----Chapter 2
Lois looked around a second then back at the little girl. "Sorry kid, I think I misheard. Did you just call me mommy?"
The girl just kept on smiling the familiar smile at her. "Of course I called you mommy. I always call you mommy, because that's your name!"
Lois ran a hand through her hair as her previously confused mind skipped away for what Lois thought might be a permanent hiatus from rational thought. "What, uh, what do you mean that's my name? I've been called a lot of names in my time, mostly Lois and bit... big silly." That seemed kid friendly. "Mommy certainly isn't anything I've been called before."
The little girl just giggled as she scratched at her knee. "Mommy, you're a big silly." Great, she'd given her ammunition. "I always call you mommy. Daddy likes to call you Lo, but you're name is mommy." The kid made it sound as thought it was the most logical thing to come along since one and one equaled two.
"So... so if my name is mommy, then what's your name?" Lois hoped she sounded calm, because taking a flying leap off the balcony was feeling more and more like a sensible plan.
The little girl nearly fell over in a fit of giggles. Chloe had been like this when they'd been younger; maybe there was just some monumental mix up here. The girl recovered to get a sentence out. "My name is Jordan. You're mommy and daddy is daddy!"
Lois saw the girls eyes dart away from her, and found that there was some background noise. Apparently, the girl, Jordan, had been watching television. By the sounds of it, some classic Warner Brothers cartoons.
Lois found standing to be a whole lot more effort than she was currently capable of, so she went and sat down on the couch. Sense had ceased to be. Logic was something of consequence no longer, and hell had apparently been buried in fourteen layers of ice, because it would have had to been frozen that may times for any of this to have happened. A girl claiming to be her daughter, for God's sakes, and for that to have actually happened all of the end of the world, lack of sense and logic theories would have needed to take place.
Lois felt her right arm get lifted up by a small pair of hands and Jordan scooted herself closer to her. The little girl let the arm fall as she hugged herself to Lois' side, watching t.v. contentedly. It surprised her at how such a simple act could make her mind calm down. All the doomsday thoughts cleared out as the little girl wanted to feel safe. Lois found herself wanting safety for the little girl too.
Quickly, the calm was gone and her mind went into overdrive. This wasn't just about her anymore. She could hurt Jordan's feelings, scar her mind even if she pushed her away and told her that she wasn't really her mommy. She could slip up and say that wrong thing, do something the wrong way or even get her sick if she sneezed or coughed on her by mistake. She very quickly remembered why it would take a loss of sense and logic for her to have a kid: no child should have to deal with her for a mother.
"Mommy, why aren't you watching the cartoons? You love watching Bugs mess with Elmer Fudd."
Lois realized she been staring wide-eyed at a wall, not focusing on anything except on how she could invariably screw up this innocent victim next to her. "I'm just doing some thinking kid... kid... kiddo. I've had a crazy morning and just have about forty three thoughts going through my head when it can handle about seven." She ran a hand across Jordan's head a couple times, smoothing her hair. She hoped it was something the girl liked.
Jordan let go of Lois and popped off the couch. She looked Lois dead in the eye before speaking. "I'm going to the bathroom," she announced, and took off towards a section of the apartment Lois had yet to explore.
She barely noticed, though as another shockwave hit her. The little girl had her eyes.
When Jordan had looked her in the eyes, she felt like she was staring into a mirror, or at least a mirror that was only big enough to show eyes.. They were exactly the same shape and color. They were her eyes; the girl had gotten her eyes from her. 'No, has to be another explanation, even if the smile was unsettling familiar and annoyingly unidentified,' she thought.
Given the opportunity of having the main area of the apartment to herself, Lois decided there was no time like the present for an inspection of her surroundings. There wasn't a lot of color to the place, which had pale yellow walls and furniture that seemed to be some derivation of red or blue.
She was still scanning the room when she spotted a newspaper lying on the dining room table. She sprang across the apartment to it hoping to find that it was still 2008 and this was all just a giant hoax with somebody stupid enough to leave his paper in this sham of an apartment.
November 13th, 2021.
Thirteen years. She'd missed thirteen years. All those years of her life, gone in a flash of sleeping darkness. Lois slumped down into one of the chairs surrounding the table and let her head thump on the wooden surface. There were so many questions running through her head that she couldn't begin to form a coherent though. It would have just been a jumble of questions instead. Of course, she was possibly thirteen years in the future, so maybe people spoke fluent mumble now, who knew.
She'd had some demented version of a lobotomy. That had to be it. The only thing she could comprehend was that her mind was from 2008 and the rest of her was from 2021, which made so little sense that it fell in line with the fact that she was with a young girl claiming to be her daughter. A daughter with a carbon copy of her eyes and a smile she couldn't place, which was really bugging the bejesus out of her.
Lifting her head off the table, she felt her forehead to check for a fever. She pulled it away quickly when she felt something cool and metallic make contact with her head. Looking at her hand, she found a pair of rings; one of them was a simple gold band, the other platinum adorned with diamonds on the top. Wedding and engagement rings, respectively. Perfect.
That's when she spotted it out of the corner of her eye. Her savior from this madness. The greatness that would save her from losing what few marbles she had left.
Coffee.
Lois stood up and rushed over to the machine that had a coffee pot at its bottom. The contraption only somewhat resembled what she knew to be a coffee maker, but she would find a way to make the thing work. She'd served coffee for like a year, so she could make the damn thing work!
She started messing with it and pushing buttons when she felt a small tug at her shirt. She glanced down to see Jordan looking up at her before she went back to fiddling with the machine. "What are you doing, mommy?"
"Trying to make some coffee. I really, really need some right now."
"But, I thought you weren't allowed to have coffee anymore. You said so."
Lois did her best not to scowl down at the little girl. "Why would I say something so inane like I couldn't drink coffee?" She didn't add that such a statement makes as little sense as her day had.
"You said no more coffee until you had the new baby."
Lois had to work her jaw a few times before she found the ability to speak. She closed her eyes as she spoke. "What new baby?"
She opened her eyes to find a confused looking Jordan, but that quickly became a smiling Jordan again. "The one in your tummy. You and daddy said that the new baby was going to make things change. That's when daddy said 'Like no more coffee for mommy because she does things all or nothing.' Then you looked at him like you look at me when I do something I'm not supposed to do."
Well, that sounded more or less truthful. Anybody that tried to separate her from her coffee would get a strong glare, if not an outright beating. "Right, that new baby."
Here she was in the future, talking to her future daughter and according to said daughter pregnant with another future child. So hot it's cold, so wrong it's right, so unbelievable that it may actually be true, she mused.
Lois ran a hand over her stomach a couple times without thinking about it before she felt another tug at her shirt. "What are you doing, mommy?"
"Just thinking about my life, kiddo. Guess I'm not being much fun."
"Wanna watch more cartoons with me?"
"Yeah, sure," Lois replied absently. Jordan grabbed her hand and guided her to the couch, where Lois allowed herself a few moments to zone out and not think. The mental peace was grand, but not lasting. She looked down at Jordan and realized she had so many questions about the little girl that she hadn't yet asked. She'd been too distracted by the when to ask about the who.
"Jordan, how old are you?"
The little girl was entranced by the television but managed to hold up three fingers to Lois. "This may sound like an odd question, but what's your daddy's name?"
"Daddy."
Lois couldn't tell if that was a three year old being three or the beginnings of a long life of sarcastic retorts. "Ok, what do I usually call daddy?"
"You call him daddy, too." Lois cursed her genes. If this girl really was her daughter she appeared to be just as difficult as the General claimed Lois had been before her mom had died. That thought paired with a girl claiming her as a parent made her shudder slightly. She decided to take this a different direction and determine if this girl really was hers.
"What do I call your father when I'm talking to him and you're probably not supposed to be listening but really are?"
Jordan scratched her arm and looked up at Lois with a smaller smile than she had previously been wearing. She spoke quietly, apparently knowing she'd been caught. "Smallville."
