Here it is guys, the very last chapter! sniffs I actually wrote this one out on paper first because there was a power outage in my town for several hours and my computer was down. As soon as power came back up (at midnight) I started typing this all out. It's now 4:31 AM. I am sleep deprived, but it was worth it.
"You know, not everything has to be pink." Charlie said with a smile as Helena held out yet another pink dress for inspection. When the little girl's rosebud mouth started tipping down at the corners, Charlie hurriedly reassured her. "But this dress is fantastic Hellraiser, Elli will like it very much. Especially because it'll be from her favorite big girl cousin."
"I only big girl." She told her 'aunt' stubbornly.
"Then you'll definitely be her favorite." Charlie said, tipping the end of Helena's nose with her finger. The little girl giggled happily.
Charlie sat in an overly plush cream chair in the middle of the baby clothes section of the boutique. Kaylee and Chloe had run off to go search for some item that Charlie 'just had to see, ' and left her alone with Helena. Normally she didn't mind, but she was just two weeks from her due date, and couldn't move very quickly, Sheevoran or not. She rubbed her stomach absently.
The boutique was right next door to the exclusive dress shop where Chloe'd ordered her wedding gown. The wedding was in just three weeks, and it all the details seemed to be coming together. Lois was her matron of honor, Charlie was supposed to be a bridesmaid, and so was Kaylee. Lana's twin girls were going to be the flower girls, Jason was reprising his role as ring bearer, and Clark was the best man.
Chloe and Kaylee returned, chatting away amicably. Chloe sat on the arm of Charlie's chair while Kaylee scooped up her little girl. Chloe handed Charlie a little outfit on a miniature hangar.
Charlie looked at it closely. It was a tiny cotton sundress, white with two small stripes of color at the bottom. It had a line of red, below a line of blue, with a row of minute red stars in a line above it. She oohed and ahhed over it, the same way nearly every woman did over baby clothes.
"It's adorable." She told Chloe. Then she accidentally dropped the dress on the floor.
Chloe bent over to pick it up, knowing that her friend had a little problem with that type of movement right now. When she stood back up, she saw pain flashed across her friend's face.
"Charlie?" Chloe asked, worried. "It's not time, is it?" Charlie nodded, in too much pain to speak. Chloe and Kaylee shared anxious looks.
"We've got to get you to the hospital!" Kaylee exclaimed.
Charlie shook her head. "We've..." She paused as a contraction hit. "We've got to get to Dr. Stevenson's office."
Chloe nodded. "Kaylee can you call Clark? Oh, and call Bruce for me too. Tell him that I won't be flying back tonight."
Kaylee nodded, knowing that a doctor's waiting room would not be a good place for a toddler. "I'll call them, promise that you'll call me later with an update? It doesn't matter what time it is."
Chloe nodded. "I'll call you as soon as Elli's born."
Clark typed the last word of his article, printed it and got up out of his chair to hand deliver it to Perry. His phone rang and he sighed, sure it was yet another wrong number. He picked up the handset.
"Hello?" He asked politely, ready to tell the person on the other side of the line that he couldn't deliver a pizza to their address.
"Clark?" Kaylee's slightly panicked voice questioned.
"Kaylee?" He asked, pretending that he couldn't identify people by their voice pattern, even if he'd only heard them speak for a minute,
"Charlie's on her way to Dr. Stevenson's office." Then she uttered the words that made his heart beat twice as fast as normal. "It's time."
"I'm on my way." He said simply, and then said a quick goodbye. After he hung up the phone he headed for Perry's office.
Perry looked up when Clark walked in, not even bothering to wait like he usually did to be acknowledged. Perry took the article and looked up at him, concerned. "Something the matter son?"
Clark shook his head. "Nothing's the matter sir, I just have to go. Charlie just went into labor."
Perry smiled and stood. He walked around his desk and gave Clark's shoulder a congratulatory pat. "Well, don't keep standing here, go to her." When Clark turned and headed for the door, the older man stopped him. "I'll have Jimmy get your suit out of the elevator later."
Clark turned around in a second to stare at the Daily Planet's editor. "You know?"
Perry shot him a look. "I might be getting on in years boy, but in my day I was the top reporter." Clark continued to stare at him in shock. "When Jimmy approached me with his suspicions and brought me your suit that he'd found in the elevator, we decided to keep it just between us."
Clark nodded. "Thank you Perry..."
Perry cut him off. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"
Elli Kalara Kent was born eleven hours, thirty-two minutes and six seconds after Charlie'd dropped the baby sundress in Miss Anthem's Baby Boutique, weighing in at eight pounds, two ounces. It was exactly midnight, and her mother was exhausted.
Three times during Charlie's labor there had been an emergency only Superman could handle. He'd reluctantly left his wife's side, but only after Chloe had reassured him that she'd stay with Charlie. He'd saved a village in Southeast Asia from being obliterated by an erupting volcano, captured several lions that had escaped from the Washington DC Zoo, and stopped a civil war from breaking out in Angola.
In the end he'd returned from Africa mere minutes before Elli arrived. And before his eyes she came into the world. She looked like any other baby he'd seen (or delivered) red and as wrinkled as a raisin. When she opened her eyes however, liquid cobalt blue stared back at him and he fell in love.
He handed Elli to Charlie after they'd moved her into a new room and sat down in the chair beside her, watching them with adoration as Charlie counted each tiny toe and finger. "I think Elli is the perfect name for her."
Charlie smiled tiredly, wrapping Elli back up in her blanket. "El for your family, Li for mine." She yawned and nodded off.
Clark climbed into the bed beside her and wrapped his arm loosely around her waist, falling asleep with his little family.
Elli blew out the candles on her birthday cake, all seventeen of them with one breath. She made her wish silently, knowing that if she said it aloud it would not come true.
Her family cheered around her. They immediately began talking and dividing up the red, white and blue cake. The celebration was, as it always was, part birthday, part Independence Day celebration. And, as always, the entire family showed up to celebrate.
Her mom and dad were sitting really close together, and talking with her Aunt Chloe and Uncle Bruce. And while Elli was glad that both couples were still madly in love, they could be kind of gross sometimes.
Her blonde, pale green-eyed cousin Clara shot her a disgusted look, to let Elli know that she felt her pain. Before Elli could warn her however, Clara was suddenly soaking wet. She reached up and removed a purple piece of rubber out of her hair.
"You two are so dead!" Clara screamed as she jumped to her feet.
Her brothers Jack and Ryan, four and six years younger than Clara respectively at twelve and ten, ran from their irate sister as she began to chase them. They'd been nicknamed 'Double Wayne Trouble' for a reason. Luckily, for them, they were much faster than their older sister.
Grandpa Perry and Grandma (Perry's wife) watched the two screaming boys, run by them, followed closely by the angry blonde teenager. They both smiled and Perry remarked that 'boys will be boys.' Grandma Martha and Grandpa Ben laughed.
Fifteen year old red-headed Emily and fourteen year old blonde Malcolm were bickering with typical sibling rivalry as they picked out which fireworks they each wanted to light after the sun went down.
Uncle Jimmy came to break up the increasingly loud argument, but as soon as their dad's back was turned, they began making faces at eachother. When Aunt Kaylee shot them a look from across the yard, they immediately behaved, knowing that their mom wouldn't put up with their antics.
Jason's mom and step-dad were talking with Aunt Kaylee and Uncle Jimmy about their recent vacation/work trip to Africa. The White's children, Sam, age thirteen, and Lilly, age ten added comments occasionally. Sam mainly recounted all the wild animals he'd seen, and Lilly mostly described the village they'd visited and its inhabitants.
Elli's little sister and brother, Kate (named for some woman by the name of Kitty) and Jonathan played catch off to one side. Elli watched them, and supposed they were rather mature for nine and fourteen. The secret they each had learned at age five, along with the control they mastered at a young age made them think and act older than they were.
Elli pushed back a strand of her long dark hair and blinked the amazingly blue eyes that she'd inherited from her father and that she shared with her brothers and sister. She remembered when her parents had announced that they were having another baby, just a month before.
Kate had been deliriously happy, not talking about anything but the baby for nearly two weeks. Elli had been happy, but had been somewhat grossed out about the idea of her parents 'doing it.' After all, they may not have aged in the last fifteen years, but they were still old. Jonathan had nearly started a revolution, until that is they found out that the baby was a boy. Then he'd been just fine.
Jason had been excited about yet another sibling. Elli would've thought that with two brothers and three sisters already, Jason would be sick of them all. And when she'd told him that, he'd just laughed and told her that their dad and Charlie were just trying to make up for the fact that they'd both been only children.
He worked at Wayne Industries now, studying genetics. He'd gotten several degrees in the subject, desperate to find a way to make Krypto-human crosses more of a possibility. After all, his own existence was merely a fluke, and he wanted to make sure that both he and his siblings would be able to have that much of a normal life.
Elli watched her brother join in the game of catch with a mixture of hero worship, love and annoyance. As tall as their dad at 6'4", and with the heavy muscles he'd developed as a teenager, he was quite imposing when he wanted to be. And of course, he wanted to be whenever Elli had had a boy over when Jason came to visit.
Elli had been glad when Jason and Helena had gotten engaged. It had given him even less time to be an over-protective brother. Plus, Elli adored Helena, she was like a big sister to her.
Helena was beautiful, both inside and out. With long honey blonde hair, and emerald eyes, she was gorgeous. She'd followed Jason around like a lovesick puppy from the day they'd met to the day he'd finally realized that she was female. She was smart, a certifiable genius like Kaylee, and as softhearted as her mother too. The twenty-year-old couldn't even kill a spider, for goodness sakes, she caught them in her bare hands and released them outdoors. She'd graduated from Met U in two years, earning a degree in organic chemistry and one in biomolecular engineering. She was planning on joining Jason in his experiments.
Elli looked over her large and strangely connected family. Although they weren't all related by blood, close friendships and shared adventures had tied them all together in a way that couldn't and wouldn't be broken. Ryan threw a water balloon at Elli's head, but she caught it effortlessly with one hand.
Elli sighed, her family drove her crazy some days, but they were her family and she loved every one of them. What more could a girl ask for? Except of course for that classic car she'd wished for.
The End.
Please review.
I've actually had some idea for a sequel, they're running around my head now. They could be coaxed out into written word if...I'm given...inspiration. Capiche?