A/N: So, are you still hanging in there?

NINE

"If I see another Power Bar, I'm going to scream," Lois groaned as she plopped into the desk chair in their hotel room.

Clark pulled a package out of the bag from the small store they had stopped at on the way back to the hotel. "Well, this one is not a bar… the clerk said it tasted like chicken."

Lois reached for the packet and shook her head. "He's probably never even seen a chicken." She peeled the wrapper back and frowned at the supposedly edible things in the different sections of the plastic plate. "These are like Army rations. What is with the food in the future?"

Clark shrugged.

"Couldn't you have bought the stuff from the deli? That looked fresh."

"It cost 5 times as much," Clark reminded her. They had already had that discussion in the store.

"So?"

"We're on a budget." He was worried about the shrinking funds on their cash card. Even though they had more cash from 2006 that they could pawn, Clark was concerned with what they would do if they weren't soon able to find a way home.

Lois pulled something that looked like jerky from the plate and bit a piece off. She had eaten worse before, and she was hungry.

"Want some?"

Clark accepted the jerky and went to sit on the bed.

"Who would have thought I would come to the future and have homework," Lois mumbled, flipping open the booklet she had received earlier that day. "Sounds more like regression if you ask me."

Clark smirked and opened his book as well. They were quiet for a while as both began reading through the material that hadn't been covered during orientation.

Clark's head suddenly popped up.

"Why didn't you tell me about the wars?" he asked with a distraught look on his face.

Lois slowly looked up from her booklet. "I thought it would be kind of depressing to tell someone how they die."

Clark turned his attention back to the article that announced his and Lois's death. A frown was permanently etched in his face as he re-read the information, pouring over the details in disbelief. "I don't understand," he said under his breath.

Lois turned the pages in her booklet to see the article Clark was reading. She had been in shock the night before when she had read the news about her demise on the computer. Today, however, it had begun to sink in, and on some level she had accepted it. It made her want to live her life to the fullest while she still had the chance. From what she had learned so far about herself, she certainly had lived by that motto in the future.

Ironically, Lois felt that her death was mild in comparison to her life. She and Clark had been following an assignment when terrorists blew up the building they were in. Superman hadn't been able to save them on that occasion.

Clark read the final paragraph over and over, not believing what he saw. A quote from Superman put the finishing touches on the article.

Lois and Clark were an invaluable addition to our society and world. Their friendship, honor, and determination to do right by mankind will forever be missed. None of us will be the same.

Clark knew immediately what those words meant. It meant that Lois had died, and he had lived. He could feel the deep pain and guilt behind those words as if he remembered saying them himself. He read the quote once again, thinking of a man talking about the loss of his wife… and of the link to his humanity.

Suddenly an image flashed in his mind and reached for his head painfully with a groan. There was fire… so much that he could feel the heat burning the jacket he was wearing. There was flying shrapnel and debris, crumbling walls, and collapsing floors all around him as people panicked and screamed for help.

"Clark?"

At the sound of the most important voice in his world, he turned, but instead of his wife, he saw burning flesh… and he couldn't move.

"Clark!" Lois repeated, jumping from the chair and darting over to the bed. He had suddenly keeled over while grabbing his head, and was currently in a fetal position on the floor.

Her hands hovered over him for a moment as she was at a loss of what to do to help him. As she lowered a hand onto his shoulder, he gasped and relaxed, rolling to face her in a sudden movement.

"Lois."

"Are you all right?"

Clark blinked at her as if not understanding the question, then nodded. Lois began to withdraw her hand, but as she did so, his vision clouded, and he started to smell smoke. He grabbed her hand and held it tightly. He didn't want to see that again.

"Wait," he pleaded, closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths.

Lois watched him with a look of mixed concern and confusion, but she conceded with his request and remained in her crouched position.

After a few minutes like that, Clark released her hand and rose to sit on the bed again.

"What was that?" Lois asked, standing.

Clark merely shook his head. It was too painful and fresh of a memory to discuss just yet. He pulled the booklet into his lap. "Are there any other surprises in here that I should know about?" he questioned wryly.

Lois continued to look at him oddly. "I'm not sure…" She turned to retrieve her booklet and flipped through the pages from back to front. "Superman took a leave of absence… Lex Luthor became president…" she rattled off as she scanned the headlines.

"Superman took a leave of absence?" Clark ran a hand through his hair and searched for the article in question.

The story actually was at the start of a section devoted to that subject. The first article simply declared that Superman was gone. Other articles talked about President Luthor's request for Superman to return, and eventually showed Luthor rallying the people to live on without him. At the end of the section, an upbeat article announced that after a 50 year span, Superman had returned.

Unlike the reaction he'd had to the articles about his supposed death, these articles invoked no strong emotions or memories.

Lois lay on her side of the bed with her eyes closed. After the exhausting day, she should have fallen asleep as soon as her head had hit the pillow, but her mind was too busy trying to process everything that had happened.

Clark's earlier episode had left her a bit worried. When she had questioned him about it later, he'd only said that he had experienced a memory… one that he didn't want to talk about. Having had her own future-memory earlier at the orientation meeting, she didn't dispute the possibility that he'd had something similar… but it was his violent reaction that had her concerned.

She theorized that their flash forward into the future was playing evil tricks on their brains. It was almost as if time was trying to compensate for them being there by cramming memories of their futures in their heads before they were ready for them. Dismissing the theory as craziness, she started going through her relaxation techniques, commanding her tense muscles to rest.

Now that it all was sinking in, Lois was beginning to think that everything wasn't quite adding up. The information in their booklets had been somewhat limited to what they needed to know for their jobs the next day, so it was understandable that there were some pretty substantial gaps in the account. Still, it bothered her that in all the discussion of the work of she and Clark, there had been no mention of her cousin. Lois had scanned the list of survivors in her obituary, and there were no cousins, no children, and no parents listed. It didn't make sense.

"Have I told you lately that I love you?"

She smiled and played with his hair lovingly. "I think I remember you saying something about being relieved that I was moving out…"

"You can't hold something I said 10 years ago against me," he protested. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest. "Besides, I was young then… I had no idea what you would mean to me."

She smiled and kissed him softly on the lips. "Don't you ever forget it," she commanded with a raised eyebrow.

His expression grew serious and he rolled her over onto her back, bracing on an elbow to gaze down at her. "I won't. I couldn't. Without you… I wouldn't be able to live."

"No." She pushed herself into a sitting position, pulling him up as well. "The truth is, nobody knows how long we have to live." When he tried to interrupt her, she shook her head and grabbed his hands. "It's not the years that matter… it's the moments. We both know that you age slower, but that time you had to give some of your life force to Jimmy… There's no way to know how long either of us have. We are going to have a wonderful life together, and then, you'll just have to have another one… without me."

Tears sprang to his eyes. "I can't do that… you are my life. Everything."

She sighed, reaching to wipe his tears away even as her own began to build. "You have to." She leaned in to kiss him again. "Promise me. No matter what… you'll continue to live."

His eyes fluttered close. He didn't want to think about the possibility of needing to keep that promise. He wouldn't let that happen, ever… so the thought was meaningless anyway. He wanted to change the tone of this conversation. "What will you do if I don't?"

Her lips curved into a seductive smile. "I'll come back and haunt you," she whispered against his mouth.

That was a promise he hoped that she would keep, he thought as he claimed her mouth for his own. Pulling her on top of him as he leaned back into the bed, he began working his fingers underneath her tee shirt.

A low moan erupted from the back of her throat as Lois's hand moved toward the waistband of the offending garment.

"Too many clothes," she muttered, becoming impatient to touch skin. Releasing the pants, she moved her hands up to her lover's chest. Lowering her head, she kissed the special spot on his neck where she could feel his pulse and grinned when he groaned in response.

With a chuckle that came out like a purr, she dragged her lips across his skin until she reached his mouth. Playfully she nipped at his bottom lip and waited for him to open his eyes so she could get his reaction.

"Lois…" he hissed, bucking against her.

Lois froze and her eyes grew wide as she realized that she was no longer dreaming.

Rolling off of him and flopping onto her back, Lois crammed her eyes shut. "I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed, horrified.

Clark rolled onto an elbow and looked down at her. His heart felt ready to explode with the depth of feeling that he was suddenly experiencing. All the love he thought he had ever felt for anyone paled in comparison to what he was feeling in that moment. He grinned as she pried one eye open to see him, her face brightly flushed with embarrassment.

"Don't be… Don't be sorry," he said softly, placing a gentle hand on her stomach.

Lois drew in a sharp breath at his touch. She opened the other eye and looked at him curiously. Now that she was awake… and she was sure that she was awake this time… she found that she was drawn to his eyes. It shouldn't be possible that the dynamics between them had drastically changed overnight, but it was useless to question… because they had.

Her mouth suddenly went dry and she licked out her tongue to wet her lips, a motion she immediately realized was risky.

Clark smiled and his pupils grew in response to her action. His hand slid to her side as he began to lean closer.

"Wait," Lois stopped him with a hand on his chest. "Are you awake?" Her eyes flicked back and forth between the two of his.

"Yes. Maybe for the first time in my life…" he responded. He removed his hand from her side and placed it against her face.

Lois frowned as his features blurred. She blinked to clear her vision and looked up at him again. "Superman…" she mumbled. Then her eyes grew wide as she repeated the name. "Superman!"

She scrambled out of the bed, knocking Clark onto his back as she pushed away from him. Standing, her chest rose and fell as she seethed, sending daggers at him through her glare. "You jerk!"

Clark sat up and looked at her in confusion.

"When were you planning on telling me? When the kids started flying around the delivery room?" She grabbed a heart-shaped pillow off of the bed and threw it at his head.

"And to think! Here I am, demeaning myself because I cheated on you with him. Cheated on you with you! B4stard!"

Clark saw her eyes settle on another pillow so he snatched it out of her reach and knocked all of the pillows to the floor on the other side of the bed. "Lois…"

"Don't talk to me."

The light from the window peeking around the corners of the window shade made her brown hair look auburn, ironically fitting her current fiery mood. Clark didn't think he'd seen anything more beautiful. His mouth twitched as he struggled not to grin.

"You're laughing! You've been laughing at me this whole time, haven't you? You… arghhh!" she screamed, unable to think of an insult bad enough to justify her anger.

Clark's face immediately sobered, and he started to shake himself out of his fascinated stare. "Lois! No… it's not like that…" he pleaded, kicking at the covers as he moved to get out of the bed.

"101…"

Clark looked at her warily, unsure of what to do. He wanted to explain, but was unreasonably afraid of being launched out of a window.

"97… 89… 83…"

Clark frowned and took a step closer, his hands raised in surrender. "I'm sorry… I guess I should have told you, but this has all been so crazy…"

"You guess!" Lois scoffed and stepped away from him. "79… 73…"

Clark dropped his hands. "What are you counting?"

"71… Prime numbers," she informed him. "Backwards. 67. I'm trying to calm myself down so I don't punch you in that silly grin. 61, 59, 53," she rattled the last three numbers off in quick succession, obviously heating back up. "But then again, I probably would break my wrist wouldn't I, Superman? Or is it Super4ss?"

Clark didn't know why that struck him as so funny but he couldn't control himself as he began to laugh. Lois glared at him and tried to stay angry, but a smile began tugging at her lips. Crossing her arms, she swallowed the smile and fixed Clark with an icy stare.

Clark took a few deep breaths to calm himself and met her eyes. He swallowed and put a serious expression on his face. "I think 47 was next." He had barely gotten the sentence out before a grin broke across his face. "Super4ss?"

Lois spun on her heel and headed toward the bathroom, grabbing her clothes from the desk chair as she went.

Clark was sitting on the bed fully dressed when Lois exited the bathroom door. In her absence, his mood had sobered considerably. He meekly met her eyes.

Lois didn't want to feel sympathy for him… in fact, she didn't want to feel anything for him at all, but her emotions were spinning out of her control… And she didn't like it.

"Lois… about this morning…" Clark stumbled, standing awkwardly and wringing his hands together.

Lois shook her head. "It's ok. It's not us… it's this place. These feelings aren't ours; at least not yet," she responded haltingly.

"You're right," he nodded. He was confused. While his mind told him that this was Lois Lane, bane of his existence; his heart was telling him that she was Lois Lane, mate of his soul. Clearing his throat, he approached a different topic. "The Superman thing…"

"I know," Lois interrupted. "I know why you didn't tell me… I remember the day you did."

Clark watched her thoughtfully. A memory seemed to dance at the edge of his consciousness. "We were outside… at the farm."

Lois nodded. "It was raining. I was so angry with you, because you make stupid decisions when you don't ask me first. You should have told me. I would have accepted it… you."

"I was trying to protect you."

Lois smirked. "I didn't need you to protect me. I needed you to trust me." She forced herself to blink to break the spell. Lois didn't know if she would be able handle the way these memories kept kicking in.

"You had a memory last night, didn't you?"

Clark nodded sadly.

"What was it?"

"You died…" he answered after a pause. "And I couldn't save you."

"Oh," Lois said flatly. It suddenly occurred to her that he hadn't died with her as had been reported. He had lived on as Superman… and was apparently still alive 100 years later.

They remained standing on opposite sides of the room, watching each other awkwardly. The silence between them was heavy with unspoken thoughts and confused intimacy. Ironically, they felt like they knew the other better than anyone they had ever known, yet at the same time, they were strangers to themselves.

Lois broke the impasse and stepped toward the desk, setting her folded pajamas on the chair. "I've been thinking… After reading those articles, some things just don't make sense."

"Like what?" Clark asked, sitting on the bed again.

"Well, there's you and me becoming reporters at the Daily Planet, but where's Chloe? The Daily Planet was her dream… why would we be there without her? And those attacks on the super class, the wars… and Superman's disappearance. It all has to be connected, don't you think?"

Clark thought about it for a moment and shrugged. "How?"

"I don't know. But I know who we can ask."

Clark frowned. "Who?"

"You."

"What are those?" Chloe asked, peering out of the window as the shuttle descended after breaching Earth's atmosphere.

"Domed cities," Xavir replied.

"The government started enclosing the major cities after D-Three in hopes of staving off the radiation and chemical poisoning," Brynnan explained. "With the threat of acid rain and the absence of ozone cover in many areas, the domes provide a method of regulation. At least this way, the weatherman is always right," she teased.

"We can't get the shuttle into a dome without clearance, so we're going to land in Gotham."

"Gotham?" Chloe repeated. "Gotham was a major city… why didn't it get covered?"

"Gotham and Metropolis were always considered to be the opposite sides of the same coin. The shinier side got picked," Brynnan said with a shrug. "Sit tight, we'll be on the ground in a few minutes."

Ten minutes later, Chloe realized that what Brynnan had meant by 'on the ground' was actually 'in the ground.' She had piloted the vessel into the mouth of a large cave and flown through pitch black corridors, taking blind turns in all directions before setting them down inside a large underground cavern.

With a smile, she switched off the engine and pressed the button to open the hatch for them to exit.

When Brynnan's feet hit the dirt floor of the cave, she stretched and inhaled the stale air as if she were at the ocean. "It's great to be home."

Xavir's eyes were wide as he peered around at the darkness surrounding them. "Home?"

Brynnan smiled and handed Chloe a pair of dark glasses before slipping on a similar pair. "I wasn't expecting a third person," she told Xavir, apologetically. "So you're going to have to walk between us." She tied a rope around her waist and used the remaining length to tether them all together.

At the rear of the line, Chloe put on her glasses and marveled at how clearly she could see her surroundings.

Brynnan led them down a dirt path deeper into the earth. After a while, they arrived at a large door that resembled the door to a vault and stopped.

"Do we need to knock or something?" Chloe asked. Brynnan had removed the rope around their waists and they had been standing for a few minutes.

"They already know we're here," Brynnan replied, pointing as a bat darted from the ceiling and flapped past them.

As if on cue, a loud thunk sounded, and the vault door swung inward.

"Brynn!" A woman shouted as she enveloped Brynnan in a bear hug.

When they parted, Brynnan gestured for Chloe and Xavir to follow them inside. Chloe's jaw dropped as she looked around. The place was a veritable Victorian mansion… inside of a rock. If she hadn't have walked through the cave herself, she wouldn't have believed it were possible.

The woman was still talking excitedly to Brynnan. "We got the Code Red, but we had no idea what the emergency was," she started. "What's happening at the Centre?"

Brynnan removed her glasses and cap and ran a hand through her hair. "Karyn, this is Xavir and Chloe…"

Chloe followed Brynnan's example and removed her glasses. When she did, she noticed that the two women were almost identical; obviously sisters, although it was apparent that Brynnan was younger.

Karyn took one look at Chloe and gasped. "We have to take her to Gray."

TBC