Thanks to betas extraordinare again...
Last time:
Clark
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.
*~*15*~*
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I didn't want to move this time.
The dreamnapping was still forefront in my consciousness and here I felt safe.
It was nice – waking up in someone's arms when I wasn't recovering from hypothermia and still half delirious.
It wasn't that it was Clark's arms, I told myself. It was anyone's arms that I felt safe with.
I felt safe with Joe most of the time and I was sure that waking up with him – if we ever fell asleep together for some reason – would be just as nice.
But, since I was here with Clark, I'd enjoy this. I didn't open my eyes or make any other movement. I kept my breathing even and imagined myself waking up in the arms of my husband in this room like this someday.
I felt Clark shift slightly underneath me, his arms tightening slightly around me – one on my back and the other on the arm that was thrown across his stomach. He was probably imagining I was Lana.
And then my stomach growled.
"Are you awake?" he whispered.
I nodded against him. "Getting there."
"Did you sleep okay?"
I shrugged. "Still felt like someone was chasing me and my baby but not as bad." I rolled onto my back, my fingers trailing over his abs as I did.
"That's good."
My stomach growled again.
"Hungry?"
"Starving."
"What do you want for breakfast?"
"Do we still have enough stuff for breakfast like yesterday's?"
"Yep."
"Then pancakes, bacon, eggs, biscuits, gravy, OJ and milk. If you don't mind cooking again, of course." There was no way I could pull that off.
"Not a problem. Why don't you go take a shower..." He paused. "Is the power back on?"
I looked at the side table to see that my alarm clock was still turned off. "Nope."
He frowned. "Well, the stove is gas and so is the oven, so breakfast isn't a problem as long as I can light them, but we've got lighters so... What about the water heater?"
"Gas."
"Good. Why don't you go take a shower and I'll make breakfast?"
I nodded. "Sounds like a good plan to me."
I started to roll away from him even further, when the phone rang. It was on my side of the bed, so I grabbed it as I sat up. "Hello?"
"Lois?"
I cringed. "Yeah."
"Is Clark around?"
My eyes narrowed slightly and a slight grin creased my face. "Clark," I said over my shoulder. "Are you awake enough to talk to someone?"
I purposefully didn't look at him as I spoke. "Yeah," he said.
"Can I ask who's calling?" I asked into the phone.
"This is Lana," came the irritated voice.
"Oh, hello, Lana." My voice dripped sweetness – I'd known who it was. "Here he is."
Clark glared at me as he took the phone.
"I'm going to go take a shower while you make breakfast," I said as I climbed out of the bed.
He glared at me some more before turning back to the phone. "Hey, Baby."
I smiled to myself as I walked to the bathroom. He was going to kill me, but it was so worth it.
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
Lana was going to kill me.
"What was all that about, Clark?"
"What?"
"Were you sleeping with her?"
I pushed myself up so I was sitting against the headboard. "Sort of. The power went out again last night and she already had a fire going in her room so I slept in here. I told her I'd make breakfast while she took a shower."
"Were you in bed with her?" she demanded.
"It's not like that, Baby."
"So you were in bed with her?"
"Not at first." I sighed. "I was sleeping on the floor when she woke up screaming from a nightmare. I was sitting with her for a few minutes and we dozed off, that's all."
"Uh huh."
I ran my free hand through my hair as I heard the water start in the other room. "I promise. That's all it was."
"Promise?"
"On the life of our firstborn child," I told her.
"Okay." Lana sighed. "I believe you. So when are you coming home?"
"I don't know yet. Hopefully tomorrow. As soon as Sam's friend gets here to clear the road and dig the car out."
"I miss you," she said softly.
"I miss you, too, Baby," I told her. "I meant to ask you yesterday - did they cancel classes this week or are we missing a bunch of stuff?"
"Well, we got a ton of snow here, too. Most of the on campus students are in decent shape as far as getting to school goes, but a lot of the staff and professors are having a hard time getting in so they canceled the whole week."
"At least we're not missing anything." I heard the shower stop running. "Listen, Baby, I need to get up and go to the bathroom and I told Lois I'd make breakfast."
"Do you have to share a bathroom with *her*?"
I laughed lightly. "No. Cabin is a bit of a misnomer. This place is twice as big as both our houses combined, I think."
"Then why did you sleep with her?" I could hear the hurt in her voice.
"Because she already had a fire going in her room and there was no power so I was on the floor in here and then she had a nightmare..."
"Did she really?" she interrupted.
"Yeah, she did."
"She didn't just want to get in bed with you?"
"No. She was scared." And I could hear her moving around in the bathroom. "But I really do have to go. I'll try to call you later, okay?"
"Okay. I love you, Clark."
"I love you, too, Lana."
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I heard Clark talking and waited until he was done and I heard the door shut before leaving the bathroom.
Why did I say stuff like that?
Clark and Lana were the perfect, happy couple and part of me hated that. She irritated me to no end, but I knew that Clark loved her and he was my friend and I hated that Lana had her claws in him. Not because I wanted him but because I thought he deserved better than Cruella.
I sighed and pulled one of Daddy's shirts on. Surely breakfast was ready.
I left my room sniffing the air as I did. "It smells good."
He glanced at me but didn't say anything. He must have paid attention the morning before, because he'd dished up an almost identical breakfast for me.
"Thanks," I said.
"No problem," he answered with a shrug before sitting down next to me at the breakfast bar.
We ate in silence, unlike the morning before.
Finally, I sighed deeply. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" he asked not looking at me.
"For getting you in trouble with Lana. For not letting you go back to the floor last night." I poked at my scrambled eggs with my fork before stabbing at a piece of biscuit with gravy on it.
He shrugged. "I didn’t mind staying with you. You were scared."
"Still. I'm sorry I got you in trouble with Lana." I didn't look at him again either.
"You should be. It was uncalled for."
"I know."
"So why'd you do it?"
I sighed. "I don't know."
"Sure you do."
"What?"
He shrugged again. "You know why you did it."
"I do?"
"Yes, you do. You won't tell me, but you know. I think it's because you just don't like Lana."
"I don't."
"Why?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. I just don't. And she doesn't like me either."
"I know."
We ate in silence for a few minutes longer.
"Do you remember anything else about your dream?"
I thought about it for a minute. "Not really. Just that I was married and I had a baby and somebody was trying to take my baby from me – from us. From me and my husband, whoever he was." I wasn't about to admit to him that the more I remembered, the more he looked like Clark.
But I didn't want to think about that.
"So what do you want to do today?" I finally asked.
He shrugged. "Watch a movie. Play games. Read a book. Whatever you want."
"Yeah. Sounds like fun." The tone of my voice and the words I said were exact opposites.
I speared the last bite of pancake on my plate. Fun. Right. That's what we were having.
Clark wiped his mouth on his napkin before tossing it on the counter. "Come on," he said.
"Where are we going?" I asked. He'd suddenly switched scripts without telling me.
"You'll see."
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
I don't know what possessed me to come up with this idea, but it was the right one.
Yeah, Lois had made me mad with the Lana stuff, but Lana was going to be annoyed whenever she found out. It could work one of two ways: the excitement of seeing me after a week would push her annoyance to the background or she'd spend the next couple of days stewing and she'd be even more annoyed when I finally saw her.
There was nothing I could do about it now, so I was determined to enjoy myself with a good friend in a winter wonderland.
"What *exactly* are we doing?" Lois asked as she pulled her gloves on.
"You'll see," was all I would say.
We stomped out the front door and she sort of glared at me.
"Your choice. Snowman. Snow fort. Snow ball fight. Igloo."
She just stared at me. "Are you serious?" she finally said.
I shrugged. "Yep. So what's it going to be?" I moved out to the walk. Or where the walk would have been if it wasn't covered by tons of snow. I bent down and picked up a handful of snow, packing it carefully. "Because if you don't choose, snow ball fight it is."
She sighed. "Fine. Snowman."
We spent the next while making a snowman. We argued over whether the base was big enough or whether it was round enough. Over who was going to lift the second snowball onto the first. Over whether we should try to find a carrot for a nose or use snow to try to fashion one. What to use for buttons.
But it was fun bickering and not mean and malicious like I knew we both could be.
We finally agreed that he was finished and started head inside. Just before I opened the door, something cold hit the back of my neck. I turned to find Lois looking another direction, the picture of innocence.
Right.
Lois.
Innocent.
My eyes narrowed and before she knew it, there was snow all over the side of her head.
"Hey!" She shook her head. "What was that for?!"
I just grinned at her.
If I didn't know she couldn't move as fast as I could, I would have sworn she could have. Before I knew it, I was hit again.
I fired back, laughing as I did.
In minutes, we were in a full blown snowball fight, that didn't confine itself to the small clearing at the front of the house.
For someone who didn't have the advantages I did, Lois sure knew how to get around in deep snow.
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I was hiding behind a tree when I heard the snowball hit it.
"Come on out, Lois," Clark called.
"Never," I called back.
I'd hit him good a few times, and he'd managed to hit me, too, but so far, I'd given better than I got and he was looking for a bit of payback, I was sure.
He couldn’t see me from where he was, but I couldn't see him either. I was almost ready to sneak back out, when a snowball caught the back of my head. It didn't hurt, but it did startle me.
I turned around, snowball in hand, but couldn't see Clark anywhere.
Oh, he was good.
Afterwards, I still had no idea how he ended up chasing me with what was essentially a snowball roughly the size of a basketball – much less how he managed to catch me while carrying it – but it probably had something to do with the snow booby trap I'd set.
Okay – I hadn't set a booby trap, but a bunch of snow did slide off a tree and land on him. He thought if he'd been doused in snow, I should be, too.
Before I knew it, he'd managed to balance the snowball on one hand and grabbed my arm before breaking it over my head.
I mentally congratulated myself for taking martial arts in high school and before he knew it, we were both on the ground in the snow.
And not just in the snow, but in a big ol' snow drift next to the house. It had to have been five or six feet deep, easy.
I pushed a little harder on him, trying to sink him just a bit deeper, as I struggled to stand up.
How I ended up flipped and flat on my back, I had no idea, but I found myself breathing heavily and looking up at a smiling Clark.
For half a second, maybe even a little longer, the desire to pull him down on top of me and kiss him was very real. And for slightly less than a nanosecond, it looked like he might want to.
I pushed that out of my mind before glaring at him. "Nice, Kent. Now help me up before we freeze again."
That illegal grin of his got even bigger as we struggled to get up. I brushed as much of the snow off as I could before I realized my teeth were starting to chatter just a bit. "I think I need a hot shower," I told him as I stomped towards the front porch.
"I think I do, too."
"Well, you can use the bathroom upstairs. Even though the power's still out, the water heater is gas and it's tankless so we don't have to worry about one of us using all the hot water."
We managed to get inside and get our boots and coats off without tracking melting snow all over the cabin.
And then my stomach growled.
"How long has it been since breakfast?" Clark asked, a slight look of shock on his face.
I shrugged. "Couple hours?"
"And your stomach's already growling?"
I shrugged again. "I'm hungry."
"Well, go take a shower and I'll fix something when I'm done."
"Thanks," I said as I headed for my room and he headed towards the stairs.
I tried not to think about the breath that caught in my throat when we'd landed in the snowdrift and the nearly overwhelming desire I'd had to tug him down to me and kiss him like I'd never kissed Joe.
What in the world had come over me?
Or almost come over me?
Surely, it was just still a little bit of an unsettled feeling left from the nightmare the night before and the fact that I'd slept naked with Clark a couple days before and the overwhelming emotions that had come with nearly dying.
A knock on the door shook me out of my thoughts.
"Lois?"
"What?"
"Are you okay? You've been in there a long time."
I sighed and turned the water off. "I'll be out in a minute."
I heard footsteps that told me Clark had moved away from the door and out of my room. I dressed in one of my dad's big sweatshirts and my bike shorts again and headed out to the kitchen.
Suddenly, I was starving.
*****
TBC
