----Chapter 3

"Small... sma... small... SMALLVILLE?" Jordan didn't really register the shock in Lois' voice and continued. "You almost always call him Smallville when you don't think I'm listening, and call him Clark, too. You called him Clarkie once and then he said something about a sailor, then you had me go play in my room. That was before my birthday last summer."

Lois barely registered that Jordan was still speaking, too shocked by the fact that she and Clark had never killed each other, let alone ended up together. A future with him, kids with him, anything with him had never even been something she could have fathomed making it onto her mental radar, let alone coming to fruition.

She lowered her head into her hands, reminding herself to breathe. Running out of air wouldn't do her any good at this point, though it would certainly alleviate the mental breakdown if it lasted long enough for her to pass out.

She couldn't figure it out, though. For Christ's sake, had the world run out of acceptable men? Sure, he was easy on the eyes, but he was the biggest mope to ever mope when he got down, which was a majority of the time.

He really had so much going for him, and instead he acted like the weight of the world and then some was on his shoulders. It annoyed her so much that she wanted to scream and take him by the shoulders so she could shake the 'woe is me' attitude out of him.

Her and Smallville... so many how's were involved that it made her head hurt. She took a moment to distance herself from questions and looked down at Jordan, suddenly realizing why the girl's grin looked so familiar. It was his. That huge, toothy Clark Kent grin. And not only the grin, but the nose, the hair and even the ears resembled his. But those were her eyes, and the poor kid was probably stuck with her personality. The burden of possibly being her daughter. She thought about that for a moment before another thought popped into her head.

"Jordan, you said you're three. Are you sure? You speak very well for three. Actually, beyond well for that age, at least from my somewhat limited experience."

"You and daddy always say that I'm special." Sounded like Clark. Guess he rubbed off on her, which taken another way was probably how she'd ended up with Jordan and an embryo. 'Focus, Lane,' she thought.

"Special, huh? Do we refer to anything specific, or do we just call you our special little girl?"

"I'm special because I'm something that came from love. Daddy likes to tell me that." Jordan moved over and threw her arms around Lois' waist, hugging her for what felt like all she was worth. Kid certainly had some power in her small arms. Lois hugged her back halfheartedly and hoped that Jordan stayed this happy while she shattered her world by not knowing who she was.

Jordan focused on the television again, but didn't stop hugging Lois as she watched. Lois ran a hand along the girl's back, hoping she could convey some sense of normalcy. She heard a clicking sound off to her left and looked back, finding the door opening. A large man backed into the apartment, holding a few bags of groceries. He turned around, glasses adorning his face, hair cut shorter than she remembered it. "Clark," she whispered.

He smiled at the sight of Lois and Jordan on the couch. "Morning Lo. Heya sweetheart, how's it going? Do all right while I was gone?"

Jordan nodded and smiled. "Hi, daddy."

Lois was surprised at how little he'd changed but how different he looked. Aside from not wearing plaid and his hair, he hadn't really aged in eleven years. The glasses were new, but maybe his eyes had gone south on him.

What really stood out, she thought, was the way he carried himself. He didn't seemed burdened anymore. He seemed laid back, almost quietly confident. Lois thought her eyes must have taken a turn with the years as well.

He set down the bags he was carrying on the dining room table and walked over to Lois, placing a soft kiss on the top of her head. She looked back at him as she felt one of his hands on her shoulder. "How are you feeling today?"

Lois was glad she didn't have to lie. "It's been a morning I won't soon forget. Probably." Clark looked at her, appearing puzzled. She decided to rephrase. "Sorry. Just saying I've had better mornings."

He shrugged, apparently satisfied with her response. He broke out into a grin and ran his hand up and down her arm. "I'd give you some words of encouragement, but last time I tried that you just about took my head off."

He winked at her, his grin never faltering as he retracted his arm and went back over to the kitchen table and started to unload the food he'd bought. "I thought we could use a nice breakfast this morning, but we lacked a few of the ingredients. That, paired with you sleeping until at least 10:30, which is when I left, has brought us to a nice lunch. I was thinking chicken since it would be easy on your stomach, even though you've been ok for the past week. Better safe than sorry."

Lois eased Jordan off of her, stood and walked over to Clark. "Smallville, can we, uh, talk in the other room?"

"Yeah, sure thing. Give me a second to finish unpacking this stuff." He pulled out the last couple objects, a bag of apples and some bananas, and placed them on the counter. Pausing a second, he turned around to face her. "Good enough." He looked over to Jordan, who was still entranced by the television. "You good, girlie?" She gave him a thumbs up to which he gave a quick nod and took off towards the bedroom Lois had stumbled out of earlier.

She followed him, trying to figure out what exactly she was going to tell him. 'Hey, remember me in 2008? No? That's too bad because that's who I am!' Barely paying attention, Lois stubbed her toe on the door jamb as she entered the room and nearly yelped in pain, biting it back because she was afraid it would be followed by a few choice words Jordan didn't need to know.

When Lois finally got herself into the room, she closed the door and looked over to Clark. He'd removed his glasses and placed them on a night stand on the side of the bed she hadn't been to. He looked a little more like she remembered him without the glasses. He was still smiling at her, but the way he was looking at her was slightly different than it had been before. "So," he said, "you wanted to talk?"

The way he'd pronounced talk, it was quickly apparent to Lois that when they usually left Jordan to talk, there may be noise but not a whole lot of words. She decided to head things off at the pass. "Yes, and I actually want to talk, Smallville. No time and definitely no mind set for a romp in the sack. See, things are wrong. So many things are wrong and I don't know how they got to be wrong, but they are really, really wrong."

Clark stood up off the bed and walked over to her, clearly confused. "You look like you're about to break down. Take a deep breath and relax, Lo." Guiding her to the bed, he put an arm around her shoulders. They sat down, Lois staring at the floor. She felt horrible for having to shatter his world, but what was she supposed to do, pretend? "What's really, really wrong?"

"Clark, I don't remember the last thirteen years. I saw the newspaper out there, or at least the date, and I don't remember anything since 2008. Not finishing my education, not making my mark at the Planet, not us, not Jordan and certainly no unborn baby that I'm apparently giving safe passage for a while."

Lois stopped to gulp some air, her words feeling like they were all running together in one long sentence. She continued in what she hoped was a calmer voice. "I'm sorry if I'm tearing your world apart, but lost doesn't even begin to explain how I feel and I really need your help to figure things out."

Lois finally looked up at Clark's face. It was as near to blank as she'd ever seen it. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Damn." She watched him stare into space a second before he looked at her. "Well, believe it or not, my world is ok. I guess it was silly of me to hope that you could go through this pregnancy without it happening when it happened with Jordan. Heck, we talked about ita couple times and I was still holding onto a shred of hope."

Lois looked at him a second. "Huh?"

Clark let himself fall backwards onto the bed. "This isn't the first time you've lost your memory, Lois. No, if I recall, this is the fourth."

She rubbed at her temples a second, processing what he said. "You mean I'm chronically forgetful in a 'who needs the last few years' kinda way?"

Clark grimaced as she watched him sit up. "That's one way of putting it. It's more complicated than that, of course, but yes, you do tend to have memory loss on a larger scale than most people."

She didn't get to remember things. Nothing. It wasn't just a one time deal; she was always like this. That wasn't right, and did a very good job of making her angry.

"So let me get this straight, Smallville: we're together. We have a daughter and one on the way. I lose my memory at indeterminate times, especially when I'm pregnant," she scoffed. "Total reset from June 2008." At his nod, Lois felt ready to explode. It felt like what walls she had left to hold back her anger was gone.

"Are you fucking kidding me? This has got to be the dumbest damn thing I've ever heard in my entire life! There's no way in the world that this could work! It just couldn't! Seriously, I wake up and it's been thirteen years? I have a daughter? With YOU of all people? This has got to be a scam. I'm calling bullshit on all of this!

"A good makeup job on me and you, a kid that resembles you and has eyes like mine can be done without us actually making her. Hell, I bet you're being blackmailed into this. It'd explain why you've barely aged, and I bet the glasses are just fakes you're wearing to throw me off. Or hell, maybe you just had another bout of amnesia and fell into the hands of somebody that wanted to see me utterly confused. Whatever it is, I'm onto to it and I... I..."

Lois felt her stomach suddenly do a somersault before moving on to doing giant flips. She took a quick look around, spotted the bathroom and ran into it, getting her head over the toilet before her stomach took its revenge on her for something she'd done to it recently. Whatever it was, she didn't think she deserved this.

After a moment she felt a hand grab her hair and pull it back. She caught a glimpse of Clark kneeling beside her and felt him run a hand over her back before she got back to stomach dictated business she had with the porcelain.

She couldn't tell how long she'd been in the bathroom, but when it was over and Lois thought she may have missed another thirteen years or so. She found it had been about fifteen minutes when she could finally walk away from the bathroom. Fifteen more minutes she'd gone not knowing what the hell was actually going on, and she marveled at the fact that they'd actually been less enjoyable than the previous moments of not knowing. She sat down on the bed and let her face sink into her hands a moment before speaking.

"Smallville, please tell me that I just ate something exotic last night that didn't agree with me. I don't know that I can handle morning sickness being the cause of that. Truthfully, I don't know that I can handle much of anything right now. It's too much."

Clark sat down next to her and took one of her hands into his, giving it a gentle but firm squeeze. "Let's go sit with Jordan, Lo. She's always had a calming effect on you."

Instead of arguing against Jordan being hers and the fact that someone she didn't know would have a difficult time being calming, Lois simply nodded and allowed herself to be guided back to the couch. Jordan was sitting in the middle of it now, watching some live action kids show. She sat down on the little girl's left and felt Jordan's head immediately make its way to her lap while Clark sat down on her right and had Jordan's feet put in his lap.

She could almost see it, the happy family they'd apparently made, but the feeling of family that she knew Clark and Jordan had was absent. It just wasn't there, along with everything else that had gone AWOL and made her day hell. She sighed and laid her head back against the couch, closing her eyes.