AN: I was going to wait a few days until I uploaded this, but I got so many wonderful reviews on the last chapter that I just had to put it up.
"Son of Kal El."
Jason shot up in his bed. Looking around his room, he saw he was alone. "Son of Kal El," the voice said again. "I do not wish to scare you.
"There is much for you to learn, much for you to know, so that you may take your rightful place in this world. You are still young, but not too young to learn of your father's world, your heritage. I have come to teach you."
Jason looked around again, and still saw nothing, but the voice continued talking to him. Tonight there was no buzzing sound, but the voice was still scary. He cried out. Jumping from his bed, he ran to his window and threw it open. Maybe Superman would hear him. Didn't he tell him that he was always listening for him?
"Daddy!" he cried out as Superman swooped down from the clouds. Superman enveloped his son in a protective hug, and sped back above the clouds with him safely in his arms. Jason buried his head in his father's chest. He knew that he was safe from the voice here.
"Did you hear it again?" Clark asked Jason as he flew towards the motel where he was staying with Lois and Richard. Jason nodded his head. Clark smiled as his son snuggled against him. Never in his life had he felt as content as he did at this moment, flying with his son.
As soon as Lois was seated on the passenger side of the rental car, she took her cell phone out of her purse. Looking at the phone she swore, "Damn hick towns, there's no cell service here." She slammed her phone onto the console between the seats.
"The interstate is that way, Richard," Lois said, pointing in the opposite direction that Richard had turned.
"No, Lois, I'm pretty sure it's this way," he answered.
Lois wasn't in the mood to get into an argument with Richard, so she let him drive. Picking up her phone, she saw that she still had no service. Worse yet, she saw that her battery was almost dead.
"Dammit!" she shouted.
Richard looked over at her momentarily taking his eyes off the road.
"Watch out, Richard!" Lois cried out as she noticed a large pothole in the center of the road. "Where are we now, exactly?" She asked.
"I'm not sure," Richard answered
"Maybe we found 'Bob's Road,'" Lois said. "I told you that the interstate was the other direction," Lois was fighting to keep the frustration out of her voice.
"Isn't there a map or something in the glove box?" Lois asked a few minutes later. All she wanted to do was get back to their motel so that she could call home and check in with Jason. She was sure that was where Clark had taken off to, the look on his face was different from the one he normally had when he was needed. She started wondering if somehow Zod was behind the voice her son had heard the other night.
It was almost ten when Richard and Lois finally arrived back at their motel. As they entered their room, they were surprised to find Superman sitting in one of the chairs with a sleeping Jason in his arms.
"He heard the voice again," Clark said.
Lois walked over to the two, and gently took Jason from his father's arms. Jason just snuggled into his mother and went right back to sleep.
"Mom knows he's with us. I'll take him back in the morning," Clark said as he watched Lois gently tuck their son into the bed. As he watched her he realized how much the women in his life had sacrificed for him. Lara, his birth mother, had lovingly placed him into his lifeboat, rocketing him off to a world of which she knew very little. Martha Kent, the woman who raised him, protecting his secret, to the point she was kept away from what should have been his deathbed. And Lois, the woman he gave up everything for, just to have it ripped away from them.
"What's going on? What is this voice he keeps hearing, Kal El?" Lois asked.
"I'm not sure, but I have some idea about it. I need to go back to your place and check out his room," Clark responded, Lois' voice breaking into his thoughts.
Lois looked as if she wanted to say something else to Clark, but nodded her head instead. Clark left the worried mother behind as he left to search his son's bedroom for some sort of transmitting device. He had a theory, but he had no idea on how a Kryptonian crystal could have ended up in Jason's room.
"I don't know if I will ever get used to that," Richard said as he ran his hand through his hair.
"Get used to what?" Lois asked.
"You and him. You just talking to him like he's, um, he's –" Richard said.
"One of us? Richard, he is just like one of us!" Lois answered.
"But he's Superman! It was just odd seeing him sitting there holding Jason, listening to you speak with him, the way you two interact," Richard defended.
Lois looked over at Jason as she heard him start to stir. Quietly she walked over to Richard and placed two fingers over his lips. Looking up into his eyes she could see the pain he was feeling. She hadn't realized before how much stress Richard was under.
"Yes Richard, he is Superman. But he is also my friend," Lois said, trying to comfort her fiancée.
"But," Richard shot back, "he's more than a friend, isn't he?"
Lois was starting to get angry now. Didn't they have this conversation already? Didn't she explain how things were?
"Richard, it doesn't matter what happened before. Kal El made a choice; I made a choice. We can't be together, no matter how much we may have wanted it; I'm with you now, he respects that."
Richard wrapped his arms around Lois, and put his forehead against hers. "But, are you with me because you can't be with him?" He asked quietly, as he let his arms drop to his side.
"I'm tired. You take the bed, with Jason, I'll sleep in the recliner," Richard said.
Clark returned to find Lois sitting on his bed, furiously typing away on her laptop.
"Hey," he said softly.
"Hey," she answered.
"What did the poor computer do to deserve that kind of punishment?" Clark asked, trying to lighten her mood.
Lois just looked up at him and shrugged as she continued typing. Typing up the interview with Zod was the only way she could keep from thinking about what Richard had said, and Clark knew it. He had heard their conversation, as he had been listening for Jason.
"Do you think that I'm with Richard because I can't be with you?" Lois finally asked.
"Does it matter what I think? Or what Richard thinks for that matter?" He asked back. "What do you think? Why are you with Richard?" He was curious himself about that. Jimmy did say that he thought that she was still in love with "You know who."
"He's a good man," She answered back.
"That's what you told me," Clark said, as he walked over to the bed and sat down next to Lois. Gently, he caressed her hair, drinking her in with his eyes. God he loved this woman. It pained him to see her like this. Since he had come back he only had seen glimpses of the spitfire she once was, it was like something inside her had broken. He wondered if his leaving was the cause.
"That doesn't answer the question, though. Why are you with Richard? Do you love him?" Clark asked her simply, the same way he would question a source. There was no pressure for the right answer. He just laid out the question. One only Lois could ultimately answer. He looked deeply into her eyes, trying to draw her out.
"Kal El," Lois finally said, looking away from him. "Zod told me that a long time ago Kryptonians were forbidden to leave their star system, that somehow they were bound to Krypton itself. Is that true?"
There she goes again. How does she go from one line of thinking to another just like that? Clark thought to himself. Standing up, he started pacing the room as he spoke.
"I remember Jor El saying something about that. There were some that were afraid of the power Kryptonians had outside of their solar system. They did something to the Kryptonian DNA matrix that would cause them to die if they left the influence of Rao. Somehow though, that has changed, otherwise I would not be here," He said, using his Superman voice.
"Nor would Zod," she said flatly. Something more than her relationship with Richard was bothering her, Clark noted.
"Do you think that is the reasoning behind the edict that you give up your powers for us to be together?" Lois asked, walking up to him, placing her hands on his chest.
Clark looked at Lois, amazed. How could she have put that together, when he had not? So that was where her thoughts were leading. He put his arms around her comfortingly, drawing her into his chest.
"Has Jason shown any other signs that he has my powers?" Clark asked. Now she had him wondering what had really gone on in the molecule chamber.
"Not until we were on Luthor's yacht," Lois answered.
"The piano?" Clark asked, pulling away. He sensed that she was holding something back.
Lois hesitated. Clark heard her heart rate rise, saw her skin flush. She was definitely hiding something.
"Jason threw a grand piano," Lois said.
When Jason first told him that he had thrown a piano, Clark assumed it was his little electric keyboard, not a full-fledged grand piano. Clark's eyes grew wide at the ramifications. "Luthor knows?"
Lois nodded. "I think Zod knows as well," She handed Clark her voice recorder and pushed play:
"Thank you, Ms. Lane, Mr. Kent. This was a very enlightening visit, I hope you feel the same."
"I can honesty say, General, I have learned a great deal from you today," Richard responded.
"I hope that your son is doing well, Ms. Lane. I saw a picture of the two of you from your visit with Kal El in the hospital. Please give my regards to the boy, such a handsome child. He has such beautiful eyes."