Chapter 18

Lois sat at the edge of her hospital bed feeding her son when the phone attached to the wall rang loudly. Awkwardly getting up and setting the bottle down, she answered it.

"Hello?"

"Lois, it's Chloe. I'm so sorry. Did I wake the babies?"

"No, Chloe. A loud ringing phone wouldn't wake up two newborn babies," Lois replied sarcastically.

"I'm sorry. But you need to take a shower, get dressed and get presentable. Clark informed me reluctantly that he invited guests over to see you this morning."

"I already took a shower. Now I'm feeding the babies with one of the nurses. Who did Clark invite at this hour?"

"He wouldn't tell me. And now he's at the Daily Planet. I just thought I should call and warn you."

Lois let out a long sigh. "He's going to get in big trouble for this. Thanks, Chlo."

Lois hung up the phone. She was amazed at the service in this hospital. The nurses came in and actually helped take care of the babies. Now that she had guests coming, she asked the nurse to finish feeding the children so she could dress herself and put makeup on. When she had achieved that the babies had magically fallen back asleep and she stared at them blissfully for several minutes.

She was amazed, curious, and in wonderment. She felt so green, not like she assumed most mothers felt. She assumed most mothers wanted to hold them eternally and shower them with kisses. She had raised Lucy, and all she wanted was to figure out how to not make the same mistakes she'd obviously made with Lucy, and not do what her parents had done to her. She wanted her babies to feel so much more cherished, safe, and secure. And that she knew she did have in common with other parents.

Lying back in her bed, she felt she might doze off, still tired from birthing two babies.

"Knock knock," a familiar voice said, awakening her almost sleeping eyes.

Lois opened her eyes to see Arthur Curry, Oliver Queen, and Dinah Lance.

I'm going to KILL Clark.

Slowly pushing herself out of bed she smiled, rushing to hug AC.

"Hey!"

"Hey, I heard you went and had children on me," AC grinned widely.

"Oh yeah, got myself into a lifetime insanity!"

Lois pulled back from him, looking at her other guests not sure how to greet them. She suddenly regretted hugging AC when she didn't feel comfortable hugging Oliver or Dinah.

"Oliver, thank you," she said sincerely. "This…hospital. It's been so incredible. I do feel safe here and it's…" she couldn't figure out how to finish the sentence to express her gratitude.

"I'd do anything for you and Clark."

"Yes, obviously. You show up here first thing in the morning because he told you to. And you!" she said to Dinah. "It's nice to see you as a brunette again and not screaming at me."

Dinah smiled and for the first time Lois saw how absolutely gorgeous this woman was.

"Here," Dinah said warmly to Lois, handing her a beautifully wrapped package. "This is for you."

Lois frowned in confusion. "You bought me a present?"

"It's from all of us, actually," Dinah said, though she was the one who'd thought of a present.

"Meaning you picked it out while they stood around with their fingers in their ears," Lois replied.

"Pretty much," Dinah laughed, appreciating Lois's knowledge of their friends.

"Well, open it in a minute," AC said. "Show us the babies!"

Lois led them over to the cribs, watching her children's little eyes look up at the new faces.

"They wake up so easily. But all through the night they weren't too bad. I actually slept off and on. Probably shouldn't get used to that."

Lois swept a hand under her son as she had so many times in the last several hours. She'd been so exhausted all through the night that she'd barely had time to enjoy her children. Handing him to AC, scrunched with a red face, he opened his blue eyes to look up at the new body holding him.

"I think he was happier with you holding him," AC said.

"No, this is still the part where they don't care. Give them a few months and they'll scream when torn from family."

"He's beautiful, Lois."

Lois was in awe, looking down at her child with AC.

"This is my son, Jonathan," she said, smiling.

She edged herself back on the bed, trying to ease the pain she still felt in her body.

"Just Jonathan?" Oliver said. "What's the rest of his name?"

"We still have to talk about it. I knew as soon as I was having twins that I wanted them to be named after our parents. But then Clark had to go and we never had a chance to talk about it."

Lois saw Dinah looking at her daughter, wrapped in the traditional blanket. Lois smiled, somehow happy to have something so precious in her life she could share. She was scared, no doubt about it, but sharing this with them, when she'd sometimes felt that they had something she'd envied so greatly. It was nice.

Gathering her second baby, she edged it gently into Dinah's hands.

"And this is Ellen, after my mom."

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that, you know, that she's not here," Dinah said. "Oliver was telling me that you lost her."

Lois nodded, not sure how she felt about him divulging her life history with another woman.

"Clark said your dad showed up?" Oliver said, questioning more than stating.

Lois rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, he showed up. He sat outside and when he did come in he just barely kept us all from enjoying ourselves. Anyway, I'll find some level to identify with him but I hope it's just the rest of us for the next few days."

Lois looked down at her son.

"I hope his eyes stay like that," she whispered.

"Because they're like Clark's?" AC said.

"Yeah, exactly."

"Speaking of which," Oliver said, looking to the door to see Clark.

Lois's face lit up as she walked over to see him gorgeous from head to toe. Meeting him she raised herself up on her toes to wrap her arms around him.

"Clark," she whispered, inhaling him.

Pulling back almost as quickly as she embraced him, she grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled him to the other side of the room.

"Uh-oh," he smirked.

"What are you doing inviting two of my ex-boyfriends over to see me first thing in the morning?" she whispered to him.

"Driving you crazy."

She was so irritated by him trying to irritate her that she didn't even know how to respond. She made a claw with her hand to hurt him, but he just grinned wider.

"Oh yeah, you're hilarious first thing in the morning. How'd your interview go?"

"It went fine. I don't know why you couldn't let me sleep here or in my own house—"

"So this was payback."

"This was fun. But today, you don't get to get rid of me. I'm here whether you want it or not."

"Clark, you know I want you with me, but I have every intention of doing things in an efficient way."

"And I'm telling you, efficient or not, I'm here now. And I'd like to see my children."

"Fine," she smiled playfully.

Taking his hand, she returned with him to three people charmed by the two babies. Dinah handed Clark his daughter as AC passed Jonathan to Oliver.

"They're beautiful," Oliver said to Clark.

"Thank you," Clark replied sincerely, staring down at Ellen. "I just want to memorize her face."

"It'll change everyday. It already looks different to me than yesterday," Lois commented. "We took over one hundred photos."

"Let's take a hundred more. I want to capture every moment."

Lois nodded in agreement, her eyes not leaving her son's tiny body in Oliver's hands. "Jimmy said he'd come by today and do portraits of them. Hospitals offer but he wanted to do it."

"He'll be coming along with everyone else around four. How are you feeling?" he asked Lois.

"Like I should be taking a nap right now. I appreciate the morning visit from all of you."

"You have met Dinah?" Clark asked.

"Clark, we worked together at the Planet. And I saw her again when her fist intercepted my face when I was yelling at Oliver a few months back."

"I'm sorry," Dinah cringed.

"No no," Lois said quickly. "No, I wasn't trying to make you feel guilty. Granted I would've liked to have yelled at Ollie several more hours—"

"Why, what'd he do? I mean now that I know you all…" Dinah trailed off.

"You'd like in on the juice?" AC laughed.

"Was this when I found you tied to the chair?" Clark asked.

"Yes," she said before looking back at Dinah. "I was yelling at him for not only lying to me about who he was but covering it up and setting me up, letting me be rescued and kiss the person who I thought was Green Arrow."

"You set her up to do that?" Dinah asked Oliver, practically scolding him.

"I am innocent!" Oliver exclaimed defensively. He leaned in a little to Lois. "You are aware," he said to her, pointing to Clark.

"Now I am! If I had known that night who you set up, I would've killed you!" Lois looked up at Clark. "What happened to you being my friend, being on my side? Does the line 'if he is the Green Arrow, you deserve to know the truth' ring a bell?"

"Well in his defense he didn't know-we didn't know you'd lay one on him," Oliver defended.

"I thought he was you! Why wouldn't I do that?"

"So…your boyfriend and your friend teamed up to lie to you," Dinah said.

"And you kissed Clark thinking he was Oliver. Oliver, gotta tell us this stuff when we're on the road," AC said.

"AC, I've hit them both, you're about to be next," Lois teased. "And I may not be a superhero, but I can aim a gun and throw a punch. Still, standing around the three of you, I feel like the odd one out that you've all shared in a really, sexist way."

"You've made out with all of them," Dinah assumed mockingly.

"Yes, often with another one of them standing there watching."

Lois reached out to Clark for Ellen, rolling her eyes and smiling at the men around her. Clark watched the mother of his children take her child back into her yearning arms. There was an awkwardness and a coldness in Lois, yet such an incredible need in her to give all she could to this tiny baby.

"I'm going to make a million mistakes," she said, partly to Ellen and partly aloud. "But I will never yell at you like I was yelled at and tell you what a failure you are. And I'm not going to let you feel like a rival to your brother. I'm going to find a way for you two to love each other and be friends…to count on each other."

Lois, not one to let her emotions get the best of her was losing a little bit, so frustrated by what had happened to her because of her father. She felt her heart burn wildly in memories of the shouting matches they'd shared. He'd imprinted her with cruel words he'd probably said in anger or in hopes of making her stronger…but instead he'd damaged her irreversibly. She'd been put in charge of taking care of her sister way too young, becoming a role model when she still needed one herself.

"What are you thinking?" Clark asked softly as Lois intensely stared at her baby.

Lois didn't answer right away.

"I'm remembering," she said. "I'm…remembering what it was like. Lucy was envious of me for having memories of my mother that she didn't have, and then for having my father's attention, even though ninety-nine percent of it was bad. I got her out of his range, far away and she still envied me. She got off free and the brat that she is still wasn't grateful."

AC, Oliver, and Dinah stepped back with Jonathan, giving Lois and Clark the privacy they needed with their daughter.

Lois gritted her teeth in anger at herself for calling her sister that in front of everyone. She shouldn't have shown emotion like that. She was weak for doing that, maybe exactly like her father said.

"No," she corrected herself. "If I'd been older, if I hadn't needed what I was supposed to be giving her, she'd be better, and I would've too. That's why even now it's hard for us to be in a room together. She tries to reach out to me but she doesn't know how."

"Chloe said she feels guilty about the epidural and she's afraid you're mad at her. Chloe says she knows you're more forgiving than Lucy believes."

Lois nodded. "I don't care about that. Of course I forgive that. I know she was just being naïve. I just want it to stop. I want it to end. You know how different we are? Lucy and I? You wouldn't believe it but I would try to keep her from rebelling. She fools you because she flirts and smiles and bats her eyelashes but that girl has done things I'd never dream of. Then she'd whine for my attention and I didn't have anything to give her because I was just creamed by dad on the phone for being out all night just to get away from being her mother for a few hours. I was sixteen!"

Lois looked at Ellen.

"And…I look at my children and I don't feel anything like that. I don't feel all that anger I do at my family. I feel afraid that because of my family I'm going to do something wrong-"

"Lois—" Clark said.

"No, I'm admitting that you to," Lois said. "Which I didn't think I could do, really. I told your mother, but now it's like, they make me feel like I could be better than I am. Like…through them I have this ambition inside me to stop what's been going on in my family. To be more of what I remember my mother was."

"And never smoke another cigarette again."

Lois smiled. "Yeah, exactly. Never again."

Lois took her daughter back to her crib, rejoining her friends.

"Do you want me to have the doctors look them over?" Oliver asked.

"I would," Lois said. "I mean they're never going to know Clark's family's medicine but this hospital is going to know more than any other."

"I want you to lie down now," Clark said, seeing her in pain, and placing Ellen back in her crib.

"I'll take the babies, Lois," Oliver said.

Lois didn't move from behind the crib that contained her children.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to them," he assured, but Lois didn't budge.

"Lois," Clark said. "Lois, let go of the crib."

She detached her fingers from the plastic crib and let Oliver wheel it out of the room. Clark pulled the blankets back from the bed.

"They'll be fine, come on."

"Why are you so calm?"

"Because it's Oliver. He's a good man."

"What the hell happened to you?" she asked, surprised by him.

"Lois, could you ever just do something simple that I ask? Get in the bed and I will hold you."

Instead of getting into the bed she came around the bed to where he was and cupped his face.

"Did Jor-El hurt you?"

"No. No, I'm fine. Now, for the last time, could you get in the bed?"

Her body was crying to be horizontal and in his arms. She aligned herself into the curves of his strong form, closing her eyes and feeling safe for the first time in months. She let him caress her hair and tell her little pieces of what he went through while being gone.

"And why do I get the feeling that while I was doing all of this you threw away everything I ever owned?" he murmured in her ear.

"I didn't throw anything away," she yawned. "It's all in the attic. When you told me to redo the house I guess I took the initiative to redo a lot. But I'll show you everything tomorrow. Just go back to what you learned."

"Wouldn't you like to be awake?"

"I am awake," she assured unconvincingly. "I am."

Falling asleep quickly though, she laughed when he told her Chloe would be thrilled that he could finally fly.

~~~~~To Be Continued~~~~~