois back before any of this happened.”
Lane seemed to snap out of her daze and turned her attention on Lois. “Would you do that? Would you go back if you had to? I know you don’t want to give up your memories.”
“Lane! I want to keep my memories, but not at the price of little kids’ lives. Just how self-centered do you think I am?”
Lane sighed. “I’m sorry, Lois. I know you’re not. I’m a little frazzled, that’s all.”
Lois reached for the older woman’s hand and gave it a little squeeze. She wasn’t really comfortable with this touchy-feely stuff, but the woman looked desperate and the men were both gone. Well, Mr. Wells was still there, but he sure wasn’t going to be much help. “I know. It’ll be okay.” Lois hoped that was the appropriate thing to say.
Bernie’s voice came from the phone again. “Lane, I do have a back-up option, if that would help.”
“What do you mean, Bernie?” Lane would listen to anything that would help her kids at this point.
“You’ll remember that a couple of years ago you asked me to try to devise a method of protecting you and Clark from Tempus’s interference.”
“Yes, I remember. Are you saying you’ve come up with something?”
“Maybe. What I’ve got is really a working prototype. It hasn’t been fully tested yet, which is why I haven’t given it to you yet. But I do have two of them.”
“Two of what, Bernie? What have you got?” Lane was still worried for her kids and her patience was running thin. She wished her friend would get to the point.
“Time anchors. They’re small enough to fit in a pocket or a purse, and they’ve got a radius of about 30 feet, so you can keep one in your bathroom or your kitchen. Heck, once we’ve made enough copies you could keep one in every room of your house, at your desk at work, even in your car. Anyway, they interfere with the flux of the temporal field so you can’t be removed from your native timeline.”
“Really. And I couldn’t have had one of those forty-eight hours ago?” The irony was too much, even for Lane.
“Sorry, kiddo. Them’s the breaks. But it should at least help from this point forward.”
Lane visibly gathered herself together. If Bernie’s elastic theory was right, they might not even need the time anchors, but a back-up plan couldn’t hurt. And, in any case, they’d keep Tempus from making further trouble for them. “Okay, Bernie. I’ll send Clark over to pick them up as soon as he gets back. Oh, and here he is now.” Lane looked up as her husband stepped in the patio door. She knew from his face that Lara, at least, was safe.
“She’s fine, honey,” he confirmed, wrapping his worried wife in a strong embrace. “I watched her for five minutes. She and Tina are painting their nails and watching ‘Pocahontas.’”
Lane breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.” She stayed there, wrapped in Clark’s strong arms and just absorbing his comforting presence for as long as she could. She’d come close to losing it when she thought her children might be disappearing into nothingness. She needed this infusion of strength that only he could give her. What she really wanted was some time alone with him, but she knew she wasn’t going to get it until this whole mess got sorted out. When she felt able, she gave her husband a grateful squeeze before pulling back to add, “Bernie has something for us at the lab. Would you be a dear?”
Clark had needed that hug just as much as his wife had. He’d been close to panic himself before he got to Lucy’s house and saw his daughter giggling with her cousin. But he, too, knew that there was still work to be done before the two of them would be free to comfort each other the way they really wanted to. So, when she made her request, he knew she was ready to soldier on. “Sure,” he answered her with a parting kiss on the forehead, “I’ll be right back.” And he was gone again.
“Wow,” commented Lois, “He sure comes in handy.” The flippant remark was a form of emotional distancing, even if Lois didn’t realize it. Last night Lois had been the one wrapped in that loving embrace. But, as she had realized this morning, it was Lane who belonged there. At least in this timeline. <What do you mean, ‘in this timeline?’ Does that mean *you* might belong in Clark Kent’s arms in some other world?> She was saved from having to answer herself by Lane’s response.
“Yeah, it makes up for all the trouble he causes. It just about evens out in the end.”
Shocked at Lane’s casual dismissal of her amazing husband, Lois gave the older woman a hard look. It took her a moment to recognize the teasing gleam in her counterpart’s eye.
At that instant, the phone began making a series of clicking noises. “Bernie,” Lane called, “that’s my call waiting. Can I call you back?”
“No need,” came the reply from the phone, “Clark’s here. I’ll show him how to use the time anchors and you can call me later if you have any questions. It sounds like you’re all set, though. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble, even if you do send Lois and CJ back with all their memories.”
“Thanks, Bernie. For everything. I’ve got to go.” Lane pressed a button on the phone and answered it, “Lois Lane.” The phone was still on speaker, so Lois heard the caller’s voice as well.
“Lois? Honey, is everything okay? I thought you’d be half-way to Florence by now.”
Lois noticed the warm smile that blossomed on Lane’s face. She obviously recognized the voice, although Lois didn’t. “Hi, Martha,” Lane replied, “We’ve had a temporary hold-up, but it looks like everything is going to be okay. How’s everything on your end?”
“Funny you should ask.” The caller, ‘Martha,’ Lane had called her, sounded bemused. “Superman was just here. Apparently his friend, Clark, asked him to stop by and check on two little boys who are now very excited to tell Mommy about their little adventure.” Whoever Martha was, she didn’t sound shocked to have a visit from Superman. She sounded more amused, or possibly puzzled. Maybe both.
As Martha spoke, CJ came walking through the patio door, still in the suit. Lane gave him an unreadable look. “Oh, he did, did he? Well, I guess you’d better put them on then.” Two excited little voices came on the line and CJ gave Lane a sheepish smile and a shrug.
“Mommy, Mommy, we met Superman!” The little boys were talking over each other in their excitement, and it was difficult for Lois to distinguish one high-pitched voice from the other.
“You did?! I bet that was exciting.” While Lois talked to her boys, she was rolling her eyes at CJ. Apparently Superman was in trouble with Lois Lane.
“Yeah!” the young voices chatted happily from the phone speaker, “we were playing in the Fortress and he flew right up to the door. And he doesn’t just fly, Mommy! He can hover, too, like a helicopter. He said that Daddy wanted him to check on us, since you and Daddy were going to be in Florence all weekend. Hey, how come you’re still at home?”
“Something came up, but we’re leaving tonight. So we’ll still see you two on Sunday night, okay? Be good for Grandma and Grandpa.” Oh, so that explained it. Martha must be Clark’s mom. Lois felt a brief bubble of amusement. What would the Metropolitan public think if they knew that their superhero had a mother who tattled on him to his wife?
“We will. Love you, Mommy.”
“I love you, too, Tiger.”
“A bushel and a peck?”
With a catch in her throat, Lane answered, “a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.”
“Bye, Mommy.”
“Bye, sweetie. I’ll see you soon.” As Lane hung up the phone Lois noticed a shimmer of unshed tears in her eyes. Then Lane blinked the tears back, and, as Clark came striding through the patio door, she turned on CJ.
“Clark Jerome Kent!” Oh, yeah, he was in trouble. Her husband raised his eyebrows before he realized that she was addressing the younger man. “What do you think you are doing?! Do you have any idea how hard we have worked to keep Superman and Clark Kent separate in our sons’ minds? And you show up telling them that their Daddy asked Superman to check on them? They’ve never even seen Superman in person. And there’s a reason for that. You couldn’t just hover out of sight?”
The entire scene was bizarre. Lois was standing in her future living room watching her future self give Superman a good dressing-down. Meanwhile a second Superman stood by, looking glad that *he* was not the one getting the talking-to. And the subject of the scolding was Superman’s kids. Only they weren’t supposed to be Superman’s kids. They were Clark Kent’s kids. Which was the point of the dressing-down. Her life was just so strange.
Lois watched CJ, curious to see how he would respond to Lane’s rebuke, but he just grinned at Lane, utterly unapologetically. “Lo,” he said almost tenderly, “They’re amazing.”
And, as quickly as it had come, the storm of Lane temper passed. She returned his smile and, in a knowing tone, replied, “Yeah. They are.” Then, shaking her head to clear it, Lane explained to Clark and CJ that Dr. Klein didn’t think there would be a problem with the timeline. All four of them looked to Mr. Wells for confirmation.
“What Dr. Klein told us sounds plausible. If that’s what you all want, we can certainly try. I have a time beacon in November 1993. If I return Miss Lane and young Mr. Kent there, I can check back here to make sure that there have been no ill effects. I can always bring them back here again if necessary.”
Clark took in Lois and CJ with his next remark. “Alright then, you two. It’s your choice. Do you go back with your memories or without them? It looks like it’s up to you.” Addressing Lane and Mr. Wells, he added, “And the rest of us had better give those two some privacy. They need to have a very serious discussion.” He turned back to the young man and woman. Catching their eyes, each in turn, he counseled them, “Don’t rush this.”
Then, gathering the older people and herding them into the kitchen, he inquired, “Mr. Wells, you’re a tea man aren’t you? Have you ever tried Oolong?”
