Chapter Twenty-Nine - The Never Ending Story
Far from the Tardis, on the streets of Smallville, General Zod didn't know what, or who, hit him, as Lana Lang started to make him pay for killing her great-aunt.
The Doctor could see that this enforced bout of honesty wasn't turning out to be a complete success.
"Let's stop for a moment there, shall we?" he announced, as he jumped up from his sitting position. "Since Clark's been brave enough to volunteer, maybe we should just listen to everything he has to say and give ourselves time to think about it before we wade in with our constructive comments."
Chloe, who'd barely started on her constructive comments, glowered at The Doctor and then reluctantly nodded and fell into silence.
Clark began to regain his composure slightly. "The meteors... I know they came with my ship, but they're not my fault. Just part of my alien baggage." He looked down towards Chloe, hoping she'd understand, but she was refusing to look back, instead staring straight ahead. It gave Clark a small shred of satisfaction to note that she also seemed to be purposefully ignoring Lex as well.
Suddenly his super-hearing picked up Ursa's voice. He looked down to see her sitting there, looking up at him, with an eyebrow raised, her hand covering her mouth to hide the fact that she was whispering. "That's the difference between Chloe and me, Kal. She's all vex and silence, while I'm …"
Clark tried to ignore Ursa's whispering, and continued talking.
"So, now you know I'm an alien and you've no doubt noticed my superpowers. I guess I lost interest in hiding them after … well, I'll get to that later. Anyway, I guess there's only one place to start … with Lana Lang."
And so Clark launched into a lengthy monologue about his personal history with Lana Lang that, aside from Ursa's whispers, was uninterrupted. First he told of how he'd first met Lana, of how he was besotted with her despite her necklace, of how he'd spied on her from his loft through his telescope. While this creeped Chloe out, Ursa, still whispering, just wanted to know whether "using my fingers to adjust my telescope" was some kind of euphemism.
Clark continued on, undaunted, giving the highlights of his on-again off-again relationship with Lana, while the others struggled to remain to seem interested. Finally, to a huge collective sigh of relief, Clark finished the Lana segment and moved on to how he'd accidentally got transported through time and space with Jimmy Olsen, how he'd ended up in a future Smallville overrun by meteor freaks, with all of his friends and family dead, and how there was nobody to blame but himself.
Chloe looked at Clark, and the sadness in his eyes as he recounted the events, and she started to regret her earlier outburst as she realized that she'd accused Clark of the same thing that he must have accused himself of, countless times over, throughout recent years. Still, she'd had her reasons.
And then Clark moved on to Batman, and Chloe suddenly remembered Madame Xanadu's mention of him, and then Clark uttered the name Ra's Al Ghul, which triggered Chloe's memory of a tale Lionel Luthor had once told her, and Chloe desperately wanted to say something but, biting her lip, she opted for silence. It would wait until Clark finished his story, although, at the rate he was going, she wondered if that day would ever arrive.
And then Clark moved on to his slaying of the dinosaur that had just eaten Non, and about how he'd met Zod and Ursa for the first time and about how his super-hearing had overheard them whispering about making him kneel before them, and, finally, about how he'd recognized Zod's voice instantly - it was the voice of his father Jor-El. Suddenly Ursa's incessant background whispering stopped, as she turned her attention from Clark to Zod. She looked at Zod, as his mind took in what Clark had just said, and he looked back at Ursa and then at Clark and back to Ursa. Surely in Clark's reality, in the reality he was now in, he couldn't be the boy's father?
And then Clark went off on a tangent, talking about another time he'd seen his father, through pictures transmitted to him through an alien medallion. He'd caught glimpses of the past - the past they were now in - and his father hadn't talked like Zod or looked like Zod - he'd been just like Clark. Naturally, this being Clark telling the story, he had to ruminate on the fact that his father had lost his Lana Lang look-alike to death back in this 1961, just as he himself had had to endure the endless heartbreak of the real Lana Lang's death here. Bitterly he noted that he'd just failed to prevent her death here a second time because he was stuck in the Tardis, pouring out his heart in the Tardis' heartless forced detention. It was a bit like The Breakfast Club, he mused. A brain, an athlete, a basketcase and a criminal, but, sadly, no princess.
Chloe made a mental note to ask Clark who exactly he was calling a basketcase, as he continued to tell them how he had gone with The Doctor to visit a future Smallville, and how The Doctor had told him how Rose had tried to save her father's life. It was then Clark realized that, with the aid of the Tardis, he could go back and save his own father's life by warning him about Krypton's destruction. For that matter he might end up saving Krypton itself and, along with Krypton, Lana Lang's parents. He could prevent the meteors hitting Smallville, save the teenagers descending into meteor madness, save Lex's hair.
Suddenly the hope in Clark's voice died, as he dropped back into maudlin-mode. "It all seemed so easy. It was at that point I lost interest in who'd see my powers because it wouldn't matter any longer. I'd be wiping out my future and building a better one. I thought I'd make Lana happy … but … but …"
Clark fell silent for a moment, and then simply added "I think you know the rest."
When the subsequent silence had made it clear that Clark - stood there, looking down at the ground, lost in his thoughts - had said all he was going to say, The Doctor intervened. "Thanks, Clark. I know it wasn't easy. Any questions or comments, anyone?"
To nobody's surprise, Chloe was the first to speak. "So, do you really look like that, or are you using some alien shape-shifting power to blend in?"
"This is how I look," admitted Clark. "Although the only other Kryptonian I've ever seen, from my reality that is, also looked just like me. For all I know, they all look just like me."
Wow, that's a planet worth saving, thought Chloe, but her outer demeanor stayed calm as she went through the questions and comments she'd been building up. "Batman - I've heard that name before. We met this woman called Madame Xanadu, back in that reality where we saw Superman, and Ursa bought that Superman badge, and this Xanadu woman made lots of predictions."
"That's right," said Jimmy. "She said she saw some sort of crisis of identity looming."
"That's Lex," explained Chloe, who figured that with all this enforced honesty she'd have to reveal Lex's secret sooner or later. "He's really Clark."
"Chloe!" yelled Lex, the same way that Clark had yelled her name countless times before on the numerous occasions when she'd just ignored him and gone ahead and done something sensible instead. Although, this time, deep inside, Lex was happy, for Chloe had done just what he'd wanted her to do.
While Clark looked at Lex in confusion, Ursa was laughing loudly. "Oh, that's priceless. Lex is just trying to confuse you, Clark."
"No, it's Ursa who's trying to confuse you," shot back Chloe. "Lex and Clark swapped minds in the future."
Suddenly Clark's super-ability to add two and two together and make five made itself known, as things started to fall into place. That's why Clark had hardly recognized his future self when he saw himself being married. He thought that it had been the glasses, but no, his older self had been more confident, more sure of himself, just like Lex. He thought that the wink his future self had given him was friendly, but now he realized that it had been a mocking wink, as Clark's inner Lex made him marry Lois of all people, rather than Lana. "It all makes sense," he said after nanoseconds of thinking. "Lex, you're me."
Lex forced himself to smile and get teary eyed as, wordlessly, he nodded.
Ursa rolled her eyes in disbelief. "It's just one of Lex's plans to get him to trust you."
"Lex could never have come up with a plan this stupid," said Chloe, defending Lex.
"Whatever," said Ursa, who'd got bored with the whole discussion anyway.
"So, what else did this Madame Xanadu say?" asked The Doctor, genuinely interested.
"She said it would start, as much as anything could be said to start, with the death of a housewife," replied Jimmy, glad that his training by Perry White meant that he was able to recall every detail of what the lady had said.
"That would be Lana," said Lex, teary-eyed.
"But she wasn't a housewife, and your identity crisis happened before then."
"Well, I'm from the future and she died here in 1961, so that makes it first. And Lana was a housewife, back in my time. She married my best friend Pete Ross."
Lex looked up at Clark, who was suddenly realizing that not only had he killed the love of his life, he'd also killed his best friend's wife. If Lex hadn't been enjoying the spectacle so much, he could almost have felt sorry for Clark.
"What else did she say?" asked The Doctor, his curiosity piqued.
"There's an accident. Somebody starts a fire," said Jimmy, trying to ignore the anguished look on Clark's face.
Everybody's faces looked blank, except for Clark's that was still lost in its own inner turmoil, and Lex and Chloe's that were looking at Clark with mock sympathy and sympathy respectively.
"Okay, let's skip that one for the moment," said Jimmy. "She said Lois Lane's involved somewhere, but that goes without saying, and then she reached the bit about Batman. She said his memories of the past were erased."
Jimmy's words suddenly distracted Clark from his inner whining. "That's right. The second time I saw him... all his memories of our first meeting in that twisted Smallville reality were gone. Did she say anything else about him?"
"No, just something about a magician pulling a habit out of a rat. That's already happened, but trust me - you don't want to know the details. Then stuff about someone called Mandrake dying, heroes running around to no avail, and everything leading to …"
"Leading to where?" asked Clark, wanting to know where destiny was leading him.
"Jor-El," said Rose.
As Clark's, Zod's and Ursa's chins all simultaneously hit the ground, Chloe decided to move on to her next comment. No, she'd save that one for last. There was a more important question she had to ask. "So, Clark, I realize that the princess was Lana, but who exactly were the brain, athlete, basketcase and criminal you were referring to.
Lex couldn't believe she'd asked that - it was so obvious. Clearly he was the brain …
"Well, obviously, The Doctor's the brain," interrupted Rose, as The Doctor waved his head from side to side with a big grin on his face. "Clark must be the athlete, Ursa's a shoo-in for basketcase, which leaves either Lex or Zod as the criminal."
"No, you've got it all wrong," said Clark, shaking his head, "except for the athlete part."
Lex smiled, knowing just what Clark was about to say. Unfortunately what Clark then said wasn't it.
"They're all me," said Clark.
"You?" said Chloe, failing to understand his answer on every level possible. "I can understand the athlete bit, and admittedly, since Lana died, you have been a bit of a basketcase, but the others - how can you possibly perceive yourself as a brain or a criminal?"
"Of course, I'm a brain, Chloe. My parents don't calling me a genius for nothing."
"What? You pay them to do it?" asked Ursa.
"No," explained Chloe. "They're being sarcastic. Clark doesn't get sarcasm. But, Clark, how are you a criminal?"
"Haven't you been listening, Chloe?" replied Clark. "It was my idea to meddle with time that got Lana killed. I killed Lana Lang."
"You couldn't have foreseen that, Clark," said The Doctor, interrupting.
"I know," answered Clark. "But that doesn't make her any less dead."
Meanwhile, outside in Smallville, Lana Lang was busy, in the kitchen of her great-aunt's house, cleaning the linoleum floor. It had been covered in orange juice, shards of glass, and the traces of General Zod's blood that had been left on her shoes as she'd stumbled back in, but now it was spotless. Still, Lana kept on cleaning it.
