Last time:
Lois
"Nathaniel David?"
"I like it," I answered as he switched feet. I moaned slightly as he hit just the right spot on the bottom of my foot. "And for a girl?"
"What do you think?"
"Larellen Lucielle?" I cocked my head to one side. "I dunno. What do you think?"
"What would we call her? I know you've always insisted on calling Christopher by his full name and not Chris, but you've never really said why that is."
"Chris was your dad," I told him. "And for some reason, he always struck me as more of a 'Christopher' than a 'Chris'."
"Would we actually call her Larellen?" He seemed a bit skeptical.
"Do you really like that?"
"It's kinda cool," he said thoughtfully. "The combination of their two names. I can't imagine calling her that though."
"Me either. Lara? Laurie? Ellie?"
"Ellie? Would you be okay with that?"
I nodded. "I think so."
"That settles it then. Unless inspiration strikes, Nathaniel David or Larellen Lucielle."
*~*107*~*
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
That was settled.
Larellen Lucielle sounded like a little girl who would dress only in pink froo-froo but calling her Ellie would help with that – and I couldn't see any little girl of Lois' wearing pink froo-froo voluntarily.
I gave Lois' foot one last squeeze. "How's that?"
She nodded. "I'm ready for my cake now."
I zipped to the kitchen and back, sitting on the floor next to her. I filled the fork with just a taste of cake. "Open up." My elbow rested on the couch, fork poised to feed her.
She glared at me. "Put enough on there for me to actually taste it."
I laughed and put more on the fork. "Better?"
She glared again. "A little bit." But she opened her mouth and waited for me to feed it to her.
"How exactly did I end up feeding you cake?" I asked her as she took the bite.
She chewed for a moment then swallowed. "You won a Trivial Pursuit game – by one question, I might add; I had all my pie pieces long before you but couldn't land in the middle – and, in doing so, won the right to feed me cake."
"I *know* that," I told her with a roll of my eyes, while cutting off a bigger bite.
"Well, you didn't know the answer to the question about Wilton Cakes and the bet for that question was cake feeding. Besides, if I don't have to deal with the lifting of the fork and cutting of the cake and all of that, I'm free to completely relax and savor the chocolate."
"You're lazy?"
She glared at me. "Today, I helped make eyes, ears, fingers, toes and a nose. What exactly did you do?"
I raised an eyebrow as I held out another bite.
"No uterus, no opinion," she informed me before cleaning the fork.
"Yes, Rachel," I said with a smirk. We'd watched that episode of Friends a few weeks earlier.
She glared at me. "Cake. Now."
"Yes, ma'am."
She winced. "The attitude is good. The ma'am needs to go."
"Yes, milady."
It was a good thing I was invulnerable, because I thought that look rivaled the one she'd given me not long after we met. I gave her another bite.
"Yes, Queen Lois of Lane, ruler of Lane and Duchess of Kent?"
"Just feed me cake."
I fed her the rest of the piece in near silence.
Her eyes closed and she moaned quietly as I slid the fork out of her mouth with the last bite.
"That was delicious, Clark. Thank you," she said sincerely.
"My pleasure." I zipped the plate and fork to the sink. "Do you want something to drink?"
"Milk, please."
I poured her a glass. "What do you want to do now?" I asked as I handed it to her.
"Movie?"
"Which one?
"'Tommy Boy'?"
I pulled it out. "Got it."
I put it in the DVD player and got it all set up before moving to sit on the couch with Lois. She sat up enough that I could sit behind her and she could lean against me, one hand resting on her stomach. We'd found this was the most active time of day for the baby.
"Wow," I said after nearly fifteen minutes of non-stop baby movement while the movie played. "Nate's active tonight."
"Nate?" she asked. "When did we decide on 'Nate'?"
"Earlier..." I started.
"Earlier, we decided on Nathaniel."
"Not Nate?"
She laughed at my hurt look. "Nate's fine for now. I didn't realize Christopher wasn't a 'Chris' until after he was born. Besides, it's Ellie who's being so active tonight." As though to emphasize her point, my hand was suddenly kicked – hard. "See?"
"Sit up," I told her.
"Why?" she asked as she sat up.
I moved and helped her lean back on the couch. I sat back down on the floor, one hand on either side of her stomach. "Now, listen here, Nate, you should be nice to your mom and give her a bit of a break. She cheats, you know."
"I *do* *not* cheat!" she exclaimed, offended.
I raised an eyebrow at her. "Did I actually have a chance of winning anything today?"
She glared at me. "You won the right to give me a foot rub and feed me cake and everything else."
I shrugged. "If you say so."
"Besides, it's not like you'd need a foot or back rub."
I just rolled my eyes. "Now, if you don't mind, Nate and I are having a private conversation."
She sighed. "*Ellie* and I are joined at the... well, my uterus to what will be her belly button at the moment so anything you have to say to her you can say to me."
"Fine." I turned back to her stomach as the baby rolled over. "You should be nice to your mom. She likes to try to make you think she's playing fair when she's really not. She always manages to win, even when she loses."
"I never lose," she muttered.
"But she never really loses. She always manages to work it so that she wins no matter what. I won Trivial Pursuit and ended up feeding *her* cake, you know."
"She knows," Lois informed me. "She was there."
"But you know what your mom's done that's made me a winner? She's given me you and your brother." I rubbed her stomach. "You'll understand someday – I hope – why that means so much to me. I'm all that remains of a dead planet – at least until your brother was born, but I didn't know that he was my son at that point. I know you're my son or daughter and I'd love your brother as much as I do now even if he wasn't my biological son, but knowing that he probably is..."
I sighed.
"I never realized my need to be connected to Earth, but you and Christopher... You do that for me and so you need to take it easy on your mom because she's the one who's made that possible. Besides," I whispered, "it's her birthday."
I looked up to see if she was smiling at that, but instead I saw tears. "Hey," I said, moving towards her. "What is it?"
"I never knew you felt like that," she told me.
I shrugged. "It's not something I dwell on, but yeah. I never really realized how much I wanted my own, biological kids." I helped her sit up slightly so I could sit back down behind her. "I mean, you know I love Christopher – I always have – but..." I sighed, gently rubbing her stomach. "I've never really *known* where I came from, who I am. I mean, I know what was left with the ship and all, but it's like reading about an ancient society. You don't really know. I love my folks, my whole family, but the idea of something – or someone – tangible here on Earth that's connected to me..."
Her hand covered mine and they stilled, our fingers lacing together momentarily. "I'm glad I can give that to you, then."
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
I stretched and yawned, pulling one leg across my body and stretching my back before rolling over and doing the opposite.
"Afternoon, sleepyhead."
I looked up to see Clark leaning against the door jamb.
"Afternoon?" I asked with another yawn. "Did I really sleep that long?"
He nodded. "Nate there behaved himself and let you get some sleep."
I glared at him as I struggled to sit up and swing my legs over. If it was this bad already, what was it going to be like in another three months?
"Hungry?" he asked.
"Always."
He made me a full breakfast, even though it was after noon.
"Delicious," I said, wiping my mouth on my napkin. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," he said, cleaning up my dishes. "Come on," he said, heading towards Daddy's room.
"What're we doing?" I asked him, following along.
"Put this on." He tossed me something black.
I held it up. My maternity swimsuit. "Why?"
"You'll see."
I changed as quickly as I could after Clark headed into the bathroom.
"Come on in when you're done," he called.
I walked into the bathroom to find him sitting on the edge of the tub in his suit. In the shower stall was lounge chair from the deck.
"You can't recline all the way, or stretch your legs out all the way, but you can mostly lie back."
"Very creative," I told him, impressed. I sat in the chair and decided I'd rather lean a little further back than stretch my legs out a little more and he helped me adjust it.
He took the removable shower head and pointed it at the ground near my feet. "I came in here because it's a bit bigger," he said turning on the water. "Tell me when the water's just right."
A minute later, I nodded, scooting up a bit higher and flipping my hair over the top rail of the chair. The water he'd just streamed over my lower legs was hot but not too hot.
"I've never done this before," he warned me as he carefully wet my hair.
"Just don't get any soap in my eyes."
"I'll try not to."
Once my hair was all wet, he moved on to the shampoo.
"The point of this isn't clean hair," I reminded him. "It's a scalp massage."
"Right."
He began to gently massage my head, starting near my temples and working his way around my whole scalp. "That feels so nice," I told him quietly. "My mom used to do this sometimes. She'd have us lie on the counter at home and roll a towel under our necks and give us a good scalp massage. I've tried to do it myself, but it's never the same."
His thumbs gently worked against my temples as his fingers worked the back of my head and into the hollow between the tendons at the back of my neck.
I'd worked hard since we got here to keep my thoughts from wandering down the 'what if Clark loved me' path, but I couldn't stop it anymore. If he loved me, we could do this together, in the shower, more than big enough for two...
I stifled a sigh and stopped the train of thought in its tracks.
He rinsed the shampoo out carefully.
"Conditioner," I told him.
"I know."
I didn't open my eyes, but I could hear the smile in his voice and see it in my mind as he worked the conditioner into my hair.
"Almost done," he told me as he rinsed the conditioner out. He turned off the water. "How'd I do?"
I opened my eyes and smiled at him. "You did great. If you ever get the urge to do that again, just let me know. I know that was your first time and all, but if you ever want to practice, I'll let you practice on me."
He laughed. "I'll keep that in mind." He handed me a towel. "We do need to get going here before too long though. Vicki's making your favorite dinner and dessert tonight."
"Thank you for letting me sleep," I told him as I wrapped my hair in the towel. "What'd you do?"
He shrugged. "Watched a couple movies. Worked on a story for Perry. Cleaned the whole cabin."
"And that took you what – twelve seconds?" I asked with a smile.
"Fourteen."
We headed out of Dad's room and back towards ours. Clark disappeared and reappeared in a flash – dressed back in his shorts and T-shirt. "Why don't you go get changed and I'll clean back up in here? I'll get the car loaded and we can head out here in about half an hour?"
I nodded. "Sounds good."
A few hours later, we were seated around the dining room table, eating Stromboli. After dinner, we headed outside. Clark, Jimmy, Billy, Ollie and his sons soon had a game of football going. Christopher played on the deck with me, Daddy, Serena and Vicki as we watched them running around in the yard. A while later, Daddy took Christopher down to play on the swing set while Vicki, Serena and I chatted. Martha called and I talked to her for a bit. By the time it started to get dark, I was ready to go back to bed.
"You want to cash in that backrub?" Clark asked as I came out of the bathroom in a pair of bike shorts and my John Deere shirt.
"I would appreciate it, thank you." Back rubs were a bit harder since I couldn't lie on my stomach.
Not impossible, but harder.
I lay down on the couch, back facing the edge. Clark floated on his side next to me and began working his magic on my back. Over the last several months, he'd learned where it bothered me the most and the best ways to help work out the knots.
"Is Nate behaving tonight?" he asked as he massaged.
"So far," I told him. "We'll have to see if Ellie lets me sleep though. My legs have been all twitchy lately as I try to go to sleep. Last night wasn't too bad, but it seems like half the time I get so close to asleep and then they twitch and wake me up."
"Ask Kristi about it," he advised. "Or your dad."
I sighed. "I may if it doesn't get better soon."
"Don't wait too long. You need to get as much rest as you can now before baby keeps you up all night. You don't want to go into that already sleep deprived."
"Yeah, I know." I wished I could just sink into the mattress, flat on my stomach, like I had so many times in the past but my stomach was just too big.
I still felt much better than I did when he'd started. Before I realized what he was doing, he'd scooped me into his arms and was carrying me to the bed. He set me gently on my side.
"There you go. Get some rest. I'll be back in a bit."
It *was* pretty early still. "Okay," I said with a yawn.
I burrowed under the covers as the baby kicked me again. "Behave, Nate or Ellie," I whispered. "Be good to Mom, would ya? We've got three more months, you and me, and we need to work together, okay?" I sighed as I settled further in under the covers. "I love you and so does your daddy."
*****
TBC
