If You Only Knew [*Notes* Thank you to Morgana for beta-reading this for me. I am already working on the next chapter and this may not be 15 chapters like I had first intended. It may be closer to 10-12 chapters since I am trying to write longer chapters. Previous chapters can be found here. Thank you again for welcoming me back.**Part 8Lois sat there in front of Clark flabbergasted at what he had just admitted. He couldn’t fathom on giving up on Superman, she thought. How could he just stop being a hero? No, there had to be some other way.
“Clark, so you are just going to say goodbye to the Daily Planet, Metropolis, and being a hero,” Lois asked as she stood up from the steps they were sitting on and turned to him. “Giving up everything? Even me?”
“Lois, you don’t understand, I almost lost my dad because I wasn’t here. All of those lives at the fire I couldn’t save. What good is Superman when he can’t even save the ones he loves? I can’t do it anymore - seeing the devastation in the world - the death. Seeing those bodies almost killed me then realizing that at the same time my dad was dying also. How can I go back and be the hero everyone wants when I can’t save those close to me,” Clark explained with pain in his heart and tears in his eyes.
“You can’t save everyone, Clark,” Lois replied as she got down on her knees in front of him and took his hands in hers. “Superman is part of you, I know you, you can’t just stop helping people. It’s not who you are. Do doctors quit when they lose patients despite their best efforts? No, they move on”
“Clark is who I am. Superman is what I can do. I thought you knew that already,” Clark admitted wiping his tears away. “I can’t save everyone.”
“No, you can’t. That is something you have to come to terms with, but you can’t give up trying. I know Superman is what you can do. It is one reason I love you so much.”
“My parents gave up so much for me. They are losing the farm, Lois, so many things around here need to be repaired. The barn needs a new roof, the broken tractor, fences need to be replaced, and don’t get me started on that chicken coop,” he explained as he shook his head in despair. “It would take my dad forever to fix things around here and where would they get the money to do it.”
Lois needed a plan. She had so many thoughts running through her head about Clark - his worries and doubts. She had seen dead bodies before just not in the same capacity as he had. A few of those dead bodies she had seen, though, she was with Clark. They had each other to lean on. Yet, he was doing the same thing he had done before - make big decisions without consulting her.
“Remember when you broke up with me because you didn’t want people to use me to get to you,” Lois stated while she sat down next to him again. “You made that decision without thinking about what I wanted -.”
“This is different,” Clark interrupted.
“Let me finish, Clark,” she said as she put her hand up to him. “You keep making these big decisions without me. You tell me you love me one minute and you want to marry me. Then you break up with me and yet chase other men away. Now you want to quit the Daily Planet and move back here. A few weeks ago you told me that being with me was stronger than you alone. Leaving Metropolis, the Daily Planet, and your friends are not the answer.”
“I am not saying that we have to be apart. You could always stay with me,” Clark whispered and he leaned over to her putting his hand on her cheek like he had so many times before. “Watching you this morning in the kitchen and feeding the chickens, Lois, we could stay here in Smallville together.”
Lois didn't know whether to laugh or cry at his idea. She wasn’t a country girl; she was a world-renowned reporter and so was he.
“No,” she mumbled as she remembered another moment when she gave him that answer. “I can’t give up everything we have worked for and move to Smallville. What is wrong with you staying in Metropolis and us coming here to visit every couple of weeks?”
“What is it with you telling me “No,” Clark demanded as he removed his hand from her, turned away, and stepped away from the steps.
“Me? What is with you making these impulsive decisions? You are not a farmer, Clark. Your parents even told me that last night. You always wanted to go out into the world and see what was out there. Your mom told me that Metropolis was the first place that you had stayed longer than six months. What makes you want to leave that now? Is it me? Did you change your mind about us, again?”
“Why does no one understand that being Superman is hard? I see things that no one should see. I may not be from Earth, but I still have feelings. All of the death I see is just getting to be too much,” Clark told her. “I can’t just unsee that family of four - that little girl who didn’t make it out of that apartment. She had to be no older than five years old. The family was huddled together in the bathroom… I close my eyes and it’s all I see.”
Lois finally understood what he was going through. It wasn’t just about the farm or his father’s heart attack. It is what he saw that night in the fire. Clark was heartbroken on not arriving on time to save a family that needed him.
“You are only one man, one hero. You can’t save everyone, not even when it’s a child,” Lois admitted as she put her hand on his arm.
A breeze went across the fields, it made Lois shutter for a second, and the sound of the telephone ringing inside the farmhouse stopped Lois and Clark from talking anymore.
“We are not finished, Clark,” Lois stated as she turned around and walked towards the house. “Go meet Dylan and I’ll get the phone.”
Lois walked up the steps and she could see Clark in her prevail vision as he walked towards the barn. His situation made her ache - ache for him to be human, ache for the family who died in the fire, and ache for his parents. She had seen death before, just like Clark, but he had seen so much more in being Superman that she had thought he just tucked it away as others would have. Doctors, firefighters, paramedics saw death all the time, how did they handle it, she wondered. She had been there when Mayson died and knew it hurt Clark since Mayson was in love with him, but during that time they had just started dating and he hid his feelings well. Did he feel guilty then about not getting to Mayson in time? So many questions, Lois had, and so little time to figure things out.
She walked into the house and answered the phone that hung on the wall in the kitchen.
“Hello, Kent farm,” Lois answered.
“Lois, it’s Martha. How did breakfast go? Did you find everything okay,” Martha asked with sounds of television in the background.
“I did find everything, thank you for the help. I was surprised things had turned out as well as they did. No kitchen fires, or burnt toast,” Lois replied as she remembered the kiss Clark and she had shared before Wayne Irig interrupted.
“I am coming home in a few hours since Jonathan is doing better. He told me to go home for the night and get some real rest before I end up in the bed next to him from exhaustion,” Martha replied. “So I was going to stop and get some groceries for a home-cooked meal tonight.”
“That’s sounds great, Martha. Wayne Irig stopped by this morning and volunteered his grandson to work around the farm for the summer. I had to talk Clark into letting the teenager be here, and he finally agreed that it would be a good thing to have someone to help around here.”
“That son of mine sure acts like his father a lot. Both of them are so stubborn and try to do everything without asking for help,” Martha explained as she sat next to her husband.
“I’m right here, Martha,” Lois heard in the background and giggled a bit. Lois knew, for sure, that Clark could be very stubborn. He had kept his feelings about that night of the fire and his father’s heart attack to himself. Instead of talking about his feelings, he kept working on the farm, stopping himself from getting through the healing process and moving on.
“You might want to talk some sense into your son, though. He wants to stay in Smallville,” Lois stated as she twirled the phone cord through her fingers.
“I figured he was having doubts. I will definitely talk to him and I’m sure Jonathan will have a few choice words for him as well,” Martha retorted. “I’ll be heading back to the farm once Jonathan falls back to sleep.”
“Okay, I’ll see you then.”
Lois hung up the phone and looked around the house to see what she could do until Martha showed up. She remembered the pile of laundry in Clark’s room that he didn’t have time to do since arriving in Smallville. First, on the agenda, would be Clark’s laundry, then getting the eggs from the chicken coop and washing them off as Martha told her to do.
After those two items, she would write an agenda for what needed to be completed on the farm to the proper standards. A half an hour later she sat at the kitchen table with one of her notebooks she always carried with her. On top of the page, she wrote Farm Agenda, with two lines under it. Below the title, she wrote tractor replaced, barn roof fixed, new chicken coop, paint barn and fence around farm replaced. After she retrieved the eggs from the chicken coop, she realized there wasn’t enough space for all of the chickens in the coop, so a bigger chicken coop was needed. Lois also realized that some people would buy fresh eggs more than buying them at the store, and wondered why the Kents’ didn’t try to sell some of them like other farmers.
Lois had the tractor replaced already and maybe she could get some help on the other things that needed to be completed. She also wanted to find some information on Lana Lang and not sure if Martha would be the right person to talk to about the woman who appeared in Clark’s bedroom in only a towel. One person Lois knew could probably help her was the Sheriff, Lois had met last time she was in Smallville. She looked at the clock above the kitchen sink and figured she had enough time to go to town and talk to Rachel. Maybe, she could even catch up with Martha at the store and help her with groceries. Lois craved some chocolate or some Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream, her issues with Clark made her crave the sweet cocoa more times than she could count.
Lois wrote a quick note to Clark in case he wondered where she had disappeared to, then grabbed her keys to the rental car and drove off. She headed to the Sheriff’s station in hope that Sheriff Rachel Harris would be available for a chat. Within fifteen minutes she stood in the front of the precinct of the Sheriff’s station and looked around for Rachel.
“Excuse me, Officer,” Lois stated to the Officer at the counter, who looked like he was only a teenager. “I’m looking for Sheriff Harris.”
“Lois, is that you?” Rachel shouted from the back of the bullpen.
Lois looked up toward the sound of the voice and caught a glimpse of Clark’s high school prom date. Many things had changed since she had last seen Sheriff Rachel Harris and most of all was her relationship with Clark. Rachel walked across the bullpen which was a lot smaller than the ones in Metropolis. First of all, there were only four desks in the bullpen, whereas the Metropolis Police Department had over twenty. The room was a lot smaller and needed a serious remodel with the stale yellow paint and linoleum floor. There were only three officers in the office which included Rachel.
“Love your short hair,” Rachel stated as she tried to hug Lois. “I heard you chopped it all off after Clark proposed.”
“Oh, you heard about the proposal,” Lois wondered as she remembered everyone knew each other’s business in a small town.
“Of course, I did. Martha told my mother, who then, reminded me that I am not getting any younger and need to find a man. Well, I told her, the day Clark gets Lois down the aisle is the day I’ll start looking. Us, career women, don’t need a man to satisfy us,” Rachel explained with her intense voice in front of her subordinates.
“How about we take this to your office,” Lois suggested not wanting all of her business known to other Smallville residents.
“I mean, I know he turned around and broke up with you, but he was hurt, I’m sure,” Rachel replied as they walked towards her office. “All men make mistakes, because the two of you are back together. You even came to support him and his parents during this time.”
Lois shut the door to Rachel’s office once they entered. She didn’t want to ask her questions in front of an audience and the inquiries she had to reach Lana.
“Rachel, please. I need some information on someone from Clark’s past,” Lois interrupted Rachel. Rachel’s office looked like a typical small town, Sheriff’s office, with a small desk, a bookshelf with tons of manuals on it, plus a couple of personal effects on the wall. The desk was gray metal and seriously needed to be replaced with things from the present decade.
“Lana, I bet,” Rachel responded. “I heard she was seen at the Kent farm yesterday. The company you called to tow Lana’s truck out of the ditch yesterday is owned by my cousin - Glenn. Glenn went out with Lana a few times the past couple of years. Nothing serious, of course, Lana wouldn’t let it be, since Glenn doesn’t run in the same circles as her family.”
“How long did Clark and Lana date,” Lois questioned as she sat straighter in her hard metal chair that was seriously uncomfortable.
“On and off during high school. Whenever Lana found another suitor who deemed appropriate for her circles, she would dump Clark. She had decided two weeks before our Senior Prom that a freshman in college was better suited to take her to Prom than Clark. That is why he ended up going with me. Yet, she dumped the freshman soon after and Clark and Lana were back on.”
“Should I be worried about her,” Lois wondered.
“No, because I noticed how he looked at you when the two of you were here a couple of years ago. He never looked at Lana with such admiration. He never talked about marriage with Lana. I don’t think he ever saw a future with her. He always wanted to see the world and she wanted to be the Queen-Bee of Smallville her entire life. Her father was Mayor for a short time, and her mother is the President of the DAR chapter here in Smallville,” Rachel clarified as she scribbled some notes on a piece of paper.
“DAR as in Daughters of the American Revolution,” Lois inquired, shocked that the Lang’s were descendants of those who aided in achieving United States independence.
“And they won’t let you forget it either,” Rachel pointed out. “What most people don’t know is they have used their money and influence to break some laws even going above my head to make some of those instances to disappear.”
“So if I needed to use something against Lana, you have it?
“Oh, I could tell you stories about that woman, but I know, Clark. He wouldn’t like it if we used the information against Lana,” Rachel reminded Lois. “But if you do need a little dirt on the Princess, here is something to use against her.”
Rachel folded the piece of paper she had written on and handed it to Lois. Lois unfolded the paper and read what Rachel had written. Her mouth opened wide in shock and dismay at the information in front of her. Lois knew she couldn’t use this information unless it was absolutely necessary.
“Thank you, Rachel. I really appreciate your help with this mess. I better get back to the farm. Martha was coming home tonight and I wanted to help her with dinner,” Lois declared as she stood up from the chair.
“I thought you didn’t cook?”
“Martha has been helping me learn a few things,” Lois answered. Lois thought to herself did everyone in town know everything about her and her relationship with Clark.
“If you need any help on the farm, let me know, I have a couple of people in town that need to keep busy and out of trouble,” Rachel said as she moved around her desk and walked Lois out of the office.
“Thank you, I might have to take you up on that. We have a few things to fix up before Clark and I head back to Metropolis.”
“Maybe we can meet up for lunch one of these days. I could introduce you to a few people in town that could really tell you stories about Clark,” Rachel replied. “Especially Pete Ross, he was Clark’s best friend growing up.”
“Sure, how does the day after tomorrow sound,” Lois announced before she left the precinct. “I have to make a bunch of calls tomorrow. I’ll call you.”
Lois left the Sheriff’s office with the information in her purse that would keep Lana away from Clark for good. She knew she could not stoop to Lana’s level and use this information against her - blackmail was not her style. Clark would be furious also, and that is the last thing she wanted. No, she would only use the information Rachel had given her if Lana pursued Clark again. Lois would keep these details to herself unless it was necessary.
Forty-three minutes later she was back at the farm after stopping at a market for her ice cream, notebooks, and the Smallville Gazette. If she was going to stay in this small town for any longer, she needed to know what was going on and how the paper was run.
When she pulled up to the farm she noticed the small light blue truck that belonged to the Kent’s. Martha had beat her home and hopefully she had not arrived that long ago. She walked into the house with the aroma of apple pie hitting her instantly.
“Martha, you should be resting, not baking an apple pie and making dinner,” Lois stated as she entered the kitchen and witnessed Martha drudging the chicken in flour.
“Oh, I didn’t have time to bake a fresh one. I had some frozen in the freezer ready to bake when needed. A couple of times a month I make meals to freeze, so when Clark visits he can take them back to Metropolis with him. I thought an apple pie with some ice cream would be a nice treat,” Martha explained washing her hands in the sink.
“Funny, you mention ice cream,” Lois responded as she emptied the plastic bag on the counter. “I had a craving for some.”
“Yeah, men will do that to us,” Martha responded with a laugh. “These Kent men of ours, will drive us into a tub of ice cream in no-time flat, yet you can’t help but love them.”
“Let me help you,” Lois asked as she came up beside Martha to wash her hands. “I need a little bit more experience in the kitchen.”
The ladies worked together making fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and vegetable medley. A hearty meal for the family that would work on the farm all day. As soon as Lois finished setting the table and Martha put the platter of fried chicken on the table Clark entered the house.
“I smelled dinner a mile away and knew only one person would be making my favorite meal,” Clark mentioned as he kissed his mother on the cheek. “What are you doing home?”
“Go clean up and eat. We need to have a serious talk about you wanting to give up Superman,” Martha told her boy. “There will be none of this nonsense.”
“Mom,” Clark mumbled as he looked over at Lois. “It’s more serious than what you both think.”
“I think you need some food in you, and then we will talk over dinner,” Martha requested as she sat down at the table.
Five minutes later, Clark sat at the table in clean clothes, wet hair, and ready for one of his favorite meals with two of his cherished ladies. He wasn’t ready to hear a lecture from his mom and it wouldn’t be the first time he had received one over the dinner table.
“Your father and I have talked about this in detail,” Martha stated. “We would like you to stay for no longer than a week, just to finish up the harder items that need to be fixed around here. Then you are flying back to Metropolis, back to your life at the Daily Planet and your life with Lois.”
Clark couldn’t believe what had happened. He had his own ideas and it didn’t include leaving the farm or Smallville. He needed to tell her exactly why he felt that giving up Superman was the best decision and how he came to the conclusion. Clark never thought he would have a woman in his life to love, he had only dreamt of it. Now Lois was here, so close, yet when that fire stuck down that family in the apartment fire, he had watched his future disappear. At the same time the apartment fire happened, his own father had suffered a heart attack - almost killing him. His family was in dire need and he wasn’t fast enough to save a family he didn’t even know let alone his own father. The future family he wanted to have with Lois, his dreams of children with Lois went up in smoke. If he couldn’t be there for his father; how could he be fast enough to save his future.
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