Thanks, as ever, the wonderful betas: Alisha, Beth, Nancy, CarolynK.
Yes, I know this is way early, but if I post now, I can take a nap later. Or something.
Question: I posted this at the end of the last FDK but I don't know that anyone will see it. Is Jonathan in the Navy canon in at least some versions of the Superman mythos? I could have sworn it was but I can't find it in a Google search [and my computer HATES wikis...] and search of the scripts for 'navy' doesn't turn anything up. I suppose it's possible I read it in a fic, but I could have sworn it was canon [if not L/C canon, then Superman canon of some sort]. Thanks
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Last time:
Lois
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?"
*~*34*~*
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
What? She wanted to know where I'd been?
What business of it was hers?
She certainly didn't want to hang out here all day with me; she'd made that perfectly clear. So I'd left. And now that it was mid-evening, I was back. Period. End of discussion.
"I was out," I finally told her.
"Gee, Captain Obvious, I couldn’t have figured that out by myself."
It finally hit me that she was still sitting on the floor in what passed for a bathroom in this place and I realized that she must be having evening sickness again – I'd noticed it the two nights I'd been home before she was asleep earlier this week too.
"Is there anything I can do?" I finally said.
"Tell me where you've been all day."
I shrugged and set my backpack on the floor on my side of the bed. "I was out. Studying and stuff."
Her head leaned back against the wall and I heard her mutter, 'and stuff' under her breath. What was that about?
"Fine. I spent most of the day on an iceberg in the Atlantic. Is that what you want to know?" Yeah. Like she'd believe it. It was the truth, of course, but she wouldn't buy it.
"Fine. Don’t tell me. You don't have to answer to me for your whereabouts anyway."
I flopped on the bed and didn't say anything. After I'd left Lana, I flew to the North Atlantic and spent some time melting icebergs. It took a long time to melt a whole iceberg and I didn't want another
Titanic on my conscience. It was my civic duty to humanity.
And the tears and the huge empty spot inside me had nothing to do with it whatsoever.
What I really needed was to talk to my parents. About all of it. Everything. About how Lois and I got married and how long we'd have to stay together and how the baby wasn't really mine, but I couldn’t do that. They were going to be disappointed enough when they found out what had happened, but even if they understood and supported the decisions that had already been made, they'd never support or approve of how close I'd come to violating my wedding vows, no matter why they'd been made.
Of course, I hadn't told them I was married yet either. I hadn't really talked to them since I left for Europe. Since the very short conversation with Dad in London, I'd left a few messages, knowing they were at Aunt Opal's for about ten days and they should have gotten back... I glanced at the clock. About an hour ago. I'd told them I was back and fine but that I'd had to move for reasons I didn't explain and left the new number.
Given that Sunday was usually the day for phone calls, I'd probably hear from them tomorrow.
Except that Lana usually talked to her mom on Saturday afternoons. And as soon as they hung up, her mom would call mine and read her the riot act over what I'd done to her daughter.
Maybe I should just try them again.
The sharp ringing of the phone jolted me.
"I don't suppose you'd mind getting that?" she called from the bathroom. "If it's for me, tell them I'm trying to decide if I'm going to puke or not."
I winced. I'd seen lots of different Lois faces since I met her, but this was the first time I'd seen cranky, sick, pregnant, hormonal, throwing up Lois. I didn't think I liked her.
I rolled towards her side of the bed, where the phone was, and picked it up.
"Hello?" Maybe I'd get really lucky and it was a crank call or wrong number.
"Clark Jerome Kent, what the hell were you thinking?"
Nope. That was Dad, all right. And he *never* middle named me. Only Mom did that. And sometimes Lana. The only good thing was that he hadn't full named me. This was not good. Not that I'd expected it to be.
"Now, Jonathan." Good. Mom's voice sounded much more reasonable. "I'm sure Clark has a perfectly good explanation for why he got another girl pregnant and married her while dating Lana."
Or maybe not.
I covered my face with my hand – the one with that band on it again – and groaned. "Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. Good to hear from you, too."
"Clark, why on earth did we have to hear this from Laura Lang and could you please tell us what happened?"
Oh, I didn't think Mom had been this mad at me since I was twelve and set the living room carpet on fire. I sighed. Here went nothing.
"Lois and I..."
Dad interrupted me. "Your purely platonic roommate Lois?"
"Yeah. Will you let me talk?"
"Jonathan, I'm sure there's a good reason why he's taken leave of his senses. Now let him explain," Mom said.
I sighed again. "Lois and I ended up in another country while we were in Europe. How we got there is a very long story I don't want to get into right now but she didn't have her passport with her." I ran a hand through my hair. "Lois was sick and ended up in the hospital and that's when she found out she was pregnant."
"So when are we going to be grandparents?"
Subtle, Mom. Wanting to know the due date so she could do some mental math and see if I'd been cheating on Lana before or after we came home for Christmas.
"July something."
"I see." Yep, definitely mental math. I could practically hear her gesticulating in Dad's direction.
"This wouldn't have anything to do with that night at the cabin would it?" Dad asked. Yep, she'd been gesticulating, all right.
"Probably." Oh, man. Why had I said that? Probably meant there was more than one possibility. I could see them forgiving one night of indiscretion when we were both practically out of our minds with hypothermia. "Yeah. That night at the cabin." Hopefully, they wouldn’t notice my slip.
"Probably?" Leave it to Mom to notice.
"It was the night at the cabin, okay? Trust me on that."
"I don't think your word means much right now, Son," Dad said quietly. I'd take loud, yelling Dad over quiet Dad any day.
"I know, Dad."
I wished I could tell them the truth. The whole truth. That Lois wasn't pregnant with my baby. That we'd gotten married to keep that Latislani creep away from her and get her home. That'd we'd planned on having it annulled by now. That if we didn't stay married for five years, he could still come after the baby under Latislani law and if he suspected this was a marriage of convenience, he could do the same. And while U. S. law might prevent him from actually taking the baby, it would probably be a long, drawn out, public court battle and that wouldn't be good for anyone. But Lois hadn't told her dad or Joe the whole truth and I didn't see how I could tell my parents without talking to her about it first. I'd told Lana too much.
"So do we get to meet our new daughter-in-law?" Mom asked.
I winced at her tone. "I don’t know when we'll make it to Smallville, Mom. I don't think I’m going to be able to make it home for Spring Break after all."
"You're supposed to be giving Lana a ride back, Clark. How is she supposed to come home if you're not?" Mom had a point.
I hadn't really thought about that. "I'll find a way to get her there – if I have to buy her a plane ticket myself. It's not her fault. None of this is her fault," I said quietly.
"You broke her heart." That was Dad.
"I know. And I can't tell you how much I regret hurting her."
I heard a noise in the bathroom. A gasp and then Lois was calling my name. And it didn't sound good.
"Mom, Dad. I gotta go. I'll call you later." She called again, more urgently.
"We're not done with this, Clark," Dad said firmly.
"I know, but I gotta go. I'll call you tomorrow." I didn't wait to hear anything else, but hung up and hurried to the bathroom.
Lois looked up at me with tear filled eyes. "It hurts." She had grabbed her abdomen and was doubled over, grimacing as she did.
"What is it?"
"I don’t know, but I don't think it's good." The tears finally overflowed and made tracks down her face.
"Do you want me to call your doctor?"
She shook her head. "I think I need to go to the hospital. Something's not right. I know it."
"Okay," I said grimly. I bent down and picked her up easily, moving her to the bed. "What do you need?" She pointed to her purse and her keys. Yeah, she'd probably be more comfortable in her Jeep than my old truck. "Do you mind if I drive your car?" She shook her head. I looked around for my wallet – fortunately, there weren't many places to look and it was in my pocket in an instant. For a minute, I wished I could just scoop her up and fly her to the hospital. We'd certainly be there a lot faster. I shook myself mentally. I handed her the purse and keys and scooped her back up.
"I can walk," she protested.
"I don't think so," I told her. I walked to the door and she was aware enough to open it and then close it behind us, locking it as she did. I carried her down the hall to the elevator where she pushed the button and we waited.
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I don't think I ever realized how strong Clark was. He picked me up like I was nothing. I didn't really want to be this close to him, but I didn't have much choice at the moment. Something was wrong, I knew it was. I couldn't help but rest my head on his shoulder. I'd known he was solid, but I actually almost felt safe again.
The elevator arrived and before I knew it, he was standing me next to my Jeep, holding one hand out for the keys and keeping the other arm wrapped around me. Once he opened the door, he helped me inside, even asking if I needed help with my seatbelt. I didn't. I could do that myself.
We weren't going too far. The hospital was on campus after all, but it was still way too far for me to walk.
Ten minutes later we were in front of the emergency doors at the Ellen Lane Memorial Medical Building. How fitting. Her oldest daughter, knocked up by an unknown male and now in need of medical care.
"Don't move," Clark told me. He needn't have worried. He pulled a wheelchair up next to my door and helped me into it. He left the Jeep where it was and wheeled me inside. "My wife is pregnant and something doesn’t feel right," he told the two nurses at the desk.
His wife. That slipped out awfully naturally. Or maybe he'd been bracing himself for it the whole way here.
One of them looked at me and handed me a clipboard, telling Clark to go move the car and she'd help me get started. After he left, she asked me a few questions about what was happening and reassured me that I'd done the right thing by coming in. It was always better to be safe, she said.
It was pretty slow in the ER, given that it was a Saturday night, but I guessed the drunks wouldn't come in until later. As soon as Clark returned, they took me to the little triage room behind the desk and asked routine questions and did things like take my pulse and my temperature and things like that. I tried to fill out the paperwork while they did that. When they needed my finger to check my oxygen levels, I thrust the clipboard at Clark.
It wasn't that I wanted him to fill it out for me; I just didn't know what else to do with it.
I didn't quite understand the look he gave me, but he started filling in the forms. The pen hovered as they stuck a thermometer in my mouth and he skipped over a question or two. Once they were done weighing me, I was back in the wheelchair and he'd handed the clipboard back to me.
He hadn't said a word.
At least I'd gotten him out of being yelled at by his parents. At least that's what I imagined they were doing when I started to feel weird.
I looked at the form. The first word he'd written jumped out at me.
Last name: Kent.
Back that train up. We'd never talked about me changing my name. I'd certainly never filled out any paperwork to do so. Maybe that was some other obscure Latislanian law I didn't know about.
Except that Daniel had mentioned that it would probably be a good idea, but I hadn't done anything about it yet. One more thing on this week's to do list.
I picked up the pen to fill out some of the rest of the information – he didn't know my Social Security Number and hadn't filled in anything about my next of kin or emergency contacts. Maybe he wasn't sure if I wanted to put him or my dad. Or maybe he just didn't get to it.
Quickly I filled it in, then decisively, scratched through Kent and replaced it with Lane, crossing through the check he'd put by the 'Mrs.' box and checking the 'Ms.' one instead.
If he noticed, he didn't say anything.
We stopped moving in a small room. The nurse told me to keep my bra and underwear on and change into a gown that was only slightly thicker than paper. She also handed me a cup and pointed me in the direction of the attached bathroom.
Great.
I hadn't kept any fluids down in hours and they wanted me to pee in a cup. And I wasn't quiet about what I thought about that.
Clark cringed.
Who cared? He wasn't the one dealing with all of this. He was probably just upset that he couldn't sneak off to see Lana again tonight.
I managed to get something into the cup and changed clothes, holding the open back of the gown closed as I made my way to the bed.
"Okay, Lois, lay on your left side for me," the nurse – her name tag identifying her as Angie – told me.
I nodded and lay down. I'd read that the left side made for better blood flow to the baby or something. Fortunately, that also meant my back was to the wall. That was good.
"From the sound of it, you're probably dehydrated and that can cause cramping."
"Yeah, I read that."
She smiled at me. "You did the right thing by coming. The doctor will be in in a few minutes and if he agrees, we'll get an IV and some meds started for you." She set an emesis basin on the bed. "Just in case."
Clark was studiously ignoring me, instead focusing on the exciting pattern of spackle on the wall. Finally, he said something. "Lois..." And then the doctor walked in.
*****
TBC
