Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Time to Love 5: Led Astray 1/?

This is the fifth story in a series.

1. Weekend in Smallville
2. First Days in Metropolis
3. Adrift
4. So Many Questions

You can read a synopsis of the four stories here.


Rating - PG 13
Disclaimer - The characters from Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman are not mine.

Thanks to my betas - Iolanthe, MozartMaid, and Lynn. I found this story very difficult to write, and without their encouragement, I think I would have given up on it. Apologies to Iolanthe and MozartMaid because I sent it to them in desperation weeks ago when the story was rough, undeveloped and muddling aimlessly along.

From the end of the synopsis ...

LED ASTRAY

Part 1

Clark Kent dropped his head low and stared at the dull green of the hospital floor as excruciating pain lashed his body. He let it sweep over him, passively allowing it to pummel him mercilessly. His capacity to fight had been eroded to dust by the dual blitz of physical agony and heart-wrenching grief.

With a weary, defeated sigh, he raised his head and looked again at his wife.

His beautiful Lois.

She was dying.

He didn't need to be a doctor to see the life ebbing from her.

As he watched, she inhaled - a ragged, crackly sound that clawed at his insides like nails on a blackboard. She breathed out and was still.

Clark waited as horror-infested disbelief clogged his throat.

Then she breathed again – impossibly rough and raw. Clark reached for her limp hand and held it, wishing for the millionth time that he could exchange places with her; wishing all his powers amounted to something useful.

He tenderly stroked her hand with the pad of his forefinger, dredging his numb mind for words. But they'd all been said - a thousand times. Lois had been unconscious for over twenty-four hours now. He wondered vaguely if anything he'd said since then had made any difference at all.

Was she suffering?

He didn't think so. But if she were, what would he do?

He didn't know.

He really didn't know.

He didn't know anything anymore.

Except that he was about to lose Lois.

Forever.

His hope - so vibrant and tenacious at the beginning - had slowly evaporated to nothing.

She breathed again – in and out.

He tried to say her name. "L..." Instead of words, a storm of tears ruptured the dam of his control, flowing from his eyes, drenching his cheeks, and cascading onto his forearms.

He stood. He thrust his hands into his pockets. The tips of his fingers collided with the small hard nuggets of the charm bracelet he had given Lois the evening he had proposed.

Over the past days, he'd talked through each charm multiple times. At first, they had been words of hope - a celebration of their love. Their destiny together. But as time had passed, they had become words of desperation - an obituary of all that he'd had and lost.

Grief convulsed Clark's body. With the last fibres of his strength, he concentrated on gulping in enough breath to speak. "I love you, Lois," he sobbed. "I will always love you."

His last vestige of control broke, and his head dropped. He clung to his wife's hand and wept for her.

When he raised his head some time later, she had stopped breathing. The instant he looked into the pallid shadows of her face, he knew. Life had departed from her body.

His Lois had left him.

He was alone.

Clark reached for her forehead, and with trembling fingers, he brushed back a few strands of her hair.

With his other hand, he reverently touched the centre of her lower lip. He loved her mouth - so free with a smile for him, so affectionate when kissing him, so enchanting when teasing him.

Her mouth – it would never move again.

Clark's thoughts travelled back four days – to Saturday, their wedding day. It had been, without doubt, the most wonderful day of his life. When his bride had walked up the church aisle towards him, he had thought his heart would burst with happiness.

Then later, in his bedroom ...

The next day, Sunday, had been a taste of perfect bliss. His powers had returned sufficiently to enable him to complete the farm chores very quickly. Other than that, he had been alone with Lois. Alone with his wife. Alone to celebrate the expression of their love.

By mid-afternoon Monday, Lois hadn't been feeling well. What had begun as a feeling of apathy and achy discomfort had worsened so swiftly that he had flown her to Metropolis Hospital that evening.

The doctors had been immediately concerned. They'd conducted test after test after test, but despite her continual, alarming deterioration, they had found no answers. Her life systems were shutting down. They didn't know why.

But Clark knew.

He had feared before their marriage that the physical union of a husband and his wife might not be straightforward when the husband wasn't really a man.

He had tried to warn Lois, but she had been so sure, so eager, so absolute in her trust of him, so unwavering in her belief that they were meant to be together.

She had lost consciousness during the early hours of Tuesday. Clark, out of his mind with fear and worry, had gone under the cover of darkness to the Metropolis Museum and broken into a safe to retrieve a piece of the strange green rock that so debilitated him. Fighting his own pain, he had hidden the piece of kryptonite under the blankets next to Lois, hoping it would overpower whatever dregs of him remained in her body.

It had had no effect at all – at least, not on Lois.

It had caused him substantial pain – though it was nothing compared with the agony of a heart slowly shattering into countless shards.

He'd wrestled endlessly over whether to tell the doctors the truth. He hadn't. Not to guard the secret – he would never be Superman again.

In the end, he'd said nothing because he doubted they would have believed him. His powers, so recently returned, were weakened - if not razed completely - from another dose of the kryptonite.

And even if they had believed him, he hadn't seen how the knowledge could have assisted them in the quest to save Lois.

Clark leant low and kissed his wife's cheek. Already, he could discern her coolness, her lifelessness.

A soft knock sounded on the door but he ignored it. His world had shrunk. There was only Lois. And him. And death gouging an impassable chasm between them.

The door opened, but Clark didn't turn.

He heard footsteps and felt a touch on his shoulder. "Oh, good," said an unfamiliar voice that spoke with an English accent. "I'm not too late. I'm still learning how to ..."

Clark conquered the involuntary reaction to whirl, wrap his hands around the visitor's throat, and tell him he *was* too late. Tell him that Lois had died and everyone - everything - was too late.

Gathering up Lois's limp hand, Clark slowly turned to the stranger - a short man with a greying moustache and rounded wire-frame glasses. He was dressed in a grey suit and striped cravat that wouldn't have looked out of place in an adaptation of a Dickens' novel. In his hand, he held a black bowler hat. "My wife died," Clark whimpered, hoping the newcomer would have sufficient sensitivity to realise he was intruding and leave Clark to suffer alone.

Instead, the man shuffled closer.

"I'm her husband," Clark ground out, hovering over her stillness.

"I know that, Mr Kent," the man said. His hand tightened on Clark's shoulder, and Clark had to steel himself to keep from shrugging it off. "We're not too late."

"My wife just *died*," Clark hissed as he gently curled Lois's fingers around his hand. "Please leave me alone."

The stranger's unwelcome touch finally dropped away. "I'm HG Wells," he said. "I come from the future."

Clark's heart erupted with protest. Without Lois, there could be no future.

"In the future, we live in Utopia - a peaceful, crime-free world built by your descendents."

"I have no descendents," Clark said bleakly.

"Not as yet," Wells said with aggravating cheerfulness. "But you will."

"My w...w...wife just d...died," Clark grated, not caring that his grief rendered his words almost incomprehensible. "I will never have descendents."

"You won't if we leave things the way they are now," the intruder stated with unruffled composure. "But that is why I am here."

Clark wished he would go. Go, leaving him alone. Alone for a final few minutes with Lois before the passing of time would necessitate sharing his devastation with the doctors, his parents, Lucy, Perry, Jimmy ...

Lois Lane was dead.

And Clark Kent could no longer see any reason to live.

"Utopia is a world of peace and goodwill with justice for all," the stranger said. "But for those of an evil disposition, it is intolerable. One such is Tempus – a wicked blackheart who has already tried – and failed – to kill you."

Clark turned back to Lois. She was so pale. So still.

"Tempus tried to kill you as a baby – shortly after you arrived here in your spaceship."

The open declaration of his secret didn't cause even a ripple in the tempest of Clark's emotions. He didn't care if this man knew he was an alien, didn't care how he'd found out, didn't care if he told the entire world.

Nothing mattered anymore.

"Not wanting to pump up my own tyres, but yours truly managed to foil the scoundrel's plans and get you safely into the care of the Kents."

Clark's sporadic breath wouldn't have been strong enough to propel the sceptical comment that bulldozed a path of pain through his mind, so he stared at Lois and tried to pretend the lunatic was fading into the distance.

"You wouldn't remember that, of course, being only a few months old," the man continued. "But Tempus has never forgotten, and having failed in his attempt to kill you, he is now attempting to kill Lois."

"He succeeded," Clark said brokenly.

"Not yet, he hasn't."

Clark turned with a swiftness that surprised both of them and gripped the man's bony shoulders. "My wife is *dead*," he screamed. "Which part don't you understand?"

"Don't be so hasty, Mr Kent. The battle isn't lost. We are just beginning."

"It will be a battle without me." Clark pointedly turned his back on the strange man. Lois. His Lois - so beautiful, so vivacious, so dynamic - would never move again. Then a thought penetrated Clark's grief-saturated mind, and he spun back. "You *know* who killed my wife?" he demanded.

"Yes."

"Where is he?"

"1985."

"What?" Clark screeched.

"1985," the man repeated unflappably. "He believes his best chance to obliterate Utopia is to kill Lois Lane before she meets you, because once she's with you, you will protect her."

But Clark hadn't protected her. He'd done nothing as she'd slipped to her death. "How did he kill her?" he asked tonelessly. "What did he do?"

"I don't know," the stranger admitted. "But you need to go back to 1985 and stop him."

Go *back*? Through time? "And if I do that ..." Clark asked uncertainly.

"Lois will be alive."

It was too much. Too much to grasp. Too much to believe. It was nothing more than false hope being peddled by a madman.

But he had said that Lois would be alive.

Alive.

She was dead.

Not moving. Not breathing.

Her heart had stopped.

This strange little man was almost certainly delusional, but he was the only person who had offered even a skerrick of hope. "Can you get me to 1985?" Clark asked breathlessly.

"Yes," Wells said without a trace of doubt.

"Now?"

"Yes."

"If you can do that, you can take me back one week, can't you?" Clark said, his words falling over each other in his eagerness. "Take me back to last week – before Saturday."

"I -"

"Do it," Clark begged. "Do it now."

"But Mr Kent, that won't help."

"Yes, it will. I won't marry her. I promise I'll leave her –"

The man put a steadying hand on Clark's arm. "Marrying her didn't cause this, Mr Kent," he said. "Tempus is up to no good in 1985. To save your wife, you have to go back to that time."

"But he's already done it," Clark said as despair choked him again. "Look at her. We're too late."

"Not at all, Mr Kent. It's as simple as going back before the deed."

He spoke as if manipulating life and death were a trifling matter. "Who did you say you are?" Clark asked.

"HG Wells. The author. And inventor."

"Of ... the time machine," Clark breathed.

"Precisely."

"You've ... you've been to the future?"

"Yes. Utopia - the most wonderful, serene world where violence is non-existent and the entire human race lives in unity and cooperation. But now, everything is being threatened by that contemptible villain, Tempus."

Clark shook his head, willing himself to push through the web weaved of pain, grief, and confusion. "You take me to 1985?" he said. "I stop this Tempus from hurting Lois? And then ..."

"And then you come back to 1993 and continue your wedded life."

"With Lois?"

"Yes. With Lois Lane, your wife, the mother of Utopia."

Clark swung back to the bed. He pushed away the covers and carefully removed the wires that had been monitoring Lois's demise.

Wells moved alongside him and picked up the now-exposed green rock from the sheet. "Why is kryptonite here?" he said, regarding Clark with a puzzled expression. "Shouldn't you be in pain?"

"I've just watched my wife die. Yeah, I'm in pain."

"No, from the kryptonite. Who brought it here?"

Clark unhitched the bottom sheet from the mattress and began to wrap it around Lois. "I did."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to destroy all traces of me inside her. I hoped -"

"It isn't because of you, Mr Kent," Wells said with finality. "It is Tempus." He slipped a box from his waistcoat pocket and flicked open the lid.

It contained another piece of the green rock. The talons of torture increased their pressure through Clark's chest, and he crumpled against the bed.

Wells added the second piece of kryptonite to the box and closed the lid.

The pain slowly faded away.

"You carry that stuff with you?" Clark asked when speech was possible for him again.

"Don't worry," Wells said. "I'll ensure it never gets into the wrong hands."

Clark reached under Lois's lifeless body and hauled her into his arms. "OK," he said. "Let's go."

Wells eyed him with evident surprise. "You can't take Mrs Kent," he said.

"Of course I'm taking her," Clark exploded.

"Subjecting her to time travel in her current condition is most inadvisable."

"She's coming with me," Clark said, tightening his arms around Lois. "If I leave her here, they'll bury her."

"No. If you put her on the bed, she'll still be there when you return. You'll arrive at this precise -"

"I'm not going without her."

Wells' brow furrowed. "I strongly recommend -"

"I'm not leaving Lois," Clark vowed.

The two men stared at each other for a long moment. "All right," Wells eventually conceded. "But you'll have to protect her."

"Obviously," Clark said shortly. The fact that he *hadn't* protected her wedged like a barb through his heart.

"I must warn you about your enemy, Tempus," Wells said. "He is completely without conscience. He will stoop to any level to destroy you and your wife and the future that is built on the foundation of your love."

Clark had the evidence of that in his arms.

"Am I to assume that Mrs Kent's health has been steadily deteriorating the past few days?" Wells said.

"Yes."

"And the doctors were unable to determine a cause?"

"They did all the tests," Clark said, remembering the distress as each result had returned, bringing them no closer to a diagnosis. "All they could determine was that her body was irrevocably shutting down. When they could do no more, I asked them to leave me alone with her."

"And she finally died a few minutes ago?"

Clark tears pooled again, and he awkwardly brushed the shoulder of his shirt against his cheek. None of Wells' claims changed the fact that all signs of life had left Lois's body.

But Wells' attention was elsewhere. "That would suggest Tempus has been employing a method of slow decline," he said as he thoughtfully tapped his hat against his other hand. "He is a lover of irony; he found it amusing to give a baby alien kryptonite toys -"

"What?"

"- so it's not entirely surprising that he didn't simply kill her quickly and escape to his twisted version of Utopia."

The thought of Lois, alone, unprotected, and vulnerable to a crazed killer stung like acid through Clark's stomach.

"My tracking computations cannot find evidence of her life force after Tuesday, October 22, 1985," Wells said. "I'll send you to -"

"That's when she died?" Clark asked brokenly. "You know that? And because she died then ..." He looked down at Lois's sagging body. "... this happened?"

Wells nodded solemnly. "As I was saying, I'll send you to the previous Friday. That should be sufficient time to unearth Tempus's devious plan and prevent him from hurting Lois."

"And if I do, Lois will be alive?"

"Yes. If you are successful, your wife will be perfectly well when I bring you back to the present."

"You'll bring us - *both* of us - back to 1993?"

"Yes."

"How will you find us? How will you know when to come?"

"When Lois's life force reappears on my radar after October 22, 1985, I'll know you have defeated Tempus and are ready to return to your time."

Lois's body was dragging on Clark's weakened arms. "When will Lois ... when will she be all right? When we get back? Is she going to be like ... like *this* until then?"

"Not at all, Mr Kent. She'll be alive the moment you are in 1985."

It couldn't be true.

It couldn't be that simple.

But the alternative was unthinkable ... interminable years of loneliness, grieving for his only love.

"I cannot come with you," Wells continued. "If Tempus sees me, he will know I have the means to follow him."

"Will he know me?" Clark asked.

"He has studied hundreds of photos of you in both incarnations, spanning all the years of your life. He has a degree in Kent History. He probably knows more about you than you do."

Clark felt as if he were helplessly floating through the elusive strands of Wells' contentions. He deliberately cleared his mind. The details didn't matter. All that mattered was that Lois would be all right.

"If you wear civilian clothes without your spectacles, he might not recognise you immediately," Wells said. "He won't be expecting Clark Kent - a man of your age - to be in Metropolis in 1985."

Clark removed his glasses and pushed them into his shirt pocket. He just wanted to go. "Won't he guess that I moved through time, too?"

Wells reached for Clark's glasses and slipped them into the pocket of his waistcoat. "The reprobate stole my time machine," he said resentfully. Then his moustache curled with a little smile of satisfaction. "But every good writer knows the importance of a Plan B."

Clark readjusted Lois's position in his arms. "OK, let's do it," he said.

"There are a few aspects I need to bring to your attention first."

"You said Lois would be all right."

Wells nervously drew his finger along the brim of his hat. "Having never attempted this before with someone of your ... your origins, I can only speculate how time travel will affect you," he said. "I cannot guarantee you will have your powers."

"I had powers eight years ago," Clark said quickly.

"Any assurances on my part would be pure conjecture," Wells said.

Powers or not, Clark wasn't going to let anyone hurt Lois. "How will I know this Tempus?"

Wells held up a small snapshot of a man with a neatly trimmed beard. "This is Tempus."

With barely a glance, Clark shoved the photograph into his shirt pocket.

"Even accounting for his customary arrogance, it is probable he will be utilising some sort of disguise," Wells said. "Remember, he has at his disposal the full gamut of cosmetic surgery and appearance-modification procedures that are available throughout time. The photograph might be of little assistance. Having Mrs Kent with you could be advantageous if you are able to compare her memories to young Ms Lane's circumstances."

Clark lowered his head a few degrees - just enough to touch his cheek across the top of Lois's head. She was cool and unmoving, but even such fleeting contact gave him a sense of hope and purpose. He lifted his head and focused on Wells again.

"Look for something different. Someone new. Or someone who behaves differently from how she remembers. Someone who has inveigled his way into young Lois's life."

Clark nodded. "Let's go."

"Be patient, young man," Wells said. "This mission is not without risk on many levels. Whatever information I give you now will assist you enormously in your quest."

"But Lois isn't breathing," Clark cried. "Her heart has stopped. We need to hurry."

"Time waits for a man with a time machine," Wells said with an air of self-satisfaction. "Physically, your wife will be fine."

"Physically?" Clark questioned. "What about mentally? Emotionally?"

"It is my fervent hope that your memories will survive moving back in time. The indications are most promising."

"So, it's possible I won't remember why I'm there?" Clark asked in horror.

Wells patted his arm. "I'm optimistic you will retain the full complement of your memories." He glanced to the empty bed. "Your wife, however ..."

"So Lois might not know me? She might not know we're married?"

"There's a chance ..." Wells said doubtfully. "Perhaps it will have been enough. I haven't yet had the opportunity to conduct proper tests on this exact situation. I invented the time machine on four separate occasions before stumbling over the means to ensure one arrives in the past and still remembers why one is there."

"What *will* she remember? Will she know who she is?"

"I'm confident she will remember everything up to 1985."

"But -" Clark spluttered. "In 1985, she didn't know me. She won't remember that we're -"

"She'll be alive," Wells said quietly.

"What about when we return to 1993?" Clark said. "Will she regain all of her memories then? Will she know me?" Will she love me?

"I am hopeful that when Mrs Kent returns - alive - to this time, any gaps in her memories will be restored forthwith."

"Hopeful?" Clark gasped. "I need more than 'hopeful'."

"The circumstances are unprecedented," Wells hedged. "She will be alive. Beyond that, I can't be sure."

Lois being alive was better than what he had now. "I need to leave a note for my parents," Clark said. "And Perry."

Wells stalled him with a hand to his arm. "They will never know you've gone, Mr Kent," he said. "I will return you to this precise moment."

If this were possible ... "OK," Clark said impatiently. "Do it."

"A few final considerations." Wells pushed a fistful of bills into Clark's shirt pocket.

"Hey, I can't accept –"

"It's nothing, Mr Kent. Less than the cost of a decent meal in the future. But in 1985, it may well be the difference between victory and defeat."

"Thank you."

"It would be prudent if you were to give me your wallet and cell phone for safekeeping."

Clark's suspicions swelled again. "You want my wallet?" he said dubiously.

"Your wallet will be full of evidence that you have lived beyond 1985," Wells said. "Coins, credit cards, receipts - all carrying dates that belong in the future."

Clark handed over his wallet and cell phone.

"You will need a pseudonym," Wells said as he picked up Lois's bag from the table next to the bed. "It can't be Kent or Jonathan or anything that suggests a link to the Superman story."

Clark raked over his numb mind.

"You arrived on Earth in 1966?" Wells mused as he removed Lois's purse and cell phone from her bag. "You're going back eight years, so the adjusted year of your birth would be 1958. The three most popular names for male babies in the fifties were James, Michael, and Robert. You would blend in if you were Robert James."

Clark shook his head, trying to coax his jangled thoughts into a cohesive whole. "And Lois? What should her name be?"

"Mary," Wells said, carefully placing Lois's bag on her abdomen. "Most popular girls' name of the nineteen fifties."

"Robert and Mary James," Clark repeated absently. His mind delved deeper. "If I'm going there to save Lois from Tempus, and I take Lois with me ... does that mean there will be two Loises?"

Wells nodded solemnly. "Yes, Mr Kent. That is why I initially resisted your proposal that your wife accompany you. The dangers are substantial."

It seemed this wasn't as simple as Wells had initially portrayed. "What dangers?" Clark asked.

"Time travel is straightforward when travelling to times outside the years of one's natural life," Wells said. "My demise was in 1946, so I can visit your time without fear of encountering myself. You, however, will be travelling to a time where Clark Kent is very much alive."

Clark's grief-stricken mind grappled with the logistics. "So ... I'll be me ... but there will be another - younger - Clark Kent at Midwest ... and there will be two Lois Lanes?"

"Precisely," Wells said. "The younger version of yourself will be safely out of the way. But Lois ..." He fingered the chain of his pocket watch. "You must remember that you are there for one reason only - to prevent Tempus from killing Lois. Anything else you inadvertently change in 1985 could affect the 1993 you return to. You should aspire to obscurity.

"It is of the utmost importance that you do not allow the younger incarnation of Lois to have any contact with your wife. If that were to happen, the effect could be ..." Wells shook his head as if gravely troubled by the unspoken conclusion of his sentence.

"What?" Clark demanded.

"In the future, I have read disturbing reports of instances when a person has come face to face with an earlier version of themselves."

"Go on," Clark said, not sure how much more futuristic fantasy his brain could process.

Wells cleared his throat. "There has been mention of body transference."

"But if they don't actually *see* each other ..." Clark said desperately.

"It should be all right. On the matter of Lois and Lois. But the other concern is you ... and young Lois ... together ... before your appointed time. Anything you do - other than protecting her from Tempus's evil scheme - could cause significant changes to your current relationship with your wife."

"What sort of changes?" Clark asked uneasily.

"You and Lois might not be married. You might not have even met. She could be married to another man. You might not be working at the Daily Planet."

Clark's eyes slid slowly shut. To have endured all of this ... only to return and find Lois married to someone else ...

Wells continued. "Making contact with young Lois will probably be unavoidable," he said. "But you must refrain from giving any hints about her future association with you. You must be nothing more to her than a passing figure - a faceless stranger, quickly dismissed, easily forgotten."

"OK."

"You will arrive near the North-Western Hotel. Young Lois Lane is employed there to support herself as a freshman at Metropolis State University. Should you choose to stay there, it could prove beneficial in terms of gaining access to the people who know Lois, but you would need to be extra vigilant in ensuring the Loises stay apart."

Clark nodded, trying to shackle his impatience. If this whole implausible fairy-tale were possible, he wanted Lois alive. Now. "I don't care where I am," he said. "I don't care which time I'm in. I just want Lois to be all right. Whatever you need to do to get my wife back, do it."

Wells took a flat, rectangular contraption from his pocket. "One final thing, Mr Kent," he said.

"Yes?"

"Tempus always travels with kryptonite."

Wells punched a few numbers into his device.

Blackness surrounded Clark. Forces jostled at his body, inducing a feeling of movement as if he were being sucked through a tunnel. He clung to Lois and waited.