Yes, the possible total went up again, but I really think it's going to be 4. But there is that pesky A plot to wrap up a bit differently too, so maybe 5. I do have time to dedicate to this so hopefully the next part will be up in a couple of days.
This is still unbeta'd so...
This part is dedicated to Gr8Shades because when I asked about a particular episode, I had the answer in 6, yes 6, minutes. And the dialog broke the 'word' jam I was in and the rest of this sort of spewed forth [in between kid stuff of course].
So we left Lois in trouble and Clark to the rescue and Martha and Jonathan... celebrating the nuptials of their son.
Without further ado...
*****
By the time he got over there, Lois had heard a noise and was hiding in the closet. Clark tried desperately to find a way to get ber out without the bad guys seeing either of them, but nothing came to him that wouldn't involve the serious rearranging of paperwork on the tables.
Finally, in desperation, he zapped one of the fire sprinklers. Roarke and his sidekick left, muttering as they went.
"Lois," Clark hissed. "Come on."
She exited the closet with her bag over her head. "What was that about?"
"It was Roarke and his goon. We gotta get out of here before the fire fighters show up."
"No, we don't."
"Yes, we do."
"No. You're Superman, it wouldn't be unusual for you to be here. You can tell them there's nothing going on."
"What about you?"
"I'm a reporter, I was nearby, I heard the alarm."
Clark rolled his eyes. "Sure."
Lois put her hands on her hips. "Listen, boy scout..." She ignored Clark's raised brow. "...we have to figure out what they're doing." She waved in the direction of the filing cabinets. "Do your super thing and see what you can find. Can't you turn the sprinklers back off?"
Clark shook his head. "No, I can't. The fire fighters will have to do that." He lifted his head and tilted it to one side. "They're on their way. They'll be here any minute."
Lois sighed and grabbed the file lying on the desk in front of her, shoving it in her bag as she headed towards the door. "Then let's just get out of here before they show up."
She exited the office and stood in the relatively dry hallway. "Coming?"
Clark closed the door carefully behind him and turned to look at her. "We still could meet them coming up the stairs and the elevators are shut down."
She rolled her eyes. "No, we won't." She put one arm on his shoulder and leapt lightly, trusting him to catch her. "Take us out another way." She shivered. "Then back to our room."
Clark sighed and sped them away.
Neither noticed the credit card lying on the ground in the office.
*****
Clark landed them on the roof of the Lexor. "I've always wanted to do this in front of you."
Lois looked at him, puzzled. "What?"
"This." He brought his arms up and spun. By the time he was done spinning, he was back in his jeans and T-shirt.
"Wow." She stumbled back. "Clark, we need to talk."
"I know." He sighed. "Do you trust me?"
She gulped and then nodded.
She glared at him as he looked her up and down intently then realized that she suddenly felt warm and that steam was coming off of her. "What are you doing?"
"Warming you up."
She looked puzzled.
"Heat vision."
"Ah."
"Come here." He held out an arm and she cautiously stepped into his embrace. He wrapped his other arm around her and in literally seconds, she was standing in the middle of their living room suite.
She couldn't even say wow this time.
Instead, she sneezed.
Clark looked at her chagrined. "Bless you. I’m sorry. I should have dried you off before zipping through the night air." He nodded towards the bedroom. "Why don't you go take a nice hot shower? Or better yet – a bubble bath. That'll warm you up even better."
She sighed. "A bath sounds really nice. That heat gizmo of yours was nice, but it's not a bubble bath."
He chuckled. "No, it's not."
She smacked his chest lightly as she walked past him. "Come on."
"What?"
"We're taking a bath."
"Together?" he managed to squeak out.
She laughed and muttered under her breath, "Who would have thought Superman could squeak?" She shook her head as she walked towards the bedroom.
"I do not squeak." Against his better judgment, he followed her.
"You squeaked."
"I did not."
Lois sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine, you didn't squeak, Super Mouse." She turned to face him. "But you are going to take a bath with me. We're married remember?"
"Isn't that taking a bit far?"
"We'll wear swimsuits, Clark. We'll put enough bubbles in that no one will notice. And you'll give us enough notice to start making out and thoroughly embarrass anyone who dares walk in on us."
Clark sighed. "Fine. Why don't you take you stuff to the bathroom to change and I'll start getting the tub ready?"
Lois nodded and dug through the drawers until she found her swim suit – what had possessed her to bring it, she'd never know; she hadn't planned on getting in the tub with Clark – and then went to the bathroom.
Clark flew up the stairs, to his apartment, grabbed his swim trunks and returned to the hotel suite before the water had even heated up. He checked it then plugged the drain and added bubbles. He'd never actually taken a bubble bath so he wasn't sure how much to put in, but he figured a 'glug-glug' ought to do it. He supersped into his swim trunks and settled into the tub watching the water intently as it inched over the top of his legs.
He looked up as the door to the bathroom clicked open. His relief was palpable when Lois emerged in a fairly modest two piece suit. Not too low cut, not too high cut and the top wasn't of the bikini variety but rather more of a tank top that covered most of her stomach.
And she still took his breath away.
She threw a couple of towels nearby as well as the robes she'd taken from the hooks in the bathroom. "I guess you don't really need a towel do you? You can spin dry or something right?"
Clark laughed. "No, but I have burned a hole in a towel or two when I try to dry off too fast."
He heard her heart rate increase a bit at that comment.
He held out his hand to help her into the tub. "I really have no idea about bubble baths. I hope I got the bubbles right. And I really don't feel the heat, so I hope it's not too hot."
She shook her head. "It's perfect right now, but it'll probably cool off before too long."
Clark grinned at her. "I can heat it back up."
Lois laughed. "See? I knew you'd be handy to have around."
Clark grew serious. "I said it before and we got interrupted, but there's a lot more to me that heat vision and flying, Lois."
She nodded. "I know."
"And I don't mean the hearing thing or super speed."
"I know. You're Clark Kent. You were raised in Kansas by Jonathan and Martha Kent, who probably used some sort of surreptitious means to make your adoption look official because they couldn't just announce they found a baby in a ship. You grew up, became super and after college travelled the world. Probably because you couldn't not help and someone would get suspicious and you'd move on. While I wasn't sleeping last night, I remember hearing about some odd occurrences at Midwestern while I was in college. I think I even remember seeing you play football against U of M one time. You moved to Metropolis to get a job at the Daily Planet because it's been your lifelong dream, but again, you couldn't keep from helping and within a couple of days you were afraid you'd have to move on again. But by then you didn't want to leave your dream job. So you and your mom, and probably your dad though I bet he was at least sort of against the idea, concocted this crazy idea for a flying man in tights who was 'here to help'." She shrugged. "The rest is history."
Clark laughed. "That's about it. How'd you figure it all out? I expected to have to explain the whole thing to you."
She shrugged. "I'm an investigate reporter. As you've told me repeatedly, I make intuitive leaps of logic that you can barely follow. This was nothing. And I've had about..." she glanced at the clock. 8 pm. "...18 hours to figure it out."
"Well, you did a pretty good job. Is there anything else you want to know?"
"Why were you sent to earth as a baby?"
Clark sighed. "I have no idea. When we were investigating Bureau 39, I found some stuff at that warehouse on Bessolo Boulevard. My ship and this globe. Apparently, someone dug up my ship a long time ago. Dad had buried it on the farm, but when we went to look for it, it was gone. It was there. I'm still kicking myself for not going back sooner and getting it. I was able to stick the globe in my pocket without you noticing. I took a file on Smallville too. I'm sure there's other copies around. That Thompson guy had one."
"How do you know?" Lois asked, shocked.
He pointed to his eyes. "I x-rayed his briefcase, but I couldn't figure out how to get it. Anyway, I grabbed the globe and the file. The file was pretty much what you'd expect. Unexplained meteor in Smallville, someone thought they saw something... I think some of the folks from the area might suspect something, but I doubt they'd guess the truth. There were some strangers in town the day my folks found me. They even stopped by the farmhouse. Mom and Dad said that he was dad's cousin and his girlfriend and they'd gotten in a bit of a... ah, predicament and gave me to my folks to raise."
"Who were they?"
Clark shrugged. "They never did find out the names of the couple, but Mom said the guy looked awfully sick so maybe something happened to him. They really weren't too concerned with finding them though – if they came back to Smallville, it would disprove where I came from."
"So this globe... what is it exactly?"
"I don't know. When I picked it up, it showed a map of earth and then a map of another planet that I knew was Krypton. I have no idea how I knew it. I'd never heard the name before, ever. My parents had never heard of it. It wasn't like there was an audible voice or even a voice in my head. I just knew. Like when you remember something you'd forgotten. As for why... I have no idea." He sighed and scooped bubbles absent mindedly. "Maybe custom on Krypton meant that you sent your oldest son to some planet far, far away. Or maybe you sent your spare."
"Spare?"
"You know – the heir and the spare. Not that I think I'm royalty or anything, but maybe it's some sort of paternalistic society that practices primogeniture. My big brother got everything and I got sent to live on another planet – or maybe just sent into space and I got lucky and landed on a planet with people who looked like me. I mean really, how well would I have fit in on Klingon?" He shook his head sadly. "For all I know, they didn't want me."
Lois stared at him, wide-eyed. "Or maybe they saved you."
"From what, Lois? A life being loved by my parents?"
"That's just it. You don't know. Maybe there was an imminent civil war and you were some kind of crown prince who was likely to get killed, so they sent you somewhere safe. To a life where your parents love you very much. Or maybe there was a catastrophe in the offing. Maybe..." she thought for a second. "Maybe the planet was going to explode and they couldn't save themselves but they managed to save you. Maybe the sun was going to go all quasar on them or something."
"I think you mean supernova, Lois. A quasar is sort of like a black hole at the middle of a galaxy. An exploding star is a supernova."
Lois rolled her eyes. "Whatever. You know what I mean."
"I guess it's possible, but..."
"It's the not knowing that kills you?"
He smiled. "Something like that." He aimed a bit of heat vision at the bubbles. "No sense in waiting until it's cold." He took a deep breath and blew it out. "I'm not holding out for the tear-jerker reconciliation though."
"You don't even know where to begin looking for your roots. It's been an emotional roller coaster for you hasn't it?"
"That's an understatement. I don't have any unrealistic expectations though," he said finishing Lois' list of things that happen to adopted kids.
"Are you sure?"
He shrugged. "I don't think so."
"Do you want to know what happened on Krypton?"
"I don't know. No, I don't." He glanced at her and saw the look she was giving him. "Okay, I do. I want to know why a tiny infant was sent into space. Why did they send me away? I'm a good person right? I would have been a good son to them." Tear threatened.
Lois laid her hand on his shoulder. "I know you would have, Clark, and I won't pretend to know why you were sent here, but I'm glad you were. If your parents, for whatever reason, hadn't put you in that ship and sent you to Kansas, I would never have met you. Both of you. Do you know how many times I would have died since I met you – if you hadn't been there?"
"You wouldn't have been thrown out of that plane if it wasn't for me."
"But you saved me then and I don't even know how many other times."
Clark sat there, quietly contemplating. "Maybe I do have unrealistic expectations, but not in the sense most adopted kids do."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, all my life, I've wondered where I came from. I've wanted to put down roots, to get married..." He paused. "To have kids. I love kids. I want kids of my own. Is that realistic?" He shrugged. "For most adopted kids? Probably. For me? I doubt it. First, if I could find someone who loved me enough to marry me, given my rather unusual second job that could require me to miss important occasions, to run out in the middle of conversations, to be gone for days at a time in the case of a major disaster... Even if I could find someone like that, who could also accept the fact that I'm an... alien..." He took another deep breath. "The fact remains that I am an alien. I’m not from here. Who's to say if I could even father children?" He paused. "It's a moot point right now anyway." He played with the bubbles some more.
"My parents have that kind of love. They loved each other no matter what; they still do. When they found out they couldn’t have kids, they went through a really hard time and I guess most folks expected my dad to leave my mom. I'm not sure why. I guess it was still that day and age when all fertility problems were considered to be the woman's problem and if dad wanted kids to carry on the family farm... It's been in his family for 6 generations, but he loves Mom more than he loves that farm. They mortgaged it to the hilt to try to adopt a baby but it never happened. They were too old. Their income was too unstable. Ironically, they had too much debt because of those mortgages. Through it all they loved each other enough to take in a strange visitor from another planet. At the time, they thought I was a Russian experiment and they still took me in and protected me from the government agents who came to Smallville a few days later.
"So, I know that kind of love exists, but I don't know that it's in the cards for me. Flying aside, first I have to find someone who loves *me*, Clark. Then tell her that I’m Superman – because I don't want a woman who loves Superman but not Clark – and hope that she can live with the fact that I'd been lying to her every time I ran out on a dinner date to return a movie or meet a source or pick up a prescription. That she could live with the fact that I'm not human and may not be able to ever give her children. Sure, me and this fictitious woman could adopt, but, so help me, I want to have children of my own."
By this point in his soliloquy, tears had silently begun to slip down his cheeks. He'd never been so open with anyone about his origins, about his hopes and dreams. Sure, his parents knew he wanted a family, but not how badly. He'd never discussed the possibility of infertility with them, knowing it would likely dredge up bad memories. He'd never told them that he was afraid he'd never find a woman to love him because of his differences.
He was sure that they knew, on some level anyway, but not how deeply he was affected by all of it. How many nights he spent either staring at the ceiling over the years, or now patrolling the skies as Superman, pondering these very things.
"Who's to say there's not already a little Clark running around out there?"
"Lois, what on earth are you talking about? There are no 'little Clarks' anywhere."
"Hear me out. So, you've had girlfriends, I know you have. You manage to tick one of them off because you didn't tell her about yourself, but abruptly ended the relationship and moved because someone got to close. Sure you either used protection or she was on birth control or you thought she was but she thought she could get you to marry her if she was pregnant or something like that. So, you break her heart and move to China. Either she can't get a hold of you and doesn’t know how to reach your parents or she's so mad that she doesn't even try and is raising little super Clark out there somewhere without you. Maybe you should look into it. Maybe it could put that part of your mind at ease."
She chewed on her bottom lip. "Of course, that would raise a whole other set of questions if there was a little Clark or Clarkette somewhere – the whole absent parent thing, which you, of course would never do if you knew you had a child, but that child wouldn't know that. Zap the water again, would you?" She noted absently that he did and she sank a little deeper into the waning suds. "I think it would be better to know than not know though. I mean, if the kid were to have your powers..." She felt a finger on her lips.
"Lois, there is no little Clark or..." he raised a brow. "...Clarkette out there anywhere."
"Clark, surely even you know that the only thing that's 100% effective is..." At the look on his face, she stopped. "Oh. Oh my. Not even Cat?"
He shook his head. "Especially not Cat. She made it sound like something happened between us, but nothing did. I couldn’t risk exactly what you're talking about. Sure, I dated. Even seriously a few times. And some of them were beautiful women who wanted to do... that. But I decided a long time ago that I didn't want to do... that unless it was with someone who knew all about me, who accepted me for who I truly am and could live with the idea that I probably couldn't give her children." He shrugged. "Not that I'm necessarily planning on waiting until our wedding night or anything like that – I mean I guess we might, but that's a decision I'd have to make with her – whoever 'her' is – once I find her." He stopped suddenly. "And people say you babble. I’ve monopolized the conversation for how long now?" He looked at her intently. "You don't ever have to repeat any of that."
"I'm not planning on it. But Clark, I don't think your expectations are unrealistic at all. The biological child thing, maybe, I don't know, but the rest of it... not unrealistic at all. Any woman would be lucky to have you and for you to love a woman... you'd move heaven and earth for her if she asked – and you could too, if you wanted."
He nodded. "I would."
"And there's no one in your life who made you feel that way? Who makes you feel that way?"
Clark thought for a moment, trying to decide how to answer that question. "There is. Or was. Or something. I fell in love with a woman the first time I saw her, but she's never seen me as more than a friend or a spandex clad superhero." He carefully avoided her gaze.
"You mean me, don't you?" she asked quietly.
Clark nodded slowly. "It's okay, Lois. I don't expect any of that from you. I know you see us as friends and that's fine. I can live with that. Someday I'll move on and you'll find someone and maybe I will too, but I'm not under any illusions that..."
Lois moved swiftly, sliding quickly through the water and covered his lips with hers. She took his face in her hands and settled herself on his lap as she continued to kiss him.
After long minutes, she broke away. "I do love you, Clark. I think I always have."
*****
TBC
