Yes, I'm posting a day early. Tomorrow's looking crazier by the minute and AnKS asked so...
.
As I mentioned in fdk, there is one MAJOR difference in this Clark's history that hasn't been explored yet. It's been hinted at [small hints, granted], but so far no one's caught any of them [but I wouldn't really have expected it either]. There will be a couple bigger ones before the difference is revealed, but I doubt anyone will guess what it is, even then.
Not because I'm that good or whatever, just because I don't think it'll occur to anyone.
Bonus points:
Bonus points to anyone who can help with this nickname:
"I know when it's due, [nickname]."
Betas and I couldn't come up with anything to go along with scheduling or calendars or whatever. Blackberry was about as close as I got
. Some well known secretary or scheduling program or... not a clue really. Einstein is her fall back but I don't really like that. She's talking about an assignment btw.
Thanks - as always - to the wonderful betas Alisha, Beth, Nancy, CarolynK.
New posting schedule in FDK.
Last time:
Lois
I was working on getting the tank cover onto the pink toilet – what were they thinking when they installed those? – when I heard the vacuum cleaner start. I spread the chocolate rug on the floor and glanced at the shower. The inside of it couldn't be more than two, two and a half feet square at most. That was going to be fun. I hung the hooks for the robes over the door and stuck the hooks for more towels up as high as I could reach. A couple towels went over the rack and a couple more went above it on the hooks. I filled the soap dispensers and arranged the rest of the stuff. I was glad I'd remembered to send Clark back for a toilet brush and cleanser. I was even more glad that he'd informed me that he'd take care of it.
"All done," Clark called, as the vacuum shut off.
"Good." I handed him the ironing board hook and pointed to the wall behind the door. "There please." He stuck it to the wall as I set the ironing board next to it. "The iron will have to go under the sink in the bathroom, I guess." I grabbed the pillows and tossed them onto the loveseat so they wouldn't be in the way when we made the bed. "Where do we stick the laundry baskets?"
"The closet?"
"One maybe, but I don't think both will fit in there. Another over by the counter?" I sighed. "Maybe we should get a couple hampers. That'd work better I think."
"Probably." He grabbed the biggest of the rugs. "Where do you want this one?"
I gestured to the area between the bed and the dresser. "Right there," I told him before grabbing two of the smaller ones and putting one in front of the desk and one of the runners along the 'kitchen'. Clark put the other two runners between the bed and the loveseat, lifting each corner of the loveseat to slide it partially underneath, and the other coming straight out from the door. I sighed. "Well, at least most of that's covered up." I glanced at the alarm clock I'd put on the desk. "I'm going to go get the laundry. You mind to clean the rest of this up?" I asked gesturing to the bags and boxes lying around.
He nodded and I left the room.
*~*30*~*
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
I finished taking the trash down to the dumpster and wondered how we hadn't run into any of our neighbors. I could hear some of them moving around in their apartments.
Lois was struggling to get the bottom sheet on the bed. She had already put the egg crate on and the mattress cover on top of that. She looked up as I walked in. "I didn't put the dust ruffle on. I didn't want to try to move the mattress by myself."
I nodded. "We can do it tomorrow." I moved to the side of the bed and helped tug the sheet over the corners of the mattress. We worked together to put the top sheet and then the comforter on. She tossed me a pillowcase and I tossed her the pillow she'd picked out.
"Which side do you want?" she asked, without looking at me. "I mean, I know you had that side when we were in Europe but... long term..."
I shrugged. "This is fine for now. If either one of us decides we want to switch we can talk about it later."
She headed towards the dresser and pulled some clothes out. "I'm going to change and then I think I'm going to go to bed."
"You should. It's been a big day. You've got to be tired."
She nodded as she headed towards the bathroom and I sunk onto the love seat. Lois was right. It was a monstrosity. And exceptionally uncomfortable at that.
I looked around the room. It was amazing how much we'd managed to cram in here. I looked at the picture of me and my parents I'd set on the nightstand that was now on what was officially my side of the bed. I'd talked to my dad for about a minute and a half while we were in London and hadn't told him anything except that I was okay. I'd called again when I knew they wouldn't be home and left a message. I knew I should talk to them, but I wanted Lana to be the first one to know, even before them. It helped that they were going out of town for nearly ten days.
I was going to have to tell Lois that I needed to see her when I told her. I couldn't do this over the phone or email or something like that.
I wouldn't say that the evening had been *fun*, but it hadn’t been too bad. We'd laughed and talked like we hadn't since we were at the cabin and we were going to have to be friends if we were going to make it through the next five years.
Five years.
That was a long time.
I kicked my shoes off and propped my feet up on the bed, my head falling on the back of the seat. It was only a couple minutes before Lois came back out of the bathroom, leaving the light on in there, for me I was sure.
"Do you mind if I turn the light off?" she asked.
"Go ahead." The room darkened and she moved to the other side of the bed, flipping the covers back as she crawled in. "Good night."
She rolled over to face me. "Good night, Clark. And thank you again."
I nodded and she closed her eyes, burrowing under the covers. After a few minutes, I went to the kitchen sink and ran the water, filling the sink before adding soap. Lois' quiet breathing told me that she was asleep and I sped through the dishes, washing them as fast as I could before drying them with my eyes. I'd have Lois help me figure out where to put most of them in the morning.
I rested my hands on the counter and leaned against it, my head hanging and my eyes closed. I'd imagined doing these things with Lana, not Lois, and the image of the two of us putting together our first apartment came unbidden to mind. I could see us laughing and kissing and even abandoning our efforts to get things done in the pursuit of more... interesting things. And since she'd know about me by then, I could have had it all done in seconds, lifting the desk over my head with one hand as I moved it or things like that.
And I was sure Lana wouldn't wear flannel pajamas to bed.
I sighed and decided it was time for me to change and go to bed, too.
I wasn't sure what our plans for the next day were, but it was going to be a very long week.
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I was glad we had two more days before Lana and Joe got home. I had a feeling that it was going to hit the fan when they did. For now, Clark was my friend and we were enjoying spending time together – though bed was a bit awkward – but I was afraid that was going to change once he came face to face with Lana again.
I was even a bit afraid that he was going to leave.
He'd never said or done anything in the five or so months that I'd known him to give me any indication that he wasn't a man of his word, but once he actually saw Lana again...
Clark had offered to go get our textbooks and stuff before the crush hit. We could get decent used books – hopefully – because they wouldn't be all picked through.
The phone rang and I picked it up off the desk. "Hello?"
"Lois?"
I didn't recognize the voice. "Yes?"
"This is Dr. McConnell."
"Hi. How are you?"
"I'm good. I got a call from your dad the other day and he asked me to give you a call."
I sighed. "I need to get in to see you. I think I'm nearly twelve weeks along."
"Well, I'm at the hospital today – I'm covering on-call for another doctor. Would you like to come on over and we'll take a look and get started?"
"That would be great. When's good?"
"Well, right now, I have a couple patients here that are in labor, but both are very early on so right now would be good, if that works for you."
"I'll be there in about fifteen minutes," I promised.
"Come on in to labor and delivery and I'll see you then."
I said good-bye and hung up. I put my shoes on and wrote Clark a note telling him I had an errand to run before heading out. I drove across campus and pulled into a parking spot near the Ellen Lane Memorial Medical Building. I ran into Dr. McConnell in the hallway and she gave me a warm hug.
Ten years earlier, she'd worked with both of my parents as she finished medical school and she had been my mother's doctor the last couple years of her life. We moved into an empty labor and delivery room where an ultrasound machine was set up. I sat on the bed and swung my legs slightly.
"Can you tell me what happened?" she asked quietly.
Tears sprang to my eyes. "Can you tell my dad anything that I tell you?" I asked her. The thought of telling her the whole truth was running around my head and had been for a couple of days.
"No. Anything you tell me is completely confidential."
I nodded. "I don't know who the father is," I whispered, using the Kleenex she handed me to wipe at my cheeks. "I don't remember much of anything about Halloween. Clark found me behind a couch in the common room of a frat house with a guy. He wasn't sure that the guy had done anything to me, but..."
"It seems pretty likely now that he did."
"Well, I've never had sex with anyone," I told her. "Not that I remember. I talked to..." I hesitated. "Another friend and there didn't seem to be any evidence that he'd done anything – I wasn't sore or anything like that. But it had to have been then because..."
"That's not the story your dad told me."
"I know." I wiped my nose and refused to look at her. "Did you hear about the whole thing with General Navance in Latislan trying to claim an American baby?"
She nodded.
"That was me. Clark was with me and he claimed the baby hoping that Navance would leave me alone. It turned out he had to marry me and that we have to stay married for five years or he can come after the baby legally under Latislani law." I took a deep breath to steady myself. "A few days after Halloween, Clark and I were caught in that snow storm. We barely made it to the cabin and neither one of us remember much about that night. Clark was already sick before that. The story we're telling everyone is that we were together in a hypothermic induced haze and that’s how I got pregnant. There's only two other people who know the whole truth, maybe three. The ambassador to Latislan is a maybe but two of his people do. Daddy thinks Clark is the father." I wiped at my face again.
She squeezed my hand. "Well, you're still early enough that you could get an abortion if you wanted to," she said hesitantly.
I shook my head. "No."
"Good. That's rarely what I would choose for any of my patients though some do choose that route. Adoption?"
"Not after what happened with my half-brother."
She nodded again. "That's what I figured. So you're going to have this baby and you and Clark are going to raise him or her."
"That's the plan. At least for the next five years..." I shrugged. "After that, I guess it'll just be me."
It looked like she wanted to say something, but she didn't. Instead, she chose to continue the exam. "Why don't you lie back and we'll take a look?" She hesitated again. "Are you sure you don't want Clark here?"
I shook my head before I rested it on the pillow and lowered the waistband of my pants while raising my shirt. The goop was kinda cold but not as bad as I would have thought.
"Normally, ultrasounds are done by a tech, but I wanted to get this one done and see how you and the baby are doing. And since I'm just kinda hanging out here right now..." She put the wand on my stomach. "Let's see what we've got." After a minute, she pointed to the screen. "There you go," she said with a smile. "There's your baby."
My eyes filled with tears again as I saw the heart beating and what I thought were arms and legs. I could see the head and, if I looked closely enough, the eye sockets. She clicked the keyboard a few times and then frowned. "It appears the sound isn't working on this machine so we won't get to hear the heartbeat without hooking you up to monitors and I don't think that's necessary. We'll listen when you come in for your next appointment. It *looks* good on here."
"Can you tell if it's a boy or a girl?" I asked.
She shook her head. "Not yet. We'll do another ultrasound in a couple months and we should be able to tell then if you want to know."
After a few more minutes, she removed the wand from my stomach and handed me a washcloth to clean up with before helping me sit up.
"Here you go," she said handing me a couple slips of paper. "Your first baby pictures."
"Thanks."
"Everything looks great. Really. I'll write you a prescription for prenatal vitamins. You need to get plenty of rest and drink lots of fluids." She squeezed my hand gently. "You're twelve weeks today – your first trimester is over. That puts your due date at July 26."
"Wow. And I missed it completely."
She sat next to me on the bed. "I'm sorry your mom's not going to be here to see this. She would have been a great grandmother."
I stared at the pictures. "Yeah. She would have been. And Lucy would have been a great aunt, too." She wrapped an arm around me and I rested my head on her shoulder. "I told Dad I wanted to talk to Dave's family. They said they wanted to get know me if I was ever ready for that because I'm his sister. I think I'm ready now."
"Your mom would like that."
"Thanks, Dr. McConnell. For everything."
"After everything we've been through, Lois, you can call me Kristi, you know."
"I know."
"Did you know that Kevin and I are having a baby?"
I shook my head. "No. When?"
"In September."
"Congratulations. That's great."
"We'll have to have you and Clark over for dinner sometime, okay?"
I nodded.
"And I promise, that even if I'm not on call, I'll be here when the baby's born, okay? Even if it's three in the morning, this is one delivery I'm not going to miss."
"Thank you," I whispered.
Ten minutes later, I was back in the Jeep and headed back to CostMart. I picked up a few things I realized we'd forgotten the day before – a coffee maker and all the things that went along with that, a couple of laundry hampers, deodorant and toothpaste, and ice cream. The freezer seemed to work okay on the big fridge so I thought I would trust it with some ice cream. If it didn't melt on me, everything would be okay. I also bought new mini-blinds for the window, as well as a set of curtains and a curtain rod. Even though the window was small, it was entirely too bright first thing in the morning. I even thought to get a drill and drill bits so Clark could put it up. A step stool rounded out the items.
When I got back to the apartment building, I pulled up in front of it and unloaded everything into the two hampers before moving the Jeep to the parking lot across the street. One at a time, I moved the hampers next to the elevator. I got them into the elevator and, one by one again, down the hall until they were both outside the door. I messed with the lock, trying to figure out the trick to it, when the door opened from the inside.
"Hey." Clark looked at the hamper. "What're you doing?"
"I picked up a couple more things at CostMart," I told him, more than willing to let him manhandle the hampers inside.
"Was that the errand you had to run?"
I hesitated slightly. I wasn't sure I was ready to share the pictures of my baby with Clark, no matter what he'd done for me. Finally, I told him an abridged version of the truth. "My doctor called and said she could see me this morning. I went to the hospital to see her first."
"Your doctor called you?" he asked, sounding skeptical.
"She was a friend of my mom's. Dad called her this week."
"Ah." He set the second hamper down. "Ready to get all this put up?"
I nodded. "I think that's everything then. I mean, I have no idea what else we might need."
"Well, we'll see, I guess," Clark said as he started emptying the hampers.
"Yeah," I said. "We'll see."
*****
TBC
