“Is everything okay down here?” Martha asked, coming down the stairs from the second floor and entering the living room. “It got kind of quiet.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Clark assured her. “I assume you got the kids to bed?”
“Yes, of course,” Martha smiled at him. “And they’ll probably stay asleep so long as you don’t start yelling at Zara and Ching again. By the way, Lara links Jason is cute.”
Clark I
Kal-El stood and walked out to the kitchen. He was getting restless and needed to move. He couldn’t say exactly why he was restless, but maybe uncomfortable was a better description. He was uncomfortable with his realization that the Superman of this world really was Clark Kent, a human with Kryptonian powers who had a family, and family problems. Kal-El had spent most of his adult life believing, as a Kryptonian living on Earth, that he was, for that fact alone, superior. He made life and death decisions all the time. So he had decided that Lois hadn’t needed to remember their all-too-short time together, he had decided to leave for six years without thinking of the consequences to those he’d left behind.
The coffee carafe was empty, so he quickly looked through the cabinets for the coffee and started another pot.
“Are you okay?” Wanda asked. He hadn’t noticed her approach. I’m getting careless. He didn’t bother to look at her, staring out the kitchen window at the river instead.
“Yeah,” Kal-El said. “It’s funny, though. I’ve known all about Krypton since just after high school, but I knew nothing about Kryptonians except that I was the last one. I’d idealized them, a proud, noble, doomed people. He’s known about Kryptonians for nearly that long, but knew nothing of the planet they’re from. He thinks I’m a self-centered, selfish fool. And he’s right.”
“Clark? Or would you prefer Charlie or Kal-El?”
“I not sure. Kal-El is my birth name. Clark isn’t exactly someone I’d like to know. He’s a clumsy, unreliable fool. And the other one, Superman, is a fiction,” Kal-El admitted. “The real problem is, I really don’t know how to change. Part of me, a big part, says I shouldn’t have to. Superman shouldn’t care for just one person, shouldn’t be bound by family, shouldn’t be bothered by mundane matters.”
“Sounds lonely,” Wanda observed.
“Yeah.” He turned to look at her, finally. “Just out of curiosity, are your holidays better than theirs?”
Wanda shook her head, keeping her voice low. “You’ve met the General. I’m lucky I don’t commit murder over the holidays, although, he has been behaving a little better since Jason was born.”
Kal-El did remember Wanda’s parents. Her father, General Sam Lane, was an equal opportunity hater. He’d hated anyone he thought Wanda, or her sister, was interested in. It didn’t matter whether or not they actually had an interest, the fact he thought they did was all that mattered. He loathed Clark Kent, for various other reasons, not the least of which was that Clark disagreed with the General’s politics. He could hardly imagine the General’s reaction to finding out that he was Wanda’s son’s natural father. Wanda’s mother, Elinor, was an alcoholic and had been in and out of treatment centers most of Wanda’s life.
“I’m sorry,” Kal-El said, softly.
“For what?” Wanda asked. “For my family being as screwed up as hers? Comes with the territory. As much as I hate it, I wouldn’t be who I am without them.”
“Your dad’s going to flip when he finds out about Jason, about us,” Kal-El said. “Assuming you tell him.”
“He already knows you’re Jason’s father,” Wanda said. “Every body at the Planet knew the first time they saw him. Perry figured it was just a matter of time before you showed up again and took responsibility for your actions. We just didn’t think it would take six years.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You keep saying that. I know you’re sorry. But sorry isn’t the same as being there when your child takes his first step, or says his first word, or scrapes his knee, or cries all night because of an earache. Sorry doesn’t mean a lot when you’re simply not there, when you’re not willing to take the steps to be there for the people who need you.”
“Even when the world needs me more?”
“Don’t be so full of yourself. The world got along fine for six years without you,” Wanda reminded him.
Clark II
“We still have one problem left,” Clark said to Zara. “Conza’s baby. Logically, I know you and Ching are right. But I just can’t do it. I mean, I’ll go ahead and sign the repudiation documents, but I can’t let you kill her. She’s probably the only innocent in this whole mess.”
“But we can’t take her back to New Krypton and we can’t leave her here,” Zara reminded him. “I don’t see that there’s another solution.”
“I do,” Wanda announced, coming back from the kitchen. “I can take the baby. Charlie and I are from an alternate time-line. I doubt Xon or whatever his name is, will be able to find her. And you can go ahead and announce the child died or was fostered somewhere away from Earth. I assume there are other inhabited planets around?”
“Yes,” Ching said. “Humanoids are spread throughout the galaxy. Many of them seem to be fully human. We try not to have much contact with them. We’re not great explorers. We never were and life on New Krypton is hard enough without letting everyone know where we are and how poor we are.”
“Or how the mighty have fallen?” Clark observed.
“That too,” Zara said.
“Wanda, do you know what you’re doing?” Kal-El asked. “She’ll be fully Kryptonian.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Wanda demanded. “My son threw a grand piano across a room and killed a man. My five-year-old son. Besides, I think it’s a pretty good solution, assuming we ever get back to where we belong. It’s not like I’m planning to do this alone.”
“According to the memory modules, the storm that brought you here should return within two-and-a-half days at the outside and take you out of here. Hopefully back to where you came from,” Clark said. “Assuming you two can find some sort of beacon to guide you back to exactly where you came from. There aren’t any guarantees.”
He thought back over the many alternate time-lines he and Lois had visited, heard of. He knew there were thousands, millions, of possibilities. “You could wind up almost anywhere. You could end up in a time-line where humans don’t exist, where Superman doesn’t or can’t exist or he did exist and things went bad, either he turned to the darkness, or he died or worse. There are worse things than dying, you know.”
“I know,” Wanda said. “But I have a son who needs his mother.”
Lois I
Wanda couldn’t say what possessed her to make the offer to take the child, except it felt exactly right. She wasn’t surprised that Kal-El had objections. Some part of her recognized that for all his power, he was afraid of commitment. Afraid of being tied down, of having responsibilities. Not that being the savior of the planet wasn’t a responsibility, but that didn’t entail the day-in and day-out grind of being truly committed to a relationship, of being responsible to and for another person.
In many ways he was like she had been the day they had met. Mad Dog Lane had interviews instead of dates and had been unable to tell the difference. She was a workaholic and smoked too much. She had fallen for Superman because he was unobtainable. He belonged to the world. And when she was finally ready for a relationship he wasn’t, either as Superman or as Clark Kent.
Instead, she’d found she was pregnant, without knowing how, without knowing who.
“Here is the child,” Ching said, handing her the metal case and a metal card with Kryptonian glyphs inscribed on it. “She is in stasis. When the case is opened with the key, the unit will revive her.”
“How old is she?” Lois asked.
“Only a few hours,” Zara answered. “She is healthy and is the offspring of Lord Kal-El and the Lady Conza Nor-Et. Our medics found no unusual genetic predispositions.”
“Wanda, you don’t have to do this,” Kal-El reminded her.
“Yes, we do,” Wanda stated firmly. “I’m a mother. I won’t let a child die if I can help it. And you’re Superman, you rescue people. Are you willing to turn your back on an innocent? Do you want to have Zara and Ching handle it, lie about it, destroy what trust they’ve built up with Clark and his family?”
He had a grace to look ashamed. “Of course not. But how do we explain coming back from an investigation that didn’t pan out with a newborn?”
Wanda smiled. “I’ll think of something.” She turned to Clark. “What do you think she’ll look like?”
“Based on what I remember of her mother and her grandparents, she’ll look something like Lara, brown eyes, dark hair, a little exotic, maybe. Why?”
“Just curious,” Wanda said. “Plus, I have an idea.”
“I’m not going to like it, am I?” Kal-El asked. He was eyeing her warily.
“If I know my Lois Lanes,” Clark said, “you’ll be lucky to live.”
Wanda saw the familiar deer-in-the-headlights look she’d so often seen in Clark’s eyes. It was so odd to see it in the face she now recognized as Superman’s. “Would it help if I promise not to kill you, and I promise not to tell the world that Superman is a disguise for Clark Kent?”
“Maybe,” Kal El admitted. “But I’d still like to know what you’re planning.”
“Clark,” Zara said. “Ching and I have to get back to the ship and we still need to sign the documents.”
“We can do that downstairs. We can also place that ad in the Planet,” Clark said, leading them back to the basement office. He beckoned Lois to come with them, leaving Wanda and Kal-El alone in the living room.
“I’m in love with you, you know,” Wanda began. “At first, I admit, I had a crush on Superman. He was perfect, unobtainable, safe. No strings, so commitments, no next morning recriminations because he was too good, too upstanding to do anything that was less than perfectly gentlemanly.
“Then, I discovered the partner Perry had foisted on me. A tall, good-looking fellow with thick glasses, who so exemplified Midwest values as to be unbelievable. He was honest, brilliant, and so terminally shy we all wondered how he could possibly get any leads or do any interviews because he was afraid to even talk for fear of stammering. But he was one of the few men I’d ever met who could stand up me, not to mention my father. He was my friend. Only he disappeared without a word. He never even said goodbye.”
“I did try, Lois,” Kal-El said. “That last day at the Planet. I tried to say goodbye, but you were too preoccupied with the story you were working on. You never even looked up.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, not looking at him. “I was so used to having you around, it never even occurred to me you might not be there the next day. I was furious as Perry for not stopping you, for not telling me what you were planning. Everybody in the newsroom thought we’d had a lover’s spat. That you’d come back in a few days, all puppy dog eyes, and things would be back to normal. Only you didn’t come back. And that hurt.”
“I didn’t meant to hurt you,” he said. “I swear I didn’t.”
“What about us?” she asked. “Is there even a chance?”
“This morning I would have sworn we didn’t,” he admitted. “That the problems we would face were too big, too many. I believed my own PR. Superman can’t have any relationships like that.”
“And now?”
“Lois, I fell in love the you the first time I saw you,” he said. “You were beautiful, intelligent, strong, stubborn, opinionated, brilliant, with an uncanny ability to attract danger. You needed me. And I was too stupid to see that I needed you even more. Do you think we have a chance?”
“We won’t know unless we try,” Wanda said. She reached up and pulled his head down to her level, kissing him gently.
“What about Richard?”
“Richard knows,” she told him. “He just waiting for me to decide.”
