Thanks - as always - to Alicia, Beth, Nancy and CarolynK.
Am posting this a bit early and I may end up posting very early tomorrow too [like 8-9am ET] since we have doctor's appointments in the morning, fall party in the afternoon and church tomorrow night.
Bonus points to whoever suggested Miss Moneypenny [Lara?].
Also - in 41, is the stuff about the paper they have to write clear? The instructions that is.
><~><~><~>< in 41 is a flasback.
This chapter is also from Clark's POV - no change between chapters again...
Last time:
Clark
She looked at me, surprised. "Really? When were you two going to get married?"
I shrugged. "Sometime," I told her being vague, unsure why I'd commented at all.
"Tell me."
"This summer," I finally said. "We probably would have gotten married this summer."
There was a short bark of laughter from the bed. "When were you planning on proposing if you were going to marry her this summer?"
"In Paris." I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. "I talked to her dad over Christmas and told him I wanted to propose to her while we were in Europe. I didn't discuss when we'd get married with him, but it probably would have been this summer."
"So the night you went with me to Latislan was the night you were planning on proposing to her?"
"Something like that."
"Then why on earth did you go with me?"
For a minute, I didn't say anything. Why *had* I gone with her?
*~*40*~*
I sighed. I knew why I had gone. "I couldn't let you get hurt and I really didn't think we were going to be gone for several days," I pointed out. "The whole thing got way out of hand really quickly."
"It did that." She picked at the comforter. "You should have stayed."
"And what would you have done? If I hadn't been there, if I hadn't claimed the baby and we hadn't gotten married... what would have happened to you?" I knew what Navance had told me he'd planned for her – and the baby – but I wasn’t about to tell her that.
"I'd probably be some Latislani general's love slave by now. Or more likely I'd be dead or in prison because I wouldn't be some Latislani general's love slave."
"So I should have let you and the baby die so I could propose to Lana?" I wasn't understanding her logic.
"You didn't know I was pregnant," she pointed out.
"That's not the point. I can't believe that you think I'd rather spend time with Lana – even if it was proposing to her – than save your life." I was incredulous. Sure things might not have turned out as planned, but to think that letting her die was the preferable option just didn't make sense to me.
She just shrugged. "You wouldn't be married to me now. You wouldn't be the guy that cheated on his girlfriend with his roommate and knocked her up and got stuck marrying her. And I wouldn't be the girl who seduced her half-dead roommate at her dad's cabin and then guilted him into marrying her and who's ignorant that he's still got a thing going on the side with his girlfriend."
"We don't have a thing going on the side," I pointed out.
"That's not the point either. My point is, that why was it necessary to ruin both our lives? Or really all three of them. Or four if you count the baby."
I stood again and stared at her, flabbergasted. "You think that by saving your life and the baby's life by marrying you, I ruined mine?"
"Didn't you?"
Answering questions with questions again. "I can't believe that. You're one of my best friends, Lois, even if we've been in a weird place the last few weeks. I would *die* to protect you."
"Dying's easy," she muttered.
I shook my head slightly. "What? You think it would be easy for me to die to save you?"
"A lot easier than living to save me," she shot back. "You jump in front of a bullet for me and you're gone. Dead. The end. You marry me and you're stuck with me for five years. Your love life is on hold. Your girl may or may not wait for you. Everyone thinks we're a couple of losers but for different reasons. You have to see your ex, who would be your fiancé right now, every day and convince yourself that some words you said in front of a chaplain half a world away mean that you can't take her somewhere and do what you've wanted to do for years – make love to her. You're stuck with a wife, who's fat and pregnant and hormonal and can't take care of herself, much less you most of the time. You're trapped in a loveless, sexless marriage because of some military bastard in Europe and you can honestly tell me that it wouldn't be easier to just have died to save me?"
I just stared at her. "I wouldn't have married you if I didn't mean it – regardless of how long I thought it was going to last. It *did* occur to me that, for some reason, we wouldn't be able to get it annulled as soon as we got back and we might have to stay married for a while and there was still no question in my mind that I'd do it – I *couldn't* leave you there – no matter what."
"This wasn't supposed to be Lana's was it?" She pulled her wedding band off her finger and held it up.
"What? No. I got these in Latislan while you were in the hospital."
"I thought you were broke while we were in Europe. That you had just enough to get by on and that was it," she said angrily, putting the ring back on her finger.
I ran my hand through my hair. I hadn't planned on telling her how I got our wedding bands – or how I'd paid for the wedding even though the actual dollar amount wasn't all that high.
She called me on that too. "And how'd we pay for the wedding itself? I mean, it couldn't have been that expensive, could it? But you were broke. Do you have some huge credit card bill that I don't know about but now that we're married I'm half responsible for?"
I shook my head. "No."
"So, how'd we pay for it? There wasn't any money missing from my purse. Or did the Latislani government give us a marriage license out of the kindness of their hearts?"
"It was an American wedding license and I paid for it." <Drop it, Lois,> I told her mentally.
I should have known better. "So how was it paid for?"
"I sold Lana's ring, okay?" I stared at the floor. I couldn't look at her. I'd saved for two years to buy that ring. Every penny I didn't need for something else went into a Smallville Community Bank savings account. I'd bought it when I went to Kansas City with my parents while I was home for Christmas. I'd even managed to do it without them knowing about it – which was a good thing now.
"You sold the engagement ring you were planning on giving your girlfriend so we could get married?"
"Yeah."
"Did you get fair market value for it?"
I looked at her, sitting on the bed, her cheeks still tear stained, looking hurt and defiant. "Close enough."
"I mean it, Clark. How much did you pay for that ring?"
I sighed and told her.
"And how much did you sell it for?"
"I sold it to one of the embassy Marines. It doesn't matter how much I got for it. He got a good deal and a ring for his girl and I got you out of there."
"It matters to me."
"Fine." I told her that, too. "It was enough to get the license and a couple of wedding bands for us. That's all I asked him for."
She rolled to her side of the bed and dug around in the side table until she pulled a checkbook out. She grabbed a pen off the top of the table and wrote furiously inside. She pulled the check off and held it out to me.
"What's that?"
"The difference."
"What difference?"
"The difference between what you paid for Lana's ring and what you got for it, plus half of what he paid you to cover my half of the license and my ring."
"I don't want it."
She shrugged. "It's money my dad gave me access to for emergencies. If I'd known we needed it, I could have gotten to it in Latislan and you wouldn't have had to sell Lana's ring."
I shook my head. "It was my choice, Lois. I'm not going to take it."
"Take it. Daddy can afford it – at least for now – and if I'd known in Latislan, there wouldn't have been any question about it, would there?"
I sighed. "I'm still not taking it."
The phone rang, granting me a reprieve.
"You can get that," she told me. "I don't want to talk to anyone right now."
I walked around the bed and picked up the receiver. "Hello?"
"Hey, honey!"
"Hi, Mom," I said weakly.
She knew something was wrong. She always knew. That's probably why she called. "What's wrong?" Yep. She knew.
"Nothing." What was I supposed to tell her? You interrupted a fight with my wife over my girlfriend – or ex-girlfriend – or whatever. Yeah, that would go over well.
"That's not nothing."
"Nothing I want to talk about," I told her.
"Fight with Lois?" she asked sympathetically.
I didn't respond immediately. "Yeah," I finally said.
"You still owe us that whole story," she reminded me.
"I know, Mom, and you'll get it. I promise." I hadn't gotten talked to them when all three of us had time to hash this all out. But I hadn't tried very hard either.
"Oh, I know we will. But that's not what I called about. I wanted to talk to you about something."
I stretched the long phone cord over the bed where Lois now lay curled up on her side and studiously ignoring me. I sat back on the loveseat. "What's that?"
"Money."
I cringed. "I figured this was coming."
"We told you if you and Lana got married before you finished college, you'd be on your own."
"I know."
"But you didn't marry Lana."
"No, I didn't."
"But you are a married man now."
"I know."
"So, we're left with the dilemma about whether or not we continue to send you financial support."
I sighed. That sounded like I was being cut off. And they were probably right to. If I was grown-up enough to get married and get a girl pregnant, not in that order but the truth as they knew it, I was grown-up enough to take care of my wife and baby.
"Your marriage to Lois caught us off-guard – and I'm guessing it caught the two of you off guard too."
"It did, Mom. Believe me, it did."
"And you two weren't financially prepared for it, were you?"
"Not exactly."
"Is she still getting any support from her dad?"
"I don't know," I replied honestly. "We haven't talked about it. I'm not even sure she knows."
"You need to," she told me gently. "Money fights are one of the leading causes of divorce. You have to talk about it."
I couldn't tell her Latislani dictators were going to be the reason for our divorce. "I will talk to her about it, I promise."
"Do either of you have jobs right now?"
"No," I said quietly, still ashamed that getting one hadn't even occurred to me like I knew it would have if I'd married Lana.
"And Lois getting one probably isn't a good plan right now, is it?"
I leaned back and put my feet back up. "No. The baby's taking a lot out of her. I don't think she could handle anything else on top of school." I hadn't taken my eyes off of Lois as I spoke and she tensed up when I said that.
"*Can* you get a job? With all your schoolwork and helping take care of Lois could you handle a job?"
"Probably. I've never needed much sleep so that would help, but I haven't really looked into it yet."
"Have you told her about that yet?" Mom asked as gently as she could.
They were disappointed enough in me, and I hated that. I knew if we told them the whole truth they'd support us no matter what and even try to help us find some kind of loophole or something, but we'd agreed that no one would know the whole truth. Lana knew too much as it was. And this was just one more reason for them to be disappointed in me.
"I'll take your silence as a 'no'," she finally said. "But we'll talk about that later."
<Don't count on it, Mom,> I said to myself. I wasn't going to tell her anytime soon.
"But back to the money thing."
Right. Back to that. "What about it?"
"Your dad and I talked about it a lot the last couple weeks and we're going to keep sending the money we have been on a couple of conditions."
Great. Conditions. Who knew what my mom had concocted. "What conditions?"
"As long as Lois doesn't need you at home to help take care of her – like if she ends up on bed rest or something – you get a job."
"That sounds... reasonable," I told her.
"It is. We seriously considered cutting it off all together because of the way you've handled things, but that wouldn't affect just you anymore and that's something else you need to realize," she said firmly. "It would have affected Lois and our grandbaby and you already said she's in no shape to work right now. That leaves you and I doubt you can make enough to support the three of you at the moment, not without help from us and her dad – which you're not sure is still coming. And she may need you to stay home with her more than either of you think and that would hinder how much you can work too. It's not just about you anymore, son. I know you always looked out for Lana, but this is different. This is your *wife* and your *child* we're talking about."
"I know that, Mom. Believe me, I know that." I ran a hand down my weary face and noted Lois' slowed heartbeat. It sounded like she was finally getting some much needed rest. That was good and it meant she wouldn't interrogate me about this later.
"Okay, so job. Second, you have to tell her about yourself. Soon. She deserves to know that."
I should have known. "I don't know if I can, Mom."
"It doesn't matter if you *can*, Clark. She's your wife and she's having your baby. She has to know. And since she's your wife, I'm going to assume you're making love to her on a semi-regular basis and we talked about that years ago. That it wouldn't be responsible of you to do that with Lana – or anyone else – without telling her about yourself. We talked about it and we could understand some hypothermic induced haze – and we still don't understand how that happened to you..."
"I don't either," I interrupted. "And, while I'm not sure it's anybody's business but mine and Lois', she hasn't had the energy for that kind of thing." No, I wasn't making love to my wife on a regular basis, but they didn't need to know why. And I *had* told the truth. There was no way Lois would have had the energy for that since we got married.
"Good. Not good that she doesn't have the energy, but good that you're man enough not to push her when she's like this."
"I would never do that, Mom!" I said louder than I meant to. I lowered my voice as Lois stirred. "She may be my wife, but I'd never push her into something she didn't want – for whatever reason."
"I didn't think so, but it's still good to hear." She took a deep breath. "And one other thing."
"What? Do you want a copy of her medical records to prove I'm the father?" My voice dripped with sarcasm – the kind my mom hated, the kind that always got me in trouble.
"Clark Jerome Davis Kent! I don't care if you are married, you will not speak to me with that tone of voice."
I knew I shouldn't have done it – it was the one thing guaranteed to get me full named. "Yes, ma'am," I said contritely.
"For the record, we believe you, but we also think a DNA test would be a very bad idea."
"I know. I do, too." And only partly for the same reasons they did. Also because a DNA test would *prove* the baby wasn't mine.
"Okay, so the other thing. We want to talk to you about all of this in person. Soon."
"I don't know when I can make it Smallville, Mom," I said evasively.
"Nonsense. You could be here in a few minutes if you wanted to. We're willing to wait until Spring Break. If Lois can't come – or isn't up to coming because of being sick or whatever – that's fine, you'll stay in Metropolis and fly out to see us one night. If she's up for travelling with you that way, she can come too. If she's up to the road trip, we want you two to come here for Break. We'll pay for gas and one hotel room each way. Nothing fancy, but a bed for her to sleep in so she's not on the road for over 20 hours straight."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And, for whatever reason we still don't understand, you two got into this. You were Lana's ride home for Break so, if you do come, you'll have to at least offer to bring her with you. If the two of you aren't comfortable sharing a hotel room with her, then you'll have to spring for the second one yourself, got it?"
I groaned. Both of them would absolutely hate that. They hadn't really been friends before all of this started and sharing the same suite hadn't been a whole lot of fun. Sharing a car – probably Lois' beloved Jeep – with them for a total of four days was going to be a nightmare.
"You have to live up to your obligations, Clark. And one obligation you had was to bring Lana back here for Break. Even though you two aren't a couple anymore, you owe it to her to at least offer to bring her with you if you're coming anyway."
"I'll talk to Lois," I promised. "She mentioned that you'd said something about it when you talked to her a couple weeks ago and she said then she'd think about it."
"We love you, Clark. And by extension that means we love Lois and the baby, even though we've never met her – or we want to, at least and we want to get to know our daughter-in-law. And while you'll always be our son and part of our family, you have your own family to take care of now."
I sighed. She was right. "I know, Mom. I haven't been doing a great job at that, I know that, but I'm trying to do better. I promise. I was thinking a little while ago that I need to get a job soon."
"We love you, very much."
"I know, Mom. I love both of you, too."
"You sound tired."
"I am."
"Then why don't you get some rest and we'll talk again soon."
"Thanks, Mom."
"I mean what we said though. If you don't get a job and tell her everything by the time you talk to us over Spring Break, the checks *will* stop."
"I know, Mom. I get it."
"Give Lois a hug for me."
"Will do." Well, I wouldn't really, but she didn't need to know that.
We said good night and hung up. She'd given me a lot to think about, but it was nice to know that they were still going to send some money. It wasn't much but it would help. And we weren't going to have a place to live come mid-May. Many of the other couples in the building – those that wanted to live on campus – had applied for the apartments that would be vacated in mid-May by graduates or couples moving for other reasons. Those now had a waiting list. Getting us into this apartment had been a minor miracle. Getting us into one for the summer was going to be impossible. Unless Sam, by some chance, decided to let us stay with him and Lois was willing to do so, we were going to have to find a place off-campus to live.
I'd had my head in the sand for way too long already. I needed to figure out how I was going to provide for my wife and baby no matter how we'd ended up here.
*****
TBC
