So we didn't go to church this morning so here I am
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I also got ALL my grading done!!!! WOOHOO!!! Still have to enter them in the computer and all but that's easy to do
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Thanks - as ever - to Alisha, Beth and Nancy.
Last time:
Clark
I sighed. "At least he didn't threaten Nate," I finally said.
"No, he didn't, but whenever Nate isn't home but isn't with one of you two or Christopher for whatever reason, he'll have his own security, too. For now, at least."
"Three more years," I sighed.
"Then what?"
"According to current Latislani law – at least last I heard – his claim is invalid if Lois and I are still married when Christopher turns five. Of course, it's possible that he'll change the law again like he did last time. If he could find a way to make some sort of valid claim on Nate he probably would – like if he was in the country around the time of conception or whatever..." I let a deep breath out slowly.
"Well, you know all of you are welcome here as long as you want, but even if you guys end up moving out for some reason – jobs across the country or whatever – I'll make sure that security is something you'll never have to worry about."
"Thank you, Sam," I said sincerely. "That means a lot to me." I choked up momentarily. "There's no way I could afford to protect my family like this. I'd do whatever it took, you know that – even if I had to set them up in an igloo at the North Pole – but all this... The security guards, the lockdown systems, everything else... There's no way." I looked back up at him. "Thank you."
"I'm not going to let anyone get to my family either. And I can afford all this, no problem. You do what you can to take care of them, and I'll do what I can." He sat up, leaned forward his forearms resting on his desk and he looked straight at me. "And what you can do is keep acting like you and my daughter are living the greatest love story since Hans Solo and Princess Leia."
I was sure my eyes were wide as the proverbial flying saucer as my head jerked up to look at him.
"What?" I managed to squeak out.
"You heard me," he said, leaning back in his chair. "So do you want to tell me the whole story or should I keep pretending to be oblivious?"
*~*112*~*
~~~~~
Lois
~~~~~
It was going to be a long night.
I could tell that as soon as Clark and everyone else left. Nate didn't seem to want to sleep. He was still nursing as well as could be expected, but he was still spitting a lot of it up – more than I remembered Christopher doing.
I finally sent him back to the nursery to let the nurses deal with him. I knew that the next night, I'd be on my own – more or less – and I needed to get some sleep. Clark would be a bigger help than he had been the first few weeks Christopher had been home so that would help, but most of his care would – necessarily – fall to me.
I curled up as best I could and tried to get comfortable on a bed made of foam and industrial plastic or whatever it was and a pillow that I was sure couldn't have been any flatter if it was *actually* a pancake. I thought about calling Clark and having him fly my pillow over but decided not to.
I sighed deeply and my mind drifted back to earlier. He'd kissed me – really kissed me. I closed my eyes and relived those few seconds, the feel of his lips on mine, his hand pressed against my cheek.
I knew it was only because I'd just given birth to his baby and nothing more than that. It wasn't like he'd suddenly fallen in love with me or something like that. It was a kiss of... gratefulness or thankfulness or something like that.
Had he felt what I did?
Was it because I was still hopelessly in love with him? Something I hadn't tried too hard to rectify yet – not while I was pregnant with his child.
Was it because he was the only man I'd ever been with?
Was it all my imagination?
Had the spark, the electricity, I'd felt been the product of an overactive, overtired, extra hormonal, extra fertile imagination?
Or had it really been something?
If so, he hadn't said anything, hadn't given any indication that he'd felt any of it.
I hadn't had the mental energy to delve into it the night before – not after the nurse finished checking me over.
I sighed again and wished that I could just sleep in his arms, have him spooned behind me, his body warm against mine as we fit perfectly together in sleep. He hadn't held me like that since my declaration of love.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I should never have told him. For the most part, things were pretty normal – as normal as they had been before Pop Pop died anyway.
The door opened and I sighed again. So much for sleep.
"Someone's looking for his mom," my nurse for the night said quietly. "Do you want to try to nurse him?"
I nodded, unbuttoning the top of my pajamas. "Yeah, we'll see how he does and then probably give him back to you to top him off with a bottle if that's okay." I yawned, as though to emphasize my point.
"Do you need some help?" she asked as we both read the numbers off the bands. She picked Nate up and handed him to me.
"Would you mind helping me make sure he's latching on right?" I asked as I maneuvered him.
"Sure."
A few minutes later, he was nursing well.
"Thank you," I told her.
"I'll be back in a bit. Just push the button if you're ready for me before then."
I nodded. "Thanks."
I tried not to move because this was actually working. He looked a lot like Christopher – like Clark – I noted as I watched him.
I carefully reached for the TV remote on the multipurpose doohickey that also had the call button and volume and everything else on it. ANC was running their top of the hour news. The first story was the brutal extinguishing of the group that attempted a coup in Latislan.
I sighed. A girl could dream, right? And with the outcome of this one – apparently Navance's men had been... cruel to the men and their families, including their wives – it seemed unlikely another one would be attempted any time soon.
The next story was on the arrest of the governor of New Troy for apparent crimes – including the 'sale' of the presently vacant Senate seat. A surge of pride swelled inside when they mentioned the story was broken by Billy Norcross and Serena Judd-Norcross of the Daily Planet. Clark and I had helped some with that story. I'd mostly done research from the... comfort of my own recliner while Clark had done more.
Nate was done on that side and I situated the burp cloth before carefully maneuvering him to burp. With the burp came a good portion of what he'd eaten. I was glad it had all stayed on the cloth though – I didn't have any other clean pajamas. I breathed a sigh of relief when he easily latched on the other side and turned my attention back to the news.
There was nothing exciting on – some late night talking heads debating some policy or other that I didn't really have much interest in at the moment. I flipped through the channels until I found a rerun of 'Gilligan's Island'. I smirked to myself as I remembered Clark's rescue of Ralph several months earlier.
I watched as Wrong Way most decidedly did not help them get off the island. Nate finished nursing on the other side and spit up what seemed like everything he'd taken in. I paged the nurse to come get him and take him back to the nursery.
Maybe I'd actually be able to get some sleep.
~~~~~
Clark
~~~~~
I just sort of stared at Sam.
He smirked back.
"Um..." My mouth opened and closed more than once I was sure.
"I'd laugh but I don't think it's very funny."
I sighed, resigned, and leaned back in the chair. "I don't either."
"So?" he asked expectantly.
"I told you the truth at the cabin," I told him. "Neither one of us really remembers what happened that night – just that it did. And what we do remember, we didn't remember until later. And that's where Christopher came from."
"And Latislan?"
How much to tell him? "You know Lois. She thought she saw something that would turn into a big story someday and followed someone to the airport. I was with her when she took off and went with her, trying to talk her out of it. The next thing I knew we were in the hold of the plane on our way to Latislan."
"What was in it?"
I sighed. "Guns. Lots of guns."
He frowned. "That doesn't sound like a good plan – following guns."
"We didn't open one of the crates until we were in the air." I'd known but I couldn't have told Lois that and I wasn't about to let her go alone. "By the time we landed, she was sick and she essentially sacrificed her location so they wouldn't find both of us. She was in the confrontation with Navance before Daniel got there. Once he claimed the baby, the only out under Latislani law was if Lois was married."
"The courts would never have let him take Christopher back," Sam pointed out. "And I wouldn't have either, legal ramifications be damned."
"Things between you and Lois weren't all that great at the time," I reminded him. "At least not from where she stood. And I'd already told Navance that the baby was mine. Even if the courts wouldn't send him to Latislan, how many people remember Elian Gonzalez? He'd always be Christopher Kent – or Lane if we'd never gotten married – kid who might or might not be the child of a dictator whose maybe bio dad wouldn't marry his mom to protect him. You saw what it was like in Smallville – now imagine a court case that drags on for years. He and Lois would be virtual prisoners here. They'd still have to have security whenever they left only they'd have paparazzi, too. One of those celebrity kids websites would post every picture of them they could. We thought we could get married, get out of dodge and then decide what to do."
I ran a hand through my hair. "I was ready to propose to Lana – I sold her engagement ring to a Marine so I could pay for the wedding and the rings – and Lois and Joe had decided to give it a real try again. He offered to marry her when we got back; after he found out she was pregnant but before he knew we already were."
"So you got married to protect her and Christopher, but you stayed married – even though you were in love with someone else... why exactly?" He looked scary. I thought I'd found the fourth person who could actually scare me – Mom, Dad, Lois and a dad who wanted to protect his little girl.
"At some point – between the time we left Latislan and the time we landed back in the States, he changed the law. His claim on Christopher is still valid in Latislan unless we stay married until Christopher turns five – long enough that we wouldn't stay married if we didn't mean it but short enough that his motives aren't completely obvious."
"But you didn't mean it, did you?" He was growing more menacing by the minute. "And what exactly is going to happen when Christopher turns five?"
What was I supposed to say to that? I sighed and shook my head. "No, I didn't really mean it – anymore than she did," I pointed out. "Regardless of Christopher's paternity, we hadn't planned on staying married once we got home." Maybe I could distract him from the birthday question. "Once we were in that situation, I would have done what I did even if she wasn't having my baby."
"Would you have stayed married to her?"
"Yes," I told him without hesitation. "As long as she didn't tell me no and call the lawyer, I would have stayed married to her." I *had* stayed married to her not knowing he was my son, but I couldn’t tell him that. So far, I hadn't really told him much more than I had my parents – just the gun thing, I thought.
"But you're still not in love with her? And even though you're not in love with her, you've obviously had sex or she never would have gotten pregnant – right around the time of my heart attack, if I'm not mistaken."
I nodded. "I assure you that *every* time we've been together, it's been entirely mutual," I said quietly. "I would never take advantage of her or see what I could get away with or whatever."
He snorted. "Lois would leave you walking funny for a week if you tried."
I smiled slightly. "Probably."
"Have you ever cheated on her?" The question, and the underlying tone, caught me off-guard.
I hesitated.
"You have?"
I sighed and ran both hands through my hair this time. "When our tour group got back from Europe, I had to break up with Lana. I kissed her then and one other time about a week later. Lois knows about both of them and I apologized a long time ago. But that's it. I've never cheated on her – besides those kisses – and I won't. I may not be in love with her, but I do care about her – very much and not just because she's the mother of my sons. I promised her my fidelity and she has it. I don't want to hurt her if there's anything in my power to stop it." Anything but falling in love with her, I thought, but that wasn't in my power.
<Lana's not waiting for you,> my inner teenager replied. <You *could* at least tell her that you wanted to try at a life with her. You could be having sex with her on a regular basis in a few weeks. It *was* pretty amazing, after all.>
<Shut up,> the non-teenager inner voice told him. <I can't lead her on like that, no matter how good the sex was.>
"Is she in love with you?" he asked quietly.
"You'd have to ask her that," I answered. "I'm not sure how she feels." Not at the moment anyway.
"Oh, she's not going to know about this conversation," Sam informed me, using that same tone that my mom did when I knew better than to argue with her. "At least not all of it. Not the part where I know that you're not in love with her. And you still haven't explained why you're pretending to have the greatest love story since Hans and Leia or what's happening when Christopher turns five."
I sighed and hoped I could distract him from the second half of the question. "Part of the law was that the marriage has to be a real marriage and not simply to negate his paternity claims. All he needs is 'reasonable suspicion' or something like that and then my claims of paternity are invalid – even if a DNA test had proven that Navance wasn't his father by then. That's why it's so important that everyone believes that everything is as it seems. Having Nate had nothing to do with any of that, but I'm sure he goes a long way towards proving that we're not just married to protect Christopher from him."
"*Is* that the *only* reason you're married to my daughter?"
"That's how it started," I told him as honestly as I could while trying to imply a lot more about where we were at present than I actually said. "Things have changed a lot since then. I *do* love Lois, even if I'm not *in* love with her right now, and I love Christopher and Nate more than anything. I'd do just about anything short of murder to protect them, though I probably wouldn't testify against someone else if I saw them do it."
He looked at me for a long time. It stretched into eternity and I felt like I was being evaluated for something and being found wanting, but I wasn't entirely certain what it was.
Probably as a suitable mate for his only living child and as the father his grandchildren.
And I wasn't measuring up; even though I was doing everything I could to protect them.
To tell the truth, if I was in his position, I probably wouldn't think I measured up either.
He finally nodded slightly. "I appreciate you telling me as much as you have, though I get the feeling I still don't know the whole story."
"You're welcome," I said, ignoring the second half of his statement.
"I did have one other question, though."
I nodded at him.
"Don't think I didn't notice that you still haven't answered me. What are your plans when Christopher turns five?"
*****
TBC
