---- Chapter 36
"Pregnant lady coming through, people. Move it!"
Lois pushed her way through the other reporters covering the news conference, Clark trailing behind her as she made her way towards the front of the pack. When she finally got somewhere she liked, she stopped and pulled out her notepad, sticking her pencil in her mouth while she flipped to a blank page. She spoke around it.
"Ya know Smallville, you could have led the way here instead of having your pregnant wife do it."
"I could have, but I know how you enjoy plowing thought a crowd of people. Plus," he said as he leaned down next to her ear, "the Clark Kent everybody here knows does not push his way through a crowd. He lets his wife push her way through a crowd and follows her. That's not entirely me affecting a persona, though."
She would have said something about that, but found that the Mayor was stepping up to the podium.
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. I've called this press conference to announce that after much consultation and consideration, I am going to run for governor of the great state of Kansas!"
Lois looked to Clark, who wore an expression of shock. That wore off very quickly and numerous hands went up with questions, Lois's included. After getting a couple of the usual questions about what he thought he could do, the governor finally pointed to Lois for her question.
"Mayor Sackett, Lex Luthor was a major contributor to your campaign to run the city and has been a big point of contention during your time in office. Are you going to be getting that same kind of support in your bid to run the state, and are you expecting the same kind of reactions?"
Though the saccharine smile was still plastered on his face, she thought she saw his eyes narrow for a second. If he was going to let her ask a question, she wasn't going to pull any punches.
"I will welcome any support that Mr. Luthor would like to give my campaign. He's been a great philanthropist for our city and I've been honored to have his support in the past."
When he started taking questions again, Lois had to hold back her scoff at the claim of Lex Luthor being a philanthropist. She looked over at Clark, who wore a frown that was probably similar to hers.
"This just reeks of puppetry, doesn't it?"
Clark nodded. "I was thinking the same thing. I don't think people are gullible enough to actually ever vote Lex into any kind of office, but if he has somebody that is obviously his man in there, well..." He stopped talking, and after a few seconds she placed a hand on his arm.
"What's wrong?"
"I hear something." He lowered his glasses, looking at the podium the mayor was standing behind. "Lois, get out of here."
"What?"
"Please, Lo. Just go!"
Clark started running, pulling at his tie and disappeared into an alley. Lois started making her way through the crowd of people while she stuffed her notepad back in her purse. She'd almost made her way to a taxi when a red and blue blur flew overhead. She turned and saw Clark tearing at the podium, grabbing something and flying into the sky again. A second later there was a massive explosion above, drawing her stare. That had to have been two miles up and she'd still felt the thump in her chest.
She strained her eyes to look for Clark, but couldn't see anything up where the explosion had happened. Had he flown off? After waiting a minute to see if he showed up as himself again, she hopped in the taxi and had the driver take her back to the Planet.
When she got back, she walked into the newsroom to find people huddled around the television.
"Lois! What the hell happened down there?"
She looked over to Perry, who was walking up to her from the televisions. "Superman got the bomb far enough away that nobody was injured. Don't ask me how he knew it was there. I could still feel it in my chest, though, and it was a ways away, so it was no small explosion."
"That's what we've been watching. There's slow motion footage of Superman being blown away by the bomb. He looked like a rag doll in a hurricane, tumbling through the air. It's only about two seconds worth of footage, but he was really moving."
Ok, now Lois was getting worried. What the hell kind of bomb had that been? The brief glimpse she'd gotten of it had confirmed that it wasn't very big; hell, it had to have been able to fit in the podium. Obviously there had been some real advancements in bomb technology since 2008.
"Lois, did you hear me?"
Lois focused her eyes in on Perry again. "Sorry, Chief. What did you say?"
"I asked you where Clark is."
Damn, she hadn't even thought of an excuse for that. What could he be doing? "He, um, stayed behind to get quotes. I wanted to come in and file the initial story for the evening edition. We'll put his stuff in for tomorrow morning."
Perry nodded at her, then walked back over to the TV's telling people to break up the crowd and get people back to writing the news instead of watching it.
Lois sat down at her desk and typed up the story on autopilot. She was too worried about Clark and confused about what had happened. Why had somebody wanted to blow up Mayor Sackett at a press conference? Well, that was probably a silly question; if everybody knew he was in Lex's pocket, he wouldn't be short on enemies. But why this conference?
More importantly, where the hell was Clark?
Lois sent her article to Perry's computer, still not really concentrating on what she was doing. Was it normal for him to take this long to come back from a save like this? Why the hell did her stupid ass memory have to be defective? Not knowing without being able to remember what had happened before, without seeing him coming back before, felt worse than she could possibly imagine.
She grabbed her cell phone and scrolled to Clark's name, telling the thing to dial him. She waited through five rings before his voice mail answered. Frustrated, she shoved her phone back to where it had been, rubbing the palms of her hands into her eyes. She remembered when all this had started that she had wanted to see him in action as Superman. Now that she had, she respected what he dealt with every day even more. Too bad it appeared to be something that worried the hell out of her.
Lois spent the next two hours getting progressively more worried until she was to the point where she thought she was going to burst. She'd never been one to sit and wait for things, and now she knew why: it was torture. What the hell was taking him so long? Was he hurt? Did he need her help?
Was he even alive?
If he was, she was going to kill him for making her feel like this.
She hated being powerless. There was already enough in her life that made her feel that way, and she didn't need the possible death of her husband to be the same. It was bad enough to have the fact that she was going to forget all this in two or three years looming over her head. If it was going to be like this all the time...
Sighing, she grabbed a piece of lettuce off of her salad and popped it in her mouth. For the first time she could remember since she'd woken up, she wasn't hungry. She was forcing herself to down some nutritious food anyway, not wanting her anxious state to do anything to negatively affect the baby. Having an empty stomach only made her feel more on edge anyway, and while she wasn't eating anything particularly satisfying, it got the job done.
She finished her food, and after tossing the container walked over to Perry's office, walking in without bothering to knock.
"Any word on Superman yet, Chief?"
Perry shook his head. "Sorry, Lois. There's no sign of him anywhere. They haven't found an impact crater or anything to show that he hit the ground, so it looks like it'll be a waiting game."
Lois left his office feeling just as anxious as she'd been going in. What the hell could have happened? What kind of bomb had that even been? Were they designing bombs to take out Superman now?
Shaking her head and having had enough of waiting, Lois grabbed her coat and purse and headed to the elevator. The ride down was excruciatingly slow, driving her to the brink of punching the 'Open' button when she got to the lobby but the door was taking its time opening. When it finally did so, she walked out and tried to hail a cab. A few minutes later one actually stopped for her and she jumped in, instructing the man to the apartment.
The cab ride was nothing but one long negative thought on what could have happened. She told her mind to think of good things, like Jordan of AJ, but that just led to her thinking about if Clark had been killed and she ended up having to raise the children without him. Stupid mind and it's worst case scenario tendencies.
Once there, she tossed some money at the man and got out, barely acknowledging the doorman as she entered the building. The elevator ride up was nearly as excruciating as the ride down at the paper had been, but since it wasn't as long didn't cause her as much grief. She took to tapping her foot on the ground in impatience while she waited for the ride to end. When it finally did so, she walked as quickly as she could to their door.
For a second it dawned on her how quickly she'd come to think of everything as theirs instead of hers. It was hers and Clark's, together, not just hers and his that just happened to be together. In sixteen days she had embraced what they had together and completely changed the way she saw belongings.
Man, he was really good at making her fall in love.
Shaking off the thought, Lois unlocked the apartment and walked inside, dropping her coat and purse on a chair as she walked straight to the balcony. She opened the door and walked outside again, ignoring the cold of late November. Taking a couple deep breaths, she let the coldness embrace her a second before continuing with her first and simplest plan.
"Superman!"
He always heard her. That's what Chloe had said. If he always heard her, then he damn sure better not change that now.
"Superman, you get your ass to this apartment RIGHT now and let me know you're alright or I swear, I will find you and figure out a way to take out my wrath on you for making me so damn anxious and worried!"
She stood out there for ten minutes, yelling things about what she was going to do in very graphic and precise detail, making sure he knew just how displeased she was for having to live without knowing if he was alive. When she started shivering, she walked back inside and let herself thump down on the couch.
God, if there were only some way for her to know he was ok, then she wouldn't have to feel like this. He'd only been missing a few hours, and she already felt like a piece of her was missing. Was this what true love really was? Not knowing and worrying like a mad woman that was probably over reacting? The way he made her feel, she'd never felt that way before in her life, never that good. But now, she didn't know if she'd ever felt this bad before.
How was she going to figure this out? How was she going to know... the bracelet. The diary had said that the bracelet let her feel what he was feeling. It had been how she'd always known he was ok back then.
She raced into the bedroom and thumped the dresser a couple times until the drawer popped open. She grabbed the bracelet and the diary and moved to sit on the bed. She sat the bracelet down and checked the diary entry again, making sure she was remembering correctly.
It let's you feel some of what he's feeling. It feeds you his emotions, more or less
Lois sat the diary down, assured of what she needed to do. She grabbed the bracelet, took a deep breath, and slipped it on her left arm. She didn't feel anything for a second, but that ended quickly. All at once she felt awful. She started hurting all over and felt sick to her stomach. She blinked back tears and started gulping air through her mouth to deal with the pain, her mouth wide open as she tried to breathe through the pain.
Very quickly she realized that this couldn't be good for AJ, so she reached over, her movements sluggish, and pulled off the bracelet. As quickly as it started, the pain and nausea ended.
Now failing to blink back the tears, Lois made her way out to the living room again and pawed through her purse until she finally got hold of her phone. She found the number she was looking for and dialed it.
"Hello?"
"He's hurt, Chloe. He's hurt and I don't know where he is. Nobody does."
"Lois? What's going on?"
"Mayor Sackett had a press conference. Clark heard something, I don't know what, and looked around. He found a bomb in the podium that was about to go off and pretty quickly changed into his Superman outfit nearby and flew in to stop it. All he had time to do was grab it and fly up into the air, apparently, because that's what he did."
"Why didn't he just throw it?"
"I don't know, but it went off a second later a mile or two up in the air. The footage, Chloe... there's footage on the news playing in slow motion of Superman being blown through the air like a rag doll , tumbling away from the explosion." She stopped for a second, wondering why Chloe didn't know any of this. "You work at a newspaper, Chloe! How have you not heard about this?"
"Silly as it seems right after Thanksgiving, I took the day off. Jack had the day off from school so I got all the kids scheduled with the dentist today. That's where I am right now, and I haven't been watching or listening to any news all day. I find my children are oddly disinterested in it Are you sure he didn't just have another save to make after he regained his senses?"
"I got tired of waiting at the Planet because I felt like a bundle of nerves. I came back to our apartment and yelled for Superman until I was blue in the face, both from using up all my breath and standing out in the cold. That came to no avail, so I was inside worrying when I remembered about the bracelet. I put it on, Chloe, and I felt like.. God, I don't know. I hurt all over and felt sick to my stomach."
Chloe then said a word that chilled Lois to the bone. "Kryptonite."
"The stuff that hurts him? Chloe, how the hell could that have happened?"
"I don't know. Look, I'm going to call Bruce. He needs to hear about this ASAP, as does the League. Call Ollie. His number should be somewhere in your phone, if not under his own name under the initials G.A."
Lois hung up without saying goodbye, then called Ollie and brought him up to speed on what was happening. He promised her that there would be Justice League people in Metropolis within the hour searching for Superman. Lois wished that they'd be there faster.
Her job through, Lois didn't know what to do with herself. She really wanted to hug Jordan close right now and just find comfort in the feeling of her daughters arms wrapped around her. She was in Smallville, though, with Martha. She doubted that Martha had heard anything about this, and she really didn't feel like breaking the news again, but knew she had to. Martha was his mother, and had a right to know. Lois would want to know if something happened to Jordan.
Drumming up what small amount of confidence she currently had, she called the farm.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Martha. It's Lois."
"Oh, hello dear. To what do I owe the pleasure of this midday call? If you want to talk to Jordan, she's napping at the moment, but has slept enough that she wouldn't be too cranky to talk after waking up."
"Actually, it's better I don't talk to her right now. As much as I want to, I'm kind of a mess, and I think she'd pick up on it."
"What's wrong?"
"I think Clark's been hurt, and nobody has been able to find him."
"Then why do you think he's hurt? If nobody has been able to find him... you used the bracelet, didn't you?"
Jeez, had she told everybody but Clark about how the thing worked? "Yeah. I uh, I put it on a little while ago and started hurting all over and feeling like I was going to be sick. Chloe said that's what kryptonite does to Clark. If that's only a part of what he's feeling..."
"Honey, he's going to be ok, I promise. Clark has a way, much like you do, of getting through situations most people wouldn't. You two are survivors. Keep using the bracelet every once in a while; as long as you feel something, take comfort in the fact that he's alive."
Lois talked to Martha a little while longer, and both agreed that Jordan should spend the night at the farm. Lois promised to keep Martha updated and hung up, sighing as she did so. She was getting nowhere fast and was feeling so powerless that she couldn't stand it. She needed something to distract her, to keep her mind occupied.
She had moved into the bedroom while talking to Martha and was laying on the bed. Looking over, the diary was where she had left it. She grabbed it and opened it up to the first entry she hadn't read yet, hoping it was as happy as the last couple had been.
1/03/18
I hate days like this.
Clark says that he knows he can't save everybody, but I think what makes him great is that when he can't save somebody, it still hurts him to the core.
Late in the afternoon Superman was on a quick patrol of the city while things were slow at work. He likes to patrol when things are slow under the guise of meeting a source, because muggers seem as likely to strike during the day as they are at night recently. This is obviously troubling both of us, but Clark more so.
There was a call for help on the other side of town, and he raced there as fast as he could, but didn't get there in time. A two year old girl named Jenny had climbed out on a high rise balcony and fallen off. He saw her hit the ground as he tried to reach her.
Perry sent me to cover the story, and I found Superman doing his best to console the mother and father. I knew as soon as I saw his eyes that Clark was hurting, but I couldn't do anything then for obvious reasons.
It was tense for a moment when the father started to blame Superman for Jenny's death. Superman simply stood and took the verbal abuse for a moment until the mother stepped in and stopped it. She actually, despite her heartbreak, thanked Superman for what he did for Metropolis and told him that she understood him not being there in time.
After I got a few quotes and made sure my condolences were passed on to the parents, I headed back to the Planet and found Clark at his desk, fidgeting with a pencil while staring at his blank computer screen. When he noticed me after I'd watched him for a minute, he gave me a sad smile, but spoke as if he were ok. He had to, because of all the people in the bullpen.
I pulled him aside a few minutes later, hoping to get him to talk about it. I told him that we could leave early if he didn't feel up to work, since afternoon had turned to evening and it was only an hour until we were off, but he claimed that he would be ok and the work would keep his mind off of the little girl.
As you can probably guess, it didn't.
He left twenty minutes later to make a save, and after finishing up the story on Jenny's death, I turned it into the Chief and headed home. I found Clark sitting on the couch, elbows resting on his knees as he cradled his face in his hands. He hadn't even bothered to change out of his Superman suit as he sat there.
I've never figured out a surefire way to help him through it, so I decided that I just needed to be there for him. I shed my coat and tossed it over the back of a chair as I walked over to him, sitting down and wrapping my arms around his shoulders. I laid my head on him, hoping to convey how sorry I was. When he didn't move for a few minutes, I wasn't sure he'd even noticed me.
He finally moved, turning and pulling me into a fierce hug. I can't tell you how long that went on, because it didn't end so much as it did morph into us making love. I think Clark needed the affirmation that there was still good in the world, even if he knew it already. Even though it was about making him feel better tonight, I still come away from it feeling like the most loved person in the world. I don't know how he does it.
I'm so proud of what he does, if you hadn't noticed. I probably don't say it enough to him, really, but it isn't something that always needs to be said. I really hope that he knows how much I admire and respect what he does for not only Metropolis, but the entire world. We need a beacon of hope like Superman a lot of times, and nothing bad can come from somebody that inspires people to be better.
My greatest hope is that you never have to experience days where Clark is unable to save somebody, but I know that's unrealistic.
The best thing you can do for him when something like this happens, if it hasn't happened already, is to make sure he knows that you are there for him. If you haven't yet come to the conclusion you love him, then be there for him and let him know that he has his best friend there.
If it's been long enough since you forgot and you do love him, then tell him that. Tell him what he means to you, because it keeps the grief he feels over not being able to save people from overwhelming him. Show him that you love him. I don't mean for you to initiate sex; let him do that if he wants to. But touches, small things like placing a light kiss on his temple or cradling his head against you can go a long way.
Your love keeps him stable. Remember that.
Alright, that's enough about that. If you go back to my first entry in this thing, you'll see that I talked about when I last forgot, which was January 3rd, 2016. If you look back to the date on this entry, you'll find that it's been two years to the day since I lost my memory.
Let me tell you, it's been a strange ride (the start was bumpy, but it smoothed out). As you can tell from the entries in here, a little bit of everything has happened, and that's just in the last six months. Weddings, births, starting a diary so that when I forget in the future I have a little information from my own perspective... it's been busy.
I will say that most of the best things I can remember in my life have happened in the past two years. I fell in love with a man that I in no way deserve but love like I never knew I could. The fact that he loves me too is just icing on a cake I can't get enough of. I got to marry him, and spend the rest of my life with him, despite everything.
(In case Clark ever reads this, I love you so much it's scary. Even when I forget, I love you and just have to figure it out. To hold you over while I get out of my own way, I love you. Oh, and you suck for making me a sap.)
But not only did I find happiness, but my de facto sister found happiness as well, in the form of an old friend of mine. Chloe and Bruce are not a match I would have ever thought of until I was told it happened. Looking on it now, though, it makes so much sense. Bruce found a woman that could handle the darkness in his life, and actually took some of it away for him. And Chloe found the brooding guy she always wanted (Well, that's her pattern, anyway).
From them, though, I got to feel the love of a boy that will be nothing less than amazing in whatever he does. He's already like his mother in so many ways, physical and mental, that it seems the only thing he's going to inherit from his father is the tendency to sit in dark places and be introspective. That is yet to be seen, though.
And from these two I again got to feel the love of a child. Two newborn girls that I'm sure will leave a mark on this world unlike any other. Holding them has been something I wish I could never forget (well, that goes for everything, really) and hope will get to do again someday, be it with more of Chloe's children or a baby of my own.
I'm sure stranger things have happened than Lois Lane Kent enjoying the act of holding a baby (If you're not surprised, come on. Up until the time we were attacked, the concept held no appeal at all, and now she's actually wondering if the next baby she holds will be her own!) It's sad that most of the stranger things I can think of have happened to me.
I guess it's time for me to wrap this thing up, considering the fact that I just had one of the more monstrous yawns I can remember. I swear, had it gone on another couple seconds my jaw would have either cramped up or just gone ahead and unhinged. I figure the latter is highly unlikely, but the former happens and always sucks.
On a random health note, I've been oddly exhausted for the last couple weeks. I really thought it would have gone away by now, and it's really starting to annoy the bejesus out of me and leading me to wonder if I caught a bug or something at the Planet. I talked to Chloe about it when we went to Gotham to celebrate the new year, and she just got the odd smile on her face. It looked like she was grinning cautiously, as odd as that sounds. She even asked me if I was drinking anything. I told her that I didn't really feel like it, and she did it again.
When I asked her about it, she just shook her head and said she'd been thinking about the twins. I told her I'd never seen her smile like that around the twins or anytime else, and she said to just forget it and that I would understand when I became a mother.
Is understanding strange smiles something only a mother can do that I hadn't heard about before? Maybe I should ask Martha about it to be sure.
I really think, though, that the lack of sleep for the last month has just impaired Chloe's judgement. Who knows, though... if I ever do become a mother, maybe I will understand. Only time will tell.
Well that hadn't really helped things. Of course she'd had to read the entry where Clark was all depressed because he couldn't save a little girl! It was just turning out to be that kind of stupid day. She was surprised that the story about Bruce buying the Daily Planet hadn't ended poorly. It would have fit a lot better.
Sighing once again, she tossed the diary on back on the bed, but started thinking about it. Her mind drifted to a depressed Clark. She remembered being with him when Alicia had been killed. He'd nearly killed the kid that had done it. She thought that he might have if she hadn't been there to talk him out of it as he strangled the guy.
Shaking her head, she made herself move on to a different topic. She thought about the end, with Chloe and her strange smiles about her being exhausted and not feeling like drinking. Suddenly it hit her; she must have been feeling the early pregnancy stuff at that point. Lois thought about when Jordan was born, August 18th 2018, and figured that had to be it. Clark had said Jordan had been born a little early, which probably meant that Lois was due in early September. That would mean she probably conceived around the beginning of December, when the twins were born.
So, apparently Chloe had gotten pregnant with her first child after Lois had forgotten and had provided Lois the same opportunity to conceive her first child during an occasion that warranted sex for one reason or another. Of course, since she and Clark had been married all of a month and half at that point, she doubted they needed much of an excuse. It made sense in her mind that it had happened, though. Hell, it made sense on a grand scale. Lois figured that big happenings were probably a leading cause of pregnancy.
Jesus, how had she ended up thinking about this? Of all the ridiculous topics to focus on while her husband was off hurt somewhere after saving a bunch of people...
Lois felt AJ flutter, kick or something and smiled sadly as she placed a hand over him and closed her eyes. "I know, baby. I miss him too."
