A/N: I tend to think that Clark's x-ray vision hasn't fully evolved yet in Smallville – once he's an adult, he'll have the x-ray vision as interpreted in the comics and in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Since his body is an adult's in this story, his x-ray vision will not see things as a x-ray machine, but just see through layers to see the real flesh of people and animals and items.

Oh, also, don't expect anything from this chapter. I hate it.

A/N2: Oh…also…I was going to post this this morning, but my computer acted all funny, so I didn't get to.

Chapter 7 (Lois POV)

It was far too hot. Even for Kansas – which was almost in the heart of the west – it was far too hot. In the past few weeks that I had stolen Clark's bed, I had never gotten overheated like I was now.

I tried to throw the covers off myself, but I couldn't move.

Ok, so I guess I could move, but my arms were extremely restricted. So I guess I could move about a centimeter. How does that count?

I raised my head to look around and see why.

My eyes fell upon a mess of black hair and the past day (had it really only been a day!) came rushing back.

Clark, apparently, was the reason I couldn't move.

His left arm was slung over my waist, pinning my right arm to my side. Coincidentally, my left arm was under Clark's torso with equally no escape in sight. They were both going numb.

One of his legs was slung over both of mine, pinning them to the mattress; kicking the covers off wasn't an option.

I was on the verge of trying to wake him up by any means that I was capable of when I realized that his head was resting on my chest.

It wasn't so much the whereabouts of his thick skull as that he wasn't on the other side of the bed. It made me feel…wanted…even though he was asleep.

All of a sudden, the man lying on top of me snorted and flopped his body over onto his back.

His head however stayed right where it had been.

Finally free, I sprang out of the bed before he could roll over on me again.

As I rubbed feeling back into my arms, I watched my husband.

Whoa…

Where the hell did that come from?

But when I took a second – actually, it was more like five minutes – to think about it, I came to the conclusion that being in love with Clark Kent, being married to Clark Kent, even having children with the man that was now lying a few in the bed a few feet away from me seemed plausible.

I smiled, – I don't know what possessed me –bent down to where my face was level with his, and placed a soft kiss on his lips.

Blushing furiously, I hastily retreated to the bathroom.

I was in the process of splashing water on my face, trying to convince myself that the kiss that had just happened in the next room over was a moment of insanity when the nausea hit.

Two seconds later I was kneeled in front of the toilet, leaving the water still running.

I felt the bile rise in my throat and for the next few minutes all I could focus on was that Clark should have been there with me doing…something, even if I didn't know what that 'something' should have been.

It was his child, too.

I was finally able to step from the porcelain bowl that seemed to hate me five minutes later.

I had flushed the toilet and was in the middle of washing my face when something by the bathroom door shrouded in shadows caught my eye and startled me.

I took a closer look and realized that it looked like Clark.

"Smallville," I sighed. "You scared me."

"Who's Smallville?" he asked.

Something wasn't right, though. One, he wouldn't ask 'who's Smallville'. He knew. And two, his voice was too high. Like he'd just got kicked in the balls or something.

"Clark?"

"Not quite," he said, stopping out of the shadows.

My breath caught in my throat and my heart-rate sped up.

"Nick?" I asked, my voice shaking.

"The one and only," he told me, smirking. "I told you I'd find you again, babe."

"Oh, shit," I breathed.

"You got that right," he said, and before I could blink his fist was making contact with the side of my head.

I collapsed on the tiled floor of the bathroom wondering why Clark wasn't there.

And then I slipped out of consciousness.

"Lois!"

I sat up in a cold sweat, Clark's bed firmly under me.

"What?" I asked, my eyes adjusting to the darkness.

"You had a dream. From the way you were thrashing around, I'd say it was a nightmare."

Boy, he had no idea.

"Why is it so dark?" I asked, my voice shaking.

"It's 1 AM. Do you want some light?" Clark climbed out of bed and switched the room light on before coming back to sit by me.

"You okay?" he asked. "Do you need anything?"

I shrugged. I wasn't about to say that I needed him.

"I'll get you some orange juice," he said standing up.

"No!" I cried, grabbing his hand. "Don't leave me!"

He sat down beside me again and gathered me in his arms.

"It's okay. I'm right here," he whispered in my ear. He laid a delicate kiss on the top of my head.

"I'm right here," he repeated softly. "I'm right here. I'll never leave you."

We stayed like that all night, only getting out of bed for me to puke my guts up. It seems I couldn't get out of that, dream or no dream.

He would shift positions every now and then but he seemed to know that even that bothered me; I didn't want him to leave, no matter what he promised.

He did get up to shut off the light around 4:00 AM, but he saw how tense I had gotten and hadn't made a move to even look like he was leaving since.

I remembered dozing off just as the sun was peaking over Clark's windowsill.

Clark's voice is a very nice sound to wake up to, I'd decided after I was lucid enough to realize that I had woken up in a car.

I stretched and looked around me, squinting when my eyes met the sun's harsh glare.

My eyes darted away from the sun and toward the clock -- 7:36 -- before resting on Clark.

He was intently staring at the road but talking all the while to the air.

"Telling your life story to the road?" I asked dryly.

He took his eyes off the road long enough to give me one of the dazzling Kent smiles before turning them back to his previous fixation.

"Nope," he said brightly. "Just talking to him."

"Him?" I asked.

"Yeah. The life force that is currently residing in your stomach."

"Uterus," I said, correcting him.

"Huh?" he asked, confused.

"My uterus. The fetus doesn't grow in the stomach."

"Oh," he said, his cheeks reddening.

"Oh, come on," I said. "You can not be embarrassed by that."

Clark looked bashful and forced all his attention on the road.

"Men," I said, rolling my eyes. "Where are we now?"

"Just a little south of Central City," Clark said, looking relieved to have left the previous conversation behind.

"How much longer?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Chloe says things have gotten more congested in the past few years, so traffic will be thicker and slower than we're used to."

"Okay," I said and yawned, my jaw cracking.

"Go back to sleep, Lois. I can go without, but you lost about six hours last night."

"Fine," I said.

He stuck out his hand and when I slipped mind into his, he placed a light kiss on it. We both blushed.

When he started to draw it away, I tightened my grip on it and tugged it towards me.

A smile threatened at the corners of his lips as I snuggled up to the leather seat, taking his hand and placing it on my abdomen before wrapping my own hand around his again.

My last thought before sleep claimed me was that I loved him.

He was talking again. Like he had been before, he was staring at the road, talking amiably to seemingly no one.

I knew better, now, though. He was talking to…it.

Should I even be calling it a…'it'? Oh well. I didn't know its gender yet, did I?

And Smallville was still talking.

And then I realized what he was talking about. It wasn't its life story he was spilling. It was his feel – whoa.

Holy crap.

I sat up in my seat faster than allowed for a pregnant woman. "What?"

Clark's eyes widened in surprise, and he said, "Lois. I didn't know you were awake."

"Heh. Yeah, I can see that. Do you make a habit of spilling your heart out to your children?" I asked, my heart rate rapidly picking up.

Clark sputtered for a moment, his eyes shifting rapidly between Lois and the road. "I…uh…I mean, that is…I…"

I nodded. "I see. It's all so clear."

Clark cheeks flamed. "How much did you hear?"

"Enough."

Clark grimaced. "Even the part about --"

"Yeah. Even that part."

"Crap."

"You think?"

Clark shrugged. "I guess. You've seemed very…estranged from emotions, Lois. I just…don't want to scare you."

I didn't respond – I didn't know how to; he was right.

Silence fell – one of those awkward ones; the ones that I'm uncomfortable with.

He shifted in his seat slightly, apparently mulling over in his mind what to say next. "We stopped earlier while you were still asleep," he said, motioning toward the cup holders. "I got coffee."

I nodded and grabbed the cup nearest me. "Good. Coffee is good."

I painstakingly watched the clock change from 9:43 to 9:46. The silence was deafening.

"Clark…you didn't scare me. Well, for a second you did. No one's really ever felt that way about me before. But…I'm not really scared. It just…shocked me. That's all."

"So…you're okay with this, then?"

"It'll…take some getting used to. But…Clark…when I fell asleep this last time…I thought…well…I thought 'I love him'."

I felt the car's front wheels turn to a 90 degree angle before Clark righted them again. "Lois…"

"Clark, I'm serious. I'm not just saying that because you told the air that."

"Not the air," he said indignatently. "Our son."

"Yeah…well – Hey, what makes you say he's gonna be a boy?"

Clark blushed.

I gasped. "You didn't!"

He fidgeted in his seat.

"You did! You're evil, you know that?" I asked, shaking my finger at him in mock anger.

"Shamefully so," he told me, his face burning.

I glared at him for another moment before returning to our previous conversation. Once again, he looked relieved for the change. "Anyway, Clark, I'm serious."

"Lois, I know you are. But…don't you think this is all going so incredibly fast? We've been here for a day and we're declaring our everlasting love for each other, when the day before, we were just getting to know each other. It's too fast."

"This coming from you?" I asked. "The one who was convinced that, two days ago, he was destined to have a never-ending love with Lana Lang?"

"I never said that."

"But you sure as hell thought it."

"How would you know, Lois? Do you have ESP?"

"No, but you're as easy to read as a book."

"Yeah," Clark said sarcastically. "And leprechauns are agents of the IRA."

I nodded. "I know they are. And thank you for believing me. Alligators live in the sewers, as well."

Clark continued, "Lois…I just…this isn't normal. I want to love you, but I don't know if I'm allowed."

"Allowed? Allowed? God, Clark, you're aloud to feel whatever the hell you want to! No one on Earth can stop you, no matter who you are - alien, human, man, woman, child or elder. No one can change what goes on in your mind."

He stared at the road for a long minute before responding. "Sure they can, Lois. If they tell you that you're wrong enough, or that you're in love with a certain girl, you eventually begin to believe it."

What the hell was he talking about? He had as much free will…as….oh.

"People told you that you loved Lana, so you believed it?"

Clark shrugged as he switched lanes on the highway, following directly behind what I assumed was Chloe's SUV. "Maybe, maybe not. I know that at one time, my genuine feelings for her were a childhood crush. And, yeah, it lasted longer than most would. But I have a feeling that if people didn't say so much that I was in love with Lana, I might have gotten over what I thought was supposed to be."

"When, exactly, do you have time to psychoanalyze yourself?"

He shrugged. "My brain runs faster than yours. I have much more time to think, let alone time to actually do things."

"Huh. That's…very…. informative."

Clark chuckled. "I should hope so."

I shrugged. "What was I supposed to say?"

I realized that we were straying what I had intended to talk about when the cell phone on Clark's belt rang.

He jumped momentarily before answering it with a, "Hello?"

"Goddamit, Kent! Do you want to give me a heart attack?" It was the same voice that had woken me up earlier yesterday morning

Clark had developed what was the 'deer in the headlights look'. "Uh…I…I mean, that is –"

"Look, Kent, I know you have the social skills of a llama, but can you at least try and communicate?"

"Sure, Mr.…Mr.…"

"White, son. It's Perry White, your editor. Have you suffered a memory lapse?"

Clark cleared his throat. "No. Why do you ask?"

There was silence on the line lasted for all of two minutes. "Kent…"

"Yessir?"

"Just…never mind…when are you going to get here?"

"I don't know, Mr. White. You might want to call Chloe – she'd know."

"Right…. give Lois my love. You be safe, you hear?"

"Yessir."

There was a grunt on the line before it went dead; Clark looked from me to the phone. "We work for him?"

I chuckled. "He was the one who woke me up yesterday morning."

"So if he hadn't, you're saying that I might have woken up naked…in bed…with you?"

"Yep."

"Damn. So close," he said with a teasing tone in his voice.

I gasped, pretending to be shocked. "I'm astounded at your barbaric behavior, Mr. Kent. I would expect to treat your pregnant wife with better manners!"

Clark smirked at me. "You keep using that against me, don't you? That's evil, that is."

"Well, that makes two of us. I hope it doesn't run in the family."

"Look, Lois," he said to me without taking his eyes off the road, "I know you and your cousin are rotten to the core, but seriously. You don't have to blame it on genetics."

"Okay, then," I told him, rolling my eyes, "That makes three of us."

"Don't blame Lucy for anything, either."

"Fine then, four!"

Clark looked at me for a moment innocently. "Who's the fourth?"

"You, dammit!"

Clark laughed at my apparent agitation. "Me? Me? No, Lois, I'm afraid you're mistaken. I'm the saintly hero, remember?"

I snorted. "Right. And I'm a superwoman."

Clark shrugged. "That's cool. We could make it a family business."

I let my head fall against the window. "You're impossible!"

Clark flashed one of his blinding smiles as he switched lanes again. "I know. Isn't it great?"

"No," I mumbled, causing the window to mist up.

"Oh, come on, Lois! Lighten up a little bit. You should be back in your element! But instead you're moping. What's wrong?"

"Hormones."

"You women and your hormones. Is that your only excuse?"

"Our most valid one."

Clark laughed again. "Oh, how I love you, Lois."

I smiled at him. "I love you too."

Clark froze. "I just said that out loud, didn't I?"

I laughed. "Yeah. You want to take it back?"

He blushed and mumbled something inaudible.

I started to grin again and ask him to speak up, but a thought struck me – we had just said that we loved each other and we were joking about it. How could we do that?

I closed my eyes and everything came rushing back - I was going to be a mother, Clark and I had no clue why we were here, Chloe's unusual reaction to Lex and the unusual memory flashbacks that Clark and I were having.

How could life be so perfect one minute and then be shit the next?

A/N3: Uhm….a review would be nice, if it's not too much trouble. I don't think a review is worth this chapter, but it would do wonders for my confidence.