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Synopsis of Chapters 1 - 9 Missing Lois - TOC ***
Epilogue
The day after Valentine’s Day 1998Clark watched as his daughter toddled over to Lois across the room of the
Daily Planet’s in-house daycare. She had been walking for just over three weeks now, and there was no looking back.
Ellen had bought their girl a pink, fluffy, crinoline creation, which Lois had aptly described as “dreadful”. Nevertheless, their sensible one-year old refused to wear anything else. She was definitely her mother’s daughter. Clark saw plenty of head-butting between those two in his future. Thank goodness he could fly off with a fraction of a second’s notice.
Jimmy approached, holding a piece of cake. Their relationship hadn’t changed since he discovered Clark was also Superman. That boy was full of surprises. He just went with the flow and even covered for Clark sometimes.
“How was her birthday, CK?” Jimmy asked.
“Nice. Quiet. Just family. I flew my folks in and Jack.” He laughed softly. “Well, as quiet as a gathering that included both Lois
and her mother could be.”
“Jack? I thought you said it was just family?”
Clark noticed a slight pout on his friend’s face. Jimmy had also been hurt when he had learned that Jack figured it out before him.
“My folks officially adopted him this past fall. That makes him my little brother, officially now.” Clark smiled. This year had been a big one for
his family. He had gained a new younger brother, a twin – whom he would
never forgive – a wife and a daughter. His cup overfloweth.
“Balson! Clark! Jimmy! Lois!” Perry called from across the daycare. He must have forgotten he was out of the bullpen.
“Yes, Chief?” Barry replied hesitantly.
“Scooped!” Perry, cake in hand, stomped over to the man and hit his chest with a folded newspaper. “Scooped by the French Press, no less. The French!”
Clark and Jimmy gravitated over to them.
Perry turned to him. “Clark, did you and Lois know about this?” He pulled the newspaper out of Barry’s hands and snapped it open to him.
There were several photos of Superman and Ultra Woman at the Eiffel Tower. In one photo that Clark was sure had already been seen world-wide, they were caught sharing quite an intimate kiss. Clark swallowed, pressed his lips together, shrugged, and then smiled sheepishly. What could he say?
“CK? Isn’t that…? How is that…? Oh, my God!” Jimmy covered his mouth. “That’s… What is he doing…?”
Perry looked at Jimmy and then at Clark and then down at the paper in his hand. His brow furrowed and then he shook his head.
Lois arrived with Lara on her hip. “Boys, have you forgotten your…” She glanced at the paper and then shook her head with a titter. “Clark. Clark. Clark.”
“Yes, honey?” Clark replied, hoping everyone would think she had been talking about him.
“Unca Super. Aunty Ultra!” Lara clapped.
Perry stared at Lois and then his eyes drifted over to Clark and then back to the newspaper photos. “Well, that answers
that question. My office, after the party, you two,” he grumbled with a two finger point.
Yep. I’m never going to forgive that other Clark, thought Clark. Just when the fallout from his Red Kryptonite blunder had faded from the press, too.
Lara opened her arms to Perry and their Editor melted, eagerly taking her from Lois. “I always wanted a daughter, you know.” He smiled, bouncing her up and down. “Happy Birthday, sweetie.”
***
Jimmy watched as Perry chewed out CK and Lois in his office. He had no idea how they were going to get out of this mess. They would; they always did. He just didn’t know how.
Perry threw open his office door and double pointed out to the newsroom. “And, if it isn’t too hard, do you think you can get an interview with Ultra Woman before she returns to whatever rabbit hole she went down last time?”
Lois pointed back at him. “On it, Perry.”
“Now why don’t the rest of you lollygaggers work on getting me some real news?!” Perry shook his head. “Gossip!” he harrumphed. Jimmy watched as the Chief spotted one of the more junior staffers pass by. “Janet, get me a catalogue of furniture. I need a new visitor’s chair for my office.”
Lois grabbed CK’s tie and pulled him to her for a kiss, then murmured loud enough that Jimmy could still hear, “If they visit here again, perhaps we should give them that red heart necklace that Dr. Klein is so kindly holding on for us… as payback… I mean, a wedding gift.”
CK chuckled with a raised brow. “Honey. That necklace would make their dimension implode from all the seismic activity.”
“Tempting though, isn’t it, Clark?” Lois grinned wickedly. Then a thought struck her and she laughed. “By the way, Clark, the seismic activity, that was just a joke. How can one have seismic activity caused while floating?”
Really? Floating while… Jimmy swallowed.
Good to know. And, yet, too much information, Lois.CK shook his head. “Minx.” He wrapped his arm about his wife’s shoulder and whispered something with a laugh.
“No, Clark. I’ve got this covered.” Uh-oh. Lois’s chin was getting that familiar tenseness to it.
“Interviewing yourself is harder than it sounds,” Jimmy heard CK whisper as he approached them.
“Oh, so I’m not up to
your journalistic equivalent now, Smallville?”
Lois’s partner backed away hands raised.
Good decision, CK.Sitting down at his desk, CK looked up at Jimmy. “What’s up?”
“Any news on when Ralph will be getting back from his ‘retreat’?” Jimmy asked curiously. He and the other junior staffers were hoping the answer would be ‘never’, thus opening up another lucrative reporting spot.
As it was personal and highly confidential that Ralph was in rehab to work on his cocaine addiction, therefore everyone in the newsroom knew. Jimmy actually witnessed Lois telling CK ‘See, I told you he was Mindy’s mole,’ at the beginning of the month, after Perry mentioned Ralph’s expected month-long ‘retreat’ casually at the morning meeting.
CK glanced at Lois, his lips pressing together, and then responded with a vague, “No news is good news, Jimmy.”
Good news in that Ralph isn’t coming back? No, figuring on the speaker, the good news is Ralph’s probable healthy recovery. Darn!Jimmy quickly glanced around. First, verifying to see that Perry was tucked neatly back in his office; second, checking that Lois wasn’t listening – she was on the phone – and thirdly, making sure that no one else was within earshot. The photographer lowered his voice to barely above a whisper anyway, “So, was that him, CK?”
CK was concentrating on cleaning up the papers on his desk, but his brow furrowed. “Him, who?”
“The other Superman.”
CK’s chair rolled back and he stared at Jimmy in the eye. Clearly, the reporter was too stunned to speak.
“When Lois had recounted that story about you and Ultra Woman, I really thought it was a dream. Until I saw those photos in that French newspaper. He looks just like our Superman, but he isn’t because Lois isn’t you-know-who anymore, and you guys spent yesterday celebrating Lara’s birthday. So, those photos must really be him and...” Jimmy cleared his throat. “Her.”
CK, still staring at him, swallowed and then responded, “Must be.”
“You aren’t sending Lois back there if she gets pregnant again, are you?” Jimmy asked cautiously. He really doubted it, especially after what he figured happened last time, but he was still curious why Lois had gone there the first time.
“Back
where?” CK, clearly, wasn’t ready to share this information with him.
“The other dimension… Am I really the owner of the
Daily Planet? A multimillionaire who dates supermodels? Did Vixen really kidnap me and Lois had to save my life by threatening to kill Lex Luthor with a gun? Or was that just another ‘dream,’ too? Because that would be so cool.”
CK glanced over at his wife. She was still on the phone. “No, that’s true. How do you know about that?”
Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Simple surveillance. Bug-Pen, like the one Lois used against that rock star terrorist a few years back.” He swallowed as CK’s face went intense. Superman intense. “After I figured out about you-know-who, I wondered how it was possible that Lara could truly be… you know… who I knew her to be. So I set the Bug-Pen on Lois’s desk one day to see if I could find out anything.” Jimmy stood up and held up his hands. “Just that one day, CK, I swear.” Jimmy pointed at CK as he backed away from the investigative reporter’s desk. “You know, you and Lois really should watch what you say at work.” He flashed his friend a grin and then darted. He didn’t breathe again until he was sitting at his own desk.
Jimmy watched as CK pulled his glasses down his nose and concentrated, obviously looking to see if there were any other bugs on his desk. Yeah, Jimmy winced; he probably should have warned CK about that a while back, especially while Mindy Church still owned the
Daily Planet. Of course, given how much CK didn’t trust the new owner of the paper, Bruce Wayne, probably a good idea to double check.
CK then walked over to Lois’s desk and did the same thing. Jimmy watched as CK released a breath and then walked into the conference room. At least, they were clean.
A while later, a shadow darkened Jimmy’s desk. He glanced up to see both Lois and CK standing next to his desk. Uh-oh, Lois did not look happy about his Bug-Pen episode. Her lips were pressed together and her hands rested on her hips. Whoa, total Ultra Woman flashback. Jimmy smirked.
“Do you really want to know about Lara?” she asked, brow raised.
“Yes. Of course,” Jimmy practically gushed. Okay, he actually did gush, he admitted to himself. His eyes caught sight of his computer monitor and he remembered something. “But first, let me show you this crazy photo a friend of mine from the USS Enterprise shot to me. I’d show it to you later, but I just downloaded it and it took forever.” He hit a few keys to pull up his personal e-mail account with the photo open. “It looks like that helicopter is carrying a huge chunk of ice or glacier or something. Isn’t that freaky? My friend said the photo was totally legit, too. No doctoring. Who would do that?”
Lois leaned forward and stared at the photo. “When was this taken? Is your friend in the South China Sea?”
Whoa! How does she do that? “Yeah, how did you know?” Jimmy shook his head, then typed a few commands and got the photo’s data up on the screen. “He shot the photo the day before yesterday.”
Lois turned to CK. “Remember I told you about the cyclone that hit Singapore that weekend I was visiting your folks last December? The December before Lara was born?”
“Cyclones don’t usually hit this late in the year, Lois. And certainly not that close to the equator. Are you saying it…”
“It was manmade. We had always assumed it was Luthor’s handiwork as a diversion when you-know-who went to rescue the other me, but Luthor’s dead here… And I just can’t imagine Mindy doing this. So, it must be someone else’s innovation.” Lois bumped Jimmy to the side and typed a few commands onto his computer pulling up a map of the world. She enlarged the section between Vietnam and Singapore.
Jimmy was impressed. The pre-Lara Lois hardly knew how to navigate the
Daily Planet inner database, let alone pull up other stuff.
Lois continued, “The iceberg was dropped in the South China Sea about here.” She pointed with her finger. “And Superman found windmills along these coasts of Malaysia that were taking power from the grid instead of giving to it.”
“Like a giant wind machine?” CK reconfirmed.
“Exactly. With the iceberg and the wind, plus a thunderstorm that came from Vietnam, Rafflesia hit Singapore as a weak category 3. It was devastating to a city which had never experienced winds that strong. Superman spent three days there helping with search and rescue.”
“I thought they spent the weekend holed up in Smallville, taking showers, and enacting their version of the curse?” CK raised a brow, but Jimmy could see a grin at the seams of his friend’s pressed lips wanting to burst out.
Wow! Lois recounted another event from the other dimension. Right here, in front of him. He was part of the inner-gang. Jimmy grinned with high spirits and then winced.
Inner-gang? He would have to come up with a better description of their group than that. Wait? ‘Curse?’ Like hocus pocus, gypsies, and witchcraft? That kind of curse? He looked between Lois and CK. Was there something else they hadn’t told him?
Lois shrugged. “Superman needs to sleep sometimes… although, I’m thinking you’re right. They didn’t sleep.” She rolled her eyes. “Much.”
CK chuckled, wrapping an arm around his wife’s waist. “If they’re anything like us…”
“Clark, do you think our new boss is behind this?” Lois asked, pointing at the monitor again and switching the conversation back to the topic at hand. “He’s got the money and the means…”
“Lois, he’s really not that bad of a guy,” CK told her. “He’s not another Lex Luthor.”
Jimmy raised a brow at this statement. CK had always hated Bruce Wayne.
Lois looked at him with the same amount of skepticism. “He’s got you drinking his Kool-Aid now, I see. Next you’re going to tell me he’s…” But she didn’t finish that thought as her eyes went wide. “
No.”
CK smiled at her sheepishly and shrugged, but didn’t answer her verbally. He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “I should go. See if Superman can put that chunk of ice back where it belongs.” He kissed his wife’s cheek and jogged off towards the storeroom.
Lois stared after her husband with her jaw still dragging on the floor. It was the first time Jimmy had ever seen her speechless.
Jimmy thought about this cryptic exchange and then swallowed. Maybe he didn’t really want to know about the curse after all. With his luck, it was probably contagious.
***The End ***
See more of from this family in the
Further Adventures of Superman and Ultra Woman
Coming… Eventually Final Comments
