He looked different.
His hair was longer, styled in a much more modern fashion than when she’d seen him only hours ago. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and he was wearing black slacks, a black vest, and a pinstriped burgundy shirt. The clothes looked as though they were tailored and expensive.
She’d been afraid that he’d look older, but he didn’t. Still, the way he stood was much less formal that what she’d grown used to.
He was talking to a police officer and didn’t seem to notice her. Lois stopped, her heart in her throat.
How long had it been for him? Had his feelings changed?
Their romance was still raw for her, and she wasn’t sure if she could bear it if he was to turn away.
In his world, she was something special, a modern woman with modern ideas. In this world, she was just one woman among many, and a man who looked like Clark wouldn’t lack for female companionship.
The idea that he’d come here out of a sense of obligation tore at her.
He stopped, suddenly, and turned slowly in her direction. As his eyes met hers, his expression lit up into an expression of joy.
Despite the presence of the police, Lois found herself flying into his arms.
************
She wouldn’t have expected him to drive a Prius.
In truth, she hadn’t envisioned him as driving at all. He could fly, after all, and cars had been a rarity in his time.
Yet he drove like someone who’d been driving for a long time.
She couldn’t stop looking at him, but she was afraid to ask the one question that had been plaguing her mind since she’d met him.
“How long has it been?” she asked.
“It feels like forever,” he said.
Even his speech patterns had changed. His speech was much less formal than it had been, although the longer he talked to her the more he seemed to be slipping back into his old accent.
“Really,” she said.
“Fifteen years,” he said.
Lois stared at him, aghast.
“You don’t look any older,” she said finally.
“I’m not like other men,” he reminded her. “I just didn’t realize how different.”
“I’m sorry.”
She should have been there to introduce him to this new world. She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to be trapped in a world where no one you’d known was alive. He’d been utterly alone, and she’d never told him exactly when she’d come from.
“How did you find me?”
“It wasn’t that hard,” Clark said. “You told me you lived in Metropolis and that your father was a physician. They had telephone directories in my time.”
She’d have been eleven years old when he’d arrived. She tried not to think about the despair he must have felt when he’d realized the gulf that separated them.
“So what did you do when you found out you’d shown up early?”
“The public library became my home for a time,” Clark said. “You’d be surprised the kind of education you can find if you read the right book. Fortunately, I’m a very quick reader.”
“Still…” Lois said. “How could you eat, or find a place to live? Metropolis isn’t exactly an inexpensive town.”
Without any identification, even renting a hotel room would be almost impossible.
“I like to eat, but apparently I don’t have to,” Clark said. “Yet another way I discovered myself to be different from other men. I don’t need much more than three hours of sleep a night and I slept on roofs sometimes.”
He’d been homeless.
“That didn’t last long,” Clark said. “I’d always wanted to travel the world, and since I couldn’t be around you, I decided that was exactly what I’d do.”
“Why couldn’t you be around me?”
He glanced over at her. “The temptation, especially once you became an adult. If you knew me before you went back, it would risk changing everything. Yet how could I be around you without being tempted to stumble into your life in one way or another?”
Lois was silent, staring at the dash in front of her.
“I’d seen flashes of your life in my journey forward in time,’ Clark continued. “You seem remarkably prone to danger. But I had to have faith that you would be all right without me.”
“You didn’t have any identification, citizenship papers. How could you get a job?”
“I worked unskilled jobs in places around the world,” Clark said. “Eventually I found a crab fisherman in Alaska who was willing to give me a chance. It’s a profitable profession.”
Lois supposed it wouldn’t have been as dangerous to him, given his strength and his reduced need for sleep.
“This world of yours has so many people in need,” Clark said. “I discovered that I enjoy helping people where I can. My abilities have helped me make a difference.”
“I heard you were a writer?” Lois asked. She wasn’t sure just how Clark was using his abilities, but she supposed she’d have plenty of time to find out.
She was just having trouble imagining how he’d adapted to her world.
“I helped a government agent out of a few tight spots,” Clark said. “He helped create an identity for me. From what I was willing to tell him, he assumed I was from an Amish family and had no identification. This was before 2001, when things were a little more lax.”
He turned down a side road.
“Once I had the proper papers, I was able to put money in a bank, pay taxes, buy a home. Crab fishing only takes part of the year, and after just a few years traveling was losing its appeal. I eventually went back to my old dream and started to write.”
“I found some success in writing historical novels, historical novels and oddly enough, science fiction. People seem to enjoy the way I’m able to describe the past.”
“The police officer’s wife wanted an autograph,” Lois said.
“I rent a lake house here every year, on the other side of the lake from the island. A few people have commented on my resemblance to myself; I don’t spent a lot of time on the island because of it. Some people assume I’m my own descendent. I’m relatively well known among a small circle of readers.”
Lois wondered why she hadn’t uncovered any of this during her search about Clark Kent the last time. She’d been rushed and more focused on the ghost angle and she hadn’t had time to ask the right people in town.
He turned another corner, down a dirt road, and behind a grove of trees, a large white house came into view facing the lake.
“Some success?” Lois asked.
“It’s a rental,” Clark said. “I’ve continued crab fishing, although the industry has changed somewhat, and I have made some wise investments. When I saw the IPhone introduced, I invested in Apple and I began keeping a closer eye on your life.”
Lois looked at him, startled. Things were starting to fall into place. There had been a few miraculous escapes in her life when the ghost hadn’t shown up, but seemingly impossible things had happened.
“You saved me,” Lois said. She hesitated. “How many times?”
“More than I’d like,” Clark said. He glanced at her, “You are horrifyingly danger prone, especially since you have become a reporter.”
“I thought you were avoiding me, because of the temptation.”
He shrugged as he pulled into the driveway. “I couldn’t risk missing your return, either. I’m only sorry that I didn’t get here sooner. I thought I’d have time, but when I heard the borealis had been seen, I knew I had to come.”
“You can’t be there for me all the time,” Lois said.
The thought that someone had been watching over her for much of her adult life should have seemed stalker-ish, even creepy, but somehow it comforted her instead.
“I promised to protect you,” Clark said. “And I will keep that promise, even if your feelings for me should change.”
“It’s only been a few hours for me,” Lois said. “Why would my feelings change?”
He stopped car, shifted it into park and switched off the ignition.
“I’ve done a lot of reading,” he said. “People who are separated from everything they know can become…vulnerable. I’d never take advantage…”
Lois put her hand on his arm. “I’ve been worried your feelings for me would change.”
He shook his head. “As I followed your life and saw your courage and determination and drive, my feelings have only grown deeper. I love you, and that’s not going to change no matter what happens.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to live with me day to day,” Lois said. “I had roommates in college, and they were always complaining that I was stubborn and controlling and overbearing.”
“I can be stubborn,” Clark admitted. “And there are some aspects of this new world that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to accept. Twerking, for example…”
Lois shuddered.
“So we take it slow, get to know each other better.”
Clark smiled. “In my time, I’d have asked your father for permission to court you.”
“It’s not your time,” Lois said firmly. “The only person you have to ask now is me. The answer, if you want to know, is yes.”
He smiled slowly, and Lois felt a flutter in her stomach. She wondered how long her proposition that they take it slow would last.
****************
It didn’t last the evening.
Somehow, Lois didn’t mind.
Over the next weeks and months she discovered that what she’d thought was love with Clark was a pale imitation of what she felt as she grew to know him.
He was gentle and caring, modern in ways that she loved, but old fashioned in ways that were important as well. He was a gentleman, and a gentle man.
She’d fought her entire life to prove to her father that she was just as good as the boy he’d really wanted. With Clark, though, she discovered that she had nothing to prove. He’d known exactly what he was getting into long before she’d had any inkling he even existed.
He cared about people in ways that Lois wasn’t sure she, herself was capable of. He went out of his way to help people that Lois wouldn’t have given a second glance. She found herself softening as she spent more time with him.
He made her a better person, and yet she challenged him in ways that he hadn’t expected.
His panoply of abilities astonished her, but he never let them go to his head. Anyone else would have been corrupted by the tremendous power he had, but he was humble.
It became harder and harder to remember a time when she hadn’t been with him.
Despite his time in her world, there were still things that she got to introduce him to. There was an endless number of movies and of music that he hadn’t experienced, and she always felt thrilled to share another thing that she loved with him.
Getting him to wear a costume and go public as a superhero had been like pulling teeth; he was modest and any costume that would last had to be skin tight. Despite that, he insisted on more modest outfits that kept being destroyed.
Still, he could afford them, and as time went on, he and Lois were only growing closer.
Her life with him was rich and interesting, and far superior to anything she’d known before.
She’d once believed that there wasn’t a man in the world who could keep up with her. As it turned out, she’d been right.
It had taken a man who wasn’t from this world at all, or from this time, but in the end all that mattered was that they’d found each other.
Lois wasn’t sure that she believed in soulmates, but if they existed, she’d found hers.
Life was good.
Last edited by ShayneT; 09/21/14 06:18 PM.
