Shayne! You're just too good to me! I mean another part?
“Go home?” Clark asked. “Why are you asking about that now?”
So, Lois snatched Clark out of his distraction. I knew it! I knew Lois and Lisa would not be leaving! At least, I knew that Clark would do whatever possible to keep them there with him. Even if it meant *revelation*.
“Thinking of moving to Calcutta?” Clark asked. “I’ve been there. I’d advise against it.”
Clark is showing Lois a softer side, a side that he obviously does not show to many people.
Lois was talking about herself as much as Lisa. Unlike Lisa, she was old enough to realize that fairy tales generally didn’t come true. Wealthy people tended to marry other wealthy people. While Clark hadn’t always been wealthy, he’d slid seamlessly into the role.
So, Lois had considered what it would be like to be married to Clark.
“We just need to start talking about an exit strategy.”
Clark closed his eyes for a moment. “What if I don’t want to?”
“What? Talk about it? We could wait, I suppose, but it’s going to come up eventually.”
“What if I don’t want her to leave?”
Lois frowned. For some reason, her heart was beginning to pound in her chest.
I think that deep down inside, Lois wanted Clark to ask them to stay. She didn't really seem to be too concerned about Kal El. She only really cared what Clark thought about her if she were being honest with herself.
“Lisa already has parents,” she said frostily. “We did just fine without anybody.”
“If I claimed her as my own, she could receive all the things she deserves,” Clark says. “She could get an education at a college of her choice. Kal El could visit her without anybody questioning the relationship.”
“How do you think Kal would feel about this, your taking over his role as a father.”
“We’re quite close,” Clark said. “I don’t think it would bother him at all.”
“And me?” Lois said. “If I agreed to this farce? What happens when my idea of parenting doesn’t match yours?”
She’d heard of too many cases of poor mothers who lost custody of their children to richer spouses. Although there was a streak of altruism in Clark Kent that impressed her, there was also a grim determination to get what he wanted.
“I’d defer to you, of course.” Clark said. “It’d be an arrangement on paper, but Lisa would know who her real father was.”
This was Clark's last resort short of a revelation to keep Lois and Lisa there. He's trying not to use his trump card but he's gonna have to pull it out.
“Why?” Clark said. “Why go to all the effort to leave?”
“Lisa loves this place,” Lois said, not adding that she did too. “But she’s going to have to make her own way in life. She can’t go depending on the kindness of strangers.”
“”I’m no stranger,” Clark said.
“Not now,” Lois said. “But what happens when you get married again, and the new wife doesn’t want Lisa?”
His eyes glittered. “That won’t happen.”
“What, you won’t marry again, or you won’t marry anyone who doesn’t like Lisa?”
“Maybe both,” he said.
“Adopting someone else’s child as your own…that’s something huge.”
So, is Clark doubtful of marriage again because he thinks that once Lois finds out about him, she'll hate him, too...for lying to her?
TOC said...
Although I did think Lois was a bit slow on the uptake. She should have figured out the truth the moment Clark said this: “We’re compatible,” Clark said, looking suddenly embarrassed.
Lois found herself gaping.
“Biologically. It wouldn’t be easy, and it wouldn’t necessarily work at all. But of all the people in the world, you are one of the vanishingly small percentage with whom I might have a chance at having another child.”
I think had Lois been in reporter mode she would have picked up on
“I’m not likely to ever have any other children of my own,”
“When I was seventeen, I met someone. She was amazing. Fire and passion, no fear. I thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. When she kissed me, I thought I was going to die.”
Lois frowned. If Clark and Superman had been friends even back when she’d first met Kal, Clark might have been there the night they’d conceived Lisa. She vaguely remembered that he’d come with a group of other boys.
“I thought I was in love,” Clark said. “But I wasn’t in my right mind; I was intoxicated on something and the next morning I couldn’t remember where I’d left her.”
It sounded like a mirror image of her own story, Lois thought. She’d given up drinking entirely after that night; it had no place in her life as a mother, and given her mother’s history of alcoholism…it was scary.
“So how do you know you have a child?” Lois asked quietly. “You said it was a pretty slim shot even with someone who was compatible.”
“She came to me recently,” Clark said. “She’d tracked me down. She brought her daughter with her…the most wonderful child I’d ever seen.”
“Then why are you still making all this fuss about Lisa?” Lois asked. “You should be reaching out to your own daughter, trying to be part of HER life. And this other, perfect woman? You should be bringing her into your house instead of me.
“I want to acknowledge Lisa as my daughter and make her my heir because….she IS my biological daughter.”
FINALLY! *REVELATION*!
Gosh, Lois...you're being so dense, so there. Clark finally had to spell it out for you.
Poor Lois thought that Clark was just using her for possible breeding. He has all but said instead, that he is in love with her and wants to marry her--and have more children. It's not just a smoke screen.
“Lisa knew.” Lois said, her mind racing.
Lisa had been cold and standoffish toward Clark until the incident with the glasses, but afterwards she’d been overly affectionate and sweet.
“I asked her not to tell you,” Clark said, looking embarrassed.
“Why?” she asked, a hint of anger appearing in her voice. “Did you think I was going to run to the tabloids? Lisa has just as much to lose in this as you do.”
“I…I wanted you to get to know me for who I am,” Clark said. “I was afraid that Superman would confuse things.”
I hope that Lois doesn't get too mad at Lisa. She's already sort of jealous that Lisa and Clark...Kal El...are so close as it is.
“This? What is this?” Lois asked.
“I want to claim Lisa as my biological child, and I want the two of you to move in with me permanently.”
Proposal? At the best that Clark knows how to do at this point?
OMG, and Lana has heard all of this. What does she hate Clark for so much? She married another wealthy man!
Does this have anything to do with Clark asking Lois to keep her voice down earlier?
Shayne, awesome! You've gotta get back, and soon! Loved it, loved it, loved it!
~Sheila
)
Miss the Bengali sweets though.. 
Also Lois' denseness (not figuring out Clark's connection to Lisa straight-away) and Lois' quick brain (figuring out in one shot Lisa already knew) totally worked for me... goes to show her upheaval of emotions, confusions and the depth of her feelings / longing for Clark.