Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found
HerePart 80Part 81Clark opened the door of the church and after scanning the room, stepped into the confessional booth and sat down. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” he said softly and in English.
“
Clark?” Padre Carlos’s voice gasped from the other side. The window between the confessional booths opened, so he could reconfirm his hunch. His voice wavered nervously as he replied in English, “How may I help you, my friend?”
“The last time I was here, I said some things without thinking, and inadvertently hurt your feelings. I’ve come to apologize,” Clark explained, slipping into Portuguese. “Also, I’m not Catholic.”
There was a moment of silence before Carlos chuckled. “Then you have much to atone for, Clark. Come, let us speak elsewhere.”
The men went to Father Carlos’s private apartment, where he made good use of the gift of tea Clark had brought him. Soon they were sitting down in the living room, trying to figure out which words would cut the tension between them.
“Oolong, you say?” said Carlos. “I’ve never tried it. Although I prefer coffee, I like tea well enough. Cookie?” He held out a plate of what looked like the thumbprint cookies Clark’s mother used to bake at Christmas, only these had a pink jelly center.
“Thank you, no. I don’t eat sweets,” Clark replied.
“My one vice. I
love cookies,” Carlos said with a wink, popping a cookie into his mouth, before blowing on his hot tea. He looked over his teacup at Clark, his eyes sparkling with humor. “Perhaps we’re not the same man after all.”
“I used to love sweets,” Clark explained. “Until my folks died.” He went on to recount the circumstances of their death, and how the smell on the smoking sugar in the back of the burning truck had haunted him ever since.
“I’m sorry, Clark. That is a horrible tragedy,” Carlos said. “I didn’t know you were also an orphan.”
“Twice. First my birth parents died, and then my adoptive parents when I was ten,” Clark replied before Carlos’s words sunk in. “Also an orphan?”
“Padre Jacó always said I was a gift from heaven placed on his doorstep to fill his life with hope. I had been abandoned,” Carlos explained, blowing on his tea and taking another cookie. “There was no orphanage here before me. After word spread that the priests had found and were raising me, other women left their children here when they could not care for them, and the orphanage grew. I was raised here, in the church, as I was never adopted. After I was ordained, I asked to return here to carry on in Padre Jacó’s footsteps.”
Clark took a sip of his tea. Carlos’s loyalty to this cause, while already strong, was made more so in Clark’s eyes with this description of his life. Clark understood better now why Carlos felt he owed this town, this church, this region, and this time his special help and assistance, even when it went beyond the confines of his job description. “I have made friends with your folks… the people who would have been your adoptive folks… Martha and Jonathan Kent. They are good people, and connecting with them has been an unexpected bonus since moving to this dimension. It’s almost like my folks are alive again.”
Carlos slowly nodded in understanding. He seemed a bit uncomfortable about Clark bringing up his true other-dimensional origins, and their conversation drifted into silence again. Finally, Carlos took a sip of his tea, and said, “It’s good, the tea.”
“I thought you might like it,” Clark replied. “Lois recommended it. She seemed surprised that it wasn’t my favorite tea. After her suggestion, I bought a box and fell in love with it.” He shrugged.
Carlos gazed at him. “How is Lois?”
“Fine,” Clark replied uncomfortably. “I need to apologize for my behavior the last time I was here…”
Carlos raised a hand to stop him. “Honest mistake.”
“No. Please, let me apologize. You were completely correct that I didn’t consider the entire picture. You have a life here, a good life, and I shouldn’t have assumed that, like me, you were still searching for the one person, the one thing, which would give your life reason,” Clark said.
“And does Lois do that for you?”
Clark nodded. “She makes my life as…” He coughed instead of saying ‘Superman’. “— easier. She inspires me to be my best, even when I don’t feel that way. She comforts me when I get overwhelmed. She makes it all worthwhile.” He shook his head. “I’m not explaining this well. She stops that part of my life from taking over. Without her, I would lose myself in the uniform; it becomes a job, not a calling. She’s my oasis.”
“She is a worthy partner for you,” Carlos said, nodding. “You love her.”
“With all of my heart,” Clark admitted, even though Carlos’s words hadn’t been a question. “Please, be rest assured that I won’t be going into the past to change this timeline.”
Carlos chuckled, “Thank you.” However, Clark saw him exhale with relief as well.
“I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.” Clark set his tea down on the coffee table and dropped his head into his hands.
“
Desculpe-me,” Carlos said with a shake of his head. “I don’t understand why you are so upset. This way you have Lois, the woman you love, no? I have my life the way I want it. Although it is not the way that you believe God had planned it, our lives now don’t make this…” He waved his hand as if unable to think of the correct word in English. “Our lives now make this time just as valuable.”
“I can never truly have Lois,” Clark mumbled, and then glanced up at whom he was speaking. His eyes widened in embarrassment. Standing up, he walked to Carlos’s window overlooking the deck with a view of the forest. He cleared his throat. “Our love is cursed.”
“Cursed?” Carlos echoed, shaking his head in confusion.
Clark switched over to Portuguese. “Back five hundred or so years ago, an incarnation of the man who would later kill your previous self as a baby, had a warlock curse my… your… our love for Lois… well, for her soul… for all time. We cannot…” He cleared his throat again. “— ever consummate our love or one of us will die.”
Carlos leaned back and stared at Clark in disbelief. “It seems I have chosen my profession well, then,” he finally said, and laughed. “And you wanted me to give up my life for Lois. I did not think you meant so literally.”
“I’m serious,” Clark replied softly.
“But you’re talking of fairy tales, Clark, curses, warlocks, reincarnation, soul mates, and true love spurned by evil,” Carlos said. “You cannot really believe this.”
“You’re a priest, Carlos, and must have been taught the history of the Church. I thought you’d understand,” Clark said, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.” He headed for the door.
“Wait!” Carlos called to him, and Clark stopped. “This time it is I who is being insensitive. Whether or not I believe it is irrelevant. You believe it, and that is all that matters.” He set a hand on Clark’s shoulder. “Come, sit down. Tell me your story.”
Clark sat back down on the couch and recounted to Carlos what Herb had told him. “So, you see, Lois and I can never truly be…” He looked away. “Man and wife.”
“But wouldn’t a marriage in a church, therefore consecrated by God, wipe away this curse?” Carlos asked with furrowed brow.
“I cannot take that chance,” Clark murmured. “It is Lois’s life with which I would be playing.”
“Is not the power of God stronger than the power of this old warlock?”
Clark shook his head. “I would hope so, but according to Herb, it wasn’t enough when my friends in the other dimension were married.”
“And what does Lois think of this curse? Does it scare her as much as it does you?” Carlos asked.
“She doesn’t know about it,” Clark said, standing up and starting to pace. “How can I explain it to her? As you said before, it is in the realm of fairy tales, and Lois lives solidly in the world of fact and reality.”
“Despite being in love with a man from…” Carlos lowered his voice. “Another world?”
“I haven’t yet told her that I am… he.”
Superman.“But you are married, no?” Carlos asked in English.
Clark blushed. “Uh… no.”
“
Não?” Carlos’s brow furrowed. “Engaged to be married then?”
“No.”
Carlos switched back to Portuguese. “Still no? It is a bit early to be worrying about consummating your marriage to Lois then, isn’t it?”
Clark glanced over at him sheepishly.
Carlos shook his head sadly, and then waved a finger at Clark. “You know that I always recommend abstinence before marriage, Clark. It is Church law. But in your case, I doubly…
triply recommend it.”
“And you say you aren’t her soul mate,” Clark grumbled. “Ha!”
“It has nothing to do with that, Clark. I merely believe that you, of all people, should wait to consummate any relationship until marriage,” Carlos suggested.
“Superman lives to a higher standard,” Clark groaned.
“Unfortunately, yes. And, as such, you have many people who look to you for their example. If it were known that you did not believe in abstinence…” Carlos said, his face paling. He made the symbol of the cross. “Trust me; it would make
my job more difficult.”
Clark chuckled. “I won’t tell, if you won’t.”
Carlos held up his hand, either in oath or in allusion to blocking himself from the information. “Trust me, Clark. As I said before, I will speak to no one about what we have discussed today, or before.”
“I trust your word as I trust Superman’s,” Clark replied.
Carlos shook his head, clearly still not believing that he was the reincarnation of this dimension’s Superman. “And Lois? Do you plan on telling her your secret?”
“Yes. I would’ve told her already, but we keep getting interrupted,” Clark said, starting to pace once more. “She is away this morning on assignment; otherwise I’d be with her now, talking with her about this, not about
this this, not about the curse, but about my other job.”
Carlos nodded. “Ah. I see. You are here with me, talking to me, because you are frustrated at not being able to talk to her, and to remove finally that last barrier to sharing your soul with her.”
“I know that she will forgive me eventually, but I’m terrified about how she will react in the interim,” Clark admitted.
“Clearly,” Padre Carlos said, indicating Clark’s continued pacing.
Clark stopped and dropped onto the couch. “I’m sorry. You don’t remember Lois, but other than being the most wonderful woman in the world, nobody can hold a grudge as she can. I don’t want to lose her love and affection, even for an instant; yet at the same time, I hate that I’ve been deceiving her.”
“And that is for what you need her forgiveness,” Carlos said finally understanding.
“I am known as a man who believes in truth and honesty above all else, and I’m the biggest liar of them all,” Clark said, dropping his head back into his hands.
“And that burden is eating away at your soul, and yet, if you told the world your secret…” Carlos sighed. “It would ruin the life that you love.” Even if he didn’t remember being Superman, as the Jaguar, Carlos carried that same burden.
“Yes,” Clark murmured.
“If you love her, and she loves you, and you wish to make a life together…” Carlos held up his hand to stop Clark from interrupting. “Curses aside, I believe it wise that you plan on revealing your true self to her. How long have you been trying to tell her?”
Clark thought back to that first time Lois had kissed him on Trask’s plane, when he thought she had fallen in love with him. He glanced guiltily at Carlos. “A while.”
“How long?”
“Eight months,” Clark admitted and at Carlos’s shocked expression, went on, “Well, you have to understand that I’ve loved her from the first moment I saw her, since before I saw her. Our relationship has had its ups and downs. In the beginning, I thought she had fallen for me as I had for her, but then I discovered it was Superman she loved…”
Carlos raised a hand to interrupt. “Clark?”
“I know, I know,” Clark said, waving the matter of being both men aside. “I handled it badly, but she didn’t want anything to do with me, Clark me. I let her think she was dating Superman, even though he kept telling her that as Superman he couldn’t have a relationship with her. I admit, the whole scenario was poorly executed, but what was I supposed to do? She was mad at me, Clark me, for coming between her and Superman and would hardly talk to that me, and I couldn’t stay away from her, so I came in the form she would accept.”
Carlos stared at him without speaking, but he rubbed his brow in a familiar manner. He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands together. “Go on.”
“Then when she finally accepted me, Clark me, into her life as her co-worker, I had Superman break off their relationship once and for all, which I had never allowed to develop into a real relationship, so that her friendship with the true me could grow. I’d rather have her as my – Clark’s – friend, than as a potential victim, being Superman’s love interest.”
“Clark?” Carlos’s voice had a warning tone to it.
“Yes, I know. I’m insane. I’ve made it a thousand times more complicated than it would have been if I hadn’t had a relationship with her as Superman. Thankfully, I never kissed her as Superman. That was how formal I kept our relationship. I refused to cross that line. Nevertheless, Superman crushed Lois by breaking up with her, more so than I ever expected,” Clark explained. “That was last summer, since that time, she and I – Clark, me – have become good friends, best of friends, and even went out on a few dates, before she discovered that I didn’t have a past, being that I came from another dimension…”
“You told her about the other dimension?” Carlos asked.
“No… well, yes… but not in a way where she believed me,” Clark said awkwardly.
Carlos rubbed his brow again as he waved for Clark to go on.
“Well, we went out to Kansas for an assignment with the Daily Planet, and she somehow discovered about you…”
“Me?” Carlos gasped. “How would she learn about me?”
“The other you, the Clark Kent who died as a baby,” Clark explained.
“Oh. Right,” Carlos said. “And you didn’t tell her the truth then?”
“No… well, I tried to, but she didn’t believe me,” Clark said, and at Carlos’s skeptical expression, went on, “I had come in contact with Kryptonite, which is a green glowing rock, a radioactive part of my home planet. It is the only thing I have found that can hurt me. It causes me horrendous pain when I’m in its vicinity and drains away my powers so that I’m essentially human, temporarily powerless, and able to bleed and to be physically injured. If I’m in contact with it long enough, it can kill me.” He held out his hand to Carlos as an example.
“This is how you think the baby Clark died?” Carlos asked, and shivered despite the warmth of the room.
Clark nodded. “Tempus, that would be that crazy man from the future, who killed you, apparently placed a piece of Kryptonite in the space ship with the baby, so that… he would be dead by the time the Kents found him,” he said.
“What an evil man to do this to any child,” Carlos whispered, his eyes closing. “Super or not.”
“Yes,” Clark agreed. Carlos wouldn’t get any debate on that matter from him.
Carlos cleared his throat. “So, you told Lois about being Superman, and how the green rock had taken your powers, but she still didn’t believe you?”
“Er…” Clark glanced away in embarrassment. It sounded so simple when Carlos put it that way. Why hadn’t he thought of it? Oh, right, there were too many people around. “No.”
“
Não?”
“I told her… actually, what I told her was that I had told the man who had the Kryptonite that I was Superman, but I didn’t explain how the Kryptonite had taken away my abilities and... well, clearly, she didn’t believe me. As a matter of fact, she had thought the whole idea so ridiculous that she had laughed in my face.”
Carlos winced. “Ouch. So, you decided to tell her again
after your powers returned?”
Clark tilted his head to the side. “Kind of. I decided that once I had earned back her trust somewhat, showing her that she could depend on me to be the man, whom she knew I was before learning that I wasn’t, then I would tell her the truth.”
The priest looked at him skeptically, or possibly in confusion.
“Yes, well, it was a plan. Anyway, shortly after that whole episode, Herb returned and dropped the bombshell that if someone had killed baby Kal-El here on Earth, it might be possible to rescue him as well,” Clark said. “I agreed that if it were possible to save you, we should do that… but in my heart, I kept hoping that it wouldn’t be possible.” He covered his head with his hands. “That’s why I’m being punished, I know it is. If I hadn’t been selfish, wanting Lois for myself, I wouldn’t have brought this curse down upon my head.”
Carlos set a hand on Clark’s arm. “Do you think God is that cruel? That he punishes man on Earth for his sins?”
“Karma. What goes around comes around. I selfishly wanted to keep this dimension’s Lois away from you, from her true Clark, and so the universe made it possible for me to have her by both having you not want to give up your life to have her, and not being able to change the past, but I’ll never be able to make her my wife. I’ll never be able to make love with her,” Clark said, looking over at Carlos. “For some men, hell is here on Earth, Padre.” He had hoped that admitting this aloud would lessen the burden of the anguish he felt weighing him down, instead the boulder of truth felt twice as heavy.
Carlos shook his head. “No, my friend, think of it more like a temporary purgatory. I have faith that a man as good as you are deserves happiness in his life. First, let’s start with the whole karma issue, if that’s what you believe is punishing you, not God. You do this, by telling Lois the truth and allowing her time to forgive you.” He pointed at Clark. “Doing this will only bring you good karma, or if I may interject, God’s good will.” He winked.
“Yes, well, I believe you’re right. Since Lois told me last week that she loves me, I have decided that it is time to tell her about my other identity,” Clark said. “I believe if tell her that I cannot make love to her because I’m Superman, it will make more sense than the whole truth, that we’re soul mates, cursed centuries ago by a bitter foe.”
“
Or,” Carlos suggested. “You could choose the path of abstinence before marriage.”
“I don’t think I have much a choice in the matter,” Clark retorted wryly. “Before or after marriage.”
“Ah, but you didn’t make this choice. If you and
you alone, decide that curse or no curse that you wouldn’t make love to Lois before your union could be officiated by a priest, God might relent and bless you with a happy marriage with many children after all, yes?”
Clark crossed his arms and gave him his best doubt filled Superman expression. Too bad it lost some of its effectiveness while he wore his glasses. “Mind if I don’t hold my breath?”
“It was worth a shot,” Carlos said with a shrug. “I will have faith in God for you then, my friend, even if you do not. I can ask the Church to check its records in Rome, if you like, to see if we have any records of a curse that can attach onto one’s soul.”
Being that the soul didn’t remember from incarnation to incarnation its past lives, Clark doubted that the ecclesiastical records would be much use. Nevertheless, Clark relaxed his stance. He wouldn’t refuse any assistance offered in this one matter. “Thank you, Padre Carlos.”
“It is the least I can do,” Carlos said. “Since you have made me more than happy today that I heeded my own calling to the Church. I wouldn’t want to trade my life and problems for yours, my friend.” With a grin, he took the last cookie off the plate.
***
Between Superman rescues, Lois’s presidential story, follow-ups on Ian Harrington’s bribery scandal and his death, as well as a bunch of little stories, Wednesday night came and Lois and Clark had yet to have an opportunity for their date.
Clark hung up his uniform to dry. He had just returned from Chicago, where a brutal winter storm had caused whiteout conditions during the commute home, stranding many motorists on the road.
The phone rang just as he settled himself into his bed. “Hello?”
“Hi, Clark. I did it!” Cat’s voice sang into his.
“Great! What did you do?” he asked warily afraid to find out.
“The copier is busted!” she announced.
“Congratulations,” he said. “Why are you so angry at the office equipment again?”
He could picture Cat rolling her eyes with her groaning sigh. “This is
Cat,” she reminded him. “Not Lois. She’s the mad one. Weren’t you listening the other night?”
“Yes?” he said hopefully.
“Phil.”
“Right. How’s that going?” he said, somewhat surprised, and pleased, that she wasn’t over her crush.
“Hello! Copy machine repair guy. Busted copier. Use you power of deductive reasoning in that super fast brain of yours, Clark.”
He rubbed his hand down his tired face, removing his glasses in the process. “Are you reporting a crime against a copier to me, Ma’am?” he teased.
“No comment.”
“Do you know what you’re going to say to Phil when he gets there tomorrow?” he asked.
“Say?” Cat gulped. “I thought I’d see if there was still chemistry between us, and work from there.”
“I’ve recently become friends with a priest, and he recommended abstinence before marriage,” Clark said.
He could still hear Cat laughing even after she had hung up. He shrugged, pushed the ‘off’ button on his cordless phone, and set it down on his nightstand. He had bought a new phone because his old one had been damaged in the break-in. Actually, very few of his belongings had survived intact, including his mattress. Henderson thought it looked like the robber was searching for something, and asked Clark if he were hiding anything. Ha!
The one thing Clark was happy for, besides that the armoire hadn’t been moved, broken, or his uniforms discovered, was that Superman found no proof at either his apartment or at Lois’s that the Voyeur had returned. At least, they still had their privacy.
The phone rang again and Clark picked it up, recognizing Lois’s heartbeat through the line before she spoke, causing him to smile.
“Hi,” Lois murmured in a sultry tone.
Clark settled further into his bed. “Hi, back.” That was another thing to be pleased about. With the development of their relationship, these nightly phone calls had become more romantic in nature.
“I tried you reach you earlier,” she said.
He felt pang of guilt that he didn’t have a good excuse, other than the truth, which he still hadn’t had a chance to tell her. “I was out. Superman told me about his assistance with the storm out in Chicago.”
“I’ll read all about it in tomorrow’s paper,” she replied.
So, Lois didn’t want to talk about Superman. Fine by him.
“Guess where I am,” she went on. “You never will, so I’ll tell you. Our former love nest.”
Clark’s brow furrowed.
Love nest? “Where?”
“The honeymoon suite at the Lexor Hotel,” Lois clarified. “They wanted to apologize for our interrupted honeymoon.”
“Hey, I was the one who was bombed,” Clark teasingly grumbled.
“I’m lying on satin sheets with all the blinds closed. No pesky interruptions from the neighbors,” she murmured, and then yawned. “I’m all ready for bed.”
He gulped at her lack of subtlety. “I wish I could be there,” he admitted truthfully.
“So…”
“I’m already in bed,” he said, thereby establishing the worst excuse in the history of mankind.
“Oh, really?” Lois said, sounding a bit disappointed. “Whatcha wearing, big fellow?”
Clark blushed.
Oh, one of those calls. “Um… my pajamas.”
“Which ones?”
He cleared his throat. “The brown shorts with the autumn leaves.”
“Oh, those,” she said. “I like those.”
“For some reason, they’ve become my favorite recently,” he admitted, remembering what she had looked like when wearing the matching sleep shirt that night, before Christmas, she stayed over. “The shirt has disappeared though.”
“Oh?” Lois said softly, ending with another yawn. He heard her shut a book and set it on the nightstand.
“What are you…?” he started saying before he stopped himself. That would only lead to trouble. “Um…Er…” He had no idea how to end that sentence, other than the obvious:
wearing? Doing for breakfast? Currently working on? Going on your next vacation? Doing for dinner tomorrow night? He had finally decided on the last one, when he heard Lois giggle and click off the light switch.
“My blue plaid pajamas, Chuck. What else would I be wearing?” she teased.
Suddenly he pictured her in that light blue baby doll negligee, crawling across his living room towards him, and then she was on top of him, pressing her lips against his as her hands moved down to his pants and tugged at his zipper. He gulped. “You look good in blue,” he said, his voice cracking.
“Oh, do I?” she whispered, and he heard her settling more into the bed. “Mmmm.”
“I notice everything about you,” he replied.
She chuckled dreamily. “Do you?”
“Maybe I should come tuck you in,” he suggested, knowing that was the very last thing he should possibly be doing. “No, I should stay here and get some sleep. Yes, I should. Lois, you’re killing me.”
He swore he could hear her grin over the phone line as she scored that point against him. “Good night, Clark.”
“Good night, Lois,” he said, and then waited for her to hang up before setting down his receiver and turning off the light.
Mmmmmmm. He was going to have good dreams that night.
*
Lex snapped off the microphone he had them install in the honeymoon suite before sending Lois that invitation for one more night.
He pushed the button on the intercom.
“Yes, sir?” his majordomo’s voice came through the speaker.
“Tomorrow, Nigel. Make it painful and look like an accident,” Lex said, turning off the switch.
***End of Part 81*** Part 82 Portuguese Translations:
Desculpe-me = Excuse me.
Não = No
Hold on tight. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
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