Sorry guys
. Massive headache on Tuesday is finally gone - much better yesterday but still not great. Anyway - here it is! Here's hoping I can get 22 written and fast :p .
Will still shoot for Tuesday for 20...
Last time:
The sound of a key in the lock brought them back to the present. The door opened and there were footsteps on the landing.
"Lois? Clark?"
Clark rested his forehead against hers with a sigh. "I think we need a new lock," he whispered.
"I think you're right," she whispered back. She rolled away from him, standing up as she did. "He's in here," she called. "He'll be right out."
She dug around in his dresser and tossed some clothes at him before heading towards the living room.
Clark sighed again and slowly got dressed.
*~*19*~*Lois headed into the living room. "Clark just woke up a few minutes ago," she told his parents, hoping that they wouldn't realize exactly what they could have been interrupting.
"How is he?"
"He's okay, but he's getting dressed. I got the Suit off, finally, but he's so heavy that was all I could manage. He's tired and weak but..."
"It's my dense molecular structure," came a voice behind her.
She turned to see Clark in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt leaning against the brick archway. She hurried to his side, supporting him as they walked to the couch. "Your what?" she asked.
"My body is heavier, denser than a human my size," he explained. "That's why I seem so heavy."
"Oh."
Sam pulled out his doctor bag and began to examine Clark, his thermometer exploding as he tried to take Clark's temperature.
As Sam checked him over, they told Clark's parents about everything that had happened from the time of the space station's weird attempt to turn itself into a charcoal briquette.
"And they *flew*?" Sam asked.
Lois nodded. "They whooshed off, just like Clark does. We were wondering if they might be Kryptonian or something."
"Did any others survive?"
Lois stared at her cup of coffee and Clark shifted uncomfortably.
"What?" his parents asked in unison.
"When Lois and I went to look at the ship a couple weeks ago, there was a message from Jor-El. It said something about..." Lois could feel his eyes on her, but she refused to look his way and he continued. "...other Kryptonians."
Lois stood and headed for the kitchen. "No, what he said was something about your birth wife finding you." She braced her hands against the counter and closed her eyes. "Then he said 'In the absence of the House of Ra, you have my blessing' in my head. But now the House of Ra apparently isn't so absent which means that as far as the Krypton babe is concerned I'm persona non grata."
She could hear Clark walking towards her but she moved away before he could get to her.
"We don't *know* that, Lois," he said with an exasperated sigh.
"No, we don't *know* that, but let's look at facts." She finally looked at him. "One. The only people who can fly are Kryptonains. Two. Sarah and Ching or Miller or whoever he is, flew. Three. Therefore, they must be Kryptonian. Four. You have a birth wife from the House of Ra. Five. Sa-Ra has been checking you out all week. Then she confronted me in the conference room and asked me to explain the nature of our relationship. Knowing what I know now, it makes perfect sense. I couldn't figure out why she'd be... mad when I told her we were married, but since she's the *birth* wife and I'm just the regular wife, I guess that makes me the other woman and who wouldn't be mad at the other woman?"
She finally allowed him to take her into his arms and she rested her forehead against his chest.
"It all makes perfect sense," she muttered.
"Lois, honey, I love *you*. I *married* you. There was no House of Ra when we got married."
"I knew Star was right." She slipped her arms around his waist. "Someone from your past is going to make all kinds of trouble for us."
There were twin 'thumps' on the balcony and Clark let go of her in an instant, heading towards the door. He looked furious to say the least.
The door opened and Sarah and Ching walked in.
"You are not welcome in my home," Clark told them, standing his ground nearly toe to toe with the other man.
"We must speak, Kal-El," Sarah told him.
"No. We *must* do nothing except you must leave. You're not welcome here. You tried to kill me, my wife, my friends and half of Metropolis. You think I should roll out the red carpet?"
Ching looked at the ground. "It looks like wood, not carpet."
Under other circumstances, Lois might have been amused. Ellen had moved to her side and her hand rubbed up and down Lois' arm, trying to comfort or reassure her.
Sarah stood up as tall as she could. "I am Zara from the House of..."
"Ra," Lois finished for her. "You're Clark's birth wife, aren't you?"
Zara looked stunned. "Yes, I am." She looked at Clark. "You shared this information with an outsider?"
"Lois is my wife," he told the woman, folding his arms over his chest in the best Superman pose he could manage. "I share *everything* with her. But, in this case, she was with me when Jor-El mentioned a birth wife from the House of Ra and then he said something really interesting to her alone. That she had his blessing. So you two can just fly on back or have Scotty beam you up or whatever it is you have to do and go slingshot around the sun – or into it might be a better option."
"What *exactly* did Jor-El say to you?" Zara asked, looking straight at Lois.
Lois thought about lying, fudging on what it was he'd said, but she couldn't bring herself to. "'In the absence of the House of Ra, you have my blessing'," she told the other woman with an indignant glare. "And we had no idea the House of Ra still existed when we got married. For all we knew, you were wormhole food."
Zara frowned. "When did you two get married?"
Clark told her.
"So you were married when we met?"
Lois and Clark exchanged a look.
"That's the date on the license," Lois told her defiantly. "We just kept it to ourselves until we could tell our parents and get rings and all of that."
Zara turned to Ching. "This ruins everything."
He nodded gravely. "Yes, milady. It does."
Zara gestured towards the other room. "Can we sit?"
They, including Sam and Ellen who had stayed in the background – all worked their way back into the living room.
Clark took Lois' hand as soon as he was close enough to her, choosing to sit in the oversized chair and pull her onto his lap.
She closed her eyes as he buried his head in the base of her neck for a moment.
"I love *you*," he whispered. "And I don't give a tiny rat's tuckus if we ruined everything."
"I am afraid, Lord Kal-El, that you must care."
Clark looked over at the other woman and Lois could see the surprise on his face.
"I have the same kind of hearing you possess," Zara reminded him. "I am a Kryptonian living under a yellow sun, remember, husband?"
"I'm *not* your husband," Clark told her forcibly.
"And it is because of that belief and your marriage to Ms. Kent that an entire planet worth of people is going to die."
*****
TBC
