The Mirror Crack'd
by Hazel <IHazel@yahoo.com>
Rated PG
Submitted January 2000
(First Posted in December 1999; eligibile for 2000 Kerth Awards)

___________

Disclaimer: dialogue and descriptions taken from the episode
"Tempus, Anyone?" presumably belong to Warner Brothers;
Superman, Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and the other citizens of
Metropolis belong to whomever currently owns the copyright on
those characters and locations. H.G. Wells belongs to himself,
no doubt, but he's not in this story anyway. :)

Thanks to Sammi Burleigh for giving me the original inspiration
for this story; to Margaret Brignell for introducing me to
FoLCdom in the first place and doing a same-day delivery on her
excellent beta-editing; and many, many thanks to the regulars
at Zoomway's fanfic message board for their advice and
encouragement! Without their help, this story would have never
made it out of my brain, much less off my hard drive.
___________


The mirror crack'd from side to side;
'The curse is come upon me!
cried 
The Lady of Shalott.

Lord Alfred Tennyson, "The Lady of Shalott"


Note: This story begins the night before "And the Answer Is..."


Lois Lane pulled a sweater over her thin blouse to guard
against the chill of the evening and raked a cursory comb
through her hair. She took her wallet out of her purse and
slipped it into her pocket before heading out the door. She
needed a good, long walk, with time to think things through.
She had no idea what Clark wanted to discuss in the morning,
but she had more than a few things to "discuss" with *him*!

Lois ran lightly down the steps of her apartment building and
turned right, setting off at a brisk pace. As the dusk deepened
into full night, Lois walked restlessly through the streets,
trying to get her whirling thoughts into some semblance of
order. She'd said her final good-byes to Dan, and proposed that
she and Clark take the "next step." Yet he still backed away
from her, still disappeared at the oddest moments and most
infuriating times. Now he'd invited her to breakfast in the
morning, but for what reason? When he called her on the phone,
he seemed too purposeful for this to be merely a casual
breakfast date. No, he had definitely had something in mind.
But what?

Maybe some chocolate would help... Her hand reached for her
wallet as she scanned her surroundings, trying to determine her
exact location. She smiled as she saw she was only half a block
away from Lincoln Street, which meant there was a 7-11 right
around the corner. She felt desperately in need of some
gratuitous calories right now.

"Lois."

Startled out of her thoughts, Lois turned her head and blinked
at the revolver pointed at her nose.

"In here. Now."

Reluctantly, she followed the strange man into an alley. In
this neighborhood, at this hour of night, there was no one else
in sight; she couldn't risk putting up a fight against such
odds. Screaming, "Help, Superman!" wouldn't do her any good if
this character had time to shoot before her hero appeared.

He grinned at her mockingly. "Remember me?"

"Uh -- no," she said, still staring at the menacing, yet
mesmerizing gun.

His face took on a pseudo-comical look. "Oh, Lois," he cooed.
"After all we've meant to each other, I'm not ringing any
bells?" His expression changed again as he used his free hand
to pull his glasses away from his face. "How about now?" he
sneered. "Sorry, private joke. Guess time travel can be a real
brain drain, huh?"

"Time travel?" she repeated stupidly, now looking past the man
at the strange contraption that stood in the darkened alley
behind him. For all its old-fashioned appearance, she couldn't
shake the feeling that it was something far beyond the cutting
edge of current technology. But how would she know that?

"Get in," he ordered impatiently, waving the gun for emphasis.

Lois balked, taking a half step backward. Old-fashioned looking
or not, she had no intention of getting near that thing if she
could help it.

His eyes narrowed at her. "Step on or be carried," he said in a
dangerously soft tone. "It makes no difference to me."

Reluctantly, she brushed past him, muttering, "It's always
something..."

As she reached forward to grasp the edge of the seat, she
suddenly whirled and kicked, aiming straight for the man's gun
hand. To her shock, she missed completely. With all the force
she put behind the kick and nothing to counter it, she ended up
sprawled awkwardly on the ground. She stared up at him in
disbelief. He'd darted back out of range the moment she started
to pivot, almost as if he'd anticipated her move!

"Ah, Lois," he sighed, keeping a careful eye on her as she
scrambled to her feet, "sometimes you are just too predictable.
I think I would have been disappointed if you hadn't tried
something."

The gun dipped for a moment as he pulled the trigger. The
bullet buried itself in the ground inches away from her shoes.
Startled, she leaped backwards, stumbling against the weird
contraption.

"Last chance, Lois," he warned, once again aiming straight at
her face. "Get in. *Now*."

He'd fired once, even if only as a warning shot. All bets were
off now, Lois decided; it would be all too easy for him to
shoot again. Hoping that he wouldn't actually fire at her once
she was in the machine and risk damaging it, she dived on
board, crouched next to the seats, and screamed, "Help!
Superman!"

Instead of snarling at her temerity, the man only laughed. He
leapt onto the machine, ignoring her completely as he twisted a
dial. A strange, enveloping glow coruscated around them, and
Lois watched in awe as the dirty alley walls seemed to shimmer
and disappear.

A sudden blow to the temple sent her reeling backwards,
sprawling against the seat. The man's irritating laugh seemed
to come from somewhere miles distant as hands lifted her bodily
and tossed her out of the machine. She felt chilly, as if the
temperature had suddenly dropped. No, that was impossible -- it
was just the blow to her head. She pushed herself off the
ground, ready to do battle --

And blinked.

The machine and its owner were gone.

So was the alley.

It couldn't be! She must still be dazed. He'd hit her... Her
hands touched the stinging soreness on her temple. She squinted
though slightly unfocused eyes, but there was no trace of
blood. Good, she'd be feeling better soon.

Any minute now, in fact....

But she was still somewhere else. And it was daytime now, not
early night. And the cold was getting to her.

Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves and wrapping her arms
around herself for warmth, Lois examined her surroundings. Gray
sky, chilly wind. Frosty ground. Trees that mourned the brown
drifts of leaves lying at their roots. Tombstones.

*Tombstones*?

She slowly pivoted in a circle, staring in all directions.
Tombstones marched across the large area in orderly rows. A
gravel walk lay several paces away, neatly bordered by flowers.
Yes, this was a cemetery.

Swallowing hard, Lois eased over to the closest grave and gave
it a wary glance. She looked at it for a long moment before the
words burned themselves into her brain.

"Lois Lane, 1967-1993"

Her knees gave way. She sank to the ground and reached out with
trembling fingers to touch those horrific dates.

The numbers stayed the same. According to this tombstone, she'd
been dead for years...

As the words blurred before her eyes, Lois tilted her head
upwards. "Help!" she croaked. "Superman, help me, *please*!"

The keening wind was her only answer.

***

Some time later, a very shaken Lois Lane emerged from the
cemetery and made her unsteady way to the closest bench, a
crumbling concrete slab that had definitely seen better days.
She ignored its condition as she sank down onto it gratefully,
staring unseeingly at the passersby as she tried to make sense
of what was happening.

Try as she might, she couldn't find any way to rationalize the
"proof" of her grave with her own existence. Anyone could
probably create a tombstone, true. But even the Prankster
couldn't give such a mock-up the weather-beaten appearance of
something that had been outdoors for years, much less change
her location and the time of day in the blink of an eye. This
was no silly joke or whim, but something real.

"All right, Lane," she muttered aloud. "You're an investigative
reporter. Put the facts together."

She'd gone for a walk and been mugged by a guy with a perverse
sense of humor and a gun. He'd dragged her onto a strange
contraption of some sort and hit her with enough force to leave
her dazed. She must have lost consciousness, because the next
thing she knew, it was afternoon instead of evening, and she
was somewhere else entirely.

She winced again and gingerly touched her sore temple. Out for
so many hours...? Maybe she did have a concussion.

So what did the guy want from her? Belatedly, she reached into
her pocket. To her surprise, her wallet was still there. She
opened it up and riffled through the various pockets quickly.
Driver's license, press card, business cards from various
sources, some pictures, about forty dollars in cash, loose
change -- nothing was gone.

Frowning, she reached for her other pocket. Her keys were still
there, too.

She just couldn't make sense of it. Why would someone attack
her, hold her for nearly a day, and then dump her in a cemetery
without even bothering to rob her while he was at it? And why,
*why* was there a tombstone with her name on it, a tombstone
that asserted that she'd died years ago?

Maybe it wasn't her grave? Maybe there was another woman there,
a young woman who just so happened to share her first and last
name, the same year of birth... Lois shook her head
impatiently. No, that was too farfetched. She recognized the
cemetery as the one where her father's parents were buried;
she'd even spotted Grandma Lucille's grave nearby. Hoax or not,
that tombstone was definitely intended for her.

There was something *skewed* about the whole thing. And that
man with the gun, who had seemed to expect her to recognize him
and had anticipated her defense moves, was somehow behind it
all.

...Whatever "it" was.

Her forehead creased as she thought back. What had he said?
Something about time. Time *travel*?

"Impossible," she snorted to herself. But even as she tried to
dismiss the thought out of hand, a snippet of conversation that
had taken place well over a year ago suddenly flashed through
her mind:

~Does everything in life have to have a perfectly reasonable
explanation?~

~Everything.~

~All grounded in clear, scientific reason?~

~Of course!~

~No magic left in the universe?~

~There's no werewolves or vampires loose in the city,
either...~

~What about Superman?~

~Huh?~

~There's a man living somewhere in Metropolis who flies, Lois!~

Almost reluctantly, she began cataloging events of the past two
years that were almost impossible to accept as real. A
pheromone compound that sent Perry chasing after the cleaning
woman and had her showing up in Clark's apartment to perform
the Dance of Seven Veils... Clones, both of Superman and
gangsters of the 1920's... Superman's powers transferred to
Waldecker by a bolt of lightning... The "Space Rats" that
turned her, as well as the rest of the citizens of Metropolis,
into a bunch of greedy, selfish kids... A penlight that
implanted incredible amounts of knowledge in her brain
instantaneously... Lex's resurrection by Gretchen Kelly... The
Prankster's "camera," which froze her helplessly in place... A
rash and a virus that turned Jimmy Olsen into a cold-blooded
assassin.

Superman.

All things that could technically be explained away through
reams of expositionary scientific gobbledygook, yet on the
surface, seemed utterly impossible.

And a time machine...?

"Guess time travel can be a real brain drain, huh?" The
mocking, infuriating voice echoed in her head.

"No," she whispered. "It can't be. It *can't*."

Yet the machine had seemed strangely familiar. She felt sure
that she'd seen it sometime before. And with a time machine...

She shook her head violently, desperately trying to expel the
treacherous thought from her brain, but it persisted.

Reluctantly, she added up the facts again, this time taking the
incredible "time machine" factor into account. The alleyway had
shimmered and vanished. She'd appeared somewhere else, at a
different time of day -- and possibly even a different time of
year. She shivered, buttoning her sweater against the chilly
wind. Maybe she'd only been momentarily dazed, as she'd
originally thought. No time -- at least "subjective" time --
had passed before the man had dumped her at the cemetery. As
bizarre as it seemed, she was actually beginning to consider
the possibility.

But the tombstone still didn't make sense. Even if that man had
somehow moved her through time, she *knew* she didn't die in
1993! After all, it was 1996 now!

Or was it?

Lois stood up compulsively from the bench. She somehow couldn't
bring herself to ask someone the year; she refused to sound
like an escapee from an insane asylum! She briefly considered
rifling through a nearby trash can for an old newspaper, but
dismissed the thought as too trite for consideration. Besides,
she had a better source than old newspapers of dubious
reputation.

She turned in a circle, then nodded as she got her bearings.
The Daily Planet building was six short blocks away. She would
go there and get some answers!

***

While she didn't have any answers yet, many more questions had
added themselves to the list by the time she'd walked half a
block. The reality she expected to see was strangely warped --
everything was *wrong*. The city seemed dirtier and uglier
somehow. People walked warily, almost fearfully. To Lois' eyes,
it looked as if a disproportionate number of citizens were
armed. Pistols. Revolvers. Even machine guns! What kind of
horrific future was Metropolis destined to have?

Then reality tilted even further, came to a screeching halt,
and collapsed under its own weight as she spotted the campaign
posters tacked on the wall of a building nearby.

Perry? Running for *mayor*?

"Time travel's not the word for it," Lois muttered, drawing
closer to the incredible sight plastered on the wall. Yes, it
was definitely Perry, but he looked... different. Younger. His
hair was thicker, Lois observed with a strange kind of
detachment. And when had he started wearing suits and ties like
that? It just wasn't his style.

"Time travel," she said again, her fingers trailing across the
poster. "Yep. Right. Uh huh." Time travel indeed, for elections
took place in November, and the month should have been early
April.

Her hand dropped back down to her side as she took a step back.
So... Metropolis had become a darker, more menacing place than
she ever remembered. That pointed to the future. Perry seemed
younger in his campaign poster. That pointed to the past. Yet
if she was in the past now, why didn't she remember Perry
running for mayor?

She gave the poster another careful appraisal. Actually, other
than the thicker hair, he seemed more or less the same. Perhaps
it was only some kind of touching-up to make him more appealing
to the voters.

Lois considered this idea, then nodded. It might be stretching
things a bit, but if she was going to use the time-travel
theory, the least she could do was keep things going in one
direction instead of two! Besides, vanity touch-ups were par
for the course in politics. If Ronald Reagan could become
president of the United States after starting his career as an
actor, what was so surprising about some artificially thickened
hair? That would also explain why this future Perry looked so
similar to the Perry of her time; the photographer must have
brushed out whatever additional wrinkles had developed over the
years.

"All right, then," she sighed, turning away from the poster.
"The future it is."

She still felt more than a little incredulous that she was
taking this time-traveling nonsense seriously. Still, her
experience in investigative reporting had taught her that Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle was correct: "When you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the
truth." Under normal circumstances, of course, "time travel"
would definitely qualify as the "impossible." But ridiculous as
it seemed, time travel was the only thing that made sense -- at
least with the facts she currently possessed.

Although how being transported to the future could explain her
tombstone....

It was that moment when she saw the other campaign poster --
the one for Perry's opponent in the mayoral race. The sight of
that face took what was left of reality and turned it inside
out, shredding it into confetti for good measure.

It was the man who had kidnapped her and brought her to this
bizarre place!

No, it couldn't be. It wasn't possible! A mayoral candidate
from the future attacking her and bringing her to his current
time? *Why*?

Yet it was definitely him. Lois would recognize that
infuriating smirk anywhere.

She examined it carefully. "TEMPUS FOR MAYOR!" it urged the
populace. "He's Prepared For the Enemy -- Are You?"

"I'm not prepared for anything right now," she muttered. The
enemy? What enemy? As far as she could tell from her brief
experience with the man -- Tempus? At least she had a name now
-- he was the one who best qualified for that particular
appellation. If only *something* in this bizarre future would
make sense....

A sudden fusillade of shots down the block startled her.
Reflexively, she shrank back and hugged the wall, even as she
edged closer to the action. Reporter instincts don't atrophy
with time travel, after all. The other people on the street,
she noted grimly, didn't even pause, but merely hurried along
their way. Such events were clearly common occurrences in
Metropolis' future.

By now, Lois could see a woman crouched in front of a shoe
store, firing wildly with a shotgun and spitting expletives at
a car roaring down the street. One of the darkly tinted windows
of the car had been lowered just enough to allow the muzzle of
a machine gun to poke through. Bullets hammered into the plate
glass of the store's display window, sending deadly shards of
glass flying in all directions. Those that were close to the
store ducked or dove for the street, trying to avoid the broken
glass; everyone else ignored the entire incident.

Lois gritted her teeth at the cries of pain and the sudden
bright splashes of red that stained the sidewalk. Her head
jerked upward as she scanned the skies, vainly searching for a
well-known and well-beloved streak of blue. Why wasn't Superman
doing something to prevent such a tragedy?

As the car screeched around a corner, a sudden report, almost
as loud as the original gunshots, echoed through the street.
Straining to get a good look, Lois saw that one of the car's
rear tires had blown out, sending the car skidding into the
nearest stop sign. She smiled in fierce satisfaction. Maybe
this future's version of Metropolis' Finest would actually have
a chance to get here in time and arrest the perpetrators. Good!

She turned away from the scene and strode down the block,
looking for landmarks to ensure that she was going in the right
direction. Yes, there was the main branch of the Metropolis
City Bank, and the coffee cart that she and Clark patronized
was right where it was supposed to be. She looked longingly at
it for a moment, then reluctantly continued on her way. Much as
she would love to indulge, her funds were woefully short; she
needed to get a clearer picture of what was happening before
she spent what little cash she had.

One more block, and she was there. The Daily Planet.

She stopped short and took a long, steady look at the building
that had been her second home for so many years. Thank goodness
that it, at least, hadn't changed. The globe still perched
there proudly, a symbol of the steady, universal integrity of
the Fourth Estate in a world gone mad. The only difference was
the huge banner that strung across the building's facade,
Perry's face smiling out at her in encouragement. "PERRY WHITE
FOR MAYOR!" the banner proclaimed. "Someone who *knows*
Metropolis!"

Lois grinned to herself. "After all those years of avoiding
endorsements," she said under her breath. "Oh, Perry, I can't
wait to talk to you!"

She started across the street, dodging cars with the ease of
long practice. As she neared the main entrance, she stopped for
a moment to glance at the newspaper machines, where the latest
editions of the Daily Planet were always available. It took
several moments for the headline to really sink into her brain;
but once it did, she openly gawked.

"GET TOUGH ON CRIME, SAYS PRESIDENT HESTON."

Heston? As in *Charlton* Heston? Ben Hur was president of the
United States?

"That explains the guns, if nothing else," she mumbled, shaking
her head in disbelief. Charlton Heston as president! And she'd
been thinking so cynically of Ronald Reagan only a few minutes
ago! What next? Was Elvis Presley going to come back from the
dead and run for president too?

She covered her eyes with one hand, willing the nightmare to
stop. If this was the future, she wasn't sure she wanted to be
around to see it. Maybe that tombstone wasn't such a bad idea
after all....

Then her head snapped up and her shoulders went back. She was
suddenly angry. A maniac named Tempus had waylaid her and
dumped her in this awful, bizarre future of Metropolis,
practically forcing her into despair at the sight of what had
happened to her beloved city. Well, no more! She was Lois Lane,
three time Kerth winner, and she was standing in front of the
Daily Planet, home of the best newspaper in the entire world.
She was going to take charge, get the low-down on Tempus, and
put things right again!

Lois turned away from the newspaper machines and strode
forward. She gave an impatient shove to the slow-moving
revolving door and went inside the building. As she stalked
past the security station, the guard frowned and reached out a
hand to stop her. "Excuse me, miss, but you can't just walk in
here like this. I need some identification or --"

Infuriated by this final insult, Lois whipped out her Daily
Planet press pass and practically shoved it in the startled
woman's face. "I've been working here since 1988!" she snapped.
"Don't you recognize the reporters who write the paper?"

Without waiting for a reply, she wrenched her arm away from the
guard and marched over to the bank of elevators. She needed to
have a good long talk with --

She stopped in her tracks and almost whacked herself on the
forehead with exasperation. She'd been so shocked by that
outrageous headline that she hadn't even noticed the date
printed on the masthead of the paper! She turned, ready to go
back outside to double-check, even if it did mean arguing with
that silly security guard again. Then she saw that a single man
had just stepped inside one of the elevators and pushed a
button. Too impatient to even consider waiting for the next
elevator, Lois discarded the idea of going back to the vending
machines. She hurried forward and hollered, "Hold it!"

The man glanced over his shoulder at her, then held out a hand
to keep the doors from closing. The doors slid obediently open
again. Smiling at relief that at least *something* was going
right, Lois stepped onto the elevator and turned to thank the
man for his courtesy.

She stared.

He was wearing a custom-made suit of fine wool that set off his
silk shirt and the diamond clip on his conservative tie to
perfection. His brushed-back hairstyle made him look much
older, giving him an air of world-weariness that she'd never
seen in him before. His expression was polite and reserved --
and held no spark of friendliness or recognition.

But it was unquestionably Jimmy Olsen.

"Whoa, Jimmy!" Lois exclaimed. She fingered a lapel and gave
him a wicked grin. "I see you've come up in the world since the
last time I saw you! Good taste. Niiice suit." She touched the
diamond pin, then smoothed a hand over his tie. "Clark would
find this kinda dull, though."

Jimmy blinked. "Ah...."

"Salaries at the Planet must have *really* improved. I am
impressed." She reached past him to slap at the third floor
button. "So, what are you up to these days? Still involved with
Sarah?"

His face instantly closed down as the elevator began to rise.
"Sarah?" he repeated carefully.

"Sarah Goodwin? Remember, the girl with the rash on her arm and
the brainwashed assassin bit? The one who was a psych major who
analyzed everyone in sight?" She eyed him. "Huh. I guess not."

"I do not know any Sarah Goodwin, and --"

"Oh, Jimmy, who are you kidding? You may not keep in touch with
her any more, but you can't expect me to believe that you don't
remember her!"

"I don't --"

"Are you trying to tell me that you've forgotten that whole
episode? Your family doctor's murder? The Valhalla Project? How
you tried to kill me?" Lois frowned at him. "Look, Jimmy, I
know it was a while ago -- actually, I have no idea how long
ago it *was*, since I have no idea when -- well, ah, never
mind."

As the elevator ponderously rose towards the newsroom --
shouldn't they have faster elevators in the future? -- Lois
took a deep breath and mentally ordered her tongue to behave
itself. While she was practically certain that her time travel
theory was correct, it would take a lot of fast talking to
convince anyone else and avoid sounding like an escapee from
the closest mental institution -- what was it called again? Oh,
yes: The Lex Luthor Treatment Center for the Reality
Challenged. Lois grimaced at the thought. Better to avoid it if
possible.

This strange, somber version of Jimmy took advantage of her
momentary silence to attempt a complete sentence. "Look, miss,"
he tried again, "I'm not sure who you are, but nobody's called
me 'Jimmy' since --"

"'Miss'? What, you don't recognize me?" Lois couldn't help
feeling a bit hurt. "Don't tell me I've changed so much
since... well, since whenever. Let me guess, I've dyed my hair
blond?"

Even as he stared at her, Lois clamped her mouth shut. Why,
*why* had she said that when she'd just told herself not to
blurt out anything that hinted at her current predicament?
"Sorry," she said lamely. "Chalk it up to tension."

The elevator slowed, then stopped as they reached the third
floor. Lois, eager to escape the awkwardness of the situation,
was ready to dart out and down the ramp as soon as the doors
opened; but Jimmy stepped in front of her, blocking her view
and her way.

"I don't know who you are," he repeated. His voice was soft,
yet suddenly very hard. "But I'll tell you this. If you're
working for one of the tabloids and you try to print a story
linking me with someone named 'Sarah,' this other nonsense
about my family doctor's 'murder,' or a project that involves
my 'trying to kill you,' I assure you that you'll regret it."

*That* stopped her as nothing else could. She whirled at him
with fury in her eyes. "Jimmy!" she hissed. "Me? Working for
the *tabloids*?"

"I am not 'Jimmy,' and I would appreciate it if you stopped
calling me that!"

"So what is it these days? Jim? James?" She glared at him,
undaunted by his cold anger. "Does changing your name give you
the right to forget your old friends and treat them like this?"

"You're not an 'old friend' of mine, miss. I've never seen you
before in my life. And quite frankly, I think I'd rather have
kept it that way!" He turned on his heel and strode out of the
elevator, heading down the ramp to the pit and straight for
Perry's office.

Lois remained where she was, staring after him, until the
elevator doors began to close. She started and stepped out onto
the newsroom landing before she could be carried back
downstairs to the lobby.

Something was really wrong. Jimmy didn't dress like that. A
diamond tie clip and a custom-made suit? Where was his camera?
And what could have happened to him over the years that
destroyed his exuberant personality? The Jimmy that she knew so
well didn't treat strangers, much less old friends, with as
much reserve and coldness as he'd shown her.

Then again, Jimmy didn't march up to Perry's office and walk
inside without knocking, either... but even as she watched, the
smartly dressed Jimmy did exactly that! Lois braced herself,
expecting a roar to erupt from the closed room, but nothing
happened.

Okay, even *more* proof that something was wrong.

"This isn't my Daily Planet," she whispered. "This isn't my
Metropolis. This is something more than time."

The guard hadn't recognized her. Jimmy -- James? Jim? -- hadn't
recognized her. Was that why Tempus pulled her out of time? Was
she actually dead in the future, and was she needed for some
reason that compelled the man to take her out of the past and
bring her here?

She shook her head slowly, recognizing the flaws in that
reasoning. Even if she was fated to die sometime soon, that
didn't explain the date on the tombstone, which clearly pointed
to her dying in the past, not the future. And if Tempus had a
good reason for bringing her to this time, why do it at
gunpoint?

Her eyes narrowed as she leaned against the railing and stared
at the closed door to Perry's office. Jimmy, or whatever he was
calling himself these days, hadn't merely behaved like an older
version of the Jimmy Olsen she knew so well. He was
*different*. He hadn't known her, had assumed she was working
on a tabloid story about... him? Now that didn't make any
sense. Why would the tabloid press be interested in a
photographer for the Daily Planet?

Lois shook her head, frustrated at her lack of knowledge. What
*year* was it? How far had she come into the future? She closed
her eyes, trying to remember the newspaper she'd glanced at
before she entered the Daily Planet building. She wished that
she hadn't been so floored by the implications of the headline,
or that at least she had gone back to double-check the date.
Was she two years in the future? Five? Ten? She doubted it was
more, because Jimmy hadn't looked middle-aged. Actually, he
hadn't looked like he'd aged at all -- only changed, somehow.

Lois tapped her chin thoughtfully as she turned that fact over
in her mind. Was that a clue? If Jimmy was more or less the
same age, she was probably only a year or two in the future.
How, then, could she explain his strange lack of recognition,
his outrageous accusation that she trafficked in gossip and
rumors, and his bizarre assumption that the tabloids would be
interested in him in the first place?

Her gaze drifted over the newsroom below her, picking out
people she knew and new faces she didn't recognize. She spotted
Carol Nieder standing by the fax machine, impatiently snatching
each sheet of paper as it emerged. There was Jose Martinez
standing by his desk, playing with his Rolodex as he talked on
the phone. Debby Levine, the sports columnist, had just stepped
out of one of the conference rooms, escorting an
athletic-looking young woman. And there was Cat --

Cat?

She resisted the urge to rub her eyes in disbelief and merely
took another careful look.

Yes, it was definitely Cat Grant, dressed in an elegant,
knee-length  skirt with a matching jacket. Even as a bemused
Lois watched, the auburn-haired woman sat down at a desk that
was clearly hers and reached for the keyboard. She began typing
rapidly, consulting a notebook from time to time.

A man stopped at her desk and asked her something with a
hopeful expression, but Cat smiled and shook her head without
even looking at him. The man gave a disappointed shrug and
walked away.

"Welcome to the Twilight Zone," Lois breathed, simultaneously
amazed and amused. First Jimmy Olsen had changed completely;
now Cat Grant was not only back at work at the Planet, but also
behaving far differently than Lois ever remembered.

Unless, of course, she'd somehow managed to marry Victor Chow
in the interim....

Lois straightened up from her position at the railing and
sighed. Things were too different here. She couldn't puzzle
this out on her own. She needed to reconnoiter and get more
information. She needed to talk to someone in a calm and
rational fashion, someone like Clark or --

"Where the Sam Hill is Bailey when I need him? I want that
article twenty minutes ago!"

Perry!

Lois sighed with relief. Perry, bless him, hadn't changed a
bit. He strode out of his office now, gesturing at a copy boy
and shouting something about deadlines to one of the reporters.
She smiled broadly, starting down the ramp towards him. Perry
would believe her and help her.

She noted that Jimmy had followed Perry out of the editor's
office and was now looking in her direction. Even as she
reached the bottom of the ramp and started towards them, Jimmy
touched Perry's arm and gestured towards her. Perry turned and
looked at her --

And his eyes nearly fell out of sockets. "Lois?" he gasped,
hurrying towards her. "Lois, darlin', is that you?"

"Yes, Perry, it's me," she said, half-laughing, half something
else.

"I can't believe it. I *can't* believe it." He wrapped his arms
around her in a heartfelt hug, then stood back, holding her by
her shoulders as he gave her a rapid inspection. "Honey, you're
all right? Is everything okay with you?"

"Yes, I am," she assured him, her smile fading a little. "I'm
fine." Why was Perry so surprised to see her in good health?
Was she really dead in the future, after all?

Perry took a quick glance around the newsroom, clearly
realizing that the Planet's staff members were either covertly
or overtly watching the strange reunion. A few of them, mostly
reporters that Lois recognized, were beginning to move towards
the little group. "Hey, let's go into my office and talk with a
bit of privacy. Come on, Lois, Mr. Olsen..."

Lois, already turning towards Perry's office, stopped short.
"Perry? Did you just say, 'Mr. Olsen'?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Lois. I wasn't thinking." He nodded at the
silent young man standing by his side. "Mr. Olsen, meet Lois
Lane, one of the best reporters this paper has ever seen. Lois,
this is James Olsen, the current owner of the Daily Planet."

"That's all right, White," James Olsen said coolly, even as he
reached to shake the stunned young woman's hand. "We've already
met." His eyes, more amused now than angry, took in her dazed
expression. "Considering that meeting, I must say that I look
forward to hearing her story."

As Perry discreetly herded the two of them into his office,
Lois desperately tried to make sense of this incredible
revelation. *Jimmy Olsen* owned the Daily Planet?!

No, she amended. Not "Jimmy" Olsen, but "James" Olsen. This
definitely was not the exuberant young photographer she knew so
well. The passage of time couldn't account for this astounding
twist on reality. Even if, through some bizarre turn of events,
Jimmy *did* eventually become owner of the Planet, he and Perry
would surely never behave to each other in this manner. "Mr.
Olsen" and "White"? Yeah, right.

A cousin, perhaps? Someone who just happened to look incredibly
similar to the gopher-cum-aspiring-photojournalist who had
brightened so many of her days with his ebullient
personality...?

Her mind took that idea and promptly dumped it in the
wastebasket where it belonged. Silently admonishing herself for
such desperate reaching, Lois took a deep mental breath and
prepared to throw everything to the winds. If this wasn't
Jimmy, then that meant that...

"So, Mr. Olsen, you own the Planet," she tried.

"That's right," he nodded, even as he courteously held her
chair. "I bought the Planet about six months ago." He dropped
into the chair beside her, clearly at ease. "I was under the
impression that the purchase was pretty well-known. Where have
you been, Ms. Lane, that you weren't aware of it?"

"Um. Well." Lois crossed her legs and smoothed a hand along the
fabric of her slacks, wondering frantically what excuse she
might offer for her ignorance. "I guess I've been kind of out
of it lately."

Perry stood with his back to the closed office door, guarding
them against any intrusion. Now he stepped forward, his
expression suddenly urgent. "Lois," he said softly, "what
happened to you?"

The concern in his voice and the kindness in his eyes were
almost too much to bear. "Perry," she whispered in all honesty,
"I don't know."

"You've got to know!" His face was anguished. "Lois, we thought
you were *dead*!"

"You thought *what*?" She rose from her seat convulsively, too
stunned to even try to fit this new snippet of information into
the wild theories currently racing through her mind. Dead? Was
that tombstone real, then?

He turned away, unable to face her. "You disappeared two years
ago," he said, his voice ragged with pain. "No sign of you, no
word, nothing to give us the faintest bit of hope that you were
still alive. Do you know what that put me through, knowing I'd
let you investigate a story that killed you?" He suddenly swung
on her. "How could you let us believe that, Lois? Why didn't
you let me know you were alive?"

"Perry, I --" She faltered under the genuine distress so
evident in his eyes. She sank back into her chair, nearly
overwhelmed by the entire situation. How could she explain
herself? "I couldn't," she finished lamely, knowing the answer
wasn't good enough.

"You *couldn't*?" Perry's voice held a high note of disbelief.
"Two years since the Congo, Lois, and you couldn't find time
for a phone call?"

The Congo?

"I didn't--" Lois started, then stopped. There didn't seem to
be anything she could say.

She remembered going to the Congo, about six months before
Clark first arrived at the Daily Planet. She'd been
investigating the possibility of gunrunners and discovered
nothing. Perry, she vaguely recalled, hadn't been very happy at
the wasted expense of the trip. Still, she'd come back safe and
sound, if a little thinner because of a bad reaction to the
local food. At least she'd known better than to drink the
water....

So why was Perry saying that she'd disappeared?

"Ms. Lane," James cut in smoothly, "perhaps you could begin by
explaining to Mr. White exactly what happened when you went to
the Congo in '93?"

"In '93," Lois repeated dully. Then she sharpened. "Wait a
minute. Two years ago?"

Perry stopped his restless pacing and looked at her with
incredulity. "Yes, Lois, two years ago. Please don't try to
tell me you've had amnesia since then."

"But it can't be two--" Her voice trailed off.

James raised his eyebrows at her. "Surely you know the year,
Ms. Lane?"

Two years ago?

It was 1995?

But -- but Tempus had *taken* her from 1995...

"It's not possible," she whispered.

"What's not possible?" Perry demanded.

She stood up again and turned to face him. "It's not possible!"
she insisted, her voice suddenly shrill. Her hands tried to
shape the impossibility of it and failed. "It *can't* be!"

Perry must have recognized the stricken look on her face, for
his own expression suddenly softened. "Lois, honey," he said
more gently, "let's get one thing clear here. You disappeared
two years ago in the Congo, and we all thought you were dead. I
sent people down there to investigate, but it was as if you'd
vanished off the face of the earth..."

That sounds perfectly reasonable right now, Lois thought
numbly.

"...and after nearly a year, your parents gave up hope and had
you declared dead."

That's where the tombstone comes from, she added to herself
with detachment. My parents had it raised in memory of their
dead daughter.

"Lois..."

She turned away, unable to face him. Her eyes desperately
sought a neutral ground -- away from Perry, away from this
frighteningly intelligent and suave version of Jimmy, away from
the realization that was sweeping over her and threatening to
overwhelm her sanity. Her gaze wandered the walls of the
office, recognizing it as the same bizarre combination of the
strange and the familiar that had so disturbed her since her
arrival in this place. The framed copy of Perry's first article
as a cub reporter remained in place, but instead of his regular
Elvis picture --

She gave a ragged sob just on the edge of hysteria. She jerked
her head and shouted upwards, "I didn't mean it! I really
didn't!"

"Something's wrong," she heard James murmur through the sudden
haze that seemed to surround her brain. "Here, Ms. Lane, please
sit down..."

Lois allowed herself to be guided back to her chair, but she
couldn't stop the insane little giggle from leaving her mouth.
"Perry, you've got a picture up there of Elvis shaking your
hand, and holding up a copy of the Daily Planet with a headline
about his landslide victory."

Perry glanced at the framed picture. "Lois, honey, that picture
of President Presley was hanging on the wall when you left. I
don't --"

"I was just kidding," she assured the ceiling. "I really didn't
mean it when I said I expected this to happen. Really, I was
just joking."

"...Lois?"

She tried to stand again, irritably shaking away the hands that
tried to restrain her. "So, Perry," she said, her voice
high-pitched and strangely unsteady. "Jimmy's your boss and I'm
dead. Do I have the right story here?" Her blood thundered in
her ears. "'Cause a reporter always has to know the facts, and
I wouldn't want to be wrong about anything."

"Lois, I think you'd better --"

"--been ill, I would imagine. Perhaps we should --"

"--to sit down, will you? Maybe she -- all right after a little
--"

"--ask someone to -- water."

The words were coming from very far away. The thunder in her
ears had changed to a roar that drowned out everything else.
Even her vision was blurred. She reached out with unsteady
hands and found nothing to grasp. Everything was slipping away,
vanishing into a swirling mass of colors and fog and --

"Ah, glad you're here -- help us with --"

"-- is she?"

"-- your time, the best -- Metropolis."

There were hands supporting her now. Hands she knew, arms that
offered a comfort she recognized and trusted. She relaxed,
suddenly feeling safe. She felt a glass at her lips, and sipped
its contents without hesitation. Fresh, cold water. It seemed
to clear her head.

"Drink it slowly," urged a voice that prompted the same
soothing feelings as the arms that supported her. "A few sips
at a time."

Obediently, she swallowed the water, feeling the cold liquid
slide down her throat and stir her mind to wakefulness.

" -- all right now, I think." Her ears began to work again; she
could hear voices properly now, and recognized this particular
speaker as the owner of the arms that encircled her so
reassuringly. "Just give her another minute or so, sir."

"Looks like we'll have to wait a bit longer to get the answers,
White. I don't think she's up to questioning at the moment."

"I don't think it's just shock," the first voice added, its
warm tones shaded with extra concern. "Look at that bump on her
head. Perhaps she's concussed."

"We'll give her all the time she needs," a third voice said.
"Let's not push her."

Lois tried to match faces to the voices, but nothing happened.
She frowned. She was hearing just fine, and she no longer felt
dazed. So why couldn't she see?

Lois suddenly realized that her eyes were closed.  Strange, she
didn't remember closing them in the first place. Still, it
occurred to her that it might be helpful if she opened them.
Her brain considered this suggestion with the utmost gravity,
then agreed that it was the best option available.

She opened her eyes.

The scene had changed. Perry and James Olsen stood over her,
watching her with mixed expressions of wariness and concern.
She appreciated this, but Lois was only *really* interested in
the man whose arms supported her, kneeling next to her chair as
he offered her the sweet comfort of his presence.

"Clark," she breathed. With a tremulous smile, she reached out
and touched his hair, reassuring herself that he actually
existed. "Clark, it *is* you!"

"Ah, yes, Ms. Lane," he smiled back with a touch of
uncertainty. "I'm Clark Kent. I think you'll be all right now."

She drew back, stung at the formality of his words. "Clark?
'Ms. Lane'?"

He rose to his feet with his usual effortless grace. "Yes, Ms.
Lane, Mr. White and Mr. Olsen told me who you are. I hope I
haven't been presumptuous in offering my help."

"This is Clark Kent, Lois," Perry interceded. "He's one of the
reporters here in the Planet. He came on board a couple of
months after you... left us."

Lois stared, unwilling to absorb the reality of Perry's words.

"I called him into the office to give us a hand. You had some
kind of spell there, Lois. You had me worried for a minute."

"Are you all right now, Ms. Lane?"

Lois slowly turned her head and looked at the man standing by
her side. He was polite, kind, and obviously concerned... about
someone he clearly considered to be a complete stranger.

This Clark Kent didn't know her at all.

It was the final blow. Lois finally forced herself to face the
truth: This was not her world. Period.

"Ms. Lane?" The brown eyes, darkened with worry yet still those
of a stranger, looked intently into hers. "Are you all right?"

"No," she whispered, her heart breaking. "I'm not."

***

Lois was never quite sure how she managed to turn the
conversation away from her own state of mind and her sudden
reappearance after two years of being presumed dead. She spoke
vaguely of "transportation" and how time "seemed to have
blurred"; she didn't dare tell them of her conclusion that the
infuriating Tempus had somehow transported her to this
Metropolis from a different universe. Not only would they have
failed to believe her, but they would have had her hospitalized
immediately. Calling it "concussion" at that point would have
been a kindness.

So she'd changed the subject as quickly as possible. It had
taken a great deal of fast talking and some adroit
misdirection, and she wasn't quite sure she had fooled James
Olsen; he had a knowing, amused expression that would have
annoyed her immensely if she hadn't taken such a liking to the
young man in the first place. Perry was much easier to handle.
Even though he wasn't "her" Perry, his behavior and personality
was so familiar that it was simplicity itself to sidestep his
questions and influence the topic of conversation. Clark, on
the other hand....

He was an enigma to her. His manner lacked the easy
self-confidence and assertiveness that she knew so well; he
seemed more submissive, almost cowed. Yet Perry and James
treated him like an equal, clearly respecting his opinion and
ideas. So why was he behaving like that?

Of course, Lois reminded herself, this Clark wasn't going to be
exactly like her own. With her own history so pointedly
altered, who knew how his past had changed as well? She would
have to find out....

Even as she spared a small part of her brain to participate in
the conversation that swirled around her, Lois' mind quickly
moved into high gear. Tempus had kidnapped her from her own
sane -- well, relatively sane -- world and brought her to this
one, a bizarre universe where things were familiar, yet
frighteningly different. He must have had one of two motives:
either her presence here would somehow cause a chain of
reaction that he wanted to take place, or he needed her out of
the way in *her* universe in order to successfully complete
some plot that her presence might disrupt.

After another moment's thought, Lois classified the second
possibility as "doubtful." The man had kidnapped her at
gunpoint and hadn't hesitated to fire his weapon. If he
*really* wanted her out of the way, it probably wouldn't have
been that difficult for him to arrange for a matching set of
tombstones.

Whichever theory was correct, Lois knew that the best way to
ruin Tempus' plans was to get back home as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, getting back to one's own universe from an
alternate one wasn't quite as simple as calling a cab. Her mind
contemplated the prospect and quickly boggled at the thought of
somehow figuring out a way back to her universe on her own. No,
she needed help. A *lot* of it. Something beyond the vast
resources of the Daily Planet and its talented staff. Someone
who could accept the bizarre and unbelievable and help her
overcome it.

She needed Superman.

As she absently formulated makeshift replies to the questions
the others directed at her, Lois reached a rapid conclusion.
She needed the big guy in the red cape, and she had to find him
as quickly and discreetly as possible to avoid telling others
about her predicament. Normally, it wasn't that hard for her to
find him; but in this world, Superman didn't even know she
existed. That meant that she would have to go through the one
other person that seemed to know Superman better than she did
herself. She needed...

"Clark," she said abruptly.

Still standing in a room where everyone else was seated, Clark
moved immediately to her side. "Yes, Ms. Lane?" His manner was
polite, interested... reserved. If he wondered why this
stranger persisted in calling him by his first name, his
expression didn't show it.

She pushed away her sharp pang of distress at his cool
reaction. "Clark, who has been writing about Tempus for the
paper?" She paused for a moment as a thought struck her.
"What's his first name, anyway?"

"His full name is John D. Tempus," Perry answered, studying her
curiously. "No one knows what the 'D' stands for, and Tempus
himself seems to find it very funny for some reason. Why do you
ask?"

"John D. Tempus. Okay." She took a moment to carefully select
her words. "Perry, I know the Planet doesn't deal in smear
campaigns, but I've got some inside information on Tempus that
could be very damaging to him. It's only a beginning, though,
and it'll take a lot of research. I'd like to work on this, if
I can, but I'll need a partner -- and I was sort of hoping I
could work with Clark."

All three men wore identical expressions of astonishment at her
words, but Lois could not help but be amused at the difference
in their reactions:

"You want to start working again?" James exclaimed.

"You want to work with *me*?" Clark almost squeaked.

"*You* want to work with a partner?" Perry blurted.

Time to take charge, Lois decided. She stood and nodded briskly
at the trio. "Yes, Mr. Olsen, it's time for me to start working
again; it's the best way to get myself back on my feet. Yes,
Perry, I know I've always worked alone in the past, but I need
a partner after being away for so long. And yes, Clark, I'd
very much like to work with you, if I can." She paused for a
moment, suddenly doubtful. "Unless you have a partner already?"

For a fleeting instant, she thought she saw a flicker of panic
wash across his features. "Partner? Me?" he stammered. "Ah, no,
I've always worked alone, usually. I mean, it's, uh, easier for
me that way."

She started to frown at him, then stopped himself. This Clark
really did seem to be lacking in self-confidence. "It'll be a
good learning experience for you, then," she assured him. With
a private grin at her memories of her first pairing with "her"
Clark, she added, "I think you'll find it rather educational."

"Ms. Lane," James interrupted smoothly, "while I admire you for
your willingness to dive back into your profession, I must
point out that you have clearly undergone a great deal of
trauma. Are you sure that you're ready to --"

Lois rounded on him, suddenly wishing she was dressed in one of
her power suits instead of casual slacks and a sweater. "Are
you saying that I'm not up to it?" she demanded. "Because if
that's the case, I'm sure I could find some other paper in
Metropolis who would like to hire a three-time -- an
award-winning reporter!" She caught the word "Kerth" just in
time, uncertain whether this world had Kerths or not. Still,
she was confident that *any* version of her would have *some*
awards to her credit, no matter what the award might be called.

"I didn't say that," James said, his voice mild. "But Ms. Lane,
I really do think you're rushing things here. Despite what you
have and haven't told us," and at this point the glint in his
eye clearly told her that he hadn't missed a single evasion, "I
think you are more in need of a hot meal and a good night's
sleep than a desk with a computer. Do you have somewhere to
stay?"

"I --" Lois started, then stopped, defeated by this suave
version of Jimmy who seemed to see through her all too easily.
She was suddenly  conscious of her disheveled appearance -- the
livid welt on her forehead, the makeup that had long since
vanished, her exhaustion, the state of her hair and her
over casual clothes. All she owned in this universe was the
contents of her pockets. "No," she sighed. "I don't."

"That's not a problem," Perry said. "Lois can stay with me.
Alice and I will put her up in the guest room until she can get
back on her feet."

"Good," James approved as Lois smiled at Perry's spontaneous
offer. "In that case, Ms. Lane, perhaps you could come back
here tomorrow, and we'll discuss salary and benefits?" His eyes
twinkled at her as he added, "We're not going to let the woman
that was known as the 'best reporter in Metropolis' get away
from the Daily Planet."

"Thank you," Lois said, honestly grateful. She couldn't help
hoping, though, that by tomorrow she would be safely back in
her own universe, where she belonged. And to arrange for that
to happen, she needed -- "But if I could just talk to Clark for
a few minutes first? In one of the conference rooms, maybe?"

Perry chuckled. "Mr. Olsen, there's no gettin' past Lois." He
glanced at his watch. "I won't be leaving for another hour or
so anyway. Clark, son, take Lois with you into a conference
room and let her convince you to do whatever it is she wants
you to do." He clapped Clark on the shoulder as he confided,
"It's going to happen. You might as well make it relatively
painless!"

Lois mock-glared at Perry through her grin, then impulsively
linked her arm through Clark's. "Let's go, Clark," she urged.

He stiffened a little, and her smile faded as she remembered
once again that this Clark did *not* know her. Carefully
disengaging her arm, she said quietly, "If you're ready, that
is?"

"Sure." He smiled at her a bit uneasily as he adjusted his
glasses. "Let's --"

A tentative knock on the door interrupted him.

"Yeah?" Perry called.

The office door swung open and a blonde head peeked inside.
"Excuse me for interrupting you, but is Clark still busy...?"

"Oh, Lana, I'm sorry!" Clark exclaimed, hurrying forward. "Let
me just --" He stopped and looked back at Lois. "Ah, Ms. Lane,
I'll be right with you..."

"Go ahead," Lois said, staring at the blonde woman with the
pretty but sharp features. "I'll wait."

"Who is this, Clark?" the woman asked, looking at Lois with a
calculated expression.

Clark flushed a little. "I'm sorry, where are my manners?" He
nodded at Lois. "Lana, this is Lois Lane. Ms. Lane, this is
Lana Lang."

Lana held out her hand. Lois moved forward automatically to
shake it.

"Nice to meet you, Ms. Lane," the woman smiled, but there was a
clear warning in her eyes. "I'm Mr. Kent's fiancee."

Lois strained to keep her expression impassive, but the shock
of this new detail threatened to unravel her composure. Clark,
engaged to this woman? Who *was* she? Despite the diversity of
the two universes, she found it very hard to believe that this
alternate Clark could be engaged to a woman whose counterpart
had never even been mentioned by the Clark of her own world.

As she watched Clark walk Lana to the elevator, she sensed
Perry coming to stand behind her. "Who is she?" she murmured,
unable to take her eyes off the couple long enough to turn her
head and address him directly.

"Lana Lang," Perry replied softly. "She's a newsanchor at LNN."

"I see." Lois bit her lip at this bit of news, realizing that
"LNN" meant that Lex also existed in this universe. Was he
alive and well, recently resurrected, or merely still dead?
"Where did he meet her?"

"She's Clark's childhood sweetheart, or so I understand. I get
the impression that the two of them have been engaged since
they first swapped Valentines in the second grade."

Lois stared as Lana and Clark spoke together on the landing.
She couldn't hear what they were saying, but their animated
gestures seemed to be almost a code. "So, Lana's also from
Smallville," she said absently as she wondered what that
swooping hand motion of Lana's could possibly mean.
"Interesting. Why didn't he ever say something? I only remember
Rachel...."

"Ah, Lois?"

Lois tore her gaze away from Clark and his fiancee and turned
to Perry, puzzled by his tone of voice. "What's wrong?"

Perry looked at her for a long moment, then shook his head in
resignation. "Never mind. I don't think I want to know how you
know that Clark is from Smallville."

As he turned back into the office to speak to James, Lois felt
her heart stutter with alarm. She'd forgotten again that she
was not supposed to have any knowledge of anything that had
happened at the Daily Planet since her disappearance in the
Congo in '92 -- and that included any and all information
regarding Clark Kent.

Distressed, she took a long, steadying breath to calm herself.
She didn't have time for this now. As soon as she got back
home, she promised herself, she'd allow herself to go to pieces
-- but she had to find a way to travel across dimensions first.

She turned back to the newsroom just in time to see the
elevator doors close, carrying Lana away from the newsroom.
Even as she watched, Clark's shoulders seemed to slump
fractionally. He stared at the closed doors for another long
moment before he finally turned away.

Lois frowned. This wasn't her Clark, and she couldn't expect
this man's body language to be the same as the man she knew so
well. But if this *was* her Clark, she would interpret that
gesture as... relief?

Relief that his fiancee had left? That made no sense at all.

She put all speculation aside as she saw him come back down the
ramp to the newsroom floor. Finally, she would have the chance
to talk to him. Once she managed to explain the situation, the
two of them could get in touch with Superman and figure out
some way to get her back to her own dimension, where she
belonged.

She watched his face close down again as he approached her. He
was wary, uneasy. She wished she knew why. Was it her? Lana?
The idea of a partner? Or was it simply that this Clark seemed
so unsure of himself?

"If you'll come this way, Ms. Lane...?" he invited her,
gesturing towards the conference room where she'd seen Debby
Levine interviewing an athlete earlier in the day. "You can
tell me what you suspect about Tempus, and we can take it from
there."

She smiled at him despite her resolution to keep things
strictly professional. She liked his usage of the word "we."
"That's fine, Clark," she said quietly as she followed him into
the conference room, "but first we have to talk about us."

Clark closed the door for privacy, then frowned at her. "Excuse
me? 'Us'?"

"Well, me, actually," Lois conceded. She sat down and resisted
the urge to rest her head on the conference table. "Clark, I
need help. A lot of it."

She looked him straight in the eye. "I need *super* help."

He'd started to sit down across the table from her, but now he
suddenly leaped to his feet. "What?!"

Lois wrinkled her brows at him. "I need Superman's help, Clark.
I need you to help me find him."

"S-superman?" Clark stammered, avoiding her gaze. "Ms. Lane, I
--"

"Call me Lois, will you?" she interrupted. "This 'Ms. Lane'
stuff is getting on my nerves! It was bad enough with Jimmy --
I mean James -- but I can't take it from you!"

He swallowed hard. "Okay, Ms. -- uh, Lois."

"Good. That's better." She gave him an encouraging smile,
wondering yet again why this version of Clark was so ill at
ease with himself. "Now. Superman. Can you get in touch with
him?"

"Superman," he repeated.

"Yes, Superman. Remember him? The guy from another planet?"

A look of sheer panic crossed his face as he backed away from
her. "Who?"

"The one who can bend steel with his bare hands and leap tall
buildings in a single bound...?" She stopped, seeing him with
his back to the door. "Clark, what *is* wrong with you? Calm
down and sit down! I don't know what you're so anxious about
here, but I promise I don't bite."

He gulped hard and cautiously came back to the table, moving as
if he expected her to leap up and attack him at any moment.
Lois squeezed her eyes shut, knowing that if this was her
Clark, she might have done just that... But it wasn't. She was
a universe away from her own Clark, and at that moment, she
wanted nothing more than to see him again.

She opened her eyes again to see Clark seated across from her,
his facial expression under control but his dark eyes betraying
his anxiety. "Look, Ms. La -- Lois -- I'm not sure what's going
on here."

"There isn't anything going on here. I just need to talk to
Superman."

"Okay, then." Clark seemed to settle himself, as if prepared to
do battle. "Let's start with that. Who is Superman?"

"*What* did you say?" It was Lois' turn to rise from her chair.

Clark flinched, but repeated, "Who is Superman? I've -- I've
never heard the name before."

"You've -- never -- heard the name..." She stared at him in
absolute horror. No. This couldn't be. This could not be
happening. A world without Superman?

Her mind flashed back to her walk to the Daily Planet: the
dirtier streets, the darker atmosphere, the vicious drive-by
shooting without the flash of red and blue to apprehend the
criminals. Could it really be true that Superman didn't exist?

With a sudden, desperate surge of hope, Lois pounced upon
another possibility. "Things are so different here... Maybe you
call him something else." She dug into her pocket and pulled
out her wallet. Opening it, she pointed to a picture of a
smiling man with dark hair, piercing eyes, and a red and blue
suit. "We call him Superman, but maybe you have a different
name for him..."

Her voice trailed off as she glanced up at Clark and saw his
reaction. His face was a study of mixed horror and awe. He
reached out with a trembling finger and touched the S-symbol
proudly emblazoned on Superman's chest.

"Where did you get that?" he whispered.

"The picture?" Lois flushed a little. "Well, uh, I usually tell
people that it came with the wallet, but -- I actually took it
myself." She looked at the picture with a critical eye. "I did
a pretty good job, too," she added reflectively.

He stared at the picture for a moment longer, then looked up at
her abruptly. "All right. Who are you?"

"What? What do you mean? I'm Lois --"

"Are you from the government?" he demanded, his voice not quite
shrill.

"Certainly not!" she said, indignant. "I'm a reporter and --"

"Tell me the truth!" he insisted. "Who are you, really?"

She reached across the table to give his hand a reassuring pat,
but he jerked away at her touch. "Who are you?" he almost
hissed.

"Clark." She pushed her chair away from the table and stood up,
backing away to give him plenty of room. She had no idea what
had spooked him. "I'm Lois Lane. I work for the Daily Planet. I
have nothing to do with the government. I don't even *know*
anyone in the government here." She pushed her hair back in a
nervous gesture. "Clark, I don't know why this picture of
Superman bothers you so much, but I really do need your help.
You're the only one who can contact him on a regular basis and
I've got to talk to him as soon as I can. I don't feel like
falling out a window, which seems to be *my* regular way of
contacting him, so if you could please...?"

She stopped as she realized that she'd lost him. His gaze was
once more fixed on the picture in her wallet. He traced the
S-symbol, then touched the handsome face. Shaking his head with
disbelief, his left hand reached up and raked through his hair.
"It can't be," he whispered. He touched his glasses, almost as
if he wanted to assure himself that they were still there.
"This just can't be."

"Tell me about it," Lois agreed with him bitterly, although she
was thinking of her own situation. "So, can you help me get in
touch with him?"

Clark gave a slight shudder and firmly closed the wallet over
the picture. "Ms. Lane," he said formally, "the man in this
picture does not exist. I'm afraid I can't help you."

"I refuse to believe that," Lois snapped, feeling desperate.
"Maybe he just hasn't made his debut here yet. We'll have to
track him down somehow."

Clark narrowed his eyes at her. "You keep talking about 'here,'
Ms. Lane," he said softly, rising from his chair to confront
her directly. "You speak to me as if we've known each other for
years, when we first met half an hour ago. You refer to events
and things that you can't know, yet somehow you do. And you
expect me to have knowledge of some... some circus performer in
a ridiculous costume with clashing colors. Who exactly are you,
Ms. Lane, and what do you want from me?"

Lois turned her head away. "You're right," she admitted, her
voice very small. "There's a lot I haven't told you. But it all
ties in to Tempus, so if you don't want to talk about Superman
yet, could we at least talk about that?" She turned back to
him, and she wasn't ashamed to know that her face was openly
pleading now. "Clark, I need help desperately. I've got to talk
to someone who knows this Metropolis and will listen to me
without declaring me insane. Clark, I'm going to trust you,
because if you're anything like the Clark I know, I can."

He just looked at her.

She took a deep breath. "Clark -- I'm from another universe."

There. She'd said it. She watched him carefully, waiting for
his reaction, but his face remained deadpan. The silence
between them stretched out unbearably.

"Say something!" Lois finally blurted.

Clark sat back down and slowly rubbed his eyes. "Look, Ms. Lane
--"

"Call me Lois!"

"Lois," he said, clearly humoring her. Lois gritted her teeth.

"So, you're from another universe."

"Yes."

"And you want me to help you find someone who wears a Halloween
costume made up of a red cape and blue tights, who just so
happens to come from another planet."

"Yes!"

"And I'm supposed to believe you?"

For some strange reason, much of his tension seemed to have
vanished. Lois would have expected the opposite. Why was he so
pleased with her claim?

He leaned forward and added, "First you make up a story about
some guy called 'Superman,' and now you tell me you're from
another dimension. What possible reason could you have for
playing such a practical joke?"

Lois opened her mouth to make an angry retort, then stopped as
a new thought struck her. She found it almost frightening how
easily she could read this man. "Correct me if I'm wrong,
Clark," she said softly, "but you seem to be a lot more
skeptical about the other-dimension part than you are about the
flying-alien part."

He flinched. "Is that what you think of this guy you keep
claiming exists? That's how you classify him -- as a flying
alien?"

"No, I don't think of him as an alien. I think he's the most
incredible, special person to ever walk -- or fly -- the face
of this earth!" she snapped back. *Except for you...* "So what
if he comes from Krypton? He's from another planet, and I'm
from another dimension, so we ought to get along just fine!"

His face had paled again. "How do you know he's from Krypton?"

"Because he told me, the first time he gave me an interview."
Lois regarded him thoughtfully. Something was bothering him far
beyond what she would have expected. "What difference does it
make if he's from Krypton, or Vulcan for that matter?"

"He told you," Clark repeated mechanically. He propped an elbow
on the table and rested his head in his hand. "He gave you an
interview? More than one?"

"Yes," Lois said, puzzled anew.

"I..." He stopped for a moment and closed his eyes. When he
opened them again, Lois saw resignation clearly reflected
there. "All right," he said at last. "I believe you."

"You do?" She hadn't expected this. "Why?"

A hint of humor peeked through his despondency. "Don't you want
me to?"

"Well, yes, but..." Her voice trailed off as she realized the
sheer silliness of her objection. He'd deflected her question
rather neatly, but -- "Okay, never mind." She hitched her chair
closer to the table. "You believe me, that's great. So let's
get started."

He looked at her warily. "Where are we going to start?"

"Tempus, I should think," Lois replied. "He's the one who
brought me here in the first place."

"Let's get back to Tempus in a minute," Clark suggested. His
expression seemed strangely intent. "Tell me more about this
Superman first."

Lois frowned at him. "Why?"

"You want me to help you find him, don't you?" Clark was now
radiating the kind of innocence that Lois instantly mistrusted.
"What do you know about him, other than that he's from Krypton
and flies?" He glanced at the picture again and added, "And has
absolutely no fashion sense?"

"His mother made the costume for him," Lois objected,
remembering a little girl in a wheelchair with a shy smile and
a hero who took the time to talk to her. "At least, I heard him
say that once... Clark? What's wrong now?"

He'd risen from his chair and was staring at her with a look
that she could only classify as "panic-stricken." Were those
tears glimmering in his eyes?

"That's not possible," he whispered, staring once again at the
plastic-encased photo of Superman. "It *can't* be true."

"Clark, please." Forgetting how he'd flinched from her touch
earlier, she circled the table to lay a reassuring hand on his
arm. "Tell me what's bothering you, so I can help."

She felt him lean into her touch for a moment before he
reluctantly moved away. "I can't --" He stopped and clearly
struggled to compose himself. "Ah, let's try this again, okay?
This alternate universe thing -- I do believe you, but it's a
little hard to swallow."

"I know," she said softly, trying to give him time to calm
himself. "I've been a little shell-shocked myself all day."

"So." He clasped his hands together. "There's another -- a
version of each person in both universes?"

"Yes," Lois nodded. "Some of them seem to be almost exactly the
same, like Perry, while others are totally different. Jimmy
Olsen, for example. Your James is called Jimmy in my universe
-- he's a photographer and researcher for the Planet, not the
owner."

"Oh." With a casual air that completely failed to fool her, he
asked, "And your Clark? What am I like in your universe?"

She sat down in his chair and looked up at him. "He looks
exactly the same," she said slowly, "but there are definite
differences. He's -- well, more self-assertive, for one thing.
You seem to be more deferential. And..." She swallowed hard.
"Well, the two of us are kind of close."

"I'm sorry," he said, kneeling by the chair, his own anxieties
clearly forgotten in his concern for her. "I think I understand
now. That's why you reacted so strongly in the office when I
didn't recognize you?"

"Yes," Lois admitted, her voice trembling a little as the
reality of her predicament struck her all over again. "And I
miss him very, very much." She lifted her chin and tried to
smile. "Imagine how you'd feel if you were a universe away from
your Lana!"

He smiled back at her, but it wasn't a regular, easy smile at
all. Lois filed that little detail away for future reference.

"Lana..." He shook his head. "I never knew you," he said
quietly. "I wonder how things would have been here, if the Lois
of this universe hadn't disappeared in the Congo half a year
before I first came to the Planet."

He shivered a little. "I don't what it is about you," he
whispered. "This is the weirdest feeling.  I know I shouldn't
talk to you, I know I should just walk away..."

He rose to his feet and stood there, looking down at her. "But
I can't." He sighed, then squared his shoulders and added,
"Tell me more about your Clark. Is his background the same as
mine?"

"I don't know, I don't know your background." Shaken by his
confession and his oblique acknowledgement of the mutual
attraction between the two of them, Lois tried to lighten the
atmosphere. "Did you grow up in Smallville and wander all over
the world after graduation? Did you once work for the Borneo
Gazette? Did you learn ballroom dancing from a Nigerian
princess? Do you go back every year to Smallville to worship
corn at the Corn Festival? Do your parents ask every girl who
walks into the farmhouse with you if she --"

"My parents." He shuddered. "So it's true. No, not..."

"Clark?"

"What did you say about my parents?"

"Clark, what is it?"

"Lois." His eyes burned with intensity. "Have you met my --
Clark's parents? Jonathan and Martha?"

"Of course I have. They're wonderful people, they come into
Metropolis every once in a while... Clark, you're frightening
me. What's the matter with you?"

"I can't believe it, I *can't*." He scrubbed fiercely at his
eyes, then turned to her. "Promise me you're telling me the
truth, Lois! Are Martha and Jonathan really alive and well in
your universe?"

"Are they --" Lois repeated, horrified. "Oh, no, Clark, no.
What happened in this universe?"

Clark propped himself against the edge of the table and stared
fixedly at the wall of the conference room. "I was ten years
old," he muttered. "I was standing by the lane to the farm,
waiting for them to come home. I saw their car in the
distance... and there was a truck coming towards the
intersection, much too fast to stop. I tried to warn them, but
I wasn't fast enough..."

Lois felt her heart break for him. "Clark, you can't blame
yourself," she said earnestly. "You were only ten, and you're
not Superman."

He gave a bitter, brittle laugh, and Lois couldn't help but
feel that she'd said something far beyond what she intended to
say. "Lana says the same thing," he told her. "That I shouldn't
blame myself, because one person can't really make that much of
a difference, no matter who or what he is."

"Well." Lois considered this sentiment, automatically suspect
for having come from Lana Lang. "I agree with her that you
shouldn't blame yourself, but I don't agree with the rest of
it. One man *can* make a difference. Superman has."

"Superman has," Clark repeated dully. His eyes reflected pain.
"Yeah, right."

With obvious effort, he straightened. "Let's take this from the
top. You've come here from an alternate universe, where there's
a guy calling himself Superman."

"Right."

"How did you get here?"

"Tempus," Lois said simply.

He blinked at her. "Excuse me?"

"Tempus brought me here. I have no idea why."

"Uh huh..." He sighed and rubbed a hand across his forehead.
"I'm trying my best to accept all this, Lois, but it's really
hard to believe.'

"Which part?" She wryly ticked some of the more incredible
points off on her fingers. "That I'm from a parallel
Metropolis? That Tempus, the guy who's running for mayor here,
is a dimension-hopping mugger and kidnapper? Or that James
Olsen is little more than a copy boy in my universe?"

"Actually, I was thinking more about the idea that this other
-- that this Superman guy flies around in tights." He shook
himself and visibly tried to regain his calm. "Uh, would you
care to explain *how* Tempus brought you here?"

"He used a time machine, I think. A dimension-hopping machine,
actually." Seeing Clark's look of clear incredulity, she added
sharply, "Look, I know it doesn't make much sense! But he
dragged me into an alleyway at gunpoint and ordered me to climb
onto some kind of machine. He made a crack about time travel,
twisted a dial, and dumped me into a cemetery in your universe,
where I got a good look at my own tombstone! Then I had to
wander through the streets of a Metropolis turned upside-down,
witness a drive-by shooting --"

"Were you hurt?" he interrupted, his face creased with concern.
"I didn't see you there --"

"I didn't see you there either." She eyed him suspiciously.
"How do you know about it?"

"I was pretty close by," he said hastily. "In the background,
you might say."

"I still didn't see you." She sighed and added, "And if
Superman would have existed in this dimension, he would have
shown up, caught all the bullets with his bare hands, and
probably flown the entire car of gangsters over to the closest
police station for arraignment."

"He can do that?!"

"Sure, why not? He's strong enough."

"No, I mean the people of your -- your dimension would allow
such a thing to happen?"

Lois frowned at him, wondering why he was so agitated. "Of
course they would! Look, Clark, I can see that this universe of
yours is a lot more paranoid. I saw all those stores selling
ammunition..."

"That's Tempus' doing," he told her, his voice grim. "He's got
a whole chain of shops in the greater Metropolis area, selling
weapons and ammunition for inexpensive prices." He shook his
head. "It's as if he's more interested in turning New Troy into
an armed militia than in actually making a profit."

"Maybe he is," Lois suggested. "He quite clearly has some
private agenda of his own, or he wouldn't have dragged me here.
And who is this 'enemy' that he tells people to be ready for?"

"In his campaign posters, you mean?" At Lois' nod, Clark only
shrugged. "I have no idea. No one has any idea. I asked him the
question myself, when I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago.
He smiled at me -- a really infuriating smirk, if you don't
mind my saying so --"

"I don't," Lois said emphatically.

"-- and just said that we'd all find out soon, so we'd better
get ready." He twisted his mouth into a grimace. "I'm usually
good at getting people to open up when I interview them, but
Tempus, for all his verbosity, actually says very little. I'm
not the only reporter who's been stymied by the guy. There's
going to be a debate, though, the day after tomorrow, between
Tempus and Mr. White. It'll be televised, and Tempus will have
to say *something* if he actually wants to convince people to
vote for him!"

"So what do I have to do with all this?" Lois demanded,
frustrated. "Why did he bring me here to this dimension? How is
he planning on using me?"

Clark, his face a study of compassion, reached out a hand to
touch her cheek. He jerked back and flushed. "Don't let him use
you, Lois," he said quietly. "I don't --"

A cursory knock on the door warned them before it swung open to
reveal an irritated-looking Lana Lang. "Clark," she said,
clearly impatient. "It's ten to seven now! I've been waiting
downstairs in the lobby for twenty minutes!"

Clark glanced at his watch. "I'm so sorry, Lana," he
apologized. "I forgot that we agreed to go meet your parents at
seven o'clock. I got caught up with --"

"With Ms. Lane here?" Lana stared coldly at Lois. "Why are you
working with her, Clark?"

Lois, annoyed that Lana spoke over her head as if she were a
three-year-old, stood up and said pointedly, "We're
working together on a story, Ms. Lang. Perry paired the two of us
together."

"Did he?" Lana seemed unimpressed. "Well, working hours ended a
long time ago, and my fiance and I have some wedding plans to
work out, so if you'll excuse us...?"

***

Lois stood by the door of the conference room and watched Lana
and Clark leave the newsroom. As the couple hurried up the ramp
to the elevators, Lana was clearly doing most of the talking.
Lois noted with some irritation that Clark did little more than
nod and agree with whatever Lana said, behaving in that same
meek and submissive manner. Why did he let her walk all over
him like that? Why didn't he stand up for himself?

"I'm not sure," Lois muttered, "but I think I hate her."

Part of Lois was annoyed with herself for her instinctive
dislike for Lana Lang. The other part assured her that her
instincts were usually right on the mark, and there was
something fundamentally wrong with Clark's engagement to the
woman. Frustrated by her inability to make up her mind, Lois
set the question aside and went to talk to Perry.

She found him arguing with one of the reporters who did not
have a counterpart in her own universe. As she watched Perry
pointedly and sarcastically explain that a newspaper required
facts rather than fiction, Lois wondered what had caused the
divergence between the two universes. Why were some people
practically the same in both dimensions, others completely
different in character, and still others without matching
counterparts? Why didn't Superman exist here? Was there some
key event that had changed things, preventing events from
taking their proper course? But then, who could say how things
were "supposed" to happen?  Which one was the "right"
dimension, anyway? Hers? This one? Some other universe
entirely?

She shuddered and ordered that errant thought out of sight, if
not out of mind. It was bad enough to worry about two
dimensions; she really didn't want to start postulating about
others.

Perry finished his diatribe and the chastised reporter slunk
away. Lois watched with some amusement as Perry turned away in
exasperation, only to brighten as he caught sight of her.

"There you are, Lois." He came forward and patted her on the
shoulder. "How'd that talk go with Clark?"

Lois paused for a moment, wondering exactly how to describe the
incredible conversation she'd had in the conference room. "It
was -- enlightening, Perry," she said at last.

"That's more than I can say about *our* conversation, darlin',"
he said gently.

She looked at him, stricken.

He nodded, his face openly sympathetic. "You didn't want to
tell us what happened; I guess it's too soon. You let us know
when you're ready, honey, and we'll be ready to listen."

Lois reached out and hugged him. "Thanks, Perry," she said, her
voice hoarse as she struggled to control herself. "You're the
best."

"Nice to hear you admit it for a change," he told her, his eyes
twinkling. "You usually claim that title for yourself."

She shrugged and smiled ruefully. "I think it'll take me at
least a day or two before I can reclaim that title."

"Well, you keep working with Clark and you'll be back on the
top of the heap before you know it. He's a quiet one, that boy,
but he's got an uncanny knack for showing up at the right place
at the right time."

"What do you mean?"

Perry waved a vague hand. "It's hard to explain, but -- the
strangest coincidences seem to happen around him. He just
manages to fall on his feet."

"Do you think you could be a little more specific?"

Perry looked thoughtful. "Well, take last week. He was on his
way here when some punk on rollerblades ripped off a woman's
purse. He was speeding past Clark when a freak gust of wind
sent the punk sideways into a tree." He chuckled. "So Clark
ends up collaring the punk, giving the lady back her purse, and
writing a nice little story."

"Not all that newsworthy, though," Lois said absently as she
mulled this over. Come to think of it, things like that
happened around her Clark, too....

"Are you kidding?" Perry snorted. "Petty crime that actually
gets prosecuted?"

Lois stared at him. "Chief, are you serious?"

Perry sighed. "Lois, you've been out of it for over two years
now. I'm afraid things have only gone downhill since then.
There's so much crime out there that we're lucky if one
criminal out of twenty actually gets punished. Believe me, a
mugger getting caught and charges getting pressed might not be
front-page news, but it definitely gets printed. It happens so
rarely that it really is newsworthy." He shrugged. "Sure, the
news is usually bad; but I think the people of Metropolis are
pretty desperate to hear something good once in a while."

Lois absorbed this in silence, realizing once again how much
darker this Metropolis was. A sudden, desperate yearning seized
her for the city she knew and loved. More than anything, she
wanted to be back where she belonged.

But that would have to wait until tomorrow, when she could talk
to Clark again. Even if Superman didn't exist -- and the mere
thought of that still made her reel with shock -- she needed
Clark's insight and innate knowledge of this universe to help
her figure out her next move.

A sudden wave of exhaustion washed over her. She glanced at her
watch, but it took a long moment before she realized that it
actually read 2:05 a.m. Her watch was still on "regular
universe" time, which meant that she'd been running at full
speed for some twenty hours now. She'd forgotten that when
Tempus brought her into this dimension, she'd gone from early
night to early afternoon. No wonder she was so tired! Universe
lag was evidently worse than jet lag.

"Ah, Perry?" She looked up at him, trying not to sound too
anxious. "Are you going home any time soon?"

"Don't worry, Lois, the paper's been put to bed and the late
edition is in the night editor's hands anyway. Now that I've
explained Reporting 101 to Walter, we can go home and get you a
good, hot meal and a nice, soft bed."

She blinked at him, astonished at his blase attitude. "Just
leave everything to the night editor, Perry? *You*?"

He patted her hand. "Ah, you're remembering the good old days,
when I came here at 6 a.m. and left at 4 a.m. the following
morning. I haven't done that for well over a year now, Lois.
Alice very kindly pointed out that I'm married to her and not
the paper." He sobered for a moment, then added quietly, "You
know, Lois, much as I love the paper, Alice does come first.
It's one reason I'm glad Olsen is convincing me to run for
mayor -- believe it or not, the hours will be shorter than my
workday is now."

Lois nodded, storing her reaction to Perry's attitude for
future contemplation. "So it was James Olsen who convinced you
to go into politics?"

Perry smiled again, his lighter mood restored. "That boy may
have made his fortune in computers, but I do sometimes wonder
about his ideas. He seems to think that the editor-in-chief of
the Daily Planet running for mayor would be good for sales."

"A promotional gimmick?" Lois said, grinning.

"Looks like." Perry shrugged. "Truth is, though, that once he
suggested the idea, I took the ball and ran with it. Alice is
behind me all the way. This city is such a mess that someone
has to do something about it. And since I'm willing to give it
a try..."

Lois framed him with her hands, picturing it. "Perry White,
mayor," she announced. "Yep. Has a nice ring to it." She nodded
approvingly. "And for the record, Perry, I think you'd do a
good job."

"Thanks, honey."

She dropped her hands. "So. Can we go now?"

"No problem, darlin'. I'll just call Alice and let her know
we're on the way home."

Leaving Perry to call Alice and have a last-minute discussion
with the night-editor, Lois made a quick detour to the restroom
to freshen up a bit. Finally, the two of them entered the
elevator and headed down towards the parking garage.

As they stepped out into the darkened, echoing area, Lois
suddenly tensed. Something was wrong.

"Where's your car, Perry?" she breathed.

Perry stood still, clearly as uneasy as she. "Just three cars
down," he whispered back. "But there's --"

Lois almost groaned aloud as two men stepped out from behind a
nearby mini-van, pistols drawn and pointed straight at them.
"Stay right where you are," one of them ordered. "Do as you're
told, and no one gets hurt."

"Except you," Lois gritted. She stepped back a pace and eased
herself into a fighting stance.

The first thug sneered at her over his weapon. "This isn't a
James Bond movie, lady," he snapped.

"Good," Lois snapped back. "The woman usually gets killed in
those things anyway. I have other plans."

"Lois..." Perry cautioned. "Take it easy. I didn't just get you
back in order to lose you again."

"Stay out of this," the man ordered Perry. "We don't want to
hurt you. We're just after her."

Perry almost rolled his eyes at this statement. "She's back in
Metropolis for a single day, and it's already starting again!"

Lois shot a look of annoyance at him, then turned her attention
back to the two armed men. "What do you want with me?" she
demanded.

The leader of the two shrugged. "I'm told to bring you in, I
bring you in. I don't ask questions."

"Who told you to bring me in?" she pressed.

"I'm not saying." He scowled. "Enough of this!" He took a step
forward and aimed his gun directly at Perry. "Get into the van,
lady, or the guy here gets it."

Lois allowed her shoulders to slump and assumed a look of
dejection. She took one meek step towards the van, then
another. The crook smiled with smug satisfaction at her
apparent surrender to the inevitable.

His smirk vanished when a third step brought her within range
to execute a sudden, flying kick that sent the gun spinning out
of the startled man's grasp. As the thug shouted in pain, the
weapon soared over the trunk of the next car and fell into the
shadows with a clatter.

Perry instantly leapt forward and grappled with the now unarmed
crook, falling to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. Lois
launched herself against the second man, but the thug took a
quick step sideways and managed to evade her. The two of them
circled each other for a moment, ignoring the scuffle taking
place only a few feet away. Lois could only pray that Perry
would hold his own.

The man brought his weapon up to bear, but Lois gambled that he
wouldn't risk shooting her at point-blank range, and possibly
killing her, when he'd been ordered to bring her someplace --
presumably alive. She threw herself at him again, this time
landing a solid blow to the side of his neck. But even as he
reeled from the attack, his own arm came down with a stunning
impact against the side of her head. The gun, she realized
dimly as the darkened parking garage suddenly turned into
exploding shards of color. He'd hit her with the handle of his
gun...

Then something struck her again, and the world went black.

***

"...set up the cameras?"

"Yes, sir. Motion sensitive, as you asked."

The ropes were tight, but not painful. She was seated on an
uncomfortable wooden chair, with her hands handcuffed behind
her back. Her neck ached from hanging forward so awkwardly.
Couldn't they have been courteous enough to tie her onto a
high-backed chair?

"Good. It's set up from every angle?"

"You name it, it's covered. If something happens there, sir,
we'll get it on tape."

"Good. Excellent, in fact." A snicker sounded. "I just love it
when a plan comes together."

Lois listened carefully, straining her ears for every nuance of
sound. She carefully kept her body completely limp and refused
to allow her eyelids to flicker. As long her captors assumed
she was still unconscious, she might learn something that could
prove helpful in escaping and eventually apprehending these
crooks. There was something familiar about one of the voices,
the one who was clearly in charge....

"Now, how about the ledge and the outside of the building?"

"The ledge was easy, sir, but we're having a little trouble
covering the entire side of the building."

"You don't need to bother focusing on the area that's, say,
more than twenty meters away from the south corner. I think
she'll be looong gone by then." Again, that annoying snigger.
"But for now -- ah, Lois, you can stop pretending. Wakey wakey,
it's time to get up!"

Lois jerked her head up and opened her eyes, startled that the
man with the familiar voice had somehow discerned that she was
playing possum. She found herself staring straight into Tempus'
smirking visage.

"You!" she spat.

"How original, if not very polite." He gave her an infuriating
pat on the cheek. "I'm sorry to inconvenience you like this,
Lois, but if you're going to let yourself get kidnapped so
easily... You know, you really shouldn't walk around unarmed.
My stores are offering a nice deal on a twelve-clip automatic.
Twenty-four rounds with every purchase, and a free pair of
sunglasses!"

He straightened, turned his back on her, and sauntered over to
a comfortable armchair placed on the other side of the room. He
settled into it and reached for the bowl of popcorn on the
stand near his elbow. Watching her lazily, he tossed a handful
of popcorn into his mouth.

Lois looked warily around the windowless room. The fake wooden
paneling offered no clue to her location, and aside from her
chair and Tempus', the only other furniture was the small stand
with the popcorn and an expensive-looking television. The
henchman who had managed to knock her out in the Daily Planet
parking garage stood silently against the wall, observing the
scene with interest.

Her gaze wandered back to Tempus. She stared, incredulous, as
he calmly munched away. "So. You kidnapped me in order to have
an audience while you snack?"

"No, I kidnapped you because you haven't been behaving
yourself." He took another handful of popcorn. "You know, Lois,
I planned this thing right down to the last detail. I studied
you and your behavior for weeks until I was sure I could say
exactly what you would do in just about any situation. You
should have marched right up to the guy and shoved him out the
window, but you didn't. What's wrong with you?"

"What are you talking about?" Lois demanded.

He gave an impatient sigh. "Do you think I brought you here
just so you could do a little sightseeing? If you're not going
to behave the way I predicted you would, Lois, I simply have to
force your hand. So it's really your own fault that things have
come to this point."

"I couldn't care less why you brought me here," she snarled at
him. "And you're not going to get away with this!"

He arched his eyebrows at her. "Not going to get away with
what, Lois?"

She fumbled for a moment. "With -- well, whatever you've got
planned." She straightened and added with defiance, "I'm sure
not going to help you!"

"You will, you know." Patiently, as if talking to a
recalcitrant child, Tempus explained, "My plan is to become the
mayor of Metropolis by killing Perry White."

"You can't do that!" Lois breathed, horrified by the man's
casual reference to cold-blooded murder.

"Why not? Oh, wait!" He held up a finger. "Somebody might try
and stop me -- big, brawny, looks good in blue?" He gave a mock
sigh. "Gee, if only I lived in a dimension with no Superman."

He leaned forward and grinned at her gleefully. "Oh, wait. Duh,
I do!"

He sat back and chewed on another mouthful of popcorn, waiting
for her reaction. Lois just sat there, stunned.

"Oh, and speaking of dimensions," he added casually, "you're
headed for another dimension yourself, Lois. One that's
slightly more... spiritual. Hope you've been good."

"Why are you doing this?" she asked hopelessly.

"Well..." He shrugged. "Why not?" He took another handful of
popcorn. "Besides, there's always that gripping moment when the
heroine screams, 'Help, Superman! Save me!' Who'd want to miss
it?"

He leaned forward again with a conspirational air, as if he
wanted to tell her a secret. "Only this time," he purred,
"there's no Superman."

Grinning, Tempus nodded at his henchman. The man moved forward,
holding a strip of cloth. Tempus reached out and picked up a
remote that was propped against the popcorn bowl.

"It's kinda chilly out there," he remarked, "so if you don't
mind, Lois, I'll just watch from in here."

As the television screen opposite Tempus' armchair flickered to
life, Lois caught a quick glimpse of a building with a narrow
ledge. Then the henchman bound the cloth over her eyes and cut
the ropes binding her to the chair. With her hands still cuffed
behind her and the blindfold to hamper her further, Lois could
do little more than put up a token resistance as the man led
her away.

He hustled her out of the room. As she heard the door close
behind her, Tempus called out cheerily, "See you soon, Lois!
Don't just stand around!" Furious, she tried to squirm away,
but the henchman kept a firm grip on her elbow and seemed to
have no trouble evading her backward kick. He led her down a
long hallway, and she shivered as she felt a cold breeze slap
against her face. Were they going outside?

Well, *she* was, apparently. They stopped right in front of the
source of the draft, and then the man shoved her forward.
"Watch your step," he advised her politely. "But don't try to
come back in through here; the door is getting closed and
locked the second you're outside. Good luck, I suppose."

Warily, Lois stepped forward. She shivered as the wind buffeted
her from all sides. A click sounded behind her; when she leaned
back slightly, she could feel the gritty surface of the closed
and locked door. Whatever Tempus had planned for her, it looked
like she was going to have to go through with it.

Okay, she was outdoors somewhere. She was blindfolded and
handcuffed, so she had no way to explore her surroundings
properly. Carefully, without shifting her weight, she reached
out with her left foot to prod at the ground.

There was nothing there. Her foot hovered open empty space.

Gasping, she shrank back. It took all her courage to reach out
with her foot again and move it in a cautious half circle. To
either side of her, there was a narrow path of bricks; ahead of
her, she could only feel the cold air. There was no question
about it: the man had steered her onto a narrow ledge,
somewhere high on a building. The picture on the television
screen! She had to find some way off the ledge that wouldn't
involve the scientific principle of gravity, but how? She
couldn't see; she couldn't steady herself with her hands; she
didn't even know if there was a nearby window.

"Window," she said to herself. "Good idea. Look for a window."

Well, maybe "look" wasn't the right word.

As she stood there, debating her options and wondering whether
or not it was possible to try to pick a lock with her hands
cuffed behind her back, she felt a sudden, unsteady shift
beneath her. Her eyes behind the blindfold widened with panic
as she remembered Tempus' mocking farewell: "Don't just stand
around!" It wasn't enough that he'd tossed her out on a ledge.
He had to go and make it one that would crumble under her feet!

She didn't have a choice. She had to start moving *now*, or the
whole question of gravity would become largely academic.

Keeping her back pressed against the wall, she carefully began
to shuffle along, sliding her feet from brick to brick instead
of actually lifting them. If the ledge was as rickety as it
seemed to be, she didn't dare shift her weight too suddenly.

"A window, a window," she chanted, a mantra of desperation.
"There has to be a window somewhere, keep moving, you'll find a
window, a window..."

A brick crumbled away just as she slid her foot onto the next
one in line. She swallowed hard and kept moving, praying that
she would feel the sudden chill of glass against her back.

"Okay," she said aloud, trying to keep her cool. "Stay calm.
You're high up, you're blind, you can't use your hands, the
ledge is falling apart and you're alone."

She wasn't helping herself.

"Okay, panic!"

The bricks under her feet cracked in two. She shuffled along as
quickly as possible.

"Superman?" she called out, her voice quavering, almost
breaking. "Superman? Are you out there? Kal-El? Stupendous Man?
Ultra Man? I don't really care what you call yourself, but
please, if you're out there --"

The ledge groaned warningly under her weight, and she fought to
maintain her balance.

"Come and rescue me!" she shouted. "Please!"

She shifted her foot sideways, reaching --

And the entire ledge crumbled away, sending her toppling
outward in a shower of ancient mortar.

There was no Superman to swoop in at the last moment and save
her from a grisly death. She was falling, and she was going to
die.

In her absolute terror and despair, Lois screamed out for the
one person that she desperately wanted to see one last time and
now never would again:

"Help! CLAAAARRRK!"

There wasn't time for any more regrets or words. Lois braced
herself for impact --

And the speed of her descent suddenly slowed. She gasped as
warm arms encircled her, supporting her as the killing speed
was lessened. Then the direction changed from the vertical to
the horizontal, and she was being carried away and upwards to
safety.

"Superman," she choked. "Superman?"

For a moment, there was no answer. Then she heard a low, hoarse
voice. "Kal-El," the man whispered.

Lois sobbed with relief. He was here, he existed, he'd rescued
her from certain death. "Thank you. Thank you for coming in
time."

"I couldn't let you die," came the whisper, urgent and heavy
with emotion. "I couldn't let that happen."

They flew onward in silence for several seconds longer. Lois,
still shivering from her near brush with death, struggled to
calm herself. After all, she'd been tossed off of buildings
before, suspended over bubbling vats of chemicals, nearly
drowned in cement... She'd lost track of the times she'd nearly
been killed, and she usually bounced right back once the danger
was past. Why did she have such a bad case of the shakes now?

"I thought you weren't here," she said aloud, answering her own
question. She'd thought there was no one to rescue her this
time, and had been convinced of her imminent demise as she'd
never been before.

"I'm here," he assured her in that hoarse murmur. "It's all
right, Lois."

She tried to relax in his arms, but failed. If only she could
see him, look into those gentle brown eyes and absorb his
confidence and strength... "Could we -- could we land somewhere
just for a second? So you can take off the handcuffs and the
blindfold?"

The arms tightened around her for a brief second, then, "Lois,
I'll take off the handcuffs, but not the blindfold. Not yet."

Startled, Lois twisted her head in an attempt to look at him.
Defeated by the blindfold, she could only question, "Super -- I
mean, Kal-El? Why can't I see you?"

Again, his grip tightened. "Don't ask," the whisper begged her.
"It's just not meant to be."

Their trajectory changed as he glided downwards, setting her
gently on her feet. Her legs buckled and she sank to her knees
in frostbitten grass, still trembling with reaction. The arms
reached around her and snapped the handcuffs effortlessly, then
encircled her entirely in a warm hug of reassurance.

She found herself sitting in his lap, rocking back and forth as
he sought to convince her that she was really and truly safe.
Her arms reflexively went around his neck as she buried her
face in his shoulder. Never mind the blindfold; she didn't have
to see him to know him. Kal-El or Superman, it didn't matter;
she *knew* him. She knew this was --

She frowned. She knew how it felt to be held by Superman, and this
wasn't it. This was more like --

A flash of memory stirred in her heart, the way she'd felt when
someone had once cradled her as she huddled on her kitchen
floor, comforting her in just this manner. This was only a
faint echo of that intensity, a reflection that paled in
comparison with that reality, but...

Her grip on his neck shifted as she fingered the collar of his
business suit. Her cheek rubbed slowly against his shoulder,
feeling the soft wool. She sat up, her right hand reaching
unerringly for the knot of his tie.

Unwilling to actually feel the glasses on his face, she
touched the temple of the frames behind his ear instead.

The clues were screaming at her, yet were completely
unnecessary, serving only as confirmation for what she somehow
already knew. Without her eyes to blind her from reality, she
realized the truth. She *knew* this man; not because he was
Superman/Kal-El, but because he was --

"Clark."

The arms stiffened.

"Clark, it's you."

She heard him expel a soft breath, but he didn't answer.

"This isn't Superman holding me," she said with finality. "This
is Clark."

When he still didn't say anything, she reached up and pulled
off the blindfold that had ironically opened her eyes.

The faint glint of starlight left his face in shadow. She
wished she could see his expression.

"Where are we?" she asked softly, postponing the inevitable
flurry of questions.

"Centennial Park," he answered mechanically. "No one comes here
at night any more; it's too dangerous."

"So you could land without being seen," she concluded.

Without replying, he gently lifted her off his lap and set her
down on the grass. The two of them simply sat there, looking at
each other in the chilly darkness.

"I'm sorry," she finally said. Those two words carried the
weight of everything: her regret that she'd forced his hand,
her empathy for the tremendous burden of responsibility that he
carried, her sympathy for the lonely life he must lead in such
a constrained existence.

He must have understood, for she caught the swift white gleam
of his teeth as he smiled briefly. "I'm not sorry you're
alive," he parried gently.

She smiled despite herself. "Well, I appreciate that." She
reached out slowly, ready to stop if he flinched away, and
removed his glasses. She set them carefully on the grass and
studied as much of his face as she could in the dim light.

He seemed almost amused by her scrutiny. "Do you think I'd look
better with contacts?"

She picked up the glasses and shook her head. "Clark doesn't
wear his glasses when he's wearing his Superman suit," she said
by way of explanation. She stopped short as she realized what
she'd just said.

Clark Kent was Superman.

*Her* Clark Kent was Superman.

His superior vision must have picked up her sudden change of
expression even in the dark, for he stirred and rose to his
feet. "It's after three in the morning," he said quietly. "Can
I take you to the hospital for observation? I imagine that they
hit you on the head too, and I'd say that you've had a pretty
hard day."

"Too?" she repeated, looking up at him from her sitting
position. She bit her lip as she remembered the scene in the
parking garage when Tempus' henchman had kidnapped her. "Perry?
Is he okay?"

"He will be. He only had a slight concussion." Clark walked a
pace away from her and stared at the constellations twinkling
brightly overhead. "One of the night staff found him lying on
the floor in the parking garage under the Daily Planet. He told
the police that you both were attacked by two men with guns.
He's very worried about you." He turned back to look at her.
"*Are* you all right?"

"Thanks to you, yes." She scrambled to her feet with much less
grace than he had, refusing his offered hand. "Um, here. You
ought to put these on again." She held out the glasses, hoping
their hands wouldn't touch when he took them.

"Thank you." He took the glasses and slipped them back onto his
face, the eyes softening and blurring behind the frames. Lois
wondered why he wore them, why her own Clark wore them, when
their eyesight was so -- Her mind shied away from that train of
thought. She wasn't ready to consider it yet.

"So," he said again, "can I take you to the hospital?"

Lois shook her head. "I don't -- I don't want to go." She
sighed. "I just want a hot shower and a few hours' sleep. I'm
sure I'll be all right then." She needed time to recuperate, to
recover emotional stamina before she could allow the impact of
her discovery to really sink into her consciousness. She was
functioning on automatic now, and she wasn't quite sure how she
would react when her system recovered from the incredible
series of shocks that she'd received over the past day.

He hesitated for a long moment, as if unsure how she would take
his next words. "Alice is spending the night in the hospital
with Perry, so I can't take you to the Whites'. Would you --
would you like to sleep on my couch tonight?"

She stilled at this offer. Her eyes closed momentarily, then
opened again. She drew in breath to speak, then let it out when
she could think of nothing to say.

"You don't have to," he said hastily. "I can get you a room in
a decent motel." He fingered his glasses in a hauntingly
familiar gesture of nervousness before he added, "I'm just not
so sure that you ought to be alone right now."

This wasn't her Clark, Lois reminded herself. She and Clark
agreed that it wasn't appropriate for her to sleep in his
apartment now that they were dating, but this was *not* her
Clark.

"I don't think I want to be alone right now either," she heard
herself admit. She took a step towards him. "All right, we'll
go to your apartment. Thank you for the offer of your couch."
She bit her lip to stop it from trembling. "But let's -- walk
there, okay?"

He regarded her for a moment in the dark before he mildly
replied, "That's usually the way I get there, Lois."

"Of course it is," she said slowly, her heart sinking as she
realized yet again what her presence had done to this man. "I'm
sorry..."

"It's done," he told her simply. "And it doesn't matter now.
Come. I'll take you home."

***

The bright sunlight teased her eyelids unmercifully, forcing
her awake. Lois groaned, rolling over onto her stomach in an
effort to escape. She kept her face buried in the pillow for
nearly a minute before she reluctantly conceded that she wasn't
going to fall asleep again any time in the near future. She
dragged her right hand upwards and squinted blearily at her
watch, then blinked with surprise at the discovery that she'd
been dead to the world for over ten hours.

Shaking off the heavy lassitude of too much sleep, she somehow
managed to achieve a sitting position. She slowly rubbed her
eyes as she surveyed her surroundings. Last night, when Clark
escorted her to his apartment, she'd been too tired and drained
to do anything more than wordlessly accept his blankets, his
pillow, a large sweatshirt to use as pajamas, and the use of
his shower. Now, suddenly more awake, she looked around with
undisguised interest, wondering at the similarities and
differences that abounded throughout the living room and the
open kitchen to her right.

The first thing that struck her was that the apartment was
almost painfully neat. There seemed to be very little in the
way of personal momentoes. Many of the more interesting prints
and hangings still decorated the walls, but that more intimate
touch seemed absent. Where were all the little notes and
magnets that adorned her Clark's refrigerator? The kitchen
looked as if it had never been used -- no towels hanging from
the oven door or tucked into the freezer's handle, no glasses
on the drainboard, no appliances on the counter. She frowned a
little. *Was* it ever used? Didn't he eat?

~You do, uh, eat... don't you?~

~I don't have to, but I like to.~

Oh, Clark...

The enormity of the situation struck her again with full force.
Clark. Superman. One and the same.

And this Clark? Why wasn't he Superman? Why didn't he wear the
cape? What had made her Clark choose to wear the suit, while
this one didn't?

~My mother made it for me.~

Lois' mouth slowly opened as she remembered Superman -- no,
Clark! -- telling Amy Platt that his mother had made the suit.
*Martha*? Martha had made the Superman costume?

And this Clark didn't have a Martha...

Lois' gaze was drawn to the blank spot by the lamp that stood
next to the couch, the spot where her Clark's picture of his
smiling parents usually stood. She sighed, remembering that
this Clark had lost Martha and Jonathan at the age of ten. She
wondered where he'd lived until he was old enough to be on his
own.

Was it Martha that had convinced Clark to don the suit and
adopt the persona of Superman? Somehow, she didn't think so.
Who, then? What had caused her Clark to disguise himself as
Superman, when this one hadn't?

...Or was it Superman disguised as Clark?

She thought about that idea for a moment, then discarded it
impatiently. It made no sense. After all, Superman was an icon,
a symbol. Clark was a person, with idiosyncrasies and a real
personality.

A person she cared for, very deeply...

She wrenched her mind away from that train of thought. She
didn't want to dwell on her own Clark now; that topic, with all
its ramifications, would need to wait until this crisis was
over and she was back where she belonged. For now, she needed
to concentrate on this other Clark Kent, who was so alike, and
yet unlike, the man she knew so well.

She studied the apartment again as she tried to analyze the
sad-eyed young man whose home seemed so impersonal. She sat
there for a while, her arms wrapped around her knees as she
considered this strange dichotomy. After all, why *should* this
Clark have a less lived-in feeling to his apartment? Just
because he wasn't Superman? That made no sense; as she'd just
concluded, it was Clark that had the personality, not Superman.
With a pang, she wondered if it was because his differences
made him feel distanced -- not just from others, but from his
own life.

"Is that what you feel, Clark?" she whispered, addressing the
man who was a universe away. "Do you sometimes feel this alone?
What gives you that connection with us?"

Even as she asked, she knew the answer: Martha and Jonathan
Kent. Two wonderful people that were absent from this Clark's
life. Her Clark had them, and that made all the difference.

And herself...?

Biting her lip, she twisted her head to look at the other table
lamp that flanked the couch. Sure enough, the picture of Clark
standing next to her was gone, and in its place was a framed
photograph of Clark, his arm wrapped around a smiling Lana
Lang. She grimaced at the sight.

"It's not jealousy," she told herself firmly. An inner,
brutally honest examination of her own feelings confirmed that.
This wasn't her Clark, after all. "It's not jealousy. It's just
plain *wrong*."

If he was engaged, if he was creating a life of commitment and
solidity, why didn't Lana give him that missing connection?

"Does she know?" Lois suddenly wondered aloud. "Have you told
her?"

She bent her head, resting her forehead on her knees. "And why
haven't you told me?" she whispered painfully to the man whose
super-hearing couldn't be of much use from a dimension away.
Tears squeezed their way through tightly closed eyelids. "Why
haven't you told me, Clark? Why didn't you tell me your
secret?"

She remained in that position for some time before she
reluctantly stirred. Clark might return at any moment, and
she'd rather face him fully dressed. Her stomach reminded her
that a little breakfast wouldn't hurt, either.

She swung around and placed her bare feet on the carpet, noting
with bemusement that the pattern was different. The coffee
table was also a deeper shade of mahogany. As she stood and
stretched, she took another look around the apartment, suddenly
more astonished at the similarities than she was by the
differences. Two young men had just so happened to rent the
same apartment and decorate it in the same manner. Couch,
television, lamps -- even the large urn was in exactly the same
spot.

How could such a thing happen? Even identical twins didn't do
things like this, and her Clark and this Clark had led very
different lives. Even if both had traveled around the world
after graduating high school, how could they have possibly
chosen the same souvenirs? It made no sense!

"Then again," Lois reminded herself dryly, "alternate
dimensions don't make any sense, either."

She turned in a slow circle, taking in the apartment once more.
The spiral staircase was painted brown instead of that deep
red. The window seat had only two cushions; instead of the
armchair, this Clark had a rocking chair that looked as if it
had been hand-carved. The mat by the front door was a different
color. The built-in shelves were crammed full of books; there
didn't seem to be any of the trophies or pictures that her
Clark displayed. The closet door was the same, although the
doorknob seemed more ornate than she remembered --

She sat back down on the couch with a jolt, slack-jawed again.

The closet.

Diana Stride.

"You lied to me, Clark Kent," she muttered, suddenly angry.
"You've been lying to me for the last two years!"

That little sneak. All those times he ducked away, all those
silly excuses... Why didn't he just *tell* her?

She shook her head and stood up again, brushing the question
aside and tucking it neatly into a niche of her brain. No time
for it now; she'd already decided that she didn't want to think
about her Clark until she was safely home. She'd have plenty of
time to yell at him when she saw him again.

*If* she saw him again...

"Don't think like that," she told herself fiercely. "We'll
figure out a way. And I'll make sure Tempus gets stuck in jail
for the next two hundred years while I'm at it!"

Feeling better, she strode towards the bedroom and the
bathroom. She stopped short after three steps as she caught a
glimpse of the note lying on the floor next to the coffee
table. Clark must have written it before leaving for work that
morning. She picked it up and examined it.

"Dear Lois," she read aloud, "I hope you'll feel rested when
you awaken. I spoke to Perry and Alice and reassured them that
you're all right. Alice has sent over what she calls a 'care
package' for you; you'll find it on the desk in the bedroom.
Please make yourself at home. I should be back around five."

He'd signed it "Clark Kent." She grimaced at the formality. At
least he hadn't addressed it to "Ms. Lane."

She hurried into the bedroom and found a large plastic bag
sitting prominently on the corner desk. She untied it, peeked
inside, and gave a sigh of pure delight.

Clean clothing, clean underwear, makeup...!

"Alice White, you *are* a sweetheart," she breathed, reaching
inside the bag and pulling out a hairbrush much like the one
she had back home. "Now maybe I can feel human again."

Forty-five minutes later, Lois emerged from the bathroom with a
satisfied smile. The only items Alice hadn't supplied were a
blowdryer and shoes. Well, her walking shoes would do, and she
didn't mind letting her hair air-dry. At least she felt fresh
and ready to tackle whatever happened next.

"Breakfast, I think," she said thoughtfully. "Or lunch. Or
whatever." A look at her watch left her blinking; it was almost
five o'clock in the afternoon. "Okay, then, we'll make it an
early supper."

A quick look in the refrigerator surprised her. She'd expected
lots of soft drinks, but she saw only low-fat milk and fresh
juices. Whole wheat bread? A container of what looked like
tofu? A quick scan of the cabinets showed only healthy items
there as well, instead of the Twinkies and other high-sugar
snacks that her Clark was always eating. After all, he
didn't... have to worry...

~So, explain something to me. You eat like an eight-year-old,
and you look like Mr. Hardbody. What's your secret, and can I
have it?~

"Cheater," Lois muttered. Of course he could eat like an
eight-year-old. He was Superman!

She settled on granola and milk and sat down at the table to
eat it. She'd just finished rinsing out her bowl when the sound
of a key in the lock made her whirl around.

She gulped, suddenly feeling awkward all over again. Clark was
home. They needed to talk, and she wasn't quite sure how to
begin.

He stepped inside the door, balancing several grocery bags with
ease. He locked gazes with her for a long moment before
breaking eye contact as he turned to lock the door behind him.
Then he came down the stairs, setting the bags down on the
coffee table in front of the couch.

"Thanks for the things from Alice," Lois offered hesitantly.

"You're welcome." He glanced at the couch. "Oh, you
straightened up. You didn't have to do that."

She flushed a little. "Well, if you would have brought Lana
here, and she'd seen that I was sleeping on the couch, it might
have been a little awkward..."

He blinked. "Um, yeah, it might have."

"That didn't occur to you?" she asked, taken aback.

He gave her a rueful smile. "Lois, for some reason, anything
involved with you sends logical reasoning right out the
window." He paused for a moment, as if replaying his words in
his mind, then shook his head. "Including sentence structure."

She couldn't help but smile. "Well, I don't always make too
much sense, either. Clark says I babble a lot..." Her voice
trailed off as his face suddenly changed.

"Clark," he repeated. He took a deep breath. "Lois, I think
we'd better talk."

"Talk. Um, right." She sat down at one end of the couch. Clark
sat down, too, but made sure that they were separated by at
least two feet of upholstery. "So, where do you want to start?"

A rueful smile crept across his face. "It's rather difficult to
figure that out, isn't it?"

"Well, yes." She tucked her hair behind her ear and squared her
shoulders. "I guess we could choose. Do we talk about Tempus?
About getting me back home? About... you?"

He looked at her for a moment, then clearly chose what he felt
would be the easier topic. "How about starting with how you
managed to fall off a building with a blindfold over your eyes
and your hands cuffed behind your back?" His face took on a
grim expression, one that made him look so much like Superman
that she had to look away. "I barely made it to you in time,
Lois. What happened?"

"Tempus happened," she muttered.

He was suddenly on his feet. "He did that to you? Why didn't
you say so last night? We should have him arrested and --"

"Clark, think it through," she interrupted tiredly. "What are
you going to say? A woman who is supposed to be dead, but
claims to be alive and well in another dimension, accused the
mayoral candidate of attempted murder? Who's going to believe
it, Clark? I went through it personally, and I can barely
believe it myself!"

"Heh. Hadn't thought about that." He sat back down. "All right.
But we can't just let him get away with this, Lois!"

"I know, and we won't," she assured him. "But this isn't the
way to do it. We have to find out *why* he did it, then expose
him."

"Okay, let's start with that, then. Did you get any clue why he
was doing this? Did he say anything or do anything to give you
a hint of his intentions?"

She frowned, trying to think back to that bizarre confrontation
with Tempus before she'd been shoved out on a ledge and left to
fall to her death... She shuddered and pushed the thought away.
"Tempus. Okay. Ah, I managed to overhear him talking to a
henchman, but it didn't make sense -- something about setting
up motion-sensitive cameras somewhere."

Clark rubbed at his nose. "Motion-sensitive cameras? It might
have something to do with tomorrow's debate, although I have no
idea why. You do realize, don't you, that I caught you falling
from the ledge of the TBS building?"

"TBS?" Lois repeated.

"Yeah, Tele-Broadcasting System. That's where the debate is
going to be. It's a regional station, broadcasting on local
channels, but the debate will be picked up by the national
stations too."

"There wasn't much in the room," Lois said slowly. "A couple of
chairs and a high-quality television... I guess that part makes
sense." She thought some more. "Do you think Tempus *owns* TBS,
or that he just managed to break into the building to use it
for his own purposes?"

Clark shrugged. "It's something we can dig into, I guess. If he
does own the building, it might be easier to link him to your
kidnapping. As far as I know, though, TBS is a subsidiary of
Lexcorp."

"Lexcorp. Eh, I didn't have to hear that."

"What do you mean?" Clark looked at her, puzzled.

Lois squirmed a little. "Let's just say that if the Lex Luthor
of your world is anything like the Lex Luthor of mine, you'll
find that he's behind just about every shady deal that takes
place in Metropolis."

"Oh, I see. Did you expose him, then?"

"Well... no." She looked away and bit her lip. "Clark was the
one who figured him out, and -- look, it doesn't matter, okay?"

"No, I suppose it doesn't. Especially since Lex Luthor died
over three years ago. Lexcorp is owned by --"

"He did!" Lois' head whipped around and she stared at him
incredulously. "Was he actually buried? With reliable
witnesses, I mean? Killing him doesn't necessarily seem to
help, you know."

"Excuse me?" Clark blinked.

Lois waved it away. "Oh, never mind, it's not important. Tempus
is important."

"Right. Tempus. Okay." Clark shook his head. "Can you remember
anything else? Cameras are good, a link to TBS. What about you,
Lois? Did he say anything directly to you?"

Lois thought back, and her eyes suddenly widened. "Clark," she
said, her voice a horrified whisper, "I think he expects me to
kill Perry!"

"*What*?"

"He -- he said --" Lois racked her brains, trying to remember
the exact words. "He said he brought me here for a reason, he'd
planned it down to the last detail, and he thought I'd go and
-- and 'march up to the guy and shove him out the window,' or
something like that. He said that since I didn't do it, it was
my fault he was going to kill me --"

Clark's eyes darkened, and his hands slowly clenched into
fists. Lois, seeing this reaction, hurried to get to the point.
"-- and Clark, he said that he plans to become mayor of
Metropolis by killing Perry White!"

She saw him set his jaw in a manner so familiar it made her
ache. "That will not happen," he said softly, the conviction in
his voice unshakable. "We've got to warn the police that Perry
needs protection. We won't say from what," he added as Lois
opened her mouth to protest. "But Inspector Henderson is a
pretty good guy, and he'll believe me if I tell him that
'sources' say that Perry is under a death threat."

Lois nodded silently. She supposed it wouldn't hurt. Besides,
she'd trust Henderson in any universe.

Clark quickly picked up the phone and called police
headquarters. Within minutes, he was talking directly to
Henderson -- a clear sign of the respect he'd earned in this
universe, Lois thought. She listened to Clark's half of the
conversation as he quickly persuaded the laconic inspector to
assign officers to protect the mayoral candidate from
unspecified death threats.

"That's done," Clark said finally as he hung up the phone.

"I guess so," Lois mumbled, reluctant to admit that she doubted
the police could really help in this case. With the resources
Tempus had at his disposal...

"But we need more, Lois," Clark urged, leaning towards her.
"Think! Did he say anything else that might give us a clue of
how he plans on killing Perry?"

She suddenly couldn't meet his gaze. "He said -- he said..."

"What, Lois?"

"He said that the only thing that could stop him was Superman,
and it was a good thing that he was in a dimension where
Superman doesn't exist," she finally managed, blurting it out
to the coffee table instead of to him.

A heavy silence settled over the apartment. It was a long
minute before she dared to look at him.

Clark had sat back on the couch, his head tipped upwards to
study the rafters. He must have felt her gaze, for he suddenly
turned to look at her.

"No Superman to stop him?" he asked quietly.

"That's what he said." Lois felt horribly guilty.

"I see."

"Clark --" she unconsciously shifted a few inches closer to
him. "Clark, he obviously doesn't know about you. Maybe you
*can* stop him somehow."

"Lois, thank you for the vote of confidence, but I don't think
so."

"Why not?" she demanded. "You have the abilities. You just
never put on a red cape."

"Let's not forget the blue tights," Clark said dryly. "Or the
red underwear, for that matter."

"But Clark, don't you *see*? If you *do* become Superman, you
can stop this!"

His expression showed his exasperation. "Lois, how exactly can
I stop him, just by putting on that awful suit?"

"It's not awful! It's -- eye-catching, that's all!" She nodded
emphatically. "Besides, it's so much more than that. It's the
idea behind it, Clark. It's a symbol. You're making yourself
into a beacon!"

He looked at her for a long moment, as if not quite sure she
was actually finished. "Are you always like this?"

She flushed, suddenly realizing that she'd gotten a little
carried away. "I'm sorry. I'm a little high-strung sometimes, I
think."

"A little?" He laughed. "Lois, you're a Stradivarius!" He
sobered and shook his head. "Besides, I am most definitely not
putting on that suit."

"Why not?"

He took a deep breath. "Look. You seem to have this incredibly
relaxed attitude towards my abilities, but not everyone is
going to look at it that way. I've always made sure to hide
what I can do."

Lois winced. "So you never have a chance to be yourself?"

"That seems to be the price of a normal life," he agreed. "What
kind of life would I have if people knew I could fly?"

"You would have freedom," she said softly. "Freedom to be what
you're meant to be."

"I don't think so.' He hunched into himself. "It's better this
way, if people think I'm just ordinary."

"Clark," she began, somewhat exasperated, "you could never be
'just' anybody. You yourself, not your powers, are much too
special for that. Unless someone is blind, it's easy to tell
that you're most definitely not an ordinary --"

He stiffened, and she stopped short, appalled at what she'd
just said.

~I know you. I don't mean you the celebrity or you the
superhero. If you had no powers at all, if you were just an
ordinary man, living an ordinary life, I would love you just
the same. Can't you believe that?~

~I wish I could, Lois. But under the circumstances, I don't see
how I can.~

"Oh, Clark," she whispered. "What did I do to you?"

He looked at her sharply, as if unsure whether she was speaking
to him or his counterpart. "I can't do it, Lois. I don't dare
use my powers openly. I've always wanted to help, but I have to
do it in ways no one will realize..."

~I'm really glad you're here. But why are you here?~

~To help.~

"To help," Lois repeated dully. She buried her head in her
hands. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Look, Lois..."

She lifted her head and looked at him, her eyes a little too
bright. "Clark," she whispered, "we have to do this. We have to
stop Tempus from killing Perry. I don't know why he ever
dreamed I would do such a thing, but he's not going to give it
up just because I won't cooperate. We have to stop him, Clark,
and the only way we can do it is if you put on that suit!"

She'd transferred her wallet into the pocket of the clean
pantsuit Alice had sent her, and now she pulled it out to give
him another good look at the picture of Superman -- of Clark
dressed in his supersuit. "Let me put it this way, Clark. You
don't want to ruin your private life, and I understand that.
You want to help others, and I understand that too. So you've
been doing things on the sly, when no one is looking...?"

At his silent, almost mesmerized nod, she suddenly sat up
straight. "Hey, did you blow out the tire in that drive-by
shooting? Is that why the car plowed into a pole?"

"Yes," he said hesitantly. "I burned a hole in the back tire
with my... uh..."

"With your