A/N: Hello again everybody! Just wanted to let you know that this story in particular was the impetus for "Life Intervenes". I just couldn't get Jason and Haley out of my head when I was in the middle of writing "Consequences" so I gave them a moment that was all their own. I hope you enjoy it! Also, it's time for the Superman Movieverse Fanfiction Awards again! If you're unfamiliar with the craze check out htbthomas' profile page, or check out the site on livejournal. Nominations are being accepted up until the end of June and then voting begins July 1st. I can't wait to see all the great fanfiction that gets nominated! Best of luck to all the authors out there!!!
The Bear Goes Missing (Part 1)
Metropolis, January 26, 2017. He sat in the living room with the coffee table pulled close, his geometry books spread out before him while the muted television flickered on in the background. Jason had always excelled at mathematics—he'd even been placed in a class a grade above his own peers—but this year was a different story.
Geometry was kicking his super-charged rear.
He kept flipping between problem number twelve on page 115 and back to the answer key on page 347, but the answer on the notepad before him simply did not match up. Tearing the page away from it's binding he crumpled it in his large hand and lobbing it through the air until it joined it's brothers and sisters in an ever-growing pile on the opposite side of the room.
"I hate geometry!" Jason cried out in exasperation, ever the melodramatic fifteen year old. It wasn't as though anyone were around to reprimand him for his outburst.. Both his parents were working late that evening—his mother was at the Planet with his Uncle Perry, while his father…a quick glance up at the TV showed Superman to be aiding some unfortunate souls in Egypt, and he knew it would be some time more before he returned home. And Haley was asleeop down the hall.
He glanced down at the problem again and copied it neatly at the top of the page, then plugged in the corresponding numbers to the Pythagorean theorem. "Why do I always get a different answer…?" he asked out loud as he scribbled away, working the problem for the umpteenth time.
"Jason," Haley stage whispered from the middle of the hallway where she stood in her long, lilac nightgown. "I can't find Bobo. I looked everywhere for him and he's gone. I can't go to sleep without him." Her lower lip began to quiver as she spoke.
The teenager glanced down at the battered watch on his wrist and then shot his sister a questioning glance. "I thought I put you to bed an hour ago, Hales; have you been up this whole time?"
She nodded her head in solemn agreement, her dark wavy locks flopping about her shoulders. "Uh huh. I can't go to sleep without Bobo. Will you help me look for him the special way, like Daddy does?"
He hauled his gangly, 5'11" frame up off the sofa and let out a sigh, then trod down the hall toward the little girl. Placing a hand gently on her back, he guided her over toward her bright pink room and urged her back into bed. "When's the last time you remember seeing him?"
Haley scrambled over to the center of the room and leapt up onto the mattress, landing in the center with a soft thud. She cocked her head to the side and tried to recall when she'd last seen her favorite teddy bear. "This morning, I think…before school."
Jason forced a small smile on his face as he stood in the doorway. "Then he must still be here in the apartment, right? Ok, now let's just see where he's hiding…" The x-ray vision had been his most recent power to develop—shortly after he'd begun flying, in fact—and it was one ability he was still having trouble controlling. There were moments when it would suddenly appear out of the blue, like when he was navigating the hallways of his high school between classes, while there were still other times when his father would urge him to look through a box or a wall or an envelope in order to practice and he would find the view before him unchanged. The flip-flop vision annoyed him almost as much as his geometry assignments.
Holding his breath, Jason turned his head to the corner of the room and began willing the outer layers of the toy chest to dissolve away. Slowly but surely the wooden exterior faded from view, revealing the outlines of numerous dolls, toy cars, and plastic knick knacks inside that his sister had collected over the years—but no bear was to be found. He tried again with the closet.
****
Haley hugged her knees to her chest, her dark hair falling around her pale white face, and she watched her big brother in rapt attention as he carefully scanned the entire room searching for Bobo.
Finally, Jason appeared to finish and strode forward, getting down on all fours next to her bed. Haley leaned over the opposite side and lifted up the bed skirt to see her brother peering around under the frame, where nothing lingered save for a few pairs of shoes and some dust bunnies. "What are you doing?"
"Looking for the bear."
"Oh."
He straightened up and brushed the dust off his hands and she turned to look at him expectantly. "I don't know what to tell you, Hales, but Bobo's not here. It looks like he's flown the coop for the night."
Her bright blue eyes began to water and her lower lip trembled again. "But I can't s-sleep without BOBO!"
****
Jason sat down next to her on the mattress and pulled her in for a hug, her hot tears seeping through his t-shirt. He rubbed her back soothingly and gradually Haley began to settle back down. As her sobs subsided and only a handful of hiccups escaped her lips, he laid her back down against the pillow and pulled the covers up tight under her chin.
"Did I ever tell you the story of how you came by Bobo?"
The little girl rolled her eyes, looking just like their mother. "Of course! Only about a hundred times…you gave him to me at the hospital on my very first birthday—the one without the candle and cake."
He smirked at her attitude. "That's right, but there's more to the story then that; would you like to hear it?" Haley pulled at the covers and nodded her head, her eyes wide with wonder at the prospect of hearing a new version of an old tale. "Alright then. Tell me, how much do you remember about Grandpa Sam?" The man in question had passed away four years earlier, and he wasn't sure what, if anything, she remembered about the only grandfather they'd ever met.
"Ummm…" She brought her forefinger up to her mouth and bit on the end, lost in thought for a moment. "I remember going with you and Mom and Dad to the house 'on-Base', and Nana would meet us at the front door. Then he'd call out 'Who's that I hear?' in a mean voice, almost like he was angry but we knew he was just pretending and I'd run down the hall to find him. I'd stand in the doorway and he'd sit in that big comfy chair with the newspaper in his hands and his glasses on the end of his nose—then he'd smile and let me sit on his lap, and we'd read the paper and talk and he always let me eat ice cream."
Jason smiled at his sister's memory; the General had relaxed a lot after her birth—not that he hadn't been a terrific grandfather to him before Haley came along, but he tended to let more of his exacting Army standards slide in her presence. Both Kent children missed him, but Jason suspected he missed him just a little bit more by virtue of having known him longer.
"Yep, that sounds like Grandpa Sam. Well, on the day you were born, we were all waiting at the hospital to meet you—Grandpa Sam, Nana Ella, Grandma Martha, Uncle Perry AND Uncle Jimmy." He stopped and took stock of the effect his words had on her; Haley was extremely pleased with herself for having drawn so many visitors to her side just by being born—but then a small frown crossed her face.
"Where was Aunt Chloe?" she asked anxiously.
"Well Aunt Chloe hadn't married Uncle Jimmy yet and she was still living in Smallville; don't you remember the pictures we have from their wedding, with you holding the flowers?"
"Oh yeah…"
"So anyhow, all these people were waiting to meet you, and Nana Ella asked me if I wanted a brother or a sister. I told her what I told Mom and Dad, that I wanted a baby brother so that I could be like my friend Danny. Back then he was my best friend, and he had a younger brother and a younger sister; however, his brother Hunter was older and at the time he was a lot more fun to play with. Marie was just a little blob of a baby and I didn't want a younger sister like that."
Her jaw dropped indignantly at this latest revelation. "You didn't WANT ME?!?!" she shrieked.
He held a hand up dramatically to silence her. "Hear me out a second, I'm not finished yet. Now where was I? Oh yeah, I wanted a baby brother, so Nana Ella then asked me what I would do if I did get a sister. I told her, very simply, that I'd trade her with one of the babies in the windowed room down the hall—I thought it was like the pet store we used to have down the block, where you could see all the puppies playing behind the window and pick one up for adoption. I figured we could trade with a couple who had a boy but wanted a girl, and that way we'd all get what we wanted."
"You wanted to TRADE ME?!?!?"
Jason grinned in the face of her outrage. "What can I say, Hales? You hadn't been born yet—I didn't know you or have a chance to get to love you like I do now." He bopped her playfully on the nose and she giggled.
"Ok…" The little girl settled back down, temporarily mollified.
"Now once everybody there had a good laugh at my expense—because obviously you can't trade babies like that—Nana Ella told me what the purpose of the windowed room was while Grandpa Sam called out to me and took my hand. He told Nana that we were going on official baby business and that we'd be back soon and then led me out of the room.
"Needless to say, I was getting a little sick of baby stuff by then, but I liked spending time with 'Grandpa General'—that's what I used to call him when I was little—and we rode all the way down in the elevator to the gift shop." A sad smile crept across his face as the memories of that day washed over him.
****
Metropolis General Hospital, March 29, 2009. "Jason, come here," General Lane called out to his grandson as the boy stood staring at a row of brightly colored snow globes. The lad dutifully trotted over to his side and watched him with big blue eyes as he held a white t-shirt up against the front of his body. "Yep, that'll do."
"What does it say?" Jason asked, peering up into his grandfather's face.
He leaned over and held the shirt out for inspection. "Why don't you tell me?"
"I'm the Big Broth…Brother!" The little boy beamed in triumph at his accomplishment.
Sam held out a hand which the child quickly latched onto, and the pair proceeded down the aisle at a leisurely pace. "We need to find you a gift to give to your little brother or sister; you don't want to show up to their first birthday party empty handed, do you?"
Jason stared at him, concerned. "It's his first birthday?"
"Yep, his or hers," he glanced down at his watch, "Assuming they're born within the next thirteen hours or so. And we need to find you a gift to give your new sibling. You can pick anything you like, within reason."
"Wow!" Jason turned his head, his gaze returning to the snow globes that had caught his eye earlier. "What about one of those?"
The General eyed the heavy trinkets with a weary eye but did his best to temper his disapproval. "Why don't we see what else they have here first before we decide, ok?"
"Ok." A row of plastic model cars near the end of the aisle commanded his attention next. He let go of his grandfather's hand and raced off to play with the plastic red and green painted toys.
"So, you like cars, huh?" The boy nodded his head vigorously in response, not bothering to look up from his imaginary play. "Do you think you'd want to get that for the baby?" He knew it was an inappropriate gift for a newborn, but he wanted to see his grandson's reaction.
"No," he replied mournfully, putting the objects down and preparing to walk away.
"Why not?"
"Because, if the baby is a girl then she won't want to play cars." Sam stared at his grandson quizzically and crouched down to be at eye level with him as he continued on in his explanation. "She'll only want to play dress up and tea party and do other girlie things, not the fun stuff like I like."
Jason's statement hit Sam in the face like a bucket of cold water; he knew the child hadn't picked up on this way of thinking from his parents, and he hoped to God he hadn't learned it from him. The General knew he hadn't always been fair when he was raising Lois and Lucy, treating them as if they were inferior to his cadets because they were young women instead of young men, but he liked to think he'd changed for the better these last few years and mended his ways.
"Is that why you want a brother instead of a sister, because you're afraid you'll have to play tea party?"
Again, the child nodded his head vigorously. "And other stuff. You can't play-wrestle with girls, or build forts, or play cops and robbers, or have snowball fights…"
He held up a hand to stop the jabbering boy. "Ok, I think I get the picture." Sam brought a hand to his chin and held it there contemplatively, pondering how best to phrase his thoughts to a seven year old child.
"Do you ever build forts with your mother?"
"Uh huh—she even lets me use the good blankets because they make the best roofs."
"How about snowball fights?"
"Yeah. She throws good, too."
"What about cops and robbers?"
"Sometimes…but not all the time because she's a mean sheriff."
Sam couldn't help but chuckle at that one; that was his Lois, alright. "Now when's the last time you played tea party with her?"
The little boy cocked his head to one side in deep thought. "Never…I think."
"And you'd say your Mom's a girl, right?"
He shot his grandfather a quizzical look. "Well duh."
"Jason, you're one lucky little boy and if you have a little sister you'll find you'll be even luckier."
"WHAT?!?!"
The older gentleman suppressed a smile at his grandson's strong reaction. "You see, Jason, your Mom may be a Kent now, but before that she was a Lane, and Lane women are tough; whatever they put their mind to doing they become twice as good as any man at and they also work ten times as hard. Lane women are stronger then any man you'll ever meet, myself included." Jason stared up into the impressive man's face with a look full of shock. "Now with that said, doesn't it stand to reason that any girl born to your mother would be just as tough?"
****
Metropolis, January 26, 2017. "Wow," Haley muttered in a quiet, awed voice. "Grandpa really said all that stuff about me? He said I was tough like Mommy?"
Jason nodded his head, sending his dark locks into his face. "Yep, he sure did—and he hadn't even met you yet!" He leaned over and tickled Haley in the ribs, sending her squirming and crying out with laughter. "You see, I was so dead set on having a little brother that I hadn't even considered what having a little sister would be like; it took Grandpa Sam to point it out to me."
"He was really smart," she stated matter-of-factly.
"Yes he was." The teenager stopped a moment, suppressing his sadness; his 'Grandpa General' had been one of the toughest, smartest men he knew, just like his father and his Uncle Perry. "But do you know what happened next?"
"No, what?" Haley asked breathlessly, hanging on her brother's every word, the missing bear almost forgotten.
"I turned to look down the aisle at all the stuffed animals stacked up against the wall and I saw him, I saw Bobo. He was sitting in the middle of the shelf, next to a lot of other little furry guys—penguins and hippos and giraffes and pigs—but one look at Bobo was all it took because I knew that he'd be the perfect gift for my little brother or sister. So I ran down the aisle to grab him and I held him out to Grandpa Sam, telling him that that was the one I wanted for the baby.
"He smiled at me and ruffled my hair a bit, then we found a nice bag to put him in and a card to sign and we went to the register to pay for everything. The lady behind the counter made sure to wrap him up good and tight because I didn't want anybody else to see what I'd gotten you for your very first birthday; not even Uncle Jimmy, and he tried to peek. In fact, he tried to peek a lot."
"He he he…silly Uncle Jimmy!"
"But that isn't even the best part."
She stared up at him, the disbelief evident in her eyes. "It isn't?"
"Nope. The best part was when I got to see you for the first time and give you Bobo myself."
To Be Continued…
