From Part 17 ...
If she deduced that he hadn’t known about this, she was going to suspect his secret.
It was vital that he tell her the secret before she worked it out for herself. Then, at least he would have the opportunity to try to explain.
Would his secret shock her?
Yes.
Would it repel her?
He hoped not.
She had thought it sad when she’d discovered that he’d never eaten a meal with anyone until her arrival.
She would understand.
And she would still love him.
That knowledge filled him with joy.
Lois *would* still love him.
Wouldn’t she?
He hoped so.
Because he knew he couldn’t go back to his old life. Couldn’t go back to any life that didn’t include Lois.
He needed her.
Part 18
Kal wasn’t in his room when Lois returned from her visit with Riz. On the desk was half a glass of the blue drink and a plate with what looked like the meatball stuff in slice form.
Clearly, Kal had already eaten.
Under the plate was a piece of paper. Lois picked it up and immediately smiled. It was a simple drawing of a woman sitting on a bed facing a man sitting on a chair. The man had a plate of food on his lap; the woman was holding a cup with a waft of steam floating above it. Above the picture was the word, ‘LOIS’ and below it was the word, ‘KAL.’
Lois laughed.
A note ... from a man who knew how to write just two words in her language, yet had managed to convey so much.
I was thinking about you as I ate my lunch.
I wish you were here with me.
I am looking forward to our date tonight.
I am looking forward to it too, Kal, Lois thought.
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Lois had intended to spend the afternoon writing her journal, but found herself distracted by thoughts of Lord Nor.
His father had been a part of a committee of two who had established the Law on New Krypton. If Kal hadn’t survived, Ked would have become the Supreme Ruler and Nor would be the absolute authority now.
Kal had no parents and, as far as she knew, no close relatives.
*Someone* must have protected him.
It would have been just too easy for Ked and Nor to ‘extinguish’ the only person – a child - who stood between them and power.
But who?
Who had protected young Kal?
Who had wanted Kal to become the Supreme Ruler enough to ensure his safety?
Why had his parents not travelled with Kal? How had they died, yet he survived? Had they given the care and protection of their child into someone’s hands?
Who?
Someone from the North? Lois looked at her list. Eb’s husband, Jib, Mo, Riz and Ching were from the North.
Ching?
No - he had been a child himself.
In the early years on New Krypton, Kal’s survival was important because he represented both sides – he was their hope, Riz had said. But what about now? If Kal were no longer their leader – Lois refused to dwell on the implications of that thought – would the people accept Nor?
If Kal remained childless, would they have a choice other than to accept Nor? Would the only other choice be war?
But to destroy the samples and merely wait – that seemed far too tame for a man who had bashed his concubine to death.
There had to be more.
Nor just didn’t seem like a man who left things to chance.
When it was time for Lois to go to her room to get ready for her date with Kal, she still had no answers. A lot of questions, but no answers.
But her gut told her Nor was a man with a plan.
And that plan did not bode well for Kal.
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Kal dabbed some of the cologne on his neck, hoping that at some time during the evening, Lois would wrap her arms around his shoulders and move in close.
He put on his newest coat and straightened it. Then he glanced around the room; he tidied the already tidy pile of Disputes. He had no intention of working on them this evening.
He walked to Lois’s room, aware of his excitement at the prospect of spending the evening with her; aware too that he was nervous, just like before he had kissed her.
He really wanted tonight to go well.
He wanted Lois to smile a lot. He hoped there would be opportunity to turn off their Translators so he could become more proficient in her language. He wanted to hold her hand and touch her face.
And, if everything had gone really well, he was hoping it would be appropriate to linger over their goodnight kiss.
He knocked on her door and waited for it to open.
When it did, his breath stuck in his throat. She had done something to her hair – he wasn’t exactly sure what. His best guess was that she had moved some of it from one side to the other. It was straighter somehow, and shinier. Actually, he had no idea what she’d done, but it was good. “I like whatever you did to your hair,” he said.
She smiled – smiled like she couldn’t help smiling - and it warmed him inside and settled some of his apprehension. “Thank you, Kal,” she said.
“Shall we go?” he asked.
“Yes.” She stepped forward, but paused as she passed him and hesitated long enough to kiss his mouth. It was short, but there was something about it that made him think it held a promise of more to come. She smelled wonderful. Kal took her hand and walked her to his bedroom.
In his bedroom, Kal settled Lois on the bed and then went to the Dining Room for the food. He returned with a plate and a glass of clear liquid.
“What are we eating?” Lois asked.
Kal sat down, examining the plate of food. “I don’t know,” he said.
“What did you order?”
“I told the chef I wanted his best meal.”
Kal handed Lois her stick and they both tasted experimentally. Kal looked at her, hoping she would like it.
She smiled. “I think it’s a variety of fish,” she said. “I don’t recognise it exactly, but it tastes wonderful.”
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Lois could see how important it was to Kal that she liked the meal. She didn’t need to pretend – it was delicious.
But the way Kal looked ... and smelled ... she was confident any food would taste good. “Do you have any special plans for tonight?” Lois asked.
“Yes.”
If she wanted to know his plans, all she had to do was ask. That was one of the amazing things about being with Kal. But surprises were fun, too. “Are you going to tell me your plans or surprise me?”
“Maybe ...” He grinned. “Maybe, I’ll keep some things a surprise.”
“What about your big secret ... are you going to tell me that tonight?”
“I haven’t learnt your language well enough yet.”
“You could tell me in your language.”
He thought about that for a moment, then suddenly broke into a grin. “What will you give me in return?”
Lois nearly choked on her fish. Kal was *teasing* her. His eyes were sparkling and his smile seemed barely contained in his face. “What do you want?” she threw back.
“I could be talked into just about anything for one of your kisses,” he informed her, still grinning.
Lois stared at him, incapable of articulating any sort of comeback.
“Think about it while we eat,” he suggested easily. “We have all evening to talk.”
Lois turned her attention to their meal, suddenly not in the least hungry for food. What she craved was more of Kal – more of his banter, more of his grinning lightheartedness. He had given her the merest taste – yet it had been enough to confirm she faced a lifetime of delectable addiction. She shot a surreptitious glance at him. He seemed less troubled by her refusal to agree to marry him. He *would* ask her again – she was sure of that. And when he did, she intended to find out *exactly* what he meant by marriage.
Lois sipped from the clear liquid – it was sweet, like the juice of a fruit.
When they had finished eating, Kal put their plate on the floor and relaxed back in the chair, studying her with just the suggestion of a smile.
“Have you thought any more about a deal?” Lois asked.
“Can I get a piece of your paper from the desk?” he asked.
“Sure.”
He shuffled through her papers and then returned with one sheet. When he held it up, Lois recognised it as the letter she had written to Kal. “I noticed this writing starts with my name and finishes with yours,” he said. “Is it a letter?”
She hadn’t realised the full repercussions of teaching him written words. “Yes.”
“To me, from you?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t read it.”
“No.”
“Would you read it to me, please?”
Would she? She had written it secure in the cloak of privacy. But did it say anything she didn’t want him to know? “Why do you want me to read it to you, Kal?” she asked, buying time to navigate her way through this. “Is it because you’d like to know what I said in the letter? Or because you are worried about telling me your secret?”
“Both,” he admitted.
“Why are you so worried?”
“You may feel differently about me when you know everything about me.”
“Do you think that is what will happen?”
“No,” he said. “But losing you would be ... unendurable.”
Lois took the letter from him and placed it on the bed next to her. “I think it would be a good idea if we got it done first. I promise I will read you the letter after you’ve told me the secret.”
He hesitated. His throat bobbed. His face and neck coloured a little.
Then Lois heard a click and the red light above the door flashed. Kal turned. “Someone wants to see me,” he said, clearly frustrated by the interruption. “I am sorry. I will be back as soon as I can. Please don’t leave.”
“I won’t leave.”
Kal stood and went out the door, shutting it behind him.
He was gone for a minute. Then a minute more. Lois perused her letter, imagining reading it to Kal. He was going to ask why she wanted to hold him, but couldn’t. And that was going to lead to a whole lot of explaining. Lois grinned suddenly ... maybe she should go with the writer’s mantra – show, don’t tell.
That would be easier ... and a whole lot more fun.
She hauled her mind away from that and thought about Kal’s secret. What could it possibly be? That he *wasn’t* really married to Za? That it was the Kryptonian equivalent of a publicity stunt? That he couldn’t father children? That he had other wives hidden away somewhere?
Lois shrugged. None of them seemed likely, but she figured there was a good chance that whatever it was, it wouldn’t seem likely.
Unless it was that he had never made love with a woman.
Kal hadn’t come back. Lois could hear the murmur of low voices on the other side of the door. She stared at the door, wondering how rude it would be to attempt to hear what they were saying. It wouldn’t be rude at all, she decided, not for a reporter.
And anyway, if something bad had happened – another massacre - it would give her some advance warning for when Kal came back.
She stared at the door, ears straining.
Then something happened.
Something that, had she been standing, she was sure she could not have supported her own weight.
The door peeled back and she stared *through* it.
Not through the doorway.
But literally *through* the closed door.
Lois slammed shut her eyes and tried to reassemble her splattered wits. What had just happened wasn’t possible. People did not see *through* doors.
She opened her eyes again and gave a relieved snort that she could see the door. And she *couldn’t* see through it.
Then, it peeled back again and Lois saw Kal talking with two men.
As she stared, the two men walked away and Kal turned towards her. She watched Kal approach the closed door. Saw him reach for the handle and open the door.
Then he came through the doorway.
The moment he saw her, Kal hurried to her side and crouched next to her, his face concerned. “Lois,” he said. “Lois. What is wrong?”
Lois snatched the glass from the floor and gulped some of the juice. “Wh..wh..at makes you think there is s.s.something wrong?” she asked.
“You’ve gone really pale and you are shaking,” Kal said. He gently extracted the glass from her grip and replaced it on the floor. Then his warm hand rested on her forearm. “What can I do?”
Lois slowly shook her head.
“I could hug you,” Kal suggested.
Without waiting for her to reply, he helped her to her feet and gathered her into a close embrace. “Whatever happened Lois, we will be all right,” he said. “If we’re together, we’ll be all right. I won’t ever leave you.”
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Kal could feel Lois’s body shaking. He shaped his hand around her hair and eased her into the space between his neck and his shoulder.
A feeling rose in him.
A feeling he had known many times before.
The feeling of his need and his desire to protect those who needed his protection.
But this was stronger, purer, and more concentrated. This was specific to this woman. He tightened his arms around Lois. Whatever had upset her, he would do everything in his power to fix it. If it took strength or authority, he *would* fix it.
And if it took something else, he would get whatever was needed from somewhere.
He felt the surge of his love for her.
And his pain because something had upset her.
He discovered his hand on her head was moving ... gliding slowly through her soft hair. It would probably untidy it, but he couldn’t help it. He had to soothe her, had to comfort her, had to do something to make her world right again. “It’s all right,” he murmured against her ear. “It’s all right, my Lois. My lovely Lois. I love you. It’s all right.”
He held her until her quivering had stopped. Then he gently eased her from his body and looked into her face. “What is wrong?” he asked.
She didn’t respond. He carefully sat her down on the bed. He knelt next to her and took her hands in his. She was staring ahead, although appeared to be seeing nothing. “Lois?” he said gently.
“Kal.”
Her eyes lost their unfocused glaze and turned to him. Kal felt a surging relief. He smiled, a little hesitantly, hoping she would respond. She gave a little twitch of her mouth. “What happened?” he asked. “Are you unwell?”
“I d..don’t know what happened,” she said, her voice shaking.
“Lois, I am worried. I think I should take you to the medical room.”
Lois shook her head. “I don’t need to go to the medical room.”
“You don’t have to tell me what happened,” Kal said. “But please, please tell me if you are going to be all right.”
She managed a tight smile. “I’m going to be fine, Kal.” She took her hand from where he was holding it and touched his face. “I’m sorry I worried you.”
“What happened?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Lois said. “But I think I just trumped your secret.”
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Kal waited, unsure what he should do.
Lois stood, unsteadily. She looked around the room, almost as if she were disoriented. Kal hovered, his hand on her waist to steady her. “Kal?” she faltered.
“Yes.”
“Is it possible to move the bed over so it’s in the corner against two walls?”
“Yes.” Kal bent low and pushed the bed into the corner.
“I want us to sit close,” Lois said. “To be comfortable and to be able to see each other’s faces.” She put the pillows in the corner and gestured for Kal to sit there.
He sat against the bed-head. She clambered onto the bed and sat, leaning sideways into the wall, facing him, her legs folded under her.
Kal smiled at her, hoping she would smile back.
She did, but it looked like she’d had to force it to her mouth.
It warmed him as her smile always did – but it wasn’t enough to blunt the barbs that were twisting through his insides. He wished he hadn’t said anything about his secret. Not yet. Not with Lois clearly distressed about something. He had so wanted their first date to end well.
But it was too late now.
“I guess we both have things we need to say,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Do you want to go first?”
“I don’t know,” Kal said. “Do you?”
“Whoever goes first, we should agree beforehand that we will both say the things we need to say.”
“Yes.”
“So who goes first?”
“You choose,” he said. “I will do whatever you want.”
“You go first.”
“All right.” Kal’s deep breath reverberated through him and he could feel the pounding rhythm of his heart. “What I’m about to tell you I have not told anyone before. I was told that it was my duty to never tell anyone.”
“Who told you that?” Lois asked. “Ked and Yent?”
“Yes,” he said. “How did you know that?”
“Gut.”
“Gut?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Lois said. “I’ll explain later. Go on.”
“I’ve thought a lot about how I should do this. I wanted to do it with the Translators off, but I haven’t learnt enough of your language yet.” He enclosed her hand into both of his. “Please, Lois, if there is anything you don’t understand, please ask questions until you do.”
“What if I ask a question you don’t want to answer?”
“I don’t want any secrets from you.”
“OK.”
“Please remember that I’m still Kal. I’m still the man you have come to know.”
He could see he had worried her. “Is it *that* bad?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me, Kal,” Lois said urgently. “Just tell me. Whatever you say, it won’t change that I love you.”
Kal smiled. “That’s what I’m hoping.”
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Lois’s heart thumped as she watched Kal. This secret – whatever it was – was clearly a huge deal for him. She tried to prepare herself for whatever was coming. He trusted her enough to tell her; trusted her enough to risk her reaction. However shocked she was, she *couldn’t* fail him.
“I became the Supreme Ruler of New Krypton the day I reached sixteen years of age,” Kal said. “I married Za one month after this. I began my preparation to lead New Krypton at the age of fifteen and one half years.”
“You only had half a year to prepare?” Lois questioned. “That would be official preparation, right? They would have been preparing you all your life to do this?”
Kal didn’t answer her question other than the merest shake of his head. “I was four months old when Krypton was destroyed.”
“But they had a way to keep you safe?”
“Yes.”
Something in how his hand tightened around hers told Lois they had reached the core of his secret. “How?” she asked.
“They put me in hiatus.”
“What do you mean ... hiatus?”
“They made me unconscious just before Krypton was destroyed.”
“So you missed the evacuation from Krypton?”
“Yes.”
There was more. “And you ... missed the three years of searching for a new planet?”
“Yes.”
There was still more - something in Kal’s tone told her there was more. “And?”
“And all the other years until I was fifteen and a half.”
