A short update - I'll be out of town for a while but I'll post more as soon as I can.
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Clark opened his eyes again and looked around the room. This time he felt nearly normal – human normal at least. He wasn't in any pain this time and he wasn't dizzy as he sat up. But it felt odd to be mortal again. He’d been ‘mortal’ on his trip to Krypton – although he’d been in stasis nearly the entire trip, the ship’s computer waking him up only for decisions and a little sight-seeing. He’d been sick from kryptonite poisoning on his way back, something he didn’t ever want to repeat but he seemed condemned to.
“Perry figured you’d come out of it as soon as the sun came out,” Alice White said as soon as she noticed he was awake. “How are you feeling now?”
“A lot better, thanks,” Clark told her. “Almost normal.”
“Normal for you, or normal for everybody else?”
“Normal for everybody else,” Clark admitted. “I’m still a little weak. But I’ll live.”
Alice peered into his face. “You’re still a little pale, but a lot better than earlier. You were positively green.” She began puttering around the room. “You gave us quite a scare you know. First disappearing for so long, then falling out of the sky, and then you get sick.” She stopped and shook her head. “How does your poor mother stand it?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
There was a timid knock on the open door and s slight man with a moustache and wire-frame glasses cleared his throat. “Pardon my intrusion, Mister Kent… but I was wondering how you were feeling.”
“And you are?” Clark asked.
“Oh, yes,” the little man said, eyes wide in apparent surprise. “I’m H.G. Wells.”
“One of the usual suspects,” Clark muttered.
Wells smiled. “You’ve heard of me?”
Clark nodded. “Were you responsible for dumping Lois and me into that other universe?” he asked.
“Oh no, my boy,” Wells protested mildly. “From the other Mister Kent’s description, that was a tempocane. No one controls those except possibly God, or if you believe Mister Heinlein, authors with a particularly fanciful and perverse imagination.”
“You’ve read Heinlein?” Clark asked in astonishment.
“Of course my dear boy,” Wells said with a chuckle. “I must keep up with modern temporal and planar travel theories. He wasn’t wrong, you know. So, how are you feeling?”
“Well enough to head into work this morning,” Clark said. “Even if I don’t get anything else done, I can finish what I needed to get done today and maybe do some research on our little problem.”
“You’re sure you’re up to it?” Perry asked from the hallway behind Wells.
“Give me time for a shower? And you wouldn’t happen to have an extra razor, would you, sir?”
* * *
“Lois called a little while ago,” Perry told Clark as Perry navigated the Acura across the bridge onto Ordway. “Jason’s doing much better. But it seems her house was bugged and she’s afraid Luthor may think that Jason is Superman’s son. She didn’t say what might have made him think that.”
“According to Lois, Jason threw a grand piano across the room into the man who was threatening to kill her,” Clark told him.
“That, uh, kind of puts a different complexion on things, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Clark agreed. “It certainly does. Luckily, I doubt any abilities besides strength will manifest before puberty, and strength will only show up when he’s under extreme stress.”
“So, don’t do anything to scare him?” Perry suggested.
Clark nodded once. “I should go to the hospital and check on the baby.”
“Actually, I was heading there first,” Perry admitted. “I wanted to check on Lois. And just so you know, just because Richard’s leaving for Paris doesn’t mean I’m going to stop considering Jason a member of my family. Or Lois for that matter.”
Clark didn’t reply but he had that wary, hangdog look Perry was getting familiar with, the look that said he was expecting to be yelled at. Clark’s next move would be to push up his glasses and put on a goofy half smile that said ‘Gee Perry, why didn’t you say so…”
Perry pulled the car into a space in the hospital parking garage and turned off the engine. “Do you know why Lois wrote that article?”
The wary look was back without the Forrest Gump goofiness. “She told me she was upset that I didn’t have the guts to say goodbye.”
Perry snorted. “Interesting. And it may even be partly true. But what really hurt her, what drove her to air her dirty linen for all to see was the fact that the two men she thought she could trust not just with her life, but with her heart, turned out to be the same sort of bastards who hurt her before.”
“Perry, I swear I never meant to hurt her. I just… It got… It wasn't going to work. I gave up everything to be with her, and it wasn't enough. ‘Clark’ wasn’t enough.”
“You’re sure about that?”
Clark looked away, eyes focused onto some place beyond space, beyond time. “You didn’t see her face when she realized Superman wasn't going to fly off the save the day anymore. When she realized all that was left was someone that half the time she could barely tolerate, someone she was coming to pity for having chosen to be a mere mortal. I couldn’t bear to see her disappointment, so I went back and took up the mantle again. The price was being with her ever again.” His voice was shaking as he spoke and grief was written across his face. Grief for everything he’d hoped for and lost.
“Clark, the day after you left, Lois stormed into my office, furious with you because you weren’t there. When I told her you’d quit, she was furious with me for letting you leave,” Perry told him. “Like I had a choice in the matter. A few days later she realized Superman hadn’t been seen in Metropolis. She started tracking down leads, trying to find him.”
Clark opened his mouth to speak but Perry put his hand up to stop him. “She was looking for Superman so she could talk him into looking for you, for Clark. For the father of her unborn child. She spent nearly six months trying to track you down. I managed to talk her out of going to Smallville and pestering your mother. As it was she was calling about once a week to see if you’d checked in. After Jason was born she asked me whether or not she should put your name down as his father. I told her to use her own judgment. I never asked whether she put you on the birth certificate or not.”
“I don’t think she did,” Clark said, mostly to himself. “And we didn’t even think to take precautions because I’d been told for so long that I wasn't human… Who da thunk it, I became a father and I never even knew it. Never even thought it was possible.”
Perry sighed and went on. “After a while she settled for Richard. Maybe settled isn’t the right word, but he was here when she gave up, when she finally realized that she had to get on with her life. When she realized that you weren’t coming back anytime soon and Superman had left for Krypton.”
“She knew I’d left for Krypton?”
“Didn’t take a genius to figure that one out,” Perry said. “The Planet publishes a supposedly reputable report that Krypton’s been found and there might be life and the one Kryptonian on the planet disappears only a week later? Lois was in love, not brain-dead. First Clark breaks her heart by running away then Superman takes off without a word at the time she needed his help the most.”
“I’ve already promised her that we’ll try to work out something, at least for Jason’s sake,” Clark admitted. “At least I know it’s possible.”
“Clark, there’s something you want to consider,” Perry told him. “Wells didn’t want me to say anything yet since he’s double checking the information he was sent and he’s hoping it’s wrong. But apparently the last confirmed sighting of Superman in this time-line occurred at the oil refinery fire yesterday. Wells is afraid the infection may have cost you and Jason your powers permanently.”
Clark sighed. “That’s just great. And Luthor’s out there, plotting something and we have no idea what it is."
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