Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Time to Love 5: Led Astray 16/16

"Where are we going?"

Tempus pushed a series of buttons. "Pick a year. Any year."

"I want to go back to 1993," Lois grated.

Tempus shook his head. "Too early," he said. "How about the year 2000? Right on the cusp of a new millennium. By then, you will have had enough time to detest the sight of each other because the Clark you endure will not be the Clark you love."

"Wherever you take us, I will be with Clark," Lois vowed. "I will find him if I have to. I will stay with him. I will love him. I will never give up on him."

Tempus's outburst of cold laughter was drowned out by the whirring of the time machine. The walls of the building blurred. The platform shook. Grey clouds, imbued with a spooky darkness, crept upon them.

After a few moments, light dawned slowly.

From the blur came the sound of gunfire.

One shot.

Next to her, Tempus slumped, blood seeping through his shirt.

His head lolled. His mouth dropped open. His eyes rolled back.

And he breathed no more.


Part 16

Lois snatched her eyes from the red stain that was steadily invading Tempus's shirt and swivelled her attention to where Paul Bender was standing, his arms held forward to a vertex that terminated with a gun.

Next to him stood an older gentleman, his short figure dressed in dated clothing. Both men were staring at Tempus, their stillness reminiscent of a frozen frame from a movie.

Lois struggled against the ropes, attempting to rotate her body. "Clark?" she gasped. "Clark? Are you all right?"

On the edge of her vision, she could see the place where his legs had been. It was empty.

"Clark?" Her voice rose with panic. "Clark? Are you there? Are you all right?"

There was no answer. No movement.

The silence was filled by a mechanical clicking sound. Lois spun around, straining against the ropes as fear for her own safety engulfed her concern for Clark.

The short man had taken the gun from Paul. He rotated the cylinder and let the two remaining bullets fall to the ground. He slid the weapon into the cavernous pockets of his grey trousers, and approached her, unfolding an elaborately carved penknife. Lois tensed. Their eyes met. He smiled and then carefully slid the blade between her wrists and cut though the rope.

"Thank you," Lois said. As soon as he'd freed her ankles, she turned and frantically scanned every inch of the sled-like vehicle.

Other than the body of Tempus, she was alone in the time machine. "Where's Clark?" she demanded as she whirled back to the man. "My husband. He was here. Just a few moments ago. Where is he?"

Her rescuer removed his black bowler hat and bowed with an antiquated formality. "Ms Lane," he said. "How delightful to see you alive. I am so pleased to make your acquaintance. HG Wells, at your service."

"What are you doing here?" she blurted. "You were supposed to come and get us from 1985."

Paul moved into the space between her and Wells. He scrutinised her, his face puckered with confusion. "Lane?" he said weakly. "Lois, is that you? What are you doing here? What happened to you? What happened to me?" His trauma-ravaged eyes glided beyond her, and his knees crumbled.

Wells made a valiant effort to cushion the younger man's fall and settled him on the grass. "Wait there, Mr Bender," he said. "We'll sort this out."

"But ..." Paul's voice and shoulders shook. "But ... there's so much blood. He's dead, isn't he? It all happened so quickly." Fear and shock had desecrated the face Lois had once thought to be dashingly handsome. "Are you going to call the police? I didn't mean it. I really didn't. He came to my apartment in the middle of the night and forced me onto that contraption. It started shuddering. I was too scared to move. Then, suddenly, it was light. As if morning had come. Everything happened too quickly. He pushed me off. I stood up, took out my gun ... I didn't even think about it. He was going to escape. I didn't know where I was. I didn't think. I didn't intend to fire ... but now, he's dead."

"Just sit there, Mr Bender," Wells said with a pat to his shoulder. "I have to talk with Ms Lane for a few moments. Everything's going to be all right."

Paul didn't look convinced, but succumbing to his confusion, he plunged his head into his hands and said nothing more.

Wells put a hand on Lois's elbow and led her a few feet away. "Where's Clark?" she asked.

"You didn't leave him in 1985? Tempus didn't try to separate you?"

"No!" Lois cried. "Tempus came to the hotel. He had kryptonite, and he forced me to go with him and leave Clark. He took me to the time machine and was threatening to separate us across time. But Clark came before the time machine had warmed up. Actually, Tempus seemed to have been expecting him. Tempus seemed to want him with us. He shoved Clark onto the time machine. Just in front of the clock." Lois gripped Wells' arm. "When we left 1985, Clark was with us. Where is he now?"

"He has returned to his life."

"His life?" Lois squeaked. "His life where?"

"In Smallville."

Where were they now? Or more meaningfully, when were they? Lois glanced around, but the nearby trees didn't give any clues. "What year is it?"

"It's 1993," Wells said. "Early August, 1993. That's why Clark isn't here. He has returned to his life in Smallville."

Smallville? That wasn't unreachable. Not like 1985. Or 1940. Or 2000. Except ... "How many Clarks are there now?" Lois said in alarm. "Two? Mine? And another one?"

"No. Just yours," Wells said calmly. "When one returns to within a short time of when one first moved through time, one morphs back into one's original self. I call it the reciprocal time-space-soul algorithm."

Ignoring the techno-babble, Lois forced herself to focus on the important detail. "So ... I'm the only Lois?"

"Yes."

It seemed ... hopeful. But she had to be sure. "In this time, here, now, there is one Clark Kent and one Lois Lane?"

"Yes. Exactly as you were in August 1993. Clark is in Smallville. You are here in Metropolis."

They had lost over four months. All of her time with Clark had dissolved in the quirks of time travel, but that didn't matter. They would be together. She glanced up, half-expecting to see the blue and red blur that would signify Clark's arrival, but the sky remained stubbornly empty. "What are you doing here?" Lois asked. "And why is Paul here?"

"Tempus kidnapped Paul - I assume that when you got to 1985, you discovered Tempus was impersonating Paul?"

Lois nodded. She glanced from Paul's face to Tempus's - one had been frosted by distress and the other by death. There was some similarity, but it wasn't clear how anyone who had known Paul could have believed they were the same person. "How could he have fooled anyone?"

"People see what they expect to see," Wells said. His smile came softly. "You, of all people, should know that."

Lois mentally shook her head, trying to align brain cells that were on the verge of complete mutiny against the reality she was asking them to accept. "So Tempus went to 1985, captured Paul, and brought him here - to 1993?"

"Yes. But time didn't move on for Paul. To him, Tempus never left."

"And then Paul shot him?"

"Yes."

"But wouldn't Tempus have known that could happen?" Lois asked. "Why did he come back here? He told me we were going to the year 2000. Why would Tempus return to a time when he knew Paul would be waiting for him?"

A small smile of satisfaction lifted Wells' mouth. "Because, my dear, when I built the time machine, I realised it had the capacity for great harm should it ever end up in the wrong hands. So I programmed it to return to default in the event that it undertake three consecutive journeys without the secret code being keyed in."

"And Tempus didn't know the code?"

"No. He stole my machine, and he forced me at gunpoint to explain the rudimentary aspects of its workings, but I neglected to mention the imperative nature of the secret code."

Lois grappled for comprehension. "Tempus travelled to 1985 to get Paul, then to 1993 to leave him here, and then back to 1985 to impersonate Paul in his attempt to kill Lois," she said. "So this time, Tempus *thought* we were heading for 2000, but the default overrode his directions?"

"Precisely," Wells said with a slight nod of his head. "And the default setting is to back-track to the most recent departure point. In doing that, I limited the possible destinations to two - back and forth, giving myself the best opportunity to locate the thief and reclaim my property."

"How did you know to come to this exact time?"

"Simple," Wells said as he withdrew a device about the size of a large cell phone from the pocket of his jacket. "This is a type of time machine. It can track souls. I simply looked for the first instance of two versions of Paul Bender's soul."

"So it was just luck that Tempus didn't drop Paul to a time outside of his life?" Lois asked.

"Not luck, my dear. I prefer to think of it as destiny."

Lois couldn't stop herself from glancing to the slumped body of Tempus. "What about his destiny?" she said. "Did he really live through so many different times just to die here and now?"

"Alas, I wasn't in time to prevent the murder," Wells said. "It happened so quickly. A cloud. The dim outline of the time machine. A shot. And a life ended."

"But you said time had *stopped*," Lois cried. "How could you possibly be late when time isn't moving?"

"A good question," Wells said as he nodded sombrely. "But the reality is that I arrived just as the shot was fired."

Lois didn't know whether she believed him or not. She didn't know whether he had had the benefit of some sort of cosmic foreknowledge and had been complicit in the death through inaction and manipulation of time. Reminding herself that Tempus had already killed her once and exposed Clark to both kryptonite and the personality-altering drug, she decided she wasn't going to waste any grief on his demise.

"As a true Utopian, I can never condone violence and misdeeds against one's fellow man," Wells said, "but the chronicles of time will be better served without Tempus prowling around them."

Lois nodded towards Paul. "What are you going to do with him?"

"I'll take him back to 1985," Wells said. "He will continue his life as if this unfortunate disruption had never occurred."

"That is *not* going to happen," Lois said. "Paul's a reporter. This is a huge story. Front page. Skyscraper headlines. He'll probably win a Pulitzer for it."

"But that doesn't happen," Wells said calmly. "You know it doesn't. You would have known about such a huge story."

"It didn't happen in *my* time," Lois said, her mind bending in ever more unworkable contortions. "But it will happen in *that* time."

Wells patted her arm in fatherly fashion. "Mr Bender won't remember anything of this," he said. "I will return him to a few moments before Tempus took him. He will sleep through the night, and when he awakens, it won't even be a blip on the radar of his memory."

"He won't remember that he killed someone? He won't remember seeing an older version of me?"

"No. Whatever he has managed to take in of our conversation will also be lost in the ravages of time," Wells said. "Which is why I am unconcerned about us speaking so freely in his hearing."

"I remember everything," Lois said. "What if he does, too?"

Wells took a piece of kryptonite from his pocket and held it out for her to see. "You only know this as the strange substance that can harm the man you love," he said. "For many years, we believed it had no effect on humans, but we were wrong. It has another attribute - one which may be a legacy from its alien origins."

"What?" Lois asked, wondering if it was something that could hurt Clark.

"It allows human beings to travel through time and preserve their memories in a continual unbroken line."

"Is that why I remember everything?"

"Yes. I'm sure Tempus has kryptonite on him somewhere. As I told Mr Kent, Tempus never leaves home without a supply of little green rocks."

"But after I died, Clark and I travelled through time, without kryptonite, and we -"

"I was very concerned," Wells cut in. "I strongly advised Mr Kent not to take you with him, but he couldn't be persuaded. I believed you would awaken and not remember him, but I relented to his wishes, hoping against impossible hope that his love would be sufficient - not only to protect you from the schemes of Tempus, but to rekindle your love." He smiled with earnest cheerfulness. "And my hope was not misplaced."

"You're sure you didn't send kryptonite with us?"

"I'm sure. I took it from him."

Lois couldn't fathom any reason why Clark would have had kryptonite, but that wasn't important now. "So Clark - travelling *without* kryptonite - remembered everything?"

"That seems most likely."

"But you didn't know that would happen? Before you sent us to 1985?"

"No."

"That was a huge risk," Lois snapped. "What if Clark hadn't remembered? We would have been stranded in a strange time, knowing nothing."

"You were already deceased," Wells said. "I was confident Mr Kent would be willing to risk anything to bring you back."

Sudden alarm erupted through the spewing lava of confusion in Lois's mind. "Tempus had kryptonite with him just now. How will that have affected Clark?"

Wells nervously tapped his hat against the palm of his hand. "You must realise, Ms Lane, that I have been unable to conduct trials on people of Kryptonian origin, so I can only offer hypotheses."

Lois grabbed a fistful of the sleeve of Wells' jacket. "Are you trying to tell me that Clark might not remember any of this? Is that what you're trying to say?"

Wells' head dropped a few degrees, and he avoided meeting her eyes.

"Tell me," Lois demanded.

"The fact that Mr Kent hasn't come here - hasn't tracked your heartbeat to establish your whereabouts - makes me fearful that he doesn't remember."

"Doesn't remember *anything*? Lois cried.

"I'm confident he will remember up to the present time."

That would mean ... Lois groaned. That would mean that he didn't remember her. Didn't remember their time together. "Tempus injected him with something," she said. "He said it would change him."

Wells' cheeks lost a little of their colour. "The Personality Potion," he said grimly.

"You know of it?"

"Yes. It was developed fifty years into the future - scientists getting too clever for the good of the society they are supposed to serve. Its use was mercifully short, but it isn't surprising that Tempus has visited that time and procured some of the wretched substance."

"But it would have been used on humans," Lois insisted. "How will it affect Clark?"

"I don't know," Wells admitted. "I just don't know. My area of expertise is time travel, not Kryptonian physiology."

But Lois couldn't dam her questions. "How much will Clark change? How will he change? Will he still be Clark? Will he still want to use his powers for good?" Her questions stalled, smothered by new fear. "Or will he -"

"My dear," Wells said. "You can go to him. You can make this right."

"But he won't remember me," Lois said, again searching the sky for her husband.

"Whatever Tempus did, however strong the power of The Potion, do you think it could be stronger than his love for you?"

Tears pushed into Lois's eyes. "I can't lose him," she said. "I can't live without him."

"Go to him," Wells said with a pat to her arm. "Show him Lois Lane. History records that when Clark Kent sees Lois Lane, he falls in love with her. Cling to that. It happened last time. It will happen again."

Clark's words from yesterday swept into her mind. Clark meets Lois. Clark falls in love. She had to hold onto that. She had to believe that, whatever Tempus had done, Clark would love her again.

Wells gave her an encouraging smile. "Your love will be strong enough," he said.

"Can't you just take us forward to December?" Lois said. "After our wedding, but before I became sick? Now Tempus has been stopped, I won't -"

"The damage has been done," Wells said sadly.

"Damage?"

"The memories have been lost," Wells said sadly. "Which, I suspect, is why Tempus wanted you both on the time machine. He failed to separate you physically, failed to kill either you or Clark, so in desperation, he tried to carve a chasm through your shared memories."

"Can't we go back?" Lois demanded. "Undo the damage?"

"Going back will not restore Clark's memories of the future," Wells said. "And if we went forward, he would be married to someone he has no memory of."

Something wasn't right. Something didn't add up. Lois scratched over the *facts* Wells had told her, searching for an inconsistency. Then it struck her. "You are going to take Paul to 1985. I assume you will remember, but you said he won't."

"I'm not *taking* him, I'm sending him," Wells said. "Without kryptonite."

"Clark and I travelled together before," Lois said insistently. "You sent us from the hospital room to 1985. We both remembered. Why can't you do that again?"

"You remembered?" Wells asked in surprise. "Everything? Without Clark telling you?"

"Yes! I remembered everything up to about a day before my death."

Wells scratched his head. "I can only theorise that you soaked up some of the presence of the kryptonite during the final few hours of life."

Lois held out her hand. "Give it to me now," she said. "I'll *soak* it up for as long as it takes."

Wells didn't hand over the green rock. "It won't work," he said.

"It worked last time."

"But, my dear, you were dead. And I think that was the significant factor in you retaining your memories. Death acted as a protection - not unlike cryogenics, if you will."

"So if you were to kill me, you could send us together?"

"Ms Lane ..."

"You have a gun," Lois said, not caring that hysteria laced her plea. "Do -"

"No!" Wells said firmly. "There has been enough death today."

"You invented the time machine," Lois said caustically. "There has to be a way for you to get two people to the same place at the same time."

"Certainly there are ways," Wells said. "But think of the practicalities, Lois. We would have to get Clark from Smallville. He wouldn't know you. He would have no reason to trust you. We would have to expose him to kryptonite for the journey."

"No!" Lois said. "Send Clark - without kryptonite. And take me - with it. Just get us to the same place, the same point in time, so we can be together."

"You're in the same time now," Wells said gently.

From the midst of all the barriers of frustration, one reality magically materialised. "I have to do it," Lois said. "I have to go to Smallville and begin again. I have to show Clark the way back - back to me, back to us, back to our love, back to our marriage."

"That's the spirit," Wells said with a relieved smile. "You will do it. You are Lois Lane. It is inconceivable that Clark will be able to resist the woman he always loves."

Eager to begin her new journey, Lois asked, "What will happen with Tempus's body? You can't leave it here."

"I will return it to after the date of his death - far into the future."

"If you ..." She stopped.

"If I were to take him to a time during his lifetime, would he be alive?" Wells asked.

Lois nodded.

"Yes," Wells said. "But Tempus made it his life's undertaking to stop you and Superman and deny the world the blessings of Utopia. His destiny is of his own choosing."

"So he really has gone?" she said. "He can't pop up at any time? I can't suddenly die again because he killed another version of me?"

"He really has gone," Wells said. "And I feel no pleasure in that ... but his death has secured the future, and that has been my mission since I first encountered Tempus and his wicked plans to destroy Utopia."

"He tried to kill me with lead poisoning."

"I know that now," Wells said with a sudden grin. "I went forward and checked the history books."

"Tony Green tried to shoot me."

"But Clark was there. He saved you." Wells reached inside his jacket and pulled out Lois's purse, Clark's wallet, and two cell phones. "These belong to you. He gave them to me for safe keeping when we were in the hospital."

"I'll look after them," Lois said as she accepted them. "I'll get Clark's belongings back to him."

Wells walked back to the time machine and said brightly, "You're leaving for a tremendous adventure, Mr Bender. Would you be so kind as to stand up?"

Paul slowly rose to his feet. Wells pushed some buttons on his device, and Paul Bender faded from sight.

Wells slipped into the passenger seat of the time machine. "Fortunately, I had the foresight to install dual controls," he said as a cover retracted, revealing a second panel of buttons and dials. "Goodbye, Ms Lane. And good luck with your mission."

Lois looked again to the last place she had seen Clark. A small triangle of brown leather was visible under the seat occupied by Tempus' body. "Wait!" She crouched low and pulled out Clark's journal. Her charm bracelet was tucked inside the front cover.

Clark must have brought them from the hotel room. Had he pushed them towards her? Or had they slipped from his grasp?

Lois held them against her chest, letting her tears fall freely.

A low whirring sound filled the air. The time machine blurred.

And then Lois was standing alone.

She looked around. Took a few tentative steps forward.

She was in Centennial Park.

Metropolis.

August 1994.

Before Clark.

Before he'd known her.

But she had Clark's journal and the bracelet celebrating their lives together.

They would be her roadmap forward.

Lois turned towards the office of the Daily Planet.

She kept spare keys in her desk there.

She needed to deal with the practicalities.

Talking to Perry.

Trying to get up to date with whatever Clarkless story she had been working on.

She took the rings from her finger and slipped them onto the bracelet, and then put it on her wrist, wincing a little at the bruising from Tempus's ropes.

She needed to get to Smallville. To find Clark. To begin their adventure again.

She would go soon as soon as possible. Today or tomorrow, if Perry would give her the time off. If he wouldn't, she would have to wait until the weekend.

Another weekend in Smallville. Another meeting with Clark.

It would be all right.

It had to be all right.

Surely, nothing Tempus had done could stop Clark Kent from falling in love with Lois Lane.

Utopia depended on it.