Last time:
Lois
"That's got to be hard on you," he said after a long moment. "Knowing your husband still loves someone else but wants to try to make things work with you."
I shrugged and tried to keep the tears in. "It's hard. I was getting ready to try again with my sometimes-boyfriend when all this happened. We've been friends since we were little and have dated casually off and on for couple years but on the way to Europe he asked if we could try again to have a serious relationship and I wanted to." I took a deep breath. "Then Clark and I got stuck in Europe and found out I was pregnant and... We both remembered just enough to realize this is his baby, but both of us thought we'd been hallucinating about that night or something."
I swiped at my eyes again. "I know Clark and Lana would probably be engaged right now if it wasn't for all this – if she could accept the stuff he told me last night anyway. I know he's promised me that he's never alone with her, that he doesn't see her outside of class or random accidental meetings around campus, but I know that he still loves her. And while Joe's been one of my best friends for as long as I can remember, it's not the same as Clark and Lana."
I didn't know when I'd stopped walking, but I had and a minute later, Jonathan was holding me and letting me cry.
*~*53*~*
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
Dad called up the stairs that he and Lois were going for a walk. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not, but if anyone could understand how she felt having the whole 'Clark is an alien' thing dropped on her, it was Dad.
I helped Mom strip the sheets off the bed and then threw them in the washer.
"Lois seems to be taking it pretty well," Mom said when I got back.
"She didn't say much last night," I told her as I tried to decide what the best way to move the bed into my room.
"This morning either."
There was something else she wasn't saying. Years of knowing her had taught me she'd get to it eventually.
"I don't think she's all that upset about you," Mom continued. "At least not about all those aspects of you." She didn't even look at me as she hoisted one corner of the bed in the air until I finally took it from her and started moving it out the door. "I think she's probably a bit more upset about the fact that you're still in love with your ex-girlfriend than she is that you’re an alien." She hurried on, not giving me a chance to protest, even though we both knew the protest would be half-hearted and weak. "I don't think she loves you quite like that either, but that's not the point. From everything you've said, you've been gone a lot lately. And, to a certain extent, I can understand why. You've had a lot to work through. But I don't know that you've stopped to think about Lois. I mean *really* think about her."
She took a breath and kept going. "She found herself in a foreign country, basically alone without a passport and only one friend who knew anything about it. Then, in that other country, with doctors she doesn't know and no family around, she finds out that she's having a baby. And part of having a baby is hormones and being emotional and all that goes along with that. She realizes that, in order to be pregnant, she must have had sex at some point, but I know she wasn't sleeping with Joe and only vaguely remembers what happened at the cabin with you, so that had to catch her *completely* off-guard."
She'd kept talking in the same tone of voice, the same volume, as I maneuvered the mattress down the hall onto the stairs where it would be out of the way until we were ready for it. I couldn't really move it nearly as fast as I had my old bed – it was just too large and unwieldy in halls that were too small.
"My guess," she continued, "is that once you found out she was pregnant, you realized what happened wasn't a dream or hallucination or whatever after all. One of you finally said something to the other one and enough of it came back to both of you that you were sure that you are the father of the baby. You made it back to the States and she went to see Joe. She wasn't all that serious about him to start with, even though they were going to try again, but ending things with Joe wasn't going to be nearly as difficult for her as it was for you with Lana and she knew that. Pregnancy hormones can do weird things to a woman and she probably imagined all sorts of things happened when you went to break up with Lana. She probably wondered if you kissed her, if she kissed you, if you were tempted to make love with Lana, if you actually *did* make love with Lana."
I was in my room when she said that. "I didn't!" I hollered at her.
"Oh, I didn't think you would cheat on your wife, but that doesn't mean that those thoughts didn't go through Lois' head." She was folding up the dust ruffle as I came back in the room. I wasn't sure why she was folding it because we were going to put it back on in just a minute. "And you've been gone a lot since then. I'm sure you've told her that you don't go see Lana when you're studying or if you get off early from work, but it would surprise me if she didn't at least think it sometimes. And when you aren't home, what's she doing? Does she hang out with her friends? Would you be concerned about her spending time with Joe the same way she might be if you spent time with Lana? Would it matter to you if she was still in love with Joe like you're still in love with Lana? Except that she was never in love with Joe like you were – like you probably still are – with Lana. What does she do while you're working or studying away from the apartment?"
I moved both of the boxes into my room as she talked and then returned for the metal frame and tried to avoid the guilt trip that was coming on.
The well-deserved guilt trip.
"Her body's changing. She's got to be scared about being a mom and her mom isn't around to help her adjust. She's estranged from her dad, for the most part, and she doesn't have anyone else to turn to with any practical experience, but she's about to do this whether she's ready to or not. I would imagine that she's concerned about what life's going to be like. She doesn't know where she's going to live in a few weeks much less what's going to happen to her education and career aspirations now that she's going to have a baby at nineteen, right after her freshman year of college. She probably wonders how much of the workload you're going to take on. If you're going to be home any more than you are now or if she's going to essentially be as alone as she would be if you *weren't* married."
The metal frame was set up and I stared at the room trying to figure out the best way to arrange it. The desk was going to have to move. I sighed as I lifted it carefully out of the way.
"I think all of that concerns her a lot more than the fact that you can start fires with your eyes or fly."
By then I'd set the boxes back in place and we flipped the dust ruffle over it.
Mom had stopped talking, apparently done with what she had to say. And she'd had plenty to say – plenty I hadn't really thought about before while I was wallowing. But she didn't understand the whole situation either.
I brought the mattress in and heard the buzzer go off on the washing machine. I zipped down the stairs and brought the sheets up. I dried them as we stretched them over the mattress – it was much faster than waiting for the dryer.
"Have I mentioned how handy you are to have around?" Mom asked with a smile as she put the pillowcase on and held it up for me to dry, turning it to let me get the other side. We did the same with the other pillow as I put the comforter on.
"Once or twice." I grinned at her.
"Wait here and don't peek." She left the room and returned a moment later. A minute later, she returned pushing a bassinet. "This was yours when I moved back in with Nana and Pop Pop. I don't know if you need it in Metropolis, but I thought we could leave it in here if you don't and you can use it when you come visit." She pushed it into the corner. She wrapped an arm around my waist and rested her head against me. I put my arm around her shoulder and wondered what it was she was going to say next.
As I expected, her voice was soft. "It was Chris'. Grandma Davis gave it to me when I moved out of Chris' house. I know he only knew you for about twelve hours, but he loved you so much." A tear streaked down her cheek. She didn't talk about him like this very often. "We'd always talked about having children together, but we didn't expect to find the first one in a space ship in Shuster's Field. I told Lois this earlier today and I'm going to tell you, too. I don't regret for one minute that Chris went that night. He was needed and I wouldn’t trade Josh for Chris for the world. He didn't want to go, but he had to and he knew it. I don't regret Chris' death, but I do wish we'd gotten married when I got back from college. We would have had six months together. Don't waste time with Lois now. It's going to be a long time before it's just the two of you again, especially if you have more children someday."
I wasn't sure what to say about that, but was relieved when I heard the door open. "They're back," I said turning and giving her a big hug. "Love you, Mom."
"I love you, too."
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
We'd been in Smallville for five days and Clark had asked if I'd mind giving him some time alone with his parents so I'd decided to turn in early. The bed was huge and very comfortable. Martha and Jonathan hadn't gone for cheap sheets and they were much better than the ones at the apartment. We'd slept on it three times and we may as well have been in separate zip codes, which was fine with me.
Martha had brought me a body pillow and I hugged it to me. I hadn't seen much of Clark all day and that was fine with me. I wondered what his parents thought about that. He hadn't even touched me intentionally since the hug when we first arrived. Well, and when he'd flown - *flown* - me back to the house the next night. It was nice to not have to pretend we were sappy and in love and all that, but going to the other extreme wasn't what I'd expected either.
I wasn't in love with him and he wasn't in love with me. I didn't care about that, but I *did* care about losing my friend. I'd spent time working on my English paper, losing myself in past pain instead of present confusion. It was nearly done. I wasn't sure what Clark had spent his time doing. I knew he'd finished his paper but he and his dad had disappeared doing farm stuff the last couple of days. I'd had some nice talks with Martha, but she had things to do, too, so I'd ended up spending quite a bit of the last couple days on my own. It didn't really bother me. The pervading sense of aloneness was becoming more familiar as the months went on.
I'd always been pretty self-sufficient in the sense that I didn't *need* to be surrounded by other people all the time. I'd never been a *loner* but I'd never had any problem spending time by myself. I read books, I wrote. I worked on my great American novel from time to time. I wrote short stories for the fun of it. I was even contemplating writing an NCIS story. I'd read a couple that were nice, but I wasn't happy with the outcome and thought if they could do it, surely I could, too.
Since the night they'd moved the new bed into Clark's room, he'd managed to stay up until after I was asleep and was up long before me. I knew he slept in there with me, but only because his side of the bed was rumpled and there was an indentation on his pillow.
As I stared out the window, hugging the pillow to me, I felt it again.
The baby moved.
Tears filled my eyes as I remembered the first time I'd felt it – when Clark was with me. It had been very nice, sharing that with Clark; sharing something about this baby with him besides my evening sickness or whatever it was. Of course, then Cruella had come along and ruined it.
I rested my hand on my stomach and waited. A minute later, I felt it again.
Tears streaked down my cheeks. It wasn't like I wanted to share all this with Clark, necessarily, but this wasn't how I'd pictured having my first baby. When I'd thought about having a baby, I figured I'd be out of college for a while, married for a few years to a guy I loved and who loved me. We probably would have had a lot of fun trying to get pregnant and then spent the next nine months getting a nursery ready and reveling in the changes. I would have been scared that he wouldn't find me attractive when I was the size of a house, but he would reassure me that there was nothing sexier than knowing I was having his baby.
This wasn't what I would have pictured and certainly not what I would have chosen.
I hadn't wanted a baby. I didn't even remember having sex. But now that this was happening... I wouldn't stop it. I *wanted* this baby. I could begin to imagine what my mom had gone through her senior year of high school when she was pregnant with a baby that wasn't my dad's, but I wasn't going to give this baby up for adoption.
I'd been thinking again about meeting my half-brother's family and I wanted to, but that meant talking to my dad and I wasn't sure I wanted to do that. I knew he didn't know the reason for the distance between us the last few months; that he didn't understand. Mindy had the wool completely over his eyes.
Maybe I'd just email him.
I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, but they went across the hall. I closed my eyes, willing myself to sleep before Clark came up.
*****
TBC
