Of course a quick thank you needs to go out to Diane and TEEEJ. 
But I also need to give a special thanks to Sas. 
Thanks for always listening to me whine in IRC about this story. Whether you know it or not, it does help, Sas. So thanks for that and thank you so much for the emergency support the other night. 
~~~Part 11~~~
Sitting in the Jeep outside the doctor’s office, Lois let out a shuddering breath. That had been difficult. Wonderful. Awful. Miraculous. The doctor couldn’t say for sure that she was having a girl, but Lois had a feeling anyway. Her wildly thrumming little heartbeat had seemed to fill the room. And the moment she’d made out the tiny image on the screen, Lois had felt connected to her baby in a way that she hadn’t thought possible before. She was responsible for this little life growing inside her. She had *created* her. She and Clark had. And that’s what had been awful about the appointment. The moment she would have turned to Clark, squeezed his hand, kissed him gently...
That moment didn’t happen.
As excited as she was about this story and the huge break they’d made today, she wasn’t up to going back to work. She was grateful that their coworkers didn’t know about the baby yet, otherwise they’d have been all over her, fussing over and coddling her. How’d it go? Did you see the baby? Do you have pictures? Why didn’t Clark go?
Yeah, it was a good thing they didn’t know. Unfortunately, she needed to tell them. Soon. But she really didn’t want to deal with that. She and Clark would have to act even more in love and excited about their new family. Then the questions would start. Three hundred and forty two different ways to ask, “When are you getting married.” She didn’t think she was a good enough actor to field that one. Lois took a deep breath and started the car. Today was going to be a long day.
***
Clark looked up from his notes in the conference room when the elevator dinged. Unlike the other fifty-two times he’d checked, he knew it was her this time. He could hear her heartbeat. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to accomplish much while she’d been gone. Their connection had kicked in full force and he’d felt the torment she’d been in. There’d been a brief moment of exhilaration but it’d quickly been replaced with sadness. Anguish. Clark watched Lois as she descended the ramp into the bullpen. She met his eyes through the window as she headed toward him and seemed relieved to see him.
The comfort of a familiar face, he hoped. She entered the room and closed the door quietly behind her.
“Hey.” She smiled weakly as she sat down next to him.
“Hey,” he replied softly. “How’d it go?”
“Good. Everything’s fine. The doctor couldn’t say for sure, but it looks like a girl.”
“That’s great, Lois. I’m happy for you.”
“Yeah.” Her smile turned wistful and he followed her eyes as she stared absently at the papers scattered about the table. “Thanks.”
She was quiet after that and he was too. What could he say? He knew she was still upset over the whole ordeal. Any further questions would surely lead to the one thing he was sure she didn’t want to talk about. Her Clark and the hole his absence had left, especially now, as all the things that were supposed to be exciting were happening. The story. They could talk about the story. “So, I was wondering where we should head next. Where do we go from here, now that we know for sure that it’s Mindy behind all this but we don’t have any hard evidence?”
He watched her expression change from one of grief to one of determination. Determination to get the bad guy or to get her mind off of everything, he wasn’t sure. But at least the anguish wasn’t flooding off her in waves anymore. No, the tides had ebbed for the moment and now she was thinking. He felt useless in all this. The only information he had was what they’d researched. He didn’t have any history, no prior knowledge in this universe. He felt he should be thinking too, trying to come up with something.
“Bermuda!” Lois declared with a gleam in her eye.
What? He’d thought that she’d been contemplating the story, not vacation spots. “Bermuda? Sorry, Lois, I’m not following.”
“Joey Bermuda aka The Handyman. He’s sort of a ‘kill your enemy in a creative way’ for hire kind of guy. He was the guy who went to prison last Christmas for numerous crimes, not the least of which was attempted murder. He never did say who hired him. Clark and I had a feeling that it was Mindy Church, but we never could prove anything. Which, by the way, infuriates me because *three* of those attempted murders were on Martha, Jonathan and myself. He never had any grudges against us, someone had to have hired him, and I’d bet my Kerth Awards it was Mindy. I’d give my eyeteeth to see that woman rot in prison!”
Wow. He’d never known all that. Lois was incensed now, angry, fired up. Like one of those dogs that gets hold a bone and won’t let it go. “Don’t worry, Lois. We’ll get her this time. She won’t even know what hit her.”
Clark had never been more relieved to see a smile on Lois’ face.
“So, are you coming with me to ask Mr. Bermuda if he’d like a one way ticket to early parole?” She beamed.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
***
Lois sat next to Clark in the visitor’s room at the Metropolis State Prison, waiting for the guard to bring in Joey Bermuda. She’d been here a few times in her career, once with Clark, when they’d been investigating Resurrection. She sighed. She really needed to stop thinking about Clark and get her mind on the investigation. She wondered if they’d be able to get anything from Joey, if he’d confirm her suspicions about Mindy.
A heavy steel door opened and Joey Bermuda entered in hand cuffs, a prison guard prodding him forward with his nightstick. The guard forced Joey into a chair across from her and Clark and went to stand by the door. She smiled cordially at Joey.
“Ms. Lane.” He smirked at her and gave Clark a nod. “Mr. Kent. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Come to add to my sentence? Did you find something *else* to nail me for?” His defiant stare and arrogant tone didn’t deter her.
“Quite the opposite, Mr. Bermuda,” Lois countered.
“Oh, call me Joey. We’re practically friends, right?” She didn’t miss the sardonic tone in his voice.
She forced a smile. “Joey, we’ve come to make you a deal.”
“Oh?” He leaned forward in his chair, the metal handcuffs clinking against the table as he brought his hands to rest in front of him. “What kind of deal?”
“We want Mindy Church. You tell us what you know and we’ll talk to our friend at the police department about reducing your sentence.”
“What makes you so sure I have anything on that witch?”
She raised her eyebrows at his comment. His posture was still edgy. He was interested alright. “We have our sources, Mr. Bermuda. But I thought you’d be more interested in being able to see your daughter graduate from high school. You know, aside from the pictures your wife *might* send you.” She saw Clark smile out of the corner of her eye and she couldn’t help but smile herself. She was good, wasn’t she?
On the opposite side of the table, Joey wasn’t smiling. “You don’t play fair, Ms. Lane, but alright, here’s what I know.
***
After their meeting with Joey Bermuda, Lois had driven both of them back to her place. Clark had agreed that there wasn’t much left they could do at the Planet today. In truth, he’d agreed because he could feel she was miserable and distressed again. Something Joey had said had struck a nerve.
He sat in her living room while she changed and thought about the atrocities he’d heard. Mindy had hired him to kill Superman, that much they’d already speculated. Clark had been appalled when Joey had laid the details out before them. He could tell Lois hadn’t ever imagined the maliciousness of the plan. Not just that they’d conspired to kill her fiancé, but the fact that they’d stolen his spaceship and cultivated and grown a Kryptonian virus from it. Pure evil.
Clark shuddered. He hoped he never had to find out what Clark had been forced to. Clark himself had never been sick before, but just the thought of a Kryptonian virus, something that had no cure, weakening him to the point of death. To the point of needing Kryptonite to cure him. He remembered the horrible, wracking pains of his first and only Kryptonite exposure. This Clark must have been in Hell.
Lois emerged from her bedroom wearing a simple t-shirt and flannel pants. He tried not to pay attention to how beautiful she looked in such ordinary clothing. He was all too aware of where that kind of thinking had gotten him before.
“Are you okay, Lois?”
Her lips moved in an attempt of a smile as she took a seat on the other side of the couch. “Yeah…no…I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about how I’d feel. I mean, I *knew* that Mindy had tried to have Clark killed with some kind of virus that we suspected was from Krypton. I knew this was the information we were going to get from Joey, but…” She took a deep breath. “I…I didn’t realize that was how they’d done it. That they’d preyed on Clark’s compassionate nature, getting him to talk Mindy down from her supposed suicide. Somehow, that makes it even worse.
“I’m not sure how I feel. Okay, like I got run over by a steamroller. That’s how I feel. Part of it’s what we found out, but the rest is the torture of reliving the entire experience. Clark was literally dying. We had to put him in a coma…using Kryptonite.”
Clark winced but said nothing as she continued.
“I thought I was going to lose him. He looked so pale, so vulnerable. He was just lying there so still towards the end. I got close to him, rested my head on his chest, just to assure myself that he was still breathing. He came back to me though, by some miracle, he made it back.”
He watched her, feeling her pain, as she stared off into space, rivulets of tears marring her face.
“Makes me wonder if we’ll be able to do it again. Can we cheat fate one more time? Will he come back to me again? Or did we use up our allotment of miracles?”
“Oh, Lois.” He didn’t know what to say. He could try and assure her that everything would be all right, that her Clark would come home. But he didn’t know for sure. He didn’t know anything. But he could offer to hold her. Comfort her somehow. He opened his arms and she came willingly. Clark held her head to his chest and stroked her hair. “Shhh. Don’t cry, Lois.” His heart ached and he knew the pain was only a shadow of what she was feeling. He felt her tears seep through his shirt.
Long moments later, Lois lifted her head from his chest. She didn’t look him in the eye, he figured she was probably a little embarrassed. She sniffed and swept her hand across each cheek, trying to eliminate the evidence that she’d been crying. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be, Lois. You’ve had an extremely emotional day today. You have every right to break down and cry. And look at it this way, at least you’re not alone. I always find it better when I have a shoulder to cry on…or a chest.”
He looked down at his tear and mascara stained shirt and gave her a grin. He breathed a little sigh of relief when she smiled back at him. “I’m sorry, Clark. Look, I’ve probably ruined your shirt.”
“Nah, don’t worry about it, in fact, I just might keep it…Art by Lane, we’ll call it. What would you say it looks like, a dragonfly?”
She looked at his shirt thoughtfully, a small grin forming on her lips. “I’d say it looks like a taquito.”
Clark studied the black marks on his chest. He didn’t see a taquito. “A taquito?”
“Yeah, I’m starving.”
He let out a hearty chuckle at that. “All right a taquito it is. So I’m assuming you’re in the mood for Mexican?”
She nodded vigorously, “Something spicy.”
***
tbc…
