Missing Lois - TOC Story Notes: This story is mostly set in alt-dimension, although visits to the canon dimension do happen from time-to-time and more regularly during this chapter.
- Clark = Alt-Clark unless otherwise noted (such as when we are in the canon dimension, then 'Clark' is canon Clark)
- Lucy El = pregnant canon Lois avoiding the curse by hiding out with alt-Clark, aka alt-Lois's secret identity
- Kal = Lucy El's husband's name, or what Lois-Lucy and alt-Clark call canon Clark
- Lois = canon Lois (again); unless we're in canon dimension, then Lois could be referring to the substitute Lois borrowed from canon Lois's pre-amnesia time to fill in for canon Lois while she was in alt-dimension; or the 'deceased' wife of alt-Luthor
- Ultra Woman = originally the costume canon Lois wore to Perry's 'Come as Your Favorite Superhero' party; now, alt-Lois
- Mr. Amazing = alt-Lois's nickname for Superman
- Wow Woman = alt-Clark/Superman's pet nickname for alt-Lois/Ultra Woman
- Sam Lane = alt-Lois's Dad, canon Lois's doctor & Clark’s roommate
- Martha and Jonathan Kent = canon Clark's parents
- Mayor White = aka Perry White, former Editor-in-Chief at the DP
- James Olsen = owner of the
Daily Planet, Lois-Lucy's friend
- Lex Luthor = no explanation necessary, same bad guy as always, this time bald
- Lola Luthor = ‘wife’ of Lex Luthor; alt-Lois, if not referring to Clois (Cloned Lois)
- Gareth McTinney = new EIC at the alt-DP.
- Dr. Bernard Klein = S.T.A.R. Labs scientist and Superman's 'doctor'
- H.G. Wells – famed author – inventor of the Time-Machine – the man who brought canon Lois to alt-Clark
- The only people who know canon Lois's true identity are alt-Clark, Sam, Moonbeam (alt-Star), Dr. Klein and alt-Lois. Alt-Clark told Mayson Drake that Lucy El is his sister-in-law and that he has a twin brother, but not about the other dimension.
***
Where we left off in Chapter 7: Part 3...Canon Clark is dreaming...
“So, we created this secret identity for her as Lucy El, wife of Kal-El. It was only supposed to be temporary, while her fiancé was out on assignment, a couple of months tops.”
Clark placed his hand on his Lois’s flat tummy. “If you tell me you can see those four Double Fudge Crunch Bars I ate…”
The tummy grew to a small baby bump. “I always have a reminder of our first, first time, Clark.” He could feel a slight kick from the baby.
Her tummy grew even bigger as did the kick. “She misses her Daddy.”
Voices and faces swirled around him as he spun around and around and around.
“I have a feeling it’s a girl.” Pregnant Lois.
“Lucy and Clark work very closely together, I’ve noticed. Very closely.” The other dimension’s Lois.
“We’re just good friends… I spent two nights under your roof; two nights with your wife. Bet you’re wondering how long we were able to resist each other… I’m sorry, I insinuated that I had slept with your wife while you were lost in time.” The other Clark.
“Lucy misses her husband, you know, Kal-El.” His Lois.
“You know, you’re the luckiest man alive.” The other Clark.
“If you knew how much he has helped you and your family…” His Mom.
“No, the baby is yours, Kal-El.” The other Clark.
“Almost passing out at her desk before turning green and then sitting in the conference room repeating your name for three minutes straight. Clark. Clark. Clark. Clark. Clark…. That was eight months ago.” Jimmy.
“The baby’s due mid-February.” The very pregnant Lois.
The other Lois’s voice spoke clearly as he suddenly was standing still by himself. “Clark loves Lucy’s and Kal’s baby, wishing it was his own... She said that if I could beat the curse, so can she.”Clark sat up in bed, his heart racing from his crazy dream. The room felt like it tilted on its side. The baby was due in mid-February. It was the tenth. His hands began to shake. In the summer, his fiancée went to the other Clark’s dimension to escape the curse. Lucy El was his wife. His missing Lois. And she was pregnant with his child. A chill went down his spine.
Part 4Author’s Note: Canon Lois will once again be addressed as ‘Lois’ or ‘Kal’s Lois’ or ‘Kal’s Lucy.’ She will still be called ‘Lucy’ when others who know her as that speak with or about her. Alt-Lois will now be called ‘Ultra Woman’, ‘Ultra Lois’, ‘the other Lois’ or just plain “Ultra” or sometimes a rare ‘Ultra Lucy.’ I’m trying to keep it clear, who is who. I apologize in advance for any confusion between the Loises.
Pregnant Lois’s home dimension…Clark climbed out of bed and was in his blue suit and out the window headed for Smallville ten seconds later. Before the minute was up, he was unlocking his parents’ front door and taking the other Lois’s suicide note down from where his Mom had placed it between the jars of pasta. He had to read it again.
Lucy has gotten so huge, I’ve had to take over her job at The Planet.
Clark said that she didn’t really show until after her sixth month, then boom! Clark loves that baby so much, it breaks my heart when he looks at her. Does he wish Lucy and Kal’s child was his own or is he just paranoid that something will happen, complications that we can’t handle? Only Lucy shows no fear. She said that if I could beat the curse, so can she.Clark sat down at the kitchen table and set his head in his hands. Lucy El was the woman he made love to before he left for New Krypton –
his Lois. Oh my God! He had spoken with Lucy El on the phone. And she knew all about Superman and Kal-El’s wife. Why hadn’t he seen it before? Why hadn’t he recognized Lois’s voice? Could it really be true? Was there a Lois out there somewhere, pregnant with his child? Was he about to become a father? Or was he just fantasizing again about that pregnant dream Lois?
Clark didn’t know how long he sat there before his folks walked in.
“Clark?! What are you doing here, son?”
“Mom, is Lois living in the other dimension with the other Clark? Is she Lucy?”
His Mom hugged him. “Oh, Clark.”
“That’s ridiculous!” His folks spoke at the same time. “You figured it out.”
His Dad turned to his Mom. “What?”
His Mom sat down next to Clark and took hold of his hand.
“I had this weird dream where Lois kept morphing into all these different versions of herself.” Clark shook his head. “Tell me everything from the beginning.”
“Martha, have you been keeping something from us?” his father asked, appearing as if she had struck him across the face.
“I did whatever I did because Lois asked me to and to save you both heartache. The less people who knew the easier and the more seamless a transition could be made,” his Mom explained to his father.
“Who is that woman asleep in my bed right now?” Clark asked, gazing over at her.
“Lois.”
Both men looked at her, skeptically.
“Lois from the past. Mr. Wells and the other Clark borrowed her from some point right before she got amnesia.”
“So, she’s still Lois?” Clark released a breath. He knew his instincts weren’t off.
“Yes. She is the Lois kidnapped by Luthor and chased by the clone. According to Mr. Wells, as long as we plan on returning her to that point within a certain amount of time, time allows us to borrow her. And Lois knew she couldn’t just disappear into the other dimension. She needed to leave a place holder in the present.”
“I don’t understand, Martha. Why did she move to the other dimension with the other Clark?” his father asked, dumbfounded.
His Mom bit her bottom lip and stared at Clark. Her son looked at her and then looked back down to his hands. “Because when she and Clark made love before he left for New Krypton, she became pregnant.”
Clark winced. It was true. Everything that dream Lois had said to him.
“So, Clark. That Lois that you dreamed of before Thanksgiving – that you thought felt so real – was indeed real?”
“What? She came and visited you?” his Mom asked dismayed. “She said she wanted to see you and what Lois wants…” She shook her head.
Clark nodded. He couldn’t speak. Somewhere out in the universe were Lois and his child. It was true. He was going to be a father – soon, if he wasn’t already.
“I still don’t understand. Why did she run away?” his Dad asked. “We would have taken care of her.”
Clark continued to stare at his hands; he knew the reason. The curse.
His Mom looked at Clark and then at her husband. “Clark?”
“The curse,” he whispered.
“Curse?” his Dad asked, skeptically, looking at his wife.
“Well, I don’t know the whole of it, just the little bit that Mr. Wells told me. Apparently, Lois and Clark are destined to fall in love, but also to die a horrible death after the first time they make love.”
“Oh, my God!” His Dad gasped.
Clark swallowed. “Lois and I are soul mates, so in every lifetime we seek each other out. About a thousand years ago, Tempus fell in love with her, but she chose me instead. So, he had his wizard curse our love for all time. I found out about it on… well, right before our honeymoon. Only Lois and I had already made love back in May, before I left for New Krypton.” He looked up at his Mom. “Tell me everything.”
“I can’t. Lois didn’t tell me everything. Or anything about the curse. I found the…” She pressed her lips together. “Mr. Wells told me a bit. Lois only told me she had to go because the New Kryptonians would kill you if they found out she was expecting your child, when you were supposed to be married to Zara.”
Clark sighed. “Yeah. They wouldn’t have liked that.”
“Lois said she’d come back as soon as it was safe… only, Lois – the substitute Lois – got arrested and so, the pregnant Lois waited and waited and by the time you cleared her name, she was six months pregnant and too big to return.”
“And how do you know all this?” his father asked.
“Because Lois told me she was pregnant when I came to visit her last summer. Lois needed someone to help her – the substitute Lois – with the transition, the jump in time.”
Clark brow furrowed. “What did you tell her – this substitute Lois from the past?”
“Lois wrote out a diary, explaining everything that had happened in the months between Lex kidnapping her and her leaving for the other dimension. We told the substitute Lois that her therapist told her that sometimes amnesia has a way of recurring.”
“She must have been terrified,” his father said, shaking his head. “Thinking her memories could disappear again at any moment.”
“I bet she battled through it like a drill sergeant.” Clark chuckled softly, knowing his wife.
His Mom nodded.
“That’s why she has no memory of our
first, first time, because Lois didn’t tell her about it.”
His mother nodded again.
That was why she freaked out when he asked her if she “missed anything” during the previous summer. She still didn’t have those memories, because she never experienced those events.
“That’s why the other Clark has the time machine. So, he can return Lois to me once the baby is born?” he asked his Mom.
She swallowed. “Clark has refused to let her come home… refused to kidnap your current wife and dump her back in the past until Lois thinks of a way to convince her other self to go back willingly.”
“Oh.”
“And Lois has no idea how to convince herself to return to the worst time of her life.”
Clark dragged his hands through his hair. “God, I don’t want Lois to go back there, either.” That was a horrible time for them. It had been one of the worst times of his life.
“But she has to go; it’s her past. If she doesn’t go back and hit her head and become Wanda Detroit, she won’t be there for you to make love to before you leave for New Krypton and the baby will no longer exist.”
His father blinked his eyes. “Does anyone else have a headache just trying to understand it all?”
“But Lois and the baby will be coming back to me after the birth?” Clark asked. “Right?”
His Mom squeezed his hands. “I hope so, sweetie. If she doesn’t have any complications.”
“Complications?” He gasped. “What kind of complications?”
“Nothing, Clark. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Mom.” He stared at her. What wasn’t she telling him? The other Lois had mentioned complications as well in her letter.
His Mom closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “If she survives the birth. Don’t forget, this is the first Krypton-Earth child. We don’t know what might happen.”
Clark buried his head. Oh, my God. Lois might not survive? That was why she didn’t want him to know. Why Lois told his mother to lie… Lois knew there was a chance she might not return and she did not want him to worry. And that was why pregnant Lois told him to protect the substitute her – his current wife, asleep in his bed. Lois wasn’t lying when she said that the Lois back home in his bed was her past. That she couldn’t exist without her.
“Will Clark come and tell you when she’s had the baby? That she survived?” his Dad asked his Mom.
His mother shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope so, but my guess is the next time they come, it will be for good. So, let us hope that no news is good news.” She smiled weakly.
“I just can’t stand around and do nothing, Mom. Somewhere out there is my wife and child.” He stood up and started to pace.
“What can you do, son?” his Dad asked. “You can’t get to the other dimension without a time machine, can you?”
“No. I don’t think so.” Clark continued to pace. He hit his fist into the palm of his other hand causing a loud thunder-like crack. “God! I feel so powerless. I hate this feeling. There has to be
something I can do. Argh!” He roared in frustration. Taking a deep breath and slowly releasing it, he tried to calm this feeling of being helpless taking over him. “I wish I could be there for her,” he mumbled. “I guess I can do what I do best…” He scoffed at himself. “…investigate. Talk to Dr. Klein, find out what kind of complications might arise. Try to ease my mind that way.” Pathetic. That was how investigating this problem would make him feel. He didn’t want to investigate, he wanted to act! By the time he had investigated, his baby would already have been born. If it hadn’t already.
“So, Superman is going to tell Dr. Klein that he got a girl pregnant?” his father asked, doubtfully.
“Oh. Right. I’m going to have to ask him hypothetically.”
“Hypothetically?”
“If Superman were to get a girl pregnant… No.” Clark shook his head. “Become intimate with a woman, would she… could she become pregnant?”
His father raised a brow. “Obviously, yes.”
“But Clark can’t tell Dr. Klein that he’s already become intimate with someone and gotten her pregnant, Jonathan,” explained his Mom. “Because that’s not what Superman would do. It would sound like Superman had a one-night stand.”
Clark flinched. “I don’t need that kind of publicity again.”
“What are you going to tell Lois?”
“Lois?” Clark was confused; his wife already knew.
“Your wife. The one asleep in your bed.”
“Oh!” Clark gasped. Right. Her. She wasn’t any less his wife, because she was plucked out of time. She was still Lois. She was almost more his wife than the woman in the other dimension, because he had loved her and married her and lived with her since returning from New Krypton. That was what the very pregnant Lois had meant when she said he would be cheating on her with her. She would know. This Lois was his present wife and the pregnant Lois was his future. He sighed. “I’ll tell her I want to have kids and we should check with Dr. Klein about seeing if it’s possible.” He shook his head. “It feels like a lie.”
“It’s not a lie, Clark.” His Mom smiled. “You do want children.”
Clark raised a brow at her. “That’s not the part that would feel like a lie, Mom.”
“It’s not a lie, it’s a misdirection. She thinks you’re looking at point ‘A’ and when you are already at point ‘X’”
Clark gazed at her uncertainly.
“Or you could just be patient and wait for Lois to return.”
Clark chewed his options for roughly twenty seconds. “Misdirection, huh?”
His Mom glanced at his Dad and smiled.
***
A few nights later in the other dimension…The pregnant Lois sat down on her bed, lifted up her feet and wiggled her toes. “Good night, toes. Nice to see you again.”
The other Lois and Clark had given her a box of dark chocolates for Valentine’s Day. They told her the gift was from Kal, but she knew the truth. She sighed. It was kind of them to think of her. Since Clark’s girlfriend had gone public as Ultra Woman, Lois spent more and more nights alone in the apartment. Her days were already lonely.
She rubbed her bulging tummy. Well, not completely alone. A foot pressed against the side of her belly. She gasped. A full foot, five little toes and everything, was pressed distinctly against the inside of her tummy. Wow.
“Good night, little one. I love you,” she said, placing her hand on the foot. “I can’t wait to meet you.”
The foot disappeared and a hand replaced it on the other side of her belly. Lois caressed it with her hand. She wished she had someone with whom to share this moment. Clark and his Lois were battling an oil fire in Oklahoma. Sam spent less time with them, since his daughter and the “tights-wearing-freak” had officially become a couple. Lois understood how Sam must feel. She felt like a third wheel as well. There was a spot in her chest that ached every time she saw Clark with another woman – even if the other woman was essentially herself. And her Clark… Lois sighed. Her Clark thought she was a figment of his imagination. He didn’t know the baby even existed.
“Soon, sweetie. Soon.” Lois continued to rub her belly; it had been aching all evening. She knew she shouldn’t eat the whole box of chocolates. She sighed. So she had only eaten half a box. She hadn’t meant to, but when she thought of her Clark, self-control was difficult. She missed him so much. Her dreams, the few it seemed she had of them these days with her sleeping so poorly, seemed wrong. There was tension back in her dimension. They had finally made love again. It had been over a week.
The other Lois and Clark had this romantic day planned out for Valentine’s Day. Or should she say Superman and Ultra Woman? They were flying to Paris. Lois shook her head. Paris was the other Lois’s Hawaii. Lois stretched up and over her head. Hawaii. She and her Clark still had never made it there. As she stretched, Lois felt a sharp pain by her belly. Oh, she shouldn’t have done that.
Lois took another deep breath and slowly released it. There, that felt better. She pulled her feet into bed. Ow! Her stomach twinged again. What had she done today to make her ache all over? Oh, right, she had walked down the stairs to the first floor and back to the fifth. Sam said it was good for her to get exercise.
She had read through all the baby and parenting books that everyone had brought her. She would be an expert. Not that there was much else to do stuck in the apartment. She would hate to get herself addicted to another soap opera. Exhaling, Lois rubbed her tummy. Yes, a half a box of dark chocolates in one sitting was probably not the best idea she had ever had.
Lois wanted to sleep. Sleeping meant dreaming and dreaming meant seeing her Clark, kissing her Clark, talking and laughing with her Clark, and if she was lucky, making love with her Clark. But sleep had eluded her the last few nights. She had caught up during the day with catnaps, but she was still exhausted and missed Clark. Both of them.
This Clark ate dinner with them, whenever he could, but his girlfriend kept a close eye on him. Ultra Woman didn’t like him touching Lois’s tummy and communicating with the baby. Ultra Woman said it made Clark sad; Kal’s Lois thought it made Ultra Lois sadder. Ultra hated that there was a connection that Lois had with Clark that he didn’t have with his girlfriend. “Someday” wasn’t good enough for Ultra Woman.
Also, Ultra Woman was still jealous of her. Lois had tried to explain it had only been the one night, that they had been under the influence of ‘
Revenge,’ topped off with a little Interdimensional Time Sickness. That it hadn’t meant anything. But Ultra Lois knew differently. She knew Lois had lied. It had meant something. It meant that Kal’s Lois had been intimate with Ultra Lois’s Clark first and that was something Lois could never give back. Something Clark would always remember. Something that Ultra Lois couldn’t stop him from thinking about, if he wanted to. And it annoyed Ultra Woman to no end that there may be days or moments in the future when he might think fondly about that night. Ultra Lois didn’t like it that Clark got uncomfortable when Elvis music played. Or how Lois and Clark had glanced at one another that time it had played. So, Ultra Lois had made sure it never happened after that one time.
Lois took another deep breath. There was that twitch again. If she didn’t know that the baby was due on the fifteenth, she… Oh, God!
Due the fifteenth, but labor could start earlier than that and last for hours, maybe days.
Idiot!Lois swung her feet back over the edge of her bed. She checked Ultra’s room. Nope, not back from the oil refinery fire. She plodded out to the living room. She took a deep breath and rubbed her tummy. Picking up the phone, she dialed Clark’s number.
“
Hello?” a drowsy voice answered.
“Sam! Is Clark back?”
“
Nope. Haven’t seen him. Is something up?”
“I think I’m in labor,” Lois told him.
He yawned. “
All right, sweetie. Why don’t you go back to bed and call me in the morning or when contractions are three minutes apart.”
“Sam!” she yelled.
“
Huh? What? Labor? OK. Sorry, I’m awake now. I’ll be right over.”
“Thank you,” Lois said hanging up.
Turning on the TV, Lois checked to see if MNN was still covering the oil refinery fire, but it wasn’t. Lois drummed her fingers on the TV remote and then returned to the telephone and dialed the Smallville house number. Lois knew the super duo spent some nights there, because she knew they wouldn’t dare spend any here, not with her super hearing. The phone rang off the hook. She sighed, hanging up the phone. So, they were still probably battling the fire.
Suddenly, Lois felt completely unprepared for this event in her life and wished she could have Clark there to comfort her. Either of them. Why hadn’t she just returned to her dimension for the birth? Her Clark would have understood. Oh, right, the stand-in. She wasn’t a hundred percent sure at which point in her history this Clark had plucked her out and she still hadn’t come up with a reasonable argument to convince her other self to return to the past.
Who would want to leave her Clark and have amnesia? Lois shivered. And be with Lex. And kiss Dr. Max. Ugh. Now, her tummy not only hurt, she felt like she was going to throw up. At least she knew she wouldn’t be stuck in this dimension forever. Lois Ultra Woman Lane wouldn’t allow it. Ultra Woman would kidnap Clark’s current wife and dump her in the past for Lois if she asked, just to get Lois out of the picture, out of her dimension. Of course, that would tick off this Clark… Lois shrugged. It was definitely there as a backup plan.
And of course, there was the curse, that would not go away. No. Lois wouldn’t let herself dwell on that.
She hadn’t taken a Lamaze class, being in hiding and all. But Lois had read all about it and studied all those women on TV shows who were pregnant. She started breathing fast and regular and soon felt light headed. Oh, this wasn’t going to work at all. What she needed was a Clark Kent to hold her hand and tell her everything would be all right.
She tried to levitate herself out of the chair, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know if it were the pain in her belly or if her super abilities were coming to an end because she was going to give birth. No! Not her superpowers. Couldn’t she just keep a few? Like hearing? She bit her bottom lip. She didn’t need to fly. She liked it, but she could live without it. But super healing? Oh, she definitely wanted to keep that one. She put her hands on either side of her and pushed herself up to her feet.
Lois opened the living room window and felt the cold breeze slap her in the face. “Clark!” Oh, right. “Superman! Ultra Woman! Help!” She tried this off-and-on for approximately five minutes to no avail before Sam arrived.
“Anything from Lois and Clark?” he asked.
“No, I’ve just tried calling them, but they must still be battling the oil refinery fire in Oklahoma and out of range,” she said. “They’ll show up eventually, I’m sure.”
A sharp pain doubled her over.
“Breathe!” Sam told her.
Lois growled at him. “No, I thought I’d just hold my breath and see if I could get this balloon any bigger.”
“I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor, at least.”
“Ha-Ha,” she sneered at him. Lois grabbed Sam by the shoulders. “If Clark Kent doesn’t show up for the birth of this child and I die, promise me you will go to Smallville and take the time machine to Kal and bring him back here to kill Clark! Promise me.”
“Calm down, Lucy. He’ll be here,” Sam tried to reassure her, but his voice was shaking. She could tell he didn’t want to do this without him either. “Breathe.”
She growled at him.
***
Clark and his Lois arrived at the newsroom together. They hadn’t left each other’s side all night. First they had had dinner at the apartment with Kal’s Lois. Ultra Lois had shown her how to make lasagna. He loved it when his girlfriend made pasta. Then the oil refinery fire, which took them several hours to put out and clean up. He grinned. Then they cleaned up in Smallville. He floated over to his desk.
“Down boy,” he heard his Lucy murmur.
Ooops. He really had floated to his desk. Turning to smile at her, Clark said, “Just thinking about Ultra.”
“I figured,” Ultra Lois replied, sitting down at Lucy’s desk. “I saw on the news that you two were in New York for breakfast.”
He nodded. “She wanted to see the view at the top of the Empire State Building.”
“How King Kong of you.”
“Ha-Ha.”
“And how was it? The view?” his Lois asked, a twinkle in her eye.
It had been raining and foggy and he couldn’t see anything but her. “The view was exquisite. I’m taking her to the Eiffel Tower tomorrow.”
She smiled with a sigh. “I’ve always wanted to go there. Kal’s promised me we’d go, but we haven’t been there yet.”
“Maybe he’ll take you there for a honeymoon.”
His girlfriend raised a brow. “A second honeymoon?”
“A real honeymoon. I thought the first one got interrupted by business.”
His Lois sighed. “Oh, yes. There had been an emergency at work and he had to zip off. Like you, Kal takes his job seriously.”
If they kept this up for much longer, someone was going to notice they weren’t talking about other people. Clark cleared his throat and returned to his desk. “I was just thinking I should have picked up…”
“
Clark Kent, if you don’t show up for the birth of this baby after everything we’ve been through…”
Clark gulped and was gone.
***
Ultra Lois glanced up from her desk. “Should have picked up what, Clark?”
But he wasn’t there. She got hit in the face with a strong wind. Her brows came together. Strange. She hadn’t heard anything. Picking up the papers that had blown off her desk with his departure, she listened for the cry for help, but heard nothing, not even a siren. She shrugged. It must have been important. He would explain his rudeness later, she was sure.
Gareth came over to her desk. “Where was Clark off to like a bolt of lightning? Hot story?”
She shrugged. “He didn’t say.”
“Perhaps Ultra Woman was calling him for a date or something?” he said in good humor.
“Perhaps.” Ultra Lois smiled. “But I doubt it. They had breakfast in New York this morning.”
Gareth handed her a message. “I believe this is yours, Lucy. It blew over to me when he left.”
“Thank you.” Ultra Lois glanced down at the message, her brow furrowing.
“Ultra Woman has him wrapped around her little finger.” Gareth shook his head.
She smiled. “He doesn’t seem to mind.”
Gareth laughed, walking away.
The message was a reminder notice from her OB/GYN office about her doctor’s appointment for that morning. What doctor’s appointment? She hadn’t made a doctor’s appointment and certainly not after becoming Ultra Woman. Picking up the phone, she dialed the number on the message.
“
S.T.A.R. Labs. Please, hold.”
The phone slipped out of her hand. Oh, crap. The message was from Kal’s Lucy. That was why Clark left so quickly; he heard her calling to him. She swallowed. Strange that he had when she hadn’t. Quickly, she hung up the phone and then picked it up again, dialing her apartment.
“
Hello?” her father answered.
“How is she?”
“
Lois, thank God! When Clark arrived without you…”
“He forgot to relay the message,” Ultra Lois stated, trying to keep emotion out of her tone.
Her father sighed. “
Princess. Don’t read too much into it, please. When women go into labor, men have a tendency to forget how to think. It has something to do with the woman in pain and the man having no control over the situation whatsoever.”
“I know. Do you need anything?”
“
A nurse. A doctor who has practiced medicine regularly in the last five years. A drink…”
“Take a deep breath. You can do this. You’re the best doctor I know. It will be a piece of cake.”
He lowered his voice, as if that would stop Clark from hearing him. “
Lois, my hands are shaking.”
“Good thing you aren’t performing surgery then.” She wanted to call him Daddy out of habit, but bit her tongue. “I’ll pick up your back-up and meet you at the rendezvous. OK?”
Her father took a deep breath. “
Not yet. Stay at work for now. She’s nowhere near dilated enough. She still needs to do a lot more laboring before we move to the rendezvous. I’m hoping for time for a nap. We’ve been up all night and we’ll probably still be here at lunch.” She heard Kal’s Lucy cry out in pain and then her father hung up.
Her father had suggested that the birth not be a ‘home’ birth, because of the blood and the noise and for the unknown factor. They didn’t know if this birth was going to be like a human birth or something else entirely. Clark had found an abandoned hospital, set for demolition in a couple of month’s time, on the other side of Metropolis.
Kal’s Lucy got Ultra Lois to swear to bring Dr. Klein. She got Clark to swear to be by her side the entire time and her father to swear, that if push came to shove – no pun intended – Dr. Sam Lane was not to take Kal’s wife to a real doctor or a real hospital. There was something that frightened Kal’s Lois more than death, but Ultra Lois didn’t know what. It was something other than Superman’s reputation.
Her father had given the pregnant Lucy a check-up just a few days before. Her blood pressure was better, although not quite to the level that her father had hoped. But when giving birth under this type of situation, a little stress was understandable.
The past weekend, Ultra Woman and Superman had cleaned the surgery room, disinfecting it. She would sterilize it with her heat vision before Clark brought the patient over. They had found an old operating table in the hospital and cleaned it up as well. A portable generator would supply them with energy. An oxygen tank, just in case. Sheets, towels, blankets, and medical supplies. A bassinette and baby blankets.
Clark had wanted to bring his bassinette from Smallville, but it was a little too big even for Superman to be flying around with unnoticed. James had shipped in a small bassinette and changing table. Perry had filled in the rest with a stroller, bathtub and clothing. As a grandfather, such purchases were easily overlooked by the public.
Perry hadn’t mentioned their last meeting when Ultra Lois saw him for the impromptu baby shower. Probably best if they never mentioned it again. He did a great job of calling her Lucy, but after a while it just got confusing. By the end of the evening there was Lucy, herself, and Kal’s Lucy. After James and Perry had left, Clark suggested that Kal’s Lucy be called Lois after the birth, since she would definitely not be Lucy anymore… And that his Lois be called Lucy, since his Lois was technically dead. Her father wasn’t the only one confused with the name change switch. She had suggested Kal’s Lucy and Clark’s Lucy. KL and Lucy, for short. The name Lois would then be gone from this dimension, so Lex would never find out. But with all good intentions… the name Lois still remained.
Ultra Lois took a deep breath. OK, time to stop putting off the inevitable. She picked up the phone and called Dr. Klein to warn him that Ultra Woman was putting him on stand-by. She would pick him up when they finally headed to the rendezvous spot.
*** End of Part 4 *** CommentsChapter 7: Part 5
