Previously:
"Tempus," she whispered in complete shock.
"Surpise! Merry Christmas, Lois!" said the time traveling maniac, in that oily annoying way of his.
Lois tried to gain her composure, even though her heart was hammering a mile a minute. "Clark will be home any second, Tempus," she said with as much courage as she could muster.
"Then I need to act fast. No time for explanations, we'll chitchat on the way."
With that comment, he grabbed her arm and flicked a switch on his device in one motion. Lois felt the pinch of light, her body disappearing before she even knew what happened.
And now, part 2:
~1993~
Suddenly Lois found herself in the elevator at the Planet. She felt a little dizzy and remembered hearing a quick, "Have fun! I know I will!" before she was shoved into... here. But she was safe! She was at the Planet!
The doors chimed open. She scanned the room, noting it was the middle of the day and not that evening, but it *was* still Christmas time. She had never been so happy to see tacky Christmas decorations in her life!
She saw Clark sitting at his desk and launched herself at him.
"Clark! The strangest thing just happened! I was so afraid," she started, throwing herself into his arms.
"Lois! Calm down, what's gotten into you? Are you okay?" he asked, gently setting her aside. "Don't tell me you've been exposed to that crazy pheromone spray again," he said, wondering what Lois Lane was doing practically sitting in his lap, but tempted not to care.
"Nice haircut," Jimmy said to Lois as he whizzed by the two of them, heading on an errand.
<<Jimmy?! He looks like a completely different person!>>
Lois stood up suddenly from Clark's lap, brushing her pants awkwardly. She looked down at Clark, really seeing him as she hadn't paid that much attention the moment before. <<He looks so young and vulnerable,>> she thought, a cold fear starting to come over her.
Clark noticed a change in her color and was by her side right away. "Lois, are you okay? Would you like to sit down?"
"Yeah, I..." she said absently, making her way over to her desk. She noticed Clark's left hand as he pulled out her chair and sat her down. No wedding band. But still solicitous as ever. It didn't matter where they were in their relationship. Clark had always looked out for her.
He went and got her a cup of water. "Here, drink this."
Her fingers brushed his as she took the cup, and she felt the electricity as she always did now when she touched him. Did he? Even then, did he know? She sipped the water, not looking at him, trying to steady herself, to think.
She glanced around the newsroom, noting it was the old Planet, before the whole Luthor debacle had destroyed it. The knowledge that Tempus had sent her to her own past was just starting to sink in.
She always had a stack of newspapers on her desk, to help her keep track of the local competition. She surreptitiously leaned over to look at the date on the top of the stack. It was as she had feared, Tempus had taken her back to the past. December 20, 1993. Three years ago.
Why? What benefit could Tempus have sending her back to her own past? Before, he had always been set on destroying her and Clark's relationship or worse, trying to kill Superman. What could he possibly gain from sending her back to the early stages of their relationship?
Then it hit her, looking at the caring tenderness that was evident in Clark's eyes. <<He loved me, even then,>> she realized.
Tempus had sent her just far enough in the past so that she was separated from Clark by time. Their relationship wouldn't start moving into anything serious for at least another year. Tempus had sent her back in time to torture her, and show her what she could never have again. For, she realized if she became tempted to try to move her relationship with Clark too far forward too fast, she remembered from her experiences with HG Wells that she could damage the timeline, and thus cause problems in her own time. If only HG Wells were here to help her now!
She held back the tears that threatened to flow. She had to remember how to be the old Lois. The Lois so bent on getting the story that she had almost missed the best man that had ever been in her life. She had to be the Lois Lane that wasn't in love with Clark Kent. The Lois that wasn't *married* to Clark.
She took a deep breath and tried to regain her composure.
"Sorry, Clark. I--I think I'm okay now," she said, trying to steady her voice.
"Are you sure?" he asked with concern. She didn't look in his eyes again. It would be too painful. If she saw that incredible love in his eyes again that had been there even in the early days, she didn't know if she could resist it.
"Um, so, what are we working on now?" she asked, trying to get her bearings on what possible stories they might be covering at this point in their relationship and needing to avoid thinking about Clark's eyes.
"We're staying at the Lexor, remember? Investigating Senator Harrington?" he asked, still looking at her suspiciously.
<<Oh, no. The Honeymoon Suite. With Clark!>> How was she to handle this? How could she not be tempted to want to kiss him, hold him, do all those things married couples do? She'd have to spend whatever was left of the weekend with him sleeping on what must be a horribly uncomfortable sofa, and she had to stay aloof and indifferent. Be just his work partner. She felt sick.
"Are you sure you feel okay? And when did you have time for a haircut this morning?" he asked suddenly.
She slowly reached up to her shorn locks. Clark loved her her hair. Well, her Clark did. This Clark *would* be surprised by Lois suddenly changing her look. She suddenly felt very sad and lost. Her hero was right next to her, yet worlds away from where she needed him to be.
Clark's head suddenly swiveled, that look that signaled to her that Superman was needed.
"I, uh," he hesitated.
"Go," she said simply, then blanched when she realized she had to play that she didn't know why he would get that look. "I mean, I got to *go* meet this source. I'll meet you back at the hotel?"
"Yeah, see you," he said, tugging at his tie as he headed out of the newsroom.
*-*-*-*
~1996~
<<What the hell was that?>>
Lois remembered a flash in the conference room. There had a been a man who wanted to talk to her about Senator Harrington... and he had some device in his hand... and now...
She looked around, wary and utterly confused. Lois remembered being pushed down, which explained why she was lying on a bed. She was in someone's house. She sat up, reaching cautiously for a bedside lamp. The room was suddenly flooded with a soft light, utterly charming, and with country blue curtains and an eggshell white down comforter. She noticed it was dark outside, so she had no idea how long she had been out of it.
Lois started nosing around, expecting some bizarre bed and breakfast criminal to pop up any minute. Though this place was way too charming to be any sort of lair.
She peered down the stairway cautiously. She could hear the strains of a Frank Sinatra CD and saw someone had gone through a lot of trouble to turn the living room into a homey Christmas setting. She saw a fir tree set up against a wall, obviously waiting for someone to decorate it. So not likely to be hardened criminals who had her then.
She slipped off her heels in case she either had to make a fast getaway or to at least hear whoever's house she was in before they heard her. Lois made it to the bottom of the stairs, charmed by the lovely house. A trained investigator, she immediately began to search for evidence as to who these people were.
She spotted a picture on the mantle, though from this distance and in this light she couldn't really make out anything. She made her way over and gasped, grabbing the frame. It was a picture of her and Clark! Why would someone have a picture of them on their mantle? Maybe they were sick and dangerous criminals after all! Maybe they had Clark hidden somewhere and were planning some nefarious scheme...
She slowly walked around the room, searching for more clues as to who these people were. Lois spotted some mail on the table and began to sift through the envelopes.
She was distracted from reading any of the names when she suddenly felt a familiar whoosh at her side.
"Lois!" he said, with feeling.
"Superman! I'm so glad you're here! What's going on here? Where am I?" she turned to him asking.
Clark stared at her a moment, his mouth slightly agape. It *was* Lois before him, but a Lois that he remembered from a few years ago. Her hair was long and she seemed wound as tight as ball of string.
"Lois, what happened? I brought in the tree and you seemingly disappeared and now, you're here, but you're---well, not quite you," he said, puzzled.
"What do you mean, I'm not me? Superman, I have *no* idea what happened. I was at the Planet working with Clark on a story about Senator Harrington and---"
"You were working with Clark?" he asked dumbly, trying to grasp why she didn't recognize him. What was going on here? "Wait? Senator Harrington? Didn't we take care of that guy three years ago?"
"We? Don't you mean me and Clark? And what do you mean three years ago? This is the first I've heard of him causing problems---"
Clark sat down and put his head in his hands, his mind beginning to spin about what might have happened.
"Superman, are you okay?" she came and sat by him, that moony-eyed look of admiration mixed with concern on her face that had always fascinated and irked him in the early days of their relationship. <<She doesn't know it's me. It's like this is Lois from the *past*...>> he thought, getting a slightly sick feeling.
"Lois, what year was it this morning?" he began slowly.
"Superman? Are you joking?" she asked with a laugh, and then seeing his serious expression she sighed. "No, you're not joking. Okay, I'll play along. It was... *is* 1993."
Clark grabbed a copy of the Daily Planet off the coffee table, pointing to the date. "It's 1996."
"What? That's impossible! How could I miss three years of my life!" she said, grabbing the paper from his hand. She flipped through it quickly, looking to see if it was a fake. But, no, sports section and all, it was a genuine Daily Planet edition.
"I'm afraid it's not impossible, Lois. Just bare with me a moment as I try to explain. It's all going to sound crazy, but just remember you are holding a Daily Planet paper that says 1996 on it, not 1993." He sighed again, preparing to explain. "HG Wells, the writer, wrote a book called 'The Time Machine,' but the thing is, he also figured out a way to *make* one."
"Superman, you can't be serious!" she started, but he pointed again to the date on the paper.
"You know that just a few minutes ago you were at the Planet, and now you are here, in this house. Something happened to bring you here."
"Point taken," she nodded and waited for him to continue.
"So, HG Wells invented this time machine and he went way in to the future. There, he met a man named Tempus who hates me with a vengeance and does all he can to destroy...me." He thought it might be prudent to leave out her involvement for the moment. But Lois wasn't about to let him.
"Wait, what does this have to do with me? Why would he send me to the future?"
He sighed, thinking as he spoke, "Lois, you and I have always had a sort of--close relationship, right?"
"Well, yeah. I like to think so," she said, her heart hammering. Was this some crazy scheme for Superman to finally admit his feelings for her?
"Well, Tempus is messing with my head, for one," he said, glancing at her, trying to get over the fact that it was his wife yet *not* his wife sitting next to him.
She looked up at him expectantly, waiting for him to enlighten her. He sighed. How much to tell her? How much was safe to tell her? Could it have any effect on the timeline? He knew that if he could somehow contact HG Wells, he had a way of making one forget the strange events of time travel. So, if he could get her back to her own time, she wouldn't necessarily remember anything he might tell her. But she might also not cooperate once she learned that she was married to Clark Kent/Superman. Again he sighed.
He decided to delay the whole truth. He had always been good at that before, he thought wryly. Maybe he wouldn't have to tell her everything.
"Superman, *what* is going on?" she asked, beginning to lose patience.
"Well, it's complicated," he began, hedging, the old uncomfortable feeling of lying to Lois making him feel ill.
She crossed her arms, "Try me. You tell me I'm suddenly three years into the future and you leave me hanging? What is it you aren't telling me?"
Clark, er Superman, held up his wedding ring hand. He paused a moment, suddenly serious again. "This is our home. We're married," he said softly.
