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Luthor studied the new formulas on the board. “I can’t have made that big of mistake,” he kept repeating to himself. But it was clear that Superman was right. He had miscalculated the effects of the kryptonite radiation. Kryptonite was about as radioactive as basalt as far as humans and earthly materials were concerned. He knew that Superman was sensitive to it, but it had frankly not occurred to him that other Kryptonian materials would be affected in the same way.

And the AI hadn’t said anything about it. Was it possible that the Kryptonians hadn’t known all that much about kryptonite?

Superman had left the data crystals with him, along with the simple reader. Luthor was not surprised to discover the little device was only a reader. Unlike humans, Superman rarely repeated his mistakes except for the one of being overly trusting. And with the Lane woman at his side, he wasn’t likely to repeat that mistake. And what was with those geeky glasses?

‘He lived among us,’ Luthor had told Kitty Kowalski at Superman’s fortress. Did his human identity wear glasses? How deliciously ironic. Superman didn’t wear a mask but his human identity did.

Luthor wondered briefly who it was then shrugged it aside. He had more important things to worry about at the moment – like saving his own skin from the upcoming cataclysm.

Luthor knew that if he only had time, he could no doubt devise a way to reprogram these crystals to do his bidding. But there was no time.

No time.

‘Spin the world backwards and make it never happen?’ Superman had asked. Luthor knew he was speaking from frustration and anger, but it was an idea. We can’t manipulate space or the matter in it fast enough to do us any good, but maybe…

He erased the equations from the board and began to write.



“Anything?” Lois asked. Clark had been reviewing the crystals ever since they’d come back from seeing Luthor. The only break he’d taken was when Mike showed up with coffee for him.

Clark sat back in his chair. “I’m missing something.” He ran his hands through his hair, mussing it even further. “With everything they knew, all the scientific knowledge they collected, no one ever ran across this problem? Not one of the civilizations they knew had ever had a terra-forming project that went bad on them and had to be reversed?”

“Clark, you’re tired,” Lois said. “Maybe if you walk away from it for a while, eat something, get some sleep…”

“There’s no time.”

She sighed. Lois had wondered where Jason had gotten his quiet stubbornness from. There was little doubt now that he got it from Clark.

“Clark, tired people make mistakes, miss things. Besides, your mom’s going to be annoyed if you miss dinner.” She jerked her head to bring his attention to the room beyond the office. It was dark, the only light coming from a single monitor – her monitor. “Everybody else left hours ago,” she added.

With a sigh, Clark touched the data reader and the figures in the air vanished. He collected the crystals together and tucked them into his coat.

Lois’s apartment was only a few blocks from the Daily Planet building. It was snowing and they were the only ones out on the street.

“How mad are you at me?” he finally asked. The question surprised her. Based on their conversation when he arrived, she thought he had no reason to assume she would be angry with him.

“Mad about what?” she asked. “That you didn’t trust me enough to let me know your real name, or that you left without saying goodbye?”

Clark opened his mouth to say something then snapped it shut. “I’m sorry,” he said after a long moment. “I thought… I never meant to hurt you. Please believe that.”

She stopped and faced him. “Clark, we don’t have time right now to worry about my hurt feelings. If we don’t survive it won’t make any difference and if we do, I’ll rip you a new one then, okay?”

He chuckled in the darkness. “Okay.”



It was almost like being home, Clark realized. His mom had dinner ready and even though Ben was no substitute for his father, he was a good man and it was obvious his mom had feelings for him.

Dinner was simple – roast chicken with potatoes and canned vegetables. The servings were small. Food was being rationed, as was fuel. Apparently there’d been hope that the authorities would loosen things up for the holiday, but that didn’t seem to be happening.

Not that any of it will matter if I don’t come up with a solution.

Lois, Martha, and Ben tried to keep to cheerful subjects over dinner. No one wanted to upset Jason but it was hard keeping up a brave front. Jason was a bright boy and he knew there was something wrong, even if he didn’t know what it was.

“Grandma, are we going to end up like Krypton?” he finally asked.

“Oh, I hope not, dear,” Martha told him. Jason seemed content with that and went over to the coffee table to draw while the grownups sat around the cleared off dining table. Despite the gravity of the situation, just sitting around the table with Lois, his mom, and Ben, seemed ‘right’.

He took in the apartment. It was simple with not much in the way of furniture. A few toys and not nearly as many books as Clark expected – it seemed that Lois had packed in a hurry for the move to Denver. There were no Christmas decorations, even though Christmas Eve was tomorrow night.

Lois seemed to read his mind. “I honestly thought Bruce was being overly cautious and we’d be back in Metropolis before we knew it. So I only packed what we’d need for a week.” She left the table and opened a trunk in the corner. When she came back she was holding a photo album. “Richard insisted we pack the photo albums. I thought he was crazy, lugging them along. Now it’s all we have. Ron, Lucy’s husband, was overseas and Lucy wouldn’t leave without him. My dad was in D.C…”

Lois was fighting to keep from crying. Clark watched his mother rub her back, comforting her.

None of this would have happened if I hadn’t left.

After a moment Lois wiped her face and opened the album. The first page revealed photos of a pregnant Lois at the Daily Planet. “Jimmy designated himself my personal photographer and chronicler,” Lois said with a little laugh.  The Lois in the photos wasn’t smiling as brightly as the Lois he remembered. In the background Richard White seemed to hover around her. Then photos of a newborn Jason with his eyes screwed shut and a proud and tired Lois in a flowered hospital gown.

Lois’s smiles were brighter in the photos as Jason grew to sturdy toddlerhood, and White was with them. Clark gave her a curious look and she smiled apologetically. “I met Richard just after I realized I was pregnant. We got along well and he was there for me when Jason was born. Eventually he asked me to marry him and I said yes.”

“So why isn’t he here with you?” Clark asked. He had overheard that Richard was living with Perry and Alice. Richard was the only family they had left after Armageddon, but Clark wasn’t sure how he should feel about Lois being in a relationship with another man. A relationship that may not have happened if he hadn’t been such a fool. He didn’t have the right to be jealous, but he did anyway.

“The time never seemed right to actually tie the knot,” Lois said quietly. “Then Luthor happened. The rest is, as they say, history. A pretty short one from the looks of it.”

As Lois was speaking Martha and Ben grabbed their coats and headed for the door.

“Clark, try to get a few hours sleep, okay?” his mother ordered.

“Where are you going at this time of night?” Clark asked.

“Martha and I volunteer at the hospital. We’re on the late shift this week,” Ben explained as they went out the door.

So many changes and no time to assimilate them. No time.

Lois studied Clark’s face. “You really do look tired,” she said. “You can take my bed.”

“And where will you sleep?”

She smiled. “The sofa’s not so bad.”

“You’re sure? I mean, I don’t want to be any trouble.”

“Clark, you need to get some rest if you’re going to pull off the miracle we need. Just don’t be surprised if Jason crawls into bed with you… Now get to bed.”

Clark had to admit he was more tired than he ever remembered without being exposed to kryptonite. He wasn't sure if it was mental exhaustion or physical. The kryptonite mass of Luthor’s abomination was still growing. It was possible the radiation was now strong enough to get to him, even through the mass of the Earth. He didn’t want to think about that.

He stripped down to his shorts in the privacy of Lois’s bedroom and fell into the bed. He could smell her scent, and Jason’s, in the sheets and pillows. It was strangely comforting.

I have a son. I should never have left.

He fell into an uneasy sleep.

He was flying high above the Earth. The clouds billowed white against an azure sky. Then the clouds turned dark, lightning arcing across the sky.

“It is forbidden for you to interfere with human history,” a voice thundered. It was Jor-El’s voice.

Another, less forbidding, voice rang out. “…there's a reason why you're here.” Jonathan Kent’s voice.

The two voices rang out over the thunder cracks of the storm.

“It is forbidden for you to interfere with human history.”

“There's a reason why you're here.”

Kal-El covered his ears with his hands to block out the voices.

“It is forbidden for you to interfere with human history.”

“There's a reason why you're here.”

Finally he simply screamed.

“Clark?” Lois asked. There was worry in her voice. Clark opened his eyes to see her standing in the bedroom doorway, light shining behind her.

He sat up in the bed, gratified he hadn’t done any damage to the room during his nightmare.

“Are you okay?” she asked softly.

“A bad dream.”

She stepped closer. “Want to talk about it?”

“No… Yes…”

She sat down on the edge of the bed and waited.

“When I was learning to become Superman, Jor-El…”

“Who?”

“My Kryptonian father. He sent along an AI of himself to guide me, teach me. He kept telling me that it was forbidden for me to interfere with human history,” Clark said. “Not human destiny, but history. Always that specific word. I never understood what he meant, I mean why send me to Earth where I’d have all these gifts if I wasn’t to use them? Why train me to use them?”

“That was your nightmare?”

He swallowed hard before going on. “Sort of.  One of the last things my father, my Earth father, said to me, the last thing really, was ‘There's a reason why you're here. Don't ask me what reason. Don't ask me whose reason. But whoever, and whatever, there's one thing I do know... It ain't to score touchdowns.’”

“He sounds like a wise man.”

“He was.”

“And the nightmare?”

He took a shaky breath. “I was flying and there was a storm. They were in the thunder, both of them. It was so loud. I felt it was tearing me apart. Like I was supposed to choose between them, only I don’t know why or how. And I knew that whichever one I chose to follow, I would die.”

“It was just a dream,” Lois said. She had moved closer to rub his back the way Martha had done for her earlier.

“I don’t think so. I think the key is there. ‘It is forbidden for you to interfere with human history.’ That’s what Jor-El kept saying.”

“But history is the past and no one can change the past,” Lois said. “Can they?”

“I guess it must be possible, otherwise Jor-El wouldn’t have forbidden me to do it.”

“So, how would you do it, go back in time I mean?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll check the crystals in the morning and see what they have on it.”

He settled back on the mattress and she stood to leave. Suddenly he was worried again. The immanence of his death had felt so real.

“Lois, please stay.”

She gave him an odd look, between worried and curious.

“No… I just don’t want to be alone right now.”

Lois relaxed and smiled at him. She slipped off her blouse and trousers and slid into bed beside him.

He fell asleep listening to her gentle breathing.