I'm having a blast reading the theories about Clark's past. I think maybe Martha and Jonathan are working with Mulder and Scully supplying Lana with Kryptonite lined lip gloss. hehe
There's more hints coming, promise. I made a... better outline of what's left to write. Hopefully, that'll help me focus and get it done... Doubtful before Nano hits, but that's okay - I'll have plenty of buffer if needed.
I think I'll likely go with Miss Moneypenny. I don't know anything about James Bond but I bet most other people do
. Am still open to suggestions - it won't be posted for a bit yet.
Thanks as always to the world's best betas - Alisha, Beth, Nancy, CarolynK.
Last time:
Clark
I don't know when I started kissing her again, but I had. My hands were under her shirt, on the small of her back. Nothing I hadn't felt before, but I couldn't stop myself from running them up and down her back, realizing that she wasn't wearing a bra under her T-shirt.
I wanted her.
I wanted to be with her, just once, before my life of imposed celibacy - as opposed to the life of celibacy by choice Lana and I had decided on until after our wedding.
But I couldn't. I couldn't do that. Even if I hadn't wanted to marry Lois, I had. I had promised her my fidelity. I couldn't break a vow I made in a church, before God.
I'd grown up in church - nearly everyone in Smallville did - but I hadn't ever considered myself overly religious. And it wasn't that my wedding vows would have been any less valid in front of a justice of the peace in the middle of a dirt road, but something about saying them in a chapel in front of a chaplain before God took it to another level.
And I just couldn't break that vow.
With a groan, I pushed her away.
"I can't do this, Baby. You have no idea how much I want to, but I can't." I crushed her to me, one more time, kissing her again. After long minutes, I pushed her away. I leaned my forehead against hers and closed my eyes. I couldn't bear to see the tear tracks and the anguish written on her face. I finally released her and turned to walk towards the door. I paused with my hand on the knob. "I love you, Lana. I always will. And I'm so sorry for what I've done to you." I couldn't look back at her. My resolve would break and I couldn't do that. "I love you, Baby," I whispered again.
And I left.
*~*32*~*
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I'd said good-bye to Joe after one last long hug. I'd wanted to stay with him forever, but I knew that wasn't a good idea.
And so, I'd left and headed back to the apartment, knowing that my husband – such as he was – was a few floors up from where I'd been, probably making love to his girlfriend. I figured it would probably be a couple hours before I saw him again.
I tossed my purse on the loveseat – that was about all it was good for – and kicked my shoes off before hanging my coat up on one of the hooks we'd hung on the wall of the closet over the mini-fridge. I crawled onto the bed and curled up under one of the blankets.
I was tired. I hadn't slept well the night before knowing what was coming. I reached into the desk drawer next to the bed and pulled out the picture frame. Once it had held a picture of me and Joe, but now it held two of the ultrasound pictures. I still hadn't shown them to Clark. Even though he was claiming to be the father, I wasn't ready to share this with him. Was that fair? I didn't really care and I wasn't sure he would either.
I stared at the picture in the frame for a long time and didn't even realize when I dozed off.
I wasn't sure what woke me up but I did notice that there wasn't any light coming in from around the curtains in the kitchen. I twisted the knob on the small lamp on the desk next to me and sat up picking the frame up and moving to put it back in the drawer.
"When did you get those?" Clark's voice stopped me.
"The other day," I said, setting it on the desk.
"Can I see?"
I shrugged and handed it to him as he sat down on the loveseat.
"Wow," he said.
I didn't want to ask him where he'd been all day. I already knew. With Lana. Probably wearing a lot less clothes than either one of us were now. And as long as he didn't get her pregnant and put my baby in danger...
I didn't care.
I didn't.
He handed the frame back. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't think you'd care. I was going to show you later."
"Why wouldn't I care?"
"It's not really your baby," I said, not looking at him. "I mean, eventually, I thought you'd want to see them and all that, but I didn't think it would be a big a deal to you."
He didn’t say anything. And I still wasn't going to ask him where he'd been.
"How'd it go with Joe?" he asked, changing the subject.
I shrugged. "He offered to marry me."
"Really?"
I nodded. "I wouldn't have expected him to, but he did. I think he still would. We could get an annulment and I could marry him instead, then he'd be the legal father and..."
Clark shook his head. "It'd never work. Navance would be all over it."
"Probably. Anyway, he said he'd still be my friend if I ever needed him and that there's no hard feelings or anything once I told him how I got pregnant. I mean, the whole cabin thing so it's not like I was sleeping with someone else when I wouldn't with him." He'd also said he'd beat the crap out of Clark if he hurt me, but I didn't feel the need to tell Clark that.
"I ran into him."
Or maybe Joe had told him. "Really?"
He nodded. "He really cares about you. Told me he'd beat me up if I hurt you."
"He'd do it, too."
"I'm sure he would." He sighed. "I'm going to take a shower."
I nodded and grabbed the TIVO remote off the table, clicking the TV on and thumbing through my more recently recorded shows. I'd missed a couple weeks of new shows while we were in Europe and hadn't caught up yet. I'd missed one episode of NCIS before we left and one since the new shows restarted. I hit play on the one from December and watched as a Naval officer was killed by her computer-driven vehicle. By the time I reached the second commercial break, Clark was out of the shower. I hit the 'live TV' button and tossed him the remote. "Watch whatever you want."
He tossed it back. "Go ahead. I heard it through the door and it sounded interesting. I watched NCIS with you a time or two last semester, remember?"
I filled him in on what had happened as I restarted the episode. He plumped his pillow behind him and his legs stretched out in front of him as he leaned against the wall. Part of me was dying to know how his conversation with Lana went, but I wasn't about to ask. And I really didn't think he was going to volunteer that he'd technically cheated on me earlier that day.
Neither one of us spoke until the next commercial break.
He didn't look at me when he finally broke the silence. "Don't you want to know how it went with Lana?"
I shrugged. "If you want to tell me, you will," I said, silently hoping he wouldn't. We watched the rest of the episode in silence. I finally spoke again. "I'm going to take a shower and go back to bed. I didn't realize how tired I was."
He nodded and took the remote, flipping back to live TV as I gathered some clothes and headed towards the bathroom.
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
I rested my head against the wall. I was surprised she hadn't wanted to know how it went with Lana. I knew I was curious about how it went with Joe until I ran into him. Apparently, she'd done a good job convincing him I was the father.
I reached over and picked up the ultrasound pictures. I knew she'd gone to see her doctor – apparently an old family friend – a couple days earlier, but she'd never mentioned an ultrasound.
I wasn't quite sure why it hurt that, not only had she not asked me to come, but she hadn't even told me about it afterwards.
She was right in the sense that I wasn't really the father of her baby, but I was the one who had put my life on hold for the next five years to help protect the two of them. Shouldn't I have been there for that if everyone was supposed to believe I was the father of her baby? Or could she have realized that her doctor was bound by confidentiality laws and *couldn't* tell anyone and decided to tell her the truth?
I stared at the two pictures in the frame. Could I do this? Could I really convince Lana and everyone else that I had been with Lois at the cabin?
I groaned inwardly.
I hadn't told her about the baby.
I'd told her that Lois and I hadn't moved because the housing people found out we were roommates; we'd moved because we'd gotten married but that was it before we'd kissed.
Repeatedly.
I shook my head, trying to clear thoughts of Lana out of my mind.
My *wife* was in the bathroom. I shouldn't be thinking about another woman no matter how we'd ended up in this situation.
I'd told Lana that I'd promised Lois my fidelity and I had. And that meant I probably needed to keep my thoughts under control too. At least, I was sure that was what my parents would say if I ever worked up the nerve to tell them.
I closed my eyes, but all I could see what Lana's tear stained cheeks as I broke her heart.
I looked back at the frame I held in my hand.
The baby.
I had to remember why I was doing this. To protect Lois and the baby.
The water in the shower shut off and I put the picture back on the desk – face down, just like she'd left it.
I found an old movie on TMC and left it on.
The door to the bathroom opened but Lois didn't come out. I could hear her brushing her hair and teeth, but I'd noticed over the last few days that Lois liked to let the steam out as soon as she was dressed. If we were a 'real' married couple, I doubted she'd close the door at all.
I sighed and pulled my legs to my chest and slid the covers down before sliding underneath them. I moved far enough down that I could rest my head on the pillow, fingers laced behind my head as I watched the movie. It cut to commercial and, restless, I turned the TV off.
I rolled onto my side and closed my eyes, willing myself to banish Lana from my mind.
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
It had been a very long week.
We'd talked to Lana and Joe on Monday. I hadn't seen Clark again until fairly late Monday night. He was gone virtually all of Tuesday and Wednesday, coming home late enough to find me throwing up again, but that was about it. I had no idea where he'd been – not officially anyway. I was sure he and Lana were making up for lost time.
Classes started on Thursday but I hadn't even made it out of bed until nearly noon. Clark didn't make it home until I was asleep. Friday was the same.
Saturday morning I made a comment about how glad I was to have so spent so much time with him that week. The comment was made with as much sarcasm as I could muster. A few minutes later, he grabbed his backpack and headed out, saying he'd be back in a bit. Finally feeling a little better, I decided to get some fresh air and head to the library to get one of the books I was going to need for my literature class.
Or that had been the plan.
Once there, I could only stare. Okay. I knew this was the farthest thing from a conventional marriage there had ever been, but this wasn't exactly the most private place in the world. It was the library, for crying out loud. And there, in plain sight for anyone who walked by – including me – to see was my husband kissing his ex-girlfriend.
And by kissing, I meant tonsil hockey. Or it would be except I knew Lana had her tonsils out as a kid. Seriously. It was disgusting on many levels, not the least of which was the broken promise.
I knew that Lana would still be his girlfriend if it weren't for the mess we'd found ourselves in and – to be perfectly honest – I'd walked in on a more intense make-out session a time or two when we were sharing a dorm room and they thought I'd be home later than I was. At least they weren't on his bed.
His bed?
Our bed.
He didn't have his own bed anymore and I didn't have my own either. Unless you counted the one at my dad's house and it didn't. Count that is. I mean, technically, I suppose it could still be considered mine, but it was a white four poster with sheer canopies that spoke of my fascination with princesses when I was younger.
Regardless, at least they weren't on – or worse, in – our bed.
Had they been?
Had he taken her back to our apartment? He couldn't have. Not yet anyway. School had only been back in for a couple of days and I hadn't gone to class either one. But next week... they had lunch at the same time every day, and I didn't. Maybe I'd skip class and pop in. No... I wouldn't. Sure he'd said he wasn't going to continue having a relationship with Lana, but it wasn't really any of my business. The only reason we were married was to protect the baby and if he wanted to be with Lana, there wasn't anything I could – or should – do about it. It was only these hormones that were making me crazy and possessive of something – or someone, rather – that wasn't really mine in the first place.
I knew they'd promised themselves they wouldn't have sex until after they got married, but me and someone I didn't know had gotten both of us into a mess and now Clark *was* married – just not to Lana.
When he'd gone to say good-bye to her last week, I figured they'd be together – just once – before he was sentenced to a life of celibacy with what had to be the stupidest woman alive.
I mean, I must have taken a drink from someone I didn't know. I had no recollection whatsoever of having my virginity taken from me – something I'd routinely denied Joe because I was never serious enough about him to do that with him. The make out sessions weren't bad – they were pretty good even – and even when we'd gone a little bit further than that it wasn't *bad*, but I never had any desire to let things get carried away like I knew Clark and Lana had. And now, I was pregnant. Married to a man who I thought could have been a good friend, but who had barely spoken to me in the last week; who huddled up on his side of our now-shared bed and refused to look at me when he did say something.
I couldn't blame him for trying to stay as far away from me as possible in the middle of the night – I did the same thing. Living somewhere else would have been nice, but it was the only apartment available that our scholarships would cover. It was furnished. It was also only one room and the bed doubled as the couch so it wasn't like I could relegate him to the place legend said husbands went when their wives wanted to kick them out of the bedroom. Well, there was the tiny loveseat, but I'd sat on more comfortable cement benches.
Maybe I would sleep on the floor after all. There were rugs on the floor so I would be on the carpet that looked like it had been installed sometime before the Industrial Revolution.
I finally tore my eyes from the window into the room where my husband was kissing another woman like he was a dying man in a desert and she was a tall glass of water.
Stupid? Maybe. A fool? Never.
Clark Kent was just like every other man. When he couldn't get it at home, he'd go somewhere else.
I turned on my heel and stalked off. I'd stay married to him, but only because I had to. The minute we could get a divorce, we would. And then he could go running back to the blond bimbo.
See if I cared.
*****
TBC
