A/N: Taking a break from the main plot, the first half of this chapter is mostly filler with elements of Smallville's 200th episode Homecoming, while the second half is some setup for the future.
Chapter 3
Earth-21
Clark Kent appeared seemingly out of nowhere in a purple flash of light. He was wearing a red and yellow Smallville High letterman jacket over a blue T-shirt and a pair of jeans with black boots. He glanced around in confusion as he found himself in the basement of the Daily Planet. He and Lois had gone to Smallville High to attend their five-year reunion, but Brainiac, who had been reprogrammed into an ally by the Legion of Superheroes in the 31st century and was now called Brainiac 5, had arrived from the future explaining that he needed to help Clark get over his feelings of guilt about his past, particularly Clark blaming himself for his adoptive father's death. But Brainiac hadn't been the only one of Clark's former enemies to show up at the school. When Clark had seen Greg Arkin, one of the meteor freaks he had fought and put away back in high school, approaching Lois, he panicked and tried to grab the Legion ring from Brainiac's finger to save her, and that was the last thing that happened before Clark suddenly ended up at the Planet.
"Whoa, buddy," a mail clerk said, almost bumping into Clark as he walked past pushing a metal cart.
Clark started walking off, unknowingly passing a rack of newspapers containing the headline 'SUPERMAN SAVES THE DAY'. As Clark continued looking around, someone suddenly bumped into him.
"Hey, watch it!"
"Lois," Clark said, immediately noticing she was the one who had bumped into him. The last time he'd seen her, it was at their high school reunion, which was literally a minute ago. Unless Lois secretly had super-speed or teleportation, how did she get to the Daily Planet and change out of her yellow dress into professional work clothes so quickly? Had Brainiac sent her after him?
Lois stared at Clark's clothes, an exasperated look appearing on her face.
"How..." Clark started, but Lois cut him off.
"Not again, come on."
She shoved Clark forward leading him and herself into the nearby phone booth. She closed the door behind them.
"Wait, did..." Clark tried, only for Lois to cut him off again.
"Seriously, I know we agreed that we would keep our professional lives to ourselves, but what kind of secret story got you to dress-up day?" Lois took Clark's letterman jacket off of him and handed it to him. "Here, hold this." She then pulled out a pair of glasses. "And, honey, I know that you don't like them, but you were the one that decided you wanted to wear them." She put the glasses on Clark. "And lucky for you, I have a spare. There." Noticing the annoyed look on Clark's face, Lois added, "Hey, I know they are not fashion-forward, but if it ain't broke, honey, don't fix it." She smiled affectionately at Clark as he returned a smile of his own. Her expression turning serious as she looked at his blue T-shirt, Lois said, "Seriously, Clark, I thought we agreed on a Daily Planet dress code."
As Lois picked up her purse about to head out of the booth, Clark finally asked, "Lois, wait, how did you get here? I need to know about the reunion."
"We need to table this all until later," Lois demanded, as she opened the door. "We cannot have people thinking things." She and Clark walked out of the booth. As her phone beeped, she put it to her ear and said, "Perry, what the hell? How many times have I told you that Troupe can find his own sources?"
Lois walked up, while Clark stopped as a man and a woman approached him.
"I told you it's not him," the woman said to the man, who had assumed something about Clark. "It's just the guy from the eighth floor."
Clark frowned in confusion, wondering what that was all about as he watched the man and the woman walk away. He headed over to his desk and sat down.
"Kent, what are you doing?"
Clark looked up to see Jeff Hage had approached him. "This is my desk," Clark answered.
"Not for years, unless somebody's been seriously demoted," Jeff reminded him.
Clark stood up, looking even more confused. "Years?" Noticing a newspaper sitting on the desk, he picked it up and looked at the date – October 15th 2017. It was in that moment that he realized the ring had sent him seven years into the future.
Just then, Lois came over and said, "Clark? What are you doing?"
"Lois, we need to talk," Clark said with a note of urgency in his voice, as he walked over to her and the two headed off.
Clark and Lois entered an office, the former producing a grin upon noticing his and her name printed on the door.
"Gloat all you want, but those names are getting flipped the second the boys from ops do a fly-by," Lois said, as she and Clark, who took off the glasses, headed over to their respective sides of the desk. "Clark," she called him, noticing he was looking completely confused for some reason. When he didn't answer, she repeated, "Clark, what is going on with you today? It's like you've never been here before."
"I haven't, Lois," Clark said, causing her to frown. "I'm from another time."
Lois rolled her eyes with a sigh. "No kidding. Clark, you're from a different planet. That's not exactly a news flash."
Clark looked surprised, not believing his ears. Did Lois just say what he thought he heard? Walking around to her side of the desk, Clark asked, "What did you say?"
"I didn't mean to come off so Lois," Lois said. "It's just that sometimes when you get pensive, I know that it's because you have the whole 'last son of Krypton' thing weighing on your shoulders." Clark's frown deepened as Lois went on. "But that's why you've got me, okay, to remind you that if you were going to crash-land your spaceship anywhere you couldn't have chosen better people to find you than the Kents. So you need to snap out of it."
Clark sat down in the chair, processing everything that Lois had just said. At that point, it was clear that she knew his secret. It wasn't that he never trusted Lois with that information. In fact, she'd proven herself trustworthy of knowing his secret in an erased timeline where he had told Lois and the rest of the world the truth about himself only for Linda Lake to turn the public against him with lies. He wanted so badly to tell Lois again, but so far he hadn't figured out the right time to do so. But from the sound of things, sometime in the future, he finally had gathered the courage to tell Lois everything.
"Wait, I know what this is about," Lois said in realization. "I forgot again, didn't I? Our anniversary."
"Our anniversary?" Clark questioned, as he stood up.
"Oh, don't play dumb, you always hold it over me," Lois reminded him. "The day you told me. The day you finally trusted me, it was... It was romantic, and it was the perfect day and... Okay, I always forget about it until the last minute, but I swear it is not until..." She picked up a notebook and looked at a page inside. "See? I told you. So what is it?" She moved closer to Clark as he sat down on the desk. "Wait a minute. Oh, no. Kryptonite again."
"Look, I..." Clark stammered.
Lois placed her hand on Clark's face as she looked into his eye. "Blue? Red? Not green. Please tell me it's not the black because that was a disaster."
"Look, I just... I need the Legion ring," Clark said. "Lois, do you know where it is?"
"Is that a joke, Clark?" Lois asked. "Touch it once, shame on you. Touch it twice, shame on me. And actually, I could really use it right now because we have to be on opposite sides of town in ten minutes." She grabbed her purse off the desk. "And unlike you, I have to take a helicopter. I can't keep the mayor waiting."
Clark followed Lois out of their office as they headed to the elevator. "Lois, I'm not supposed to be here."
"I know, we're late," Lois said.
"Late? Lois, I need to get back," Clark clarified. "Look, the Legion ring is the only way to do it."
"Back?" Lois questioned, and Clark nodded as Lois realized what he meant. "Okay, listen, why don't you check your trunk of tchotchkes at the farm? Isn't that where you keep all your go-to phantom catchers and Fortress disks and stuff? And if you need me, I'm there. No deadline is more important than you, okay?"
Lois shoved Clark's shoulder as she led him into the elevator, lightly smacking his backside while she was at it. "Going up, you're going down," she told him, before making a circular gesture towards her eyes reminding Clark to put his glasses back on.
After the elevator doors closed, Clark heard a strangely familiar voice ask, "She's a handful, isn't she?"
Clark turned to the source of the voice and saw... himself. His future self, as he understood, standing there. But the mere presence of his future self alone wasn't what stunned Clark. It was the ridiculous manner in which his future self was dressed, wearing a mild-mannered suit and tie outfit complete with a pair of glasses and slicked back hair.
The two Clarks, separated by seven years of time, regarded each other for a moment, Past Clark eying Present Clark's clothes in disbelief.
"You're right on time," Present Clark said with relief. So far, things were going according to plan.
"You knew I'd be here?" Past Clark asked.
"Time travel, think it through," Present Clark said, reminded of how naive he used to be regarding such topics. His younger self still had a lot to learn.
"Because you were me when you went through this and I'm..." Past Clark said in realization.
"Well done, my man," Present Clark said.
"How did I become so uptight and nerdy?" Past Clark wondered, already making a mental note to himself to make sure that wouldn't happen to him.
"It's no time to chat about how, where, and why," Present Clark said in an authoritative tone. "We've been through weirder things. I need you on the roof."
"When did I start taking orders?" Past Clark said, being the one used to giving them, especially ever since he had taken over as the leader of the team that Oliver had put together.
"There's a nuclear reactor about to blow in an abandoned plant on the outside of town," Present Clark explained. "I can't be in two places at once."
"If you knew it was gonna happen, then why didn't you stop it?" Past Clark asked.
"You never would've experienced all this, and you never would've become me," Present Clark pointed out.
"Well, that's too bad," Past Clark said. He could definitely do without the nerdy, mild-mannered look.
Present Clark pressed a button in the elevator and the doors opened. "Roof, now," he ordered his younger self, before racing off in a blur.
Past Clark stepped out of the elevator, a look of realization on his face. "That's what I become."
Apparently, in the future, mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent was the actual mask, while The Blur, assuming that was still his codename, was his true identity. He'd always wondered if there was a way to show the world his face while still keeping his non-superhero life a secret, but he never would've guessed in a million years that doing so would've only required something as simple as a pair of glasses and slight change of hairstyle. Then again, most people tended not to see what was directly in front of them, so maybe what his future self seemed to be doing could work.
The sound of a loud explosion snapped Clark out of his thoughts as everyone in the Daily Planet rushed over to the windows. Clark headed to the windows too, looking outside as a red and blue blur, which he instantly knew was his future self, shot past.
A moment later, the red and blue blur was already in the distance, flying in circles at full speed around a nuclear explosion in an effort to contain and extinguish the deadly blast, while Clark and everyone else in the Planet watched.
"Mayday, mayday, we've lost control, we're going down," Lois' voice came over a helicopter radio, which got Clark's attention as he turned around and looked at the radio. "Mayday, mayday."
(Daily Planet rooftop)
A helicopter with Lois and the pilot inside was sliding off the edge of the rooftop about to fall to the ground hundreds of feet below when Clark suddenly appeared and caught the tail of the helicopter. Clark carefully brought the helicopter back up and gently set it down on the rooftop.
Inside, Lois smiled at the sight of Clark in the rear view mirror, noticing he was still wearing his blue T-shirt and jeans instead of his Superman suit. As the pilot turned to face her, Lois suddenly elbowed him in the face, knocking him unconscious. It was not something she wanted to do, but she couldn't let anyone see Clark in regular clothes without his glasses.
"What are you doing?" Lois asked Clark in an annoyed tone, as Clark opened the helicopter door on her side and took Lois' hand in his own as she stepped out. "I don't know what's gotten into you, but there is a pilot with a raging migraine when he wakes up who wished you could've at least thrown on the cape."
The two turned to face each other as Clark said, "Lois, you protected my secret."
In response, Lois pulled him into a passionate kiss and Clark returned it without hesitation as police sirens sounded in the distance.
"What else was I gonna do?" Lois said, lovingly. "I would do anything for you. Hardly a news flash. Thank you." They then shared another passionate kiss before letting each other go. "Oh, you drive me crazy."
"I guess I should get going," Clark said, wanting to return to his time as soon as possible.
"Oh, right, obviously," Lois said. "Busy day for a superhero. Don't be late, dinner reservation's at seven."
With that, she headed back inside the Planet as Clark stared after her with a smile. His life in the future was great. He had Lois, he was a superhero no longer hiding in the shadows, it was exactly the kind of life he wanted.
Clark turned around as he felt someone touch him on the shoulder and saw that Braniac had found him.
"Not every man is destined to find a woman like Lois," the Kryptonian super-computer disguised as a human said.
"She's definitely one of a kind," Clark said with a smile, considering himself a very lucky man. "I know why you sent me here now."
"I had intended to be here with you, but you interfered with the ring," Brainiac said, as he held up his hand containing the Legion ring on his finger.
"You wanted me to see how things would be with Lois... And flying," Clark said in realization.
"I wanted you to see that your darkness lies not only in dwelling upon the past, but in fearing the future," Brainiac said.
"I've always hoped my life would be like this," Clark said. "With Lois. Well, with all of it. Lately, I've stopped believing that it could actually happen."
"Well, that's up to you, isn't it?" Brainiac pointed out. "You don't need to worry about the future, Kal-El. You can see that it's just fine as long as you shed the weight of the past. It's just... The next time you decide to defy me, don't strand me back in the dark ages."
Superman was hovering in the air, watching Past Clark with Brainiac 5 from afar as the two disappeared seven years into the past in a purple flash of light. He had felt slightly uneasy watching his younger self's lips crash onto Lois' lips, despite knowing how silly it was having feelings of jealousy, if very small, towards someone who was literally himself. But there was nothing that could've been done about that, since things needed to play out exactly as they had the first time around.
Shrugging off those thoughts now that the time travel business was over and he could finally put that day from seven years ago behind him, Superman muttered, "I promise you, Lois, my 'strange' behavior today will suddenly make sense once I tell you everything over dinner tonight."
With a whoosh, the Man of Steel flew off across the sky in a red and blue blur.
(Evening, Italian Restaurant)
Lois was sitting alone at a table looking at a menu. Finally deciding what she wanted to order, she set the menu down and glanced towards of the entrance of the restaurant for the umpteenth time, hoping to see her husband but let out a frustrated sigh as it was another couple who entered instead. She checked the time on her phone – 7:12 PM.
"Twelve minutes and counting," Lois muttered. "You better have a good reason for being late, Smallville." After a moment, she added in a very low tone, "Of course he has a good reason, Lois. He's Superman. He's probably somewhere saving a bus full of passengers or putting out another building fire or something."
Just then, a waitress approached Lois' table. "What can I get you, miss?"
Lois looked up at the young woman. "Oh, I'm waiting for my husband to arrive. He should be here any minute now."
"Okay, I'll be back in a few minutes," the waitress said with a smile, before heading over to a couple at another table.
Lois checked the time on her phone again just in time to see it change from 7:13 PM to 7:14 PM. With nothing else to do but keep waiting, Lois' mind flashbacked to earlier in the afternoon and Clark's bizarre behavior which she still hadn't managed to get her head around. What the hell was he thinking showing up to work not only without his glasses but in clothes that were all three primary colors just like his superhero alter-ego? Someone could've discovered his secret identity! And why was he acting so confused as if it was his first day at the Planet all over again? As for the Legion ring and him needing it to 'get back', she had chalked that up to Superman-related business, but why did he ask her where it was? He should know more than her where he kept all his magic and extraterrestrial gadgets. Unless...
Now that she thought about it, there had been something different about Clark. His face looked a bit younger, which hadn't occurred to her at the time due to being in a hurry to interview the Mayor. Not only that, but there had been some experience lacking in those blue puppy dog eyes of his. It wasn't until that moment that Clark's strange behavior suddenly made sense. The reason he had shown up to work wearing the wrong clothes, the reason he kept refusing to wear his glasses, the reason he had sat at Jeff Hage's desk although it hadn't belonged to him in years, the reason he acted like he hadn't been in their office on the eighth floor before, the reason he hadn't worn his Superman outfit while saving her at the helicopter, and there was him telling her stuff like 'I'm from another time' and 'I need to get back'... The confused Clark she had seen earlier wasn't the one she knew as her husband, but a past version of him somehow, most likely from the days when he was still The Blur. She didn't know how Past Clark had ended up in the future, or present – time travel was so damn confusing! – but her gut, which she always trusted, told her that was the case. After all, time travel wasn't exactly something new to her or Clark, and that was without mentioning that they also knew about multiple Earths existing.
"Mind if I join you, Ms. Lane?"
The sound of that voice immediately brought a pearly-white smile to her face. Lois stood up and spun around to face the person who had spoken. "Clark!" she gushed. One look at him, along with the fact that he was actually wearing his glasses and dressed in his usual attire, and she knew right away it was her Clark. The Clark Kent of the present. Her husband. Her Smallville. Her soul mate. Her everything.
"Sorry I'm late, Lois," Clark said, as they sat across from each other at the table. "I got caught up in a tsunami on the opposite side of the globe."
"I figured as much," Lois said in understanding. "If it weren't for your major globe-saving duties, I'd be livid. But in your case, you're off the hook. However, if you feel like you need to make it up to me anyway, you can do so by telling me what was going on with you earlier at the Planet, but after we order our food."
Clark picked up the menu on his side of the table and looked at it. Just as he decided what he was going to get, the waitress returned to the table, giving Clark and Lois each a glass of water, and the two ordered their meals. After that, the waitress walked away and headed over to another table as Clark and Lois looked at each other again.
"So, were you able to find your magic time travel ring you were looking for?" Lois asked, despite the conclusion she had come to but was curious to hear what Clark would tell her about the situation.
"About that, Lois, it turned out I didn't need the ring after all," Clark answered, hoping what he was about to tell Lois wouldn't be too difficult for her to understand. "That wasn't exactly me you saw at the Planet today. Well, it was me, but..."
"Not the you from this time period," Lois finished.
Clark looked at her in surprise, not expecting Lois to jump to that conclusion so quickly. "What did you say?"
"Oh, please, honey, between the wardrobe malfunction, your general confusion at the Planet, especially how you were looking like a lost puppy in our office, and you saying you needed to 'get back', not to mention your face looking a bit younger now that I think about it, I figured out it must've been some past version of you," Lois explained. "Tell me I'm wrong, Smallville."
Clark smiled in response, proud that his wife had put two and two together. "I always knew you were pretty smart."
"Well, I didn't become one of the Planet's top reporters solely because of my good looks," Lois remarked.
"Do you remember the five-year high school reunion we attended seven years ago?" Clark asked.
"Of course I remember, Clark," Lois said. "I also remember the ten-year high school reunion we attended two years ago, which was definitely a much better experience than the five-year one. What do our reunions have to do with what happened today?"
"You never asked why I missed our dance at the first reunion," Clark said.
"Well, I figured you had Superman business, or Blur business as it was called at the time, to tend to," Lois said.
"I did actually," Clark nodded. "That business involved Brainiac arriving from the future and showing me key moments of my life."
Lois frowned. "Wait, Brainiac? As in the super-evil robo-Kryptonian who posed as your college professor, tried to destroy the world on more than one occasion, put Lana in that weird coma, and took over my cousin's body?"
"Brainiac hasn't been a threat in years," Clark said. "He was corrupted by Zod, but the Legion of Superheroes from the future repaired him and he's been on our side ever since. The day Brainiac showed up at our reunion was also the day he helped me realize I'd been feeling guilty about the past and worried about the future for too long." Clark paused as he took a deep breath. "One of the time periods he showed me was, um, today."
Lois took a moment to let Clark's words sink in. "Let's see if I'm understanding this correctly. When you disappeared from the reunion seven years ago, you were actually sent to today, which was the future back then but is the present now."
"Exactly," Clark nodded.
"You knew all this time that past you would show up in the Planet on this exact day," Lois said in realization. With a playful smile, she asked, "Did you also know that he was gonna kiss me and I was gonna kiss him?" Her voice then became serious again. "Duh! Of course you knew that since you were... Well, since you were him when you lived through this the first time and... Okay, my head is really starting to hurt now." Her expression then hardened as another realization occurred to her. "Wait! So that's why you were so insistent on me taking the helicopter this morning, isn't it? You knew I'd be in that helicopter when it almost fell off the roof and that past you would save me."
"I had to allow things to play out exactly as I remembered them so the timeline stays intact," Clark explained. "To ensure that you acted naturally while unknowingly encountering my younger self, I couldn't tell you about any of this until after he... after I returned to my time. Otherwise, I would've risked changing things and possibly preventing Past Clark from becoming me."
"Clark, I get it, when it comes to time travel, you're basically walking on eggshells and have to be careful not to crack any of them," Lois said, to Clark's relief as he half-expected her to get angry with him. "I totally understand why you hadn't told me until tonight and why you insisted I take that helicopter."
"I knew you would be in good hands when the helicopter started going down," Clark said. "I'm sorry for putting you through that, Lois, but there really was no other way to handle things without the risk of consequences. If there was, I..."
"You apologize too much, Smallville," Lois cut him off. "Look, it's all in the past now. No more time travel talk for the rest of the evening. That's for Superman to worry about. For right now, all I want is plain ol' Clark Kent."
"And plain ol' Clark Kent is all you'll get tonight, Lois," Clark said, with a smile.
A few minutes later, the waitress brought Clark and Lois their food and the two started eating their dinner.
(Smallville)
It was as peaceful and quiet as one would typically expect at two o'clock in the morning. That was, until a large portal resembling a dark cloud suddenly appeared in the middle of a cornfield. Out of the portal emerged two figures.
One figure was a tall beautiful woman with long blonde hair and blue eyes. She was wearing a blue and red uniform consisting of a long overcoat flowing all the way down to her calves, a red House of El crest marked on the chest. Underneath the overcoat was a tight suit of which only the woman's blue pants and red boots were visible.
The taller figure, whose mere presence bristled with incredible power and even gave off a god-like vibe, was a being resembling a middle-aged African-American man with mutton chops and ridge-like markings on his otherwise bald head. He was garbed in an elaborate navy blue, black, silver, and gold uniform with a thick metallic collar around his neck and a long reddish-orange cape flowing behind him.
"When should I tell my cousin and his friends about the crisis you said was coming?" the blonde woman in blue and red asked.
"You'll know the answer to that question when the time comes," the being named Mar Novu assured her in a deep, authoritative voice. "For the time being, your presence in this time period will better help your cousin and his allies prepare for what's coming. This universe's Kal-El is among the twenty beings essential to saving the Multiverse entire."
"Out of all the heroes in the infinite universes, why Kal-El and whoever those other nineteen beings are specifically?" the woman asked.
"All in good time, Kara Zor-El," Novu said. "We will meet again."
"Wait..." Kara said, but Novu disappeared into a portal, leaving her pondering over everything she and the Legion of Superheroes had learned.
While she didn't one hundred percent trust The Monitor, she had zero doubt that he was telling the truth about an upcoming crisis that could potentially destroy every single Earth in existence. Granted, she had known for a while that Kal-El had visited a parallel world where his evil doppelganger had been raised by Lionel Luthor instead of the Kents, but she would be lying if she said the recent revelation that there were, in fact, infinite Earths didn't surprise her in the slightest.
"I'm back to stay for good, Kal," Kara muttered, smiling in anticipation of seeing her cousin again after having not seen him in years.
With a whoosh, Kara Kent aka Superwoman took off in the air and soared across the dark sky in a red and blue blur.
(Stryker's Island Penitentiary, 2025)
Inside his cell, Lex Luthor was tossing and turning, having what appeared to be a rough night's sleep. Almost two days had passed since Superboy returned him to the prison with no memory of his time-traveling adventures on Earth-1. A series of images were wildly flashing through Lex's mind, including but not limited to:
Nine-year old Lex getting caught in a blast from a crashing meteor and losing his hair during the first meteor shower.
Nine-year-old Lex and young Davis Bloome dueling with wooden swords before the former accidentally exposed the latter to a lead box of kryptonite.
Twelve-year-old Lex crying because no one showed up at his birthday party.
Twelve-year-old Lex discovering his infant brother, Julian, dead in the crib and then finding out their mother, Lillian, had suffocated him.
Twelve-year-old Lex taking the blame for Julian's death and getting hit in the face by an enraged Lionel.
Teenage Lex being bullied at Excelsior Academy by a teenage Oliver Queen.
Teenage Lex angrily beating his only friend Duncan Allenmeyer to a pulp before the latter got hit by a car.
Lex accidentally crashing his Porsche into Clark and being pulled from the river by the latter.
Lex in the barn telling Clark that their friendship would 'be the stuff of Legend'.
Lex in the mansion hesitating the save an injured Lionel during the tornado.
Lex stranded on a deserted island after surviving the plane crash orchestrated by Helen Bryce.
Lex watching the front of Morgan Edge's car get heavily smashed upon crashing into Clark.
Lex in Belle Reve begging Clark to break him out and becoming furious after the latter refused.
Lex failing to escape from Belle Reve.
Lex in Belle Reve during electroshock therapy ordered by Lionel.
Clark ending his friendship with Lex after discovering the latter's secret room containing information and items related to the Kents.
Lex collapsing in the mansion after drinking brandy that had been poisoned by Lionel.
Lex being separated into two beings, one 'good' and the other 'evil', by black kryptonite during an experiment that had gone wrong.
A non-superpowered Clark punching Lex in the mansion and ending their friendship permanently this time after Lex had sent three meteor freaks after Clark to 'test' him.
Lex getting shot on Christmas Eve and experiencing a 'dream world' where he was happily married to Lana with a son.
Lex watching Lana die during childbirth in the 'dream world'.
Lex telling Griff that money and power were the secret to living happily ever after and that he wanted to become senator.
Lex losing the Senate race to Jonathan Kent and his kiss being rejected by Lana on that same night.
Lex kissing Lana as the two began their relationship.
A Kryptonian-powered Lex battling Clark in the barn before the former was possessed by General Zod.
Lex and Green Arrow in the former's office shooting each other simultaneously with a gun and arrow respectively.
Lex and Lana getting married in the church.
Clark and Lex discussing the breakdown of their friendship while trapped in tunnels containing kryptonite.
Lex hitting Lana on the lip after finding out she was leaving him.
Lex getting arrested at Reeves Dam for Lana's 'murder'.
Kara Kent bringing Lex to shore near the dam after saving him from drowning in a police car.
Lex screaming in the rain after having Grant Gabriel killed.
Lex pushing Lionel out of the LuthorCorp window and watching with satisfaction as the older man fell forty stories to his death.
Lex and Clark arguing in the mansion as Lex ranted that someone had to take control and protect the world due to the threats of meteor freaks and rogue aliens being real.
Lex throwing his imaginary 'good half' Alexander in the fireplace after exclaiming that the latter made him weak.
Lex and Clark having their confrontation in the Fortress of Solitude as the former revealed he knew the latter's secret.
The Fortress collapsing on top of Clark and Lex.
A severely injured Lex on life support watching a video screen showing Lana absorbing tremendous amounts of kryptonite to diffuse a bomb on the Daily Planet rooftop.
Lex dying in the truck explosion.
Lex revived under what remained of the burnt down Luthor Mansion after Darkseid had placed Lex's soul inside the body of his clone.
Lex and Clark's conversation about accepting their respective destinies during Darkseid's attempt to take over Earth.
Lex stabbing Tess in the abdomen with a dagger.
A dying Tess wiping the neurotoxin on Lex's face and taking away his memories before succumbing to her wound.
(LexCorp, 2017)
Lex's eyes snapped open as he woke up with a start. He grabbed his head with a groan due to a headache that didn't subside until after a few seconds. Coming to his senses, Lex looked around and, much to his surprise, instead of being in his prison cell at Stryker's Penitentiary, he found himself sitting at the desk in his former office. Was his sister responsible for his mysteriously appearing here? She was the first suspect to come to his mind, since Tess had taken over LexCorp following his imprisonment in 2023 and renamed it M-Corp. Not that Lex wasn't relieved to be out of prison, but whatever his dear little sister was up to, he would find out. Most likely, Tess needed him for something. She wouldn't go through all the trouble of breaking her 'villainous brother' out of prison without a reason, especially given she was one of the Justice League members who had helped put him there in the first place.
Lex then noticed that his mind felt clearer than ever all of a sudden. He remembered. He remembered it all with precise detail. Those seven years living in Smallville. His friendship-turned-enmity with a certain mild-mannered farmboy. His relationship and failed marriage to one Lana Lang. Murdering his father Lionel in cold-blood without an ounce of remorse. Even getting blown up in the truck explosion and his resurrection via Darkseid two years later. Every last memory that his dear sister had taken from him, including the secret identity of the century. As it turned out, Superman had been his best friend once upon a time. A friend who had never trusted him and turned his back on him. Ever since his miraculous second chance at life, Lex had always wondered what it was about the Man of Steel that he inherently distrusted and hated with every fiber of his being. The answer to that question was now clear as day. The hatred for the red and blue caped hero didn't simply stop at him being an unchecked alien of immense power who could destroy the world in the blink of an eye if he wanted to. It was personal.
Just then, the doors to the office opened and a rather overweight man whom Lex was very surprised to see entered.
"Good morning, Mr. Luthor," Otis Berg greeted his boss.
"Otis?" Lex said in disbelief. "You're supposed to be dead."
Otis frowned, stopping dead in his tracks. "Excuse me?"
"How are you alive?" Lex asked, having been the one who had put a bullet between Otis' eyes after the poor man learned too much about one of his illicit secrets, a murder that Lex genuinely took no pleasure in and almost regretted as Otis had been the most loyal and caring personal assistant he ever hired.
"I'm not sure why you would think I'm dead, Mr. Luthor, but I'm here," Otis said, a little nervous. He walked up to Lex's desk and set the cup of coffee in his hand down. "I brought you your usual cup of coffee."
Lex looked at the coffee for a moment before looking up at Otis with narrowed eyes, much to Otis' confusion.
"Why are you looking at me like that? Are you all right, Mr. Luthor?"
"What day is it, Otis?" Lex asked, another thought suddenly occurring to him.
"It's Friday, sir," Otis answered.
"That's not what I meant," Lex said. "What month and what year?"
Otis' frown deepened. "Um, it's October 2017, sir. Are you sure you're all right?"
"Everything is perfect, Otis... Or everything will be," Lex said, smirking with pure satisfaction at the realization that he had been time-displaced eight years into the past and thus given an opportunity to prevent his eventual downfall from happening. With his returned memories and knowledge of the future, it would be much easier to cover his tracks and stay many steps above the one man who had been a constant thorn in his side for years – Kal-El aka Superman, or as he once more knew, Clark Kent, Lex's former best friend and current enemy who had been the closest thing he ever had to a brother until Clark turned his back on him. But Lex would ensure that Clark and those other 'heroes' would not ruin his Presidency and lock him up again. This time around, they would be the ones to meet their downfall.
As a Smallville Clois fan (my favorite couple in all of CW and favorite iteration of Clark and Lois), I really enjoyed writing this chapter, including expanding on the "future" scene from the 200th episode of Smallville with what I think happened later between Clark and Lois after Past Clark went back to his time.
Laura Vandervoort's Kara has officially moved back to the present from the 31st century with news regarding an upcoming crisis that she will keep to herself for a while. Also, 2025 Lex not only regained the memories that Tess wiped from him in the series finale, but his consciousness is now inside the 2017 Lex. As for how it happened, that won't be revealed until later on in the series.