Once again, thanks Nancy for doing such a great job in editing this. Hope you guys enjoy!
PART THIRTEEN
When Superman returned me to my apartment after the disastrous island visit, I vowed not to think about Jor. Which left me with very little to think about, what with Riverview being out for the summer. It was at times like this that I always thought I should get a hobby. You know, instead of chasing after miscellaneous bad guys with guns. So I went for a long, extended run outside, gradually increasing my speed over time and letting a massive stitch build up on my side, leaving me feeling wobbly and boneless. Then I took an insanely long bath with as much scented additives as possible, a truckload of vanilla candles, and a Miles Davis CD. Finally, I pulled out the ultimate feel-better remedy and ordered a large deluxe pizza with no onions and extra peppers. I wore bulky sweats and had my hair tied messily back in a ponytail as I munched absently on my hot, greasy comfort food.
I struggled desperately against feeling guilty. It was his fault. He didn’t trust me enough to tell me anything about himself or to let me tell him about myself. End of story. That was it.
Or it should’ve been, anyway. But after my anger and frustration over what he did to me had dissipated a bit, I was left with the echoes of what I had angrily yelled at him on the beach. He never told me anything about himself, I had argued. That was true, there was still a lot about him that I was completely clueless to. But I remembered that one night months ago when we had first cooked up our arrangement. He had been skeptical, at first. He questioned our ability to have a meaningful relationship if he kept so many secrets from me. And I had brushed it off. I told him I didn’t need to know any of that stuff.
Of course by now it was different. Before all the NIA stuff came floating to the surface, we had definitely come to the point where our relationship demanded complete honesty and openness. I had felt that tension mounting between us in the last few weeks. I knew that it would only be so long before I could not hold out any longer without needing the truth. In fact, it was that initial feeling that had spurred my desire to tell Jor the truth about my work for the NIA. I had been unhappy with the state of our relationship for weeks now, yet I hadn’t said anything to Jor about it. The one time I had let my irritation show, I tried to minimize it as much as possible and brush it off. It was a habit ingrained in me from my childhood, I suppose. If something upset me with my father, the last thing I would do was tell him about it. Instead, I would force myself to forget and ask him to teach me how to disarm a chemical bomb or something because then at least he’d talk to me.
I had tried the same thing with Jor, too. The one time I had been angry with him, I tried to cover up my irritation, yet he hadn’t let that happen. Instead, he planned this big romantic evening for me and gave me a solution to the problem I had tried to negate.
I glanced over to the signal watch sitting on my countertop. Thinking back, there was never a time when I had asked for something that he hadn’t given to me. Although he wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information, he always provided what I asked for. Looking over at that watch, I started to think that maybe I should try getting a hold of him…
But I stopped myself. Maybe I had been a little unfair in some of my accusations, but that didn’t mean that Jor was without blame. He hacked into a government database and pulled my confidential file. That isn’t something you could just stumble across. It was a huge betrayal of trust on his part, and I couldn’t just let that go. It would be a repeat of the behavior that marked my relationship with my father. I refused to just sweep what he had done to me under the rug and apologize to him for not being entirely open.
Half of my pizza had mysteriously disappeared in the emotional fray. I tried to ignore the uncomfortably full feeling in my stomach as I pondered my options. What he had done to me was a huge blow in the trust that had cemented our relationship. Yet despite my anger, I couldn’t get him out of my head. Not thinking about Jor seemed to be out of the question. But summoning him here was equally impossible. And it wasn’t like I could talk to anyone about this. I decided to settle with maybe watching Jor.
I turned my TV onto a news station to see if he was doing anything newsworthy at the moment. An earthquake in Tibet. Perfect. Superman was already on the scene, and he was soon joined by Ellie, or Nebula as she appeared on the screen. I watched as they helped to clear rubble and remove victims, not really hearing what the newscaster was saying. Half an hour later, Supernova had yet to make an appearance.
Jor had told me that the family takes turns in looking after Metropolis. On Monday, for instance, Ellie would answer all the calls for help. Tuesday, Jor would take care of everything. Wednesday, their father would take over, and the cycle would repeat. But in case of major disasters like this one, they all pitched in. Why wasn’t he there? There were a lot of possible explanations. He could have not heard about it, or he could be taking care of something here in Metropolis, or he could be in Antarctica talking to the penguins about how guilty he was feeling for hurting me (okay, maybe it was wishful thinking on the last one). But there was some sort of inexplicable instinct within me that told me that none of those were the case. Despite my dignity telling me not to, I reached for the signal watch and pulled the pin. He didn’t come. Five minutes later, ten minutes later, he still wasn’t here. And I was starting to panic.
However bad something had gotten between us, I knew he would never ignore my call on the signal watch. I had leapt off the sofa, changed into some more functional clothing, and was lacing up my combat boots before I stopped in my tracks and realized that I had nothing to go on. The only people I could possibly go to were Ellie and his dad, who were both in Tibet. What was there that I could do? That’s when the doorbell rang. I ran over to it, and yanked it open, neglecting to look through the peephole. Jor stumbled into the entryway, leaning heavily on the wall for support.
His hair stuck up at odd angles, and he wore a wrinkled button up shirt with ratty jeans. He finally managed to right himself, and peered dopily in my direction.
“Hey, beautiful,” he slurred, smiling lopsidedly. I remained frozen on the spot. I had never seen Jor like this before. He seemed almost… drunk? Maybe he was high? But alcohol or drugs had no effect on him.
“Jor?” I asked carefully. I made sure my door was shut firmly. It would not do to have the neighbors poking around at this time. “Are you all right?”
“Kaylie, I have to tell you…” His eyes rolled around crazily, and he slid down the wall. “I’m so sorry, Kaylie… What I did to you… You were right.”
“Now’s not the time to have this conversation, Jor,” I told him firmly, and tried to grab a hold of his arm to pull him up. What had happened to him? He jerked his arm away from me with surprising nimbleness.
“That’s not my real name, you know… Kaylie.” His loopy smile stretched even wider across his face, and a giggle eked out of his mouth.
“I know it’s not. You haven’t told me your real name, remember?” Now was *definitely* not the time to be having this conversation.
“But I came to tell you… to tell you wh…” He sagged against the wall even more, and sank to his knees. “I don’t feel so good.” He finally muttered.
“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” I snapped. I was able to take advantage of his temporary weakness, and I wrapped my arm around his shoulders, trying to brace myself so I could pull him up. I was shocked to feel the heat emanating from his body. “Jor, you’re burning up!”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Somebody also replaced my legs with Jell-O.” He gave a short breath of laughter.
“What happened to you? I thought you weren’t sensitive to any drugs or alcohol.” The crazy smile reappeared across his face.
“You see, that’s what I love about you, Kaylie. You’re so smart and you think on your feet… Which is good cause mine don’t seem to be working too well at the momen…” His eyes fluttered shut, but I shook his shoulders, and he opened them blearily.
“Jor, you need to focus, okay? Let’s get you somewhere where you can lie down. Do you think you can stand with my help?” By leaning heavily on the wall, and with my support, Jor was able to stand shakily, and work his way to my bedroom. I tried to question him some more to find out what had happened to him, but he refused to play ball, and instead kept reiterating that he was sorry and that he came here to tell me something.
“You can tell me later,” I insisted. He was growing steadily weaker, and his fever worried me. Even for a half Kryptonian, it couldn’t have been healthy. He sank clumsily into the bed, and let out a sigh of relief.
“I love you, Kaylie,” he murmured, as he drifted off to sleep. I realized belatedly that I was stuck with a sick superhero with no knowledge of what happened to him and no idea of how to treat him.
“Jor?” I asked urgently, shaking him gently. “Who can I call for help? I don’t know what to do! Jor? Are you still awake?” But he was long gone.
Immediately, I switched into Emergency Mode. Long practice while on assignment had enabled me to distance myself from distracting emotions and deal with life or death situations calmly and methodically.
The only two relatives of Jor’s that I knew were Ellie and Jor’s dad, both of whom were helping with disaster relief in Tibet. They might wonder why Jor didn’t come to help out, but they wouldn’t leave the scene to go searching for him. It could take hours before I managed to contact them. I had no other choice but to search his pockets looking for clues. A very short while later, I had a cell phone, a wallet, and a set of keys in my hands.
The cell phone seemed to be the best bet. I paged through his contact list determinedly. The only problem, I fumed to myself, was that I didn’t know any of these names, or if they were to be trusted. The only one I knew was Ellie, and she was in Tibet. I was bemused to find my number stored in there. Was he actually planning to call me sometime? Finally, I hit the jackpot. “MOM” seemed like a safe bet. She would know Jor’s secret, she wouldn’t be in Tibet, and she might even have heard of me which would be good because then I wouldn’t have to worry about convincing her it wasn’t a hoax. I pulled up the number, but dialed from my own phone. That way, if she had caller ID, there wouldn’t be any confusion. I held my breath in anticipation as I counted the rings. Finally, there was a click from the phone being picked up.
“Lois Lane,” a voice greeted cheerfully over the phone.
Instantly, I exited Emergency Mode and entered Panic Mode. *Lois Lane* was his mother??!! *Lois Lane*??!! I slammed the phone back in its cradle, cutting off our connection. I forced air in and out of my lungs, but my head still spun crazily. Supernova’s mother was Lois Lane. Superman’s wife was Lois Lane. I flashed back to our interview. The way she looked at my watch, all her talk about secrets, she used the exact words “another life”…
But now wasn’t the time to reflect on that. Jor was still in my bed, and although he was sleeping, I had no way of knowing if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I braced myself, and pressed the redial key on the phone.
“Lois Lane,” she answered again, this time with a hint of irritation beneath the standard pleasantry.
“Hello, Ms. Lane,” I spoke carefully, trying to keep the strain out of my voice. “This is Kaylie Stewart calling.” Dead silence on the other end.
“How did you get this number, Miss Stewart?” she asked slowly. “I don’t usually give interviewees my private cell number.” Her private number. So there was no way it was Jor’s mom’s work number and Lois was just a colleague who picked up the phone. She was definitely Jor’s mom.
“He’s in my apartment right now,” I explained cryptically. Long experience had taught me to never reveal details over the phone. “There’s something wrong. I need you to come help me; I don’t know what to do.” I heard the sharp inhalation crackle over the line.
“What’s your address?” She demanded crisply. I told her. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.” She hung up abruptly. I embraced the cool wall and allowed the tension to seep out of me. She was coming.
* * *
“Where is he?” she asked as soon as I opened the door to let her in.
“In my bedroom,” I gestured in the direction, and she led the way with a brisk stride. Jor had started to shiver, and Lois reached over to brush the hair from his eyes.
“We need to get him more comfortable,” she told me briskly, and then proceeded to order me around as we stripped off his outer layers of clothing and piled blankets on top of him. I was glad to have someone to take charge of the situation. I had no idea what had happened to him or how I should take care of him. Finally, his care was up to her standards and we were able to just observe him lying in the bed.
“What happened to him?” she asked me.
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “He just showed up at my door like this.”
“Well, maybe he’ll be able to tell us when he wakes up,” she responded. “I think he just needs to sleep for now. I checked and there was no evidence of him having Kryptonite on him so he should get better on his own.”
“Kryptonite?”
“Don’t you know about it? It seems like everyone does now.”
“No, I do. But I thought it just hurt him. He was also acting kinda… Not himself,” I finished delicately. Lois frowned in concentration.
“Really? Well, there may be a couple explanations for that. I tried to get hold of our family doctor, but he’s out of town visiting his stepdaughter and won’t be able to get back to Metropolis for a few hours. You’d think as his sister-in-law I’d be able to have some pull, but even I can’t teleport people.” An awkward silence spread between us, and I wasn’t sure how to fill it. Maybe by asking why she had interviewed me that day? Was she interviewing her son’s girlfriend or an NIA agent?
“Ms. Lane-”
“Lois,” she interrupted.
“Oh. Okay, Lois. Call me Kaylie.” The polite civilities seemed very out of place after we had just finished stripping a twenty-six year old male to his boxers, yet I was still gratified that Lois wasn’t nearly as terrifying as she had been during our interview. It was like she had a secret identity too. Hardened reporter verses caring mother.
“Kaylie, I hate to be a bother, but do you have anything I can eat? I skipped lunch earlier today, and with that earthquake in Tibet and now this situation my dinner plans have been tossed out the window.”
“Umm… There’s half a cold pizza in the fridge,” I offered apologetically. “I’m running a little low on groceries at the moment.” At all moments, actually, I added cynically to myself.
But she didn’t miss my little prevarication. She nodded satisfactorily. “Good. Someone who can match up to my cooking skills.” I led her to my kitchen and plunked the pizza box in front of her. She dug in enthusiastically as I stared openly at her. World famous reporter, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in journalism plus a truckload of Kerths, and here she was sitting on the biggest story ever. Not just sitting on it, married to it, rearing it, nursing it to health as it lies on my bed passed out from some mysterious attack. She had downed almost her entire piece before she was aware of my unabashed scrutiny. She shifted guiltily in her seat, and put down her pizza crust.
“Kaylie, I should probably apologize to you for your um… interview. It was pretty manipulative of me to come to you like that and interrogate you.”
“Oh, well, don’t worry about it.” I told her uncomfortably. “You were just…” I trailed off, still not really sure what she was doing.
“Sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong?”
“Well, you put it that way, not me.”
“You wouldn’t know this Kaylie,” she began carefully, “but the effect you’ve had on my son is amazing. He’s had some bad experiences in the past, which he’s probably told you about.” I nodded. “I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to open up to someone again like he did with you.” She pushed the abandoned pizza aside, and leaned in closer to me. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, Kaylie but he really does trust you. He just doesn’t trust himself to trust the right people.”
“He told you about our fight, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did. Some of it.”
“Did you help him investigate me?” I asked her critically.
“No, Kaylie! I didn’t know what he had done until he came to see us this morning to ask Cl- my husband to get you from the island.”
“Clark Kent. Your husband.” Although he wasn’t nearly as famous as Lois was, he was still a household name in Metropolis. Lucky for Jor, the Kent kids weren’t as well placed in the public eye. It wouldn’t take more than a simple internet search to find out their names, but I couldn’t recall them off the top of my head.
“Kaylie, please understand that I don’t support my son investigating you in any way. That was no way for him to repay your patience and respect.”
“Aren’t mothers supposed to support their kids no matter what?” I asked wryly.
“It’s also my job to make sure that he plays nice with the girls,” she quipped.
“I think he came here to apologize,” I told her softly. She nodded.
“He regretted your fight almost instantly after it happened.”
I nodded and stared down at my hands, not really sure how to continue. We sat there together in silence, listening to my kitchen clock tick. A soft groan wafted from my room, and both Lois and I shot our heads up in response.
“Why don’t you go talk to him?” Lois suggested. “I’ll be out here if you need any help.”
“Okay,” I agreed. Jor was struggling to sit up in my bed as I entered the room. I turned the lights on dimly and made my way to the foot of the bed to sit there. “Hey,” I greeted him. “Are you feeling better?”
“I think so,” he replied groggily. “I’m still dead tired, but I’m feeling less… loopy.”
“The initiated would call it being high, Jor,” I told him dryly. “What happened to you?”
“I’ll explain what happened later, I promise. But first I have to do what I came here to do.” I waited for him to continue. “Kaylie, there’s no excuse for what I did-”
“You’re right, there isn’t.” He bowed his head in response, but then looked me in the eye again and continued.
“I was just so shocked last night, I wasn’t thinking straight, but it was very wrong of me to get so upset. And I should’ve let you explain it for yourself instead of running off and digging it up myself. And I do trust you Kaylie. I should’ve trusted what I knew about you instead of what I read in that file. I came over here to apologize for that, and to show you that I trust you completely, even though you might not ever be able to trust me again. I came here to tell you who I am. Everything about me with no information hidden. And I guess I was just hoping that you could see that, and maybe find a way to forgive me for what I did to you.”
“You don’t need to do that, Jor. I don’t want to be the one who pushed you into this.”
“You didn’t push me! I wanted to tell you, I really did!”
“Wanted to?”
He sighed. “Kaylie, my mom’s in the next room. I think the jig is up.”
“Jor, although Lois Lane is pretty much world famous, her kids fly slightly below the radar. You can still tell me yourself.” Please tell me, I silently urged. Because if he told me himself, it meant that he wanted me to know. That he trusted me, maybe. Thankfully, he nodded.
“Okay, here goes.” He smiled wobbly, and then took the plunge. “My name is Jonathan Kent, but everyone calls me Jon. My birthday is May 14th, 1998. I live at number 36 Belvedere Street. I grew up in Metropolis, but I spent three years living at my grandparent’s farm in Smallville, Kansas. I went to Kansas State University and got a degree in Computing Science. I now work at The Daily Planet in the IT department, although I have been known to moonlight as an investigative reporter when my mom drags me into one of her crazy schemes. And I’m completely in love with a woman named Kaylie Stewart.” He paused for a moment. “Or maybe it’s Kaylie Watson, or Molly Turner, or Catty Collins, or-”
“Not Brenda Sykes,” I interjected. “She’s suspected of multiple felonies and is currently on the lam to avoid being busted for heading a meth ring.” He blinked at me with wide eyes, and I cringed a little. That had seemed more lighthearted in my head.
“I guess the point I’m making, Kaylie,” he continued, “is that it doesn’t matter what your name is or what you do in your spare time. I love you and nothing’s going to change that. And I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it.”
“But it does matter.” His apology had enabled me to face what I had done wrong. “I should’ve told you earlier that I was keeping something from you. But instead you had to find out at the club that night in the thick of everything…” That made me think for a moment. “Jor, what were you doing at The Gentleman’s Club anyway? I didn’t think that was the kind of place you frequented.” He scratched his neck self-consciously.
“You know how I mentioned I occasionally do a bit of investigating for my mom? She got a tip from one of her sources that there was going to be a deal between Intergang and some bigwig government agent that night, so she asked me to go check it out for her.” I let out a bark of laughter at the irony. We were both there investigating the same thing, but from different angles.
“I guess I owe you an explanation for what I was doing at the club, huh?”
He shook his head. “Kaylie, you don’t owe me anything.”
“But I want to tell you,” I insisted.
“Okay. If you’re sure.”
“You know I work for the NIA,” I began. “What you don’t know is that I work for a covert branch within the organization that investigates internal corruption. That deal with Intergang you and your mom were investigating? The government agent you heard about was an NIA official that I’ve been investigating for months. But it’s very important that I don’t make him suspicious that the NIA suspects him until I get some hard proof, so that’s why my file is falsified. The things I’ve been doing are so sensitive that they can’t be placed on a computer system where any geek with a tech degree can access them.” He smiled faintly at my gentle jab.
“I’m sorry again that I did that,” he mumbled, and I could hear the fatigue in his voice.
“I know you are. And I forgive you for it,” I told him. “And I’m sorry too that I kept all this stuff hidden from you. Spies are big fans of secrecy, and sometimes I get caught up in all the cloak and dagger stuff. But I knew that I could trust you with this for a long time.” He slumped against the pillow weakly, and I could see he was about to drop off. “We’ll talk some more later, okay? You need more sleep right now.”
“’kay,” he murmured.
“And don’t think for a minute that you’re going to get out of telling me what happened to you. I don’t take kindly to have drugged boyfriends turning up on my doorstep without explanation, okay?” I demanded. But he was already asleep.
