Well, my day has turned out to be unexpectedly busy so this is coming a few hours early. See posting schedule in FDK thread for what's coming up next.
Random question... Who Sam eventually ends up with is still up for grabs - after all, even though Lois has insinuated that his current girlfriend is evil, we have no idea if she really is or if Lois just won't like anyone he dates, etc. Is there a canon character for him? Besides like... Alice or Martha [I've seen him end up with Martha before and it worked well, but very doubtful here] and Alice is the only other non-bad gal I can think of in about the right age range. Anyone else come to mind? Bonus points to anyone who comes up with good answers [whether I use them or not
].
Bonus points, also, to anyone who can correctly identify the couples mentioned in this chapter
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Thanks, as ever, to my wonderful betas - Alisha, Beth, Nancy, CarolynK.
Also - when answering the last FDK I realized that my calendar is off... Or maybe this *universe's* calendar is off! I had Oct 31 as a Wed, but in 2003 [which is where I have this set] it's a Friday which doesn't work. So go with it... I'll figure it out and post later. I don't suppose it really matters to anyone but me
.
Very special thanks goes out to Queenie for her help with this chapter.
Last time:
Clark
"Then what do you want to play for?"
"KP."
"What?"
"Kitchen Patrol. Loser makes dinner."
She snorted. "Not sure that's the best plan."
"Why not?"
"I burn water remember."
"Oh, right." Forgot about that. I looked at her contemplatively. "Do you have any other thoughts?"
"Haul wood?"
"What?"
"Loser brings more wood in."
"Deal."*~*14*~*
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
Clark had gone up to Lucy's room to go to bed. He'd lost the poker game and had brought plenty of wood in. Then he'd spent nearly an hour on the phone with Lana. At least he'd gone upstairs so I wouldn't have to listen to him cooing at her. We'd eaten sandwiches for lunch, played some more games, he made dinner and then he said he was turning in.
I decided to build a fire in my room. I'd looked and there were no obstructions in the chimney. After tossing a fire starter in, I'd grabbed a romantic comedy and curled up in the big chair. And since I was still starving, I made popcorn. When it was gone, I paused the movie and made more. What was the deal with that? By the end, I wasn't sure 'Return to Me' counted as a comedy, but I did end up with a good cry.
I *didn't* want to be in love like Bob and Elizabeth had been and like Bob and Grace were by the end. I *didn't*. I had college to finish and a career to start.
I had exposes to write.
Criminals to indict.
Businessmen to hound.
Senators to harass.
Governors to hoist by the petard.
Heads of State to dethrone.
Scandals to uncover.
Corruption to reveal.
Kerths to win.
Pulitzers to be awarded.
I didn't need a man to do any of that.
I didn't.
So why was I crying even though the credits were over?
Because I loved Daddy and he loved me – more than anything except maybe this new girlfriend. If push absolutely came to shove, I thought he'd choose me, but...
I wanted someone to love me like Daddy loved Mom.
Like Rhett loved Scarlett.
Like John loved Abigail.
Like Romeo loved Juliet.
Like Rob loved Laura.
Like Jacob loved Rachel.
Like Gomez loved Morticia.
Like Marc Antony loved Cleopatra.
Like Barney loved Betty and Fred loved Wilma.
Like Ricky loved Lucy or Chachi loved Joanie.
Like...
I sighed.
Like Clark loved Lana.
But why?
Lois Lane did *not* need a man.
I didn't *need* a man, but it would sure be nice.
Someday...
Maybe if Joe ever got over his teenage hormonal thing, we could have something good together.
Maybe if I slept with him.
That was one of the big reasons we originally broke up in the first place.
If I was sleeping with him, maybe he'd love me like that.
One rational part of me knew that was crazy but another part of me – the part of me that liked waking up with someone the two of the last three mornings – wondered.
I ate the last of the popcorn and wondered if Daddy had brought any chocolate ice cream.
Then the lights went out.
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
I was in that netherworld between asleep and awake when something pulled me out.
Surprised, I tried to extend my hearing and, even more surprising, it worked. I tried to float and could. I tried to look through the wall and saw Lois feeling her way through the Great Room.
It was her muttered curses that must have woken me up.
So where were the lights?
I watched her grab a flashlight and click it on. A glance at the clock showed me that the power was out again. A falling tree branch must have hit the power line.
I swung my feet over, wearing a pair of Sam's sweat shorts, but didn't see my shirt. Shrugging, I headed down the stairs.
"Lois?" I said as I neared the bottom.
"What?" she snapped.
I wondered what had happened to make her so grumpy. She'd been in a decent mood when I'd gone upstairs.
"Power's out again?"
"You got it, Franklin."
I sighed. Franklin experimented with electricity. Of course she'd choose him this time. This could be a long night. "Well, I guess I can build a fire out here and we can grab some blankets and pillows and stuff."
She sighed. "No, I've already got a fire going in my room. You can sleep on the floor in there."
One of my eyebrows went up. I don't know what possessed me to say what I said next. "How about we flip for the bed?"
"Excuse me?"
She shined the flashlight at me. "I said, how about we flip for the bed."
"It's *my* bed," she retorted. "I get the bed; I'll lend you a pillow."
Oh, not only was she going to kill me for this, but Lana would if she ever found out. "It's a big bed, how 'bout we share again?"
My mom probably would too.
Lois just glared at me and stalked off towards the kitchen.
I grinned. It wasn't like I actually thought she'd give me her bed – and even sharing was out – but it was too easy when she was like this. I knew I shouldn't do it, but it was too much fun.
"And must you walk around half-naked?" she threw over her shoulder.
"I couldn't find my shirt in the dark." Well, I hadn't looked very hard either, but that was irrelevant. "What are you doing?"
"Looking for ice cream." She used the flashlight to search the freezer, pulling a tub out when she found it.
"Your dad brought ice cream?"
"He knows that there's nothing like chocolate ice cream when I've been sick." She got out a bowl and soon had it nearly overflowing with ice cream.
I watched her with a raised brow.
"What?" she said around the spoon in her mouth.
"Nothing. I've just never seen you like this."
"Like what?"
"Well, you had a huge breakfast, mid morning snack, two sandwiches and a bunch of chips for lunch, a whole bag of baby carrots with French Onion dip for an afternoon snack, a ton of spaghetti for dinner." I looked in the trash can. "You've had two things of popcorn since then and now you're having a big bowl of ice cream."
She shrugged. "I'm hungry," she said around the spoon she'd stuck in her mouth. She put the ice cream back in the freezer and headed towards her room.
I trotted after her and found her throwing one of the king sized pillows off of her bed onto the floor. "There's an extra blanket on that chair."
I picked it up and a movie case fell to the floor. "'Return to Me'? I haven't seen it. Is it any good?"
"It's a sappy romance. You probably wouldn’t be interested."
"You never know."
"Well, Lana's not here for you to get all cuddly with so..." She crawled under the covers, leaning against the headboard as she worked on her bowl of ice cream. "You're closer to the fire so you're in charge of making sure it keeps going all night."
"Not a problem."
I laid there, staring into the dancing flames of the fire while she finished her ice cream. I heard her set her bowl on the side table. "Night, Ben," she called.
"Night, Deborah." I waited to see if she'd question me on that. I knew the great love of Ben Franklin's life was Deborah Read – did she?
When she didn't question it, I figured she did.
I'd dozed off and wasn't sure what woke me up this time. It took me a minute to realize that it was whimpers coming from Lois' bed.
"No! Can' 'ave 'im! No!"
She sat straight up in bed.
"Where is he?!" she practically yelled.
I was by her in an instant. "Lois?"
She grabbed at me. "Clark! Where is he?"
"Who?"
"My baby!"
"What baby?"
"Our baby!"
Our baby? "Lois, you need to relax. I think you're having a nightmare."
Slowly her breathing returned to normal as she crumpled against me.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
She shrugged. "I just dreamed that I had a baby. Not that I had a baby, but that I was a mom and someone was trying to take my baby away from me."
"Are you okay?"
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
Was I okay?
Someone had just dreamnapped my baby. How could I be okay?
But it was a dream.
A nightmare.
But still just a dream.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself.
"What do you remember?" he asked quietly.
I shook my head. "I know I was married. I mean, I don't remember getting married, I just knew, you know? Like you just know things in dreams."
He nodded against my head. "Yeah, I know."
"So I was married and we had..."
"We?"
"Me and my husband."
"Who was your husband?"
Had I said something to him about 'our baby'? The guy in my dream had looked suspiciously like Clark – at least what I saw but I never got a good look at him. "I don't know," I replied honestly.
"Okay. So you and mystery man had a baby..."
"And someone was trying to take him."
"Who?"
I shrugged, grateful for his arms around me. "I don't know. I just remember it being dark and running and... Someone was chasing us. I couldn't let them get my baby. And then I woke up."
He relaxed his hold on me and the fear suddenly rose again.
"Please don't leave," I whispered.
"Okay. Just a minute, alright?"
I nodded.
He moved so he was sitting against my headboard. "Come here."
I moved so that I was curled next to him, his arm wrapping around me, holding me close to that dratted bare chest I'd tried to banish the first night we shared a dorm room. If I had to have a guy roommate, why couldn’t he have been smart but ugly? Or at least scrawny.
And why did I have to feel so safe with him?
And if I did, why did he have to be taken?
It wasn't like I wanted him to stay because I was attracted to him or wanted to take him from Lana or anything like that. I honestly felt safer with him than I ever had. Anywhere but with Daddy and maybe even safer than that.
What did that say about me?
Was I secretly hoping that he and Lana would break up and he'd suddenly realize I was the love of his life?
I almost snorted.
I was *not* hoping Clark would suddenly realize that Lana was all wrong for him and that I was all right.
All that said – or thought – I did feel safe with him and I did hope that someday I would meet a super guy who would love me like that.
Before I knew it, I must have dozed back off.
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
I sighed. She was asleep, which was good. I was still on her bed, which was not.
Well, we were grown-ups. We'd slept together twice already since we got here and nothing had happened.
And by slept, I meant slept.
And the power was out. And we did need to stay warm.
It sounded like rationalizing to me. Even if it was true.
Of course, now that my powers were back, I wasn't in any danger, but Lois could be if the power didn't come back on.
At some point, I must have dozed off as well because the next thing I knew, sunlight was streaming in the window and Lois' head was on my chest again.
It made me uncomfortable how comfortable this was.
Her hair was tousled and spilled over the top of my chest and my shoulder. One leg was crossed over one of mine. My arm covered one of hers as it rested on my stomach and the other was wrapped around her back holding her to me.
The way we fit together like this, how comfortable it was, scared me. Lana and I had never slept together – literally or metaphorically – but we had laid together on my bunk or hers at school and the couch at home and even in the hayloft a time or two and we always had a hard time finding the right spot. It seemed that it came much more easily for me and Lois and I was pretty sure I didn't want to analyze that on any level.
Of course, it was possible that it had taken us all night to figure this out and I just didn't realize it.
I didn't want to wake her up. Somehow I knew she still hadn't slept very well the rest of the night.
I wasn't a dad and wasn't planning on being one for quite a while but the thought of someone trying to take my child was a scary one. Even being dreamnapped was enough to be scary. It would have surprised me if she'd been able to sleep well after that and it didn't seem unreasonable that she wouldn't want to be alone after that.
Lana wouldn't understand that though.
I sighed. How was I going to tell her about all of this?
I'd talked to her for quite a while the day before, but I still hadn't mentioned the whole 'I *slept* with Lois' thing. I didn't really want to do that at all, but I knew I had to. It was going to be in person and somewhere she could yell at me without being interrupted. I'd have to tell her the whole story – maybe even play up the bit where, if the cabin had been much further away, I could have died. It didn't need much playing up – it was scary enough as it was – but if I could get her grateful to Lois first, it might help.
That bothered me. The idea that I had to censor – or felt I had to censor – what I told Lana. I should be able to tell her anything and everything and if she really loved and trusted me, it shouldn't matter if I slept in the same bed with another woman under extenuating circumstances.
How would I react to know that Lana had woken up in the arms of another man three out of four days?
A knot formed in my stomach.
Not well. I knew that. But I also knew that if it came down to life or death – like Saturday night had been – I would understand they'd done what they had to to survive.
The other two nights...
Felt dizzy, fell asleep, rolled together during the night.
Don't like it; can live with it.
Lana wakes up screaming from a nightmare and I'm not there to help her.
I'd hope that he'd do what he needed to do to help her feel safe, especially if I knew it was a purely platonic relationship like mine with Lois.
Still didn't mean I'd like it, but I'd understand.
Would Lana?
Did the fact that I felt I needed to edit things with her say something about our relationship? Maybe I should fly to Smallville and talk it over with my folks first. But would that show them that there's a rift between me and Lana or something?
Maybe I'd talk to my dad.
That was a plan. Tell him the whole story, birthday suits and all. Tell him why I don't want to tell Lana everything but that I know I should. That I hadn't meant to *sleep* with Lois again. And get his opinion.
That was definitely a plan.
Whether I'd follow through with it or not was another story.
*****
TBC
