Missing Lois - TOC Story Notes: This story is mostly set in alt-dimension, although visits to the canon dimension do happen from time-to-time and more regularly during this chapter.
- Clark = Alt-Clark unless otherwise noted (such as when we are in the canon dimension, then 'Clark' is canon Clark)
- Lucy El = pregnant canon Lois avoiding the curse by hiding out with alt-Clark, aka alt-Lois's secret identity
- Kal = Lucy El's husband's name, or what Lois-Lucy and alt-Clark call canon Clark
- Lois = canon Lois (again); unless we're in canon dimension, then Lois could be referring to the substitute Lois borrowed from canon Lois's pre-amnesia time to fill in for canon Lois while she was in alt-dimension; or the ‘deceased’ wife of alt-Luthor
- Ultra Woman = originally the costume Lucy/Lois wore to Perry's 'Come as Your Favorite Superhero' party; now, alt-Lois
- Lara = the name Lois has chosen for her daughter (after Clark’s birth mother)
- Sam Lane = alt-Lois's Dad, Lucy’s doctor & Clark’s roommate
- James Olsen = owner of the
Daily Planet, Lois-Lucy's friend
- Lex Luthor = no explanation necessary, same bad guy as always, this time bald
- Lola Luthor = ‘wife’ of Lex Luthor; alt-Lois, if not referring to Clois (Cloned Lois)
- Junior = Lex Luthor, Jr., Lex's first born son, creator of the Neuroscanner
- Jaxon Xavier = Lex Luthor's son and former spy at
The Planet- H.G. Wells – famed author – inventor of the Time-Machine – the man who brought canon Lois to alt-Clark
- Mayson Drake = police detective, partner to Detective (in alt-world) Henderson, alt-Clark's ex-girlfriend
- William (Bill) Henderson = police Detective (in alt-world), partner to Mayson Drake; police Inspector (in canon world)
- The only people who know canon Lois's true identity are alt-Clark, Sam, Moonbeam (alt-Star), Dr. Klein and alt-Lois. Alt-Clark told Mayson Drake that Lucy El is his sister-in-law and that he has a twin brother, but not about the other dimension.
For a refresher on what happened in the last part:
Chapter 7: Part 11***
Part 12A few minutes earlier, Clark stood at the window of the Loises’ apartment, holding Lara in his arms. Ultra Woman was in the kitchen making Mr. Wells tea. Where was Lois? She should have been back from her walk by now. He concentrated, hoping to hear her.
“
I’m not an idiot, Lucy.” Clark heard James chuckle. “
You don’t think I don’t know it was you he took to Perry’s Superhero Ball?”
Clark gasped. Oh, dear, God. No. That wasn’t information that James Olsen needed to know. That anyone needed to know. He glanced at Ultra Woman in the kitchen and swallowed. She wasn’t using her super hearing. She was talking to Mr. Wells about their future. He shook his head. No, James and Lois’s conversation was more important.
“
That was you in an Ultra Woman costume. You didn’t think I’d recognize you? Wouldn’t notice the baby bump in all those hundreds of pictures I took of you that night? I was so in love with you and you only had eyes for Clark. I watched you for months, staring at him from across the newsroom. When the two of you were together it was electric, magnetic. He never looked at anyone the way he looked at you, even that fiancé of his, until the real Ultra Woman showed up. Why do you think I took over Jaxon’s duties when he was out on sick leave? To be closer to you. Why do you think I dressed like Clark Kent at the party? Because you loved him so much, I just wanted you to notice me.”
Oh, no. This was certainly not good. James was in love with Lois. He had seen the signs, but he had ignored them, hoping it was just a crush. He knew her secret, her darkest secret. Clark’s deepest secret. A chill went down his spine. He couldn’t believe it was James, of all people, who had figured out that it was Lois with him that night and that they not only had made out, but had also been in love.
Clark glanced at Ultra Woman in the kitchen again. She still hadn’t noticed the conversation outside. He released a breath of relief. Thank God for small miracles. She and Lois had been getting along so well recently. His girlfriend didn’t need to know or hear what Lois and he, and it seemed James, knew. That before his true love had come along, he had been head over heels in love with Lois and she with him.
“
A week?” James stammered.
“
I’m not leaving today.”
“
You’re not? Then I just said all that stuff…”
“
I hope this doesn’t mean you won’t take me out to dinner this week,” Lois told him. Yes, she would need to somehow convince him that he was wrong about her being the first Ultra Woman. Maybe, between the two of them…
“
Of course, I…” James was saying before he was cut off.
Clark shook his head. What happened? Why couldn’t he hear James?
“
No!” Lois hollered. “
Clark!”
Clark couldn’t move. He had Lara in his arms. A second later he was in the kitchen, handing Lara to Ultra Woman. She was staring at him, fear in her eyes. She had heard Lois scream, too.
“
Vixen! You grabbed the wrong person. It’s me Lex wants. His wife. Lois Lane!”
“No!” Clark screamed, diving out the window, but he arrived at the front stoop too late. All that was left to see was her red wig on the sidewalk and the last of Vixen’s gold sparkles dancing in the air.
***
Lois awoke in Lex’s penthouse apartment. She wanted to roll her eyes at the obviousness of it all, but her brain not only hurt, it felt fuzzy. She pushed herself up to a sitting position. That was better.
“Oh, good, you’re awake.” Lex was cracking nuts at a table in the corner. One of those cozy tables he liked to have around his apartments for impromptu meals or activities. He tossed an almond into the air and caught it in his mouth. “Before you say anything, in all fairness I’d like you to know that I’ve given you a shot of muscle relaxant into your larynx, so you cannot speak above a whisper. No shouting for Superman. Something I learned from my run in with Lucy El.”
Lois took a look around the room. Against the walls stood bookcases with a few books, antiques, vases, and plaques. She turned toward the window looking for clear landmarks. In the distance, she could see the Metropolitan Bank and the
Daily Planet building. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and concentrated on her daughter.
Lara, Mommy’s needs your help. Tell Uncle Super and Aunt Ultra that Mommy went to visit Lex. Then she pictured the buildings outside the window.
Tell Uncle Super to come and get me and Uncle James. Hurry, Baboo. Mommy’s counting on you.Lois released her breath and concentrated on Lex. “I’m not going to tell you anything without proof that James Olsen is still alive,” she spoke hardly above a whisper. He hadn’t been lying about the muscle relaxant.
Lex started to chuckle. “I thought you might try lying your way out of this situation. You can’t. I added sodium thiopental to the muscle relaxer, so when you do speak, you can only tell the truth.”
So, that was why she felt nauseous. Lois had thought it was the sight of Lex. She shook her head. This Lex Luthor didn’t seem as smart as her Lex. How was he supposed to get information from her if she could hardly speak?
Lex wanted her to tell him the truth, huh? In her life, truth and lies were so tangled up, it was hard to tell one from the other. Lois picked a half-truth to use and ran with it, shrugging. “If that’s what you want, I can’t imagine what information you’d want from me.” She crossed the room to a Nigel’s cigarette case. It had to be Nigel’s, he was the only one daring enough to smoke around Lex. She pulled out a cigarette, tapped it, and put it to her lips. “Don’t mind if I smoke, do you?”
Clearly, Lois stumped Lex, because his wife didn’t smoke. He came over to light her cigarette, calling her bluff. She took a drag, ugh, and exhaled into his face. “It’s hell on the vocal chords, but, hey, you can’t be a private eye without smoking, can you?”
He laughed. “You’re a private eye?”
“What were you expecting? A confession to being your wife?” She chuckled, exhaling a line of smoke. “Sorry, Lex. Your wife no longer exists.” Lois went to stand in the window for a better view, in case she needed to try to contact Lara again. “You killed her, remember?”
“Multiple personalities, eh, Lola?”
Lois shrugged. That would explain a lot. Maybe she was insane. She shook her head. Nope, not yet, she knew exactly what she was doing and saying. Hmmm. Either the sodium thiopental didn’t work on her, because of her pint of Ultra Woman blood, or he had been bluffing himself.
“You told Vixen that you were my dead wife Lois Lane,” Lex reminded her.
“I did.” She nodded. “I lied to her.” She went to the table and smashed her cigarette out on what was clearly not an ashtray plate. “Where is James Olsen?”
“If you aren’t my wife, who are you, then?”
Lois sat back down. “Wanda Detroit, private eye, aka Lucy El, wife of Kal-El, and on occasion, Lois Lane, missing reporter from the
Daily Planet.” She held out her hand. “Glad to meet you officially, Mr. Luthor.”
Lex looked her from head to toe. “You aren’t the woman I met in my limo a couple of months ago.” He seemed sure of this fact. Time to mess with his head.
She smiled. “The very same.”
“You look different.”
“I’ve lost some weight and borrowed some of your wife’s old clothes.” She coughed, trying to clear her throat. Talking in this whisper was really tiresome. “James Olsen is never going to sell you the
Daily Planet and if he did, it still wouldn’t bring your wife back.”
His eyes popped from his head for a second. She struck a nerve. “What is a private eye doing working at the
Daily Planet?” he asked.
“Perry White and James Olsen hired me to find Lois Lane. I did a pretty good job, don’t you think?” She walked across the room to his table. Taking the nutcracker, Lois cracked a nut and ate the meat. She dropped the shell on the floor.
Lex sneered. “What do you have that a team of
Daily Planet investigators and Clark Kent don’t have?”
Lois chuckled with a shake of her head. “I have inside information about Lois Lane. I know her like the back of my hand.” She looked at the back of her hand, bored with this conversation already. She was still wearing Clark’s mother’s ring. She really needed to give it back to him.
“You aren’t scared of me, are you?” Lex asked, raising a brow at her. “I like that in a woman.”
Lois rolled her eyes. “Should I be?” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “Where’s James Olsen? I’m not leaving here without him.”
“Oh, are you going someplace, Wanda?”
Lois leaned up against the table and looked out the window. She closed her eyes, concentrating both on the image out the window and her daughter.
Lara, Baboo. Come on. Tell Daddy I need him to come get me. “My husband will show up eventually to pick me up.”
“And who’s your husband?”
“Charlie King.” Aka Clark Kent, aka Superman. “He’s a little overprotective and has quite a temper. Also, I know something you don’t know?”
“You’re the real Ultra Woman?” Lex laughed.
Lois raised a brow at him. “Do you think you’d be able to give Ultra Woman a shot in the neck?” She placed her hands behind her back with a sigh. “You really are starting to bore me with your lack of intelligence.”
“Excuse me?” He growled. Same old Lex, always had to be the smartest man in the room. “How dare you!”
Lois pulled a gun out from her back waistband, pointing it at him. “I’m surprised you didn’t frisk me.”
Lex did appear astonished. His eyes stared at her and some of the color left his face. “You have a gun?”
“They’re really easy to buy in Metropolis nowadays.” This Metropolis, at least. “A girl needs to protect herself.”
“You want to shoot me? Why would you want to kill me? I haven’t done anything to you.” He slowly started to raise his hands.
“You’d be surprised what you’ve done to me, Lex.” She tilted her head at him. “After all these years I’ve finally have you in my sights. The lies, the kidnappings, the torture, the deceptions, the pain; I could just pull the trigger and wipe them all away. It’d make everybody’s lives so much easier, too. You and your boys have a way of creeping into my life and ruining it, every time I’m starting to get happy. No more.”
Lex gulped. “Are you sure you aren’t my wife?”
Lois nodded.
“You are insane. You know that, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes.” Cocking the gun, she smiled. “What have you done to James Olsen?”
“Vixen has him.”
“She’s a means to an end, Lex. Does Junior have him? I know he likes to play with his toys.” Lois tilted her head to the other side. “Is she one of his toys? Like Lola was? Or Lois was? Or is Vixen one of your toys? One bullet and I could put Lex, Jr. in charge of LexCorp.”
“What’s LexCorp?” he asked, backing up.
“Oh, that’s right, you call it L.I., Ltd., here, don’t you?” Lois said, following him. “Call him and have James Olsen brought here. And James better be okay or Lois Lane is going to be a widow.”
“She’s alive?” Lex grinned. “I knew it.”
“I never said she was alive. Actually, I distinctly remember saying that she no longer existed. Bring James Olsen to this room. You have five minutes.”
Lex walked to the telephone on his desk. He pressed a button.
“Speaker phone,” Lois commanded.
He sneered, pressing a second button. “Mrs. Cox, could you tell Lex, Jr. to bring his latest visitor up to my office?”
Lois waved the gun at him.
Lex rolled his eyes. “Preferably alive, Mrs. Cox.”
“
Mr. Luthor?” Mrs. Cox inquired. “
Is everything all right? You know Lex, Jr. doesn’t leave his chambers during the day.”
Lois raised her brows. “Tell him to make an exception. I’ve been wanting to meet the man who shot me.” She pulled the neck of her shirt to the side to show him the small scar on her shoulder.
“Have him make an exception, Mrs. Cox. Right away, please.” Lex hung up.
“Move away from the desk, Lex,” she ordered, waving the gun. “Why don’t you stand by the window? Maybe we’ll be lucky and you’ll fall out.” Lois smiled. “I don’t think I’d mind it as much, this time.”
“This time?” Lex glanced out the window, a slightly bit nervous.
“You jumped to your death in a previous life, Lex. On our wedding day, too.” She tsk-tsked him with a shake of her head.
Lex swallowed. “How in the hell does Clark Kent trust you?”
Lois chuckled. “I don’t trust him. He’s a heartbreaker, that one.” She shook her head. Maybe that truth serum was working a bit.
“What? You and Kent? What about Charlie King?”
“Charlie’s a good man. Too good for the likes of me. Why do think I’m here? Back home I’d be a dead woman by now.”
“Jaxon said that you went crazy and attacked your editor because he said something bad about Superman. Is that true?”
“Superman is a good man. Mmm-mmm, good.” She licked her smiling lips. “I’ll defend him to the death.”
There was a sound at the door behind them. Lois quickly crossed to the other side of the room, so her back wasn’t to the door. Junior came in, a fedora on his head, shading his eyes. He looked about the same as he did from her dimension. Skull malformation over his left eye. Patches of long stringy hair. Gaunt.
“Well, if it isn’t Junior. Where’s James Olsen?” Lois asked.
“Father?” Lex, Jr. inquired, glancing over to his father at the window.
“You remember Lucy El, don’t you, son?” Lex told his son. “She has a bone to pick with you about shooting her last fall.”
Lex, Jr. contemplated that information, staring at Lois. “You! You’re the one who broke my Neuroscanner. My God, Father, she looks just like Lola.”
Lois shrugged.
“How is that possible?” Lex, Jr. demanded.
“James Olsen?” she retorted.
Lex’s son waved for James Olsen to come into the room. He was dragged into the room by a couple of thugs, who dropped him onto the middle of the floor. One of the men looked familiar, too familiar.
“You may leave,” Lois told the thugs, waving the gun towards the door. “Except you.” She pointed with her free hand at the man she now recognized. “Go stand with the Lexes, Trask.”
Lex and Lex, Jr. stared at her, surprised she knew the name of a mere henchman.
When Lex, Jr. tried to follow the other minion out the door, Lois said, “Where do you think you’re going, Junior?” She raised a brow at him and waved him back towards his father. “Do you have that Neuroscanner handy? I wonder if you’d enjoy it as much as I did.”
Lex, Jr. shut the door and glanced over at his father. “Are you sure this is Lucy El and not Lola?”
“She’s deranged, son. I don’t think she even knows who she is anymore.”
“Perhaps I should have married into your family after all. What a good match we would have made.” She looked at Trask with a shake of her head and tsk-tsked. “What are we going to do with you? Did you tell them who you are? That you’re an undercover agent with Bureau 39?”
“Bureau 39?” asked Lex. “What’s that?”
Trask cleared his throat. “Bureau 39 doesn’t exist anymore, lady.”
“Right,” Lois said with a hint of sarcasm. “Just like you don’t know who I am. You’re the man who pulled the trigger that shot me and Jaxon, aren’t you? Not Lex, Jr. He was never one to get his hands dirty.”
Lex’s cool exterior and focus melted away. “You shot my son?” He growled at Trask, stepping towards him with hands and arms extended.
“This is so heartwarming. Jaxon is going to be so moved that you care, Lex. He really doesn’t think you love him. Some men just shouldn’t be fathers.”
Lex stopped a foot away from Trask, making his hands into fists, but restraining himself.
“Go ahead, Lex.” Lois waved him on with the gun. “I can wait. If you kill him that’s just one less bullet for me to use.”
Lex glared at Trask, but took a step away from him.
“No? Oh, well.” Lois shook her head. “Dilemmas. Dilemmas. Now, I don’t know which one of you I want to kill first.” She lifted up the gun and pointed it straight at Lex Luthor. “Say goodbye to Junior, Lex.”
“Wanda, please!” Lex begged, holding his hands in front of himself.
The glass of the window broke as Ultra Woman arrived. “Hello, Wanda.” She smiled. “Sorry, it took us so long to get here. We were a little busy with Vixen.” She closed her eyes for a split second and Lois knew she was calling Superman.
“Thank God! Ultra Woman,” Lex said, relief in his voice. “She’s gone mad!”
Ultra Woman looked at him with a raised brow. She took a step closer to him, dusting off some glass shards from his shoulder. “Sorry, about that, Lex. I know how neat you like to be.” Turning her attention back to Lois, she said, “I see you even managed to get Lex, Jr. out of his crypt.” She glanced at Trask, but dismissed him as a nobody. Zipping over to James, she felt his neck. “He’s still alive.”
“Ultra Woman!” Lex complained. “Aren’t you going to save us?”
“Should I?” Ultra Woman asked, turning towards him. “Do you deserve to be saved? After everything you did your wife?”
Superman arrived at this point and pressed his lips together. “Ultra.”
His girlfriend rolled her eyes. “I guess to
some people everyone’s life is worth the same. None more than others. I’m not sure I agree with this logic.” She picked up James and flew out the window she had come in.
Superman walked toward Lois. “They aren’t worth it. Put down the gun.”
Lois couldn’t move, couldn’t lower her arm, but she started shaking. “You know what they’ve done to me, Clark,” she said, her voice still in a whisper. “Then they took James. It was the last straw. I had to stop them.”
Superman continued to move towards her. “Hand me the gun.”
“Life would be so much better if we didn’t have to keep dealing with this family,” she murmured. “With Bureau 39.”
“So, true. But this isn’t the answer. Kal wouldn’t like it. You know how he is about truth, justice, and the American way. You know how he feels about taking life.” Superman was standing only a couple feet away from her now, blocking her shot of everyone else in the room. “Do you want to shoot me?” he asked with a raised brow.
Her outstretched arms were really shaking, but Lois couldn’t lower them. “No.”
Superman smiled, filling her with sunlight.
Lois sighed, lowering her arm.
“Take the gun away from her, Superman!” Lex demanded. “And take her into custody.”
Superman turned towards Lex. “I don’t take orders.”
Lex swallowed. Superman whizzed around the room, tying Lex, Trask, and Junior together with several drapery ties. “It was my understanding that you kidnapped her and Mr. Olsen, Lex. She was just defending herself, quite legal in Metropolis, if I understand the law correctly. And you…” He directed these words to Lex, Jr. “Need to be arrested for the shooting of Jaxon Xavier and the attempted murder of Lucy El.” Lex, Jr’s expression was unreadable under his hat.
“Trask pulled the trigger,” Lois informed him.
Superman’s gaze jerked over to the third man. “So, that’s Trask. We finally meet face to face.”
Trask looked at Superman with complete and utter hatred. “Tempus was right. You are the beginning of the end of mankind.”
“And, yet, I saved your life today. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“That woman is unbalanced, Superman. You should have heard what she was saying about you,” Lex told him. “About you being lovers.”
Superman raised a brow, glancing at her.
“Sodium thiopental.” Lois shrugged, handing him the gun.
The hero chuckled. “Lex, you didn’t need to drug her. She rambles incessantly on her own.” He picked her up. “She’s quite the story teller.”
Lois harrumphed, hitting him on the chest.
Ultra Woman returned carrying Mrs. Cox with her hands tied behind her back. “Look who I found out on the street: the cherry to our Luthor sundae. She’s agreed to testify against them.”
“Traitor!” Lex yelled at his assistant.
Mrs. Cox just sneered back at him.
“I called Drake and Henderson,” Ultra Woman continued, a hint of a smile on her lips. “They are on their way with the cavalry. I’ll stay and babysit.”
Superman raised a brow and whispered to her, “Behave.”
Ultra Woman grinned mischievously. “Always.”
Superman shook head his head and zipped out the window with Lois in his arms.
Lois wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head against cheek. “It took you long enough, honey.”
“We were busy with Vixen.” Superman held her tighter. “Next time don’t send a message through someone who’s pre-verbal, Mommy.”
She closed her eyes.
I’m coming home, Lara. Mommy’s coming home. *** End of Part 12 *** CommentsChapter 7: Part 13
