It's Monday again. Mondays always seem to come round too fast, and my buffer in getting thinner.
Previously in My Wife The Boss
Closing the small distance between them, Lois caught Clark's hands. They were taut with tension. “Honey, I don't doubt your ability to write.” She lifted their clasped hands to her chest, her voice becoming a whisper. “It's the lack of super powers that worries me.”
Obviously, her statement didn't mollify Clark as much as she'd hoped. “You worry I can't work without the advantage of the powers? Because I've got to tell you I didn't use them all that regularly before ... and mostly you had to talk me into it.” Now he sounded just plain indignant.
“No, Clark, that's not ...”
The door behind them banged open and Jimmy's inconvenient entrance was like a blast from the past. “Hey. I got a phone call from Jed Peterson. Metro Radio just got a message from someone called The Avenger. We should go talk to them, partner.”
*****
continued ...
It was wrong. He shouldn't have done it. This was for Mary. Everything was for Mary, and not for his own gratification. There would be time enough for publicity ... for telling the world who and why he had taken the actions he had. When it was over ... and he had gone beyond their anger and their prejudiced sense of justice. When he had gone to join his Mary.
Thomas pushed himself to the edge of his narrow bed and buried his head in his hands. He hadn't been able to sleep since his 'message' had made the headlines in every news outlet in Metropolis. It was a foolish act ... and filled with risk.
Yet he hadn't been able to stop himself sending his proclamation to the media. His first choice would have been The Daily Planet, but that was much too close, so he'd chosen one of Stern's subsidiaries instead. He'd needed the public to know they were under attack, but not in a big way ... not yet. He'd escalate his campaign each time until the final cataclysm, planning for them to slowly become aware of the danger they faced. Why couldn't he have resisted the urge to have the media understand the dreadful feelings of futility and rage which drove him? Now was too soon ... much too soon.
Thank goodness he'd hadn't let slip he'd once been a pupil at that school. The snobby school Aunt Ina had insisted he go to because she sat on the board and had wanted everyone to know how generous she was. Thomas shivered and pulled his blanket around him as he remembered. All those years ago, when his father had walked out on him and his mother, Ina had offered them refuge.
Refuge, that was a laugh. She'd treated them like poor relations and never missed an opportunity to tell them she was just doing her Christian duty. Poor Mom had been terrified of her older, puritanical sister and she'd allowed herself and her son to be browbeaten. Mom had probably passed away too young, just like Mary, because of the way she had been treated by that evil old bat. He knew that often, when he'd been locked away in his lonely room for some misdemeanor which he no longer could remember, he'd wish that he could die too.
Thomas hated Aunt Ina. She was on his list, but he was making an exception for his only living relative and saving her for his big finale.
Thanks to Ina, he'd spent his formative years in a school where he'd been looked down on and forever made to feel like a fish out of water. In his old fashioned clothes, he'd been bullied by his classmates and been mostly ignored by the teachers. OK, the current staff and pupils weren't the ones who'd hurt him, but he was sure they were just as rich, arrogant and uncaring as they had been in his day and deserved what he'd done to them. But even in his anger, he'd had the sense not to divulge that information.
He just hoped he hadn't jeopardized his plans. After all, he had been very careful, taking all the steps needed to make his message untraceable. As usual, he hadn't handled the recording or the packaging without wearing gloves, which he'd since burnt, and he hadn't recorded it here in his home. He was too smart to be caught out like that. He'd made the recording in the unused alley in the back of his workplace, during those dead hours of the night when the drunks and down-and-outs had left and the early morning punters hadn't arrived; when the traffic on the roads had disappeared and the only sounds in the area were of feral cats stalking their prey and rats rooting about in the mounds of trash. Let even Son of Superman try to place that with his extraordinary ears! No, neither he nor the forensic police would have a chance to compare any fibers or background noises belonging to him.
Plus, he'd made the long trip to New York at the start of the Thanksgiving holiday to mail his packages, so there was a better chance he'd be lost in the crowds of commuters. He'd traveled up by bus and back the next day by Amtrak, so the transport system's surveillance cameras wouldn't have a total record of his journey should they have caught him in their sights. He'd even worn a disguise.
But for all his meticulous precautions, he hadn't been able to rid himself of the fear of the heavy knock on the door; the police pouring into his basement room, weapons drawn.
Not that he really cared what happened to him. Going to prison wouldn't hurt him. He was already in a prison of his own. He laughed mirthlessly as he looked round his dull, dirty little room. Prison would probably be an improvement. But it mattered a whole lot that he wouldn't be able to take his full revenge ...
Thomas' head shook from side to side. Never again would he give into temptation. He would put his folly behind him and continue with his quest; learn from his mistake and remain the anonymous Avenger from this day forward. Having made the decision, he crossed the room to his table and sitting down pulled his list and Mary's pin in front of him. He closed his eyes and jabbed downward, then looked to discover who would be next to be brought to justice.
Oh, for this new target he'd certainly up the ante.
*****
Lois walked quietly along the hall. She didn't want to alert the person inside the room of her presence, knowing just how much her daughter would resent the fussing. According to Clark, Vicky had stayed very cool during the traumatic incident, however, Lois was willing to bet that her baby might not now be so calm and collected and needed a little tender loving care. Of course, Vicky might have to be persuaded about that.
It hadn't surprised Lois one bit when Clark had told her that Vicky had disobeyed his instructions to remain in Mrs. Perez's room and had exited before the principal had recovered her wits, which meant that Vicky had seen the immediate carnage of the bombed room. OK, perhaps the bomb hadn't had a huge impact, nevertheless one young woman had been hurt and the area around her desk had suffered quite an amount of damage... not to mention that a few of the other staff had had minor cuts and abrasions and were suffering a degree of shock. Lois would have preferred Vicky not to have been exposed to the scene.
Besides, Lois still couldn't suppress the fear that her daughter and her husband might have been the villain's target ... even if Clark did have a point when he said she was reaching.
A muffled sniffling was emanating from the slightly open door and Lois forgot about being careful and walked with her bundle of folded laundry into Vicky's bedroom.
“Hi, Vicky, sweetie. What ya doing?” Lois said as she breezed past her daughter on the way to the closet. Being worried didn't prevent her from using a little subterfuge to get through Vicky's defenses.
“Homework, Mom.” Vicky answered, her voice sounding flat.
“Homework, huh?” Lois busied herself stowing away Vicky's clothes, but she gave her daughter a studied sideways glance. “You do know that Miss Smith called to say the school will be closed tomorrow? The police are still doing forensic work on the offices, and they want to search the rest of the school. I doubt they'll find anything else, but that means you don't have to work tonight.” Leaving her task aside, Lois crossed to the bed and sat, leaving only a small gap between herself and her daughter. “Maybe it would be a better idea to leave your homework until you feel better?”
Vicky's head snapped up. “I feel OK. It wasn't me who got hurt, Mom.”
A tiny smile touched Lois' lips at Vicky's knee-jerk reaction. Her daughter was so like herself, putting on a brave face but probably hurting inside. For a moment, Lois was tempted to leave the comforting to Clark ... Vicky was his special girl, but Lois knew exactly where the child was coming from and Lois had been filling the role of confident for a long time.
“Perhaps not physically, but you must have gotten quite a fright.”
“I wasn't frightened!” Vicky's chin lifted and her shoulders straightened.
“Not even a little bit?” Lois asked, keeping her voice even. “I'm sure I would have been.”
That brought Vicky's stare around to Lois. “But you're never scared by things like that ...”
Lois' hand reached out to stroke Vicky's shining hair. “Sweetheart, that's not true. It's OK to be scared, you know ... and I've been scared a lot in my time. The secret is to not let your fear overtake you, so you can get yourself out of trouble and help other people.”
Lois swallowed hard. Perhaps that wasn't quite the right advice to be giving her madcap daughter, who seemed to get herself into enough scrapes without encouragement. Clark would be affronted.
“Dad would say you shouldn't get yourself in trouble in the first place.” Vicky said in a voice that sounded midway between a laugh and a cry.
Even young Vicky knew her father.
“Yes, he would.” Lois shared Vicky's little smile. “But sometimes you don't have any choice. Like both of you today. That situation was totally out of your control. Was it very bad?”
Vicky nodded and putting her book aside, she moved closer to Lois. “The lady was hurting, Mom, and screaming ... and there was a lot of blood ... and everyone was running about, like they were lost. Except Miss Smith. She was great ... and Dad, of course. He sort of took over, telling people what to do.” Undetected, tears started to fall from Vicky's eyes. “I would have liked to help too, only I didn't know how.”
Lois wrapped her arm quietly around her daughter and drew her closer. “Not many people would under those circumstance, but your father told me you were very brave.”
“Just like you, Mom.”
Vicky's voice sounded very small and, momentarily, Lois was tempted to prevaricate, yet Vicky would recognize the lie. She'd heard too many stories about Mad Dog Lane.
“Vicky, I've been known to put myself in danger before, probably when I shouldn't have ...”
“Uncle Jimmy told me Superman was always rescuing you from ... 'the jaws of death', I think he called it,” Vicky said with a dramatic flourish.
Lois really did have to talk with Jim about his wildly exaggerated tales ... teaching her daughter bad habits.
“Well, I'll admit there was a time when I was a bit ... headstrong. A long time ago.” Another life ago, but Vicky was too young to understand that love and responsibility made you more cautious. “Yet that didn't mean I wasn't frightened. Deep down I was, and when I was safe, I'd bawl like a baby. Once I was in private, of course.” Lois looked down on her daughter's fair head. “So, if you'd like to cry, I'd completely understand, and I could hold you too ... if you'd like.”
Vicky sniffled more loudly, leaning into her mother's arms. “I'd like that, Mom.”
Lois tightened her embrace and at once Vicky's control gave way. For a few minutes, mother and daughter sat on the bed and cried. Vicky wept from delayed shock, and Lois for her daughter's introduction to a reality which wasn't warm and comforting and cocooned from danger.
“Matt showed up.”
With her thoughts drifting, Lois didn't, at first, understand Vicky's words... and her immediate reaction was brush off the comment.
“I don't think so, honey. Matt would have been in school.” Lois bit nervously at her lip. Was it time to tell her daughter the truth? Vicky was her baby and letting her in on the secret was an admission that she was growing up. Lois wasn't sure she was ready to lose her little girl.
“Maybe he was, but Jor-El did come ... and he looked really worried. He bit his lip, just like Matt does ...” Vicky raised her head and glared at Lois. “And like you're doing now.”
“I'm sure a lot of people do that, and I'm not surprised he was worried, what with some villain bombing schools ...”
“Mom! He stopped doing it when he saw me and Dad, and OK he was still upset about the bomb, but he wasn't so upset. I recognized him and Dad did too!”
“What makes you think that, Vicky?” Lois tipped her head downward, trying to gage her youngest child's expression. She wished that Clark and Matt were here but they'd gone off after dinner, probably out patrolling. Recently, Matt had got in the habit of asking his father to go with him, though she had an idea that this time they might have a particular purpose ... like searching for a bomb maker, which was like looking for a needle in a haystack, even for two super men.
Vicky shrugged off Lois' arms and stood up. “Because I know Dad. I know how he looks. Please, Mom, I'm not a baby.” As she finished Vicky crossed her arms, very like both her parents did when they were determined to get to the truth. “I know it's true. Matt is Jor-El, so don't tell me lies ...” Vicky's voice dropped. “Please.”
Lois swallowed again. Clearly, this was time for the truth. The confession really ought to come from either Matt or Clark, but Lois couldn't ignore her daughter's whispered plea.
“Come sit down,” Lois suggested, patting the bed.
But Vicky held her ground. “I don't want to hear any fairytales.”
“I promise, no stories,” Lois said, holding her hand out. Thankfully, Vicky came back to sit on the edge of the bed, though she ignored the outstretched hand. “OK. The truth ...”
“Matt's Superman's son! If he can do everything Superman used to, then he has to be.” The look Vicky sent Lois was full of accusation.
“Well, yes, he is,” Lois admitted. “But there's something else you need to know ...”
“You went out with Superman.” Vicky didn't wait to hear what Lois had to say. “How could you, Mom?”
Lois couldn't help smiling a little. She'd been here before, quite a few times. Why was it always she who had to do the explaining, when it was Clark's secret? Though they had told Matthew together.
“It's not funny, Mom!”
Uh-oh! Clearly Vicky had caught her smile. Lois composed herself. “Only because you don't know the full story, sweetie. I've had a relationship with Superman just as long as I've had with your dad because your dad is Superman ... or he was.”
“Don't talk trash!”
Lois' eyebrows rose at her daughter's tone. “And don't be so rude, young lady. Believe me, it's not nonsense. You're father was Superman. I mean Clark Kent was Superman ... is still Superman to me, even if he never dons the blue suit again. You should be proud ...”
But Vicky wasn't ready to be proud, not by the stormy expression on her face. “If it's true, why didn't you tell me?”
“Oh, Vicky, everything was so mixed up when your father went missing ... and you were very young. I missed him so much and felt so lost. Telling you that Daddy wasn't coming home was a hard enough job without telling you the family secret. We just didn't feel you were old enough to understand.”
Vicky continued to pout. “OK. Maybe I was a little kid then, but you've had years to come clean.”
Lois refrained from pointing out Vicky was still a kid. “That's true, but somehow it didn't seem quite so important when we thought your father was dead. I meant to tell you, because like Matt and Sara you'll probably get the 'powers'. I just thought I'd have more time....” Lois' shoulders drooped despondently. “I'm sorry, I was wrong.”
“You should have told me when Matt put the suit on.”
Lois heaved a loud sigh. Her daughter wasn't about to let her off easily. “We thought about it.”
“Who thought about it?”
“Grandpa and Grandma Kent ... Uncle Perry and Jimmy ...”
Vicky jumped up again and strode across the room. Her back was ramrod straight but every so often her shoulders shook. Lois thought Vicky might be crying and wanted to wrap her arms around her child, but knew from experience that, for the moment, Vicky would repulse any overtures of comfort.
Her suspicions were confirmed when Vicky turned on her, only whether these were tears of hurt or anger, Lois couldn't say. Perhaps a bit of both.
“Everyone knew but me,” Vicky stated on a whisper.
A lump formed in Lois' throat. Surely, after all these years, she should have gotten the revelation right. Clark's flawed attempt to tell her his secret all these years ago suddenly didn't seem so bad.
“Not everyone, Vicky. Your Kent grandparents always knew. They'd raised Superman, remember, so obviously they were in on Matt's 'coming out'. Uncle Perry guessed about your dad even before I did, I think, though he never said anything until after you kids started coming along. I've forgotten exactly when Jim learned the secret, but I needed all their support when Dad 'died'. I could never have gone on without them ... but that's not the issue here, is it?” Lois rose too and took a couple of steps toward Vicky. “We all thought you were too young to keep Matt's secret. Actually, that's not true. Sara was against not telling you. She's been at me for months. More since Dad's been home, and she was right. My only excuse is that my head's been in the clouds since we've all been together again. It's like we're living a miracle ... and I just didn't want to break the spell. Forgive me, Vicky. It was very wrong of me, Dad and Matt not to speak to you.”
“I can understand Matt not telling me. He still thinks I'm just a kid, and Daddy's been ill and he might pretend to be cheery all the time, but I don't think he is,” Vicky said, sagely, her insight beyond her years. “But you, Mom ...”
Lois' lips tightened and a slight frown appeared between her brows. Why was she always the one in the doghouse?
“Mom, you're always the organized one ... the one who keeps us right.” Then Vicky took a step toward her mother. “But I guess you can get it wrong sometimes too. Maybe you meant to tell me, but I wish you'd done it before I figured it out on my own.”
Great! Lois sighed in resignation. Vicky was going to be grudgingly forgiving. Her daughter was too much like herself for comfort. She'd given Clark a hard time over exactly the same thing.
“I should have. But it's not an easy secret to tell, Vicky. Maybe someday you'll find that out for yourself.”
“I guess.” Vicky smiled magnanimously, then shocked Lois with the depth of her next question. “Do you still think Daddy's scared, Mom?”
Lois remembered the conversation she'd shared with Vicky on the morning Clark had gone back to The Planet. She returned to sit on the bed and this time Vicky followed readily, both happy to leave their argument behind and indulge in their favorite topic of talking about Clark. “Like I said, Daddy was a little insecure about whether he could be a reporter again, but I think he's beginning to settle back into the job.”
“Is that true, Mom?” Another voice joined in the conversation as Sara came round the corner of the door. “May I join you?” she asked, pulling up a chair without waiting for an answer.
“Yes, of course, Sara, and I believe it's true.” Lois replied, schooling her features. She was doing enough stressing for everyone and she was telling the truth to that particular question. Clark's reporting abilities were certainly back. Perhaps too keenly for Lois' peace of mind, but she didn't want to infect her daughters with her unsubstantiated fears for Clark's safety. Besides, there was no guarantee Clark wouldn't pick up on Sara's and Vicky's distress and that was the last thing she wanted.
Sara's brow wrinkled as she perused her mother's words. “It's just that I've seen you looking at him sometimes ... kinda' funny.”
“I kinda' like looking at your dad.” Lois said with a big grin, her conscience completely clear on this point. “Actually, I'm still having to convince myself that I'm not dreaming and he's really back home.”
“Me too, Mom!” Vicky stated, forcefully. “We got lucky.”
But Sara wouldn't be placated so easily. “So, you're not worried about Dad in any way? You're not upset that he isn't super anymore?”
Lois searched her eldest daughter's steady gaze, giving careful consideration to her answer. The fact that Clark was no longer invincible was the pertinent point, but not in the way that Sara might be implying. “He might not have the powers, sweetheart, but your father will always be super in my eyes.”
Sara dismissed her mother's statement with a tremulous smile and a quick movement of her hand, then her face settled back into more serious lines. “But doesn't it worry you that he's out there chasing down criminals who could harm him now?”
Clearly Sara had arrived at the same conclusion without any help from her mother.
“Does it worry you, Sara?”
“Mom, don't! Stop being a reporter and answering my questions with one of your own.”
A flush colored Lois' cheeks. “I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was. Yes, I'm a tiny bit scared. I guess this is payback for all those years when we were first partnered up and I kept throwing myself into difficult situations in pursuit of a story. Your father was petrified he wouldn't be around or get there in time to save me. Now it's my turn to sit on the sidelines, but even though it does worry me a bit, I have to let your father find his way.” Suddenly, it all became clear to Lois, just how much she'd been mothering Clark. “And, you know, I haven't been very good at doing that ... I've been fussing.”
“So what do we do?” Sara asked, not quite willing to let the subject drop.
“Well, it's hard not to worry about the people we love the most, but we can't put Daddy in a glass cage and we certainly can't let him know that we're all acting like scaredy cats,” Lois said, glancing between her daughters. “He'll think we have no faith in him.”
“He did great at the school today,” Vicky announced, after a few minutes of silence. “Everyone else was running around scared, but he knew exactly what to do ... getting us all out of the way. He asked if anyone had first aid training and Miss Smith had, so he told her to look after Angela. Then he got the fire extinguisher and he'd already put out some of the fires by the time Matt arrived. Daddy was super!”
Lois pulled Vicky into a one-armed hug. “Of course he is. That's what I'm telling you. He's very capable without the powers, and I should listen to myself more often too. So how about we make a pact to stop fretting and to keep this to ourselves. If any of us need reassurance at anytime, then we talk about it together.”
The three Kent females exchanged smiles, then Vicky stood up in amazement.
“Awesome! I'm really Superman's kid! How long before I get powers?”
*****
tbc ...
