~~ Sunday ~~
Evan shot upright from his pillow.
He stared into the darkness.
His mind whirled.
What if ...
He shook his head, trying to draw comprehension from the haze of sleep.
What if Esther knew Clark?
What if that was why she had been so insistent on giving him the letter?
What if ...
What if she didn't just *know* him?
What if she'd raised him?
What if *Miss* Wallace was *Mrs* Kent?
Part 17
Evan held the unopened envelope in his hand and stared at it.
The demands of being an agent had long ago dispelled his misgivings - instilled by his mom - about opening correspondence meant for others.
But this letter had been written by a gracious lady. A lady who was possibly trying to contact her son after years of forced separation.
To open *her* letter seemed wrong.
Before, he had been merely curious about her. Now, he *needed* to know who she was and why she wanted to contact Superman. But he couldn't say anything that might lead her to suspect that he had any knowledge beyond what could be reasonably expected for the average space facility security guard. As much as he felt drawn to 'Esther Wallace', his first loyalty was to Clark and Lois and the protection of their secret.
He owed them that much.
With regards to his guest, there were three possibilities.
Esther Wallace could be exactly as she proclaimed - a grateful woman wanting to thank Superman.
Or she could be someone from Clark's past trying to re-establish contact with him.
Or she could be a reporter. Or a rogue agent. Or someone hired by a criminal group wanting to find out more about the man with superhuman speed and strength.
She didn't *look* like someone with inimical intentions, but Shanti hadn't looked like an opportunistic, two-timing, baby-deserting jezebel.
Had Esther's naiveté been an act? An act to inveigle herself into his home in the hope of gaining information?
Had he been scammed again?
Evan replayed their conversations in his mind. Other than her initial request that he give the letter to Superman, she had shown no inclination to talk about the superhero. If she had come seeking information, if she had somehow discovered that he had been one of the guards assigned to Superman, wouldn't she have asked more questions?
Perhaps. But, as he knew, the best information was often harvested after sowing a lot of patience. Develop trust. Develop familiarity. Wait until people felt comfortable talking. And then listen. Listen some more. And only then, ask questions.
He had to read the letter. He didn't want to, but he had to.
Evan rose from the bed and put on his robe. He put the envelope into his pocket and went downstairs to the kitchen. There, he set the kettle to boil. When it had, he poured the water into a cup and returned to his bedroom. The steam from the cup melted enough of the seal that he was able to open the envelope without causing significant damage.
He pushed open the flap and hesitated - strangely disinclined to flout the trust that Esther had shown in him.
But if her story were true, her letter would contain nothing of importance.
He needed information. If Esther *had* known Clark, he couldn't let her leave. Not if there was a chance that she intended to use her knowledge to hurt Clark. But if she was his mother, Evan had a duty to see her safely returned to her son.
If she just disappeared again ...
Evan took the paper from the envelope and unfolded it.
The handwriting was smooth and neat, the message short.
Dear Superman:
Thank you for saving our planet. I hope you have recuperated well from your ordeal. Don't forget there is nothing like buttermilk for what ails you.
In gratitude,
Esther Wallace
Evan re-read the note. He dismissed the first sentence as containing nothing noteworthy and concentrated on the second sentence. Was there something there?
Your ordeal? The public hadn't been give specific details of Superman's need to recover, but it was a reasonable assumption that the mission into space had been an ordeal.
He moved to the last sentence.
Was there a hidden meaning? Or was it just a motherly countrywoman dispensing advice to someone from a younger generation? Her clothes suggested she had come from a rural area. The Kents came from Kansas.
The note told him nothing conclusive. If there was a sinister reason behind her appearance at EPRAD's gates, it was to be expected that she - or the people who had sent her - would be smart enough not to put anything revealing in the note.
Evan read it one final time, committing every word to memory. He held it up to the light, looking for indentations that could perhaps convey a secret message. There were none.
He refolded the note and carefully slipped it back into the envelope. He ran a glue stick along the flap and pressed it closed.
What now?
Evan picked up his cell phone and left his bedroom. Before descending the stairs, he popped his head in Abi's room and saw that both of his daughters were safely asleep.
In the farthest corner of the kitchen, he dialled Scardino. The phone rang out. He dialled again, and a few seconds later, Daniel's sleepy voice came down the line. "Do you know what time it is?"
Evan automatically checked the clock on the wall. "Ten past four," he whispered into the phone.
"This had better be important," Daniel growled.
"What do you know about the missing person?"
"What miss- Oh, *that* missing person."
"Yes. Have you seen a photo?"
"No."
"Has anyone? Menzies?"
"No. Why?"
"A woman came to the base yesterday with a letter."
"Another one? They've been collecting them. Apparently, they've filled half a room."
"I know that," Evan said, keeping a rein on his exasperation. "But this letter was hand-delivered."
"There have been plenty of those, too."
"This one was delivered by a lady, probably in her early fifties."
"What does the letter say?"
"Nothing unexpected," Evan admitted.
"She could be a reporter."
"She could be. She could also be you-know-who."
There was a moment of silence as, presumably, Daniel contemplated that possibility. "Where is she now?"
"I brought her home."
"You what?!"
"She didn't have anywhere to go," Evan said, feeling defensive. "She said she wanted to catch a bus, but it was getting late."
"Your first obligation is to maintain confidentiality."
"I know - but she doesn't know I know, so she's not going to admit to anything easily."
"Where's the letter?"
"I have it. I'm at home."
"I'm out of town," Daniel said. "I'll contact Menzies. He'll want the letter."
"When?" Evan hissed. "I need answers quickly."
"I'll call him now. He should be there in less than half an hour."
"What can he do? Even if he has the letter?"
"We know of another sample of writing that could be relevant. He can have them compared."
"That's probably not going to prove anything," Evan said grimly.
"It's all we have."
"Tell him to hurry." Evan hung up and listened intently. The whir of the fridge motor provided a low accompaniment to the soft drone of the heater, but there was no sound of movement.
He crept back up the stairs, always listening. At the top, he checked Abi's room again. Neither of the girls had moved.
As an agent, he probably should check that Esther was asleep, too.
But he couldn't.
She had shown remarkable trust in him. He couldn't breach that trust. Not until he knew a lot more about Esther Wallace and what she wanted from Superman.
||_||
"Eric?"
Eric tried to rouse himself from the depths of sleep. "What? Phoebe? You all right?"
"Your cell phone is ringing."
"Uh. Sorry." Eric lurched from the warmth of his bed and hurried into the next room. The call was from Scardino. "What do you have?"
"I don't have anything," Scardino replied. "But Evan Shadbolt has a letter that could be an attempt to reunite the family."
"From whom?"
"Possibly the missing person."
"Where is she now?"
"At his home. I said you'd go there and pick up the letter. If you take it to the widow who has seen the address written by the unknown female, you could ask her to compare the handwriting."
The clock on the wall had not yet reached four-thirty. It was going to be hours before it would be acceptable to knock on Mrs Deller's door. "OK," Eric agreed absently, ransacking his mind for a quicker and more reliable means to verify or refute this woman's identity. "But it's going to take some time."
"Shadbolt will know to try to detain her."
Eric grunted. "Leave it to me," he said.
"Thanks. Ah ... sorry to wake you."
Eric disconnected the call. A movement at the door caused him to look up. "Is everything all right?" Phoebe asked.
Was this the first time in their entire marriage that she had inquired about something related to his work? "Yeah," he said. "But I have to go out. You go back to bed."
Instead of turning, she stepped up him and rested her hand on his arm in a brief touch. "Take care," she said.
With that, she returned to the bedroom. Eric shook his head and forced his thoughts back to Martha Kent.
||_||
After Evan had dressed, he waited in the living room, out of sight of anyone upstairs but sufficiently close to the door that he would hear the softest of knocks.
He clutched the letter in his hand. What were the chances that Eric would be able to establish a conclusive identification from handwriting alone?
Minimal, he realised. And time was short.
He was going to have to question Esther. He doubted she would admit to anything easily, so his best shot was going to be attempting to expose a hole in her story.
He had to do it.
But it was going to feel like interrogating a friend.
||_||
Esther Wallace awakened. Within a few seconds, her initial disorientation passed as she remembered the kindness of Evan Shadbolt in offering her somewhere to stay overnight.
She'd had some misgivings about accepting the hospitality of a stranger - particularly a man, and a city person to boot. But he hadn't done one thing to cause her to question his trustworthiness.
Her greatest fears had not been to do with her safety, but about whether he would grill her regarding her resolve to deliver the note to Superman. Last night, she *had* been tired, but her primary reason for retiring early had been to evade further conversation with Evan.
He had seemed to accept her explanation about the note. She suspected that the restraint on his curiosity was due to him having things he would prefer not to discuss. Like the absence of a wife. And two daughters who bore not the slightest resemblance to him.
She hoped that the morning busyness of the family would forestall any questions that might have occurred to Evan overnight. If he asked her again to have coffee, she would refuse. If needed, she was willing to eat into her limited finances to buy a ticket on the earliest bus out of Metropolis.
The house was silent. Esther rose from the bed, wanting to shower early enough that she didn't disrupt the morning routine of her host family.
||_||
Evan heard the movement upstairs, coming from Layla's room. The door to the bathroom shut, and a few minutes later, he heard the sound of the shower.
He sprang to the front door and opened it.
Where the hell was Eric Menzies? Didn't he understand that time was limited?
Or perhaps he thought Evan could simply lock her up. Like they had with Clark.
Evan quashed those thoughts, knowing they stemmed from his own guilt, and turned his attention to what he needed to do now.
Esther was already up. She probably intended to make an early start. His time was short.
He had to remember that whoever she was and whatever she wanted, his first priority was to ensure that her appearance didn't jeopardise the happiness of Lois and Clark.
Realising that he had no ready excuse for loitering near his front door, he returned to the kitchen and tried to force his mind to think like an agent.
||_||
Eric Menzies arrived at Bessolo Boulevard and let himself into the huge warehouse. He unlocked the room where the contents of Neville's apartment had been stored. Turning on the light, he was met with large piles of haphazardly placed furniture, a jumble of disparate boxes, and stray household items.
He glared at the clutter, realising that if he had the entire day, he wouldn't be able to go through everything here.
But he didn't have all day.
He needed a shortcut. He was going to have to try to think as Neville had thought. Eric scowled. What had been important to Phoebe's nephew?
He had liked to kill. He had done it with a ferocity that was barbaric. He had a talent for weaselling out of the consequences of his actions - usually by blaming someone else.
There had been Malcolm's kitten.
And Phil Deller. And John Bortolotto.
And the attempted rape of Lois Lane.
But surely, his opportunities had been limited. At least, Eric hoped they had been limited.
In the long-passed days of her youth, Phoebe had enjoyed skiing. When she hadn't been able to ski, she had enjoyed reading about skiing.
Eric moved through the boxes, testing the weight of each. The third one he lifted was heavy; he opened it, and a torrent of nausea gushed through him.
On top was a magazine - the sort of magazine Eric hadn't even realised existed. There was a picture of a naked woman on the front. And a man ...
Holding the offending item by the spine, Eric shook it rapidly. Nothing dropped from its pages. He threw it to the floor and only just managed to stop himself from wiping his hand on his clothes.
Working efficiently, he checked every book and magazine in the box, trying to focus on his task rather than take in the revolting subject matter of Neville's reading material.
The next box was also heavy and revealed more of the same - depictions of gratuitous sex and stomach-churning violence - but not the one thing Eric sought.
By the fourth box, he was wondering if he needed to change tactics. Perhaps he had figured wrongly.
Then his hands stilled with shock as he saw a children's book lying in the bottom of a box. He picked up the thick hardcover and opened the front flap. There was an inscription in a handwriting that was instantly recognisable - To dear Neville, Happy eighth birthday, love from Aunt Phoebe and Uncle Eric.
Eric hurled the book across the room. It hit the wall and dropped with a thud.
But, midflight, it had given up what Neville had hidden in its pages - a small pebble of green rock.
||_||
Lois was dragged from the labyrinth of her thoughts by the jangling sound of her cell phone. She leaned out of bed far enough to reach her bag. The call was from Evan.
"Hi," she said, her accelerating heart driven by uneasiness that Evan was calling her this early in the morning.
"Hi, Lois," he said. "Sorry to wake you."
"You didn't. Is everything OK?"
"Can you talk?"
"I'm alone."
"Where's Clark?"
"He's, ah, gone out to get us some breakfast."
"Gone *out*?"
"Yes." To Paris for butter croissants. Lois heard Evan's long in-breath, and her anxiety escalated. "What is it?"
"Yesterday a woman came to the base. She said she had a letter for Superman."
Martha? A wave of joy splashed through Lois. But it was joy spiked with foreboding. "Did she give a name?"
"Yes. But there's every chance it's a false name."
It could be the name she had been using since she escaped. Or the name forced upon her by a witness-protection-type program. "She's not admitting to anything?"
"No. Neither am I. Have you ever seen any photos?"
"No. Everything personal was cleared from the house."
"Do you know *anything* that could help with identification?"
"I know her name. I know she was much loved in the local community. She was a great cook and enjoyed gardening."
"Is there any chance that one of the neighbours has a photograph?"
She could try Maggie Irig. "I'll see what I can do," Lois said. "Where is she now?"
"She's staying with me. But she intends to catch a bus this morning."
"Where's she going?"
"She wouldn't say."
"Could Menzies arrange for her to be tailed?"
"Daniel's not available, and it obviously couldn't be me. Do we want to involve anyone else in this?"
"Not if we can avoid it," Lois said. The last thing they needed was to lead someone directly to Smallville, Kansas. "Is she well? Happy?"
"She seems to be well. She was hungry, but she doesn't look malnourished."
Lois felt a glimmer of implausible hope that the years hadn't been too cruel to Martha. "What was in the letter?
"It was just a short note to thank him for saving the world."
"OK. I'll get back to you about the photograph."
"Are you at Clark's home?"
"Yes."
"A farm?"
"Yes."
"Dairy cows?"
"No. Why?"
"She mentioned buttermilk as a sort of cure-all. Has Clark ever said anything like that?"
"No. But from the impression I get, it sounds like something she might say."
"OK. You should prepare Clark."
Yeah. "I know," Lois said, feeling her stomach clench. "Thanks for calling me."
She disconnected the call and hunkered down into the warmth of the bed.
What now?
Her gut said this woman was Martha Kent.
That was the best of news.
Clark needed a family. He needed his mom.
And Martha - a mother whose son had been taken away, who had probably spent years wondering, hoping, fearing - she needed her son.
There had been no mention of Jonathan, so it seemed likely that Martha's suffering had included the loss of her husband.
Now - perhaps - she was coming home.
But she was coming home to a son who didn't remember her.
Clark's amnesia had brought so many positives to their relationship, but it was going seem like just another cruel blow to Martha Kent.
Lois was going to have to tell him. She had to prepare him so that Martha's homecoming was as happy as possible.
But timing was still the issue.
She needed to tell Clark early enough that he had time to come to terms with the past before facing his mom.
Should Lois tell Clark about his mom over breakfast? Should she dash to the Irig's farm, hoping to catch them before they left for church? Should she ask Clark to take her to church and hope that it would give her some inspiration for how to do this? Would Clark be more receptive to shocking news after he'd been to church?
Or was she just scrambling for a way to justify putting off the inevitable?
Should she say anything *before* Martha had been positively identified?
Lois had been willing to trust her gut when her own life was at risk. But now, the stakes seemed so much higher. This was Clark's happiness.
Was it fair to give him the hope of his mom returning when there was still a chance that it would amount to nothing?
Was there any way possible to give details about his mom's disappearance without mentioning the cell?
Clark's time in the cell could be explained - as Eric had done - as a time of familiarisation, the leaders of the earth testing the alien and determining if he represented a threat to humanity. But that only worked by being vague about the length of time involved. Not even the dilatory reputation of government bureaucracy was enough to explain seven years.
One of Clark's first questions was going to be how long his mom had been missing. And incarcerating an innocent woman, taking her from her home - there was no way to dress that up to look like anything other than what it was - a cruel attack based solely on prejudice and hatred.
Assuming Martha was positively identified ... she would not be able to get to Smallville until lunchtime at the earliest.
Breakfast first, Lois decided. Then she would go to Maggie. If Maggie had a photo of Martha, Lois would call Evan before coming home. If the descriptions matched, the odds would move in favour of a positive identification.
But she still wouldn't know for sure.
Lois dropped her head into her hands.
So many decisions.
So much responsibility.
A low whirr of moving air caused her to lift her head, quickly brushing away the tears that had gathered in her eyes.
The bedroom door opened, and her husband walked in, bearing two cups of steaming coffee, a couple of bags that promised the delights of French pastries, and a happy smile.
It was the smile that nearly dismantled Lois's composure.
She busied herself with pulling back the covers. "Let's have breakfast in bed," she suggested.
Clark handed her the cups, placed the bags on the bed, and spun back into his sleep shorts. He gazed at the bed until little wisps of steam arose from it, and then climbed in beside her.
The coffee was smooth and creamy. The croissants were warm and deliciously light.
The company was gorgeous to look at and adorably relaxed, his smile flashing regularly as they ate their breakfast.
But inside, Lois was tightly coiled.
At any moment, her cell might ring, bringing the best of news - news that would force her hand. Or it could bring the worst of news - news that would give her more time.
"Clark, I'd like to visit Maggie Irig for a few moments," Lois said when the last croissant was gone. "I'd like to ask her something about a recipe I found."
"I thought you didn't cook," he teased gently.
Yeah, it had been a lame excuse, but she just wasn't up for spinning elaborate tales. "After the apple pie being such a success, I thought I would try something else."
"You could call her if you wanted to."
"I don't have her number," Lois said, feeling her panic starting to rise.
"If the Irigs were such good friends of my parents, their number is probably written down near the telephone," Clark said.
"I feel like a drive," Lois said desperately. "I'll only be a short time."
"OK," he agreed easily. "I'll get to the chores."
Her overwrought muscles loosened a little. Clark kissed her and rose from the bed. "Do it slowly," Lois said, wanting to add further weight to her simulation of an untroubled newly-wed woman.
Clark's grin came at full intensity. Instead of spinning into his clothes, he slipped off his sleep shorts and proceeded to dress garment by garment. Then with another kiss and a knowing smile that said he'd appreciated her appreciation, he left for the barn.
