Thanks - as always to Alisha
. I think I forgot that last time. So if I forget again, pretend it's implied...
I'm glad to see some more understanding for Clark
. Part 16 will probably be up late Sunday or early Monday.
And now...
*****
Chapter 15
*****
Lois gulped and tried not to show her surprise. She'd managed to hide her shock pretty well – she thought – when Clark admitted that he hadn't been to Colorado without her. It had been almost 2 years since they'd been there. Surely he was dying to know what else Jor-El had to say.
He was waiting for a response.
"We have that meeting with the lawyer this evening." There. An out.
"At six. He said it shouldn't take more than an hour or so – he just wants to go over a few more details of the will and our inheritance stuff. He said Lucy's was pretty straightforward. She told me earlier she'll get 45% of all the cash assets once the condo is sold when she's 21 or graduates from college, whichever is second, unless she doesn't go to college and then it's when she's 30. It sounds like she gets a little over a third of everything – minus the charitable donations, of course – and we get just under two-thirds, but ours includes the brownstone in Metropolis so she gets more cash and we get property. He said that ours is a little more complicated but didn't want to go into details over the phone."
"Great." She sighed. "What do you think she did? Set it up so I have to have a very invasive physical exam before we get the money?" She groaned. "I didn't mean to say that out loud." Just one more reminder of their very unconventional marriage.
He shrugged, ignoring the twisting, stabbing pain the comment invoked – just another reminder their marriage wasn't 'normal' – as Aunt Louise well knew. "I doubt that, but I don't have any idea what it is."
She continued over him. "And it makes me sound like I just want the money which isn't the case at all. I would rather have Aunt Louise still here than not."
"I know. But my point is that we should be done by seven or seven-thirty. Would you be up for going to Colorado with me then?"
It was her turn to stare at the floor. "Can we play it by ear?"
"I guess, but I really don't want to go without you and I would like to go before my birthday. Tonight seems like the best time to do that."
"We'll see."
*****
Eight o'clock came and Lois had reluctantly agreed to go with him to Colorado. He would have liked for her to be a little more enthusiastic, but he'd take what he could get. He thought long and hard about whether to take Aunt Louise's letters with them and he finally decided to, though he wasn't sure he was actually going to tell Lois about it. He'd play *that* part by ear.
They both dressed in dark clothes and made their way to the roof of the hotel. He stood behind her, and without asking her how she wanted him to hold her while they flew, simply wrapped his arms around her and told her to hold on then took off into the night sky.
It wasn't long before they arrived in Colorado. A blast of heat vision melted a hole in the snow large enough for them to sit in. He set Lois securely on the ground in the clearing he'd made then unearthed the ship and the blanket they'd stored in it the last time they were there, having decided it was easier than taking one back and forth. A few seconds after that a fire was blazing.
Lois had sat down on the blanket after he spread it out and inched as close to the fire as she dared.
"Do you want me to help warm you up a little bit?"
She nodded and he shot a blast of heat vision her way. "Thanks."
He sat down on the blanket, as close to her as he dared. "So what did you think about what the lawyer said?"
"It's stupid."
"I don't know if I'd say stupid, but unusual would fit."
"No, it's stupid." She ran a hand through her hair. "We get the brownstone officially when the lease is up and that's about 25% of our total inheritance. That makes sense. We get another 25% when we've both graduated from college or I turn 21, whichever comes first. And that's cash or whatever. The other 50%... Well, he can't even tell us when we get it. Just that there's stipulations in there that are not to be revealed until we've met the requirements, but he can't tell us what the requirements are. That's stupid. I mean how on earth are we supposed to meet the requirements if we don't know what they are? Is it that we reach a certain big anniversary mark – like 25 years – and she was afraid if we knew we'd stay married just to get to it or something?"
Clark shrugged acknowledging to himself that she still doubted that the marriage would last to whatever magical date Aunt Louise may or may not have set. But if that was the stipulation, he could see how she would make sure they didn't know what the requirements were. "Maybe. We don't know, Lois. That's the point, I guess. At least we know we'll have the brownstone in a few years..."
"The beginning of the next decade."
"She said it was a long term lease with an old friend."
"I know, but another 3 years? That's a long lease."
"Well, there's nothing we can do about it."
"I guess."
"And we'll get a quarter of it in cash in about 15 months."
"But there's a stipulation with that too that he didn't tell us about either."
Clark sighed. "I know."
"She knows how much we're struggling to make ends meet, Clark. Why wouldn’t she let us have at least some of it now to take the pressure off – just a bit?"
"I don't know. Probably something about building character or something."
"I've got enough character, thanks."
"I know, but there's nothing we can do to change it."
"And administration of what my parents left us is now with the lawyer, too."
Clark proceeded carefully. "Lois, would you want to use some of that money to help with day to day expenses?" He raised his hand as she glared at him. "Before you take my head off I don't mean that we should live on it, but – like you said – enough to take the edge off. Even a few hundred a month wouldn't make a huge dent in the principle and it should have earned pretty decent interest the last couple of years, but a few hundred a month would make our lives a lot easier."
Lois sighed and scrubbed her eyes with her hands. "I'll think about it."
"And Lucy's grades are a lot better recently and she thinks she may be able to get at least a partial scholarship to UNT Met so she wouldn't need all of it either."
"I said I'll think about it. And I'll talk to Lucy and see what she thinks."
"Okay."
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Lois yawned. Clark wasn't entirely convinced it wasn't a fake yawn, but stayed quiet.
"Are you going to take the globe back to Metropolis?"
"I think so. I can put it in the compartment with the letter from my mom and no one should find it there. Lucy knows about me, so if something did happen when I wasn't around – or when she was around – it's not like it'll tell her something she doesn't already know."
"Yeah." She stared at the fire for a minute. "Clark, can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"How long did it take you to tell me about yourself?"
"About two, three months, I guess."
"How long did it take you to tell Lucy?"
His eyes narrowed a bit. "A little over a year."
"Jimmy?"
"Couple of months? Something like that."
"Perry and Alice?"
"Lois, it was an accident. You know that. When I looked up and saw Perry there was no way I could have explained away what he saw. I was moving logs that were still glowing with my bare hands and then the fire was burning full force with no matches or lighters or kindling. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t lie my way out of that."
"Did you lie to me?"
"When?"
"During those first three months. Did you ever lie to me because I'd caught you doing something that I shouldn't have?"
Clark thought about it. "I don't know that I'd say *lie* exactly. I mean, that's how I was able to get the apartment cleaned up so quickly – relatively. I probably could have gone a lot faster if I wasn't worried about you finding out. And I flew myself back to Smallville, but at least hinted that I was flying commercial – so I guess I did technically lie when I said I bought an open ended ticket, because I didn't – it was one way. I cleaned the apartment and folded clothes and showered as fast as possible when you and Lucy weren't around. I was able to help Lucy with more of her homework because I can do mine so quickly. I may have flown myself home from school or to work or something a time or two when it was dark, but I don't think I ever lied to you."
"But you weren't *honest* with me." It wasn't a question.
He thought about that for a minute. "No, I don't guess I was. It wasn't because I didn't trust you or because I wanted to hurt you or anything like that, but it's not exactly easy to bring up. 'Hey, by the way, your sister's going to be home in like ten minutes, but I'm an alien.' I wanted to tell you sooner, really, I did, but we didn't see each other much even then. More than we do now, but not much. Part of Saturdays, sometimes part of Sundays and late evenings and that's about it. It was actually one of the things on my mind while we were walking that night – when would I get a chance to spend some time alone with you to try to explain it all."
Lois made a snorting noise. "That's convenient."
"It's true," he said simply. "And I didn't tell Perry until he swore to me that he wouldn’t print it. Even if I'd never met him before, he has the reputation of being a man of his word."
"And what if he hadn't promised not to print? That he was going to reserve judgment until you told him what it was?"
Clark sighed. "I think I would have left. I would have told him I couldn't give him the answers he wanted and left."
Lois thought about that for a minute. He would have left. He would have left her sitting there in the home of a newspaper man with questions and no answers and she would have been the only one likely to be able to give them. She never would have been able to withstand questioning by the great Perry White. And then her sister and Jimmy and Alice would have been there to see her humiliation when he'd walked out on her. And he just admitted that he hadn't been honest with her from day one. Sure, it was only about little things designed to protect his secret until he could tell her – and she wasn't sure he'd really been planning on it but for now she'd give him the benefit of the doubt – but someone who can't be honest about little things... That was more food for thought.
They sat for a few more minutes staring at the fire. "There's two more messages right?"
"Two more of the five, but my mom said that there were more for 'when the time is right'."
"Right. I forgot about those."
He thought about asking her if she'd ever read the letter from his mom, but decided not to. She'd moved it after their last conversation about it and he didn't have any idea where it might be.
He opened his mouth to say something else, but they were suddenly enveloped in the white glow of the globe.
They could see that something had been done to the tiny ship that Jor-El and Lara had been working on. Jor-El's voice told them what it was.
"We have installed the hyperlight drive and tested it as best we can. So much is unknown."
They saw him take the globe, showing the map of Krypton.
"Contained within the sphere is the navigational computer that will guide the ship through the maze of hyperspace, as well as this account of our final days."
Jor-El carried the globe and installed it in the tiny ship. The display changed from Krypton to a map of Earth. Jor-El moved to the capsule and touched it with a probe. The mist disappeared.
"All is in readiness. We have selected the ship's exact, destination on Earth and programmed it into the computer."
Jor-El took the capsule and carried to the ship as Lara opened the hatch. He put the capsule into the ship. Lois and Clark both saw what was inside – a tiny baby wrapped in blankets.
"Kal-El, our child. Under Earth's sun his Kryptonian molecular structure will give him powers and abilities no Kryptonian has ever had. He is the last son of Krypton."
Another tremor began and Lois and Clark found themselves holding on to the ground beneath them. For a moment, Jor-El hung in space, looking directly at Clark.
Clark could hear him speaking, but only in his head. <You carry a great sadness, my son, and a great weight is on your shoulders. Your shoulders are strong and you will surely weather this storm as you have weathered others. Your love for the woman at your side will carry both of you through. We love you, Kal-El, and we are proud of the man you have become.>
The white glow disappeared.
Clark was stunned. He stared at the globe, mesmerized. How on earth could the globe – and his father – have known what his life was like at the moment? And why had he only heard it in his head? Not that he would have really wanted Lois to hear that right now, but why? Had Lois heard anything? Had Lara stared at her and said something? He really hadn't noticed, but he didn't think so. Was it part of the telepathy thing his mother's letter had mentioned? That made as much sense as anything else.
"Clark? Clark? Krypton to Clark!" She was waving her hand in front of his face.
"What? Oh, sorry, Lois."
"What was that about?"
"What?"
"You totally spaced out for a minute."
"Really?" He shook his head. "Jor-El spoke to me."
"Of course he did. He said they put the hyperlight drive and in then they put you – the baby you – in the ship, said you would have powers and were the last son of Krypton and disappeared."
"No, after that. You didn't see him looking at me?"
"What? No."
Clark shook his head again, as though to clear cobwebs. "He just sort of hung there in mid-air and looked right at me and spoke to me... telepathically, I think."
"You think?"
"Well, I didn't hear any actual words, but I heard it in my head – just like I knew that globe was Krypton when I first picked it up."
"Huh. What did he say?"
Clark stared at the fire, wondering how much to tell her, but he knew he had to tell her something. "Just that they love me and are proud of me and the man I've become."
"That was nice of them."
There was an underlying note of sarcasm in her voice that he didn't quite understand. He held out his hand and the globe floated down to him. "I guess that was one of the messages my mom mentioned."
"I guess so."
The sarcasm was still there but he still wasn't sure why. He sensed, however, that this wasn't the time to push it.
He stood and walked over to the ship, pulling his mother's letters out. He flipped through them, wondering if he'd missed any. He stopped briefly at the 'first fight with your wife' one. He wasn't sure if the night things changed counted as a fight or not. He continued. No, the next letter was for his birthday in a couple of weeks.
Did he want to pull out Louise's letters?
"Is this where you read your mom's letters?"
He shrugged. "Some of them. Once I knew I could fly, I came here to read them. And I kept them in my space craft so it made sense to just read them here, but I think it's time to take that stuff home."
"Yeah." She sat for another minute. "Clark, I’m getting tired."
"Yeah, me too. Let me bury this and we'll head back. Do you want to leave the blanket here?"
She shrugged. "If we're taking the globe with us, do we need to leave the blanket?"
Clark sighed. Of course, there was no reason for them to come back. "You know, the more I think about it, the more I'm not sure that taking the globe with us is the best thing. I mean I know we can trust Lucy and stuff, but something feels wrong about it."
"It could be a while before we're both able to come back," she pointed out.
"I know, but it doesn't feel right to see the last message anywhere but here."
"Okay. Whatever you think is best."
He waited until she stood, then handed her his mom's letters. "I do want to take those though." He turned into a blur, folded the blanket and reburied the ship before coming to stop in front of her. "Ready."
*****
Lois sank down on the bed in their apartment. They'd wrapped everything up in Texas, except for returning with the car and Clark and Jimmy were leaving in the morning to do that.
She had a pile of homework to do but she didn't think she could concentrate on it right now. Her mind kept going back to what Clark had told her Jor-El said.
They loved him. Well, that made sense.
They were proud of him and the man he had become. That was the part she had issues with. Although, she admitted to herself, Kryptonian society could be very different than American or even any other society on earth. Maybe it was acceptable in Kryptonian society to have multiple wives or concubines or mistresses or whatever. Maybe that's what Jor-El meant when he said they were proud of the man he had become – that he was able to successfully have a wife and a girlfriend or something.
She put her hands over her face and flopped backwards. How she would miss Aunt Louise.
She also had to admit that Clark had a point. Even if they took $500 a month of the inheritance money, that would only be about $6000 before they graduated from college. Clark was right; the money had been well invested and should be enough for Lucy to go to college, barring a major catastrophe or something. It wouldn't get her Princeton but it would get her UNT Met or another state school. One of them could quit one of their jobs. Who? Which job?
Their Star jobs were out of course. That was their main source of income and their foot in the door of journalism. That was her only job at the moment – between it and her course overloads and her time at both of the papers... Well, she worked one day most weekends at the restaurant. It didn't bring in much, but it was one of those every penny counts things... Clark's pizza delivery job was their second biggest source of income, followed by his newspaper deliveries.
His newspaper delivery job was the most logical. He had to get up so early to deliver papers and it did occasionally make problems with the Star when he had to leave in the afternoons. In theory, he had permission to do so daily, but the reality was that sometimes their bosses were more than annoyed by him leaving even though he came in early or stayed late to make up for it. Or maybe give up his afternoon route. That would solve the problem at the Star, but giving up the morning one would let him get more sleep – and take away one of his potential meeting times with Mayson. She still wondered if he didn't speed deliver his papers and go to visit her before classes at least some days.
She sighed, searching for answers, but none came.
*****
Lois sat in the cafeteria the next Wednesday waiting for her study partners to arrive. Molly, Ryan and Dan were in her physics lab. She hated that Dan was in her group, but Ryan had brought him in and by the time she realized it, it was too late to try to join a different one. He was constantly making comments to her about how if they'd gone out the fall of her senior year, they'd be together and she'd be married to him now instead of to the 'Kemp' guy. She finally gave up trying to correct him – that it was Kent, thank you very much – and ignored him as much as possible. He'd already flunked physics once and she was sure he was hoping the three of them would pull him through. Turned out Mayson had been in his study group then – and they'd even gone out a few times – and she'd talked nearly non-stop about the friend she ate lunch with. Never once mentioned he was married either. He got a few digs in about that regularly too.
Clark had asked her on Monday – during their regular lunch together – if she wanted to have lunch today too. She really did have legitimate reason not to, what with this study group and all. She glanced across the cafeteria and saw him sitting down at a table. He was talking to someone already there but couldn't see who was with him. Then she saw a blond sit down with him. She couldn't have lunch with him because of the study group and so he was having lunch with the bimbo. Of course.
Half an hour later, she was ready to kill Dan. Literally kill him dead. How did he make it this far while being such an idiot? And he wanted to work for the government? If that wouldn't send the whole country into a tailspin, she didn't know what would. And he had the nerve to be annoyed that she'd missed last week's meeting because she was in Texas.
"Hey."
She practically jumped out of her chair when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see Clark.
"Clark! You scared the daylights out of me!"
Immediately contrite, he pulled a chair up from the next table over, spun it around and sat down. "Sorry, honey." He pointed across the room. "I was having lunch with your friends Joe and Les from high school. I ran into them a couple of weeks ago and we decided to do lunch. We were supposed to last week but... Hey, Joe and Debbie are engaged."
Dan broke in. "Do you mind? We're trying to study Physics here."
Lois rolled her eyes. "No, Dan, we're not. I was trying to explain it to you and you weren't getting it. And you're not going to get it in the three minutes I have before I have to leave." She turned to the other two members of the group. "Molly, Ryan, this is Clark. Clark, Molly and Ryan."
Molly smiled at him. "So you're the elusive Clark Kent. Nice to meet you."
"Likewise." He turned to the target of Lois' anger. "Have we met?"
Dan glared at him. "At Lois' prom. She and I had a good thing going until you came along."
"Dan, we never had any 'thing'," Lois was quick to point out.
"We should have."
Clark snapped his fingers. "That's right. You're the guy who kept trying to get my wife to dance with you after she told you to get lost."
Lois sighed. What was with Clark? Before she knew it, they'd be seeing who could spit further. She shoved her books in her bag. "I gotta go. I've got class in ten minutes."
Clark jumped up with her. "I'll walk you." He waved to the rest of the table. "Nice to meet you, Molly. Ryan. Dan, always a pleasure."
Lois looked at him quizzically, but then walked quickly to the door, exiting the cafeteria. "What's up, Clark?" she asked when they were clear.
He looked puzzled. "Nothing. I was eating with Joe and Les and saw you over there and thought I'd say hi, that's all."
"Don't you need to get to the Star?"
He looked at his watch. "Not for an hour or so, so I thought I might walk my wife to class. Is that bad of me?"
"No," she shrugged. "Just unusual."
"That's sad."
"What is?"
"That walking my wife to class is unusual. I'd like to more often, if you don't mind."
She shrugged again. "Sure. Why not?" What was he up to? Trying to throw her off the scent of him and Mayson? Lunch with Joe and Les? Sure. She'd seen a blond who looked an awful lot like Mayson sit down with him. Maybe he was just afraid she'd caught him.
"Good."
She came to a stop in front of one of the academic buildings. "This is me. See you tonight."
He bent down and kissed her cheek. "See you later." And he was off.
*****
Clark whistled on his way to the Star. So far, it had been a decent day. His classes were going well. He'd walked Lois to class and she hadn't told him to get lost for whatever reason. Lunch with Joe and Les had been nice too, except that Mayson had joined them. He'd mentioned before their class started that he was having lunch with some old friends and she took that to mean that she was invited to have lunch with him and the old friends. He felt sort of bad about it, but she'd been like a fourth wheel on a tricycle. He hadn't purposefully ignored her, but the two guys caught him up on the group he'd met at prom as well as a few other names he recognized, promising to pass the information on to Lois. The talk had switched to the Metropolis Mets and Spring Training which was well under way. There just hadn't been much for Mayson to join in on. Would it be enough for her to get a hint? He hoped so, but somehow he doubted it. Maybe being unavailable for lunch a few more times would help.
*****
Time passed. His birthday came and went. Lois got him a card, but they'd agreed early on that was all they were going to do for birthdays and such – anything more was too expensive. He started eating lunch with Lois' study groups most Wednesdays. Dan didn't like it, but Clark didn't care. And actually, he'd aced physics a couple of years earlier so Molly and Ryan welcomed his help. Fridays she had an English writing discussion group thing and he wasn't really welcome there so he tried to have lunch with Joe and Les on Fridays. Tuesdays and Thursdays, Mayson still didn't seem to get the hint and he just couldn't bring himself to be outright rude about it. They didn't have class together those days, and Clark started inviting a couple of guys from his class right before lunch. They were nice guys and it was really nice to have someone to talk sports with. Mayson was still there but he didn't feel quite as guilty about it. He was surprised she still came since she was half-ignored most of the time. It went against the grain of his polite streak, but he didn't go out of his way to pick topics she had no interest in – that's just the way it went.
Summer came and with it Lucy's eighteenth birthday. Clark breathed a sigh of relief as no mention was made of separating now that Lucy didn't need a guardian anymore. Both picked up extra jobs over the summer, but Lois managed to squeeze four classes in too. Jimmy graduated from high school and Lois feared what the change in status would do to the relationship between her sister and her boyfriend. For the most part, it didn't seem to affect it too much, though they did spend more time on the phone in the evenings again since they didn't see each other at school anymore. As long as it wasn't overboard, Lois and Clark didn't say anything.
Their schedules were such that they didn't have lunch at the same time at all that fall. Though neither would admit it to the other – for very different reasons – they both missed it, but that's the way it went. Clark and Jimmy had lunch together virtually every day and Mayson still found excuses to join them regularly. Jimmy liked her but was a bit worried that she had designs on Clark, and he was right to be worried, though she wouldn't act on them for quite some time.
The semester sped by and soon, it was Lois' birthday and their 3rd anniversary rolled around. Clark tried to insist, as he had two years earlier, on making Lois breakfast in bed, but she had to be at work abnormally early that day so it didn't happen.
Spring semester was much like the fall had been. They were able to coordinate their schedules enough for lunch on Mondays as they had until the semester before, but study groups for one or the other prevented them from having lunch the other days. Clark still joined Jimmy as much as possible. And Mayson still joined him wherever he was much more often than he'd like. He wondered what, if anything, Jimmy said to Lucy and Lucy to Lois about it. He'd told Jimmy more than once that he didn't know what he was going to do, but he just couldn't shake her. Jimmy suggested being straight about it, but Clark was convinced she'd get the hint eventually and he really didn't want to hurt her by being blunt. Jimmy wasn't so sure she would and even if she was getting the hint and just not taking it, wouldn't it be less hurtful to just tell her? And besides, school was almost over. Then he and Lois could get on with their lives.
Lois' nightmares still came, he knew. If he was already awake, or if the dreams were bad enough to wake him, he would hold her and kiss her head and tell her that he wasn't going anywhere. At least once a day – while she was asleep – he tried to find an opportunity to tell her he loved her, hoping that, eventually, it would sink into her subconscious.
For her part, Lois enjoyed the additional time with her husband while it lasted. Their time together was still limited to their lunches and after about 10 p.m. and the very occasional dinner he brought her when she was working but he was off. She was still convinced, however, that it was a way to throw her off his relationship with Mayson. She was glad when he started eating with Jimmy often. She knew Mayson often joined them but at least knew the conversation wouldn't revolve around their clandestine affair with Lucy's boyfriend there.
She actually cried two weeks after Lucy's birthday when she started to realize that Clark wasn't going to leave as soon as their guardianship of her sister ended. She'd been living on pins and needles for over six weeks just waiting for the conversation she'd been dreading for years. She was still certain that he would leave once college was done with, but at least that wasn’t for another 10 months. She could brace herself for that; she had been for years.
And so the two of them, closed in on the end of their college years. Each were worried about what would come next and rarely discussed the future other than to confirm they were glad they had jobs at the Daily Planet once graduation was over. Each secretly thought the other might well find something else, but neither mentioned it to each other or anyone else.
And so things continued until three weeks before the end of their college careers.
Then came the night that changed everything.
*****
TBC
