2006
Metropolis, New Troy
“Grandpa Perry!” a dark-haired ten-year-old boy yelled, running into the newsroom at the Daily Planet.
Perry White came out of his office at the shout, a pleased grin on his face. “CJ!” he yelled back as the boy ran down the stairs, into his arms. “I can’t believe how big you’re getting.” Perry looked up to see the older couple accompanying the boy walking down the ramp toward him. Martha Kent looked as spry as ever, but Jonathan was thinner, grayer than Perry remembered just from last Christmas. Martha was carrying a battered brown leather suitcase.
“Perry, we want to thank you again for keeping an eye on CJ while we’re traveling,” Martha began, setting down the suitcase. “Alice isn’t too upset, is she?”
“Nah,” Perry responded. “It took her awhile, but she’s come around. She came to Smallville for Christmas, didn’t she?” He smiled at the memory. After nine years of spending Christmases apart from him, she had finally agreed to meet the families he chose to spend Christmas with – the Olsens and the Kents. Next Christmas, she promised to stay in Metropolis and share the holidays with them again. Their own children and grandchildren would be there too, he hoped.
“It’ll be fine, plus we’ve got Lois coming in later today to stay with us while her mom’s in the hospital.” Perry promised.
“What’s wrong with Lucy?” Martha asked.
“Nothing, we hope,” Perry said. “Something showed up in her last checkup. They’re doing biopsies. Johnny’s staying with Sam and Ellen, and Alice and I are watching Lois.” He turned to the boy. “Rich and Penny are gone for the week, so you can use one of their computers to go on the Internet or play games. Just don’t erase anything, okay?”
“Sure, Chief,” CJ agreed cheerfully, sitting down at one of the indicated stations. He chose Rich’s desk. Eleven years before, it had been Clark Kent’s desk.
“And don’t call me Chief,” Perry chided.
CJ gave him a cheeky grin.
“Gets more like his dad every day,” Perry commented.
“You have no idea,” Martha said with a grin. She gave CJ a kiss on the cheek. “Now, you behave for Grandpa Perry, okay? We’ll call you when we get to London.”
“I wish I could come with you,” CJ said sadly.
“I know you do, CJ,” Jonathan told him. “But we’ll be back before you know it.” Jonathan pulled the boy into a hug. “So you be good, okay?”
“Okay,” CJ agreed glumly, watching his grandparents head back to the elevators. “Bye, Grandma, Grandpa,” he called. They waved back at him as the elevator doors closed.
“Grandpa Perry, why couldn’t I go with them?” CJ wondered aloud.
Perry grabbed the chair from the nearest vacant desk and sat down. “Well, CJ, you know your grandparents aren’t young, and it’s been a long time since they had a vacation together, just the two of them. Not since before you were born, I think.”
“And Grandpa’s sick,” CJ told him. “They don’t like to talk about it. They think I’m too little to understand, but I know if Grandpa has another heart attack, he’ll die. Grandma’s already talked to Sheriff Rachel about taking care of me if anything happens to them.” His lower lip was quivering as the boy fought back tears. “How am I supposed to grow up to be like my dad if they’re not here to help me?”
“Son, you’re already more like your dad that you probably realize,” Perry assured him, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Things’ll work out.”
* * *
“I cannot believe them,” Ellen Lane complained as she stood outside the baggage claim at Berkowitz International Airport. “Putting a ten year-old and an eight year-old alone on a plane across the country.”
“The kids have been on a plane before, Ellen,” Sam Lane reminded his wife. “I just don’t understand why they didn’t ask us to fly out instead. I mean, I could’ve taken a week or so away from work to help out.”
“And why the devil did Jim have to move them to Los Angeles, of all places. Paris was bad enough, but Los Angeles?” Ellen went on.
“Because that’s where his boss sent him,” Sam said. “I’m sure if there’d been an opening in Metropolis they’d have moved back here.”
“Sam, Ellen!” a man’s voice called out. The couple turned to see Perry White approaching. A dark-haired boy with brown almond-shaped eyes trotted beside him.
“Oh, you’re here for Lois, aren’t you?” Ellen observed. “And who’s this young man?”
Perry looked over at CJ, standing patiently beside him. “Ellen, Sam, I don’t think I ever mentioned him, but this is CJ, Clark Kent’s son. CJ, Doctor and Missus Lane, Lois and Johnny’s grandparents.”
“How do you do?” CJ said formally. He held out his hand as his grandparents had taught him. Sam Lane ignored it. CJ put his hands in his pockets and studied the toes of his sneakers.
“Sam!” Ellen admonished her husband.
Sam sighed and put his hand out to be shook by the boy. CJ had a firm grip, stronger than Sam expected from a boy his age. But it was his eyes that disquieted him. There was something old in the boy’s eyes, at least something far more adult than Sam had expected to see. A wary sadness that Sam remembered seeing in another set of brown eyes. Was it twelve years ago? This boy hadn’t even been born. Then, suddenly, it was just a bright-eyed ten-year-old grinning at him, and Sam found himself wondering if he had imagined what he’d just observed.
“I didn’t know Clark had found someone else after Lois died,” Ellen commented. “His mother…?”
“She died when he was a baby,” Perry explained. “It’s complicated.”
“It always is,” Ellen agreed.
“Clarkie!” a girl’s voice yelled, interrupting any questions Ellen might have had. The three adults looked over to the baggage claim to see a dark-haired girl waving at them. Beside her, holding her other hand was a younger boy with auburn hair. A tall woman wearing a blue airline uniform was holding the younger boy’s other hand.
CJ and Perry waved back.
“That’s Grandpa Perry and Clarkie” they heard the girl tell the woman.
“And Grandpa Sam, and Grandma Ellen,” the boy chimed in, breaking free of the hands and running to Sam and Ellen.
“Johnny!” Sam greeted his eight-year-old grandson.
At the carousel, Lois Olsen and the woman grabbed two bags and checked the tags with security. Perry reached over the low fence and grabbed one of the bags, handing it to Sam. Lois ran around the gate into Perry’s arms. “Grandpa Perry!”
“Lois, honey! You all set to stay with Grandma Alice and CJ?” Perry asked, grabbing Lois’s bag.
“Yup,” Lois said. She turned to her younger brother. “You be good, Johnny,” she ordered. Johnny made a face at her and she shrugged.
“Lois, are you sure you don’t want to stay with your Grandma Ellen and me?” Sam asked. It had taken some time, years in fact, but Sam and Ellen had finally come to terms with the fact that their daughter and son-in-law were raising his bastard child. A child James Olsen claimed he hadn’t even known about until the day she was born and foisted off on him by her irresponsible mother – a woman who hadn’t been heard from since.
Sama and Ellen had been trying to treat Lois as their own granddaughter. They hadn’t been very successful.
“That’s okay,” she told Sam. “You have fun with Johnny. I’ll stay with Perry and Clark. Maybe we can come by and visit some time.”
There was something oddly adult in the way she said it. Something sad and familiar, something that reminded him of another Lois. His eldest daughter who had tried and failed to bring her parents together, whose death had done what her life hadn’t.
Then suddenly, it was a fourth-grader in front of him, bright-eyed, a little worldly, only pretending to be grown-up. Sam had an odd sense of déjà vu. There was something very odd about the pair. Lois called the boy Clarkie. Clark Kent, Jr.? Lucy had never mentioned that Clark had a son, and from Lois’s reaction she knew the boy well.
This was something to be looked into.
* * *
“Uncle Mike?” Lois asked as Perry, CJ, and Lois walked into the American Bistro, a café in Midtown Metropolis. A burly gray man came out of the back to greet them. They ignored the few other patrons who watched with mild curiosity before turning their attention back to their meals.
“Lois?” Mike Lane’s rough face split into a wide grin as he caught sight of his grandniece and her companions. “CJ?” He made a show of checking the calendar on the wall. “Is it Christmas already?”
Both kids ran up and hugged him, giggling.
“Over here, you two,” Mike ordered them to a table in the back corner. “Afternoon, Perry.”
“They insisted on seeing you,” Perry explained, taking a seat at the table. “I don’t think they fed Lois on the plane, and you know boys…” Lois and CJ took chairs on either side of him, grinning at Mike.
“Two Bottomless Pit burgers coming right up,” Mike announced cheerfully. “What about you, Perry?”
“Chicken Caesar and coffee for me,” Perry decided.
Their meals came quickly and Mike sat down for a few moments to chat before more customers came in. Mike hadn’t had a problem with his niece’s decision to adopt her husband’s bastard daughter. In fact, he had seen the resemblance early on between Lois Joanne Olsen and Lois Joanne Lane. It was less a physical resemblance, although that was there, but one of personality and intellect.
Mike Lane had traveled the world, both as a Marine and after, before settling in Metropolis. He’d seen many things he couldn’t explain. His grandniece and her buddy CJ were among them. They made him almost believe in reincarnation.
