Author's Note: Written for Divine Intervention's Christmas Ficstravaganza. Set in season ten; no spoilers.
A Fir Needle In a Haystack
"Nope."
Clark sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to ward off the headache he could feel starting to form in his temples.
"Lois, we've looked at half a dozen trees at this lot, alone," he protested. "What's wrong with this one?"
"It's too tall," his fiancée shot back as she stomped through the snow toward another tree.
"And the last one was too short," Clark reminded her, as he hurried to catch up. "Lois, all of these trees are perfectly fine."
"They're not perfect," Lois called back, a sharp tone in her voice. "None of these are the perfect tree."
"The tree doesn't have to be perfect," Clark insisted, but he had the feeling that his words were falling on deaf ears.
Nearly half an hour later, when even he was starting to get cold (which meant that Lois had to be practically freezing), she finally stopped in front of a majestic looking Douglas fir. She paced slowly around the tree, eying it from trunk to tip, nodding in satisfaction when she stopped beside him.
"This one," she declared, gesturing at the tree. "This is the perfect tree."
"Fantastic," Clark said, not even bothering to hide his relief. "Let's go."
Without even waiting for Lois's answer, he grabbed the tree and swung it up onto his shoulder, turning to head back to the truck.
"Careful, Smallville!" Lois snapped, stepping out of the way as he started across the snowy tree lot. "Don't crush any of the branches."
"I'm not going to crush any of the branches," Clark muttered, too low for Lois to hear him.
Out of all of the things that he and Lois could have possibly fought about, he would never have imagined that picking out a Christmas tree would be at the top of the list. They'd started back at the beginning of December, with what Clark would have thought was plenty of time before Christmas. But, finding a Christmas tree had instead turned into the most bizarre scavenger hunt that he'd ever been involved in.
It had started out simple enough, picking a tree farm and spending an afternoon looking for a tree. Then, he'd watched as, throughout the month, Lois had practically become consumed with her personal quest to find the perfect Christmas tree. A quest that he still didn't know all the details of, since Lois hadn't really been open to sharing, lately. She'd just gotten more and more obsessed with each and every detail of their first Christmas as an engaged couple, with the tree as the grand centerpiece.
Clark loaded the tree into the back of the truck, trying to be careful not to break, or even bend, a single branch. Then, he and Lois drove back to the farm.
Lois jumped out of the truck almost before it had stopped moving, heading for the house to get the front door open. Clark lifted the tree out of the back of the truck and walked to the house, dodging Shelby who'd come out of the house as soon as the door was open and was dancing around his legs, and took the tree into the living room.
Setting the tree down in the stand, he crouched down and tightened the screws, making adjustments until the tree was standing up straight. Then, he stepped back to admire his handiwork.
"Well," he asked, as Lois and Shelby joined him in the living room, "what do you think? Have we finally found the perfect tree?"
Pursing her lips, Lois walked slowly around the tree, surveying it from every angle. Then, almost three-quarters of the way around, she stopped, frowning as she reached out to touch a branch.
"This one sticks out too much," she declared, shaking her head.
"Well, that's an easy fix," Clark told her, after thinking about it for a few seconds. "We'll just turn the tree around so that you can't see the branch."
So saying, he picked the tree up and turned it around so that the offending branch was facing the wall. But, Lois was still frowning.
"This side isn't as full as the other one," she told him. "It makes the tree look scrawny. No, turn it back."
"What about the branch?" Clark reminded her, his voice coming out snippier than he'd intended.
"Got any garden shears?" Lois asked, her own voice curt as she glared at the offending branch like it was personally responsible for her current bad mood.
Huffing out an irritated sigh, Clark headed out to the mud room off the kitchen, where all of his mom's gardening tools were kept. He grabbed a small pair of clippers off the wall where they were hanging and went back out to the living room, where Lois was still staring at the tree.
Wordlessly, he passed the clippers to her, and Lois removed the ugly branch with a decisive clip of the shears. Then, she walked another circuit around the tree, and her shoulders seemed to slump.
"It's still not perfect," she said, and he could hear frustration in her voice.
"Why not?" Clark asked, since the tree looked just fine to him.
"There are still branches sticking out," Lois said, her tone making it obvious that she thought he was blind for not seeing it.
"Isn't that what branches are supposed to do?" Clark asked, jokingly. "Stick out?"
"The whole tree is off balance," Lois insisted.
"Lois, the tree is fine," Clark insisted, but she shook her head, stubbornly.
"Fine is not good enough," she declared, decisively.
Then, before he could stop her, she started attacking the tree with the clippers. Needles flew as Lois snipped branches off, raining a shower of green down onto the carpet. Clark stepped forward once or twice to try and intervene, but Lois was like a woman possessed, and after his second failed attempt to get the clippers out of her hands, Clark finally stepped back and let her work.
Finally, Lois seemed to run out of steam (or maybe branches to massacre), and she stepped back, letting her hand fall to her side as she surveyed her handiwork. Then, her shoulders slumped as she took in the whole effect.
Their formerly-majestic Douglas fir had been reduced to almost bare branches. What greenery remained was scraggly and sparse, looking more like a mutilated bonsai than a Christmas tree.
"It's not that bad," Clark offered, weakly, as Lois stared, dumbstruck, at what remained of their Christmas tree.
"It looks like it just stepped off the screen of A Charlie Brown Christmas," Lois told him, her voice flat and emotionless. "It's awful."
Her voice wavered on the last word, and in the light, Clark caught a glimpse of tears shining in her eyes.
"Lois?" he ventured, hesitantly, sensing that there was something deeper at work than just a Christmas tree.
But, Lois just shook her head, vehemently, sighing as she wiped the unshed tears away, roughly, with the sleeve of her shirt.
"All I wanted was a perfect Christmas for us," she said, her voice coming out in practically a growl. "Was that too much to ask?"
"Lois," Clark started, but she cut him off.
"Maybe we should get another tree," she said, quietly, and now it was Clark's turn to heave a sigh.
"Lois, this is the third tree we've gone through in the last two weeks," he protested.
"But this one looks ridiculous," Lois muttered, under her breath.
"We can still fix this," Clark insisted, as Lois turned to look at him.
"How?" she asked, tiredly.
"Wait right here," Clark told her, and then he dashed off.
He was back a few seconds later with a box cradled carefully in his hands, setting it down on the coffee table. Opening the box, he revealed all of the ornaments that had decorated the Kent family tree for as long as he could remember.
"Come on," he said, encouragingly. "Once all the ornaments are up, no one will even notice the tree."
"I guess," Lois said, with a sigh, although she didn't sound very enthusiastic.
But, she reached out and took the delicate, blown-glass ornament that he offered her, carefully hanging in on a sturdy branch about halfway up the tree. They hung ornaments in silence for about a minute, going slowly to make sure that the branches would hold the decorations.
"You know," Clark commented, breaking the silence that had fallen over the room, "one of my very first memories of being on Earth was Christmas."
"Oh, yeah?" Lois asked, and he thought he could hear interest in her voice.
"I was young," Clark told her. "Four, maybe five – it might have even been the first year I came to Earth. I remember Mom and Dad had been decorating the house for days, and Mom had been baking, and the whole house smelled warm."
"It sounds nice," Lois said, and there was a wistful note in her voice.
"Dad brought in this enormous tree," Clark went on, selecting another ornament from the box. "And we all decorated it, and Dad lifted me up so that I could put the star on top."
"How Rockwellian of you," Lois muttered, but the smile that curved slowly at her lips took away the sting of the words.
"And then," Clark continued, with a wry smile of his own, "I got excited and I ran across the room to jump on the couch. And I landed so hard that I burst two cushions and broke the frame in half. I didn't know my own strength, back then."
Lois burst out laughing, and Clark was glad to see the stress leaving her eyes. But, a few seconds later, the laughter died down, and the smile fell from her face.
"My mom always used to give us the perfect Christmases," she said, softly, as she hung another ornament up. "The food, the decorations, everything was just like it had come out of a magazine, it was so pretty. And then there was the tree."
She trailed off, a fond, distant smile tugging at her lips, and Clark hated how sad she looked.
"Every year, we'd go out, and Mom would be the one to pick out our Christmas tree," she told him. "It was always this huge, gorgeous tree, and it was always perfect. It was like her gift, or something. And we'd spend hours decorating it, and everyone was in a good mood, and we were like a real family for just that time. Dad put aside the General for the night, and everything was perfect."
"Sounds like I wasn't the only one with a picturesque Christmas," Clark commented.
"Mom died shortly after that last Christmas," Lois said, her voice barely audible, and the words hit him like a sledgehammer. "And, then, when Christmas came around again-"
She broke off, her eyes glinting with tears, but she brushed them away before any could fall.
"I wanted to make a Christmas just like Mom used to," Lois said, very carefully not looking at him. "I'd failed at so much throughout the rest of the year – I wasn't doing a good job with Lucy, the house was always a mess, Dad was always stressed out – I thought that if I could just give us the perfect Christmas, that maybe everything would be all right, again."
Clark's heart ached for the little girl that Lois had been, taking the weight of the world on her shoulders. Stepping over to where Lois stood in front of the tree, a glass ball hanging forgotten in her hands, he wrapped his arms around her waist, holding on tightly. After a moment, Lois relaxed back into his embrace, closing her eyes as she leaned against his chest.
"I went a little mad trying to decorate the house," she told him, sadly. "And I tried to cook everything that Mom would have – even though half of it was burned to a crisp."
"You shouldn't have had to do all of that, alone," Clark said, fighting down the surge of anger he felt for Sam Lane, right then.
"I begged Dad for weeks to take us out to find a Christmas tree," Lois continued, instead of replying to his comment. "He finally gave in, and on Christmas Eve, we went out to find our tree. It was late, and practically everything was closed, but there was one tree lot that was still open.
"I didn't think there was going to be anything left, but at the back of the lot, I found this great tree. It was huge, and full, and just like Mom used to pick out. And I showed it to Dad, and I waited for him to tell me that it was perfect."
"Did he?" Clark prompted, gently, when Lois fell silent.
"He said that it 'would have to do'," Lois recounted, a bitter tone in her voice. "And, I guess, ever since then, I've been trying to make up for it. I spent years trying to make Christmas perfect for my family, and failing, and then when that didn't work, I just kind of stopped trying. This year was the first time in a long time that I've actually cared about Christmas, again."
"What changed?" Clark asked, curiously.
"You," Lois said, twisting around to look at him, with a wry smile on her face. "This is our first Christmas, together, and I wanted everything to be perfect."
"It is," Clark told her, softly, and Lois looked at him, in surprise. "I don't care about the tree, or the food, or the decorations," he continued. "It's perfect because I'm with you."
"Clark," Lois started, but he cut her off, gently.
"I don't need anything else," he told her. "I just need you. To know that you're here, and you're happy. And, if any of this is making you miserable, then I say we just blow it all off."
"Oh, really?" Lois asked, skeptically.
"I mean it," Clark said, earnestly. "We'll just take off, and go somewhere. Hawaii, maybe, or Acapulco. We'll laze about in the sun and let someone else worry about the details, for once."
"And leave Metropolis without its hero?" Lois teased him, gently.
"Hey, Oliver's been complaining lately that I've been taking all of the good emergencies," Clark remarked. "He'll probably be happy if I'm not off stealing his thunder."
"We should stay here," Lois told him, after a moment.
"You sure?" Clark asked. "Cause, I can have us in Hawaii in five seconds flat."
"I want our first Christmas together to be at home," Lois said, softly. "I'm starting to think that maybe I've been worrying too much about the small stuff, over the years. Maybe I'll give that whole relaxation thing a try."
"Don't go all Zen on me," Clark said, worriedly. "You wouldn't be you if you were actually calm for a change."
"Very funny," Lois snarked. Then, her eyes widened when she caught sight of the ornament that Clark had pulled out of the box. "Oh, hell no."
"Oh, come on," Clark protested, brandishing the handmade, glazed lump of pottery. "This ornament has been on my tree every year since I was six."
Lois looked like she wanted to protest, but then she sighed, an exasperated expression on her face.
"It does have kind of an ugly charm to it," she admitted, reaching out and taking the ornament from him. "You made this?"
"We were having a craft fair at school," Clark explained, as Lois turned the ornament over to see his initials and the date crudely scratched on the bottom. "My dad made one, too."
Grinning, he pulled out another lumpy ornament that wasn't much better than the one that he'd made.
"They're both kind of hideous," Clark admitted. "But, Mom said that she loved them, and they've been on the tree ever since."
With a fond smile on her face, Lois hung his misshapen ornament on the tree, giving it a place of honor on the front.
"Wait here," she told him, and then she darted out of the living room.
She was back a minute later, a box of her own held carefully in her arms.
"I don't have a lot of ornaments left over from when I was a kid," she explained, apologetically. "Dad said that they took up too much room when we were on the road. But, I was able to save a few of Mom's favorites."
She took a few, carefully wrapped ornaments out of the box, unwrapping the soft cloth the held them safe. The last was a wire structure decorated with red and green beads.
"I was five when I made this," Lois told him. "The local shopping center was having pictures with Santa, only Lucy was too scared to sit on his lap, so Mom took us over to a craft table to make up for it."
"I love it," Clark told her.
Reaching out, he took the ornament from Lois's hands and hung it next to his own.
"Our tree," he said, with satisfaction. "A little crooked, just like us."
"But still perfect," Lois replied, quietly, leaning against him as he wrapped his arms around her. "Just like us."