---- Chapter 43
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"Nothing, mommy." That was a very sleepy voice emanating from he daughter.
Lois looked down at Jordan, who'd laid her head in her lap. She was looking very close to falling asleep, which wasn't surprising since it was well past her bedtime. Chloe and her children had left a while ago to spend the rest of the evening with Bruce at the hotel, and somehow Jordan had wriggled her way out of going to bed on time.
They were both in Lois and Clark's bed now, and Lois was wondering how she'd become a pillow when there were a couple free ones on Clark's side.
"Where's daddy?"
Lois ran a hand over Jordan's head, something she'd found to be a common occurrence of comfort for the little girl. It had really been the first touch she'd shared with Jordan after she'd woken up without her memory, and had become special to her because of it. She smiled as she thought of it, then remembered she'd been asked a question.
"Daddy's out helping people and making the world a better place. Not many people can say that's what they do, and the world is lucky to have him. Even luckier than the world, though, are you and I. The world only gets a glimpse of how great your father is; we get to see it every day."
She ran her hand lightly through Jordan's hair, letting her head fall back against the headboard of the bed.
"He loves us so much, baby girl. I wish I had known before all this forgetting stuff, but I don't think I was ready for... love, I guess. But I couldn't have been too far from being able to have a life with love in it, because all it took was thirteen days for me to fall in love with him. I don't think that could happen with anybody but him, though. There's just something about him, and it has nothing to do with his powers or heritage..."
Lois would have continued her talking on Clark but she was interrupted by the sound of a tiny snore. In spite of it being the cutest thing she'd ever heard, which seemed to be a common occurrence with her daughter, Lois rolled her eyes at the fact that she'd allowed Jordan to fall asleep in their room instead of laying down with her in her own room. She thought about moving the young snoring lump to her room for a second before figuring it'd be easier to wait for Clark.
She needed something to keep her occupied until he got back. Sleep would certainly do the trick, but she never seemed to fall asleep quickly at night unless he was there to be used as a pillow, mush like she was being used currently. Deciding against it, she reached under her pillow and pulled out the diary, opening to the next unread entry.
3/14/18
Being pregnant is... odd.
My stomach has exploded since I last wrote in this thing. According to the doc's estimates, I'm about fifteen weeks pregnant, but I really wasn't showing until maybe a week and a half ago. That was the first day that I could look down and really notice that I was getting round. A few days later, I was starting to need maternity clothes, which I was not happy about. I like my regular clothes, damn it!
That's not the point, though. The point is, I now look down and find myself sporting a pronounced bump. The doctor actually did an ultrasound yesterday because of how quickly I went from nothing to something, wondering if I was perhaps pregnant with twins. I'm not, and as you almost certainly know by this point, the baby is a girl. He was surprised that they could tell at this point.
I don't actually know how fast one's stomach is supposed to grow when pregnant, as my only basis is when Chloe was pregnant with the twins. She says I'm currently going a little quicker than she was with Jack, and only a little slower than she was with the twins as I can tell, which is not comforting. Maybe it will slow down soon.
The quick growth of my stomach has left me with an appetite rivaling that of somebody weighing four hundred pounds more than I do. It's unbelievable. I mean, according to the books it's pretty normal to be ravenous once the morning sickness lets up since it's been iffy on whether or not the food would come back up, but this has been insane! Yesterday, for example, I ate three roast beef sandwiches for lunch, with a side of two salads. That was one meal, and I wasn't completely full at the end of it.
To be honest, though, I am not hating this whole eating like a crazy person thing. My clothes may not fit, but at least I get to make up for it by eating what I want when I want it (So far no insane cravings, but Clark has been great about getting me whatever I want). If this keeps up for the rest of the pregnancy, though, I'm going to end up weighing eighty pounds more than where I started.
I'm actually already up seventeen when the books talk about five to ten being the average. With my luck, the baby is going to be eleven pounds when born and I won't even get the chance to have pain killers. I wonder if this is because the baby is half-kryptonian... maybe they have faster pregnancies. I could only be so lucky. The way things go for me, it'd be more likely that they'd have longer pregnancies with bigger babies.
Speaking of things related to Krypton, Clark has been hovering over me like something could go wrong at any minute. I told him I was pregnant the day after my last diary entry, and his first reaction was to apologize. Apologize! He did it with a grin on his face after we had kissed for a mind melting, knee buckling few minutes, which made it an odd combination of expression and words. I told him that the time we didn't use protection was a mutual decision, if not mostly just me (alright, it was me telling him I wanted it to be just us, but he didn't argue!), but that wasn't what he was apologizing for.
He actually apologized for the fact that I was going to have to go through a pregnancy with a half-kryptonian baby.
I about thumped him upside the head, and the sore hand would have been worth it. He acted like I hadn't thought about the facts of what a life with him would entail! How could he have not realized that I knew that this was a very real possibility when we got married? I knew that if it was possible, he wanted to have children. The world deserves to have the child of Clark Kent in the future. As much as I think I'm going to be a horrible mother, having a baby with him might just be the best thing I ever do.
The actual mothering might be the worst, but that's why Clark is here: to offset my mistakes.
I find that, against all odds and in spite of every ounce of self-doubt I have ever had, I'm looking forward to being a mother. I want to be a mother. Don't get me wrong, it scares the ever living shit out of me that a child will be dependent on me. Hell, I feel sorry for the baby being dependent on me at this point. Every night since I found out I was pregnant I've given my uterus a pep talk, making sure it knows how important this is to me. Clark's caught me doing it a few times recently actually tried to join in on it.
The only person that talks to my uterus is me. He can talk to the baby all he wants, which I find adorable, but I asked him to leave my uterus to me. I think I put enough pressure on it by asking it not to royally f-ck this up for me, even though I've never asked it for anything before because I would have felt like a crazy person. If Clark tried giving it pep talks it might start contracting out of nervousness, and that's the last thing I need.
Well, that's a whole load of crazy I just wrote. Pep talks to my uterus... I'm a freaking loon.
Back in the world of the sane, it didn't really hit me that I was pregnant until I started showing. I mean, yeah, when the morning sickness got me, that made it a lot more real. That started at what was apparently the five week point, which was also early according to the books (and was a whole lot of fun to try an make excuses about to Clark).
Really, I don't even know why I read the books about what happens when, because first off, it's just an estimate. If I put stock in those numbers all the time, it's just going to drive me more crazy than I usually am. Second, I'm carrying a Kryptonian baby. I can't know what the hell is going to happen when.
I know I've mentioned the doctor in here, but it's not just a regular 'ol OBGYN. No, we had to get somebody Clark knew from the Swann Institute that already knew his secret to act as our doctor.
Only something like that could happen to us. I hope. Well, maybe Kara would have this problem if she settles down some day... I would write more about that but the image of a pregnant Supergirl flying around the city makes me laugh too much.
Despite everything, I'm going to do my best to not complain too much. I may bitch and moan about the down sides, but this is my baby girl that I'm going through this for, and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. She isn't even born yet, and I feel like I want to do everything I can for her. It's like... it's like nothing I've ever experienced before.
I talked to Chloe about it once I told everybody. Of course, if you look back at the first entry of this year, the exhaustion I was feeling was early pregnancy stuff. The odd look was Chloe figuring it out before I did. I thought I was light during December, but didn't give it much thought. Apparently I should have, but how the hell was I supposed to know that it was spotting and not my period?
Back on track, she told me that it would be like nothing I'd ever felt. She tried to describe it with more depth than that, but found herself to be lacking the words. Some journalists we are, not able to describe our own feelings.
Not something I am going to complain about, really, because I really like the way I feel and hope that you get to feel it soon, and am happy for you if you already are or have.
I don't know if you will have the chance to experience being pregnant. I don't know if I will remember being pregnant. For all I know, I could fall asleep one day while breast feeding (they still say it's better for the baby, so that's what I'll be doing) and wake up without my memory from the last two years and few months, a baby sucking on one of my nipples.
Thinking about it makes me shudder, but it also strikes me as something that could be kind of funny. To an outside observer, anyway. I think watching a woman wake up with a baby attached to her boob and not knowing how that came to be would be hilarious, so long as it wasn't me.
When it comes right down to it, though, there's really only one conclusion I can draw from all this rambling: I love this baby. I love her with everything I have and while the future and my ability to actually care for a baby are up in the air, this has to be something I can do. It's not about me, it's about giving this baby girl a good life. That's all that counts at this point.
Everybody assures me that I'll be able to do just that. Clark does it exactly like I expect he would, with a soft touch and reassuring words that actually make me feel better. Martha just shakes her head at me and tells stories of raising Clark, assuring me that this baby will probably be a little easier to raise than a three year old full kryptonian. She obviously underestimates just how much trouble there is embedded in the Lane genes.
Chloe tells me that if she could handle a little boy, then I shouldn't have any problem with my baby girl. As good of a investigative reporter she is, I question her sanity at this point. I really think that the twins have broken something in her mind that makes her think things that aren't true. She knows what I was like as a very young child. Handful doesn't do it justice. When I could be a kid before mom died, I was the very definition of rambunctious.
Of course, being me, you know this. It's one of the things we actually get to remember. I can't imagine not being able to remember mom, even if the memories are fuzzy.
I hope that when this baby (and any other future children we may have) is old enough to understand what's going on with her mother's mind, she won't be too angry. Perhaps she'll inherit Clark's demeanor instead of mine.
Yeah, right.
Ah well. The important thing is, I love this baby, more every day. Clark jokes that my love for her grows every day proportionately with how much my stomach has grown. That's a time that he gets to go get stuff for me and think about making size jokes. I love the man, but when I'm the size of a house and he's cracking jokes, I may have to use this crazy good healing and whack him a few times. The hurt would be worth it, I bet.
Anyway, that's all I seem to have for this time. Usually I have a good ending for my entries, but this time... I got nothing. I've been getting hit with pregnancy brain, as they call it, off and on recently, so I'll blame the lack of a satisfactory ending on that. I actually forgot my phone yesterday, and you know what it takes for that to happen.
Maybe I'll have something good tomorrow that I can come back and add. In all likelihood, I'll just write next month.
Well, all those thoughts were scary kinds of familiar. She may as well have been reading her own thoughts from a couple weeks ago. Looking down at Jordan, she was suddenly struck by the fact that the diary entry was about her. All the fears, all the unknowns... she hadn't had Jordan there to be a reassurance that she could be a good parent. It had to have been the scariest thing she'd ever faced. She sat the diary down and smoothed her hair once more, this time for her own comfort instead of Jordan's
"Well, don't you two look comfortable."
Lois raised an eyebrow as she noticed Clark leaning on the door frame, arms crossed over his chest. "What can I say? Apparently since my thighs are becoming as monstrous as my stomach, they're better pillows than pillows are. I'm just waiting for my butt to blow up and accompany my boobs, stomach and thighs in the ridiculousness that is my body these days. How did the helping out go?"
"Went well. And I think you look amazing when pregnant, Lo."
"Yeah, how about you take her to bed and then we'll discuss your craziness."
After placing a kiss on her head, causing her to once again roll her eyes, Clark picked Jordan up and took her to her room. Lois smiled and slipped the diary under her pillow, hoping Clark hadn't noticed it. She may have spilled the beans about the bracelet, but the diary was going to stay a secret. It had been going for nearly four and a half years without him finding it, so she wasn't going to blow it now.
Clark walked back in, sitting down on his side of the bed and spreading himself out a bit. "So, you wanted to discuss my craziness?"
"Yeah, which is this nonsense about you finding me attractive during pregnancy. Well, it's not nonsense, really, since my boobs get bigger. You going to complain about that?"
"Considering they're getting bigger so that they're able to feed our son for seven or eight months, or however long you choose to nurse this time, no."
Apparently he'd started buying into her vision as well. It was the first time he'd referred to the baby as their son. "Good answer, though I think it's a little bit of a cop out. I want to see you get out of the fact that my backside is going to be as pronounced as my stomach is now, because I know you're a fan and always have been."
Backside? Why hadn't she just said ass? Jesus, she was talking like a G rated movie.
"What? I'm attracted to you because you're you, not because your backside is getting bigger."
"Ha!" She pointed at him. "Back in 2008 when you followed Chloe and I undercover at that warehouse, and we were running from those guys after doing some late night snooping, I caught you looking at my ass in a mirror. I never called you on it because hey, I have a nice ass and didn't feel like making you blush so hard your face glowed and gave us away."
"Have I once denied being physically attracted to you?"
Lois scoffed. "If you did, you'd be lying!"
"I know that. Look, I was not the most subtle person back then. I was twenty-one and harboring a love I never thought would be requited. Taking the occasional glimpse was all I had. I may be a boy scout, but I'm also a red blooded kryptonian male."
"That's disappointing."
"I did my best to not look a lot..."
Lois swatted his chest with the back of her hand. "Not that. Knowing how you feel now it's not a big deal. Hell, it wasn't a big deal back then, just something to make you blush. I just thought you hadn't gotten any in a while and needed something to dream about. I figured better me than Chloe, else all that business of her having a crush could have come back and that would have sucked.
"The disappointing part is the red blood. I'd seen you injured before, but ever since I learned you were otherworldly I had this funny image of you having glowing blood or something."
"Sorry to disappoint."
"I'm sure you are." Lois scooted over, draping herself over him as best she could without squishing her stomach. After a second of wriggling and adjusting, she got herself comfortable and kept AJ from getting compressed. Frowning, she looked down and found she was still wearing pants. She quickly discarded them and got comfortable again.
"Don't want to switch into your pajama top?"
As a response, she closed her eyes and nuzzled into his shoulder a little more. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss onto her temple. "Goodnight, Lo."
Lois pulled the comforter up to her neck, tucking herself in as she tried to fight off the state of wakefulness that was overtaking her. The sunlight intruding into the bedroom wasn't helping things any and she turned over away from the light. She opened an eye and looked at the clock, finding it to be just after eight in the morning. She felt like she could sleep until noon without any problems.
Sitting up, she found herself alone in the bed, unsurprisingly. She'd discovered that Clark was likely to be the first up after growing up on a farm. He always seemed to wake up fresh and happy, too, which was not something she was used to in the morning. He should be grumbly like everyone else in the world. Grumbly? God, was that even a word? Even her thoughts were rated G now, it seemed. Unbelievable.
Lois tossed the covers aside and stretched as she stood up out of bed. She walked over to the dresser and grabbed a pair of sweat pants, pulling them on before discarding her shirt and throwing on the plaid flannel thing she'd taken to wearing at night lately. She had to admit, it was all kinds of comfortable, and these days good at keeping her warm on chilly mornings.
She ran a hand over her stomach, bidding a quiet good morning to AJ when he flutter-kicked and walked out to the living room, finding Jordan perched on the couch with the comics much like she had been the first Sunday she remembered in her present year. She walked over and sat down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close.
"Morning, baby girl. How are you?"
"Good, mommy."
"That's what I like to hear. How are the comics today?"
"Funny. Dagwood ate a big sandwich then took a nap instead of mowing the yard."
"I would expect nothing less. Hey, where's daddy?"
Jordan shrugged and Lois looked around the apartment, not spotting Clark upon initial inspection. Suddenly he poked his head out of the hallway leading to Jordan's room.
"Over here doing laundry, Lo."
"So that's where the washer and dryer are. I never did look inside that door."
"This is mostly our weekend clothes and Jordan's stuff. You've always preferred to have your work clothes pressed, and it's easy to just take mine in too."
"Very true. I may not be the cleanest person in the world, but I still like to look nice at work. People are much more likely to take you seriously when you have clean clothes, or so I'm told since I don't think I've ever gone to work in dirty ones unless I was coming back from following a lead."
She watched Clark exit the laundry room as walk out to the living room, sitting down next to her and pulling her into a hug much like she had Jordan. His was accompanied by a kiss, though, making her smile like some love struck goofball. Fortunately, she didn't really care if she looked goofy anymore.
"Good morning."
"Morning, Smallville. How did ya sleep?"
"Through the night. First time in a week nobody called for help. I did a fly around early this morning and helped a couple people, but that was before the two of you got up."
"I figured as much, since I got up about five minutes ago." Lois covered her mouth as she yawned, stretching her other arm above her head as she did so. She gave a small head shake once it was done and got back to what she was going to say. "So, what's on deck for today?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? That seems unlikely."
"I agree, but Chloe is spending time with Bruce and the kids until they fly back to Gotham this afternoon, then planning to go through those crime statistics. She doesn't know how long that will take and is planning on being holed up in the hotel room until she passes out from boredom or just being tired."
"Lucky her. Say, when is their house going to be ready?"
"Next week."
That surprised Lois. She didn't think that it was going to be that soon. "Really? I guess that whole thing about Jack switching school's was a lot more now than I thought, because I kept thinking she meant he'd start here next fall and not at the semester change."
Lois thought about that for a second before another question came to mind. "Since they wanted to be in before us as a surprise, when are we supposed to be moving?"
"It'll be done getting cleaned up a month from today, and we'll be able to start moving in a day after that. Speaking of which, we should probably start packing things soon."
"How about we just take advantage of your speed and you do the packing the day before in about two minutes?"
"How about that sounds like a lot of effort for me and none for you. We're moving into our first house together! I figured you might want to take part in the process, even if you've only loved me for not a lot of days now."
"Smallville, do you know how many times I've moved in my life? I'm as happy as I've ever been, and falling in love with you has been part of that. In no way, though, does this prompt me to want to pack and then unpack things for months on end." She watched him deflate a little, and suddenly packing and unpacking didn't sound too bad. She hated to see him disappointed.
"Look, how about we do some of it together, like Jordan's stuff and our clothes. That way we all get the moving into our first house experience but you also don't make your pregnant wife use all her spare time packing when she should be resting or doing other things, if you catch my drift."
Clark rolled his eyes, slouching back into the couch. "That's low, Lo."
"Nobody ever said I played fair."
He pulled her over and into another kiss, this one far less innocent than the kiss good morning had been. She was pretty sure that if Jordan hadn't been there it wouldn't have stopped at their mouths.
"What was that for?"
"I caught your drift."
