Lois I
They were able to catch a cab in front to the hospital and ‘Charlie’ directed the driver to the Daily Planet. Lois watched her companion out of the corner of her eye. Dressed in a gray three-piece suit, even if it was a little out of date, made him look ‘human’, approachable, and disconcertingly familiar. Annoyingly familiar.
“So, Charlie, is that your real name?” she asked.
He grinned at her. “No.”
“So, what is it?”
“Right now I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you,” Kal-El stated.
She could hear an odd bitterness in his tone and again she felt that odd sensation that she was missing something. Like she was looking all around whatever it was but couldn’t focus on it. Her companion was Superman, Kal-El of Krypton, Metropolis’s favorite son, savior of the city – just not this city. They had their own Superman. But Kal-El had another name, of this she was positive. And somehow, she knew she once knew his other name.
The cab stopped in front of the Daily Planet building and Kal-El pulled cash from a worn leather wallet to pay the driver. She forced herself to overcome the urge to grab the wallet from him to see what his identification said.
“Coming?” he asked, getting out of the cab.
Wanda climbed out after him, then stopped to gaze, open-mouthed, at the larger-than-life poster set in a display case on the side of the building. Richard White, looking charming and debonair, with a handsome woman standing beside him. The photographed pair smiled out at passersby. The caption read Lane and White, hottest team on the Planet. Lois didn’t recognize the woman.
“I see Richard has a counterpart here,” Kal-El commented. “And that’s Penny Landris, if I’m not mistaken. Perry hired her away from the Post a few days ago.”
“How do you know?” she wondered.
“I know,” he assured her with a crooked smile, leading the way in to the building.
The lobby held a coffee kiosk and newsstand. The cashier gazed at them incuriously as they made their way to the elevator banks, past framed front-pages of famous events covered by the Daily Planet – the Hindenberg, the first Moon landing, the first appearance of Superman.
“This is dated fourteen years ago,” Kal-El pointed out, scanning the articles. “He showed up here five years before I did.”
The doors to one of the elevators opened and they entered. Wanda hit the button for the editorial floor. “And Clark Kent is the E-in-C,” she said in continued disbelief. After a few minutes, the elevator slowed and stopped, the doors opening into the Daily Planet bullpen.
Again, the room was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. The crowded desks, the flat-screen monitors hanging off the support columns, the offices and conference room on the outside walls were familiar components, but the colors were different, warmer. Half the desks were currently unoccupied. Wanda/Lois knew from experience that these reporters were out on the street and would be returning in a few hours to complete their assignments for the next edition.
A petite oriental woman in a blue business suit caught sight of them and strode over to where Wanda and Kal-El were standing in the elevator lobby outside the bullpen. “You must be Charlie and Wanda,” she said with a wide smile. “I’m Margot Tanaka, Mister Kent’s assistant. He called and said you were on your way.” She held out her hand and Kal-El shook it.
“You’re free to look around, and we have a computer in the conference room if you want to check email or do some research,” she continued. “Or you can wait in Mister Kent’s office. Just stay out of the way, but I suppose you know that.”
Kal-El and Wanda nodded. “We’re familiar with newsrooms,” Kal-El said. He took Wanda’s elbow and guided her to the conference room. “We can use that computer to check out this place,” he murmured to his companion.
“I wonder what happened to Perry?” she murmured back.
“Let’s find out,” he said, closing the conference room door behind them.
Lois II
Lois’s contractions were close. She had hold of his hand as he coached her in breathing, panting along with her. “Another big push,” he told her. One part of her mind, the reporter, noted his glance at the midwife stationed between her legs. The midwife nodded.
“Come on, push Lois, push,” Clark told her. She grabbed his arm through the surgical gown he was wearing and squeezed. She was thankful he was invulnerable to most things. She’d be leaving bruises otherwise. It wasn’t good to leave bruises on her husband, even if he did deserve them, sometimes.
“The baby’s crowning,” the midwife announced. “Give us another good one, Lois.”
Lois was sweating and her hair was damp, pointing in all directions as the latest contraction rolled through her body. She looked a mess, she knew it, and it annoyed her, even though she also knew that Clark didn’t care how she looked right now.
She grimaced as she put all her energy into the muscles of her belly, aiding the contraction, pushing the baby out of her body. Another moment’s rest and another push. After three previous births, it still wasn’t any easier. Why had they decided on having one more? Oh, yes, Clark, an only child and adopted at that, wanted a big family. Well, he was having the next one.
She groaned as yet another contraction hit and she bore down.
“Come on, just a little more,” Clark said. The midwife moved even closer and there was a sudden wail from a new life arriving on the scene.
“You have a daughter,” the midwife announced, placing the bloody, slimy, new arrival on her mother’s belly.
“She’s beautiful,” Clark marveled as Lois caressed the baby’s body. He bent closer to his wife and kissed her. “Just like her mother.”
Clark I
“Perry’s obituary,” Kal-El pointed out the article on the computer screen in front of him. “He died of ALS two years ago. Survived by his wife and sons. Kent started here fourteen years ago. He was the assistant editor at the time and was promoted to E-in-C on Perry’s death. He was thirty-eight at the time, which made him the youngest E-in-C in the Planet’s history.”
“He showed up here about the same time their Superman first appeared,” Wanda observed. “Why are you so interested in Kent?”
She doesn’t get it, he thought to himself. Why can’t she see it? He chose not to answer her question. What did I do to her six years ago that she can’t make such an obvious connection?
His thoughts were interrupted by a commotion outside conference room. Wanda opened the door to listen. A man with reddish-brown hair was standing at the railing to the elevator lobby holding his hands up for quiet. The room had more occupied desks now as the reporters trickled in to write their stories for tomorrow’s paper.
“I have an announcement to make, everybody,” the man said. He looked to be about thirty-five. “Martha Michaela Kent arrived at 1:44 PM today. Seven pounds, ten ounces. Mother and child are doing fine. Dad is a basket case, as usual.” There was a round of applause at the announcement.
Kal-El heard a cry for help somewhere uptown, made a lame excuse to Wanda and headed for the stairwell to escape the building. The local Superman was busy with family matters and whether or not this was his universe, he was needed.
Clark II
The midwife took the baby to be cleaned up and checked out, leaving Clark alone with Lois.
“Ya done good, partner,” he said. Even sweaty and exhausted, she was beautiful and once again, as he did almost every moment of every day, he marveled at how lucky he was to have her.
“I know,” Lois said with a tired grin. “When can we go home?”
“In a couple hours,” Clark said. “You need to rest a little, let them check you out. You know the drill.”
‘Kal-El?’ Zara’s voice intruded inside his head. ‘Ching and I will be landing in four hours. Can you have everything ready?’
'Yes,’ Clark replied mentally.
“Clark, what’s wrong?” Lois asked.
He had realized many, many years ago that he couldn’t hide anything from her. Not since she figured out that Superman was Clark Kent’s alter ego. “Zara and Ching are on their way. They’ll be here a little after six.”
“So soon?”
“I have the impression they’re in a hurry,” he told her. “And she did say they’d come after the baby was born.”
“I figured they meant a few days, not a few hours,” Lois commented. “You’d better get things ready for them.”
He kissed her, a long, lingering kiss, tasting the sweat that was still on her face. “I’ll be back to get you as soon as I can,” he promised.
