This fic does not link with anything I've written previously.
Setting – Late Summer, 2004
Rating – PG 13
Canon – assume canon except for ‘Family Hour’
B.A.M.R (Bob's Angst Meter Reading) - High
Disclaimer - these are not my characters. I refer to lines and scenarios that are not mine.
Schedule - it's written and betaed and mostly edited, so we're all ready to go - RL pending.
A HUGE THANKS to IolantheAlias who again offered to beta this and again did a wonderful job. I played around with four titles and flippantly suggested this one (more as a joke), but Iolanthe liked it, so we're going with Treasure Chest.
I hope you enjoy.
Part 1
Clark Kent glanced at his watch.
For possibly the hundredth time in two hours.
It was after ten.
He’d known Lois wouldn’t be in before eight, but he had been unable to extinguish his hope that she would be in early enough for them to celebrate her birthday together.
Then he heard the sound he’d been dreading – a cry for help that almost certainly snatched away any chance of being with Lois tonight.
With super-breath, he cooled the food he had prepared and with super-speed covered it and stowed it in the refrigerator.
He scribbled a quick note. 'Happy Birthday, honey. Food in the fridge, Love Clark.' He left it on the table, hoping she would see it.
As he spun into the suit, he pushed away his scalding disappointment.
Perhaps they could celebrate her birthday tomorrow.
Or maybe at the weekend.
||_||
Lois Lane unlocked the front door of her home and headed straight for the stairs to her bedroom.
She dumped her bag on the blanket box at the end of the bed and wearily trudged to the bathroom to remove her make-up.
Ten minutes later, she tumbled into the empty bed.
Most of the day, Lois had thought tomorrow’s lead story would be a rather dry exposition of the deteriorating state of the main thoroughfares into Metropolis. Then the story Murnane had been investigating for over a week – involving high-level corruption in the Port Authority - had finally broken open and his hard work had resulted in a scoop for the Planet.
It had meant another late night as Lois had worked with him to put the finishing touches to his story. They had pushed the deadline to its absolute limit, but she knew it would be worth it when the Daily Planet would again lead the way with tomorrow’s news.
||_||
Clark Kent selected three eggs from the fridge.
The meal he had made for Lois’s birthday was there – untouched - exactly as he had left it last night. He closed the door, cracked the eggs onto his plate and cooked them with his heat vision.
He ate his breakfast at super-speed. It had been one of those nights when the emergencies had lined up one after the other – a high rise apartment fire followed by a derailed interstate train followed by a storm that had, amongst other things, taken down miles of power lines.
He checked the time. It was nearly eight. If he flew, he could make the staff meeting.
||_||
Lois Lane scanned the assembled faces of her reporters. Only Clark was missing. She lifted her vision and looked out of the conference room window to the elevator. There was no sign of him. She’d heard the reports of a storm in Alabama and assumed he was there. It seemed there had been a lot of damage – Clark might not be in before lunch. She cleared her throat and the murmur of voices fell silent. “Let’s get started,” she said.
“Where’s Clark?” Murnane asked.
“Alabama,” she replied. She paused, waiting to see if there were any other questions, not wanting to appear to be brushing over the fact that Clark had, yet again, been assigned as the reporter to travel to a story. She eyed their faces – there was no obvious dissension.
If they felt any animosity at what could be seen as preferential treatment for her husband, there was no evidence of it. Lois felt a quiet wave of relief. She’d mostly managed to keep the petty office squabbles to a minimum in her fifteen months at the helm of the Daily Planet.
Lois turned to Murnane with a genuine smile. “Great story on the Port Authority, Ian,” she said. “Well done.”
He nodded succinctly, although she could tell he was pleased with her public acknowledgement.
“What are the plans for follow-up stories?” she asked.
He reached for his notes and the meeting began.
||_||
That afternoon, Clark Kent tapped on the door of his wife’s office and stepped in. She had the phone clasped between her jaw and her shoulder and was typing with both hands as she listened to whoever was on the other end of the line. Clark rounded her desk and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.
He settled into the vacant seat and waited for her call to finish. A minute later, she replaced the phone and turned to him. “Hi,” she said.
“Sorry I didn’t make the staff meeting this morning,” he said.
“Where were you?” she asked. Her eyes had diverted back to her monitor. “Alabama?”
“I was there overnight and got back in time for breakfast. Then a cruise ship in the Pacific had some engine problems, so I towed it back to Noumea. It wasn’t too far from land, but it took a long time because I had to limit my speed to what the ship could handle.”
Lois nodded as her fingers busily typed on her keyboard. “Do you have a story from Alabama?”
“Yes. I’ll have it to you in less than half an hour.”
She glanced across from her monitor. “Thanks. I guessed that’s where you were; Ian asked this morning at the staff meeting.”
Clark stood. “I should get on with it.” He paused at the door. “Any idea when you will be home this evening?”
She grimaced, although she didn’t look up from her work. “I’ll be late; the Port Authority story goes deeper than we first realised. I think there will be rolling revelations for the next few days.”
“Do you want me on it?”
“Not yet,” she said. “Ian Murnane has it covered, with Matt Bremner as backup. I’ll let you know.”
Clark closed her door and went to his desk to write up the story of the destruction in Alabama.
||_||
Lois stifled her sigh when she saw the incoming call was from her sister. She picked up the phone and tried to summon an acceptable level of enthusiasm. “Hi, Lucy,” she said.
“Hi, Lois. How are things?”
“Busy, you know?”
“I saw the Planet was the first to break the Port story this morning. Congratulations.”
“Thanks. How are my nephews?”
“A few sniffles, but nothing too serious.”
“Perhaps it’s the weather; it’s been unseasonably cool lately.”
“It feels like I haven’t seen you in ages,” Lucy said. “Would you and Clark like to come over for dinner soon?”
There was no resentment evident in Lucy’s tone. Lois registered her relief even as she scrambled for an excuse. “When?” she hedged.
“Your schedule is more structured than mine,” Lucy said. “You choose the day that suits you.”
Lois saw her escape and took it gladly. “I’ll be tied up with the Port story for a few days, so perhaps we could leave it until next week,” she said.
“We didn’t see you for your birthday,” Lucy said evenly. “I was hoping we could make it soon.”
Lois winced as she remembered Lucy’s call of two weeks ago suggesting they do something together for Lois’s birthday. She hadn’t given it another thought. “We will make it soon,” Lois promised.
“The boys miss you.”
Lois’s smile flickered at the thought of Lucy’s twin sons. “I miss them too, Luce,” she said. “It’s really busy right now, but as soon as things slow down a bit, I call you and we’ll get together.”
“OK,” Lucy said. “Did you have a good birthday?”
Again Lois suppressed a sigh. She had barely thought about her birthday. But she couldn’t tell Lucy that. “It was great,” Lois said brightly.
“What did Clark give you?”
“Perfume.”
“Ooohh – which one?”
Honestly, Lois had no idea. She had opened the present in the twenty seconds she had spent with Clark as he had come in from a rescue and she had been leaving for the Planet. “Ahh, I can’t remember its name,” she said. Then she added, “But it smells divine.”
“Did Clark take you out for dinner?”
“Not yet. But he will.”
Lucy was silent. Lois knew her sister was considering whether she should again launch into the ‘you’re working too hard’ monologue. Thankfully, she didn’t. “Call me when you have a free evening,” she said.
“I will,” Lois promised.
She replaced the phone and turned back to the story she’d been editing.
||_||
Two nights later, Clark clung to his wife long after the last vestiges of pleasure had evaporated from his sated body.
His body was sated, but the rest of him – his mind, his heart, his soul were still yearning ... yearning for the complete togetherness that was no longer there.
How had it come to this?
Clark knew, yet he didn’t know.
The slide had been so slow ... so gradual ... so easily lost amongst all the happy moments and times of closeness.
Lois hadn’t moved either. Her soft body against his side felt good - so good, Clark was tempted to try to convince himself, as he had many times before, that nothing between them had changed.
But it had.
He knew it.
She had to know it.
Perhaps that was why she hadn’t moved. If they fell asleep afterwards, it negated the need for conversation or connection on any other level.
In so many ways, they had had everything.
Except for one thing.
And that one thing was like an insidious cancer. It had infiltrated their marriage and leached the joy from it. Strangely, the bedroom had been the last place it had touched. At first, when they had accepted there would be no biological child, their longing had been a sadness that swept over them whenever they discussed their options. It hurt, but in the complete picture, it was nothing more than a small, dark shadow on an otherwise blissful landscape.
One by one, they had dismissed the options and then, with many tears, had accepted that their marriage would remain a couple and never progress to becoming a family.
They had resolved to move on – to appreciate all the wonderful gifts in their lives and not allow one deficiency to rob them of their joy.
For a time, they had succeeded.
But the sun had descended and the shadow had lengthened – first into their home life and then into their working life and lastly into their bedroom.
If there had been a marker – a single point of most significance in the long and gradual slide, Clark believed it had been the birth of Lucy’s boys. Lucy, who had a loving husband and twin sons. Lucy, who had everything that had once been Lois’s for the taking.
Lois had stifled her own yearning enough that she’d genuinely celebrated the news of Lucy’s pregnancy. The news she was expecting twins had been harder to take. That one sister should be doubly blessed ... while the other ... Lucy had invited Lois to be at the births, but Lois had declined.
Clark knew that Lucy, and all of Lois’s family, wondered. Wondered why a couple so clearly in love, had chosen not to have children.
Of course, the choice hadn’t been not to have children, but not to divulge why. Or even give them a version of the truth. It had been Lois’s decision – and being her family, Clark had gone along with it. But he had often wondered if simply telling them that he was unable to father a child might have been the better option.
Now Lucy had adorable eighteen-month-old sons. Lois loved them. But she couldn’t hide the ache whenever she saw them. Couldn’t hide it from Clark. Clark, who watched her ... and ached with her.
Lois was thirty-seven now. He knew the pressure of time was adding another dynamic to her longing.
Soon, in just a few short years, children wouldn’t be possible for her either.
He still loved her.
Loved her with everything he was.
He knew she still loved him.
But he’d failed her. He couldn’t give her the one thing she craved.
She’d achieved all of her other dreams. Not one, but two Pulitzers. Seven Kerths. Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Planet as its circulation soared and it reached spectacular heights in popularity and respect.
His wife was still beautiful. Not only *still*, but *more* beautiful than the day he had married her. Time had deepened her beauty and added a grace and poise that meant she could walk into any room and immediately command the attention of everyone present.
They had a lovely home – peaceful and serene – a haven from the bustle and stress of their working life. They had everything money could buy.
But money couldn’t buy the one gift they both craved.
He was the strongest, fastest man on Earth, but he couldn’t give his wife the desire of her heart.
Lois had fallen asleep. Her breathing had become a steady rhythm and her body had relaxed against his. Clark kissed the top of her head. She sighed and rolled away from him.
The sudden chill on his side had to be more than the absence of her warmth. Clark drew his fingertips across his ribs and then rubbed them against his thumb, feeling the moisture.
He rose onto his elbow and looked down into Lois’s face.
Her cheeks were streaked with the tracks of her tears.
Clark subsided back onto his pillow. Lois had been crying.
Her tears stabbed a crevice through his heart.
Crying!
Their lovemaking tonight hadn’t been the all-encompassing union of body and mind and heart and soul of his memories, but that wasn’t unusual now.
But crying.
He knew Lois mourned that, for them, making love could not result in the child they both wanted. He understood that the act had lost something of its beauty and power because it could only ever be for the here and now, never for the future.
But he hadn’t known it could bring her to tears.
Hadn’t known that her sadness had pervaded so thoroughly that the act of love brought only despair.
Hadn’t known that he would make her cry.
Clark felt his own sadness rise in tandem with hers. They couldn’t live like this. They couldn’t continue to watch helplessly as their love slid inevitably into the pit of disappointment.
He carefully unfolded from her and dropped a quick kiss into her hair, deliberately avoiding her tear-stained face. “Got to go, honey,” he whispered. He spun into the suit, but he didn’t fly away. He looked down on her sleeping form for a long moment as his pain thrashed around inside him. “I love you,” he said around a throat gone tight.
| |_| |
Martha Kent awoke.
She looked at the slight split where the curtains didn’t quite meet. It was still dark – way too early to consider getting up and beginning the day.
Jonathan hadn’t moved.
Why had she awoken? And with such restlessness?
She shuffled a little, moving closer to Jonathan’s comforting presence, hoping sleep would reclaim her.
It didn’t. Her eyes didn’t want to close and her mind didn’t want to settle.
Why?
She thought back to the days nearly forty years ago when Clark was a baby. So often then, she had awoken – not from his cries, but in anticipation of him needing her. She had soon learnt to rise and begin to warm his bottle. Within minutes, she would hear him and would take his prepared bottle into his room. She would lift him into her arms and sit in the rocking chair, treasuring every moment of the time alone with him in the silent darkness.
But those days were long gone.
So why was she awake now? And not even remotely sleepy?
After ten minutes, Martha became too impatient to remain still and quiet. Sleep had deserted her. She rose quietly from between the sheets and slipped into her robe. She tiptoed down the stairs and into her kitchen. She put on the kettle to boil and went outside.
It was a warm, balmy night. Still. Dark. Quiet.
It would have easy to believe she was the only person awake for miles.
Except she knew she wasn’t. “Clark?” she said quietly.
She heard a whoosh and a gentle thud as his feet landed a few yards away. He stepped towards her – dressed as Superman. Martha smiled in welcome.
He touched a kiss to her forehead. “What are you doing up?” he asked with much gentleness and the mildest hint of reproof.
“Couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Want some tea?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
She walked into the kitchen and began making their tea. “Been out on a rescue?” she asked.
He didn’t reply and Martha looked over her shoulder at her son. He stared ahead, giving no indication he had heard her question. She made the two cups of tea and brought them to the table. “Clark?” she said gently.
He started. Saw the tea and took it with a smile of thanks.
“Bad rescue?” Martha asked.
“Nah.”
“Good rescue?”
“Nah.”
“What’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer for a long time – just stared ahead, probably, in Martha’s estimation, seeing nothing. She sipped her tea, giving him time.
Her tea was finished and his had gone cold when Clark broke from his reverie and seemed to suddenly realise she was in room with him. “Ah, sorry,” he said.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” she said. “But if you want to tell me what’s bothering you, I’m willing to listen.”
Clark smiled, but it was such a sad version of his smile, it ripped a piece from her heart. He took a gulp of his tea, grimaced, shot it with a spurt of heat vision, and then put it back on the table.
Martha waited, outwardly serene, inwardly in turmoil. What could be worrying her son? Lois? Was Lois ill? No, Clark would just come out and say so.
Something else? A problem with their marriage? Martha hadn’t seen them much lately. In fact now she thought about it, she hadn’t seen them together since the spring. Clark had visited Smallville regularly, but Lois hadn’t come with him. All of Martha’s enquiries had been met with the same reply – Lois was busy in her new position as Editor-in-Chief.
But Perry White had retired over a year ago, so Lois couldn’t still be adjusting to the added pressures of her new position.
Were there problems at work? Was Clark struggling with Lois as his boss? Surely not. Clark was one of the least chauvinistic men she knew. But people could be different at work.
Martha studied the sombre face of her son. She knew he was deeply perturbed about something, but she could detect no hint as to the cause of those concerns.
He breathed deeply and it lifted his blue spandex-clad shoulders. His eyes rose slowly and met hers. “I’m going to offer Lois a divorce,” he said.
