[CHAPTER 14]
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The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. -- Douglas MacArthur
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Friday, a week later
“Myerson, where are we on the DiPandi story?”
“There’s new information out that insinuates foul play by his head lobbyist. I’m doing some background fact checking on the Senator’s past funding sources, but as of now, it looks like his bid for president is about to tank.”
Perry nodded. “Not that the Planet has any political preferences, but I say good riddance. Just because a person shows a flash of heroism in one highly visible instance, it doesn’t make his other past dalliances go away. We’ve done enough stories on DiPandi in the past to know he doesn’t walk on rose water.” He turned to the rest of the room of reporters. “Well that’s everyone…”
When people began sliding their chairs back and moving toward the door, Perry lifted his hand. “Now wait a minute, I didn’t say I was done,” he said in a louder voice, bringing the staff meeting back under his command. “There’s one more order of business today. The votes for the Kerths are in and our very own Lois Lane and Clark Kent are the winners of the award for Investigative Journalism. Let’s give ‘em a hand.”
Perry waved a hand in the direction of the two reporters he had named, one of them on each side of the room, and narrowed his eyes. The two of them were receiving the hand shakes and claps on the shoulder from their colleagues with smiles and laughter, but it was apparent to the editor that all was not well in the land of Lane and Kent.
In fact, Perry was aware that all had not been well in that world for at least a week. If he stretched his memory a little, he could say that things had gone sour the day Lois had introduced Kent’s son to him. Perry had been concerned about what message was being sent by Lois having the little boy tucked against her hip the way she had… It had caused the editor to recall times from his own career as a reporter when partnerships tended to cause two people to get closer than expected due to the excessive time spent together. It had been a flag that had been thrown up in the recesses of his mind, but the knowledge and experience of working with Lois Lane and her professionalism had made him confident that any such problems would not come into play here.
Maybe he had been too confident. Kent was a nice looking man. Lane was a very attractive woman. Perry didn’t need a diagram. He didn’t make it to Editor-in-Chief of a nationally syndicated newspaper because he could yodel.
The problem with work relationships, Perry knew, was that if the relationship part went south… the work went with it.
“All right, all right – That’s enough of that,” Perry grunted. “I said congratulate ‘em, not inflate their egos. They’re not much help to me if their heads aren’t connected. This is still a newspaper and I’m still the boss. Let’s go, people - back to work!”
As the reporters began filing out of the room, Perry pointed Lois and Clark out. “I’d like the two of you to stay for a minute, please.”
He cleared his throat when the three of them were left alone in the conference room and gave them each a hard stare. From what he could see, they were both looking everywhere but at each other.
“Why is it that you two don’t look as thrilled with the news as you should?” he asked.
Lois sighed. “It’s just an award, Chief.”
Perry crossed his arms on his chest and raised an eyebrow. “Just an award,” he repeated, glancing at Clark to see if he agreed with the sentiment. When Clark just shrugged without commitment, he frowned. “Well, fortunately for the existence of the paper, the suits upstairs aren’t as cavalier with the meaning of the accomplishment.”
He uncrossed his arms and placed his palms flat on the table, leaning down in an intimidating posture. “In fact, the suits upstairs are quite pleased with their award winning journalists, so much so, that they have submitted the Cyphren series for Pulitzer nomination.”
Smirking when the two other sets of eyes became immediately and sincerely focused on him, the editor continued. “Yes, I said Pulitzer, but here’s the catch.” He chuckled at Lois’s wary expression. She knew all about the ‘too good to be true’ warning. “The Daily Planet is starting a new campaign.”
Perry lifted his hands and traced a headline in the air. “Lane and Kent. The Hottest Team in Town.”
“A campaign?” Lois asked slowly, finally breaking her silence.
“A campaign,” Perry confirmed. “Hottest team in town. Your pictures are going to be everywhere: busses, subways, billboards.”
“Our pictures?” Clark asked, matching Lois’s tone of trepidation.
“What is this, a parrot convention? Yes, pictures, and yes, everywhere. Now, this is a big deal, so your cooperation is appreciated.” The wording of the statement was meant to leave no room for negotiations. “The photographer requested that you both attend a consultation and I scheduled you for one this afternoon. Nancy has the details so stop by the front desk on your way out.”
Lois opened her mouth as if to repeat another tidbit of the information he had shared but stopped when he gave her a look.
Perry knew that the awkwardness that was just under the surface tension in the room would only take a small push to break through – but he was a newshound, not a therapist. If they had the gall to start a relationship while under his care, they would have to summon the chutzpah to work it out on their own.
“I strongly suggest you leave now if you want to beat mid-day traffic.”
~.~
Lois and Clark exited the brick lined building that housed the studio of Paxton Jacques Giroux. Fortunately, the photographer hadn’t been as pretentious as his name. He hadn’t even had a forced French accent.
The ride over to the studio had been silent and tense. Once they were seated on the couches in Giroux’s office, the conversation had been stilted. The photographer had eventually tired of their reluctant interview, so he had given up and moved onto the ‘active’ portion of the consultation: test shots.
The two reporters had stiffly posed for the first couple of shots, but by the time Giroux had posed them back to back with their arms styled as if they were Charlie’s Angels and holding guns, the laughter had been inevitable – and that had been exactly the reaction the photographer had wanted. Once they had relaxed, the test shots were successful and the photo shoot appointment was scheduled.
Clark glanced to Lois as they neared her car in silence. Whatever tenuous truce had been breached through the ridiculous poses was disintegrating with every step they took away from Giroux’s studio.
Clark’s life over the past week had been more hectic than he had ever expected. All of the potential problems that he had feared he’d face once he’d settled in one city were manifesting. The job of superhero was something that couldn’t be done alone. Lois had stopped making excuses for him when he had to leave work to be super, and his own attempts at explaining his disappearances were neither as believable nor as creative.
Also, contrary to what the title suggested, the job of single dad was something that couldn’t be done alone either. One job would have been hectic enough, but Clark was trying to juggle three of them, all in addition to the side projects he was attached to: finding Lana and saving Jory.
As if it weren’t bad enough that he hadn’t told his parents about the argument with Lois, Jory had begun to be extremely difficult to manage. The child demanded on a daily basis to see ‘his mother’ and carried Lois’s scarf around every day as if it were a security blanket. The one time Clark hadn’t carried Jory into the daycare, the boy had wrenched away from Clark’s hold and tried to board the elevator.
Clark was trying not to lose his patience with the little boy’s tantrums and moodiness, but the heightening of his own stress levels were indicating that something would soon have to give.
“Would you like to get some coffee?” Clark blurted out when they arrived at the white SUV. “There’s a cart on the corner…” He pointed across the street where a coffee stand was situated in front of a small park.
Lois looked at him with an assessing look. “Coffee…sure.”
They changed directions and crossed the street to the stand. Once there, Clark stepped forward and ordered a short non fat mocha decaf with no foam, no sugar, and no whip, just as Lois would have. He shrugged in response to her surprised expression, added his own – much plainer – order and paid for them both. After taking the covered cups from the vendor, he handed one to Lois and gestured toward a park bench near the middle of the park.
Lois arched an eyebrow but nodded, silently sipping her drink as she followed him to the bench.
“The Hottest Team in Town,” Clark said lightly, wrapping his hands around his cup. “That’s… a pretty heavy title.”
Lois nodded. “Especially when they’ve got us posed as Lucy and Desi – I think I heard my jaw drop when he said he wanted to see me as a redhead.”
Clark smiled. “I think that was the reaction he was going for. There’s no way Perry would plaster pictures of us around the city in anything other than office wear.”
“I wouldn’t put it past Perry,” Lois muttered around the rim of her cup.
They settled into a silence again, but this time it didn’t feel as heavy and intrusive as before.
Clark let out a slow breath and focused his attention on the coffee company logo on his cup. “Jory misses you.”
From the corner of his eye he saw Lois’s head turn to face him. “I miss him too.”
Clark nodded. “He, um… hasn’t been too happy lately.”
Lois sighed and put her cup down on the bench, shifting her body so she was facing him without straining her neck. “Clark, I really didn’t know what he was signing to me. It was a simple mistake. I mean, I know that the effect wasn’t simple, but I didn’t mean to…”
“I know. I knew it then, I just… I’m sorry… again.”
Lois’s chin dipped as she smiled and dropped her head.
“Listen, what I wanted to ask… what I was hoping you would be willing to do…” He lifted his head to finally look at her. “Do you think maybe you could – if you’re not busy, that is…”
“What is it, Clark?”
He swallowed. “If you could… watch him tonight?”
Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “Jory? Tonight?”
“For the weekend actually.”
Her eyes widened even more.
“I can get my parents to do it, so don’t feel like you have to… but I thought maybe since you, before - I don’t want to presume that you don’t have plans. So, if you can’t…”
“Clark, slow down. What’s going on?” she asked; the concern apparent on her face.
“I’ve got some leads on Lana,” he confessed, “and I need to follow them through.”
Lois shifted back against the bench so that she was facing the park again, and Clark knew that she was thinking Lana was a forbidden topic. It wouldn’t be a far stretch of an assumption for her, given the way he usually reacted. Even now, the mention of it sent a chill down his spine.
This time, he shifted on the bench so he was facing Lois. “There’s another part of the Lana story that I’d like to share with you.”
Lois lifted her head to look at him and he sighed, trying to think of where to start. “After college, I moved home to help my father with the farm. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life yet.”
Lois nodded encouragingly.
“I, uh, really wasn’t doing anything *super* wise,” he said, making the hand gesture that had become second nature to them both. “About two years after I had moved home, Lana came to town. I hadn’t seen her since high school. After Pete, uh… fell… she blamed me. I couldn’t save him. The meteor rock stripped me of all my powers and almost killed me. Pete was the only other person that knew my secret, and when he was gone, she felt burdened and alone with the weight of it.”
Lois frowned. “But it was *your* secret. How could she possibly feel alone with it?”
Clark shook his head sadly. “She was grieving and irrational. I didn’t blame her. She had just lost the love of her life.”
Lois tried to cut some slack to the woman she had already determined to dislike. “So, what happened when you crossed paths in Smallville all of those years later? Did you reconnect?”
Clark’s expression darkened. “She tried to kill me.”
Lois blinked and did a double take. She didn’t think she had heard that right. “What?”
“I was working in the East field alone when she appeared. She had spent the six years since we’d last seen each other hating me. When she hunted me down that night, she had become obsessed with righting a wrong she felt I committed. It didn’t matter that killing me would not bring Pete back. It would make her feel better.”
Lois’s eyes widened. “That’s crazy.” She looked him up and down. “Obviously she wasn’t successful. You’re not dead.”
Clark looked down at his hands. “She was there when I was incapacitated by the green rock. She knew my weakness – and used it against me. The moment she opened the top to the lead case she held, I couldn’t fight her off.”
The tone in Clark’s voice made Lois shudder. Whatever Lana Lang had done to him while he was vulnerable and hurting had left scars that couldn’t be seen – but they were there, and they were deep. “What did she do to you?”
Clark shook his head – as if to say that the details were too hard and too gruesome to revisit. “She left me to die. She put that rock over my chest and left me there.”
Lois blinked in a surprised stupor for a long moment, her mind reeling in an attempt to comprehend the absurdity of what Clark was describing. “I don’t understand… What does this have to do with Jory?”
Clark’s face twisted into a sneer. “Lana… violated me.” He met Lois’s gaze. “Jory is not my son. He’s me.”
“He’s…”
“She left the rock on my chest and watched as I lost consciousness from the pain. My father found me with a gaping hole in my back. It was mere luck that I didn’t die from the blood loss.” His jaw tightened. “She cut out a section of my kidney, took some muscle tissue, and created a clone of me.”
Lois put a hand on her forehead. If anything, she was trying to keep her brain from falling out. This was all too much to believe… and she had thought a flying man was radical. Now they were talking about clones. “How is that even possible?”
Clark shook his head. “I don’t know. What I do know is that three years ago, Jory was left on my parent’s stoop with a note. The note explained what he was, and she even claimed responsibility for his creation. Imagine that - claiming responsibility like some terrorist outfit.”
Lois didn’t say it aloud, but in her mind the terrorist analogy wasn’t far from the impression she was getting from Lana’s activities. “If she cloned you, why would she go through the trouble of leaving the baby with your parents? Did she feel remorseful about what she did? Did she think she had killed you?”
“After my near death experience, I left to travel the world. I didn’t want to be close to another person. I sought out isolated regions of the earth, places where I wouldn’t have to come into contact with another human being. I tried to disappear. I tried to stay away, but I couldn’t stand by and watch people die. Eventually, I came out of hiding and started freelance reporting. When Lana delivered Jory to my folks, I had been publicly reporting for years. She knew that I was alive.”
“As far as remorse,” he said, his mouth curled as if in distaste, “I wish I could believe it. But I can’t. I would never want to see her again – but Jory is sick and she’s the only one who knows enough about his – about *my* - genetic makeup to provide him any hope of living.” He sighed, reigning in his anger once again. “You didn’t know how right you were when you said he didn’t have parents... He was a year and a half old when my parents asked me to come home to stay. They wanted me to be a father… I just… I don’t know how. What was he? My twin? My son? It’s why I wouldn’t let them name him after me. Two copies of the same coin, except for him – time is limited.”
He sighed. “How could that be fair? How could I accept that? How could I not do everything I could to save him? I’m trying to save myself.”
Lois faced forward, staring blankly off into the distance in front of her. A clone.
A clone with apparently fatal flaws.
If Lana had not sent the child to the Kents because of guilt over attacking their son, then what was her purpose?
Lois swallowed and blinked back from her wildly spinning thoughts. “You have some leads on where she could be?” She couldn’t even say the woman’s name aloud. It would be like voicing a curse.
Clark ran a hand through his hair. “I have what I hope will be the seeds of a trail. There is some information about a female scientist matching her description and potential research topics in London. I want to go there and see what I can dig up, ask around… uncover. There’s even a chance that I’ll bring Superman into the mix. He may be able to get answers Clark Kent cannot.”
~.~
That afternoon, Lois was the one who pulled the disappearing act. There was just so much that she had to think about that she couldn’t go back to the newsroom. There was just no way she would have been able to concentrate on anything else.
Hours after she and Clark had parted ways at the Planet’s entrance, Lois arrived at the door to Clark’s apartment. When he answered her knock, she met his gaze and gave him a small smile. It was meant to show support, not pity. Pity was not what he needed right now.
“Come in,” Clark said when he opened the door. “He’s been on pins since I told him you were coming.”
Lois stepped into the apartment and laughed at the sight before her. The dark-haired little boy was spinning in circles in the area in front of the steps that led up to the door. Lois shook her head and walked down the steps, lowering to sit on the bottom one so he could see her.
Jory must have noticed that someone new was in his peripheral because he stopped spinning so he could look up at her – he wobbled and promptly fell on his butt.
Lois could tell when Jory’s world finally stabilized because his eyes uncrossed and he was able to focus on her face. The big grin that she had fallen in love with was back in place, and she caught him when he launched himself into her arms.
Words and language were not necessary between them as Lois and Jory reconnected. He was just as happy to hug her tightly around the neck as she was to hold him.
Lois looked up at Clark. “I know that what she did to you was a violation, and I can understand you not knowing how to connect at first, but he’s here, Clark. People are made unique by the experiences they grow up with – not just by their biological composition. He’s not you. He’s not an echo.” She pulled back from the little boy and brushed the hair off of his forehead affectionately. “He’s Jory.”
She smiled at the little boy sweetly and then looked up at Clark. “You *are* his father… You just have to want to be.”
Clark nodded sedately. “I know. At least, I’m trying to know. I kept telling myself that it would all be easier when I fixed him. I save people every day…” He trailed off and cleared his throat. “Anyway, I should be going.”
He pulled a key out of his pocket and handed it to her. “His bag is on his bed, but in case you need anything that I forgot to pack, you have the key, so come over if you need to. You have my parent’s number and my pager number, so if anything happens…” He made the flying hand signal. “I can be back instantly.”
He nodded again. “Okay, so… yeah. I don’t show him Superman just in case, you know, so I’m going to change outside.”
Lois pushed herself to her feet while holding Jory against her side as Clark opened the front door. “You’ll find her, Clark. You’ll find her, and you’ll find a way to stop whatever it is that is causing his attacks. First, you have to believe it.”
“If all goes well.” Clark met her gaze and smiled weakly. “I’ll see you both in a few days.”
~.~
Lois pulled the covers back on her bed and sat down. She smiled as she thought about the evening she’d spent with Jory. She had been amazed to see all of what he had stocked in his overnight bag and was sure Clark hadn’t known the little boy had gone behind him. Jory had hidden toys in every single pocket. The apartment’s guest room had been literally transformed into his own territory.
Even though she hadn’t been able to have contact with him over the past week, Lois had thought of the boy often. She had continued with her sign language lessons out of nostalgia, and to her satisfaction, the lessons and videos had paid off. She was finding it much easier to communicate with the child. To top it off, she was experiencing none of the foul moods and tantrums Clark had warned her about.
Jory was just a happy little boy, and there was nothing not to love about him… except she didn’t love the fact that he had some silent killer in the cells of his body, waiting for the right time to pounce. She had noticed that he was starting to tug at his ears, something she hadn’t seen him do before. It was something she noted to ask Clark about later.
Catching the sight of movement out of the corner of her eye, Lois turned to face the bedroom door. Jory was standing in the middle of the doorframe watching her. Chocolate the bear was tagging along; dragged by one fuzzy arm.
<Not sleep?> she signed to him.
Jory’s expression was pensive as he glanced over his shoulder toward his room. <Dark room> he replied.
Lois chuckled at the pouty look he was giving her. Though she had left the hall light on for him, she had somewhat expected to see him in her doorway at some point that night. He might have had his own bed at Clark’s apartment, but it was situated right next to Clark’s. Since the move to Metropolis, Jory had never slept in a room alone.
Lois tried to imagine how she could feel secure in a soundless world… She would only be able to manage if she could compensate with sight and touch. <Come here,> she signed, patting the bed next to her. <Me not want sleep alone.>
Smiling, Jory scuttled over to the bed, sliding in his footy pajamas instead of walking. She helped him climb onto the bed, and they both settled against the pillows. He held Chocolate out for her to kiss and then tucked the bear under the covers on the other side of him.
After the bear was situated, Jory focused his big eyes back on Lois. <You leave me?>
“No,” Lois said aloud, following it with the sign. “Of course not.” <Why I leave?>
Jory looked away and shrugged.
Lois put her hand on his chin and guided him to face her again. <Lois love Jory.>
The child smiled widely and reached out to take her hand. With his two small hands, he shaped her fingers into the universal sign for ‘I love you:’ the thumb, forefinger, and pinkie up, and the other two down.
“I knew that one,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes playfully.
Jory’s nose scrunched as he made his little grunt infused laugh. Then he made the three finger sign back.
Lois awoke to the sound of crying and leaned over to switch on the lamp that was on the small dresser beside her bed. When she looked over at Jory, he was curled into the fetal position and holding his ears. Tears sprang to her eyes as gathered him against her chest and began singing.
All she knew was that whatever it was that was causing this pain the little boy was going through… it had to end.
~.~
tbc
