Last time:
Lois
The night gown Martha had bought for me was beautiful and I did feel good in it. I needed to go to Victoria's Secret or something and get a few more. It wasn't like my husband would be buying me any.
I shuddered.
I made a few mental notes for the next day. I'd mentioned to Clark that I was working on Saturday; he was, too. Jessica had gladly agreed to work a few more hours this week – she got overtime, after all – and Daddy had said that was okay with him, too – he was the one writing the checks.
I got out clothes for the next day. We were riding together since our schedules were the same. Part of me hoped he got called in early, but since we were going in at eight, I doubted that would happen.
I took the robe off and threw it over the chair in the corner by my side of the bed, curling up with my body pillow and nearly silent tears streaking down my cheeks as I laid there.
Star had been known to be wrong occasionally – okay, often sometimes. She was pretty streaky as far as accuracy went, but she was right about Clark not being from around here. And the blonde she saw could only be one person. And that meant that Clark was probably still thinking about her all the time and that he couldn’t wait to be free of me and back with her.
The pregnant thing I didn't get though.
I was sure Clark thought I was already asleep when he came in and lay down next to me. He flopped down awfully hard for someone who could float and I thought I heard him sigh as he pulled the covers over himself.
*~*65*~*
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
I sat on the balcony and stared at the field in front of me.
The night hadn't been *horrid*. The Cardinals lost, but I had a great seat while they did.
A seat next to Lois.
Who I was, theoretically, supposed to be making love to right now.
That was why Sam had told her not to worry about Christopher when we got back. She'd had her check-up and that would be the first thing on the mind of a lot of couples who'd just had a baby.
But I wouldn't be with her like that any time soon. Never was more likely and her threats to me despite my invulnerability had nothing to do with that. There was only one woman I wanted to be with and she was pregnant with another guy's baby.
I sighed.
I missed her more than I would have ever thought possible.
Still. After nine months, I still dreamed about her most nights. Dreams that I – as a married man – had no business having about a woman who wasn't my wife. Dreams that my parents would be so disappointed about – if they knew I was having them about anyone but Lois. It wasn't like they were... *those* kinds of dreams, not usually, but dreams about me and Lana, living together, buying our first house, finding out we were pregnant, having our first baby, going on a date – a perfectly innocuous date except that I knew what was going to happen when we got home and I knew that she'd dressed up for *me*.
I pulled my wallet out of my jeans and stared at it – through the leather and to the picture of Lana. It was her senior picture. She was in blue jeans and her faded leather jacket. The picture had actually been taken near our pond. She was leaning up against a tree, her blond hair blowing in the breeze.
I'd been standing next to the photographer and I knew that the smile was for me. I was the only one she smiled like that for.
I wondered if she smiled for Tim like that.
I hated, hated, hated that someone else had been with her and I thought it was a good thing that I hadn't seen Tim since then because I'd want to deck him.
And I couldn't do that for so many reasons. I was married – it shouldn't matter to me who was with Lana, except that she was my friend, but no more than that. And I could literally send him into orbit if I half tried.
I'd heard rumors on campus that she'd had a couple other boyfriends the second half of Spring semester. And, if the rumors were right, Tim wasn't the only guy she'd been with.
She had obviously moved on with her life and if anyone from the outside looked at my life, it would seem I had moved on first. I was married, with a baby, living in an amazing house – even if it did belong to my father-in-law – a decent starter job, good grades, all of those things that someone my age, in my position would be jealous of.
The only thing I didn't have was Lana.
Not just Lana my girlfriend or Lana the woman I planned on spending my life with, but Lana my *best* friend. The one person I'd always told everything to, except the Kryptonian stuff, of course. If I got into a fight with my parents, she was the one I'd turned to. If I did poorly on a test or when my essay came in third behind one with serious grammatical and spelling errors, she was the one I'd called.
And I didn't have that anymore.
With anyone, really. Not just that it wasn't Lana anymore, but I didn't have anyone I could really confide in. Lois had told her doctor everything, maybe I could push her to tell my parents or something. Of course, it wasn't like her doctor was a friend or anything - more friendly than most doctors, but they didn't 'hang out' or anything like that.
I sighed. It was unlikely and I knew it.
I heard Lois get into bed and figured it wouldn't be too much longer before she was asleep. She had to work the next day and, unless one of us got a call changing our schedule, we'd be riding together.
I sighed again and decided I was ready to go to sleep even if Lois wasn't. I thought that the best plan for these 'married pajama night' things, I'd either be asleep before her or wait until she was asleep to go to bed.
If I was married to Lana, it certainly wouldn't be that way.
I slid under the covers and sighed deeply.
Lois moved slightly and I stilled instantly, waiting, but there was no other noises coming from her side of the bed.
I closed my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.
~*~*~
October 2003
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
"What time do you get off today?" I asked Clark.
"I'm supposed to get off at five, but I may need to stay till eight."
"I guess we better take separate cars then," I told him, breathing a nearly inaudible sigh of relief.
He was amazing with Christopher. Even I admitted that. I wasn't sure what had happened the day of our first 'date' – and I used that term loosely even in my head – but his relationship with my son had done a one-eighty. He had foregone any time set aside for studying without him, choosing instead to take care of him at every opportunity. It was to the point at times that the only thing I was needed for was to nurse him. He got up with him in the middle of the night and I could hear him talking quietly, telling him bedtime stories or something of that nature and only coming to get me if and when it became apparent that he really wanted to eat.
I was grateful. I was so tired. I'd been up so often with him the first few weeks, and combined with the stress of the rest of my life, sleep wasn’t something that came easily – or well. The medication Kristi had put me on was helping; life was easier to deal with than it had been in the few weeks – months – before that appointment.
I'd never been... suicidal or anything like that, but I had wondered if things would be better for my son – for Clark – for everyone – if something happened to me. A car accident or something of that nature. Then Navance wouldn’t be after me – and Christopher would probably be safe. Clark could go back to Lana and the three of them, and Lana's baby, could have the perfect life.
Lana was pregnant.
Martha had told me the night before. Apparently, Clark had known for a while. That would certainly explain his even more extreme moodiness during the last few weeks.
I tried not to think about it as I drove towards the Daily Planet, Clark right behind me in his truck.
I'd heard of relationships that were one way in public and another in private and that was how we were. I was sure that most of those relationships were abusive in nature, but Clark and I weren't like that. We simply ignored each other if we weren’t in front of others and we spent as much time alone as possible because we couldn't afford a rift that could be exploited by Navance.
He sent letters every few weeks. His nephew had stopped me a couple of times already during the fall semester. He'd sent a gift after Christopher was born. That was turned over to the State Department and I hadn't seen it again. I'd talked to Daniel and Jill on a fairly regular basis and the gun leads had gone nowhere. They hadn't been able to tell us much, but the little we had been told said that there was no connection to be found to Mindy or Navance or anything else. Any shipments of guns had been either stopped or rerouted or something once Clark and I were discovered on the plane. They were keeping eyes and ears open, but Daniel didn't hold out much hope at the moment.
I spent my morning making photocopies and typing up notes for... some bigwig upstairs. I didn't know who and didn't really care. Clark made his rounds of the floor, dropping a few letters here and there. Most of the clerical staff didn't get much mail.
"This came for you," he said quietly, startling me out of my work.
I glanced up at him, leaning against the wall of my cubicle. I reached for the letter and blanched when I realized who it was from. He'd made it to my place of employment.
"Why me?" I whispered, tears springing to my eyes.
"He fixated on you," Clark said with a shrug and a big sigh.
"No, he fixated on my son," I reminded him, swiping at my eyes. I couldn’t do this – not here, not now. Clark sighed and rested his hand on my shoulder, squeezing lightly.
"I won't let him get to Christopher."
I didn't say anything. It was the first time he'd said anything of that nature and not included me in the statement. He'd protect my son, but would he do whatever it took to protect me?
But, I conceded to myself, my previous statement hadn't said anything about me, just Christopher and he was probably responding solely to that comment and not in general.
Right?
"I have work to do," I told him. "I'll send it to Jerry over at the FBI. Maybe I can get a restraining order against him or something – or against his nephew and then they'll have to leave me alone."
"Lois." I heard Rehalia calling for me.
"I gotta go. I'll talk to you later." I stood and headed to the office in the corner of the room.
"Is everything okay?" she asked in her accented English.
I nodded. "I got a letter delivered here that upset me. I'll be fine."
"Good. Now, Billy Norcross needs some help with some stuff and he requested you."
I smiled. He was a nice guy and word around the office said that he and Serena had finally had their first date a couple weeks before. "Okay, I'm on my way."
I headed down to the newsroom floor and found Billy. I spent the next hour working with him and Serena on a project. I could see the glances between them and the few whispers they shared from time to time.
Finally, Billy pushed back from his desk. "Lunch time."
"Lunch time?" Jimmy screeched to a stop. "Really?"
The three of us laughed. "Come on, Jim. Why don't you two come with us and we'll go to Callard's for lunch?"
I ran up the stairs and grabbed my purse before heading back down to the lobby to meet the other three.
I came to a screeching halt when I noticed Clark standing with them.
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
They'd said they were waiting on someone else, but I had no idea it was Lois and I could tell she had no idea I was going with them either.
"Hey," she said smiling brightly. "Are you coming with us?"
"Looks that way," I said, a grin on my face. I'd been heading out to grab a quick bite when Jimmy stopped me and asked if I wanted to join them. I hadn't hesitated before agreeing.
Lois and I had agreed, in one of the very few conversations we'd had that didn't revolve around Christopher, that work was work and our relationship had nothing to do with work – it should be completely professional, but we hadn't discussed situations like this.
She moved ahead of me, chatting easily with Billy and Serena as I walked next to Jimmy a few steps behind. It wasn't long before we were seated around a table on the patio of the restaurant.
"So," Jimmy said after the waiter left, "Lois you said you and Clark are related?"
I was talking about the World Series game the night before with Billy, but I heard that. She had told Jimmy we were related? Why hadn't he asked me?
"Actually, I said 'something like that'," Lois told him.
Jimmy rolled his eyes. "Okay, so spill it. Brother-in-law?"
She shook her head and took a sip of her water, before holding up her left hand. "Husband."
All conversation ceased and the awkward silence extended longer than any of us could have expected.
Serena turned around to pick her purse off her chair. "Well, Clark, trade me seats. You should be sitting by your wife."
Lois put her hand on Serena's arm. "It's okay. Really. We decided to downplay our relationship at work and keep it strictly professional. We see each other all the time at home and I'd like to chat a bit more with you, if that's okay with you, honey?" I could see the threat in her eyes if I dared to disagree, even as she smiled at me.
I smiled back. "That's right."
I turned back to Billy and the conversations resumed on other topics.
As we ate, Serena brought up a piece Perry had assigned to them. "It's the Coates Orphanage piece. I'm not quite sure what angle to take. They're pushing for more open adoptions and I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I can see the benefit of an open adoption but... Would the adoptive parents be more comfortable with closed adoptions? Are they comfortable with this woman – or man – who aren't able to take care of a baby for whatever reason still being a large part of the child's life? Are all parents who are giving the child up for adoption fit to be a part of the child's life? Are open adoptions going to be the only option in the future? I just don't know enough about all of it and I don't know anyone who was adopted to ask on a personal level, without the pressure of potentially spilling their true, innermost thoughts to a reporter."
"I was adopted," I said quietly, startling all of them. "But I'm not sure that my situation would help you any."
"Why is that?" Billy asked.
I glanced at Lois and launched into the official story. "So, my parents knew who my birth parents were but there was no family left or anything. There was no birth parents to keep in contact with, no grandparents to get medical history from or anything like that."
"My brother was adopted," Jimmy said suddenly. "An open adoption would have saved his life."
"Would you tell me about it?" Serena asked softly.
Jimmy leaned back in his chair and fiddled with his napkin. "My parents couldn't have kids so they adopted a baby boy. All they knew was the... vital statistics, I guess you'd say, of the mom. She was in high school, white, fairly well-off, but for whatever reason, didn't want to – or wasn't able to – keep him so she gave him up for adoption."
I could tell he was fighting to keep tears out of his eyes.
"When he was nine, my mom got pregnant with me. It was a complete shock. They'd been to all kinds of doctors who listed the odds of the two of them having a baby together as next to none. It was a combination of both of them – not one problem, but several that together were seemingly insurmountable. My grandma – my dad's mom – even accused my mom of having an affair, but Mom hadn't, of course, and Dad knew that. My brother and I... We were absolutely inseparable. He took care of me and let me tag along with him even though he was so much older than me. When I was nine, he was diagnosed with leukemia and died waiting for a bone marrow transplant."
I looked at Lois and could see her face growing whiter with each sentence.
"A couple years ago, my mom got a phone call from this guy who was my brother's mom's husband. They'd dated in high school, she'd moved away, gotten pregnant when a guy basically forced himself on her and couldn't bear to tell this guy. She gave my brother up for adoption and eventually they got married and had a couple kids of their own. Two girls. This guy said that my brother's birth mom and one of his half-sisters were in a car accident I guess about nine years ago now. It turns out that the mom or the other half-sister would have been matches for my brother, but we were never able to find them and he didn't know about my brother until after his wife died and didn't look until a couple years later when it was too late. He and my parents talked a few times and he said that, someday, he'd like to get to know our family. He hadn't known about my brother but he would have married his mom and I have to say I'm kind of glad he didn't know because then he wouldn't have been my brother, even if he would probably still be alive."
I didn't think Lois could get any more pale and tears were streaming down her cheeks. Serena and Billy both looked appropriately sad, but Lois' reaction was more than would be expected.
Jimmy looked at her and reached over to squeeze her hand. "Hey, it's okay. It's been a long time now and I don't have any hard feelings or anything like that. I know they would have done something if they'd known, but they didn't and that's just the way things are."
Lois swiped at her cheeks. "Jimmy, there's something I have to ask you."
I knew what was coming.
"Sure," he said. "Anything."
She took a deep breath and didn't look at him as she spoke. "Was your brother's name Dave?"
*****
TBC
