Noelle beat me to it. That was the best thing Jonathan has said
ever. Not that I don't feel sorry for Clark. I certainly do. But Jonathan said more than the line that Noelle quoted, he also said this:
“What I was going to say,” Jonathan continued. “Is that she’s strong, but she’s going to need you. As bad as you think this is for you, it’s worse for her. Your mother and I tried to have children. She miscarried three times. It tore her apart. And even though she knew it wasn’t rational, she blamed herself. She beat herself up over the fact that her body couldn’t do what it was supposed to do. If god forbid something goes wrong with the pregnancy, you know Lois is going to blame herself. How is she supposed to get through that if she thinks you blame her, too?”
The way Jonathan talked to Clark made for a fantastic father-son talk. Thank you for writing it.
I can't help thinking of what things were like when Clark came back from New Krypton and was such a wreck. Lois had to work so hard at supporting him. Maybe Clark can return the favor now by supporting Lois?
This was heartbreaking:
“Clark?” she managed to croak despite the gummy sensation of a dry tongue and a parched throat.
“It’s Bernie, Lois. I’m here,” she heard Dr. Klein say.
...
“Does Clark know?” she whispered.
“I told him a little while ago,” Bernie admitted.
“That’s why he isn’t here, isn’t it?” she asked softly.
What you told us about mitochondria and Kryptochondria was so interesting. I'll admit that I felt a little annoyed that Lois seemed to be hurt by the kryptonite. How could she be hurt by it when she is not from Krypton?
But now it turns out that she wasn't exactly hurt by it, she was just robbed of her Kryptonian powers and therefore she became vulnerable:
“Kryptonite is harmless to ordinary humans. It only affects what makes Kryptonians different from Earth humans.”
Lois is human except for her Kryptonian powers, so the kryptonite attacked her Kryptonian powers. That makes sense.
“Jon inherited mitochondria from you and Kryptochondria from Clark. Just like Clark, you and Jon, if exposed to Kryptonite long enough, could have all of your Kryptochondria destroyed. That would kill Clark. But it would only permanently remove your powers or Jon’s.”
That's good to know!
“So I have the dark beans…the Kryptochondria, too? How?”
Bernie shrugged. “That’s what I can’t figure out. Apparently, when they’re excited by a massive electrical current, the Kryptochondria in Clark’s body can ‘jump’ to another person he’s touching. Not enough of them move to cause him any harm, but once in the new person, they multiply and enter every cell, resulting in a complete copy of Clark’s powers. I’m even less sure how they manage to all jump back with a reverse course of electricity.”
Admit it, Rac, there is no way for science to explain this. It's like coming up with a rational explanation for how Clark can fly. Try as you might, you'll be stumped. Or, to put it differently, this is the kind of thing that can only happen in a Superman universe!
“So if your theory is right, does it tell us anything about my pregnancy?”
He scratched at his chin. “It might,” he said, infuriatingly. “I have to caveat this by saying that for obvious reasons, we’ve never exposed a pregnant woman to Kryptonite before. We don’t know what sort of effect, if any, it might have on the development of a normal pregnancy. In terms of what kind of effect it might have on Clark’s child, we know that the amount of damage done to your body by the Kryptonite was limited. You retained some level of Clark’s powers, even if it just meant accelerated healing. That means your body was probably still protecting the pregnancy. It’s also possible that the fetus’s Kryptochondria might have been destroyed, leaving the pregnancy perfectly normal.”
You know what I'm thinking about this, Rac? I guess you saw the latest Superman movie, Superman Returns. Well, in that movie, Lois has a sickly son, who suddenly proves himself to be superpowered, because he is Superman's son.
In that movie, Superman's son doesn't display superpowers for quite a while. Wouldn't it be possible for Lois and Clark's child to be born with just one or two Kryptochondria, so that it takes forever for them to multiply in such a way that they make a difference. But eventually, they will.
Finally, let me say that I loved this:
“Daddy, did you get hurt, too?”
“It’s just a little owie,” Clark assured his son.
What a sweet expression! I had never heard it before.
Ann
