Last time:
Lois
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.
*~*33*~*
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
Just another minute, I'd told myself when we'd hurried in to the side room. Just one more minute. One more long, sweet kiss with the woman I loved before I had to walk away from her.
I had no idea how many minutes ago that had been.
And then the Musak switched to an annoying country tune. People always thought that because I'd grown up on a farm, I must love country music. I liked it fine, but I liked lots of other music too.
But why was I thinking about music when I finally had Lana in my arms again?
Because it was a song I'd heard many times and the words of the chorus were finally sinking into my kiss-addled brain.
'On the other hand,'
No. Don’t listen.
'There's a golden band.'
Block it out. Lana. Concentrate on her.
'To remind me of someone'
She wouldn't care, would she? It's not like I was going to be kissing her or making love to her if I wasn't here. She'd said be discreet after all.
'Who would not understand.'
Damn Randy Travis! Or was it George Jones? Who cared?
'On one hand I could stay'
Lana. I loved Lana. I had always loved her. I didn't remember a time when she wasn't in my life. I'd spent more time apart from her the last two weeks than I had the first nineteen years of my life. Combined.
'And be your lovin' man'
Oh! I wanted to be her lovin' man. There was a reason I'd planned on asking her to marry me in Paris. And we'd always said we didn't plan on a long engagement.
'But the reason I must go'
Go? No. I wanted to stay. This was where I belonged. With Lana. My blond haired, blue eyed beauty.
'Is on the other hand.'
What was on the other hand? Nothing. Lana. I belong with Lana.
Golden band.
That's what was on the other hand. An image of my dad dancing with my mom, her hand in his – in his left hand, with his wedding band on it – popped into my head. And then there was another image. A brunette, her hair falling forward so I couldn't see the tears that ran down her face, sliding a gold band on to my finger.
I moved my hands to Lana's face and slowed the feverish pitch of our kiss. We were in the library. There was a big window looking into the study room where I'd pulled her. Even if it was the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday when there was a big game being played on the other side of campus, anyone could walk by. Even Lois. My wife.
A few more soft, gentle caresses of her lips with mine and then I held her face still as I moved back.
"I can't," I whispered hoarsely. "I can't do this." I rested my forehead on hers. "I'm sorry. I never should have pulled you in here. I can't do this and I can't ask you to."
"You're not asking me to do anything, Clark," she whispered back. "I'm here with you because I want to be. I love you."
"And I love you, Lana, but I can't. I'm married and no matter what else, I have a wife. I have a baby on the way and I..." My voice broke. I wanted to tell her the truth – that the baby wasn't mine – but I couldn't risk it. It was bad enough that I'd told her the marriage wasn't all it was cracked up to be. "I can't do this, Baby."
I felt her hands on my chest – comfortable, comforting hands that abruptly shoved me away.
"You have a what?" There was fury in her voice.
I looked at her and could see warring emotions in her eyes. Pain, confusion, hurt, anger. "What?"
"You have a *baby* on the way? Lois is *pregnant*?"
I sighed. How could I have forgotten that I hadn't told her that part? I lowered my head and closed my eyes again. I ran one hand through my hair and shoved the other one in the pocket of my jeans. The hand with the golden band on it. I couldn't see it. I couldn’t look at it and its accusing shine while I talked to Lana – who was now, technically, the 'other woman'.
And then I nodded.
"*I'm* the one who's supposed to have your babies." I could barely hear her.
She was crying. I knew without looking that she was. I knew her that well. Unlike my wife, who I really barely knew at all.
My wife.
The golden band.
"I can't believe she's pregnant," she said louder, stronger.
"You're the only one I want to have my babies, Lana. You know that."
Her tone of voice changed to one of pure anger, instead of anger tinged with hurt and everything else. "We've waited our whole lives to be together – literally – and last week, I begged you to make love to me – just once – before you went back to her; to a marriage you promised me was a farce – and you wouldn't because you're married. I get that. I really do. I don't like it, but I get it. And now..." Her voice became strangled. "Now I find out, you've already been with *her*. You've kissed her and touched her and made love to her and now she's having your baby. And it had to have been before you got married, because you haven't been married long enough to know if you'd knocked her up on your wedding night in some European hotel. So..." It sounded like something was dawning on her. "You've told me for years that in your heart, I was your wife. Right?" she demanded.
I nodded, not sure what to say to her, but knowing I deserved whatever she dished out.
"So you had no problem cheating on me – who you promised forever to first – but you won't cheat on her because... why? Because you actually have a wedding ring? We said our own vows to each other when we were sixteen. Remember?"
I remembered. I remembered like it was yesterday. We weren't foolish enough to believe that there was no chance at all that we'd break up someday and what we'd said to each other had reflected that. There was no 'till death do we part', but there had been a promise to love, cherish, honor and be faithful to. And now Lana believed I'd broken the promises I'd made her in the hayloft on my parents' farm.
I could still see her, lying there on one of the quilts Great Grandma Davis had made knowing she'd never see her grandson marry my mom. It was our first real make-out session and we realized how easy it would be to get carried away and neither one of us was ready for that. Then and there, we'd promised each other that we'd wait until our wedding night to consummate our relationship but we'd also promised those other things.
I nodded again, unable to find my voice, to find the words to tell her how it really was.
"So, your word means nothing. You've already proven that by sleeping with her in the first place so why her and not me? Why can you cheat on me with her, but you can't cheat on her with me?"
"What? That's convoluted, Baby. And it wasn't like that."
"Don't you *dare* call me that, Clark Jerome Davis Kent. I am *not* your baby. Not anymore."
I winced. She didn't just middle name me; she whole named me. Even Mom didn't 'Davis' me very often. How had I screwed this up so badly?
Could I just blurt out the truth? No one knew that Lois wasn't really carrying my child. Except maybe her doctor. Even Sam and Joe believed that I was the father of Lois' baby.
"It's not my baby." I guess I could blurt it out.
"What?" The look Lana gave me just then rivaled the worst one Lois had ever given, and she gave some doozies. "You just said you're having a baby. Lois, your *wife*, is pregnant, and it's not your baby?"
Okay, she had a hard time believing it. I guess I could understand that.
"I can't tell you anymore that that and if you tell anyone, I'll deny it. I have to. But I swear to you, I never cheated on you. I've never made love to another woman."
I moved to where she was sitting and squatted down in front of her. "I promise you," I said. "That's the God's honest truth. I've *never* cheated on you. Ever. And I can't cheat on her either. No matter what it is I really want." I tipped her head up with one finger hooked under her chin. "What I really want is you, but I can't do this."
The glint caught my eye. That damn band.
"I can't," I told her again. "I love you, but I can't do this. I can't see you outside of class anymore." My voice broke.
"We can't be friends?"
I shook my head.
"Why not?"
"Because, if we were ever alone in a room without a window, I don't think I could stop myself from making love to you and I can't do that," I told her as honestly and simply as possible.
"And you never made love to her? Ever?"
I shook my head. "No. I've never made love to her."
"Not even when the two of you were trapped naked in that cabin?"
The dream I remembered from that night came flooding back – dreaming of being in front of the fire with someone who was Lana but was Lois but wasn't either one. Apparently it took me too long to shake my head.
"Go."
"What?" I needed to leave. I knew that. She knew that. But that didn't mean I wanted her to tell me to leave.
"You're right. In our hearts, we made vows to each other, but it's not the same a piece of paper and rings and up in front of a church. You can't break them and you won't allow me to help you break them – even though I would in a heartbeat right now."
It wasn't the same and we both knew it. I looked her square in the eyes. "I love you, Lana. I always have. And you should know that we're telling anyone who needs to know that it was that night in the cabin, but I swear to you..."
She sighed then nodded. "I know. I love you, too."
I leaned towards her to kiss her one last time – this time knowing beyond knowing that it was the last time I would be able to until I was free again. If I ever was.
She moved away from me. "No. You have to go. Now." Her words were soft, and I almost didn't catch them even with my enhanced hearing.
Enhanced hearing. Oh boy. I sure hoped I wasn't about to start floating in my sleep.
"I love you," I whispered again.
"I know. But you have to go back to your wife before we do something all of us will regret."
I nodded and stood, turning to walk out the door. Like last week, I couldn’t turn back or I knew I'd never leave.
"I love you, Lana," I whispered and walked out the door, the sound of her sobs trailing behind.
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I sat in one of the chairs at the tiny kitchen table and glared around the apartment. Apartment? Ha. Once again, I realized this thing didn't deserve the name. It wasn't much bigger than our dorm room – maybe time and a half, but no more and probably a lot less. The kitchenette certainly didn't deserve the name either. A full refrigerator. A microwave and two burners.
Not that I cooked, but that wasn't the point.
Could Clark cook?
Yeah, he could. I remembered the meals he'd made when we were trapped at the cabin. And he'd made a barbecue brisket or something the weekend before.
We got along pretty well in our dorm room, why couldn't we get along here?
Because the dynamics had changed. Considerably. We weren't roommates anymore. We were married. And not by choice.
He'd much rather be with Lana. This afternoon's kiss had proven that.
Dinner was something married couples did together right? But I was starving. I wasn't going to wait much longer for him. It was Saturday, for crying out loud. He'd said he'd be back in a bit when he left this morning, but didn't define what bit was. It was nearly three hours later when I'd seen them in the library. And it was four hours after that now. Apparently, a bit meant more than seven hours to him.
He was probably still with her, I realized again. Once he told her we had to stay married for five years, they'd probably decided that waiting to make love wasn't all it was cracked up to be. And now that they knew what it was all about, they couldn't keep their hands off each other.
I shuddered. At least they hadn't known while we were all suitemates. Who knew what I would have walked in on then?
So why was there a huge hole where my heart should be? We'd gotten married out of desperation, to save me and my baby from a madman, and we'd fully intended to be well on our way to an annulment or a divorce or something by now. Once we realized that wasn't going to happen, I'd asked him to just please be discreet with Lana.
And except for this afternoon, he apparently was. I knew if Linda suspected anything, I would have heard about it in a nanosecond.
So my *husband* was off with the love of his life, making passionate love to her – when I'd essentially told him it was okay as long as I didn't hear about it – and I was in a crummy apartment trying to decide which of the dinners Dad had his service still make for me – for us – I wanted to reheat. Was it a Beef Stroganoff night? Or Spaghetti? Or maybe I'd just go puke my guts out.
Whoever called it morning sickness was a twisted individual. And whoever said the first three months were the worst and then it would get better was sadly mistaken. My hormones had kicked into overdrive in the last three weeks – even before I realized why – and now, there was little point in eating after about three in the afternoon.
Maybe I could stand a little bit of that soup I'd had for lunch from the cafeteria. I opened the mini-fridge and realized that just the sight of the leftover lasagna was too much and I bolted towards the bathroom.
Fortunately, there was nothing but a little bit of bile to actually come up, but dry heaves were certainly no fun.
And then, when I was so ceremoniously draped over the toilet, he finally decided 'a bit' was up, and Clark walked in the door.
When I was done retching, I wiped the corners of my mouth with a piece of toilet paper and asked him, "Where have you been?"
*****
TBC
A/N: I searched for a title for the longest time and this is where it finally came from
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