My very first LnC fic - thanks again and again to Wendy, who suggested its subject, beta-read it, and generally encouraged me with it. You're still the best, Oh Great One
Melisma (ducking back shyly under her Rock)
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Moments of Illumination
by Melisma <melisma@uniserve.com>
Rated PG
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"I don't understand any of this." Lois Lane looked up from the bank video
stills she was holding when she heard Perry White's voice. He and Clark Kent
were just coming out of Perry's office, where they had been trying to comfort
a frightened, mysteriously-aged Jimmy Olsen. As her editor and her newlywed
husband crossed the space toward her, the older man demanded in the gruff,
blustery way she loved, "What in the name of *all* that is Memphis is going on
here?"
"It's the fountain of youth, Chief," Clark said simply.
"And Jimmy figured it out," Lois added, proud of the young reporter's
accomplishment, yet horrified by the price he had paid for it.
Clark picked up some of the stills she had set on the desk. "Here." He passed
them to Perry. "These stills that Jimmy made from the bank security tape prove
it," he explained, pointing at the photos as he spoke.
"Here at 4:02 the gunman takes six hostages and puts them in the vault. Then
he enters himself. At 4:04, when Superman arrives, seven people exit the
vault. But no gunman."
"However, there is a new face," Lois broke in, eager to share what she had
noticed. "This old man here," she tapped the offending image with her finger,
"wasn't in the bank before."
"Lois!" Brenda's voice broke into her concentration. "Lois, line three." Lois
nodded acknowledgement. "Thank you." As she excused herself and went toward
the phone, Perry's sputtering voice followed her.
"Now... now wait a minute. Aw, Judas Priest! Are you telling me that this old
guy and this young guy here... that they're the same person?!"
"Lois Lane speaking..." Lois had been expecting this call from her source. In
fact she had been formulating a theory beforehand, so she was able to ask
questions while simultaneously following Clark and Perry's
conversation.
"Connor Shenk, the guy who busted out of prison," her husband was saying.
"And Olsen figured this out?"
"Yes, sir."
Her questions answered, Lois hung up and walked back to them. "Well, that
seals it," she announced. "That was my contact on the university board. Veda
Doodsen wanted to conduct youth experiments on human subjects. When the
university forbade her, she defied them and did it anyway. Guess who she used
as guinea pigs?" she asked, looking at Clark.
"Prisoners," he said flatly. It wasn't a question.
"Yup, she lied her way in. Told the warden that she had the full backing of
the university." A movement in the corner of her eye caught Lois's attention.
It was Dr. Klein, who had been in Perry's office examining Veda Doodsen's
latest guinea pig. "Dr. Klein, how's Jimmy?" she asked, though she was afraid
of the answer.
"He's aging, rapidly," the scientist reported bluntly. In all the time she and
Clark had known him, he had never had much of a gift for tact. He went on.
"And there's no sign it's leveling out. Unless we can somehow reverse this
process, or at least stabilize it, he'll be dead in a matter of hours."
Lois had known it was serious when she and Clark had found Jimmy under Perry's
desk an hour ago, but to hear it like this just tore at her heart. She looked
over at Clark. He had a determined expression on his face, as though Superman
might be able to perform a medical miracle, and she began to hope. Then she
looked at Perry. Poor Perry! He had taken Jimmy under his wing, she know, and
often thought of him as one of his sons - just as she and Clark sometimes
thought of him as a younger brother. Perry sighed and turned away, as if he
was going to cry but didn't want to show it.
A phone began to ring loudly on one of the desks behind them, and Clark picked
it up. "Clark Kent," he said. Then his eyes widened and he gestured
frantically for Lois to join him. "Uh, yeah, hi Doctor," he said, then covered
the mouthpiece and mouthed "It's Dr. Doodsen" to Lois. She hurried over and
put her ear next to the receiver Clark held out between them.
"I'll get straight to the point," the older woman was saying. "Tell
Superman with his help I can restore James Olsen. Tell him to bring the boy to
me, but to hurry - even *I* can't raise the dead!" She hung up with a
decisive-sounding click.
Lois and Clark shared a look. It was all they needed. She knew he couldn't
refuse to do as Doodsen had demanded - Superman just *couldn't* refuse to try
*anything* that might help, no matter how strange-sounding. Clark headed off
toward the men's room, loosening his tie en route to save time.
Lois went back into Perry's office, suddenly realizing that they had left
Jimmy all alone. She knew he must be terrified, needing some friendly contact.
Kneeling beside him, she took his hand. "Jimmy," she whispered.
He started awake at her touch, then he relaxed when he recognized her. "Lois!
I guess I screwed up pretty royal, huh?"
She smiled gently. "No, you didn't screw up," she tried to reassure him.
"All I remember is, I... I wanted the story," Jimmy tried to explain.
"Ha! Guess now I *am* the story. I'm not *me* anymore."
Suddenly Lois knew what was bothering him. She tried to put it into words,
because she knew Jimmy needed to hear it from at least one of his best
friends, even if the men couldn't articulate it. "Jimmy, you're still you. The
outside's not important. That's not why people love you." A familiar footstep
made her look up. It was Clark, now changed into the Suit. She stared intently
at him, trying to convey the sudden sense of foreboding she felt. But he just
gazed back at her determinedly.
Quickly Lois and Superman explained to Jimmy what was going on. Then
Superman scooped the young-old man up in his arms and flew out Perry's window.
After they left, Lois couldn't shake the feeling that Doodsen was up to no
good. So many evil people had targeted Superman, Clark, her and their friends
in the past that she wasn't surprised at how paranoid she felt. Quickly
scratching out a note for Perry, she ran downstairs and hailed a taxi.
When she got to Veda Doodsen's brownstone Lois could hear a whining,
generator-like noise coming from inside. In the window she could see that the
room lights were dark, replaced by a bluish glow. Alarmed, she hurried into
the enclosed porch area and turned the doorknob. The door was locked. Of
course! What was she thinking? Veda Doodsen was a crook - she would be sure to
lock her doors, especially if she was doing something nefarious at the moment.
Trying to avoid the panic rising in her throat, Lois at last succeeded in
picking the lock and stepped into a scene from her worst nightmare.
Encased in two glass tubes like museum specimens were her beloved husband
and... someone else. Must be Connor Shenk, she decided. Yes, there was Jimmy
over on a sofa near the window. Why wasn't he in the machine? As she watched,
bright tendrils of white light arced from Superman to Shenk, and they both
writhed as if in agony. The light hurt her eyes, so she shaded them with her
arm. A mad scientist of a woman stood in front of the machine, a radiation
vest over her blouse and goggles over her eyes. Veda Doodsen. Lois would have
known her, even if she *hadn't* met the bitter and therefore dangerous
researcher, earlier today.
So this was how Doodsen had turned Jimmy into an old man! The cold knot in
Lois' stomach tightened as she looked back to Shenk and Clark. Benny Rockland,
one of Jimmy's childhood friends, had stumbled into the Daily Planet newsroom
and died on their sofa as a result of Doodsen's machine. Would her husband be
the next one to go? Was she to be a widow after only two weeks of happiness?
Even if his Kryptonian anti-aging process was able to keep him alive, would he
be irrevocably damaged?
Suddenly one of the dials on the machine went over to the far right side.
Doodsen gasped, "Too much power! The machine can't take it!" Tearing off her
goggles, she ran toward the door. Horrified, Lois realized that she was
abandoning her subjects. Desperate to save Clark, she grabbed Doodsen just
before she reached the door and wrestled her inside.
Doodsen struggled fiercely, but Lois managed to force her back over to
a stuffed chair. Furious, she raised her fist to punch the older woman but
realized that this would not help Superman. Pulling Doodsen up, Lois growled
in her most authorative voice, "Shut it down. Now!"
With her hand over her eyes to shade them, Doodsen almost meekly complied.
Blessed silence filled the room, now back to normal lighting, as the tubes
hissed open and Superman shook his head slightly. All three looked over at
Connor Shenk's tube, shocked to find a gurgling baby looking up at them.
Doodsen found her voice first. "*He* won't be pulling guns on anyone for a
while!" she remarked icily. Suddenly Lois recognized what had happened - Shenk
had forced Doodsen at gunpoint to restore his youth before Jimmy's. Somehow
they had used Clark's lifeforce to accomplish this, but since his Kryptonian
nature made him stronger than humans, he had overloaded the machine, turning
Shenk into a baby. But, she worried, what had it done to her husband? And if
he helped to restore Jimmy's youth, as she realized was the plan, would it
help hasten his own aging? Would he even be able to regenerate again? A cold
sword of panic thrust through her heart at the thought.
As she watched, Clark superflew Baby Shenk out of his tube and returned with
Jimmy. Lois stared at her friend in horror. In just the time since she had
seen him last, he had aged at least ten years, and seemed nearly comatose.
"Let's go," Superman growled.
"If anything happens to either one of them," Lois added as menacingly as
possible, "you won't have to worry about getting *any* older." That was, after
all, why Veda Doodsen had invented the machine in the first place, to restore
her own lost youth.
Doodsen must have heard Lois' sincerity because she turned the machine on and
monitored the process carefully, turning it off at just the right moment, when
Jimmy had returned to his previous youthful self. Lois looked from her friend
to her husband, anxiously holding her breath as
they both tried to shake off whatever effects the transfer had given them.
*Please*, she prayed to whichever deity might be listening, *please let them
be okay!*
"What a rush!" Jimmy exclaimed. He seemed to be okay, but...
Lois looked worriedly at Superman. Clark must have been a mindreader,
because he stammered, "I... I feel okay."
"Is he?" Lois turned on Doodsen. "Is he okay?"
"It's too soon to tell..."
*****
Several hours later Lois was back at her desk, supposedly writing up the
story. But she couldn't concentrate on her prose. After the police had arrived
to arrest Veda Doodsen, Dr. Klein had taken Jimmy, young Connor Shenk and
Superman to STAR Labs so he could try to figure out what exactly had been done
to them. Lois had tagged along, but it had quickly become evident that her
presence was superfluous. In fact, if she stayed around much longer, it was
likely her concern would give away Superman's identity. So she had returned to
the Daily Planet to try to meet the press deadline.
Lois' thoughts were in a jumble now. She was terrified for Clark, of
course. The main side effect of Doodsen's youth machine was that the
"donor" aged rapidly, eventually dying of old age. Dr. Klein had shocked her
earlier by telling her that Superman did not age as quickly as humans. But he
had had so much youth drained from him that Lois worried that his
super-regeneration would not be sufficient. How selfish and petty she had been
with Clark - to think that she had been concerned about her own mortality
compared with his, when now her husband was probably already aging at
superspeed. It had been so long since she had seen him, Lois was afraid he was
already dead. And life without Clark was... She couldn't imagine what life
would be like without him.
*Come back to me, Clark*, she begged silently, looking wistfully over at his
desk. It wasn't fair - when you got married you were supposed to have a long
and happy life together, right? You weren't supposed to have your husband
stolen from you only two weeks later. You were supposed to settle down, buy a
house, have kids, just be Joe and Judy Regular, as he had once called it.
The sound of the elevator doors opening intruded into Lois' obsessings. She
raised her head as Perry exclaimed, "Hey Jimmy! What'd Doc Klein have to say?"
"Gave me a clean bill of health," her friend announced happily.
"Haho! That's good news. Great to hear that, son," Perry rumbled.
Lois couldn't stand the wait any longer. She stood up and went over to where
they were standing. "Jimmy," she asked, not trying to hide her worry, "did Dr.
Klein say anything about Superman?"
He shrugged apologetically. "He was still examining him when I left."
"Oh..." Well, at least he was alive *then*.
"Lois!" Ralph called, "There's a message on your desk."
Snatching up the note, she read, "MEET ME AT 348 HYPERION AVE. LOVE, YOUR
HUSBAND." With a relieved laugh that he was still alive, but still worried
that he might not be completely okay, she grabbed her briefcase and dashed for
the door.
When she got to the address, she realized that it was Veda Doodsen's
brownstone. Why had Clark asked her to meet him here, she wondered? This time
when she turned to doorknob, it was open. Cautiously she poked her head
through the door.
"Clark?" she called, surprised to hear an echo. Obviously Veda Doodsen
had moved, or had been moved out. The room was bare: no furniture, no
knicknacks, and, thankfully, no machine.
"Lois?" Clark's voice made her look over to the front windows. There he was -
her husband - sitting in the window sill, looking up at her with an almost
reverent expression. The sunlight reflected off and through his hair like a
halo, and she thought he looked almost mystical. He stood up and started to go
to her, then stopped.
"What's going on?" she asked. As much as she wanted to hold him and never let
him go, she could just as easily stand here and look at him all day. That was
how good he looked to her.
"Nuthin'. C'mere." She walked slowly toward him. He stopped her when she
reached a patch of sunlight on the floor. "Stand right there." Clark sat back
down on the window sill, gazed up at her and sighed happily. "I was right."
Suddenly Lois felt slightly foolish. "Clark, what are we doing here?" she
asked, looking around the room again. After all, this wasn't their place. What
right did they have to be here? And would he *ever* tell her if he was
alright?
"I just had this vision of how you would look standing in the light from this
window. I *had* to see," he insisted.
"Are you okay? What did Dr. Klein say?" she finally asked, sitting down beside
Clark and taking his hand anxiously.
"Jimmy... is gonna be fine."
"I *know* that. What else did he tell you?"
"Connor Shenk is already going through the terrible twos." Clark grinned. "Dr.
Klein thinks he'll be back to his old, *old* self by next week."
Why was he beating around the bush? "What did Dr. Klein say about *you*?" she
insisted. Didn't he know she'd much rather know how *he* was doing, not Jimmy
or Shenk? She reached up and caressed his ear.
"Apparently my body has already... compensated... for whatever age drain there
was," he finally admitted.
"Compensated? Then you *have* lost something." That's what she had been afraid
of.
He laughed a little. "My friend is healthy. I'm sitting here with my wife. I
haven't lost anything."
"You gave up years," she countered. Years that we won't have together, she
wanted to add.
"I gave them up for a friend." Jimmy must never be allowed to know the
sacrifice Clark had made for him - it would kill him, Lois thought.
"How many?" She *had* to ask.
"I dunno." He looked down, then hurried on, like he had to explain
something he'd just figured out. "The truth is, no one knows how long
they've got. Anyway, it's not the years that count, its the moments... right
now... as they happen." He smiled again and kissed her.
A million thoughts still swirled through Lois' mind. Despite his protestations
to the contrary, what *had* Clark lost? What effect would this horrible
experience have on him... and her? She was sure that she would always value
the time they had left together, after today. He was certainly right about one
thing - life was made up of moments, and she should treasure each one they
had. Lois nearly broke off their kiss to ask her husband what he thought, but
then realized that he probably didn't want to think about it right now.
After a moment Lois asked coquetishly, "So how do you suggest we make the most
out of *this* moment?"
Clark laughed again. "Maybe... we could look at wallpaper samples."
Huh? Where had *that* come from? "Wallpaper samples?" she asked, pulling back.
"Oh, well, what do *you* think for this room?" He stood and looked around
them. "Wood paneling? Aged-down walls?"
Suddenly the light went on in Lois' head. "You didn't!" she gasped. So *that*
was why he had taken so long to contact her, and why he'd wanted to meet her
here.
He grinned back at her mischievously. "Well, you seemed to really like the
place. I... I mean, it's in the city. It's got a lot of character." He walked
past the fireplace, gesturing as he went, over to where the machine had been.
"Plus, it has a secret compartment, which, well, I have to tell you, is very
very difficult to find in a building of this style." He walked back over to
her and put his arm around her. "All you have to do is say the word. It's
*ours*, if you want."
Lois laughed, delight, wonderment and love for her darling husband warring
within her for expression. "Well, you know *I* love it. But is it you?" she
wanted to know.
"No. It's us," he replied. She couldn't stand it anymore - she twined her arms
around his neck and kissed him, grateful that he seemed to be alright. All
thoughts of crazed scientists and sacrifices and being separated by time fled
her mind. She held him tighter, and he picked her up in his arms. She
concentrated on the moment, right then, as it happened.
The sun shone in through the window. It was a beautiful day.
The End
