From here on, this one-shot has been, with the help of ShadoLibrarian, expanded to full-sized-fic status. Enjoy!
Chapter Two
Lois sat back in her chair, struggling to control her breathing. Perry was watching her from Clark's desk. They both ignored the people around them as the elevator doors opened, spewing forth the rest of the denizens of the newsroom who scurried to their places.
If anyone noticed anything odd happening at Clark's desk, at Perry holding Lois's hand and the both of them looking grief-stricken, they had the courtesy not to say anything. But Lois knew the rumor mill would be running full-tilt by break time.
Lois wiped the tears away from her face and found her voice. She knew what she had to do. "Perry, you haven't told personnel about Clark's resignation, have you?"
The older man shook his head. "I wanted to talk to you first."
"Then don't, okay?" Lois said. "He has some vacation, coming doesn't he?"
"He hasn't been back quite long enough. I can put him on compassionate leave."
"That's good," Lois said. She picked up the phone from Clark's desk and dialed the extension for the Planet's in-house travel agency. "Milly, this is Lois. I need to get to Wichita as fast as possible. I'll need a rental car too." She listened as Milly made the arrangements and gave her the flight information. Her tickets would be waiting for her at Berkowitz International. Her flight was in three hours. She had just enough time go get home, packed and to the airport.
She turned to Perry. "Could you take care of Jason for a couple days?"
He nodded. "What have you got in mind?"
She took a shaky breath and grabbed her purse. "I'm going after the father of my child. And I'm not coming back without him."
She saw Perry's eyes widen. "You mean…? I knew Richard wasn't Jason's biological father, but Clark?"
"You're the one who sent us to Niagara Falls," Lois reminded him. "And before you say anything, he didn't know until he came back. And… let's just say I've spent a lot of time in denial."
Q
Lois watched the city rush by. She held her bag to her body. She rubbed the fingers of one hand over the dusty seats of the taxi. Soon, the city faded away, to be replaced by the relatively barren land surrounding the airport. She had printed off a map to Smallville. She hadn't allowed herself to cry again.
She had met Martha, once. She remembered how beautiful the woman had looked, and had wondered at how such an amazing woman had raised such a bumbling son. Martha had cooked them a hell of a meal, and had shown Lois some of the work she had done while she had been Senator, and the fundraisers she'd done since, and Lois had thought that she never did anything less than exceptionally. And she'd raised the most caring man in the world; the man who'd grown up to be known to the world as Superman.
Lois wished she could have gotten to know her better.
She hoped that she could be even half the mother Martha was to her own son.
She swore that she would bring Jason's father back. Superman could be mysterious and explain away his absenteeism by describing the dangers that their family would face. Clark Kent had no such excuse.
The taxi stopped in front of her terminal. She passed him some money and slid from the car, looking up at the looming masthead. The last time she'd been in a jet, it had been shooting into space; it had been falling to the ground; it had been caught like an errant ball in a baseball stadium in front of hundreds of screaming fans.
Her face turned a little red as she thought of how she had fainted.
As she passed through security, television screens accosted her from every angle. Superman was still there, on every channel, saving people all over the world. She noticed though, that there were no shots of him smiling and waving after a save; there were no images of him receiving thanks from grateful families, no handshakes or kisses.
Other people had noticed, too. They wondered if this had become merely a job for Superman, or if perhaps he were suffering from depression. One person said Superman was getting bored; one said he didn't really care anymore. Another person, one he'd saved, said that despite the positive outcome of the railroad accident, he'd looked next to devastated the whole time.
She thought soon, they'd be staging some sort of intervention. No one liked to see Superman in trouble. She hoped that she would arrive in Smallville first, and drag him back to Metropolis with a grin on his face. She'd have him writing fantastic articles and saving people with a smile before he knew what hit him.
She remembered Martha, white streaked liberally through her auburn hair.
And Superman on the balcony, his hands shaking; she'd never seen him tremble before.
Maybe he'd at least talk to her. She thought it wasn't too optimistic to hope for that.
Q
The flight was calm, to Lois's relief. The stewardess and a few passengers recognized her, but gave her some privacy as she worked on her laptop. After several false starts, she decided to simply lay back and take a nap. She closed her eyes and cast her mind back to what she had told Perry: 'You're the one who sent us to Niagara Falls… let's just say I've spent a lot of time in denial.'
Lois knew, without any doubt, that she and Clark had gone to Niagara Falls on assignment. She clearly remembered the horrific pink bear rugs and heart shaped bed at the 'Honeymoon Haven'. She even remembered wondering how it was that Superman had shown up to save a boy from falling from the observation area, and noticing once again that when Superman was around, Clark wasn't.
But the three days after that were a blank – no, more than a blank. Until she had discovered she was pregnant with Jason, it hadn't even occurred to her that she had a hole in her memory. She had told her family and co-workers that in the weeks following Superman's disappearance and Clark's abrupt departure she'd had a fling, a drunken one-night stand with a man whose face she didn't recall. Everyone believed that Jason was born premature. No one connected her pregnancy with her trip to Niagara Falls.
But it had honestly never occurred to her that she'd had a 'fling' with Clark. Had she known who he really was at the time? She suspected she did and tried to picture how he came to tell her. It came in flashes – but whether it was memory or simply how it would have logically played out, she wasn't sure. She remembered packing the little hand pistol her father had given her. She even remembered loading blanks into it. Had she threatened to shoot Clark to see what he would do?
'You realize, of course, if you'd been wrong,' she heard Clark's voice say – only it wasn't Clark's voice at all. It was Superman's voice. 'Clark Kent would have been killed.'
'How? With a blank?'
More flashes – a building that wasn't like any she'd seen before, made of glass. Clark, finally without his glasses, making love to her. A talking head that disapproved of her corrupting his son. 'If you will not be Kal-El,' the head had told him, knowing she was listening. 'If you will live as one of them... love their kind as one of them, then it follows that you must become... one of them.'
Clark had walked willingly into the chamber that would make him human. Human so he could love her as a man. Human so they could make a life together.
Together they watched the disasters that were occurring around the world. Disasters that Superman could have dealt with – but there was no Superman, only Clark Kent.
'Maybe we ought to hire a bodyguard from now on,' Clark had suggested bitterly after taking a beating from a bully at a truck stop.
'I don't want a bodyguard,' Lois told him. 'I want the man I fell in love with.'
'I know that, Lois. And I wish he were here...'
She remembered watching him leave, to head back to the alien structure in the Arctic, the Fortress of Solitude. She watched him leave and didn't call him back.
"Ms. Lane?"
Lois opened her eyes to see the concerned face of a stewardess.
"Are you okay?" the stewardess asked. Lois realized her face was wet – she'd been crying and hadn't even realized it. It was her own fault he hadn't stayed. She had been in love with Superman, not Clark Kent.
'I said goodbye, Lois. You just looked right through me,' he had yelled at her only that morning. 'You don't even know me. You say these things: that you love me, but you don't know anything about me past the suit. If I was a normal guy, and wore tweed instead of spandex, you wouldn't even notice me.'
He'd been right – she hadn't noticed Clark, but she found herself wondering how much of it was because he worked so hard at being invisible. And he was very good at being unnoticed. Even in the Daily Planet newsroom, surrounded by some of the best observers of human nature in the world, few people noticed him. He was the invisible man, a chameleon. The man who wasn't there.
Soon, the plane was taxiing to the airport terminal in Wichita. She grabbed her carryon and hurried off the plane.
Once again Lois blessed Milly and her efficiency as a travel agent. A late model Camry was waiting for her at the car rental lot. She spread out the map on the seat beside her. South out of Wichita, about an hour's drive. It would be near dark by the time she got to Smallville, assuming she didn't take a wrong turn.
Q
Smallville was exactly as Lois had imagined – a small Midwest town with dusty streets and dusty buildings, dry and sun-bleached. She spotted an old fashioned diner tucked in amongst buildings that looked like they might actually date from the time of the Civil War.
The lights in the diner looked cheery and she realized she was tired and hungry. She'd been too upset when she left that morning to eat before getting on the plane. No food was served on the plane, aside from peanuts and crackers, and she hadn't wanted any alcohol. And then she'd been in too much of a hurry to get started toward Smallville to stop and grab a sandwich.
She walked into the diner and sat down in one of the few empty vinyl upholstered booths. The other patrons gave her curious looks - it was like a scene out of a movie. The men were in jeans and plaid shirts, the older women in print dresses, the younger ones in jeans and tee shirts. A middle-aged waitress dropped a menu onto the table. Lois ordered coffee as she perused the menu. When the waitress returned Lois asked for directions to the Kent Farm.
"You a friend of the Kents?" the waitress asked. Her nametag identified her as Maisie.
Lois nodded. "I'm a friend of Clark's, from Metropolis… Lois Lane."
"Clark's writing partner, right? The one who writes all those stories about Superman?"
"That's me…"
"Love your work," Maisie said. "The general store carries the Daily Planet and we all read it. Of course we read it because of Clark. Who'd've guessed he'd turn out to be a famous journalist… But, I guess you're here for Martha's funeral."
Lois nodded, bemused by the older woman's babbling.
"Tough break for him though," Maisie continued. "I mean him being in Metropolis and all when it happened. I hear he's the one who called Rachel to check on his mom when she didn't answer her cell or the house phone."
"Rachel?"
"Sheriff Harris," Maisie answered. Lois put down the menu and gave Maisie her order. Maisie hurried off to place the order on the wheel.
The door to the diner opened and the noise level in the dining room dropped and went back as the others identified the newcomer, a blonde woman about Lois's age dressed in a khaki state police style uniform. Maisie hurried over to the woman and pointed out Lois. The woman nodded and came over to Lois's table, slipping uninvited into the bench opposite her.
"Maisie tells me you're a friend of Clark's, from Metropolis," the woman said. "I'm Rachel Harris."
"Lois Lane."
Maisie brought over a cup of coffee for Rachel and refilled Lois's cup.
"You look like your picture," Rachel said.
Lois gave her a curious frown.
"Martha had a photo of you and a little boy, your son I guess, on the mantle," Rachel explained. "He's a good looking boy."
"Jason. He's six now," Lois told her. "Looks more like his father everyday."
Rachel nodded but didn't ask the next logical question, even though Lois could see it in her eyes: 'Is Clark the father?' Instead, "When I talked to him, Clark didn't think anybody from Metropolis would show up for the funeral."
"Actually, I'm here to try and talk him out of doing something galactically stupid," Lois admitted.
The other woman chuckled. "Good luck with that. I'm told Clark takes after his old man that way. 'Round here we have a saying: 'Stubborn as a Kent'. Once they get an idea in their heads, a stick of dynamite can't budge 'em."
Lois smiled. She'd never pictured Clark as 'stubborn'. It certainly didn't show at work, but who would even notice an invisible man digging in his heels. Then she realized that at work he was stubborn in a very quiet way. It showed as dogged perseverance, a refusal to back away from a story until everything was wrung out of it. It showed in his refusal to suborn his ideals, ever.
"I can be very persuasive," Lois told Rachel. She hoped she was right, that she could be persuasive enough to convince him to return with her to Metropolis.
Rachel nodded. "Well, if you manage to talk him out of the one you're worried about, maybe you can talk him out of another stupid mistake."
"Oh?"
"Everybody in town knows he's already talked to Wes – he's a real estate attorney – about selling the farm. And I'm sure he'll get a good price for it. It's good land, a good well."
"But?"
"That land has been in the Kent family since the Civil War," Rachel told her. "Nathaniel Kent was one of the first sheriffs in this county. His son started the first newspaper in this part of the state. There's a lot of history here and I'd hate to see him chuck that all away just because with Martha gone, he thinks he doesn't have roots here anymore."
"You like him," Lois observed. Maisie brought the sandwich and fries Lois had ordered and placed them on the table.
Rachel nodded. "He's a good guy. Even when we were kids, he was always the one looking out for the underdog. But, we all knew he was destined for bigger things than a farm in Kansas. He always had that look, wanting to see what was beyond the horizon. I guess that's why he took himself around the world twice. But I do have some serious questions about this last time."
"Oh?" Lois tried to keep the worry out of her voice. She wasn't sure what Clark had told his hometown about his 'trip'.
"This wasn't Martha's first heart attack, you know," Rachel said softly. "Her first one happened a couple years after he left. It wasn't serious, but even so, you'd expect she'd want me to get in touch with her son. But she didn't. I went ahead and tried to find him anyway. I couldn't. I contacted the State Department to see if they could find him. Wherever he was, he wasn't using his passport. I even went so far as to check and see if he was serving time somewhere. I mean, him leaving like that was a pretty fast decision, even though I don't believe for a minute he'd ever get in trouble like that. I mean, with Clark, what you see is what you get. He's a Boy Scout. That's just how he is."
"And here I thought you were going to tell me something I didn't know." Lois took a moment to consider her next statement. "You know he was adopted, don't you?"
The other woman nodded.
"Well, from what I understand, he got a lead on his natural parents and had to go check it out," Lois said.
"That shouldn't take nearly six years," Rachel pointed out.
"It can if where he was looking doesn't take kindly to strangers asking a lot of questions. He won't talk about it. I'm lucky he told me that much," Lois told her. "At work he's let everybody think he spent all that time communing with llamas."
"Do you think he found what he was looking for?" Rachel asked.
Lois shook her head. "If he had, I doubt he would have come back at all."
Rachel nodded and Lois sensed she understood exactly what Lois meant. Lois looked down and realized she'd finished her sandwich without realizing it.
"I guess I should get going," Lois said, looking at the bill Maisie had dropped on the table for her. The price was downright cheap as compared to Metropolis.
"Planning on staying out at the farm tonight?"
"Kind of depends on how he reacts to finding me on his doorstep," Lois admitted. "I didn't let him know I was coming."
"Well, I figure I should warn you," Rachel said. "A couple of Martha's friends volunteered to help him clean up the house and get everything ready for the open house after the funeral, and he wouldn't have any part of it… but I also know Maisie's got something in back to take out to him."
Rachel disappeared into the diner's kitchen and reappeared moments later carrying a covered casserole dish. "I know he's trying not to be a bother to anyone, but…"
"But knowing Clark, he's forgotten to eat and there's nothing in the house," Lois completed for her. "I think he sometimes forgets that he doesn't have to do everything himself."
"Look, Ms. Lane, make sure you tell him he isn't alone in this," Rachel told her. "We're all here for him."