Disclaimer: Superman and his fellow characters are the property of Warner Bros. Studios and DC Comics, and created by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel.

A/N

I know I have a really unreliable update schedule (actually, I have none) but I refuse to post if it's not good enough. I hope this instalment surprises and entertains. Once again -- don't blame me for the events herein, I'm just relating what Clark whispers in my ear.

Reality is ALWAYS stranger than fiction. This I know.

PS Due to some confusion with this chapter, I'd like to assure you all that our hero is NOT dreaming. However, I think you will agree that "turning back" time is not as simple a thing as Clark described to Ben in the last chapter. The time travel option will be settled -- for good.

--

22 - A Change is as good as a Rest

Ignoring Ben's words, ignoring his own nagging little voice of reason -- that sounds far too much like Jor-El, Clark speeds through the stratosphere and out into space to a specific altitude. There he stops -- 80 kilometres up, 37°North, 122°West -- where his faultless memory replays Lois's harrowing earthly demise.

Fighting for focus, Clark resumes his climb up to the thermosphere, where the unadulterated solar radiation acts on Clark like a powerful narcotic. He wonders if this sensation influenced him – if his choice to save Lois was made rashly and hence a cosmic screw-up.

Desperate for truth, his mind grasps at a memory of an ancient Hopi practice, listening with open heart and unclad eye. Intoning the ancient words -- loud in his mind, but soundless in the thin atmosphere of almost-space, Clark fights to reach a rational/spiritual balance.

Outside of time, the lack of air unimportant, and with no way to tell how long he floats, suspended, Clark slowly comes back to awareness -- awareness of the naked, blue marble beauty of his adopted planet lying below, and himself, Kal-El, bearing silent witness to it all.

Ben still gazes skyward, Jason still sleeps, Martha still dreams, Lois still rants about unfinished articles and bloody I.V.'s to no one in particular.

Thoughts of his life – moments of his time on earth -- ghost before his eyes. Could I die a little to let time be right, relinquish some of my existence to Earth?

If I keep going…

He finds himself flying now, faster and faster –accelerating at an exponential rate. Faster than he remembers, going farther back… before… his birth – before… her birth -- he flies. Before. His arms, before him, become insubstantial and opalescent to his near -unseeing eyes.

Is this…? Is this dea—

"Wake up."

"Wakeup, Kal."

"Clark."

He opens his eyes, and a familiar form – her form, cushions his cheek. With a revelation that steals his strength, he slumps further onto her lap. Her impossible self sits -- eyes heart-breakingly clear, delicate hands -- with dear nail-nibbled fingers, stroking damp strands of strangely masculine, yet silken hair that possess his brow.

"Clark, are you…?"

Superman stumbles to his feet, ready to fly in fear of her words.

I was… did I go back – is this… back?

"Clark."

"Clark's not here, Lois. It's only me."

"Clark… come here."

A thrill chases up his spine, a possibility unfolds its wings and caresses his cheek, and he turns.

She is looking at HIM. She is speaking to HIM.

He is not aware of speaking, but he hears her name in a voice that sounds like his. "Lois?"

"Come here, Superman -- I need to ask you something."

Crestfallen, Clark moves to the bed.

She knows me, but she is still confused about Clark.

Tilting her head, Lois smirks. "You think too hard, y'know that? Let me do some of that severe brain-burning for a change."

Eyebrows quivering a question, Clark tries on a tiny smile, but his chin has other ideas and attempts to take over the territory normally inhabited by his bottom lip.

Lois owns him with her eyes, and forgives all his trespasses with her sad smile. "One, you need to take me home; the food here is… well, it's hospital food.

With a tinkly laugh, and a languorous eye blink, Lois drops the other one…

"Two, I think you need to change into something more comfortable…"

--

They watch each other as they soar together – rising arrow-straight above the hospital grounds. She peeks out around the swaddle of cape and shakes her head. "Why did you…?"

Searching her face for a difference, Clark finds none. Her expression is open and relaxed, almost waiting.

Nothing has changed – has it? She's flirting – she did that from the moment we met. But… before… what was all that? A crazy dream I had -- while asleep in a hospital room? It felt so real.

If this were a plot, I'd demand a rewrite.

Clark, lost in Lois's eyes, misses her question and frowns around a murmur, "Erm - uh?"

"Why did you return, Clark?"

Calling me Clark again, she is so confused. "I… uh, told you there was nothing there."

Watching her face, he sees no resentment– no irritation --only the cloudless vista of her question. "Where?"

Hesitating in their motion upward… as if his mind can't grasp the wide open sky reflected in her face, he blurts. "K… Krypton… Krypton."

"You're not making any sense, Sweetie. It's a simple question."

Landing on her balcony, Clark falters, Jason?

Jason's heartbeat. I can't hear it.

Gliding out of his arms with thoughtless ease, Lois stretches, then turns to him, and shakes her head at him as if he was a big puppy finished his business -- and in need of further instruction, "Well… are you coming in -- or do I have to call Martha and get you in trouble."

Mom –

"Lois, what year is it?"

Stricken by his words, Lois runs to him and grabs his forearm as if he might float away from her, "Clark, I thought that whole thing with Doomsday was over."

Her face darkens with fear and she backs away from him, bumping a patio chair, its clanging sound deafening to his super-sensitive hearing -- still searching for signs of his son's existence.

Lois's voice turns shrill, "Are you… YOU? You passed out after the sonogram –- you never pass out."

Looking, as if for the first time, at her lovely face, Clark realizes he may not know this woman. Fear, like a chill shaft of Arctic hoarfrost, arrows through his heart. "Lois why were you in the hospital?"

Clinging to the ironwork chair like a shield, Lois's heart rate spikes, and Clark feels a deep pang of sorrow for her. Her voice drops to a pitiable whisper, "Now you really aren't making sense."

Clark softens his voice to match, and crouches to her level. "This is me, honey. Indulge me, please?"

"O-kay. Um, after the first try was… well, after our first try, you thought I needed closer care.

First try…

"You put me in hospital overnight just because of a little flutter. She's fine, honey, our baby's ok."

Focusing his hearing, Clark notices what he was ignoring – a foetal heartbeat. His own heart pounds with the implications, but before he can formulate an answer – before he can even begin to try to conceive the reality he may have inadvertently created, Lois's patio table turns into a Llama.

Beside the fact that the matching chairs decide to join the table, by sprouting four legs and finding grass to munch on the formally concrete patio, more importantly, Lois's edges begin to curl around her as if she were a drawing on a piece of paper crumpled in a giant hand -- with only Clark as witness.

The blue sky absorbs the Lois-image, and Kal-El finds himself flying again -- his head jerking to either side to get his bearings at the colossal speed of his trajectory.

Determined to end this before it gets any worse, Clark forces a stop, which is so sudden, the very air crackles with the friction, and he hears Jason below, calling for him. Rocketing to earth, he finds his son sobbing at the centre of a cornfield, pointing to the east. Clark's eyes follow Jason's finger to a huge conflagration on the horizon. Scooping up his baby, Superman speeds to the fire, his mother's home the epicentre, Jason sobbing "I'm sorry" in his ear, all the way.

No sound.

He is in darkness.

"Am I moving? Am I dead?"

"No -- on both counts, but the second choice may change if we are late today. Get up sleepyhead, or Perry will have both of ours on a silver platter – for breakfast."

A light turns on, and Lois continues, "You're moving into your new office! So, move it, move it." To Clark's' bemusement, Lois, in pink Supergirl PJ's, dances the silly tune into the walk-in closet, while Clark drags himself out of bed.

Bed?

Okay… we're married? Heading to the bathroom, Clark glances into the mirror over the sink --

-- and sees Richard White staring back, his own shock transmuted by the features of a stranger.

--

TBC

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