Last time:
Lois
"You were right, you know," he said softly.
"About what?"
"That Dad and Chris never put an expiration date on being my dad *or* on their marriages to my mom. I have thought about that and I'm not sure what the solution or answer or whatever is, but you *were* right."
My heart wanted me to tell him to fall in love with me and stay with me and the kids and commit to a life together, but my head knew that wasn't a good idea.
We sat like that for another minute before the silence was interrupted by the rumbling of my stomach.
Clark chuckled. "Ready to go clean out the buffet?"
I nodded. "Let me get changed and then we can go."
He squeezed me lightly before kissing my head again. "Love you."
"Love you, too."
I stifled a sigh as I went to get ready.
*~*103*~*
February 2005
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
January – once we got back from the cruise – had been a crazy month. Christopher actually had an ear infection – which puzzled me if he was my son; I'd never had one. Mom thought it might because he was only half-Kryptonian, which would be a reasonable explanation. Maybe.
He hadn't slept well while his ear was bothering him – and who could blame him? Between that and the beginning of the semester, life had been a bit nuts. Lois was still sleeping quite a bit more than usual. We were on the down slope now – at least as far as college was concerned. We were in the spring of our junior year and the end was nearly in sight.
We were both holding our breath though. She'd just passed the ten week mark and wasn't sick yet. With Christopher, that was about when she'd gotten sick. So far there were no real signs of it, but it would be a few more weeks before we breathed a sigh of relief that she'd missed out on that this time around.
Billy, Jimmy and I were supposed to go to a basketball game, but Jack ended up in town at the last minute. Billy and I had given our tickets to Jimmy and his parents so they could have a night out together – and I knew Jack was a basketball fan.
Billy and I ended up in the theater in the basement with the game on the big screen.
"What're Lois and Serena doing tonight?" I asked him. "She wasn't sure since we were taking over the screen down here."
He shrugged. "They're hanging out here somewhere, I think."
"How was Hawaii?" We hadn't had a chance to talk since they'd gotten back.
He grinned. "We didn't see much of Hawaii."
I laughed. "Why doesn’t that surprise me?"
He told me a little bit about what they had seen – mostly the beach near their hotel. "How was the cruise? Wasn't that kind of a second – or first – honeymoon for you guys?"
I shrugged. "Kind of. It was a Christmas/anniversary present from Lois and then Sam upgraded our room and covered our excursions and room tab for our anniversary present. But Lois has been pretty tired lately so..." We'd seen plenty of the places we'd been to but I wasn't sure how to tell Billy that.
"I noticed she's seemed a bit run down – is something wrong or..."
We hadn't told anyone else yet, but it wasn't going to be long before everyone knew anyway. I sighed. "She's pregnant again. It's taking a lot out of her, but we haven't told Perry and Rehalia yet, so..."
"They won't hear it from me," he promised. "Congratulations. When's the big day?"
"She's due in late August – right as the semester starts – but Christopher was a month early so..." We were actually guessing that this baby would be early, too, but we'd have to wait and see. "Right now, we're just hoping that she doesn’t get sick. It was really bad from about ten weeks to twenty weeks or so and she just passed the ten week mark."
He nodded. "Let us know if there's anything we can do."
"We will."
The pre-game show was almost over. "Do you guys have any big Valentine's Day plans then?"
I shook my head. "Believe it or not, we've never been big Valentine's Day people. Our first year, she was so sick. Last year, we were busy with school and work and everything and this year... Hoping she's not going to be sick, mostly at this point."
He took a long swig of his root beer – no alcohol in Sam's house, unless it was one of those fundraisers; Ellen's grandparents had both been alcoholics. "Not sure what we're doing yet – but would you want to double date if Lois is up to it?"
I shook my head. "Thanks for the offer, but we wouldn’t want to intrude on your first Valentine's Day together."
He snorted. "As long as you don't come home with us, we'll be fine."
I laughed with him. "Don't worry about that. I'll talk to Lois and get back to you, how's that?"
"That's fine."
"What's fine?" came a decidedly feminine voice.
We turned to see Lois and Serena walking in with plates of very non-basketball food.
"What're you two doing down here?" Billy asked, pulling Serena on to his lap.
She picked up a piece of her quesadilla. "We were supposed to have the theater tonight and since you guys are in here instead, we're joining you." She took a big bite.
Lois sat in the chair next to me. "Yep."
I was so glad things weren't weird between us anymore. We'd settled back into a comfortable space – somewhere sort of like before Pop Pop's funeral but not quite. Neither of us agonized over every word we said and neither of us read too much into what the other did say.
"I, uh, told Billy," I told her quietly. "He said he'd keep it quiet."
She swallowed a bite of her quesadilla. "That's okay; I told Serena."
We laughed together, before Lois' laugh turned into a coughing fit.
And then she bolted.
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
Sometimes I hated being pregnant.
The baby at the end was great – labor not so much, but the baby...
But the middle – where I felt so sick I thought I'd never have a normal meal again – that part I hated.
"You okay?"
I glared at Clark. "Go back to your ball game."
He sank to the floor next to me, taking my hand lightly. "I'm sorry you're sick."
I sighed. I wanted to blame him but I couldn't. *I* was the one who instigated that night. I leaned my head on his shoulder. "I know."
"Maybe it won't be as bad this time."
"I hope not."
"Me, too, for your sake."
I sighed again. "Go back to your game. I'll be back in a few minutes."
"Are you sure?"
I nodded. "Yeah. There's nothing you can do here."
"I really would hold your hair for you if you wanted me to."
I gave a half laugh. "Thanks, but no thanks."
"Let me know if you change your mind."
"I will."
He kissed my hair and headed back to the other room.
I rested my head against the wall.
I was sick again.
This was going to be fun.
We spent the rest of the evening watching the basketball game with Billy and Serena and I managed to get some sleep that night.
The next day saw a Saturday shift at the paper.
The newsroom was fairly quiet. I'd been staring at Perry's office off and on all morning.
He walked through the pit, stopping at my desk. "Lois, can I see you in my office when you have a minute?"
I looked up from the research I was doing. "Be right there."
Ten minutes later, I knocked on his open door.
He looked up from his desk. "Come on in, darlin'." He went back to editing until after I'd shut the door behind me. He had a slightly puzzled, slightly concerned look on his face. "What's goin' on? And don't tell me nothin' 'cause I know better than that."
I sat in one of the chairs across from him. I was sure I looked nervous, sitting on the edge of the chair and my twisting my fingers together.
He sighed. "I know something's going on, but relax. About the only thing that would upset me as much you think whatever it is you're about to tell me will is if you plagiarize regularly or decided that the Star is a better paper."
I smiled slightly. "No, nothing like that." I took a deep breath. "I'm pregnant."
He leaned back in his chair, a smile on his face. "Congratulations. When's the big day?"
"Technically, I'm due August 24, but Christopher was a month early so really, we're thinking any time after mid-July is fair game, but the biggest reason I'm telling you now – besides that you noticed something is off – is that it may be starting to affect my job. I've been planning all day to tell you."
He frowned. "You should be past the first trimester, right?"
I shook my head. "Almost. Nearly eleven weeks, but if it's anything like last time... I didn't get sick – nearly all day every day for a while – until I was about ten weeks. We've kind of been holding our breath hoping that this one would be different, but last night..." I sighed. "I couldn't keep anything down. I'm hoping it was a one-time thing, but... Last time, it lasted until I was nearly twenty weeks."
He nodded and chewed thoughtfully on his pen for a long minute. "I've got a couple ideas percolating already that I need someone to work on that you might be able to do from home if you need to. Online stuff. You do have reliable internet access?"
I almost snorted. Daddy'd had the most reliable internet since almost before Al Gore invented it. I managed to keep my composure and nodded. "Yes."
"Well, we're looking for two things. First, some kind of column for the weekend health and family section. We hadn't decided what we wanted exactly, but a column about pregnancy – from your perspective – would fit the bill nicely. We can talk more details later."
I nodded. "That sounds good."
"And we'll probably have Clark write companion pieces – from the dad's perspective."
"Okay."
"The other is the new blog section of the website. We're looking for writers there, too." He half rolled his eyes. "Franklin Stern wants to be modern and in this day and age..." He sighed. "It could be anything you want – still pregnancy related, for now at least. Everything from what you managed to keep down that day to fetal development and so on. I'll want you to run the first few by me before they get posted, just to make sure we've got the right feel, and then have Clark or Billy or Serena or Jimmy or someone edit them for you before you post. I don't have many worries about your grammar and all that – mainly a second set of eyes to catch whatever you miss. We may have Clark do one of those, too."
I nodded. "That sounds great."
"And you can do online research for Billy, Serena, Clark, whatever else you can do from home. You'll still need to keep a time card for me, but as long as you get your work done, I'm not going to be too particular about it and it won't affect your grade for your internship or anything like that." He thought for another minute. "Baby On Board: He Says/She Says, by Clark and Lois Kent. If you need to keep it up for a while after the baby's born, we can probably work something out then, too."
"Thank you so much, Perry. I appreciate it. I'll be here as much as I can, though I can't promise I won't have to run to the bathroom now and then."
He smiled at me. "You make sure you take care of that baby, okay?"
I nodded. "I will."
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
Lois told me the good news – that she'd be able to work from home when she needed to and that we were both going to be published every weekend. That was huge. And we were both going to have blogs, too.
She lay down to take a nap and Christopher woke up early from his.
There was about six inches of fairly fresh snow on the ground. Christopher had been asking to go play in it for two days.
"Wanna go play in the snow?" I asked him as I tried to get him into his snowsuit.
"P'ay?" he asked excitedly, pulling his leg back out of the snowsuit.
I nodded as I – patiently – put his leg back in the suit. "Play in the snow."
"S'o?" He pulled the other leg out.
"Yep. Snow."
"Mama p'ay?"
"No, bud. Mama's sleeping."
"Mama 'ap?"
"Mama's taking a nap," I confirmed.
"'ess p'ay?"
"No, Jess is gone."
He frowned. "'anpa p'ay?"
"Grandpa's at work, bud. You and Dad are gonna play." I managed to get both legs in at the same time and pulled the elastic suspenders over the top of his shoulders. I held his coat for him. "Arms in."
Obediently, he held out one arm, then the other. I zipped up the coat and pulled a knit cap over his already tousled dark hair. The hood from the coat went over that and pulled the Velcro over the bottom of his face.
"Okay, boots, bud."
He tried to sit down semi-gracefully, but ended up plopping on his well-padded rear.
I picked up one boot. "Foot." He held up the wrong foot. "Other foot." He switched and I managed to get the boot on and tied. I picked the second boot up. "Other foot." He switched again and I got that boot on. I pulled on the mitten that was strung through the sleeves of his coat. "Hand." He held his hand out and after a bit of maneuvering, his thumb and fingers were separated. I pulled on the other mitten. "Hand." We repeated the process with his other hand.
I held out both of my hands and he put his in them. I pulled him up. "Let Dad get his coat and gloves on and we'll go." I pulled on my hat, coat and gloves as he waddled towards the back door.
I opened the door and held his hand as he carefully stepped in the small pile of snow that had drifted up next to the door.
"S'o!" he yelled excitedly
I laughed. "Yep. Snow." I shut the door behind me and grabbed both of his hands swinging him through the air as I headed down the stairs from the deck to the yard.
His giggles filled the air.
I set him down in the middle of the yard in a drift that came to about his waist. He giggled. "S'o'ma', Daddy!"
I laughed. "Snowman it is."
He struggled through the snow helping me roll three balls. We found tree branches that he stuck in the sides. He pushed the acorns we found in for eyes – they were more than a little lopsided, but that was okay. We put another one in for the nose and made a mouth.
He insisted on buttons as well, but those had to go all the way to the ground so we had to traipse back over to find more acorns. I did my best to break a trail for him. The snow really wasn't that deep but he wasn't that tall either.
He moved back and looked at the completed snowman. "'anpa. 'anpa s'o'ma'."
"Grandpa snowman?"
"Uh huh."
His nose was starting to get a little red and he was a bit sniffly.
"Time to go inside, bud."
I scooped him under my arm and zoomed around the yard for a few minutes before heading back inside. He was still laughing as we took off his snow suit.
He sat on the counter, babbling nearly non-stop as I made a cup of hot chocolate to share with him. I only understood about a third of what he was saying, but that didn't stop him.
We worked together to blow on the steaming liquid. He ate the mini-marshmallows straight out of the bag and we took turns taking sips.
Out of nowhere, he stopped and looked at me intently with his big brown eyes. "Wuv 'ou, Daddy."
I wasn't sure why, but for some reason it caught me off-guard and my eyes welled up.
"I love you, too, little man. I love you, too."
*****
TBC
