This is a revelation story with a difference. It came out of a lot of discussion on an idea I had and discussed with quite a few people on IRC^.

To all my friends on IRC who have helped me out with this work, thanks so much... I won't try to give credit to everyone, because so many people have helped with this, giving me constructive criticism on my first attempt at writing L&C fanfic on my own (sort of), that I've forgotten who suggested what. I hope that everyone enjoys this story as much as I've enjoyed working on it.

The only exception I would like to make about giving credit is with regard to the scene at the TV Studio, written by Tracey Barlow ([email protected]).

Insert the regular disclaimer here about who owns what characters. It is not my intention to infringe on any copyrights owned by anyone. No-one is going to make any money out of this story, so if you are thinking of suing me, don't waste your time. Obviously, no-one owns Dean, Teri or the rest of the cast and crew, and I hope that what I've written isn't too, too different to how they would react if this really did happen to them! I don't actually know much about their private lives, so I've had to make up quite a bit. If you dislike those aspects of this story, pretend it isn't our world that I'm referring to, but an alternate one very similar. Oh, and you might find the ending a bit familiar ^.. .

Words in 'single quotes' are thoughts.

Words in "double quotes" are spoken.

Now sit back and enjoy as we wonder, which came first...

By Jenny Stosser

Clark sat dejectedly on the top of the highest pylon on the Metropolis Bridge. He didn't know what his next move should be, and he hated not knowing what the next step of a plan was. He knew what it ought to be... he had tried (Lord knew how hard he had tried!) to tell Lois who he was; to tell her his greatest secret. But it was so ingrained in him to keep the secret that every time, just as he was about to tell her all, his senses would kick in and he'd become aware of an emergency, giving his subconscious an "out". Of course, that didn't make things any better at all between him and Lois. It really made things worse, because every time he had to deal with an emergency, he had to give another of those lousy excuses. And as the excuses got worse, and Lois got more suspicious of him, he could see the future of their relationship going down the gurgler.

Clark realised that he had to come to a decision. He had to grab the future he wanted with both hands and not let it go. He would go down there to her apartment now and tell her. It didn't matter that it was the middle of the night. It didn't even matter that she had almost died facing that Mazik character. In fact, that lent even more force to his decision. All that mattered was getting his secret out into the open. He stood up and stepped off the pylon into midair, when suddenly the air shimmered in front of him. As if a fog had suddenly swept in from somewhere, the air before Clark misted over, and he could almost see a person standing there beside him. And a panicky person at that. Clark instinctively reached out and offered a hand to help the man, but no-one was more surprised than he, when the man reached through the fog and grabbed the offered hand!

"You have to help us, Superman!"

Forgetting everything he had been about to do, he switched into "Superman mode" and asked the bearded man what the problem was.

"There's a bomb! They said it was hidden in the school, but no-one has been able to find it, and the deadline is coming closer! You have to help us find it! No-one on our world can help us!"

"Hang on, slow down a moment, Sir!" Superman had understood that there was an emergency, but was confused by the man's reference to 'our world'. "Take a deep breath," he instructed.

The man paused, and straightened his suit jacket, but ignored the fact that they were both floating so far above the bay.

"Superman," he began again, "I really hope you are able to believe me. I'm a scientist of sorts. I'm from another dimension. It is a place very similar to Earth, with a very similar history to here, but for one major difference; You don't exist there. In fact, over there, Superman is only a myth."

"So how did you manage to get here? How did you even manage to hear of here?"

Sounding exasperated, the man sighed, "We don't have much time Superman, the deadline for that bomb is getting closer! Don't you think I should explain this to you after you come back with me?"

Quickly weighing up his options, Superman made a decision. If the only problem was to disarm a bomb in order to save some children, and if it was a quick trip, he should be able to be back home later tonight, which meant he should still be able to get down to business with Lois, telling her the truth.

"OK, Sir, just how do we go about crossing over to your world, then?"

"My machine is just behind me in the temporal rift. Come back through it with me, and we'll be there in no time at all."

Taking him by the arm again, the man led Superman into the fog. As they moved deeper into it, he began to perceive an odd looking machine. More than anything else, Clark was reminded of the machine used in George Pal's 1950s movie The Time Machine. It looked intricate in the way of machines from the dawn of the industrial age, all brass, and polished wood. The machine sat atop a detailed Persian rug on a platform, floating, as were Superman and the scientist. It had two cane seats, and in front of one of the seats, as in a car, was a dashboard with controls on it. The scientist took the seat in front of the controls, indicating that Superman should take the other seat.

Clark watched as the man fiddled with the dials and vacuum tubes before him. Suddenly the world went monochrome around them, before becoming so blindingly bright that even Clark squinted his eyes shut. Clark felt himself turning inside out and back again, and even found himself wondering whether this was what it felt like to want to throw up, when just as suddenly the world came back into focus.

At the same time as his eyes began to re-focus, so did Clark's brain. As if a light had clicked on in his brain, he suddenly remembered where he had met this man before. He remembered everything that had happened with himself and Lois and HG Wells, and realised that this man was not the scientist he purported to be.

"There is no bomb, is there, Tempus?" Clark queried his kidnapper woozily.

Tempus had seen the lights come on, but he was aware of how Clark's mind would be inclined to wander as a result of the trip, as his brain tried to accommodate to the change of universes, and, landing the so-called "time machine", he spoke again to Clark.

"Well, I see that a long explanation isn't really necessary. What is true - well, to some extent anyway, is that I could call myself a sort of scientist! I'm experimenting-with you! You see, I wanted to see what would happen to you in a world where no-one believes in superheroes in real life, only in fiction. You're not really a Superman here, but you play one on television."

Clark was mainly aware of the world fading in and out, and of the difficulty he was having staying conscious - or was that "sane"?

Tempus caught Clark's attention by dint of grabbing his face and forcing Clark to look into his eyes.

"Watch the video!" Tempus instructed, and then he turned and vanished back into the mist surrounding the time machine, as the air reverberated around it.

Clark was very disoriented, and wished he had been able to sort out his brain enough to ask a few more questions, but Tempus was gone and it didn't look like he'd be back for a while. But, trying to make the best of a bad situation, Clark searched the well-appointed residence he'd been "dropped into", and quickly found the video recorder to which Tempus must have been referring.

There were two tapes sitting there, but no indication as to which he should watch first. He took one and found it was marked "The Pilot", with his own S-Shield on it, and, realising it was the longer of the two tapes, chose to leave watching it until later. Inserting the other tape into the recorder, he pressed Play, and levitated into a comfortable position to watch it.

It was a very brief tape: Tempus got right down to basics.

"You are an actor, playing Clark Kent now," he said. "You should find it easy enough to be yourself for the cameras!"

'I don't even know the name of the actor!' Clark was beginning to feel a little panicky about this whole situation. Maybe he shouldn't have done this without thinking it through first!

"For more information watch the other video. You will note the similarity in looks between yourself and this world's version of Superman. This is because I picked him for the part of playing you on this world! On my previous trip, I -ahem- arranged for him to take your place in your home universe.

"A word of warning: Even you should be able to figure out what people would think if you tried to tell them who you are and where you're from." Tempus wrapped his arms around himself and mimed being in a strait-jacket, sticking his tongue out. Clark could just imagine Tempus drooling slightly.

"Now, I'm going to let you make your own way here. You have one night to recover from the effects of your trip, and tomorrow morning, you'll be picked up to go to the studio for another day's filming. Have an interesting - er - experience! I'll try to be back for you in three days."

"Hey!" One of the crew members caught Dean's attention as he walked off the set, "Lane Davies is hanging around waiting to see you. Said it was something private he needed to talk to you about."

At the end of a long day of filming, Dean was dying to get out of the costume, but he supposed he should just go see what Lane wanted before heading back to his trailer to get changed.

He could see Lane waiting in the lee of the trailer anyway. "Yeah? Some of those Krypton FanClub people mentioned that you would be back on the set for a new episode... what can I do for you?"

"Dean! You'll never believe what I found in the storage rooms! You have just got to see this!" Dean looked, and said, "Yeah? So? It's the time machine from your first episode? What about it?"

"Dean, sit down, take a load off, I can see you're tired after today's filming. Here, lemme show you what I discovered about this machine! It does the most amazing things!"

"Really?" Dean watched in interest as Lane fiddled with the buttons and knobs on the dash of the machine. "Woah!" Dean suddenly felt himself turning inside out and back again, and almost wanted to throw up, when just as suddenly the world came back into focus. Dizzily he asked, "What was that?"

"Um, Dean, I have some bad news for you."

Groggily he looked up at the man who sat beside him, "Do I really want to know, Lane?"

"Dean, I'm not Lane Davies. I'm Tempus, and you are in MY world now. Guess what, Superman?" And with a snide grin on his face, he concluded, "You're Superman!"

With that, the devil in a stylish suit stepped off the time machine and sauntered whistling down the street, leaving Dean, all alone in a strange world.

Dean Cain is an intelligent man. While this whole affair had a dream-like quality to it (who would believe this anyway?) the buildings around him looked too solid to be a trick played by cast or crew members. And anyway, practical jokes were Dean's department, no-one else's! As soon as he had realised that Tempus was for real, and that he had been left in a predicament, he realised a number of things. First, he was stranded, in a Superman suit, presumably in a place where people would identify him as Superman, not as someone who pretended to be him. Also, as far as he could tell, things were happening in a sequential order, unlike the way his dreams usually occurred. He had no idea how this had happened, but whether or not it was a dream, he figured he'd better let it play itself out to completion.

Second, he wasn't Superman, so he wouldn't be able to do the things expected of Superman.

Third, he needed someone to help him acclimatise to this place, especially if he was stranded here indefinitely.

And fourth, he needed to figure out how to get home.

'Actually,' he thought, 'that last one shouldn't be too difficult. After all, Tempus has left me with the machine. Now all I need to do is figure out how to use it to get back home again. He worked those controls, and I'm sure I can figure out how to work them too, but I may need some help to work out what not to do! I wonder whether this place works according to scripts I've already seen and played? Or whether it is totally different?'

As he worked through these thoughts, Dean was carefully hiding the time machine in the alleyway in which he and Tempus had arrived, so that he would be able to return to it once he had figured out how to get back home.

By the time he had finished camouflaging the machine with garbage, his mind had turned to his next requirement. He needed to find someone to help him figure out this place.

'Well, I guess I have a few choices. First up, I think would have to be Martha and Jonathon Kent, except that they probably aren't here in Metropolis, and I can't exactly fly to Kansas. Next best might be that Dr Klein at STAR Labs. How am I supposed to get in touch with him? I have no idea! Which leaves me with Lois. Well, in a place the size of Metropolis, surely anyone can point out The Daily Planet to me?' Supposing that he couldn't spend the rest of his enforced stay in Metropolis in the alleyway, and that he didn't really want to anyway, Dean decided that it was time to venture out into the open. Much to his surprise, as he looked around, trying to get his bearings, he found that he had been set down in the alley way right behind the newspaper. At the sight of the Daily Planet building, Dean was hit once again by just how real this whole dream felt. But it couldn't be a dream... or could it? It had to be...

'Well, that was easy enough,' he thought. 'Maybe this is all some sort of elaborate hoax,' he wished to himself, walking into the front lobby of the building. But that hope was dashed when he entered the city room, and everyone looked at him with the belief in who he was supposed to be obvious in their eyes.

"Hey! Superman! What can I do for you, my man?" A familiar voice penetrated his thoughts.

"Jus- er, Jimmy! Hi." Dean wondered momentarily whether Jimmy Olsen would be able to help him out, but decided against it. Lois would be a better bet, as she could help him to disguise himself as Clark Kent instead of Superman. "Um, do you know where I can find Lois today, Jimmy? I have something I need to discuss with her."

"Lois?" Jimmy was obviously puzzled. "Perry told her to take the day off, Superman. I thought you knew! After she helped you and CK and his parents out with those blackmailers, she took the rest of the week off to recover." Conspiratorially, Jimmy led Dean into the Conference Room, and leaned closer to Superman, then added, "I'm glad you managed to stop that guy Mazik, Superman! I really hated to see Clark in such pain!"

Dean was very surprised, but realised that Lois (and the rest of this world) must have just been through what, to him, was the second season finale of Lois & Clark! 'Great!' He thought to himself, 'Lois already knows that Clark is Superman. That will make my "stay" a lot easier!'

"Um, Jimmy, this is going to sound a bit weird, but can you do me a favour? And not tell the world?"

Jimmy nodded assent. "Sure Superman, anything I can do for you, you know I will!"

"Um, see this suit? Well, it doesn't exactly have pockets. I need to borrow some money from you. Um, say twenty bucks? I can't tell you what it's for. But I'll make sure that you get the money back as soon as I can."

Jimmy looked at Dean strangely, but figuring that Superman must need it, he took out his wallet and gave Superman the cash.

"Thanks Jimmy. You really are a great pal. OK, I have to go now. I guess I'll see you 'round!" Dean headed back toward the elevator, not noticing the look he got from Jimmy when he didn't leave via the window.

Once outside the Planet again, Dean was about to hail a cab to take him to 348 Hyperion Avenue, to see Lois. But he remembered in time that Lois wasn't married to Clark yet, and looked up her address at the nearest public phone booth (this gained him some more odd looks from passers-by). Then Dean hailed a cab and gave the driver Lois' address.