Christmas 2015 Matchmaker Chronicles Vol 1 CG2 2/3
Christmas 2015 Matchmaker Chronicles Vol 1 CG2
Rated PG-13
Disclaimers: The characters in this story are property of DC, December 3rd productions and Warner Bros. No Copyright infringement is intended. I have just borrowed the characters for a short time.
I wish to express my thanks to my Beta reader Ray Reynolds for his invaluable help. This was a VERY rough draft when it first landed in his hands.
/ “text”/ indicates telepathic communication
*text* indicates bold
Previously:
When the hour had elapsed they had all returned to the courtroom. The judge addressed Ultra Woman, "Please resume your place in the witness box."
After she had resumed her seat, he said, "I just received the pictures." He pulled them up on his laptop and said, "It is hard to tell. The pictures are rather small."
Ultra Woman zoomed in with her microscopic vision and in her anxiety went too far, seeing a field of dots spaced wide apart without seeing a picture. She backed off on the magnification and scanned the pictures. Pointing to two of them, she said, "If you have these two enlarged and printed, I believe it will show that Bud was unblemished at the time the pictures were taken. From the angles I would say that these were taken by two different individuals."
The judge checked the original emails and saw that her supposition was correct. He looked at the lawyer with a stern expression, "Well, councilor, what do you have to say?"
The layer was in a panic and chose to throw his clients under the bus, "I didn't know anything about that, your honor. They came to me with the pictures and told me that Ultra Woman had done it. That's all I know."
Bud’s father responded with a loud snort.
Hearing that, the judge replied, "Councilor, if there was any way I could prove that you willingly participated in this attempted fraud, I'd have you disbarred. As it is, all I can say is - get out of my courtroom and thank your lucky stars that I can't prove it."
The lawyer hastily grabbed his bag and left. As the door closed behind him, the judge muttered, "I hate ambulance chasers," then turned his attention back to Ultra Woman, "I want to apologize for doubting you and taking your time this way. You are excused."
"Thank you, your honor, but might I ask what is to be done here?"
"I have to say, I don't like what has happened here. First, there was the incident that brought this young man in, in the first place, but complicating that is what they tried to do to you. I don't know if I should blame the child or the parents. I think it is apparent that the parents had some level of involvement."
"May I speak on their behalf?"
"You want to speak for them, after what they tried to do to you?"
"Yes, your honor. The attempt has failed. They paid for a lawyer unless he was working on commission. I think there is a fine for littering. Let that be the end of it, unless you feel that family counseling would help."
“I am inclined to agree with you.” He turned so that he was facing the Kyles and said, “The fine for the littering will be fifty dollars and I agree with Ultra Woman, I think that family counseling is needed and it is so ordered.” He brought his gavel down with a loud thwack. “Pay the bailiff. Court dismissed.”
As Ultra Woman was leaving, she could hear Bud’s father grumbling and muttering indistinctly. She couldn’t make out the words, but the tone was a threatening one.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
As soon as Lois was back at the Planet, she sat on the corner of Clark’s desk and looked at what was on his computer screen. It was a write-up of a recent Superman rescue.
He asked, “How did it go?”
“I’ll never complain about my uniform being too tight again.”
“The pictures showed that he was uninjured.”
“Sure did. Their lawyer threw them under the bus, claiming he had nothing to do with the attempted fraud, but I think the judge knew better.”
“All’s well that ends well.”
“Yes, all’s well that ends well and this ended well. They’ve been ordered into family counseling.”
“It just might do some good.”
“To borrow a phrase from Herb, ‘Only time will tell.’”
And now:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Chapter 02
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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Universal Locator Designation
Alpha 023 x Gamma 004 x Tau -120
Local designation - Canon Universe also called Prime
2015
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Once the issue with Bud and the family court appearance had been resolved, the Kent family was able to concentrate on the upcoming holiday.
Since Grandma and Grandpa Kent had come to Metropolis for Thanksgiving, the younger Kent family was going to be visiting Smallville this holiday. Christmas was on a Friday this year, but the schools were closing after only a half day on Wednesday and the children did not have to be back in school until January 4th of 2016. Accordingly, on Wednesday, as soon as everyone was home, they finished their packing and loaded their fifteen passenger van. The van was equipped with a DVD player for the rear passengers and in a strategic move; they started out later in the evening.
After a little over an hour, 8 YO Jessica, 6 YO Jimmy, 4 YO Lucy and 2 YO Sam were all asleep in their child safety car seats and to the joy of Jon, Lara, Sean and Celeste while Lois continued to drive, Clark slipped out through his window and while flying beside the van, spun into The Suit and picking up the van started flying with it just above the tree tops. When they were over a deserted stretch of Kansas countryside near Smallville, he lowered the van to the road and reversing the process changed and slipped back inside.
Half an hour later they pulled up in front of the Kent farm house. Jonathan and Martha were sitting up, waiting for them and when they saw the headlights came outside to welcome them.
As they came out, the side door of the van slid open and the 4 older children, Jon, Lara, Sean and Celeste all piled out and surrounded their grandparents who welcomed their hugs and kisses.
Lois and Clark watched in amusement as the kids mobbed their grandparents and smiled seeing the affection displayed. After reveling in the display for a time, they opened their doors and started to release the remaining children who had all started to stir as soon as the van had come to a halt. Lois could start to feel the strain on her cheek muscles from her irrepressible smile as she watched each child as they were released from their restraints join their siblings greeting their grandparents. After the last had joined the mob, she and Clark simply stood by the van, arms around each other, watching the love on display, until, Jon and Lara saw them and then they broke away from the pack and taking their parent’s hands dragged them over to join the group.
Lois and Clark were both laughing as they were dragged over to join the group hug. They were both super pleased that their children loved their grandparents so much. In recent years the senior Kents had been virtually their only grandparents.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Sam and Ellen Lane had reconciled after the Bad Brain affair, first moving in together and then re-marrying. Sam had taken the robot he had created, the one he had called Baby Gunderson and sold her to a department store to be used as a ‘living’ manikin in their store windows. Sam had given up on his get rich quick schemes and using the seed money from the sale of Baby Gunderson had gone back into legitimate practice with Ellen as his nurse. The practice had flourished and he had brought in two other physicians as partners. Building the practice had taken a lot of time and Lois and Clark hadn’t seen that much of them. They did drop by now and then, but with nothing like the regularity of the older Kents even though they were right there in Metropolis.
As the practice had prospered, Sam’s relationship with Ellen had prospered. He had decided that they could afford to ‘give back’ to the community. So, with the agreement and assistance of his partners, he had started a small clinic in the Suicide Slum section of town. The doctors in the group all staffed it on a rotating basis. The only problem was that, in spite of signs stating that no money or drugs were stored on the premises, there were frequent burglaries. After the fifth break-in, they had decided to close the clinic, but Sam still wanted to ‘give back’ so he talked it over with Ellen and they had decided to do missionary tours with
Doctors Without Borders. Once they had started this they had found it difficult to stop because the work had been so rewarding, not in a monetary sense, but emotionally.
They had engaged in this endeavor shortly after the birth of the twins in 2004 so Jon had only been four at the time and Lara two. As a result, this set of grandparents were almost strangers to all of the Kent children when they did show up. They had returned to the states briefly a year and a half earlier, when Lucy was about six months old and Sam had just been conceived.
Currently they were helping relief workers in northern Afghanistan. They had been working as a doctor and nurse surgical team in a hospital under more or less battlefield conditions for almost six months. They took great pains to try and ‘blend in’ with the local population. Ellen didn’t mind wearing a niqab, but she preferred the hijab. The niqab didn’t bother her because she was so used to wearing a gown, mask and head-covering while in surgery. (A/N - The niqab is a head covering and veil which leaves an opening for the eyes as well as a burka like robe to cover the body. The Hijab is a head scarf that covers the hair, but leaves the face exposed.)
Lois and Clark had both been concerned for the continued welfare of Sam and Ellen and had told them that if they ever needed help that Superman and/or Ultra Woman would always be available.
The incident that had made their reconciliation possible occurred at the end of the Bad Brain adventure. When the Bummer-Be-Gone had malfunctioned it had erased all of the bad memories that had constituted their relationship. Along with that they had both lost the memory of just who Superman was and Lois and Clark had deemed it necessary to keep them in ignorance. They had simply been told that a call to Lois or Clark would galvanize their close friends, the superheroes, into action.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Two months earlier
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Recently, Lois and Clark had been even more concerned about Sam and Ellen’s welfare, truth be told, Lois was almost frantic. There had been a period of no contact, and Lois was about to fly out to investigate whether Clark accompanied her or not. There had been an accidental bombing of a hospital, a friendly fire incident, but they hadn’t been in the facility at the time. At literally the last second they had gotten a call from them. Realizing that Lois and Clark would worry about them, they used a satellite phone they carried with them to call.
It had been a couple of days since the accidental bombing and also without Sam or Ellen calling. Lois was just about to pick up the phone and call Lucy to babysit when the call came in. Because of the time difference, Lois and Clark were at home when the call came in. The caller ID displayed the source of the call and Lois leaped to answer it. “Hello? Mother? Daddy?”
Ellen’s voice came through the receiver, “Hi, Lois, it’s Mom. Listen, honey, we’re fine. I know it has been a few days. We didn’t want you to worry so we decided to call.”
Relieved, Lois asked, “Wasn’t that the hospital you have been working in that was bombed?”
“Yes, it was. You know, we are very short handed, so we don’t get many breaks, but we just happened to be out of the facility when the bomb hit.”
“That’s a relief. We were afraid that you had gotten injured.”
“No, we’re just fine. A little overworked, no, a lot overworked. There are not only the patients we already had, but now those injured in the incident. We just heard that it was an accident. Friendly fire. We’re making do.”
“Is there anything we can do for you? Superman or Ultra Woman could bring you whatever you need.”
Ellen laughed, “That would be a pretty tall order. What we could use is more doctors and nurses and I don’t think that they could supply them.”
“How are things going otherwise? Are the locals treating you well?”
“Yes, we’ve been here for a while now and the local population all knows us and that we work in the hospital. They treat us well enough. They know we’re non-combatants.”
“Are you guys going to be coming home anytime soon?”
“You know how it is. You can’t tell from one day to the next what is going to happen. Things change very rapidly and without warning. We can only hope that the fact that we are here to help will keep us safe.”
A serious tone entered Lois’s voice as she said, “We are aware of how rapidly things can change. All I can say is, keep the satellite phone handy and give us a shout if you need help.”
Ellen’s tone, which all things considered had been light, changed to one of seriousness as she said, “I don’t go anywhere without it. It is a bit larger than a cell phone, but it is more reliable. I carry it in my bag at all times. Sam carries a spare battery and I try to remember to keep this one charged. If we need help, we’ll shout.”
Lois’s tone turned bantering as she said, “You’d better.”
Ellen’s tone was serious as she replied, “I will, Lois. I don’t have a death wish and neither does your father. As soon as there is a potential problem, we’ll call, rest assured.”
“I want you to continue to check in with us on a regular basis.”
Don’t worry, dear. We will. I need to go. It’s time for our shift to start.”
“Mom!”
“Yes, dear?”
“We love you, Mom.”
Ellen’s tone was soft as she replied, “I know, and we love you too.” Lois could hear her talking to her father even though her hand had apparently been placed over the mouthpiece before she came back on, “Gotta go. We have patients backed up into the hallway. We are working emergency and apparently there was a firefight down the street. Bye.”
Lois said, “Bye, Mom,” as she heard the connection broken.
Lois turned to Clark and said, “I’m worried about them.”
“I am too, Honey, but there isn’t a lot we can do about it until they call for help. It isn’t like we could fly over there and pick them up and bring them home as Superman and Ultra Woman without their consent. They are doing important work over there and they would really resent the intrusion.”
“I know, but that doesn’t keep me from wishing things were different and that they were home. Why did Daddy have to decide to do something so dangerous?”
“I think that, subconsciously, he is trying to make amends for what he did in the past. Those enhanced boxers were potentially dangerous. We can only guess why Luthor was financing that research. When we found the documentation on that after Luthor finally died it opened the door to all kinds of speculation. It was obvious that at least one of his purposes was to create someone that could take me on. After that failed he created that clone of me and indoctrinated it with his values.”
:”Fortunately, your innate goodness came through and he rebelled against his ‘father’.” Lois draped herself over him with her arms around his neck as she said, “As for the boxers, I for one am glad that Daddy failed.” Lois kissed the side of his neck.
“Unfortunately, his research was the foundation for Metallo. By the same token, it was a good thing, because that was the foundation for the creation of Baby Gunderson. If not for that invention he might not have gone back into legitimate practice.”
“Yeah, and it was Baby Gunderson that put us on to The Mechanic when he tried to kill us with the microwave.”
“There, you see. There was a lot of good that came out of that research.”
“I wish we could convince him of that.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
That had all taken place a couple of months ago and now was Christmas week. Thursday, Christmas Eve, the kids were all up early, almost as early as Martha and by the time Lois and Clark came down with Sam, who still shared their room, the rest of the children were in various stages of having breakfast. Lois placed Sam in his highchair and proceeded to feed him while the kids that were finished eating all went out to ‘help’ Grandpa Kent with his chores.
The weather was brisk with a light overcast. During the day the temperature was in the fifties while at night it was dropping down close to freezing, but unfortunately there was no snow in the forecast.
At eleven o’clock, when the chores were all finished they all piled into the van, all that is except, Jon and Lara who rode with Grandpa Kent in the truck while Grandma Kent rode in the van with the rest as they headed into town to purchase a Christmas tree.
Once they arrived, Sam was placed under Celeste’s charge and Lucy was to be watched over by Sean, an assignment that would fall to his lot, well into her pre-teen years, to his chagrin.
The children all dispersed and each was looking for ‘the perfect’ tree. While they were all running from section to section, covering and recovering the entire lot, Lois and Clark strolled leisurely around the lot chatting with Clark’s parents, amused by, smiling and commenting on the activity.
Suddenly, Lois heard Sean calling from off to the extreme left and she led Clark in that direction. When they arrived, they noted that they were actually off the lot when they spotted Sean and Lucy. Lucy was standing there staring at a scrawny little tree, obviously a reject and crying.
As she approached, Lois said, “Lucy? Why are you all the way over here? What’s the matter, sweetie?”
Without even looking at her, tears streaming down her face, Lucy replied, “Mommy, I feel sorry for this little tree. Nobody is going to want it.”
Lois was immediately cast back many years into her past. Unlike now, Christmas had never been a happy time for Lois. After her parent’s divorce there hadn’t been enough money to satisfy her mother’s thirst and also pay for decorations. After she had met Clark, things had begun to change. Finally, she had decided to celebrate Christmas. She had ordered in a complete Christmas dinner and sent out invitations. She had gone looking for a tree, but by that time, they had been very picked over, but she had found a scrawny tree that had actually grabbed her fancy. When the night had come, the only one who had shown up had been Clark. He had told her that his flight had been cancelled due to snow. She knew very much better now. He had delayed his plans of flying out to Smallville so that she wouldn’t be alone on Christmas. It had turned out to be a magical night.
Identifying with Lucy, Lois knelt next to her and said, “Tell you what, why don’t we give it a home and decorate it. We can have a mama tree and a baby tree. How about that?”
Lucy threw her arms around Lois’s neck and sobbed, “Could we, Mommy? Could we?”
“We sure can, Sweetheart. We will.”
Clark said, “Wait right here. I’ll be right back.” He went in search of the salesman.
A few minutes later he returned and the salesman wrapped the tree up and handed it to Clark who carried it to the truck and placed it in the bed.
As this was being done, Lucy’s tears stopped and she started to smile. She hugged Lois and said, “Thanks, Mommy.”
Lois returned the hug and said, “I just want to see my little girl happy.”
“You’re the bestest mommy in the whole wide world! I love you. Mommy.”
“And I love you, sweetheart.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Eventually they found another tree and after loading everything and everybody they headed back to the farm.
Jonathan and Clark set up both trees, one on either side of the fireplace, in the corner, at a safe distance.
While they were setting up the trees and arranging the decorations they had the radio on in the background playing Christmas music.
Everyone was enjoying the process as they placed the decorations on the trees when suddenly the music was interrupted,
“We interrupt this broadcast for a news bulletin. Flash: Afghanistan – ISIS rebels, who had been massing in northern Afghanistan are striking south, moving through Khorasan Province. They have been actively attacking the Taliban in that area and are now starting to seize territory. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.”As the music resumed, Lois asked Clark, “Isn’t that where Mother and Daddy are?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I’m going to call home and check the answering machine.”
“Okay. I hope everything is okay.”
Lois replied, “So do I.” as she picked up her cell phone and dialed.
As the phone on the other end was ringing, Lois heard a beep, indicating an incoming call. Hitting the ‘flash’ button, she accepted it. “Lois Lane.”
She could hear what sounded like shooting or explosions in the background as she heard a familiar voice, “Princess?”
“Daddy? What’s happening?”
“Princess, we need help! The city is being overrun by ISIS fanatics. It won’t be long until they are in the hospital. We have heard that they don’t give any special treatment to medical personnel. If you are not Muslim they capture you, make you slaves or kill you. Can you get your friends, Superman and Ultra Woman to come and pick us up?”
Lois tried to remain calm as she said, “Consider it done. We are in Smallville. Do you mind if they bring you here?”
“Anywhere, will be better than here before too much longer. Please ask them to hurry.”
“We will.” She closed the connection. Looking at Clark she said, “You heard?” At his nod, she turned to Martha and said, “Clark and I have to go out for a while. Would you mind a couple more visitors?”
“No problem. The sofa pulls out into a bed.” With a conspiratorial wink, she added, “Go get them. Keep them safe.”
Lois said to Jon, “Jon, we have to go out for a while.”
“Can Lara and I help?”
“Not this time. We will have passengers.”
“Okay, Mom. We’ll see you when you get back.”
Nodding to Clark she led the way out the back door. As soon as the door was closed behind them, they spun into their uniforms and took to the sky.
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