Thursday October 16, 2008
Lois stood at the stove, stirring the sauce as she scrolled through her email on her phone. Another message from her book editor asking for an update on the chapters that were due this week. An hour-old breaking news email from the Planet about yet another pipe bombing. A reminder from the kids’ school that yearbook sales were closing soon. An automated email from the library about overdue books.
She sighed and tossed her phone on the counter. “Dinner time!” she called, as she stepped over to the sink and lifted the colander full of noodles.
And then everything happened so quickly that it seemed to all happen at once, and she couldn’t even fully process it until later.
First, there was a loud bang in the previously silent kitchen causing Lois to jump and cry out in surprise. And then JP’s little voice said, “Sorry!” And then Superman was on their kitchen floor, glass shards from the picture window shattered around him.
They all froze. Then Superman stood, brushed himself off, and looked around, obviously confused.
“What...just happened?” Lois asked.
“I dropped my water bottle,” JP said timidly, edging toward her and away from his idol, who was now larger than life in his kitchen.
Lois looked down and saw the stainless steel water bottle lying on the hardwood floor and realized that must have been the crash she heard.
“I… I thought… I heard you scream,” Superman stuttered.
“What just happened!” Mattie yelled, running into the room and skidding to stop, eyes widening.
“Just a little mix up,” Lois said, quickly pulling herself together. “JP dropped his water bottle and startled me. I yelled and Superman thought I was in danger, so he swooped in to help.”
“Through the window?” Mattie asked incredulously.
“I was flying overhead when I heard the scream,” Superman replied, standing up straighter and smoothing his features into his confident superhero facade. He crossed his arms over his chest and continued. “I heard your mom scream and instinct took over. It’s been a few years, but apparently I’m still attuned to Lois’ screams. Sorry I scared you.”
JP’s eyes widened until he looked like a comic book character. “Sorry,” he whispered finally.
Lois dropped to one knee immediately, pulling him in for a hug. “No, no, buddy. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was just an accident. You just surprised me...and then Superman surprised us. You’re not in trouble.”
His little body relaxed, but he still hovered close to her, eying the superhero suspiciously.
“Superman,” Lois said with a cheerfulness she didn’t feel. “Could I...talk to you outside please? For just a minute?”
“Of course.” He strode to the back door, boots crunching over glass and opened the door
for her.
She stepped through and waited for him to close the door before speaking. She kept her voice low and her face neutral, acutely aware of both their children watching them through the glass doors and the way their voices would carry through the broken window beside it.
“You need-”
“I’m so sorry,” Clark started at the same time, interrupting her. “I wasn’t spying, I prom-”
“Stop,” she said softly but forcefully, reaching out and touching the tips of her fingers to his arm as if to physically prevent him from going further. “We can talk about that later. Right now, you need to fix this. Your son is terrified of you. This cannot be his first memory of Superman.”
She saw the realization wash over his face as he saw this incident from his son’s point of view, and he nodded in agreement.
“Go back in there and get down on the floor and play with him. Take him for a flight. Something. Anything. Make this a special memory. Now.”
He turned and opened the door, slowing his strides to his normal gait and crossing the room to JP. He crouched in front of the little boy, smiling. “Hey, buddy! That was pretty crazy, wasn’t it?”
JP nodded slowly.
“Even Superheroes make mistakes. I just wanted to make sure you and your mom were safe. Maybe my super hearing was a little too super today,” he joked.
JP cracked a small smile and reached out timidly. “I like your cape,” he said softly.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” he stage whispered. “My mom made it for me.”
JP’s eyes grew wide again, but this time with wonder. “Really?”
“Really. I told her it would get in the way when I was working, but she liked the way it blew in the wind.” He stood and flew across the room, cape streaming behind him.
“Whoa!” JP gawked, and Lois felt her heart swell.
“If it’s all right with your mom,” Superman said, raising an eyebrow in her direction, “I could take you for a little ride.”
“Really?” he screeched, turning to Lois for permission. She nodded and gave him a smile, and he ran full tilt into Superman’s arms.
They walked together through the back door and then floated around the yard, alighting on the roof and a tree branch before floating back to the ground.
When they reentered the kitchen, JP’s face practically glowed with joy. As soon as his feet hit the floor, he took off running through the house, one arm outstretched as if he were flying.
“I found this on the roof,” Superman said, turning to Mattie and holding up a yellow softball. “I assume it’s yours?”
She nodded shyly and he flipped it to her. She caught it handily, and he grinned with approval.
“Hey, hey. No playing ball in the house,” Lois chided playfully. “I don’t need anymore broken windows.”
“Sorry,” Superman said, looking not one bit apologetic. “What do you say, Mattie? You want to go for a ride?”
“You know my name?” she asked quietly.
“Of course, I do,” he replied. “It’s been awhile, but this isn’t the first time we’ve met.”
She smiled shyly, and Lois could tell she was trying to play it cool but was just as awed as her little brother.
“A ride?” he offered again, opening his arms to her.
She hesitated, uncharacteristically reticent.
“You don’t have to,” he said lightly, dropping his arms. “We can always go flying another time. I should probably get going, actually. Unless anyone else wants a ride,” he said, turning and winking at Lois.
Lois rolled her eyes and threw a dishtowel at him.
“Hey, hey. No throwing things in the house,” he reminded her with an impish grin.
Mattie cracked up, and his grin widened into a full fledged smile.
“I’ll walk you out. Unless you are planning to leave the way you came,” Lois deadpanned, gesturing at the broken window, and Mattie laughed even harder.
“Uh, the door will do nicely,” he said, looking abashed. “It was good to see you, Mattie. Tell JP I said goodbye.”
They walked back onto the patio, pulling the door closed behind them.
“Thank you,” he said immediately. “That could have been so bad.”
“It’s fine. You did great. JP will be talking about it for weeks, and Mattie was smitten.”
“I’ll fix the window tomorrow. I could come by tonight and put cardboard over it. We can talk about...the other thing. If that’s okay,” he asked hesitantly.
“That would be great.”
“Do you want me to wait until the kids are in bed?”
She shook her head. “No, come after dinner. You can help me put them to bed. I’m sure they’ll want to tell you all about their big adventure.”
“Thank you,” he said again. And then he was gone.
***
“I didn’t think he was ever going to calm down enough to fall asleep,” Clark said as he walked into the kitchen where Lois was tidying up and wiping down the counters. All shards of glass were long gone, and the window was neatly covered with cardboard and duct tape. “Mattie’s tucked in and lights out, but she wants you to come kiss her goodnight.”
“Ok, let me go do that, and then we’ll talk.”
Lois slipped out of the room and up the stairs, tapping gently on her daughter’s door before poking her head in. “Hey, sweet girl.”
Mattie sat up and opened her arms for a hug. Lois crossed the room and sat on the side of the twin bed, wrapping her arms around her tightly and then kissing her cheek before Mattie snuggled back down under the covers.
“Crazy day, huh?”
Mattie nodded. “I told Hannah, and she was jealous. She said her mom screams all the time and Superman never busts into their house.”
Lois laughed, imagining Hannah’s uptight mother reacting to a caped superhero bursting through her kitchen window.
“I wish Daddy had been here,” Mattie said wistfully. “He missed it.”
“I think he got a pretty good picture of it from your description.”
Mattie giggled. “The best part was when Superman was leaving and you made fun of him for coming in through the window. He looked just like Daddy does when you tease him.”
Lois laughed softly, strengthening her resolve to talk to Clark again about when they would talk to Mattie about the truth.
“You better get to sleep. It’s a school night.”
“Okay. Good night, Mommy.” Lois’ heart twisted pleasantly. Mattie often seemed so big and grown up, but at moments like these, Lois could see the adorable wide eyed toddler she’d been not so long ago.
Downstairs, Clark was pacing restlessly in the living room. Lois sat sideways on the couch, one leg tucked under her, and patted the cushion beside her. Clark sat cautiously beside her.
“Okay, how mad are you?” he asked nervously.
“I’m not mad,” Lois started.
“I swear, I was not spying on you,” Clark said, the words tumbling out in a rush. “This pipe bomb craziness has me on edge. Every time I turn around, there’s one exploding. And there’s no rhyme or reason to any of the placements. Parks, office buildings, abandoned warehouses, a dock in the harbor, an apartment building downtown. There was one this morning in a south side library. I heard the bang, and I heard you yell, and I just reacted. I was through the window before I even had a chance to realize what was happening.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” she asked, stopping him short. She scooted closer, putting a hand on his knee. “Clark, if you were spying on me, you would have seen JP drop the bottle. This is a far cry from hovering over me swooping in to soothe a crying baby before I can get him settled. You threw yourself through a window in an obvious panic. I’m not angry. If anything, I’m worried about you.”
He let out a huge sigh and slumped forward, all the tension leaving his body in a rush. He rested his elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands. She sat quietly, waiting for him to be ready to speak. “I just… I feel like… things are so good right now. We’re so close to… and I can’t…” He ran his hand through his hair, obviously frustrated by his inability to communicate his fears.
“I’m scared too,” Lois said finally. “All the time. Like this thing is so fragile it will take only the slightest breeze to blow it away.”
“Yes!” He agreed, sitting up. “I want to squeeze it with all my strength so it doesn’t escape, but I’m terrified I’m going to crush it.”
“I’ve been thinking about it, and I think we should schedule a session with Dr. Booker. Not to discuss today specifically, of course. But this…development in our relationship has us both on edge and feeling extra vulnerable, and I just think-“
“I’ll call first thing tomorrow.”
Lois reached up and stroked his cheek. He lifted his eyes to meet hers for the first time since they sat down, and she smiled at him. He captured her hand in his and brought it to his mouth, holding her gaze while pressing a gentle kiss in her palm.
“Stay for a while? We could watch a movie?” she asked, and was rewarded with a wide smile.
She turned and grabbed the remote from the end table, then curled herself against Clark’s side, snuggling into his embrace. She flipped through a few channels before hitting the guide button to see what was on. “What do you want to watch?”
“I could not possibly care less,” Clark replied immediately. The chuckle in his voice bathed her in warmth and she tossed the remote on the coffee table and sat up, reaching for him instead. He needed no more invitation, capturing her lips in a kiss and sliding his hand up to cup her cheek.
They traded kisses for a while, until finally she pulled back, settling beside him so she could study his face. “Now that the stress of the incident has passed, did you at least enjoy getting to take JP for a ride? That seems like a pretty decent silver lining to all of this.”
Clark’s face lit up. “It was incredible. His sweet little giggles. The look of awe on his face. It was…so special. I know all the reasons why it was so important never to let them be associated with Superman, but it’s so hard sometimes to hide that part of myself from them.”
When she’d become pregnant with Mattie just a year into their marriage, shocking them both given Dr. Klein’s warning that it would be impossible, their first concern had been for her safety. They knew all too well how anyone associated with Superman could be used as leverage, and the thought of their tiny, vulnerable baby suffering because of him had kept Clark up at night for weeks on end.
Ultimately they had decided to slowly shift their professional focus away from stories that involved Superman, giving those exclusive interviews to other reporters, including Jimmy, who by that time was working as a full fledged reporter and photographer. As they cut back at work, they also began the work of compiling all their past articles and research into a book about Intergang.
Given their obvious elation over her growing pregnancy, no one had thought twice about this professional transition, even those closest to them. Clark was careful never to show more than polite courtesy to Lois when he did encounter her publicly while in the suit, and after a while the public’s short attention span stopped automatically associating his name with theirs, and they breathed a sigh of relief.
All of that had been a natural, if not easy, decision. Deciding how much of himself to hide from their daughter had been harder. As an infant, in the privacy of their own home, he hadn’t bothered to hide what he could do from her. And he’d flown her and Lois to Kansas regularly to spend time with her doting grandparents.
They’d always known there was an expiration date on this innocent time. If they wanted to keep his identity a secret from her — and they must, because no toddler or young child could be expected to keep that kind of secret — they would have to stop before she was old enough to remember or communicate. But they’d been naive about how much time they would have.
It was a beautiful June morning when everything came to a screeching halt. Mattie was just ten months old, playing happily on a blanket on the porch of the Kent’s farmhouse while Lois and Martha sipped coffee in the rocking chairs. Clark was in Metropolis patrolling, making sure to be seen around town while their family was on vacation, and Jonathan was puttering around in the barn.
Suddenly there was a whoosh and a thud, and before Lois could reach a hand to welcome her husband home, Mattie had dropped the blocks she was stacking, clapped, and exclaimed, “Dada!”
An icy fist of fear knocked the wind from Lois’ lungs. Clark’s face was stricken. Their eyes met, bodies frozen.
Martha stood, gave her arm a gentle squeeze and slipped through the front door quietly, giving them privacy.
Clark climbed the porch steps slowly, reaching for his giggling daughter. He tossed her in the air and tickled her before cuddling her to his chest. Lois rose from her chair and together they sat on the wide wooden steps, just playing with their daughter. Her mind raced to find comforting words, but they all rang hollow.
Their last two days in Smallville had been bittersweet, and Lois had done her best to hide her tears on the flight home. When they landed on the balcony of their new home, Clark had kissed them both, spun out of the suit, and never again wore it in the presence of their daughter.
When they had begun trying to conceive a second child that summer, she had imagined Clark having that special time with the new baby too. They wouldn’t be able to fly as a family to Smallville with their inquisitive toddler, but he could at least play with the new baby in their home and perhaps fly him to Smallville alone occasionally to visit his grandparents, leaving Lois and Mattie home for some special bonding time of their own.
But the months bled into years, and the hope for a second child grew into a desperate, gnawing need. Their infant daughter grew into a wild, ferocious toddler and then a confident, chatty preschooler. And her bathroom counter grew cluttered with bottles of fertility drugs and then vials of injectable fertility hormones.
Lois shook her head softly, unwilling to think too long about the time that followed. By the time JP was finally in their arms and in their home, traveling to Smallville was a bittersweet prospect without Jonathan there to greet them. And Clark was so consumed with fear for her well being that he couldn’t bear to leave her and Mattie alone for the hours the visit would take.
“Where’d you go?” Clark asked softly, breaking her out of her reverie.
“Just thinking about when Mattie was a baby,” she said, lifting her hand to stroke his cheek.
His smile widened, then faltered a little. “I wish she would have flown with me today.”
“She’s a big girl, and Superman is a stranger to her. Honestly, I’m not sorry that she’s hesitant to jump into the arms of a stranger who just came barreling into her life.”
“I don’t seem to remember you hesitating when you jumped into the arms of a strange flying man,” Clark teased.
Lois laughed. “Well, she’s smarter than her mother. I never claimed to have the best self preservation skills. Anyway, I had a good feeling about that guy.”
Clark rolled his eyes and leaned forward to kiss her.
“You know,” she continued more seriously. “Once Mattie knows the truth, you’ll be able to fly with her again. She’ll trust you to take her.”
Clark stiffened, his gaze sliding from hers.
“What are you scared of, Clark? What are you worried will happen? Do you think she’s not ready? Are you scared she’ll let something slip?”
His eyes met hers again, and he shook his head. “I trust her. I just don’t want her to have to carry that burden yet. It’s such a big secret to keep.”
Lois nodded. “It is. But she won’t have to carry it alone.”
“You’re right. I know you’re right. I don’t want to wait too long.”
“When I tucked her in tonight, she told me the best part of the whole incident today was when I teased Superman and asked if he wanted to leave the way he came. She said, ‘He looked just like Daddy does when you tease him.’”
Clark closed his eyes and swallowed. “Okay. We’ll do this. Let’s do it. Between Halloween and the election, the next couple weeks are going to be really hectic, and I want to have time for her to process and ask questions with our undivided attention. Can we do it after that?”
Lois nodded quickly in agreement, and then slid both hands around the back of his neck and waited for his eyes to meet hers. “It’s going to be okay. Better than okay. It’s going to be so good. I promise you. Give her a chance to adjust, and it’s going to be so good.”
His mouth was on hers in an instant, needy and insistent. Her hands slid into his hair, holding him to her.
When they pulled apart, he rested his forehead against her and let his hand slide from her shoulder down to her hip, pulling her close. “I could never do this without you. I’m so thankful you’re here.”
She lifted her chin again and his lips found hers, softer and sweeter this time.
“Hey,” he said later, when her head was resting against his chest. “Speaking of Halloween, I have a favor to ask. My mom’s going to come in on that Friday morning and stay for the week. That way she can be here for trick or treating on Friday and also babysit for us on Tuesday while you’re covering the election and I’m working.”
“Oh, that’s perfect.” Lois murmured, fingers stroking his chest absently. She tried to keep her voice light, hiding the trepidation she felt at the mention of his mother.
Martha had been unfailingly kind to her since the divorce, but their relationship had gone from one of genuine love and affection to polite but distant acquaintances.
Once, Clark’s mother had filled the void in Lois’ life left by her own self-absorbed, absentee mother. And losing Clark had felt like losing her family as well.
Lois had longed to cry on Martha’s shoulder so many times in the year she’d felt her marriage slipping away from her. But she’d been acutely aware of not wanting to put Martha in a position to defend her only son, and had been careful never to discuss any of their reasons for divorcing with her.
She had no idea how much Clark had confided in his mother, but she assumed it was a good deal given the closeness of their relationship. And she knew that must include the fact that the divorce was not only her idea, but that he had pleaded with her repeatedly and protractedly not to go through with it.
She could only imagine that despite her kind facade, Martha could barely tolerate the woman who had broken her son’s heart and destroyed his family. Imagining Martha’s disappointment in her made it hard to meet the older woman’s eye, and Lois generally attempted to spend as little time as possible with her while still encouraging her children to have a close relationship.
Now that she and Clark were rebuilding their relationship, she worried even more about Martha’s disapproval. She didn’t even want to imagine the awkward conversation that would result if and when they told her.
“She’s really excited. She misses them so much. I’m really worried about her. I hate her rambling around that house all by herself. She keeps busy with her classes and clubs and friends, but I know she’s lonely. I try to visit her as often as I can, but it’s hard. I’ve been trying to convince her to come out more often and for longer visits. Anyway, that’s my weekend already, but would you mind if the kids stayed a couple extra nights while my mom is here?”
“Of course not. They can stay at your house the whole time she’s here if you want. They’ll be thrilled.”
“Thanks.” He hesitated, and she could feel something else unsaid.
“What? What aren’t you saying?”
Clark laughed. “I don’t know why I ever bother trying to hold out on you. Fine. There’s one other thing. Not a favor really. But something I wanted to ask. I mean-“
“Spit it out,” Lois said, sitting up and laughing. “Why are you being all cagey?”
“I’m not being cagey, I’m just nervous. It’s not my fault you make me feel all tongue tied sometimes.”
Lois laughed but felt her cheeks warm in response. “Out with it, Farmboy.”
“I was hoping my mom could babysit one more night while she’s here. And I could take you out on a date. A proper one. Let me wine and dine you a little.”
She started to crack a joke to ease her own nerves but stopped when she saw the apprehension on his face.
“I’d love that,” she said simply instead, and the joy on his face twisted deliciously inside her.
“Have you said anything to your mom about,” she asked, gesturing vaguely between them.
“No,” Clark said quickly. “I wouldn’t do that without talking to you first. We don’t have to say anything to her. I can just ask her to babysit. Tell her I have something I need to do. She won’t ask any questions.”
Lois nodded, nerves soothed a little. Perhaps whatever awkward conversations they needed to have could be postponed awhile longer.
Just as she was about to ask Clark what he had in mind for their date, his head lifted abruptly, eyes unfocused.
“Lois, I-“ he began contritely.
“Go,” she encouraged, kissing him on the cheek. “It’s late. Call me tomorrow.” His dazzling grin made something flutter deep in her belly.
He stood and spun, then stopped and bent to kiss her one last time before zipping out the back door.
