“Can I go in and see my son?” Lois asked the doctor.

Maher nodded. “He’s still weak and we have him on the respirator,” Maher reminded her. “But I think it would be a good idea if you’re there when he wakes up.”

“And the baby? Can I see the baby?” Joanne asked. Maher gave her a questioning look. “I’m her aunt too, remember? Her mother’s dead. And if you happen to have a breast pump I can use, I’d appreciate it. I left my four day old home with my mother-in-law.” She saw Richard’s jaw drop. “You have no idea how much I hurt…” She held her hands, fingers spread, a few inches from her chest.

A thoughtful look came over Maher’s face. “You know, one of the problems we’ve been having with her is she’s not tolerating formula very well. Maybe mother’s milk will do the trick. We do normally have a stock, but…”

“Lead on MacDuff,” Joanne said, ushering the doctor in front of her. She looked back over her shoulder. “Richard you really need to get home and get some rest. You might want to give Perry and my husband a call, let them know that Jason’s better. And ask my Clark to come over here. I think he might be able to do something.”

* * *
The loud noises had stopped being quite so loud and the pain in his joints and belly had dulled to something manageable. He cracked open his eyelids, moving his head just enough to see the person sitting next to his bed. “Perry?”

“Right here, son,” Perry told him. “Just rest. You’ve had a rough night.”

“What happened?”

Another voice, impossibly familiar. “We think Xon left a booby trap.” The Clark from the alternate world was standing in the doorway watching him.

How did he get here? “And I was the booby?” Clark asked aloud.

The other Clark chuckled. “A sense of humor is a good sign. By the way, I’m going by Jerome, and my wife has decided we’re brothers.”

“I don’t have a brother… wait… Missus Kent is here? What are you two doing here anyway?” Clark asked. He managed to lift himself up on his elbows without being overcome with dizziness. “How did you even get here?”

“Remember I told you about the usual suspects?”

“Yeah. A guy called Tempus, and H.G. Wells.”

“And there are the Peace Keepers. Well, somebody realized something was wrong over here and did the usual,” Jerome explained. “Enlisted our help. So we brought over some of the medicines Zara gave us for the kids for you. And it looks like they worked.”

“Richard called a little while ago,” Perry said. “It looks like Jason will be okay.”

“And the baby?” Clark asked.

“It’s too soon to tell,” Jerome told them. “My Lois is with her and she wants me over at the hospital to help out.”

Clark studied his counterpart. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

Jerome nodded. “What attracted the Peace Keepers’ attention was a major disruption of this time-line. We were working under the assumption that your death was the initiating factor.”

“Only?”

“Only you’re alive and the time-line hasn’t reverted to what it was,” Jerome explained. He seemed to come to a decision. “As soon as you’re up to it, we need to figure out what happened last night that you weren’t able to handle so that we might be able to do some damage control.”

Clark sat up and ran a hand through his hair. Then he realized how dank and sticky he felt. “Let me get a shower and some clothes on.” He started to swing his legs over the side of the bed and found Perry’s hand on his shoulder, forcing him back down.

“You’re not going anywhere, son,” Perry told him. “At least not for a while. I’ll have Polly and Mike go over last night’s police calls, check the wire, come up with a list of emergencies where Superman might have been shown up if he hadn’t been busy elsewhere.”

Clark noticed the look of understanding that passed between Perry and ‘Jerome’. They were doing the same job, had many of the same employees. Again Clark felt a pang of jealousy. Jerome seemed to have it all – a loving wife, a good career, beautiful children. Everything he had thrown away when he left. Jerome had been in this universe for how long? He already had the respect of Perry White and that wasn't easy. Perry was hard to impress.

“Plus, I have a couple ideas, too,” Perry continued. “I had to change the channel on the radio last night because there was something being reported on the news that you were determined to take care of, even though you couldn’t.”

“Oh…” Clark peered at his boss. “Perry, you haven’t been sitting here all night, have you?”

“It takes more than an all-nighter to get an old warhorse down,” Perry replied. “Get some rest. We’ll get this figured out.”

“In the meantime,” Jerome said. “I’m wanted over at Met General and I need to do it as Superman. That’s not something I would normally do in these situations. It causes too many issues for the resident Superman, especially when we’re not identical twins.”

“Your Metropolis took it in stride,” Clark reminded him, pulling the blankets up as he settled back onto the pillows.

“My Metropolis knows that Superman wasn't the only survivor of Krypton. Their assumption was that you were a member of the House of El and just visiting,” Jerome told him. “I don’t think that will fly with your people.” Jerome spun into the blue and red Suit. “I’ll be back.”

Clark watched after him as he disappeared out of the doorway.

“He’s pretty young to have my job,” Perry commented.

“I’ve seen the list of his awards,” Clark told him. “Four Kerths, two Merriweathers, three Pulitzers and on the shortlist for three others, all in international affairs or investigative journalism. The team of Lane and Kent won even more. They are very good. I don’t think Lois and I are anywhere in their league. I know I’m not.”

Perry clapped in on the shoulder. “Don’t sell yourself short, Clark. He’s been at it a lot longer than you have.”

“Yeah… About twelve years. He didn’t take off for nearly six years on a fool’s errand.”

* * *

Jerome came to ground just outside the main entrance of Metropolis General Hospital. It looked such the same as the hospital his Lois had been four days before, giving birth to their fourth child. He’d been away from home for less than eight hours and he was missing his family. One of these days I’m going to learn to say no to these little adventures… Nah. Won’t happen.

He walked into the building and stopped in front of the reception desk. The white uniformed woman at the desk looked up, indifferently at first then her expression changed to recognition, then confusion. “Superman…? I… How can I help you?”

“Could you direct me to the neonate ICU, please,” Jerome asked, giving her his most ingratiating smile.

She gave him the directions then chuckled. “It’s a little early for Halloween, you know.”

He looked down at the Suit, then back at her grinning. “I know.”

“And you don’t look anything like him.”

“I know that, too,” he said before he headed off to the stairwell.

He sped up the stairs to the tenth floor then slowed to normal as he stepped into the corridor by the elevators. He walked over to the large window overlooking the newborn nursery. The intensive care nursery was in a side room. He could see ‘Joanne’ sitting in a rocking chair, holding an infant with tubes snaking around her.

“Can I help you, sir?” another uniformed woman asked, giving his uniform a curious look.

“Missus Kent asked me to come,” he told her. “I might be able to help with the Kent baby.”

“I thought you were taller,” she said, stepping in front of him to keep him out of the nursery.

He sighed and looked around for something that was safe to destroy. He settled on one of the metal clipboards at the nurses’ station. He pulled off the paperwork and set it on the counter then proceeded to crush the board in one hand like it was aluminum foil. He handed the metal ball to her.

Her eyes widened, suitably impressed. “Right this way, Superman,” she said, leading the way through the nursery to the ICU.

Joanne looked up, relief washing across her face as she caught sight of him. The baby was limp in her arms, too weak to even cry. “We’ve managed to get some mother’s milk into her, and her fever’s come down a little…”

“Let me take her,” he said, unclipping the cape and pulling the uniform shirt off so he was bare-chested. She carefully handed the infant to him as she got up from the chair, allowing him to slide into her place. He cuddled the infant against his skin, willing his aura to expand and protect her. Doctor Klein hadn’t been able to come up with an adequate explanation of why his bio-electrical aura differed from Earth-humans or how it worked. He only hoped he could make it work the same way here.

“By the way, Clark’s doing a lot better,” he told her. “But the time-line’s still screwed up.”

“What the devil is going on here?” a gray-haired woman in a lab coat hissed at him. The nurse who had allowed him into the nursery was following the woman, flapping her hands like a butterfly.

“Doctor Matsen, this is Superman…” the nurse was saying.

Matsen stopped in front of him, hands on her hips. “And what, Mister Superman, are you doing with that child?”

“I am attempting to extend my aura to assist in her healing,” Jerome replied matter-of-factly.

“You can do that?” Matsen asked.

“Sometimes,” he said. “It would be helpful if you could find a full spectrum sunlamp for us. Extending my aura for healing can be quite taxing and it’s been a long day.”

Matsen checked the monitor readouts and shook her head. “I think it may be working… Her vital signs are getting stronger.” Matsen looked back at him. “I didn’t know this was one of your powers.”

“I’m not sure how it works,” he admitted. “But it’s how I can sometimes stabilize the injured until I can get them to medical help, and even then it’s not always enough.”

“I had no idea," Matsen responded.

“I’m going to check on Lois and Jason,” Joanne told him.

“I’ll be here,” he promised before he bent his head to watch the little one in his arms. She was looking better already.

* * *
Lex Luthor looked around his domain and growled. Between Superman’s searches and an international bounty on his head, he’d been forced to move back into one of his old lairs under the city and he hated it. It reminded him too much of his first defeats at the hands of the damned alien. Defeats he had sworn would never happen again – yet it had. Despite all of his efforts, the damned do-gooding alien had survived to return to foil Luthor’s plans once again.

Kitty was cowering in the corner with her stupid little dog. His ‘associates’ were ignoring her whimpers. Not that Luthor really cared anymore. She was only alive because he wanted her to see what happened to people who disappointed him – and she had disappointed him quite severely when she dropped the Kryptonian crystals out of the helicopter and onto the accursed crystal island.

“What have you got for me?” he demanded. One of the men, Baxter, shrugged.

“Not much, boss,” Baxter said. “Supes went missing for three days, along with two Daily Planet reporters. Not a sign of any of them anywhere on the planet.”

“I told you to track him with the alpha-wave detector,” Luthor grated.

“We were,” one of the others said – a man known only as Smith. “Four days ago he went north. A while later he was flying in the direction of Metropolis and simply disappeared. Then he reappeared in just about the same place. He flew to Metropolis then we tracked him to South America and back to Metropolis. When he showed up in Metropolis the second time, he had a baby with him. He claimed she belonged to Clark Kent and some South American woman he shacked up with.”

“The place where he disappeared and reappeared… anything special there?” Luthor demanded.

Baxter shook his head. “Pennsylvania farmland. But…”

“But…? But?”

“But, weather radar in the area detected a severe storm front that appeared without warning and then simply vanished at the time same time he disappeared,” Smith reported calmly. “The national weather bureau claims it was an equipment malfunction. But the local papers claim to have found a field that looked like it had been thrashed by a storm. A very small, intense storm.”

“And you didn’t think that was special?” Luthor yelled.

Smith shrugged. “I thought it was a little more interesting that the only emergency the alien has dealt with since his return has been the refinery fire. He left the refinery and flew to Metropolis and hasn’t been seen since, even though there were several emergency situations that should have attracted his attention. The two warehouse fires on Hobs Bay and a train derailment in Turin.”

“No sign of him at all?”

“We tracked an alpha wave signal heading west from just north of the Hobs River and then several hours later, east from the suburbs to downtown New Troy, but there were no sightings of him. No rescues, not even a cat in a tree,” Smith said. “All we’re getting now is faint readings like he’s doing something that takes energy but not a lot of concentration.”

“So, where is he?” Luthor demanded.

“We would need to triangulate his position,” Smith reminded Luthor, who turned and glared at him.

“We know what direction. We can extrapolate distance by signal strength,” Luthor grated. “Do I have to do all the thinking around here? Is there anything important in that direction?”

Smith shrugged again and pulled out a map of New Troy. He double checked the readings on computer monitor then traces out a line on the map. “Metropolis General Hospital.”

Luthor turned on the fourth man in the room, Trivas. “Find out what’s going on over there, overnight admissions, anything that might interest that flying blue boy. ‘Cause if he’s interested, so am I.”

* * *

Lois looked up to see Joanne outside the glass partition. Jason’s breathing had improved to the point the respirator could be removed and he was conscious, holding onto his mother’s hand so tightly it hurt.

“Jason, I need to talk to Joanne, okay?” Lois murmured. Jason nodded and let her hand go, but she knew he was watching her as she went to the door of the room.

“How’s it going?” Joanne asked.

“I think he’ll be okay,” Lois told her. “What about Clark?”

“Better,” Joanne said. “But I’m told the time-line’s still not back to normal.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means we have to figure out what happened or what will happen, assuming things take their natural course, that changes things for the worse for your world,” Joanne explained.

“It sounds like you have experience with this sort of thing,” Lois observed.

“Yeah, sort of,” Joanne admitted. “It’s a long story.” Lois saw Joanne look past her to Jason. “You want to get some rest?”

Lois shook her head. “I’ll wait for Richard to come back. You go back to the house.”

Joanne nodded then her expression turned grim. “Lois, something you should know… your house was bugged. Jerome took care of them.”

“Who would want to bug my house?”

“Good question. Who have you pissed off recently?”

Lois chuckled. “You want a list?”

“Okay, who would be interested in listening in on you, Richard, and Jason at home? I’m assuming you don’t discuss details of what you’re working on over dinner,” Joanne said.

Lois stopped a moment to think about what her alternate had suggested. She and Richard didn’t discuss work much, except to share a little office gossip. And they didn’t even do that very much. They both wanted to be good examples for Jason. Dinner conversation tended to be about current events, school, weekend plans, and answering Jason’s questions about Superman and the world.

“No, we don’t talk much about what we’re working on,” Lois agreed. “I assume the bugs are recent, otherwise I’m sure Clark would have mentioned something.”

“I’m sure he would have. When was the last time he was inside the house?”

“Sunday night,” Lois said. “After he left the hospital, he came by to talk to me and I’m pretty sure he went inside to see Jason. As far as I know, he hasn’t been in the house since.” Lois paused a moment, running through the events of the week before – before her world turned upside down with the realization that no only had Superman returned to her world and he was really Clark Joseph Kent, but that there were other worlds, other dimensions, equally real, equally dangerous.

Superman.

“Luthor,” Lois’s voice was breathless with sudden horror. “Oh my God. I think he might know about Jason.”

“How?”

“Jason and I were on Luthor’s boat when he threw the piano across the room. There’s no way Luthor’s thugs wouldn’t have told him what happened. He may have even had the room under surveillance.” Lois’s eyes widened at another realization. “At dinner last night, Jason asked about Clark being his biological father and we told him he was. We also talked about the baby being Jason’s half-sister. If Luthor puts two and two together…”

“Is it really likely?” Joanne asked.

“You don’t know what sort of sick genius Luthor is,” Lois told her. She was trying to calm her reactions. She didn’t want Jason to see her panic.

“You have no idea how much I might know,” Joanne stated grimly. “I’ll stay here while you call Richard and Perry. Then I’ll let my Clark know what going on.”

Lois turned back to the little room, to Jason who was watching her with wide, frightened eyes. “Jason, honey, I need to make some phone calls. Joanne is going to stay with you until I come back. She’s one of the people Clark and I visited while we were gone.”

“Mommy, does she know Superman, too?”

“Yes, I do,” Joanne told him. “I’ve known Superman a long time. Want me to tell you some Superman stories?”

Lois saw her son’s eyes light up. “You know lots of stories?”

Joanne laughed a little as she walked into the room and settled into the chair beside Jason’s bed. “Yes, but I have to warn you, the Superman I know isn’t from around here…”

* * *

“Well?” Luthor demanded, standing over Trivas as he watched the screen on his laptop.

Trivas shook his head. “Look, Mister Luthor, STAR Labs did a complete upgrade of Met General’s computer systems a few months ago, including state-of-the-art security. It takes time to break into a system like that and if I know Timo Virtanen, he closed off all the back doors except for his personal one.”

“Then use that,” Luthor ordered.

“I don’t have his security token, I don’t have his pass code, and I certainly don’t have his retinal scan,” Trivas shot back. “So either leave me to do my work my way or do it yourself.”

Luthor straightened up, glowering at the hacker. “I was assured by your former employer that you were the best in the business.”

“I am the best,” Trivas replied. “But still takes time.”

Luthor stalked away from him.

“Mister Luthor, you might want to listen to this,” Baxter called out. He had earphones on, listening to a recording that was playing through another computer.

“What is it?”

“Last night’s dinner at Lane’s house,” Baxter told him, holding the earphones out to the bald man. “I didn’t get a chance to listen to it last night, with the other things I was doing.”

Luther listened to the voices coming through the headphones:

The boy: “Mommy, where did you go with Superman?”

Lois: “Well, Clark and I went to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude to find out some things from Superman.”

The boy, sounding confused: “Mister Clark was with you and Superman?”

Lois: “Yes, he was… Why?”

The boy: “Nothing, Mommy.”

Lois: “Well, then Mister Clark told us a secret he hadn’t wanted to tell anybody at work...”

The boy: “Mister Clark told you his secret?”

Lois: “Yes, he told us he got married while he was on his trip and he was trying to get his wife home to Metropolis so they could have their baby here. I asked Superman to help him.”

The boy: “Did Superman help?”

A long pause then: “Yes and no. He found Clark’s baby girl and she was okay and he brought her to Metropolis, but her mother was dead… Clark’s pretty upset.”

The boy: “Does this mean I have a baby sister?”

The man, Richard: “What makes you think that, kiddo?”

The boy: “If Mister Clark is my bio... biol …”

Lois: “Biological?”

The boy: “Biological father, then his baby girl is my sister, too.”

Richard, horrified: “Jason, who told you that Clark was your biological father?”

“So now the b!tch is telling everyone that hack Kent is the brat’s father?” Luthor groused. “Why aren’t I surprised? I bet she’s conned that stupid hayseed into thinking it’s true, too.”

“Lex…” Kitty began timidly. “Up north you told us Superman lives among us…”

“Yes, my dear Kitty, I did say that,” Luthor agreed. “Frankly, I’m astonished you remember. But think about it. The most powerful being on the planet. He can have anything. Women throw themselves at his feet without caring that he just looks human. He can have anything he wants. Tell me why someone like that would settle for pretending to be a mere cog in the media machine, drudging away day in and day out? No, he’s somebody with money, who can buy silence, who can live up in his tower and look down laughing at all the unwashed masses he’s fooled into believing he’s here to help. Believe me Kitty, Superman is not Clark Kent.”

Luthor turned back to Baxter. “Anything else?”

“A little more conversation. Looks like Lane and her boyfriend are breaking up,” Baxter said.

Luthor snorted. “About time that idiot figure out what kind of slut he was sleeping with.”

“Lane and the boy headed over to Perry White’s house about seven. The boyfriend left about eight and none of them have been back to the house,” Baxter told him. “At least as far as I can tell.”

“And what does that mean?” Luthor demanded.

“At about eight-thirty, there was some sort of energy surge in the building. It knocked out the video in the living room and I think it may have knocked out the rest of the surveillance equipment as well,” Baxter reported.

“And you didn’t think that was important enough to tell me?” Luthor was pleased to see how pale Baxter became as Luthor stood over him.

“I wanted to make sure of my facts before telling you,” Baxter stammered. Luthor just nodded.

“Mister Luthor,” Trivas called. “I think I have something.”

“And what, exactly, do you think you have?”

Trivas turned his computer so Luthor could read off the screen. “Two admissions last night. Jason White and Esperanza Kent. Both kids were suffering from high fever from an unknown disease.”

“You said ‘Jason White’?”

Trivas nodded. “Lois Lane’s son.”

"And Superman's at the hospital," Luthor mused.
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