You can find the
Another Dimension, Another Time, Another Lois[/i] TOC here.
Part 6Part 7Lois put on her full-length, pale-pink, silky nightgown with matching robe. She had bought it over a year ago after Lex had saved her from Menken. She had thought that maybe, someday, something might develop romantically between her and Lex and she wanted to be ready. Instead Lex had died before their relationship had ever made it that far, before she had ever let it get that far.
She wasn’t quite sure [i]why she had put on the nightgown. It wasn’t as if she hoped Dan would show up and whisk her off her feet. She didn’t. Actually, Lois really didn’t want to see him after their fight earlier that night. So, for whom had she put on this outfit?
Lois took off the robe and climbed into bed, turning off the light. She tossed and she turned, unable to get comfortable.
Was she hoping that a superhero would show up at her window and take one look at her in this nightgown and…
What? Nothing. She sighed. Superman had always been – would always be – a fantasy, that unattainable goal of perfection. She scoffed at herself. Nirvana.
Lois turned the light back on. Sleep was avoiding her. She looked at the telephone. She got out of bed and pulled a romance novel off her shelf:
Where the Lost Aprils Are.Lex was dead. He had died in her arms, professing a love for her that she had never returned. Sure, she had admired the man: his accomplishments, his connections, his generosity. Now, she was beginning to think she never really knew the man behind the façade.
She looked at her bedside telephone again, this time placing her hand on the receiver.
Dan. She didn’t know what to think of Dan Scardino. He obviously didn’t trust her. She knew that discretion was an essential part of his job, but if he thought she was the type of person to blab everything she heard from her ‘boyfriend’ on the front page the Daily Planet… well, he really didn’t know her at all.
Truth be told, the one person she wanted to call on the phone at this moment and talk to… wasn’t Dan. It was her best friend; not Mayson, but a man who didn’t have a telephone… well, not one that Lois could access anymore than she could Mayson’s.
Lois climbed out of bed and got dressed in her black leggings, a tank top, and a navy flannel shirt she had used once on an undercover assignment. It reminded her of the flannel shirts Clark often wore on his days off.
She walked out of her building. It was late, and she knew it probably wasn’t the best time of night for a stroll, but she wasn’t doing herself any good lying in bed and not sleeping.
344 Clinton Street. It wasn’t that far away. Actually, from her dreams, she knew exactly where Clark lived; she hadn’t needed to do the drive-by she had done on her way home from her stake-out on Scardino earlier. She knew she had never walked down Clinton before, even though it was nearby. Even if she did almost daily, or nightly, now in her dreams.
She needed to go and look at the apartment and prove to herself that it wasn’t the same place as from her dreams, prove to herself once and for all that Clark didn’t exist. He was a figment of her imagination. If she could do that, then she could move forward towards forgiving Dan for not trusting her.
It was a long walk because she had taken it slow, but Lois made it there in less time than she expected. She felt kind of silly – kind-of nervous – as she stood on the sidewalk outside of his building. She knew she was at the right locale, although she recognized it more from her dreams than by the building number. Reluctantly, she climbed the steps. Higher and higher. She kept hoping that around the next bend, the next corner, the building would change and it would stop looking like Clark’s home.
Before she knew it, Lois was standing in front of his double front doors. It looked exactly the same. She swallowed. Here it was; the moment of truth.
Hanging from her wrist was a miniature flashlight. Either she beamed her flashlight into some stranger’s apartment, and they called the cops on her and she spent the night trying to figure out how to explain her way out of her actions without sounding insane, or her light would show Clark’s apartment: the apartment with the staircase just past the door down into the living room, where his couch, coffee table, and TV were.
She took a deep breath and let the light shine in. There were no curtains blocking her view into the dark apartment, because no one was living there. She could see the staircase down into what should be Clark’s living room, but it was covered in dust and debris. Piles of newspapers and paint cans littered the place. Lois took a step back, her hand up at her mouth.
It looked just as it had when she had barged inside that day she thought Clark had been meeting Superman. The apartment appeared to be in the same condition: abandoned because Clark didn’t exist to move into it. She switched off her flashlight and ran down the stairs.
***
As Lois approached her apartment she saw a familiar figure sitting on her front stoop.
“Hey,” said Dan.
“Hey,” she replied.
“I thought…”
She waved for him to stay seated as he started to stand. “Go on… Sit down.”
“I thought about what a jerk I was,” he told her.
She sat down next to him and rested her hand on his knee a moment. “Oh, Dan.”
“I thought given the size of my jerkiness, I thought maybe roses, maybe jewelry, maybe a Lear jet…”
“We both overreacted.”
“I didn’t bring you anything, Lois, because I don’t want to dazzle you. I just want to be with you, so can we…” He motioned towards the door with his head. “… talk?”
“Sure,” she replied, patting his knee and standing up. “Come on inside.”
***
Then next morning, early enough that Lois hadn’t gone to work yet, but late enough that the sun had already made its appearance, she was on the phone with her substitute therapist and friend, Sarah.
“So, basically, what you’re saying is…” Lois said to Sarah. “That all my life I’ve attracted men that are controlling or incomplete or downright liars because… because…” She was at a loss.
“Keep going,” Sarah encouraged her.
“Because I like being treated that way?” That couldn’t be right. “But if I like that kind of man, and I get that kind of man, why am I not happy?”
“We both know you like chocolate, right?” Sarah asked.
“Is it that obvious?” Lois mumbled.
“But you know it’s not good for you. The older and wiser we get, the less tolerance we have for something that’s not good for us,” Sarah told her, sounding older than her years.
Lois sighed in defeat.
Please tell me, she thought,
that Sarah doesn’t want me to give up chocolate, too?“You’re not a victim, Lois. So, stop acting like one. You know who you are going to end up choosing. You’ve known it all along. There’s only one answer. The problem is accepting the fact that you’re scared; you’re scared of moving forward with your life, scared of moving closer to someone new, scared of letting go of the tight control you have over your life and your emotions enough to let someone in. So, you need to ask yourself, are you ready for that next step?”
“How come you never ask the simple questions?” Lois inquired.
“Hey, Lois, I would if I knew any easy answers,” Sarah replied.
***
Lois and Dan sat next to each other in the gallery of the courtroom, waiting for the trial of the Wilder women to start. The Wilder women were the doctor and her mother who had kidnapped Jimmy and Sarah, brainwashed them using the drug Tysian, and turned them into assassins. Perry, Jimmy, and Sarah sat on the other side of Lois.
Sarah leaned forward and looked encouragingly at Lois with a nod towards Dan. The reporter saw the DEA Agent intercept the glance. Fantastic. Dan reached over and took hold of Lois’ hand.
“Not now, Dan,” she whispered, moving her hand away. She didn’t want anything,
anything, to distract that slimy lawyer, the one that the Wilder women had hired to defend them. “We need to talk afterwards.”
“Oh, great. The ‘we need to talk’ talk,” she heard Dan grumble to himself. He leaned back and spread out his arms – one of which went behind her back – and started bouncing the knee of his crossed legs, anxiously.
Sarah – who had still been leaning forward – caught this exchange and gave Lois a pointed nod. Lois gave a quick shake of her head.
A buff man sporting a grey business suit and a pony tail, sitting behind Scardino, stood up and walked out of the courthouse. Lois hardly noticed him, except that his exit caused her skin to form goose-bumps. Was she developing a Spidey-sense? Why had that man left? Why had he even been in the courtroom if he was going to leave during the opening arguments?
Do you smell something? Lois heard a serious male voice whisper in her ear.
“Superman?” she murmured. She hadn’t smelled anything, only now…
Dan turned his eyes to her. “Huh?”
“I smell something. Do you smell something burning?” Lois asked, leaning towards Dan.
“No,” he replied with a casual shake of his head before refocusing on the trial. Then he stopped. “Yes.”
“Smoke!” they both exclaimed at the same time and jumped to their feet.
Dan looked behind their bench. “Bomb!” He grabbed the smoking briefcase as people started running from the courtroom screaming.
Perry, Jimmy, and Sarah ran out the opposite end of the bench. Lois stood there stunned that it wasn’t her Spidey-sense that had warned her of the bomb, but her Super sense… Superman.
Dan ran into the center of the courtroom, set the bomb under the judge’s huge and now abandoned desk. Then he returned to Lois, pulling her down between the benches and covering her with his body just moments before the bomb exploded. The desk shattered, shooting pieces of wood throughout the room. Parts of the roof crumbled down upon them from the jolt.
When it was over, Dan shifted from his protective position over Lois and shook dust and debris off his back. “Are you okay?” he asked her.
Lois nodded.
“If I had to guess I’d say that was meant for me,” Dan said. “I better call in the lab guys.”
“Lois, honey?” Perry called, coming back into the courtroom and waving away the smoke to see.
“I’ll see you later,” Dan told her with a pat on her arm before heading out the exit.
Lois still didn’t speak, didn’t move other than to nod.
Superman. Superman had saved her life. Superman had saved the life of everyone. And he didn’t even exist.
***
Lois, she heard a male voice call her name. She turned and looked around the newsroom. There wasn’t anyone close by. That was strange. She resumed typing.
Jimmy walked by her desk. “Jimmy! Did you hear something?”
“Like what?” he asked.
“It sounded a little like my name. You didn’t say my name, did you?” she inquired.
“No.” Jimmy glanced around. There wasn’t anyone who appeared to be calling to her.
Lois, the voice repeated.
“There it is again.” She froze and looked around.
“Lois, I didn’t hear anything,” Jimmy told her and shook his head, walking off.
Lois.“Clark,” Lois whispered, again searching for him, her blood rushing with anticipation. But he wasn’t there. He wasn’t there because he wasn’t real.
***
There was a knock on Lois’ apartment door. She opened it to find a copy of the Daily Planet with the headline
Omnicorp’s Knox Arrested in big letters being held in front of her face.
“Congrats!” said Dan, lowering the newspaper to show Lois his beaming face.
“Dan.” Of course. Who else would it have been? “Come on in.”
He lowered the newspaper further to show that he had brought her a bouquet of flowers.
Lovely.
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself,” he admitted as he walked inside, handing her the flowers.
Lois carried the flowers into the kitchen and pulled a vase out from a cabinet under her counter. “I wanted to…” she called to him. Then she noticed he was right there in the kitchen with her, not waiting in the living room, and she lowered her voice, “Thank you.”
Dan smiled at her and leaned against her counter, stealing a grape from a bowl of fruit she had been washing before he had knocked. “My pleasure. Just don’t make it a habit.”
Lois shrugged. It wasn’t a habit, per se. It was just her life. “I’ve been thinking…”
“Oh, right. The ‘talk’.” He rolled his eyes. “Do I need to sit down?”
She set the vase of flowers on her counter. “I don’t know… but I want…” She wasn’t sure what she wanted. Actually, she was sure. She wanted Clark Kent, but Clark wasn’t real. He was a figment of her imagination, just as Superman was. Well, not quite as much as Superman. Superman was more on the fantasy end of her imagination. Dan was real. She needed to live in reality if she wanted to remain sane and not hear voices calling to her when nobody was there. Lois waved her hands through the air. “Kiss me!”
“What?” Dan choked on the latest grape that had entered his mouth.
“I want to move our relationship to the next level. I want you to kiss me,” Lois told him, standing up straighter. She closed her eyes and puckered her lips and waited... And waited. And waited.
“No,” Dan replied.
Lois winced. “Get out!” How dare he? He had been throwing himself at her for weeks now, only to suddenly withdrawal?
“No,” he repeated. “Not like this.”
“You’ve been leading me on,” she snapped at him, marching to her door. She twisted all the locks but still could not get it open.
“No, Lois,” Dan repeated again and caressed her arm with his hand. “I’m not rejecting you. I just don’t want our first kiss to be forced.”
She still felt humiliated. “Forced?!” She just wanted to get it over with, so that they could move on.
He reached for her hand, and he took it in his, leading her to the couch. “I want our first kiss to be natural, memorable for how wonderful it will be, emotion based, not fear based. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time now, and I don’t want to ruin it by rushing into things.”
“Rushing?” she echoed.
“You’re not ready, and, as I told you before, I’m willing to wait until you are,” Dan whispered.
Lois leaned against his chest, relaxing as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Wait?” She didn’t want to wait. This kiss had been hanging in front of her all day like an omen, taunting her, growing bigger and heavier with its implication.
Dan kissed her forehead in the way Clark was apt to do when she was feeling bad and Lois melted further into his chest, wishing it felt like Clark’s chest. Wishing it
was Clark’s chest.
It could be nice, she tried to convince herself. Dan really wasn’t a bad guy. He liked her. He was willing to work with her and accept her for the mess that she was. He was real.
She glanced up at him and he seemed blurry through her unshed tears. “Why is this so scary?” she asked him.
“Because you’ve been hurt before. Me, too. It’s scary for me as well, Lois. That’s why I want our first kiss to be perfect,” he murmured, brushing away the tear that crept down her cheek with his thumb.
“I don’t want perfection, Dan. I just want to feel…” Protected? Safe? Trusted? Special? Cherished? Loved? Clark made her feel all those things. No. She just wanted to feel something.
Anything. She had been numb too long.
“Come on.” He nudged her shoulder with his. “Let’s go celebrate. Let me take you out for dinner. You hungry?”
Hungry? Possibly. Even her stomach was numb. She nodded.
“Do you like hot dogs?” he asked, pulling her to her feet.
Celebratory hot dog? Lois laughed, her mood instantly lighter. Sometimes Dan was too much, just the kind of too much she needed. “Yes, I like hot dogs,” she told him.
Dan had stopped moving, and Lois bumped into his chest. She glanced up at him to see why he had stopped and suddenly felt his hand on her cheek. His lips lightly graced hers in a simple, natural, everyday kiss.
It didn’t make her feel like a prized possession like Lex’s kiss had.
It didn’t make her feel like she was floating like Superman’s kiss.
It didn’t tug at her heart and soul like Clark’s kiss.
But it did make her feel something. She raised her hand up to his head to pull it back when he started to move away. He came back willingly for the second kiss, deepening it.
When he moved away again, she murmured, “Perfection.”
Not because it was the best kiss she had ever had. It certainly could not compare to the passion of kissing Superman when he was doused with Revenge nor to the love of Clark’s kiss when he left during the heat wave. But because it was just the kind of kiss she needed at that moment. It, at least, was real.
***
Lois walked into the newsroom the following Monday morning with a new outlook on life. She hadn’t had a single Superman / alternative life dream all weekend. She felt good, and it showed. It must have showed because as soon as she sat down at her desk she overheard a conversation between her boss and her photographer.
“Jimmy!”
“Yeah, Chief?”
“Who’s that at Lois’ desk?”
“Lois.”
“Nah. I know my top investigative reporter and that ain’t her. Sure, she has the general features of Lois, but it can’t be Lois. Lois doesn’t smile like that. Lois doesn’t glow.”
Jimmy finally got that the Chief was joshing with him. “Now that you mention it, Chief. There is something other-worldly about that woman. What do you think it might be?”
“She could be a clone.”
“Do you think she was brainwashed?”
“Possible, Jimmy. Possible.”
“Hypnotized?”
“Or maybe that toe-dragging boyfriend of hers finally got around to remembering that she’s a woman and that he’s a man.”
“Ya think, Chief?”
“Very funny, guys,” Lois interrupted, shooting them a nasty look.
Perry bounced his eyebrows at her. “So, Lois, you and Scardino have fun this weekend?”
She rolled her eyes. “No comment.”
“Oh, come on, Lois. What did you two do?” Jimmy needled her.
“Gentlemen, and I
am using this term loosely, they do call it a private life because…” She coughed for emphasis. “Because it is meant to be private.”
“Oh, he definitely kissed her,” her boss said to Jimmy with a side-long glance.
“About time.”
The Chief raised his voice so that the whole newsroom could hear. “Lois Lane and Dan Scardino finally kissed. Who had this weekend in the pool?”
Lois plopped her head down on the desk. Just let this day be over.
Perry set a hand on her shoulder. “Lois, honey, just teasing you.” Then he lifted his hand and his voice, “Paulson, over to the courthouse. Church is having a pre-trial hearing this morning. Go see what’s up with that.”
“Yes, Chief,” called Paulson with a wave from across the room.
Jimmy slid into the chair next to Lois’ desk. “So?”
Lois raised her head and gave him a look that he didn’t need translated.
“Later, then. Gotcha,” Jimmy said, jumping to his feet.
With a sigh, Lois started to move papers around on her desk. The Wilder trial had been postponed while the bomb was being checked into to see if it was related or unrelated to the women or if it was targeted at an unnamed DEA agent, who had happened to be in the courtroom at the time. Omnicorp Knox arrest? Already written. Was there something else she could be working on? Was there something to distract her from memory of Dan’s lips on hers when he had kissed her goodnight the night before?
Too late, and the memory flooded her once more. She sighed. She recalled their first kiss and how she had compared it to her first kiss with Superman…
Her brow furrowed.
Superman had kissed her?
When had he?... She didn’t… he hadn’t…
Revenge! Oh, God! She was remembering dreams she hadn’t even had. How was that possible? The Revenge outbreak had happened months after the Metro Club incident. Lois’ hands began to shake as she ran them through her hair. She closed her eyes and pictured again kissing Superman out on the tarmac after he had caught Miranda… after he, himself, had been dosed with Revenge.
“Lois Lane, I love you,” Superman told her, and it took every ounce of her willpower to stop from throwing herself into his arms.
“Oh, Superman, you don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear you say those words,” she gushed, enthralled not only by his words but their possible meaning. “Oh, but you’re not yourself. So, I couldn’t take advantage of the situation.” It was tempting, oh, too tempting, but if Clark could stop himself from benefiting from her infatuation, she could be as noble with Superman.
Superman nodded with understanding. He, like Clark, would not take advantage of her while under the influence of mind-altering drugs.Unlike some other men. Lois grimaced, pushing out of her mind the thought of what had actually happened after the models had visited the Daily Planet. She returned her thoughts to her Superman fantasy.
“Oh, what the heck!” she exclaimed and pulled Superman’s face to hers.
He didn’t kiss her.
She kissed him!
Superman hadn’t stopped her from kissing him; in fact, he actively joined in on the kiss. She wrapped her arms around the Man of Steel, and he embraced her as well, dipping her and deepening the kiss.
It was the most divine kiss – if kisses could be described as divine – she had ever felt.
She and Superman had let themselves go, allowed the pleasure of the moment carry them away.
Never had such a kiss thrown open the doors to Lois’ wanton side.
Never had Lois known she had a wanton side until she had kissed Superman.
He made her feel like a woman in a way no man ever had.
If Lex hadn’t pulled them apart, they might have floated into the sky from the pure joy of it. Lois opened her eyes and exhaled. Oh, man, Superman could curl her toes with his kisses. If only he were a real man. She sighed with desire and with regret. She forced that fake kiss out of her mind, locking it into an inner cabinet to be explored again later when she was alone. As far as fantasies went, Superman took the cake, and he was welcome to eat it as well.
She went back to straightening her desk. She hadn’t been able to push all thoughts of that passionate kiss with the superhero out of her mind. She felt positively flushed. Dan certainly hadn’t made her that hot with
his kisses.
Lois instantly felt chagrined by these thoughts. It wasn’t Dan’s fault that he couldn’t hold a candle to her fantasies. No man could.
Anyway, Dan’s kisses had been chaste in comparison. If she were going to judge his kisses properly, she should compare it apples to apples, instead of apples to… well, a hot fudge sundae with whipped cream, nuts, and cherry on top. If she were to compare Dan’s kisses with anyone, it really should be Clark.
Her brow furrowed again as she picked up a file and fanned herself. Kisses? Clark had only kissed her that one time in Trask’s plane, hadn’t he?
She closed her eyes and once again brought up her first kiss with Dan to the forefront of her mind. Let’s see, she had contrasted Dan’s kiss to Superman’s, but she had initially also measured it up to Lex and to Clark.
Lex was understandable. She
had kissed him on several occasions, and even less passionately than the chaste kiss she had shared with Dan. So, between those two, Dan was the clear victor in the kissing department. Although, in Lex’s defense, their relationship hadn’t progressed far enough for their … she sighed. Actually, it had. But Lex had insisted on treating her like a prize porcelain vase with which he needed to treat with care.
Lex and Lois had dated, but she had never been able to fall in love with him or feel like they were in a relationship, because she never felt loved and desired by him. Treasured, yes. Respected, yes. He wanted her, yes. But desired? Not so much.
A woman wants to know that she affects a man, physically. She wants to know that she causes him to sometimes lose control just being around her. Lex had never lost control. Ever. Even when Miranda had sprayed him with Revenge, Lex had stayed in control. Perhaps he had loosened his grip on a string or two of that control and complimented her more specifically than usual, but that had been it.
Superman’s kiss had made her feel desired. In fact, Superman’s kiss had made her feel like the most desirable woman on Earth, in the universe. But, she reminded herself once more, Superman was just a fantasy, and if her fantasy couldn’t make her feel desired, no one could. Yet, Lex never had made her feel that way. Not once.
Unlike Clark. Lois winced. She didn’t want to think of Clark. Thinking of him always made her chest ache. True, a part of her had been happy not to see Clark in her dreams over the weekend. But another – a larger – part of her missed him.
If she were going to evaluate Dan’s kisses, it really should be against Clark’s – all three of them. Lois realized she was still fanning herself with the file and immediately stopped before she started the newsroom gossip mill to go into overdrive. Thank God, Cat wasn't in yet. Why did thinking of kissing Clark make her hot all over? Oh, right. The second time he had kissed her had been when he had said goodbye during the heat wave.
That didn’t make sense, and she thought about that again. She hadn’t dreamed about that incident either. She dropped her head into her hands. What was wrong with her? She was having memories of imaginary men from her dreams and yet the memories were of dreams she couldn’t remember. The memories were there, somewhere in her head, but they were being elusive. Unless they popped up the forefront of her mind like that Superman kiss or – Lois gulped – or when Clark had kissed her goodbye.
She remembered that kiss like it had happened yesterday. It was the kiss that had made her start to see him as a man and not just her partner. Maybe she had dreamed about it, but hadn’t been woken up by the dream, so it had stayed in her subconscious. Clark had been going to leave Metropolis and head back to Smallville.
Smallville, Kansas. What a name! She shook her head, like there could ever… Lois gazed over at her computer.
No. It does not – could not – exist.
She pulled her keyboard in front of her and pulled up the Daily Planet’s atlas program. It took a few pages and even more clicks to get to a close-up of the state of Kansas.
The screen blurred in front of her. She blinked to clear the tears from her eyes as her heart thudded in anticipation. That couldn’t be right. Yet, there it was! Located between Wichita and Topeka.
Smallville.
Lois’ eyes went wide. How? She had never written a story on Kansas. She had never traveled through the state, never even gave the state a second thought until Clark Kent. She hadn’t even made it through the entire ‘Wizard of Oz’ book, and Lucy had been obsessed with ‘Little House on the Prairie’, not her. There was no logical reason why Lois would have ever looked at a map of Kansas. There was no reason she should have this information bouncing around in her head. Okay, Smallville might be a real place, but Clark Kent was certainly not real. End of story.
She cleared the screen and went back to cleaning her desk. She needed a distraction. She needed a story. She needed some fresh air. She needed a Double Fudge Crunch bar, a whole box of them. She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out… nothing.
Darn! Her top box was empty. Lois picked up the box, flattened it, and tossed it into the recycle bin. There sitting on top of her second box of Double Fudge Crunch bars was a piece of notebook paper. She tossed it onto her desk and pulled out a candy bar. She would hit the gym tonight. Dan was out of town, so she could spend an extra hour on the Stairmaster.
Lois tore open the candy bar with her teeth, spit out the tab, and stuck the chocolaty goodness into her mouth. She sighed, finally relaxing as the smooth silky flavor filled her taste buds. She glanced down at the paper she had removed from her drawer.
Her hand fell from her mouth and what remained of her candy bar dropped to the floor.
At the top of the piece of notebook paper was written in her handwriting:
Clark Kent is real. Research Tempus to rescue Clark from dying in the past. H. G. Wells will help you.*** End of Part 7 *** Part 8 Comments 
