"I guess it worked." Clark shrugged, not knowing the words to express his strong emotions. He didn't want to say anything else because he knew that he would bring Lois into the conversation.
"But how? What property of peroxide could possibly inhibit sensitivity to kryptonite radiation? It can't emit a counter radiation . . .?
"Dr. Klein?" Clark interrupted.
"Superman, what? Is something wrong?"
Clark couldn't help but roll his eyes at the scientist's hyper-excitability. He had just wanted to stop the inevitable long dissertation on the possibilities of how the peroxide worked. It might last hours. Usually, Clark found it somewhat interesting, if a little annoying, but today, he needed to get home to tell Lois about what had happened.
"No, I'm fine." When Dr. Klein looked at him skeptically, Clark said, "Really. I was just wondering if I should give you a sample or something? Maybe you could compare it to one of the samples you have on file for me."
Clark shrugged like he had no idea if his suggestion was good or not. He was the king of subtle hints. If there was a prize for subtlety, Clark Kent would definitely win. He was awesome.
The exuberance that had overtaken Clark at realizing the vaccine had worked was making him too excited. He needed to control himself or he might let something slip.
The vaccine had worked! It was a huge weight off his shoulders. He wanted to tell Dr. Klein that he already knew how it worked; he wanted to tell Dr. Klein about the fertility treatment.
But he couldn't.
Lois was right, they needed Dr. Klein to figure this out on his own -- they just needed to lead the scientist down the right path. It would not only confirm the research that their doctor counterparts had done, but it would protect the secret in turn.
"Oh, right, Superman. I'll need some samples to compare to the already catalogued data. I'm really glad we started the project of cataloguing your every bodily function."
Clark had been a little skeptical of this project in the beginning because he had been worried about the consequences of the criminal element gaining access to the database, but now he was beginning to understand its benefits.
"Come on, Dr. Klein. Let's get those samples."
*************
A few minutes later, back in the lab, Dr. Klein speculated about the cause of the inhibition of kryptonite's effects.
Clark calmly listened, although he realized that Dr. Klein hadn't even come close to the solution the alternate Lois and Clark had proposed. Maybe the scientist would need a little more prodding in the right direction.
Well, Clark wouldn't interfere unless he noticed that Dr. Klein was so far off there was no hope of reaching the right solution.
But to do that, Clark would have to leave and let Dr. Klein work by himself. Clark wouldn't be able to fight the urge to interfere if he kept watching the scientist falter!
"When do you think you'll know something?"
Dr. Klein stopped mid-sentence, Superman's voice drawing him back to reality. "I, uh, I don’t know. Are you going to wait here?"
Clark raised his eyebrows. "Well, no, I wasn't planning to. I have, um, rescues and stuff."
"Oh, right. But how would I contact you when I get the results?"
"I can come back tomorrow. Do you think that will give you enough time?"
Dr. Klein scrunched his face in thought. "I don't know, Superman. Research is a very fickle process. . ."
"So you're saying you're not sure when you'll know," Clark interjected.
"Exactly."
"Okay, when you find something, anything, leave a message with Lois Lane or Clark Kent. They can get a hold of me easily."
"Okay, Superman." Dr. Klein turned around to his research and didn't notice when Superman flew away.
*************
After Clark left Dr. Klein's office, he flew home as quickly as he could. He was bursting with excitement, dying to share his news with Lois. She was probably waiting on pins and needles.
Lois was probably more nervous than he had been.
She had believed the vaccine would work. If it hadn’t worked, she might have been devastated. Since she had been so optimistic, a negative result would have crushed her.
He flew through the bedroom window and landed softly, exclaiming, "Lois!"
Lois appeared at the door almost instantly. She ran up to him, and wrapped her hands around his back. "Clark, what happened? Did it work? You're flying. It must have worked! Or maybe you didn't do it. What happened?"
"It worked," he said simply. Then he elaborated, "I held kryptonite in the palm of my hand." He picked her up and spun around. "And I'm fine!"
"It worked? Oh my god! It worked!" Lois felt the anxiety lift from her chest. She could breathe. It was amazing. Clark had held kryptonite in his hand and he was fine. He was immune! That meant . . .
Clark set Lois down and grinned at her. "They were right!"
"Oh my god! They were right!"
Lois pulled his head down to hers and gently touched her lips to his. She let the anxiety and tension flow from her body into the kiss.
She pulled away and dared to voice their mutual unspoken thought. "Then maybe the fertility treatment will work, too."
Clark sighed and said, "Now I'm more confident to try." He was filled with a new sense of optimism that he hadn't dare surrender to for so long. But now, it looked like things were beginning to fall his way. If the kryptonite vaccine worked, maybe it was natural that the fertility treatment would follow.
Lois tugged Clark's hand, anxious to get started. "Come on, come on. Let's try it."
"Now?" Clark stopped and gazed at his wife. She looked characteristically determined.
"Yes now, Clark! You can't be arguing about this again." She grabbed the notebook off the bed and flipped to the page with the fertility treatment. "This isn't even painful! You already drank the peroxide; you were exposed to kryptonite. So now all we have to do is expose you to red light!"
"I thought it was a red laser."
"Oh, it says here that any red light source will work. We can go to Radio Shack and get a few hundred red LEDs."
"LEDs?" Clark gazed at her quizzically.
"I don't know what they are. The other Lois told me to get them at Radio Shack." Lois shrugged. "She said they would work."
"A few hundred? How much will that cost?"
"I don't know. Probably less than a laser. But I'd even be willing to buy a laser if we had to."
"Okay. Let's do it." He took the notebook from her and scanned the instructions. "I thought there was something with pasta sauce involved."
Lois chuckled. "Oh, no, honey. Well, yeah, pasta sauce is important . . ."
"What do you mean? Is this not complete? Do we not have the right formula?"
"Clark!" Lois put her hand on his chest to stop his downward spiral. "It's an aphrodisiac for you."
Clark grinned. "You know what pasta does to me . . ."
"So what they meant was that marinara sauce sort of makes us do it more often. Enhances our probability of success because it makes you . . ."
"Want to try more often." Clark kissed the side of her neck and trailed up towards her lips.
"Mmm-hmm." Lois sighed as his lips trailed up her cheek towards her lips.
"That's right." Clark whispered. Then he pulled away suddenly before he reached her lips. "But why does it work?"
Lois shrugged. "There might be some underlying reason why it's an aphrodisiac, but I have no idea. I'm just happy it works."
"Me too," Clark whispered. "Do you want to start practicing?"
"Pasta for dinner tonight?" Lois whispered.
"Mmm-hmm." Clark nodded. "Pasta now?"
"No. Radio Shack now, pasta tonight."
"Really? Can't we have pasta now and Radio Shack later?"
"Clark! Come on! Let's just get this over with so you can go back to Dr. Klein on Monday and have him repeat the fertility tests."
"But you promise we'll go out for pasta after?"
"Of course."
"Let's do it! Radio Shack here we come."
*************
"Twelve Radio Shacks?" Clark sank down into a chair and sighed. He was shocked that he hadn't had any Superman interruptions through their excursion. It was even worse than shoe shopping! He wouldn’t have ever believed it, but shopping for weird circuit parts was much worse than shopping for shoes!
"Well, I guess red LEDs aren't as high demand as I thought." Lois shrugged.
"Two-hundred LEDs. And then we found a light at the twelfth store!"
"Well, now we know LED stands for light emitting diode."
Clark added, "And we found out that we have absolutely no idea what to do with LEDs."
"But we also found exactly what we needed." Lois moved to slide down onto Clark's lap.
He wrapped his arms around her and feathered kisses along her jaw line. "I swear, Lois, there's going to be some kind of tabloid article tomorrow. I can see it now, 'Daily Planet' reporters Lane and Kent go insane buying bottles of peroxide and weird LED things."
"So what. Who cares?"
"Not me." Clark grinned. He turned her head towards him and said, "It's pasta time."
"Mmm, you're right." Lois kissed him on the lips, allowing the passion that had been building up escape into their soft, tender kiss, a wonderful hint of what was to come.
*************
The next morning, under the bright red glow of Clark's fertility light, Lois opened her eyes. She hadn't been able to sleep all night, anxious that Clark would hear a cry for help and would get sucked into a plot where the person he was helping had kryptonite. Even though she believed the vaccine had worked, there was still a niggling fear in the back of her mind that maybe it hadn't worked.
She slowly turned over to gaze at her husband's sleeping form. But he wasn't sleeping either.
He smiled at her and said, "Good morning, beautiful."
"Good morning yourself, handsome."
"This stupid light kept me up." It wasn't the light that had kept him up all night; it was the knowledge that this was the final step. After this, he would know for sure if he and Lois would be able to have a baby together.
The fertility treatment seemed so simple, yet it was so complicated. His life depended on it.
"I'm sorry, honey," Lois answered, running her hand down his chest. She knew that he wasn't really upset about the light. He had to be worried about the fertility treatment. This was possibly the best or the worst thing that had ever happened to them.
"How long do you think I need to stay exposed to this light?" Instead of talking about his real feelings, he decided to dwell on superficial problems.
"I'm not sure how long you have to spend under this thing. I have no idea what kind of power this thing has." It was just a minor detail. So they hadn't found out the ratio of power to exposure time, big deal.
"I guess I could just stay here all day." He shrugged.
"Don't look at me like that, Clark! It's not that bad. We could play games or something. How long has it been since we've played Scrabble?"
"Lois, didn't we agree never to play Scrabble again. It's on the list of games we can't play."
"But, Clark!"
"Lois, you made the list!"
"Okay, we can play Monopoly."
"I was just kidding. I don't care. Let's play Scrabble, but I am not accepting 'chumpy' this time!"
"Fine! Even though it's a real word even if it's not in the dictionary."
"Fine! We're only accepting words that are in the real Oxford English Dictionary!"
"Fine! And I'm sure chumpy is there! Too bad we don't have a copy of the OED."
"If you say so, Lois."
"Fine! Let's just play."
Instead of answering, Clark grabbed Lois by the waist and pulled her on top of him. Against her squeal of protest, Clark pulled her down on top of him and feathered soft kisses against her face.
Lois reached up and put her hands on his cheeks and stopped his rapid kisses, held his face still and captured his lips with her own. The hungry kiss quickly escalated to involve roaming hands and pleasurable sensations.
"Wait, Clark. We can't go any farther. What if this fertility treatment really does work? We can't do it now. Dr. Klein needs a sample to work with, and if it does work, and we don't use protection. I want the treatment to work, but we aren't ready for a baby now."
Clark sighed and reluctantly let Lois move off him. "You're right." He sighed dejectedly.
As soon as Clark let her go, Lois jumped out of bed, grabbed the game out of the cabinet, and set it up on the bed. She wiggled her eyebrows and said, "Come on, chumpy, are you ready to lose?"
Clark laughed and helped her set up the board. "I wouldn't be so sure of that!"
*************
to be continued
