Hello everyone! Thank yous are at the end. Enjoy!!!
Table of Contents From Part 6:
“I’m sorry, but it’s hospital policy. Visiting hours will recommence in two hours, Ms. Lane. You’re welcome to come back then.”
She nodded at him in compliance and leaned down to kiss Clark softly on the cheek. “I’ll be back, I promise.”
He squeezed her hand one more time before he let it go. Her body was blocking his face from the doctor and nurse and he quickly mouthed ‘I love you’. She mouthed it back and smiled at him.
She walked over to the door, stepping out of the way to let the nurse and doctor by and then she closed the door behind her, stealing one last glance at him before she left.
**********
PART SEVEN
*****SR Universe*****
Clark wasn’t sure exactly when he’d fallen asleep, but the sound of someone clearing their throat brought him out of his peaceful slumber.
He was mildly irritated – he had been dreaming about Lois.
When he opened his eyes, he was surprised to see the older gentleman standing respectfully at the foot of his bed. He was the last person Clark would have expected to see when he woke up.
The fact that he was here made Clark a little nervous.
“Mr. Wells? What are you doing here? What’s happened? Where’s Lois?” he asked nervously.
“Oh she’s fine, my boy. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all,” he assured him.
Clark shook his head in confusion. “Then why are you here?”
“I just came to check up on you and confirm that everything had happened as I thought it would.”
“You *knew* this was going to happen? You knew and you didn’t do anything to prevent it?” Clark felt the anger rising inside him. Jason could have been killed, or Lois.
“Please, Mr. Kent, calm down. You don’t want to set off your monitors... then I would have to leave before I could explain.”
Clark calmed himself down and nodded at him as if for him to continue.
“I *had* to let the events transpire in this way. Yes, I knew that Lex Luthor was going to threaten you and your family; just as I knew that Jason was going to take that spill over the building, and you were going to follow him. But those events had to take place in order to secure your Utopia.”
“What do you mean?” Clark’s head hurt now more from feeling muddled than from actual physical pain.
“Because of the way things transpired, Lois was able to come to grips with her feelings. She was able to discern whom she truly loved and what she truly wanted... you. She almost lost you, and, because of that, she realized how much you meant to her. She realized that while she loved Richard, she loved you more.”
“You mean she wouldn’t have stayed with me if all this hadn’t happened? She would have gone to France with Richard?”
“It’s very difficult to determine... the future. But from what we, that is to say, the peacekeepers from your Utopia and I, were able to determine, these events were a catalyst to helping Lois make up her mind. It forced her to deal with her emotions – to see them with a clear mind. And so it was decided since everything turned out all right in the end, that I wouldn’t interfere because that could have done more harm than good.”
“So you mean... she’s going to...”
“Stay with you, Mr. Kent?” Wells asked. He nodded his head at him and smiled. “I wish I could tell you more, but one mustn’t know too much about their own future. I’ve really said more than I probably should have.”
Clark’s mind was drowning in a sea of emotion. She had told him she loved him and that she and Jason weren’t going to move with Richard, but it wasn’t until Mr. Wells confirmed it that he really let his heart accept it.
“Now, my boy, I’d better be on my way. I have a couple of other stops to make, but I couldn’t resist taking a moment to check in on you one last time. I wish you both the best of luck.” He started to walk back towards the door and Clark realized there was something he wanted to know.
“What about the other Loises and Clarks? How are they?” he asked anxiously. “Especially the ones from your universe?”
Mr. Wells smiled indulgently at him. “The Clark who resembles you is doing fine. He and his Lois are starting over and taking things very slow, but they are doing well. The Clark from my alternate universe is as happy as I’ve ever seen him. He and his Lois are talking of marriage and she is back working for the Daily Planet, ambitious as ever.” Wells paused for a moment and a curious little twinkle came into his eye. “And the Lois and Clark from my universe? Well let’s just say that they’re expecting a very special gift to come in just a few more months. They are actually the last stop on my list. I have a little something to leave with them in celebration.”
“You mean... they’re going to have...?”
Wells nodded at him.
“When you see them, tell them hello and thank them for me, will you? For their help... for everything.”
Wells nodded at him again and then he was gone, the door shutting softly behind him.
Clark smiled wistfully to himself.
*****LNC Universe – From Beginning of Story*****
Clark glanced briefly at the clock on their nightstand as he lay down on the bed with Lois. They weren’t just going to be late to work... they were *really* going to be late...
He was going to make sure they were.
Lois was kissing him everywhere she could find bare skin, which wasn’t too many places since he hadn’t removed his clothing yet. She was pulling at his shirt impatiently and if he didn’t take it off soon he was afraid she was going to pop the buttons. Too many of his shirts ended up at the dry cleaners needing buttons sewn back on from his quick changes as Superman – he didn’t need *her* relieving his shirts of their buttons as well.
His fingers deftly flew through the buttons and Lois’ hands found the open edges and began furiously working them off his shoulders and down his back.
He wriggled in effort with her tugs, helping her get the garment off. She opened her eyes and took in the sight of his bare chest, flashing him a seductive smile. She pushed against him, pulling him to one side until she had rolled them over and was sitting on top of him. She leaned down and captured his mouth in her own.
“You know, I thought I read that a woman’s sex drive slowed down a little after they got pregnant,” he murmured against her lips and then he took her bottom lip inside his mouth, sucking on it gently.
“Mmm. And since when have I ever fit the parameters of a normal woman?” She kissed him and continued to mumble against his lips, “And you certainly don’t fit the parameters of a normal man.” She moved her mouth to his earlobe, sucking on it gently.
“True.”
“Besides...” She told him, leaning up and raking her fingertips down his chest, eliciting a groan from him, “I can’t think of a better reason for playing hooky from work.”
He rose up towards her and lifted her shirt, raising her into the air as he did so. He brought her body towards him and pressed his lips to her abdomen in a tender kiss. The thought of what was inside that precious body aroused him even further... if that was possible. “You once told me that you didn’t ever play hooky...”
“I never had a reason... ohhh,” she moaned as he moved his mouth higher, “before I met you.”
He had just decided it was time to pull her shirt off, thinking that she had way too many clothes on, when they heard their doorbell ring.
He grimaced. Not now.
“Ugh! You know, this happens way too frequently at our house,” she complained. “And it always interrupts at the worst times.”
“Well, it’s not going to interrupt today.” He leaned again into her stomach, his tongue taking a taste of her belly button.
She pushed him back with one hand and looked at him incredulously. “You mean you aren’t going to go see who it is? It might be important.”
“Not more important than this. Lois, the very forces of the universe itself could not stop me from finishing what we’ve just begun to start...”
“Ohhh!” she exclaimed in surprise as he embraced her and flipped her over on the bed beneath him. He pressed his lips firmly to hers in a delicious kiss, pushing her further into the soft mattress beneath them. She giggled contentedly.
*****SR Universe*****
Clark sat up in bed, waiting for the dizzy, lightheaded feeling to overtake him.
When it didn’t, he smiled in satisfaction. He concentrated and his body began to slowly lift off the bed.
That was good enough for him.
It was time to get out of here. Some time outside in the sunlight was going to be better for him than sitting inside here plugged up to tubes and machines.
He pulled the breathing tubes out of his nose, taking a few tentative breaths of normal air. He then pulled the monitoring pads off his body and the blood pressure/heart monitor off the end of his finger.
He could hear the blips, beeps and screams of the monitors going off at the nurse’s station outside his door as he spun into his suit that Lois had left folded neatly on the chair next to his bed. He quickly let himself outside through the window before the nurses had a chance to make it inside his room.
Then he was climbing through the sky up into the warm evening sun, his body feeling stronger the longer he bathed in its dark orange light.
He flew with purpose, his destination already known.
He released his grip on the speed he had sought and came to hover gently above a familiar house.
The house that held his dreams and future inside it.
He gazed down on the house, peering through it and into it, until he found what he was searching for.
Lois.
She was in the house alone, curled up on the couch, asleep.
He went to Jason’s window and tested it to see if the window was open. It was. He opened it and flew inside, floating his way silently through the house until he came to her.
She was heaven realized.
He floated over next to her and lowered himself down gently into a kneeling position next to the couch.
Her face looked soft and peaceful in the evening light. One long strand of curly hair hung draped across her cheek, dangling down and off the front of the couch.
He reached out and took it carefully in his fingers, moving it back and laying it gently behind her back.
She looked so serene that he hated to wake her, but he wanted to see her beautiful, remarkable eyes awake and looking at him; the blue one mirroring the waves of a tempestuous sea, and the brown one betraying her sweet intensity.
He moved his hand away from her hair and brushed his fingers gently across her cheek.
“Mmm,” she murmured in her sleep.
“Lois,” he whispered softly.
“Mmm,” she murmured again.
“Lois, it’s Clark.”
Her eyelids parted just a sliver and then they flew open, wide and awake, all at once. “Clark?” She scrambled to sit up. “Clark!” She threw her arms around him in a tight embrace. “What are you doing here? Why did you leave the hospital?”
“I’m okay, Lois. There’s nothing more they could do for me there. Where’s Jason... and Richard?”
“Richard took Jason to the park so I could get some sleep. I think he might be taking him to a movie after that. He wanted to spend some time with him before his flight to Paris.”
So they had time together... alone.
She scooted forward on the couch and pulled him to her, encouraging his head to rest against her chest. He wrapped his arms around her lower back and clasped his hands together, giving her a little squeeze.
“Oh, Lois. I thought I’d lost you,” he murmured against her.
“What do you mean? I’m the one who almost lost you.”
“I just knew you were going to let me go. That you were going to stay with Richard. I had nearly resigned myself to it.” He clutched her tighter.
“I know,” she whispered softly. “I didn’t think there was anyway to undo what had been done. I had almost been prepared to accept it myself.” She reached up with one hand and ran it through his hair. He savored the way her fingers felt as they glided through it with their feather-light touches. “But I wouldn’t have been happy. I would have always been regretful. And that wouldn’t have been fair to Richard.” She paused for a moment before continuing, “Luthor had us at gunpoint on the roof; he was going to kill us before Perry showed up with the cavalry.”
Clark hadn’t realized how close he’d come to losing her. “Remind me to thank Perry the next time I see him.”
She laughed softly. “Well, saving Richard and me was the icing on the cake, he also got a great story out of the deal,” she teased. “But you know what I realized when I thought that was the end?” She let out a shaky sigh. “I was sad for Richard, and for myself, but I was more distressed by the thought that I would never see you or Jason again. I knew how I felt about Jason, how much I loved him, but it wasn’t until that moment that I realized what my heart had known all along.”
“I know,” he said softly.
She pushed him back away from her and looked into his eyes. “You know? I’m not so sure you do.”
“Mr. Wells told me.”
This time the push was more definitive, and her eyes went wide. “Wells was here? When?”
“He came to see me in the hospital...”
“Why didn’t he help us? Why didn’t he come sooner?” He could see the frustration in her eyes. The pain of the past few days.
“Because of you...”
“Me?” she exclaimed. “What did it have to do with me?”
“He said that you had to be shown what was most important to you. That what happened needed to happen...”
She went quiet for a few seconds and looked away from him. “What else did he say?”
“Ask me again later.”
“Why not right...” And before she could finish her sentence he was kissing her. Passionately and intensely, not allowing her mind to think about anything else but what he was doing to her.
Her hands moved along his body as the kiss deepened, groping his shoulders and his back, expressing the desire that she wanted more – without having to say a word.
He moved her body, encouraging her to lie down against the couch, and he brought himself to lie against her, his mouth still making draws against hers, his hands moving to unfasten her blouse.
“Ohhh, Clark... Clark, please,” she murmured into his mouth as she took a breath between kisses.
“Lois, you have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say my name like that again. To touch you like this again. God, you feel so amazing.”
She groaned as he ran his hands up the sides of her body and around underneath her back, drawing her up against him.
His hand slipped down to the zipper of her skirt and began to slide it down.
“Wait... wait, Clark.”
<<<“Please, Lois,” he moaned into her mouth. “I can’t. Please...”
Lois’ response to his plea was to deepen the kiss, her tongue pressing forcefully against his lips until she gained access to his mouth. She slid her tongue along the inside of his lips, tasting him, and then she withdrew.
“Do you want this, Clark?” she asked him pointedly.
He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Yes, but...”
“No. No buts. If you don’t want to do this, if you tell me you want me to stop, I will. I would never force this on you. But you have to tell me that you don’t *want* this. Tell me, Clark. Tell me you don’t *want* this, that you don’t *want* me.”>>>He stopped, his breath choking in his throat. “What’s wrong?” he asked apprehensively. “If you don’t want to do this, if you tell me you want me to stop, I will,” he told her, mimicking her words from so long ago.
“Oh, god, Clark. I want this. But not here. Not like this. This is Richard’s house, too, and I don’t know when he’s going to be back. I just can’t...”
And with those words, Clark came back to his senses. Of course they shouldn’t... not here. He hadn’t been thinking. “I’m sorry. I was...”
She put one finger up to his lips to silence him and raised her eyebrows suggestively. “There’s always the arctic.”
*****LNC Universe*****
Lois sighed contentedly next to Clark. The morning would be perfect if...
Her stomach growled its impatience...
...Clark would fix her a little something to eat.
“Honey, was that your stomach?” he asked her, chuckling softly.
“Well I haven’t eaten yet, and I am eating for two now, you know,” she protested.
“I’ll meet you downstairs,” he told her, kissing her forehead softly. He whirled back into his clothes that had been tossed to various areas of the room and then disappeared in a flash out the bedroom door.
Lois herself got up slowly and methodically, savoring the feeling of the afterglow just a few more moments before putting her clothes back on.
It had only been a couple of weeks since her morning sickness had quit making her feel lousy in the mornings, and of course this morning she was feeling even better.
She patted her stomach and looked down it. She was hardly even showing yet, but it was enough that her dress suits were starting to fit a little tighter. But it didn’t bother her. It meant that she would get to do some shopping soon. She had seen some really cute maternity business suits. She wanted nothing to do with those “cutesy” maternity clothes; or, god forbid, the clothes that didn’t fully cover like they should. And she certainly wasn’t going to be one of those women who wore their regular clothes until they were almost busting at the seams. It wouldn’t do for to go around looking like that. She had an image to uphold.
And when her little one came into the world...
She could just see a cute brown-haired, brown-eyed little boy in a blue, collared Polo shirt, with tan dress khakis and a tiny pair of loafers. He would be the best-dressed kid on the block.
He’d look like a little Clark.
She rubbed her tummy affectionately. “Are you ready for some of your dad’s fluffy eggs and buttery pancakes?” She couldn’t remember the last time she had craved food like that for breakfast.
As she made her way downstairs, the aroma of breakfast, already almost finished, called out to her. She’d grab the morning paper and take a look at it while Clark was finishing up.
But when she opened the door and looked outside, the sight that met her eyes caused her breath to catch.
Clark must have heard her. “Honey? Is everything okay?”
“Come here, Clark, hurry,” she told him excitedly.
As he came towards her, she pulled a baby bassinet inside through the doorway. “Look! There’s a note from Mr. Wells!”
She opened the note and glanced through it. It told of the lives of the other Loises and Clarks from the other universes – how each of them had found their way and their happiness. Then at the bottom it congratulated them on their little miracle.
She felt her eyes starting to tear up and she handed the note to Clark.
“So that’s who had been trying to interrupt us earlier,” he observed, glancing down at the note.
She looked back down at the charming old bassinet and smiled at the beauty of Wells’ gift, feeling a little guilty about not answering the door earlier.
They should have known *he* was the one who had been trying to interrupt.
*****LNC Universe*****
Wells sat at a safe distance, not too far from the front door of the Kent’s home. He glanced up periodically from the newspaper he had borrowed from their front step, waiting patiently for them to open their door and get their gift. It wasn’t like he could just leave it there and go on his way. He wouldn’t want someone else to intercept it.
And goodness knows he wasn’t about to knock again. He had learned a long time ago that he had an uncanny knack for interrupting them at what they thought was precisely the wrong moment.
He felt his face flush and he looked back down at the paper.
When he glanced back up, the door was open and Ms. Lane, or perhaps it should be Mrs. Kent – but he would always think of her as Ms. Lane – was standing there smiling down at the baby bassinet.
Wells felt a smile spread across his face.
All in all, a good day for time travel, he supposed.
He got up from his bench and took a shiny new pocket-watch of out his coat pocket and gazed down on it affectionately.
It was time to go.
**********
The End
And now the thanks. First of all, thanks go to Sue, for her fast beta of this story and for letting me bend her ear both with this story and Supermen United. It really helped me shape their characters to "talk things out" with you. Thanks!
And of course a thank you to all the FoLCs who read Supermen United and then banded together to request a sequel. I wrote this sequel because of you and for you... I sincerely hope you enjoyed it.
-- MR
