Hello all. Still sick - ugh! I started to go in to work this afternoon, but I took my temperature and I still have over 100 degree fever. So back to the lazy boy and writing it is then...
Okay, I'll be anxiously waiting to see what you think of this part. I promise you I haven't lost my mind. This part does end on a little cliffhanger though.
Enjoy!
Table of Contents From Part 3:
He clenched his jaw together and she could see the tic working in his cheek. “Be careful, Lois. Be careful that while you’re taking your time trying to make up your mind that someone else doesn’t make it up for you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked pointedly.
He didn’t answer and instead got up from the table and pushed his chair in. As he started to walk away, she stood up from the table in disbelief. “Richard, don’t walk away from this. Don’t walk away from me.”
He turned and looked back at her with a deep sadness in his eyes. “You know what I want, Lois. Now you just have to figure out what *you* want. I don’t know what more there is to say. I’m going home. I’ll... I’ll see you back at the house later.”
“Richard,” she called out after him, but he didn’t look back this time.
**********
PART FOUR
**********
Clark stood quietly on top of a nearby building a few hundred feet from the playground yard. He watched as Jason climbed the jungle gym bars, swinging from bar to bar and turning flips over the top of them.
He really wanted to go up to him and talk to him. Spend some time with him, while he was awake for a change. But Lois had told him that they would need to go slow on this. Introduce him into Jason’s life slowly. They hadn’t even really decided yet if he should do that as Clark or as Superman. Who would be in a better position to influence his life, his values?
He really wished it could be Clark, but the longer he thought about it, the more he realized it needed to be Superman. As Jason’s powers developed further, he was going to need Superman to help him figure things out and help him learn how to control them.
As he watched Jason playing and laughing, enjoying himself, he realized something – something he had known all along but was even more sure of now – whatever happened with him and Lois, whatever he lost or gained... it had all been worth it.
He might be at odds over some things, divided over his feelings for Lois - torn between wanting her and wanting to see her happy - but he wasn’t confused about his feelings for Jason.
Jason was his son and he loved him with all his heart.
His son was such a special gift, and not just to Clark.
He had known that after talking with the other Clarks from the other universes. The knowledge of Jason, of the fact that Superman could have children, had been a wonderful gift to those Clarks as well. Especially the one married to Lois – the one who hadn’t thought he would be able to have children.
He wished they could have met Jason. He knew they would have loved him.
Clark watched in curious delight as his son ran off from the jungle gym over to the swing sets. Jason saw an empty swing and headed over to it.
But another kid beat him to it.
A bigger kid.
Clark frowned as he watched the bigger, obviously older, kid jerk the swing out of reach from Jason and hold it up in the air. The kid was talking so loud that Clark could have almost heard him without super-hearing.
“Jason Lane, the big fat pain,” the kid berated him. “This is my swing. Now get outta here!”
It was a good thing Clark was normally a very calm and patient man because, right now, he wanted nothing more than to go snatch that child up and spank his bottom right in front of the other kids.
Of course that wasn’t something Superman would do... or should do. He supposed that was the fatherly instinct coming out in him.
He forced himself to calm down and stay put, keeping an eye on things. He would continue to watch and make sure that nothing happened; that no one got hurt.
And judging by the way Jason kept clenching and unclenching his fists, the kid who got hurt would very likely *not* be Jason.
“It ain’t yours – it ain’t got your name on it,” Jason was telling the other boy. But he backed down and went to grab another empty swing.
Clark grinned. He was going to have to tell him that ain’t... ain’t, um, isn’t, a word.
Jason reached out for the other empty swing and, again, the other boy snatched it up, holding it out of Jason’s reach.
“They’re all mine,” the little brat told his son.
Jason frowned in frustration and turned around to walk off.
Clark couldn’t remember a time when he’d ever felt more proud... of anything or anyone.
But the bully wasn’t done. He walked up behind Jason and shoved him, causing Jason to stumble a little.
Clark almost had to physically restrain himself from flying over there to give the little tyrant what he deserved.
He watched as his son turned around to face the bully, eyeing him cautiously. There wasn’t an ounce of fear in his eyes, but instead, they held a challenge.
A challenge that wasn’t lost on the other child. He reared back to push Jason again, but this time Jason pushed him. The kid flew back about six feet and fell down hard on his butt.
Jason blinked as if in shock, and then he turned around and ran across the playground to the far side of the school building.
Clark shook his head in amazement. He knew that Jason was his. He knew it was true. But seeing him exhibit super powers... just sort of overwhelmed him. Clark flew over to where Jason was sitting on the ground, rubbing a stick in the dirt.
“Hey, are you okay?” he asked his son softly.
Jason looked up at him through teary eyes and blinked a couple of times. “Superman?”
Clark nodded at him and lowered himself down to sit beside him.
“I didn’t mean to,” Jason hurriedly said.
“I know. I’m sure you wouldn’t hurt anyone on purpose,” Clark said softly, reassuringly.
Jason hung his little head and his response sent a chill down Clark’s spine. “Yes, I would.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Clark argued in his behalf. “You’re a good boy. You just don’t understand how to deal with the strength that... that’s been given to you.”
“I hurt the man with the piano,” his son said softly. “He was a bad man. He was going to hurt mommy.”
“What happened?” Clark prompted him gently.
“He was going to hurt mommy!” Jason said a little louder. “On the bald man’s boat.”
He was talking about Luthor’s yacht. What had happened? “And you stopped him?”
Jason nodded at him, still not looking up at him. “I pushed the piano at him. I was mad and I pushed it hard.” A little tear slipped out of one of his eyes. “He wouldn’t get up.”
Clark’s breath caught in his chest. Jason had... killed the man? He would have to ask Lois about that later.
His son’s little body shuddered and Clark wrapped one arm around him, giving him a gentle squeeze. “Sometimes it’s hard to control how you feel. It’s that way for everyone. And if you’re strong, it can seem easy to force other people to do what you want. Believe me, I know. But you have to fight that feeling, Jason. I watched you over by the swings. You were really good to walk away from that boy like that. He was being bad and being mean, but you controlled yourself and walked away.”
“But I pushed him.”
“Yes, you did. And...” It was hard for Clark to tell him that he shouldn’t have done that... when every fiber in his being was screaming that he would have liked to see him do more than just push him. That kid had gotten what he deserved – but that’s not how Superman felt, that’s how Clark felt – or would feel if he let his paternal instincts get the better of him. But right now, Jason needed Superman to help him control his feelings and powers... not Clark coddling him. “And that wasn’t a good thing to do, but we all do things sometimes that we don’t mean to. We hurt people sometimes when we don’t mean to.”
<Why? Why did you leave me? How could you leave me like that?> Whether we hurt them physically or emotionally... Clark could still see the pain in Lois’s eyes.
“Even grown ups,” Clark continued. Especially grown ups. “You just have to learn from what happened and decide that you’re not going to let it happen again.”
Jason sniffled a few times and threw his arms around Clark, hugging him tightly.
Clark’s heart swelled at the gesture. He wished so badly that Jason knew who he was really hugging. “Now, why don’t you go apologize to that boy, okay?”
Jason nodded his head in agreement and got from the ground. “I saw you last night,” his little voice said softly.
Clark swallowed. “When?” he asked, getting up and dusting himself off.
“When you came to my room. I pretended I was asleep. I saw mommy hug you.”
Clark fidgeted uncomfortably. “Your mom and I are really good friends. I’ve known her a long time, since before you were born.”
“Are you friends with my daddy, too?”
Clark’s heart squeezed tightly in his chest. “Your... dad is a good man. I don’t know him like I do your mom, but yes, I would like to be his friend... and your friend.”
Jason smiled at him and it sent a warmth through his body that he’d never felt before. “Will you come back tonight?”
“Do you want me to?”
Jason nodded at him and started to walk off but after a couple of feet he turned around and smiled broadly. “You are my friend. Am I your friend?”
Clark nodded his head, unable to find the breath to answer him with words.
As he watched his son walk away, he whispered softly, “My friend, my son.”
**********
Lois stood quietly on the roof of the Daily Planet, looking down on her beloved city below.
She couldn’t move, leave Metropolis. She couldn’t. Not like that.
Clark would never have a relationship with Jason if she moved halfway around the world from him.
Well that wasn’t exactly true. Superman could. Superman would find them no matter where they moved.
Didn’t Richard realize that?
Probably not, but then again, he didn’t know that Jason was Superman’s son, either.
As a strong gust of wind whipped around her and she took another look down, she felt the inertia of vertigo settle in and she grabbed hold of the wall next to her.
What she wanted right now, more than anything, was something secure to hold on to. Her whole world and everything in it seemed to have abruptly shifted, literally almost overnight, and she couldn’t seem to find stable ground to stand on.
She needed someone to tell her it was going to be okay.
She needed... Superman.
“Superman!” she yelled. Not loud enough to attract any attention from anyone who might be within hearing range outside, but loud enough that he should definitely be able to hear her.
She closed her eyes and waited, silently begging him to come.
“Lois?” a quiet voice said behind her. Clark’s voice. “Are you okay?”
He came. She should have known he would.
“No. I’m not okay,” she said softly, turning around to look at him. He was there as Superman, his cape billowing in the strong wind. She walked up to him and stopped just in front of him. She wanted desperately to step into his arms and have him hold her. All she had to do was make the motion...
But she didn’t. She stayed where she was, and so did he.
“What’s wrong?”
She hesitated, looking into his concerned face. How did she tell him? She decided there wasn’t really any good way to tell him so she would just come out and say it. “Richard got a job offer to move to Paris, to work as the editor for the European office there. He...” she paused and looked away from him, back out to the cityscape below them. “He wants Jason and me to move with him.”
When she looked back into his face, she could see the questions in his eyes. “What did you say?”
“I told him I couldn’t... for a lot of reasons.” She let out the nervous breath she’d been holding in, determined to say what he needed to hear. “I think he wants to move me there because of you.”
He didn’t even bat an eyelash. “Lois, I would still come for you and Jason even if you moved... to Antarctica. I would still be there for you. You know that, don’t you?” he asked her earnestly.
She nodded at him. “But Clark couldn’t. You couldn’t move there. Even if you wanted to, which is not to say you would, but you couldn’t. It would be too coincidental if Clark Kent moved to Paris and then Superman all of the sudden started hanging around Paris, instead of Metropolis, how would that look? I mean I know Superman belongs to the world, but it’s well known that his home is Metropolis. People might get suspicious.”
“I would find a way to make it work.”
With those words she knew he really would - he would do whatever it took. The thought made her heart swell. “No, you don’t understand. I don’t *want* to move. I love it here. Metropolis is my home. Jason just started school and made some friends. My parents, my friends... you... everything I’ve ever known is here. I can’t do this.” She could feel the tears trying to come. She’d been fighting them all day.
Pull yourself together, Lane.
But she couldn’t. She could feel the moisture forming in her eyes even as she fought against it and she could feel her face involuntarily tightening as her eyebrows knitted together and her nose contracted. She could feel the quiver in her chin as the last of her control melted away.
And then he was there, and she was in his arms. He was whispering to her comfortingly and stroking her hair softly. She buried her face against him and let the tears come, staining wet spots into his suit.
“How can he expect me to make a decision like that right now? After everything that’s happened the past few weeks? The past couple of days? I can’t.” She pulled away from him and wiped her face, composing herself.
“Lois, I’m so sorry. If there was anything...”
“You should have stayed. You should have never left,” she said intensely. He looked like she had slapped him in the face and she immediately regretted what she’d said. “I’m sorry. It’s not fair of me to keep throwing that in your face. I know it’s not. It was my fault too. I just... things could have been so different.”
Why couldn’t he have come back sooner?
Or later? Why couldn’t he have come back when she and Richard were already married? Maybe already living in Paris? When things were in place that couldn’t be changed... when decisions had already been neatly made for her?
Because she would have been dead – she reminded herself. Yeah, talk about your easy decisions. She wouldn’t have had any decisions to make then.
If Superman hadn’t come back when he had, she would have died along with everyone else when Luthor unleashed New Krypton on them – no, actually, she probably wouldn’t have lived long enough to see that happen.
She probably would have died on that plane.
“I know...” he told her softly. “You have no idea the regret I face each morning when I wake up and realize I wasn’t dreaming - that I really did leave.”
“You know, I envy that other Lois and Clark we met, the ones that are married. Do they know how easy they’ve got it?”
“They’ve had their problems too, Lois, believe me. Relationships are hard work. They’re not easy for anyone.”
“Yeah, I guess. But you and I should probably be exhibit A in the relationship handbook of faux pass, huh?” She tried to smile weakly but failed miserably. “Oh, Clark, I don’t know... Everything’s such a mess and I don’t know what to do and what I want, or who I want, and I just don’t think...”
“I’ve gotta go,” he said suddenly, interrupting her.
“Go? Where? Why? Does someone need you?” She still had one hand on his arm and she griped it tightly, not wanting to let him leave.
“It’s not that. It’s...” And he abruptly took to the air.
She turned to watch him go and opened her mouth to yell at him to wait, but another voice beat her to it.
“Wait!”
Richard’s voice.
She looked over in astonished embarrassment at him standing there just outside the door to the roof. How long had he been standing there? Probably not long. Clark would have heard him or sensed him. That’s probably why he took off so abruptly.
“Superman! Wait...! Please!” There was something in his tone that scared her. Why was he so desperate for Superman to come back? She expected him to be mad, hurt, upset... something along those lines... this? This was just a little disconcerting.
“Richard? What is it?” she asked cautiously.
He ignored her, keeping his eyes focused on Superman. He was holding a newspaper in his hands... one of their competing papers. “I need your help! Jason... needs your help!” he yelled.
She finally got close enough to grab the paper out of his hand and she looked down at it. It had a piece of paper taped across the headlines for today.
Lois felt her heart constrict. “Where’s Jason?”
***********
“I need your help! Jason... needs your help!” Clark had gotten away from Lois as quickly as she would let him go and was flying at top speed away from the rooftop of the Daily Planet.
But those words stopped him cold.
Jason?
He looked frantically in the direction of the elementary where Jason attended school. He focused in as tightly on the school as he could but he couldn’t find any trace of Jason in any of the classrooms, on the playground, or anywhere.
Where was he?
Clark flew back towards the rooftop as fast as he could will his body to move. The fear he could see in Lois’s eyes told him all he needed to know.
Something had happened to Jason.
He landed and strode over purposefully towards Lois and Richard. She held a newspaper in her hands. He glanced down at the note taped across it:
The note read:
THIS WILL BE TOMORROW’S HEADLINE UNLESS YOU BRING SUPERMAN TO ME BY MIDNIGHT TONIGHT:
FIVE-YEAR-OLD BOY’S DEAD BODY FOUND ON STEPS OF POLICE HEADQUARTERS – POLICE BAFFLED.
HAPPY READING.
LUTHORNo. How could this have happened? In between being a reporter and his real life, Clark had spent the past two days looking for Luthor, trying to track him down. Tempus had helped him escape imprisonment on some island in the middle of the Atlantic when Luthor’s helicopter had run out of fuel but Tempus hadn’t said where he had taken Luthor or what he’d done with him.
And Clark hadn’t been able to find him.
Luthor had found a place to hide and Clark had finally realized that he wasn’t going to find him until Luthor wanted to be found.
“When I got home after lunch today I found this,” Richard said, pointing at the newspaper. “And then the school called. Jason disappeared from the playground at recess. They called the police and did a room by room search for him, but he’s gone.”
At recess? Clark had been there at recess.
Damn Luthor!
Luthor had waited. Watched and waited. When he saw Superman leave, he had made his move. Clark wanted to scream in frustration.
“No!” Lois yelled frantically. “How could this happen? Jason knows not to talk to strangers, and he’s seen Luthor before. He wouldn’t have talked to him. How could they let this happen?”
Richard ignored her despair, not even looking over at her as she spoke to them. Clark felt a small wave of anger flow through him but quelled it. It wasn’t his business. Besides, Richard had come up here looking for Lois, maybe for Superman.
He had *expected* to find them up here.
Clark was fortunate that Richard knew he was the invulnerable ‘Man of Steel’ because, otherwise, Richard looked very much like he would like to deck him. He wondered - if Richard had it all to do over would he have still tried so hard to save Superman?
“Will you help us?” Richard asked him pointedly. “Will you help Jason?”
“Yes, of course. Did he give any directions as to where he’s holding Jason? Where I’m supposed to go?”
“No,” Lois said firmly. “You can’t just walk into his hands. You know if he’s being this cocky, this confident, that he has to have Kryptonite.”
“That may be true, Lois, but he also has *your* son.” Clark gave her a significant look and her face fell as she realized it didn’t matter to him whether he had Kryptonite or not.
“I’m supposed to bring you to him, Superman,” Richard explained. “He’s...”
“Wait. Both of you. Just stop,” she said, holding her hands up. “Superman, you’re no good to us if you’re dead. Richard, do you honestly think if you just show up with Superman in tow that Luthor is going to hand Jason over to you and let you go on your merry way? No way! We need to sit down and think about this. We have to have the upper hand.”
“Oh, we already have the upper hand, Lois,” Richard said as he turned to walk back inside the building. When he came walking back out, Clark felt a sickening weakness go flooding through him. His legs faltered and he dropped down to his knees in front of Richard.
**********
To Be Continued...
