[CHAPTER 13]
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Above all things, never be afraid. The enemy who forces you to retreat is himself afraid of you at that very moment. -- Andre Maurois
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Monday, the following week
Movement in the corner of her eye caused Lois to look away from her computer. Across the aisle, Clark was standing and reaching for his tie. It was a motion she recognized well.
“The voice?” she asked with concern.
He shook his head curtly. “Not that I hear,” he answered. “I’ll let you know when I get back.”
Lois nodded and turned back to her work. They had been trying to solve the mystery behind the voice for weeks now, to no avail. There was no schedule that it contacted Clark on, but there was no longer any doubt that it was part of a plot to test Clark’s powers. Now that she knew that there really was something out there that could hurt him, the tests worried her even more. How long would it be before this hidden enemy lucked upon something that worked?
Lois had asked Clark for more information about the glowing rocks he had encountered as a youth. He hadn’t known much about them, but had managed to steer clear of them since. His theory was that they were meteorites, fallen to earth during the same shower that had masked the arrival of his ship. If that were so, the broken pieces of his former planet were poisonous – delivering a potent dosage of something similar to radiation that only affected him.
According to her own research, the gorge where Clark’s best friend had died had been closed to public access for many years after the accident. It was now once again open to the public, but no one had mentioned anything about the green rocks. That could either be a good or bad thing.
Silently, Lois sent a plea out for Clark to be careful. Invisible threats were often worse than the ones that had names.
While Clark had shared, however limitedly, about the meteor rocks, he hadn’t been so forthcoming with information about Lana Lang. His comment about Lana ‘might as well’ being dead puzzled her. This was the woman he had been searching for since his arrival to Metropolis, and it was obvious he wanted to find her for some connection to Jory’s health, but at the same time, he was claiming that she was not his mother.
It made Lois think that it was one of those ‘parent equal present’ type situations, where Lana’s apparent voluntary absence from Jory’s life had caused considerable bitterness and hostility in Clark’s perception of the relationship.
Lois had been doing a little research of her own, and did not think that Clark’s frustration at a lack of results was misplaced. Lana Lang had left Smallville behind immediately following her graduation from high school. She had moved to Virginia for college and finished pre-med. There was nothing in the records Lois had located that gave any impression that Lana Lang had ever looked back. She had started medical school in D.C., but Lois hadn’t found evidence that she’d graduated or even that she’d done residencies anywhere.
Since she’d disappeared into the quagmires of the nation’s capital, the only other sighting of Lana Lang had been one 6 years earlier in Smallville, Kansas. Ironically, or perhaps not so, that time frame matched with a time Lois knew that Clark was in town.
From the original investigation she’d done on Clark, Lois knew that Clark had returned to Smallville after his stint in college. Having driven through the town once herself, Lois doubted that both Lana and Clark could have been in town and not crossed paths. It was even possible that they had reconnected. Clark had told her that before Pete, Lana had been his girl. Maybe the passage of time had healed some wounds… but if Lois were to take Clark’s current demeanor into account, she’d have to add that time also caused some wounds to fester.
Something had happened though, because after what ever incident had taken place during that 2001 reunion, had sent Clark on his world tour. He hadn’t returned to stay in the U.S. again until 2006.
Lois’s head tilted as she did the math. Jory was three years old plus a handful of months, so that meant he had been born in 2005 or late 2004… Knowing what she knew about Clark’s ability to travel, it was possible that he’d been home more often than not. Perhaps Clark’s and Lana’s paths had crossed many times.
Her introspection was interrupted by the sound of Clark’s phone ringing. After a few minutes, it stopped, and she assumed that it had gone to his voicemail – until her phone began ringing seconds later.
“Lois Lane.”
“Mrs Lane, this is Aubrey from the child care center. I was trying to get in contact with Mr. Kent…”
“Yes, he’s currently not in,” Lois said, flicking a glance to his desk. “He’ll probably be out for a few hours… Is everything okay?”
“Well, not really,” the woman replied. “Mr. Kent put you down as the local emergency contact.”
Lois straightened at the words. “What’s wrong?”
“Jory is having one of his episodes, and I know that Mr. Kent likes to handle it himself, but given that he’s not available we were wondering if it would be best to call…”
“No,” Lois said. “I’m coming down right now.”
Lois sent her computer into sleep mode and rushed out of the newsroom. When she arrived at the childcare center, the woman whose office they had used before was waiting at the front desk.
“Right this way, Mrs. Lane,” the Director greeted before leading her back to the office.
Inside a young aide was trying to calm Jory’s cries. Lois immediately crossed to them and gathered the little boy in her arms. Settling onto the couch, she cradled his head against her chest and began humming. The vibrations seemed to do the trick because Jory quieted a noticeable amount as if he were trying to concentrate on them.
Sighing in relief, Lois began gently rocking.
The director said as she moved to sit on the couch beside them. “Mrs. Lane…”
“It’s Lois,” she corrected in a quiet voice before resuming her humming.
“Lois,” the woman began again, “This is the second time this has happened while Jory’s been in our care. I realize that Mr. Kent told us about this before he signed Jory up… I’m no doctor, but this seems to require some sort of attention. Mr. Kent has left us no medication, no further instructions… Is there anything more that can be done for him?”
Lois felt her own eyes tearing up at the muffled sound of the boy’s pain-induced cries. Their positioning meant that not only could she hear them, she could feel them. “I don’t know what to tell you. I really don’t.” She met the older woman’s gaze with a matching level of concern.
Shrugging and shaking her head, she just continued to rub her hand up and down the child’s back.
“Okay,” the woman said softly. “Take as much time as you need.” She and the aide moved to the office door.
“Thank you, Mrs… I’m sorry,” Lois said distractedly, “what is your name?”
The woman looked back to Lois with a gentle smile. “It’s Catherine.”
Twenty minutes later, Lois was as mentally exhausted as her young charge seemed to be. He had gone from the hysterical crying she had heard when she’d first arrived, to sobbing, choked hiccups, whining, and finally shuddering breaths.
She leaned down and kissed his brow tenderly. “I’m so sorry you have to go through this, honey. It’s just not fair.”
He looked up at her with a pouty expression on his face and she knew she would not be able to go back to her desk.
“I think we both could use a break. Would you like to have lunch with me, Master Kent?”
Standing, she settled him on her hip and exited Catherine’s office. Walking over to where the aide was now seated at the reception desk, Lois reached for the sign out book. “I’m going to go ahead and take him with me,” she announced.
“Oh, okay,” the aide replied pleasantly. She smiled sympathetically up at Jory, who was laying his head against Lois’s shoulder. “You’ve had better days, huh, buddy?”
“I’d say,” Lois responded with a sigh. She finished signing the book and slid it back to the aide. “Did he come in with anything?”
“Just his jacket, I believe. It would be over there in his cubby.”
After getting the small windbreaker from the shelf labeled with Jory’s name, she carried him out of the center and toward the elevator bay. Jory lifted his head and looked around with wide eyes as they entered the lift, and Lois realized that Clark had never brought him upstairs.
She laughed when the little boy’s eyes grew even wider when the doors let them out into the newsroom. He looked around wondrously as she made her way back to her desk to get her purse. Once she had what she needed, she turned to leave again, swinging by Perry’s office on the way out.
“You picking up strays again, Lane?” came the gruff greeting.
“Perry, this is Jory,” she introduced, turning so the little boy’s face could be seen.
“Kent’s kid, right? I keep wondering why he doesn’t put any pictures up.”
Lois nodded. “I never thought about that. Huh.”
“So, you giving him a tour or what?” Perry asked, his face creasing into his usual frown.
“Actually, I’m taking him to lunch,” she answered. She pretended not to notice the eyebrow that skirted upward on Perry’s face. “And, I probably won’t be back for the rest of the day.”
“Probably?”
“Okay, so I won’t be back,” she acknowledged, backing toward the door. “Hold down the fort for me, okay?”
With a wide grin and a wink, she exited the office, wincing as a shouted “Lane!” chased behind her.
She looked down at Jory and tapped his nose lightly. “You should be glad you can’t hear him. Hot air. Constantly.”
~.~
After a brief lunch of chicken fingers and fries, Lois and a much happier Jory found themselves walking through a lively Centennial Park. Lois noted that a number of moms and nannies were out basking in the sunshine with young children and was amused that she might appear to be one of them.
She smiled down at Jory, who was walking ahead of her on the grass. His eyes were trying to take in everything at once. The sight of some older kids kicking a ball around drew his attention, and he stopped walking to watch.
Lois sat down on the park bench they were next to and smiled. A wild kick by one of the kids sent the ball rolling in Jory’s direction. When it hit his feet, he turned to Lois with questioning eyes.
Lois made the sign for ‘go,’ a motion that was basically pointing with both fingers. She had been trying to learn rudimentary sign language with the help of a Rosetta Stone computer program.
With an excited smile, Jory picked up the ball and walked toward the other children. Because of his ‘special needs,’ Jory was kept with much younger children at the day care so that the language barrier wouldn’t be as noticeable. Seeing his excitement to be around bigger kids, Lois started doubting that it was a good idea.
The other kids were yelling for Jory to kick the ball and with so many mouths and expressions and faces vying for his attention, Lois could tell he was getting confused. One of the older boys impatiently ran over and pulled the ball from Jory’s hands and kicked it back to continue their game. He tried to follow along for a little while, but it was clear that he did not understand the instructions, and the other kids, not understanding his limitations, kept going.
Standing, Lois started to go over to soothe the interactions, but the expression on Jory’s face as he turned to run back to her caused her heart to break.
She kneeled to intercept him when he made it to her. This poor kid had it rough coming and going.
She led him back to the bench, but when she sat down, he hid his face in her lap.
“Jory,” she said, smoothing his hair back and trying to get him to lift his chin. When she finally got him to look up, she rubbed her palm over her chest. “Sorry.”
His lower lip trembled as he signed something back. Racking her brain for the translation, the only thing Lois could understand was ‘I’ and ‘not’… He was not something. The last sign was coming from near his cheek.
Rosetta Stone was a pretty good teaching tool, but little hands looked a lot different from the adult sized animated fingers that the program used.
Lois shook her head, apologetically, and it only seemed to make Jory more anxious. His frustration with not being able to communicate with her was only making things worse. He made the sign again and pointed toward the kids playing. She finally understood the sign. ‘Same.’
He was not like them.
“It’s okay,” Lois said. “They didn’t know.” As she spoke, she signed <kids not know>. He wasn’t different from them in any way that mattered. “You’re just like them.” She pointed at him and then at the kids, and made the sign she’d just learned. <Same.>
He frowned and she leaned down to kiss his forehead. When she began to sit back, he wrapped his arms around her neck tightly. She returned the hug and lifted him to her lap.
He looked up at her hopefully. <Me you something something,> he signed.
Lois chuckled nervously. Oh boy, she thought. Her signing to him had unleashed a fury of tiny hands. She shrugged a little – which was obviously the wrong move because the lip started again. The puppy-dog expression made her want to buy him something… anything, actually.
He signed again and again, tears coming to his eyes as he tried to make her understand. Apparently, a three year old didn’t know that repetition didn’t ensure comprehension.
“Ok, ok, yes,” she finally said, just when the tantrum was about to blow.
Jory stopped and looked at her expectantly.
<Yes,> she signed again.
Whatever she had agreed to was a good thing, because he leaned against her and hugged her torso while grinning up at her without abandon.
Scanning her memory for the trail of signs he had been giving, Lois tried to figure out what she had just said… and wondered if Clark minded sharing his apartment with a new dog… if that was in fact what she had promised.
Lois looked down at the grinning child and laughed. Hell, he could keep the puppy at her house if it meant that he looked at her like this.
~.~
The door to Clark’s apartment flew open before Lois’s hand had barely lifted to knock.
“Where have you been?!” he demanded.
Lois gave him a strange look as she ushered Jory inside. “We went to the park,” she answered slowly.
“The park? All day? I came back to the newsroom and Perry said you were gone for the day - with Jory! You didn’t think to call? What about answering your phone?”
Lois reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. The LCD screen reported numerous missed calls. “Oh, I must have left the ringer off…”
“Why would you even take him out of the child care center?” Clark interrupted.
“I wanted to talk to you about the child care center. Maybe the class Jory is in…”
“I put you down for emergencies, not so you could just sign him out on a whim.”
Lois lifted her hands in exasperation. “It *was* an emergency. He was having an attack and they called me because you weren’t there,” she said, amazed to have finally been able to complete a sentence.
Clark’s expression lost some of its fury.
“He’s fine now, I just wanted to give him a little change of scenery afterwards,” she said.
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. I get it, but it’s eight o’clock. Are you telling me that you were at the park all this time?”
“Well, no,” Lois replied, hesitant to incite the wrath that seemed so near the surface. She glanced down at the little boy. Jory was looking between the two of them with a concerned expression. He didn’t need perfect hearing to know there was tension building. “I got him some dinner…”
She broke off in surprise when Jory stepped forward and hit Clark in the thigh with the little hammer he was holding. Clark bent down and pulled the hammer from the little boy’s hand.
“We do not hit, Jory,” Clark said while signing the same words. “That’s not nice.”
The child looked defiantly up at Clark and made a few signs in return.
Clark looked up at Lois. “What did you tell him?”
Lois’s head tilted in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Do you know what he just said to me?”
“No,” she said, shrugging in confusion. “What’s wrong?”
“He hit me because I was picking on his mother,” Clark said evenly.
Lois’s eyebrows shot up. “His what?”
Clark turned his attention back to Jory, signing a question.
Jory answered with excited hands flying too fast for Lois to even attempt to understand.
“He says,” Clark translated, “that you told him you were his mother when you were at the park.”
Lois’s mouth dropped open. “Oh.”
Clark looked at her sharply. “Oh?”
“No… see, he was signing and I didn’t understand… he’s was getting worked up and his hands were going so fast, and the signs, you know they don’t really look the same as on the computer… and I just kinda said yes when he was signing because…” She sighed. “It was an honest mistake, Clark.”
Clark gestured to Jory incredulously. “Honest mistake? Look at him, Lois. Do you think he’ll understand what that means?”
Lois grimaced. “Clark, I’m sorry. I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Clark shook his head and signed to Jory. “She’s not mommy.”
The little boy’s expression darkened and he stepped forward and swung back a foot. Lois kneeled and pulled him back before his angry kick could connect.
“Whoa,” she said. “He’s a little out of form right now.”
“I’d say,” Clark agreed wryly. He kneeled in front of the little boy and noticed what was around his neck. “Is he wearing your scarf?” he asked Lois.
“Yeah, he found it in the car. It’s not cold enough for one, but he seemed to like it so…”
Clark turned his focus back on Jory. “We don’t hit, and we don’t kick,” he said, while signing simultaneously. “Go sit on your mat. Now.”
Jory frowned and stepped back, further into Lois embrace.
Clark’s jaw hardened. “Now, Jory.”
Lois unwrapped her arms from around the little boy and gave him a gentle push on the bottom. Jory flashed a few signs at Clark and ran from the room. The only things Lois was able to catch were ‘not’ and ‘nice.’ She was glad he didn’t know some of the other universal signs for showing displeasure.
“Where did he get this?” Clark asked as they both returned from their crouching positions. He was holding the little hammer aloft.
Lois blinked at the item. “Uh, my dad must have given it to him.”
Clark’s voice lowered half an octave. “When did he see your dad?”
“We went by the hospital after the park… Listen, Clark, my father says that Jory is showing signs of what might be Progeria.”
“I know what he’s showing signs of,” he returned.
“He says that he’s just at the age when it starts to get worse. I think it has a lot to do with these attacks and why they are coming closer together.”
“Lois, what do you think you are doing?”
Lois shook her head and looked at him blankly.
“What possessed you to take him to a doctor? Knowing what you know about me - about what I risk if people find out what you know - why would you do something like that?”
Lois’s brow creased. “I didn’t take him to a *doctor*, Clark, I took him to meet my father. He didn’t examine him, he just looked at him and was able to say that much. He doesn’t even know about the attacks. He said he was small for his age, that his teeth didn’t seem to be as developed… Clark, if you already know this, then you know it’s fatal.”
Clark’s gaze briefly dipped. “I know what it appears to be,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that’s what it is. What it does mean is that you have no right to start poking into things that are not your business. Didn’t we have this conversation once before… when you did this to *me*?!”
Lois stepped forward, her own eyes beginning to blaze. “This is not about you. This is not about your secret, or about me doing or not doing something to threaten it. It’s about Jory, and about how to save his life.”
“You are not his mother!”
Lois stepped back. “I know that, Clark! I mean, according to you, he *has* no mother, right?” she asked heatedly, directly matching his tone. “Well, guess what? It seems to me that has no father either. Parenting is a lot more than biology, Clark, and I haven’t seen a whole lot of it from you.”
She mentally cursed when the words she’d just said rattled around to her brain. Clark’s expression had gone flat.
“Get out.”
“Gladly,” she answered. Just because she regretted saying what she had, the way she had, didn’t mean she was any less angry. “Just let me say goodbye first.”
“I would rather you just left.”
She gave him a wry look. “You would, wouldn’t you?” she asked, going down the steps and into the apartment. She walked through the apartment and to the little bay window area where Jory took his time outs. She lowered to the floor next to him, smiling at the fact that he was still wearing her scarf; the ends of it were thrown over his shoulders like a makeshift cape.
“My hero… I have to go,” she said, signing <me leave> to him.
He looked up at her with an expression that was both fearful and hopeful. <Me leave?> he signed back.
“No, honey. Just me.” She shook her head: <No me only.>
She kissed his cheek and rose to her feet again. When she arrived back to the living room, Clark was standing next to the open door. The sound of little socked feet running down the hall made her turn when she had reached the exit.
When Jory saw that she had stopped walking, he signed something to her and turned around and ran down the hall again.
Lois turned to Clark questioningly.
“He’s going to get his shoes.”
Lois blinked, her shoulders sagging. “Good night, Clark.”
When the little boy returned with his Velcro sneakers on the wrong feet, he found only Clark left in the room.
<Mommy where?> he signed.
“She’s not your mother,” Clark said. <Not mother.>
<Me mommy she baby told Jory mine!> came the vehement response. Jory ran to the door and tried to open it. When that didn’t work, he pressed his face to the block glass that lined the door in an attempt to see out. Then he raised a hand and knocked on it.
Clark stepped to him and reached down to pick him up. Jory struggled and kicked against him until he put him back down.
<No! Jory with mommy leave!>
Clark sighed. “You have to stay with Daddy. I need you.”
Jory frowned up at him in confusion. <Daddy big. Baby need mommy.> He turned back to the door and sat on the floor next to it, his small face contorted in a frowning pout.
Clark bent to pick him up again, but Jory kicked at him.
<Jory wait. Me wait mommy.>
It wasn’t until he had fallen asleep thirty minutes later that Clark was able to finally move him.
~.~
tbc
