---- Chapter 15
Emitting a low pitched groan, Lois felt consciousness encroach upon the slumber she was enjoying. Stubborn to the last, she kept her eyes closed as tightly as she could and pushed her face deeper into her pillow as it shifted a little underneath her. Something about a moving pillow struck her as odd and woke her mind up a little more.
Opening her eyes, she lifted her head up a little bit so she could get a good look at why her pillow was shifting. What she found was a very tan and Clark shaped pillow. A peaceful looking half naked Clark shaped pillow that had his body covered by hers, with an arm around her for good measure.
She was robbed of the opportunity to extricate herself, though, because the alarm next to Clark went off and was promptly turned off with his free hand. She watched his eyes flutter open and meet her own. He raised a sleepy looking eyebrow at her.
"Not that I'm complaining, Lo, but I distinctly recall you being well over on the other side of the bed when we went to sleep last night." He grinned and closed his eyes again. "At the rate you're going, two weeks of resisting may be much more realistic than two months."
"Very funny, Smallville. Mind moving your arm?" He did so and she rolled off of him back to where she'd started last night. Looking at the clock, she scowled. "Why in the world when I wake up earlier after less sleep do I feel more rested than I did yesterday? Have you made me dependent on you for a good night's sleep or something?"
She watched him sit up and stretch, forcing her eyes to his face. No need to go ogling him and his silly number of well defined muscles.
"I guess that could be a valid theory. Probably muscle memory that isn't affected by your memory loss." She noted how he didn't sound at all disappointed with the theory.
Lois slid off the bed and cracked her neck before noticing that her lower half was still nearly naked. She didn't want it to feel like a big deal, but the fact that only one of the people in the room could remember them actually being naked together was not the most comforting thing in the world. Doing her best to sound casual, she turned and faced him. "I'm going to grab a shower. Where do I keep the jeans around here?"
"Well, aside from the pair you wore the last couple days, you only have one other pair, and they're in the hamper. You tend to wear slacks more often than not these days. Though, you do have a lot of pregnancy jeans that you'll be able to wear soon enough."
"Fantastic," she grumbled. "How long until you have to be at the Planet?"
He checked the clock before answering her. "A little over an hour. Why?"
"Well, if it's not too much trouble I'd like to know where everything is so I don't have to spend time asking you where everything is for the next few days."
"Seems reasonable," he said as he walked over to the dresser. "Pretty much everything in here is yours. Top left small drawer is where I keep my undershirts and boxers. Everything else, yours. Top middle is bras, top right your underwear. The middle drawer is your non-work slacks. The bottom drawer is all your pregnancy clothes we kept. I'll hang those up here soon as I have a feeling your stomach is going to hit a growth spurt here in the next week or two."
"I know you were talking about me starting to show soon, but am I really going to have my stomach blow up pretty soon?"
"It isn't an overnight thing, Lo. It won't be you waking up one morning with double the stomach size. The way you described it last time was that your pants slowly stopped fitting comfortably over a few days and after that things really started becoming visible. You weren't happy about the fact that your clothes didn't fit, but you hadn't forgotten yet and were happy to see tangible proof of Jordan not consisting of you throwing up or feeling light headed.
"It all happened around the same time with Jordan. You barely showed at thirteen weeks with her, and by the time seventeen weeks rolled around you were showing enough that pregnancy was obvious. It just happened really quickly and then slowed down for a little while again before the growth became more uniform around the beginning of your fifth month.
"We, well, I know what to expect this time. With Jordan we weren't sure about most things because of my heritage, but this time we've got one under the belt. I know you don't remember, but I promise you that it'll all be fine. A lot to take, waking up in the second trimester of a pregnancy in the wrong year, but you're strong, Lo, and if anybody can handle it, it's you. And when you hold our baby... well, you'll see."
Sighing, she sat down on the bed. So much for not being overwhelmed. Time for a subject change to keep her mind from getting too caught up. "So, slacks when I'm relaxing now? For some reason that just doesn't seem like me. I don't want to call it uptight, but it certainly doesn't seem relaxed."
"Well, we do a lot of stuff with Bruce and Chloe and you say you feel like you're underdressed when you go to the manor in jeans. Plus, I think you've just grown accustomed to them over the years, even when you forget."
"I take it we're at the Wayne Manor often since it doesn't take much time to fly to Gotham."
"We stay there about as often as we do the farm. Truthfully, we usually only spend one or two weekends here a month. And now that I think about it, you do keep three or four pairs of jeans out at the farm so as not to have to drag them back and forth."
"Well, at least there's that," Lois said as she stood back up. "I guess I'll hit the shower. Or do you need to take one first to get ready for work?"
Clark shrugged. "Doesn't take me long to shower unless I want it to, so go ahead. I'll go see if Jordan is up and start breakfast."
Nodding, she went into the bathroom, turning on the hot water and stripping down. Showering was a good time for thinking , but the only thing bouncing around in her head was her soon to be expanded stomach. She couldn't get the thought out of her head; the whole prospect of having a life inside of her was starting to get scary.
It would become real when she started showing, and she wasn't sure how to handle it. God, she'd have sworn three days ago - well, thirteen years and three days ago - she wouldn't even have kids, and here she was expecting and not knowing what the hell she could possibly expect.
Lois decided she needed to get out of her head. There were too many thoughts and worries involving an unnerving topic in there. She finished up her shower and dried off, wrapping herself in the towel and walking out into the room. She dressed in some slacks and one of her more casual looking blouses. Sadly, she felt like she was going to be working that day instead of spending the day with Jordan.
Stepping out of the room, Lois briskly walked across the livingroom and into the kitchen where she was greeted by a tiny blur attaching itself to her legs. "Morning, mommy!"
Pulling Jordan up into her arms, she placed a long kiss on each of her cheeks. "Morning, baby girl. Where's daddy?"
Clark was the one to answer as he walked out of Jordan's room. "Daddy is right here, recovering from going three rounds of dressing our little girl. The first two were split, but daddy won the third by getting her into jeans before she left the room sans pants."
"Well, congratulations to daddy, right Jordan?"
"Right!" She looked around for a moment like she wasn't seeing something that was supposed to be there. "Where's breakfast?"
"Well, since your dad is such a slowpoke getting you dressed..."
"...are you kidding me?"
"...he hasn't taken the time to get anything ready for us yet. And you wouldn't want me making something yucky to start the day, would you?" Jordan shook her head fervently. "That's what I thought. So, how about you ask pops here for some breakfast?" Lois bent down to whisper in Jordan's ear. "I hear he has a hard time saying no to you, so if you ask real nicely you'll get a whole lot of good food."
"I heard that, Lo."
"Right, super hearing. Gotta remember that in the future."
She looked up at him as he was in the middle of rolling his eyes. "I didn't need it. You whisper in a tone some people use for normal speech."
"Very funny and so not true. Back to the topic at hand, though. What would you like, Jordan?"
"May we have waffles and pancakes, daddy?"
Clark smiled ruffled Jordan's hair. "How about you pick one or the other, sweetheart. Whichever you don't pick we can have tomorrow. How's that sound?"
"Pancakes today, please!"
"Sounds good. Anything you'd like to add to that, mommy?"
"A side of bacon if I didn't devour it all yesterday."
Clark grinned widely at her as he backed up towards the fridge. "As it just so happens, we have plenty of fresh bacon. Mom knows how much we all like it so she sets us up with a new batch every week or two. Though, what with your new attachment to it, I may need to get some more from her in a couple days. I guess we can call this your first craving."
"Don't kid yourself, Smallville. I've always loved bacon like it was an edible family member. I figured you'd have known that about me by now."
He laughed as Lois went and sat down at the table, setting Jordan down on a chair of her own. "So, it's just going to be you and me today, baby girl. What do you want to do?"
Jordan shrugged, smiling and swinging her legs back and forth. "Why aren't I going to stay with grandma today?"
"You know how I told you the my mind isn't working as well right now because of the new baby? Well, I'm going to stay home and let my brain rest for a few days before going back to work. That means until Friday, it'll be just you and me. That ok?"
Jordan grinned that adorable grin she'd inherited from her dad and bounced out of her chair and into her mom's lap, taking it over and leaning back against Lois's front.
She had to take a deep breath to calm herself after a moment. It was too good. It was too easy to fall into the trap of letting her heart out from behind its safety only to have it smashed if none of this turned out to be real. It had to be real.
But God, what if it wasn't? What if her baby girl, the one she barely knew yet loved with her whole heart, wasn't real? If she lost her, she didn't know how she'd survive. What if the baby growing within her was just a figment of her imagination and she was just being manipulated into believing all this. It seemed like so much effort to go to, but what if...
"What are you thinking about, Lo?"
She snapped out of her thoughts and gave a small, sad smile to Clark. "Nothing big. Just being scared to let myself hope, Smallville." She shrugged and kissed the top of Jordan's head, pulling her tight against herself. "I think I finally feel what I thought a mother should feel like, though." She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "It is way too early for that kind of sentence. We can talk about it later, ok?"
He nodded and put a plate of bacon in front of them. Lois waited until Jordan got a piece before grabbing a couple for herself and was soon greeted by a couple pancakes with her name on them after her daughter got hers, which was already cut into small pieces and doused with syrup. She garnished her own with the remaining bacon and a little syrup before tearing into it and making it a pleasant memory.
Clark was soon off to work and the day went by a lot more quickly than Lois thought it would. It was still difficult to judge how ahead of her age group Jordan was. She spoke clearly and properly more often than not, and Lois figured that Jordan would probably spell better than she ever would by age six.
Lois found a pizza in a the freezer and made it for lunch, succeeding in keeping it edible which shocked the crap out of her. It turned out to be one of many things she ate before Clark got home from the Planet. He walked in the door not long after four, which she thought might be a little earlier than usual. After he set their daughter down from a long hug hello, she approached him.
"Hey, as I recall work generally lasted longer than four in the afternoon. What's up?"
"Well, Perry took the news better this time and even let me off a couple hours early. Of course, by taking the news better this time I mean he only exploded loudly enough so that two city blocks could hear it. Last time I think they heard it in Colorado because the avalanche I had to save people from was way too coincidental."
"At least there's that. I'd been waiting for the building to start shaking all day. Hell, I was expecting to stand under a door jamb with Jordan and explain to her why the world was no longer standing still."
Clark laughed, making her smile. "So, what did you and Jordan do all day?"
"There was coloring, a snack, television, lunch, and a nap followed by another snack. All in all, not unlike some of the days I had when I was working at the talon. Granted, I now have a small version of me hanging around."
"Definitely not something you had when you lived at the talon. Well, maybe if you count Chloe, but she was taller than Jordan is now..." She sighed as he grinned at his own cleverness.
"I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it isn't quite the same thing. So, what was going on at the Planet today?"
She sat down next to Clark, who'd planted himself down on the couch and was taking off his tie. "Pretty slow day. There was a fire at the docks I was sent to cover after Superman handled it. Nobody was hurt and it looks like it was just old wiring."
"Anything new on the city council story?"
"No. I'm meeting with a source tomorrow afternoon, but..."
Lois jumped in there. "You mean we're meeting with a source."
They eyed each other a moment before Clark said anything. "I love you, Lo, but you lost nearly four years of memories two days ago. You don't even know who this guy is anymore."
"I have all the information on the case. The source doesn't know that I lost my memory. And no matter what you say, I would bet ten grand that I'm better at getting the information a source doesn't want to divulge."
Clark frowned at her, and she saw his jaw muscles flexing. Finally, he sighed and let his head drop, looking at the ground. "Almond Joy is going to be out of college before I win an argument. The meeting is at 2:30. I'll pick you up."
"What about Jordan?"
"I'll bring mom by in the morning. You two can catch up and get some quality Jordan time together."
Lois smiled, looking forward to seeing Mrs... Martha again. She was somebody that could be counted on to not change.
