0 0 0
Richard White looked around the newsroom. Perry’s domain, but his when Perry was out. That was one of the roles of assistant editor, although he was giving it up as soon as he had plane tickets for Paris.
“She’s decided,” he’d told his uncle. “Is that post in Paris still open?” Perry had nodded ‘yes.’
Lois was at her desk, no doubt working on the article that she and Clark and Superman had been working on, about Homeland Security’s impact on families with cross-border ties. I guess that describes Clark right now. The poor guy looked completely shell shocked when Perry took him away.
Richard searched out one particular person in the crowded room. The noise levels had returned to relative normal after Superman’s unexpected appearance, walking in with a newborn baby in his arm. Clark Kent’s baby. Funny, but Kent just didn’t seem to be the type to marry some exotic beauty then run away when she got pregnant. He was honest, wholesome, honorable, a real boy scout. It must have been a hell of a shock to walk into work to find Lois telling him his wife was dead.
He finally found the person he was looking for: Penelope Landris, the new girl, woman, in research. She came from well respected Metropolis family, had attended college in Paris, and spoke French fluently. Her first journalism job had been with a small broadsheet in Paris.
It had also been Penny who made sure Richard was okay when Lois and Clark disappeared for three days without a trace.
“Penny,” Richard called to her. She stopped what she was doing, dropping off papers at various desks and trotted over to him.
“Yes, Mister White?”
“Mister White’s my uncle, remember?” Richard said with a grin. “The Daily Planet has a couple openings in Paris. Mister White wanted me to ask you if you were interested in moving to France for a while to work for us there.”
He studied her face as she considered what he’d asked. “Who will I be working under?” she finally asked.
“Me,” he said. He noted her glance over at Lois still seated at her desk, reviewing her notes, typing her story.
“Happened pretty fast, didn’t it?” she asked, concern in her eyes.
“Not really,” Richard said. “I always had a suspicion that if Jason’s real father showed up one day, out of the blue, he’d still be in the running for her.”
“Does she know what you’re planning?”
He shrugged. Will she care? “I’m planning to tell her as soon as we both get home.”
0 0 0
Lois finished the first section of Clark’s write-up on immigration problems that Norm Parker had started investigating. It had become Clark’s story when Parker died and Clark was rehired, taking over both Parker’s desk and his assignments. Now, with Clark supposedly personally involved in the issue, it was Lois and Clark’s story.
Funny, she could tell when Norm’s writing left of and Clark’s began, could see Clark’s edits, his change in point of view on the subject. He had obviously not been working on it very long, otherwise it would have been a seamless whole. Her job in taking it over was to make it a seamless whole, using Clark’s voice, one she knew as well as her own, even after him being away from more than five years.
She sent the article over to Perry’s printer and also to Clark’s folder on Perry’s computer. That finished, she picked up her coat and purse, turned off her computer and started to head home. Jason! Where is Jason? When she was in the alternate time-line, she wanted nothing more than to get back home to her son. But when she got back to her home dimension, her worry about Clark and the baby had pushed her own son to the back of her mind. What sort of mother am I that I can put someone else’s child before my own?
She looked around and saw Richard standing near the elevators taking with Penny Landris. Clark was right. This Penny is the counterpart to Richard’s wife in that other place. They look right together.
“Richard, are you picking Jason up, or am I?” she called to him.
“You can, if you want. I signed him up for that new aftercare at his school. They’ll watch him till about six,” he told her. “I know I should have talked to you about it before I signed him up, but I wasn’t able to get a hold of you. None of us were.”
“It’s been a really bizarre last couple of days,” she told him.
“Well, why don’t you tell me about it over dinner? I’ll grab some Indian on my way home,” he said.
She gave him a grateful smile. “Sounds good. I’ll meet you there.” She watched Penny smile at Richard and head back into the newsroom to do her work. I wonder how long she’s been here. Oh God, how do I tell Richard that Clark’s back in my life? How do I begin to explain it?
0 0 0
Alice White hadn’t changed, really. Oh, she was thinner, with more silver tracing metallic lines through her hair, but she hadn’t really changed, Clark thought as she opened the front door and pulled him into a hug, despite the baby carrier in his hand.
“I’m so sorry, Clark,” she said letting him go. “It must be a horrible shock for you.”
“Yeah, I certainly wasn’t expecting . . .” He ran his free hand through his hair. “Uh, yeah,” he ended up mumbling. He followed her through the door into the house. Perry was behind him with the baby things. Clark would go out later and get his bags out of the trunk of the car.
He still wasn’t sure how he felt about the invitation to stay with Perry and his wife, how he was going to handle his ‘other job’ while under the intense scrutiny of the editor-in-chief of one of the most influential newspapers on the east coast, if not the country.
“Um, I want to thank you for letting me, I mean us, stay till I find someplace to live. I . . .”
“Don’t mention it, hon’,” Alice assured him, taking the baby carrier from him and leading him into the living room. “The Planet is family, and family helps each other, warts and all.”
“It’s about family,” the other Clark had said. “You can love them, you can hate them, be ashamed of them, despise them. When family calls, you help. Despite the wrongs they’ve done, you care.”
Alice peered into the carrier, at the small life wrapped in baby blankets. She picked the child up. “She is so adorable . . . Look at all that hair. . .”
0 0 0
The cab dropped Lois and Jason off in front of the house at 312 Riverside Drive. The house she’d left two days ago to go to work, the same house that her counter-part lived in with four kids and Clark Kent.
She opened the door with her key and walked in. Jason ran past her to the kitchen.
“Daddy, Mommy’s back! She picked me up at aftercare just like you promised!”
“I told you she wouldn’t be gone too long,” Richard told him. “Now, go get cleaned up for dinner, and we’ll have Mommy tell us all about her adventure with Mister Clark and Superman, and then I have something to talk to you and Mommy about.”
She could hear Jason’s little elephant feet pounding on the stairs as he ran up to wash his hands and face. She walked into the dining room and found the table set, most of dinner in serving bowls ready to go. She entered the kitchen beyond and saw Richard, a glass of wine in his hand.
“Starting without me?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light. To answer, he pulled a second wine glass from the cabinet and filled it for her. She took a sip. “Not bad for ‘two-buck-Chuck,’” she said.
He took a sip of his wine. “Perry and I were really worried about you.” He looked up and saw her annoyed expression. “We were worried about Clark, too, but I figure he’s a big boy, he can take care of himself.”
“And I can’t?” she asked.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” he explained. “For Clark to disappear is just ‘Clark.’ It’s not like you to take of for days without telling anyone where, or what.”
“I called Perry before we left that I was with Superman and Clark and that we might be gone for more than a day.”
“But three days without contact? On an INS story?” he asked. “And where was Superman? His arrival at the Planet this afternoon was the first sighting of him in three days. Perry and I were watching for him, any sign of him, so we’d have an idea where you and Clark had gone off to. So, where was he?”
“The Arctic, for one. Then other places, places without cell phone coverage,” Lois said.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” Richard said.
She shook her head. “It’s complicated.”
