Chapter Six

One week later, Lois was glad that finally people were responding to her article. She had tried to do as Perry had always told her and taken a step back from her finished piece but this one was different. This one was about her husband and the secret which they wished nobody had discovered. The worst feeling was seeing Clark struggle. He was out of bed but his powers needed time to strengthen before he left the house and he was tiring himself out if he tried to rush things. The second worst feeling was having people like her sister, her coworkers, people who had come to know Clark as Clark were now referring to him as 'Superman' first. She sighed, even hearing them say Kal-el would be better but very few knew him by that name.

She sighed as she went to grab her fourth biscotti for the day for only her second cup of strong coffee. She smiled as she saw Clark in the kitchen, his glasses were off but he was dressed in sweats. Most people would find that an odd sight but she always found him gorgeous.

"I was hoping to get something to eat," Clark gestured and Lois nodded as she listened to him.

"I can make you something if you want," she said as she came over to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. "Are you feeling better, darling?" she asked as she swept his hair back. She was excited to see that his fever had fallen dramatically so that it was nearly at a normal temperature.

"A little…" he replied before looking in the freezer. "Would I seem piggish if I had ice cream," he thought aloud and Lois grabbed the container for him.

"You deserve whatever you want to eat after what you've been through," she took out a bowl and started to fix him a sundae. She put a small scoop into a separate bowl for herself. "Are you still hearing them?" she said as she gestured to her own ear. "You know, the voices, the warning calls," she said nervously. Despite that power coming back, it wasn't as if he could do anything about it with his health the way it was. Lois knew how much it tortured him that he couldn't help people who needed it.

"Yeah, I feel like I'm letting them all down," he told her. "I can't….switch it off or tune it out…I promise though, unless it's an asteroid heading towards earth or something else that the authorities can't handle, I won't rush out there." Clark grit his teeth again as he heard the sound of someone in distress and he placed his hand over his eyes.

"You can't do anything, you can't risk your own life right now," she tried to remind him. "Remember what Doctor Kline said, if you try to do too much too fast then your body will become less stable." Lois kissed his cheek as he nodded. "I like the combination by the way, sweats and no glasses," she winked.

"Good to know," Clark half-smiled. "I wish that I felt better. I hate to let people down or risk people who are truly in danger with no other option."

Lois grabbed his upper arms, squeezing them, her hands cupping over his muscles. "After the way that they'd reacted to you, I'm surprised that you'd want to help or protect anyone on Earth again. I mean…outside of the family…" Lois sighed and then gently smoothed his hair. She smiled as he closed his eyes and sighed. "But if that happened, you wouldn't be the man I fell in love with. It's in your nature to want to help. You feel responsible for all of us."

"What a small group of people did…" Clark began as he looked down sadly, the pain from what he had been through was shown in his expression, "Does not mean that I should condemn those who have not done that to me. I'm…I'm trying to control my anger, my depression, my fear…I have to continue because to not move forward would be to move backwards. What almost happened to me…"

"What almost happened is that they would have tried to cut that part out of your brain that has those protective and loving feelings in hopes of analyzing it," Lois told him and Clark nodded. She knew he wouldn't be changing his mind. She moved her hands to his shoulders and leaned up to kiss him. "Clark, I want you to know that if that had happened to you, I would still have loved you."

"If it's possible," the Smallville hometown boy sighed, "I'd prefer not to revisit it. A lot of my body is still healing and I don't think the nightmares will ever go away."

"Then share them with me," Lois requested. "I love you. I'll punish those that hurt you. Trust me, nobody does that to my husband and gets away with it." She brushed his hair back a little more.

At that moment Johnathan Jr started crying and Clark smiled.

"I'll get him," he told her before quickly making his way to the nursery. Lois blinked back tears as she watched him. Yes, it was his innate goodness and his principles which she loved. He was the best person she had met but in some ways she wished he wasn't that good and that forgiving. She could never forgive them.

LLCKLLCKLLCK

The next day and after Lois had rinsed the dinner plates for the five of them and put the plates in the dishwasher, she stopped and closed her eyes. She wanted to come up with a plan to either punish them or protect him. She froze as she heard Clark's voice from the direction of the nursery.

"So, Chicken Little thought that the sky was falling down," she heard him say in a gentle manner and walked over to the nursery. She found Clark sitting on a rocking chair with Johnathan on his lip and a book in his hand. She smiled as she saw that he was wearing dark jeans and a button up shirt with his glasses on. Everyone knew now the face behind the glasses, everyone knew he had perfect vision and had never needed them. Still, he was wearing them.

She walked to a large beanbag chair in the room and sat down. She smiled as she watched her boys and listened to Clark tell the story to their son. After the book was done, she watched as Clark put the infant into his crib.

"Are you okay?" she asked as she walked over to him and kissed him.

"Yeah," Clark sighed as they made their way out of their son's room. "I guess so." There was the sound of the doorbell ringing and Lois saw Clark flinch and his back straighten immediately. She bit her top lip before taking his hand.

"I'll check it out," she told him. This had to be a person they knew or an official government worker, the security wouldn't just let anyone into the residence. Lois hesitated as she saw Clark's discomfort. Even if it was somebody that they knew, she was tempted to just tell them to leave. Her husband had always seemed confident in his own abilities and even when Kryptonite had been involved, he had had faith. They had seemed to kill that in him. They had killed the faith of Superman. Worse than that, they had crushed the confidence of Clark Kent whether he would admit to it or not.

As Lois got to the door, she saw a guard there with her father. "Daddy," she whispered as she took a half step backwards. She turned to look in the direction where she had just come. She took a slow breath before nodding and hugged her father. Sam wrapped her up tightly. "I…why are…is there a reason that you're…"

"I have to have a reason to visit my daughter?" Sam asked before closing his eyes. "You know why I'm here. I had a guess about it in the past but to have it confirmed. At least I know the boy's physiology to a certain extent."

"Yes," Lois nodded, "When you helped him get through that infection. You didn't need to take slices out of his skin, live samples from his body. You would never have wanted to force him into a lobotomy without his consent," she sniffed as she turned. She froze. She realized now that she hadn't said that aloud. Clark didn't want his parents to have that burden on them.

"That's illegal," Sam said and Lois nodded. She knew that it was illegal, it didn't change the fact that they had wanted to do it. "Can I see him?" he asked and Lois hesitated before nodding and gestured for him to follow her. "So, what name should I -"

"It's Clark," Lois smiled to him. "He's always been Clark," she led Sam to where Clark was sitting pushing his hands through his hair without wearing his glasses. His hair looked a mess and without the tight suit, he definitely looked like the middle ground between the two. "Dear," she whispered as she put her hand on Clark's shoulder. "It's okay."

Clark blinked as he looked up at his father-in-law who was just staring at him awe struck. "Sam," he said as he looked up and the man didn't say anything to him. "Uh…Mr. Lane?" he tried again. He stood up but put a hand behind him to steady himself. He smiled weakly. He had been with his father-in-law numerous times but he hadn't seen him quite like this. Well, maybe once and for only a short period of time before he forgot the secret.

"I'm sorry, I thought when I saw you that -" Sam struggled.

"That it would be different? That you would know what to say or how to react?" Clark guessed and Sam coughed.

"That would be it. I just thought that your hobbies might be chess or computer games, reading, something -" Sam said and Clark laughed weakly. He coughed again and Sam took a step back in surprise. Nobody expected him to be this weak.

"Clark was almost killed in that lab, Daddy," Lois attempted to explain. "It's been a long and hard recovery. I think that we're getting to the end of the recovery period soon." She watched her father nod and Clark sank into the seat. So this was the first thing that showed that life was going to be different. As he sat there, he felt himself falling into the darkness and then a hand touch his shoulder. He blinked as he looked up to see that as well as Lois, it was his mother there. Had he dozed off?

"Honey," Martha whispered as she gently rubbed his shoulder. "May I speak to you about something I might have overheard?"

"Of course, Mom," Clark said before standing. He felt woozy again and Martha tried to help him but in the end it was Johnathan Sr. who made sure that his son was resting on him for support. "Where did you want to go?"

"How about the bedroom we're staying in?" Martha asked and Clark nodded. He wanted to go to sleep again. For so much of the time these days, he just wanted to rest. Hopefully this wasn't showing that his heart and lungs were still affected. "Honey," Martha said as she saw him try to maintain consciousness whilst sitting on the bed. "I heard that…that you…well I heard Lois tell her father that they tried to…well…to put it delicately,"

"Lobotomize me?" Clark asked as he looked to his mother who gasped and covered her mouth. He saw his father getting angrier than he had seen him before. "They were planning on it. Lois told me that if she had been twenty minutes later then they probably would have already been doing the procedure. It's just fortunate she got to me in time."

"Fortune?" Johnathan Sr. said angrily. "That's not fortune. That's - That's torture, it's cruel and unreasonable torture."

"Dad, don't worry about it," Clark tried to tell him and his father shook his head.

"After all that you've given, I won't stand for it. I don't even want to imagine it. I don't know why anyone would do that on purpose unless there are some deranged sick people in this world," Clark felt his father's anger and saw his fist forming. Martha reached over to her son and hugged him close.

"Clark, don't worry, if that had happened well then, we are always going to be your parents. You might not have been born from us but you will always be our son. Nobody can take that away from you."

Clark smiled. He always knew that his parents had loved him despite his biological parents having been aliens. He closed his eyes before hearing a strange buzzing. He stopped and took a few shaky steps back. Something was wrong. Some fog was surrounding him. He coughed. He kept finding it incredibly hard to see before he collapsed. His father had managed to open his arms enough to catch him.

"Lay him down, Johnathan," Martha said before seeing blood drops and cuts around Clark's head. She saw him in pain despite his semi-conscious state. "We need to get him looked over." She said and Johnathan went to get the phone. His eyes widened as he saw a brown box on the kitchen table and heard the painful wails of his grandson.

"Lois, go see Johnny," he said as he saw her and Lois turned to look at the box. She hadn't brought that in. She took the box, it was heavy. She went to the front door and tossed it out before running to the nursery. She could see her son with blood over his own skin and could sense how much pain he was in. She scooped him up before hearing the agony from her husband and somehow the blood disappeared from the baby.

"Hey," she whispered as she bounced him a little. "It's okay. It will be okay."

What she didn't know yet was that the blood from Johnathan Jr. was now covering Clark's body. He didn't usually bleed. He didn't usually get sick. Did this have something to do with the box? She held her son close before feeling a stillness as everything became silent. She rushed down the steps to find the unconscious Clark, his body was covered in blood but she could still see that he was incredibly pale. She touched him, his skin was ice cold to the touch.

There was a cold laugh as a woman appeared from the adjoining room. How could she have even gotten in? This place was supposed to be secure. Lois moved in front of Clark as she saw the woman hold out a gun. "Who are you?" Lois asked before seeing that the woman had a government official badge. She turned to look at Clark and then, before she realized it, the woman had fired a shot into his chest. Lois stared at her before seeing what appeared like a green spiderweb branching out in Clark's body.

Lois handed Martha the small boy and then grabbed the woman and after a struggle, she managed to disarm her and pin her to the ground. She looked around and her eyes widened as she kept the woman down. His body was getting even weaker. He had just been recovering and now this. Lois stared at where the bullet had gone and saw Clark's body flicker. She remembered how the Kryptonian had put him in that device and then told her that his molecules were being scattered across multiple galaxies.

"Clark," she whispered before hearing the woman laugh.

"Kal-el," the woman said and Lois's eyes widened.

"What did you call him?"

End of Chapter Six

Thank you for reading

Thank you to the reviewers of Chapter Five

Gisela19wwe, Kagome Avalon