Clark and I decided not to tell anyone what was going on just yet. We felt like there was no need to worry anyone until we knew what was going on for sure. Plus it was hard to stop by Smallville to spread bad news. We figured we would know soon enough. Evelyn had told us to call her cell phone on Sunday and she would have the results of the blood test.
We also decided to go back home after the appointment on Thursday and work from there. While my morning sickness was much better, it felt like it would be hard to be at work right now, in some ways harder than when I was still feeling nauseous.
Clark was wonderfully supportive, even though I could see the news troubled him as well. But given the hormones, I was the one who kept bursting into tears and Clark spent much of Thursday afternoon coming over to hold me.
Periodically we would speak, but for the most part we were quiet. There did not seem to be anything to say. When we did speak, we just mentioned how glad we were that Evelyn would be able to tell us the answer on Sunday and we would not have to live with this question hanging over our heads for more than a few days.
After what felt like a long day, I was suddenly happy for my pregnancy exhaustion and felt badly for Clark. Going to sleep and not thinking about this for a few hours sounded downright blissful.
I woke up the following morning with minor cramps. I had been having them off and on for the last few weeks and before the ultrasound, Evelyn had said that they were normal. But now… I crept out of bed quietly as Clark was still asleep, having left for several hours in the middle of the night for Superman duties. Going to the bathroom, I cautiously checked my underwear. No blood. I went the bathroom and checked again, just in case, but it was still all clear.
Feeling slightly reassured, I moved downstairs to the living room. I sat on the couch and curled up under the blanket Clark had brought out last night when I fell asleep on the couch. It was only five in the morning, so it was still dark out. I sat huddled under the blanket in the dark for hours, until the sun started to come out and the room brightened slightly.
At close to seven thirty Clark came downstairs. He did not say anything, just moved to sit beside me under the blanket. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, pushing me back to lean against his chest.
“It's going to be okay, honey,” he whispered.
“I know,” I said back, even though that was a lie. I did not know anything at all anymore.
“Like we said before, even if it doesn't work out, at least we know we can get pregnant,” Clark whispered.
My hand moved protectively to my stomach like it had yesterday. I nodded to show I understood what he meant, but then voiced my true feelings. “I know that. But I don't want a different baby. I want this one.” My voice broke and tears moved down my cheeks once more.
Clark held me tighter, moving a hand to rest on top of mine on my stomach. “Me, too,” he replied, the tears audible in his whisper.
**************
I am not sure either of us were particular effective at getting anything done during the day on Friday. Late in the morning, Clark put the finishing touches on an article we wrote and LAN'ed it to Perry, but I don't think either of us did anything else all day.
Evelyn called shortly before lunch. She had gotten the results of my blood work from the day before. Everything looked good, she told us. Very good, and she was much more convinced that everything was fine and that in all likelihood Kryptonian pregnancies just take longer.
“So we don't need to go to the lab tomorrow?” Clark asked her.
Evelyn paused. “I think you should still go. I can only see what the numbers are today and what I really need to see are trends.” I could hear the apology in her voice and I knew that she knew these words took away any reassurance we had felt a moment before.
Clark made me something special for lunch, but I could not eat much, less from the nausea that had plagued me before now than the nervousness that had taken residence in my abdomen. After I moved the food around my plate for several minutes, Clark finally got up and packed it all away, making me soup instead.
The comfort food was easier to eat somehow and I had a small bowl of soup before moving back to the couch to pretend to work some more.
After lunch, we both stopped even putting up a pretense of working. After staring out the window for several minutes, I finally spoke. “I think I want to go to the library.”
“What?” Clark asked, understandably surprised. I had not been to the library more than twice in all the time I had known Clark.
“I want to take some books out,” I explained. “I just feel like I need… something brainless to focus on. I thought I'd pick up some books. Nothing heavy or with any real literary merit, just something easy to read and loose myself in.”
Clark smiled before coming over to wrap his arms around me. “That sounds like a good idea,” he said softly into my hair.
**************
Clark learned from his mistake at lunch and made a simple dinner of chicken and mashed potatoes. He even made the mashed potatoes from the cheap boxed flakes rather than his standard homemade ones. He knew that as much as I typically preferred the homemade kind, the boxed flakes felt more like comfort food, reminding me of the dinners I would make for Lucy and me on nights when Mom and Dad both went out for the evening, leaving us alone for dinner.
After we finished cleaning up from dinner, Clark gave me a light kiss on the cheek. “I'll be back in a few minutes,” he said as he pulled away.
I took up residence on the couch again, huddled under the blanket once more. As promised, Clark was back in a few minutes, three videos in hand.
He handed them to me as he went to change into sweats. There were two romantic comedies – movies Clark rarely agreed to see without too much complaint and one action flick that did not interest me at all.
“I thought we could use some distraction tonight,” he said.
I nodded my head in agreement, handing him “When Harry Met Sally” to place into the video player.
Clark once again climbed under the blanket beside me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders until I was partly leaning against him.
For the next hour and a half, Clark and I distracted ourselves with a story we knew well, but it worked anyway. I managed not to cry or focus on the baby for the entire movie.
Still, I was glad when the movie was over to discover I was tired again. Clark smiled. “I thought that would happen,” he said as he moved to replace “When Harry Met Sally” with the action flick.
I stretched out on the couch with my head in Clark's lap and was asleep again in moments only waking up briefly when Clark's movie was over to move with him to the bedroom.
**************
I woke up on Saturday, the nervousness still present in my stomach. Slipping out of bed again, I moved to the bathroom to check things over. No blood. I breathed a sigh of relief.
I moved to the living room, slipping the remaining movie into the VCR. Clark came down while I was still in the middle of it and still looking sleepy leaned his head on the back of the couch.
When the movie was over, I got up to go brush my teeth. “We'll leave soon?” I asked Clark.
“Yeah,” he said, lifting his head up. “I thought we'd drive.”
“What?” I asked from the foot of the stairs, surprised.
“I thought we'd drive,” Clark repeated. “I know we could fly, but I thought we could use something to do today to make the time pass faster. It's not that long a drive. We'll go up there and maybe have lunch and we'll be home by mid-afternoon.”
I nodded my head, agreeing that having plans for the day that did not require any mental or physical energy made sense. It was just that while going out to lunch made it seem more like a nice day out, my interest in food was pretty minimal right now.
We were on the road a half hour later. I let Clark drive, preferring to be the passenger for once. Clark leaned over to take my hand in his shortly after we got onto the freeway.
“Do you think it's going to be okay?” I asked him. “Do you think the baby is okay?”
Clark glanced at me. “I don't know,” he said honestly. “I hope so.” He raised my hand to his mouth to kiss it. “Whatever it is, we'll get through it together.”
I closed my eyes and fell asleep pretty shortly after that, my hand still in Clark's.
“Lois, honey?” Clark whispered in my ear. “We're here.”
I looked at him blearily for a minute, rubbing my eyes with my fists. Taking in my surroundings, I remembered what we were doing. I nodded my head at Clark, before reaching for the door handle.
I was surprised that there was a wait in the office for my blood work. How many people volunteer to go for blood tests on the weekend? It turns out, it's a fair amount. The waiting room was nearly full when Clark and I entered and we nabbed the last two seats.
We sat in silence for a few minutes before we each opened our books. I had succeeded in finding something silly to read that was engrossing – I had asked the librarian to suggest something and she had suggested a couple of authors.
Still, it made me a bit sad. While Clark has always been an avid reader, it's something he does in his spare time. When we ran errands together, neither of us had ever brought a book before. We were perfectly happy to keep ourselves entertained and sometimes it seemed as if it did not matter how much time together we spent, we always had something to say. So, while certainly we spent time alone together without talking at home, we never worried about being bored in each other's company.
Given how close I was feeling to Clark right now, I knew this was not a sign of a problem in our relationship. It was fear. Even while we managed to occasionally talk about a story we were working on or the new television Clark had been eyeing for some time and was still considering buying, neither of our thoughts were too far from the baby.
Having books with us, and worse yet, reading them, was because we were afraid to talk to each other. We were both trying desperately to distract ourselves from worrying about the baby, but given how close it was to our thoughts at all times, we knew if we spoke for any length of time, it would come up. And even if it didn't, neither of us seemed capable of really losing ourselves in conversation. So, while I read my book about someone I did not know, I could forget about the baby, but the same was not true if I spoke with Clark.
I knew he felt the same way, I could see it in his eyes whenever we spoke. I wished so much that I still wanted this child just for Clark. It would make this whole thing less painful and would enable me to really be there for him. But as it was, it felt difficult to move past my own worries to really focus on Clark.
**************
We were probably in the lab for the blood work for about half an hour and I was glad when it was over. It felt like one more step towards knowing what was going on.
“Lunch?” Clark asked me as we got back to the car.
“Okay,” I said.
“Anything particular you want?” he asked.
“A diner? Someplace simple. I'd like soup again.”
Clark turned in his seat. “Honey?” he said, taking my hand in his.
“Hmmm?” I asked.
“You have to eat,” he said.
“Isn't soup good?” I asked, worried. I had thought this made sense. If I couldn't eat much, this way I got lots of liquid and vegetables.
“It is good, Lois. If you really can't eat anything much, I agree that soup is a good choice. But maybe you could try to eat something else with your soup?” he asked. “I'm worried about you. You're losing weight and you shouldn't be losing weight when you're pregnant.”
“It's okay the first trimester,” I told him, remembering reading that in my pregnancy books.
“Maybe for some women, but Lois, you don't have a lot of weight to lose,” Clark said.
“What if I have a piece of bread with my soup?” I asked.
“How about a salad?” he asked me. “With ranch dressing,” he added, knowing my weakness for creamy salad dressings.
I smiled at him. He was sweet even if he was pushy. “Okay. I'll try.”
“Well, that's good enough. I've never seen Lois Lane fail at anything she's tried before,” he teased before he leaned over to kiss me.
