Hello! Here I am, back again and I just want to thank everyone profusely for all the encouragement I've received. It means a lot to a first-time fic writer like me, and it just blows me away that people appreciate what I'm doing. So thank you, thank you, thank you for reading it, liking it and telling me so. Actually, if you took the time out to read it at all, I appreciate it all the same, even if you didn't like it or didn't review.
I'm so glad that no one finds my style juvenile or anything, because I realize that I'm young. Okay, so I'm a university student, but I'm in first year and I'm still at the stage of trying to find my writing voice. I want it to be more mature.
I'm also happy that people are enjoying where this story is going, because I've just learned that kidfics aren't terribly popular in this fandom, which is too bad because honestly, it's one of my favourite genres (though I only like the ones where their children are babies or very young).
Anyway, all of your feedback has encouraged me to stop and really take a long, close look at what I'm doing. I want it to be good, so I went through some serious editing again, tweaked and added some things before posting, and I think the story has improved. I hope I don't disappoint!
Last chapter...“Thank goodness you’re finally awake! How are you feeling, sweetheart? Are you okay?” he asked gently, concern etched across his face.
Chocolate. So chocolaty brown. That was all Lois could think of as her eyes met his. And his lips were like soft pillows…wait a minute. Who is this guy? What did he just call her? She looked down and saw her hand enclosed in his large, masculine one, his thumb stroking her knuckles.
Lois was still in a daze and she didn’t feel threatened anyway, so instead of busting a martial arts move on this stranger, she softly asked, “Who are you?”
Future Perfect 2/?Lois could see first shock, then hurt, maybe fear, or panic cross his face. Then he took a deep breath and he seemed to gather his wits and put all his emotions away. “Honey, it’s me, Clark.” he replied, his eyes begging her to recognize him and let everything go back to normal. The thumb stroking her hand stopped and his grip tightened imperceptibly.
Lois was finally coming back to her senses so she pulled her hand out of his, albeit a bit reluctantly and asked him, “Have we met before? Where am I?”
“Oh God, I can’t believe this is happening. Please, not at Christmas!” Clark muttered quietly as he bent his head down and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He lifted his head, looked into her eyes and asked patiently, “You don’t know who I am?”
“I have never seen you in my life.” Lois stated. She was still a bit confused, but she knew that much was true. This was getting stranger by the minute.
“Daddy, why is Mommy acting like this?” the small boy asked, confusion and hurt in his eyes.
“Mama, are you okay?” the little girl timidly inquired from Lois’ side.
Lois was almost afraid to ask the seemingly stupid, obvious question, but she had to, “Who…who
are you two? Why do you think…Why do you keep calling me your mother?”
The boy’s eyes widened and glistened; the little girl burst into tears as she shook Lois and wailed, “Mama, stop it. t’s not funny!”
Oh, boy. Yes, something was very, very wrong, thought Lois. She gently extricated herself from the little girl’s grasp but kept hold of her hands when she noticed that the cherub only cried harder. “Sweetie, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m
not your-”
“Kids, she just woke up and doesn’t have her bearings yet. Why don’t you two go play in the family room for a bit? We’ll join you and start dinner soon.” Clark interjected. He couldn’t bear to have his children be told by their mother that she wasn’t, in fact, their mother. Heck, he couldn’t bear to hear it himself.
The children obediently walked out of the room with lingering, teary glances at Lois while Clark closed his eyes and tried to rein in his emotions. When the children were gone, he opened his eyes again and calmly, slowly asked, “Lois, are you saying that you can’t remember
anything?"
Lois felt a burst of annoyance flare through her; she didn’t appreciate that patronizing tone of his. “What do you mean, I can’t remember anything? On second thought, how do you even know my name?” Lois was getting scared now. “Who the heck
are you? I know who I am but I don’t know who you are. How did I get here and who are those children?”
Clark’s heart broke and he could barely hide it. “Lois, I’m your husband, Clark. Clark Kent. Those are our children, Lora Marie Kent and Jonathan Clark Kent. I found you slumped on the wheel of our SUV…I wasn’t fast enough to stop you from crashing into the tree, but I brought you home several hours ago. I didn’t think you were seriously hurt because the airbag was activated and I couldn’t find any injuries on or in you, but…” Clark slowed down and tried again, “Honey, we’ve been married for seven years, and we’ve been working together for ten. Can’t you remember any of that?”
“Okay, you can just stop right there. This has to be a mistake because I work alone, and ten years ago I was in high school! I don’t believe in marriage and I’m the last person in the world who’d have children.” Lois began pulling away the covers and hoisting herself off the bed, her headache having faded to a dull ache. “I really don’t know who you are; you seem nice enough, but you must be out of your mind. I’m going home now. Goodbye.”
Clark caught Lois’ hand, stopping her journey to the door. “Lois, this is your home. Just take a look around, all the pictures, all of our things together, look down at your left hand! You’re 36 years old, so ten years ago, you would have been out of high school for a long time already. And our children…they look just like us! Lori is the exact miniature of you. You can’t deny that.” His voice was almost frantic with worry.
Lois wrenched her hand away again and started pacing the room agitatedly, not knowing what to think or do. So those children have her colouring.
Lots of people in the world have dark hair, fair skin and brown eyes. This guy wasn’t making any sense at all; he had to be crazy. How was she going to get out of here?
But then she slowed down and started really looking at things around the room. She noticed pictures scattered everywhere that had combinations of her, that Clark guy, those children, Perry, Jimmy, Lucy, her parents and another elderly couple she didn’t recognize. A look into the closet, shelves and drawers confirmed that a lot of her belongings and some she didn’t recognize were in fact stored away neatly in this room.
A wedding picture of her and Clark nearly knocked her out…but even that wasn’t as jarring as her own reflection in the vanity mirror, which she immediately turned away from with a gasp. That couldn’t be her! Well, it looked like her, but so much…older! Breathing deeply to calm her racing heart, she gathered enough courage to turn around again, slowly, and take a look at “herself”. She prodded her own features, seeing her reflection do the same. This really
was her. When did she develop those awful laugh lines? She was even starting to get crow’s feet! On the up side, her eyes were still bright with energy, her skin was still supple, radiant and soft. She didn’t look bad, but she just looked – oh, God! – mature.
She looked down at the fourth finger on her left hand and pulled off the wedding band and engagement ring she found there. The inscription inside of the wedding band read:
I have loved you from the beginning. –CK 10/06/96 This was too much; she just couldn’t handle this right now. She felt as if she were in the middle of a bad sci-fi movie or the butt of some mean trick. Slamming her rings onto the vanity, she hissed, “This is a really sick joke!” and ran out of the room.
Heart thundering in her chest, she flew down the stairs past two stunned children, and ran to the front door which was thankfully right in front of the staircase. Thinking quickly, she took the first set of keys she saw on the key rack, slipped on the first pair of shoes that looked like they’d fit her and sprinted outside, ignoring the cold.
As Lois reached the driveway, she looked at the keys in her hand and noted the brand on one of them. Looking up, she rushed to the car that matched the key, slipped it into the driver’s door, which thankfully opened. Jumping in, she sped away after briefly glancing up at the number on the house. When she got to the end of the road, she noted the name of the street. Good, she thought, she knew where she was and how to get out of there.
At first, she wanted to drive back to her apartment, but the quick realization that she had nothing with her but a car and a set of unknown keys made her change directions and head towards her second home instead.
***
The elevator doors at the Planet slid open after a cheerful ding, and Lois breathed a sigh of relief that at least
something in the world was familiar. A look in the bullpen told her she was wrong. It wasn’t all completely different, but some changes had definitely occurred, and this wasn’t the bullpen she was used to arriving to every day. When did they hire so many new people for the night staff? When did they get new furniture for everyone? When did they change the paneling on the conference room doors? And…oh my, what happened to everyone’s computer monitors? Some desks didn’t have any computers at all, but the ones that did had these flat rectangular panel-things instead of the miniature TV-like boxy monitors she remembered.
She walked over to her desk and to her great relief, noticed that her name plaque still read ‘Lois Lane’, although everything on her desk looked sort of different. Whose briefcase was that? And where the heck was her computer?! Her computer was her life! Then, she saw a framed picture of herself with that Clark guy and those children. For the life of her, she just couldn’t remember ever taking such a picture. Just what was going on? Then, she noticed a name plaque on a nearby desk with the name ‘Clark Kent’. A quick glance showed that he had a picture with the same people on his desk.
Motion somewhere in front of her in the distance caught her attention. Perry was walking out of his office with his night editor. Yes, she recognized these two people! The night editor nodded at her as he went back into his office and she waved back with more enthusiasm than she ever had waving to someone.
“Honey, what are you still doing here right now? Shouldn’t you be enjoying your days off?” Perry asked in his familiar – and at that moment much appreciated – Southern twang.
“Perry!” Lois cried as she flew into his arms, “I’m
so glad to see you!” She noticed with some embarrassment that her eyes started to feel moist. She also couldn’t help but notice that Perry looked quite a bit older, too.
Perry leaned back from the embrace and searched her face with his eyes. “Something wrong, Lois? Is it about Clark or the kids?”
Shocked, Lois pulled out of his grasp, her gaze drifting into the distance as she said in a small voice, “They…they really exist.”
“For your sake, I sure hope they do!” Perry chuckled. Noticing that she still looked shell-shocked, he grew concerned. “What’s wrong, honey? Are you feeling okay?”
Lois’ eyes snapped back to Perry’s as she quickly tried to gather her wits. If everyone was crazy, she was going to find out what the matter was all by herself. After all, she was the top investigative reporter of the greatest newspaper in the world – at least she hoped she still was. “Nothing’s wrong, Chief!” she said brightly and hoped her smile didn’t look too forced. “I just wanted to come by and say ‘Merry Christmas’ again. And…and I forgot my briefcase! That’s it.” She grabbed the briefcase she didn’t recognize that was lying on her desk.
Perry still looked a bit puzzled, but he decided to leave it at that. “Alright then, if you’re sure, I’m going to go home now. Alice and I are having a special night out tonight, so I promised to be home earlier. You go home to that charming family of yours too and give those kids a hug from their Grandpa Perry.”
“Will do, Chief. Goodnight!” Lois replied. This would all actually be kind of nice it any of it were true, thought Lois. With a sigh, she sat down at her desk and rifled through the purse to see who it belonged to. She pulled out the wallet and she stopped when she saw the driver’s license. It was her – the older her she saw in the mirror – with the address that she had just escaped from. So the briefcase was hers. She rifled through the bag some more and found the tiniest cell phone she’d ever seen.
She realized that the world had become something completely different to her; she could barely recognize anything. Sighing, she decided to make a trip somewhere else.
***
After parking her car, making her way up and ringing the doorbell, she wasn’t entirely surprised when she was greeted uncertainly by a strange couple at her apartment.
“Hi. You two live here, don’t you?” It wasn’t a question; Lois Lane was never one to beat around the bushes!
“Yes…and you are?” the woman’s eyes were starting to narrow dangerously.
Not very friendly, thought Lois. “My name is Lois, and I used to live here. I moved out a long time ago, so I just wanted to drop by, say hello and see how the place was doing. I really enjoyed living here.”
The couple instantly became friendlier, knowing that the strange woman at the door wasn’t some solicitor or other kind of annoying visitor. “Would you like to come in to have a look?” asked the man.
“No, that’s okay, but thanks for offering.” Lois said. She’d had enough of seeing familiar things become unrecognizable. “So how long have you two been living here?”
“Well, Cliff has been living here for about four years now, and I moved in when we got married, which was last year.” replied the woman as she extended her hand. “My name is Susanna, by the way.”
They shook hands and Lois said warmly, “Nice to meet you two. Well, I better get going now, but it was nice to come back and visit. I hope you enjoy living here as much as I did. And congratulations.” They traded farewells and Lois left.
***
Sitting in the car, Lois fought the sadness and feeling of loneliness that threatened to overtake her. She didn’t know what to do now. She had to admit and accept the fact that she just woke up one day and missed over ten years of her life. It was so unfair. The world was completely different and foreign to her; she felt lost. Worst of all, she’d completely missed all those important milestones in her life, and she’ll never have those moments back. The last decade was blank, she had no memories of any of it, and she’d gone through some of the most significant things she would ever experience. She never went through falling in love once and for all, getting married to the man she loved, having her children…in fact, all the people who she was supposed to be closest to now were strangers to her. She just wanted to curl up and cry into a tub of really expensive chocolate ice cream…but even that would do nothing to assuage the sorrow she felt.
Trying to distract herself, she started rifling through her briefcase. Maybe its contents would give her some clues about the world she was in now and she wouldn’t feel so inadequate and clueless. Finding her phone again, she had to smile as she fiddled with it for a couple minutes. It’s uncanny how quickly technology develops. Games, musical ring tones, wallpaper! It was like a mini-computer in her hand. After going through the address book to see how many people she recognized, she found Lucy’s number. Surprisingly enough, it was a Metropolis one, and she dialed.
“Hello?”
“Um…Luce?” God, she sounded weak.
“Lois? What’s up?”
“Listen, something really weird is happening right now. Where are you? Can you come out for some coffee?”
***
TBCI should probably get back and ease my guilty conscience by studying now!
