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Two Days Together

Rated - PG 13

Posting Schedule - I'll try for once a week.

Thanks to my wonderful, patient, inspiring BR, Iolanthe. She has been waiting over a month for Part 6. Sigh. Io - I'm posting this now to try to get momentum to get the fic finished.

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are not mine. Dialogue from the opening scene is taken from "Barbarians at the Planet" by Dan Levine & Deborah Joy LeVine. Assume cannon up to this scene, but anything after this is fair game!



Part 1

Clark Kent walked out of the LNN building with Lois Lane by his side. The sun was shining, its cheery brightness in stark contrast to the heavy fog of pessimism gripping his heart.

Was everything he loved - everything he hoped for - in danger of slipping beyond his reach?

Would he be able to find the words? Would he be able to do justice to the depth and intensity of his feelings? Would he be able to make her understand?

His instincts were abuzz with warning; his timing was terribly wrong.

But the choice was no longer his. Lois had asked him - challenged him - with the words, "What about us?"

He'd had to respond. He had to tell her the truth. He had one chance to change the course of their destiny.

Could he do it?

He didn't know. And that scared him more than Kryptonite did.

They entered the park, walking together as they had done countless times before - Lois at Clark's shoulder, his stride shortened to match the exact rhythm of her heels on the pavement.

"What do you want to talk about, Clark?"

His moment had come. He wasn't ready. He doubted he would ever be ready. His mind was a whirl of feelings, real and tangible, but nevertheless eminently unsuited to the precision required by spoken words.

Carried forward by a rib-expanding breath, he began. "When I thought about losing my job at the Daily Planet, saying goodbye to Perry, and Jimmy, and everyone ... I realised something." He switched hands - the right one into his pocket and the left one out - as if in hope that it carried the necessary power to imbue his words with clarity. "I realised that I could lose all of that and still go on." Lois was looking at him, her beautiful brown eyes brimming with questions. Clark swapped hands again. "I realised that there was really only one thing I didn't want to live without ... and that …" He met her eyes, willing her to understand, begging her to see through his faltering words and into his heart, imploring her to respond. "… was you. Seeing you every day, working with you, just being with you."

Her impassive mask crinkled to a smile, and her hand grasped his arm, guiding him towards the nearby bench. "Well," she said eagerly, "that's why you should come and be my partner -"

"No," he cut in as they sat down together. "Lois, listen to me. I'm not talking about the partnership. I'm talking about … us." He said the final word softly, giving it due reverence. Her expression remained blank, however, her eyes refusing to connect with his as they darted around his face. Desperation welled inside him, tainted with despair. Strangely, it brought calm in the midst of the storm. He found her eyes, held them, and finally spoke the truth forever engraved across his heart. "I have been in love with you for a long time." The truth was out, spoken aloud, no longer hidden. "You had to have known."

Her eyes dropped. Her head turned away. She stared at the ground as hope bled from his heart. She winced as she looked up, a fleeting, quivery glance to his face as her mouth opened to deliver her verdict. "I … I mean I …"

He looked down, too, unable to bear the stinging lash of a truth that could no longer be denied.

She broke into the short silence. "I knew …"

At her words, he forced his head up, in direct opposition to his inner compulsion to cringe from the rejection he knew awaited him.

Lois continued. "I mean I guess I knew … that you liked me, were attracted to me …"

Their eyes met, and until this moment, he had not known that looking at the woman he loved could incite such raging, fiery pain.

"Oh, Clark." Her eyes sought the ground again, perhaps to give them both a moment to brace for the final blow. "I'm sorry. I just don't feel that way about you ... You know, romantically."

His world crumbled to dust, arid and desolate.

"You're my best friend, and the only partner I could ever stand to work with," she said. "I admire you, and I respect you, and I do love you … as a friend."

He had dreamed … longed … to hear Lois say that she loved him. Now, she had, and the words flayed like a whip. He stood, moving a couple of steps away. When he turned back, he said, "And what about Luthor? Do you love him?"

Her breath was pressed from between lips whose wan smile suggested relief that perhaps the worst of his interrogation was over. "I don't know," she said, almost lightly. "I mean, I have feelings for him."

Another squall of anguish battered his heart.

"I haven't said 'yes', yet," she added.

That information brought little respite.

"And I won't until I've talked it over with someone else."

He knew. Of course, he knew. But he was in no mood to make this easy for her. "Who?"

Lois's head rose, her gaze seeing right through him as she usually did. "I think you know," she said, not realising that she had just condemned him to suffer this conversation twice. "If you see him, will you tell him I'm looking for him?"

Clark nodded. Because Lois had asked. And when Lois asked him anything … "Yeah," he muttered. He gestured over his shoulder. "I gotta ... work." He turned from the scene where his dreams had died and trudged away.

They had walked here together.

He was leaving alone.

Alone with the harsh answer to the question he had obsessed over since the first moment he had met Lois Lane. Could she ever love him?

The answer, clearly, was 'no'.

And his heart was shattering into a million tiny pieces.

~^~^~

Lois watched him go, her heart heavy.

She would have done anything to avoid hurting Clark. Anything. But he'd said the words that had left her with no choice. She didn't love him. Not in the sense of marrying him and living with him for the rest of her life.

She just didn't.

And that wasn't her fault.

He should have realised that exposing his heart would leave him vulnerable. He should have realised the obvious implications of her considering Lex's proposal. He should have …

But listing all the things that Clark should have done didn't alleviate the stony presence in her gut - the feeling that there should have been a way to avoid this exchange. A way to avoid hurting her best friend.

An old man wandered over and sat down on the bench.

Lois frowned. She couldn't bear to go anywhere near the burnt-out ruins of the Planet building. She didn't want to go to any of the usual coffee haunts she shared with Clark. She couldn't go anywhere that would put her at risk of running into him.

Her best chance of avoiding him was to stay right here - sharing the bench with an old dude who looked as if he had just stepped off the set of a period movie.

He turned to her and smiled. She turned away, pointedly staring across the park.

"Hello, Lois," he said quietly.

Her head swung around, she took a micro-second to ascertain that she didn't know him, and then she slapped him with a harsh glare. "What are you?" she said. "Some sort of sick stalker?"

That seemed to amuse him. "Perhaps I am a stalker of sorts," he said, his English accent becoming more prominent. "But I don't mean you any harm. I'm just trying to help."

"You could help by leaving me alone," Lois said. She clutched her bag tightly. "I have Mace."

"I am not here to hurt you," he said. "I would just like to inquire if you have made a decision regarding Mr Luthor's proposal yet?"

Lois lurched from the seat and turned on him. "I'm calling the police," she threatened.

"Why?" he enquired mildly. "I merely asked you a question."

"A question that is none of your business," she fired at him. "But seeing as you asked, I have some questions of my own." She clasped the zipper of her bag, poised to strike if he should make one move towards her. "How do you know details of my personal life? Do you have spies tailing me? Why me? Is it just me? Did I write something that upset you? Or do you do this to multiple young women because it gives you some sort of sick thrill?"

"That's six questions," he said. "Which would you prefer I answer first?"

"How do you know that Lex Luthor proposed to me? Have you been spying on us?"

"Not unless you consider reading history to be spying."

Lois's mouth dropped open at the inanity of his reply, but then snapped shut as she realised she had just wasted a minute of her life attempting meaningful communication with a fruitcake. She marched away from the bench. "I hope you have a nice life," she flung over her shoulder.

"Thank you, Ms Lane," he returned. "I've already had several."

Yep, he was unhinged. Delusional.

"You didn't answer my question," he said from behind her.

Lois spun around. He'd followed her and was just a couple of inches away. "Which question would that be?" she snapped.

"Are you going to marry Mr Luthor?"

"If I am," she said coldly, "don't you think I should give him the honour of informing him first?"

"Why are you even considering it?"

There was no possible reason why this old man deserved an answer, but perhaps talking to him would give her more clarity than she had achieved from scratching through the pottage of indecision festering in her mind. "Because Lex is ..." He was what? "He's handsome," she said.

"And?"

He was rich. But if she said that, she was going to look like a gold-digger, and Lex's money wasn't all that important. It was just the adjective that popped into her brain when she thought about him. "He's charming," Lois said hurriedly. "And suave. And successful. And he loves me."

"Eighty percent," the strange man mused.

"Eighty percent what?" she spat.

"You're eighty percent right," he said. "At best."

Realising she had listed five attributes, Lois had to wonder which one this dweeb had assumed was incorrect. Before she could decide, he spoke again.

"Why would you marry Lex Luthor?"

"I already told you." Lois counted off her fingers. "Handsome, charming -"

"None of those comes close to the real reason why you're considering his proposal."

"How would you -" But he was right. He was exactly right. She'd never succeeded in completely escaping the real reason why she was considering marriage to Lex Luthor. But now, for the first time, she found the words to admit it. "Because the man I love, I can't have."

"And the man you think you can have, you will never love."

Lois wanted to laugh scornfully, but something held her back. That also was the truth. She would never love Lex.

But she was going to marry him. She was going to marry him because ... because one woman could only survive so many federal disasters. If she were married, she would be unavailable. Taken. No more bad dates. No more wondering. No more -

"Come and sit down," the man said. "I would like to talk to you."

"We have been talking," she said churlishly. But she followed him back to the bench and settled beside him, ensuring she remained just beyond touching distance.

"You know Superman?" he said.

"You mean that wasn't in your 'history'?" she asked sarcastically.

"It was rhetorical," he said. "I know you know him. I know you know he can fly."

Lois eyed him suspiciously, wondering why he had brought Superman into the conversation that was supposed to be about her marrying Lex. "How is Superman's ability to fly relevant?"

"It's an illustration," he said. "An illustration of how one's mind can be stretched to accept things one would not have previously believed possible."

"OK," Lois said slowly.

"I'm HG Wells," he said.

"The writer?" she said, laden with scepticism.

"Yes," he said. "But I have no intention of trying to convince you of that simple fact."

"Then why are we wasting each other's time?"

"As well as writing ground-breaking novels, I also invented a time machine," he said, his tone no more animated than if he were announcing that he had invented a new way to flip burgers. "So, I've come to take you on a small journey."

Lois wasn't buying this. Not for one second. But perhaps she could paraphrase this conversation and use it as an introduction to an exposé on mental illness. "Where to?"

"Metropolis."

"We're already in Metropolis."

"Metropolis in the year nineteen hundred and ninety-six."

"That isn't possible. It's 1994, and there's nothing you can do about it."

"Actually, it is possible," he said. "But I know you are not a woman who is easily swayed with unproven claims. How about you come with me and we shall begin our journey?"

He stood up. Lois stood as well, putting her hand on his arm to halt him. "Assuming this is possible," she said. "And just so we're clear, I don't believe you … but assuming it is possible, why are you doing this?"

"To give you a glimpse of your future."

"My future?" she said warily.

"Yes. I'm going to give you two days. Two days to experience the consequences of your decision."

Lois smiled to hide the fact that inside, she was more concerned than she wanted him to know. "You mean two days of living in a lavish mansion, two days of pampering, two days of having servants to cater to my every whim, two days to enjoy being with my handsome husband?"

HG Wells - or whoever he was - patted her hand. "You'll see, my dear. You'll see."

"What happens at the end of the two days?"

"You will be brought back to this time."

"What if I like it there? What if I want to skip the two years and stay there?"

"That won't be possible," he said.

"So I get no choice? I have to go, and I have to come back?"

He nodded. "But you will have had a taste of your future, so you should find it easier to make a decision with more wisdom than you are currently displaying."

"I'm not going," Lois declared, stung by his censure.

That seemed to surprise him. "What could you possibly have to lose?"

"Two days of my life."

"Not at all, my dear," he said. "You will return to precisely this moment in time. Nothing will be lost."

"Will I remember the two days? When I'm back here?"

"Yes, you will."

"Can I write a story about the experience?"

"Go right ahead," he said with a chuckle. "But it's doubtful Perry will allow you to risk such harm to your reputation."

"What about Lois … me … in that time? Will I meet her?"

"Of course not. You'll be her."

"Where will she be?"

"She'll be you," he said, as if that explained everything. It didn't, but Lois had tired of mere words. If this strange man could take her to 1996 - and of course, he couldn't - it was time for him to prove it.

"OK, I'm ready," she announced, pushing her bag strap further up her shoulder. "Let's go."