Chapter 11

Present Day

"We have to find them," said Clark. Knowing what Kal-El would've done to Chloe made him worry about what would happen if Lois didn't cooperate with him. The way his friends had described Kal-El reminded Clark of Curtis Knox, an immortal surgeon who had been chopping up the meteor infected in hopes of saving the woman he loved "Now."

Tess' hands fluttered across the keyboard. She had gone straight to work while Chloe and Oliver brought Clark up to speed. "I've tracked Lois' cell phone. She's in the Artic."

"The Fortress," said Clark. Kal-El had been giving them the runaround since he arrived and Clark was getting tired of it. "This guy's wife is dying, fine. I'll do what I can to help." He reached into his pocket and grabbed his phone. "But not while he's holding my wife hostage."

"Who are you calling?" Chloe asked.

"Someone not even Kal-El can outrun," he told her. "It's me," Clark spoke into the phone. "I need your help."

"You weren't really going to send Chloe to the Phantom Zone were you?" Lois pulled Kal-El's coat closer to her as she stood in the icy Fortress. She didn't know why, but she couldn't believe that the Kandorian Commander could hurt anyone, much less someone he had just called his best friend.

"I don't see how I could," said Kal-El "with a harmless memory crystal. It's a recording of my memories"

"You've got quite the poker face," Lois told him.

"I learned from the best," his face softened, and Lois realized he meant his wife. "I see the way your husband looks at me. Like I'm some sort of traitor who chose Krypton over Earth. But he's wrong," Kal-El disputed "I'm not a monster Lois."

Lois didn't know why, but she believed him. "Why did you say that you couldn't bury another wife?"

Kal-El pulled out a chain from under his military jacket. On the chain were Kryptonian dog tags, a House of El pendent, and a compass. What stood out to Lois the most were the two rings on the center of the chain. Kal-El placed a gentle finger on a high school class ring. "This one came from my first wife, Alicia Baker. We couldn't afford real wedding rings so we used these. She died just as she did here," he swallowed a lump in his throat "because her husband didn't have any faith in her. This one," he said pointing to the platinum wedding band "was from my first love, Lana Lang."

"That's why you called her," Lois realized.

"She was driving home one night in a thunderstorm, when her car was struck with a bolt of lightning. In a flash of light I lost her," Kal-El swallowed a hard lump in his throat "along with our daughter, Mary. She was less than a year old.

"I'm so sorry," Lois shook her head in disbelief, realizing now just much he had lost. "How did you do it? How do you,"

"Keep going?" Kal-El finished.

Lois nodded.

"I'm afraid I can't take any credit for that," he held up his hand to show her a golden ring. "It's all thanks to my guardian angel. Every time I've lost someone, and wanted to just hide myself from the world, she kept me from drowning in my own despair. She's the one's that's always been there for me. She's the one who sat with me when I spent my first birthday without my dad. She's the one that kept me from murdering the man that took Alicia from me. The one that got me that got me off of the farm after hiding there for a month when I lost Lana. She's the one that picks up the broken pieces, and puts me back together," Kal-El stared at the golden band on his finger. "People call me the Man of Steel, but without her, I'm made of glass." He pulled out the red memory crystal from his pocket. "I wanted to show you something," he said "before we go for the cure. I don't want you to do this for me. I don't even want you to do this for my wife. This is bigger than us," He slid the crystal into the Fortress' main console. Its crimson glow intensified. "I want you to do it for them."

Lois found herself standing in an unfamiliar Fortress. It was larger, with separate rooms. The one she stood in was filled with white, silver and glass furniture. A fireplace stood in the center of the room. The crystals on ceiling flashed a sequence of red, green, blue, yellow and white. Soft Christmas music chimed through the halls.

"After I freed the Kandorians, I brought them up north," Lois hadn't even noticed that Kal-El was still standing right next to her "tried to make them into a secret society, like with Arthur and Atlantis. But Lex," he grimaced, "He picked a fight with Zod." Lois winced as she remembered the Alien general that tried to kill Clark. "When I forced him to step down, Zod left along with a third of our men. Then they found more followers," Kal-El's jaw clenched. "Brainiac, Bizzaro, Doomsday, Titan. They all came out the shadows."

Lois tried to imagine it. Zod and Doomsday had been bad enough on their own. It made her skin crawl.

"Then he made the war public," Kal-El continued. "Lex had a LexCorp helicopter stream a battle worldwide. There was no place for Clark Kent to hide. I had no choice but to become Kal-El, forever" His fingers found their way back to his wedding ring. "My angel and I, we made this our home."

Lois walked around. She felt her foot hit something other than ice. She bent down, and picked up a warm brown teddy bear, with a red bow around its neck. Lois looked closer, and saw toys scattered across the living room. Dolls sat on the coffee table. A coloring book was draped over the arm of a silver couch. She gasped. "You have kids?" Kal-El nodded. Lois thoughts fell back to the little Lane-Kent baby growing inside her. It had barely been a week since she found out she was pregnant.

"Does your husband know he's about to become a father?" Kal-El asked.

Lois' eyes widen. "How did-?"

"I was checking your vitals when I heard its heartbeat," he explained "I'm sorry if I've caused you any stress. If I'd known-,"

"It wouldn't have mattered," said Lois. She still would've come. "I just found out last week. I'm still waiting for the right time to tell him."

"You're going be a wonderful mother," Kal-El told her.

Lois smiled. She heard a faint whimper come from the couch. A pair of small feet propped themselves on the armrest. Lois looked over the back of the couch and her heart stopped. The small feet belonged belong to a young girl. She wore dark blue jeans with a bright red jacket and a white t-shirt. Her long dark hair, fashioned in Lois Lane's classic ponytail, was draped over the armrest.

Kal-El looked lovingly at his sleeping daughter. "Meet Lara Kal-El, otherwise known as Ella Martha Lane- Kent. She's our first born."

Lois said nothing as she stared deeply at Lara, memorizing every detail. It was as if one of her childhood photos had come to life.

"I can't count how many times I've found her here," said Kal-El "She's been trying to take her mother's place since she got sick, taking care of her younger siblings. No ten year-old should have to carry such a burden."

Lois could hardly believe it. "She's just like me," she whispered.

"That's why she's my little Lois Lane."

A painful cough echoed through the halls. "Who's that?" Lois asked.

Kal-El winced. "My angel." He led her to a small bedroom in the back of his palace of ice where Lois found herself lying in bed.

Her face was pale and beaded with sweat. Her cheeks were sunken in and dark circles covered her eyes. A young blonde woman of medium height stood by the side of the bed.

"Here Lorna," said Kara "I made you some tea."

"Thanks," Her voice was thin and raspy from coughing. She took a small sip before setting the mug down on the bedside table. "You shouldn't have to do this Kara," she managed.

"Don't worry about it."

"But your wedding-,"

"Can wait until all my bridesmaids are ready and able," Kara bent down and took Lois' hand. "Like Kal-El always says, that's what family is for, right?"

"Lolo?" A little boy stood in the doorway. He looked half as old as Lara. His hair was bright red; his skin fair and pale; his eyes a familiar green. He wore a dark grey robe over black pajamas covered with stars.

Lois looked at him in awe and confusion. "Alexander?"

"We took him in a year ago. After Tess died."

"What about his father?"

Kal-El swallowed "His father… a Kandorian soldier, went off in search of his wife's killer. An agent of Checkmate, the White King."

The Lois in bed, Lorna, smiled at him. "Hey Van," she propped herself up on her pillows to get a better look at his face. "Can't sleep?"

The little boy shook her head.

"Me neither. Well, since we're all up, do you want to keep me and Kara company?" She barely got the last word out before Van super sped across the room and pulled her mother into a much needed hug. She stroked his hair as he began to cry. She whispered into her daughter's ear. "It's okay, Van. It's okay."

"Don't go," he begged between sobs.

"Don't go?"

"I'm not stupid," said Van. He pulled away from his mother so he could look her in the eye. "Grandma Martha got sick and now's she's gone. Now you're sick too!" He put his arms back around her. "I don't want you to go."

His mother pulled him closer while she wept. "Momma's not going anywhere, baby. I'm staying right here. I promise."

Kal-El put his hand on Lois' shoulder. She managed to pull her eyes away from Van's and saw the guilty pain in Kal-El's eyes. He had spent his life protecting his wife, his Angel, from criminals, supervillians and aliens, but this time, even with all of his powers, there was nothing he could do. And it was killing him. "Would you like to see the rest of my children?"

"This is little Jor-El. Our second child and first born son."

Lois looked around the eight year-old's bedroom. Notebooks covered the bedside table. A crystalline solar system model hung over the bed. Dozens of boxes worth of Lego sets were scattered across the room in various structures. Lois almost stepped on the rocket of his multi-colored space station. Lois laughed softly. Jor was floating in his sleep, the way that Clark did sometimes. She stood at the edge of his bed and got a good look at his face. Jor truly was his father's son.

Lois smiled. "He looks just like you." She craned her neck to see the notebook clutched in Jor's tiny hand. "'Santa Clause Investigation?' " she read aloud.

"He's convinced he's somewhere nearby," said Kal-El "Using magic to hide. Our little reporter. He's been trying to get a hold of Zatanna for weeks." As he starred at his son's face, Kal-El seemed to age ten years. "Jor's been a shining ray of sunshine through all of this. Whenever Van is crying, or Lara's courage starts to falter, Jor just smiles and says the same thing. 'Don't worry. Mom won't be sick forever. Dad's going to find a way to make her better,'" Kal-El's voice broke "'Superman always saves Lois Lane.'"

"He believes in you," Lois told him.

"But do I really deserve such belief?"

Lois recognized that look on Kal-El's face. It was same look Clark would wear whenever a save went wrong, when he questioned why he even bothered putting on the cape, and Lois had to remind him. She gave Kal-El a comforting kiss on the cheek. "You got anymore sleeping bundles of joy lying around?"

"Meet Czar and Clara."

Lois starred lovingly at the sleeping twins. The girl's hair was cut short to her shoulders. Her brother's loose curls covered his face. "They're so small."

"They just turned six last week," said Kal-El "Our perfect Christmas gifts. The two of them are inseparable, they do everything together. But they're not carbon copies. Czar, our little Blur, wants to be a hero more than anything in the world. He's always getting in fights at school trying to keep his friends safe from bullies. It's why so close to Lara. She's always teaching him new tricks with their powers. Clara has a more gentle strength;" he said "She's more interested in saving lives than fighting bad guys. She once saved a family of polar bears all by herself while the others were making snowmen." With every room he showed her, Kal-El seemed to be more and shaken. He looked ready to fall apart at any second. "They barely remember life outside the Fortress. That they were once called Charlie and Cassidy," Again he started fumbling with his ring. "I don't want my angel to be like that. I don't want the mother of my children to become a distant memory."

"So let's save her," said Lois.

"I can't," said Kal-El "Only you can do that now."

"What do you mean?"

"Lois, you're the cure."