Last time:
Clark
"Where's Christopher?" I called.
"Upstairs with your parents," she called back.
"Why?"
"Your mom wanted to give us some time alone while we're here."
"Ah."
I heard her heading towards the bedroom.
"If that's okay with you, of course."
I glanced over at her and did a double take.
She was leaning casually against the door frame wearing a short, red satin nightgown, the matching robe slung over her shoulder.
If I didn't know better, I'd say she was out to seduce me.
*~*69*~*
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I was slightly gratified to see his eyes widen when I walked out of the bathroom.
I would admit – under extreme duress – to putting a bit of an extra swing in my hips as I headed for the bed.
"Are you building a fire?" I asked as I tossed the robe on the nightstand.
"Do you want one?"
"Are you planning on keeping me warm?" I asked before I could think about it, but remaining careful not to put much of any kind of inflection in my voice.
A minute later, I was climbing under the covers and Clark was building a fire.
That answered that question.
I snuggled down under the warm blanket, almost resenting the fire.
*Why* did I love Clark?
I'd been asking myself that since I'd come to the realization that I did.
This time last year, sure. Then I could see how I could have been falling in love with him. I *hadn't* been, I told myself adamantly. I hadn't been falling in love with him at the cabin last year.
Had I?
I relived it in my mind.
No, I hadn't been. I hadn't been in love with anyone. Not Clark and not Joe.
I sighed and closed my eyes.
Why on earth did I love Clark?
I hadn't been able to make myself really face that question.
Was it because he was a good father?
Was it because he was hot?
It certainly wasn't because we'd gotten close enough that falling in love was the next natural step.
I stifled another sigh.
I'd known he was... worth looking at since I met him.
And he was growing into a great dad. He loved Christopher so much – and I didn't think it had anything to do with the fact that we'd named him after Clark's first father. Second father, I corrected myself.
I'd been a bit riskier with my selection of a nightgown for the evening, but we never knew when we'd see someone in the middle of the night – especially if Christopher was in someone else's care. *Most* of the time he slept through the night, but sometimes he woke up and wanted to nurse. If Martha or Jonathan had to come get me in the middle of the night, flannel pajamas wouldn't cut it.
I probably could have found something... appropriately Christmas-y and still a bit more... modest or whatever, but I hadn't had much time to do so and, for a minute or two when I bought it, I wondered what Clark would do if I showed up in one of the much more risqué ones some night.
Probably the same thing he'd done when he saw me in this nightgown. Slightly raised brow and back to whatever he was doing.
I wondered what he'd do if I kissed him and told him I wanted to make love to me.
Would it really be making love though?
I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that I didn't really *love* him, but I was attracted to him – what red-blooded female wouldn’t be? – and that I was attracted to his abilities as a father.
Whatever label I wanted to put on it, I wondered what would happen if I just... attacked him one night.
I pushed the thought out of my mind.
I knew what would happen.
Nothing.
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
What was going on in that head of hers?
I'd never been able to figure her out and this was no exception.
"Are you building a fire?" she asked, as she headed towards the bed in that short, red thing.
"Do you want one?" I asked her, wondering what she was up to.
"Are you planning on keeping me warm?" she asked without looking at me. Her tone seemed carefully neutral to me.
We both knew the answer to that and I started building a fire. Since it was just the two of us, I used my eyes to start the fire, lighting it in different places until it was roaring. I moved back a bit and stared at the dancing flames for a long time, until I heard Lois' even breathing behind me indicating that she'd managed to fall asleep.
Motherhood – and the resultant changes in her body – agreed with Lois. She'd been pretty before and she still was.
The intellectual part of my mind had even noticed that she still had great legs.
Not that I'd ever spent a lot of time looking at her legs. Not that I currently spent much time looking at her legs.
And they were better than Lana's legs.
I wasn't sure what had brought that thought on, anymore than I knew what had brought on the thought about Christopher nursing at dinner.
Was I attracted to Lois?
Sure.
Was she my wife?
Yes.
Was Lana waiting for me to be free again?
No.
Did that mean I was going to do anything about it with Lois?
Absolutely not.
My parents had never really made a secret of their... intimate life. Not that they were ever inappropriate or anything like that, but I always knew whatever was age appropriate for me to know. They'd both had the birds and the bees talks with me and, while they didn't say that I should wait for marriage – something Lana and I had already decided when the marriage-specific conversations were had – they'd always reinforced that sex wasn't something to be taken lightly. They'd always added the 'especially not for you' caveat to that as well. My differences added another level of... caution for me.
From the time I was old enough to talk about the possibility of making love with someone, they'd told me that it was my decision, but that it wouldn’t be fair or right for me to be with a girl like that without having told her about myself first. Among many other reasons, no birth control was 100% effective and there was always a *chance* that I could get a girl pregnant and she deserved to know the possibilities with that.
Personally, I'd always had my doubts that I'd be able to father children. Even though I looked like a human male, I wasn't. I wasn't human and the odds that I'd be able to have a baby with a human female just seemed to be very low.
Regardless, I'd never planned on making love with anyone but Lana and we'd long planned on waiting until our wedding night and I was going to tell her about myself long before we got married so it wouldn't be an issue.
My parents had understood about the cabin. The official story about the cabin. Why I'd been with Lois – made Christopher together – without telling her about myself.
I hadn't been with her, of course, except in the weird dream state and that didn't count, but they didn't know that. And they knew that Lois hadn't been feeling well enough to... do those kinds of things for the first few months of our marriage. By the time Lois started feeling better, I'd told her.
And it wasn't like I was going to get her more pregnant if we'd been having sex before I had.
I closed my eyes and the sight of Lois standing there came unbidden.
I sighed and decided it was time to go to bed. To go to my own side of the bed and stay there.
Just like I always had.
Just like I always would.
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
"Merry Christmas, little man," I whispered as I changed Christopher's diaper Christmas morning. "It's your first Christmas. You won't remember any of it, but I hope you know how much I love you. How much Clark loves you."
I tucked his toes into a Christmas sleeper – green velvet-y type material with reindeer on the toes and a candy cane on the tushie.
I snapped it up and took him out to the living room. Clark was the only other one in there at the moment.
"Merry Christmas," he said, handing my sole cup of coffee for the day. I'd be happy when I was done nursing and could have more. But it was so good for both me and Christopher that I wasn't willing to give it up just yet.
"Merry Christmas," I said, handing him Christopher.
"Hey, big guy," he said, nuzzling Christopher's neck. "Merry first Christmas."
"I thought I smelled coffee," Martha said, yawning as she came down the stairs, tying her robe as she did.
Clark shifted Christopher to one side so he could make his mom a cup of coffee.
Dad had always told me to find a guy who treated his mother well. I had.
Too bad he didn't treat me the same way.
I pushed the thought away as soon as I had it.
He wasn't a *bad* person and he wasn't *bad* to me. He'd made my cup of coffee, too. We just didn't have the relationship that I would have expected if I'd married a guy like Clark under more normal circumstances.
I pushed those thoughts out of my head.
It was Christmas and negative thoughts had no place on such a day.
We spent the rest of the day with the family. It was a good day overall. We'd watched movies and played games and for the day, I'd managed to forget that Clark and I were only playing married.
We'd sat in the big chair together, his arm around me and me half on his lap with the back of my head on his shoulder, a blanket covering both of us. Christopher had made the rounds of all his grandparents – and his uncle. Jimmy had announced that earlier in the day; officially related or not, he was Christopher's uncle.
While we were sitting together in the chair, Clark would whisper to me from time to time – most of the time it was nothing of any great import. A few times it was the time and weather report. I'd actually laughed the first time he did that.
His parents had shared a look when I had. I thought they thought things were going much better than they really were.
Given my newly discovered... feelings for Clark, I'd reveled in the feelings of the day. It was easy to pretend that things were more than they were and I had a built in excuse to do so. It killed me that he didn't feel the same way.
Not in love.
I knew that 'in love' wasn't accurate, but friends, maybe on the cusp of something more or something.
I sighed. I knew the post-partum depression was still affecting me. The Wellbutrin was helping – a lot. I could see a huge difference in the way I saw the world around me when I didn't take it for a few days for whatever reason. It wasn't that life was any easier or anything like that; it was just easier to deal with.
I was so glad that Navance hadn't ruined the day with some sort of door-to-door delivery for me or my son. Nothing had arrived before we left and I was almost certain that Daddy or someone would intercept any mail that came and forward it to the FBI.
There was a car parked at the end of the drive with a couple of security guards in it, just in case.
Jimmy knew there was security around, but he didn’t know why. I couldn't explain why, but I wanted to keep it that way for the time being. I trusted him; that wasn't even a question, but I just wasn’t ready for anyone else to know. The more people who knew, the more likely it was that our names would get out. We'd managed to keep them out of the media when the whole mess started and I hoped we'd be able to keep them out.
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
Had it actually felt almost *right* sitting with Lois on Christmas?
I asked myself that over and over and couldn't come to a conclusive answer.
We often sat near each other when we were around others. Sometimes she'd lay on the couch and prop her feet on my leg or I'd stretch my legs part way down the couch or something, but there was something different about Christmas Day.
I made an excuse to go out to the Jeep. Lana's snow globe was out there and I took it out and stared at it while sitting on the edge of the front seat. I still hadn't decided what to do with it.
Giving it to her seemed like a betrayal to Lois. Lois was my wife and I shouldn’t be giving ex-girlfriends meaningful gifts.
At the same time, I couldn't give it to anyone else. I'd thought about giving it to Granny. She loved snow globes but rarely indulged in collecting anything – more junk for us to clean out when she joined Gramps in the sky, she said often. I knew she would have liked it anyway. I couldn’t bring myself to give it to anyone else, not even Granny.
So should I give it to her? Should I save it for when I needed to grovel once my marriage to Lois was dissolved?
"Clark?"
The voice surprised me. "Hey, Mom." It was too late to try to hide the snow globe; I knew she'd already seen it and if not, would catch me trying to hide it.
"What's that?" she asked, walking into the garage and leaning against the side of the Jeep.
"A snow globe," I told her avoiding the true intent of the question.
"Clark," she said quietly, in the same tone I knew not to argue with.
I sighed. "I bought it in Paris. For Lana. She loved it."
"Then why is it here?"
I shrugged. "I found it and thought maybe I'd give it to Granny."
"You didn't."
"I couldn’t make myself. It's Lana's."
"You miss her."
It was a statement, but I nodded anyway. "I do miss her. A lot sometimes. And as I was putting Christopher down, all I could think about was that she just lost a baby and how unfair life is."
"She's hurting over that," Mom told me. "So is Tim. He was looking forward to being a dad."
"I'm sure he was. He's a good guy. He'll make a great dad someday."
There was a long silence before she spoke again.
"You have to let her go, Clark."
I didn't say anything.
"It's going to destroy your marriage if you don't." She sighed. "You two put on a pretty good front, but you forget, I think, that I powdered your tushie. I know you better than anyone else. I knew things weren't great between the two of you when you came to Smallville, but I wrote it off to everything still being new and your secret and Lois' pregnancy and all that. But now... your one-year-anniversary is coming up. I know you married Lois because of Christopher, to try to make a family for your son, to protect both of them, and that's commendable. And I know you were still in love with Lana in March, too, but it's been too long. I know there's no real timeline for these things, but if you're committed to making your marriage work – even if it's still only for Christopher's sake – you're going to have to let go of Lana and move on." She stood up and looked at me. "There's a beautiful young woman in there who happens to be the mother of your son and your *wife*. Maybe it's time you started acting like it."
On that note, she turned and left.
*****
TBC
