Chapter 8

"Mom, she brought up some stuff that I …" Clark was half-heartedly nibbling at a piece of toast. Try as she might, his mother hadn't been able to get her normally ravenous son to eat much this morning.

"Like what, sweetheart?"

"Well, like the kind of stuff I can't really talk about with you… It's… a little personal." Clark threw the toast back down on the plate.

"So personal you're talking about it with Lois but you can't talk about it with…" She pursed her lips. "Oh, that type of personal."

"She wants me to see a doctor at Star Labs. I've never heard of him, but Lois has apparently met him, and she thinks—"

"She wants you, you mean Superman, to see a doctor? Son, I thought you'd only met her as Superman the one time."

"Yeah, only once for the interview, but she's been talking about him to me. A lot. I can't get her to shut up about him."

Martha smiled. "Really?" She poured herself some more orange juice and settled back into her chair. "And what does she have to say about you to you?" She couldn't hold it in anymore. The laughter burst forth all at once.

"Mom! It's not funny. She's talking about me…him…Superman, and she's wondering about all kinds of things about him." Clark looked extremely uncomfortable, but his mother merely kept looking at him expectantly, so he let out a sigh, then he whispered, "Physical things," like he didn't really want to say it at all.

"Oh my!" Martha Kent covered her mouth to keep from laughing again. How had she raised a son that was so…so…prudish?

"Lois thinks he needs to have tests done to see if…no, I can't even say it. The whole thing is just so ridiculous."

Martha knew her son well. If he didn't want to talk about something, she just needed to stay quiet and, before long, it would start tumbling out anyway whenever he forgot he was even speaking out loud. This morning he was so preoccupied, it didn't take long.

"She just keeps talking and talking, making all kinds of connections in her brain that make no sense to anyone else. I mean, green blood, really, how stupid! But that's the kind of thing she comes up with. And how Lois even thinks it's any of her business whether or not I can have children is beyond—"

"She wants you to—?" The glass slipped from her hands and crashed to the floor.

Clark was already reaching for a cloth to clean up the mess. "Yeah, isn't that ridiculous? How nosey can one girl be? It's like she thinks she has a right to pry into anything about—"

But Martha Kent was agonizing about whether she should tell her son what had just dawned on her, so she asked cautiously, "Son, do you realize just how intelligent Lois is? Because I do! Look, I know she's pushy and even annoying at times, but, believe me, I've never met anyone quite as smart as that girl, or as clever."

"Yeah, too clever for her own good. Do you know what she did last night? She followed a tip and went to Suicide Slums at three in the morning! She nearly got herself killed. I barely got there in time. It would serve her right if I just started ignoring her and didn't even try to show up for a last minute rescue. I swear the girl's got a death wish." He emptied the broken glass in the trash and set another glass in front of his mom.

"Thanks, dear. You didn't let her see you, did you?" It was more of a statement than a question, because she knew the answer.

"No. I'm sure she chalked it up to the red/blue blur." He sat down once more and looked at his barely touched plate of food. "You think that's been a mistake? Maybe she's starting to think she's got some kind of a charmed life or something… It might explain why she is so reckless sometimes."

"Well, you just go right ahead and try to ignore her. It seems to be working out really well for you. And, son, I really think she probably knows by now that Superman has been the red and blue blur all this time."

"Oh, yeah, right." The reply was so automatic, it was as if he wasn't listening.