Clark and Lois were at their usual breakfast spot. There wasn't better coffee or muffins in all of Metropolis.

"Then Nathan looks up at me with this toothy grin and says 'Mommy says it'."

Lois spewed the coffee out of her mouth in laughter. She hadn't meant for Nathan to pick up on her language but then 3-year-olds had big ears and big mouths.

"Well, you wouldn't have been laughing if you had seen my mother when he uttered that 4 letter word," Clark said.

Lois stopped laughing and turned a little white. "He said it in front of Mrs. Kent?"

Clark knew he had her, "And Mom knows it wasn't me he learned it from."

Lois groaned.

"I'm sure she's lectured Nathan by now and when we go to pick him up and have supper over there, I'm sure she'll have a lecture for you too, sweetheart."

She threw her napkin at him. "You're enjoying this entirely too much."

"I have to admit this has made my day complete. Not the part where my son learned to swear like a—well, like a Lois, but watching you get lectured by Mom will definitely be the bright spot in my day."

"Just wait. I know I must have something I can tell your mother about you."

He grinned and leaned back in his chair, "Not when you're the perfect husband, father, and son."

Lois gave him a dirty look and then began to sift through her mind for some good blackmail material.

Clark suddenly got serious, not because he feared Lois' threat, but because of the strange woman sitting at the bar just behind Lois.

The woman was well into her middle ages. Streaks of gray ran through her short light brown hair and were about to become victorious in the battle of hair color. She was small and thin-framed. She kept staring curiously and anxiously at the back of Lois's head with her hazel-brown eyes.

"I've got it!" Lois said, startling Clark out of his human study. "If I can't think of something, I'll just make something up. Husbands never want to take out the trash. I'll say you haven't been taking out the trash."

He frowned at her. "I have too been taking out the trash."

"Hence, the making it up part."

He kept stealing glances at the middle-aged woman who hadn't stopped stealing glances at Lois.

"A woman—"

"I think that would be taking it a little too far."

"No, I mean there's this woman that keeps staring at you."

Lois looked puzzled. "Are you sure she's not staring at you?"

"I'm sure."

Lois turned around to take a look and then quickly snapped back around. "I don't know her."

"She seems to know you," Clark replied.

"Let's get out of here," Lois said, glaring in the woman's direction.

Clark followed Lois out onto the sidewalk, but he wasn't about to let the subject drop. "I know you know who that is."

She let out an angry sigh. She knew he wasn't going to stop until he found out who she was, one way or another. "That was my mother."

TBC