Still here. Got caught up in a few things or this would have been up before now. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

++++++

"This looks fantastic," Lois told Sara, her secretary. The front page of the Post was a far cry from the publications her work had been featured in, but to have control of even this small venture was a definite plus in her ever changing career. They talked over a few details, then Lois disappeared behind the door of her office.

Clark's curiosity got the better of him on the short trip to his hometown. He had Dar drop him off in the business district instead of on the farm. He stepped out of Smallville's only alley and onto the sidewalk. He was glad he'd chosen to wear his tunic. There was no way he could have been missed in just his black suit. He received a few awkward glances as it was, but thankfully no one asked any questions. He made the short walk to the community's only paper, noticing as he went that the little place had changed a bit since he'd been gone. There were a few more cars parked on the square than used to be, and off in the distance, he could see the signs of progress in the form of construction. He paused in front of the Post and took a deep breath. The last place he'd intended to go first was to see Lois, but Perry's strange behavior left little doubt that something strange was going on. And just maybe he should find out.

He was about to see Lois again and he was terrified.

<Just do it> he told himself as he turned the handle of the door and stepped inside the building.

"Good afternoon," came the friendly welcome of the woman behind the desk on the far wall. "May I help you?"

"I, ah, I'd like to see Lois Lane," Clark said in a rush, not trusting his voice.

"Sure. Just let me..."

"Sara, do you have those figures on the Hall...?" Lois had rushed into the room, papers in hand. She was intent on her documents when she first entered the room, but when she lifted her eyes, she stopped dead in her tracks.

Clark felt the blood rush from his face when his eyes met hers. Did she know that she was still the most beautiful woman alive?

Lois couldn't move, could barely breathe, yet her very soul seemed to sigh. She'd waited for this moment for so long and all she could do was stare. The man before her had changed. There was a sorrow behind his dark eyes that wasn’t there before. He’d aged a great deal, a deep sadness marred his expression. His hair was long, nearly touching his collar.

She stepped forward and reached out to touch the silky locks. "Your hair is..."

"I know. Way too long. I’ve been meaning to get it cut. I just haven’t had the time."

Immediately transported back to another time when they’d said those words, Lois was almost overwhelmed with emotion. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I was going to say stunning,” she whispered in his ear.

Breathe, he told himself. The instant she'd touched him his body had reacted, every nerve ending coming to life. His arms had lifted automatically to hold her, a natural reaction. Her voice hitched a bit causing him to lose every ounce of control he had left. He choked back a sob, then another before finally just giving in. Both cried softly as they held one another again at long last.

Lois reluctantly withdrew so she could look at him. Her hands glided over his face, his shoulders, down his arms. She had to make sure he was real.

Clark simply looked at her. He’d wanted nothing more than this simple pleasure since he’d left. Since before he’d left. He reached up to cup the side of her head. Her hair was short again, a style that seemed to make her even sexier than he remembered.

"Look at these clothes," she remarked as she slid her hands down his arms again and grasped his hands. He wore a sleek suit, with some sort of short robe over it.

"A tunic," he answered absently.

"I love the black."

"I miss the..." He suddenly realized they weren't alone. His eyes shifted toward Sara, conveying information to Lois silently.

She understood him completely. "This is Sara," she said to Clark as she looked at the other woman.

"Hi, Sara," Clark managed, remembering his manners. He would have shaken her hand, but Lois wouldn't let his go.

"Hold my calls," Lois said before she pulled him into her office.

Behind closed doors she pulled him back into another long hug. This moment... she'd lived for this moment every second of the last few years. They'd almost given up hope. And now... now he was here. He was alive. He was... holding her the way she'd longed for him to do nearly every night since he'd been gone. Silent tears began to roll down her face as she gave herself up to the repressed despair that had been her constant companion.

"You look great," Lois said when she finally drew away from the embrace, her hands running across his broad shoulders.

"So do you," he replied, a smile beginning to turn up the corners of his mouth.

Please don't smile yet, she pleaded silently. If you smile, I won't be able to tell you what I need to.

She backed away, out of his grasp. "It's been so long," she said so softly he almost missed it.

"Too long," he agreed. "I never meant it to be this long."

Lois looked back up from where her eyes had fallen on a picture that graced her desk. "You always meant to come back?"

"I'd briefly toyed with the idea of staying gone," he relented. She knew him way too well. In the end there was just way too many people that he could never stand to be away from forever.

"Things are different," she continued as she lifted the frame and held it against her chest.

"So I've been told." First Perry, now Lois. What was going on? And who's picture was in that frame? Did he really want to know?

Fresh tears filled Lois' eyes as she eased closer to Clark. "There's no easy way to say this," she went on and slowly held out the picture toward Clark.

"Lois, you don't have to..."

"Just take it, Clark, and look," she insisted.

His eyes glanced down at the offending object. He'd ached for this woman for years. He was still riding the high from just seeing her again. There was no way he'd ruin that by looking at a picture of her...

"Look at it!" She shook the item in front of his face.

"I don't want to see..." A picture of... a boy?!

"It's been so hard without you. Thank God we had your folks. That's why..."

The roaring in his head drowned out whatever else she said as he realized just who the boy in the picture must be. He stumbled backwards and dropped heavily onto the chair against the wall. "Oh, God!" His hand covered his mouth as he continued to stare at the image in Lois' hand.

She stepped closer, kneeling before him and placing the photo on his lap. "He's a precious, precious gift."

Clark had to blink a few times to clear his eyes. "He's... he's..."

"Your son," she whispered softly.

His trembling hands reached down to grasp the frame. His son! He'd known that of course, but to hear her say it was another matter.

"I was too late. You'd been gone for nearly a month when I found out."

Dark hair, beautiful brown eyes...

<He has Lois' nose.>

"We'd hoped for a message, anything to let us know you were alive, but nothing."

<He has my smile.> Clark's finger smoothed over the glass as if it somehow made the child more tangible. He reluctantly tore his gaze from the photograph when Lois touched his arm.

"He knows who you are. We've always talked to him about you, showed him pictures and videos."

Suddenly it was all too much. Clark shot to his feet and thrust the frame into Lois' hands. "This is too much," he nearly shouted. "I need air!"

"Clark!" She rushed after him, but it was no use. He took to the sidewalk at a full run after he burst through the front door. Lois glanced down at the picture again. "Oh, Clark." She'd known he'd be upset, but this wasn't a reaction she'd imagined.

****

Clark didn't stop running until he'd reached the bank of Slade's pond, a few miles from his parents' farm. Just a couple of short hours ago he'd been so happy to be home. Now, now he was... really confused.

He leaned over and placed his hands on his knees, heaving to catch his breath.

"Why?!" he shouted into the air. Life was so unbelievably unfair. Isolated his entire life, he'd found his place in the world at the Planet... and with Lois. His stupidity had caused him to walk away from that place, even if he'd never been able to turn away from that connection. Convinced it was the only option to keep her safe, he'd sacrificed his own happiness for her. But his actions had devastated her, pushed her to leave her home, her life. Two years he'd pined for her. Then in a glorious night of unbridled passion, he'd come home again.

Unbridled was right. They'd made love over and over without taking precautions. It had never occured to him at the time. There had only been one thing on his mind that night- filling his very being with as much of Lois as he could.

He straightened and looked out across the lake.

<A son!> "A son!" He said loudly. That was more than a little surprising. He’d had no idea if it was even possible for him to father a child. Apparently he was completely compatible with Earth women.

He continued to walk as he thought about what Lois must have gone through without him here. Had she realized the true extent of her strength?

He’d missed so much.

A grin escaped as he thought about how radiant she must have looked in the last months of her pregnancy.

<I’ll bet she was gorgeous.>

He had no doubt that Lois handled pregnancy and now motherhood the same way she handled investigations. She didn’t know how to fail.

He'd been gone for a long time; his son wasn't exactly a baby. He'd missed everything!

How could he be someone's father when he didn't even know if he'd ever be whole again? So many things had gone wrong on that wretched rock. Death had been all around him.

He walked onto the dock that stretched out into the calm water. With a sigh, he eased down onto the worn boards. When he closed his eyes, the image of a grinning boy greeted him.

<He's adorable!> Of course he is; he's half Lois.

What's he like? When was he born? Is he a good child?

And Lois? Did she have a difficult pregnancy? Delivery?

"I don't even know his name," Clark whispered as his tears began to fall.

How in hell did he step into this life? This life that had been created without him.

****

Lois paced back and forth across the front porch. She'd looked for Clark everywhere with no luck. Where was he?

She stopped when she noticed the man in her thoughts making his way slowly up the driveway. He stopped at the end of the walk, looking for all the world completely lost.

"I, ah, I..." He looked looked around at his childhood home. There'd been a few changes. A sizable addition stretched both out to one side of the house and up. The barn had also received a facelift. Cows now grazed in the surrounding fields, only one still contained wheat. "I..." he stopped again, trying to control his emotions. "I don't even know his name," he managed after a moment.

"Lane," Lois answered softly as she made her way down the stairs toward him.

"Lane," he repeated softly.

"Jonathan Lane Kent," she went on. "I couldn't bare to call him Clark."

He nodded, as if he understood, even though he was completely lost. "I have no idea what to do here," he managed miserably.

"You don't have to do a thing. I know this is hard..."

"You have no idea." He dropped his head back, once again fighting to maintain control.

He was doing exactly what she knew he'd do- blaming himself for leaving them. "You couldn't have known."

"Lois," he told her as his gaze met hers. "I honestly had no idea I could impregnate an Earth woman. My physiology is so much different."

"Well, it seems you're completely compatible."

He smirked dryly. That was an understatement.

"I'm so sorry you had to come home to this."

"Sorry? This is not a... a horrible thing, Lois. It's just..." He gestured with his hand, as if she'd understand what he meant when he didn't even know himself.

"So much to grasp," she finished for him and took another tentative step toward him. "We'd almost given up hope," she whispered.

"Thinking of home is what kept me going," he told her. "Thinking of you kept me sane." He looked directly at her when he said that. Life was much too short and far too precious to mence words. He'd never make those mistakes again.

"Oh, Clark," she gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.

He took a step closer to her. "There have been times when I swear I felt you with me." Another step. "My beautiful Lois," he said and lifted his hand to cup her face.

She held his hand to her cheek and offered him a watery smile. "My super man."

Clark sighed and pulled her to his chest. Once again they clung to one another. He turned his face into her neck and inhaled deeply, filling his senses with one of the smells he treasured most.

"I've missed you so much," he told her.

"And I've missed you," she answered and held him just bit closer.

{{{{That's what he'd told her that night. They'd sat facing one another on either end of the window seat in his room, rubbing each other's feet.

"It was so hard to breathe when I first left Metropolis," she said in answer to his declaration. "You were always right there with me." She placed her hand over her heart. "You'd be surprised all the places you have been. I've seen you in Utah, waiting next to me with bated breath as a madman held his entire family hostage. Down in Georgia, picking peaches. On the banks of the Nile river; knee deep in snow in Moscow; on the waves in Austrailia; a desolate village in South Africa. No matter where I chose to be I'd see you... everywhere."

How many times had he asked himself why he let her walk away again?}}}}

After what seemed like an eternity, Clark drew back to look at her. "I'm sorry for leaving you both."

"You have nothing to be sorry for. You didn't know."

"I really wish I had." He smoothed his hands up and down her arms, reluctant to lose contact with her. He looked past her toward the house.

"He's with your parents," she told him, knowing immediately what he wanted. "They went to Wichita to celebrate the end of the school year. Straight 'A' student," she bragged.

"Kindergarten?"

"He actually finished first grade. He was already reading when he started last fall, so we all decided he was too advanced and moved him up."

Clark couldn't help but grin as pride welled within him. He lifted his hand and tucked a stray hair behind Lois' ear.

"I'm sorry he's not here."

"When was he born?" Clark asked as if he hadn't heard her.

"August twentieth. He was early."

"Was there complications?"

"No. He was incredibly healthy, just small."

Clark smoothed his hands across her back as he listened to her talk about his son.

Their son, he reminded himself. He'd created life with the only woman he'd ever loved.

And every sleepless night he'd spent dreaming of this woman crystalized behind his lids. He lifted his hands to gently hold her face between his large hands, then leaned forward to kiss her softly. It was as if his entire world spiraled into that single moment.

Lois' hands grasped the back of his tunic tightly and she sighed against his mouth. <<Please don't let him stop.>> It had been so long since they'd seen one another, yet he was more familiar to her than nearly anyone she knew.

Led by his raging, repressed libido, Clark thrust his tongue into her mouth, quickly relearning her depths.

"Clark," Lois said with a whine, pulling away from their kiss. They just couldn't do this again. Not like this. Things needed to be said, hashed out. She needed to know other things, important things.

It took a moment for the cloud to lift, and he stood there staring at her dumbfounded.

"Not like this," Lois began. "We did this before..."

"I don't regret a second of that night," Clark reminded her.

"Neither do I, but you've just returned home and learned you have a nearly six year old son." She stopped when she saw the pain in his eyes. "Clark, don't do this." She reached out to hold him by his arm- he looked as if he was about to bolt.

"I understand, Lois. Like you said, I've been gone a long time."

"It's not like that. There is nothing I want more in this world than you. It took me a long time to realize just how vital you are to me, but you've been gone a long time."

Clark thrust a hand through his hair in frustration. What the hell was wrong with him? She was right. There was so much for him to process- for both of them to process. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize for a thing." She smoothed her hand up and down his arm. "What do you say we go inside and get something to drink?"

He sighed heavily. "I think I could use something."

"Good." She wrapped her arm around his and they walked slowly toward the house.

"So, what time will everyone else be back?"

"Probably six or so." They climbed the stairs in silence, both simply reveling in the other's presense. "How 'bout keep me company while I cook?"

"You cook?" he asked in surprise.

"Watch it, Kent. I'll have you know I've become a very good cook."

"This I have to see," he announced with a smile in his voice as he pulled the door open. She laughed softly and he almost felt like crying again. It was so good to be home.

****

Clark had made his way around the den at least ten times looking at all the pictures of his son, of his family. Over six years of images- six years of things he'd missed. Lois' pregnancy- she'd been adorable. He grinned at the sight of her protruding belly. The birth of his son. He lifted a frame from the shelf. It was of Lois holding their new baby. He sighed, then replaced the picture.

There was a photo of his father standing beside what appeared to be a new tractor. Another of Jonathan riding Lane on that tractor.

Lane. His name is Lane.

He looked at another image of Martha holding out her hands to a waddling toddler.

And they went on and on- the proof that he'd missed a few very treasured years.

Lois watched him closely, unable to believe he was actually here. She picked up their coffee and walked over to him.

"I've missed so much," Clark whispered.

Lois held out his mug to him. "There's so much more to share. And we have tons of videos. I know it's not the same..." She trailed off when Clark turned back to look at the pictures again.

"At least I'll be able to see what I've missed... hear him talk, laugh." He couldn't believe how much this hurt. He looked down into the dark liquid in his cup, happy to have something else to concentrate on for a second. It was strange to see a drink be any color but blue. He inhaled the strong aroma, then took a large gulp. It was hot, but it was so good.

"Good?" Lois asked as she watched him savor the coffee.

"Very," he replied and took another gulp. He turned to survey the new changes to the farmhouse. "You guys have done a little remodeling."

"A whole wing for your parents. Your dad had his knee replaced. It was impossible for him to get upstairs."

He faced her again, concern written across his face. "Is he okay?"

"Better than ever. No more suffering with arthritis pain."

Clark nodded. "And Mom? How's she?"

"Full of more energy than that boy of ours!"

"Boy of ours," he repeated softly.

"Sounds strange, huh?"

"Incredibly." Clark moved toward the entrance of the hallway that led to the new wing of the house.

"We remodeled the upstairs rooms, too. I have a suite of sorts. Lane has your old room."

"When did you move out here?"

"Right after I found out I was pregnant. I cried, I whined to your folks, then I turned in my resignation."

"I never thought you'd leave the Planet." He moved around and smoothed a finger across one of her Kerth crystals. His coveted Bailey ring was encased in a plastic box and proudly displayed among Lois' awards. It appeared that he'd been part of this life he'd missed after all.

"I never thought I'd be anyone's mother either." She just watched him explore this strange new world.

"Did you..." He stopped to finish his coffee. "Did you ever think of...?"

"Never! That was never a possibility."

"I couldn't have blamed you," he said as he looked down into his empty cup.

"It just wasn't a choice."

Clark nodded, relieved it hadn't been a choice. He would have literally died if he'd found out she'd been pregnant and had aborted. He looked up. "I, ah, I'd really like to take a shower."

"Oh!" Lois rushed over to the corner of the den. "Someone named Dar left this for you." She pulled a bag across the floor. It was way too heavy for her to pick up.

"Is he gone?"

"Yeah. Said there was nothing else he could do here."

He nodded again as he leaned to heft the strap of the bag over his shoulder. "Is the bathroom in the hall still there?"

"Yeah," she told him with a smile. "There's fresh towels, wash clothes, soap. You can put your things in the first room on the left at the top of the stairs."

He said nothing, just headed for the stairs. He kept his eyes focused ahead of him. There would be plenty of time to see everything. Right now all he wanted to do was shut himself away in private so he could get a handle on his emotions.

"Clark?"

Reluctantly he looked back at Lois. "Yeah?"

"It really is good to have you home," she told him, a small smile gracing her lips.

Nothing but a slight shake of his head. He didn't trust his voice. When he'd closed himself off in the bathroom, the warm spray of water cascading down his back, he finally allowed himself to breathe again. Once more the tears came.