1Notes: Thanks to everyone who took a minute to drop me a review. I got a couple about that pesky tendency my chapters have towards slipping into the grammatically incorrect – well, one of the many pitfalls of a beta-less fic. From the get go this was just supposed to be an exercise in writing a multichapter story - Typically I bang the chapters out in a day or so and throw them up on the boards right away. Its really the only way I can keep from getting totally sick of them – but I do appreciate the heads up - and I alter my originals accordingly. I'm planning to do one big overhaul when this is complete.
Anyway - this chapter is kind of short. And angsty.
Part 5: Entropy
On Vineland past the candle shrine that melts into the street design
She waits for someone
Tonight she'll give herself away
She'll break apart all by herself
It's so easy how we come undone
Take me over when I'm gone
Take me over make me strong
Take me over when I'm gone
Will they burn for me?
Candleburn, Dishwalla
"Lois..."
Clark watched as she carefully closed the bag, pulling the leather straps taut and latching the silver clasps. She looked around, as if trying to decide just where it belonged. After a minute she had found a place for it - the ground. Her upper lip curled into a defiant sneer as she lifted it high above her and hurled it down with all the strength she could muster.
When it met the floor with a loud clank, Clark winced.
Lois looked up, suddenly, her once sharp and face-flushing emotion ebbing away. She squared her shoulders, always a soldier's daughter, and began a slow march towards the steps.
"We have to make sure your parents are okay," she told him evenly.
Clark stepped in front of her. "I already have."
He tapped the crease where his eye met his temple. It threw her for a moment, confusion knitting her brow. The grief- blurred edges of her mind made the connection harder to find, but eventually it came, and she shook off her daze. "Right. Of course." Her gaze shifted to another empty space on the wall. She had yet to look him directly in the face.
"Look, I know the plan was to hightail it out of here, but now that Trask has the kryptonite and..." She stopped. Her eyes ticked back to the bag as she swallowed the last two words. The scroll. "Well, we're going to have to go on the offensive."
He nodded quickly. "Okay. What do we do?"
She turned towards the stairs, her right hand reaching out to the rail. He watched as her knees buckled slightly, and the bannister took her weight.
"Call Lana. We'll need her help for this," she instructed, her back still to him.
"Where are you going?"
She took a step. "Outside. I'll only be a minute." Another shaky step.
"Lois, we'll find it –"
She stopped dead. Her hand tightened. "Just call Lana."
And without another word, she was gone.
A minute had turned into ten. And then fifteen. Glancing at his watch, he decided that a half an hour was about as much as his sanity could take.
Lana had answered her cell phone on the fourth ring. She didn't ask for an explanation, just enough time to make it back from Metropolis. The steely resolution of her voice told him that he could count on her to disregard all speed limits and light signals. Until then, they'd just have to wait.
He had given Lois space, despite his own overwhelming desire to be there for her just like she had been for him. Part of him wondered if he would be any help at all. Her silence had been unsettling, Lois never the one to be defined by a quiet confidence. The Lois he knew - the fiery brunette that had entered his life not once, but twice with an explosion - never did anything quietly. He hoped she had been able to reignite some of that passion in her now dead eyes. In their short time together he had grown to rely on her strength, fighting Trask would be infinitely harder without it.
Trask.
Clark's fists clenched as he thought of the smile that had slithered across the man's lips as he tossed Lois over the gorge's edge. On the way home she had refused to let him look at her leg, which was red and swallow around the fresh cut. She had said there would be no time to stop. He knew that was because he had failed her, unable to lift her up and fly her back top thefarm like the hero from her world. His stomach tightened as he remember the look of disappointment she had poorly hidden.
Clark plodded down the stairs, the weight of the coming confrontation heavy on his broad shoulders. Raindrops pelted the barn windows, crackling like tiny fireworks. For the first time Clark noticed the storm that had settled in above them.
When he got to the doorway he saw her.
Lois stood in center of the driveway, searching the night sky. In the pale moonlight she looked like an opaline statue, stony and still, save her tattered skirt that whipped erratically in the wind.
"Lois! You need to come in!" Clark called out, his voice swept up in the low rumble of thunder.
When she didn't respond, he lifted his shirt up by the collar and ducked out into the downpour. He jogged to where she stood, slowing as he neared.
It was then he sensed it; The deep sense of helplessness that seemed to pulse off of her in waves. He let go of his shirt, letting it slip down his back. It looked as though in his absence, things had only gotten worse. For what seemed like the millionth time that day, time had worked against him.
"It's raining," Clark said softly. He was stating the obvious, he knew it, but he was at a loss for something better. More profound. Lois had taken off her white blazer, and her light skin now prickled with goose bumps. Raindrops collected on her shoulders and rolled down her arms.
He wasn't sure how long he stood waiting, but when she finally spoke, he had managed to catch up to her, and his clothes, now just as rain soaked, hung like dead weight on his body.
"He once told me that it was raining the first time he realized he loved me," she whispered, her voice a parody of its former self.
Clark couldn't help but notice that for the first time since she had come Lois referred to his future self as 'he' and not"you". It cut him somewhere deep.
"I mean, can you get more vague?" She chuckled, sadly. "But I never pressed him on it. I think I liked the not-knowing. And I wasn't going to force it. I felt like we would have that moment where the stars aligned and he told me everything." She rested a minute on the memory.
"Now I'll never know." Her was voice so thick with regret she almost choked on it.
Lois turned to him finally, eyes still skyward. Her hair, a wet mess of tangles, clung to her cheeks. Her eyes were red-rimmed and dull.
"I should have listened..." She bit her bottom lip as it began to quiver. "I came back to save him, and I ...I lost him anyway."
Clark's heart twisted. "Lois," he begged her to look at him.
Slowly, her eyes settled on his. As if struck, she wobbled back, a look of panic flashing across her face. She quickly spun away.
"I'm sorry," she apologized. "It's hard to look at you right now." Her volume wavered, the composure she struggled to maintain begning to crack around the edges. His likeness to his future self, something that had once been a comfort, was now a painful reminder of a life that had slipped away .
Lois ran her hands up and down her arms, and shivered. She looked minutes away from hypothermia. He wished he could somehow convince her to go back inside.
Clark moved closer. "We'll find Trask," he assured her.
"No, we won't," she dismissed flatly, her bluntness surpirising him. "I know I'm supposed to be strong, but I'm tired. I'm just...tired.." The wind shifted, rain sluiced down in sheets.
Clark took another step forward, and the protective distance between them crumbled. "Would it be so bad? If you stayed here."
She snapped around, blind sided by his question. "This is her time, Clark. Her life. Not mine. I'm just borrowing it." She took a breath and shook her head. "I don't belong here."
He felt himself moving forward as his confession tumbled out. "Yes, you do. You belong with me." She shot him a look that he couldn't read, but suspected the future Clark could. "I know I'm not him, but I could be. You could show me."
And he believed it. More than anything, he wanted to be the person she knew. The person she believed in. The person she...
"I love you," he confessed.
Lightning streaked a jagged line of white against the black sky, a defining clap of thunder on its heels. Clark's hand clutched the sopping fabric of his shirt just above his heart and he felt it jackhammer against his palm.
His words hung between them, and tension hummed loudly in the air. Lois blinked away the rain and tried to focus. Soon there was a vague look of recognition. Or maybe self- delusion. Her mind was twisting him into the memories that kept her moving forward.
"Clark?" she asked, her voice stripped raw. She was seeing what she wanted to see. Needed to see.
And he was going to let her.
"I love you," he repeated softly.
Her eyes, wet with tears and clouded with confusion, searched his face wildily. Finally her hand rose, slowly, and settled on his cheek.
Clark felt restraint snap like a frayed rope. He stepped forward and captured her lips with his own. Lois froze, and he felt her rain-chilled body tense against his own. She mumbled something against his lips, something that felt like "I know" before finally succumbing. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her as close as her could manage.
Clark took Lois in, selfishly. He indulged in each kiss, each touch, knowing that every part of her was with someone else.
But he didn't care. That person had let her go, something he never planned on doing.
Dark clouds swallowed the moon, and darkness enveloped the Kent farm as the two clung desperately to each other while rain fell all around them.
Metropolis 2014
"I'm going."
Superman stood resolute, his feet planted firmly on the white tile floor of the clinic-like office. It had only taken him a moment to sift through the Dr. Klein's explanation of the Scroll's powers - and deficiencies - before he had, faster than a speeding bullet, landed soundly and unmoveably on a course of action. His quick-thinking and firmness in the face of danger were, after all, two of the many things that made him a hero, so Chloe wasn't surprised.
She was, however, marveling at the badness of the idea.
"You can't be serious."
He folded his arms tightly across the emblazoned red S. "I am."
Chloe sighed, tucking two loose strands of her strawberry blond hair behind her ears. She felt a light buzz on her hip, immediately recognizing it as a plea from her editor. She didn't bother to confirm the fact, flicking off the pager without so much as a look.
"Dr. Klein?" Chloe asked, fishing for assistance.
The old man's lips tightened into a sober frown. He scratched the back of his neck roughly before heading towards the bullet-gray filing cabinet by the door.
"There are many dangers that present themselves, Superman. The success rate is very low, I'm afraid. We have done a number of experiments, trials runs if you will, with the scrolls. All have resulted in ..." Dr. Klein trailed off as he searched for the right word. He finally settled on "Complications," icing Chloe's spine.
Hopped up on the granite counter, she dangled her legs over the edge. "Well, maybe we don't need to do anything." She flicked the plastic model of a double helix that rested beside her. "Maybe the odds alone are enough to count Trask out."
Superman shook his head. "It's too risky."
Chloe let out a sharp laugh. "Now you're Mr. Play-It-Safe?" she asked, garnering a glare from the man in blue.
"I'll go."
Lois stepped into the fray. She had, until then, processed Dr. Klein's words in silence. Chloe could see the wheels turning, though, and one final click as she settled on something rash and reckless. Something completely Lois.
Superman shook his head. "No."
Lois' eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"
Dr. Klein nervously pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he continued to root through his files. "Ms. Lane–"
"Kent. Mrs. Kent," she sharply corrected him, her eyes pinning Superman as she did.
"Of course. Mrs. Kent. I don't think it's a wise..." Finally, he pulled out a large manila folder. "If I could just show you what we've discovered..."
"No." Superman repeated firmly. Chloe watched as his face betrayed a flash-flood of emotions, one's too close to his other self.
She eyed the scientist, who was now flipping through the contents of the folder, oblivious.
She loudly cleared her throat. "Dr. Klein, can you give us a minute?"
He looked up and nodded, but not before quickly glancing at the duo that still stood deadlocked. Cramming his hands into the pockets his white lab coat he made his way out into the buzzing halls of STARRlabs, closing the sliding glass door behind him. Lois waited until he was out of sight, and earshot, before launching the first charge.
"Clark, did I miss the part when you became my keeper?"
"Lois, this is way too dangerous. Sending you into a portal to god knows where?" Superman raked a set of frustrates hands threw his slickly gelled hair. "It's a horrible idea."
Lois rolled her eyes. "And sending the world's champion into that very same swirly hole of indiscriminate destination isn't?" She gestured wildly around the office. "You heard what Dr. Klein said. It's practically a suicide mission!"
His jaw tightened in irritation. "Exactly." She had made the point for him. "I'm not going to let you go."
"And I'm not going to let you die!" she snapped back.
Superman's stoic resolve softened as he looked at his wife. The stone-faced facade of the invincible Superhero melted away, revealing a petrified Clark Kent, stripped bare before her. "Please...I love you."
Lois smiled, sadly. "Clark," she soothed, softly stroking his cheek. "I know."
Chloe thumbed through Dr. Klein's research. Ten pages worth of guinea pigs who had ventured into one of the portals for the good of science. Each employee record read like an obit, social security numbers blackened out and "Lost" stamped in red ink across glossy snapshots of people who would never been seen again. She tossed the file down onto the desk and rubbed her hands over her face.
"So what's our next move? There are potential problems for both of you to attempt this portal-hop. It might be better for Clark. It might be better for Lois. Granted, it's probably better for no one. We have no way of knowing."
"Yes, we do."
The three tuned towards the door.
Lana leaned casually against the frame.
"Lois goes."
Next part: Nihilist
