And I\'ll love you \'til the end TOC 
All right, this is my first fanfic EVER! And I’m German. So, I’m sorry if my English might not always be perfect. I’m really nervous about posting, as a matter of fact this story has been sitting on my hard drive for the last couple of weeks, begging me to post it. But now I think I finally came up with enough courage to actually do it.
All usual disclaimers apply. The characters are –besides Connor and Grace- not mine, I just borrowed them from DC comics and the WB.
Anyway, I hope you like it and here we go:
~And I’ll love you ‘til the end~
by Julia Kraemer
6:30 pm
Lois Apartement, Metropolis:
Lois Lane opened the door to her apartment, entered, dropped her briefcase on the couch and hugged her son, who got up from the floor, watching TV, when he saw his mother coming in. “Mommy, you’re finally home. Guess what I did in school today! We made a kite, and it actually flies! Grace took me to the park this afternoon and…” he kept on babbling.
“Wow sweetie, that’s great, but let me sit down, I had a really tough day at work.”
“Connor, didn’t I tell you to pick up your toys before your Mom comes home?” Grace asked when she entered the living room. Grace had been Connor’s nanny since Lois got back to work three months after her baby was born. She had decided she needed somebody special to take care of him, somebody who would be really flexible to keep up with her often unpredictable working schedule and who would love her son, like she did. She had been very lucky to find Grace who was an elderly woman in her late fifties, whose children and grandchildren lived in California and who therefore had plenty of time and was in the need of company. Over the years Grace had become a really good friend to Lois and kind of a third grandmother for Connor.
“I’ve got to go now, Lois,” she said. “You know, Tuesday is poker night with the girls.”
“Bye Grace, see you tomorrow.”
“I’m hungry, Mom. Can we have dinner now?” Connor complained.
“All right, so what can we do about that?” Lois was too tired to cook and decided to take them out for dinner. Although she now knew how to cook, at least food kids liked, like spaghetti or mashed potatoes and fish sticks, she still didn’t do it very often.
Clark had been gone for almost five years now. Most of the time she still missed him terribly, but she had learned how to move on without him in her life. She had her son, Connor, whom she adored and who was now the center of her life and she had her work. She tried desperately to stay busy to distract herself from the tearing pain in her heart and soul. Only once in a while she allowed herself to mourn her lost love.
*****
“And I wanna meet Mickey Mouse and Goofy and Donald Duck, and I wanna go on the roller coasters over and over again and… Mommy, when can we go to Disneyland?” Connor kept bugging his mother.
It was already almost 9 o’clock when they finally came home from dinner. They walked up the stairs, talking about Disneyland and Lois was laughing about her son’s persistence to reach his goal. Although he looked exactly like Clark, he had his mother’s temper, getting into trouble very easily and always trying to get his way.
Letting go of his hand she searched her purse for the keys. While still heading towards her door, she completely oversaw the large figure standing in the hallway and bumped into him. Murmuring “sorry” she didn’t even look up, when a weird but very familiar feeling started to crawl up her mind and she finally lifted her head. At a total loss for words she gasped “Clark!” and dropped her keys and purse, staring stunned at the familiar features of this man standing right in front of her in the hallway.
Connor looked confused at his mother, picked up the keys and unlocked the door. “Mommy, who is this?” he asked while he pulled at her coat in order to get her attention.
“Honey, how about you go brush your teeth and put your jammies on, while I talk to …um… my friend here. I’ll be right with you to kiss you to say good night,” she mumbled distractedly while she kept staring at Clark.
Letting out a deep breath Lois hugged him, neither of them speaking a word, just enjoying the tight embrace and making sure the other one was real and not just an illusion. He could feel her body trembling while she pressed herself against him. After a few moments he let go of her and started to talk. “Oh God, Lois… I missed you so much. I’m so glad to be finally back from that cruel place. I will never leave you again.” She was still too startled to be able to form whole sentences and answer him.
“I… I don’t know what to say… I mean you… you were gone for so long… and… Um, I’ve got to check on Connor and make sure he’s getting ready for bed. Would you excuse me for a sec?” she mumbled and went to Connor’s room.
Clark meanwhile tried to gather his thoughts to put the pieces together. He looked at the pictures hanging at the wall of her living room. A wall of memories. Mostly pictures of that little boy, some of his and her parents and one of her sitting in a hospital bed holding a baby. She had a child, about four years old. Was it possible that he was his son? They’d made love for the first time the night before he left. Was it somehow possible that this little boy was the result of it? He couldn’t believe it. She actually seemed to have moved on with her life, she hadn’t even been able to speak to him let alone look him in the eyes.
*****
“He is my Daddy, right?” Connor asked after Lois had finished reading his good night story.
“Yes, sweetheart, he is,” she answered him.
“Do you think he will like me? Can I go see him and play with him now?”
“Oh, I’m sure he will love you but it is very late already and you better go to sleep now. In the morning you can say hello and play with him,” she said softly while she covered him with his comforter and tugged him in. “I love you, honey, sweet dreams.”
“I love you, too, Mom,” he answered and curled up in his bed, hugging his favorite stuffed animal.
Lois kissed him good night, turned on his nightlight and was about to leave the room when Connor stopped her by asking “Mommy?”
“Yeah?”
“Is he gonna stay with us or is he gonna leave us alone again?”
“I don’t know, honey.”
“I want him to stay.”
“I know, honey. Good night. Go to sleep now, it’s late.”
“Ok, Mom,” he said quietly but added after a while, “can you please make him stay?”
She looked at him thoughtfully and shrugged. Then she blew him a kiss and eventually left the room. It always broke her heart when she once again realized how much Connor missed his dad. Even though he’d never met him.
*****
After taking a few more deep breaths she had finally put herself back together and was able to face Clark again. Her knees were still shivering and her mind was racing, trying to overcome the confusion which had taken her over and didn’t allow her a single clear thought since the second he had reentered her life. This was what she had dreamed about since that awful morning almost five years ago when he had left her. He had promised to come back, and he had kept this promise, but finally seeing him again felt different than she had expected.
Clark was still standing in her living room and staring at the pictures on the wall. He looked exhausted. And lost. As if he didn’t even know what to do here. Lois took his hand and started to talk.
As if she was reading his mind and the single burning question, which occupied it, she said: “His name is Connor. Connor Joshua Kent.”
“My initials,” Clark added quietly.
“Yeah, I just couldn’t bear it to give him your full name, so I figured your initials would be just right. Anyway, he just turned four a few weeks ago. He is just so amazing. Well, I guess all mothers say that about their children but Connor is really special. You know he can even write his name already. He started pre-school last year and he is among the best in his class and…” she babbled.
He was relieved that she still had that habit of babbling when she was nervous or distressed because that gave him a warm and comforting feeling of familiarity. He turned towards her and looked her deep in the eyes, still holding her hand.
“Tell me more about our son,” he demanded. “I want to know everything.”
“Uh, that could take some time. You’re a facing a mother who is awfully proud of her boy,” she grinned at him.
Clark smiled back at her, their gazes locked for several moments and their emotions almost overwhelmed them. That attraction between them was still existent.
“I have time. So how about we start right from the beginning?” he suggested, trying desperately to prevent too much intimacy. He had the feeling that that would be too much for her for now. “That must have been very shocking for you to find out to be pregnant and all that stuff. I am so sorry I couldn’t be there for you.”
The memories of that time flashed back into her mind. He was right. It had been a shock for her to find out about the baby, but after all, that little creature growing inside her was the reason why she had not given up and why she had put herself back on her feet to move on.
***************
five years before
Lois’s Apartment:
“All right Lois, I’ve been watching you burrowing yourself in your grief and in your work and leaving yourself behind for the last couple of weeks. You’ve got to take care of yourself. Look at you, you are a mess!” Lucy stated.
“Thanks,” Lois answered sarcastically.
“Listen, I know how much you loved Clark and what you lost. But he is gone and you just can’t keep on sitting there, drown in self-pity and wait for his return. Who knows, maybe he is not coming back. It’s already been three months since you heard last from him. Don’t you think he would do everything to come back to you *if* he was still alive?”
Lois refused to listen to the bitter words of her younger sister, turned around and left the room. How should she explain, that Clark just couldn’t come back as long as there was still that terrible civil war going on on his home planet. The reason why he had left her in the first place.
Lucy followed her. “Lois, I didn’t mean to hurt you but you can’t go on like that.”
“I know that, too!” the tears started to take her over again, “but I can’t just make my heart to stop hurting and stop needing him. If you have so much control over your feelings, good for you!”
“You’re not you pregnant, are you?”
“*WHAT*!!!? Why… why would you ask me that?” she tried to sound astonished.
“Are you?” Lucy kept nagging.
“*NO*, I AM *NOT*! What makes you think that?” she answered determinately, trying to hide the shaky undertone in her voice. As a matter of fact she was having the sneaking suspicion that she might be pregnant for quite some time now, but always repressed that thought instantly. She didn’t acknowledge that idea in order to prevent dealing with it. She couldn’t imagine being a mother. Less then ever without Clark.
*****
After Lucy had left, Lois went right to the drugstore to purchase a home pregnancy test. She desperately wanted to prove her sister’s and her own suspicions wrong.
Now she sat at the edge of the tub in her bathroom and stared bewildered at the test strip. There was a clear blue line on it. It was official. She was pregnant. No more chance to deny it.
She quickly dialed her sister’s telephone number. When Clark had ‘disappeared’ Lucy came back to Metropolis to be there for her sister and was now living in an apartment not far away from Lois. “Lucy, would you please come over. I need you.”
After she hung up the phone she couldn’t hold back her tears anymore and started crying. Ten minutes later Lucy entered Lois apartment and found her sister sitting on the bathroom floor shaken by heavy sobs. Her gaze fell on the test strip lying next to her. Lois obviously had dropped it, when she had seen the result.
***************
present, 10:15 pm
Lois Apartment
“I wanted to die that night. Just go to sleep and never wake up again. I was so scared and terrified. I had no clue how to go through this without you. On the other hand there was that new life growing inside me, which gave me new hope. I locked myself in my apartment for the next three days to do some heavy thinking. I didn’t get up, I didn’t answer the phone and didn’t even take a shower,” Lois whispered earnestly.
They had moved to sit on the couch. She had pulled her hand away from his soft grip while she was talking.
“And during that time you decided to have the baby?” Clark asked. He heard the pain in her voice while she was talking and began to realize how hard that decision must have been for her. Facing the pain she must have been gone through he almost forgot about the hell he had experienced on the battlefields of New Krypton. He quickly pushed those thoughts away. He didn’t want to talk about that now. He needed to hear everything about what Lois and his son had lived through while he was gone. There would be plenty of time to share his experiences with her. He was back, and he would never leave her again, if she would take him back.
“Well, yes, kind of… I just realized that burrowing myself in self-pity and grief wouldn’t change anything. But it still took me quite some time to accept the fact, that I was going to have a baby and even longer to tell everyone.”
***************
five years before
Daily Planet newsroom, Metropolis
After everybody had left the Planet after a long day at work Lois took a box and started to clean out Clark’s desk. It was past 10 pm. She had waited for everybody to leave before she would gather all her remaining strength to force herself to do this inevitable duty. She also needed this time for herself, without being disturbed to say goodbye to Clark, to let him go. In her heart she was still holding on to him, hoping for his return and she would be waiting for him forever but she also needed a closure to be strong for their unborn child.
She put his nameplate and the picture frame with Clark’s parents in the box. She held the picture with her and him in her hand for a while and looked at it. They were both laughing and were obviously very happy and very in love. That should be all over now? Her life had fallen apart and she had no idea how to move on. Clark had been her life, her heart and her soul. A new wave of sadness and desperation started to overwhelm her and she tried to choke back the tears.
He had been gone for almost four months now. For everybody else Clark Kent had been on an assignment to go undercover and find out about the reaction of the Metropolis underground on Superman’s leave from earth and didn’t return. He was posted as missing, but after four months everybody started to believe that he must be dead and wouldn’t be coming home, even though nobody said that out loud in front of Lois.
Perry was still in his office and saw Lois putting Clark’s belongings in a box. When he saw her crying he decided to walk over to her to comfort her.
“I can’t do this, Perry. It’s like giving him up. He’s only been gone for four months…”
Lois sobbed and sat down on the edge of Clark’s desk.
“Lois, you don’t have to do this now. I know it is not easy and you can wait a couple of days, or maybe you want somebody else to do it.” Perry answered in a soft voice and patted her shoulder.
“I couldn’t even bury him. So how am I supposed to move on if I don’t even got to say goodbye to him?” she cried and covered her face with her hands.
Perry stood next to her and was unable to say anything because there was nothing to say that could relieve her pain. He just took her in his arms and held her shivering body. A long while ago she would never had allowed herself to show her vulnerability in public. She always had been determined to deal with all problems by herself. Then Clark came and showed her how to open up her heart. Now she was thankful that she was finally able to receive and appreciate comfort and leaned into Perry’s embrace.
“Do you want to have some coffee or … maybe a drink and talk about this?”
She lightly nodded. Perry still didn’t know about her pregnancy and she was beginning to show, especially since she had lost so much weight during the last couple of weeks. She had found out about it three weeks before and didn’t tell anyone yet besides her sister Lucy, as if it would be less real if nobody knew.
Holding a cup of decaf in her hands she was sitting across from Perry at the table in the conference room. They were sitting in darkness and silence and sipped their coffee.
Finally she whispered “I’m pregnant”, almost inaudible.
Perry looked up with a questioning expression on his face. That was the last thing he’d expected, but he was searching his mind for comforting words. “I assume Clark is the father and he doesn’t know about it, right?”
“Yeah, it happened the night before he disappeared. That means I’m already four months pregnant,” she said a little louder than her confession before.
“Is that the reason for your breakdown three weeks ago, when you locked yourself in your apartment and didn’t even answer the phone for days?” he asked.
“Yes, I had just found out, I guess I ignored all the signs before… During that time I considered my options. Either die or move on and be strong for the baby.”
“So, what did you end up with?”
“Having Clark’s baby, I guess.”
****************
present, 11:15 pm
Lois Apartment
“We were talking for hours that night, and I finally started feeling a little better about the whole situation. Knowing that Perry and all my friends would be there for me made it more bearable. The next morning I got on the plane to Kansas and told your parents. You can imagine they were thrilled. They’d lost you, but they would have a grandchild instead. I think that made it easier for them, too.”
Silence filled the room between them, while they were staring into each other’s eyes.
Finally Lois broke the gaze and got up. “How about some coffee, Clark?” She couldn’t stand the building tension between them anymore and needed to back off for a few minutes. This was so different from her dreams about his return. She still felt very attracted to Clark, but something had changed. She didn’t know if it was just her or just him or probably both. Maybe it was the time that had separated them. Five years were, after all, a long time.
tbc…
