Chapter Forty-Three - In The Zone
As she looked outside the Tardis at the clouds rushing past them, Chloe Sullivan was suddenly starting to develop what seemed like a totally rational fear of heights. Of course, it didn't help, and was also incredibly irritating, that Lex was somehow managing to retain a totally calm demeanor, leaning against the Tardis' doorframe and, still play-acting as Clark, soliloquizing about how much he missed his old days of soaring through the clouds.
Chloe somehow resisted the temptation to satisfy Lex's nostalgic longings by pushing him out through the Tardis' door, and instead interrupted his soliloquy to note "I thought you were afraid of heights, Clark."
"Yes, that was me. All panic in the sky," replied Lex. "Looking back now I can't believe how stupid I was."
Chloe glared at Lex, and then, realizing that it was doing no good, decided to turn her attention to the Doctor.
"Hate to be picky, Doc," she said, looking at The Doctor's legs sticking out from below the Tardis' console, "but I thought you said you'd fixed this thing."
"I had," mumbled The Doctor, while the sonic screwdriver he was holding in his mouth cast some light on some newly-torn cables directly in front of him. Inching forward ever so slightly he suddenly saw some eyes staring back at him. "Aaah, I think I see the problem."
Emerging from beneath the console, the Doctor ran round to the other side of it and aimed his sonic screwdriver at the floor and, a moment later, he'd created a large opening.
"Lex or Clark or whatever you're called," shouted The Doctor. "I need you over here."
"What is it, Doctor?" asked Lex, feigning interest as he ran over.
"Put your gloved hand down this hole and pull up whatever you can."
Lex did as The Doctor said. "What's it going to be? A rabbit?" he asked as he suddenly grabbed hold of something. The next moment, as he yanked whatever it was up, he found himself face to face with a strange creature who didn't seem happy to have been disturbed.
"What is it?" asked Rose, as Lex and the creature rolled around fighting on the floor.
"Remember that gremlin that kissed me?" asked The Doctor.
"The Rogue gremlin?" asked Rose. "The one that absorbed the powers of the Storm gremlin?"
"That's right," said The Doctor.
Chloe, who had completely forgotten her fear for the moment, couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You met some X-Gremlins and they were kissing you?"
"Just the one gremlin kissed me," clarified The Doctor, "and that was a mutant gremlin who could absorb other beings' powers."
"That's right," said Rose. "It absorbed some weather-controlling powers. It used them to fight the Daleks."
"The X-Gremlins fought the Daleks?" exclaimed Chloe, who suddenly realized that her planned story of this trip had some huge gaping holes.
"That's right," said The Doctor. "Anyway the Rogue gremlin got killed by the Daleks."
"It did?" said Rose. "So, what's it got to do with anything?"
"In its dying moments it managed to crawl back to the Tardis, just before the Tardis returned to us."
"And then it died," said Rose. "I repeat again - so what?"
"It had kissed me, Rose. Absorbed some of my powers."
Rose Tyler looked at the creature wrestling with Lex. "And when it died, it regenerated, changing it's appearance… into that thing."
"Exactly," said The Doctor. "So now we've only got to get rid of it. Although where we'll get rid of it here is anybody's guess."
"It's looks kind of familiar," said Chloe. "Where and when are we?"
"Well, the year appears to be 1963 - either that or 1983 - I'm pretty certain of that," said The Doctor confidently. "As for our position, that appears to be just over 20,000 feet above sea level and dropping."
"Can't we just throw it outside into the sunlight," asked Rose.
At that very moment a large storm suddenly appeared outside, making the sky go dark.
"Looks like it heard you," said Jimmy, joining in the conversation now that the novelty of watching Lex fighting a monster had worn off.
"On the plus side, its weather controlling powers probably make it immune to rain," observed The Doctor. "That means we can probably dump it in the sea without worrying about it absorbing an ocean and reproducing. Then again -"
At which point, Lex, who'd gotten bored of rolling around the floor fighting a strange creature while everybody else just stood there talking, managed to roll over to the door and push the creature out.
"Thanks for the help, guys," he said, getting to his feet.
"Do you think it'll survive the fall?" asked Chloe.
"It already has," replied Lex. "It fell onto the wing of a passing airplane. Still, with that storm I doubt if anybody will notice."
"Guess it's somebody else's nightmare now," said Chloe, breathing a sigh of relief. "Can we carry on with our journey now, Doctor?"
"Just got to finish the repairs," said The Doctor smiling. "Still, I should have them finished just before we hit the ground … or thereabouts."
And with that, The Doctor went back under the console.
Billy Tate had followed Louise's car to the corn field. All of the way there, she'd kept checking on him in her rearview mirror. She was probably angry with him. After all, this wasn't part of the plan. Still, he knew that he couldn't just let fate unfold and let an innocent drifter die. It might be too late to contact that crook Luthor and tell him that he'd changed his mind, but there was still time to warn the drifter, even if it meant having to face the wrath of Louise and that crazy lady in black.
Lana sat in the car that she'd parked next to the corn field, wondering if Joe would ever show up. For the umpteenth time that night she tried to adjust the rearview mirror so that she could check her make-up. Sometimes Lana wondered why they even bothered putting mirrors in cars when they were so hard to see yourself in. Suddenly she noticed Joe, who seemed to have appeared from nowhere, opening the passenger door. She couldn't let anything happen between them this time - it wouldn't be fair to Clark.
Clark got into the car next to Louise. This was going to be his last night with her, his last night on Earth, and there she sat, so beautiful, almost as beautiful as his dear departed Lana. He'd messed up earlier that day by almost setting fire to her, but this, their last night together, would be different.
Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned around to see Sheriff Tate standing outside.
"Hey, you two lovebirds," said the man Lana knew would be responsible for her death. She'd die just because of his petty jealously.
"Billy, it's not what it looks like. It was just-," she started.
"Sure," said Sheriff Tate, cutting her off, before turning his attention to the drifter. "Okay, big shot, out of the car."
Clark stepped out of the car, restraining his eyes from destroying the evil Sheriff. "I don't know what business this is of yours, but-"
Billy grabbed the drifter by the shirt. This was his chance to save the drifter's life, and he had to be as threatening as he could. "I think you've overstayed your welcome. You better move along before you cause any more trouble."
Then Louise, obviously eager to prevent Joe's survival came out of the car and pushed Billy away from the drifter.
"Billy, he was just taking me home," said Louise, knowing that a bullet would be waiting for the drifter at that home of hers.
Billy looked at the cold-hearted Louise, and he wanted to tell her how wrong their plan was, but, then again, if it meant that they ended up together, how wrong could it be. Still he had to let her know his feelings. "You better make sure this is what you want, Louise, 'cause I think you're making a huge mistake."
And then he looked into Louise's eyes and saw no remorse, just resentment towards him and what he was saying, and so he got into his car and drove away, reluctantly leaving destiny to run its course and just hoping that his decision wouldn't come back to haunt him one day.
Lana turned to Joe. She wished there was some way for them to be together, but it wasn't meant to be. Then again, Lana knew that there was a way. What was wrong with trying to change the future? Sure it might destroy everything, but she was going to die anyway - personally she couldn't do any worse than what fate currently had planned. Maybe it was time to be selfish, forget about Clark's feelings and tell Joe how she really wanted to be with him. But, if she lived, what about Dexter? She had to convince Joe to take her away from Dexter, far away from Smallville, where she could start a new life that wouldn't affect Smallville's future.
"I never wanted to marry Dexter," she started, making it up as she went along. "Don't get me wrong, he's - he's a nice man, he's just... safe. I made the mistake of telling my father my dreams. I want to go to Hollywood, become a star. The next thing I know, he's putting me together with Dex, saying what a great wife I'd make. I finally gave in. And here I am."
Clark knew all about fathers making you do what you don't want to do, such as Zod making him come here and stand back and do nothing even though he knew of Louise's eventual tragic fate. "I think our fathers would get along. See, I'm not what you'd call a model son. My father sent me here as sort of a lesson. I didn't want to come here. Now I'd give anything to stay. But I can't."
"Then take me with you," she said, hopefully, as she pulled him away from the car and turned him around a few times. Giggling, possibly as a result of last night nerves, she added "We'll be like James Dean and Natalie Wood in Rebel Without a Cause. It'll be romantic."
Clark looked at Louise and so much wanted to take her with him, but no, he couldn't. Still, here was a chance to tell her all the things he should have told Lana when he had the chance. "I don't think you understand. When I said I wasn't from here, I wasn't talking about Smallville."
Lana looked at the drifter blankly, not understanding.
"Where I'm from we have colors that you've never seen," Clark started, remembering what Ursa had told him. "We've got moons and stuff," he continued, summarizing Ursa's words (although the mem-O-random decided to replace Clark's words with Ursa's just because they sounded so much better).
Lana thought about the drifter's words. How could they have colors she'd never seen? Everywhere's got the same visible spectrum, even other planets. Then she realized where Clark must be from - Heaven. God had sent an angel down, looking like Clark, to accompany her in her final day. Just imagine, she'd tried to seduce an angel - no wonder God had set things on fire.
And then she realized how ridiculous her thoughts were and laughed. "You almost had me there. For a second I was actually believing you."
And then the drifter stepped closer and lifted her into his arms. As she looked into his eyes, she could almost believe those were the eyes of an angel. And then finally, after so long, she looked down and saw that they were floating high above the ground.
"Oh, my God."
And then they both looked up at the stars as they continued to rise and Lana's worries all turned to joy as she looked at the angel looking back at her.
Clark looked at the way Louise looked back at him, and knew that he never wanted this moment to end. It was a perfect moment, only spoilt by Clark's knowledge of what would happen to Louise after this perfect moment had ended.
Ursa walked into the caves seeming uncharacteristically chipper.
"Are you alright?" asked Zod. "You seem happy."
"What's not to be happy about?" replied Ursa. "My conversation with the Sheriff went perfectly, so there's no way Lana will live. On top of that you've found the way to get us back to Krypton."
"Well …" said Zod.
Ursa's tone immediately changed as she flipped back to the cold unemotional Ursa that Zod recognized. "You have done that one little thing you were supposed to do, haven't you?"
"Bad news, I'm afraid, Ursa," said Zod. "I know where we are and I know that we can't get back from here."
"But young Kal seemed certain that Kryptonians had visited this planet in the past," said an unamused Ursa.
"Many, many Kryptonians have," replied Zod, "but none of them ever returned back to Krypton."
"But if they could go from Krypton to Earth, why couldn't they go from Earth to Krypton?" asked a puzzled Ursa.
"They didn't go of their own accord," explained Zod. "They were deported here via spinning-mirror technology."
"You can't mean …" began Ursa,
Zod nodded. "That's right. Welcome to the Phantom Zone. Unwanted citizens were transported here and stripped of their powers, forced to spend the remainder of their days in this primitive wasteland."
"But …" said Ursa, and then fell silent in thought for a moment. "I guess that explains why Jor-El and the other Kryptonians didn't use the same route to escape from Krypton prior to its destruction."
"I guess the same was also true in our reality," added Zod. "I always thought it was more than mere coincidence that we escaped so near to Kal-El's adopted planet. The mirror-cage was obviously starting to weaken at that point, getting ready to de-power us as it headed towards Earth. If not for that nuclear explosion…"
"So there's no way to get back?" asked Ursa.
"The records show a Kryptonian scientist named Dr. Erd-El was once performing some strange experiments to try and transfer some Phantom Zone residents back across the vastness of space, but unfortunately he was discovered and exiled to this Phantom Zone himself before his experiments ever reached fruition. I guess that leaves us only the one way home."
"The Tardis," said Ursa.
Zod nodded.
The Tardis was falling towards the ground and getting ever nearer and Chloe Sullivan was beginning to worry.
"It's okay," said Rose reassuringly, "The Doctor wouldn't let us die."
"Why would he care?" asked Chloe. "For him, death's just an extreme makeover."
"I'm sure that -" started Rose, and then turned towards The Doctor. "Wait a minute, that note that said how you were going to die. It told you we died now, didn't it?"
"Of course it didn't," came The Doctor's voice from somewhere inside the console. "We obviously can't die here because we know Chloe lives to see the future."
"Maybe that's just one possible outcome in the future," said Chloe, talking even faster than usual. "I could end up dead in one future and alive in another. It's like Schrödinger's cat."
"Schrödinger's cat?" asked Jimmy.
"She talking about multiple realities," explained Lex. "How things can differ between them ever so slightly. I think it's pretty self-explanatory."
For a second Chloe was grateful that Lex had given up the Clark act, and then Lex continued: "In some realities Schrödinger has a cat, for example, whereas in our reality it's Charlie Brown who has the dog."
Chloe stared at Lex in amazement. He'd somehow managed to out-stupid Clark.
"Fascinating as this discussion is," said The Doctor, getting up from beneath the console, "your reality's only got one future, albeit a modifiable one."
Chloe turned towards the Doctor and suddenly realized he'd stopped messing about beneath the console. "Have you fixed the Tardis?"
"Certainly have," said The Doctor smugly, and rammed his elbow into the console, producing a familiar and comforting thrumming sound. The next second the Tardis had materialized somewhere else.
"So, we're back where I saw them filming that TV series about Lois and Clark?" asked Jimmy.
"Well," said The Doctor, looking at the console, "I got the right reality, but the wrong continent, and I'm about a decade late as well."
"Can't you get anything right," said Rose, who then pushed the door open to find herself looking at her bedroom, so much tidier than it had been when she'd last seen it.
"Thought it might be nice to pop home," said The Doctor, walking out of the Tardis and pulling open the curtains. "Lovely day."
"Certainly is," said Rose, throwing herself onto her comfortable bed.
"So this is where you live?" asked Chloe, as she, Jimmy and Lex stood in the Tardis' doorway, looking out.
"That's right," said Rose. "Back to life. Back to reality."
"No offence intended," she added, as she looked at the three fictional characters standing before her in the Tardis. Suddenly she remembered that when she was a kid there had been a wardrobe there, and she remembered how she wished that she could go through it to Narnia. She smiled. With the way things were going, her wish might yet come true.
