Chapter 3Author’s Note: I have altered the timeline of the show twice in this chapter. First, by extending the length of Lois’s murder trial (to months instead of days) and secondly, by moving Tempus’s John Doe Presidential election bid to its correct spot - after “Ghosts” and around the time of “Stop the Presses” (i.e. November 1996).
Two months had passed and Lois was still stuck in the alt-dimension. HG Wells never returned for her, but now her substitute back in her home dimension was in jail awaiting her murder trial (“The People vs. Lois Lane”). Clark had finally gotten to a comfortable enough spot in his relationship with Dr. Klein to discuss his sexual experience (Clark had none). He broached the subject of whether or not he would be able to father a child with an Earth woman as part of his research on possible pregnancy complications Lois could develop. They weren’t ready to disclose her pregnancy to anyone else.
Lois and Sam snuck into a hospital in the middle of the night to do an ultrasound on her four-month-old fetus. After they returned to their apartment and went to bed, Sam discovered Lois sleeping on the ceiling and called Clark for assistance. Clark disclosed to Sam that Lois had gained some super powers due to her super pregnancy: hearing, healing and now floating. They decided not to tell Lois. When she awoke, Lois begged Clark to take her flying to Paris for breakfast. When they returned, they found Clark’s angry girlfriend, Mayson Drake, waiting for them. Clark informed Lois that he could not continue lying to Mayson.
Back at his apartment, Mayson informed Clark that she knew he had been lying to her about Lucy El’s identity, since essentially his assistant didn’t exist until she arrived three months earlier. Clark confessed – after getting Mayson to promise not to tell anyone – that Lucy was actually his sister-in-law, that she was married to his brother Kal-El, who grew up on New Krypton and had come to Earth to search for his long-lost brother. When Clark revealed that he had never actually met Kal-El, Mayson believed that Lucy was actually a con-artist out to get anything she could from Clark. Clark tried to convince his girlfriend that his version was the truth, but she didn’t buy it. She told him that the only reason Clark believed Lucy’s story was because she looked like the missing, and presumed dead, reporter Lois Lane, with whom he was in love.
Faced with this admission, Clark had an emotional outburst causing him to lose control with Mayson – allowing her to see his passionate side for the first time when they kiss. Mayson realized that having Clark/Superman for a boyfriend may not be a bad thing after all – she really liked this passionate side of him (and the floating). Their make-out session was interrupted by her partner, Detective Henderson, who phoned her about a case. The couple made plans for the following weekend, before Mayson left to meet her partner. Clark heard a bomb ticking in her car and barely had time to get her out before it exploded.
Lois heard the bomb blast with her super hearing and rushed with James Olsen, in his car, to the scene. They found Mayson’s destroyed car outside and Clark’s t-shirt and smashed glasses lying on the floor of his apartment. They then rush to the hospital to search for Clark and Mayson. Lois found Clark, covered in Mayson’s blood, waiting outside a pre-op room. She convinced him to go home to shower and change, but by that time, he had other plans. Clark wanted vengeance and he thought Jaxon had the answers. He left Lois at the hospital with a message to give to Mayson if she came out of surgery before he returned.
Hours pass and Clark still hadn’t returned. Perry arrived and together with James, the three of them decided that someone needed to search for Clark, before he – in his anger – hurt someone. Before she could leave, Mayson asked for Clark and Lois had to deliver his message. Mayson was emotionally hurt that Clark not only left, but asked Lois to be his messenger for his non-romantic apology message. Lois told her that Clark was likely to try to break up with Mayson and told her not to allow it to happen, because Superman needed her. Then Lois left to try to find Clark.
Lois tracked Clark down by following Jaxon to his Virtual Computer center, where he had locked Superman within the ‘game’ (like Lois had been in “Virtually Destroyed”). Luckily, Clark was able to communicate with Lois using hand-signals (Clark could smell and hear her, but he could not speak to or see her). She told him to look for Jaxon’s exit key. Jaxon returned to flaunt his power over Superman, but Superman maneuvered him into showing him the exit pass instead. Clark and Lois escaped the VR center, but instead of locking up Jaxon, Clark just wanted to forget it ever happened.
Clark dropped Lois off at her apartment and then left to break-up with Mayson for her own safety; however, Mayson broke-up with him first. After speaking with Perry and James, a confused and hurt Clark left the hospital with plans to go on a week-long vacation. Lois and Sam arrived at the hospital only to discover that Clark had already left. Lois was mad at him because he left town while she was on trial for murder (back in her home dimension).
Before leaving on vacation, Superman captured the car bomber and tied him up with red computer cord he stole from Jaxon’s VR center. Then he went to S.T.A.R. Labs and had Dr. Klein weaken his invulnerability with Kryptonite in order to draw blood. When they draw blood, one of the samples was contaminated by the broken glass of a test tube. Then after a two hour rest, Superman was asked to give a sample of his ‘swimmers’ for final analysis of his fertility.
While in Smallville, Clark spoke with the Kent family lawyer and discovered that his folks had left him the old farmhouse when they died. Clark stocked up on supplies and started to clean up almost 20 years of dust and memories. He only returned to Metropolis to invite Lois to dinner (via note) and then to pick her up.
On the same day that she was supposed to have dinner with Clark, Lois Lane was found guilty of murder (in her home dimension) and broken out of jail by her husband (“Dead Lois Walking”). Upset that her Clark had risked everything for her, Lois refused to leave her bed until Clark dragged her out to celebrate her birthday. At a hamburger stand in Key West, Clark gave Lois his Mom’s wedding ring to wear (to represent the wedding ring that canon Clark had given her). Lois agreed to wear the ring only until they found his Lois or until she returned to her dimension.
After Clark returned from vacation, Dr. Klein gave him the bad news that he (Clark) could not have children. This – on top of everything else –sent Clark into a tailspin of depression. The only thing that drew him out of it was Lois agreeing to accompany him to a hero-themed Halloween costume party thrown by the Mayor’s office.
Clark had had made for Lois an Ultra Woman costume to wear for the occasion, while he himself was going as mustached Superman. Lois had a good time ‘hiding’ in her Ultra Woman costume and dancing with Clark. The romance of the evening swept up Lois and Clark and they end up kissing on the dance floor. Or was it the pheromone perfume
‘Animal Magnetism’ (
alt-“Revenge”) messing with their heads? Ultra Woman captured the perfumer Miranda before flying off, hand-in-hand, with Superman, essentially destroying all the hard work they did in erasing Clark’s personal life from the tabloids’ radar.
Back at Lois’s apartment, Clark thought that he had been affected a bit by the pheromone perfume – although it had more to do with the draw of Lois’s kisses. Clark ended up following Lois into her bedroom.
The next morning, while Superman was in India dealing with an emergency, Lois was left at the DP cleaning up after the newsfest that was Ultra Woman. James Olsen – extremely affected by the perfume – had taken roll after roll of Ultra Woman at the party and now turned a few of the photos over to his current editor-in-chief, Ralph, to publish in the paper. The rest of the photos, many of which were of Superman and Ultra Woman making out at the party, James handed over to Lois to give to Clark. Lois told Clark that they could not let intimacy between them happen again, despite both of them wishing it could. Clark concurred. Once was a mistake, twice was a decision.
Between being stalked by tabloid reporters and tending to emergencies, Clark was able to avoid Lois for the next several weeks until Lois discovered that Tempus had taken over her dimension as President-elect John Doe (“Meet John Doe”). Shortly thereafter, Lois flew to Clark’s apartment in the middle of the night to tell him that her Clark had been lost in time. Lois pleaded for Clark to help, but there was nothing he could do.
H.G. Wells arrived to take Clark to Lois’s dimension in order to capture Tempus and rid her dimension of Tempus’s horrible mind-control device (“Lois and Clarks”). Clark agreed to go, but told Lois he was saving her dimension because of his love for her. They kiss again as Clark returned Lois to her apartment, before he left for her home dimension.
***
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