CHAPTER 19
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Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success, and above all: love. -- Swami Vivekananda
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Saturday
When Lois arrived at Clark’s apartment the next afternoon, the only one that was ready to go was Jory. The little boy was waiting beside the front door with his shoes on the wrong feet when Clark let her in.
Clark held up a finger and started walking back toward the kitchen. “They’re almost done,” he threw over his shoulder.
Lois looked down at Jory with a questioning expression. Then with a shrug, she smiled and crouched so she would be face level with him. <Hi baby.>
Jory grinned and wrapped his arms around her neck, kissing her cheek before laying his head on her shoulder.
Lois kissed his hairline and rose to her feet, settling Jory on her hip while she walked into the kitchen. She knew she didn’t have to carry him around, but she usually did for the first few minutes they were together – she felt that it was their way of saying hello.
“Whoa, what happened in here?” she asked, taking in the numerous mixing bowls and silverware scattered around the cabinet surfaces.
“You never go to a dinner at someone’s house without bringing something,” Clark replied as he pulled a baking tray out of the oven. “My mother gave me a recipe.”
Lois looked at what was on the baking tray and wondered what the recipe was meant to be for. “You made…” – she made a leap of logic from the general shapes – “... cookies?”
Clark frowned at the pan as if in question of what they were himself. “Try one,” he offered, pointing to a container that held what must have been the first batch.
“Oh… well, okay.” She picked a cookie up and held it toward Jory so he could take a bite.
Jory pursed his lips together and ducked his head against her shoulder. Wondering if that was a warning, Lois took a bite.
“Well?” Clark was looking at her expectantly.
She felt her eyes begin to water. “Mmmh.”
He looked doubtful. “I’ll get you some milk. Cookies always taste better with milk.”
“Mh mmmhmmm, mmm.” She looked down at Jory to find that his face was scrunched in empathy. Lois decided at that moment that she would always trust the kid first.
Clark handed her a glass of milk and she gladly put the cookie down on the counter so she could accept the drink. After swallowing the bite and taking a long draw from the glass, she put it down next to the cookie.
“How much salt did the recipe call for?” she asked, struggling to keep her face neutral.
“A pinch,” Clark answered, looking a little confused.
“And, uh, what does a pinch look like?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t have any measurement tools for a pinch so I poured.”
“Yeah,” Lois retorted with an amused snort, “you did.”
“So how do they taste?”
Lois arched an eyebrow. “Did you taste them?” When he shook his head, she tried again. “Did you taste the batter?”
“No… See this is why I don’t cook.”
Lois laughed at his defeated expression. “Don’t give up! It just takes practice... and patience…” She nodded at his expression. “Okay, I see your point. Look, don’t worry about it. I’m sure my parents would appreciate us being on time more than us bearing gifts.”
Clark frowned and turned to his refrigerator, opening the door and peering inside. “I can’t go empty handed.”
Lois sighed at the resurgence of the Kent manners. “Okay, how about this. We can stop at LuLu’s Diner on the way and get some of their homemade potato salad. It’s the best in the city. You don’t have to cook it, and we know that everyone will eat it. Win-win.”
Clark reluctantly released the refrigerator door. “Okay. Let me just go change my shirt and we can go.”
When he had left the room, Lois set Jory on the counter and reached for the Velcro straps on his shoes so she could switch them around. “Give me a warning next time, okay buddy?” <Bad food.>
Jory nodded in agreement. <You food better> he signed, and then made a sign that she hadn’t seen before.
From the expression on his face she could a good guess at what it meant. She made it back and laughed, giving him a conspiratorial wink. “You’re absolutely right about that.”
~.~
Jory ran to the front door of the Lane house with familiar exuberance. When Ellen pulled the door open, he waved happily. <Hi Lois mommy!>
Laughing, Ellen crouched to accept his hug. “Hello Bug,” she said, tickling his neck with her nose.
After they had greeted properly, she released him and stood up. Jory slid past her and ran into the house to find Sam. “And hello to you, Mr. Kent. I’m so glad you could make it.”
“It’s Clark, please,” he requested, reaching out to shake Ellen’s hand.
Lois rolled her eyes at the exchange. Ellen liked to challenge Clark’s overly polite tendencies when she got the chance. She really couldn’t blame her mom, though. Before she had gotten him to relax around her, Lois had often done the same thing. “Clark and Jory brought a dish,” Lois entered, holding up the saran-covered serving bowl in offering as Clark stepped inside.
“Well, that was nice of Clark and Jory,” Ellen responded with a wide smile. “And what did you bring, Lois?”
Lois gave her mom a look. “Myself.”
“Hmmm.” Ellen gave her daughter a once over. “I don’t know…”
“…and I brought Clark and Jory,” Lois amended with a smirk.
“Oh, in *that* case, entrance granted.” The older woman waved Lois inside and embraced her in a one armed hug before closing the door. “Everything’s set up on the deck. Come on.”
When they got to the back door, Lois did a double take. A miniature soccer goal had been set up on the far end of the yard and Jory was kicking a little ball toward it. As she and her mother moved to the patio table, Lois was glad to see that Clark was conversing with her father next to the grill. She laughed to herself at the hopeful thought that he might actually pick up a few pointers.
“What’s so funny?” Ellen asked, setting the potato salad on the table and removing the plastic covering.
“Oh, I was just thinking… You know what? It’s not important. What can I help you with?”
Ellen turned her head to see what her daughter’s gaze had just been focused on. “Well, I need to bring the rest of the stuff out of the kitchen. The drinks are already in the cooler but I’ve got the wine on ice… oh, and the juice boxes are in the fridge. Here, I’ll come with you.”
Throughout dinner, Ellen kept an interested eye on her daughter’s interactions. Clark had never been around any of the times Lois had brought Jory over, so it surprised her a little to see just how much Lois took care of him when his father was present. She had known that Lois’s attachment to the boy was extensive since the first time she’d been introduced to the adorable child.
Lois sat in between Jory and Clark and helped the little boy eat by cutting up his meat and making his plate. Ellen also noticed that Jory seemed to be just as attached to Lois; going to her for his needs even when it meant he had to walk past Clark.
Mentally, Ellen had begun a list of things to rethink on later. There was the way that Lois buttered a roll and placed it on Clark’s plate before he had even reached for one. There was the way that Lois fixed Clark’s cup of coffee when they were eating desert after the main meal had finished. And then, there was the way that Lois had risen from the table to stand next to Clark when he returned from taking Jory to the bathroom.
But all of those things flew out of Ellen’s head when Lois, standing next to Clark and fondly stroking her fingers through Jory’s hair as he perched in his father’s arms, said, “We have an announcement to make.”
The only response Ellen could give was to lower her spoon and sit up straighter.
Lois’s gaze rose to meet Clark’s and she smiled a smile that Ellen wasn’t sure she had seen on her child before. “We won the Pulitzer for the Cyphren series.”
By the time Lois turned to face them, Ellen was breathing again, and Sam, she noticed, was no longer pale.
“That’s great, Honey,” Sam stammered, pushing his chair back so he could stand up. “Congratulations. It’s an amazing accomplishment.”
Ellen pushed her chair back as well and laughed when Sam embraced Lois in celebration – apparently Jory hadn’t wanted to be left out and was leaning out of Clark’s arms so he could join in on the hug. Clark had been forced to move closer so as not to drop him.
Ellen pushed her husband out of the way, and caught Jory as he clambered the rest of the way out of Clark’s arms. “Congratulations to both of you,” Ellen said, rising to her tiptoes to kiss Clark’s cheek and then Lois’s. “And of course you too,” she told Jory, kissing his nose. “We should celebrate with a game of shootout!”
~.~
“What do you have against dishwashers?” Lois asked as she rinsed the plate she had just cleaned and handed it to her mother.
“I don’t have anything against them as long as they have two hands and two eyes that they can use to make sure the dishes are no longer dirty,” Ellen replied succinctly.
“You have a perfectly good dishwashing machine right here and yet you have me cleaning up after dinner,” Lois teased. It was an old argument. Ellen just didn’t trust her dishes to a machine.
“*Perfectly good* is a matter of opinion.”
Lois chuckled and gazed out of the kitchen window. In the backyard, Jory was trying to kick the little soccer ball past Clark, who was towering above the little goal. Lois rinsed the last plate and handed it to her mother before reaching for another towel to dry her hands. “I’ll be right back.”
She stopped by the refrigerator before heading through the patio door. “Daddy, you really shouldn’t smoke those things,” she said as she walked up to the chaise lounge her father was reclining in.
“I’m not smoking it,” Sam growled in reply, pulling the unlit cigar to his nose for a sniff. “Your mother allows me to hold one now and then.” He saw what she was carrying and smiled. “Is that for me?”
Instead of responding, Lois just smirked and walked to the deck railing. When she caught Clark’s attention and waved him over, he signed something to Jory and jogged to her.
“I thought you might be thirsty,” she said, handing him the bottle of beer.
“I am, thanks,” he answered, accepting the offered drink with a grin. “You would think he’d be tired by now.”
Lois tucked her hands in her back pockets and smiled out at the little boy whose capacity for energy seemed to go against the norm. She shook her head. “He’s just excited that you’re playing with him,” she replied softly. She arched an eyebrow and gave him a brief but pointed look before backing away.
When she returned to the kitchen, her mother had a serious expression on her face. “We need to talk.”
Lois was caught off guard by the tone. “Oh… okay.” Frowning, she copied her mother’s pose and leaned against the opposite counter. “What’s wrong?”
“Well, for starter’s, I’m a little confused.”
Lois turned that over in her mind for a few moments. “…Confused about?”
Ellen’s brow furrowed. “What’s going on?”
“That’s kind of what I was wondering,” Lois replied with an amused chuckle. “I’m sorry. I don’t really know what we’re talking about.”
“We’re talking about the fact that you have inserted yourself into a life that’s not yours to live.”
Lois’s eyes widened. “Wait, what? A life that’s not mine to live? That doesn’t make sense.”
Ellen sighed. “We’re talking about your partnership with Clark Kent. You’ve known him for, what, over half of a year?”
Lois nodded distractedly. “Yeah, so?”
“Honey, there’s a little boy outside who thinks you’re his mother.”
Lois looked down; mildly ashamed. She really hadn’t fought that as much as she could have. “I know… that’s really a misunderstanding. To be fair, I don’t think he really thinks that, he just…”
“What happens when his real mother shows up?” Ellen interrupted.
“That’s not going to happen…”
“That’s not the point I’m trying to make, here, Lois, and I think you know that.”
Lois lifted her hands in frustration. “No, Mom. Honestly, I don’t have a clue as to what the point is.”
“I just don’t want to see you get hurt, and this road that you’re embarking upon… let’s just say that the outlook is not good.”
“The outlook? Mom, please speak to me straight without the metaphors and quasi-parables. I don’t get it.” She had no idea what her mother was trying to say, but the insinuations were right under the surface.
“You’re too attached to him.”
“Me?! I’m not the one who turned my backyard into a mini-soccer field.”
“I never had anyone to play soccer *with*,” Ellen countered. “Jory is a delightful little boy and I have never denied loving him.”
“Well neither have I!”
“What about his father?”
Lois scoffed. “Clark? He’s… my *partner*, Mom.”
“Lo, it’s obvious that he’s more than that.”
“Obvious to whom?” Lois took a breath and then lowered her voice. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re seeing things that aren’t there.”
“What I’m *seeing* - what I have seen over the past six or seven months – is my daughter investing a whole lot of time into a one-sided affair.”
“Affair?”
“Okay, maybe that was a poor choice of words,” Ellen admitted, crossing the room to stand next to Lois. She reached for her daughter’s hands. “You picked out his apartment. You pick up his child from daycare and take him home for sleepovers. You spend almost every waking moment with either him or his son. I’m afraid you’ve lost yourself in this… whatever you think it is.”
“He’s my partner,” Lois said again in a small voice. The whole conversation was throwing her off. There was no way her mother could understand the depth of what she and Clark were dealing with when she didn’t know the whole story – a story she wasn’t at liberty to share. “There’s nothing more going on than that… and if there *were*, isn’t that what you were encouraging back when you first met him?” she shot back in an accusatory manner.
Ellen nodded sadly. “That was months ago, before I knew that he was emotionally unavailable. I think Clark is a charming, polite, and intelligent young man – I’ve always thought that – but he doesn’t love you.”
Lois unconsciously flinched at the words.
After seeing the motion, Ellen gently placed a hand on the side of Lois’s face. “And it doesn’t seem to me that he wants to even try,” she finished softly.
Lois pulled from her mother’s grasp and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not about that. It doesn’t have anything to do with that. We’re not even… *I’m* not even…” She shook her head, unable to find the words to explain what was spiraling wildly through her brain at that instant.
Finally, Lois laughed at the absurdity of the situation. “Mom, this is more complicated than I can explain, and yet the simple explanation is that none of your concerns are warranted. I’m not *losing* myself or *inserting* myself somewhere I’m not supposed to be.”
She returned to her mother’s side and hugged her. “I know you are trying to look out for me, and I love you for it… but everything is going to be okay. I promise.”
Ellen sighed and hugged Lois tightly. “If you say so, Sweetie.”
Lois pulled away and smiled brightly. “I do! Now, lets talk about D.C. Perry says the hotel where the awards ceremony is being held has a number of rooms blocked off. We shouldn’t have a problem reserving a room for you and Dad, but we should make the arrangements as soon as possible.” She gave her mom sly look. “You *are* coming, right?”
Ellen mockingly tossed a towel at her. “Of course we’re coming.”
“Well, you better, because…” Lois started, laughing, as she turned to pick up the towel. Her words and jubilance faltered when she saw the empty beer bottle on the table behind the half wall that divided the kitchen into functional and eating areas. It hadn’t been there earlier… which meant that the person who had been carrying the bottle *had*.
“Damn,” she muttered, going over to pick it up.
“What’s wrong?” Ellen asked.
“Nothing,” Lois lied flatly. “I was just thinking that Lucy will probably want to share a room with me.”
~.~
Lois watched as Clark reached for the seat belt that secured Jory into the booster chair she had bought for her car.
<No. Sleep mommy house.>
Clark sighed. “Let’s go, Jory.”
<No! Mommy house,> the little boy signed again, leaning away from Clark’s hands.
“He’s really tired,” Lois observed. “He can stay the night with me, Clark. It’ll save you from the tantrum.”
Clark shook his head curtly.
“You could stay too if you’re having separation anxiety, you know,” she teased. Her smile died at his furious expression. “I was kidding,” she said under her breath.
He leaned further into the back seat and unbuckled Jory’s belt. The little boy kicked and wiggled in protest, but he was no match for Clark’s own determination.
She sighed and followed as Clark carried Jory into the apartment building. Clark set Jory down when they entered the apartment and immediately the little boy latched onto her legs.
<Mommy house please.>
<Not tonight> she signed back.
Jory pouted and ran toward the bedroom in tantrum mode.
Lois walked to the living room and sat down. Clark remained standing; a shadowed expression on his face.
“Are we going to talk about it?” Lois asked.
“Talk about what?”
She sighed. She was *so* not in the mood for another one of these conversations tonight. And it had all started out so promising – a good wholesome family barbeque dinner, excitingly good news to celebrate… “Talk about whatever was on your mind that kept you from speaking to me the entire ride from my parent’s house,” she answered tiredly.
“There’s nothing to be said,” he retorted.
“Nothing to be said,” Lois repeated. “You know, Clark. The trouble with eavesdropping is that you don’t get the context or the entire story.”
He scoffed. “I got the context, all right, and your mother was right.”
Lois’s eyes narrowed as she gazed up at him. Suddenly she became aware of what he was leading up to. “Don’t do this, Clark.” She said it so quietly that it was almost a plea.
He either didn’t hear her words or chose to ignore them. “I think it’s time we put an end to the charade. It’s time for you to get your life back.”
“Clark,” she said warily as she slowly rose to her feet, “You didn’t hear the whole thing.”
“Lois,” he answered, matching her tone mockingly, “I heard enough to know that this farce has gone too far. I’m ending it. Right here and right now.” He fixed her with a deadly serious look – the one he normally used when he was wearing blue tights and said, “I have no intention of being in love with you.”
For the second time that night, Lois felt like she had been slapped with words. “This has nothing to do with love, you…” she closed her mouth before the swear words could come out. “If you hadn’t intruded upon a private conversation, you wouldn’t be making these baseless assumptions.”
“Regardless, they are mine to make. I think it would be best if we only maintained the professional partnership we are supposed to have.”
It was like a dagger to her heart. “Don’t do this, Clark. It’s not fair to me and it’s not fair to Jory.”
His face became impossibly more emotionless. “Jory is *my* responsibility. I should have been firmer about limiting his interaction with you when he first stated to get attached.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” Lois shot back. “You move him across the country, away from the people and places he’s known all of his life, and now you want to take him away from the one person who is not afraid of showing him affection.”
Clark’s eyes narrowed and a muscle in his jaw began to twitch. “You are not his…”
“I know!” Lois closed her eyes sharply, refusing to let the angry tears arise. “I know. Damnit, you don’t have to be so cruel.”
“Yeah, I kinda do.” He crossed his arms over his chest as if to emphasize the emotional withdrawal he was stimulating. “I need you to get the picture so you don’t keep coming back.”
“Wow… that is just… wow.” She hadn’t realized what an ass he really could be. It left her unnaturally speechless. “There are no words… After *everything*, this is how you thank me?”
He looked genuinely surprised. “Thank you? I never asked you for anything! You pushed your way into my life. You pushed me, you pushed Superman, you pushed Jory…”
“Wait a minute, *I* pushed Jory?” She tilted her head to the side incredulously. “Who was the one that gave the go ahead on the implant?”
Clark took a step forward. “The implant? I’m trying to *fix* him!” he declared angrily.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Lois countered, meeting his posture and tone. “He’s your *responsibility* and you want to *fix* him. It’s not the implant that I have a problem with, Clark. It’s your attitude.”
“My attitude?” he repeated in disbelief. “I want him to get the cochlear implant so that he will be able to hear. That’s optimism, Lois, in case you didn’t know.”
“You can call it whatever the hell you want to, but that doesn’t mean that it’s what it is! News flash, Smallville. Jory’s not your *responsibility*, he’s your son. And until you can suck up that deterministic ‘always the victim’ complex, you will *never* be able to give him what he deserves.”
Heated, she turned to walk away but didn’t make it two steps before she came back to finish her train of thought. “And as for *fixing* him. Let’s call it what it really is – not optimism, but guilt. You don’t say it, but I know why you won’t allow yourself to get attached to him. You’re afraid that he won’t make it, and you can’t stomach caring enough for someone because of the risk in losing them. You want him to get that implant so you can say that you did something to help him fit into your tweaked definition of normal before he died.”
Lois felt the heat rise in her face but was unable to stop now that she had broken open the dam. “Optimism would be believing that he won’t be the time bomb you think of him as.”
She felt a flicker of satisfaction at the surprised expression that flashed across his facial features. She knew him *so* much better than what he was aware of.
“Optimism,” she continued, “would be thinking that he has enough time left that a rash decision doesn’t need to be made. It’s so much more than just being able to hear, and you know that,” she admonished. “He already has a language; a language you didn’t even want to acknowledge. He doesn’t need you to *fix* his hearing, Clark. He needs you to accept and love him for who he is.”
Emotionally spent, she allowed her posture to sag and looked up at him.
“Are you done?” he asked flatly, and Lois could see that nothing she had said had even made a dent.
“Yeah,” she muttered. “And so are we.”
She called to Clark as he began moving toward the front door. “I mean it, Clark. This is it. I can’t keep doing the carousel with you.”
After a moment, he broke the lock of their gazes and pulled the front door open. Stepping to the side, he used his free hand to make a gallant gesture toward the opening. “Then, by all means, allow me to help you get off of the ride.”
~.~
tbc (...don't shoot the author)
