Clark was floating with his son Jonathan high over Smallville and reached out his hearing in the hopes to hear future Lois and/ or Coach Gaines nearby. But he couldn't detect them.
"How could she escape?" Clark asked.
"She probably used my teleportation-crystal! The one I have only works with me. Maybe she has one that works with everyone?" Jonathan explained.
"Maybe? Who knows what else you did/ will do in Siberia?" Clark said.
"What if she returned to my fortress in the future?"
"But why she should take Gaines with her? Or would you let him in there?"
"I wouldn't even let you or Jordan in there, after everything I heard!" Jonathan moaned, which almost caused his father to drop him.
"Ehm… well…" Clark moaned before he looked down on Smallville below them. "Okay, but just one more question! Why Chisinau?"
Jonathan only shrugged. "My future-self told me when we were alone briefly, that Moldova will be the very first country that prohibits Jordan from entering or crossing its airspace. And I got curious! Pretty nice place! And nice people!"
"Yes, it is! Your mother loves the wine from there…" suddenly Clark got an idea. "Could it be…"
"What?"
"I once took your mother for a trip to a winery in Moldova. There was this beautiful forest nearby where we… no… no your mother would never bring Gaines there!" Clark said.
In a certain forest, that had a much different meaning for Lois, Coach Gaines realized that he was in trouble…
"Miss Lane?" Gaines wailed. But Future-Lois didn't say anything. She only waited for Gaines to sit upright before she slapped him across his face.
"OW… What was that for?" Gaines said shocked. Feeling the urge put his hand on his cheek that was burning from the slap.
"You know exactly what for! WAIT HERE! And don't even try to run away! You wouldn't make it far! Do you know why the Soviets had no fences around many of their Siberian gulags?"
"What? Soviets? Gulags?" Gaines was confused.
"They had no fences because the prisoners wouldn't dare to run away! Because they wouldn't survive a day out there!" Future-Lois said and vanished after using the teleportation-crystal again. Leaving the shocked football coach alone in Sibeira.
Over Smallville…
Clark tried to localize the mad future version of his wife. But he couldn't hear her. Just a second later, suddenly Jonathan's phone start to ring. He pulled it out of his pocket and saw that it was Lois.
"Hey mom… your guess was right! But we were to late!" Jonathan said putting his phone on loudspeaker.
"She could be everywhere!" Lois murmured through the phone. "Aww… When I think about her, she could go after other people from Smallville…"
"For example…?" Clark asked.
In the basement of his parent's house, Timmy Ryan rushed through the space, searching all his hideouts and all places where he once hid his X-K inhalers.
Thanks to Gaines' fixation on Kent, he once escaped the worst fallout of the X-K disaster. And he was lucky that both Kent and Candice never told any names. But now he was in trouble. When Gaines' falls, he will pull him with him. People were already talking about him and some of his former teammates (mainly those who he wasn't on best terms with) were just waiting for the moment to tell everyone that he and Gaines were working together. All the lies he told his mother were about to get uncovered.
So, he searched the place for all his stuff and mentally prepared for the worst. When Timmy was done in the basement, keeping sure that everything was gone, he went to the tool shed in the garden. He had to get his stuff out there and bury it somewhere safe before anything happens.
But Timmy never reached the tool shed, as he got shot by Lois' self-charging future stun gun from the from behind…
Up in the sky, Clark turned his head around when he heard a teenager grunting as if he was in pain…
"Can you hear anything, Dad?"
"I don't know… Maybe that was nothing!" Clark said and looked down again before he looked on Jonathan again who was still in his arms. "Jonathan, would you mind if you…"
"Understand! If I find her, I will scream…" Jonathan said before he put his hand on the Kryptonian wristwatch again and disappeared in a flash of blue light.
"Agghh… I will never get used to that…" Clark moaned, thinking about it.
Jordan literally could visit every place on Earth thanks to his flying powers. A thought he honestly feared of, since he couldn't prevent his son going to places, he shouldn't be. With Jonathan it was easier, since he would always know that he is on the farm. A thought that was actually pretty unfair, since Clark figured out what it means to be struck on the farm. And now Jonathan could go to every place on Earth, till he learns to fly one day! And that without him! It hurt… since Clark realized that it is one more thing, he will miss just because of his dumbness…
A loud explosion tore Clark out of his thoughts…
Clark looked down and saw a fireball and a thick black cloud of smoke rising from a neighborhood in the western part of town. A tool shed in a garden was on fire. People were screaming. Windows shattered….
"DAD… I am on the roof of the firehouse, and I saw an explosion. South Sherman Street!" Clark heard Jonathan yelling just a second before he heard the alarm in the firehouse go on. Obviously, Jonathan teleported to the roof of the firehouse and used that spot as an outlook. A good choice, as he could also turn on the fire-alarm and alert his colleagues.
Clark speeded to the explosion site and saw a big crater. Three surrounding gardens were destroyed, and many windows shattered. A man and a woman who were working in their garden were injured. Clark flew towards them and brought both to the street where they would be quickly found by the paramedics. A quick scan with his x-ray-vision revealed that the couple had only minor injuries.
"What happened?" Superman asked.
"The Ryan's tool shed… it suddenly explodes…" the woman cried and coughed.
"Ryan?" Suddenly Clark remembered where he knew this address from: From his time as an assistant coach, when he got a list of the players with all phone-numbers and addresses for emergencies. This tool shed belongs to Timmy Ryan's family.
"I knew that Ryan-boy was hiding something in there…" the man said, holding his bleeding forehead. "…that boy was always suspicious…"
Superman speeded into the garden and was shocked to see her again…
Future-Lois just stood there. A package of matches in her left hand and an empty gasoline canister in her right. A burning trail leading over the lawn in front of her, to the place where once the tool shed stood. The Ryan's house was severely damaged, too. Whatever was inside the tool shed, had a huge firepower. Burning debris was spread everywhere and start to set the surrounding houses on fire. And due to the hot weather and the dried-out vegetation, the fires spread quickly. With his superspeed and his ice breath Clark rushed to extinguish all smaller fires in the surrounding gardens and homes, before he extinguished the fire in the Ryan's garden and their house and landed in front of Lois.
"What the hell were you doing?" Clark asked shocked about this.
The elder Lois didn't even flinch when Clark stood in front of her and demanded answers. She just indicated on the burned leftovers of the tool shed and the crater.
"What does it look like?" The elder Lois said with a shrug and an expression as if she was crazy. "I destroyed Timmy Ryan's X-K shop!"
"What…" Clark said shocked and turned around to see. There was not much left of the shed. But Clark could detect tiny leftovers of X-K in the crater. As well as a box full of inhalers, that were laying in the grass because Timmy Ryan got no chance to hide them before he was tasered.
Clark turned around again in shock, but the elder Lois had used the distraction and vanished…
"Dammed!" Clark cursed to himself and departed into air again, right when he saw his son and his fire-fighter colleagues arriving with howling sirens at the scene. They can handle everything here by themself.
"Dad, just in case you hear me, this is Timmy Ryan's house. He was the one who began with the X-K in the team." Jonathan said while Clark could hear him leaving the firetruck.
"She could go after other team-members… everyone who has a connection to the X-K!" Clark thought.
"Dad, can you hear me?" Jonathan's voice said. "I see you over us! Wave if you can hear me!"
Clark looked down and waved to show Jonathan that he hears him. Jonathan continued moving around, doing his stuff.
"Dad, I think she goes not exclusively after those from the team… she could…"
BOOM!
Jonathan couldn't finish as he heard and saw the terrible explosion in a garage just one block away. Jonathan, his fire-fighter colleagues and all pedestrians and onlookers turned around to see the huge flash flame rising.
"What is she doing?" Jonathan yelled shocked, while Clark sped towards that garage in a street with many small houses of low-income-households.
Once again, Clark used his ice-breath to extinguish the flames before they could spread on the nearby houses.
"What is she planning?" Clark wailed before he took a closer look into the destroyed garage. He was shocked when he found a box with molten X-K-inhalers in between the debris… "…how many people in this town deal with X-K?"
Suddenly Clark could hear a piecing scream of a young woman…
"WHO ARE YOU? WHAT DO YOU WANT? AGHHH…"
Clark detected the origin of the scream in a house at the other end of town and flew over there. He passed the Ryan's house again to see Jonathan again working with the others.
This was actually the first time; Clark saw his son in his full fire-fighter gear. And Clark had fullest respect of his son's job. Back then he thought it was only good for the boy to keep him busy and distracted. But now Clark understood that this job gave Jonathan really a feeling to be special, too. And that was hard, without Superpowers in a family of supers!
Clark speed into a big house at the other end of town to find a pale and totally scared teenage girl sitting on the floor of her bedroom.
"What happened?"
"Superman?!" The girl said astonished and looked at Clark with big eyes. "Superman… I was in my room when suddenly that old scary lady appeared and thread me with a weird looking gun… it was… a stun gun… YES, A STUN GUN!"
"A stun gun?!" Clark repeated. It would explain how the weak and sick future-Lois was able to kidnap Gaines and probably Timmy Ryan that easy.
"She was yelling on me to give her the video. I said I already posted it online and she demanded to see it. So, I showed it to her. She nodded, said that it was well done and told me to share it more before she suddenly vanished in a blue light… poof and gone!"
"Grey hair and scars?"
"Yes!"
"Which video?"
The girl reached out with trembling hands to her phone that was laying on the ground next to her. The screen was cracked from when she dropped it in shock. She opened a video she just posted on 'X' a few minutes ago and turned around the phone to show it to Clark.
Clark was shocked to see another video of Gaines harassing Jonathan. This time while he was helping with the preparation for the meteor shower. Jonathan's face was pixelated out, but Clark could still see that Gaines' words hurt Jonathan.
"Gaines is such an asshole! So many people hate him! I thought it would help to get him fired!" The girl explained.
"Does…. The boy in that video know that you publish it?" Clark asked carefully.
"No! Should I have asked him before? I mean that's why I edited the video to don't show his face! I didn't want him to get in trouble… I think his parents want him to endure everything without stepping up and defend himself…"
"It's okay!" Clark said before getting one more reminder of his many mistakes. "Do you know where that woman went to?"
"No! Agghhh… In this town live only criminals and lunatics! Be happy that you don't live here, Superman! This town would turn you into a supervillian!" The girl said still scared and huddled herself together on the ground again.
Clark thought about the irony of this sentence, as the girl does not know that he really lives here, and that the move to Smallville really changed him for the worse… but suddenly he heard another woman scream and he realized that the chaos wasn't over yet…
"You're out of danger! But go to your parents or a friend and calm down!" Clark told that girl and vanished in a blur out of the house.
Clark flew to another house; he immediately recognized as Coach Gaines' house and was shocked to see a couple trying to break in with an axe.
"WHERE IS HE?" the woman yelled.
"TELL THAT BASTARD TO COME OUT AND SHOW HIS UGLY FACE TO US!" the man yelled.
"HE IS NOT HERE! PLEASE…" Mrs. Gaines yelled scared from inside. Windows and door were barricaded with furniture from inside.
Clark used his superspeed to place himself between the damaged door and the woman with the axe. The axe hit Clark's invulnerable chest and got deformed immediately, forcing the couple to shy back in shock.
"Superman!" they yelled shocked when they realized that they just hit Superman with an axe. If it wouldn't be Superman, they would have killed him.
"What is going on here?" Superman demanded, already forgetting the axe.
"The bastard who lives here killed our son!" the woman cried, bursting out in tears.
"He got away with it and now he is bullying the pupils in this town!" the man added. "That man does not belong into a school! He belongs into a prison!"
"Calm down! You make it only worse!" Superman said, raising his hands. "Tell me what happened!"
The couple start to tell how their son committed suicide after the football-team of his school bullied him so terribly, and even under Coach Gaines' presence. Gaines never interfered and even encouraged his players to bully. Preventing even the called police to interfere. It led to Gaines' immediate suspension and a judge ordered that Gaines is never ever allowed to work as a coach.
"Or course he had to look for a dirty town, full of hostile people to continue his way…" the woman yelled, hurting Clark's view on Smallville even more! "This man should be banished to Siberia!"
"Siberia?" Clark realized again. Future-Lois wouldn't bring Gaines to her son's fortress, but he would be brought to the place, his latest victim spent his exile. "Of course, that's it!"
In a blur Superman vanished out of sight…
"HEY, you can't leave me alone with them!" Mrs. Gaines yelled scared before she ran into her house again and barricaded the front door again. The angry couple using their hands this time to fight their way inside…
Clark flew back to the Ryan's house, that was severely damaged from the explosion, but the fire was out. Jonathan was talking with the shocked and worried Kyle about the recent events when Clark landed right next to them and put on a neutral face for possible witnesses.
"Please excuse me Mr. Fire-Chief, but I have to ask a few questions to this young man!" Clark said loudly for any possible witnesses before he took his son and flew away with him. Kyle meanwhile turned around and told everyone who witnessed it that there is nothing to see, and that Jonathan only helps Superman…
Clark flew his son and himself back to the school, entered the building and went with him into a teaching material storage that was luckily unlocked, thanks to Gaines' previous search.
"What do we want here?" Jonathan asked confused.
"I have an idea… We talked about Siberia before!" Clark explained and searched the room for a right map. "Lois wouldn't bring Gaines and Timmy Ryan to your fortress. But she would bring them to the place where it will stand one day!"
"Because she blames them for my exile, too! But why now and why them?" Jonathan asked while his father found a big bulky wrapped up map in the shelve and walked over to him again.
"Who knows? Your future self told us about how our secret got exposed! Maybe they were somehow involved or tried to profit from it? I mean… they are your achenemys…" Clark guessed and spread the big map on a table to show it to Jonathan.
"The Soviet-Union?!" Jonathan read on the top of the map. "Dad, how old is this map?"
"Older than me!" Clark confessed and lowered his head. "This school is really not the best!"
Clark put his hand on the map and indicated Siberia. A wide area of thousands of miles. Suddenly Clark overcame this odd feeling again.
"Am I really going to tell you now where I am going to spend my exile?" Jonathan asked with a raised eyebrow.
Clark looked down on that map again, remembering the geography classes in his old High-School-time and the unmotivated teacher. It was odd… thinking about Jonathan going into exile. And that to Siberia?! Jonathan, the big city boy! Unimaginable that he goes to Siberia. Into a wide uninhabited rural area! Will/ was Jonathan in the future be so sick of other people that he really goes that far?
"I must really hate you to do that?" Jonathan said after a few seconds.
Clark took a deep breath. "I know! And it will haunt me for the rest of my days. You… had to endure way more than you should had. I expected from you to give up more than you should. To do things, you didn't actually want to do! And believe me… I have lost my faith in Smallville already! You were right about this town!"
With big eyes, Jonathan looked over to his father and couldn't believe what he just heard. Clark noticed that and looked to his son, too.
"I spent the entire last week thinking about everything. Now that I don't have anything to do with your brother, I got a lot of free time to think about your words and take a closer look on the people here…"
Clark's eyes were suddenly full of sorrow. It was obvious that he was ashamed…
Future-Lois appeared in front of Gaines and the still unconscious Timmy Ryan in the Siberian-forest and had one more hostage with her…
Sam knew he was in trouble. He got caught! His plan to discreetly recruit Jordan and Natalie failed. And not only that. Now he wasn't allowed to contact any of them, they, Jonathan, and their parents were all extremely mad on him, and he was alone now.
He should have known better that it would hurt Jonathan's feelings if it turned out that he only went fishing with him in the past, because he wanted to prepare a good relationship with him when his powers kick in. Jesus, when he excluded Jonathan from his training with Jordan, he literally yelled it into his face. And now Sam could only hope that his attempts to apologize to everyone will help.
Sam just made more notes when suddenly someone appeared right behind him, grabbed him by his shoulders and the next thing he knew was that he suddenly fell into the muddy ground in a wide forest…
"AGH… What's going on?" Sam yelled shocked when he was suddenly sitting in the mud. Unable to move or to stand up as he was still paralyzed after his captivity.
"Shut up! You have destroyed my family just as much as they! "
Sam turned around and was shocked to see a much elder Lois standing over him, pointing with a taser on him. Older! And with scars.
"Lois? What happened to you?" Sam asked shocked.
"Say one more word and I do with you what your soldiers did to my son!" Future-Lois thread and turned around.
That was the moment Sam could see that there were also that awful Coach and the drunken boy from the party where he once found his grandsons. Latter was still unconscious and didn't even notice what happened around him, or where he was.
"So that is really Miss Lane! You will bleed for that! I will press charges…" Gaines began to rant, already planning to use this to get the unwanted Kents out of his life and his businesses. But he couldn't finish, because Future-Lois slapped him across his face again.
"SHUT UP! You dirty bastard… when I am done with you… nobody will ever believe you ever again…" Future-Lois yelled and turned to her father. "And now to you…"
"Lois, is that really you?" Sam asked totally shocked again. How could Lois age more than 20 years in only a week. "You… you are from that future, too? Yes, you came back in time, too to…"
"Shut up! Give me only one reason to listen to you?"
"Because I let a friend at the DOD make some research and send the parents of the boy, this lousy coach killed a message with his adress…"
"You did what?" Gaines yelled shocked. If that is true… his wife will kill him when he returns.
Back in Smallville…
With a deep breath, Jonathan put his finger on a certain place on the map between the cities of Irkutsk and Yakutsk after thinking about his father's apology…
"I was brooding a lot about us. About me and about Jordan's powers. And after spending hours and hours of thinking after everything that happened on election-night I start to look over Google-Maps and thought about a place to go and spend the rest of my life there in absolute loneliness. I didn't want a place like you with your first fortress. I wanted a place where it becomes summer, too."
Jonathan made a circling gesture with his finger on the map.
I don't tell this to you because I believe you. Hell, I got so many empty apologies in my life, I shouldn't even listen to you anymore. But I don't want to get the blame for Gaines' and Timmy's deaths by the town, just because they want to." Jonathan said showing his father the place he chooses long ago. "Here is the river. Here is Yakutsk. This is a wide forest. I saw two tiny round lakes directly next to each other on Google Maps. Far away from the next village. I imagined how it would be at this place. If my fortress must be somewhere, it would be placed it here!"
Clark looked on the spot and nodded. "It's at least worth a try! Jonathan, go back and keep your eyes open! Before she blows up another building in town!"
And in a blur, Clark was gone…
Jonathan looked on the map again and decided to interfere, too. He turned around, put his hand on his Kryptonian-teleporter and focused on the spot he once choose. Hoping to not to meet any bears there…
Jonathan was so focused on his thoughts, that he didn't notice the cranky mother, who was still tied-up on that chair, hopping with the chair through the corridor, in her hopes to find someone to free her from her misery. She heard voices in that room with the open door and went closer.
When she was able to look inside, she only saw Jonathan Kent, in a firefighter-suit and how he disappeared in a bright blue light…
"AGH… WHAT THE… Aww… How hard was the punch against my head?" she wailed before fainting…
Clark flew at high speed around the globe, crossed the Pacific Ocean and the fortress again, and reached East-Asia, overflew Japan, East-Russia, and the region of Yakutia before finding the spot, Jonathan told him… including Lois, Gaines, Timmy Ryan and even Sam…
"Stop it!" Clark yelled when he was floating over the scene.
"Stay out of it, as if you understand it!" Lois yelled back to Superman.
"Superman, she crazy!" Gaines yelled scared.
"Stay out of it!" Superman and Lois both yelled in unison back to Gaines who was offended.
"EVERYONE QUIET!" suddenly Jonathan yelled. "Don't do it!"
Everyone looked around and was shocked and surprised to see Jonathan standing there. Especially Future-Lois who suddenly had tears in her eyes again. Clark meanwhile was shocked that Jonathan decided to join them here.
"Don't do it!" Jonathan said again. "It will not help!"
"I can't… I can't…" Future-Lois cried desperately, waving around with the stun gun again.
"I don't want this! Our future does not want it! We will find a solution together!" Jonathan said with a calm voice and went a step closer. "Wasn't it always you who praised the right way? Let's do that way! The future has already been prevented! Nobody will get hurt…"
"NO!" Future-Lois yelled, pointing with the gun on Gaines again, who shrieked again. "He will not stop! As soon as Luthor figures out who he is, he will do everything to get him out of prison…"
"Then we prevent it! He can fly him directly to Stryker's Island and there he will…" Jonathan tried to appease her but Lois cried again.
"Stryker's Island is entirely ruled by Luthor! He will live like a king in there! He did so after you got locked up in the lab…" Lois cried.
"I won't let it happen!" Jonathan said and went closer.
Everyone was stunned about Jonathan's coolness. Gaines wanted to let out some rants and offences, but he was just too shocked. Sam knew it was better to remain silent and Clark decided to trust Jonathan. By now he was always the one who had the best influence on her…
"You went through a lot! I know what you think. And I have decided to not let any more bad things happen to me! I don't speak my plans out loudly, so none of those can ever try to prevent them… Let's go! Just us two! We go somewhere alone and talk about this in private, okay? We don't need any of them! Not Superman, not Coach soon-to-be-cracky, not General Egoist… just me and you…"
"NO, JONATHAN…" Clark yelled and landed next to them.
"Superman… why not fly those people back to the United States! I take care of this woman." Jonathan said calmly.
Future-Lois burst out in tears again and fell on her knees. Sobbing uncontrollably before Jonathan kneeled and hugged her.
"Everything will be fine… There, there… There, there…" Jonathan said when they hugged.
Future-Lois sobbed more and more before she and Jonathan suddenly vanished in a bright blue light into nothing. Leaving the shocked witnesses alone…