---- Chapter 53

"When's Christmas, Smallville?"

"December 25th."

Lois tossed her notepad on her desk and frowned at him as he kept his face buried in a folder she didn't recognize. "You're hilarious, you know that? How about this question: what's today's date?"

"December 15th."

"Ten days? We haven't even gotten anything for Jordan yet! I don't even know what she wants! Did she make a list? Jesus, my first Christmas as a mom and I'm totally dropping the ball. I knew this would happen, and when she starts school I'll probably forget about picking her up every day and she's going to be all alone and hate ma and oh my God I am a horrible mother!"

Lois buried her hands in her face and felt like she could bawl for days. She felt Clark pull her up out of her chair and wrap her up in a hug, which she wasn't ashamed to admit she really needed. God, where the hell had that eve come from? She thought she'd moved past the horrible mom stuff. Freakin' hormones!

"You are not, and never will be, a horrible mother."

"Did you not just hear me explain everything?"

"First off, Jordan wants what every three year old wants for Christmas: toys. Second, you're not dropping the ball. Third, you will never forget our child at school because you never forget anything about Jordan. That's something that losing your memory didn't affect. Fourth, and most importantly, you are a great mother. The end. No arguments."

"But..."

"You always like to argue when I say no arguments. That doesn't change with the memory loss either."

He pushed her away after a second and she looked up at him. He was smiling and she felt the tension start draining out of her. Why did he have such a calming effect on her? She took a couple deep breaths and stood up a little straighter, making herself focus on the fact that she'd been raising her daughter for a month and a couple days, that she remembered, and no physical or mental harm had come to her.

"Ok. Yeah, sorry, guess I hadn't gotten all of my freak outs about being a mom out of my system."

"It's all right, Lo. The same happened when you forgot last time and were much more frequent because you didn't have the actual child to prove that you weren't screwing her up."

She smiled at him. "Yeah, she does kind of help. I don't know how I got through the anxiety last time." He leaned down and kissed her softly, making her smile even more when he pulled away. "That probably helped things."

"I like to think so. So, feel better?"

"Yes. I'm sane again, all thanks to you." Lois looked down at her expanded stomach. "You, however, are making my crazy become visible for others to see. Usually I can hold my crazy on the inside, but all the hormones? Killing me, AJ. You are most definitely your father's son, because until you, he was the only one that made me this insane."

"She's right, AJ. She was never quite so vocally insane, even when she was pregnant with your sister. Good job, son."

Lois looked back up at Clark, an eyebrow raised as he smirked at her. "What?"

"Your goading our son into causing me to be crazy aside, is what you said true?"

"You are a little crazier this time, yes. I doubt it has anything to do with AJ, in truth, and just with what's going on around you. You did wake up at a somewhat hectic time of year."

"God do I hope you're right. If I'm this crazy now, I will be unbearable by the time nine months rolls around. For you and me. I don't like it any more than the next person."

Lois sat back down in her chair and watched Clark walk around and sit back down in his chair. "Call me crazy, but I like you crazy. Sane is very overrated and not at all exciting."

"And here I thought I had married a guy that had learned to handle my crazy. Apparently he fell in love with it, too."

"I kind of had to. If I hadn't, your crazy would have driven me crazy. Some would say that's really all love and marriage is: finding the right kind of crazy that matches your own personal brand of crazy and making sure the two mesh well. We mesh very, very well"

Lois grinned in spite or herself and the ridiculous statement Clark had just made. Unfortunately, she also found merit in it and thought it as good an explanation for love as anything she'd ever tried to think of. She'd never had nearly as much success in her descriptions of love as she had in describing what a criminal had done. Love did tend to be more abstract, though.

"All meshing aside, what are we going to get our daughter for Christmas?"

"I think I told you this once, but we were thinking of getting her a cat. Of course, what I assume that means is we'll be getting ourselves a cat and Jordan will play with it every once in a while. I think that can wait until we get into the house, though. Other than that, we can always get her some stuffed animals and new coloring books. The usual stuff for a three year old girl, or so I assume since these are the kinds of things Aly and Liz got."

Lois shrugged. She didn't remember Christmas from when she was three, so she couldn't really say what she liked back in the day. Man that was a long time ago, now. How did she ever get to thirty five years old?

"We're old."

"How unfortunate for us."

Lois looked over at him. "I'm serious! I'm thirty five, you're thirty four... I think." She shrugged and sighed. "We're officially old."

"No, we're officially in our thirties. Old is when there's gray hair and slow driving."

"Hey, you got one out of two. You drive like an old guy these days, Smallville. And me, well, thirty five is virtually forty, and forty is virtually fifty. Therefore, I'm virtually fifty!"

She watched as Clark shook his head and sighed before pushing his glasses up on his nose. "You're really having a jump to conclusions kind of day, aren't you? What brought all this on?"

Lois smiled sheepishly and shrugged. "I don't know. I just feel like I haven't been as on the ball as I should be about things. I've had people pointing out details I missed that I really should have gotten and just lacking the concentration I normally have. I guess I could blame pregnancy brain, but it seems like a bit of a copout. Not because it's fake, but because I feel like I should be better than that."

"I'm sorry, Lo, but apparently you're just another run of the mill pregnant woman. Also, missing little things here and there isn't the end of the world so long as everything makes sense and it doesn't make or break the article." He paused and frowned. "Well, that would be a big deal, but that's why you have me here."

"Yeah, well, when our readers read a story and find things in there that you don't, you let me know how it feels."

"Ok, how about a distraction? I'm sure a flashback could take your mind off of things."

"What comes next?"

Clark frowned after a second. "Well, it'd be a really sad and painful story from my point of view. Plus, Chloe would know what you were up to at the time because I was kind of... indisposed."

Ah ha. So, she finally got to hear about the mystery that was the February 12th, 2019. She picked up her phone and dialed Chloe's extension. It wouldn't have killed her to walk the few feet, but she felt like being lazy.

"Chloe's desk."

"Hey cuz, very professional answer. Wanna tell me a story?"

"I've never been the most formal person, so sue me if I like to say Chloe's desk. How about we do the story tonight? I'm a bit swamped at the moment, and I'm sure you guys have work to do."

"Eh, nothing at the moment, but tonight sounds good. What time do you want us?"

"Umm... 7:30. Bruce and I will whip something up so that we don't have to send Clark on a food run... well, not a planned food run. Who knows what you or I will want to eat this evening, right?"

"Right. See you tonight."

Lois placed the phone down again and sat back in her chair. "Dinner at Chloe's tonight, 7:30."

"Am I on food detail?"

"Only the unplanned sort. Chloe said that she and Bruce would whip something up. Who knows what that means."

Lois tried not to let her eyes go wide at the food spread out on the table before her. As it was, she couldn't stop her eyebrows from climbing up her forehead as she scanned everything in front of her. This was whipping something up? There were crazy amounts of food on the table!

"Chloe, you left work two hours ago. How did you guys get all this done? It takes me longer to make an edible salad!"

Her cousin grinned at her as she grabbed a plate and handed it to her. "What can I say? Bruce is actually a very good cook, and quick, too."

"Well, didn't you just hit the jackpot in the husband slots."

"One could say that, yes. Same goes for you."

Lois looked over her shoulder as she watched Clark help Jordan with deciding what she wanted to eat first. Apparently macaroni and cheese won out because she scooped some onto her face as though she had a mouth where her nose was. Well, some of it got in her mouth on the rebound, though she couldn't decide if that was a good thing. She shook her head and looked back to Chloe as Clark started to wipe some of the stuff off of Jordan's face.

"The same does go for me." Lois started piling some meat onto her plate and felt AJ kick when she reached for the salad forks. Looking down at her stomach a second, she rolled her eyes and stepped away from the leafy foods.

"What would you say the odds are of my son already disliking salad, Chlo?"

"Pretty much nothing, Lo. I don't think your son has actually developed tastes for anything yet."

"Yeah, I guess it was coincidence that he kicked as soon as I reached for the salad. With Clark as his father, though, I'm a little afraid to completely discount anything as not possible. In utero awareness may just be a special power of half kryptonian babies on Earth. And now that I am aware of what I'm saying, I think I need a distraction from my own mind. Story?"

"Story it is. It was a stormy night, February 14th of the year 2019..."

"Are you in some old movie or something?"

"Sorry. Normally worded version it is."

---

Chloe sighed as she sat on the couch, waiting for Lois to come out of Jordan's room. She'd just quieted down a few minutes before for nearly the first time all day, and it had been the same way the day before. When Clark hadn't showed up again the night of the 12th, she'd flown to Metropolis the next morning and found her cousin and her niece extremely upset by what was going on.

Standing up, Chloe walked over to Lois and Clark's room and looked in, finding the twins sleeping soundly on the bed. She smiled softly as Aly turned over and started sucking on her thumb. She watched them for another minute before closing the door and walking back over to the couch and plopping down.

Chloe looked over when she heard footsteps and found Lois walking out to the living room, pulling a hand through her hair as she sighed.

"I hate this, Chloe. This isn't supposed to happen."

"I know, Lois. The whole of the Justice League is looking for him, though, so he's going to be found. They're the best at this type of thing. You know first hand how good they are."

"Yeah, well, they haven't found him yet, have they? God, I feel so useless! Just sitting here isn't getting anything done, it's not finding him. All I can do is put on the stupid bracelet and find out that he's still hurt."

"That's better than knowing nothing at all."

Lois flopped down on the couch next to Chloe, frowning at the room as she crossed her arms. "Barely. It's a tease, basically. It's like finding something that you really, really want is just out of reach. I don't like it when things are out of reach, Chloe. It annoys me, especially when it's my injured husband."

Chloe watched as she stood up again and started pacing, her frown getting deeper and deeper with every step she took. After a couple minutes she stopped, took a deep breath and walked over to the door where she started slipping her tennis shoes on. Chloe got up off the couch and walked over to her.

"Hey, where are you going?"

"For a drive. I can't just sit around and stew in my own uncertainty anymore, Chlo. I've been doing it for three days now and it's driving me insane. I'll be back... sometime soon." She opened up the front door and took a step out of it before turning back around. "If Jordan wakes up hungry, there are a couple bottles I pumped this morning in the fridge. I'll uh... I'll see you later."

Chloe bit her bottom lip as the door closed, annoyed at herself for not having been able to think of anything to say. But what was there to say? Her cousin's husband was missing and they didn't even have any leads on where he could possibly be. It was the damn needle in a haystack, except they didn't even know what haystack to look in.

She tried to think of what she would do in a situation like this. Bruce had been gone a day or two here and there, but it was always part of what he was doing. He'd never just disappeared, not since they'd gotten together nearly eleven years ago. She walked over and sat on the couch again, sighing as she rested her chin on her hand and start off at nothing.

"Bruce, it's been four hours since she left and I haven't seen hide nor hair of her since. She hasn't even called to say she's ok. I'm starting to get really worried. It's not exactly a pleasant night out there in terms of weather and I don't know what I would do if she got in an accident."

Chloe started pacing again as she switched the phone from one ear to another, then walked over and glanced in Jordan's room to make sure that she was still sleeping soundly. She was, so Chloe went back to pacing in the living room.

"Chloe, the League is keeping track of police reports in Metropolis, and we haven't heard anything about a car accident in the last fours hours involving the type of car Lois and Clark have. I promise, if I hear anything I will let you know right away."

"Thank you, but if I have a choice, I'd prefer Lois just walk in the door right now and tell me that she's alright. It would soothe my aching and jumpy nerves."

"I know. I'll be in touch. I love you."

"I love you too, Bruce. Oh, and if you ever do this to me, I'm going to let Lois loose on you."

"Noted."

Chloe hung up and sat back into a slouch. When she'd come to try and help Lois feel more at ease, she didn't think that every hour here would make her more and more nervous about what was going on. She hadn't ever been a person to be overly worried until Jack had come along, and then it was just BAM! Worry over this, worry over that.

Shaking herself out of her reflection, she grabbed the television remote and turned it on again, flipping to a news station and letting herself get lost in the happenings of the day. It didn't last long though, as her stomach rumbled at her and she realized that she'd skipped dinner along with Lois.

Rolling her eyes at herself, she got up off the couch and walked into the kitchen, opening the fridge and scrounging around for a moment before finding some sliced beef. Grabbing the packet, she pulled out a piece and folded it up before taking a big bite out of it. Before she knew it she was working on her third piece and carrying the packet with her out into the living room. Maybe she'd skipped lunch, too.

Just as she was about to start on another piece, the door flew open and Chloe jumped. Looking over, she spotted a dripping wet Lois backing into the apartment slowly.

"Lois, where the hell... holy shit!"

Chloe dropped her meat onto the coffee table before running over and taking one of Clark's limp arms and helping Lois pull him into the apartment. It felt like she was holding an arm-shaped piece of ice.

"What happened?"

"Later. Help me get him on the couch."

They dragged him over and Chloe went to check on the girls, making sure they were still sleeping after the door had banged open, and Lois stripped him and did a once over to make sure there was no residual kryptonite. When she came back, they lifted him up onto the couch and got him covered in blankets. Lois was rubbing her hands over his stomach as Chloe sat down next to her on the coffee table.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to get his core temperature up. I don't even know what his core temp should be, but I know that it's not warm enough if he feels like ice."

"You need to get into some dry clothes, Lois, so that you don't freeze and make me get your core temp up."

"Yeah... will you do this until I get back? I want to make sure he keeps getting the warmth." Chloe nodded and started running her hands over his stomach, feeling a little weird about it but just glad to be able to help. Lois wasn't long and came back to where she'd been, starting to do the friction again.

"Where did you find him?"

"The docks. I don't even know why I ended up there, but I did. I don't know what happened, but he'd been stuck in a crate with a piece of kryptonite. The crate was half submerged in the water, but fortunately his head was above it."

"Wait, so, you're walking along the docks, see a crate sitting half submerged in the water and just decide to open it and see what's inside?"

"Well, uh..." Chloe couldn't make out what she said as Lois mumbled her way through a sentence and stood up, walking out to the kitchen and getting a glass of water before coming back to sit down.

"Would you like trying to say that again?"

Lois sighed before speaking. "Lara spoke to me."

"What? How?"

"I don't know. I didn't even take the bracelet with me, and before that it's only ever been that first time I put it on anyway. But when I got to the docks and was looking at that crate, her voice filled my head."

"What did she say?"

"'Your love is the key to keep him strong.' That kind of tipped me off that something had clicked with where he was. When I got inside the crate, he was even colder than when you felt him. I didn't even know if he was alive. His breathing was so slow..." Chloe watched a tear trailed down her cousins face. "I thought he was dead, Chloe. I thought I had lost my husband and Jordan was going to have to grow up without her father like I had without my mother."

"But that didn't happen, Lo. You found him, and he's going to be ok."

"His heartbeat has barely picked up since when I found him. It's been hours, Chloe. It took so long to get him out of that crate..."

Chloe looked at Clark's face for the first time since she'd helped drag him in and noticed that it was a mass of bruises. What had happened to him? She'd been so focused on getting him onto the couch and covered that she hadn't seen if any other part of him was bruised and battered, too, but she wouldn't be surprised.

"I'm going to call Bruce. He and the League will get this figured out, or at least know of a way for him to heal faster."

Lois simply nodded and kept rubbing her hands over his stomach. Chloe got up and walked over to the kitchen pulling her phone out of her pocket before dialing Bruce.

"We still haven't found him, Chloe."

"Lois found him, Bruce. He's here, but he's in bad shape."

"We'll be there soon."

Five minutes later, Chloe was letting Bruce, Ollie and Diana into the apartment. She wrapped Bruce in a hug for a moment before letting him go to see to Clark. Lois related the story to all of them, only stopping the friction on his stomach when Bruce and Ollie needed to make sure that there was no residual kryptonite with a device that looked like a Geiger counter. Chloe walked over and linked hands with Lois as they watched.

"Well? Is there anything on him?"

Ollie stood up and stood in front of them. "Not that we can see, no. He was exposed to it for days, though, and sitting in very cold water as it happened. I think you've been doing the right thing, and we're just going to have to wait it out like when you were attacked, Lois."

As soon as Ollie finished speaking, Chloe heard Jordan start crying in the other room. Lois took a second before standing up and starting towards the room before Chloe caught her. "Let me, Lois. I can make sure she's taken care of while you make sure Clark's alright. You're the key, remember?"

Lois nodded after a moment, going back and taking her place at Clark's side again. Chloe walked over into Jordan's room and found the displeased child thrashing against her blankets. Chloe reached into the crib and pulled her out of it, finding her to be sporting her favorite thing: a dirty diaper. She got Jordan changed, though it didn't seem to quiet her down all that much.

"We found your dad, Jordan. We're going to take good care of him and make sure that he's ok. Don't worry; your dad will always be there for you. He doesn't break his promises. You know what? I bet you're hungry. Why don't we get you a bottle and get you all fed and happy?"

Once she had Jordan situated against her shoulder, Chloe walked out into the kitchen and opened up the fridge, finding the bottled milk and popping it into the microwave for twenty seconds. While it was warming up, she looked over at the group of people gathered around Clark. Lois was still sitting on the coffee table, rubbing her hands over Clark's middle while the other three were all discussing what they should do.

The microwave beeping snapped her out of watching them and she grabbed the bottle. With a couple squirts she tested the warmth and found it perfect, so she got Jordan eating and walked over to the group of people.

"How's he doing?"

Lois was first to respond. "Better, I think, but not good enough." She looked up and found Jordan in Chloe's arms, immediately standing up and walking over to check on her. "How's she doing?"

Chloe smiled, knowing what it was like to worry over a young daughter. "She's fine. Diaper changed and with some food she'll be back asleep in an hour, I bet."

"Good, good... do you mind if I take her?"

"I think I'd be a bad aunt if I kept my niece from her mother." Chloe transferred Jordan over into her mother's arms, and Chloe saw the calming effect immediately. A good bit of the tension drained out of her shoulders.

"It's all going to be okay, baby girl. Mommy isn't going to let anything bad happen to you and she's going to make sure your dad is healthy again real soon." Chloe watched Lois bend her neck and place a soft kiss on Jordan's forehead. Jordan looked like she was already starting to fall back asleep, and when Lois pulled the bottle away, her eyes closed fully and she was out like a light.

"Wow. She hasn't gone to sleep that quickly since I got here."

"She hasn't fallen asleep that quickly since Clark went missing." Lois walked away and a second later came out of Jordan's room, leaving the door halfway open as she walked back to everybody. "I'm going to the Fortress."

"What?"

"Lara, Jor-El, whoever I speak to there has to know something about helping him heal more quickly than he is. Maybe it'll be quicker in eight hours when the sun comes up, but I'm not going to bank on that just yet. Therefore, I need information."

"I'm going with you, cuz."

"Chloe, I think you should..."

"You think I should go with you because you've barely slept in days and need somebody to drive you. You're liable to fall asleep halfway there."

"It would be quicker if you flew."

Chloe looked over at Bruce. "It'll take basically the same time to get the jet fueled and ready to fly to Smallville as it will to just get on the road and be halfway there. It's a nice thought, though."

"I can have a helicopter fueled and waiting for you two at the private airfield in fifteen minutes."

"Bruce, that'd be perfect." Chloe watched Lois grab her jacket and pull it on before walking over to her room and walking out with the bracelet in hand. "You ready, Chlo?"

She nodded as she grabbed her coat off the hook and followed Lois to the door. She stopped suddenly as Lois turned around and looked past her. "There's milk in the fridge if Jordan is hungry, and Bruce, you can handle anything else. Ollie, Diana... watch and learn, he's really good at being a dad."

"I second that." Chloe grinned for what felt like the first time since she'd gotten to Metropolis and followed Lois out of the apartment.

"Put it down here!"

Chloe peeled the headset off as the helicopter touched down a couple hundred yards from the entrance to the caves. Waiting as Lois got out, she ducked low and jumped out of the chopper, staying low until she got past the blades and following Lois as she jogged to what they both hoped was going to be a way to get Clark better quickly.

They entered the cave and walked up to the wall where the opening had always been to transport Clark to the fortress. They just stood there for a moment, and Chloe looked over at Lois.

"So, uh, what's the plan?"

"I didn't get that far."

"Well, that certainly makes this more interesting. Try putting the bracelet on."

"I did think THAT far ahead, Chloe." Lois slipped it on, then frowned and started fidgeting. "That's not good."

"What's not good?"

"I'm barely getting anything out of the bracelet. Just a sense of pain, but not like it was when he was in the crate with the kryptonite. It's vague." Chloe watched her look up at the wall. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do here, Lara! You've gotta cut me some slack! I need to find out how to help him!"

They both watched the wall for a minute and nothing happened. "Come on! I need help to keep Kal-El alive! I'm his true one, soul mate, whatever! Let me in so I can find a way to help him, damn it!"

After a second, the wall started opening up and Chloe let out a relieved sigh. "Never let it be said that yelling can't solve anything, at least not where Lois Lane Kent is involved apparently."

"Damn right." She reached over and linked hands with Chloe, and Chloe gave a reassuring squeeze before they stepped into the light.

The next thing she knew, it was a lot colder than it had been. She should have brought a better coat. Stupid warm weather in February had screwed her over for going to the arctic. She felt Lois' hand slip out of hers as she walked over to a control console and mess with a couple crystals, and Chloe quickly felt the place warm up.

When her teeth stopped banging against each other, Chloe actually was able to shed her jacket. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"Clark and I have come up here a couple times and he figured I should at least know how to work the heat, for just such an occasion. He's pretty good about that kind of things." She paused a second before looking up and around at the fortress. "Jor-El! Lara! I need your help! Kal-El needs your help!"

Chloe watched Lois jump back as a form started to appear next to the control console and she moved over to stand next to her. The woman that appeared was beautiful, garbed in a flowing white gown. Dark hair tumbled down her back and she was almost the exact same height as Lois.

"Hello, Lois Lane Kent."

"He's hurt, Lara, and I need a way to help him. He was exposed to Kryptonite for days, and he was freezing and barely alive when I found him. Is there anything here that can help him?"

"Your love is the key."

Chloe frowned and looked over at Lois, who looked like she was going to hit something.

"That's it? That's all you have for me? I've heard that already!"

"His strength depends on you. His survival depends on you. Your love is the key."

"That is NOT helpful! Isn't there a healing crystal that I can use to help him recover from his injuries? That seems like something you and your husband would have included in this giant igloo!"

"Your love is the key."

"F-ck the cryptic statements, Lara! I need to help my husband to survive! Give me something, anything that I can use to help him, please!"

"His survival depends on you. Your love is the key." The image shimmered and faded away, and a second later a bright light engulfed them and Chloe found herself and her cousin back in the caves.

She watched Lois pull the bracelet off her arm before turning and walking towards the cave entrance. Chloe followed silently, not knowing what to say. Her love was the key? What the hell did that mean? If Lois loving Clark would heal him, it seemed like he should have been up and about by now.

An hour later they walked back into the apartment and Lois walked straight to Clark, kneeling next to him. Chloe walked over and stood next to Bruce a second before leaning into him and sighing at the instant comfort she felt.

"How'd it go?"

"It went. Turns out Lara is just as into the cryptic sayings as Jor-El always used to be, except that his made more sense."

"What can we do?"

"Nothing. Her love is the key."