Clark I
He looked down at the business card in his hand. The Daily Planet logo was embossed in one corner. Clark Kent, editor-in-chief, the address and office phone number, fax, email. Editor-in-Chief? He looked at the other man in surprise and increased respect. This Clark Kent couldn't be more than five, possibly ten, years older than himself. He was editor-in-chief of the largest newspaper on the east coast?
He handed the card to Lois and saw the same confusion in her eyes.
"Thank you, Mister Kent," Kal-El said. "We'll do that."
"I'll see you there in a couple hours, then," Clark Kent said. He nodded a good-bye to the other couple and left the waiting room.
"Clark Kent is the editor of the Planet?" Lois muttered. "But he's..."
"A hack from Nowheresville?" Kal-El asked, using X-ray vision to follow his counterpart to the stairwell beside the elevators. "I don't think so, 'Wanda'. He may be wearing a Marvin the Martian tie, but that's not a cheap suit. He is definitely not the Clark Kent you know." He looked back at Lois. "We'd better get over to the Planet. He'll be expecting to find us there."
"And being on Mister Kent's good side will help us how?"
"Don't be difficult, please," Kal-El said. "We're going to need all the help we can get."
Lois I
They were able to catch a cab in front to the hospital and 'Charlie' directed the driver to the Daily Planet. Lois watched her companion out of the corner of her eye. Dressed in a gray three-piece suit, even if it was a little out of date, made him look 'human', approachable, and disconcertingly familiar. Annoyingly familiar.
"So, Charlie, is that your real name?" she asked.
He grinned at her. "No."
"So what is it?"
"Right now I don't think you'd believe me if I told you," Kal-El stated.
She could hear an oddly sad bitterness in his tone and again she felt that odd sensation that she was missing something. Like she was looking all around whatever it was but couldn't focus on it. Her companion was Superman, Kal-El of Krypton, Metropolis's favorite son, savior of the city – just not this city. They had their own Superman. But Kal-El had another name, of this she was positive. And somehow, she knew she once knew his other name.
The cab stopped in front of the Daily Planet building and Kal-El pulled cash from a worn leather wallet to pay the driver. She forced herself to overcome the urge to grab the wallet from him to see what his identification said.
"Coming?" he asked, getting out of the cab.
Wanda climbed out after him, then stopped to gaze, open-mouthed, at the larger-than-life poster set in a display case on the side of the building. Richard White, looking charming and debonair, with a handsome woman standing beside him. The photographed pair smiled out at passersby. The caption read Lane and White, hottest team on the Planet. Lois didn't recognize the woman.
"I see Richard has a counterpart here," Kal-El commented. "And that's Penny Landris, if I'm not mistaken. She's a new hire at our version the Planet."
"How do you know?" she wondered.
"I know," he assured her with a crooked smile, leading the way in to the building.
The lobby held a coffee kiosk and newsstand. The cashier gazed at them incuriously as they made their way to the elevator banks, past framed front-pages of famous events covered by the Daily Planet – the Hindenberg, the first Moon landing, the first appearance of Superman.
"This is dated fourteen years ago," Kal-El pointed out, scanning the articles. "He showed up here five years before I did."
The doors to one of the elevators opened and they entered. Wanda hit the button for the editorial floor. "And Clark Kent is the E-in-C," she said. After a few minutes, the elevator slowed and stopped, the doors opening into the Daily Planet bullpen.
Again, the room was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. The crowded desks, the flat-screen monitors hanging off the support columns, the offices and conference room on the outside walls were familiar components, but the colors were different, warmer. Half the desks were currently unoccupied. Wanda/Lois knew from experience that these reporters were out on the street and would be returning in a few hours to complete their assignments for the next edition.
A petite oriental woman in a blue business suit caught sight of them and strode over to where Lois and Kal-El were standing in the elevator lobby outside the bullpen. "You must be Charlie and Wanda," she said with a wide smile. "I'm Margot Tanaka, Mister Kent's assistant. He called and said you were on your way." She held out her hand and Kal-El shook it.
"You're free to look around, and we have a computer in the conference room if you want to check email or do some research. The visitor's password is taped under the keyboard," she continued. "Or you can wait in Mister Kent's office. Just stay out of the way, but I suppose you know that."
Kal-El and Lois nodded. "We're familiar with newsrooms." Kal-El said. He took Wanda's elbow and guided her to the conference room. "We can use that computer to check out this place," he murmured to his companion.
"I wonder what happened to Perry?" she murmured back.
"Let's find out," he said, closing the conference room door behind them.
Lois II
Lois's contractions were close. She had hold of his hand as he coached her in breathing, panting along with her. "Another big push," he told her. One part of her mind, the reporter, noted his glance at the midwife stationed between her legs. The midwife nodded.
"Come on, push, Lois, push," Clark told her. She grabbed his arm through the surgical gown he was wearing and squeezed. She was thankful he was invulnerable to most things. She'd be leaving bruises otherwise. It wasn't good to leave bruises on her husband, even if he did deserve them, sometimes.
"The baby's crowning," the midwife announced. "Give us another good one, Lois."
Lois was sweating and her hair was damp, pointing in all directions as the latest contraction rolled through her body. She looked a mess, she knew it, and it annoyed her, even though she also knew that Clark didn't care how she looked right now.
She grimaced as she put all her energy into the muscles of her belly, aiding the contraction, pushing the baby out of her body. Another moment's rest and another push. After three previous births, it still wasn't any easier. Why had they decided on having one more? Oh, yes, Clark, an only child and adopted at that, wanted a big family. Well, he was having the next one.
She groaned as yet another contraction hit and she bore down.
"Come on, just a little more," Clark said. The midwife moved even closer and there was a sudden wail from a new life arriving on the scene.
"You have a daughter," the midwife announced, placing the bloody, slimy new arrival on her mother's belly.
"She's beautiful," Clark marveled as Lois caressed the baby's body. He bent closer to his wife and kissed her. "Just like her mother."
Clark I
"Perry's obituary," Kal-El pointed out the article on the computer screen in front of him. "He died of ALS two years ago. Survived by his wife and sons. Kent was the assistant editor and was promoted to E-in-C on Perry's death. He was thirty-eight at the time, which made him the youngest E-in-C in the Planet's history."
"He showed up here about the same time their Superman first appeared," Wanda observed. "Why are you so interested in Kent?"
He chose not to answer her question. She doesn't get it, he thought to himself. Why can't she see it? What did I do to her six years ago that she can't make such an obvious connection?
His thoughts were interrupted by a commotion outside the conference room. Wanda opened the door to listen. A man with reddish-brown hair was standing at the railing to the elevator lobby holding his hands up for quiet. The room had more occupied desks now as the reporters trickled in to write their stories for tomorrow's paper.
"I have an announcement to make, everybody," the man said. He looked to be about thirty-five. "Martha Michaela Kent arrived at 1:44 PM today. Seven pounds, ten ounces. Mother and child are doing fine. Dad is a basket case, as usual." There was a round of applause at the announcement.
Kal-El heard a cry for help somewhere uptown, made a lame excuse to Wanda, and headed for the stairwell to escape the building. The local Superman was busy with family matters and whether or not this was his universe, he was needed.