Stepping through the arch, she turned and looked back at the entrance behind her. The first of its kind, it wouldn’t be long before there were others linking the two worlds. The people of this world hadn’t found the Cure, and they needed it desperately.
Yet the briefings about their world made Lois wonder sometimes if her own people hadn’t given something up in their quest for agelessness and eternal youth. These people had found their own sort of Utopia, quite different from her own, and their technology had developed differently.
Their culture seemed more vibrant as well, with developments in art, in music, in literature that had slowed in her own world to a tranquil, leisurely pace. Without the limits of a human lifespan, people had no need to hurry. With agelessness, many felt no need to seek immortality through great works, through leaving something behind with their descendents.
And with fertility slowed to almost nothing, there were few new minds to have new ideas. Her own family was one of the few to retain much of that fertility, and even that was slowing with each generation. She’d been uniquely blessed in finding Clark.
The crowd before her was different, more raucous than the crowds of her own world. There was more diversity her, more faces of the old, and of the infirm. The colors of dress were brighter somehow, and there was an energy here that Lois had become unaccustomed to. There weren’t many crowds on Lois’s world, except for special occasions. Too many people had gone off world to make crowds a daily occurrence anymore.
She raised her hand, and the cheers were thunderous despite the relatively small numbers crowding the square. These people had had their own Lois Lane, and their own Superman.
The Clark she’d known here had found his Lois.
She had to be grateful for that. The last memories she had of him in those long gone days had been memories of pity. They’d been memories of a man faced by a brutal truth of a life of loneliness.
Her escort urged her forward, and Lois stumbled slightly on the stairs. The crowd surged forward, and she found herself being shoved into a waiting vehicle.
The vehicle levitated, using means that had long since been reverse engineered from the powers of Superman and his descendents. Her own people hadn’t had that much drive. Discussing the transfer of technology would be one of the first orders of business now that routes existed for trade.
The streets below seemed unbelievably crowded to Lois, though she knew they weren’t anything like the streets of Metropolis in her heyday. It had been too long since she’d been around the truly young in any numbers.
She began going over the arguments in her head, the ones she’d been working on for the months it took to begin construction of the network of arches leading from one world to the next. It was ironic that this, the world she’d already explored in her youth had been the first of the timelines her people had found.
At least her people had found THAT technology first.
The vehicle landed in an open hangar suspended in the side of a building. Lois shuddered to think about the results of accidents. Her own people were much more cautious.
She was escorted into a conference room with a view out over the bay. It was smaller than she’d expected, and there was only one man standing, staring out at the setting sun.
He was a tall man, with thick blonde hair.
“I was supposed to meet with the President.” Lois said slowly.
The man turned. He was a handsome man, Lois supposed, though she hadn’t really LOOKED at men in longer than she could remember. The only jarring note were the small set of glasses at the end of his nose.
“I had you diverted here.” The voice was thick and rich, but not one of those Lois had been given in her briefing. She blinked and moved her fingers slightly, and a series of pictures flashed across her retinas. He wasn’t in the database she’d been given.
“Why?” Lois asked, backing up slowly. The Cure had made her ageless, but it hadn’t made her immortal.
He chuckled slightly, then pulled off his glasses. He toggled a button at the end of them, and the hologram surrounding him blinked and faded into non-existence.
Lois stared at him, her entire field of vision shrinking. She felt faint.
“Clark?”
She felt herself falling, as darkness overtook her.
*******************
“We were happy together.”
Lois let the heat of her cup warm hands driven cold. She still felt shaky.
“After she died...I couldn’t keep going. I left for a while, found an island we’d honeymooned on once., holed up for a few decades. I tried to forget.”
She’d buried herself in work, retreating to patterns she’d left behind when she’d lived with Clark.
With her Clark.
“When I finally came out, I tried to hide again. I couldn’t do it anymore, not like the first time. It didn’t take the government long to find me. I was surprised at how happy they were to help me create a new identity, a new life.”
She spoke for the first time, her voice feeling rusty from disuse.
“And Superman?”
“I’ve got three sons,” Clark said. “Boys I’m proud of. Six grandchildren and twice as many great grandchildren. If I need to do something helpful, it’s pretty easy to impersonate one or another of them. I’ve managed to blend in pretty well.”
“I’ll have to show you pictures of my family. They’re a pretty exceptional bunch.”
She found herself lapsing into a long, uncomfortable silence.
She hadn’t looked directly at him since she’d come to. It was too painful to see how young he looked. In her youth, she’d have said he looked like a man in his late forties.
It made her even more bitter about just how much her world had stolen from her Clark. The evidence was standing right before her...the thought of what could have been was ashes in her mouth.
“Why did you send for me?” she asked finally. She forced herself to look at him.
“I’m tired of being alone.” His voice was flat, with just a trace of hopefulness.
It was ridiculous. The thought of anyone substituting for Clark...it was unthinkable. In that moment, Lois realized that the reason she hadn’t found anyone in all these years wasn’t simply because of her power, or her position. It wasn’t because she’d been surrounded by family who insisted on seeing her has grandma.
She’d been waiting for him to come back to her.
“I’m not her,” she said.
He flushed slightly. “I loved my wife....I still love her. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think about her, even after all this time. Still...”
“It’s the same for me and Clark.” Lois said. She’d done her grieving long ago, but seeing him here and now reminded her once again that some wounds never completely healed.
“In all the world, you are the person the most like my Lois. You even share some of the same memories. Being around you...it’s a little like getting something of her back.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “You’ve been lucky. All the people I knew from back then are gone. Nobody here remembers me as Clark Kent, human being. All they remember is the legend.”
The bitter pain of loneliness had been a constant companion for Lois, even when she’d been surrounded by family and friends. How much worse would it have been for him, when he had so many fewer people left?
Even his children wouldn’t remember the world he’d come from.
Sighing, Clark reached into his pocket and said, “I’d like to talk to you about old times now and then, when you have time. It would mean a lot to me.”
He glanced sharply out the window, then pressed a business card into her hand. “Call me if you ever want to talk.”
A moment later he was gone. A moment after that, three men in familiar red and blue suits arrived. They were young looking and serious.
“Miss Lane?” one asked. “Are you safe?”
She nodded and carefully slipped the card into her pocket after memorizing the number.
As she left the room, she noticed that she felt better. Somehow her step felt a little lighter.
For the first time in a long time she had a little hope.
