From last time:
She spun back out of the suit and rejoined him in the bed. “Is everything all right?” she asked softly.
“Yeah,” he replied halfheartedly, trying to push the images from his dream out of his mind. “How’d everything go?”
“Warehouse fire,” she replied as she curled up next to him. “No one was hurt.”
He put his arm around her and pulled her closer. “Good,” he said distractedly.
Clark could still hear his heart thundering in his ears. His wife lifted her head from his chest. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. Apparently she could still hear and feel it, too.
“It was just a dream,” he assured her as he pressed his lips to her forehead. If only he knew how to convince himself of that fact. “Let’s go back to sleep.”
********
New stuff:
“Mom, Dad, you didn’t have to come all the way out here,” Clark protested as he opened the door to his apartment. His parents weren’t supposed to head out to Metropolis for at least a day or two so they could avoid the worst of the packing and unpacking chaos. Only a few minutes earlier, Lois had called to let him know they’d asked her to bring them out sooner and that they were on their way.
“Of course we did,” his mother replied. His parents followed him inside to the almost completely bare living space. All of his possessions had been boxed up and were ready to be moved into the apartment the Planet had rented them. He hadn’t lived in this place for almost five years now, but it seemed so strange to be giving it up. They’d put the apartment on the market and given the gradual gentrification of the neighborhood since he’d first moved here so many years ago, the realtor didn’t think they’d have any trouble moving it. He reminded himself that was a good thing.
Jon looked up at them from his coloring books on the floor. “Daddy, why do we have to move?” he asked for what Clark imagined was the hundredth time.
Clark knelt down beside his son. “Mommy and Daddy are going to go work with Uncle Perry and Uncle Jimmy, so we have to be in Metropolis,” he explained gently.
“But I like living with Grandma and Grandpa,” Jon protested as he turned back to scribbling with his green crayon.
“I know,” Clark replied. “I do, too. But they’ll come visit all the time. And we’ll go to the zoo and the park and the museum with them.”
Jon was silent for a long moment, furiously coloring the page with his crayon. He finally looked up with tears glimmering in his eyes. “What if I don’t like it here?”
Clark’s heart broke. “You’re scared of moving, right?” he asked softly. Jon merely nodded. “So am I,” Clark admitted.
Jon frowned at him. “Then why do we have to?”
“Sometimes doing what scares us is part of growing up. But I promise that your mommy and I want us to move here because we think it’s the best thing for our family. Okay? ”
“Okay, Daddy,” Jon agreed with a nod.
Clark smiled at his son. “That’s my boy,” he said as he hugged Jon. “Why don’t you show Grandma and Grandpa what you’ve drawn?”
Jon stood up to take his drawings to his grandparents. Clark watched as his son explained the pictures of dinosaurs and rockets. This was a dramatic change for his son, he knew that. But he also knew that they couldn’t stay in Smallville forever. Better to do this now, before Jon started preschool than to tear him away from new friends and a new school and make him start that process all over again.
In just a few days, he’d be starting back up at the Planet. They had a few days to get settled into the apartment and celebrate Jon’s birthday before that. A few mornings a week, Jon would go to the Planet’s daycare while both his parents worked. Other than editorial board meetings, though, there were few things that required Lois to be in the office, which meant she’d be able to spend much of her time with Jon, helping him cope with the change in his routine.
He heard the movers coming up the stairs and stood up to let them in. He pulled the door open just as the man on the other side started to knock.
“Hey, you’re pretty quick, buddy.” The mover’s shirt identified him as “Matt.” His Bakerline accent identified him as a Metropolis local.
“Come on in. Everything’s all boxed up,” Clark said as he stepped aside. The trio of movers marched in and began surveying the scene.
“Why don’t we take Jon over to the new place?” his father offered as he took his grandson’s hand.
“That’d be great,” Clark replied. “Lois should already be there.” Clark leaned down to hug his son. “Be good for Grandma and Grandpa, okay?”
“Okay,” Jon replied. “Bye Daddy.”
“See you soon, little man. I love you,” he said as he tousled his son’s hair. As his parents left with Jon, he turned his attention to supervising the movers. He would have much preferred to do this himself, but there were still appearances to keep up. Superman couldn’t very well be seen flying Clark Kent’s furniture across town and unlike Lois, he had the sense to hate driving in Metropolis, so it was better to leave that to professional movers.
It didn’t take them long to haul everything he owned—all the collected memorabilia from his travels around the world—into the truck. He signed the paperwork and told the movers he’d meet them at the new apartment. As he closed the door behind them, he took one last look around the now completely barren loft. After years of wandering the planet, staying in hostels and monasteries and yurts, this had been his first real apartment. The place where he’d started his life in Metropolis.
On the couch, just over there in the middle of the living room, Lois had fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder for the first time. By the kitchen, under the influence of that pheromone compound, she’d done the dance of the seven veils, nearly undoing the Man of Steel’s super willpower. He looked over his shoulder at the doorway. Lois had picked the locks on his door he couldn’t remember how many times. On the steps leading down from the entry, she’d convinced him not to go when he was sure that he couldn’t stay in Metropolis and keep hurting her because of Superman.
He did a quick sweep to make sure the place was truly empty – it wouldn’t do to leave a pair of boots or one of his spare capes somewhere for a potential buyer or realtor to find. With a sigh, he flicked off the light switch. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but somehow…it just…it should have been more. Turning off the lights on such a huge part of his life shouldn’t have seemed like such a small, inconsequential thing. But there were no maudlin violins to mark the occasion, no poignant voice over narration. He pulled the door open and with a last glance over his shoulder, walked out.
********
Lois finished unpacking the last of Clark’s things. It may have been temporary, but she had no interest in living in this place with a bunch of half-packed boxes stacked everywhere. The three bedroom apartment in one of the city’s newest high rises, just blocks from the Planet, had a remarkable view of Metropolis’s iconic skylines, but had that sterile, modern look about it, promising to exorcise anything resembling character that its occupants tried to introduce. What the place lacked in charm, though, it made up for in utility. By comparison to Clark’s place or her old apartment, it was immense. The third bedroom was perfect as an office and would make it easy for her to continue working from home. That morning, she’d flown back to Kansas and gathered all of their belongings there as well. Everything they owned was now in this apartment. But it didn’t feel like home. That, she hoped, would come when they found their own place.
She made her way to one of the large picture windows in the living room. It was a cold, gray, February day, but her city was still beautiful. The familiar contours of the city’s skyline—albeit from a new angle—stretched out before her. The corner unit gave them an expansive view of the West River and most of midtown. She could pick out the Planet Building, the Emperor Tower, and the Newstime Building, and Washington Center where it met the southern edge of the park. She pulled a face as her eyes passed over the Lexcorp Building. ‘Why wouldn’t they just rename the damn thing?’ she wondered.
The sound of the front door opening behind her caused her to turn around. Clark walked in, followed by his parents. “Everyone ready to go?” Jonathan called out.
Jon came running out of his room, apparently having woken up from his nap. “Grandma! Grandpa!” he shouted.
“How’s our birthday boy?” Martha exclaimed.
“I’m four today!” Jon declared proudly.
“That you are,” Lois replied. “We have a birthday surprise for you.” Her son’s eyes lit up. She turned to Clark, silently letting him know he should be the one to share the surprise. It was another first she felt so blessed to be experiencing – Jon’s first birthday since Clark’s return. After all these months, she didn’t think Jon remembered what it was like before his father came home. But she knew that for Clark, it was a never-ending battle to prove to himself he was a good dad. She never doubted that he was. Her husband was a wonderful father. Nothing mattered to him more than their little boy – making sure he was a happy, healthy little four year old.
“We’re going to the Natural History Museum,” he said. “They have really, really big dinosaurs there.”
“Yay!” Jon cheered loudly. She couldn’t help but smile in response. Perhaps her son wouldn’t have too tough a time getting used to Metropolis.
********
“Clark! We’re going to be late!” she exclaimed as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. She felt his lips trailing down the length of her neck toward her shoulder.
“Perry’ll understand,” he murmured.
“The hell he will,” she replied as she spun around.
“I’ll make Jon his breakfast,” he said as he took a step back, conceding defeat.
She grabbed him by his striped tie and pulled him back toward her, kissing him hard. She felt him smile against her lips. “You excited to be going back?” she asked as they parted.
“Excited. Scared. Anxious,” he said.
“You’ll knock ‘em dead,” she replied. “You did the first time.”
“I had help the first time.”
“You didn’t need me to be a great reporter, Clark.”
“No. But I needed you to be the best.”
She straightened the lapels of his suit jacket. “You still are. And you’ll be an amazing editor.” With another quick kiss, she walked out of the bedroom; it was time to make sure the other man in her life got the first day of his new routine off to a good start, too.
********
“Today was a big day for you,” Dr. Friskin said simply as he sat down on the couch in her office.
“It was,” he agreed.
“So how was your first day as the new assistant managing editor of the Daily Planet?”
He sighed, unsure where to begin – the outsized welcome back he’d received? The sense of getting thrown into the deep end on day one? The wistful feeling that spread over him when he looked at the bullpen where his and Lois’s desks had once been? Or the realization that had hit him halfway through the day that if Kal El could run a planet and wage a war, surely Clark Kent could manage the A Section of a newspaper? The old Clark was terrible at giving orders and had no experience managing a staff, but four years as First Minister had made it second nature. “It was good,” he said simply.
“And how are you making the transition back to Metropolis?”
“It’s been…a little bumpy. Jon misses having his grandparents around. He wasn’t too excited about going to daycare this morning. But I checked on him around lunch. He was making new friends.”
“So things are going fairly well, then?”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“And how are things with Lois?”
“Good,” he replied, but he paused and frowned. “Actually great. She’s been amazing through all of this…”
“But?”
‘How did Dr. Friskin know there was a ‘but’ there?’ he wondered. “But I’m still having the nightmares. And I still don’t know how to talk to her about them.”
“So she doesn’t yet know about Nor?”
He let the word ‘yet’ roll around in his mind. Obviously, his therapist expected him to come clean to his wife. “No, she doesn’t,” he confessed at last.
“But that is what the nightmares are about, isn’t it?”
Did they teach telepathy to shrinks? “Yeah. It’s always the same these days.”
“And I think that’s significant. You’ve made considerable progress on other fronts, but this issue continues to trouble you.”
He pushed up his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. “It’s not an ‘issue,’” he responded, more testily than he’d intended. “I killed a man. I’m not sure I’m supposed to get over that.”
********
Lois finished tucking Jon in and turned off the lights. She pulled the door closed behind her silently. “He’s asleep,” she said quietly to her husband, who was sitting on the couch in the living room, engrossed in the article he was editing. “I’m going to fly a patrol,” she added. “I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Be careful,” he said without looking up.
She smiled wistfully at the bizarre normalcy of their relationship. Spinning into the suit, she pushed open the balcony door, letting in a sharp gust of cold air. She took off over the West River before arching around to begin her first sweep of the city.
It wasn’t a quiet night, exactly, but it was routine. A mugging. An attempted assault. A couple of minor car accidents. She managed to keep herself busy for several hours, picking up petty criminals and defusing tense situations before tempers could get out of control. So much for crime going down when it was cold outside.
As the night wore on, it got quieter and she let her thoughts turn inward. Clark’s birthday was in a few days. She still didn’t know what to get him. What did you get a man who’d once ruled a planet? His parents were going to come into town on Saturday for dinner, along with Perry and Jimmy. Afterwards, she wanted to fly with him to all of their favorite places—the slopes of Kilimanjaro, the ruins of Ephesus, the painted desert, that tiny island that was too small to be named that only they knew about.
A sudden, sharp cry shook her out of her ruminations. She was flying over Parkside Hill, one of New Troy’s toniest neighborhoods. Zeroing in on the source, she swooped down to the brownstone near the corner of Sullivan Lane. With a quick scan of the house, she found the cause for the cry. An elderly woman was crumpled at the foot of the large staircase, her cane far from reach. Another scan confirmed the woman’s hip was broken.
Before forcing the door open, Lois knocked loudly. “Ma’am, it’s Ultrawoman,” she began. “I’m going to come in.” The deadbolt gave way easily, and she stepped into the dilapidated house, a crumbling shadow of its former glory. Cobwebs covered the stately crown molding. Water stains appeared in large splotches over the once elegant fleur de lis wallpapering. Slats in the wainscoting had popped loose and were now jutting out away from the walls. In the darkness, she made her way to the frail woman, struggling to sit up.
“Ultrawoman!” the woman exclaimed. “Oh, thank goodness you heard me.”
“Yes, I’m here,” Lois assured her as she took the woman’s hand. “You’re hip looks broken and I don’t think I should move you like this. I’m going to call an ambulance for you.”
She scanned the house and found the phone in the kitchen. With a promise to come back, she left to call for help. Knowing it would be a few minutes before the ambulance would arrive, she tried to figure out what would help make her charge more comfortable. She searched the cabinets for a clean glass, again shocked to see how a once great house had fallen into a state of disrepair. Several of the cabinet doors were falling off their hinges. Inside several of the cupboards, she was greeted by daddy longlegs, silverfish, and other of Metropolis’s less than savory denizens. The elderly woman seemed to live here alone and Lois imagined she didn’t have the ability to maintain such a large residence. Glad to find the faucets still working, she poured the woman a glass of water.
“Ma’am, the ambulance is on its way,” Lois said. “Can I bring you anything else?”
“Oh no, I’m just so thankful that you came. I don’t know what I would have done. My son keeps telling me to move out of this old house, but I can’t. If I do, they’ll tear it down.”
“Do you want me to call your son for you?” Lois asked. “I can have him meet us at the hospital.”
“He’s in Cleveland,” she said with a sad smile.
“Once the ambulance arrives, I can go get him and bring him here. But I won’t leave until you’re in good hands.”
“Thank you, dear.”
Within minutes, the telltale sound of sirens let them know the ambulance had arrived. Ultrawoman let the paramedics in and called the elderly woman’s son, preparing to pick him up and bring him to the hospital. “I’ll meet you at MetroGen,” she called out to the paramedics as they prepared to wheel the stretcher out.
Ten minutes later, she was landing at the hospital with a distraught, middle aged man as her passenger. They made their way to admitting, drawing a number of puzzled looks. “I need to see Mrs. Crowninshield, she was just brought in,” her son said anxiously to the admitting nurse. They followed the nurse’s directions down the hallway to the private room.
“Mom, are you okay?” he asked.
The elderly woman looked up from her bed and smiled. “I’m fine, Peter,” she assured him. “Thanks to Ultrawoman.”
“Mrs. Crowninshield, I’d be happy to secure your house for you,” Ultrawoman said.
“Mom, I wish you would just get rid of that place, it’s a deathtrap,” Peter complained.
“If I move out, the city will tear it down,” his mother replied.
“It should be condemned, Mom,” her son insisted.
There was a knock behind them. Lois turned around to see a doctor standing in the hallway, a chart in his hand. “Mrs. Crowninshield, I’m Dr. Hoffman.”
“I should be going,” Lois said.
“Thank you, again, Ultrawoman,” Peter Crowninshield said gratefully.
With a simple nod, Lois departed.
********
“I don’t like it as the lede,” Clark said, red pencil tucked behind his ear. He leaned over the conference room table to look at the mockups.
“What do you think if we move this up, and cut these two paragraphs here?” Mike said as he drew in his edits on the proofs.
“That’s better,” Clark agreed. “And if we move this sidebar to the inside page, we’ll free up two more column inches.”
“You really have a knack for this,” Mike said as he stood up straight, clapping Clark on the shoulder.
“Thanks,” Clark replied with a smile. The sudden sound of distant sirens drew his attention. Lois was at home with Jon, which meant he was on duty. He glanced at his watch, trying to come up with an excuse. “Sorry, I’ve got to return a call.”
“No problem, we’re pretty much set for tomorrow,” Mike said. “And twenty minutes ahead of schedule. See you Monday, Clark.”
“Thanks, Mike,” Clark said as he headed out of the conference room. So far in his new job, so good.
********
The rocking of the hammock soothed him, even as he slowly drifted back to consciousness. He felt the warmth of Lois’s body pressed against his, her hand over his heart. As he opened his eyes, he found her smiling at him. “Happy birthday, old man,” she said impishly. “How does thirty-five feel?”
“Pretty good,” he said with a contented sigh. He pressed his lips against her forehead. The ocean breeze stirred around them, the rising sun had started to warm the sand and the air. “Thanks for a really great birthday.”
She lifted her head to kiss him. “Here’s to many more.”
“Mmm hmm,” he said as he smiled against her lips.
“Your parents are taking Jon to the aquarium this morning, but we should probably head back home soon.”
He stretched his arms lazily overhead, causing the hammock to sway even more. “Okay,” he whispered softly. As nice as this was, and he couldn’t exactly think of things he’d rather do than spend time with his wife, he was eager to spend the afternoon with his family.
