For greatest understanding of this story you should read the entire series.
Hurricane - Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 1B Summer Camp - Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 1C First Love part 1 - Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 1D First Love part 2 - Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 1E First Love part 3 - Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 1F First Love part 4 - Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 1G First Love part 5 - Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 1H First Love pt 6 - Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 1I
By KenJ <ken.janney@kjanney.com>
This version is rated PG-13
This has not been beta’d.
I want to thank LynnSM for her input into this story. Her experience in the area of special needs children was invaluable.
Disclaimers: The characters in this story are property of DC, December 3rd productions and Warner Bros., except those I created. No Copyright infringement is intended. I have just borrowed the characters for a short time.
* * denotes emphasis
< > denotes thoughts
/ denotes telepathic communications./
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Saturday, September 3, 2039
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It was Saturday and the Labor Day weekend was upon them. Everyone in the Kent clan packed up their families. All of the women were bringing dishes to share with the rest of the family. Clark had the Bar-B-Que pit fired up and was getting a head start on the grilling since this would be a rather large gathering. The back yard of the Wisteria Lane house had been decorated. In one section some pools of various depths had been put up for the children along with some lawn games. A number of tables had been set up for serving and eating.
All except for Lara and Mike all of the families started arriving at around noon. Since Lara and Mike lived in LA they used the same trick that Lois and Clark had used when their children had been small. After the younger children were asleep they moved them by super express to Metropolis. The children woke up in their rooms in the Wisteria Lane home and thought nothing of it.
Cold dishes were placed into the refrigerator until it was time to start eating. The grandchildren all mobbed Grandpa Clark and Grandma Lois as soon as they arrived to say hi, before going over to the play area.
As families arrived groups would gather and start talking.
It always amazed Clark that even though he could recognize everyone’s heartbeat, he could still pick Lois’ heartbeat out of the crowd and know exactly where she was and her emotional state. Today he could tell that she was immensely happy. She really enjoyed having the kids and the grandkids around. Pretty soon they might even have the next generation showing up. Lara and Mike’s eldest daughter, Louise, was going to be fourteen soon. It just seemed like the years were flying by.
Shortly after Jimmy obliquely made the announcement of Peggy’s expectant status Lucy broke away from the crowd and brought a slice of the anniversary cake over to Clark. She said, “Here ya go Pop. I didn’t want you to miss out on the cake. I figured if you didn’t get it before the munchkins raided you wouldn’t get any.”
“Thanks, Luce, I appreciate it.” He dug a fork in and looking at it he started laughing as he asked, “Who ordered this cake? If I were to guess, I’d say it was your mom. A chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting and if I’m not mistaken, white chocolate for the writing.”
Lucy started to laugh, “No, Pop. Don’t blame Mom, we all had a hand in it. Jess objected, but she was overruled. We got a small white cake with white, non-chocolate frosting for her, just so she wouldn’t feel left out.”
He started to laugh and said, “Okay, I won’t get on her case then. How are things going with you? How’s the practice going?”
“Oh, well, you know how it is, ups and downs.” As she continued to speak she started to smile and become quite animated, “It’s really a high when a child is brought in at the request of a school’s Guidance Counselor for testing because the child is overachieving. When we do the testing and get the results we have to go over them with the parents. If the child is just showing average intelligence it usually indicates that the child is just extremely diligent in their studies. If they show up as above average intelligence we can work with the parents to map out a course of study which will capitalize on the child’s strengths. It keeps the child interested and not frustrated.”
The cast of Lucy’s visage changed as she continued, “On the other hand, when a child is brought to us because there is a perceived problem, those are the sad cases. The hardest thing to do is to tell a parent that their child has a special need. Frequently the parents strongly suspect that there is a problem, developmental or emotional and will bring the child in for evaluation. We will interview the parents to get a history and then we will go through the standard battery of tests. Sometimes the answer will come out through the interview. Sometimes there was head trauma, perceived as more or less harmless at the time, but, which have a lasting impact. Occasionally, fortunately very rarely in this day and age, a sibling will have a communicable disease while the mother is pregnant and this causes retardation. Occasionally it is a psychological problem such as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and other times it could have a physical component.”
“Most parents strongly suspect that there is a problem. Some are in denial but, others are expecting to hear that there is a real problem. Hearing it confirmed by an expert is still a shock either way. As many different families as there are the responses fall into just a couple of general categories. Some handle it well and make the hard choice of handling it within the family. Occasionally, all too often I’m afraid, they don’t handle it well and opt for placement.”
"I especially hate having to tell them that their child meets the educational classification of autism. I try to provide them what hope and encouragement I can, but they always look like I just told them their child had died. To them, it must feel like I had. I hate having to shatter their worlds like that, but if there is to be any real hope for helping the child, the false hopes of having typical childhood development has to be removed first. I really hate being the bearer of such bad news. On the bright side, there have been some breakthroughs in treatment though. We refer some clients for nutritional counseling. Occasionally specialized diets can help."
“It really makes you stop and think. If it wasn’t for our Kryptonian physiology which keeps us from needing to immunize our children we might have that problem to worry about. I think we need to count our blessings; most of them are over in the play area, that no one in the family has had any problems. All of the kids appear to be normal, whatever you might define normal to be for our super-normal family.”
Clark, with a serious expression said, “You know, there were times when we were worried about you.”
“Aw, come on Pop. You weren’t really worried about me, were you?”
With a sly expression he replied, “Let me count the times.”
This sent Lucy on a mental journey, back in time.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
June 2018
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The petite, brunette, eight year old Lucy was dressed in her summer uniform of shorts, a white top (for some unaccountable reason, she had a penchant for wearing white and usually managed to keep her top, at least mostly, clean) and sneakers as she hopped on her bike on a bright early summer day. Grandma and Grandpa Kent had come to Metropolis to visit with them for a few weeks so Jon wasn’t the one in charge. He was going to be starting college in the fall and he was taking a couple of summer classes to get a head start. He wanted to take an extra load so that he could finish in three years instead of four.
This morning Lucy was peddling down the street looking for her favorite crony, Rob. Robert Jackson was a boy her age that lived three houses down. When she peddled up in front of his house he was just coming out the door. She shouted, “Hey Rob, what to go for a ride?”
He ran down the steps, jumped on his bike and rode down the walk to join her. “Where to?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Around.”
“Okay.”
They both started to peddle away. They went down the street which was in a quiet residential area when Lucy had an idea. She shouted, “Catch me if you can!” She took off, peddling for all she was worth and got a head start on him.
He chased her for almost ten minutes and they were both tiring when they came to a slight hill right where the road turned off. Lucy went straight ahead and hit a trail that went straight downhill. She shouted, “Wheeeeeeeee!” as she started down the slope. She was bumping and sliding side to side slightly as she picked up speed. She suddenly realized that she was going faster than she wanted and pushed down on the peddle to apply her brake. Her bike continued to pick up speed, the rear wheel simply sliding on the dirt of the trail. She shouted, “HELP!!”
Rob had stopped at the top. He jumped off his bike and started running down the hill as fast as he could. As he was running he was watching and saw that she managed to stay upright as she reached the bottom of the slope. He started to breathe a sigh of relief when he saw that she wasn’t out of danger quite yet. At the bottom of the hill the road that they had been on came back around. Lucy hit the walk at the side of the road and her brake caught, but just enough to slow her down a little before she was into the road shooting across just missing the back bumper of a car that crossed in front of her. Lucy finally managed to stop and a minute later Rob came running up.
“Lucy! Are you okay?”
“Wow! What a ride!”
With fear in his voice Rob said, “Lucy, you almost hit that car!”
Smugly she replied, “Yeah, well, almost don’t count.”
Just then Ultra Woman landed next to Lucy. She said, “Well, young lady, just what do you think you are doing?”
Lucy was startled speechless. That tone and phrasing reminded her so much of her mom she simply couldn’t believe it.
Ultra Woman startled her out of her stupor when she said, “Well? I asked you a question.”
Lucy found her tongue and said, “Well, you see, uh, we were out riding and I saw this trail down the hill and well, I got going too fast and …”
Ultra Woman cut her off, “I think you need to be a little more, no, make that a lot more careful. That car could have hit you, then where would you be?”
“In the hospital?”
“If you didn’t wind up dead. Which you might just be if your father finds out about this.”
“You won’t tell him, will you Ultra Woman? Please?”
Ultra Woman said, “No promises. Be more careful.” Ultra Woman lifted off and disappeared into the sky.
After she flew off Rob said, “Well, I sure don’t want to ride down that hill.”
Lucy taunted him, “What? Are you afraid?”
Rob replied, “Weren’t you listening to what Ultra Woman said? Sure I’m afraid to go down that hill and you ought to be too. Come on, I think I want to go home now.”
Lucy was conciliatory, “Aw, I’m sorry Rob. Let’s not go home yet. Tell you what, let’s ride to the park and swing for a while.”
“Well, okay. Let’s go swing. Maybe we could climb on the monkey bars too.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
August 2022
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Twelve year old Lucy had on her bathing suit and over it she had on a white cover up and a pair of white shorts. She was in the car with her twin siblings, Sean and Celeste. They had just left the house headed out for a day of water fun at a water park. They stopped and picked up Rob. He came out wearing cut offs and a T-shirt. Once he was aboard they headed out.
When they arrived at the water park Sean told Lucy and Rob that they would meet back at the car at noon to eat their picnic lunch before going back into the park. Lucy left her cover up in the car but she left the shorts on as she and Rob headed off, together.
Rob spotted the water slides and said, “Let’s hit the slides!”
Lucy looked around and said, “I want to hit the pool. I want to go off the high dive. When you’re up there in the air it feels like you’re flying.”
“Awwww, common Lucy. They don’t want kids our age on the high dive. They’re afraid we’ll get hurt!”
“Come on, Rob! What’re you afraid of?”
“Lu – cy, they *don’t* want us *up* there!”
“Well, *I’m* not afraid.” Suiting her actions to her words she headed for the ladder to the high platform and started climbing. When she reached the top she looked down. It was really higher than she had realized and she knew that she had made a mistake, but, she couldn’t back down now.
She moved to the edge of the platform and tried to make it look like she knew what she was doing and that she wasn’t the least bit afraid.
Rob watched in fear as she approached the edge of the platform. When she took off, at first it looked like a prefect swan dive, but, when she didn’t heel over and go into a standard dive he started to feel fear.
As she was falling she realized that she wasn’t going to be able to change her orientation the way she was supposed to and started to feel some fear. She could see the surface of the water rushing up at her. She started to curl into a ball but was unable to complete the movement before impact.
She was a little less than flat when she hit the water. It felt like she had been kicked by a mule. All of the wind was knocked out of her and she lost consciousness.
The next thing she knew she was at the side of the pool and Rob was dragging her out of the water. He had been ready and had jumped in as soon as she had hit and had pulled her to the surface.
A second later Dan-El landed next to them. He had a concerned look as he asked Rob, “What happened?”
Rob was too intimidated by the superhero to do anything but tell the truth, “She climbed up to the high platform. I told her we weren’t supposed to but she wanted to feel like she was flying. She hit the water in almost a belly flop. I saw what was happening and I dove in and pulled her out. Is she going to be okay?”
Dan-El said, “I think she’ll be okay. You got to her in time. She’s lucky to have a friend like you around. Think you can keep her out of any more trouble?”
Rob replied, “I’ll try. I don’t usually have much luck along that line though. She has a mind of her own.”
Dan-El then made a comment that surprised Rob, “Don’t I know it.”
Rob couldn’t count the number of times he and Lucy had been doing something and she had gone off and gotten herself into trouble and one of the super heroes had come to her rescue. It was almost like she had her own crew of guardian angels. He didn’t know anyone else who had been rescued more times than Lucy. He just shook his head and knelt by her side and said, “You heard him. You have to stay out of trouble.” He helped her to stand and said, “Let’s go over to the water slide.”
Since her body was still stinging from that dive she was more than a little bit subdued as she said, “Okay. I’ll be good.”
Rob laughed and said, “Don’t make any promises that you can’t keep.”
She smiled and said, “Oh, I mean it. I’ll be good, at least for the rest of the day. Let’s go have some fun.”
Hand in hand they headed for the water slide. They met Sean and Celeste at the car at noon for lunch. Sean asked, “How has your day been going?”
Lucy relied, “Okay, how about you?”
Celeste asked, “Are you sure there haven’t been any problems?”
Lucy had her hand behind her back with her fingers crossed as she replied, “No, no problems, at least none to mention. Right Rob?”
Now Rob was caught in a quandary. Does he support Lucy in this lie to her sister or rat on her? Before he came to a decision he was saved from it by Sean who said, “We didn’t ask Rob so don’t put him in the position of having to lie for you.”
With her head down and scuffing her toe in the dirt she said in a subdued tone, “Okay, well, you see, I wanted to dive off the high platform.”
Sean prompted, “And?”
“Well, I couldn’t dive as well as I thought I could.” She brightened and got animated, “You should have seen it. I started off just fine. A perfect Swan Dive,” Her countenance fell a she finished, “but then I couldn’t figure out how to change position into a dive. It was almost a perfect belly flop. My stomach still stings.”
Rob finally added, “I had to pull her out and then Dan-El showed up. It always seems like one of the supermen or women show up whenever she needs rescuing. It’s like she has this group of guardian angels watching over her.”
Celeste said, “One of these days she’s going to get herself into something and they won’t be around to rescue her. Then she’ll be sorry.”
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August 2028
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Eighteen year old Lucy would be starting college next month. She was planning to live in the dorm and had Jimmy fix her up with an ultrasonic device like what he was using so successfully to keep her from floating in her sleep and giving herself away.
She was disappointed, Rob, her long time buddy and best friend wasn’t going to MetU. His grades had been so good he had gotten an Ivy League scholarship and was going to Yale. He was going to be a Bio-Chemist. She had realized some time ago that he was the one and when he decided to go to Yale it almost tore her heart out because there was no way she could go with him. She would have to content herself with seeing him on semester brakes and summers.
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June 2036
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Lucy was having a hard time containing herself. She had just moved out of the dorm and back home. She had just defended her thesis, successfully and won her PhD and could now call herself a Child Psychologist. It would take time to build a practice but, that wasn’t why she was excited.
Rob was coming home too. He had called her a couple of days ago, the day he had presented his research and won his PhD in Bio-Chemistry. His research had been on the effects of unusual radiation frequencies on tissues. Lucy didn’t know why he had chosen that as his topic, but, he had worked diligently in his research, sometimes to the exclusion of their weekly call.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It was five PM and a call came in. Clark answered the phone and after a short conversation he hung up. A few seconds later Lucy heard a general call, /Hi kids. I need to call a family council this evening. 7:30 for all that can make it./
A chorus of affirmative replies came in.
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At 7:30 the family gathered in the living room. Clark said, “Thanks for coming. In a minute we will be joined by someone that needs to tell us something.”
As if on cue there was a knock on the door and Clark answered it.
When Rob stepped into the room everyone but Lucy was surprised. Lucy had heard his heartbeat and knew who was here before the door was opened.
Clark said, “Introductions shouldn’t be necessary, you all know Rob. What do you have for us Rob?”
He pulled out a memory chip and said, “Jon, here are all of the notes on my research project. The samples I worked with are in a sealed container and secured. The Kryptonite I was working with is in a lead enclosure. I’m sorry that my results weren’t more encouraging.”
Lucy was looking at him aghast. <What is he saying? What’s this all about? Does he know our secret?>
Just then he turned to Lucy and asked, “Lucy, can I see you, outside?”
She was stunned by all of this and simply nodded. He reached for her hand and led her outside.
Once outside she rounded on him and asked, “What’s this all about? Why were you working with Kryptonite? What tissue samples?”
Very calmly he said, “One thing at a time. The reason I accepted the scholarship to Yale, even though it was going to take me away from you was the opportunity it presented for using a premier research facility. Six years ago I had a talk with your dad and we came up with this plan. I knew it would be rough, that I would miss you terribly, but, if my research could in some way provide a cure or a way to immunize you against Kryptonite radiation, I was willing to make the sacrifice.”
She blurted out, “You knew??? How?”
“Even as a kid I knew that there was something special about you. Why would the supermen and superwomen have such an interest in one little kid that they were always on hand? Later, it all came together. When I graduated from MHS I went to your dad and had a talk with him. I told him what I had figured out and what I wanted to do. That’s when we came up with the plan. The final part of that plan happens now.”
She was still reeling. He knew! She was startled when suddenly he took her hand and asked, “Lucy Ellen Kent, will you marry me?”
Her mind had been reeling and this didn’t help any. She asked, “Wha, what did you say?”
“Six years ago, when I went to your dad, I asked him if I could marry you. We decided it would be best to wait until the research was done. It’s done now, so there are no more barriers. I asked if you would marry me.”
“This is kinda sudden. Why should I marry you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I’m crazy about you and have been like forever and because for the last six years I have done what I could to see to it that some green rock wouldn’t kill the woman I love.”
“Why did you have to keep it a secret?”
“Because I was working with Kryptonite. I couldn’t take the chance of you having an accidental exposure. I’d never forgive myself if something had happened to you.”
“When did you know you wanted to marry me?”
“I don’t know exactly, sometime between when we met and five minutes later. Even as kids I knew you were the one for me. You were my first love.”
“I’ve got a news flash for you. I was never interested in anybody else. Dad says it’s a Kryptonian thing. When we find our soul mate we are bonded permanently. What was that you asked me again?”
“I’ll repeat it as many times as I need to in order to get the answer I want. Lucy, will you marry me.”
“Well Rob, since you and Dad are ganging up on me, what can I say, but, yes. Yes, Rob, I’ll marry you. At least you know what you’re getting into. You already know the family secret.”
Rob reached into his pocket as he said, “I’ve worked a couple of jobs, teaching assistant and adjunct professor so that I could earn enough for this.” He pulled his hand out of his pocket with a ring box in his hand.
She held out her hand so that he could slip the ring on. Then she was in his arms and they were kissing.
They were interrupted by a cheer that went up in the living room. The family had been watching and listening in.
Lucy blushed with embarrassment. She said, “I’ve never gotten used to that.”
He was chuckling as he said, “I guess we might as well have had this conversation in the middle of the living room.”
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Lucy came back to the present and looked around. Rob was approaching.
Rob said, “Hi Pop. Can I take Lucy away? I want us to go eat.”
“Sure, go get something good. I strongly recommend the Ribs and the chicken. They’re both from old family recopies. Go enjoy yourselves. I’ll see you later.”
They turned away and Rob led her over to the serving table.
comments go here The End
First Love part 7 - Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 1J
