In a Better Place, from part 4
***
“Happily Ever After.” She snorted that derisively, tossed some skeptical looks around. There was no one else to see them, but they made her feel better.
Her eyes strayed back to the doors.
Whatever was in there certainly couldn’t be any worse than what was in the Lane Family Wing. There couldn’t be anything here to compare to that house of horrors. And she was fact-gathering today. The best way to get a handle on things, have a look at everything, no stone left unturned. And the timing was good. No group dynamic to distract her.
Silly not to go in, then, really. Foolish. Unprofessional.
“So, why not?” she said aloud.
And now...
***
Clark wasn’t too surprised when Lois didn’t show up for lunch. He waited as long as he could before he gave in and ate her sandwich. He was starving, and if she turned up he would get her another one.
His stomach full, he leaned up against the attic wall and stretched out his legs and closed his eyes. He just needed a few minutes, a fast nap, before he headed back to work for the afternoon.
He forced all thoughts of Krypton out of his head. All thoughts of the future and time travel and Tempus. He just wanted to sit and nothing more. It had been two days since he last slept, and the constant barrage of images and questions haunting him was exhausting.
He knew it had to be the same for Lois. And now she could add one more little detail to her store of knowledge- Clark Kent and Superman, same guy.
He laughed a half-laugh. Well, no need to worry she would expose him, right? Hundreds of people had streamed in and out all morning long, and every last one of them knew.
Clark squeezed his eyes shut. Determinedly relaxing.
‘He loved you at first sight.’
Some woman had spoken those words during his and Lois’s argument. He tried to ignore them, but they leapt straight to his gut all over again. Along with other words which refused to be pushed off- the Perry’s ‘You’re a one woman man’ from the day before.
Clark sighed and opened his eyes. So much for relaxing. He might as well go downstairs; he wasn’t going to get any sleep. Not for a minute. He jumped to his feet and walked with quick steps to the door.
He knew those words were true. Every one of them.
He stumbled just a bit in the darkened corner, almost as if that thought had tripped him.
But it had tripped him, hadn’t it? And that was the problem.
Lois wasn’t the only one who had been handed a really mind-blowing piece of information today. She wasn’t the only one who, on top of everything else that was going on, knew just one thing too many.
Clark rested his forehead on the door and let it sink in.
The way he had felt when she had pushed into Perry’s office during his interview at the real Daily Planet. The shock to his system. The electric current he could practically see...
“Physical attraction,” he whispered aloud. “Nothing unusual.”
The worry for her that felt like a band around his heart...
“She’s reckless, so that’s... natural.”
And last night, carrying her back here, folding his cape around her, watching her sleep, after seeing her so undone, even knowing what she thought he was capable of...
“Circumstances. High stress.” He spoke a bit louder now, more firmly.
Waking up underneath her in the park yesterday...
“Amazing,” he breathed, before he could stop himself.
Clark moved one hand to the door knob. There were some many things to be done. He didn’t know what exactly, but he knew he needed to be doing something besides this. Besides standing in the attic, in the future, in a world where his life was, evidently, some sort of... amusement ride, wondering if he’d ever have a chance to... wake up underneath Lois Lane again.
The thought was laughable. But he didn’t laugh.
“Get a grip,” he growled to himself, pulling the door open with enough force to wrench it from the hinges. He didn’t stop to fix it. He propped it to one side and took the stairs three at a time trying not to feel as if he was being chased.
He went back to the lobby, deeply grateful for all the people milling about. He would talk to them, every last one. Then maybe after closing, Lois would be ready to meet him and they could compare notes.
He hoped fervently they had more to say to each other than, “Today I learned you’re Superman, Clark.” And “Well, I can top that. Turns out, I might love you.”
Clark smiled ruefully. If there was one thing he did know for certain, it was that his feelings- whatever they were exactly- were entirely one-sided.
One of the Perrys approached him. “Our Smallville Kent has gone home early, you feel up to something a little different?”
“Sure,” he said heartily. The more he saw the better. And he was definitely a little homesick.
***
“Should we notify the family?”
Madge started, turning away from the monitors, one hand pressed to her galloping heart. “Hank, make some noise next time, will you?”
He smiled good-naturedly, though it was strained. And he didn’t repeat himself. He would know that she had heard.
“Not yet,” she said finally, not quite able to meet his eyes.
“When?” He took his usual seat across from her desk and Madge moved reluctantly to join him.
“I’m not sure I see the point.”
“Don’t see the point? The Lane-Kents are the pillars of this community. They number in the thousands. If we’ve lost their ancestors -”
“Not lost.” Madge raised her voice. “Misplaced.”
“Since we’ve... misplaced... their ancestors,” Hank said respectfully, “shouldn’t they be told? They’ll be the first ones affected.”
“According to the Descendant Theory. We don’t really know.” Madge moved briskly to her feet. She couldn’t seem to make herself sit for long these days. Poor Fredrick. She had kept him awake all night with her tossing and turning.
“You don’t look so good,” Hank said, as if he was reading her mind. And maybe he was. They had spent many years together. She had been his first boss at the Ministry. He had been barely out of school. And as she had climbed in position, she had taken him with her, appreciating his quiet steadiness, his gentle humor, and his undying loyalty. In many ways, he was the son she’d never had.
Not that they never disagreed. They did, and did often.
Like now.
“What good can it do them to know? There isn’t one thing they can do about it. So why...”
“...ruin their last days?” Hank finished for her, and Madge flinched at his tone.
“It hasn’t come to that!” She said that louder than she meant to, but just the thought of it, of losing generations of Lois Lane and Clark Kent’s offspring all at once...
“You see the lifelines,” Hank asserted, moving to his feet and raising his voice to meet hers. “They are definitely weaker. As of now there are still no external signs of it in the community, but for how much longer?”
“I wish I knew.” Madge smiled at her friend and co-worker. He smiled back, accepting her unspoken apology for snapping at him. “And then again, I’m glad I don’t. The official Ministry position- and I happen to agree with it-” She held up her hand to still Hank’s reply. “-is in a Doomsday scenario, the less said the better. We don’t want to start a panic.”
“But if you were on limited time, wouldn’t you want to know?”
That was the question she had wrestled long into the night and well into the morning hours. The one she was wrestling now. Leave it to Hank to voice it.
If she knew her days in this world had grown short, would she truly want to know? Would she want the time to say the things she hadn’t said? Do the things she’d always meant to. Or would she prefer the cozy blanket of ignorance? To live her last day with no idea that it was her last day, free of the burden of that knowledge.
“I can’t stop thinking of Jor-el and Lara,” she confessed softly.
Hank nodded. He knew exactly what she meant. “They were forewarned, and they certainly made the most of it, didn’t they?”
Madge cleared her throat roughly and hit the intercom.
“Yes?” Anna’s melodic voice responded immediately.
“Tea, if you please, dear,” said Madge with an unsteady waver in her voice. “For you and Hank, too. Let’s take a break.”
“I think you should tell them,” Hank said. “No matter what the official position is, if it was me, if I was a Lane-Kent descendant and my life was in jeopardy, if I was going to... disappear or... wink out of existence like I’d never been, I would want to know.”
“You sound so sure.” Madge moved to the sofas in the corner and started clearing the table.
“Elise is a descendant. Eighth generation granddaughter.”
Madge froze, and if Hank hadn’t been right there, she would have dropped everything she held. “Your wife is...? You never said!”
“I know it’s frowned on. As employees we are strongly encouraged not to interact with blood relatives, much less get involved with them. But...” He shrugged unapologetically. “How could I not? She’s... Elise. And I’ve never told her anything about what I do. She understands that I can’t.”
“But it has certainly upped the stakes for you,” said Madge mournfully. “Every mission, every wrinkle in time, every instance with Tempus. You had so much more to lose than everyone else.” She wanted to cry for him. But if she got started, she wasn’t sure how she’d ever stop. How she’d ever get back to doing her job. “You should have told me. I know what it is to keep quiet in a marriage. Fredrick understands that I can’t talk about my work, but it’s hard when I want comforting and I can’t say anything more specific than, ‘bad day at the office.’”
“Which is why you and I are so close, don’t you think?” He said that casually, but Madge felt it acutely. It was exactly why.
“You want to tell your wife that she’s threatened,” she said, sitting slowly.
“I don’t want whatever time is left to us to be a lie. I want her to know. And I want to tell her what I do here, what I’ll keep doing until the last possible minute.”
“If it goes that far, if we lose the descendants, that doesn’t mean they’re gone for good. We find Lois and Clark, or Tempus grows bored and talks, or Wells comes around, and everything is reversed. The family just... reappears.”
“We don’t know that for sure, though, do we?” Hank was right and she knew it. So much of what they operated on was theory and nothing more. “Things could easily be altered irrevocably.”
Anna came in with the tea.
“Tell Elise with my blessing,” Madge whispered. And then more loudly, “It isn’t over yet. The search committee is working round the clock. As are the soul tracer programmers. Wells is still out of pocket; no doubt off on a lark and forgetting to leave a forwarding address. It isn’t cold enough yet in the Dakotas. But all we need is for one of those variables to change, to fall our way, and this is all stopped. In less than a second.”
She was trying to comfort Hank. Comfort Anna and herself. They weren’t empty words. They were the very words that ran on a continuous loop inside her head, morning, noon, and night. Keeping her going, keeping her hopeful.
However, as of now, Wells still hadn’t answered his SOS. Tempus was snug in a cave and seemingly content to wait it out. Lois Lane and Clark Kent had disappeared from the soul tracer and from... everywhere. And the Cosmos Search Committee, while dedicated, couldn’t possibly cover every time and every place ever.
Their best bet was to sit back and wait until the changes in the timestream started to make themselves known. The anomalies would form a pattern, or at least deviate enough to get their attention. And then they could go and investigate. The trouble was, the ripple effect, while failsafe, took time.
Time was what they didn’t have.
***
The museum was closed for the night. Closed but not locked, Clark noticed as he trailed along behind the other employees towards the exit, which made circling around and going back very easy.
On closer inspection, there didn’t seem to be any locks at all, which, considering all the hi-tech gadgetry inside seemed a little... optimistic.
He pushed through the lobby doors. Lois hadn’t been among the crowd of chatting cast members who had just departed. He had asked about her, been teased about how ridiculous the question “Has anyone seen Lois?” was.
Once he had clarified with “The Lois who looks exactly like Lois”, though, a Jimmy, a Clark, and one guy he couldn’t place had mentioned she’d left the Bullpen early and never come back.
And he’d learned that her real name was Lorraine.
Clark smiled at that, despite his new worry. It hadn’t occurred to him before now that Lois might simply leave. He had assumed she would stay in the building just as he had. That she was somewhere questioning people or tearing through the exhibits, ripping up the carpets to have a better look. Lois Lane after a lead.
But maybe not. Maybe after what she’d learned about him, she had just opted out of the nut house. Left to find her answers outside. That sounded right.
Or maybe she was simply avoiding him. That would work, too.
He did a fast check of the first floor just in case he’d missed her. He tried not to let his eyes linger too long over the Lane Family Wing. Hundreds of people did it everyday. But he was different; he knew her. And knew for certain she would hate him seeing any of it.
One quick sweep assured him he was entirely alone on the first floor. Krypton and Smallville stood empty. As did the Bullpen. He loitered there an extra minute on the off chance she’d left him a note, or some indication she had gotten a clue and set out to investigate. He had only worked in the real bullpen for a few days, but seeing his desk- or rather the duplicate of it- made him nostalgic for... last week.
No wonder Lois had left the set early. Being there would have been so much harder for her. The Daily Planet was practically her home... her whole life.
He started up the stairs just shy of superspeed, giving the building one last, precursory glance before he left by way of the roof. Depending on what time she had gone, it was possible she hadn’t gotten too far. She would be on foot. With a little luck, he could catch up with her easily.
When he was just outside the attic, he slammed to a halt. A lone figure was sitting in the far corner of the room. Clark would have sworn he had felt her there before he actually saw her.
Relief made him sag against the doorframe. Relief, which was followed closely by anxiety. He looked down at his clothes. When he had taken over the Smallville wing in the afternoon, he had gotten dressed from the Clark Kent closet. One hand moved to adjust the loose eyeglasses he now wore to complete the look.
There had been a drawer full of them. Different sizes and styles. And in a moment that had been numbing in its surrealness, he had reached in and picked the pair he recognized, the style he’d worn since high school.
But Lois hadn’t seen him as Clark since they had arrived, and he was on thin ice with her as it was. And while it was a little late for a change of clothes to protect his identity... maybe she didn’t need the reminder of who she was really stranded here with?
Clark drew in a full breath and pocketed the glasses that didn’t quite fit right. She knew. Everyone knew. It didn’t matter.
She was so still, he thought she had fallen asleep where she was seated. But at his first footstep, her head came up and her eyes lit on him, bright and razor sharp.
“Where do you think we are?” she demanded.
He walked slowly towards her and sat down. “Hello to you, too. I thought maybe you had bolted for parts unknown.” At her stony look, he continued, “Certainly wouldn’t have blamed you.”
“Where are we?” she said again.
“We’re skipping the polite smalltalk?” He stretched his legs out in front of him, stalling for time. “No ‘How was your day? Mine was weird.’”
“How was your day?” she asked blandly. “Mine was... really, really weird.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
She was silent once more. Finally she shook her head. “Not yet.”
A much better answer than he’d hoped for. “Ok.”
“Where do you think we are?” This time there was no urgency in the question, but a weariness he recognized and appreciated, so similar to his own.
She finally looked at him, their gazes rested on each other. “I think you’re asking that wrong,” he said softly.
Her heart rate leapt, sounding loud to his ears, letting him know she had her own suspicions. “How should I ask it?” she returned, the strain showing clearly on her face.
“I think the right question is... when... do you think we are?”
Her eyes closed and her head dropped back against the wall she was propped against. “That isn’t possible.” But there was no heat behind her words. And none of the usual energy he had come to associate with Lois.
“I know,” he agreed.
For a time they sat in a silence that wasn’t unfriendly. Clark studied her, wondering if her mind was racing, or if she had just shut down, refusing to think any further about the unthinkable.
“I don’t believe it,” she finally said, turning a challenging stare on him. “Do you?”
“Yes and no. Yes, because I can’t think of any other way to explain it. And no, because not being able to think of another explanation is pretty weak evidence. So... I don’t know, Lois.”
“The woman with Tempus and those other people,” Lois returned. “They said something about being in charge of-”
“Yeah.‘Time and space details.’”
Lois gulped and nodded. “I remembered that today. Also, did you know they don’t call this Metropolis any more? It’s...”
“Utopia,” he said when she didn’t finish. “Or really, Utopian-Metropolis, I think.”
Lois’s laugh had a slightly hysterical edge to it. “Of course. Where else?”
He scooted a little closer, but stopped when her body tensed at his approach. He made a show of leaning back against the wall once more.
“We’re going to need a couple of chairs,” she said, the threat of tears in her voice. “It looks like we might be here for a while.”
“Don’t, Lois. Please, we’ll-”
“What?” She jumped to her feet. He had only touched her hand, but it was as if he had scalded her. “What will *we* do, Clark?”
He flinched at the sound of her voice saying his name, the first time she had used it since this morning, and the way she was looking at him- through him- as if she had x-ray vision of her own.
“We are in this together.” It was all he could think of, and he could tell it wasn’t right, as her agitation increased notably. “We will figure this out. Together we are stronger than-”
“Stop!” she shouted. And he did, chagrined. He couldn’t imagine what he might have said that would be more trite, sound more hollow in the cavernous space.
“Did you eat?” Maybe if they just started with the basics. “The cafeteria downstairs wasn’t bad. Maybe we could see if-”
She held up her hand to cut him off. “I need to know,” she said in a low voice. “Did you... love me... at first sight?”
Clark didn’t answer. Couldn’t formulate an answer. His mind had already jumped ahead to finding a way to get more food without having any money. How ethical it would be to ask for an advance on their pay tomorrow, since they didn’t actually work here. And would that give them away? Someone was bound to notice they weren’t employees soon enough.
So, he was nowhere near the ballpark of “Did you love me at first sight?” Nowhere close.
“Don’t answer that.” She covered her face with her hands and turned away. “I’m losing my mind. So... don’t. I mean...you didn’t, right? How could you? It’s been well established that I’m not exactly...” Her voice trailed away as she circled the room, and he forced himself to wait. Not to try to fill-in the blanks. He was so lost; he knew he’d fill them wrong. “...fairy tale material,” she finally finished.
“Is this the Lane Family Wing talking?” he asked her quietly, moving to his feet. “Because I saw it, Lois, and it’s not-”
“You looked in there?”
He wasn’t sure how to defend such an invasion of her privacy, but then again, it wasn’t really private, not when you considered the crowds. “It was fast. I was trying to find you. Thought you might be there.”
Her consternation grew. “You said you thought I might have left. Were you looking for me? Did you search this entire place? Every room?”
He took a careful step towards her, uncertain how to stem her rising anxiety, her erratic heart beat causing his own to trip unsteadily. “It’s ok.”
She darted away. “Just answer me.”
“No. I only looked to confirm you weren’t on the premises,” he said softly. He didn’t know why, but that seemed to calm her. “What’s going on, Lois?”
She turned back towards him, taking small steps to meet him half way. “Did you love me at first sight?”
This time he was the one who moved back. This was a test of some sort. He couldn’t think how it applied, but he knew it was important. And that honesty was crucial between them if they were to remain a united front. It was quite possible ‘divide and conquer’ was high on Tempus’s list of techniques.
Clark sighed and opened his mouth to tell her that maybe he did, he wasn’t really sure, he’d never really been in love with anyone before, crushes, yes, college girlfriends, check. But love? What did he really know about it? He didn’t have anything to compare this feeling to, to put it into context, so how could he know?
Still... if she ever needed anything, he wanted to be the one she asked, the one who provided it, whatever it was, even if it was just a sandwich or a cup of coffee or... his eternal devotion.
He flinched. “Is this because of what was said when we were fighting this morning?”
There was enough happening here, he argued with the part of himself now declaring him more chicken than superhero. Just how freaked out did she need to be? This was better. Easier. And better. But he’d mentioned that already.
Lois moved closer to him. Close enough to put her hands on his shoulders and closer still, narrowing the space between them to mere inches. His mouth went dry. She tilted her head up and looked at him appraisingly, a slight frown in her eyes.
He didn’t know what to do with his own hands. He raised them, thinking to put them around her, or on her waist, but he dropped them, thinking that might be... stupid. So his arms hung heavy at his sides, aching and empty.
He closed his eyes against that last thought, against her nearness.
He had loved her at first sight. He had.
“Yes,” he said. And he couldn’t look at her. “I did. I... do. I just didn’t realize that’s what this was.”
The silence between them was agony, but when he finally looked at her, she was completely calm and unruffled. Now he was the one precariously on edge.
“I think we’re in the future,” she said. “I think you’re right. I think that Tempus and that woman... the beam... the ‘time and space’ speech, this museum, this place, all of it... could be the future.”
He cleared his throat roughly. “What just happened here? How did my telling you ...?” He couldn’t repeat it. “How does my answer prove anything?”
She dropped her hands and stepped away from him. “There are parts of this building that are pretty unbelievable otherwise.”
“Oh god.”
It was so obvious. And he had overlooked it. He couldn’t believe he had been so stupid and short-sighted.
“You’ve seen our future.” It wasn’t a question, he just knew. “Things that haven’t happened yet. I’ve been immersed in Krypton and Smallville- in my past- but you... you’ve seen... what comes next.”
Why hadn’t he considered it? He had seen the date, two hundred years from now, had been suspicious enough to entertain the time travel theory most of the day. But the idea there might be more here than just the story of his life as he had lived it thus far, more than the Daily Planet, the reporters he worked with, the planet he was from, the place he fell to...
“I didn’t think of that,” he said in a choked whisper.
“Then you’re going to want to sit down for this, Superman,” Lois told him. “We’re married.”
***
Clark sat down pretty quickly, and his face was a careful blank. All the emotion and confusion that had been rolling across it just minutes ago were wiped away.
Lois shivered. Without his glasses, and with that unreadable look on his face, he looked exactly how he was depicted in so many of the holograms downstairs. Unflappable. Untouchable. Unreal.
“Say that again.” His eyes held hers tightly, pinning her down. She couldn’t have looked away if she wanted to. And she really, really wanted to.
“There’s a Happily Ever After room.” She tried to laugh, but couldn’t bring it off. “We’re there. Our... wedding is there. Well, the pictures- the three-dimensional kind they have that make you feel like you’re standing right in the middle of everything. Only we are, you and me, actually standing right in the middle of it. In front of a... minister, I guess that’s what he is, odd looking man. And my parents and I assume your parents. A nice looking couple. He’s a little stout, and does your mother wear hats? I know we’ve only known each other a short while, so I don’t think you mentioned it, but does she? And glasses? Both of them? Also, Perry and Jimmy were there, the real ones, not the fakes.”
She stopped and drew in a deep breath. He still hadn’t moved and his expression hadn’t altered.
“Married,” he said.
Lois nodded. “Three years from now, or one hundred and ninety-seven years ago, take your pick...”
“Married.”
“...if it’s that last one, though, buster, you owe me a lot of anniversary presents.”
She would swear he had turned to stone just like the statue in the park. After an excruciatingly long minute, he spoke so softly she could barely hear him.
“Married.”
“Could you say something else? Just one other little thing else? Just so I know you’re still in there and not just a sitting corpse?”
That, at last, earned her a blink. And then a half smile, which slowly turned into a full smile, which eventually climbed into his eyes and lit every corner of his face. “How about... wow?” he asked.
“Wow is... fine.” She hadn’t meant for that to come out so high and squeaky. “I think I’ll sit now.”
And she did, without ceremony, precisely where she had been standing.
***
tbc
