Clark hesitated before bringing his fist to the door. He'd tried the other address. If this wasn't her, he didn't know how he was going to find Lois' mother. If only he had heard her speak, maybe he could keep an ear out for her voice when he was flying. He shook his head. There was no use focusing on ifs before he even found out if this was the right Ella Lane. He knocked again and listened carefully. He could tell someone was in there, someone who wasn't coming to the door. He wasn't going away until that someone came to the door.

At last, the door inched open. All he could see through the crack was a hazel eye and a few strands of hair, but he knew it was her. "Can I come in please?"

"Why?" she asked suspiciously.

"I just want to talk with you."

She warily moved away from the door. He could see that she was packing up. There were cardboard boxes all over the place.

"Well?" said the woman.

"I want to help you."

She laughed a dry laugh. "Help me?"

"Reconnect with your daughters."

She started putting items in the living room into the boxes. "You want the impossible. Lucy doesn't even know I'm alive and Lois, well, you saw her reaction."

"I don't know the story, but I know Lois. She's hurt and she needs some time to process things."

"No, she hates me. And don't try to tell me about my daughter. She hated broccoli. She never even tried it, but she was convinced she wouldn't like it. I spent 3 years trying to talk her into a bite and you know what? I bet she still doesn't eat broccoli."

"A mother and a vegetable are two very different things," Clark tried to persuade her. It was true that she still didn't eat broccoli.

She set the glass figurine in her hand back down on the table. "Well, then let me give you this scenario. Your alcoholic, chain-smoking mother ran out on you when you were 6 without so much as a goodbye, not that you spent much time with her to begin with in her perpetual, whiney stupor. Do you forgive her? Knowing her father as I do, I can imagine that the rest of her childhood wasn't exactly pie in the sky either."

He was momentarily at a loss for words.

"That's what I thought," she said, picking her figurine back up.

"You must want to mend fences if you took an apartment in Metropolis. You can't tell me you didn't know your daughter was a famous reporter for a Metropolitan paper."

"I did know. I wasn't really trying to get in touch with her or anything. I just thought I might run into her one day and that it might be nice, but it wasn't nice."

"So now you're just going to give up and run away again?"

"You look like a pushover, but I must say you're relentless. I'm starting to see why you're married to my daughter. You are Lois' husband, aren't you?"

He affirmed with a quick nod. "So if I set up a meeting with Lois, you'll come and you'll stick around here a little longer?"

She sighed. "If she agrees to it, but only if she agrees to it."

He smiled at her.

"I can tell you have rosy pictures in your head of us bursting into tears, hugging, and living happily ever after henceforth as mother and daughter. That's not the way real life works. Blood isn't thicker than water sometimes. If you can get us in the same room together, it'll be a miracle and I can guarantee you it won't be a pretty, happy reunion."

"I know, but it'll be a start. You have to do it for Lois' sake and Nathan's."

"Nathan?"

"He's our son." He opened up his wallet and took out a recent picture of Nathan.

"He's beautiful," she said, smiling for the first time. She reluctantly started to give it back.

"Keep it. We have more." He took out his cell phone. "Give me your number and I'll call you as soon as I have it set up."

She gave it to him and he punched it in. He started to leave, but she stopped him with a question. She was focused on unpacking, trying to look as if she didn't care what the answer was. "Has she ever mentioned me before today?"

Not unless you counted being told she was dead and he wasn't going to tell her that. He slowly and sympathetically shook his head.

"I called her on her 16th birthday. She hung up on me."

He didn't know if it was an attempt on her part to say that she wasn't as bad a mother as he thought, that his mission was hopeless, or if she just wanted some reassurance. He just nodded and softly closed the door behind him

He didn't know how he was going to get Lois to agree to a meeting, but he did know it wasn't going to be easy.

TBC