Here is the first part to the third and final book in my 'Hidden' series!
Quick and easy guide for the other books:
Book One Hidden Consequences
Book Two Hidden Threats Many, many thanks to my amazing beta reader, KatherineKent!
Enjoy!
~L&C~
Hidden Joys
VRA FAILS IN SENATE, GENERAL GUILTY OF TORTURE by Lois LaneClark stared at the headline, soaking in the truth of those words. Justice had been served, and heroes like himself were safe again. Although when Lois had shown Clark her article yesterday, she had been rather upset that Luthorcorp would come out of everything unscathed. All of the company’s research on meteor rock was property of the US government, so Luthorcorp couldn’t in any way be implicated.
Besides, the nature of the torture was being publicly reported as held in captivity and poisoning prisoners, which would make tying the torture to Luthorcorp explicitly a bit difficult.
While it gave Clark some comfort to know that Wilson was in jail, he felt nervous about the government having so much access to research about him. Sam Lane promised to do all he could to have the research destroyed and Lois had it confirmed that the facility under Fort Abrams was in the process of being shut down.
Clark hoped it was enough to close that dark chapter forever.
~L&C~
Nine days, seven hours, four minutes, and seventeen seconds.That’s how long Clark had been home, and his powers still hadn’t returned.
Clark sat on the porch with his son, Joel, soaking up the sunlight, like he did every day that it wasn’t raining. But his effort to recover felt futile…and he felt useless… He could barely do chores around the farm, let alone be Metropolis’ hero.
Clark sighed, knowing he was being hard on himself. It was only that he had been confident that he’d get his powers back. He had told Lois that he would face whatever happened, but he had been so sure that this was only temporary. As much as he had wanted to be normal in the past, he knew he was destined for something more.
Clark calculated how many hours he’d spent in the sun over the last week… more than enough to recover, surely. At least, before his encounter with Slade it had been enough. But he had never sustained such a long exposure to green kryptonite before, and he was uncertain whether there actually wasn’t kryptonite in his body. He had recollections that he thought could be nightmares, of his food being laced with kryptonite, but he had been delusional for most of the time in that cell, and couldn’t rely on his memory. If he had taken kryptonite into his system, who knew how long it would take to get rid of it, or if he even could.
Joel, who was crawling around, exploring the confines of the porch, gave Clark a happy baby smile. Clark couldn’t help but smile back at his son, despite his concerns. At least while he had some time off, he could spend it with Joel. And his son was one unexpected joy that was some comfort to him, despite all that had happened.
~L&C~
Lois watched Clark play with Joel from the kitchen, feeling a bit pensive herself. She knew that Clark was more worried about getting his powers back than he let on. She just wished she knew what she could do to help him…
She tried to be there for him emotionally, and even held him a few nights when he woke up from nightmares, reliving the terror he had faced at the hands of General Slade Wilson. There was an almost indelible mark that Slade had left on Clark, and Lois feared that the only way to take it away, to make him whole, was to get his powers back somehow.
But sun therapy wasn’t working…
And Clark seemed to be withdrawing into himself more and more. He seemed to think he wasn’t enough without his powers, and his loss in confidence broke Lois’ heart. She had tried to reassure him, and during the few days after he got back, when it still seemed likely that he’d fully recover, he had appeared to believe her. But with each passing day, Lois saw him crawl into himself more and more, and she wasn’t sure how to pull him back out again.
~L&C~
“You two seem to be having fun,” Lois said lightly, coming to join Clark and her son on the porch.
“He’s amazing, Lois. So much personality, you know?” answered Clark, sounding like a proud father.
She laughed. “Indeed I do. I hang out with him on a regular basis, remember? We’re best buds.”
Lois came to sit beside them, where Clark had lain out a blanket and some baby toys. Her eyes searched Clark surreptitiously under her lashes, as she looked for any sign that he might be recovering.
The first few days she’d ask if he was feeling better, but somewhere around the last three or four days, that question had become painful. Instead she turned her attention to Joel.
“Ew, didn’t you catch a whiff of that, Smallville? Our little man needs a diaper change, stat!” she said, lifting up her son. “I swear, he can be toxic as all get out, and yet I still melt when he smiles at me like that.”
Clark gave her his own smile, which Lois suddenly realized was mirrored in Joel’s. “I know. Gets me every time, too. You want me to take him?”
“No, that’s okay. You…um, have fun out here. I’ll bring him back in a minute.”
Lois headed into the house, wondering how much longer they could play this charade of everything being fine, when both of them knew things weren’t fine. She knew they both loved Joel to pieces, but Lois was running out of ideas about how to take that weight of worry off Clark’s shoulders.
She saw it in every headline they read, where they both knew the Blur could have made a difference. She’d change the channel when the newscasters would start speculating on where the Blur was and why he wasn’t there to rescue this family from a fire, or that man from a shooting.
The world looked like a very dark place without Clark there to save the day, and Lois hated it as much as he did. But she didn’t blame him, not one bit. Though she knew, on some level, Clark blamed himself—and as much as she knew he loved her, she couldn’t take that burden from him.
Lois sighed, setting Joel on the changing table, going into auto-diaper-change mode as she began mumbling her concerns to her son. Something she found herself doing a lot lately.
“I just don’t know what to tell him, Joel. You know? I’m sure he’ll eventually get his powers back, but I guess I’m seeing how much being the Blur is a part of who he really is…. Yet I still see the guy I fell in love with—before I knew Daddy’s secret. Yes, I do,” she added playfully in a baby voice, as she tickled her son’s tummy, getting a gleeful gurgle from him.
“But Smallville doesn’t see it, and that’s what’s important,” she added in her regular voice, sprinkling on baby powder. “I don’t know… maybe Jor-El has some ideas.”
Joel gave her a quizzical look, shoving his fist into his mouth experimentally. “You remember Grandpa Jor-El, right? He helped bring you into this world… sort of. The big ice castle thing?” She didn’t get a response. “No? You don’t remember?” She secured Joel’s diaper, chucking the dirty one into the diaper genie as she continued to think aloud. “You know, I wonder if he would help… I doubt Clark would want to go… but maybe I can convince him…”
Suddenly inspired, Lois hefted Joel onto her shoulder, almost forgetting his soggy giraffe on the dresser before Joel almost started crying. “Ooops, sorry,” she said, reaching for it to give to him. “Yech… kiddo, we need to get you a new favorite toy. Cause this one has to go in the wash soon… and who knows how we’ll get through a wash cycle without your favorite buddy to gum to death.”
Lois bounded down the stairs, noticing that Clark was still outside, though he had moved to the front yard and was doing something with the tractor. She shook her head, “Well, at least he’s doing something. I suppose that’s progress…. Come on, kiddo. Let’s see if I can find Clark’s disk thingy, and can convince him to go see his ice daddy.”
~L&C~
Lois hadn’t realized how dusty and disused the barn had gotten. Clark had cleaned up a little bit where the equipment was used, but his old hangout upstairs was covered in dust.
“Maybe I should have left you outside with Daddy, little one. This place is—achooo!” Lois sneezed. “—is in serious need of a good cleaning.”
Lois shuffled through Clark’s drawers, forgetting exactly where Clark kept his All Access Pass to the Fortress. She sifted through one drawer, pulling it out to be able to see its contents better. She let out another aggressive sneeze and the drawer went tumbling off her lap.
“Oh, shoot,” she muttered, gathering the random oddities that Clark had collected over the years. “You know, for a planet that exploded, a lot of it sure made its way to Earth,” she commented wryly to Joel, who was sitting next to her.
The spilled contents caught his attention, and as she was gathering small leaden boxes of various kinds of kryptonite, she saw Joel crawl towards something.
It was small and gold, and had hit the floor with a light ‘ping’… “No!” Lois cried, diving for the Legion ring just as Joel was about to reach it. Suddenly, they were both surrounded by a bright purple light, a sensation Lois suddenly recalled…
It was dark outside and Lois looked around cautiously, pulling Joel into her embrace. “Oh Joel… what did you do? I can’t blame you, though… I got in trouble touching that thing once, too,” she said, tucking the gold ring into her pocket. She kissed her son’s head, knowing that without her own trip to the future, she may never have had him. “But the question we need to be asking ourselves is when are we?”
As Lois slowly made her way down the steps, she saw a remnant of an orange streamer, an overlooked leftover from Chloe’s disastrous wedding. She glanced around, noting that while most of the wedding decorations had been taken away, and the disaster that Doomsday had left behind had been cleaned up, there were still a few signs of the horror that had occurred that day. A bloodstain here, a broken beam there. But most poignant of all, were the pieces of detritus left behind from the wedding.
Lois walked slowly towards the farmhouse, all the feelings during that time coming rushing back: her heartbreak for her cousin, the fact that Jimmy would die at the hands of Davis… and, how Lana had swept in, distracting Clark away from almost kissing her for the first time.
She wasn’t sure what she would do, or how she would explain Joel. She thought about just putting the ring back on and going somewhere – anywhere but here. But she feared that ring, and she hoped that Clark would know something about how to use it. If she could explain her presence here to him at all.
Lois paused, thinking. She knew her present self was with Jimmy in Star City. Could she pretend to be the same Lois…and maybe just babysitting for a friend?
She hugged Joel tighter to her, who started a soft garble of half cry, half baby talk. He was beginning to sound fussy, which meant he probably needed to eat soon. She’d either have to find a way to feed him in secret, or have an explanation as to why she had a baby with her, ready to go.
And Clark? She felt her throat tighten with emotion, knowing it would be hard to hide the truth from him, but also knowing that he wasn’t so sure of his own feelings during this time. She couldn’t hit him with the truth, even if he would believe her.
Lois felt the ring in her jeans pocket. Either she put the ring on and risked sending her and Joel into a more dangerous time, like that future apocalypse, or she faced the fears of her heart.
~L&C~
The porch light was on, but Lois wasn’t sure anyone was home. Joel was getting antsier by the second, and she needed to get him something to eat. Cautiously Lois opened the front door. “Hello? Is anybody home? Clark?”
Hearing no answer, Lois stepped inside, as the door was unlocked. And while that wasn’t unusual, it still made her uncertain whether or not she was alone. “Hello?” she called again, this time halfway up the stairs. When she again received no answer, she started raiding the fridge, looking for something she could mash up for Joel to eat. Luckily, she found some applesauce, which, while not a meal, would tide him over until she could figure out their next move.
As she dug out a spoon and started feeding Joel, she wondered if Clark had realized they were missing yet. Clark had said during her trip to the future, she had been gone three weeks in the present. And though she had no memories of that experience, from Clark’s retelling of events he had witnessed, it seemed she had experienced a much shorter time span. Again, she thought of slipping on the ring, but caution held her at bay.
Joel finished eating and was now ready for bed. Lois headed upstairs to her old room, assessing the sleeping possibilities. She decided to make him a makeshift bed, knowing he’d stay conked out in one position for most of the night anyway. She checked the wardrobe, and found several extra blankets, which she used to form a sort of barrier around where she laid Joel in the center of the bed.
Once Lois settled him in, she headed downstairs to wait for Clark to get home, and hopefully, find the courage to ask for his help.
~L&C~
As Lois headed down the stairs, the kitchen door suddenly burst open, and there stood Clark and Lana, in each other’s arms, grinning ear to ear.
Lois tried to tamp down the feeling of jealousy and anger she felt surge through her, knowing that during this time she was sitting in a hospital room with Jimmy fighting for his life. Not to mention that she and Clark had come so close to acknowledging the very real connection they had. She knew that he and Lana had gotten back together briefly after Chloe’s wedding. But seeing it right before her eyes was another thing all together.
“Hi,” she said awkwardly, with a small wave. “Um, don’t mind me.”
“Lois,” Clark responded, momentarily looking rather confused. “I thought you were in Star City with Jimmy.”
Yeah, glad my absence afforded you time to renew old flames, Smallville. “Well, uh, he’s doing okay, and Chloe said she’d head out there in a few days and I uh, just came by to see if you still needed help uh, cleaning up the barn.”
Lois noticed that Clark had stepped away from Lana during this exchange. A little telling, as usually old lovers about to reunite telegraph it to the world around them. She felt some relief at that. On some level, he must know that his heart didn’t really belong to Lana anymore.
Something else struck her about Clark suddenly. As she looked into his eyes, she saw that hope, that confidence that had been missing since he was held captive. The force of it hit her in the chest, and she tried to hide her emotion, glancing away.
“Look, I guess I’ll just um—“ she couldn’t think of what to say. She couldn’t leave, although it was clear that at least Lana wanted her to, by her body language. But Joel was sleeping upstairs, and to be honest, she was happy to interrupt this little reunion. Lana had caused Clark nothing but heartache, and though Lois didn’t know the details of how everything ended between them, she knew that their relationship had just made it that much more difficult for Clark to acknowledge what he felt for her.
Suddenly, a baby cry made Lois’ decision for her.
“What’s a baby doing here?” Lana asked.
Lois plastered on a smile. “Babysitting. Um, yeah, for a family that was at the wedding. They are in the hospital and—“
“I thought you just came from Star City,” Clark pressed.
Lois could hear Joel’s cry become ever more urgent and her maternal instinct, as well as the fight or flight one, was kicking in.
“Could you two just excuse me for a moment?” she said, before diving up the stairs.
She found Joel crawling around the bed, having pushed off one of the barriers onto the floor. Lois felt like a horrible mother, fearing what could have happened to Joel if he had rolled off the bed. She picked him up and cuddled him. “Sorry, Joel. Wasn’t really thinking,” she said softly, suddenly feeling terribly lonely.
Clark was just down stairs, but he felt a million miles away.
