---- Chapter 61

"Chief wants us in his office, Lo."

Lois looked up from the papers she'd been rifling through and at Clark. She frowned as he stepped into the office and spit the pencil between her teeth onto her desk. "Why? I haven't done anything crazy... yet."

"Yet?"

"There's a facility... you'll be with me, so it won't be that crazy. Anyway, what does Perry want us for?"

"Don't know. Chloe passed the message on to me, and she got it from Jimmy."

"We've been here the whole time! Why wouldn't he just call us?"

"His phone has been out all morning. He yelled, but we had the door shut until I went to talk to Chloe a minute ago. Thus, he gave Jimmy the message, and Jimmy had to go so he passed it on to Chloe when they saw each other in the hall. She was about to come over when I went to see her."

Lois scratched at her arm a moment and put the papers down on her desk. "That is ridiculously convoluted, even for our lives." She pushed herself up out of her chair and walked over to him. "Shall we go?"

Clark smiled and nodded, taking her hand and leading her through the bullpen to Perry's office. He moved to knock and she walked past him, going into the office without bothering to give Perry any notice. Clark followed and she heard the door shut behind her.

"Lois, Clark, it's about time."

"Sorry, Chief. Chloe just told me a minute ago."

He waved a hand at them. "Doesn't matter. I'm sending you two to London tomorrow."

Lois opened her mouth to say something, but found that she didn't have anything t to say to something so out of the blue and snapped her mouth shut. There was the obvious question as to why, of course, but that hadn't occurred to her right away. Clark beat her to it.

"London, Chief? You haven't sent us abroad in five years, at least not on purpose. Not that I'm opposed to going, but why can't the London bureau handle it?

"I don't want them to handle it because I want my best team on it. Plus, you two heave dealt with this before"

"And what is it?"

Perry handed each of them a file. Lois looked at him a second before opening the file and finding a whole bunch of information on a company she'd never heard of before, Insider Finances. She skimmed a couple pages before looking up at Perry. "Sooo... what? You want us to go investigate this company?"

"We already investigated them, Lo, in mid 2020. Pretty standard corruption story, sad as that is to say. The CFO was skimming off the top for all the big wigs. What I don't understand is the London part. It was a Metropolis based company."

"When the CFO agreed to testify against the others, he was given a reduced sentence of three years with the ability to be paroled after eight months. He made parole and quickly left the country afterwards. He has a new upstart company that's making waves in London. When you get to the last couple pages, you'll see what we have on it. I put the old stuff in there so you could get caught up, Lois.

"Unbeknownst to me, and apparently Clark, you have a source in the company that has been trying to get in contact with you. You two had some specific something or other you used to know it was him, and when you answered the phone and didn't go along with it, he figured something was amiss. I just got this in the mail a couple days ago with an explanation."

Lois was looking at the last couple pages a moment before speaking. "Why didn't he just mail it to me? If he talked to me, he knows I'm here. Heck, even Clark would have made more sense."

"I don't know, but since this is your source, I'm sending you two. You leave tomorrow , so take the rest of today to pack and spend some time with Jordan. All your flight info has been sent to your laptops and phones. I'm giving you ten days, and your cover story is your thing. See you next week."

Walking out of Perry's office, Lois kept her eyes on the file and let Clark guide her through th bullpen. The man was smart, she would give him that. She was no economist, and she figured it would take one to make total sense of what she was seeing, but fortunately she knew enough to know that these were not the financial records being released to the public.

When they got back to their office, Lois grabbed her purse and coat before walking over to Chloe's office and knocking.

"Come in!" Lois walked in and smiled at Chloe. "Hey, what did Perry want?"

"He's sending us to London tomorrow."

"Well that's unexpected. Why?"

"There's a company I have a source in, which I forgot about in November, and so when he couldn't get me he sent the info to Perry. Why, I don't know, but that's what happened. Perry put together files and is sending us to London so that we can nail a guy we caught in a corporate scandal a year and a half ago for the same thing."

"Ah, corporate scandal," Chloe said. "You guys get all the fun assignments. I'm stuck going to City Hall tomorrow to interview the Mayor on his Gubernatorial campaign. C'est la vie, no?"

Lois smiled and shrugged her coat on. "Appears that way. I wonder if I'll be able to see Lucy while we're over there... what do you think, Smallville?" Lois had heard him walk in and looked back over her shoulder at him.

"I think a visit to Lucy could be in the works. Ten days should be more than enough since Perry put the name of your source in the file: Kent McCrea."

"Guess I didn't get that far. Should make it pretty easy to get in, get out and have the story done. Wish I could remember the code we had for the phone to make it easier, but those are the breaks, I guess. Say, what are we going to do with Jordan?"

"I was planning on asking mom if she could watch her while we're gone. If she can't, Chloe, do you mind being the backup plan?"

Chloe made a show of scratching her chin and looking off thoughtfully. "I guess I could do that for you. Ought to be a nice adventure watching four kids all by myself if Martha is slacking off."

"Good, good. Do you want to bring the kids over tonight and relax with us tonight? Since we can be packed in fifteen minutes, Clark in his way and mine in a much messier way, we should be done when you get home tonight."

"Don't you guys want to spend the evening with Jordan?"

Lois smiled and nodded. "She'll be there, too. I assume our flight leaves later in the day tomorrow, unless aviation has changed substantially in the last thirteen years. Since we're six hours behind them and a flight from Chicago took eight hours last I heard, and one probably takes about six or seven now... I bet we leave about 1a.m. London time which would be 7 tomorrow evening."

She frowned as Chloe looked at her and then at Clark, who she noticed was rubbing a hand over his face and back through his hair. "What? It was just a little speculation."

"You're little speculation was all of eight minutes off. I checked my phone when you walked over here and our flight time is 6:52 tomorrow evening. How did you do that?"

"You traveled the world helping people in your own way, however it is you fly. I traveled the world on airplanes and taught myself how the system works. It took about an hour to work out once I had learned all the time zones and looked up flight times for a few airlines."

"Learn something new about you everyday, Lo." He kissed her on the temple and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Ready to go? Earlier than usual, but I don't think 11:15 is too early for lunch if you want to stop somewhere before I go pick up Jordan."

"Sounds good. Chloe, care to join? Our treat, for once."

She held up some papers. "Sorry, some of us actually have to work today, but thanks anyway. I'll see you guys tonight at dinner."

Lois waved goodbye and walked out with Clark. They were the only ones in the elevator as it descended the numerous floors without interruption for once. "What do you feel like doing for lunch, Smallville?"

"Call me boring, but I was thinking we should hit a burger joint. I know of this great little place in downtown Austin with greasy burgers that you'll love."

"So not only do you know a great barbeque place outside Austin, but you know a burger joint in the middle of it? Did you spend a few weeks there searching for food down there?"

"Ah, no. We actually spent a few days there for a story in 2015 and you found them."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "You're stealing my work and claiming if as your own?"

"Never said I found the places, just that I know of them."

"Getting out on a technicality, Smallville. Very cheap."

"Alright, that was really good. I shouldn't be surprised since I do find awesome places to eat."

She heard Clark groan behind her and smiled. "Why, why did I have to tell you that you were the one to find the food places? Honesty is the best policy my foot. Making love to my wife as much as possible is the best policy. Telling her how awesome she is will only inflate her ego and give her more ammunition to shoot at me."

"You're talking to yourself in public, Smallville. I haven't driven you insane with my awesomeness, have I? It's happened before to people with more will power."

"I'm sure it has, Lo. You want to walk The Drag a little bit before we head home?"

"The Drag?"

"The street we're on. They call it The Drag around here."

Lois looked down the street, looking at all the small stores and whatnot running along it before shaking her head. "Nah. Let's head back and get packed. I would like to spend as much time with Jordan as I can." She paused a second as he wrapped her in his arms and sped them to the secluded area they'd landed in. He'd already changed into his Superman suit. "It hasn't even been two months and I can't imagine not seeing her for ten days."

"It's been more than three years and I can't imagine ten days without her. I don't know that I've gone ten days without seeing her since she was born." He pulled her up into his arms and they took off. "If you get really homesick, or Jordan-sick as it may be, we can always fly home and see her. As you've noticed, returning isn't a big deal."

"How long does a flight to London take you?"

"By myself, not very long. With you, about an hour to be safe. We've never actually flown to London before, not straight from Metropolis, but we honeymooned in Spain and that took about an hour. I imagine London wouldn't be much longer."

They landed in their backyard a few minutes later, Clark letting Lois down from being in his arms as they walked inside. She walked in front of him upstairs, going into their room and closet to pull out the suitcase that had been stored there two days before. Yanking it down, she pulled it out of the closet and threw it onto the bed.

"I could have done that, Lo."

"And I already did it, Smallville. I'm going to do things for myself as long and as much as I can during this pregnancy. Since I never make the time to go work out or do prenatal yoga or whatever it is one is supposed to do, the little things will help me from gaining fifty pounds. I don't want to gain fifty pounds while pregnant; it's too much."

"Well yeah, ok. I have no problem with that, and expected it... it's just that you pulled out my suitcase." After a slight pause, he spoke again. "Thanks, by the way."

Lois looked away from Clark and frowned at the suitcase. She hadn't even looked before she'd grabbed; it had been the first one she'd seen, and therefore it had been the one she pulled down and out. Blowing hair out of her eyes, she looked back at Clark. "You're welcome."

"You mind if I return the favor?"

"No, no," Lois said. "I'll get it. I still need to exert the effort, little and useless as it may be."

She did so and flopped it down on the bed next to Clark's. Opening it up, she started wishing that the clothes hadn't been unpacked in such a timely fashion Saturday night. Running a hand back through her hair, she walked over to the dresser and pulled open her underwear drawer, grabbing a handful and taking them over to the suitcase.

She noticed her maternity underwear mixed in with what she'd grabbed. She'd talked to Chloe about it and had been told she could wear normal underwear under the bump, or get the specialized stuff. Then, of course, Chloe had given her an unopened pack of the stuff and she'd tried it. When it hadn't been any worse, she'd thrown it in with all her other stuff.

Shoving her thoughts aside, she went about her packing in her usual manner, getting everything in her suitcase in a way that resembled organized. She flipped it shut but left it unzipped, in case there was anything she'd forgotten. Turning around, she was walking back to the closet when she spotted Clark watching her. "What?"

"I like watching you."

She rolled her eyes and yelled back at him from over her shoulder as she grabbed a few items out of the bathroom she'd forgotten. "You never forget those stalker tendencies, do you?"

"I never stalked, despite your insistencies that I used my telescope for such things back on the farm. Plus, you're very focused when you pack and seem to forget I'm around, which gives me prime opportunities to observe you."

She fought the urge to toss moisturizer at him as she walked back to her suitcase. "Observe me? You make it sound like I'm in captivity."

Clark smiled and walked towards her, doing his best to look stealthy. He affected a British accent and Lois thought it could use some work. "They said it couldn't be done, but I caught the last wild Lane and domesticated her. She is now my mate and having my children. She didn't even know it was happening until it was too late to resist. She has no desire to escape left in her."

Lois had to bite her lip to prevent herself from breaking out into laughter. Had he really just said that? "Smallville, I've heard a lot of things in my day, most of which I've forgotten, but I can say with near certainty that you've just uttered the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

"The odd thing in the case of the last wild Lane is that she doesn't realize she's been domesticated. While some would say that it's a sign she hasn't been fully tamed, the wild Lane is a special case. Much like it's cousin, the Sullivan, being domesticated doesn't stop it from acting on its impulses. No, it simply gives her forethought, should she choose to use it."

Lois walked over and stood right in front of him. "Smallville, am I going to have to show you just how wild and untamed I am?"

"The wild Lane attempts to assert herself through acts of sexuamph..."

Lois shut him up with a kiss. She figured it would take more than that to keep him from rambling like that again. She was happy to oblige.

"You really don't have to go through so much trouble to get me to sleep with you, Smallville." She kissed his chest and ran her hand over his stomach, tracing the muscles. "It's so much fun that it'll happen without the whatever it was you were doing."

"That wasn't even intended to end up that way. I was just having fun and ran with it."

"So we're calling this running now?"

"We've called it everything else at some point."

She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. "Are you serious?"

"I am. When we first got together, you called it happy time, and after that came workout, break time and the Naked Olympics. After you forgot in 2016, it started out as, and I kid you not, 'Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da F-ck.'"

"What?"

"That one lasted all of saying it once. You said we were making love, not doing what that word implies, and just thought it sounded clever."

"I agree with myself on that one. So, what else did I call it?"

Clark went silent for a moment before speaking. "There was dancing, forking, tumbling, working up a sweat, Summer Lovin' and Afternoon Delight. That was your song title phase. Ther ewere some others after that."

Lois sat up and looked back at Clark, unconsciously rubbing her stomach when AJ kicked. "I've really called making love to you all those things?"

"You have. I never asked why. After the third time you did it, I figured it was just something you had always done. Since you continued after forgetting the last two times, it added weight to the theory."

"Huh. Well, care to go running again?"

"I can't believe pot roast only takes three hours to cook now." Lois forked another bite into her mouth, savoring the taste as she chewed. She looked over at Clark, smiling as she swallowed. "Also, it tastes awesome."

"Thanks, Lo. How do you like it, Jordan?"

Lois looked over at her, smiling as she picked up a piece with her hand and put it in her mouth. "It's good, daddy. I like the carrots."

"Cooked carrots are so much better than raw carrots, aren't they baby girl?" Jordan nodded at her, taking a bite of one to show she agreed.

"You guys really didn't have to go to so much trouble." Lois looked over at Chloe, who was sitting between Jack and the twins. "I was thinking we were going to do something like pizza. I'm not complaining, because this is as amazing, as usual, but you put in too much effort."

"I guess I picked up enjoying cooking for family from mom" Clark said around a bite of potato. "It's not all that much trouble unless you're impatient." Lois noticed him motioning his head towards her and smirked at him.

"I would argue with you, but I'm too busy eating this wonderful I was in no way impatient about getting done."

Once dinner was done, they migrated into the living room. Clark put a movie on for the kids to watch while Lois and Chloe sat on the couch. He sat down in the chair next to it and put his socked feet up on the coffee table, relaxing back into the chair. Lois did the same, resting her hands on her ever expanding stomach.

"This has been a good night."

"I second that, Lo."

After that, they seemed to get lost in the movie along with the children. Aside from moving over to sit in the chair with Clark, which she didn't notice she'd done until she had to go to the bathroom and found she wasn't getting off the couch, she was able to just curl up and enjoy herself. When the movie ended, Chloe headed home and Lois went with Clark to put Jordan down for the night.

"When are you getting back, mommy?"

Lois ran her hands through Jordan's hair gently. "We'll be back before you even notice we're gone, baby girl. If you need us, you can call us from Grandma's house on our cell phones."

"But what if there are monsters and I need the special water?"

"When we found out we were being sent to London, I called Grandma and told her about the special water so that she would know what to do. You'll be safe from everything with Grandma, I promise."

"Ok."

Lois felt her heart melt a little at how timid that sounded. God, she hated that Jordan had any reservations about being away from them. She curled up behind the little girl and pulled her close. "I promise that nothing will happen while we're gone, Jordan. You'll have so much fun with your Grandma that we'll get back and you'll say 'But you just left!' We love you too much to be away from you when something could happen."

When she didn't get an answer, Lois gently pulled Jordan's hair aside and found she'd already fallen asleep. She placed a soft kiss on her temple before getting up and walking out of her room.

Lois walked back to where Clark was sitting and sat down in the chair next to him, handing him the bottle of water he'd requested when she'd told him she was going to get a snack. She took a bite out of one of the candy bars she'd gotten, chewing a moment before speaking. "Was that as difficult for you as it was for me?"

"Was what as difficult?"

"Leaving Jordan. I know I'm going to see her in ten days, but leaving her at your mom's house was like having a tooth pulled."

"Ah, that. Yeah, that wasn't the most pleasant thing ever. I'm just glad she doesn't have the separation anxiety she had when she was smaller. She hated being more than five feet from you."

"I hate being more than five feet from her," Lois mumbled as she took another bite.

She looked up at the television in front of her and let herself drown in the news for a moment before they called their flight to boarding. Once they were on the plane and settled, Lois started in on the magazines she'd bought. Half an hour and a takeoff later, she had finished off the magazines and was bored.

"Tell me a story, will ya Smallville?"

He opened his eyes and looked over at her. "I figured that was coming. You always seem to fly through your reading material unless you have a book. Alright, so, when we last left off, we had just found out you were pregnant. The next story comes two days later."

---

Clark smiled as Jordan held out her arms to be picked up. She was doing it less and less the older she got. He pulled her up and into his arms, smiling at her. "What brings you into my arms, Jordan?"

She shrugged and laid her head down on his shoulder. Apparently she just wanted a place to rest her head. Eh, he was alright with it. His shoulder had rarely had a better use than giving his daughter someplace to put her head. He ran his hand lightly over her back as he walked into the bedroom and found Lois pulling on a shirt.

"Weren't you wearing a different shirt like, three minutes ago?"

"I was, but I decided to go with something more comfortable. What's up with Jordan?"

"I don't know. I think she's missing the nap that she never took this afternoon. Are you sleepy, sweetheart?"

Jordan shook her head but it wasn't too enthusiastic. Clark nodded to Lois, and she shrugged. "She refused her nap like eight times, didn't you baby girl? I figured if she wanted to stay up this time, she could, and she'd get an energy boost when she saw her cousins, two of which were actually napping when we got here."

Clark nodded, following Lois as she walked out into the hallway. "Remember Smallville, no hints. That goes double for you, baby girl. Mommy wants to surprise Aunt Chloe with this."

He felt her nod a bit and followed Lois again, this time down the stairs and onto the first floor of the manor. They walked back to the kitchen where they found everybody congregating. Clark smiled and put Jordan down so she could join Aly and Liz next to the kitchen table.

"Did you change shirts, cuz?"

"Yeah. This one is much more comfortable, but the other is better for flying. Well, that's a lie, but it's my excuse for why I bothered to put it on this morning."

"As good an excuse as any."

Clark was handed a glass of water by Bruce and he nodded at him before looking back over at Lois and Chloe. Truth was, they both liked to watch their wives interact with one another. It was like watching two people that had been separated for ten years and we're getting to know each other again with all the information they had to share.

Clark had wanted Lois to call Chloe and tell her about the baby the night they found out. He'd done that with his mom, and she'd done it with Sam and Lucy, but she'd refused to call Chloe, saying that it was something she wanted to tell her in person. He hadn't argued, knowing it wouldn't do any good anyway.

A little while later they sat down to dinner, finding numerous kinds of Italian food on the table. "Wow. You guys really went all out."

"We like to have nice food whenever you guys are over here."

Lois laughed as she put some spaghetti on Jordan's plate. Clark took a bread stick and munched on it as he waited for Lois to pass it over to him. "Chloe, we're over here almost every other weekend. I mean, it's at least one weekend a month. Some months we spend more Saturday's here than we do in Metropolis."

"I know, but we do it because we love you, so accept it and enjoy just how amazing this food is."

Clark enjoyed it as he took a bite of his freshly scooped spaghetti. Smiling, he took one of the pieces of homemade pizza and put it down on his plate next to the couple pieces of bread and aforementioned noodles covered in sauce.

It was all delicious. The meal seemed to fly by and they were quickly eating dessert, which was of all things cookie cakes. As Clark took a bite, he raised the question of why, and Chloe answered.

"I didn't want to do regular old cake. We seem to do that a lot whenever you guys are here, so I wanted to venture off the beaten path. Well, the caked path, anyway."

"Ya know, I'm alright with it," Lois said. "I haven't had cookie cake since I was a kid, or at least not in the last three and a half years."

"You haven't had it whenever you were with me."

"Me either, Lo," Clark said as he smiled at her. "Maybe we can do it at one of Jordan's birthday parties in the future."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew he shouldn't have said it. Lois had been extremely focused on the present and living in the now because she didn't think she had much time left. He'd tried talking about it, but it only left her feeling like she was a terrible mother for the fact that she was going to forget Jordan. He ran a hand across her back and smiled at her, hoping she wouldn't get down because of it. When she smiled at him, he knew that she was alright.

After dessert, they spent some time with the kids before Jordan and the girls were basically falling asleep on each other. Jack had played in a baseball game earlier in the day and was tired, taking him into dreamland not long after the girls. They were all standing around in the kitchen talking.

In a lull, Lois suddenly spoke. "We have news!" He looked over at her a second and she smiled sheepishly at him. "Sorry, the pressure of it was getting to me."

"Well, she was really putting the question to you." She glared at him, and he smiled. "Alright, you can do the honors."

Lois turned away from him to face Chloe and Bruce. Lois took a deep breath in before speaking. "I'm pregnant."

"WHAT?"

Clark looked over at Chloe, who had basically shrieked her response. "Wow, Chloe. That was almost a high enough pitch that I'd have been the only person in the room to hear it."

"Sorry, it's just..." She looked over at Bruce and he nodded, resting a hand on her shoulder. She smiled at him before turning back to Lois. "I'm pregnant, too!"

"What? Seriously?"

"Very seriously. I just found out yesterday."

There was some incomprehensible shrieking that sounded like it was happiness induced, and they each ran around the island and embraced each other in a hug. Clark didn't know if he'd ever seen Lois act quite so girly without being undercover. He looked to Bruce, who was watching the women. "This could either be a lot of fun or the longest nine months of our lives."

"That's very true. I think that we could be pleasantly surprised about it, though, at least until they each get to seven or eight months. Chloe might almost be used to it since this is the third time around."

"Yeah, Lois remembers it, too, and those last couple months had her... tense."

Bruce nodded and a moment later the women joined them again, no longer wrapped up in whatever they'd been talking about. "So, Smallville, it's been determined that we're in the lead."

"The lead of what?"

"The lead of the pregnancy race! Chloe found out yesterday, and since I found out Thursday, we're in the lead. Way ahead, in my book, and out of reach."

"One day. One stinking day is all the difference, cuz! There's no lead!"

Lois stuck her tongue out at Chloe, causing Clark to roll his eyes and wrap an arm around her shoulders. "I know this idea is going to just be the worst thing either of you has ever heard, but is there any chance we could, ya know, just call it a tie?"

His suggestion was met with laughter from both the women in the room.

"Funny, Smallville."

"Yeah, Clark. Do you know who you're talking to? This was destined to be a competition."

"Destined? Destined by whom, the Gods of not having any protection at hand?"

"Were you guys not trying for this one?"

Clark looked down at Lois, who dropped her head a moment before looking back up at him. "C'mon, Smallville. You didn't have to tell her that this baby was the result of me being impatient and telling you I'd be ready for another baby."

"And you were going to lie to her?" He looked over to Chloe. "I don't know about you guys, but our embryo is the result of short planning."

"How short?"

"About five to ten minutes."

Bruce nodded and Chloe smiled. "We've been trying for this one a couple months. But who cares? We're having babies!" Chloe suddenly closed her eyes and winced. "Jesus, I could be having babies again. If it's twins again, I think my body may fall apart. My back will certainly hate me."

"Oh, yeah," Lois grumbled. "Mine wasn't exactly fond of that last bit either."

After a couple minutes of grumbles at what was coming, Lois an Chloe were all smiles again. They all went and sat down in the den, Lois having cuddled up next to Clark as he sat down. He wrapped an arm around her and looked over at Bruce when he spoke.

"If you guys don't mind me asking... what does this mean for your memory, Lois?"

He felt Lois sigh, and let one loose himself. "Well, we discussed it, and since I probably didn't have a whole lot of time left with it anyway, we figure this is the best reason there could be for me to lose what I've gained these last three and a half years. If I don't, ya know, that'd be great, but we'll be prepared this time."

"I'm glad that you two know it's coming this time," Bruce said before Clark saw him pull Chloe a little closer. He did the same with Lois before raising up his glass of water.

"To the children in our lives: be they internal or external, may they know more happiness than we do right now, if such a thing is possible."

"Hear hear," they all said, taking drinks from their glasses.

Silence enveloped them for a few minutes until Lois and Chloe started talking again. Clark smiled and held her tight to him. This was going to be one hell of a nine months.

---

Lois stared out the window of the plane, thinking about how recent that had been. It was still difficult to believe that something so recent was something she couldn't remember. She chewed on her lip a moment before looking back at Clark. "How's the nine months been so far, Smallville?"

"Pretty good. Aside from you losing your memory, your morning sickness wasn't half as bad as it was with Jordan and when it was bad, you could still eat more than just crackers. The only odd thing, though, was that you started showing later with Almond Joy than you did with Jordan."

"Why's that odd?"

"Usually women show earlier with their second children than their first. The muscles in the uterus and abdomen are more elastic, or something like that. It might just be the abdomen; I don't remember exactly what the baby books said."

Lois looked out the window again, watching as a middling sized city passed underneath them. The story hadn't even taken long enough to get hem out over water. "It's not like my pregnancies are the most normal in the world, Smallville. It might literally be something new each time, who knows."

She looked back at him and smiled. "Besides, when have we ever wanted anything normal?"

"Been at least a decade since I wanted anything normal."

"Exactly. So, since this flight still has a good bit of distance to cover, how about you tell me another story."

"I'll wait."

She raised an eyebrow and poked him in the arm. "You'll wait?"

"There's only one left. It's not really much of a story, really, but it's all I've got and I'm saving it for the flight back."

"Ten days! You're going to make me wait ten days to listen to the story after telling me it's the last one? That's just mean!"

"You know what they say, Lo: always leave 'em wanting more."

"For this, Smallville, you're going to be left wanting. You are SO going to be left wanting the whole time we're in London, and even when we visit Lucy on Sunday."

Crossing her arms over her chest, she frowned at the seat in front of her for a few minutes. Clark wasn't saying anything, and finally th silence got to her. Instead of speaking, though, she leaned her head over on him and closed her eyes. "Wake me when we're in London, Smallville."

"You got it, Sailor."

This was going to be a long trip.