A/N: What? An update? Yep. I apologize in advance for the lack of updates and the possible cliffhangers to come.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. And also, I'm sorry. You don't know what I mean yet, but you will. I'll try to update soon enough.

Lucy didn't know what to do. She found herself in an interesting predicament and there was no way in hell she was going to talk to her father about it- after all, she pretty much knew what his opinion on the matter would be. And she wasn't sure she was ready for that yet.

"Dammit!" She shouted when she tried to fix it again and couldn't manage to get the zipper over her midsection. This was getting ridiculous. She hadn't even put on that much weight yet, wasn't even into her second trimester yet- though she soon would be- and she was having trouble fitting into her suit.

She groaned loudly. "Mom!"

Lois was in the room instantly, apparently just waiting for her daughter to break down and call for her. "You called?" She smiled sarcastically.

"Oh, quit pretending to be so innocent and help me already!"

Lois grinned at her daughter and stepped in front of her to reach the zipper, working it up and down in order to try and free it from wherever it was caught.

"I thought Spandex was supposed to stretch," Lucy huffed.

Her mom chuckled. "I think it just needs some time to... readjust."

"You know, some women don't even start showing until their fifth month," Lucy complained pointedly.

"Oh, honey, you're not really showing yet. You're just starting to put on a little baby weight, that's all."

"Baby weight? Mom, I can't afford to put on any more baby weight for much longer. People are going to start noticing."

Lois considered her response carefully before finally speaking. "Well, you're not wrong about that."

Lucy pulled away from her mother, who simply looked up at her expectantly. "Wow. You agree with them, don't you?"

Again, Lois feigned ignorance. "Agree with whom on what, darling?"

Lucy groaned and sunk onto the bed behind her in defeat. "Dad. Chris. Everyone." She buried her face in her hands and sighed.

Lois stood up slowly, joints cracking in protest and went to take a seat next to her daughter. She opened her mouth to speak, searching for more right words. "I don't not agree with them, let's say."

Lucy's eyes started to fill with tears. "Am I a horrible person? I mean, I should be taking it easy, I know, and it's not that I don't want to, believe me-"

"Lucy, no!" Lois turned and wrapped her arms comfortingly around her daughter. She let her simply cry herself out and made comforting shushing noises, rubbing her back in a soothing motion. "You are absolutely not a horrible person. You're just a little nervous to give anything up yet. And that's perfectly natural. I remember when I was pregnant with Jason, Perry had to threaten to fire me before I finally took a step back and stuck to desk work. And I was much farther along than you are now."

"I mean, it's not that I don't want to scale it back, do a little bit less. I do. I just haven't figured out how to do that just yet. How can I scale back on being UltraWoman? I feel like I've just started."

"I know honey," Lois soothed, keeping up the steady rubbing motion on her daughter's back. "But your dad has handled his super activities on his own for a long time now. He can handle it himself."

"Dad thinks it would be good to tell everyone I'm pregnant. Again with the whole "honesty" bit. But I don't think that'd be a good idea."

"And what does Chris think?"

"Chris just wants me to stop as soon as possible. He's understandably very nervous about everything."

Lois nodded, ideas swirling through her head. "I agree on that point. I'm having difficulty seeing what your father's idea would accomplish-"

"Right? He's nuts."

"-But you are going to have to make a decision fast. Because you never know when someone says just one ill placed comment, and suddenly it might not be your decision to make."

Lucy sighed. She knew her mother was right. A lot of the time. "I'm glad we have at least one sane person in this family."

Lois grinned and tucked a strand of Lucy's dark hair behind her ears. "It's a big job, but somebody's gotta do it."

Lucy shifted and looked at her hands. Her mother furrowed her brow at her. Surely she would crack a smile, just a small one, at that. Instead of pressuring her to say something though, she waited.

"I'm scared, Mom."

And then it clicked. Lois had made the mistake of assuming, given how desperately Lucy had wanted to become a mother, that she was fully prepared for everything that came with that path of action. But in actuality, she was just as frightened as Lois had been when she'd found out she was going to have Jason. Lois shivered slightly at the memory- finding out she was pregnant, unsure of how she became such, thinking terrible thoughts about how much easier her life would be without a child in it and eventually turning into the arms of the first man she found. Which wasn't exactly fair- Richard had been a great father to Jason for five years, and even to this day kept contact with her fully grown son, despite their rough patch in the middle. And she had loved him once. She couldn't deny that. She hadn't handled things well back then, when they'd split, and neither had he, but they had all reached a point eventually where their families could respect and care about each other.

Lucy didn't have any of those stresses to worry about. Well, she had one big thing that Lois didn't really. UltraWoman. Lois had never had to deal with having an alterego. Though many a time she'd had to deal with Clark's.

"Why?" Lois finally asked, dragging her thoughts back to her daughter's statement.

"Because! I don't what I'm getting myself into!"

"No new mother does. You should have seen the wreck I was with Jason."

"It's different."

"How? I'm here to help you, you have Chris and your father and a whole network of people who love and appreciate you. And who will love and appreciate this baby. When I was pregnant with Jason, I didn't have any of that."

"It's not about you. How could I possibly-! You and even Maisie can't understand!"

Lois frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm the first Kryptonian- or half Kryptonian or whatever! - woman in our family to have a child. Do you know how frightening that is? I mean, what if pregnancy hormones mess with my powers or something? What if I'm exposed to Kryptonite, even briefly, and it has a major impact on me or my baby? What if... what if something goes wrong during the pregnancy and the doctor's can't do anything about it because I'm invulnerable? What if the baby's invulnerable and... I don't know! That's the frustrating part! I have no idea what to expect and I'm risking everything no matter what I do and I'm just... stuck."

Tears were flowing down her daughter's face by the end of her speech, and Lois felt her own rolling down her cheeks as well. She brushed it away gently and looked her daughter in the eye. "Hey, I know this is scary. I know there's a lot of risk factors involved. You can't let that get you down."

Lucy nodded absently. "It's just so scary. I never thought about all of that responsibility before. I just wanted to have a child of my own. And maybe absolutely nothing will go wrong and I'm just being paranoid. But what if all of the adoption agencies were right, and our lives just won't fit with a child in them?"

Lois turned her daughter's words over in her mind, wanting to just tell her everything would be okay and yet knowing to a certain extent that there were legitimate concerns to be addressed. "Well," she began hesitantly, "I'm not going to say that having and raising children is easy- particularly Kryptonian ones. And you can't imagine how it's possible now maybe, but it will change your life." She paused to make sure she had her daughter's full attention. "But, I know you. You're Superman's daughter. You're UltraWoman. And you've got Lane and Kent blood in you- do you know how resilient and stubborn these two families are?" Lucy cracked a small smile at that. Lois became serious again. "You can accomplish anything, Luce. I know it."

Lucy wrung her hands nervously still. "Okay, so even if that's true, how do you know nothing else is going to go wrong? I mean, maybe there's a reason why I wasn't able to have kids before-"

"Lucy, no. That's not true, otherwise you wouldn't be pregnant now, would you?"

Lucy looked to the bedspread in shame. "I guess."

Lois lifted her daughter's chin to look her directly in the face. "Hey, we're just going to take it one day at a time and do what we can. That's all we can do, right?"

Lucy nodded. "Right."

"And I promise you, sweetie. I'll be with you absolutely every step of the way. And of course you'll always have Chris, and your father, but make no mistake. I do understand what it's like. I'm always gonna be here for you."

Lucy's eyes filled with tears once again. Like a child, she threw her arms around her mother and hugged her tight. "I love you, Mom."

Lois felt her heart swell as it always did when either of her children said those four simple words. If only she could transmit that feeling to Lucy right now, let her know just how fulfilling and how worth it everything was in the end when it came to children. All of the heartache, the pain, the arguments and the drama- Lois Lane-Kent wouldn't trade a moment of it if it meant that there was even a slight chance this outcome would be any different.

But she couldn't explain that feeling just yet. Not until Lucy had a child of her own.

So, instead, she settled with her usual response. She kissed the top of Lucy's head, held her and whispered in her ear.

"I love you too, baby. Always and forever."