Part Fourteen~One Week Later~She was washing the dishes when she felt it - the tickle in her lower stomach that quickly moved into a squeezing, pulling cramp, like a giant hand clasping tightly at her.
Calmly, she finished wiping the cup, placed it neatly on the draining board, then evaluated her situation. She was alone in the house; Martha had gone to the town centre to do some shopping, and Clark and Jonathan were out working on the farm somewhere.
A couple of fields away. A truck-ride away.
She'd decided to have her baby at home - not like she'd had a choice, and she'd read enough about the benefits of home-birth to put her mind to rest about the potential dangers - so that wasn't a problem. They'd prepared a room, so that wasn't a problem either. What *was* a problem was her fear of being alone.
One word flashed through her mind - premature.
By... by... she bit her lip, concentrating. By nearly a *month*.
She took a very deep breath. She'd get through it. Somehow.
~&~
Clark stilled, his hands freezing from where they'd been mending the fence. His father looked up at him, paused.
"Is everything okay, son?"
He didn't answer for a second, concentrating. There was something pulling at him, something tugging at the pit of his stomach, ever more insistently. He concentrated, as hard as he could, and... and...
Nothing.
He swallowed hard, to cover his disappointment, and smiled weakly at his father.
"Yeah, Dad. Sorry, I guess somebody just walked over my grave."
His father shrugged and nodded, turning his concentration back to the task at hand. He tried to focus, tried to bring his mind back to where it had been. Mending the fence. That was right.
The hammer was almost raised when suddenly he *knew*, with a jolt so huge it nearly lifted him off his feet.
"Dad! Lois!"
~&~
It was happening too quickly. Way too quickly.
Wasn't this bad, wasn’t something wrong, there *was* something wrong, wasn't there? It wasn't supposed to happen this quickly, her water had already broken and her contractions were gaining in strength and speed, there was something wrong, something was happening to her baby, what if her baby died? What would she do alone in this farmhouse with everybody thinking she was dead, if her baby died and oh, these things were so painful, she'd never imagined...
Was she at the latent phase or the active phase? She barely knew the difference. It had only been about half an hour...
Again that word; premature. And also; danger.
//Oh, Clark. Help me...//
~&~
"Clark, I'm trying, the truck won't start -"
"We've got to get home, Dad, she's hurting, she's in pain, we've *got* to get home, Mom won't be back for a couple of hours -"
"- son, I'm doing my best -"
"- and she's all alone in there, it's not like she can call for help, what if she really gets into trouble? She's never done this before, somebody should be with her, she's been through enough -"
"- there's something really wrong with this thing, just listen to it, it's sputtering like crazy... I think it's the ignition coil -"
"Dad, this is *not* the time to start playing Let's Pretend We Have A Clue About Cars! Lois needs us, we've *got* to get home -"
With a mighty effort, Jonathan wrenched the key one last time, and the engine died out completely. The two men sat shell-shocked in the cab of the truck for a few seconds, breathing heavily. Then his father spoke, hesitatingly.
"You think that's a bad thing?"
He had to get home. To Lois. Lois was in pain, he felt physically *sick* at the thought of Lois being in pain, he just knew it... he knew it, knew she was scared somewhere alone...
~&~
She was shaking, sweating, disbelieving that her body was doing this. All the research she'd done and all the articles she'd read, all the stuff Martha had taken home from her midwifery classes, the pamphlets and leaflets and What To Expect In Labour, none of them were worth a *damn* to her now.
She groaned as another wave gripped her - an anchor taking root in her stomach, spreading into a jagged lotus of pain.
~&~
Without his knowledge or permission his legs had launched him straight out of the truck and onto the dusty terrain. He looked at his feet, planted there, firmly, and felt another undulation of panic seize him.
He could sense his father behind him; he thought he might even be calling his name. Couldn't pay attention. Couldn't concentrate on that.
He began to run. Slowly at first, testing himself. Then quicker, and quicker and quicker and quicker, till his legs were a blur underneath him.
He looked down them - moving too rapidly to be human - and even in the midst of his terror, he had a moment of ferocious clarity and joy.
*This* had been what he'd needed - this cause, more important than his fears and doubts and reservations, more important than his life. This had been what he'd needed to kick-start him.
Ironic, really. It hadn't been his body holding him back. It hadn't been the sun which had failed him. It had been his mind, full of inhibitions, full of nightmare, bursting with the insecurity Lex Luthor had planted there.
And now there was something more vital than that, more vital than anything in his world. And he could do it. When it was necessary enough, he could do it. When it carried this much weight, when it was this essential to him. All he needed was the wild lust to make things better - and the courage to do it.
His heart bursting, he gathered his feet under him, bent his calves, and exploded from the earth in a wild, ecstatic spiral of speed and sound.
~&~
Forty-five minutes without him. Forty-five minutes of this, this irrational method of getting a baby out of her. Not for the first time, she mused darkly that whoever came up with *that* had had some really, really big issues.
A gust of cool wind against her hot face. She looked up in wild, disbelieving hope, to face...
An empty room.
It wasn't him. Of course it wasn't him. He wasn't aware that any of this was happening, he didn't know, couldn't know, he was out there in the fields somewhere mending a fence and whistling to himself...
Another gale, this time at her back, and suddenly she was being held against something very strong and very solid.
"Hang on, Lois," his voice was saying croakily, somewhere over her head. She leant back and laughed. It had happened. She was delirious.
Evidently he thought so too.
"Ehrm... when your w... friend is in labour..." she heard in a panicked baritone, "distract her. Rub her back, have... have ice chips or water on hand, support her through her contractions and... sing! Wasn't that what it said? Sing to her..."
Definitely delirious. Raving. Raving mad. Loony.
"Lois...
if ever I should leave you, it wouldn't be in summer..."
Oh god. Whiny and rasping and like... like... like a million cats being strangled at once. *High* fever... what would her baby think, coming into the world only to be greeted with a hallucinating mother?
"Ahm...
don't tell me of stars shining above, if you're in love, show me..."
Only... only *one* guy she'd ever met sounded that bad. Only one guy.
"
There's a bright golden haze on the meadow... ehrm...
the corn is as high as an elephant's eye... and... ehrm...
oh what a beautiful mornin', oh what a beautiful day -"
Corn. Kansas.
"Clark!" Her voice was *nearly* as bad as his. Hoarse. Disbelieving. She turned around and managed to clutch at him. "Oh god, you're here, you're here, how did you get home, how did you..."
"Shh, Lois, save your strength, you need to save your energy...
I'm getting married in the mornin'..."
Okay. This was quickly getting old. She wasn't sure which was more painful - the singing, or the sensation that her lower abdomen was being ripped apart.
"Clark," she began, then gritted her teeth as another contraction began. "Ooh... I really don't -"
"Hush, honey, please, you'll need all this later... ahm...
do you hear the people sing, singing the songs of angry men..."
Dimly in the corner of her mind she was aware of a car pulling up in the driveway. That could only mean one thing.
Martha.
"
Someday I'll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me..."
Salvation.
~&~
Nine hours laterMany lives had passed in and out through the rustic old farmhouse. It had been built to last for several generations, and it showed no sign of giving up yet. Passed down along a line of Kent ancestors, it had seen countless things - births and deaths, hope and despair, light and darkness, love and hate. In a way, the shriek of a newborn child as the air of a new world hit it was nothing special to the house. In a way, it got more and more special each time it happened.
Lois Lane was twenty-nine years old. She held a degree in Journalism, several Kerth awards and a penchant for danger. She also, at that moment in time, held her child in her arms for the first time ever.
Yes, it had been uncomfortable. Yes, the pain had been pretty disgusting. Yes, she had become irrationally bad-tempered near the end. Yes, it had been embarrassing and messy.
But nothing - *nothing* - could have prepared her for the overwhelming cloud of love that had swallowed her at the sight of her son's - Her Son! Hers! - her son's tiny, round, fuzzy, perfect, miraculous head. Her son's too-small-to-believe-it starfish hands. Her son's infinitesimal specks of fingernails. Her son's rotund little belly. Her son's deep blue eyes, that seemed strangely philosophical as they observed his new world. He was a dreamer, she thought, marvelling down at him, asleep on her breast.
And the feeling that she would kill anyone who so much as blew against the cottony fluff that adorned his head - his tiny little perfect round head...
For those few, precious minutes, alone in the room - Martha had said she'd give them some privacy and had shepherded Clark out with her - the world narrowed down to her and her child. For the first and possibly last time in either of their lives, they were co-existing in perfect harmony. In that instant, Lois knew that she could move mountains, cross rivers, endure blistering wind and scorching heat for her baby.
"Knock knock," a familiar voice said from the door and she turned her head sharply. Clark. She tensed as he crossed the floor, pulled up a chair and sat down beside her - them. He levelled his gaze not at her, but at her son (her son!!!).
Here was the situation she'd been dreading, the stage she'd shrunk from. Would Clark Kent, farmer, writer, ex-superhero and all-round decent guy, be able to handle this? The son of Lex Luthor in his house? Would he hate her baby? Would he hate *her*?
He'd reassured her time and time again about this, but still the seeds of niggling doubt were there in her stomach. She'd let it go. She hadn't addressed it again. She'd shrank from the issue.
Shrinking. Shrinking from the state of affairs. She had shrunk from it before, tiptoeing around it, afraid to drive him away. No such pleasantries now. If Clark Kent didn't instantly agree that her son was the most perfect child ever to grace the planet, so help her, childbirth or no childbirth, she would rend him limb from limb. Lois Lane was ready to do battle.
She turned again. And looked at him. Followed his gaze, which was angled away from her and directly onto the head of her sleeping baby. And caught her breath.
The sheer *awe* in his eyes... the sense of wonderment as he took her son's - *her son's* - tiny hand and inspected it from all angles... the incredible astonishment as he finally looked at her...
"I never thought it would be like that," he whispered. She was struck by the sense of reverence in his tone.
"Like what?" She couldn't help but whisper back. It seemed somehow respectful. In a strange way.
"So... so... incredible."
"Incredible." She raised an eyebrow at him. "You thought *that* was incredible."
He grinned at her, she nearly squealed aloud at the adoration in that grin. "What is it every first-time father is meant to say... 'it's the miracle of new life'."
She froze. He froze. She could see the panic in his eyes.
First-time father. Funny, that was how she saw him too. Funny. Dangerous. Very, very foolish.
Change the subject. Quickly.
"Well, the next time *I'll* support *your* back and sing *you* songs from every musical I've ever seen and you can push the baby out of you. How's that?"
A blush highlighted his cheeks. "I'm sorry. I know I was really bad."
"Insufferable."
"There was no need for you to thump me so hard, though."
"Sorry." Her tone was completely without remorse.
"It's just I panicked... when I knew you were here alone, and in labour."
"You still haven't explained that one to me," she said, shifting the weight of her baby - her baby! - so she could brush her hair back from her face.
He was concentrating very hard on her baby - she'd really have to pick a name for him soon - her baby's head.
"Explained what?" His posture betrayed the light casualness of his voice; he was sitting on the edge of his seat and his hands were trembling.
"How you knew. And how you managed to get back so quickly. Your dad arrived much later."
He was still gazing at the floor as if the most spectacular show on Earth was being performed down there.
"Dunno. I kind of felt it," he muttered.
Felt it. Felt... felt it.
"Felt what?" she asked faintly.
"That you were in trouble." His voice was very low. "In danger. Hurting. And... and..."
All the puff went out of her. She could only marvel. He had *felt* that? He had felt her pain, her distress? He had... had...
"Oh," she said weakly. "I... I... oh."
Had anybody ever loved her as much as this man did?
Would she ever love this man as much as he loved her?
Could she dare to try?
"Lois," he murmured, and she looked up at him, startled. "I... when I thought you were... I..."
"Yes?" Very gently now. The weight of her realisations bearing upon her.
"I flew."
She jerked, her eyes opening wide. "You did?"
Uncertainly, he nodded.
"Oh..." she said, about to burst into a rhapsody of glee, and then pausing as she took in his complete lack of excitement. "That's... good?"
He shrugged, his expression suddenly slightly mutinous. "I guess. If they're back for good. They mightn't be, you know." His voice was flat. How was this possible? Wasn't this everything he'd ever wanted?
She ignored the second part of his sentence, the tired cynicism that sat so uneasily on him. "Clark, you were born to be this - to be *you*."
"I'm *afraid* to be me, Lois!"
"What?"
"The last time I did this I got hurt." Staring at his hands now. "And you got hurt because of me. And then thousands of people suffered... all the people, sixteen months *full* of people I could have saved..."
"Rubbish, Clark," she said. Wanting to repay him in some small way for the gifts he'd given her. "The last time you did this *Lex* hurt you. And he hurt me. And you would have saved all those people if he hadn't. It's not your fault. It's his. And with the stuff we have against him, he won't be a problem for much longer. All we have to do is find the proof."
He looked up at her. "And Superman?"
"Oh, no." She pointed at him, shaking her head. "There's only so much I can do. You'll have to work that one out all on your own."
A smile quirked the corner of his lip. She felt herself smile back, felt the smile grow big beyond control, and mentally took a step back.
"I've been wondering what I should call him," she said idly, yanking her attention back to her child.
He was looking at her askance. "Haven't you been thinking about it all along?"
She shrugged. "I guess I thought it would kind of jinx it. Plus I didn't know if it was a boy or a girl."
"Guess I can understand that."
She looked back at him, raised an eyebrow. "So, tell me, Clark..."
"No!" He held his hands up to her. "To quote you - work that one out yourself. I'm not holding responsibility for your baby's identity."
She rolled her eyes expressively. "Chicken."
"And proud of it!"
She smiled at him, then looked back down. "I was thinking of maybe something beginning with an 'L' to suit 'Lane', but... I don't know. He doesn't look like a Laurence or a Louis or a Lloyd, does he?"
//No... not those initials... never...//
"Definitely not," he agreed. Then, at her look, defensively; "Hey, I never said I wouldn't *help*."
"I kind of want it to mean something - his name, I mean. And it has to sound good. You know," she said, looking at him from under her eyelashes, "I thought about calling him 'Kenneth' for a while."
He looked surprised and... touched? She hoped so. "You did?"
"Yeah. Don’t think it would work, though."
Sounding discomfited, he asked, "Why not?"
//Because I'm not saddling my child with a name like 'Kenneth Kent'...//
She closed her eyes and gave herself a mental slap. Thoughts like that were too scary to even contemplate. And they were ridiculous. Totally and utterly ridiculous.
"Oh, I don’t know." She laughed nervously. Why was she doing this? "Guess it didn't sound right."
He was watching her. "I guess." His voice, very sad. She wanted to hug him.
She cleared her throat, trying to dispel the strange atmosphere in the room. Then glanced down at her son again. Entranced, she watched as his eyes blinked sleepily open. Startlingly blue. But all babies' eyes were blue at first, she remembered. They usually changed. His probably would. Every person she knew in her family had brown eyes, and Lex... Lex had brown eyes too.
"Heeeeyy," she crooned softly as her baby stirred restlessly. She closed her eyes and kissed the top of his wispy blond head. Hair like feathers, or cotton wool.
"Look at that," she heard Clark breathe next to her, and opened her eyes. One of his strong fingers was clasped in her son's tiny, tiny, tiny fist. His face held an expression of startled, powerful tenderness and not a little adoration. She opened her mouth to tell him babies grasped fingers instinctively, but thought the better of it when faced with the light in his eyes.
Light in his eyes. And... and hope. Concern also - for her and for her child, and a sense of all-round good spirits...
She heard Martha's step in the door. Looked up at the woman who'd helped her in so many ways, who'd loved her like a mother - oh, she'd never understood that phrase until now, with her child in her arms. Looked at Jonathan, coming to stand beside her. More grandparents to her child already than her own parents were.
This was his link to the world, his family. These were the people who would love him and watch him grow. No matter what, that was true. And he should be reminded of that every day - through the bad spells, through the nightmares, through the cruel reports on Lex Luthor's son. He should be able to think of his name and smile because it reminded him of home.
Smiling, she adjusted her son, being careful to support his head, and presented him to his surrogate family.
"Martha, Jonathan, Clark," she said in a strong voice, "meet Jon. Jon Kenneth K..." She nearly swallowed her tongue. "...Lane. Jon Kenneth Lane."
The newly-christened Jon squeaked, and the gathering dissolved into laughter.
And Lois thought they would stay like that forever.
~&~
To be continued...I need to insert a HUGE apology to all and any moms who may be reading this - I really don't know anything about babies bar what I've researched for the sake of this story. I don’t know how many facts I've gotten wrong or how many details I've understated; I just know that I didn't want to dwell on Lois's labour, partly because I was way out of my depth in writing it and partly because I didn't intend the story to revolve around the pregnancy/birth. Nonetheless, if anybody sees anything to do with childbirth or babies in general which is just plain *ridiculous*, give me the heads up and I'll be glad to change it 
Sara [running and hiding and generally panicking 
]
