----Chapter 4
They sat on the couch for a little while, Lois letting her mind run rampant with all the possibilities. Jordan brought up the fact that she was hungry after a few more cartoons so she and Clark got up and went into the kitchen. The nice lunch Clark had planned apparently forgotten, he made Jordan a sandwich without crust and put a small pile of chips on the plate for her.
Lois saw him go back to the pantry, grab some saltines and fill up a glass of water. He came and put them on the coffee table in front of her. He knelt down and offered a small smile. "I think you'll feel a little better with something in your stomach. Crackers have always been pretty harmless."
"Thank you."
He walked back to tend to Jordan and she downed a few crackers. Not much on taste, but it did feel good to have something in her stomach. She just hoped that it stayed in her stomach. The last thing she needed now was a repeat performance of her earlier duet with the toilet, especially since it only seemed to have the one note at the end.
About an hour after she'd eaten, Jordan starting yawning like it was going out of style, so Clark took her and put her down for a nap. Lois was still nursing her glass of water when Clark came back and sat down on the couch with her. He put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a reassuring squeeze. "How are you feeling?"
Lois thought she may have fifteen one word answers to that. "I feel like everything is completely out of control. I'm annoyed that it's 2021 when it feels like 2008. I'm confused because I see Jordan, and I see your features and even my eyes on her yet I feel no connection. It's why I'm having a hard time grasping that this isn't a fake out. Wouldn't... shouldn't a mother feel connected to her child?"
Clark put an arm around her shoulder and hugged her to his body. "Lo, you can't feel bad about not feeling a connection after knowing the girl for about two hours. What, are you supposed to see her and instantly feel love when you have no idea who she is? When you find out who she actually is, are you supposed to say 'Let me love you unconditionally?' I can only imagine, probably poorly, how you feel, but I don't expect you to just accept this. You never have, no matter that circumstance you wake up to."
"But you always hear these stories of mothers knowing their children. For God's sake, you're adopted but I remember Mrs. Kent telling me the moment she saw you, she saw her son. She just knew. I see Jordan and I feel like I'm seeing a kid that acts kind of like me and has disturbingly familiar eyes, but that's it. No connection, no innate feeling."
Lois looked at Clark, who didn't answer right away. He rubbed a hand across her back and then spoke. "Lois, how often do you accept something without some form of proof?"
"Rarely, but still..."
"No, there is no still involved here. I don't expect you to change how you view things because you wake up and find out you have a daughter. That's not who you are."
Lois sighed. He was right, but she didn't have to like it. "Kind of you as it is to try and make me feel better, Smallville, nothing about this day is right. 2021? Are you kidding me? As I was trying to say earlier before my insides decided I'd said enough, I'm going to find out what the hell happened. For all I know I could have time traveled in my sleep. No proof, no knowledge."
Lois paused as she saw Clark smiling to himself. "Reveling in my dismay, Smallville, or just remembering a funny joke?"
He gave her another sheepish look. "No, nothing like that. It's just that every time you lose your memory, you end up giving me the same speech, or at least a very similar one. How you get to it always differs, but you always seems to end up saying something about time traveling in your sleep and without proof, there's no knowledge. It's almost like I relive each of your day after speeches."
She glared at him, to which he held up his hands defensively. "Not that I'm enjoying any of this. I knew what I was getting into when we fell in love. Or, well, when you finally got around to loving me." Off her look, he waved a hand at her. "Numerous stories for later. Anyway, it can be frustrating and more often than not untimely, but I don't regret one second of it. If you'll excuse the joke, the good outweighs the bad more and more whenever your pregnant."
Lois rolled her eyes at his joke. "Funny. I'm surprised you're not off brooding about how everything has gone so sideways. It almost makes me more suspicious, the non-broodiness you seem to have embraced."
Clark laughed. "Like I said, Lo, I knew what I was getting into. I've had some experiences that changed how I viewed things. I'm happy to say I've been brood free for about twelve years now. I will admit to getting close a couple times, though."
"What happened thirteen years ago?"
"Ah, well, we can get to that later as well. Right now, I'm thinking you'd like to hear what happened to cause your memory loss. Or at least my knowledge on it, assuming you'll believe me without any proof but my word."
She just nodded at him, and he started to speak.
"You were doing a piece that was... boring. I don't remember how you ended up with it. Anyway, you told Chloe that you saw Lex and known mob bosses meeting behind the same place you were doing your interview. Needless to say, you found a way to record their conversation. A very incriminating conversation.
"You found the guns they were moving with Chloe and I, wrote up an article, and after some editing and formatting help from Chloe, presented it to the Daily Planet's editor, along with your research and the tape. They printed the article, and suddenly you were one of the big guns. On a side note, this was around the time the new editor got you to finish your education with a major in journalism at Met U, which you were already doing, of course.
"After a couple months, she promoted you and Chloe at the same time and made you two partners, as you'd broken a couple stories together by that point. How am I doing so far?"
She knew that he'd known most of this anyway, but knowing about the story she'd sworn to take to her grave was slightly disturbing. " Um, so far you're right on target, Smallville. Please tell me more of the things I actually remember."
It was Clark's turn to roll his eyes. "It was about a week later when you were attacked the first time. We were at the apartment you and Chloe shared and the door was kicked in, which I always thought was bad practice for somebody wanting to kill you. Anyway, you had a gun pulled on you and if I hadn't been there, you'd have probably ended up shot."
"I told you then and I'll tell you again now, Smallville, I could have handled that. I'd have kicked the guy's ass, no problem."
"Be that as it may, it failed. The next attack didn't."
Clark rubbed a hand over his face. Lois could see how much the memories pained him. She was tempted to tell him to stop, but she wanted to know. She needed to know what had happened, assuming it was true.
"It was three days after the first attack. You were walking home from having dinner at some Italian bistro a few blocks from your apartment. Chloe remembered some tapes she'd left at the Planet and grabbed a cab. You assured her you'd be fine walking on your own.
"You were about five minutes from your building when you were pulled into an alley. I don't know what actually happened or how many guys there were, but you were beaten so badly that when Chloe was called to the hospital, she barely recognized you. You were lucky that somebody found you and called for an ambulance or else you'd have probably ended up bleeding to death."
Beaten within an inch of her life. Lois sighed, but got curious. "Smallville, if I was so badly beaten, where are all the scars? I've seen myself and I'm not visibly scarred, which is odd not only because of this supposed beating but because I had plenty of scars before that."
Clark had gotten up and poured himself a glass of apple juice. "Though things may not look much different since 2008 in here, the medical field has grown by leaps and bounds in numerous fields. They've developed technology to restore skin from scarring, tattooing and even cancer."
"So all my scars are gone like that? I liked a few of them! They were war wounds, so to speak."
Clark looked apologetic. "When the technology became available, you debated removing the scarring from the attack removed because you looked pretty rough. The scars on your face were intense, and you didn't want to have to explain the attack to Jordan until she was old enough to understand. The doctor thought they were all attack related, though, and got rid of everything he could find."
"Well that sucks!"
"Jordan was only just born and you didn't want her getting made fun of by other kids when she was older, so you made the decision pretty quickly. Had we known then what we do now, we probably just would have gotten rid of the scars on your face."
Lois glared at him. "That doesn't do me a whole lotta good at this point, Smallville."
Clark shrugged and continued on with his story. "So, you were comatose for over six months. Chloe and I were there every day, and my mom was there as often as she could be, which was usually four or five times each week..."
---
"I... I know I don't say this often, and there's a good reason. Were I to say it, you'd probably smirk, make a sarcastic comment and walk away. But I want you to know that I think we make a good team. Not a team in the traditional sense of working side by side as a well oiled machine, but more in that television sense where you have the sarcastic one, you, the straight man, me, and the brains in the middle of it all, Chloe. Not that you and I don't have brains, but just a lack of focus when around each other.
"Of course, you'd protest anything that labeled us as a team in any form or fashion. That doesn't mean the term doesn't fit, though. We figure things out together and make sure bad things don't happen whenever we can. As far as I can tell, that makes us a team. I was thinking of the name Kent-Lane-Sullivan for the team. Complain all you want, but it's only fair that we do the team name alphabetically. And aside from that whole fairness thing, I'm taking naming rights on this one. I think after all the snark I've taken from you, I deserve a little victory. Were I to leave it to you, it would be the 'Chlo-Lo Connection, with sidekick Farm boy!'"
Clark rubbed the back of his neck a moment before running a hand through his hair, making it look wilder than it really was. "I think I got off topic there for a second. You see what happens when I'm around you? Anyway, I was asking you to do something for me. Yes, Clark Kent asking a favor of Lois Lane. Please hold your shock until the end of the talk." Clark smiled for a moment before he stood from the chair he'd been in and went to stand beside her.
"You don't show it, and you'd never voice it, but you'll do anything for friends and family. You feel that they are the one's that need you the most; to be strong, in control and able to handle whatever life can possibly bring at you. So, I ask this of you because I think we're close enough that you'd do this small task for me. Ok, opposite of small task. More like big task with a lot of toughness involved. I know, though, that you excel at difficult tasks, and that's why I feel confident that you won't let me down.
"I need you to wake up, Lois. I need you to beat this. Two out of three in our team isn't good enough for me. Besides, I'm not great with the radical changes in life. Gradual change over time, that happens. Radical, life-altering changes are things I can live without. You not being here with me, with Chloe, with mom... that's the kind of change I don't like. Granted, things I don't like tend to entice you, but I think you'll want to work with me on this one.
"I want you to do this for me. And if not for me, do it for Chloe. You're the big sister she never had and I know you don't want to be another Lane woman that leaves this world before her time. Hell, I'd have put money on you being the Lane that lived to a ripe old age, with Chloe right behind you, even if she doesn't technically have Lane genes. Well, she might. You two never told me just which parents you're related through."
Clark took a couple deep breaths, steadying his voice before speaking again. He didn't want Lois making fun of him getting all shaky if, no when, she eventually woke up.
"Anyway, I challenge you, Lois Lane. I challenge you to win this fight and show the world you're not going to be ushered out of life before you're damn well ready. Show the world that nothing, absolutely nothing is going to make you submit to its will."
Tuning out the rhythmic hiss of the breathing machine Lois had been hooked up to, Clark bent down and placed a very light kiss on Lois's forehead, careful to avoid any of the most battered places. Had she not been so close to death, he would have marveled at just how peaceful she looked. For all intents and purposes, it appeared that she could just be taking a very long and intrusive nap. Clark couldn't imagine a look he wanted to see on her face any less. He'd gladly stay in a room with kryptonite walls for as long as he needed to if it would wake her up and allow a smile to form on her lips. Hopefully somewhere in her mind, Lois could feel just how much he cared for her, and would know she wasn't alone.
"Mom will be by later this evening, and I think you'll be getting an evening visit from Chloe as well. It'll be the last evening she gets off for a while, probably, but she'll be by every morning between classes just like usual, and probably any day that she doesn't have or doesn't want to go to class. I'll be back tomorrow, same time, same place. Think about my challenge if you don't have anything else to do. And hey, if you want to go ahead and beat it, I think I can live with that. I'd hate to see you do something silly like failing now. It's just wouldn't be you."
Clark smiled as he held her hand a moment, then walked around her hospital bed and left her room. He moved down the hall slowly, hands shoved in his pockets until he came to the elevator, waiting a moment before entering the empty metal box. He dropped his eyes to the floor and rubbed lightly at an eye that wasn't doing him any favors by trying to shed a tear. He watched the doors begin to close, another day closing itself on her chance to wake up. It was all he could do not to break down where he stood.
---
"Your father came, of course. He was there every day for the first month, then took off to track down Lucy and bring her back to Metropolis so she could see you. Not one last time, of course. Sam never entertained the notion you'd die. Something about Lane's never taking the easy way out."
Lois smiled. "He's never said anything more true." She stretched a second before speaking again. "So, did he find Lucy?"
"It took him a few weeks, but he showed up out of the blue one day with your sister in tow, ushering her into the room. She sat by your bed and was as close to tears as I'd seen any Lane woman since you'd cried at Chloe's fake grave."
"Hey, you better not be saying that I've cried since then, because I don't cry."
Clark smiled and patted her knee. "I think you shedding a couple tears when Jordan was born is acceptable even for you, Lo."
