Hey, sorry for the delay, the past few weeks have been crazy. Combined with the next few chapters still feeling a bit off to me, and therefore needing some work I couldn’t get this out in time.
I hope to make it up to you with another chapter soon.
Thanks to Socomama and 90stvfangirl for their help and suggestions.
Thanks to everyone for reading and replying.
TOCChapter forty-fourI gather my bag. Clark falls into step beside me.
We’re nearly at the elevator when I catch two voices, low, but not low enough.
“…back for one hour and already leaving. Must be nice.”
“She’s Perry’s golden child, what did you expect? Wonder what she’s offering that guy next to her. Probably the same thing she offered Claude.”
Laughter.
“Well, I don’t think the Ice Queen has that much to offer.”
More laughter.
I stop walking.
Clark tenses up beside me.
I stand there for a moment, waiting to feel something. The old sting, the familiar heat behind my eyes, the urge to prove something.
It doesn’t come.
I know exactly who those men are. I know exactly what they can and can’t do.
I start walking again.
Clark matches my pace without a word. In the elevator he stands close but doesn’t touch me.
When the doors close he looks at me. “You all right?”
“Yes,” and I mean it.
He hugs me anyway and I let him.
***
Outside the air has gotten even warmer. We walk back through the park.
“You have a file.” His steps slow. “From the warehouse. About me.”
“Yes.” I glance at him. “It was near the globe. But I didn’t know what it was, when I took it.”
“But you haven’t read it yet?”
“No, I began to. Everything I saw in it sounded completely crazy. So I hid it and concentrated on finding you.”
He holds my gaze. “And the accidents. The statistics you described to Perry.”
“The spike in those years was too high.” I keep my voice even. “It’s too consistent to be coincidence, Clark. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but with everything else you had to deal with, I didn’t know how to break it to you.”
He lets out a deep breath.
“I didn’t know.”
He stops walking.
“I know you didn’t.”
“If they’d found me in 1966 instead of…” he starts.
“Don’t.”
He looks at me.
“All those families were torn apart because Trask couldn’t find me. It
is my fault.”
I look around. No one else is within earshot. I cover his cheeks with my hands, my gaze fixed on his eyes. “Bureau 39 didn’t hurt those families because you exist. They hurt them because Trask decided he had the right to decide. That’s not the same thing.” I pull him closer, he comes without resistance. “You don’t get to take credit for what a paranoid man chose to do with his fear.”
He doesn’t look convinced.
“Clark. The file is the work of someone who would have found a reason regardless. You were just the reason he settled on.”
He lets out a shuddering breath.
“Trask has been chasing a ghost for thirty years,” I tell him. “And while he was doing that, you were living, somewhere in all of that you found me. Now there are three lives that wouldn’t exist if any of it had gone differently.”
“The file. How bad is it?”
“Bad enough that I looked at a few pages, put it away and didn’t open it again since then.”
He nods slowly.
“We’ll read it together. I know you have to read it, but I’ll be right there for every word.”
He looks at me for a moment. Then he starts walking again.
I take his hand.
We walk another half block. “We should get some groceries. You don’t have much food at home.”
“Why would we? Lucy and I lived off takeout.” I shrug. “Neither of us can cook.”
He looks at me. “You need proper food now. Can we stop somewhere?”
The supermarket on Siegel Ave is three blocks from my apartment and I have walked through it approximately four hundred times without buying anything more substantial than cereal and orange juice.
Clark pushes the cart, which is already half full with items. Fresh vegetables, meat, potatoes, rice, lentils, flour, eggs, fresh milk.
He has the list Dr. Brown’s office gave us folded in his shirt pocket and keeps checking it, frowning when something doesn’t meet his standards. I’d glanced at it earlier and didn’t recognize half of what was on it. Carbohydrates, protein, iron, folate… I never thought that much about what was actually in my food.
“You don’t have to memorize it,” I tell him.
“I’m not.” He puts three different varieties of leafy greens in the cart without looking up. “I’m comparing.”
I follow him into the produce section and watch him pick up a tomato, turn it over in his hands, put it back, pick up another. Then he stops.
“My mother grew her own. You could tell by the weight. Store ones are always a little hollow.”
He finds a few he’s satisfied with and puts them in the cart.
“She had a kitchen garden behind the house. Tomatoes, beans, squash. Strawberries along the fence that I used to eat almost before they were ready.” He almost smiles. “She said I had no patience.”
“Did she grow everything?”
“Most of it in summer. She had a way with blueberries.” He moves to the next display. “Said putting coffee grounds between the soil helped.”
“Did it?”
He considers this seriously. “The berries were always good.”
I’m smiling, he’s such a farm boy.
We turn into the next aisle and an older woman is struggling with a case of water at the bottom shelf, trying to lift it into her cart from that angle and not quite managing. Clark is beside her before I’ve finished registering what’s happening, lifting it one handed into her cart like it weighs nothing.
“There you go.”
She thanks him, delighted, and he’s back at my side before anyone else has noticed.
I look at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I take his hand. “Nothing at all.”
Then I try to slip a pack of double fudge crunch bars into our cart, when he’s not looking.
“Lois, we’re supposed to buy healthy food…” I fully expect him to put it back but he just smiles, presses a kiss to my hair and we walk into the next aisle.
At check-out he pulls out his wallet but I’m quicker. “You cook, I pay. It’s called shared responsibility.”
The old lady is behind us and smiles. “You’ve got a fine young man with you.”
Clark takes our bags and we leave the store, the lady follows directly behind us, visibly struggling.
He hesitates, and I think I know what he’s thinking about. So I nod in her direction. “Go, be a hero.”
I watch him walk beside her, slowing his pace to match hers, head bent slightly to hear what she’s saying. She’s talking and he’s listening the way he listened to Tony, the owner of the little cafe he invited me to, the night we met. Or Marco, the owner of that Italian restaurant he showed me.
He lifts the bag into her car and returns to me. He picks our own bags up and a short walk later we’re back home.
“So, what do you want to eat for lunch?”
“Surprise me.” I grin. “But make it quick, I’m starving.”
He smiles back at me and begins cutting the vegetables. Within ten minutes there is a pot of vegetable stew on the stove, already steaming.
“You’re really handy to have around.”
“It’s a simple recipe, just broth, a few veggies and some meatballs. Mom often made it during harvest season, it’s fast and nutritious.”
I begin to read while he continues to stir the pot from time to time and watches me.
Eating for triplets isn’t just eating more. It means structure. Protein every few hours, constant hydration, vitamins. I frown. “Sounds complicated. Is all of this really that important? Lucy and I lived well on takeout alone.”
He comes over to me with two glasses of water and lays his hands on my shoulders. “Your body’s already working overtime.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I mutter.
“I’m sorry. If I’d known, I never would have left.”
“You’re here now.” I touch his shoulder.
He holds my gaze for a moment. “Dr. Brown said we should get help. Is there anyone you could ask?”
“Besides Lucy?”
I think about high school, college. Names I could probably still find in a phone book. We didn’t stay in contact. “No, I spend most of my time at work.”
“I know what you said but… Do you think your parents could help?”
I take a deep breath. “Mother was a nurse, Daddy is a doctor, they would be perfect… in theory.”
I pause. Clark lost two sets of parents. I’m not sure how to explain what it means to have both of yours still alive and it still feeling like absence.
“Maybe they’ll actually surprise me for once. Mom always wanted grandchildren. And maybe Daddy will be different if one of them finally is the boy he always wanted.”
He pulls me into his arms and whispers. “I don’t care if they are boys, girls. I just want the four of you to be healthy and happy.”
We stand there for another minute, then he returns to the stove.
“You don’t have to call them.”
“I know.” I take a deep breath and dial my father’s number, his call will be easier, or so I tell myself.
No answer. My finger hovers over the “end call” button, desperate to escape before it even begins. Just as I’m about to hang up, he finally picks up.
“Daddy.”
“Princess.” I hear muffled static, a distant clamor of voices. “Everything alright?”
“Fine.” The word is thin. “I was just calling to see if you could come over Saturday for dinner, around six.”
Silence. A long, heavy pause. I hear him turn away from the receiver, talking to someone else. “Saturday…” His voice is now a distant echo. “I'll have to check the calendar. You should have scheduled this with my secretary, you know.”
I hear the low murmur of another conversation.
“I’ll be there at six, maybe six thirty, depending on my latest experiment. Bye princess.”
I lower the phone, stand there, staring at the receiver.
Clark’s hands settle on my shoulders. The warmth of him is enough.
I sit there, hand still clamped around the receiver, as if maybe if I hold on long enough, he’ll come back.
He eases the phone from my grip, sets it aside, then crouches to meet my eyes.
That’s when I start to cry.
Clark pulls me close and we stay there, I don’t know how long.
He stays close until I straighten up, ready to place the second call.
I take a deep breath and force myself to dial again. This time, I brace. Mother picks up on the second ring.
“Finally, you called,” comes the familiar sigh of disapproval. “It’s about time. I was just telling Clarice that if you ever visit, it’s a miracle. At least your sister visits me from time to time, you never even answer my calls…”
I close my eyes. My thumb and forefinger pinch the bridge of my nose. “Mother. Can you come for dinner on Saturday? Six o’clock.”
Her voice softens. “Well, that’s a nice thought, Lois. You know, just yesterday at bridge Brenda was telling me about her daughter, married a cardiologist, so handsome, his practice…”
The words blur into the usual list of someone else’s accomplishments, a reminder of everything I’m not. I haven’t heard a thing she's said, but the sound of her voice is enough. It fills the apartment.
“Mother,” I cut in, my voice tight. “So you’ll be here?”
A sigh. “Of course, dear. I’ll be there.”
“I have to go.” I finish the conversation before she finds another reason to complain.
The line goes dead. I drop my hand from my face and let out a long, silent breath. I feel the warmth of Clark behind me and I can breathe again.
My chest is tight, hands trembling. Clark’s arms fold around me, his heartbeat steady under my ear. I clutch him back.
“I’ve run through every possible scenario, and none of them end well. Not one. Mother will be insulted because I didn’t consult her first, to make sure you’re the right person to impress her bridge club. Daddy will sit there with that look, I’ve let them down all over again. And that’s even before they know I’m pregnant? Cue the moral outrage. Reckless Lois, ruining her life.”
Clark looks at me.
The words scrape raw. “I lived under that roof long enough. I know exactly how this goes. Every fight, every cold shoulder, every look…” My throat catches. “Some things stick.”
“I’m sorry, Lois.” He pulls me closer. “I keep thinking about what I’d give to have that chance. Even a hard conversation. Even a disappointing one.” He swallows. “I know that’s not fair to say, not to you.”
“It’s true though.”
“Yeah.” He pulls back enough to look at me. “I don’t know your parents. But I know you. And whatever they do on Saturday,” his hands cradle my face, “it won’t change what we’re building.”
I don’t pull away. I curl my fingers around his, holding tight. Because whatever comes, I won’t face it alone.
I let out a breath, still warm from his hug. My chest is a knot of old bruises.
“You’re right,” I concede. “I should at least try to tell them about the pregnancy. Maybe they’ll surprise me.”
“Come, let’s eat.”
The smell reaches me before he sets the bowl down. Something in it, the tomatoes, maybe the herbs, makes my mouth water in a way that’s almost embarrassing.
“This is amazing,” I tell him, and mean it.
He sits across from me.
“Perry’s offer,” I ask between spoonfuls. “How do you feel about it?”
He turns his spoon over in his hands. “I don’t know. Terrified, maybe.”
“Of writing?”
“Of having a byline.” He looks up. “Clark Kent, Daily Planet. That’s…” He stops. “That’s a real thing. A permanent thing. Things that are permanent can be found.”
I set my spoon down. “Bureau 39.”
He nods.
“Perry knows that. He’d protect you.”
“I know… It’s not just that. I’ve wanted this since I was maybe fourteen, reading the Planet in whatever town I’d landed. I used to think about what it would feel like to write something that mattered. Something that lasted.” His jaw tightens. “Then I decided it wasn’t possible for someone like me.”
“Someone like you,” I repeat. “You mean someone could be good at it?”
That earns me a mouth twitch.
“Clark, I have seen how you talk to people. How you listen. You can make them open up without prying. And you have the integrity to use this gift to help people, not harm them.
“But you’re right.” I tear off a piece of bread. “Using your real name right now creates a paper trail. Bureau 39 monitors things. A byline in a major metropolitan paper would be exactly the kind of thing they’d notice.”
“Perry would understand a pseudonym. At least until things are safer for you.” I watch his face. “Something close enough that it feels like yours.”
He stops stirring. I have always liked the name Charles. My grandfather’s name.”
“And King, it was…” he pauses. “It was the last name of Aunt Opal’s neighbor, the last person who hugged me before you.” A small, complicated smile. “I used it a few times when I needed to disappear.”
“Charles King.” I try it out. “It works.”
He nods.
“It’s temporary,” I tell him. “Until Clark Kent can have a byline without looking over his shoulder.”
He nods. “Okay.”
I pick up my spoon again. “So. Charles King, Daily Planet stringer. What does he want to write about?”
He considers this for a while. “The ones nobody thinks are worth writing.” He looks up. “I’ve been in a lot of places, Lois. I’ve seen how things work when nobody important is watching. People who fall through every crack there is and the system just… steps over them.”
“That’s a good start.”
He looks at me like he wasn’t expecting that.
“The Hargrove story started the same way,” I continue. “One set of permits that didn’t add up. Nobody thought it was worth writing either.” I lean forward slightly. “That’s how the best stories work. You pull one thread and suddenly you’re holding the whole sweater.”
“Is that how you do it?”
“It’s how I learned to do it.” I pause. “Perry taught me that a story doesn’t have to be loud to matter. It just has to be true.”
Clark considers my words, then nods. “I’d like to learn that. How you see things. How you know what to pull.”
“Well.” I push back my chair. “After lunch, we could take a walk. Metropolis has a way of showing you things if you know how to look.”
T. B. C.
Poor Lois! 