Last time:
Lois
"Ms. Lane married Mr. Kent and that makes the child his. Period. That is what Latislani law says, isn't it?"
He sputtered, obviously caught unaware by the news. "They will not be allowed to leave the country with my child."
"You will not order an American couple having an American baby around."
Clark's other hand gripped one of mine, knowing, I was sure, how much I wanted to tell this man where he could go and how he could get there.
"This is not a real marriage," he hissed.
"It was legally performed. All the paperwork is signed, sealed. Is are dotted and ts are crossed. This conversation is over." He made a slashing motion across his throat to a man sitting at a computer on the other side of the room. Colored bars filled the screen.
He turned to us. "We're going to have to get you two military uniforms for when you get out of here in a couple hours and see what else we can do to disguise your appearance."
"What? Am I going to be a redhead or something?"
He shook his head. "We're not sure yet, but we better get on it."
Three hours later, we'd made it to an Air Force jet with the ambassador who I finally met for the first time. Apparently, another plane was meeting the ambassador in Podansk so that we could take this one to some undisclosed location.
I stared out the window as the plane took off into the wild blue yonder. My first real look at the country of Latislan.
I could only pray it was also my last.
*~*25*~*
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
Daniel was wrong.
He probably purposefully misled us – and everyone else at the embassy, too. We didn't go with the ambassador to Podansk. The ambassador didn't go to Podansk. We ended up on an air force base in Europe somewhere. We were put in a hanger before we were allowed to deplane.
They wouldn’t tell us where we were going or when we were going to be able to contact our families or anything like that.
For now, at least, they were keeping us completely under wraps.
In this day and age of electronic media and 24-hour news cycles, it was probably a good idea if we had any hope of keeping our privacy.
We were met by a dark sedan and were huddled into the rear seat and headed towards an office building. Once there, we were met by a media relations lady.
"Hi," she said, holding out her hand. "I'm Jill. I'm with the State Department Public Relations office. I'm going to be your liaison for the time being." We both shook her hand and she led us down the hall. "This isn't Latislan, but..." She tugged on her ear. "I'll let you know where it's safe."
"Thanks," I said.
We walked into a conference room and she gestured towards the chairs. "Have a seat. The story is starting to leak. Navance put out a press release that Americans had helped the mother of his unborn child leave the country. We're working on a press release of our own saying that his claims are completely unfounded – that the woman in question married the father of her child and that Navance is trying to take advantage of her for some reason we don't understand. We're doing our best to keep your names out of the media but..." She sighed. "Hopefully, no one from your tour group will put two and two together and decide they want their fifteen minutes of fame."
She pulled a piece of paper from the folder in front of her and handed it to Lois. "Look over it and see what you think." She folded her hands on the table in front her. "I talked to Daniel. He said the baby was conceived in very early November when you were on a school newspaper road trip and got stuck in that blizzard that hit Metropolis."
I glanced at Lois, but she didn't look at me. Instead, she focused on the paper. "Yeah. Something like that," I told her.
Lois handed me the sheet. It was the press release that basically said what Jill had. "It looks fine to me," I said. I guessed that was what she was looking for – approval from us – but I really had no idea what I was doing. Public relations for something like this was outside my expertise. Far outside.
"When can I talk to my dad?" Lois asked.
Jill sighed. "We're working on it. We have to get you both to a secure line."
"What about my folks?" I asked. "I talked to my girl..." I stopped. I couldn’t call her that. Not right now. "A friend," I amended. "I'm sure she told them something's going on."
She nodded. "We have talked to them and told them that you're fine but that we'll let you tell them the whole story and that you should be home next week."
"Can I talk to them soon?"
She sighed again. "It's a bit harder to get them somewhere with a secure line because they live in such a rural area. If nothing else, you'll be able to talk to them on the way home in a couple days."
"So what do we do until then?" Lois asked.
"Hang out at the hotel, mainly. There's American TV, a restaurant, game room, Internet access, though you really shouldn't access your email or chat rooms or any message boards you normally go to or log in anywhere or anything like that. General surfing is okay, but we don't want to let Navance know where you are just yet and he may have some 'net gurus around that can trace that stuff. Things like that. You can't use your own laptops to get online for the same reason. The rooms there are clean." She tugged on her ear again.
We both nodded.
Lois rubbed her eyes with her fingers before running her hands through her hair. "What about my dad? What does he know?"
"More than Clark's parents, but not much. We haven't told him much, except that you were stuck in Latislan but we were working on a way to get you out of there. They've all been told that you're out of the country. Clark, your parents weren't told what country you were in – I don’t think so anyway. I wasn't involved in contacting them. They shouldn't connect you with the story Navance is putting out – not from anything we told them anyway. Lois' dad on the other hand... He knows you were in Latislan, so it's much more likely that he'll make the connection, even though we're trying to make it sound like you're much older than you are – thirties or so rather than late teens."
"Navance didn't release our names?" I asked, a bit startled as that hit me.
She shook her head. "No. He wants it to look like we helped a Latislani citizen out of the country for as long as he can." She tapped on her PDA for a minute. "Okay. That is being released to the press."
"Where are we anyway?" Lois finally asked.
"Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany." There was a knock on the door and Jill pushed back from the table. "We'll get you two settled in the hotel and you can get some rest or explore or whatever, but we'd prefer that you try to keep to yourselves and stay at the hotel, keeping a low profile. Feel free to order room service instead of going down to the restaurant."
We followed her to the car that had brought us to the office building and were driven across the base. It pulled up behind an impressive hotel and we were ushered through a back door to our room. We were left alone at that point. Jill said she'd be in touch and they'd get us home in a few days.
Our suitcases were already there and I quickly decided that getting out of the uniform I'd worn out of Latislan was a good idea. I said as much to Lois before digging through my suitcase and heading to the bathroom.
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I flopped back on the bed. Changing clothes probably was a good idea, but I just didn’t have the energy. I was just glad I wasn't throwing up. I was still slightly queasy and hadn't eaten breakfast for that very reason. I wondered if there were any peppermints around here or something.
A minute later, Clark emerged from the bathroom in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. "How are you feeling?" he asked.
I shrugged. "Okay."
"Stomach bothering you?"
"A bit."
He sat on the couch. "How're you dealing with everything else?" he asked, much more quietly this time.
"Everything else what?"
"The baby."
I shrugged again from where I was lying on the bed. "It's a lot to take in."
"I bet."
I rolled so I could look at him, asking him what had been on my mind since the night before. "Why did you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Claim the baby. Marry me."
He sighed. "Claiming the baby... He was just standing there, so smug and sure that we were going to acquiesce to whatever he wanted. It suddenly occurred to me that if I was the father of the baby, then it wouldn’t matter what he said. I didn't know about the whole 'I'm the Supreme Ruler of All so unless she's married, it's my baby' thing at the time."
"Would you have still said it if you knew?"
He hesitated slightly. "Probably. I wouldn't have thought we'd actually have to get married – just get you out of the country."
"When did you know we'd have to get married?"
"Later that day."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Daniel told you why. We didn't think you'd take it well and we didn't want to tip off Navance."
"Ah. But why did you go through with it?" I didn't actually look at him as I asked.
"I couldn't let him get to either one of you."
"Well, thank you. I'm sure Daddy'll get us a lawyer to get an annulment as soon as we get home."
He nodded. "Yeah."
"I'm sorry I got us into this," I told him quietly.
He shrugged. "It's okay. It happens."
"To me."
He smiled. "Maybe."
We were quiet for a minute.
"What're you going to do?" He didn't look at me as he asked.
"About?"
"The baby."
"Have a baby. Try to figure out how to raise a baby and go to school."
"Not adoption?"
I shook my head. "No. I couldn't do that."
"Why not?"
I sighed. How to explain it? Should I?
"You don't have to answer that."
"No, it's okay." I pushed myself up and moved against the headboard. "When my parents were seniors in high school, they broke up for a while when my mom moved out of Metropolis with her family. She went out with another guy who pushed her into having sex pretty early in their relationship – before she was ready. I'm still not clear on whether she and my dad had at that point or not, but they'd known each other since kindergarten so..." I shrugged. "Anyway, she got pregnant and this guy said it wasn't his baby. My dad had written her and said that he wanted to get back together, even long distance, because he loved her. She didn't believe in abortion and neither did my grandparents so she decided she just wouldn't tell him and put the baby up for adoption. After Mom and Lucy died, Daddy found out about it. She'd written him a letter to be delivered on her death and it told him all about it. About three years ago, he went looking for her son." Tears filled my eyes and I couldn't continue.
"What happened?" he finally asked.
"He'd died about eighteen months after Mom and Lucy. He needed a bone marrow transplant and they couldn’t find a match. Daddy found out, somehow, that Mom and I would both have been a match. I'd have had a half-brother. Daddy would have a son, even a step-son. He's always wanted a son. Don't get me wrong – he loves me very much and he's proud of me and he loved Lucy – but he always wanted a son, too. If Mom had told him, he would have married her as soon as they were eighteen and figured out a way to get through school and raise a family together. I just can't..." I couldn’t go on at that point. The tears on Daddy's face when he'd told me about it... That Mom had had a son. That we could have saved him if the adoption hadn't been sealed tighter than Tupperware, Daddy had said.
Clark nodded. "I'm sorry."
"I would have liked to get to know him. Daddy talked to his parents and they said that if and when we're ready, they'd like to get to know us. I'm their son's sister, after all. But... neither one of us were ready for that. Maybe now..."
He nodded. "I'm not trying to say that's the wrong decision, but open adoptions are a lot more prevalent today."
I shook my head. "No," I whispered. "I may not know who the father really is, but this is my baby."
"What about Joe?"
"What about him?"
"You guys just got back together."
"So? It's not like I cheated on him."
"What's he going to think?"
"It doesn't matter. If he still wants to be my friend, great. If not... well, I can't imagine him leaving my life all together."
"But you don't think he'll still want to date." It was a statement of fact.
"Would you take on another man's child? If you found out that Lana was pregnant from a night she didn't remember..."
"I'd still marry her," he said quietly.
"Yeah, well Joe and I haven't been in love since we were born. I wouldn't expect him to do that and I don't think he would."
"You won't give him the option?"
I shook my head. "I won't ask him to do that."
"And if he wants to anyway?"
"I don't think he will."
"Maybe you underestimate him."
I shrugged. "Maybe."
He sighed and looked over his shoulder out the window. "What do you want to do?"
"Doesn't matter. You?"
"Are you hungry?"
"I am, but I don't think I can keep anything down."
He reached over and picked up a binder. "Let's see what they've got that you might be able to deal with."
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
Lois was taking a nap on the bed so I headed downstairs to see what the hotel at Ramstein had to offer.
I bought a cup of coffee and settled down with a magazine.
The news on the television nearby caught my attention.
"Next on ANC, why is Latislani dictator General Navance claiming the Americans have stolen his unborn child and have we?" The blond anchor was replaced with a commercial about one of the prime time shows.
I waited the requisite two and a half minutes or so until they came back on the air.
The blond was back. "Good afternoon. I'm Meredith Keller and this is the American News Channel. Early this morning, General Navance, the President of the Latislani Coalition to Govern, put out a press release saying that the American embassy in the capital city of Skopje helped the mother of his unborn child leave the country against his wishes; that the child is a Latislani citizen and can't leave without his approval. About three hours ago, the State Department released a statement of its own saying that the woman in question is an American citizen who was in Latislan with the American father of the baby and the two were married last night. Joining us is Liz Wheel, American News legal correspondent. Welcome, Liz."
"Hi, Meredith," said the brunette who was apparently live via satellite. I watched more closely. This was one of those mid-morning, mid-afternoon, overnight, whatever shows that had more opinion and such than a straight news program.
"So tell us what's going on here."
"Well, since the report came out early this morning, several of us have been digging through Latislani law and under Latislani custody laws, the father has custody of all children, born and unborn."
"That doesn't make any sense," Meredith said as the shot cut back to the studio.
"No, it doesn't," Liz replied, coming back on the split screen. "But what makes even less sense is how the law is written. All the President of the Latislani Coalition to Govern has to do to get custody of a child is claim that it's his. It doesn't have *anything* to do with who the actual father of the child is. Even a DNA test wouldn't make a difference and the mother has no say in the matter. He even controls who has access to the mother as long as she's pregnant and how much access she has to the child after birth. The *only* way we've found to get around that is if the mother is married, then the husband is the father, again regardless of what the DNA says."
"So these two Americans got married last night to make him the legal father?"
"That's what it sounds like. Navance's claims are null and void if she's married."
"The press release from the State Department says the two of them had only been in country for a few days and that they can prove that. It also says that she's in her late first trimester. How on earth can he claim that this is his child?"
"None of that matters under Latislani law."
"Wow." Meredith shook her head. "That doesn't make any sense at all."
Liz nodded. "It doesn't, but we also don't know who these two people are so we can't find out anything else. Are these two people who were already engaged? Who had been dating for a long time or is there something else going on that would make Navance a little more annoyed than he usually is."
"Liz Wheel, thanks for your help and we'll be back with you as this story continues to unfold. In other news..."
I tuned out whatever it was they moved on to. So they still didn't know who we were. That was good. The American response was pretty much the same as mine and Lois'.
He was crazy.
And that was scary.
*****
TBC
