The Guardian (3/10)
Part III: Augury
All Nature is art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
- Alexander Pope
That thing about nothing surprising her anymore? She took it all back.
The past half an hour had contained enough heart-flopping surprises to last a lifetime - Although the simple revelation that her best friend - the not-so-mild-mannered Clark Kent - was an alien could have filled that quota on its own. While Chloe felt some relief in finally knowing what Clark had been hiding about himself for all those years, the delivery had left a bad taste in her mouth. It wasn’t the heart-felt confession that she had always hoped for - the one where Clark sat her down; where he told her how much she meant to him and how he trusted her. It had been an appendage - an incidental footnote - to someone else’s story.
Lana Lang’s story.
But she was getting ahead of herself.
All stories have a beginning and Lana’s was set 10 years in the future. She woke up one morning to discover that the world around her had changed. At first, it was the little things she noticed. Messages that were supposed to be on her machine were gone. Little trinkets and keepsakes were missing from their normal spots. But it wasn’t until she sat down with a glass of orange juice and opened up her newspaper that she finally realized something was really and truly wrong.
It wasn’t so much what she saw as what she didn’t see.
Superman.
Not only was Chloe’s best friend from another planet, but in the future, he took to wearing a costume and playing the world’s champion. Lana showed her an article from when he saved Metropolis from a tsunami. In the photo he stood strong, arms crossed and cape whipping in the wind. It was the pose of a hero.
But once again this wasn’t the climax to the story - simply exposition.
Lana had gone through the whole paper twice, looking for any sign of his existence. Most newspaper’s have police notes; the Daily Planet had the Superman Watch - page B-24. That day it had been replaced with an ad for laundry detergent that touted ‘whiter whites.’
On the front page, the lead story’s byline belonged to Lois Lane. To Chloe’s continued surprise, not only did her cousin work at the Daily Planet, but she and Clark made up a Kerth-winning writing team. Partners in life, and partners in work. She could hear Lois’ voice in her mind, high-pitched and incredulous. He’s dipping his pen in the company ink! My ink! It almost made Chloe laugh.
Almost.
Lana, of course, had panicked. She immediately called Lois who, to her dismay, was surprised to hear from her. It seemed that while they were close friends in the world Lana knew, in the new incarnation, they were barely acquaintances. However heartbreaking at the time, this had ultimately worked to Lana’s advantage. When she bombarded Lois with questions about her life, it simply looked like a long over-due effort to catch up. Throughout the night Lana had been able to figure out where the old, familiar history ended, and the new one began.
According to Lois, the last time she had been to Smallville was during her first semester at Met U. When Lana asked why she had never gone back to visit, Lois explained that it had just been easier spending time with Chloe in the city. That going to Smallville would have just be too complicated.
“Why?” Lana had asked. “What made it complicated?”
And Lois told her.
A promise.
There was the variable. The something that had never happened in the world Lana knew.
And it’s here, towards the end of act I, that Chloe makes her entrance in the narrative. Because, according to the woman in front of her - the time traveler - the sole survivor of a lost world - Chloe had committed the screw up to end all screw ups. With one simple request, the life Lana knew and loved warped into something unrecognizable.
And so she took her Scroll of Templar - the same paper that Chloe’s cousin had used - and traveled back in time to find out what had happened.
At first Lana couldn’t understand why the promise would suddenly exist - how an event could spontaneously appear in their time line. But when it was Chloe’s turn to talk, and she had confessed to witnessing the exchange between Clark and the future Lois two nights before, Lana realized that this had been the key to the change.
For the most part Chloe got the picture. Somehow she had seen something she was never supposed to see - and because of it did something she was never supposed to do. Her downfall in a nut shell.
What she didn’t fully understand was what any of it had to do with Lana. When she asked her, the older woman just scowled disapprovingly as if Chloe hadn’t heard a single thing she had just said.
“Because I’m the Guardian,” Lana told her. She was going through the contents of her black duffel bag - old photos and magazine clippings from her world that she had used to narrate her story. Pictures of the future. She took a moment to lift the hem of her dark indigo blouse to prove the point. A visual aide. “We’ve been over this.”
“Right. The tattoo.” Chloe tilted her head. “Kinda looks like two snails fighting.”
Lana’s eyes squinted into dangerous slits. “It’s a mystically imbued symbol, not a Rorschach test.”
Chloe crossed her arms and rolled back and forth on the wheels of her computer chair. “Taking our body art a little seriously, aren’t we?” If she thought Lana was uptight now, her future self trumped her threefold. “And while we’re on the subject, why a tattoo? Did you ever consider business cards? Or maybe some kind of badge?”
She could tell the lightness of her tone was spiking Lana’s blood pressure. She zipped up the bag - hard - and put it aside. “I think you’re misunderstanding me. I don’t have the tattoo because I’m the Guardian, I’m the Guardian because I have the tattoo.”
Chloe shrugged. “Semantics.”
Lana shook her head. “No. The symbol itself protects me. I don’t pretend to know how it works - ten years of research and I’ve barely scratched the surface. But it’s powerful.”
Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Chloe’s gaze darted around the room as she frantically searched for a place to stash the older woman. Somehow she didn’t think they’d be able to explain her existence without becoming the proud new owners of a couple of straitjackets and a private room at the Sommerhault Institute. Lana, however, continued to sit calmly on the edge of the desk.
“Come in,” she called over her shoulder.
Chloe turned to her, confused. “Who is it?”
“I called in some help. I figured another set of hands couldn’t hurt. Plus I thought that it might make the situation a little more palatable for you to see a familiar face.”
The door cracked open and someone slid inside. She peeked back into the hall - seemingly to check if she had been seen - before closing it behind her and flicking the lock.
Chloe stared at the newcomer, her jaw to the floor. “Lana?”
The younger Lana tore her gaze from her older self - who she had been observing with a great deal of interest - and gave a tiny wave. “Hey, Chloe.”
Chloe looked back and forth between the two. A living, breathing before and after. “Well, it’s definitely a familiar face.”
As the older Lana continued, both Chloe and Lana listened carefully. Chloe looked over to find her friend completely transfixed. Chloe couldn’t blame her - her future self was strong and beautiful. Thoroughly impressive, if not a bit of a wet blanket.
“I spent the better part of my early twenties studying the scrolls,” she explained, as she paced the length of the Torch. “I even took a job as a curator for the archives at the Metropolitan Institute so that I could spend my day with the significant texts.”
Chloe quirked an eyebrow. “You’re a librarian?”
“I like to think of it as my secret identity.” Lana chuckled. If she had made a joke, Chloe didn’t get it. “Besides, the job market isn’t exactly clawing for people with a PHD in 17th Century poetry. It’s turned out to be a blessing though - through a department connection I was able to get my hands on a copy of The Spell book of Countess Marguerite Isabelle Thoreau - after a few months I had nearly translated it all.
“There is an entire section dedicated to the symbol - and what it means for the bearer.” Lana unconsciously rubbed her lower back. “It lets me use the Scroll of Templar and remain completely unharmed. I’m not even susceptible to the nausea that typically goes with it. We think the scroll itself is somehow connected to the Countess. Perhaps even written by her.”
The word choice peeked Chloe’s interest and so she asked, “We?”
“Yeah - Me, Clark, Lois, you - well, the old you.”
“So we all know about your...um...guardianship?”
Lana hesitated. “Not exactly. Up until a few days ago, my time, you were all in the dark. It was too dangerous for anyone to know I had possession of the Scroll. If anyone saw the tattoo, I just told them it was courtesy of a particularly eventful Parisian night. It seemed to do the trick. And I think it even lifted me up a notch in Lois’ eyes.”
The younger Lana bit her lip, and Chloe could tell she was making a mental note. “Thanks for the tip.”
Lana sighed and continued. “But even with all the precautions, my apartment was still looted months ago. Someone got the scroll and then put it in the hands of Jason Trask.”
Young Lana’s eyes widened at the mention of the name. “That’s the guy who was after Clark,” she said.
“Right. He used my scroll to go back to Smallville - so I had to come clean about everything and prepare Lois the best I could for her trip back to stop him.”
At this revelation, Chloe stiffened. “Wait. If it’s so easy for you to time hop with the scroll, why send my cousin on a suicide mission?”
Lana’s face was expressionless. “Because she was always meant to go,” she said, dispassionately.
“How do you know that?” Chloe snapped.
“Because when I was 18, Lois came back through a portal in the cave wall to save Clark. She told me about my tattoo and my responsibilities as the Guardian and gave me the scroll. And she told me something else, too.”
It was a weird explanation, but that seemed par for the course. Chloe felt her anger wane. “The winning lotto numbers?” she wagered, lightly.
The younger Lana smiled, as if warmed by the recent memory. “She said to keep an eye on you and Clark.”
Chloe looked to the older Lana. She nodded. “It’s all cyclical.”
“The tattoo also makes me invulnerable to most illnesses,” Lana ticked off the growing list on her fingers. “It allows me to function on less sleep.”
“Oh!” The younger Lana broke in. “Sometimes it glows. I don’t really know what that’s about, but in a pinch it makes a great nightlight.”
The older Lana continued, “And, of course. it protected me from the giant mind wipe that happened when you altered reality. The symbol is part of an anchoring spell - which was explained to me when I was younger by Lois, who I told before she went to save Clark. It’s supposed to work as a safeguard, in case the Scroll ever fell into the wrong hands. ”
Lana picked up her duffel bag and started dumping out the contents in front of Chloe. “That’s why all of these clippings and photos still exist. They bear the mark of the Guardian. Anything that has this symbol will remain unaffected by changes caused by the Scroll.” Lana looked at the giant pile she had just made on the desk and frowned. “I never knew which stuff was important to save - eventually I just had a stamp made.”
She reached far into the bag and pulled out a large, cream colored book.
“And then there’s this.” Lana handed it to Chloe, and motioned for her to flip through. It was pages and pages of bulleted lists, all in neat rows with highlighted dates at the top of each. “I also kept a diary - Lois’ suggestion. It has everything that has ever happened since I was told I was the Guardian. Anything I heard - any news story, any personal story - anything even remotely significant I recorded.”
Lana took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “My memory and these old photos are all that’s left of the world I knew. Your promise changed everything, and I’m here to change it back.”
Chloe shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I don’t see how my one little favor could do everything you just said.”
“Every action has a consequence - whether it be immediate or long-reaching.” Lana turned to her younger self. “Do you have your scroll?”
Lana nodded and reached into her pink handbag. “Yeah. I brought it like you asked.”
The older Lana took the paper and produced another from a pocket of her duffel bag. “Maybe an illustration will help.” She held the two scrolls side by side. “These are the same exact scroll.”
Chloe scanned them - they were identical in size and in the symbols they bore, though one looked a little more worse for wear. “Yeah, ok. They look alike.”
“No. They are actually the same. This scroll,” Lana shook the one in her left hand, “will be this scroll,” and then the one in her right hand. “10 years in the future.”
Chloe took a minute to wrap her head around that one. “Ok.”
“Hand me those scissors,” Lana said, and Chloe grabbed the pair from the jar. The older Lana then handed one scroll to the younger and had her hold it out for Chloe to see. Lana gripped the other scroll firmly in one hand, her scissors poised above the right corner. “Watch.”
Lana clipped a tiny piece off of her scroll. Chloe watched as the confetti-like portion flittered down to the ground. Lana snapped her fingers and redirected Chloe’s attention to the scroll in the young Lana’s hands.
It now had a corner missing, too.
“You change the present...you change the future. Get it?” Lana said. “You keep Lois and Clark apart and there is a ripple effect. He never becomes Superman. Lois never enters our social circle. It changes every interaction you, or I, or anyone else has with them. Everyone is thrown off course.”
The words had sunk in, but Chloe wasn’t ready to accept them as gospel. “Okay - so lets say it was me that caused the future to change. If there really is a big plan, how do you know that this wasn’t supposed to happen all along? That we aren’t now finally on the right path thanks to me?”
“It’s not the way it’s supposed to be.”
“Says who?”
“Me.”
Chloe scoffed. “Oh, right. Because you’re the Guardian and have a big, bad tattoo and know what’s best for everyone.”
Lana stalked her way over until she was right above Chloe. “In the future you created, crime rates are through the roof. Lois is a workaholic, more interested her next headline than living her own life. Clark is MIA and God only knows where you are - because I looked. Our world wasn’t perfect - but for the most part we were happy, and together. If that isn’t a compelling argument, I don’t know what is.”
“Chloe -you need to think about this,” the other Lana added.
“So, what? You’re going to double team me? Strong-arm me into helping you get your old reality back? You come back here all Ghost of Christmas Future, and tell me that I train-wrecked the world. Well, I don’t believe it!” Chloe raised her chin. “I did what I thought was right.”
Lana barked a laugh. “What was right? Sounds to me like you did what you had to, to make sure Clark stayed on the market.”
“This was never about Clark!” Chloe snapped. She stood up from her chair and looked directly into Lana’s eyes. “This was about me and Lois. I wasn’t going to sit idly by and wait for a future where she betrayed me. And if you knew anything about my cousin, you’d know that she would have wanted me to do anything in my power to stop that.”
There it was. The truth - her defense - laid out. She dared the older woman to challenge that. She crossed her arms and waited for Lana’s reaction.
“Oh, Chloe.”
Lana bowed her head and shook it sadly. When she looked up again, she was smiling a small, miserable smile.
“She didn’t betray you,” Lana said, softly. “You were the one that set them up.”
***
“Ugh, I feel like one of those land-survey markers.”
Lois stood in the exact spot that Clark had positioned her, arms crossed and fidgeting, despite his instructions to stand still. If she had been a survey marker, she would have been currently marking the northwest section of Shuster’s Gorge, barely a stone’s throw from the precipice.
Clark stood 30-odd feet away, his eyes closed, concentrating on a feeling that was percolating inside of him. He had brought them both there in an attempt to recreate the scene from his dream - the shadowy images that were jumbled in his mind. If he could just remember what he had seen there, he would able to get back some of his memory of the past few days. That was the theory, anyway.
Lois was mumbling to herself. “God this is boring. Standing here like a statue on some stupid gorge. I wonder how long this is going to take...”
Clark took a deep, calming breath. His eyes remained shut. “Lois?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
He smiled, slightly, when he heard her hurrumph. He cleared his head again and tried to focus on the scene. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind were the memories he needed to retrieve. He just had to draw them back to the surface. He just had to concentrate...
Something that was out of the question with Lois around.
“What exactly are you doing?” she asked, annoyed. “And if you say ‘finding your center’ I’m outta here.”
He finally opened his eyes to find her smirking at him, as usual. “I’m trying to remember my dream - the details. I figure if I can remember them, they might help me remember the past few days.” He shrugged. “Right now it’s all I have to go on.”
Lois seemed on board with this plan. Or, at least she hadn’t scoffed at it.
“I’m taking an intro to psychology course this semester - one of those night lecture deals that meet once a week and are 4 hours a pop. Dream interpretation is a pretty complicated stuff.” He motioned for her to move a bit to her right. She shuffled over and then continued, “On one hand you’ve got Freud, who thought everything was symbolic and that dreams were all about wish fulfillment - your greatest desires realized. What exactly happened in yours?”
“Someone threw you off that ledge.”
“Oh.”
Lois took a moment to stretched her limbs, the standing-in-one-place was making her stiff. “And then there’s Jung. He said the key was archetypes, that dreams were actually about role play. You know, reoccurring themes that help people define themselves or those around them.”
“Can you take another step back?”
She did. “How’s this?”
“Good.”
“You didn’t happen to save me after I went Wile E Coyote off the cliff, did you?”
“I tried to,” he admitted, lamely.
She, apparently caring little about the grisly fate of dream-Lois, flicked her wrist. “There you go - your basic Hero figure, with a little Ubermensch thrown in for good measure.”
“So who do you think was right?”
“None of the above,” she said. “The part of the brain that controls what we dream is the same one that’s linked to our sensory perception - it processes what we see and hear and smell. That’s why dreams feel so real - because on biochemical level, they pretty much are. The popular theory now is that dreams are made up of things we’ve actually encountered during the day. Like reruns. Or echos.”
Clark raised an eyebrow. “So you’re saying I had a dream about someone throwing you off the ledge, because I saw someone throw you off the ledge?”
This time she did scoff. “No. I’m pretty sure I would remember that,” she said. “But you did see me yesterday - we spent the afternoon together, so I was clearly tucked into your subconscious. As for the ledge? Maybe you took in the late show of Thelma and Louise. I don’t know. I’m sure there is some kind of sensible explanation. I kinda missed the second part of that lecture.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “It was dollar pitcher night at O’Neils.”
“Lo-is.”
Lois threw up her hands. “How was I supposed to know something I was learning in school was actually going to have real world application?”
Clark just rolled his eyes and directed her another few inches to her right.
He wasn’t sure if he was buying her psych 101 analysis, but she had brought up a good point.
“Where were you yesterday morning?”
“Uh-uh.” Lois wagged a finger his way. “The past 24 hours of my life are all present and accounted for, thank you very much. We’re here for your lost day - not mine.”
Clark conceded the point with a nod. “In that case take another step back.” This time when Lois moved into position, something clicked in Clark’s mind. “Wait. Stay right there,” he told her, quickly, before she had a chance to move.
Some of the darkness began to lift as he looked out at image of Lois on the cliff’s edge.
Lois looked at him expectantly. “Now what?”
“I don’t know, but in my dream you were right there.” Clark closed his eyes again and concentrated on the feeling the visual was giving him. The deja-vu that was hovering just below the surface. “I was here. I know I was.” His eyes popped back open, and narrowed in steely resolution. “Now I just have to figure out why.”
“How?”
“Maybe I left something behind.”
“That storm probably washed away anything in the way of a clue.”
“There has to be something.”
Lois shrugged and began to look around. Her foot scuffed the ground and sent a few pebbles into he gorge. For the first time Clark noticed just how close she was to the edge - his heart leapt to his throat and in that flash it was if her safety was the only thing that mattered.
“Lois, be careful of the ledge!” he cautioned quickly, and immediately felt foolish. “I just - I don’t want you to fall, or something.” The follow-up hadn’t made him feel much better.
Lois watched the awkward display in amusement. “In your dreams, Farmboy.” She thought for a moment and then added, “Literally.”
“It’s just that it’s a long way down and -“
She stopped him with a hand. “Hey, I’m not the one with the bad case of acrophobia.”
“How did you -“
“You told me,” she said. She mimed a phone with her thumb and pinkie and brought it to her ear. “The 3am call.”
“Oh,” he said. She had told him about the phone call when she walked him back to the farm. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but out of every memory that had slipped away from him, he wished for that one back the most. “Sorry. I probably totally annoyed you.”
She glanced up at him, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, looking - for the first time since he had met her - almost vulnerable. “Not really.”
She turned back to her search and didn’t catch the wide smile that split his face.
“Ok - all I’m seeing is a bunch of rocks here.”
Clark suddenly became aware of the steady thud of his heart against his chest. His feelings for her were new, and strangely powerful. He felt so comfortable with her by his side, that he could have just stood there forever.
He wondered for a moment if he should just tell her. Walk right over, take a deep breath, look her in the eyes and say ---
“Hey, Smallville?” He looked up to find her holding something in her hand. Short and metallic - A tazer. Lois pushed a button and it sparked in front of her eyes. She smiled wickedly. “One of these things is not like the others.”
***
Chloe sat in silence as she put it all together. She considered the evidence - the promise, Lana’s story, the pictures of the future, all of it - until, finally, she had landed firmly and soundly on one final conclusion.
“I really screwed up, didn’t I?”
She stared down at the wedding photo in her hands. Decked in their formal wear, and wrapped up in each other, Lois and Clark looked like two people completely and totally in love. And standing right beside her cousin, Chloe looked genuinely happy for them.
Lana nodded. “Who ever loves, if he do not propose; The right true end of love, he's one that goes; To sea for nothing but to make him sick: Love is a bear-whelp born, if we o're lick Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take, We err, and of a lump a monster make.”
“Okay, if you’re going to be quoting metaphysical poets the whole time, you can count me out,” Chloe threatened. She turned to the other Lana. “You with me?”
Her friend shook her head. “No way. I’m totally impressing myself.”
Chloe set the pictures in her hands, and the albums on her lap, aside. “So what do we do now?”
Lana said nothing. Chloe glanced at her. “I don’t know,” she confessed, with a heavy sigh.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Chloe asked. “You’re ‘The Guardian’” She made air quotes.
“Yeah, well, believe it or not, there’s no operators manual to this thing.”
Chloe raked her hands through her hair. “This is such a mess.” She looked down at the addlepated stack of pictures - a loose-leaf future - and it took on the literal.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” the young Lana recited. When Chloe and Lana shot her an identical look, she shrugged. “It’s all I got.”
Chloe slumped back in her chair, dejectedly. “I thought I was protecting her,” she confessed. “I should have known better than to think Lois would ever intentionally hurt me.”
“What if you just take it back?” Lana suggested, suddenly. “What if you find Lois and, I don’t know, say you thought about it and decided that it wasn’t your place to say who she can and can’t date.”
Chloe looked to the older Lana. “Do you think that will work?”
She was considering this carefully. “It’s worth a shot. Right now it’s the best idea we’ve got.” And then she asked, “Where is Lois?”
“She’s at the Talon, waiting for me.” Chloe checked her watch. “Damn, and I’m late.”
Lana packed her things back into the duffel bag and slung it over her chest.“Well let’s go,” she said as she headed for the door.
The younger Lana looked on as her older self left the room with the same kind of dramatic flare as when she had entered it.
“Isn’t she great?” Lana asked.
Chloe lifted an eyebrow. “Lemme guess, you want to be just like her when you grow up?”
Her friend just smiled and tagged quickly after her future self. Chloe rolled her eyes and then followed in suit.
Lana had finally found her idol.
Herself.
All Nature is art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
- Alexander Pope
That thing about nothing surprising her anymore? She took it all back.
The past half an hour had contained enough heart-flopping surprises to last a lifetime - Although the simple revelation that her best friend - the not-so-mild-mannered Clark Kent - was an alien could have filled that quota on its own. While Chloe felt some relief in finally knowing what Clark had been hiding about himself for all those years, the delivery had left a bad taste in her mouth. It wasn’t the heart-felt confession that she had always hoped for - the one where Clark sat her down; where he told her how much she meant to him and how he trusted her. It had been an appendage - an incidental footnote - to someone else’s story.
Lana Lang’s story.
But she was getting ahead of herself.
All stories have a beginning and Lana’s was set 10 years in the future. She woke up one morning to discover that the world around her had changed. At first, it was the little things she noticed. Messages that were supposed to be on her machine were gone. Little trinkets and keepsakes were missing from their normal spots. But it wasn’t until she sat down with a glass of orange juice and opened up her newspaper that she finally realized something was really and truly wrong.
It wasn’t so much what she saw as what she didn’t see.
Superman.
Not only was Chloe’s best friend from another planet, but in the future, he took to wearing a costume and playing the world’s champion. Lana showed her an article from when he saved Metropolis from a tsunami. In the photo he stood strong, arms crossed and cape whipping in the wind. It was the pose of a hero.
But once again this wasn’t the climax to the story - simply exposition.
Lana had gone through the whole paper twice, looking for any sign of his existence. Most newspaper’s have police notes; the Daily Planet had the Superman Watch - page B-24. That day it had been replaced with an ad for laundry detergent that touted ‘whiter whites.’
On the front page, the lead story’s byline belonged to Lois Lane. To Chloe’s continued surprise, not only did her cousin work at the Daily Planet, but she and Clark made up a Kerth-winning writing team. Partners in life, and partners in work. She could hear Lois’ voice in her mind, high-pitched and incredulous. He’s dipping his pen in the company ink! My ink! It almost made Chloe laugh.
Almost.
Lana, of course, had panicked. She immediately called Lois who, to her dismay, was surprised to hear from her. It seemed that while they were close friends in the world Lana knew, in the new incarnation, they were barely acquaintances. However heartbreaking at the time, this had ultimately worked to Lana’s advantage. When she bombarded Lois with questions about her life, it simply looked like a long over-due effort to catch up. Throughout the night Lana had been able to figure out where the old, familiar history ended, and the new one began.
According to Lois, the last time she had been to Smallville was during her first semester at Met U. When Lana asked why she had never gone back to visit, Lois explained that it had just been easier spending time with Chloe in the city. That going to Smallville would have just be too complicated.
“Why?” Lana had asked. “What made it complicated?”
And Lois told her.
A promise.
There was the variable. The something that had never happened in the world Lana knew.
And it’s here, towards the end of act I, that Chloe makes her entrance in the narrative. Because, according to the woman in front of her - the time traveler - the sole survivor of a lost world - Chloe had committed the screw up to end all screw ups. With one simple request, the life Lana knew and loved warped into something unrecognizable.
And so she took her Scroll of Templar - the same paper that Chloe’s cousin had used - and traveled back in time to find out what had happened.
At first Lana couldn’t understand why the promise would suddenly exist - how an event could spontaneously appear in their time line. But when it was Chloe’s turn to talk, and she had confessed to witnessing the exchange between Clark and the future Lois two nights before, Lana realized that this had been the key to the change.
For the most part Chloe got the picture. Somehow she had seen something she was never supposed to see - and because of it did something she was never supposed to do. Her downfall in a nut shell.
What she didn’t fully understand was what any of it had to do with Lana. When she asked her, the older woman just scowled disapprovingly as if Chloe hadn’t heard a single thing she had just said.
“Because I’m the Guardian,” Lana told her. She was going through the contents of her black duffel bag - old photos and magazine clippings from her world that she had used to narrate her story. Pictures of the future. She took a moment to lift the hem of her dark indigo blouse to prove the point. A visual aide. “We’ve been over this.”
“Right. The tattoo.” Chloe tilted her head. “Kinda looks like two snails fighting.”
Lana’s eyes squinted into dangerous slits. “It’s a mystically imbued symbol, not a Rorschach test.”
Chloe crossed her arms and rolled back and forth on the wheels of her computer chair. “Taking our body art a little seriously, aren’t we?” If she thought Lana was uptight now, her future self trumped her threefold. “And while we’re on the subject, why a tattoo? Did you ever consider business cards? Or maybe some kind of badge?”
She could tell the lightness of her tone was spiking Lana’s blood pressure. She zipped up the bag - hard - and put it aside. “I think you’re misunderstanding me. I don’t have the tattoo because I’m the Guardian, I’m the Guardian because I have the tattoo.”
Chloe shrugged. “Semantics.”
Lana shook her head. “No. The symbol itself protects me. I don’t pretend to know how it works - ten years of research and I’ve barely scratched the surface. But it’s powerful.”
Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Chloe’s gaze darted around the room as she frantically searched for a place to stash the older woman. Somehow she didn’t think they’d be able to explain her existence without becoming the proud new owners of a couple of straitjackets and a private room at the Sommerhault Institute. Lana, however, continued to sit calmly on the edge of the desk.
“Come in,” she called over her shoulder.
Chloe turned to her, confused. “Who is it?”
“I called in some help. I figured another set of hands couldn’t hurt. Plus I thought that it might make the situation a little more palatable for you to see a familiar face.”
The door cracked open and someone slid inside. She peeked back into the hall - seemingly to check if she had been seen - before closing it behind her and flicking the lock.
Chloe stared at the newcomer, her jaw to the floor. “Lana?”
The younger Lana tore her gaze from her older self - who she had been observing with a great deal of interest - and gave a tiny wave. “Hey, Chloe.”
Chloe looked back and forth between the two. A living, breathing before and after. “Well, it’s definitely a familiar face.”
As the older Lana continued, both Chloe and Lana listened carefully. Chloe looked over to find her friend completely transfixed. Chloe couldn’t blame her - her future self was strong and beautiful. Thoroughly impressive, if not a bit of a wet blanket.
“I spent the better part of my early twenties studying the scrolls,” she explained, as she paced the length of the Torch. “I even took a job as a curator for the archives at the Metropolitan Institute so that I could spend my day with the significant texts.”
Chloe quirked an eyebrow. “You’re a librarian?”
“I like to think of it as my secret identity.” Lana chuckled. If she had made a joke, Chloe didn’t get it. “Besides, the job market isn’t exactly clawing for people with a PHD in 17th Century poetry. It’s turned out to be a blessing though - through a department connection I was able to get my hands on a copy of The Spell book of Countess Marguerite Isabelle Thoreau - after a few months I had nearly translated it all.
“There is an entire section dedicated to the symbol - and what it means for the bearer.” Lana unconsciously rubbed her lower back. “It lets me use the Scroll of Templar and remain completely unharmed. I’m not even susceptible to the nausea that typically goes with it. We think the scroll itself is somehow connected to the Countess. Perhaps even written by her.”
The word choice peeked Chloe’s interest and so she asked, “We?”
“Yeah - Me, Clark, Lois, you - well, the old you.”
“So we all know about your...um...guardianship?”
Lana hesitated. “Not exactly. Up until a few days ago, my time, you were all in the dark. It was too dangerous for anyone to know I had possession of the Scroll. If anyone saw the tattoo, I just told them it was courtesy of a particularly eventful Parisian night. It seemed to do the trick. And I think it even lifted me up a notch in Lois’ eyes.”
The younger Lana bit her lip, and Chloe could tell she was making a mental note. “Thanks for the tip.”
Lana sighed and continued. “But even with all the precautions, my apartment was still looted months ago. Someone got the scroll and then put it in the hands of Jason Trask.”
Young Lana’s eyes widened at the mention of the name. “That’s the guy who was after Clark,” she said.
“Right. He used my scroll to go back to Smallville - so I had to come clean about everything and prepare Lois the best I could for her trip back to stop him.”
At this revelation, Chloe stiffened. “Wait. If it’s so easy for you to time hop with the scroll, why send my cousin on a suicide mission?”
Lana’s face was expressionless. “Because she was always meant to go,” she said, dispassionately.
“How do you know that?” Chloe snapped.
“Because when I was 18, Lois came back through a portal in the cave wall to save Clark. She told me about my tattoo and my responsibilities as the Guardian and gave me the scroll. And she told me something else, too.”
It was a weird explanation, but that seemed par for the course. Chloe felt her anger wane. “The winning lotto numbers?” she wagered, lightly.
The younger Lana smiled, as if warmed by the recent memory. “She said to keep an eye on you and Clark.”
Chloe looked to the older Lana. She nodded. “It’s all cyclical.”
“The tattoo also makes me invulnerable to most illnesses,” Lana ticked off the growing list on her fingers. “It allows me to function on less sleep.”
“Oh!” The younger Lana broke in. “Sometimes it glows. I don’t really know what that’s about, but in a pinch it makes a great nightlight.”
The older Lana continued, “And, of course. it protected me from the giant mind wipe that happened when you altered reality. The symbol is part of an anchoring spell - which was explained to me when I was younger by Lois, who I told before she went to save Clark. It’s supposed to work as a safeguard, in case the Scroll ever fell into the wrong hands. ”
Lana picked up her duffel bag and started dumping out the contents in front of Chloe. “That’s why all of these clippings and photos still exist. They bear the mark of the Guardian. Anything that has this symbol will remain unaffected by changes caused by the Scroll.” Lana looked at the giant pile she had just made on the desk and frowned. “I never knew which stuff was important to save - eventually I just had a stamp made.”
She reached far into the bag and pulled out a large, cream colored book.
“And then there’s this.” Lana handed it to Chloe, and motioned for her to flip through. It was pages and pages of bulleted lists, all in neat rows with highlighted dates at the top of each. “I also kept a diary - Lois’ suggestion. It has everything that has ever happened since I was told I was the Guardian. Anything I heard - any news story, any personal story - anything even remotely significant I recorded.”
Lana took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “My memory and these old photos are all that’s left of the world I knew. Your promise changed everything, and I’m here to change it back.”
Chloe shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I don’t see how my one little favor could do everything you just said.”
“Every action has a consequence - whether it be immediate or long-reaching.” Lana turned to her younger self. “Do you have your scroll?”
Lana nodded and reached into her pink handbag. “Yeah. I brought it like you asked.”
The older Lana took the paper and produced another from a pocket of her duffel bag. “Maybe an illustration will help.” She held the two scrolls side by side. “These are the same exact scroll.”
Chloe scanned them - they were identical in size and in the symbols they bore, though one looked a little more worse for wear. “Yeah, ok. They look alike.”
“No. They are actually the same. This scroll,” Lana shook the one in her left hand, “will be this scroll,” and then the one in her right hand. “10 years in the future.”
Chloe took a minute to wrap her head around that one. “Ok.”
“Hand me those scissors,” Lana said, and Chloe grabbed the pair from the jar. The older Lana then handed one scroll to the younger and had her hold it out for Chloe to see. Lana gripped the other scroll firmly in one hand, her scissors poised above the right corner. “Watch.”
Lana clipped a tiny piece off of her scroll. Chloe watched as the confetti-like portion flittered down to the ground. Lana snapped her fingers and redirected Chloe’s attention to the scroll in the young Lana’s hands.
It now had a corner missing, too.
“You change the present...you change the future. Get it?” Lana said. “You keep Lois and Clark apart and there is a ripple effect. He never becomes Superman. Lois never enters our social circle. It changes every interaction you, or I, or anyone else has with them. Everyone is thrown off course.”
The words had sunk in, but Chloe wasn’t ready to accept them as gospel. “Okay - so lets say it was me that caused the future to change. If there really is a big plan, how do you know that this wasn’t supposed to happen all along? That we aren’t now finally on the right path thanks to me?”
“It’s not the way it’s supposed to be.”
“Says who?”
“Me.”
Chloe scoffed. “Oh, right. Because you’re the Guardian and have a big, bad tattoo and know what’s best for everyone.”
Lana stalked her way over until she was right above Chloe. “In the future you created, crime rates are through the roof. Lois is a workaholic, more interested her next headline than living her own life. Clark is MIA and God only knows where you are - because I looked. Our world wasn’t perfect - but for the most part we were happy, and together. If that isn’t a compelling argument, I don’t know what is.”
“Chloe -you need to think about this,” the other Lana added.
“So, what? You’re going to double team me? Strong-arm me into helping you get your old reality back? You come back here all Ghost of Christmas Future, and tell me that I train-wrecked the world. Well, I don’t believe it!” Chloe raised her chin. “I did what I thought was right.”
Lana barked a laugh. “What was right? Sounds to me like you did what you had to, to make sure Clark stayed on the market.”
“This was never about Clark!” Chloe snapped. She stood up from her chair and looked directly into Lana’s eyes. “This was about me and Lois. I wasn’t going to sit idly by and wait for a future where she betrayed me. And if you knew anything about my cousin, you’d know that she would have wanted me to do anything in my power to stop that.”
There it was. The truth - her defense - laid out. She dared the older woman to challenge that. She crossed her arms and waited for Lana’s reaction.
“Oh, Chloe.”
Lana bowed her head and shook it sadly. When she looked up again, she was smiling a small, miserable smile.
“She didn’t betray you,” Lana said, softly. “You were the one that set them up.”
***
“Ugh, I feel like one of those land-survey markers.”
Lois stood in the exact spot that Clark had positioned her, arms crossed and fidgeting, despite his instructions to stand still. If she had been a survey marker, she would have been currently marking the northwest section of Shuster’s Gorge, barely a stone’s throw from the precipice.
Clark stood 30-odd feet away, his eyes closed, concentrating on a feeling that was percolating inside of him. He had brought them both there in an attempt to recreate the scene from his dream - the shadowy images that were jumbled in his mind. If he could just remember what he had seen there, he would able to get back some of his memory of the past few days. That was the theory, anyway.
Lois was mumbling to herself. “God this is boring. Standing here like a statue on some stupid gorge. I wonder how long this is going to take...”
Clark took a deep, calming breath. His eyes remained shut. “Lois?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
He smiled, slightly, when he heard her hurrumph. He cleared his head again and tried to focus on the scene. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind were the memories he needed to retrieve. He just had to draw them back to the surface. He just had to concentrate...
Something that was out of the question with Lois around.
“What exactly are you doing?” she asked, annoyed. “And if you say ‘finding your center’ I’m outta here.”
He finally opened his eyes to find her smirking at him, as usual. “I’m trying to remember my dream - the details. I figure if I can remember them, they might help me remember the past few days.” He shrugged. “Right now it’s all I have to go on.”
Lois seemed on board with this plan. Or, at least she hadn’t scoffed at it.
“I’m taking an intro to psychology course this semester - one of those night lecture deals that meet once a week and are 4 hours a pop. Dream interpretation is a pretty complicated stuff.” He motioned for her to move a bit to her right. She shuffled over and then continued, “On one hand you’ve got Freud, who thought everything was symbolic and that dreams were all about wish fulfillment - your greatest desires realized. What exactly happened in yours?”
“Someone threw you off that ledge.”
“Oh.”
Lois took a moment to stretched her limbs, the standing-in-one-place was making her stiff. “And then there’s Jung. He said the key was archetypes, that dreams were actually about role play. You know, reoccurring themes that help people define themselves or those around them.”
“Can you take another step back?”
She did. “How’s this?”
“Good.”
“You didn’t happen to save me after I went Wile E Coyote off the cliff, did you?”
“I tried to,” he admitted, lamely.
She, apparently caring little about the grisly fate of dream-Lois, flicked her wrist. “There you go - your basic Hero figure, with a little Ubermensch thrown in for good measure.”
“So who do you think was right?”
“None of the above,” she said. “The part of the brain that controls what we dream is the same one that’s linked to our sensory perception - it processes what we see and hear and smell. That’s why dreams feel so real - because on biochemical level, they pretty much are. The popular theory now is that dreams are made up of things we’ve actually encountered during the day. Like reruns. Or echos.”
Clark raised an eyebrow. “So you’re saying I had a dream about someone throwing you off the ledge, because I saw someone throw you off the ledge?”
This time she did scoff. “No. I’m pretty sure I would remember that,” she said. “But you did see me yesterday - we spent the afternoon together, so I was clearly tucked into your subconscious. As for the ledge? Maybe you took in the late show of Thelma and Louise. I don’t know. I’m sure there is some kind of sensible explanation. I kinda missed the second part of that lecture.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “It was dollar pitcher night at O’Neils.”
“Lo-is.”
Lois threw up her hands. “How was I supposed to know something I was learning in school was actually going to have real world application?”
Clark just rolled his eyes and directed her another few inches to her right.
He wasn’t sure if he was buying her psych 101 analysis, but she had brought up a good point.
“Where were you yesterday morning?”
“Uh-uh.” Lois wagged a finger his way. “The past 24 hours of my life are all present and accounted for, thank you very much. We’re here for your lost day - not mine.”
Clark conceded the point with a nod. “In that case take another step back.” This time when Lois moved into position, something clicked in Clark’s mind. “Wait. Stay right there,” he told her, quickly, before she had a chance to move.
Some of the darkness began to lift as he looked out at image of Lois on the cliff’s edge.
Lois looked at him expectantly. “Now what?”
“I don’t know, but in my dream you were right there.” Clark closed his eyes again and concentrated on the feeling the visual was giving him. The deja-vu that was hovering just below the surface. “I was here. I know I was.” His eyes popped back open, and narrowed in steely resolution. “Now I just have to figure out why.”
“How?”
“Maybe I left something behind.”
“That storm probably washed away anything in the way of a clue.”
“There has to be something.”
Lois shrugged and began to look around. Her foot scuffed the ground and sent a few pebbles into he gorge. For the first time Clark noticed just how close she was to the edge - his heart leapt to his throat and in that flash it was if her safety was the only thing that mattered.
“Lois, be careful of the ledge!” he cautioned quickly, and immediately felt foolish. “I just - I don’t want you to fall, or something.” The follow-up hadn’t made him feel much better.
Lois watched the awkward display in amusement. “In your dreams, Farmboy.” She thought for a moment and then added, “Literally.”
“It’s just that it’s a long way down and -“
She stopped him with a hand. “Hey, I’m not the one with the bad case of acrophobia.”
“How did you -“
“You told me,” she said. She mimed a phone with her thumb and pinkie and brought it to her ear. “The 3am call.”
“Oh,” he said. She had told him about the phone call when she walked him back to the farm. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but out of every memory that had slipped away from him, he wished for that one back the most. “Sorry. I probably totally annoyed you.”
She glanced up at him, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, looking - for the first time since he had met her - almost vulnerable. “Not really.”
She turned back to her search and didn’t catch the wide smile that split his face.
“Ok - all I’m seeing is a bunch of rocks here.”
Clark suddenly became aware of the steady thud of his heart against his chest. His feelings for her were new, and strangely powerful. He felt so comfortable with her by his side, that he could have just stood there forever.
He wondered for a moment if he should just tell her. Walk right over, take a deep breath, look her in the eyes and say ---
“Hey, Smallville?” He looked up to find her holding something in her hand. Short and metallic - A tazer. Lois pushed a button and it sparked in front of her eyes. She smiled wickedly. “One of these things is not like the others.”
***
Chloe sat in silence as she put it all together. She considered the evidence - the promise, Lana’s story, the pictures of the future, all of it - until, finally, she had landed firmly and soundly on one final conclusion.
“I really screwed up, didn’t I?”
She stared down at the wedding photo in her hands. Decked in their formal wear, and wrapped up in each other, Lois and Clark looked like two people completely and totally in love. And standing right beside her cousin, Chloe looked genuinely happy for them.
Lana nodded. “Who ever loves, if he do not propose; The right true end of love, he's one that goes; To sea for nothing but to make him sick: Love is a bear-whelp born, if we o're lick Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take, We err, and of a lump a monster make.”
“Okay, if you’re going to be quoting metaphysical poets the whole time, you can count me out,” Chloe threatened. She turned to the other Lana. “You with me?”
Her friend shook her head. “No way. I’m totally impressing myself.”
Chloe set the pictures in her hands, and the albums on her lap, aside. “So what do we do now?”
Lana said nothing. Chloe glanced at her. “I don’t know,” she confessed, with a heavy sigh.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Chloe asked. “You’re ‘The Guardian’” She made air quotes.
“Yeah, well, believe it or not, there’s no operators manual to this thing.”
Chloe raked her hands through her hair. “This is such a mess.” She looked down at the addlepated stack of pictures - a loose-leaf future - and it took on the literal.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” the young Lana recited. When Chloe and Lana shot her an identical look, she shrugged. “It’s all I got.”
Chloe slumped back in her chair, dejectedly. “I thought I was protecting her,” she confessed. “I should have known better than to think Lois would ever intentionally hurt me.”
“What if you just take it back?” Lana suggested, suddenly. “What if you find Lois and, I don’t know, say you thought about it and decided that it wasn’t your place to say who she can and can’t date.”
Chloe looked to the older Lana. “Do you think that will work?”
She was considering this carefully. “It’s worth a shot. Right now it’s the best idea we’ve got.” And then she asked, “Where is Lois?”
“She’s at the Talon, waiting for me.” Chloe checked her watch. “Damn, and I’m late.”
Lana packed her things back into the duffel bag and slung it over her chest.“Well let’s go,” she said as she headed for the door.
The younger Lana looked on as her older self left the room with the same kind of dramatic flare as when she had entered it.
“Isn’t she great?” Lana asked.
Chloe lifted an eyebrow. “Lemme guess, you want to be just like her when you grow up?”
Her friend just smiled and tagged quickly after her future self. Chloe rolled her eyes and then followed in suit.
Lana had finally found her idol.
Herself.