Lois staggered as the bullpen materialised around her and reached out for something to steady her. Her hands smacked down on to a desk. The room was dark, the only illumination the dull orange streetlight creeping through the basement windows and the screensavers on the computers around her. Despite that, she knew exactly whose desk she was leaning on, and the nameplate only spelled it out for her. Clark Kent, the inescapable.
They had put her back exactly where she'd left but it seemed optimistic to hope nothing would have changed. She glanced at her hands, surprised by the film of dust over them. Smallville was a real stickler for order and cleanliness, she wasn't sure how he had managed to let any mess build up. Her eyes jumped to her own desk and she was surprised to see it covered with stacked files. Her computer and all her own materials were gone.
She picked up a discarded copy of the Planet sticking out of one of the folders. A glance at the date said it was from two days after she had left. The main image on the page was of a knot of firefighters tackling a large blaze. It was a great shot, really capturing the ferocity of the fire but looking at the credit she was sad to see Jimmy hadn't been the one to take it.
The Planet hadn't quite been the same without him and she was still hoping he'd take photography up again.
Reluctantly she looked at the headline, which proclaimed in very large print, '78 CONFIRMED DEAD'. Her heart sank. It was much worse than she'd thought, the monster that had kidnapped Chloe twice had returned to Metropolis and created carnage. She scanned the text for more details and turned to the second page of the paper. There, beneath a story on a FEMA press conference, was the smaller headline, 'PLANET REPORTER STILL MISSING', followed by the lead, 'Daily Planet journalist, Lois Lane, was still missing last night as recovery teams continued to…'.
Hah. That definitely was not a good thing.
It was one of her own hard-earned lessons. Reporters should never BE the news. Unless they were winning a Pulitzer or writing schlocky confessionals for the weekend magazine supplement. Though the former seemed impossibly remote and she'd rather milk one of the Kents' cows than do the latter.
She had started to slide dangerously close to making the news rather than reporting it only a few months ago and it had taken her friend nearly getting killed for her to finally accept what a monumentally bad idea it was.
And now she'd made page two with her disappearance.
Things were going to be a lot more complicated now. Though she was still avoiding finding out when exactly now was. Biting her lip, she searched around the office for a recent paper. Snatching a fresh looking copy up she peered closely at the date. And groaned.
They hadn't lied. It was two whole months later. The Legionnaires had tried to explain that the most stable point in the timeline was eight weeks after her disappearance but she had half-hoped it was still some Tess-induced delusion. But no, she'd really been in the future and now she was in the slightly less future. She flipped to the sports pages. Before she'd left, she'd asked for some information about the time she was returning to that would confirm she wasn't imagining the whole thing.
There was no denying it now though, the Sharks had sold their star player and the coach had defected to Gotham, making the Superbowl an even dimmer prospect than last year. Metropolis was not having a good few months, she thought glumly.
The slightly less future was looking pretty crappy to her right now and she was tempted to stay in the basement, reading two months of papers for the full story. But she couldn't hide forever, she had to make the call, and really, truly know for sure. Was Chloe really okay?
She sat at Clark's desk, hearing the comforting creak of the chair and reached for his phone. The handset was clean and she propped it under her chin and dialled her cousin's cell phone number.
The gap between each ring seemed to stretch further and further, until finally there was a click and the fuzz of background nose. And then a hesitant voice.
"Clark?" And it was her voice, and she was really okay. They hadn't lied to her. Lois gave a little laugh, tears appearing in her eyes. "Hello?"
"Chlo, it's me," Lois burst out. "You're okay, you're okay!"
"Lois?"
"Yes, I need to see you right now! I can't explain stuff now, or ever, but…Chlo?" Lois realised amidst all her excited babble that her cousin was weeping on the other end of line. "Hey, cuz, what's wrong?" Chloe didn't say anything for a few moments and then drew in a sharp breath.
"I'm sorry Lois, it's just been…I thought we'd never find you."
"I'm coming over. You're by yourself right?"
"Yes. I'm alone."
"Then I'm catching a cab, if I can find one prepared to drive all the way out to…"
"I'm not above the Talon anymore. I'm in Metropolis. Let me give you the address." Twenty minutes later, Lois was stepped out of the elevator on the top floor of the old watchtower. Chloe was the first step in making her reappearance public knowledge. Her father and sister could only be contacted once she had her story in place, otherwise the questions would be impossible. Making them wait was an uncomfortable feeling but the Legionnaires had been clear she had to conceal her trip to the future from everyone. She wondered if they thought she was dead. Had they given up on her? Had they buried an empty casket?
She shuddered at the thought of a headstone somewhere bearing her name. Though if the world really thought she was dead, few people would be able to relate as well as her little cousin. She just hoped she hadn't caused them too much pain. For a brief moment, she felt a stab of anger pierce her faith in the red-blue blur, for placing her loved ones in such a nightmare. She consoled herself with the thought that he probably could never have foreseen how events would unfold.
Though he has a lot of explaining to do, she concluded as she knocked on the door in front of her. But right now, the top priority was seeing Chloe was 100% okay and finding some way to cook up a believable back-from-the-dead story.
The door swung open and Lois was confronted with a painful sight. Her already slight cousin looked haggard and too thin. Her normally glossy hair hung limply to her shoulders and her eyes…her eyes were too wide. Too raw. Then her face lit up with a trembling smile and the old Chloe seemed to be back for a moment. Neither of them said a word as they embraced tightly, Lois all too conscious of the ribs she felt through Chloe's sweater.
"It's really you! I thought I might have dreamed it. Sometimes I dream he…" Chloe broke off and pulled away from Lois. "Where have you been?" Her anguish made the question sound like an accusation and Lois began to feel worried. Chloe had absorbed harder blows than her disappearance before. As sweet and kind as she was, she had a tough core. She always came back. Chloe clearly noticed how her question sounded and shook her head. "I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm thinking. Come inside. Did you come straight from seeing the General? Or is he flying here?" Chloe guided her inside the apartment and Lois looked round in wonder at her surroundings.
Chloe might look like she was falling apart but her new place was to die for. The beautiful stained glass window dominated the whole space. Its atmosphere made it distinctly a Sullivan home though. It had the warmth and casual style Lois had never managed to achieve when decorating her own place. Then she clicked. This was the wedding gift! This was the place Jimmy had been so excited about ahead of the wedding. He'd taken the call from the agent at work and sped over there before anyone could put in a claim.
But after the wedding, everything had fallen apart so quickly and Lois had put it all out of her mind. It could only hurt Chloe.
"He told you about this place…you and Jimmy got back together!" Lois gasped. For a moment she was surprised by her own happiness at the idea. She had fought the idea of Mr and Mrs Olsen for so long but now they had their second chance, it all seemed so right. Jimmy had never given up on her, no matter what he might have said and Chloe had been miserable ever since. But Chloe's shaky smile was held together by the thinnest of threads.
This was all wrong. When they'd been together, the merest mention of her boyfriend had made her cousin smile a slow, broad grin. It was the look of a woman who woke up with the man she loved every day.
With a strange detached feeling, she recognised the truth.
Jimmy was above the fold, right there in the headline. He was '78 DEAD'.
He had been the news.
