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Synopsis of Chapters 1 - 9 Missing Lois - TOC ***
Part 10Lois looked across the Kents’ living room at her husband. Lara was ringing a jingle bell at his feet as he floated above her to put the ornaments at the top of the tree. Martha was baking gingerbread men in the kitchen and the smell permeated the house. Jonathan was squirreled away in his workshop with Jack. They were working on a top secret Santa gift for Lara.
Jack. Lois shook her head. He seemed so different from that squirmy thief who had broken into Clark’s Clinton Street apartment all those years ago. Relaxed. Happy. Buff. A man, not a boy. She had to hand it to farming; it sure required muscles city boys never developed.
She gazed at Clark again, happy that he had grown up here, developing and toning those muscles.
Down girl, she thought, fanning herself with the note cards she was helping Martha organize for her gift baskets.
Clark glanced over at her with a smile that could melt chocolate. He had moved on to candy canes. He handed one to Lara and she banged it on the floor and into dust.
“I don’t think she’s old enough for hard candy yet, Clark,” Lois warned him.
Her husband looked down at Lara’s pile of peppermint dust and rolled his eyes with a shake of his head, before heading off to find his mother’s hand vacuum.
As Martha came in from the kitchen, she removed her apron. “There! The last batch is in the oven. Once they’re cool, we can add them to the baskets and we’ll be done.” She glanced at the tree. “Oh, Clark. How wonderful.” She scooped up Lara as Clark began to vacuum up the remains of Lara’s candy cane.
When he was done, he stood back with one arm around his mother’s shoulders and admired his handy work. “It’s nice to be home for Christmas this year, Mom.”
“We’re glad you’re home, too, Clark,” she replied with a glance back at Lois. “All of you.”
If Lois had known this storybook Christmas was what life with Clark would be like, she might have kept on kissing Clark that day in Trask’s plane. She swallowed, looking down. What had made her think of him? She hadn’t a thought of him in over a month.
“Uh-oh. Lara’s wet. I’ll change her,” Martha volunteered, heading upstairs.
Alone at last, Clark was by her side and had his arms around her an instant later. “Whatcha thinking about?”
She sighed. She still couldn’t tell him. “About how nice it was of Perry to give us the holidays off.”
“We worked last Christmas and this Thanksgiving. And that’s not what you had been thinking.” Clark knew her too well.
Lois wrapped her arms around his neck. “I was thinking how much I’d like to sneak away for an hour or two alone with you.”
“That sounds like a good idea.” Clark kissed her. She knew how to distract his curious mind. “But that’s not what you were thinking about.” Or not.
She licked her dry lips. “Actually I was thinking about that.” She had been, before her thoughts had turned to Trask.
Damn!“Ah. There again. That’s what I want you to tell me about.”
Lois raised a brow. “Are you reading my mind, Clark Kent?”
“I wouldn’t dare try.” Clark chuckled. “I was reading your eyes and I saw a shadow pass over them.”
Lois sighed, glancing away. Luckily, she was saved by Martha calling to Clark.
He looked at his wife with pinched lips. “This conversation isn’t over.”
Yes, it is, she thought.
Lois followed Clark upstairs to his parents’ room. Martha was sitting on the floor by her bed next to an open trunk. She glanced up when they entered.
“I was looking at Lara’s baby blanket,” his mother started saying. The blanket was lying on the floor next to her. “And I realized it looked like yours, so I brought it in here to compare them.” As she pulled the dark blue blanket from the trunk, a folded newspaper fell out. “Clark. They are the same. Identical.”
Clark glanced over his shoulder at his wife.
“That’s because it is identical, Martha. Clark gave Lara his,” she explained. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Clark nodded. She could tell her husband didn’t want to talk about the other Clark. He rarely did.
“What? Huh?” Martha stammered. They had lost her.
Lois set her hand on her mother-in-law’s shoulder. “The other Clark.”
“Oh,” Martha said thoughtfully, glancing down at the newspaper. “That’s strange.” She picked it up and opened it, dropping a few more items on the floor. She turned over the paper and flipped the pages with a shake of her head. “Why would I keep this?” She shrugged, tossing it to a near-by trash can.
Lois walked over and retrieved the paper. She opened it and stared at the headline of the top story. February 26th. This was the newspaper that H.G. Wells had brought to her the day she had found out she was pregnant and cursed. It slipped from her fingers as she stared at Clark’s Mom. “Oh, my God, Martha. You knew?”
Martha didn’t follow. “Knew what, dear?”
Lois enveloped her in a hug. “I never wanted you to know, Martha. That’s why I lied to you. You weren’t supposed to know.”
“About what?” Clark had been quiet to that point.
“The curse,” she whispered.
Clark glanced at his Mom and knelt down beside them.
“It’s the first time I’ve been happy that the Bummer-B-Gone wiped her memories,” admitted Lois. “I wished it had wiped mine.”
But Clark wasn’t listening. He had picked up the two photos off the floor.
“Lois?”
Martha glanced down at the photo. “No, Sweetie, that’s Lucy, the other Clark’s… Oh!” She gasped, covering her mouth with a quick glance at Lois. “I remember.”
“What do you remember, Mom?”
“Clark – the other Clark – gave me these photos when he came to help with Tempus. This one is of Lois’s secret identity. And this one…” She took the photo of Lucy, revealing the ultrasound photo. “This is Lara.”
Lois hugged her. Martha remembered! Then she pulled back glancing at the newspaper in the trash can. How much did she remember? Oh, if she never remembered that horrible photo of Clark and the accompanying article. She wouldn’t wish that knowledge on anyone.
***
Clark stared at the grainy photo in his hand. His daughter. Try as he might, it still looked like a grey blob. He focused his eyes on it and could barely make out the outline of a head and an arm.
“I could never see more than a grey blob,” Lois admitted with a chuckle.
Clark laughed. “Truthfully, that’s pretty much all I see, too. Even with my super eyesight.”
Lois kissed his cheek. “I’m glad, I’m not…”
“Lois,” Martha interrupted; she was staring at a number 10 envelope in her hands. His name in his wife’s handwriting was written across the front.
Lois grabbed the letter and was out the door faster than he had ever seen her move before. It took a second of staring at his Mom’s dazed expression to connect it to his wife’s reaction. He caught her on the stairs.
“Give me the letter.”
“No.” She pulled free and made it down a few more steps, before he blocked her path again.
“Lois.”
“Clark.”
“Give me the letter,” he repeated.
“No.” She strained against him. “Let me go by, Clark.”
“What’s in the letter, Lois?”
“It’s nothing, Clark.”
He scoffed. “Nothing?”
“Nothing, Clark. It wouldn’t even exist if your Mother hadn’t forgotten.”
“Forgotten what?”
“To destroy it.”
Clark glanced upstairs. The newspaper. His mind flashed to H.G. Wells showing him the newspaper of Lois’s death as they were about to begin their honeymoon. Was that the newspaper of her death, if he hadn’t returned from New Krypton? What had it said?
Lois pushed passed him and made it to the living room fireplace.
“Lois.” He was standing in front of her again, holding out his hand. “Give me the letter.”
She tore it into pieces. “No, Clark.” Taking his outstretched hand in hers, she said, “Clark, let it go.” As she spoke these words, she tossed the remnants of the letter into the fireplace.
Clark pressed his lips together, shook her hand free, moved the fireplace gate, and retrieved the pieces of the letter. Only a couple of pieces had been tanned by the fire.
Lois stared at him as he moved to the coffee table. He removed everything to the floor and then quickly, at super speed, worked to put the pieces back together.
“Clark, don’t,” she murmured.
He raised a brow. “
Don’t?” He finished putting the pieces back together.
Lois put a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t want to read that letter.” Her warning was but a mere whisper.
He scoffed. “
You don’t want me to read it.”
The hand on his shoulder tightened. “If you love me…” Her voice broke.
Clark sighed and placed his hand over hers with a glance up at her. “It is because I love you that I need to read this letter.”
A solitary tear crept down her cheek. “Clark, please.”
As he turned back to the letter, her hand slipped from his shoulder.
June 22, 1996
Dearest Clark;
For once I am at a loss for words. I do not know how to write this letter. Worse, I don’t know how you can read it. Since you are reading this letter, it means I have not returned alive from my trip to the other dimension. Go ahead and state the obvious, Lane. Sorry.
Guess what, honey? H.G. Wells told me that our love is cursed. Big surprise there. We are cursed to love each other, lifetime after lifetime, and yet cursed to die if we act upon that love. Ooops!
Remember how I told you to forget? I hope you weren’t able to do that. I know I wasn’t. The way you held me in your arms. Your gentle touch. Your fiery kisses. The way we fit together so well. The way you… Well, you know. I should have told you this then, but you’re amazing, wonderful, fantastic, better than the best ever, worth dying for, worth living for… I’m trying to come up with a better word than Super, but I nailed it on the first try. Wow! Clark, you’re a studmuffin. Don’t let anyone ever tell you anything different. No matter how many curses they throw at us, I wouldn’t take back that night. How could I go back in time and erase the night you and I became one? Literally. Nope. No, sirree. Ain’t happening.
Growing in my tummy, too small for probably even super x-ray vision, is a little Clark or a little Lois. I don’t want to go, but staying here will guarantee our death. I know going to the other dimension will take me further away from you, so far away that I might never return, but I must try. If there is even the slightest chance that this child will survive the curse, even if I don’t, I have to take this chance. For you. Otherwise I am agreeing to kill a part of you and I cannot do that. I love you too much.
Know that my love for you is too great for words, but I’ll give it a shot anyway. I give you my life, husband. I give up everything and everyone precious to me for the chance to save you… us… our child. You promised to return to me; unfortunately, it is I who now am unable to return to you. I have to go away, Clark. If I stay in our dimension, you will die as well. I’m hoping that by making this trip I can, at least, save your life.
If anyone can save me, it’s Superman. Only according to H. G. Wells, you aren’t returning back to Earth until the end of February 1997, by then it will be too late. Do not blame the other Clark; I know he will do everything in his power to return me and the baby safely to you. He is an honorable man. He is you. So, this will probably weigh heavily on him as it does on you.
Know that I want nothing more out of life than to be surrounded by your love and you gave me that with your heart, your soul and finally your body. Please know that there is not anything more that you could have given me. I have never doubted your love for me. Do you know how rare a gift that is?
For the life of me, I do not ever want to cause you pain. I know that the grief you must feel at this moment must be greater than any pain you’ve ever felt; know that my anguish at leaving you is equal if not greater than the knife that currently pierces your heart. It is my greatest wish that while you are reading this letter, you are holding that little bit of hope I am trying to save for you in your arms.
OK. I can’t end this letter like this. How about some happy thoughts? Country line dancing in Smallville at the Corn Festival. Hey, remember that silly woman who danced in the chicken costume? What was her name? Lola! Lola Dane. How about that woman who barged into your apartment and tried to strip for you in that harem suit? Oh, wait. That was me. Thank you for being such a gentleman. Playing games in the honeymoon suite at the Lexor. Kissing me when the maid came in. Mmmm. Did I mention what a good kisser you are? I didn’t marry Lex, not because he got arrested, but because I realized that if I was going to marry anyone it was going to be my best friend, Clark Kent.
Dancing with you after the Cost Mart Ball. That Christmas that we spent together, just you and me and enough food to feed the entire Daily Planet staff. That weekend you spent blind in my apartment. OK, maybe that’s not a good memory for you, but I loved that you felt that you could trust me. That you needed me. Our first proper date. Our first real kiss. I knew then that you’d sweep me off my feet, Clark Kent.
Proposing to me in the rain by the fountain. Clark, I almost said ‘yes.’ You proposed to me, promised you wouldn’t leave if the earth opened up at your feet. You made it through the whole proposal without bolting once. Stayed with me in the pouring rain and finished what you started. That in itself almost made me say ‘yes.’ Know that I wanted to say ‘yes.’ I was just scared. It’s scary when you discover that the man of your dreams and your best friend are the same person rolled up together in one delicious package.
You know, don’t you, that the first time I desired you was when I walked into that dumpy little room at the Hotel Apollo and saw you just wrapped in that towel? You thought I was going to write something about the blue suit, didn’t you? Ha!
The first time you spun into the Superman suit, right there in front of me, you took my breath away. Not a small feat for a boy from Kansas. I thought, that man… that amazing man… loves me… wants me… out of all the women in the world… he wants me. How lucky can one girl get? Floating up above the clouds and having you wrap me in your cape. You are the man for me, Clark Kent. The one and only.
Remember that vacation we took to that tropical isle? No hotel, the bugs. Did I really bring four suitcases? You took a bad situation and made it better. Just you, no powers. That’s really when I knew I’d say ‘yes.’ Couple’s therapy as Mr. & Mrs. Hawk, when you floated above the bed. Oh, Clark, if you only knew what I was really thinking. Making up. I like making up with you. Ultra Woman – oh, God, that horrible lavender suit. Knowing I was going to marry the man of my dreams. Kissing you. Kissing you. Kissing you, some more.
This is not goodbye. For I will see you again and love you again in another lifetime. Until then, I love you, always.
Mrs. Lois StudmuffinMrs. Lois Studmuffin? Clark shook his head and heard the back kitchen door open and close. He glanced around. Where did Lois go? He blew into the kitchen, grabbed his jacket and was out the back door a moment later. It was bright as daylight with the moon reflecting on the snow.
“Lois! Lois! Don’t run away from me,” he said, chasing after her through the two feet high drifts. “Tell me what that letter means?”
“Clark, please,” she pleaded, running from the house, from him, towards the trees. Luckily, the thick snow slowed her down. “You were never supposed to see that. You would be better off if you had let me burn it.”
“Then why did you write it?”
“If Lara and I had died in the other dimension, because of the curse, I wanted you to know the truth. I owed you that much.”
“Don’t you owe me the truth, now?” he asked. “You don’t tell me what would have happened, Lois. Tell me, now.”
Lois fell to her knees in the snow, crying. “I can’t, Clark. I can’t tell you.”
Clark knelt in the snow next to her, wrapping his arms around her. “If it is that bad, you shouldn’t keep it to yourself. It is a future that did not happen. You are safe, now. The curse did not kill you and it did not kill me. It was like a bad dream, Lois. Tell me and the pain will go away.”
Lois gasped, pulling him tightly against her. Her words contradicted her actions. “Go away! You can’t hear this. You cannot know what will happen to you. It’s bad luck. If you know your future, you may try to change something and then not survive. You need to go away now and stay the course. You need to go back now.” Lois was ranting like she had gone insane. “You cannot know what befalls us.” Then she began to sob in earnest. “Or we might not survive.”
“Lois, I am not going anywhere,” Clark told her. “The world could open up at our feet and I would not leave you.”
A male voice spoke aloud, from behind him. “
Lois Lane – DNA authorized and approved.”
“What was that?” Clark gasped, glancing over his shoulder.
“It was nothing, Clark,” Lois told him, holding on to him. “Stay with me or the world will open itself up and swallow us whole.”
He strained against her, craning his neck to look towards the barn. He could break free, but he didn’t want to hurt her. “I definitely heard something, Lois. Someone is there.”
“It’s just me, Clark. When I am gone, I’ll tell you the truth about the curse,” Lois murmured. “Go. Go. Or the Earth will swallow you whole.”
“Lois, you aren’t making any sense. I’m not going to leave you and the Earth is not swallowing you.”
“
Please, Clark, listen to future me. I know that you love me, but you can’t see me right now. She needs you to stay with her,” a voice whispered on the wind. It sounded almost like Lois. But he had Lois, here, in his arms. Who did the voice belong to?
“
Lois Lane - Voice fingerprint authorized,” the male voice of the time machine sleigh announced.
“Oh, my God. That’s you and the time machine,” Clark stammered. “This is where you disappeared off to that day in the barn; last year, when you ran away from me.”
“Yes, Clark, but remember, I always come back to you.”
Clark stood up, pulling Lois off the snowy ground and into his arms. He lifted them into the air and the dark night sky. Minutes later, they arrived at their townhouse in Metropolis.
***
The house was cold and dark, except for one lamp in the corner they had set on timer. Lois cupped his face in her hands and placed a soft kiss on his lips with a shiver.
“Let me just get out these wet clothes,” she said, turning towards the stairs.
He caught her hand. “Is this a stall tactic or are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Kent?”
She glanced back at him. “Yes. And always, Mr. Kent. But, mostly, I’m cold.” She shivered again.
“I can warm you up.”
Lois grinned at his naughty suggestion and then realized he wasn’t being naughty. He really didn’t want her to go upstairs. “Just let me change my clothes, Clark. Why don’t you light us a fire?”
Reluctantly, he let go of her hand.
“I promise I won’t come down in that new teddy I picked up…”
He cleared his throat. “New teddy?”
She smiled and jogged up the stairs. When she came downstairs a few minutes later in sweatpants and a t-shirt, he had built a fire and opened a bottle of wine. He had made a cozy nest of blankets and pillows in front of the hearth.
Clark glanced up from where he sat staring into the fire. She noticed a hint of disappointment flash in his eyes, but he covered it up quickly.
“What?”
He glanced away, blushing slightly. “You had said something about a new teddy…”
Lois laughed.
Men! She shook her head. Mention lingerie and every logical part of them flew out the window. “I said I
wasn’t going to wear it.”
“Right.” He nodded, holding out a hand to her.
She took his hand and allowed him to guide her to the floor. Soon, the heat from both the fire and her husband had warmed her. “I could still put it on, if you think it would make this easier for you,” Lois suggested, pretending to stand.
“Sit,” he commanded. “This isn’t really a teddy conversation. You’re stalling again.”
She flashed him a grin. “Guilty.”
Clark leaned over and kissed her. “You are safe. No one is going to hurt you. Now, tell me, what was on that newspaper that Mr. Wells showed you?”
Lois shivered again, despite being quite warm. “No, Clark.”
“No?” He sighed. “Why not?”
Lois took a sip of her wine, thinking about the best way to word what she had decided.
“I know that because of the curse you would have died, Lois. I also know I would have showed up from New Krypton after the fact.”
She raised her eyes to his. “How?”
“I didn’t become Lois Lane’s husband and partner just on my good looks, you know.” He smiled. “I have my sources.”
Ah. “Star told you.” And, yes, the good looks had only been part of the package that was Clark Kent.
He nodded. “She said something strange, though. That I didn’t understand completely. She said that Superman originally wasn’t going to return from New Krypton, but that I would have returned from my assignment.”
Lois didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. She focused on her wine.
“Lois. That was a future that did not happen. It can’t hurt you anymore.”
“But it could still hurt you,” she whispered. “Please, Clark, let me save you from that.”
Clark set down her wine glass, took hold of her hand, and kissed her knuckles. “There’s a rumor floating around out there… mind you, it’s only a rumor… that I’m pretty thick skinned.”
Lois looked down at their intertwined hands. “Your heart isn’t invulnerable, Clark. Actually, it’s quite fragile.”
“Try me. I’m tougher than I look.” When she still didn’t speak, he tried another tactic. “How were you supposed to die, Lois?”
She picked up her wine and took another sip. “I’m not sure, exactly. Perry was pretty vague. Complications due to giving birth was the reason he gave in the article.”
Clark gulped. “Complications?” Isn’t that what his Mom had warned him about?
Lois nodded. “I’m guessing it’s the same thing I died from when Lara was…” She winced. She shouldn’t have said it like that. She should have just kept her mouth shut.
“What?” Clark clutched her, pulling her to him. She felt better enfolded in his arms. Safer. Protected. “You died?”
She had been hoping he didn’t catch that part. “Almost.”
“Almost?” he repeated. “Do you mind clarifying that statement, Ms. Lane?”
He had pulled back and was staring at her. He was angry.
“I don’t think I like your tone, Mr. Kent,” she stated her reply.
“Answer the question.”
“Yes. I almost died. I’d be dead now if Ultra Woman hadn’t saved me.” She snapped. “Happy?”
“I just think you ought to have told me, that’s all.”
“I did try to tell you, Clark. You weren’t listening.” She pushed herself to her feet. “Actually I’ve tried to tell you several times, but you never heard…”
Clark turned his back to the fireplace and watched her pace. “Tell me, Lois. I’m listening now.”
“I started hemorrhaging after Lara was born. My… Lois’s father couldn’t stop the bleeding.” Her hands were shaking as she combed them through her hair. She turned and ran into Clark’s chest. She wrapped her arms around him as the tears came to her eyes. “Sam was out of his depth. He isn’t a surgeon. After he used up all the extra IV blood they’d brought, he could only stand there, mopping up the blood and watching me bleed to death.”
“Surely the hospital had surgeons on…”
“Clark!” she scoffed. “I was giving birth to Superman’s baby. We weren’t in a regular hospital.”
He pulled back to look her in the eyes once again and she saw the fear in them. “Where were you?”
“Clark and Lois had set up a sterile operating room in an abandoned hospital on the outskirts of Metropolis.”
He growled. “He had eight months to prepare and that’s the best he could come up with?”
“Clark. We would have been fine if it hadn’t been for that damn curse. I mean those girls in Smallville made it, didn’t they?”
Suddenly her surprise on the condition of those girls in Smallville made sense. But he hadn’t been sure she was his missing Lois at that point, when they had learned about those girls.
“Lara had been born at that point, right?” he asked, knowing the answer. Lara had shown him that bonding scene from her birth. Lois had seemed fine, he could tell that even if she had not been completely in focus. “He could have flown you to a hospital where a team of doctors could have stopped the bleeding.”
Lois blanched. “No. No, he couldn’t, Clark. I made them promise that they wouldn’t take me to a real hospital.”
A chill went down his spine. “Why would you do that?”
“Because that’s how they found us the first time,” she snapped and then gasped covering her mouth.
“They who?” he asked. She froze in his arms, not answering. In the silence, his mind went to work. Perry wrote the article of her death. Perry didn’t write anymore. It had to be big if Perry had written about it. The paper was dated February 26th, almost two weeks after Lara’s birthday in the other dimension. Why would the paper report her death so late after the fact? Unless… “Lois, what did Perry’s article say?”
She shook her head adamantly.
Baby steps. “What was the headline on the article?”
“Lois Lane Funeral Held Today,” she murmured.
*** End of Part 10 *** Comments
