Chapter Twenty Four

Maggie sat on the couch with Shelby at her side while they watched another Disney film this time about a little robot named Wall-E, "I don't want you eating too much junk food it'll spoil your appetite." Clark says while he cleaned up the bowl of now empty vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate syrup, "Dr. Hamilton said for you to take it easy not go into a sugar induced coma."

"Ice cream makes it feel better."

"Make what feel better?"

She bowed her head and he immediately walked around, "What's wrong?" he saw a few tears fall down her face and quickly wrapped the eight year old in his arms, "Its okay sweetie."

Her head shook against his chest, "It's not okay!" she pulls away, "You always tell me to never give up no matter what life throws my way."

"I know-"

"Then why are you giving up now." She crawls out of his arms and walks towards her room with her faithful companion following close behind.

The door closed and he bowed his head. The whole world seemed to be turning against him and the two most important people in his life were slipping through his fingers.

"Being a parent is hard. Sometimes we think we know everything but really we don't." Jonathan said moving to his son's side as they watched the Maggie sleep in her crib, "I didn't know what I was doing half the time either."

Clark immediately looked at him surprised, "You always looked"

"Like I could handle it?" Jonathan adds and Clark nods, "To tell you the truth I was terrified especially when your powers started showing but that's the beauty of being a parent. You're constantly learning."

"What if…What if I can't do it?"

Jonathan placed a hand on his son's shoulder like he always did, "You can do anything you set your mind to, and from what I've seen so far you're a great father."

"I'm just afraid that I'll fail her."

"You won't."

The memory faded and although the words helped a little but there was still doubt that he could really have the best of both worlds.

Maggie was in a mood several days afterwards and wasn't happy when she spotted Liam Luthor stepping out of the backseat of his luxury vehicle, "What do you want?" she asked with her arms crossed over her chest and gave him a glare showing that she wasn't amused by his appearance.

"After the whole fiasco at your birthday party I forgot to give you something." He reaches into his bag to pull out a black box with a purple ribbon, "Happy belated Birthday Margaret."

"It's Maggie." She corrects before accepting the present and mumbling her thanks, "I'll wait until I'm home to open this."

He nodded and stood there for a few minutes then cleared his throat, "My father has it in his head that we should become friends. I was wondering if you wanted to come over to the mansion sometime, I just got some new games for my Xbox."

She didn't know how to answer but managed to form a few sentences, "I'll think about it. Thanks again for the gift." She turns to walk away trying to figure out what just happened.

Liam looked back to his bodyguard, "You can inform my father I did what he asked." The large man nodded and went to open the backseat allowing the young boy to jump inside, "I'd like to go home now."

The car drove sat there for a few minutes just as the red pickup drove up and Maggie jumped in to be greeted by her father unaware that Liam was watching from inside his car with pangs of envy and jealousy over the close bond father and daughter shared which was nothing like his own relationship with Lex.

Unable to stand the sight any longer he turned back and barked, "Drive!" the car drove away while the pickup went in the opposite direction.

When Lois walked into the bullpen she was surprised to see Clark at his desk but even more surprised to see him loading things into a box, "What's going on?" she asks walking up to him and glanced inside to see everything that was ever on his desk was now inside this box, "Are you leaving?"

He stopped what he was doing and looked apprehensive as to how say what he was going to say and just nodded, "Unbelievable." She exclaims but tones it down when people start to stare, "You weren't even going to say goodbye were you."

"I'm sorry Lo. I meant to tell you but-"

"You can take that apology and whatever excuse you were planning on giving me and shove it." She storms off with Clark following close behind until they were left alone in the storage room, "I thought that maybe this time was different but your just like that scared little man I met four years ago."

"I'm doing this for Maggie."

"No!" she turned to face him, "Your only doing this to make yourself feel better. That somehow it will all be better if you left this life behind, well I have news for you Clark…Life is hard!"

"You don't get to tell me what I'm feeling." He argued back and his features immediately softened and he stepped closer to her, "I can't protect my daughter and people if I'm constantly juggling between lives. I need to cut off one side to keep the other intact."

Lois could see that he had already made up his mind and fought against the sadness, "I'm sorry Clark but if you want to cut out any normalcy from your life then you'll have to cut me out to because I cant watch you give up on something you've worked so hard to build." She walks around him ready to step out of the storage room but stops and immediately turns around to give him one last kiss, "If you change your mind. You know where to find me." She gives him another soft kiss before walking out the door.

He just stands there and was about to go after him but stopped and convinced himself that it was for the best, "Remember why you're doing this." He took in a breath and walked back over towards his desk where he preceding to clear out his desk ready to leave this part of Clark Kent behind no matter how much it hurt him to do it.

TBC

Another short chapter…Sorry but I just couldn't make it longer without it seeming jumbled but I think there's a lot of great things in this chapter.

The whole point to this chapter is to show the aftermath of Metallo's attack. As you know Clark will do absolutely anything to protect his loved ones even giving up something that means so much to him in order to do it.

Now this will not last and he'll eventually snap out of it through some more words of wisdoms from Jonathan Kent who I always like writing cause its like he's the Jiminy Cricket to Clark's Pinocchio.

I'm also starting to really like writing Liam and Maggie, she doesn't really like him all that much and reminds me a little of Clois during Season 4 when they couldn't really stand each other either.

But Liam is a Luthor which you know basically means that there's not a love in his house much like Lex and Lionel all throughout the series which will play a big part later on in the story when we time jump especially for Maggie's part.

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