Chapter 64
"…And then your son informed me that if I wanted to go to stay at my apartment for tonight, I was welcome to, but I'd just have to jump and hope my aim was good and the window was open! And we were only about a million feet in the air at the time."
Martha Kent laughed as she began removing the last piece of fried chicken from the cast iron skillet. Lois was finishing pouring the tea in the glasses when Clark came through the kitchen door.
"And there he is now, the gentleman himself!" Lois pointed to him with the glass she'd just filled.
Clark took the glass from her hand and drained it. "Exaggerating just a bit there, aren't you?" Setting the glass back down, he smiled at her. "Thanks. At a million feet we would have been past the Kármán line, and you'd have been sorely out of breath. Mm, fried chicken? Great! I'm starved." He went over and picked a piece of crispy coating off the still sizzling piece of chicken and his mom slapped at his hand with a dishcloth.
"Clark! How many times do I have to tell you—"
"The what line?" Lois asked as she started to refill his glass again.
"Lois was somehow under the impression you were going to let her get back to her life today, sweetheart."
"Separates the atmosphere from outer space," he answered Lois and then said to his mom, "I let her go to work."
"But the part about my living in my own apartment…that just sort of skipped your mind?"
"No. But the part about you continuing to draw breath trumped it." He turned to his mom. "Do I have time for a quick shower?"
"A two-minute one. No longer," his mother warned him. "We were getting ready to eat without you,"
"Smallville—" Lois had started toward him for a quick kiss, and then she stopped suddenly and held her nose. "Ugh, you do need a shower. What on earth have you been doing?"
"You really don't want to know, but it was a very unpleasant task in Guatamala. Two minutes? No problem!" He blurred up the stairs and Lois was left standing there looking at the space where he'd been standing.
"I just realized…He doesn't sweat, does he?"
"No, not unless there's Kryptonite around. When he was little, Jonathan used to say he didn't know why I insisted on him having a bath every day. He'd get dirty playing sometimes…Oh my!" She moved to the bottom of the stairs and yelled up them, "Clark! You'd better get that costume in the wash before any stains set." Turning back to Lois, she continued, "But it was always just dirt, never the smelly, sweaty kind of dirty, and I always believed that a child needs a set…"
There was a sudden whoosh of air, and although Lois couldn't tell what had happened, she imagined that it was Clark obeying his mother at super speed. She noticed that Martha didn't even blink or pause. I guess you get used to it after a while, she thought.
"…normal routine to thrive, so I insisted upon it."
The two of them finished setting the table as Lois continued asking various questions from the one woman who knew the answers. "And sleep. He doesn't really need that either?"
"Not physically. Psychologically though, yes, I think he needs it."
"Besides, I like sleep," said Clark, in a fresh pair of jeans and a tee shirt, from the bottom of the stairs. His hair was wet from the shower, and the tee shirt clung to the scattered spots on his chest that were still damp.
Unconsciously, Lois licked her lips before commenting, "Like you like eating?"
"Exactly! So what are you two waiting for? I'm hungry." The two women looked at each other and shook their heads before joining him at the table.
********
After the dishes had been washed and put away, Clark sat at the dining room table looking over the several sheets of paper he'd taken from the pouch of his cape. Lois, still pulling out papers from every fold of the jacket she had trapped under one arm and biting down on still more crumpled pages in her mouth, came down the stairs. She dumped it all on the table in front of him.
"Find anything interesting yet in those?"
"As a matter of fact…" Clark held up a sheet for her. "Do you have any idea what this date means?"
"February 24th, two years ago?" Her brow wrinkled, and she slowly shook her head. "I don't think so. Why?"
"Because it's circled on your paperwork in several places. Look, there are other dates. They're marked through as if they were eliminating them one by one."
"Strange," she said, peering over his shoulder, "But since I don't have that super duper memory of yours, I—"
He nodded and started remembering aloud for her. "I was in Washington that day with Mom. You were on assignment all day with Ron. It was a Wednesday. I know you went out with Chloe that night to Magaña's – it had just opened. You said to me when I got back that you'd have to try the margaritas there again, because they made them so strong, you couldn't even remember getting home that night, and that you'd slept like a baby."
"Wow. Not bad. I'm impressed, Smallville."
"And these other dates…they're all days you were in the hospital or had doctor's appointments."
"Really? That's weird."
"Lois, when's the last time you were hurt? In any way? Like having a bruise or a cut?"
"Well, I had that cold a few weeks ago."
"But cold's are from a virus. I mean an injury. Something happening to you from outside your body? I don't remember you complaining of one thing since before this date."
"Oh, sure I have…I mean…people get little bumps and bruises all the time…Surely I…"
"Lois, what if …" Clark hesitated. The idea was a little fantastic even for the kind of things that happened to him everyday.
"Spill it!"
"Okay." He bit his bottom lip and spread out his hands. "What if the theory Dr. Kline said they had about the portals was true? What if they were time portals as well? What if someone…like my father…used the portals to go ahead in time—"
"But the portals are closed, Clark, and they have been since you've been here." She walked around the table and pulled out a chair. "He would only be able to go back in time, wouldn't he? Otherwise, he'd never be able to have returned to his own time, and you know he did."
"I'll get to that, but he could have gone ahead in time? He wouldn't have known that the portals would have closed. What if he went ahead in time to find out just who it would be that I would marr—"
"Smallville!"
He looked up at her and her face was a mask of shock. He could tell she was on the verge of hyperventilating.
"Lois, what's wrong?"
She sank down into the chair opposite him as Martha came back downstairs. "I—I…" She placed a hand on her heaving chest to try and quiet her own breathing.
"Lois, honey, you don't look well." Martha felt her forehead almost automatically in that way mothers do. "You're not warm but you're as white as a sheet!"
"I'm fine, Mrs. Kent, just fine. It's just…"
"Just that I said something Lois doesn't like, I guess." Clark said softly and looked hurt.
"No, no…I just wasn't expecting…I mean, I…I…"
"It's okay, Lois. It was just a thought."
"What's all this?" Martha asked, looking at the pile of crinkly papers scattered across the table.
"Documents Lois stole from Star Labs." He watched as his mom picked up two and began reading.
"Borrowed," Lois corrected, finally getting her breath back a bit. "Mrs. Kent, borrowed," she emphasized and sniffed. "There is a difference. And your son asked me to get information out of Dr. Kline and I did. He has no right to complain about my techniques."
"Mom, she had that man so flustered…" He chuckled, looked at Lois and saw the moment she'd had when her walls were down was over for now. "Don't even think of using those techniques on me," he warned playfully.
She scoffed. Not even daring to look at him. "Don't you wish! Besides, I've already tried a few on you and they don't seem to work." She momentarily looked up, caught him staring at her, picked up more papers and glued her eyes to them. "When you're not being all Mr. Goody Two Shoes, it's all I can do to get you to even notice me," she pouted.
"Clark, is this true?"
"She's being ridiculous, mom. Of course I notice her!"
A worried Martha Kent ignored what her son said and held out one of the papers to him. "It says here you're having 'power surges.' Have there been any solar flares to cause it?" She looked at him with concern, because she knew very well what such things did to her son; when she saw his eyes grow wide, she knew he'd been neglecting to tell her something.
"No, mom, no. It's just…um…"
"Oh, he's having them, all right," Lois answered for him, suddenly delighted to get him in trouble with his mom for some reason. "It happened three times on the way here, as a matter of fact."
"Sweetheart, if—"
"It's fine, mom. My powers have just been growing a lot lately, but I'm compensating. Both doctors agreed on that. Flying is just a little bit of a problem when it happens, because I have less control over that ability. Everything's fine." And with that, he gave Lois a well-deserved look of total irritation.
Martha nodded. Then she drew out a chair. "You know, I think I want to look at some of these documents myself."
********
Author's notes: Mari2Anne – I'm a pharmacist, so I've had the science courses, for sure. I remember sitting in a class once when we were studying the polymerization of bonds and my thoughts went to Superman's skin right then. I guess I'm pulling all those random thoughts out now for this story. So yes, most of this is science based. I'm also picking and choosing which incarnation of Superman I want to use according to which is more believable within the context of the Smallville world. For instance, the costume…I really like the idea that the cloth it was made from is from Krypton a la the sixties, but I have to admit the aura thing does make more sense for a SV story since the series seems to ignore the concepts of friction and inertia. Oops…guess I haven't written about that yet. Shhh… Getting an idea of where I'm going with the durability yet? I didn't think about the Chloe healing thing, but Lois has been hurt since then, so it wouldn't have worked. Hopefully, my idea will.
Cloisharley quote "she's gonna be swept of her feet so fast her shoes will get left behind!" I loved that! Very visual.
Anacaro – no. he didn't get affected. Not from those rocks. Not yet. Not saying any more.
And thanks to all the other reviewers! Yes, my horrible day finally ended and it's gotten much better, partially due to such things as nice people like you guys. Sorry for the delay. Need to get back on my schedule. And I hate to admit this….but the bit about "Did you practice that?" and the two of them saying the same thing simultaneously was used on "Lois and Clark" by…drum roll…Jimmy! I thought for sure people would recognize it!
