Table of Contents
From Part 1:All he had to do was let her sleep. She’d wake up when she was rested.
And he would be right there beside her when that happened.
He was tempted to go and get a sponge and warm water, and clean some of the dirt and dried blood from her face, but then he wondered if doing that might wake her up. It would be better just to let her sleep, he decided. She needed her rest. Sleep, after all, was a great healer.
He shifted, moving to lie beside her on the bed, at a discreet distance. Turning on his side so that he could watch her sleep, he kept her hand in his and prepared himself to wait. After all, he’d waited almost two long years to meet his Lois; another few hours wouldn’t hurt him.
Outside, he could hear more church bells - midnight services coming to an end, he supposed. Inside, all he could hear was her breathing. Lois’s breathing.
“Welcome home, Lois,” he whispered.
*********
Now read on...Lois stretched, acknowledging to herself that she really was awake and so there was no excuse for delaying opening her eyes any longer. Odd... she must really be getting used to sleeping rough. The ground didn’t feel anything like as lumpy and uncomfortable as it had the last couple of nights.
She dragged one eye open. Strange - she wasn’t seeing foliage and trees and bushes. There was no green in sight. Instead, she was seeing a window, blue-grey sky and curtains. And walls. And furniture. And... a bed.
She was lying on a bed.
In an unfamiliar bedroom.
And, she realised, she could also hear breathing. Not her breathing... someone else’s.
Someone who was holding her hand. Holding her prisoner by his side.
A man. The hand was too large not to be.
Turning her head, she saw him. A man. Lying next to her, his eyes closed in slumber, his dark hair tumbling over his forehead.
A very good-looking man, she realised. And he had a nice face: open and friendly, she thought, before castigating herself for having those sort of thoughts about a man she didn’t know from Adam.
A man who had clearly kidnapped her and brought her here to his bedroom - a man who was holding her prisoner.
A man who was, without a doubt, working for the Mr Big she’d been chasing ever since she’d gone to the Congo.
Lois sat up in one sudden movement, wrenching her hand away from her captor’s, and lunged at the stranger. All she needed to do was to immobilise him - a neat clip to his throat with the side of her hand should do it - and then she could make her escape.
Her hand connected with his throat. And she yelled in pain.
He sat up abruptly, blinking, and looked at her. “Lois?” His voice sounded sleepy. “What did you do? Are you all right?”
He knows my name! This is bad... she thought, frantically calculating whether she could make it to the door before he caught her. If only she’d managed to overcome her distaste for the local cuisine, she could have been eating better and she would have been stronger...
No-one in the Congo, she’d thought, knew who Lorna Lynch, biologist, really was. Her cover had been perfect.
Not quite perfect. Someone had penetrated it.
She gathered her strength and tensed, preparing to make a run for it. Her captor was watching her, something in his expression which actually looked like... concern.
“Lois,” he said again. He moved closer towards her, cutting off her exit. “Look, I guess you must be wondering where you are. And who the heck I am -”
‘The heck’? Who was this guy? Some hick from the sticks? Who the hell used words like ‘heck’ these days? Nobody in Metropolis, that was for sure. And he was wrong: she wasn’t wondering who he was. She knew. He worked for Mr Big.
“This is going to seem kind of weird,” he was saying. “But this is 1998. December 1998. And you’re in my apartment, in Metropolis. I’m Clark Kent - I’m a reporter at the Daily Planet.”
Lois froze. This was... this was
crazy! Who did he think she was?
“First off, buster,” she said, “You do not work for the Daily Planet. Believe me, I would know if you did. Second, you’re a little off with your dates there. This is 1993. Spring 1993. So you better just get back to whatever funny farm you escaped from, Mr Kent - ”
She broke off abruptly as her captor simply... disappeared. There was a whoosh of wind and he just wasn’t there any more.
And then, just as quickly, there was another whoosh and he was back. And he was holding a newspaper.
“I’m sorry about this, you know,” he was saying meekly. “If it was up to me, you wouldn’t have had this shock. But take a look - you’ll see that I’m right.”
He held the newspaper out to her. It was a copy of the Daily Planet. She looked at the date on the front cover. It said Thursday December 24, 1998.
And the front-page lead story was
Superman Saves Christmas! - by Clark Kent.
Lois stared at the newspaper, not understanding.
“How can this be?” she asked, not really expecting an answer. “Yesterday it was March 14th. 1993. I know it was! And... who’s this ‘Superman’?” she added sceptically, treating the name with distaste. Superman? What sort of a name was that? Who on earth would masquerade under that alias?
Her captor - or Clark Kent - gave her a sheepish smile. “Actually... I’m Superman. And, by the way, I didn’t write that headline,” he added, grimacing.
Lois stared at him. “You? Just a minute ago, you told me your name was Clark Kent,” she threw at him sceptically.
“It is. I’m also Superman, that’s all,” he said with an awkward shrug. “Look, that bit doesn’t matter, and I’ll explain it all later anyway if you really want to know. I’d have thought you’d be more interested in knowing how you got to 1998 and what you’re doing here.”
She did. He was darned right about that one!
“So?” she challenged him. “What crazy explanation do you have for that? I suppose I just went to sleep in 1993 and slept like Rip Van Winkle?”
He gave her a slight shrug. “Actually, no - but I don’t think you’re gonna like what I’m going to tell you much better.”
“Oh yeah?”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked her.
She was about to answer, but then hesitated. What *was* the last thing she remembered?
She’d been in the jungle, because that was where her leads had taken her. And for several nights she’d been camping out, waiting for something to happen. Then, suddenly, something had - an old Jeep had come crashing through the undergrowth, its occupants dressed in denim and fatigues and carrying machine-guns.
She’d been seen - that much she did remember. And she’d taken off, running through the trees and vegetation, dodging bullets, afraid for her life.
And then... nothing.
No, wait. There had been something. Someone had called her name. She’d distinctly heard a strange voice - and a strange accent - calling, “Miss Lane!” Hadn’t she?
She related her confused memories to the man who called himself Clark. And he nodded.
“That man was a friend of mine,” he said. “And he saved your life, Lois - you were just about to be shot, but he pulled you into his... well, his travelling machine, and brought you here.”
Lois frowned. She did seem to remember something grabbing her arm... “What travelling machine?” she demanded suspiciously. The only vehicle she remembered seeing was the Jeep the bandits had been in.
“His time machine,” Clark said.
*********
Lois leaned back against the shower wall, letting the blissful warm water wash over her. It had been days - years, she amended, reminding herself that she was now apparently in 1998 - since she’d had a proper shower.
She now believed Clark Kent’s story. Well, she hadn’t really had much option; he’d taken her into his sitting-room and turned on the TV, and she hadn’t been able to deny that it was Christmas 1998. Well, unless Clark had somehow taken over all the TV stations in the city, or even the country, to perpetrate an elaborate hoax.
She had been brought into the future by a time-machine. That had been the hardest of all to believe, but over a delicious breakfast - which he’d made himself and which had impressed her no end - Clark had told her all about his friend HG Wells. Yes, a dead writer, she’d had to believe that too - and about his own experience of travelling in the time machine with Wells. Apparently they’d gone together back in time to the Congo a few months earlier, but hadn’t found any sign of her. Wells, it seemed, had continued searching.
And just as well, too - if he hadn’t come upon her at that precise moment, she would have been dead.
“Why didn’t he take you further back, to before I left Metropolis for the Congo?” she’d asked Clark, eyeing him somewhat suspiciously over a mug of coffee.
He’d shrugged. “I’m not sure. But put it this way, Lois - if two strangers had appeared out of nowhere at that point in your life and advised you not to go to the Congo, what would you have done?”
Now, that was a no-brainer. She’d have assumed that she was being warned off, and that would only have made her all the more determined to go.
“But why you?” she’d asked him. “What’s your interest in me?”
He’d flushed at that, then busied himself getting more coffee - something she’d recognised as a delaying tactic. Then he’d turned back to her. “That’s a long story, Lois, and not one I really want to get into right now.”
“Okay,” she’d said, not happy with his answer and very determined to get the full explanation out of him later - including why he was so reluctant to tell her. ‘Okay’, she was very well aware, but she hoped that Clark Kent was not, meant that she was biding her time and would return to the subject when it suited her. Like some time very soon. “Tell me about Superman instead.”
Superman.
She threw her head back, letting the water stream over her face.
Superman. He’d spun around on the spot, and when he’d stopped he’d been wearing this brightly-coloured ski suit.
Blue. And red. And splashes of yellow. And a big S slap bang in the middle of his chest.
“What’s this? A clown outfit?” she’d been in the middle of asking, when he’d suddenly...
... drifted upwards, turned a slow somersault in the air and then walked along the ceiling.
She’d been very glad to be sitting down at the time.
Superman. The world’s superhero, he’d explained. He was actually from another planet - so maybe, Lois reflected, deliberately delaying in the shower longer than necessary, that time machine stuff wasn’t the weirdest of all the stuff she’d been hit with in the last couple of hours.
She considered the list.
She was in 1998, not 1993.
She’d lost five years of her life.
She’d been brought there in a time machine - by a dead writer.
The man who was her host was an alien.
He could also fly.
Nope, not much could beat that. In fact, she thought, that had better be all of the crazy things he planned on throwing at her. Otherwise she’d been checking herself into the funny farm!
And then there was Clark himself. The man - not the guy in the ski suit, not the alien, not the time-traveller’s companion.
Clark Kent, reporter for the Daily Planet and apparent saviour of damsels in distress.
He still hadn’t told her just why he was interested in her - why he even knew about her, though she could probably guess at the answer to that one.
Perry White. Her former editor, now apparently, according to Clark, Mayor of Metropolis.
Perry as mayor - now, that was a good one. It was sure to be worth at least twenty minutes of teasing when she saw him again. The fearless investigator, exposer of wrongdoing, eternal critic of those in charge of running things - now running the city himself.
She just hoped that the Planet was holding Mayor White to the same high standards that he used to hold elected officials to when he was editor. Though she also thought, knowing Perry, that he would hold himself to high standards anyway. That was something she’d have to ask Clark about...
Clark.
Her host.
The guy was far too good-looking for his own good! And, now that she knew about his extra-curricular activities, she suspected that he had women throwing themselves at him all the time.
Well, she wasn’t throwing herself at him. Even if he was the most attractive man she’d ever met.
Attractiveness counted for nothing, she told herself quickly. After all, she'd met plenty of good-looking guys who’d turned out to be complete louses - untrustworthy, full of themselves and promiscuous. She’d also exposed a few of them for the criminals that they were.
But he’s one of the good guys, her inner self piped up.
He’s Superman!Good guy or not, one thing was for sure: if she stayed around him for very long, she was going to find herself falling for him. She already knew that. Something about him was already beginning to sneak through her defences. And that was far from sensible.
For all she knew, anyway, he already had a girlfriend. Or a wife.
Decisively, Lois switched off the controls and stretched out an arm, looking for a towel. The sooner she got herself sorted out, the better. She couldn’t hang around in Clark Kent’s apartment indefinitely. She had a place of her own - though she supposed that if she hadn’t been there for five years it was no longer her place.
Family, she thought as she dried herself briskly. No matter that she and her mother weren’t close - she’d just come back after being missing for five years, so surely Ellen Lane would be pleased to see her older daughter? Or there was Lucy. Of course she had somewhere to go.
Dressing quickly again in the grubby clothes she wished she could throw out - but she had nothing else to wear - Lois exited the bathroom, preparing to thank Clark Kent very much for his hospitality and get out of his way.
Christmas 1998. Pretty much like Christmas 1992, she mused, the bleak thought hitting her abruptly. She didn’t have anyone special to spend the season with then, either, and she’d been faced with the choice of working or gritting her teeth and putting up with her mom spending the whole day complaining to her daughters about how she’d given up her youth to bring them up, and now she was alone and unappreciated.
And drunk.
To Lois’s dismay, a tear trickled down her cheek, landing with a plop on her hand.
********
After Lois had gone for a shower, Clark had glanced around his apartment and had suddenly been struck by the stark, bare look of the place. It was Christmas, and he didn’t even have so much as a piece of tinsel.
That had suited him just fine a mere few hours ago. But now that he had a guest - now that
Lois was back - it was appalling. He’d decided that he had to do something about it.
So he’d zipped out, taken a quick flight to northern Michigan and chopped down a spruce tree. The tree was now standing in the corner of his living-room and he was busy arranging decorations on it at Superspeed. Decorations he had plenty of; the Christmas he was engaged to Lana, she’d insisted that he
had to decorate his apartment, and of course the ones she’d wanted had all been expensive and very classy.
Though he had to admit, now, that they looked great on his tree and around his living-room.
The shower had stopped, he realised. Lois must be getting out. And that reminded him that she had no clean clothes; only the dirty, torn clothes she’d arrived in. And there was something he could do about that.
Some time before, when she’d moved from Metropolis to LA, Lucy Lane had given Clark the boxes of Lois’s possessions that she’d been looking after ever since she’d cleaned out Lois’s apartment once it had been generally accepted that Lois wasn’t coming back. Clark had met Lucy when he’d first started to look for Lois, and in a way, other than Perry, Lucy was the only person who liked him for Clark Kent and not because he was Superman. He thought of her as a little sister, and he occasionally flew to LA just to check in on her.
And now, because he had Lois’s boxes, he also had her clothes. And he could tell her that, he realised. He hurried into the bedroom, just in time to see her emerge from the bathroom, dressed in the clothes she’d been wearing when she arrived.
“Lois, I’ve got some boxes upstairs with your things in them,” he began. And then he noticed the tear rolling down her cheek.
“Lois?” he questioned, horrified.
“You have my things?” she demanded, scrubbing at her eye with the back of her hand. “What are you doing with my things?”
“Your sister gave them to me,” he explained. “Lois, what’s wrong? Is it something I’ve done? Can I help?”
She wasn’t looking at him now, which meant that she was obviously upset but trying not to show it. Clark bit his lip. What had he expected, after all? The poor woman had been torn out of her past and taken here to a future which made no sense at all to her. She’d woken up in the apartment of a man she’d never met before and who she’d soon discovered was an alien. And she’d probably figured out what he hadn’t told her: that everyone she knew thought she was dead.
Which she had been, in fact; it was just that now she’d been rescued from her past in the second before her life would have ended.
She probably wanted to be anywhere but here - anywhere but with a man she didn’t even know - on Christmas Day.
Why had he ever thought that this would be easy? What on earth had ever made him believe that all he needed was for Lois Lane -
his Lois Lane - to be found and come home for him to be happy and fulfilled?
Foolishly, he’d imagined that she would take one look at him and fall in love. Just as he had with her - or rather, he corrected himself, with
her, Lois’s other-world counterpart. But why on earth should she? She didn’t know him from Adam. And besides, she was her own person. Just because her name was Lois Lane, he shouldn’t expect her to fall in love with a Clark Kent.
Besides, he remembered suddenly, the other Lois had told him that, while her Clark had fallen in love with her at first sight, she’d taken quite a bit longer to realise that he was her destiny. Of course, in their case Superman had got in the way and confused matters, which wasn’t the case here - but still. Why on earth should Lois take one look at him and fall in love? Or even want to spend more than one minute in his company?
She didn’t. That was clear.
Okay. So he needed to accept that and do something about it. Now.
He could offer to fly her to LA, he thought; Lucy would no doubt be delighted to see her, and it would be a wonderful reunion for the sisters. The perfect Christmas present. Or, if Lois wanted more time to prepare for meeting her sister again, he could take her to Perry’s. At least then she’d be with someone she knew.
And he would be alone again.
But then, he was used to that. So what was new?
“Look, Lois,” he said quietly, “ just because Wells brought you here, that doesn’t mean that you have to stay here if you don’t want to. I mean, I could understand it if you’d prefer to be somewhere else. I could fly you to LA to see your sister...”
She turned to face him so suddenly that he was taken by surprise. “Lucy’s in LA? And how come she gave you my stuff, anyway?”
Clark grimaced; he hadn’t wanted to voice aloud the fact that people thought her dead. “She’d been keeping it all for you ever since she cleaned out your apartment after you never came back from the Congo. She... well, Lucy never wanted to believe you were dead, even though Perry organised the memorial service and everything. That was before I came to Metropolis,” he added. “They both told me all about it once I... found out about you and started looking for you. Anyway, last summer Lucy moved to LA - she got a promotion for moving out West - and she couldn’t take all your things with her. So I offered to keep them. I’ve got the space.”
“Oh.” Now she sounded very deflated, and he could see more tears. “Everyone thinks I’m dead?” she asked in a small voice.
Clark nodded. “I’m sorry, Lois. Look, if there was any way I could contact HG Wells, I could ask him if he’d take you back to 1993 - if I went back with him, we could still rescue you and get you back to Metropolis, and then you wouldn’t have to go through all this,” he suggested weakly, feeling helpless in his inability to give her what she needed.
But, to his surprise, she shook her head. “No. I can’t go back. I’m here now - okay, so I’ve missed out on five years, but I guess I’ll soon get up to speed on what’s changed. What about my mother?”
She was sounding stronger; Clark had to admire the way she was pulling herself together. But he had more bad news for her. “Lois, I’m sorry; your mother died two years ago.”
“Oh, god...” she muttered. “Let me guess... liver failure or something like that?”
Clark nodded. “I’m sorry.”
But she shook her head. “It’s only what I’ve been expecting for years. But still... she died thinking that I was dead...”
The tears were now falling freely again, and this time Clark didn’t hesitate. With one swift movement, she was in his arms and he was cradling her against his chest, murmuring soft words to her as he stroked her hair.
It was tearing him apart to cause her so much pain. If he could take it all from her, carry it all inside himself, he’d do it in a heartbeat. But, for all his powers, that wasn’t something he was able to do.
And so he did the only thing he could. He held her tightly and let her sob away the pain in his arms.
*********
Alone.
She had jumped five years into the future, and she was every bit as alone now as she had been in her past. More so, in fact. Lucy was thousands of miles away, and her mother was...
Dead.
Not that that was anything of a surprise, of course - and in a way, Ellen Lane, or at least the Ellen Lane she and Lucy had loved as their mother, had died long ago. It had all happened when their father had been killed, murdered by a drug-crazed young man looking for money for his next fix. Sam Lane, on the way home from another late-night stint in the emergency room, had intervened to save a woman on the hospital staff from being mugged in the hospital parking lot, and had been stabbed in the stomach for his pains. And he’d died within the hour.
Left bereft by the loss of the husband she’d loved, Ellen had turned to alcohol; not even the love and needs of her two daughters had been enough to persuade her that she had anything to live for. Lois had practically brought up Lucy herself, trying to shield her younger sister from their mother’s binges and depression. It hadn’t worked; even by the time she was thirteen Lucy knew how important it was to tell her sister if she saw any alcohol in the house.
By five years ago, Ellen Lane had retreated into a world of her own, a place where neither of her daughters could reach her. She’d been in and out of rehab several times, but nothing could persuade her to give up the one crutch which seemed to help her through life. Driven more by duty than love, Lois and Lucy had continued to visit her regularly and take care of her when she needed it.
And now all that was over. She was dead - and Lois was alone.
No. Not quite alone.
She was being held securely in the strongest arms she’d ever felt holding her. She was resting against the most solid, welcoming chest she’d ever known. Not even her father’s embraces, when she’d been a small child, had felt as comforting.
This man - this stranger, Clark Kent - was offering her a haven. And she felt safe, secure, as long as he was holding her. As long as he went on holding her next to his heart, she felt as if she need never be afraid again.
Taking a shuddering breath, Lois relaxed further against him and allowed him to rock her until the tears stopped flowing.
But then she remembered that she had no right to be letting Clark Kent act as her personal comforter. He didn’t even know her. He’d never met her before that friend of his had brought her to his apartment a mere few hours before. Why should she expect him to put up with her? Come to that, she didn’t even know why she’d been brought to him, unless it was because he was Superman - did Wells expect Clark to return her to her family?
And anyway, why had Clark been searching for her in the first place? She’d resolved to get that story out of him, of course.
He clearly felt her stirring; his arms dropped and he stepped back. “I’ll just get your clothes,” he said, and... suddenly he just wasn’t there any more. But then she blinked and he was back, carrying a cardboard carton.
“I scanned this one,” he said, gesturing to his eyes, and she realised that he meant he’d... simply looked through the cardboard to see what was inside. “Looks like it has winter clothes.”
“Thanks,” she said in muted tones. “I’ll just...” She waved vaguely towards the bathroom, behind her.
“No need,” he said quickly. “I’ll just... I’ll be outside.”
He left, and Lois sighed in relief. His presence was far too much of a distraction, and she had too many things to deal with - too many decisions to make. Such as, where exactly was she going to go, given that this was Christmas Day? And how was she going to explain her return from the dead?
Just concentrate on the here and now, she told herself, pulling open the carton Clark had left for her. As he’d said, it contained winter clothes - clothes which she’d seen only weeks earlier, but which, of course, had been packed up for almost five years. Sighing, she pulled out a sweater, shaking out the creases which had accumulated over the time - that had been newly purchased just a few weeks before she left for the Congo.
It was red, green and white - very seasonal, in fact. And she had a pair of black jeans which looked great with it... now, where were they? A quick rummage found them at the bottom of the box. And, to her relief, there was also a pile of underwear near the bottom; she hadn’t really wanted to go and ask Clark to find her underwear for her.
But then, she reminded herself, he’d scanned the box before bringing it to her. He’d probably deliberately brought one which had underwear in it.
Okay. She would get dressed, and worry about what she was going to do after that.
Returning to the kitchen a few minutes later, Lois had made up her mind: she was going to ask Clark to take her to Lucy’s new home. He’d offered to fly her there, after all, so it would be a reasonable request. And if she took him up on it, she’d be getting out of his way, and she’d also get to see Lucy again. Even if it might well be a difficult meeting: quite apart from the need for explanations, unless Lucy had changed markedly, she was probably living with a man, and her boyfriend might not be particularly happy about his girlfriend’s sister turning up on their doorstep out of the blue at Christmas. Lois would really have preferred to make her initial contact with Lucy by phone - but, she told herself, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Clark was standing by the sink, clearly just finishing clearing up after their breakfast. He turned at her approach - she thought she hadn’t made a sound, but then, she supposed that Superman was probably Super in the area of hearing too. Smiling lightly at her, he said, “So - what would you like to do? I can fly you to LA, as I said, or I could take you to the Whites - I know that Perry would love to see you. I discovered very quickly, once I knew about you, that he thinks of you like a daughter.”
Perry... It was tempting. But, on the other hand, Lois wasn’t sure that she was ready yet to meet Mayor White.
So Lucy it would have to be.
She took a deep breath, about to speak and tell Clark so, when something caught her eye. Something bright and sparkling and flashing...
She turned to see what it was, and noticed the Christmas tree standing in the living room of Clark’s apartment, just below the steps leading to the door. It was somewhat inexpertly covered with red and gold decorations. And around the living room there were strands of tinsel and sprigs of holly.
None of that had been there when they’d had breakfast. She knew it; she’d actually noticed the lack of decorations. There hadn’t even been one piece of holly anywhere in the apartment.
Clark had decorated for Christmas. And since he hadn’t done it before this morning... he had to have done it for her.
She stole a look at him. He knew what she was looking at, that much was clear, and a tiny muscle twitched in his jaw. And she noticed something about Clark Kent that she hadn’t realised, and that if anyone had suggested to her about him she would have laughed in disbelief.
He was lonely, too.
“Lois?” His prompting reminded her that he was still waiting for an answer.
“Uhh...” She hesitated, still wondering what the right thing to do was, but then made a sudden decision. “Clark, I’m really not sure that I’m ready to meet anyone yet.”
His smile could have powered the city’s grid for a week. “Then you don’t have to. You can stay here for as long as you want.”
********
...tbc
