Clark ran his fingers under her hair, letting its silkiness drape over his hand. "You're worried, aren't you?" he said. "Even though you're trying to pretend you're OK."
"I'm not really *worried*," Lois said slowly. "Just a bit ... spooked. I died. That's weird enough. But I could die again, not because I've been hurt, but because someone else has been."
Clark cupped his hand around her bare shoulder. "Don't worry," he said. "I won't let him hurt either of you."
She snuggled into his neck. Clark skated his fingers down her back.
This closeness - this being together - was everything he wanted. Everything *they* wanted.
And he was determined that no one was going to take it away.
Part 8
From beyond the hotel room door, Clark detected a sound and focussed his vision through the wall. He watched with interest as young Lois crept along the corridor and leant her ear against the door. Clark smiled to himself. She was still OK. And not feeling too tired to climb the stairs to indulge in a little snooping.
She stayed for less than a minute, and then snuck away, hurrying down the stairs.
"Lois just paid us a visit," Clark announced quietly.
His wife rose from the pillow of his chest. "What did she do?"
"Listened at the door."
Lois grinned. "If she'd come fifteen minutes ago ..."
"You seem very keen for her to -"
"To get a hint about the delights in her future?"
"I'm not -"
"You're not comfortable thinking about anything remotely sexual between you and a teenager," Lois said pragmatically. "And that's why I keep teasing you about it. I know you would never even think about her in that way because you're Clark Kent and you're completely in love with me." She grinned. "*This* me. Not *that* me."
He appreciated her understanding, but it didn't mitigate his need to try to explain. "I feel awkward around her. She's young. I know so much about her, and she doesn't know I know. She's you. But she's not you. And she doesn't trust me."
Lois's teasing manner evaporated as her hand slid lovingly through his hair. "It's an understatement to say this is a situation neither of us expected," she said. "Our marriage has about two days of memories. It's OK to need some time to adjust."
"Adjust?" Clark said with gruff chuckle. He wasn't sure he would ever adjust to a world with two Lois Lanes. But a few hours earlier, he'd been facing a world with no Lois - and *that* situation was intolerable. Hauling his mind back to their earlier discussion, he said, "How old is the boss? Tony Green?"
"Fifty. Perhaps a bit older."
"In the photograph, Tempus looked a few years younger than that."
"Yeah, but not as young as either Paul or Barry," she said. "So either he's here as someone completely different, or your theory about advances in disguises is correct."
"Tell me more about Paul," Clark said. "What sort man is he?"
Lois wrinkled her nose. "He's embarrassing," she said. "I can't believe I fell for him so hard."
"We all have people like that in our past," Clark said.
"Really?" she said, with a spark of interest. "Who is the embarrassing teenage crush that you'd like to forget ever happened?"
"Well," he said, searching her face for a way out but instead realising she wasn't going to let him off the hook easily. "There was Lana Lang."
"Tell me about her."
"We're supposed to be talking about Paul Bender," Clark said hopefully. "I need to know about him for reasons other than gratuitous curiosity."
"I enjoy gratuitous curiosity," Lois said with a smile. "Give me a couple of details to satisfy me, and then we'll move on to Paul."
He gave in to the inevitable. "She was very controlling and very concerned with looking exactly right."
"I can see why she was attracted to you."
"I couldn't," he said. "Even then. I mean ... I was an alien ... different ... she wanted to fit right in."
"Did she know you were alien?"
"No," Clark said quickly. "I knew that would have finished any association we had."
"So why were you interested?"
There was no easy explanation for that. "She was pretty ... in a cardboard kind of way."
"Cardboard?"
"Too much makeup. Too much affectation. Too much attention on whether her nails were exactly the right length, shape, and shade to suit her outfit." Clark's fingertip skated down the curve of Lois's ear. "I like women with a lot more depth than that."
"So why waste your time with her?"
His embarrassment deepened. "Because I wasn't sure if anyone would want to be with me if they knew the truth."
"But you didn't tell her the truth."
"She wouldn't have wanted to know the truth. She wouldn't have coped at all. I guess ... I guess I thought going along with her pretence would be preferable to being alone all of my life."
"Sorry," Lois said, curbing her smile but not the gleam in her eyes. "I'm not going to let you be alone. Not ever."
Clark felt the welling of emotion again. He just wanted to be with Lois. And he'd come so close to losing her. "Thank you," he said, stroking back her hair, hoping she would understand the depth of gratitude in those two words. "I would never have been interested in Lana if I'd believed there was someone who could know the whole truth about me and still love me. Someone as perfect as you."
"Loving you is nowhere near as difficult as you seem to think," Lois commented.
"What was it you said outside the church?" Clark said. "That if you throw in the chest, it's a pretty good deal?"
"I said it was an OK deal," Lois corrected with mild sternness that quickly blossomed into a smile. "But I was understating it."
Clark loved it when they tossed around banter like a game of verbal ping-pong but it couldn't make him forget that someone was planning to kill his wife. "Paul?" he prompted.
Lois thought for a moment. "Paul was an angry young man with a vicious temper. At the time, I dressed up his anger in more acceptable terms ... determination, drive, single-mindedness, ambition ... but really, it was anger."
"Did he ever get angry at you?" Clark asked, feeling his fist clench at the thought of Paul Bender berating Lois.
"I put a huge amount of effort into making sure he had no reason to get angry at me - until I tried to convince him that I'd written the story about the football players, that is. Then he was scathing. He couldn't believe I would dare to lie to him. Before that, I witnessed a couple of meltdowns when other reporters didn't get the story he wanted. He justified his nastiness by saying he didn't accept mediocrity."
"A good editor can't be impressed with every story," Clark said, trying to be fair. "Perry isn't."
"But Perry attacks the story, not the reporter. Paul made it personal. And he never forgot if someone crossed him. We all knew we had one chance. Mess up, and your stories would be relegated to the later pages. Or squeezed out completely by inferior stories from reporters who were still in favour."
Clark grunted a rumble of disgust. Whether Paul Bender was Tempus or not, he didn't want him near Lois - any version, in any time.
"This would be easier if I could go out there and experience my world," Lois said.
Clark smiled. "I bet you'd have Tempus identified within an hour."
"Maybe," she said with a little sigh.
Clark tightened his arms around his wife. "I won't let him hurt you," he said. "Not this time."
She assembled a smile. "I know," she said. "It's just a bit ... a bit disconcerting knowing that I could die because someone kills the other Lois."
"I'm going to look after both of you," Clark said. He shuffled to a sitting position. "Which means I need to make sure Lois gets home safely."
"I'm coming, too," Lois said firmly.
"Lois, I'm not sure -"
"We'll be yards in the air, it's dark, and if anyone does happen to notice a couple of hovering time-travellers, you can simply whoosh us back to our room, and they'll figure they've had too much to drink."
"OK," Clark conceded. "I ... I would feel more comfortable with you there. I don't usually use my powers to stalk young women."
"You have my permission to stalk her," Lois said. "Which amounts to having her permission. She just doesn't realise it yet." She looked at him with warmth radiating from her gorgeous brown eyes. "I love you," she said. "And I'm glad we're here."
"You are?"
"We're together. That's what I want."
"Wells wanted me to leave you in the hospital bed. He said you'd be right there when I got back. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't leave you."
"Thank you," Lois said. "Our future is worth fighting for. And we need to do it together."
+-+-+-+
Tony's parting diatribe of discontent was still reverberating through her brain as Lois Lane dragged herself home to her tiny one-roomed apartment.
Although she'd taken three pain pills, her headache hadn't lessened. Actually, it seemed to have spread throughout her body, and now, every muscle was bitterly complaining about having to walk home. Her stomach felt as if she'd eaten something that was now slowly rotting, waiting only for a particularly inopportune moment to erupt.
Actually, she'd barely eaten at all.
So perhaps it was hunger.
But the thought of food - even chocolate - just churned the aggravation.
She hated Friday night shifts. They seemed longer and harder after a week at college. And Tony behaved as if he believed the number of bookings over the weekend would be directly proportional to how much he criticised his staff on Friday.
Her mind continually drifting to Paul and Linda hadn't helped either.
What were they doing? Laughing? Talking? Relishing the feeling of being truly dedicated to their aspirations while others languished in apathy?
What were Linda's ambitions for this weekend?
Were they solely about becoming a better reporter?
What were the standard inclusions in a weekend away with an exciting man of the world like Paul Bender?
Lois hauled her mind from that; the disparity between being alone with Paul Bender and trudging home through the cold dark streets was too great to be borne.
She tried to steer her mind towards her story, but not even the thought of the Man With Secrets staying in her hotel could lift her spirits. She *knew* there was a story, but in reality, she hadn't made any significant progress towards finding answers to the steadily growing pile of questions.
She had managed to elude Tony's surveillance long enough to detour to the fifth floor on her way back from trying to placate the guests on the seventh floor who had been appalled at having witnessed a mouse scurry across their room.
She'd tiptoed up to the door of room 518 and listened. For her efforts, she had received an extra loud and brain-bruising blast from Tony when she'd arrived back on the first floor - having taken longer than he deemed necessary - and not a skerrick of information about what might be happening in Robert James' room.
If two people - both alive - had been in there, why had it been so quiet?
Had they been asleep?
Or was there some other reason for the silence?
What had he done to her? Why had he lied about her having been in the hospital?
What had he needed from the drugstore? And why had he seemed so ... so *euphoric*?
Tomorrow, Lois promised herself, trying to work up some enthusiasm. Tomorrow, when Robert James was safely out of the way, she would finally see the woman trapped in his room. Even if Mary James - if that was her name - refused to allow Lois's dad to examine her or treat her, one glance should be enough for him to form an opinion about whether she should be admitted to a hospital.
Even the police had to take notice of a doctor's opinion.
Lois needed hard evidence. For Paul. For her story. For the police.
Paul.
She sighed.
She *had* to get this story. She *had* to win his approval.
She had to find a way to make him want her.
Love her.
Then she would be the one he invited to share cosy weekends.
When Lois finally arrived at her apartment building, she climbed the steps to the front door. The dingy building hardly inspired a sense of welcome, but she was glad to be here - glad that in a few minutes, she would be in her room, away from the noise, and lights, and people making demands.
She pushed the key into the lock of the front door.
From behind her came a sound. Like a small stone skittering along the sidewalk.
Lois spun around.
No one was there.
Only the late-night cars whirring through the dark streets.
Keeping her eyes on the street, her body poised, and her ears tuned, she turned the key and shoved at the door. It swung open, and she slipped into the building.
From behind the door, she scrutinised the sidewalk around the entrance.
Nothing. Just the darkness of a cold Metropolis street.
But her feeling of a lurking presence wasn't budging.
"Hello?" she said. "Who's there?"
Only silence greeted her irresolute inquiry.
It was probably just a homeless person. Or someone trying to find his way home after a big night of drinking.
Except revellers didn't usually skulk. They banged and crashed.
And this ... this felt creepy - as if someone had been there but hadn't wanted her to know.
It was probably just her splitting head playing tricks on her.
Lois pushed the door shut, sent home the lock, and faced yet another flight of stairs. With a sigh, she began the last long climb of the night.
+-+-+-+
From high above the Metropolis street lights, Clark watched as the figure slipped out from the shadow of the building and began to walk away from Lois's front door. "What do you think he wants?" he murmured to his wife.
"Are you sure he was following her?"
"Positive." Clark smiled at his wife. "Your idea of blowing a pebble across the entrance worked beautifully. When she suddenly turned, he threw himself against the wall of the building."
Lois shivered. "Did she notice him?"
"I don't think so." Clark tightened his arms around his wife. "You cold?"
"Not really. It's just a bit ... creepy ... knowing someone is tracking her ... me."
Clark leant his cheek against her hair. "He's not going to hurt her," he said. "We won't let him. And she's safely in her apartment now."
"My apartment was the second from the right, third floor," Lois said. She waited a few moments. "Anything?"
Clark dropped his head. "I can't, Lois."
"Yes, you can."
"No, I can't," he said. "I can't look into her apartment. She has just arrived home. She could be undressing. She could be in the bathroom. She's entitled to her privacy."
"Not if her privacy gets her killed," Lois said. She didn't add that it could get her killed, too. She didn't have to. It was set solid at the forefront of Clark's mind.
"I'll come back tomorrow when I know she's at the hotel and look into her room then."
"You could listen now."
"OK." He did. He heard raspy breaths and the slightly elevated pace of the younger Lois's heart. But no movement. "I think she might have gone to bed."
"She must be really tired to come home and have collapsed into bed already," Lois said. "I used to watch the television and drink hot chocolate when I got home."
Clark listened again. "No, nothing," he said.
"If you can't hear the shower, it would be OK to -"
"No, Lois. I just can't ... I can't look into a woman's apartment."
To Clark's relief, his wife's response was an understanding smile and a little touch of her fingers through his hair.
"Are you sure you weren't sick soon after starting college?" he asked.
"Not sick enough that it took me nearly an hour to walk the mile and a half home and when I got there, I dropped into bed without even brushing my teeth," Lois stated decisively.
"It has to be Tempus," Clark said, trying to moderate his anxiety and keep it from sounding in his voice. "He's doing something to her."
"The stalker could have caught her if he'd wanted to, couldn't he?"
"Easily," Clark said. "But I wouldn't have let him."
"Even if he's Tempus, he couldn't have known you were watching, so he must have other reasons for staying hidden. Like trying to gauge if whatever he has been doing is having any effect."
"Perhaps he just gets sick enjoyment out of trying to scare her," Clark said darkly. That thought spurred him on. "Do you think we should go down and talk to him? Starting with demanding an explanation for why he was stalking a young woman?"
"I think we would lose more than we gain," Lois said. "It's possible we could identify Tempus, but he would know we are here. Then it becomes open warfare."
Right now, that sounded perfectly all right to Clark. *No one* stalked his ... well, that particular Lois Lane wasn't his wife, but that didn't moderate his annoyance at all. "OK," he said, conceding to the wisdom of her argument. "Let's just watch him for a while. If we can find out where he lives, we can use that information to identify him."
"You could search *his* apartment," Lois suggested.
"Yes." Clark had expected Lois would grin at the mix of indignation and determination in his tone, but she didn't. He waited a few moments, glancing to her face, but quickly returning his gaze to the figure walking briskly along the sidewalk below. When Lois remained uncharacteristically quiet, he asked, "Are you all right, honey?"
"Yeah," she said with a little sigh. "I knew another Lois was here. I knew someone wants to hurt her. But that didn't prepare me for knowing that there's a woman just a few yards below who is me. And someone is following her. She just seemed so ... so vulnerable."
"He is not going to hurt her," Clark vowed.
Lois gave a humourless laugh. "I know you won't let anything happen to her," she said. "But I can't shake the feeling that this is a really, really weird dream, and the way out is so unclear. I hate feeling so out of control."
"We *will* stop Tempus," Clark said. "Wells *will* come and get us. We *will* return to our lives. After everything that has happened, it's natural that you'd be feeling insecure."
"It's not that I don't believe we'll keep Lois safe," she said. "It's just ... I feel as if the ground beneath me has dropped away. Everything I know has changed. What I thought was real isn't so real anymore."
"I haven't changed," Clark said. "My love hasn't changed. My determination to be with you and keep you safe hasn't changed. I'm still real. We're still real."
She brushed a kiss across his cheek.
"We have our first lead," Clark said, trying to infuse optimism into his words. "We know someone is watching her. We'll follow him until we find out who he is."
Lois rewarded his words with a smile. "You think we should investigate?" she said. "Good idea. What does this guy look like?"
"Young. Late teens, maybe. Fairly nondescript in appearance. Dark blond hair, a bit longer than collar-length. Medium height. Medium build."
"Does he resemble Tempus in the photograph?"
"Not definitively. He's younger. But I couldn't guarantee it isn't Tempus - depending on what changes he's been able to implement."
"What's he wearing?" Lois asked.
"Neon green hi-top sneakers, stonewash jeans, pale blue tee shirt, jean jacket, black -"
"Jean jacket?"
"Yeah. Why?
"Barry Russo!" Lois exclaimed. "My one memory of Barry is that unless the temperature was over one hundred, he always wore a jean jacket."
"So it could be Barry," Clark said. "Or it could be Tempus trying to look like Barry. Do you know where he lived?"
"No," she said. "I never went to his home."
"Any memories of him living near the hotel? Did you ever see him on your way to work?"
"No. Why?"
"Because that's the direction he's heading."
Lois sat up straighter in his arms. "Are you sure? Barry Russo didn't work at the hotel. Or stay there."
"He's arrived at the front door."
"It will be locked by now. You have to press the buzzer, and Tony comes to let you in."
"He's just standing there. Looking."
"Looking into the hotel?"
"Yeah."
"I didn't think Barry knew I worked there."
"He's stepped away from the front door," Clark said. "He seems to be inspecting the wall."
"The wall?"
"He's running his hand down it."
"That's odd."
"He's crouching down now," Clark continued. "He appears to be examining something on the ground."
"Can you see what? Is it something he dropped?"
"Hold on - a man has come out of the door of the hotel. He's running over to the jean jacket guy."
"Listen!" Lois hissed.
Clark nodded and tuned his hearing to the conversation below.
"Get out of here!" The man who had emerged from the hotel ran towards Lois's stalker, shaking his fist. "I don't need young riffraff like you hanging around my hotel. No self-respecting person will stay here if they see you clogging up the front door like decaying slime."
The stalker stood and raised his hands in surrender. "I wasn't doing anything wrong," he said.
"You're not squatting here. I won't tolerate homeless trash lining my street. This is a reputable business."
"I don't need to squat," the stalker replied with mild indignation. "I have an apartment."
"Then get to it," the older man screamed. "And consider this to be your first and only warning."
With a final look of bemusement, the stalker turned and walked away.
"Whoa," Clark said. "That's one very angry man."
"The one who came out of the hotel?"
"Yeah. He was screaming and going on about -"
"Let me guess," Lois said. "He was ranting about the reputation of his hotel."
Clark nodded. "Tony Green?"
"Yep. Probably the only person in the whole of New Troy who doesn't realise that the North-Western is a dump."
"He wasn't happy when he thought the other guy was going to loiter outside the hotel."
"No, he wouldn't be," Lois said. "What did the stalker say?"
"Nothing much. He said he wasn't doing anything wrong." Clark began drifting through the air, his eyes locked on the young man wearing the jean jacket.
"Are we following him?"
"Yep."
"What's he doing? Does he look upset by what Tony said to him?"
"Hold on." Clark scooted a few hundred yards through the darkness so he could see the man's face. "No. He doesn't look upset. He has his hands in the pockets of his jacket. He's walking quickly, but not running scared."
"As far as I knew, Barry Russo had nothing to do with the North-Western. Him going there is something different from my memory."
After a few minutes following the figure in the jean jacket, Clark said, "He's going into an apartment block."
"Is it a big concrete building on a corner?"
"Yes."
"I think that was student accommodation. I don't know if Barry lived there, but a couple of girls I knew later did. It's about two and a half blocks from where Lois lives, right?"
"Yeah. He's gone inside."
"You're going to track him?" she asked, her tone even enough that it sounded like a genuine question rather than an expectation.
"Yes," Clark said resolutely. "He showed an unhealthy interest in my ... my ..."
"Your assignment," Lois said with a smile. "It's our job to protect her."
"He's coming out of the elevator now - on the fourth floor. He's gone into Room 4."
"Anything in his room?"
Clark didn't answer immediately, taking the time to scan the room the young man had entered. "OK," he said. "First thing - the books on his desk have the name 'Barry Russo' on them." Clark smiled, although he didn't take his eyes from the slow perusal of the room. "Good work, honey."
"Is there anything in his room? Poison? Drugs? A weapon?"
"No," Clark said. "He's seems to be a fairly typical teenager - posters on the wall ... Sting and Bruce Springsteen ... a cassette collection ... Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull ... books ... mostly journalism text books ... I can also see Silent Spring by Rachel Carson ... magazines ... National Geographic, the EPA Journal ... some food ... he likes Dr Pepper ... Fritos ... and peppermint Life Savers."
"Anything creepy? Girls' underwear? Posters? Porn magazines?"
"No. I've searched under his bed, through his desk drawers, and in his closet. The room's not very tidy, and the bathroom needs cleaning, but there's nothing to suggest he's a regular stalker of women."
"Then why did he follow Lois home?"
Clark pulled back his vision to look at his wife. "Maybe I do need to speak with him," he said. "If his interest in following women centres solely on Lois ..."
"Is there any way we could arrange for me to see him?" Lois said. "I might be able to determine if he's the same person I knew."
Clark didn't want Barry Russo anywhere near Lois. "We can't risk him recognising you, honey."
"Do we have some spare money?"
"Some. Why?"
"Could we buy a camera? You could take a photo of Barry. Then I could see it without risking him seeing me. We could try to do the same thing with Paul. And Tony Green."
"I have a better idea," Clark said.
"You do?"
"I'll draw him."
"You can draw?" Lois asked, eyeing his with smiling surprise. "Well enough for me to identify?"
Clark nodded.
"We should do it tonight," Lois said. "As soon as we get back to the room." He felt a twinge of tension tightened her body. "How long do we have? Before ..."
Clark pressed his wife closer against his chest. "We are not going to let this become a morbid countdown," he said. "Whatever Tempus has planned, he's not going to hurt Lois this time."
Lois managed a small smile. "Young Lois has to be at the hotel at eight tomorrow morning. We could see if he follows her then. We know where he lives now."
"OK," Clark said, agreeing with her plan but not completely overcoming his hankering to charge into apartment 404, take a firm grip of the front of the jean jacket, and demand an explanation for Barry Russo's interest in Lois Lane. "What do you remember about him?"
"He didn't say much unless the topic was the environment, and then he could get really passionate."
"Did you ever sense that he was interested in you?"
Lois paused. "Maybe," she said. "I wasn't remotely interested in anyone but Paul, and Barry Russo was everything Paul wasn't - quiet, patient, unassuming, polite, tolerant."
"How did Barry respond when Linda stole your story? Did you think he believed you?"
"I didn't discuss it with him. But he was disadvantaged by the fallout. The cosy trio of Linda, myself, and Barry dissolved and became the couple of Paul and Linda."
"Did Barry blame you?"
"He stopped me after a class one day and asked if I were all right. I snapped at him and walked away. If he harboured any resentment towards me, I wasn't interested in knowing about it."
"I think Tempus is Barry," Clark said. "The description you've given doesn't fit with a man who would stalk a woman."
"But Paul is the more obvious choice," Lois said. "He had more influence with Lois than Barry did."
Clark said nothing more, but he continued watching the man he believed had come from the future, slithered into the role of Barry Russo, and now intended to kill Lois Lane.
"Anything happening with Barry?" Lois asked.
"No. He's sitting on his bed, drinking a can of Dr Pepper and reading the EPA Journal."
"That sounds typical," Lois noted. "If Tempus is Barry, why would he keep playing the role even when he thinks no one is watching?"
"Research," Clark suggested. "If Barry was known as having an interest in environmental issues, Lois is going to notice if he suddenly knows nothing."
His wife nodded, but Clark knew he hadn't convinced her. "Let's check out Paul's office," she suggested.
After a final glance through the walls and into the apartment, Clark began to fly them towards the college.
"Are we going to superbust our way in, or make use of my lock-picking skills?" Lois asked.
"Do we need to go in at all?" Clark asked. "I could just look from up here."
"I think we should go in," she said. "I need to see. I might notice something ... something different ... something you might not realise is significant."
"OK," Clark said. He gave her a quick smile. "But superbusting, as you call it, is more than getting in. Concealing that you've been in is the tricky bit."
"It shouldn't be *that* hard," Lois said. "Eighties security is less sophisticated than what we're used to. In fact, I remember from when I was investigating the football players - there were security guards, but no electronic surveillance."
"OK." Clark hovered above the college. "I've located three guards. The outer doors are locked, but there's no lock on Paul's office."
"I guess you don't want to just crash through the ceiling?"
"No," Clark said, smiling at her suggestion. "Just hang on. There's a guard about to unlock a door. We'll slip in behind him."
