Superman caught Teri before she hit the ground, and, not knowing quite where else to go with her, took her back to Dean’s place. The fresh breeze as he flew began to revive her, and she woke totally just as he was landing at the back door of the house. The dogs barked a welcome to the two of them (apparently Teri was a known quantity to them, though she wasn’t really to Clark); apparently they were quite unsurprised at this flying man’s abilities.

As Teri’s mind began to throw off the dizziness from her surprise, her eyes widened and she looked at the man who had just brought her here.

"You’re Superman? You’re Superman! I don’t believe it!"

"Well, I wasn’t quite sure how to prove it to you, but I don’t see how you can not believe it Ms Hatcher."

"Teri," she murmured absently.

"Teri," Clark took that as permission, "I need your help."

"You need my help?" Teri was honestly surprised that someone who could apparently fly and was able to do all those things that Superman supposedly could, would need anybody’s help to accomplish anything. But then she thought, ‘Maybe he isn’t so Super after all? Maybe our writers have been more accurate than they could possibly know, and he is more human than he knows. He certainly looks rather lost. I wonder what happened to Dean?’

"I don’t believe it!" Teri repeated out loud. "I don’t believe that I believe what is happening here! Where’s Dean Cain?"

"I don’t know, Teri. Tempus told me that he’d taken Dean to my home, but I have my doubts about his trustworthiness, so I don’t know for sure where Dean is."

"Tempus? How long have you been here? Maybe you’d better tell me how this happened. And then I think we need to work on a way to send you home again, don’t you think?"

Clark noticed from the way she spoke that Teri had already begun to believe him - or at least had suspended her disbelief long enough to help him out.

Teri was thinking something along those lines to herself: ‘If I can get rid of this person quickly, I’ll have the rest of the day to collapse in a jibbering heap!’

She gestured to him to take a seat and almost fell into the sofa herself when, with a grin, Superman chose to float instead, in a sitting position.

Clark described to Teri how he had spent the past 24 hours (he couldn’t believe it had only been 24! It seemed so much had happened in such a short space of time!), and then turned to her and asked:

"Teri, from what I’ve seen around at the set and in the tabloids I scanned this morning, it seems to me that a lot of what really happened to me has been played out in that TV studio. I don’t understand how this is possible... I think Tempus even mentioned something about choosing Mr Cain - er, Dean - to play me because he looked so much like me - But can you tell me something?

"In the scenes we were filming today, it seemed that "Lois" knew my secret. How does she learn it?"

"You mean you don’t know? That’s really weird, because you’re right, it does seem like our writers have some sort of psychic connection to your world - I’m also not sure about what Tempus said to you though - but I remember discussing this with the writers when ‘Clark’ proposed to ‘Lois’ at the end of our second season, and going into our third. I wasn’t terribly happy with the way ‘Lois’ suddenly knew, and the audience didn’t get to see her reactions to her discovery. I think they messed up there a bit, and should have shown more of ‘Lois’’ discovery, and I know a lot of the fans felt that way, at the time, too. They said that it was because of the way both ‘Clark’ and ‘Superman’ touched ‘Lois’’ face," she demonstrated for him, sending a chill down Clark’s spine. "But I think that if I had believed that ‘Lois’ was a real person, there would have been more to her discovery than that. But our writers weren’t able to tap into the psychic network or something," she giggled, embarrassed, "and so that’s what they left us with by way of explanation."

"So Lois does know by the time I propose to her. Phew!" Clark sighed in relief. "I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell her, someway that won’t make her angry at me, but I can’t do it. I keep on almost telling her, but then I hear something that makes me need to leave, and I know it’s getting just as frustrating for her as it is for me."

"Well, let me warn you, Superman," Lois began.

"Please, call me Clark. I’d really prefer that. It’s who I am. Superman is - "

"Just what you do? Now where have I heard that before?" Teri joked. "Anyway, Clark, if your Lois does what was scripted for me, it doesn’t get any easier just because you’ve proposed! She does get really mad that you’ve kept such an important secret from you for so long. And, no, I’m not going to tell you anything more about your future right now. It wouldn’t be fair to her if you knew so much about what might happen between you two. And anyway, we never filmed an episode like what’s happening now, so maybe your future and hers have been changed by what Tempus is doing."

"And speaking of Tempus, we need to think about how I’m going to get home again." Clark reminded Teri.

"Teri? What are you doing at my place? You won’t believe what has happened to me! I’m at the studio and they said you’d gone home early today!"

"Dean? It is you, isn’t it? You’re back!" Teri sighed in enormous relief. "Hooray!"

"Back? How did you know I’d been away?"

"Dean, you have got to get over here quickly. There’s someone visiting me today that you have just got to meet! It’s the only way you’ll believe what’s been happening to me!"

"Hang on a moment. He’s there, isn’t he?" Dean was almost afraid to say the name out loud. It would confirm his thoughts and that was even more scary because it would mean that what he thought had happened to him in the last day or so, must have been real!

"He? Yes, Dean, Clark is here, and we don’t know how to get him home again. How did you get back?"

"Teri, I have, believe it or not, a working model of Tempus’ time machine behind my trailer. I’ve been to that world."

"Dean, I love you! Look, Clark just flew off for some fresh air. We’ll be over there as soon as he gets back."

"He what? Did you say he "flew"? Ohmigod!"

"Well, Dean," Teri could hear a whistling wind sound, which made her think that perhaps Clark was returning, "he is Superman, after all." She giggled, and went to open the window again to let Clark in. "We’ll be there soon, Dean."

As she hung up the phone, Clark walked into the room."Who was that? Where are we going?"

"Oh Clark, I’m so glad you weren’t gone for long! We’ve got access to a working model of Tempus’ machine! You’ll be able to get home now!"

"A working model? How? Who were you talking to?"

"It’s Dean. He has been on your world, and he’s back, with a working time machine. We have to get back to the studio quickly!"

Clark was so relieved. He had had a feeling that going out for a quick flight would help solve his problem, but he had had no idea the solution would come in this form. However, he was somewhat nervous about the concept of meeting his twin, or doppleganger, or whatever you wanted to call it.

"What’s the best way there, Teri?"

"By air, I’d say, Clark. Wouldn’t you?" Teri smiled as Clark scooped her up into his arms. He walked back to the open window, and gently took off in the direction indicated by her. "Not many people on this planet would be able to say they’ve been taken flying by Superman." she joked, slightly nervously.

"And I can think of just one person who actually belongs here who will believe that you’ve done it," replied Clark. Suddenly Teri realised just how fast they must have been flying, because they were already arriving at Dean’s trailer.

As Clark landed, the door of the trailer opened, and the owner emerged down the steps. Each man stopped to appraise the other, and Teri faded into the background, watching, fascinatedly as the two seeming twins took each other’s measure.

After a few moments, she noticed that neither of them seemed game enough to say the first words. It occurred to her that it appeared they were afraid that talking to each other, or even acknowledging the other’s existence out loud might make one or the other vanish into limbo. Nervous herself, she took the first step, falling back on the etiquette books she had read as a teenager.

"Clark, I’d like you to meet Dean Cain. Dean, this is Clark Kent. We couldn’t figure out how to get Clark home again, and he has to get back quickly, because Lois is about to discover the secret somehow and -"

"And we are really glad you are back and have a working machine," continued Clark, not noticing Dean’s blush of embarrassment. "Teri was under the impression that machines like this won’t work on this world."

Dean ushered the pair into his trailer, shaking his head. "Normally I think, they wouldn’t, but this is the same machine that took me to your world, and we - er - I found the instructions for it that you wrote hidden in your secret closet, so I could actually figure out how to work the machine to get home again. One question: Were you really badly disoriented when you got here?"

Clark nodded.

"Well, you’ll be happy to know it isn’t quite so bad coming home as when I first arrived on your planet."

Teri watched this exchange with amazement. She found that if she shut her eyes, she honestly couldn’t tell which of the men was speaking. It got even worse a moment later.

"Hey," both men began at once as the same idea occurred to each of them simultaneously. "You’re a writer, aren’t you? Are you going to write about this?"

They both stopped at the same time too, and then grinned matching grins at each other.

Teri interrupted them with a laugh, "Guys, this is just too weird for words. Clark, we haven’t done anything quite like this in any episodes we’ve filmed, so far; but y’know Dean, why don’t we sort of kind of suggest something along these lines to Eugenie and Brad, and see what happens."

"For now, though," said Clark, "I think I ought to be getting home. I have some important things I need to talk about with Lois, and I don’t want to delay any more."

Dean took Clark around the back of the trailer, to where the time machine was, and set the controls to take him back home.

The power started to build up, becoming louder and louder. Dean and Teri both put their hands over their ears to protect them; the machine had begun to develop a foggy cloud around it, when suddenly Dean remembered he wanted to confess something to Clark.

"She already knows!" He shouted.

"What?" They could lipread what Clark was shouting back to them.

"She already knows!" repeated Dean and Teri together, shouting as loudly as they could.

But they would never know whether or not he had heard or understood them, for quite suddenly, the machine and its cloud were gone, and the air reverberated around the place it had been.

Clark and Lois went for a quiet walk in Centennial Park that evening. Neither knew how to begin to tell the other of the events they had witnessed or been through the past two days, so they walked in silence for a while. Eventually, Clark put his arm around Lois’ shoulder and began:

"Lois, I’ve been thinking."

"Me too."

"What about?" he asked, hoping that he could think of some way to tell her about Teri Hatcher and what she had told him.

"You first," she said.

‘Darn’, he thought, but tried to think of how to tell her everything... there was so much to tell.

"Okay," he began. "Sometimes, you think you’re immortal. You start to think that the people around you are too. It just takes a second to realise how wrong you are, about everything." He led her to the fountain, and invited her to sit. As the rain that had been threatening all evening finally chose this moment to descend, he looked upward, and in frustration wished out loud, "Come on! Give me a break!"

Lois looked up, and with a nervous giggle, because she too had a lot on her mind that she wanted to discuss with him, she offered to go back to where there was shelter.

Clark demurred, "If the earth opened up at my feet, I wouldn’t move until I’d said this." Then it came to him - he’d propose first, and then tell her the secret, straight away. That was the way to do it! He knelt at her feet, and continued.

"Lois, will you marry me?" There was a bolt of lightning and the rain started to pour down even harder.

Then Lois caught him totally off-guard with her own lightning bolt, by reaching up, removing his glasses, and asking him, "Who’s asking? Clark? Or Superman?"

As they ran for the shelter of the nearby buildings, neither Clark nor Lois said any more, although both had crazy thoughts going through their minds.

Taking refuge in the craziest of comments, Clark asked Lois whether it was the new glasses that had given away his secret. But he knew that he needed to know how long ago Lois had learned his secret.

For her part, Lois couldn’t believe that he had actually thought he would get away with proposing without admitting to her himself what the secret was. Was this really going to turn out exactly the way the actor from another world had said it would? And now Clark was asking her how she had figured it out. What could she say? Suddenly, she had a flashback of memories of Clark and of Superman each holding her face. The same tender way. Somehow, that motion epitomised his love for her, and she knew she could tell him that this was how she had figured it out.

"So, how long have I known? Since yesterday." (That was the truth, anyway!) "How did I figure it out? When you did this," she demonstrated the motion she recalled so vividly. "You’ve touched me like that before, both of you. I guess almost dying sort of heightened all my senses. Sort of like putting on a pair of glasses."

Clark was almost relieved. She had figured it out on her own. He had expected a different reaction. He wasn’t sure what, but it didn’t feel right that she hadn’t gotten mad at him for keeping the secret from her. He still expected that to happen at some point. But first he had to tell her everything about the last few days.

As he drew breath to begin, she did too.

"Clark, I have to be honest with you. What I just told you was one of the things that clued me into who you really are, but there was more to it than that. Something happened while I was at home yesterday and today, that I think you should know about. I had a visitor... um, I’m not sure how to explain this..."

Suddenly Clark guessed what Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher had been trying to tell him and continued for Lois, "called Dean Cain?"

"You know? How?"

"Because somehow, for some reason, which I don’t yet know, I was swapped with him; I went to his world, and had to try to be him until he came back to get me. His world is such a strange place.

"While I was there, I met a woman who reminded me a lot of you. Being there, and meeting her, made me realise that when I got home (and I knew I’d make it back somehow) I couldn’t go on without telling you the secret, without making you more a part of my life. I had wanted to do that so much in the past few weeks, but I just couldn’t do it. I guess it was just so ingrained in me to keep the secret or something..." The rain had stopped, and the couple continued their walk.

"Look, Lois, I’m sorry that my proposal came out sounding that way. It wasn’t what I intended. Are you mad at me?"

"I’m not mad at you."

"Lois, this is no time to be holding back." Clark want to encourage Lois, and get the worst over quickly.

"Really, I’m not."

"I was talking to Lois Lane; she was here a minute ago..."

"I’m not mad," Lois continued, "I’m hurt."

"Which is worse than you being mad. Lois, I’ve been practising this for months, let’s see if I can get it right... I know this must be a shock to you, and I wanted to let you know how hard it’s been carrying this secret by myself. I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time, but when I decided to become Superman, I—"

"You became a target and anyone close to you became a target and it got more complicated when you fell in love with me."

"Which was about two minutes after I first met you."

"Don’t try to score points with me, Kent." Lois bit out. "Look, I understand where you’re coming from. I really do. Dean said that he felt the same way. But when it comes down to it, you made me believe you were two different people, and you did that by lying to me. And that makes me feel like I don’t know you... and that really hurts. And you know what? I am mad!"

"Good, get it all out!" Clark encouraged Lois. He was glad that she was at least reacting the way he had expected. Then suddenly they heard a cry for help. Lois looked at Clark expectantly, but before he spun into his costume (for the first time, in front of her!), he paused.

"Lois, I’ll be back soon. We really do have a lot to talk about."