The flight to Smallville was a bit colder than I had expected. It was only late September and already it seemed like winter was just around the corner. I thought about that. Evelyn had said my due date was on May 28th, presuming Clark's contribution to this venture didn't mean things were completely different than a normal pregnancy. By the time this winter ended, I would almost certainly be showing. The thought filled me with a mix of anticipation, excitement, and nervousness.
Clark wrapped his cape a bit tighter around me and I wondered if he had realized it was cooler out than I had expected or if he was already turning into one of those men who become over protective of their wife when she's pregnant. I fully expected that from him, but was not really sure I was looking forward to it. Clark was over protective enough when I wasn't pregnant.
We landed in the cornfield outside the Kent farmhouse and Clark placed me on my feet. For a moment, neither of us moved. We stood there taking in the sky and all the stars, holding hands.
Then I decided I was ready and taking a deep breath and tugging gently on Clark's arm, set off.
We knocked on the door softly, but Martha came to the door immediately.
“Lois! Clark!” she exclaimed, clearly surprised. “We didn't expect to see to tonight. Come in. We're just having dessert.” Martha pulled me into her arms as I walked in and I hugged her back tightly.
On the kitchen table was an apple pie, freshly baked, of course. I could smell the cinnamon already and my mouth started to water.
Jonathan tore himself away from his pie somewhat reluctantly, and came over to give us hugs hello himself.
By the time we were all settled with my coat off, Martha had gotten out two more plates and served us each a generous piece of pie. I sat down eagerly. Clark and I had not yet had dinner, and this was looking like a good option to me. I briefly thought that I should be making an effort to eat healthier than this now that I was a mother, but then disregarded that. It was an apple pie – it had fruit. Certainly this wasn't so bad for me. Besides it was just one night.
“So, what brings you out here?” Martha asked.
Taking a bite of the pie into my mouth, I smiled. “Well, if we had known about this pie, it would have been reason enough.”
Martha laughed, “I made an extra. You can take it home.”
Jonathan gave a cursory glance at her and I knew he was disappointed. Martha clearly knew, too, as she clucked her tongue at him and smiled, “Oh, stop fussing, Jonathan. I can make you another one.”
That settled, Jonathan sat back in his chair. “Well, then, what does bring you two out here tonight?”
Clark took a deep breath and I appreciated his talking, so I could keep eating. “Well, we have news,” he announced.
Martha clapped her hands together. “Another Kerth?” she asked.
I thought. She was right, it was the right time of year for that, but I had not remembered it at all.
“I don't think the nominations are being announced until the end of the month,” Clark said.
“Then what?” Jonathan asked, clearly curious.
Clark reached across the table and I placed my hand in his. “We're pregnant,” I said quietly.
“You're… you're pregnant?” Martha asked, her eyes shining. “Oh my! That's so wonderful.”
“Congratulations, Son. Lois,” Jonathan said, reaching out to place a hand on each of our arms. “That is wonderful news. And the two of you are going to make wonderful parents!”
Martha got up and came over to give me a hug, holding me tightly. “I'm so happy for you!” she exclaimed and I could hear the tears in her voice. It made me glad we had not waited to tell them and that we had done so in person.
She let me go only to give Clark a hug and then moved over to the refrigerator. “This calls for a celebration,” she announced as she pulled vanilla ice cream from the freezer. Adding dairy to this dinner certainly counted as it being healthy, right?
“So,” Jonathan said, looking at me. “When are you due?”
“Well, my due date is May 28th, but of course, we can't really know how long this will take,” I explained.
“There's so little we know about Kryptonian biology,” Clark explained.
Martha nodded over her ice cream. “So, are they going to do anything special for you?” she asked me.
“Just watch closely,” I said. “They don't know anymore than we do.”
“And it's still early yet,” Clark said, softly. “We can't really be sure…” Clark tried to remind his parents that this baby may not make it, but couldn't get the words out.
Martha shook her head, “No need to think of that for now. You should be focused on how happy you are. This is really great news.”
I smiled, her happiness was infectious. Or perhaps I was just already happy.
**************
We lay in bed for a long time that night. We were not speaking, but I could tell Clark was not sleeping either. He had his arms tightly around me and we were both facing towards the window.
“I love you,” I whispered, tightening my grip on the arm he had around my waist.
He tightened his grip slightly. “I love you, too,” he whispered back, his voice full of tenderness.
“I'm glad we told your parents,” I said. “Somehow, it made it more real for me.”
“Me, too,” he said. “Mom is so happy.”
“Of course, she is,” I told him. “She knows that this is what you want most in the world, Clark. She's happy for you.”
Clark loosened his grip on me to turn me around until I was lying on my back. He leaned up so I could see him clearly in the darkened bedroom. “First of all, she's happy for us, not just me,” he said. “And second of all, a baby is not what I want most in the world.”
“It's not?” I asked, confused. All this time, I thought this was what Clark wanted. Was I wrong?
“No,” he said, leaning over to kiss my forehead. “I already have what I want most in the world, Lois. You are what I want most in the world. I do want a baby, but only with you.”
I smiled, but felt those annoying tears leaking out of my eyes again. “I love you,” I said again.
Clark smiled at me before leaning forward to capture my lips with his.
**************
I was sort of dreading the next morning at work. Early on, before we had been told that Clark was unlikely to be able to have a child with me, we had been very serious about trying. Each month after I ovulated, I tried to keep a diet like I was pregnant just in case I was. I had done some reading and read that the baby is most susceptible to problems early on in development and while I knew lots of women drank alcohol and had caffeine without knowing they were pregnant for weeks, I wanted to be careful.
Each month, when we determined I was not pregnant, I would rejoice in the ability to have coffee throughout the day and a glass of wine at night if I wanted. It was weird – even though I wanted to be pregnant, I found the dietary restrictions annoying.
So, while Evelyn had said that I could have one cup of coffee a day, that seemed like a small consolation given that I had nine more months of this ahead of me.
But then something surprising happened. When we got in to the office, Clark went and fetched me a donut like always, but he came back without coffee. “So, I had an idea, but wanted to run it by you first,” he said. “You could have a cup of coffee right now, but I thought, maybe you'd prefer to have a cup that was half decaf and then you could have another one later.”
I liked that idea and told him so. Two cups of coffee sounded better than one even if they wouldn't work as well to wake me up as normal. But then as Clark walked away, I called out to stop him.
It was weird, but suddenly I didn't want coffee. “I think I'm going to skip it today,” I told him.
He came back over and kneeled by my desk. “You don't need to do that, Lois. Evelyn said a cup of coffee a day would be fine.”
“I know,” I tried to explain my feelings to him, “but I don't want it. It's different now than before. It's like now that I know there's a baby in there, it's different than when we were trying last year. Now I feel like I'm choosing a cup of coffee over the baby and I can't do that. I know it's irrational and Evelyn said it's okay, but what if she's wrong? What if our baby is especially sensitive to caffeine or something? Maybe because of the Kryptonian genes. I don't know. I just don't want to do anything that could harm the baby at all.”
Clark leaned forward to put his arms around me. “As long as you are doing this for you,” he whispered. “No one is going to think you are a bad mother for having a cup of coffee. Let me rephrase that. You would not be a bad mother if you had a cup of coffee.”
“I know,” I whispered back. “But I'll know I did it. I'll have hot chocolate this morning. Maybe I'll change my mind tomorrow.”
Clark leaned forward to kiss me softly on the lips before disappearing. He walked right past the coffee area which was weird as we kept packets of hot cocoa mix there to be mixed with the hot water. But he was back not more than a minute later with two hot chocolates from the stand downstairs – the kind made with real chocolate and topped with whipped cream.
“Clark,” I said as he placed one of the cups down on my desk. “You don't even like hot chocolate that much.”
“Yes, but if you aren't having coffee, than neither am I. And Evelyn said you should stay away from herbal tea, so there are no decaf options here aside from hot chocolate,” he explained.
“Clark, it really won't bother me if you have coffee. I mean, don't flaunt it in front of me, but it's okay to have it.”
“Okay,” he nodded his head. “But I don't want it today. Maybe I'll change my mind tomorrow,” he mimicked my words from earlier and I smiled.
Just then Perry came in with Jimmy trailing behind them. Clark and I got up intending to go share our news with Perry when Jimmy followed him into his office. We stopped and looked at each other. We hadn't discussed telling Jimmy. Then I nodded my head imperceptibly and Clark smiled at me in agreement. As long as we could impress upon Jimmy that this was a secret, we wanted to tell him. While I was not convinced that Jimmy was the best person at keeping secrets, it seemed likely that he would do so if it was important.
Clark knocked on the door to Perry's office softly and we waited for his gruff, “Come in,” before entering.
“Hi, guys,” Jimmy said as we came in.
“What's up?” Perry asked us.
We stood there awkwardly for a minute, Clark holding my hand before I said, “Well, we have news.”
“It's sort of secret news,” Clark said. “I mean, in that we don't really want everyone here to know yet, but we…”
“Well, you two are like family to us,” I explained. Perry's face lit up in a smile and Jimmy looked like he might cry.
“You guys are like family to me, too,” he said.
“So,” Clark said, clearly nervous. “We wanted to let you know that we are expanding our family.”
“Huh?” Jimmy asked.
“I'm pregnant,” I said softly.
Perry got up from his desk immediately, but did not reach me before Jimmy had managed to come over and engulf me in a hug. “Oh, congratulations!” he said enthusiastically.
He let go of me only to wrap his arms around Clark, while Perry gave me a tight hug. “This is wonderful news,” he said as he pulled away.
We all sat down in Perry's office then and there was an awkward silence. It was weird how that happened. You tell someone really wonderful news and it makes it hard to break into your typical daily chatter.
“So, how far along are you?” Perry asked me. “Are you feeling okay, darlin'?”
“I'm just four weeks,” I said, “and right now I feel great.”
“Can I ask a somewhat personal question?” Jimmy asked.
I looked at him curiously, not understanding at all what he would want to ask that would be personal. “Are there any concerns about the baby given…”
“Given what, Jim?” Clark asked, clearly as confused as I was.
“Well,” Jimmy blushed, “well, given you, CK.”
For a moment none of us said anything. I think it took a minute for me to translate Jimmy's question into what it really meant. Jimmy knew our secret. Jimmy knew our secret and had never said anything. Clearly, he was better at keeping secrets than I thought.
Clark took a deep breath, clearly looking for words to say, so Perry jumped in. “You don't need to answer that if you don't want to, Son. Jimmy here was just concerned…”
“I know,” Clark said, looking up smiling. “I appreciate it. I guess I never realized before how lucky we are to have both of you in our lives. I'm sorry I never told you personally.”
“Don't be ridiculous, CK,” Jimmy said just as Perry responded with, “You have nothing to be sorry for, Clark.”
“It was your secret,” Jimmy said.
“And we knew you couldn't go around telling everyone about it,” Perry finished.
“Does everyone know?” I asked, suddenly feeling stupid. How come I hadn't figured it out on my own?
Jimmy was the one who responded, which was not surprising since he was more likely than Perry to know. “Not as far as I can tell. No one who didn't really know you would be able to tell, CK.”
“Heck, I'm the editor of the greatest newspaper in the world and I just figured it out a year ago,” Perry said.
“And you?” I asked Jimmy.
“Just a few months ago,” he said. “I didn't really know for sure that Perry knew, but then I thought I couldn't possibly have figured something out that he hadn't,” Jimmy laughed.
There was silence for a moment before Clark finally got back to Jimmy's original question. “There's nothing special to do really. We know that my strength comes partly from the sun, so Lois is going to try to spend some more times outdoors, but we don't know anything at all about how a Kryptonian baby develops.”
“We're just learning as we go along,” I added.
“Well, if there is anything you need,” Perry started. “Please let me know. I remember when Alice was pregnant with Ron. It was exciting, but also stressful. So, let me know if I can do something to relieve the stress.”
“Thanks, Perry,” I said softly, fighting back tears yet again.
“Would you like eggs for breakfast, Lois?” Jimmy asked me.
“What?” I was confused.
“Well, I just thought that perhaps you might need more protein or something besides a donut in the morning and I thought I could get you eggs when I pick up the donuts,” Jimmy explained.
I smiled. It was true; this morning I had considered that I should replace my morning donut with something higher in protein, but I had never considered asking Jimmy to get it for me.
“You don't have to do that, Jimmy,” I said.
“It's no problem. I'm there anyway. Or maybe I could get you a yogurt?” he offered.
“Yogurt sounds perfect,” I told him, feeling warm inside. I agreed with Clark. While I had always considered myself close to Perry and Jimmy, I had not realized how lucky we were to have them in our lives.
