The first several months of the pregnancy were hard. Lois was often ill, suffering inexplicable hot flashes, violent nausea and a general bad temper. She was miserable and frightened, because, somehow, she wanted this child. It seemed bizarre to her, given it was the product of a rebound, that it wasn't part of her plan, that it would happen now, of all times, when she was anchorless and aching with Superman's absence. She was pregnant with another man's child, a man she really barely knew. There was real shame in that for her, even when she tried to tell herself it was only bad luck that the precautions hadn't worked.
Richard was responsibility incarnate when she told him. They'd only been out on two dates since their night together, and neither had ended in the bedroom. She told him she didn't expect him to be obligated. He said he liked her so much that he hoped they could continue to see each other and – come what may, he would always be there to help raise their child.
Normality and Richard went hand in hand. He was steady, warm, a stand up guy. He felt entirely exotic to Lois. Little by little she accepted him, and if she still sometimes found herself on the roof of the Daily Planet, staring into the sky and crying silently while she ran her hands over her pregnant belly, well, everyone's life had static. That was how Lois thought of the hole in her core, that hollowed out trench with its sharp edges and bottomless yearning.
When Jason arrived, she threw herself into motherhood with all the ferociousness she usually reserved for journalism, for he was born early with underdeveloped lungs and a susceptibility to temperature spikes that terrified her with their life-threatening heights. She went through much of this alone, for still she held Richard at arm's length, though they were seeing each other exclusively by default. He never pushed much for more time than she wanted to give and the measured pace of his affection, while alien to her heart, so used to earth-shattering passion, began to feel as comfortable as a well-worn shoe. She realized after some time that it was comfortable for Richard too. He admired her, wanted her, appreciated her, was utterly loyal to her, but he had little drive to understand her.
When Jason was two, they moved in together. It pleased Richard for them to be a family. He was a good father, steady and reliable. He was a good lover, caring and supportive. She worked every day to be the same for him. It was not the life she had longer for, but it was worth while, and would have to be enough. And when she woke from dreams where it was another man who held her in his arms at night, another man who laid his large hand over hers on Jason's chest and called him son, she hated herself. But she always closed her eyes, wishing the dream would come back for just a minute more. And she never, never stopped searching the sky.
She would never know it, but she was looking up in the sky the very night a meteorite struck the ground a thousand miles away in southern Kansas.
Martha Kent stared out the window as the fireball descended, her heart pounding with fierce joy. She hurried out to the truck, driving straight out into the field over the growing wheat. The ship was enormous, a dozen times the size of the tiny lifeboat that had first carried him to her and Jonathon. She slid out of the truck, searching the steaming mass of blackened crystal, but could not approach too closely for the tremendous heat still issuing from it. Where was he? Was he -?
A hand caught at her shoulder and she turned, holding onto him as he sank to the ground. She cradled him in her lap, rocking him gently, murmuring to him just as she had when he was a child. He was exhausted, and she feared he was ill. Carefully, she urged him up for it was far beyond her strength to lift his dense body.
"Clark – Clark, listen to my voice. Come on, son, just a step further." Into the truck, out of the truck, with him stumbling, shaking with cold, then heat. Tears ran down Martha's face in silent tracks as she got him up the stairs, helping him into the bed. She sank to sit on the bed, worn out, as he fell instantly asleep. With trembling hands, she touched his cheek, his hair, his impenetrable chest while saying a grateful prayer.
"Clark," she whispered, "you've come home at last."