Last time:
Clark
"Princess!" Sam came out of the same doors Lois and I had.
Lois gave him a hug. "Hi, Daddy."
"Hi, Clark." He held out a hand and I shook it.
"Hi, Sam." I smiled awkwardly at him, not sure why we were here and why I had a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach about it.
He put his arm around Lois. "Vicki said dinner's ready and Mindy's looking forward to seeing you again and to meeting Clark."
Lois' smile looked forced and her tone was off. "Can't wait, Daddy."
*~*55*~*
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I trailed behind Daddy and Clark as they headed inside. As they headed into the kitchen, Mindy came around the corner and stopped me.
"Punkie, I'm so glad you could come *visit* us," she said in the saccharine voice that grated on every nerve I ever had.
"Hi, Mindy," I said warily, wondering if she knew Clark and I had stowed away on that plane.
"Listen, Punkie, you don't want to hurt your Daddy, I know that, but you're a grown-up girl and pregnant and married and everything."
"I'd never hurt my dad," I told her, wondering where she was going.
"Well, grown-up girls who know what's good for them and their babies, don't move back in with Daddy, when the going gets a little tough."
My blood ran cold. It sure sounded like she knew. "What are you talking about?"
"I know you're still using your Daddy's money sometimes and I know he didn't have the heart to tell you to stop. And I know your apartment building on campus is about to close, so I wouldn't want you to hurt my Hunkie by giving him some sob story about how you don't have anywhere else to go and you want to move back in here. You're a big girl, Pookie, and you have a big, strong husband to take care of you. You shouldn't guilt trip my Hunkie into letting you live here." Her voice changed suddenly. It was much deeper and much more menacing. "You will regret it if you do."
She turned to walk off and Dad walked through the door way as she did. "Hi, Snookums. Is dinner ready yet?"
Dad gave me an odd look as she put her arm around his waist and he belatedly put his arm around her shoulder. "You coming, Princess?"
I nodded. "Coming."
We sat in the breakfast nook, though Daddy and I had never really used it for that. Breakfast was usually at the bar in the kitchen. Dinner, when we had real sit down dinners, was eaten here.
This table sat six. The table in the big dining room sat twenty and we only used it for dinner parties of some kind. And really, 'dinner party' was a fancy term for a bunch of friends over for dinner and games. Our home didn't really compare to most of the ones in the area. It was as big as most, though not as big as some, but the interior was comfy and not the sterile formality that invaded most of the others.
This dinner, however, was different than most of the ones I'd been a part of here.
Daddy and Clark tried to carry on a conversation, but it revolved mostly around sports. Mindy said a few brainless things here and there. When dinner was over, Daddy pushed his plate back and took a deep breath.
"Princess, there's something I wanted to talk to you and Clark about."
This was it. I could see the gleam in Mindy's eye. He wanted to marry her. Clark and I hadn't done anything to try to stop her, but we hadn't said more than a few words to each other at a time in weeks.
"I saw your apartment the other day, and if I'd known what they were like, I never would have suggested you live there. I remember living there with your mom and..." He shook his head. "They weren't luxury apartments by any stretch of the imagination, but they were comfortable and clean. Have you two found a place to live yet, that you can afford?"
Clark and I glanced at each other. "Not yet, Daddy," I told him.
"What about childcare? Are you going to be able to work schedules around each other so one of you can stay with the baby? Are you going to be able to go to school, Lois?"
I sighed. "We haven't really figured it all out yet." I looked at Clark out of the corner of my eye. He was staring at the placemat.
He nodded. "I know how important a degree is and especially how important it is to you, Pumpkin, so here's the deal. I want you two to move in here. I'll pay for certain expenses. To decorate one of the rooms as a nursery and some clothes and things like that. I'll hire a nanny to take care of the baby while you're both in school or at work, but that's it. When one of you is home, the baby is your responsibility. That will also cover two date nights a month and a weekend away every few months. You two will need to be comfortable with whoever is hired, of course, so you'll be involved in every step of the hiring process. Once the baby's here though, you're responsible for the rest of the expenses. Diapers, formula, all those things you two will have to pay for. And you'll both have to work part-time. I know it may not seem fair, Clark, but you're already working and that's commendable, but Lois doesn't need to get a job just yet. Lois, you won't have to get a job right after the baby's born, but we'll talk about later how long your 'maternity leave' is." He used finger quotes.
My chest was constricting. What he was offering was a dream come true in many ways.
The only problem – especially after the conversation right before dinner – was sitting across the table from me, her eyes narrowing and mouth setting in a finer line with every one of Dad's sentences.
Clark cleared his throat and looked nervously at me when Mindy spoke.
"Snookie," she said, running her hand on my dad's arm. "Can I talk to you for a few minutes before they answer?"
He glanced at us, then nodded. "Why don't you two talk it over and we'll be right back."
"She'll never let us stay," I whispered as soon as they were out of earshot. "She already told me that."
"Would you want to? If it wasn't for her?"
"It's better than anything we could afford. Plus daycare is taken care of," I pointed out. "I didn't have any idea what we were going to do about that."
Clark tilted his head to one side. "Want to know what they're saying?"
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
Lois' eyes were wide. "What?"
"I can hear them."
"You can?" She looked shocked for a minute. "Oh, right. The hearing thing."
I nodded. "So? Do you want to know?"
She nodded back.
I tuned in my hearing and lowered my glasses to watch.
><~><~><
"Hunkie, are you sure that's a good idea? They're grown-ups now. They're having a baby. Surely, Clark can take care of his own family."
Sam shook his head. "No, Mindy. She's my daughter and they need help getting through school. I'm not going to stand by when I can help her finish school and take care of my grandbaby. Otherwise it's going to take her years to get through and she'll lose her scholarship and she's very proud of that."
"But, Snookie..."
"I know what that apartment looked like and I know what they're likely to be able to afford on the kind of money they'll make as college students trying to work opposite schedules so they don't have to pay a babysitter. It'll be hell on both of them and their marriage."
Mindy ran a finger down the middle of his chest, stopping in the middle of his stomach. There was a pathetic pout on her face. "Hunkie, I can't just stand here and watch you help them become dependent on you. Watch them take advantage of you."
Sam shook his head again. "If they want to move in, they will. Nothing you can say is going to change my mind."
"Even if I said I couldn’t be a part of them taking advantage of you, trying to get you to pay for everything they should."
"Are you giving me an ultimatum?" Sam asked with narrowed eyes.
"I wouldn't put it quite that way, Snookums."
"Mindy, I will not choose between you and my daughter."
"Snookums..." She took a step closer to him and pouted again. "I think you may have to. Lois has said she won't live here with me; that she doesn't like me at all. She'll do everything she can to make my life miserable."
Sam frowned. "Has she threatened you?"
Mindy nodded. "She has, Hunkie."
Sam sighed and was silent for a long minute, looking at her. "Mindy, I think maybe it would be best if you moved out, regardless of what happens with Lois."
"What, Hunkie?"
"I've been slowly coming to the realization that this isn't working for me anymore. I think it's best if you moved out."
><~><~><
I kept half an ear on the conversation between them, but didn't feel I should eavesdrop any further.
"So what do you think?" I asked her.
"Do you think he means it about her moving out?"
I nodded. "It looked and sounded like it." I concentrated for a minute more. "He's not giving in."
She closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God. I think he may have heard what she said earlier."
He nodded. "He did. So did I. I started to go interrupt but I don't think he wanted me to. I think he wanted to hear exactly what happened."
"I think I'm glad he did."
He nodded again in agreement. "So what do you think? Do you want to move in here? Take your dad up on his offer?"
"Can we even afford an apartment?" she asked me quietly. "Much less everything a baby needs and daycare and everything else? Am I going to be able to stay in school any other way?" She fiddled with a fork she hadn't used during dinner. "I don't even know how much you make. I don't know what options we have. I even thought about hacking into your bank account so I knew what kind of apartment complexes to be calling, but I couldn't bring myself to do that and I..." She paused for a second. "Then I just felt guilty because I'm not working, but even though I'm not sleeping as much, I have so little energy most of the time and I don't know how I'd manage a job. I've done a little bit of writing online that I've gotten paid a few bucks here and there for, but not much at all. But somehow, I get the feeling that the only way we'd be able to afford something is if only one of us worked and only one of us was in school and we didn't use daycare at all."
Part of me felt a little guilty for not talking to her about all of this, but I had been looking at apartments that we could afford on what I was making and I'd had no desire to even show them to her. Some were worse than what we had, some were better but undesirable for many other reasons. And she'd shut me out in Smallville for some reason I still didn't understand.
Of course, I hadn't told her about the email I'd gotten – or at least not all of the details of it. That was part of – a big part of – the reason I'd continued to shut myself off from her.
Basically, we weren't talking to each other about much of anything.
I sighed. "It would be harder for Navance to get at either one of you here," I finally said.
She nodded. "It would probably be safest for us here. Are you okay with it?"
To be honest the idea relieved me a bit. I still hadn't figured out what we were going to do and this would take a lot of pressure off until we got out of college and by then this would almost be over. I nodded back. "I think it's probably the best plan."
Sam came back in just then.
"Everything okay, Daddy?" Lois asked innocently.
He nodded. "Fine. What did you two decide?"
Lois glanced at me. "After the semester's over, if that's okay with you."
"That's fine." He grinned suddenly. "It's been way too long since we've had a baby around here."
Lois gave a small smile. "It won't be too much longer."
He motioned to us. "Come on, I'll show you what I was thinking for you guys."
We both stood and followed him. We went through the kitchen and between the two circular staircases, then through the library, down a few steps and then up a full staircase. I thought I might need a map to figure out how to get around this place. We got to the top of the stairs and took a right. On the right was a nice set of double doors. We went in those.
The door was sort of set at an angle, but on the opposite wall was a couple of windows with a very nice fireplace in between them. To the right was a good-sized walk-in closet; to the left was the bed and on the other side of it, doors to the bathroom. In the right corner by the window was a large chair and there was another chair and a love seat in front of the fireplace. A large, flat TV hung over it.
I turned my attention back to Sam, who was speaking. "I was thinking that you two could have this room and we could put a door in to the next one." He led us out onto the veranda and into the next room.
Not quite as big, it was currently just another bedroom.
"We could turn this into the nursery," he said, standing just inside the door. "Put a door over there into your room." He pointed to his left and then to his right. "And put a door over there into the next room and the nanny could live there so if you are gone overnight or whatever, she'd be close by."
Lois was nodding. "Sounds good to me."
Sam turned my direction. "Clark?"
I looked around. "Honestly, sir, I'm overwhelmed by your generosity. Whatever you think is best will work just fine, I'm sure."
He nodded. "And we can set aside one of the apartments in the other wing for your parents to use whenever they come to visit. There's two apartments over there with a door in between them. If your parents would accept it, I'll gladly make arrangements for them and any of your grandparents or other family who might want to come to be flown out here once Lois goes into labor."
"I'm sure they'd appreciate that. I'll let them know."
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I looked around the room. I really hoped Mindy was moving out but Daddy hadn't told us yet that she was.
It was certainly big enough for a baby's room and the one next to it was about the same size as the one I'd used growing up. The closet in here was a bit bigger than my old room which would be nice if I was going to have to share it. And this bathroom had a double sink instead of the single sink I'd grown up with and that Clark and I were sharing at the apartment.
Daddy kept talking about how we could redecorate the bedrooms if we wanted to. All I wanted was to make sure we got the absolutely biggest bed possible. I missed the bed from Smallville. We still kept as much distance between us as we could, but that was nearly impossible in the double bed the apartment boasted.
Two, three more weeks and we'd be here.
Then Daddy startled me. "You can stay in Lois' old room till we get the little bit of construction and redecorating done."
He and Clark had moved farther into what was going to become the nursery and were gesturing at walls and trying to decide where the doors would go best given the fireplaces between the nursery and the nanny's room and the built in shelving on both sides and where it would go best into the room that was becoming mine and Clark's.
I left the room and wandered back onto the veranda and through the door to my new home. It had been a while since I'd been in there and I wanted to reacquaint myself with the room. The bathroom was much as I remembered it and I was so glad that it had a big Jacuzzi tub. There was a kind of weird closet off the water closet. There was a linen closet in there and then another closet. Maybe I could have the main closet and that one could be Clark's.
I knew it wouldn't work that way – it wasn't big enough, but a girl could dream.
I left the bathroom and sat on the bed.
Before I realized what I was doing, I was asleep.
*****
TBC
