Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Advent calendar 1998 (2025)

They had slept in today. Even Martha had been quiet for half an hour longer than usual.

After breakfast, they walked to the basket.

“Ready?” Lois asked quietly.

Clark nodded and loosened the string. Inside lay the small figurine: Caspar, cloak swept back as if caught mid-step, head tilted upward.

Lois lifted the paper and unfolded it slowly:
Parenthood teaches something new every day. Not through commands or explanations, but through small gestures. A glance across the room. A hand reaching out before the other asks. Your father and I learned to move this way, as a team shaped by attention rather than instruction. By noticing before reacting. By choosing to lean in instead of turning away. Solidarity begins like this: someone sees a light and decides it matters, even without knowing where it leads. They start walking toward it. And then others join them, one by one, until a single light becomes a shared destination.

Clark reached out and placed Caspar beside the others, angled slightly toward the star. Still seeking.

“Caspar didn’t know the destination,” he said. “He just knew not to ignore what he saw.”

Lois nodded. “That’s how it starts. Paying attention. Staying curious. Standing with someone because it feels right, not because it’s easy.”

Clark smiled and kissed the top of her head. “Ready for a walk?”

“Yeah. Let’s go see what the neighborhood’s up to.”

They had heard about the gathering from a flyer posted at the corner market, several of Metropolis’ neighborhoods coming together for a winter solidarity event in the park.

Clark took the stroller from its storage while Lois zipped Martha into her jacket. They walked a few blocks to a small community park near the river. Temporary banners were strung between bare trees, hand-painted signs fluttering in the cold air.

The gathering was bigger than they’d expected. Tables lined one edge of the park, each representing a different community group: a refugee welcome committee, a food bank, a tenant organizing collective. People moved between them, signing up, asking questions, offering to help.

Near the center, someone had set up a speaker and microphone. A woman was talking about shelters for the homeless. When she finished, a man stepped up to talk about the Kasnia journalist, the one who had been in the news, a few days ago. A petition was circulating. Donations for the legal fund.

“Look,” Lois said quietly, nodding toward a familiar face.

Bertha Avery stood near the food bank table, handing out information sheets to a young couple. She looked up, spotted them, and waved.

They made their way over.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Lois said, smiling. “Are you feeling better?”

Bertha shrugged. “As good as new. Someone told me about this at the senior center. Figured I could help.” She glanced down at Martha, who was watching everything with wide eyes. “And you’re going to be a big helper someday too, aren’t you, sweetie?”

A volunteer approached, asking if they wanted to sign up for the food bank route. Lois glanced at Clark. He nodded.

“Put us down,” Lois said.

They stayed for over an hour. Clark carried boxes for a shelter while Lois stayed with Martha, who dozed in her stroller, bundled against the cold. People they recognized from the neighborhood stopped to talk, the woman from the coffee shop, the man who fixed bikes on his stoop, families from the community center.

No speeches. No cameras. Just people signing clipboards and carrying boxes because their neighbors needed help.

As they walked home, the sun was starting to set, casting long shadows across the street.

“That’s what Caspar did,” Clark said after a while. “He saw something that mattered and started walking. He didn’t know what he’d find. But he went anyway.”

“And he wasn’t alone,” Lois added. “The other magi went too. They followed the same light.”

They reached the brownstone just as the streetlights flickered on. Clark brought in the stroller and Lois laid Martha in her crib. They settled on the couch, tired but content.

He sat beside her. “Good day?”

“Really good day,” she said, leaning into him.

Sometimes the journey started long before you knew the destination. But you walked anyway. And you walked together.

Lois came home alone.

Martha had fallen asleep in her carrier, her cheek warm against Lois’s collarbone. The brownstone was quiet. Lois set her bag down, loosened her coat, and checked the clock without really meaning to.

Australia was far away. She knew that. Fires didn’t care about time zones.

She moved through the familiar motions: changed Martha, settled her in the crib in the living room. Then she stood in the kitchen, looking at the freezer, trying to decide if she should eat now or wait.

She waited.

He came home just over an hour later, landing on the terrace so quietly she almost didn’t hear it. The smell of smoke came with him: ash mixed with eucalyptus. Exhaustion in his eyes.

“I need to shower,” he said, already heading for the stairs. “I’ll be quick.”

“Take your time,” she called after him.

Ten minutes later he came back down, hair still damp, wearing clean clothes. He went straight to Martha’s crib first. Lois heard him murmur something soft.

When he came into the kitchen, Martha was awake in his arms, whole body leaning toward him, making delighted sounds.

“Hey,” he murmured into her hair. “I missed you.”

“She missed you too,” Lois said. “We both did.”

Clark looked at her then, and something in his expression shifted. “You waited.”

“Of course I waited.”

He crossed to her and kissed her, Martha squirming happily between them. “Thank you.”

“Go sit,” Lois said. “I’ll…”

“No.” He was already moving, handing Martha to her and pulling ingredients from the fridge. “Let me. Please.”

She watched him work, the blur of movement, the practiced efficiency. Less than ten minutes later, they were sitting at the table together, Martha back in Clark’s arms.

She babbled and reached for everything.

Clark cut his food one-handed, unwilling to put her down. Lois ate slowly, just watching them.

“How bad was it?” she asked after a while.

“Bad,” he said quietly. “But we got people out. Homes are gone, but people are safe.” He paused. “It’s not enough. It never feels like enough.”

“You were there,” Lois said. “That’s what mattered.”

He nodded, but she could see the weight still sitting on him.

After dinner, with Martha drowsing contentedly on the couch between them, Lois reached for the advent bag.

Clark opened it and drew out the figurine. Melchior stood upright, his offering held forward, posture deliberate and sure.

Lois unfolded the paper and read:
Recognition is a choice. Not the surprise of discovery, but the conscious decision to truly see someone, to look past the surface and acknowledge what’s actually there. Your father and I learned this slowly. I saw his strength, yes. Everyone saw that. But I also saw the cost of it, the weight he carried, the impossible choices, the exhaustion he hid.
And I chose to see all of it. Not just the hero. The man. He did the same for me. He saw past the armor I wore, the sharpness I used to keep people at a distance. He saw what I protected and why, and he honored it instead of trying to fix it. Recognition means this: I see who you actually are. Not who I want you to be. Not who you’re trying to be. Who you are, right now, in this moment. And I choose to value that. To honor it. To stay. I see your worth.
I choose to honor what you are. Love begins there. With seeing. With choosing. With staying.

Clark was quiet for a long moment, his thumb tracing the edge of the figurine.

“You see me,” he said finally. “Even when I come home smelling like smoke. Even when I can’t save everyone. Even when I’m not enough.”

“You’re always enough,” Lois said. “And yes. I see you.”

“I see you too,” he said, meeting her eyes. “The way you waited tonight. The way you give Martha everything. The way you carry your own weight and still make room for mine.” His voice dropped. “I see how hard you work to balance it all. And I see that you never ask for credit.”

Lois felt something catch in her chest. “Clark…”

“I see you,” he said again. “And I’m staying.”

She reached for his hand. “Me too.”

They placed Melchior carefully among the others on the mantel. Twenty-one pieces now. The two magi standing together, their offerings held forward, their journey nearly complete.

Martha yawned, and they both smiled.

“Bedtime for this one,” Clark said, scooping her up.

Lois followed them upstairs. When Martha was settled, they stood together in the doorway for a moment, watching her sleep.

“Thank you for waiting,” Clark said quietly.

“Always,” Lois answered.

They went downstairs together, his arm around her shoulders, her hand at his waist. In the living room, they settled on the couch, leaning against each other, the quiet wrapping around them like a blanket.

The day had already been long.

Lois had just picked up Martha from daycare while Clark had rushed to an accident on the highway. She stepped out into the cold December evening to buy a few things she needed before Christmas. The streets were busy with holiday shoppers, the sidewalks crowded. Martha was drowsy against her chest, thumb in her mouth, trusting the familiar rhythm of Lois’s steps.

They were halfway down the block when Lois noticed him.

A man in a dark coat, walking too close, his pace matching hers exactly. When she slowed to look in a store window, he slowed. When she crossed to the other side of the street, he crossed too.

Lois’s pulse kicked up. She adjusted her grip on Martha and kept walking, mind already cycling through options. The subway entrance was two blocks ahead. Too far. The coffee shop on the corner—closed. Her hand moved toward her phone.

The man moved faster.

“Excuse me,” he called out, his voice casual, too friendly. Wrong. “Miss Lane?”

Lois didn’t stop. Didn’t turn around.

“I just want to talk.”

His hand reached for her arm, cornering her.

Lois put her arm in front of Martha.

“I want you to come with me to…”

The air shifted.

Clark was there.

One second the man’s fingers were inches from her shoulder. The next, he was ten feet away, pressed against a brick wall with Superman’s hand flat against his chest.

“Don’t,” Clark said. One word. Absolute.

The man stammered something—an excuse, a lie—but Clark wasn’t listening. His eyes flicked to Lois, to Martha, checking, confirming they were untouched.

“Go,” Clark said to the man, voice like ice. “And if I see you near them again, there won’t be a warning.”

The man fled.

Clark crossed back to Lois in two strides. His hands hovered near her shoulders, not quite touching, as if he needed to verify she was real and whole.

“Are you okay?” His voice was low, controlled, but she heard the edge beneath it.

Lois nodded. “We’re fine. He didn’t touch us.”

Martha stirred once, made a small sound, then settled again against Lois’s chest, completely unaware.

Clark’s jaw tightened. He didn’t chase the man. Didn’t need to. He stayed exactly where he was needed—between his family and anything that might threaten them.

***

They didn’t talk about it right away when they got back home. Clark checked every lock, every window. Then he sat on the floor while Lois laid her down in the crib. Only when the brownstone had settled, when Martha’s breathing had evened out into sleep, did Lois bring the bag to him.

Clark opened it without saying a word and drew out Balthasar. The figure held a small vessel close to his chest, posture heavy with meaning. Not celebratory. Not fearful. Honest.

Lois unfolded the paper and read:
Love carries weight. Not because it is fragile, but because it matters so deeply it becomes unbearable to imagine losing it. Your father learned early that strength alone is not enough.
Protection means choosing responsibility again and again, without resentment, without hesitation. It means standing between the world and the ones you love, knowing that some threats can’t be stopped— only faced.
Legacy is not what you leave behind when you’re gone. It is what you stand in front of while you’re here. It is the choice to bear the cost, to carry the weight, to show up even when it’s hard, especially when it’s hard.
Love and loss are inseparable, to protect something precious is to accept that it can be threatened, and to choose it anyway.

Clark’s hand tightened around the figurine.

“I saw him reach for you,” he said quietly. “And for a second, I couldn’t breathe.” He looked up at her. “I can live with the cost. Every time. Whatever it takes.”

Lois crossed to him and took his face in her hands. “I know.”

“If something happened to either of you…”

“It didn’t,” she said firmly. “You were there. You’re always there.”

He pulled her close, his forehead resting against hers.

They placed Balthasar with the others. Gold, frankincense, and now myrrh. The three magi complete, their offerings laid before the scene that was almost finished.

Martha slept on, unaware of how fiercely she was already being guarded, unaware of the weight her existence had placed on two people who would carry it gladly, without question, for the rest of their lives.

They watched her sleep, her small chest rising and falling, her fingers curled loosely, completely safe.

He pulled her against his side. They stood there a while longer, two protectors keeping watch, bound together by love and responsibility and the unspoken promise that nothing would ever get past them.

They had turned off most of the lights. Candles lined the windowsill and mantel. The city noise filtered in from outside, but the brownstone felt still.

Martha lay cradled against Clark’s chest, watching the flickering lights with wide eyes.

Clark set the metallic Kryptonian globe on the table between them. It pulsed faintly, responding to their presence.

“Tor’Quinta’Rao,” Lois said quietly. “The festival of light.”

Clark nodded, his hand resting on the globe. “My father’s message said it was about passing light from one person to another. A reminder that even in the darkest times, light endures if you choose to carry it forward.”

“Not just carry it,” Lois said. “Protect it. Pass it on.”

He looked at her, then down at Martha. “Yeah.”

They placed three candles on the table. Clark, holding both Martha and the globe, lit the first one with a careful pulse of heat vision. Lois used that flame to light the other two.

“Two worlds, one light. This is for you,” he whispered to her. “Always.” The globe began to glow, adding its light to the candles.

Lois reached for the twenty-third bag and handed it to him. Clark shifted Martha carefully and opened it with one hand.

Two figures emerged together: Mary and Joseph, carved simply, standing close. Their postures leaned toward each other.

Lois unfolded the paper and read:
There are moments when light must be carried, not celebrated. When hope is fragile and the road ahead is uncertain.
Your father came from a world that ended in fire and darkness. But he carried its light forward, not as memory alone, but as responsibility. He chose to honor what was lost by protecting what remained.
His parents did the same. They looked at the unknown, carrying something precious and impossibly fragile. They had no guarantees. No certainty of safety. Only the knowledge that what they protected mattered more than their own fear.
This is how families begin: by choosing hope when it would be easier to turn away, by shielding something small and vulnerable long enough for it to grow, by passing the light forward, one generation to the next, knowing it will outlast you. Krypton’s light didn’t die with the planet. It lives in you. And now, through you, it lives in her.

Clark’s throat worked. He looked down at Martha, then at the two figures in his hand.

“They didn’t know how the story would end,” he said quietly. “They just knew they had to keep moving forward.”

Lois said. “Jor-El and Lara sent you away so you could survive.”

“Like us,” Clark added, meeting her eyes. “Trying to give Martha a world worth growing up in.”

Lois reached out and touched his hand. “You’re doing more than that. You’re giving her both worlds, Earth and Krypton.”

Clark nodded slowly. He stood, still holding Martha, and crossed to the mantel. Lois followed with the two figurines.

Together, they placed Mary and Joseph carefully into the scene, near the empty manger, their bodies angled protectively toward the space that would soon hold the final piece.

The nativity was almost complete. Only one figure remained.

Clark lifted the Kryptonian globe again. Its pale light pulsed stronger now, casting soft shadows across the wooden figures. He held it up so Martha could see it, her small hand reaching toward the glow.

“This was my father’s gift to me,” Clark said softly. “Knowledge. Heritage. Connection to a world I never knew.” He looked at Lois. “But this…” he gestured to the nativity, to the candles, to their home “…this is what we’re building for her. Both legacies. Both lights.”

Lois moved closer, resting her head against his shoulder. Martha made a small, contented sound between them.

“The festival was about passing light from one person to another,” Clark said. “About keeping it alive even when everything around you is dark.”

“And you did,” Lois said. “Krypton’s light didn’t end. It just found a new home.”

They stood there together in the candlelight, the three of them, the Kryptonian globe glowing softly in Clark’s hand while Martha watched its light dance across her parents’ faces.

Surrounded by candles and the story they’d been building all month, the light felt steady.

Enduring.

Passed from Krypton to Kansas to Metropolis. From Jor-El to Clark to Martha.

One flame lighting the next, again and again, refusing to go out.

Clark pressed a kiss to Martha’s forehead, then to Lois’s temple.

“Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve,” Lois said quietly.

“One more piece,” Clark said. “Then the story’s complete.”

But even as he said it, they both knew the story would never really be complete. It would keep growing, keep changing, keep being passed forward with every choice they made, every moment they protected, every light they chose to carry into the darkness.

That was Tor’Quinta’Rao.

Martha woke before dawn.

Lois heard small sounds from Martha’s room. She slipped out of bed and found Martha lying in her crib with her eyes open, staring at the mobile turning slowly above her.

“Good morning,” Lois whispered, lifting her. Martha made a soft sound and tucked her head against Lois’s shoulder.

Downstairs, Clark was already awake. He sat near the tree, still in his sleep shirt and pyjama pants, coffee cooling on the side table.

He looked up when he heard them on the stairs. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Martha woke up.” Lois sat beside him, Martha settling between them. For a moment, none of them moved. The brownstone was completely still.

Then Lois reached for the last bag and gave it to Clark

He took the bag gently and reached inside.

The figure was small. A child, wrapped in swaddling clothes, arms tucked close. Carved simply, without flourish or grandeur. Just a baby.

Lois unfolded the final paper. Her voice was quiet as she read:
You came into this world needing everything. Needing hands to hold you. Needing someone to feed you, keep you warm, teach you how to be. You were vulnerable in every way a person can be vulnerable.
Your father’s life began the same way. In Kansas. In a farmhouse where two people found him and chose him.
He wasn’t born knowing how to be human. He had to learn it, piece by piece, through the people who showed him.
He learned patience from his mother, who sat with him through countless nights when he was scared of his own strength.
He learned gentleness from his father, who taught him that power means nothing if you use it to harm.
He learned kindness from neighbors who waved hello even when they didn’t have to.
He learned empathy by watching people struggle and beginning to help, not because he could, but because he cared.
Being human wasn’t something he inherited. It was something he chose, every single day.
He chooses it when he listens to a stranger’s story instead of rushing past. When he comes home exhausted and still picks you up with a smile. When he makes dinner after a long day because he knows I’m tired too. When he checks on our elderly neighbor even though no one would notice if he didn’t. When he sits on the floor playing with you, making silly faces, being completely present.
Your father has powers that could move mountains. But what makes him human isn’t what he can do, it’s what he chooses to do.And he chooses, again and again, to be gentle.
To be patient.
To care about the small things that matter to people.
To show up not as Superman, but as Clark. As a husband. As a father. As a neighbor. As a friend.
That’s what makes us human. The choice to reach out to someone who needs us. The choice to be gentle when we could be harsh. The choice to stay when we could leave. Your father learned that. And now, every day, he shows you what it means.
Not through grand gestures or spectacular rescues… though he does those too, but through the quiet moments: the way he holds you when you cry, the way he talks to you like you understand every word, the way he looks at you like you’re the most important person in the world.
That’s humanity.
That’s what he learned.
That’s what we’re teaching you.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Clark stared at the figure in his hand for a long time.

He looked at her, eyes bright. “My parents could have been afraid. They could have turned away. But they didn’t. They picked me up. They kept me.” His voice cracked slightly. “They made me human.”

Lois reached for his hand. “And now you’re doing the same for her.”

Clark looked down at Martha, who was watching him with wide, trusting eyes. “I want her to know that being human isn’t about being strong or perfect.”

“She’ll know,” Lois said. “Because we’ll show her. Every day.”

Clark stood slowly, still holding the small carved figure. He crossed to the nativity scene on the mantel, twenty-three pieces arranged carefully around the empty manger.

He placed the baby into the cradle.

The scene was complete.

Mary and Joseph leaned close, protective. The shepherds stood watch. The magi almost there to offer their gifts. The animals rested nearby. And in the center, small and vulnerable, lay the child they’d all come to see.

Clark stepped back. Lois moved beside him, Martha in her arms.

“That’s the whole story, isn’t it?” Clark said quietly. “Someone small. Someone who needed everything. And everyone around them chose to help.”

“That’s every story,” Lois said. “Including yours. Including hers.”

Martha made a small sound and reached toward the mantel. Lois let her touch the edge of the manger, her tiny fingers brushing the wood.

“Merry Christmas, Martha,” Clark whispered.

The three of them stood there as the sun began to rise, light creeping across the floor, warming the room degree by degree.

Twenty-four days. Twenty-four pieces. One story, told in fragments and built piece by piece into something whole.

Not a story about perfection or power.

A story about need. About hands that reached down to lift someone up. About people who chose to stay.

About what it means to be human.

Clark pulled Lois close, his arm around both of them. Martha yawned and settled against her mother’s chest, completely safe, completely loved, completely unaware of how carefully she was being held.

“Thank you,” Clark said to Lois. “For this. For all of it.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. “Merry Christmas, Clark.”

“Merry Christmas.”

The Lane-Kent family stood together in the early morning light, the nativity complete on the mantel.

A story about choosing humanity. About learning to be gentle. About staying when it would be easier to leave.

The story they were living. The story they were teaching. The story that would continue long after this morning faded into memory.