Part 5 – Fragile Peace
January 2016
“Is she ok? What happened? Where is she?” The questions poured from Lois as Clark walked through the front door to their home.
Before answering, Clark gathered her into a hug. “She’s fine. She’s back at the farm,” he said while stroking her hair.
He’d been gone for an hour, disappearing faster than she could see after Martha had called, frantic, because Olivia had taken the truck and had not returned. “What happened?”
“She’d taken Dad’s truck for a ride, slid in the snow and ice, and crashed into a tree. She’s fine, not a scratch on her, as she was driving slowly. She might be a bit stiff and sore tomorrow, nothing to worry about.”
Lois felt herself sag in her husband’s embrace, relieved that their daughter was fine. “Why did she take the truck? She doesn’t even have her license yet!”
“It was hard to get all the information from her, or Mom, because I was there as Superman. She claims to drive the truck all the time, something I’ll have to ask Mom about later.”
Lois could hear the frustration in Clark’s voice. Was Olivia lying to them? She wasn’t able to get her driver’s license as they’d only signed off on her learner’s license a few months ago. Martha and Jonathan had both taught Olivia to drive their old manual transmission truck, but only on the farm, never on public roads. It was something both she and Clark were aware of, and were ok with, but only when another adult was present in the vehicle.
“When I got there she was sitting on a bale of hay in the back of the truck, which wasn’t too far from the farm. I don’t know why she didn’t walk back; she would have been back in the warmth faster than sitting there in the cold. She said she was fine, she was avoiding going home because she knew her parents would be mad, and she didn’t want to tell her Poppa she’d wrecked his truck.”
“That’s a fair assessment,” remarked Lois, already feeling annoyed. “What did your Mom say?”
“I convinced Olivia to allow me to fly her back to the farm and dropped her off. Mom said thank you to Superman, and I left,” Clark shrugged. “I was hoping she’d call.”
Lois found herself eyeing her cell phone, wondering if she’d left it on silent. While she stared at it, the screen lit up, Clark reaching for it as it began to buzz.
“Mom?” Clark answered the phone, putting it on speaker. “Lois and I are here.”
“She’s fine,” Martha reassured them both. “A little shaken up, and worried you are upset with her.”
Lois could hear the warning in Martha’s tone. She was upset, but it wouldn’t be wise to let Olivia hear that through the phone.
“Can we talk to her?” Lois asked as she heard the phone being handed to their daughter.
“Hi Mom, Dad. I’m so sorry. I wrecked Poppa’s truck…” Olivia began before bursting into tears.
The rest of the short conversation was largely Lois trying to calm her daughter down, and explain they were more concerned with her well-being than the condition of the truck. Clark was oddly quiet, interjecting a few comments, and once Lois ended the call, she looked at him curiously.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ve never had to rescue my own daughter before,” he began with a sigh, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve saved you countless times, though not recently, thankfully, and every time it scared me, but nothing like this. This was a new level of fear. Part of me expected to find her kidnapped, or dead. It was a terrifying flight to Smallville.”
Lois could appreciate his fear; she’d been equally scared the worst had happened. “She’s back with your Mom and Dad, and she’ll be coming home in two days. I’m sure she’s shaken up enough that there’ll be no more incidents, and once she’s here we can ask her what happened.”
“There was a coldness to her when I arrived,” Clark continued, as though Lois hadn’t spoken. “It was as if Superman was the last person she wanted to talk to. I had to sit with her for a bit, talk to her, while she stared at the sky ignoring me. It was strange. It wasn’t the same as the school interview. She was distant at the start of that, but warmed up fairly quickly. Tonight she was unrelenting, and when I flew her back, she was stiff as a board.”
“Clark, that was her first flight with Superman. Perhaps she was afraid?” Lois tried to comfort him.
“Maybe,” he glumly agreed. “We have to tell her soon. The idea that she’s afraid of me…” Clark broke off as Lois hugged him.
“It’ll be ok, Clark. Christmas break is almost over, and once she gets past exams, we’ll tell her.” Perhaps they could book a holiday, somewhere warmer than Metropolis, a place they could be alone for a week. Still holding Clark, Lois began to plan.
****
On her way down the stairs, Lois spotted Olivia lounging on the couch and watching television, her open laptop abandoned on the table.
“What’s this, honey?” Lois asked, glancing at the open laptop.
“Nothing,” Olivia responded as she lunged over the back of the couch to slap the laptop closed.
She wasn’t quick enough though. Lois had already read the headline. “Superman has a secret family! That’s the title of your article?”
“Mom, that’s my laptop.”
“That your Dad and I paid for,” Lois responded, restraining herself from opening the laptop to read the article. “What does it say?”
“It’ll be in next week’s paper.”
Lois felt a moment of panic. What had she discovered? “Liv, you can’t fabricate something to sell news…”
“I’m not selling the story,” Olivia retorted rudely. “It’s for school. I have to write something, and I came up with this.”
Fighting the urge to grab the remote from Olivia and start checking the news channels to see if her husband was otherwise occupied, Lois grabbed her phone and headed upstairs to their bedroom, checking the Daily Planet’s social media pages as she went for any Superman news. Not finding anything, she sent Clark a text, filling him in on what she’d seen, in need of his calming presence to help prevent another loud verbal sparring between herself and Olivia. She wasn’t surprised to hear the front door open within a few minutes, and listened from the top of the stairs as Clark greeted Olivia.
“How was school?” she heard him ask neutrally.
“Fine,” answered Olivia.
“What exams do you have left?”
Lois almost snorted. Clark knew exactly when and what exams were left, probably better than most of the kids in the school. His photographic memory had not faltered in the past two decades.
“Just math and English.”
Lois listened as Clark sat on the couch next to Olivia. “How’s the paper going?”
“Really? Did Mom text you? It’s not a big deal, it’s just a stupid story.”
Deciding to make her entrance, Lois walked down the stairs and joined her husband and daughter in the living room, collecting the laptop along the way.
“How did you come up with such a story? Superman doesn’t generally go around telling anyone about his personal life,” Lois asked as she sat on a comfy chair.
“He did! He said he knew what it was like to upset his parents, and that he had a daughter who he loved, even when she did something irresponsible.”
Lois shot Clark a curious look, trying to not react when she saw his wide eyed expression. Had he said that to her?
“When?”
“When I crashed Poppa’s truck. I was afraid you’d all yell at me and I didn’t want to go back just yet. Superman sat there and yapped at me until I just wanted to get away. He started blathering on about stuff.”
Clark, sitting slightly behind Olivia, lowered his head in resignation. Lois had to try not to smirk at the description of her husband blathering on. “Olivia, you can’t print something like that. There are times when news and someone’s safety conflict…”
“I want to quit the paper. I don’t want to do it anymore,” Olivia blurted out, interrupting her mother.
Lois, surprised at the sudden turn of the conversation, wondered why the change of heart. “That’s fine. You don’t have to…”
“You don’t understand. I do.”
Puzzled, Lois glanced at Clark, and seeing the furrow in his brow, she presumed he was confused also.
“Is there something going on at the paper?” Clark asked.
There was a big sigh, followed by a long pause, before Olivia’s eyes began to well with tears. “It’s Ethan, the editor.”
Lois felt her stomach plunge. What had the editor done?
“It’s not like that, Mom,” remarked Olivia. “He’s graduating this year and is going to Met. U. for journalism. All last year he wouldn’t leave me alone, he kept asking me to join the paper, and this fall when I did, I found out he just wanted a ‘Lane-Kent’ offspring exclusive. He figured that if I wrote an amazing story for the paper, he could take the credit as the editor, and use that on his application. He has to apply in a few weeks and I still don’t have a great story for him.”
“So tell him no. If you want to quit, you can. Your Dad and I support you, sweetie.” Lois tried to sound bright and supportive, not as angry as she was feeling towards Olivia’s editor. Perhaps she needed to make a call to the school in the morning. As Olivia started crying harder, Lois became more concerned.
“Is there something else bothering you?” Clark asked, wrapping his arms around Olivia. “You can tell us; we won’t be mad.”
Between sobs, Olivia told her parents the rest of the problem. “If I quit now, he won’t give me a reference if I want to go to college, and he won’t sign off on the credit to graduate. Even worse, he’ll publish a story that’s more damaging than Superman having a family.”
“Oh?” Lois asked, unsure if she wanted to hear what would be worse.
Olivia had stopped crying, but was now hiccupping as she recovered. Lois handed her the box of tissues that was on the coffee table next to her, and glanced at Clark as he headed to the kitchen, while their daughter wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
“Whatever it is, you can trust us,” Clark said, returning with a glass of water for Olivia.
Lois reached out a hand to Olivia, giving her knee a reassuring squeeze.
“Miss Jamison, the biology teacher, she’s pregnant,” Olivia began. “Before Christmas, Ethan and I were waiting in one of the rooms in the main office area, but the door was left open and we heard Miss Jamison talking about the baby. Well, we could hear bits and pieces, not the whole conversation, and Ethan came to the conclusion that Miss Jamison was being a surrogate, for payment.”
Lois gasped. If that was true, Miss Jamison could be in a lot of trouble as payment for surrogacy was illegal in New Troy.
“Ethan didn’t hear enough to be able to confirm his theory, but for him, that was enough to run a story. He thought if he wrote it and I helped him, he would have his exclusive, and the story, regardless of the truth behind it, would stir up enough of a hornets’ nest that he would get his university acceptance before any of the dust settled.”
“That little…!” Lois exclaimed before catching her husband’s warning glare. “Liv, honey, can you tell us what you heard? Does Ethan have any basis for his story?”
Olivia began to cry again, and shook her head. Lois was unsure which question, or both, Olivia was saying no to, but decided not to ask again. She chose a different tactic. “During Superman’s first few months in Metropolis I was able to get a plethora of exclusive interviews from him. It did wonders for my career, but there was a downside that I couldn’t see at first. Every criminal or mad scientist that wanted to use or destroy Superman realized all they had to do was kidnap, or control me, and they’d have someone he cared about.” Lois paused and watched as Olivia met her gaze. She wondered how much of her own past, especially her brushes with death, Olivia knew about.
“If you go ahead with your story about Superman’s family, there will be a lot of questions, not just from your friends, but from everyone wanting a piece of the story. You’ll be the center of an overwhelming amount of attention, and you won’t be able to control it.”
“When the world finds out Superman has a family, there will be people that hunt for them,” Clark added.
“Couldn’t he just hold one of his press conferences and say I made it all up? Wouldn’t that be more believable?” asked Olivia.
“Superman doesn’t lie,” Clark quickly stated.
“Oh? Are you sure about that?” Olivia snapped back.
Lois quizzically looked at Clark, wondering what had brought on that reaction. “Sweetie, what we’re saying is there are bigger consequences to your story, whether it’s true or not. If Superman has a family, you could be putting them in danger, as well as yourself. Those desperate enough for information to use against Superman wouldn’t hesitate to capture you, and try to get the information from you, regardless of what you do, or don’t, know.” She tried to impart the severity of the situation to Olivia, but restrained herself from painting a full picture, not wanting to scare their daughter.
“Oh, I hadn’t thought about that.”
“That’s not to say getting the other article to print would be without risk,” Lois reminded her daughter. “Miss Jamison and her child will be affected by what’s printed. If it’s true, she will have to face the consequences, but if it isn’t, she will still be at the center of a controversy that could put a mark on her employment record.”
“Liv, what your editor is asking you to do is wrong,” Clark began. “But it’s your choice to make. If you submit either of those articles, someone will be caught in the middle, and there will be consequences regardless.”
“What should I do?”
Clark paused and met Lois’s eyes and she knew they had the same answer. “That’s your decision,” she said as Clark nodded in agreement. “This is what becoming an adult and having more responsibility is all about. Your dad and I are here if you want to talk, but this is your choice to make.”
“Though we ask one thing,” Clark added. “Before whatever you choοse goes to print, we ask that you inform us of your choice.”
Lois closed her eyes briefly, trying not to let out a nervous sigh. If Olivia ran with the Superman story, they would need to be prepared for any backlash, or for the story to catapult Olivia, and Superman, into the spotlight.
Olivia nodded. “Ok, I’ll let you know,” she said. Then she stood and went to retrieve her laptop, before heading to her room.
“Miss Jamison?” asked Clark as soon as they heard the bedroom door click shut.
“I’ll do some digging, see what I can find,” Lois assured, reaching for Clark. “Now we just have to wait, see what she decides to do.”
“And deal with the fallout then,” he said as he held her close.
****
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