Parachutes Chapter 1: Prologue: a new day starts, a smallville fanfic

Parachutes

Summary: Sequel to Inside and last part of the series. With Lex in prison and a baby on the way, Clark and Lois await in wonder for their lives to change forever. The unexpected happens and danger gets painfully real.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Rating: T

Notes: as I did when I posted Inside, I've added a reader's guide, as the gap between Inside and Parachutes has been the longest. For those who have not read the previous stories (Link, Knall, Inside), this guide spoilers everything. Hope you guys enjoy it! As I usually do when I post a multichapter fic, the whole thing is written and mostly edited, so that will allow me to update regularly, around 2-3 times a week, I hope. I can't almost believe I finished the series! Fluffiness ahead, btw.

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Prologue "A new day starts" BETA

Some people hate to get up in the mornings; others love it. Some need devices to help them wake up. Not me. At least not anymore. Now I open my eyes, sometimes well before sunrise and let myself linger in the peace and quiet of the room. I think my old self still can't believe it.

Stretching lazily, I extend my arm forward, and find his side of the bed empty, and the cold spot suggests he's been gone for a while now. Doesn't matter, he'll be back yes or yes, and the reason for that makes me smile in anticipation: he will be back only to spend time with me before we have to get up. He hasn't told me, but he really doesn't need to. At some point during these past four months, he's made some kind of private oath and he's sticking to it. Considering who he is to the world, greeting the day in his arms every single morning is a miracle in itself.

Miracles. God, I have to salute that word. Miracles. They do happen sometimes, and when you least expect them, like the last one. Finally. At last.

I have blinds in our bedroom. And it only took for me to get pregnant and develop an uncanny ability to walk the line between solicitous attention and stalking overprotection, shifting the balance in my favor.

And it hasn't been easy, but goddammit, I'm a Lane. If I can't do it, no one can. Honestly, I don't think I've ever threatened Clark with kryptonite as much as I've done these past four months. And if only it had been him. But no. No. I had to have the whole freaking family/JLA squad ready to jump at the slightest move, attempt to open a door, carry a heavy box or do any other kind of stupid Danielle Steel pink-teeth-rotting-sugarcoated thing. All of them. Luce; the general; Martha; Chloe; Chris (my soft spot, he's so adorable I can't help it); Dinah; Ollie.

Ollie. He has appointed himself as my personal bodyguard whenever Clark's not around. And to think my first impression was to spend more time with him as reprieve. I love him, I really do, but not this corny side of him. I want him back. Of everyone else, he is the one who has known me the longest in a more intimate level, so to speak, family aside. We've been friends for what… eighteen years now? JesusMaryJoseph, I've lost count. And I don't want to think what would happen if he lived in Metropolis and if Dinah, a little more successful when it comes to restraining herself from acting like a mother hen, were not there. Ollie is a sweetheart. It's just that sometimes I want to kill him a little.

Hmmm. There's someone feeling a little restless this morning. My hand travels to the smooth skin, feeling the slight movement and following it, my mind picturing all sorts of images about what might be happening in there, borrowing Clark's little pass time.

Ever since I told him I didn't want to know the baby's sex the first time he peeked, he resolved to at least let me know what it does, guiding my hand as he sees the moves and describes them. I try not to look at him when he does that, because I feel my legs weak and then I mentally turn into a puddle. The awed innocent kid of farmers takes command of those eyes, helplessly surrendered by the miracle we have created together.

I have turned into a mush-ball. I just know. My personal achievement has been to keep it in the privacy of our room. Dear hormones, I hate you.

I shift my position to find a more comfortable spot for my belly; the little thing is determined to make him or herself noticed. And then, whatever smile has been on my face since the moment I greeted this morning, turns into a grin as I listen to a very familiar sound of windows closing.

Clark's home.

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The small gesture of closing the window signals the start of one of his most treasured moments of the day. The world he sees starting to awake from the other side of the windowpane grows silent in his mind as he turns it towards her.

Them.

Us.

He grins, smiling is simply not enough these days, and he starts walking towards their bedroom while he takes off the costume, red and blue landing randomly on the floor. For an instant he realizes something and stops. He smells himself to check none of the smoke from the fire he stopped on his way back home remains on his skin.

No smell.

All clear.

He pushes the door, letting his ears get lost in his favorite sounds in the universe, their heartbeats. Lois' is beating slightly quicker than when she's asleep. "Lois?" Soon he's by her side, gazing at her with concerned eyes. She looks tired. As gently as he can, he rubs her face with his thumb. A lazy hazel eye opens and he smiles sympathetically at the forming black circles under her eyes. She hasn't slept well.

"I have a new kind of silent alarm clock," she states smiling despite the tiredness.

"I'm sorry, hon."

The second eye opens too and joins the other one, fixing on cerulean. "Why? Do you enable him to kick while I sleep?," she deadpans, raising an eyebrow for further dramatic effect.

A snort is heard as the blinds open, and the shy raising sun floods the room. Before she knows it, he's already slid next to her, planting a soft kiss on her forehead and opening his arms so she can turn and rest her back on his broad chest, enveloped in his embrace. It's become a silent ritual they both relish.

"Good morning," she says while she gets to her comfortable spot.

"Looks like it."

"Any worthy news today?," she asks, more to make idle conversation than anything else.

"Not in this part of the world."

"Then we will have to move our asses to get the news, Kent."

"Quite probably. But not now," he says as he snuggles as close as her as he can.

"Pffft." She snorts lazily. It's not as if I was going to get up at this ungodly hour." She closes her eyes as a pair of very gentle and warm lips nibble her neck.

"So…," he teases.

"So...," she answers smiling.

"… Any news lately?," he asks, hoping she will tell him something new she's felt, or the baby has done.

"It moved."

His hand travels the distance towards her belly. "Hey, slugger."

"If you manage to stop it, the world can say goodbye to Superman. You're mine 24/7."

"The world might disagree with that."

"The world can kiss my journalistic butt."

At this very moment, the world can kiss his too. He focuses on the task at hand while his mind wanders in the memories of the bliss they've been given, of the incredible things that have happened to them, of the endless gratefulness he felt when they found out she was pregnant, of the mixture of anger and fear she felt when Lex told her he knew. Even if it was from behind bars in a prison. Lex still nagged in his mind, contemptuous laughter refusing to fade away. It took some effort to put Lex aside in his mind, but he managed. Lex didn't deserve that time. The baby and Lois did. Chris did. Chloe did. As he let his body drift off to sleep, he remembered the day that had, at last, brought both cousins back together.

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Music: I used Ane Brun's "Linger with pleasure" as background music to write this fluffy prologue. As soon as I get the soundtrack together, I'll let you know.

READER'S GUIDELINE

For those who don't remember all the events having taken place in the prior stories of the arc (Link, Knall and Inside) or those who really don't want to read them but are enjoying this one, there's a complete account on characters and events happened so far more than enough to get a fresh start at the end of this prologue. Includes, like the stories, spoilers for Smallville Season 8 and an indirect mention regarding season 9's episode 'Kandor'. All canon concerning Smallville goes up until 8x22 'Doomsday' and occasionally mentions things from Season 9. For those who have not read Link, Knall or Inside, take into account that the Parachutes Arc is set in an alt. Smallville future, set in 2020.

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PARACHUTES ARC: THE CHARACTERS AND MAIN EVENTS SO FAR

Lois and Clark, unmarried (just because Lois doesn't want to) but forever in love; working on the Daily Planet since like always. Mainly following Smallville, but with a few comic canon events, the main one being Chris, biological son of Zod and adopted by Clark and Lois almost as soon as he got to Earth (which in reality means as soon as Lois was convinced she wanted to give it a try). Lois still carries a great pain due to the loss of Chloe, more than a decade ago, at the hospital from the severe wounds inflicted by Zod.

Suspecting that a returned Lex, surprise candidate to the current Presidential elections, wants more than the mere fact of living inside the White House, Lois has a nasty public encounter with him during a public rally (Link), which leaves her out of the follow-up of the campaign and the candidates at the Planet, but otherwise completely engaged in digging out all the dirt concerning Luthor. All overprotective on her, Clark asks her to stay out of it, because there's already have been a death related to this, and he'll do it even asking Oracle for help. He believes that they need to catch some murderers before Lois can get to any information available. And amid all this chaos, including also a job offer from Perry about some foreign correspondence in investigative journalism, Lois' biological clock decides to start ticking. So after a lot of thinking and talking, Lois and Clark decide they are going to try to have a baby. At that moment they receive a call from Ollie: they have located several Luthor facilities, and Chris was being held captive in one of them. Inside starts with them going to the Watchtower to visit Chris, in some sort of coma from which he soon awakes, physically ok, but with one slight problem: his skin is not invulnerable. Chris, otherwise happy to be back, and in order to protect who he considers his parents, claims to not remember everything, when his mind has clear memories of him being tested and experiments performed on him and on another unidentified woman Lex bears no sympathy for. Lois and Clark decide to keep him hidden in the Watchtower, where he spends most of his time. The same substance that affected Chris' physiology is hidden on their apartment and affects Clark. Whatever happens during that time, it seems to have made possible for them to conceive, and just when Barbara's murders have been imprisoned and Chloe decides it's time for her to return to Metropolis (see Chloe), Bruce comes to their apartment to settle things with Clark; he has the kryptonite ring, and he suddenly realizes it affects Lois the same way. A visit to Emil confirms it: Lois is pregnant. When everything seems to be finally ok, Lois visits Lex at the prison: he knows she's pregnant.

Ollieand Dinah, married and in love to the very core. Ollie, following a possible evolution from Smallville canon, has become the leader of the JLA. Friend to Lois and Clark to infinity and beyond, still acts as the hero Green Arrow, but his role as the Leage's head strategist also gets him off the field to assign teams and design protocols. Worried about Dinah's wellbeing, as she has just lost her best friend, he's there for her no matter what. He is the one who helped Chloe disappear from Smallville (see Chloe's profile below) and who supported her in every possible way, economical or otherwise. Dinah has only been a few episodes in Smallville, so her past in here is mainly from comic canon (Green Arrow and Birds of Prey). Works in the field, and together with Ollie and Clark, is one of the few aware of Oracle's new and secret identity. Loves her husband, loves her friends and while mourning and dealing with the loss of her best friend Babs, she has had a key role in Dick's and Helena's road to recovery from their loss. Inside, she's still reeling from the pain of Babs' death. During Inside, the identity of Barbara's murderers is exposed, and she finds out Shiva is one of them. She goes with Helena/Huntress to take her down, as this is even more personal than she thought. Making Helena promising she won't fight Shiva unless she is down, and after a hard fight, she wins, and Shiva is taken back by plane, causing an impromptu reunion of the remaining original Birds of Prey, having Chloe sent Zinda to carry them back home.

Chloe Sullivan, aka Ella Hunt, aka Oracle. Thinking it was the best way to protect her beloved cousin Lois, after all the turmoil coming from Doomsday (including Lois disappearing and Chloe thinking her dead and, of course, Jimmy's demise) and almost dying at Zod's hand (out of Smallville's 9th season, in here the real Zod comes with the orb, causes havoc and tries to kill her), Chloe decides to fake her death and get away from Metropolis. She is helped by Ollie and asks him and Clark to respect her decision. Over more than ten years there is no contact with Clark, and all relationship with Ollie is strictly professional. Due to the loss of a leg when she is attacked by Zod, Chloe spends her first months after her faked death in Gotham, where she meets at the hospital a woman named Barbara Gordon, ignoring that Barbara, also known as the first Batgirl, is Oracle, the older version of Chloe's Watchtower, stationed in Gotham City. And also ignoring that Barbara knows who Chloe Sullivan is, and is currently working with Batman in trying to know more about this new emerging group of superheroes calling themselves the Justice League. Both women will eventually develop a good friendship, and even when Chloe finally moves to London, assuming the identity of Ella Hunt, she helps Oracle from time to time. At the beginning of Link we learn that due to happy personal circumstances affecting Barbara, Chloe is going to take over Oracle for a few months. Barbara's death changes everything, and Chloe makes the decision of going back to the States, to Gotham City, assuming Oracle's identity permanently, accepting Ollie's offer to work for the League full-time and focusing on trying to find out what is Lex planning with both his meteoric political career and his clandestine laboratories, the last of which yielded the body of a Kryptonian boy named Chris. She still knows it is not safe to go back to Metropolis, but, once more in order to protect Lois, she talks to her as Oracle trying to get her cousin away from the danger a mission in diapers dealing with Lex Luthor and at least three mysterious assassins poses. She discovers that the kryptonite is an element with the similar atomic structure than uranium thus explaining the high levels of radioactivity no doubt responsible of the fast effects on kryptonians. Her current assignment is to work with Bruce in both solving the case of Barbara's murder, for which she ultimately needs to decrypt all the information downloaded the night of the crime, and finding out what's been going on at Luthor's facilities, so the final goal, getting Lex behind bars once and for all, can be achieved. Maybe then she can think of coming back? Inside tells how she and Batman unveil the identity of Barbara's murderers, she decrypts the last bits of information from Barbara's recovered files during Link, giving them the remaining data about Lex's facilities, including the one sheltering the other pod containing a woman, who turns out to be their frienemy Tess Mercer. Barbara's murders imprisoned, Lex is also finally put behind bars, so she decides it is time to return and claim her life in Metropolis. Clark takes her to their apartment, and right when everything is revealed to a very stressed Lois, Bruce appears, her cousin doubles over in pain and they discover the only reason that can make possible for Lois' body to be affected by kryptonite. She's going to be an aunt. Or a cousin. Or whatever. Now she only has to make Lois not want to kill her for having disappeared all these years.

Barbara –Babs– Gordon, Oracle. Unknown to Smallville world, but undoubtedly (IMHO) the mirror in which SV writers looked when they decided to make Chloe kick-ass-Watchtower. She rocks. Daughter of Commissioner Gordon and the first Batgirl ever until The Joker shot her, leaving her paraplegic and tied to a wheelchair for life. She found her way to make a difference again: she became Oracle and founded a group of women who would go throughout the world in all kinds of missions. It all started when she recruited Dinah Lance, aka Black Canary, who would eventually become her best friend. Her love life is also full. She's happily engaged to sweet, cute Dick Grayson, aka original Robin, aka Nightwing, and recently discovered she was pregnant, so she's going to start taking things easy until her friend Chloe Sullivan takes over during her maternity leave. She's working on surveillance on Lex Luthor as a personal request from Superman, and during a mission where she leads a few members of the League (Link) she discovers something very, very big. Before compromising anything she secures all the information, but a minute too late. Fatality occurs and Babs is murdered, leaving her friends and family desolate and with a very well encrypted set of highly valuable information, now left for Chloe to decipher. During Inside, the information is finally decrypted, and her murderers back in jail.

Dick Grayson, Nightwing. Completely and utterly in love with Babs, he's the happiest guy on the planet (Clark is the happiest guy on the universe). Her death leaves him crushed, inconsolable, desolate and without a reason to live, but unwilling to commit suicide. He opts to carry on through a path of vengeance and violence against which Bruce advises him. Only with the help of Dinah he will start, timidly, to move on amongst the pain (Knall). During Inside he will, helped by Donna/Troia, take into custody the computer whiz who disabled Babs' security system the night of her death.

Bruce Wayne, Batman. I know there are many reasons for not having Batman in Smallville (I think same as Wonder Woman), but he's too good to avoid here. Batman is a nice counterpart of Clark, he's not called the Dark Knight without reason, but there is something nobody can deny him, and that is his sense of Justice. He will always do the right thing, as painful as it sometimes can be. For those not reading comics, I think he resembles a lot the Nolan-verse version of the hero, especially the second film. So, deeply hurt by the death of Barbara, for him, for Dick and for Babs' father, he is determined to find her murderers, for what he tells Ollie he will step out of the League so he can use all of that time for that and leave the group's resources available for other matters until he comes up with the identities of Barbara's killers. Ollie will assign Chloe to work with him, because of the Luthor involvement, knowing that wherever Lex is, things get very messy. Bruce cannot avoid the feeling that Clark, who had asked Barbara to investigate him, is partly responsible for her death, and if this is proven, he'll take any necessary measure to have Justice served. All the events leading to the end of Inside settle things between him and Clark, and he is the first to realize, albeit his fault, that Lois is pregnant.

Lex Luthor, Superman's nemesis. Obviously did not die in that explosion (Smallville 8x14...ugh) and made a return sometime in the future (Parachutes' past), taking back his company but not the Daily Planet, that Tess Mercer had sold to Ollie, who's the actual sole owner. He's decided to take over the White House through the political via and is doing quite good in the Presidentials so far, including a marvelous first rally in which he had the pleasure of verbally beating Lois Lane herself, although later he is unexpectedly punched back by a random civilian also attending the event (Link). Thanks to his seemingly flawless surveillance system, he detects the so-called Oracle and prepares a trap, both for her and the League, who are close to finding out about his secret experiments. On a brilliant strike, he misleads the League and murders Barbara Gordon, who he believes is Oracle. Continuing his plans, that include playing the panic card once he's leading the States through biological threats, he has a set back when unexpectedly a covert triple mission of the League discovers three of his labs, one of them keeping the kryptonian boy known to the world as Chris Kent. Inside reveals he also has taken Tess Mercer, and finally sees him behind bars. But not before he manages to have Clark exposed to the new designed artificial Kryptonite he has developed, as well as some kind of surveillance that leads to the reveal, at the very end of the story, that he knows about Lois' pregnancy.

Helena Bertinelli, Huntress, second member recruited by Babs for Birds of Prey. With violent tendencies, after Babs' murder she decides to step out, aware that if she doesn't, sooner than later there will be a blood bath. She gets some help from Dinah, and by the end of Knall, just like Dick, she seems to be doing much better, and is finally back in track. She keeps her promise, during Inside, to step aside Dinah's fight against Shiva.

Along the stories, other characters, familiar to Smallville or just from DCU have appeared, mainly as supporting roles in missions or light chats. Some of them (a few reappearing in Inside): Martha Kent (retired from the politics, currently living in Smallville), Perry White (chief editor of the Daily Planet. He follows comic canon, but I'm sure that when Smallville brings him back, he will be very much alike); Lana Lang (currently living in New York and leading her own life, provides Lois with all the information she has on Luthor, helping Lois in her investigation –Knall–); Donna Troy aka Troia (comic canon, sister of Diana Prince, living in NY, works with the League and the Titans, a subsidiary of the JLA*; very good friends with Dick); Bart Allen (follows Smallville canon, so in 2020 he's older than in the comics; appeared in Link); Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman (very much indeed, comic canon. She calls Clark Kal (which pisses Lois off a lot), and has a very deep respect for Miss Lane; she's a very serious but sweet woman, fierce warrior when needed; sister of Donna Troy, good friend of Dinah; member of the League); Commissioner James –Jim– Gordon (Barbara's father, head of Gotham City's police department. Despite the pain, he has, like Batman, a very deep sense of justice, and he's the one telling his caped friend that he must control the increasingly violent Nightwing. Batman has an enormous respect and affection for him); Zinda (the third mobile member of Birds of Prey, pilot, made a few appearances already), James –Jimmy– Bartholomew Olsen (younger brother to Smallville's Henry James –Jimmy– Olsen, tragically dead in Smallville 8x22. Following Perry's request on finding a new photographer, Lois goes through several resumes her boss has given her, mainly because the new recruit will mainly work for her and is almost out of breath when among the solicitants she finds a smiling freckled face reading James Olsen (Knall). He's had no further role so far). Tess Mercer (she has not appeared personally, but has been mentioned quite a few times. A merge herself of comic/movie characters, Tess is from Smallville and Smallville only, so full SVcanon there. According to Link, she disappeared from the face of the Earth once Lex returned, probably demoted to seek tropical plants in some island); Isabel Parker (random invented civilian confronting Lex in his rally during Link, and pissing Mr. Luthor off a lot).

*JLA: is what could become in this universe. Being Ollie the head and founder, and being Ollie someone used to manage a big corporation such as Queen Industries, the League is a very well oiled engine, with hierarchies, meetings and protocols, contracts and subsidiary groups in areas where permanent bases are needed, such as the Titans, who also have their fair amount of independency. Members have total liberty to lead their lives and choose their own missions, but unless they have good motives, they will always be available for the League. No one has complained so far and the system works almost perfectly.

And I think this is pretty much it. Thanks and enjoy the story.