PREVIOUSLY FROM THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE...
“Come on,” Charlie said, taking her hand and leading her between the seats, away from Frank as quickly as he could without looking too suspicious. After a moment, and in a show of strength that was impressive, he picked her up and moved her in front of him, putting himself between her and Frank.
A quick glance over her shoulder told her that Frank was following, gaining even. It didn’t occur to her that she should just stop and see what Frank wanted. Charlie’s urgency at getting her out of there was infectious - as if he knew something about Frank’s intentions that made him fear for her safety.AND NOW...
They rounded a large concrete wall, blocking them from Frank’s sight momentarily. The area was deserted at the moment, increasing Lois’ nervousness. She was just about to run when hands on her waist lifted her off her feet, hoisting her up so that she could scramble over the concrete wall and into the upper level of bleachers.
When Charlie didn’t follow, she glanced back over the wall. “Charlie,” she whispered, seeing him standing casually against the wall.
He waved her off just before Frank rounded the corner. Lois ducked down, her heart pounding, her breathing coming hard and fast. She was safe enough. Frank would never think to look for her in the upper level bleachers. Charlie, on the other hand, was still down there. He might be undeniably strong, but he wasn’t invulnerable. His sore back muscles were proof enough of that. She glanced back over the edge.
“Where is she?” Frank demanded, approaching Charlie.
“Who?” Charlie asked.
“Lane! Where is she?”
“She went to the restroom.”
“So what are you doing out here?” Frank asked suspiciously.
“For some unfathomable reason, she didn’t want me to go to the bathroom with her.”
Lois could tell that Frank wasn’t entirely satisfied.
“So why are you out here and not back in your seat?”
“Not that I report to you,” Charlie said, sounding annoyed now. “But I wanted to stretch my legs. What are you wanting Lois for? Are you friends?”
“That woman doesn’t have friends,” Frank growled, looking past Charlie, as if dismissing him as unimportant. A group of people rounded the corner causing Frank to look around, undoubtedly checking to see if Lois was in amongst the people beginning to make their way back to the bleachers. He looked back at Charlie when he didn’t see her. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from Lane ‘cause she’s going to be in a world of hurt eventually and so will anyone who gets too close to her.”
Lois gasped when, in a move almost too quick for her to follow, Charlie grabbed Frank by the lapels of his football jacket and spun him around, pushing him up against the wall, easily knocking the wind out of him. “You’ve got that backwards,” Charlie hissed in a voice that sent a shiver through Lois. “I’m warning you to stay away from her... if you know what’s good for you. Otherwise... you’ll be the one experiencing a ‘world of hurt.’ Got it?”
Surprised by the sudden show of strength, Frank didn’t respond. Charlie gave him one final push before dropping him and turning to walk back to the bleachers.
“Charlie!” Lois gasped when Frank dove at him.
One quick step to the side and Frank flew past Charlie, skidding head-first across the pavement.
“Like I said,” Charlie said, leaning over Frank as he lay half stunned on the concrete, “stay away from Lois Lane.”
Relief coursing through her, Lois sank to the floor, her back to the concrete barrier. She was only beginning to recover when Charlie arrived in front of her.
“Are you okay?” he asked, offering her his hand.
“Am I okay?” she asked in disbelief, taking his hand and allowing him to pull her to her feet. As soon as she was standing, she threw his arms around him, giving him a quick hug before releasing him again. “What do you say we leave?” she asked, suddenly not the least bit interested in the second half of the football game. “We’ve got some snooping to do and then I suggest we get out of here.”
“You still want to do some snooping?” he asked in disbelief.
“You bet. But... do you?”
A slow smile spread across his face, answering her question.
“Then let’s go,” Lois said. Taking a step away from him, she suddenly stopped and grabbed his arm as the world spun around her. “Whoa!”
“Lois?” Charlie asked in concern.
“Nothing. Just got a little dizzy there for a moment.”
“The after effects of taking GHB,” Charlie informed her.
“Wonderful,” Lois responded, before, taking a tighter hold on his arm, she began leading him towards the exit.
* * * * * * * * *
Lois hoisted herself up onto the hood of the car to wait.
The attempt to visit the locker room had been a complete bust. Or mostly. She had spotted Joe during their efforts and he had promised to meet them by his car later - which was why she was currently seated on the hood of an old Chevy at the far end of the parking lot outside the football stadium. But otherwise...
Who would have thought a college football team would have so much security around their locker room on game day? Of course, she’d tried talking her way around them. Then, when that hadn’t worked, had attempted to distract one of the guards by getting into a philosophical discussion about women interviewing men in their locker room so that Charlie could sneak in on his own, see what he could find. But it seemed Charlie wasn’t the sneaky type and had quickly been caught.
So the expedition had been a bust. Or... well, maybe not a complete bust. Lois couldn’t help the smirk that formed on her lips as she thought back to one exchange in particular.
“Are you saying you’d be comfortable having a man in your locker room interviewing you while you were getting changed?” the guard had asked.
“Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” Lois had said trying to sound dismissive, all the while knowing that a blush crept up her cheeks. She hadn’t dared look at Charlie.
“Right,” the guard had responded skeptically. “So you’re naked and some guy is there, trying to ask you questions and you’d be just fine with it?”
Lois had wished he’d just let it go. But he must have sensed weakness because he continued.
“‘Cause I would think a lot of guys would enjoy seeing you naked. I suspect the Ink and Quill would have a rush on male reporters wanting to cover sports if they thought they might get to see you naked in a locker room. Probably have them lined up around the block.”
“That’s not the point,” Lois had responded, stumbling slightly on her words as she struggled to remember just exactly what her point had been.
It was then that it had happened. At first, she’d thought she was going to die of embarrassment because the guard suddenly turned to Charlie who Lois had been working hard to ignore during this part of the discussion.
“What about you?” the guard had asked. “I bet you’d like to see her naked. Probably had a few fantasies about it. Hot chick like her.”
“I... umm... uhh...” Charlie had said. “It... uhh...”
When Lois turned and shot him a glare, he shrugged helplessly. It was as if he was trying to figure out the right answer. Maybe his mother had once told him the truth was always the right answer, but he was doubting she’d foreseen this particular situation at the time.
Suddenly, the whole thing had struck Lois as funny and she’d laughed, laughing even harder when she’d seen a blush appear on Charlie’s cheeks.
Lois glanced over at the object of her thoughts as he stood nearby, watching out, she suspected, for any other football players who might spot her. So... he’d thought about seeing her naked, had he? Well, chances were that ruled her out as being his great, great grandmother.
Lois suddenly grinned as her eyes tracked down his body. She had to admit, she was glad about that. After all, the thought of seeing him naked wasn’t exactly a hardship either. And she’d hate to think she was having these lascivious thoughts about her great, great grandson.
“What?” Charlie asked, turning to glance at her.
“Nothing. Just...” She gestured abstractly. “...lost in thought.”
Charlie nodded once before returning to stare out over the parking lot.
Her mind drifted again and she found herself thinking about her near encounter with Frank. Things had happened so fast, it hadn’t left her with time to think. But since then, she’d realized a number of things about that encounter had been... odd.
The big thing, now that she thought about it, was there was no way he should have been able to give her a boost over that concrete barmier. It was about twelve feet high. Unless he had flown, of course. And since she was currently wearing his leather jacket, that pretty much ruled out the possibility that his flying was the result of some advanced technology connected to his jacket. Maybe it was in his jeans or something.
In addition to the flying thing, there were a number of other things that had been odd as well. For example, how had Charlie known that Frank had spotted her? He’d been facing away from Frank. It was almost as if he had eyes in the back of his head. But no. She’d have noticed that while giving him a back massage.
Maybe he’d heard Frank say something. Frank had been a long ways away when Charlie had first pointed him out to her. Could he really have heard Frank from that distance?
Still, if he had superhuman strength, was it outside the realm of possibility that he might also possess superhuman hearing? She hesitated for a moment before whispering, too low for anyone to hear, “Charlie?”
“Hmmm?” Charlie answered in response, looking over at her again.
“Nothing. I was just thinking that after we meet with Joe, I should probably check in with Molly. She was going to see if she could find out any more about GHB from the books I took over to the sorority house.”
“Mmm...” he responded, before resuming his vigil. Her own personal body guard.
Well, that was interesting. He’d heard her breathe his name even though he was a good twenty feet away. She immediately added ‘super hearing’ to her list of things she knew about Charlie King.
And if his hearing was that good, what about his other senses? Might he not have exceptional eyesight, touch, taste or smell as well? She couldn’t be certain, but she tucked those away in a corner of her mind for future reference before turning her mind back to Charlie’s hearing.
So if Charlie’s hearing was that good, what exactly had he heard Frank say that had spooked him so badly? A threat of some sort, obviously. It was really too bad that she couldn’t just ask him. But she knew that to do so would have him bolting for the hills... or, more likely, the time machine.
So if he was exceptionally strong, could hear things from a long distance, fly and travel through time... What else might he be able to do?
He obviously didn’t read minds - otherwise he’d have known what she was up to when she’d whispered his name. Probably just as well, given some of her thoughts about Charlie in the day since they had first met. A blush was suddenly creeping up her cheeks.
She forced her mind back to the encounter with Frank. Charlie had also shown himself to have super quick reflexes, spinning Frank up against the wall and then side-stepping his attack. Well, he could certainly move when he wanted to. Was it beyond the capacities of a regular athletic man? She wasn’t certain. On the other hand, when he’d flown off after their encounter when she was nine, he’d been incredibly fast. So superior, even superhuman reflexes and speed were a distinct possibility.
“Lois,” Charlie said.
Lois snapped her eyes up to his from where they had been absentmindedly checking out the cut of his jeans.
“Yeah?” she asked.
“I don’t like this.”
“You said that before.”
“How do you know this Joe isn’t setting you up? You said he was one of the people at the party Friday evening. How do you know...”
“I know,” Lois said, cutting him off. “I’ve known Joe for years. I even dated him briefly in high school. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.”
“Lois, they don’t call it ‘date rape’ because strangers are responsible.”
She fought the urge to roll her eyes. After all, it was obvious he was genuinely concerned about her safety. And she had to admit... she found it sort of cute. Not that she was wrong about Joe. Or that she couldn’t take care of herself. But...
“Charlie,” she said softly. “Trust me on this, okay? Joe is in love with Debby. He isn’t carrying a torch for me and I’m not carrying one for him. We’re just friends. Neither one of us want anything more.”
He seemed to take in her words, digesting them.
“What about you?” he finally asked.
“What about me?”
“You said Joe is in love with Debby...” He couldn’t seem to complete his thought, almost as if he believed he didn’t have the right.
“Are you asking if I’m... involved with anyone?”
He didn’t respond. He just continued to watch her. But his eyes told her that he needed to know.
“I’m not involved with anyone, Charlie,” she finally said, unable to resist his eyes. “At least... I wasn’t when I woke up this morning.” Her final words were not much more than a whisper.
His mouth fell slightly open as her words registered. He took a step towards her and her heart rate picked up. Another and she felt her mouth go dry. Her eyes remained on his, unable now to look away, as he stepped closer. She moved her legs slightly and he stepped between them, resting his hands on the car on either side of her body. His eyes flicked down to her lips and she felt her tongue come out to moisten them. He gave a small groan, moving his head down to...
“Hey, kid.”
Charlie spun away from her and it took Lois a moment to refocus enough to realize that Joe was walking towards them.
“Hi,” Joe said, turning his attention to Clark and sticking out his hand, his smile open and friendly. “I’m Joe Malloy.”
“Cla... Charlie King,” Charlie responded.
Lois narrowed her eyes as she noticed the slip. Most people didn’t slip up on their own name, regardless of how distracted they were. She immediately added that to the things she knew about this man - his name wasn’t Charlie King.
“So what are you doing here?” Joe asked, turning his attention to Lois. “I thought I told you to stay away from the football players.”
“Actually, you told me to watch out for the football players,” Lois responded.
Joe gave her a look that said in his opinion it was pretty much the same thing.
“Anyway,” Lois continued, “that’s not the point. What I’m trying to find out is if any of the football players are using performance enhancing drugs.”
Joe’s eyebrows rose. “Do you have reason to suspect they are?”
“Not exactly. It’s just...” She hesitated for a moment, struggling with exactly how much to tell Joe. She glanced over at Charlie but he just shrugged, leaving the issue up to her.
“Okay, well...” she finally said. “The thing is that something happened after you left on Friday.”
“You’re okay, aren’t you?” Joe asked, his eyes taking a quick inventory of her body as if checking for missing pieces.
“I’m fine. But I think someone slipped a drug called GHB into my drink. Since there were football players at the party and I read that GHB is a performance enhancing drug...” She let him fill in the pieces.
“I know about GHB. It’s considered an alternative to steroids,” Joe said as the implications of her words sank in. “And, yeah, I think some of the guys have probably at least tried it.”
“Have you?” Charlie asked.
“Once. It’s not illegal so I gave it a try. It made my head fuzzy until I fell asleep. Apparently, it has to be taken over a period of time to have the necessary results. I just couldn’t see suffering through the side effects long enough to achieve those results.”
“Who else has tried it?”
“Well, the time I tried it was back in high school so...” He thought about the question for a moment. “I remember a couple of the guys talking about it, but... I’m sorry I don’t remember who.”
“I don’t suppose you’d be comfortable looking through some lockers,” Lois said.
Joe just raised his eyebrows at that.
“I didn’t think so. Well, if you do happen to see or hear anything...”
“I’ll let you know.”
* * * * * * * * *
“Well, that was a waste of a day,” Lois said as she and Clark walked together towards the Alpha Nu Rho house.
“A waste of a day?” Clark asked.
Lois shot him a confused look. “The coroner wasn’t in. We didn’t get a chance to as much as look in the Devils’ locker room. And Joe didn’t know anything. How is that not a waste of a day?”
“We found out the coroner would be in tomorrow. We wrote off Joe as a possible source of information. And we realized just how mad the football players are at you - at least if Frank is any indication.”
He didn’t add that he’d heard Frank say he was going to kill her. Probably just a figure of speech, after all. Not that he’d wanted to wait around to find out. He had played with the idea of telling Lois what he’d heard. But how could he explain having heard it in the first place? Besides, he was satisfied that after overhearing his conversation with Frank, Lois was taking the Frank situation seriously.
“Do you always look on the bright side of things?” Lois groused.
Clark grinned. “Besides, I got to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon watching football with a smart and gorgeous woman. Now on the scale of one to ten for wasted days, this was no where near the bottom.”
Lois blushed, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
“So what do you say that once we talk to your friend, Molly, we go out for dinner? My treat.”
Lois grinned, slipping her arm through his. “Still protecting your virtue, I see, Mr. Kent.”
“Naturally,” Clark responded. “I’ll have you know I’m not easy.”
Lois laughed.
As they slipped into a comfortable silence, Clark silently rebuked himself. What was he doing? He should be working on getting the time machine repaired so that he could get out of here, not flirting with Lois.
No, he wasn’t flirting with Lois. He was just being... friendly. Okay, so then why had he almost kissed her back at Joe’s car? If Joe hadn’t come along when he had...
It wasn’t fair to her. What if she fell in love with him and then he simply disappeared? He might see her again almost immediately from his perspective. But even if he were successful in keeping her from going to the Congo and was even be lucky enough to get her to fall in love with him in the future, from her viewpoint, at least six years would have passed before they would even meet. Six years where she would simply wonder what had happened to him.
No. He couldn’t do this.
They stepped up to the door of the Alpha Nu Rho house and Lois unlocked the door.
“Lois,” he said quietly as she opened the door and stepped inside. “About supper...” He took a step forward, following her into the house. She turned to look at him and he hesitated. He had to break off this supper date, but how could he when he wanted nothing more than to spend every second he could in her presence?
“Well, look who’s here?”
Clark was distracted from his attempt to break their date by the sound of a man’s voice, not exactly friendly, but obviously directed at them. Both he and Lois turned towards the sound, Clark tensing in anticipation of trouble.
“Ryan,” Lois responded, her voice cold.
“Hey, look who’s here,” he repeated to a couple of his chums who were also present. “Crusading reporter and resident slut of Alpha Nu Rho.”
“Slut?” Lois asked, her eyes flashing in rising anger.
“You don’t think I saw you Friday night?” He turned to his friends. “This woman got sloshed and then left to have a twosome with two guys she probably didn’t even know. Do you even remember their names, Lois? And now you’re with someone else. Just how many men have you screwed this weekend? Do you have any idea what a joke you’re becoming?”
“You saw me leaving the party?” Lois asked, completely flabbergasted.
“You weren’t exactly subtle. Hanging all over those guys like a cheap suit. It was pretty obvious what you were planning to do.”
“And you thought I was drunk?”
“Thought? I knew you were drunk. I’d have to have been blind not to know that. You were so drunk you could barely stand up.”
“And you just...” She gestured vaguely. “...let them take me out of the party? Two guys I didn’t know?”
“I’m not your father. Besides, as far as I’m concerned, if you drink that much, you deserve everything you get.”
“You just let me take them out of the party?” Lois asked again, obviously having trouble grasping that fact.
“Of course I let them take you. What did you expect me to do?”
“How about coming to get me...” Everyone turned at the sound of a new person entering the conversation.
“Mol...?” Ryan asked, obviously caught flat-footed at her appearance.
“How about telling me that my best friend might be in trouble?” Molly continued.
Clark noted that Molly was white as a ghost, but that did nothing to detract from the fact that she was rigidly furious.
“Look, Mol,” Ryan said, holding his hands out in a consolatory fashion.
“Get out!” Molly said.
“You’re taking her side?” Ryan asked. “She’s a nosy, know-it-all, busy-body who can’t hold her booze. She’d not worth it.”
“She’s an Alpha Nu Rho sorority sister. She’s my best friend. And she has a right not to be attacked under this roof,” Molly said. “Now take your friends and get out of here. You are no longer welcome in this house.”
Molly stood up straight, shoulders back, eyes blazing as Ryan and his friends quickly gathered up their things and fled the house. As the door slammed shut behind them, Lois rushed over to her friend. “Mol?” she asked, even as she gathered the now trembling woman into her arms as Molly’s tears finally started.
“You were right,” she sobbed into Lois’ shoulder. “You were so right about him. How could I not have seen it before?”
Lois glanced helplessly over her shoulder at Clark. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed and Clark instantly knew that she was telling him dinner was off.
He gave her an encouraging nod as he backed towards the door.
* * * * * * * * *
Clark stood and looked at the time machine for a long time. Okay, so H.G. Wells’ writing had been most unhelpful in understanding the actual machine. So what next?
Maybe it wasn’t necessary for him to understand how the time machine worked to get it fixed. After all, he’d built the thing without understanding it in the first place.
He placed his glasses on the night stand and picked up the plans, staring at it before staring at, into and through the machine, comparing the two. A few minutes later, he thought he’d spotted the problem. Stepping over to the machine, he opened a side panel and looked inside. Two of the wires had melted down, fusing together. But... was this the cause or the effect? Had the meltdown been the reason for the problem or the result of the problem?
Either way, those wires were going to have to be replaced.
After a quick trip to a hardware store to get the items he required, he began his repair job.
* * * * * * * * *
Lois handed Molly a cup of hot chocolate before grabbing a blanket and curling up on the couch in the study with her friend.
Molly had cried herself out some time ago and now looked a bit like a little girl, lost in the blankets that surrounded her. It broke Lois’ heart to see Molly looking so sad.
“I’m sorry,” Lois said. “Maybe if I’d made more of an effort to get along with Ryan...”
“No. Lois, this isn’t your fault,” Molly objected. “You and Ryan might not have gotten along, but I doubt you would have ever just stood by if it was obvious he was in trouble. Ryan... I can’t believe he had the nerve to say what he did to you.”
Lois paused, lost in thought for a moment. “I still can’t believe what he said. I mean, even if he would say it to me, why wouldn’t he have worried about you overhearing him?”
“He thought I was upstairs in bed.”
Lois waited for a more thorough explanation.
“When he came by last night to see me, I told him I wasn’t feeling well. A cold or something.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t tell him that I was worried that he might have been the one who put GHB in your drink. And, given what you told me he’d said to you... I guess I had my doubts.
“So he came by today. Brought chicken soup. I thought it was sweet.” Her voice was almost disbelieving on the last statement, as if dismayed that she could ever have thought that. “When he realized I was up... Well, he insisted that I get back in bed. I think he thought that’s where I was. I just...” Molly gave a heavy sigh. “How could I have been so wrong about him, Lois? After what he said... it wouldn’t surprise me if he was the one who put the GHB in your drink.”
“Actually,” Lois countered. “I don’t think it was him.”
“How can you say that? He was practically drooling over the idea that you’d been... about what those two men were planning to do when you were so drunk you could hardly stand up on your own!”
“You’re right. He was. But... would he really have told me that, let me know that if he was involved with the whole thing?”
Molly gave that a moment to let that sink in. “So what are you thinking? The football players?”
Lois nodded. “Two men. Both Ryan and Charlie said I was leaving with two men. Everyone else I had run ins with at the party were by themselves.”
Molly nodded.
“So... how do you go about finding out?”
Lois thought about that for a moment before responding. “I need to search the football team’s locker room. See if any of them have a stash of GHB. It might not prove anything, but at least it would give me a place to start. We couldn’t get in there today, but I was thinking of going back there tonight.”
“But how would...” Molly’s eyes widened. “You’re planning to break in?” she asked in disbelief.
A smile spread across Lois’ face. “Wanna come?” she asked.
* * * * * * * * *
Lois hesitated as she climbed into the car with Molly. Something... some movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She glanced across the street, straining her eyes in the darkness to see what had caught her attention. As her eyes focused, she caught sight of the oddest thing.
A small man, wearing an old fashioned suit and a bowler hat was standing there, watching her. He tipped his hat when he noticed her looking at him.
What? Who was... She blinked her eyes a couple of times, but when she looked back, to confirm what she had seen, he had vanished.
Taking one last look around, she climbed into the car, quickly dismissing the man from her mind. Maybe he was an actor from one of the local theater groups walking home after a performance.
* * * * * * * * *
Clark set down the screwdriver. He was finished with his repairs to the time machine. So... now what? He supposed it might not work, but... Didn’t he at least have to try?
Yeah. He didn’t belong here. He knew that. His purpose was to convince Lois Lane not to go to the Congo. This whole investigation into date rape drugs making one of their first appearances, so far as he could tell, would resolve itself. After all, Lois would live until at least 1993. He knew that. His job wasn’t to protect her here. His job was to make sure to protect her when it really mattered.
Funny, though. He couldn’t recall reading a story by Lois about date rape drugs. And he thought he’d read everything she’d ever published - some of her articles many, many times. Maybe she’d never found the proof she needed to...
Or the idea had never occurred to her and so she’d never investigated it.
Damn! She’d been about to write off the whole thing as having too much to drink. He was the one who had raised the idea of someone slipping something into her drink. He was the one who had given her the names of various drugs that might have been used.
So... had he already changed the future?
Okay, that was it. He had to leave. Go forward to 1993. Convince Lois not to go to the Congo. And then... home where he couldn’t disturb the time line any more than he already had.
He tossed his stuff into the machine, took a seat and flipped on the controls.
* * * * * * * * *
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Molly said, glancing nervously around before looking back at Lois who was crouched at a back door into the stadium.
“What are you talking about?” Lois asked, a grin in her voice. “I’m not the only one here.”
“Okay. I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
Lois giggled.
“How long is this going to take you?”
“Hey, calm down. I’m not exactly an expert at this yet.”
“No kidding.”
“Come on. Admit it. What would you rather be doing? Helping me break into the stadium or moping around the house.”
When Molly didn’t respond immediately, Lois glanced over at her.
“I’m thinking about it,” Molly finally said.
Lois grinned.
“Yes!” Lois exclaimed, finally pulling the door open.
“Took you long enough,” Molly responded as the two young women slipped inside.
“Hey! I’d like to see you try that. I tell you, Mol, these hands are magic. And don’t roll your eyes,” Lois added without looking back at Molly as the two of them jogged through the empty halls of the stadium.
“How do you know I rolled my eyes?”
“I know you.”
Molly sighed. “Tell me you at least know where we’re going.”
“Yeah. I guess that’s the one good thing that came out of today. I learned every way not to get to the Devils’ locker room.”
They came to a fork in the halls and Lois stopped, looking in both directions.
“Which way?” Molly asked.
Lois hesitated a moment before choosing to go right. “This way,” she said, taking off at a jog once again.
“I really hope you’re right about this.”
“Of course I’m right. What could possibly go wrong?”
TO BE CONTINUED...
ML
