From last time:
Ching and Zara returned to the room. “I know you are all quite busy,” Tek Ra said. “I will go and allow you to return to your work.” He turned to Zara with a slight smile. “Besides, you know how your mother worries.”
“Thank you for coming,” Zara replied. “It was good to see you.”
“I will return soon to check on your brothers,” Tek Ra assured her. “Kal El, my friend, you have my best wishes.”
“Thank you, sir,” Clark replied.
Tek Ra turned to Ching, with a father’s pride shining through his expression. “Ching, I have always trusted in you; take care of my children.” Clark realized that Tek Ra was not referring exclusively to his sons.
“Of course, sir,” Ching said with a modest bow.
********
New stuff:
“Ready?” Jonathan asked.
“Keep your eyes closed,” Martha admonished.
Lois complied, but felt it necessary to add, “you know I can still do the X ray vision thing with my eyes closed.”
Jonathan chuckled.
“Well, no cheating,” Martha replied.
Lois heard the door open. “Okay, you can open them now,” Jonathan said.
She opened her eyes and drew in a sharp breath. “It’s beautiful,” she said at last, gazing around the room in wonder. They’d picked the color scheme and the theme for the room together, but she was still amazed by how Jonathan and Martha, in the span of a few short days, had transformed the new room into a warm and welcoming nursery. She’d been banished from the room for that time period, not allowed to spoil the surprise they had in store for her.
The walls were a cheerful yellow and a white border with bright yellow ducks and fuzzy teddy bears wrapped around the room. Clark’s old bassinet, lovingly restored by his father, stood in the middle of the room. A white rocking chair was placed next to the large bay window. A brand new quilt Martha had made was draped over the back of the chair. The rest of the baby furniture neatly lined the walls.
Tears welled up in her eyes and silently slipped down her cheeks. The room was so beautiful, so perfect. “I love it,” she whispered.
********
Clark waited patiently outside of Tao Scion’s quarters, his escort standing silently at the ready. The door finally slid open and the old physician grinned at him from across the threshold. “Come in, my young friend, come in,” Tao Scion said.
Clark followed his host into the small apartment, waiving off his guard. “Thank you for meeting with me,” Clark said to the older man.
“But of course,” Tao Scion replied. He guided Clark to the living area and motioned for him to take a seat. “Not every old doctor gets to entertain the First Minister of New Krypton. Now tell me, what can I do for you?”
“I was hoping to get your advice,” Clark said. “I spoke with Tek Ra the other day. He suggested that there are members of the Council who are still loyal to Rae Et, but he doesn’t know which ones. You knew my parents better than anyone else, can you think of anyone who considered them enemies?”
“I have no doubt that Rae Et still counts among supporters members of the Council, but it is to her credit that she has maintained her distance from them in public. It is hard to say who among them is treasonous and who merely fears that yours will not be the winning side in this war.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if that distinction means anything,” Clark mused.
“Young fool,” Tao Scion replied, shaking his head. “It is potentially the difference between weak allies and vicious adversaries. Neither is pleasant, but you should prefer the former to the latter.”
“How exactly do I keep the former from turning into the latter? The Council is falling apart.”
“There are those whom you will never convince of your right to lead. They will not follow you regardless. Ignore them. There is nothing you can do about them and there’s no point in trying. It is those who have not yet made up their minds whom you must court. The Council has been infected by treasonous elements, but it is not rotten to the core, yet. There are still men and women of honor who hold places in that chamber. You can still earn their respect and their loyalty. The danger lies in knowing who the men and women of honor are, and who the mere pretenders are.”
“And I feel like I’m at a loss here. Every day I wonder who’s going to change sides. Who’s going to turn on us.”
“I will find out what I can, but I cannot counsel caution strongly enough. Be careful, my young friend. I do not envy you and the path in front of you, but I do know that there is no one better suited for this journey. Believe me when I tell you that your parents would have been ever so proud of the man you have become and the choices you have made. You bring honor to the Houses of Lo and El.”
********
Zara paced anxiously in the First Ministers’ Quarters. She was tense. She was always tense. A long, exhausting day at the end of series of long, exhausting days had done nothing to change that. There were so many things to worry about still. “Have the boys been causing you trouble?” she asked.
“I have assigned them to Ensign Parth. I thought it best to give the Ensign a true challenge before recommending him for promotion,” Ching replied without looking up from his book.
“I am worried about them.”
Ching closed his book. “As you are worried about all of the millions of other people in this world and the millions of details of everyday life in this colony. Madam, you worry far too much.”
A look of exasperation settled on her face. “Would you stop being my advisor for one moment, Ching?”
Ching stood up, his hands clasped in front of him. “What would you have me be?” he asked.
She closed the distance between them, pressing a kiss to his lips in response. He didn’t move. She pulled away from him, a puzzled look on her face.
“What about your husband?” Ching asked.
“Don’t,” she said. “Do not blame our separation on Clar…Kal El. He is no more at fault than you or I.”
“And what if he should return?” Ching pressed.
“He is visiting with Tao Scion this evening. He should be gone for hours. Your jealousy is not becoming, my love.”
Ching looked as though he was going to protest, but merely replied. “I do apologize. I have no reason to doubt your love or fidelity, nor do I have reason to suspect Kal El of anything, and yet I find that I envy him his place in your life. He can be a part of your life in a way that I cannot.”
“His place here is causing him more pain than it is causing either of us. I can be near you. I can still touch you.” She reached out a hand to touch his face. “He is separated from the one he loves. It is irrational to envy him and his position. For all we cannot have, we are still together.”
He smiled knowingly and nodded. He tilted her head up and kissed her. She moaned softly into his mouth. Ching held her tightly against him. His hand threaded itself in her hair as he deepened the kiss. Her lips parted, granted his tongue access. She felt her heart thunder in her chest and her skin to grow warm everywhere he touched her. Zara marveled at how his touch never failed to cause something powerful, something eternal to stir within her. She had to touch him, to keep touching him. When she was with him, she was connected to something she couldn’t begin to describe or explain. Something greater than any force she had ever known.
The sound of an opening door cut through her passion induced haze. Instantly, Ching tore himself away from her. She barely had time to feel bereft before the panic could set in. Zara looked across the room to see Kal El standing in the doorway, looking about as embarrassed as she felt.
“I’m sorry,” he began. He fumbled to leave the way he had entered.
“No. I should go,” Ching declared. He turned and walked to the door.
“Ching, I…” Kal El trailed off. Ching passed him without making eye contact and left the room.
“We should have been more circumspect.” She turned away, unwilling to make eye contact with him. “I am sorry for having placed my emotions before my duty.”
“Look, you should both probably be more careful about it.” His tone was mildly chastising. “It’s not like just anyone would walk in here, but still, I could have had an advisor with me. But don’t apologize for being in love. I know how you feel about Ching, how he feels about you. It’s the same way Lois and I feel about each other. Why would you want to deny yourselves that?”
The truth was, she didn’t. She knew that what she had with Ching was the greatest thing in the world. “I cannot allow my loyalties to be divided,” she replied, not sure if she was trying to convince him or herself.
“Too many people go through life never knowing this kind of love. Don’t let it go,” he said gently.
“You do not seem surprised by this,” Zara said after a long pause.
“I’ve known for a while,” Clark replied. “Ever since the day after we got back from Terian. When you didn’t come back here that night.”
“Oh.” Zara blushed.
“I was concerned. If I found out, I figured others might, too. This doesn’t change anything between us. I trust you and your commitment to our responsibilities. I know your loyalties won’t be divided, but others might not.
“And they might exploit that to undermine us.”
“If we were any two other people, I’d be overstepping my bounds here, but since you said yourself that we owe each other total honesty, I have to say this. You and Ching have to figure out how to separate how you feel about each other from your work. As Superman, I had to learn to do the same thing with Lois. I had to learn to pretend, in public, that she was just another person. I often failed, and people exploited it. They tried to use her to get to me. They put her life and the lives of others in danger. If your relationship with Ching becomes public, it’ll do the same.”
Zara looked away. “I know,” she whispered.
********
Clark adjourned the meeting of the Advisory Council. As his advisors shuffled out of the room, he rubbed his temples, trying to process all the information that had been thrown at him over the last few hours. Reconstruction of the colony was proceeding, but slowly. So much machinery had been damaged during the battle that the repairing process was significantly hampered. Reserves had been called up and students were being asked to postpone their studies in order to fulfill military obligations.
Ching waited silently as Clark gathered up documents and prepared to leave. His advisor and bodyguard was still under orders to make sure that neither Clark nor Zara was without constant protection. Clark knew that Ching was less than thrilled to be serving in his detail at the moment, but he was a complete professional. “What does the rest of the evening look like?” Clark asked as they left the briefing room.
“You have a meeting with the High Commanders and then the rest of your evening is open,” Ching replied.
An idea struck him. “Let’s schedule a sparring match,” Clark said. “I feel like I’m getting out of practice.”
“Certainly, sir,” Ching replied. “I will find you a sparring partner, quarterstaffs will it be?”
“Are you not free?” Clark asked.
“For sparring tonight? I suppose I am,” Ching said.
“Good,” Clark answered. “It will be like old times.”
“Old times, sir?” Ching asked as he followed Clark down the corridor.
********
“I see you have not forgotten your training,” Ching said as he shifted his weight nimbly from one foot to the other. He spun his quarterstaff in one hand before returning to the ready position. Clark advanced and the sparring match continued.
Clark launched a series of quick attacks and bested Ching for the second time in a row. He swept Ching’s legs out from underneath him with the quarterstaff, sending him to the mat. Ching stood up again before Clark could offer him a hand.
Clark hesitated before speaking. Ever since Tek Ra’s visit the previous day, he’d been wondering about Ching’s relationship with the family. “Have the boys been staying out of trouble?” Clark asked.
“As much as can be expected from those two,” Ching replied. “They are good young men, but they have a penchant for trouble, they always have.”
“You’ve known Tek Ra’s family for a long time, haven’t you?” Clark probed further.
Ching raised an eyebrow. “Most of my life,” he responded simply.
“Were your parents…” Clark began trying to get more information from his counterpart.
“My parents died when I was a child. Tek Ra and Meiren brought me into their home. I was twelve. Zara was eight. I lived with them until few months after Dek Ra and Tem Ra were born. That is when I left for my military training. They were about four years old when I returned.”
“And Zara?”
Ching frowned slightly. “She would have been about seventeen then. Why?”
“Just wondering,” Clark replied. “There’s still so much I don’t know about any of you.”
“There is little to tell,” Ching said. “When I was seventeen, I went off for my training. When I returned, I was assigned to Zara’s personal staff and have been part of it ever since.”
“It must have been difficult, knowing that she would one day marry someone else,” Clark ventured.
“I do not wish to discuss this subject further with you, sir,” Ching replied. The two men circled the border of the training mat, facing off.
“I just need you to stop seeing me as a rival,” Clark said. “Zara loves you, she always has.”
“I know that,” Ching almost snapped. “Have I done something to cause you to question my loyalty, sir?” Ching demanded.
“No. You haven’t. You’ve done your job better than anyone else ever could. And I appreciate the fact that you trust me to lead, but you still act like you don’t trust me around Zara.”
“I do apologize if I given that impression,” Ching replied evenly.
“If I see it, others will see it. The last thing we need is for people to think that there are divisions at the top,” Clark said.
“And you want to present a unified front to the Council, to your people,” Ching finished.
“I don’t have a choice. If our ability to lead seems compromised, it’s the people who stand the most to lose. I don’t begrudge you your relationship with Zara. I’m glad she has someone she cares about. So forget yourself, Ching, and forget your jealousy. I cannot win this war without you. I need you to trust me.”
********
“Mother, I am tired of waiting,” Nor spat as he paced. Two of his mother’s flunkies stood at the doors to the room, staring forward blankly. Rae Et did not bother to look up at her son. She continued to pore over the documents laid out across her desk, a practiced look of boredom on her face. Nor continued with his tirade. “You called back my forces from the attack on the main colony. We could have won that battle and ended this! It has been weeks and we’ve done nothing but wait!”
“Are you quite through with this temper tantrum, my son?” she asked.
“Do not speak to me as though I were a child!” Nor snarled.
“Then do not behave as one. If you wish for the mantle of leadership, you must act like a leader. That requires patience. Your victory in battle was not complete. What you fail to realize is that what little you gave up in that one battle, you shall recover tenfold in winning the war. We have sown the seeds of dissension in the ranks. We have instilled a lack of confidence in the people. It will be easier to win this war by convincing others to align with us, as opposed to having to kill them all,” she explained nonchalantly.
“Instead we engage in amateurish raids on poorly defended towns. I am not a mere thug. I am the rightful heir to the mantle and I have had enough of these games!”
“Our raids on these little towns are not amateurish. You mistake simplicity for a lack of planning. We are organizing our attacks to maximize political gain,” Rae Et said, a note of exasperation in her voice, as though she’d explained all of this many times before.
“I am in no mood for the political mischief of your feeble-minded followers. I do not trust them.”
“And there is no reason you should. We do not make alliances based on trust. The promise of reward and the fear of retribution keep my followers in line. And they are quite good at what they do.” Rae Et looked up at last. She leaned back in her chair, her hands folded in her lap. “Now we will discuss strategy later. Send in Jen Mai.”
“Mother…” Nor began impatiently.
“That is all, my son.”
********
“Lois, are you sure you’re all right doing this?” Jonathan asked again as they trudged through the snow.
“I’m sure,” she replied. “I might be as big as a house, but the superstrength works just fine.”
They continued across the field through the knee high snow to the dense patch of evergreen trees that grew at the edge of the farm. They wandered through the trees for a while, looking for the perfect one.
“How about this one?” Jonathan asked, pointing to a nine foot Douglas Fir.
Lois walked around the tree once. It was perfect. “Looks good to me,” she said.
Jonathan lifted the axe off his shoulder and stopped. “Unless you want to do the honors?”
“It’s all yours,” Lois replied.
Jonathan swung the axe, the first of several clean strokes. The large fir began to sway and started to fall. Lois floated up slightly to guide the tree down in its descent. She picked the tree up easily by its base as they began the walk back to the farmhouse.
“I do this every year with Clark,” Jonathan said after a few minutes, breaking the silence. “When he left home, we’d wait until he’d come back for Christmas to get the tree. The last few years, we waited until Christmas Eve, when he could come out from Metropolis. We’d put up the tree and hang the ornaments together.”
“It just doesn’t feel right to do this without him,” Lois said. “I miss him, all the time, but it just feels worse somehow, now. I hated Christmas when I was a kid. I hated it until I met Clark. Everything I love about this time of year is all wrapped up in him. I never thought I’d spend another Christmas without him.”
********
Clark lay on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Tomorrow was just another day, right? Just like any other. Well, around here it would be. It didn’t make sense, really. Even as a grown man, he always had a tough time sleeping on Christmas Eve. It didn’t matter that the joy of waking up to a living room full of presents wasn’t the same when you were twenty-eight. There was still something magical about Christmas Eve. He couldn’t explain why looking out of his window in his parents’ home on Christmas Eve at the farm, covered by a thick blanket of snow was one of the best things in life. He couldn’t explain why the smell of a fir tree or nutmeg or anything else that reminded him of Christmastime would bring a flood of pleasant memories. Of firesides, and home, and warmth.
Christmas, to Clark, was about belonging. In a world where he’d rarely belonged, where he’d always been a strange visitor, Christmas was about family and permanence, and knowing exactly where he was supposed to be. In recent years, Christmas had also been about sharing that feeling with Lois. He wasn’t certain if Lois was truly fond of Christmas yet, or if she was just humoring him, but he’d looked forward to an entire lifetime’s worth of opportunities to warm her up to the holiday.
A knock at the door to his private quarters startled him out of his reverie. He stood up and opened the door. Zara was on the other side, a concerned expression on her face.
“Are you feeling all right?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he replied.
“Are you certain? You seem a bit sullen as of late,” she pressed.
Clark sighed. “I left home seven months ago. I don’t know, I can’t really say I expected to be back there by now, but I also didn’t really think about spending this time of year away from my family. Tomorrow, on Earth…it’s a holiday, a time I always spend with my parents, and with Lois. I never expected to spend this day away from her ever again.” Among the few possessions Clark had brought with him to New Krypton were a watch, set to Metropolis time, and a calendar. Simple things he kept track of because they made him feel a little more connected to home. Along with a few photos, these things were sometimes the only tangible reminders he had that a whole other world, separate from this one, still existed out there. That life there still went on without him.
He wondered if his parents and his wife thought about him as much as he thought about them. He wondered if this holiday was going to be as difficult for them as it would be for him. It was the strangest feeling in the world to have no one to share Christmas with. To have no signs of the holiday around him, to have no one else understand or recognize the coming of the day. For the first time in his life, Clark Kent hated Christmas.
“I am sorry that you cannot be with them,” Zara said sympathetically. “Do you wish to be alone?”
“No, I should get some work done,” Clark replied. He hoped that keeping his mind busy would distract him. It was probably a vain hope, but it was still better than wallowing, he figured.
“Good. Enza has asked to meet with you to discuss legal matters of some sort. I would attend as well, but I have to meet with Lok Dei and Fet Ri.”
Clark recognized the names of the two councilors who were considered to still be on the fence as to whom to support. They both represented an outlying area to the south of the main colony. It was a rugged area, vulnerable to attacks and both councilors had expressed their concern that the government could not protect the region. It was a delicate situation and Clark knew that Zara’s experience and understanding would be essential in negotiating with the councilors. “Be careful,” Clark advised her.
“I will. Alon has agreed to be present. The other councilors trust him and respect his opinion. He may prove a key ally in negotiations.”
“I hope so,” Clark replied.
********
