The Door We Never Opened, Part 3
Title: The Door We Never Opened
Author: latetothpartyhp / FlyingHigh
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, angst
Pairing(s): Chlark, Chlollie, Clois
Summary: Four years after his bachelor party, Clark is still pulling skeletons out of his closet. Sequel to Eradication, The Lens Through Which We Look and The Secret Parts of Fortune. None of them need to be read in order to understand this story. Note "The Secret Parts of Fortune" is rated NC-17.
Author's Note: Season 11? What Season 11? This story takes place after Clark becomes Superman but before the "seven years later". It assumes that Lex was first elected president in 2014 and the 2018 headline was announcing his decision to run again.
Table of Contents
Totally unrelated note: Thanks to bella8876 I found this nifty text-to-html converter that preserves formatting. Thanks!
“Clark? What's going on?”
“Just get us out of here.”
Lois nodded and pulled the van out. Thankfully the gawkers moved out of the way as she did so, the adults keeping a firm hold on the kids. The interfering man had gotten himself a phone, Clark noticed, so he had to speed out and knock that from his hand as well, but he was back in the car before even Lois knew he'd done it. She was peeling out of the parking lot, rolling through the stop-sign and racing down the county road at 60 miles an hour less than a minute after strapping Robbie into his seat.
Clark twisted back to look at the gossiping by-standers surrounding the interfering man, who was howling about the disappearance of the second phone. He swallowed a few times. “I think that guy back at the lake is going to call the cops on us,” he said.
“That sonuva--” Lois began, before remembering Robbie. She gave a quick glance back at him through the rear-view mirror and Clark heard her heart begin to speed. “His eyes are shut,” she said. “Should they be shut?”
Clark switched his gaze to Robbie, conked out in his car seat. He was, from what Clark could see from X-raying him, perfectly healthy: still no soft-tissue damage, no damage to the skull or any other bones, temperature normal, heart-rate and breathing normal for sleeping. He reached back and shook him in his car seat. “Hey, buddy. Wake up. Hey. Robbie!”
Two reluctant toddler lids raised themselves to half-mast and two sleepy eyes stared at him resentfully with rapidly contracting pupils.
“He's fine,” Clark said. “Aren't you buddy?” Robbie blinked a few times and then settled back against the side of car seat.
“Thank God,” Lois breathed. She twisted around for a second to smile at her little cousin before giving Clark a worried frown. “Did you … did you bring him to your father?”
Clark nodded.
“What happened? What did he say?”
“He'll be fine,” Clark mumbled. He felt odd, like his stomach was frozen. Or had gotten really tight.
“Okay, but what did he do? Did he give you any instructions, anything to watch out for? Say anything at all?”
“No.” It was getting hard to swallow. His saliva felt thick and stringy in his mouth. “Pull over.”
“He said 'pull over'?”
“No, you,” he panted. “Pull over.”
“Is something wrong?” she asked, but dutifully slid the mini-van to the side of the road. As soon as it stopped his door was open and his head was hovering over the gravel, his mouth spewing the ham sandwich and potato salad and baby-cut carrots he'd had for lunch over a clump of dandelions. In the back seat he heard Robbie sit up and begin to whine.
“Hey Robbie!” Lois called back. “Hey! It's okay. Just a pit stop. Go back to sleep.”
Robbie ignored her, his thin, nasal wail turning into a full-throated sob while Clark dry-heaved.
“Okay, how 'bout we sing your song, baby boy,” Lois suggested. “Aquaman, Aquaman, doin' the things an Aquaman can! Talkin' to fishes, holdin' his breath,” she sang, weaving pitchily through Chloe's rewrite of Particle Man. Her hand ran up and down Clark's back in time to the music, which was a little too fast to be soothing, but he gave her credit for trying. Plus his abdomen had stopped convulsing, which helped. Sucking in what would have been, for a human, a giddy-making quantity of oxygen, he sat up and sang along with her: “When he's underwater he's super-strong, fights the bad guys all day long, Everyone's friend, Aquaman.” They were both flat, but Robbie's cries quieted to whimpers when he saw Clark sit up and then faded completely when Lois started the car again.
“You gonna make it?” she asked.
He smiled reassuringly. “I will now.”
She smiled back, not quite reassured. “What just happened with you? Did Jor-El --”
“Jor-El didn't do anything.” That is, he didn't think he had. With Jor-El you never knew. “I think it just hit me all of a sudden that Robbie could have died.”
She took his hand. “But he didn't.” Her eyes were wide and her hand was trembling a little, but her voice was firm. In spite of her own anxieties, she was trying to comfort him. She always tried so hard.
“No,” he agreed. “He didn't.”
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It was quiet in the mini-van as they drove back. Robbie slept the entire ride to Metropolis and Clark told Lois he needed to listen for any deputies following them, which she didn't question even though they were back on the freeway and out of the Lowell County sheriff department's jurisdiction. As he listened, he could hear her heart slow until it was beating at its normal pace. She'd relaxed. The situation, as far as she was concerned, was under control. In her mind, Clark was on it and that was all she needed to know. That, more than anything she'd said, comforted him. She trusted in him so implicitly, and that meant he could trust her. Even now, when there was a huge question begging for an answer, he didn't have to worry about worrying her looking elsewhere for answers or going behind his back for solutions.
He loved her for that.
Her trust in him was precious and unique. It was a gift to him, one that he still didn't entirely believe was real. So many people had betrayed him, but Lois never would. He needed to protect that gift, and that meant he needed to be honest with her. He needed to tell her what had really happened. But neither could he dump unfounded suspicions on her willy-nilly. That wouldn't be fair to her. He had to be sure, himself, of what had happened before he unburdened himself to her. It was better to deal with the reality together than to let conjecture create doubts in her mind.
After all, it was possible that what he had told her was true. Jor-El could have taken pity on him after he'd left the Fortress and revived Robbie. It was by far the most likely explanation. Jor-El could and did act remotely, and he had only begun to tap the secrets the Fortress held. The fact that there had been only one crystal designed to turn back time didn't mean that Jor-El couldn't resurrect Robbie.
The question was why would he have done so? For pity? For some other reason? His early relationship with Jor-El had been filled with trials Clark hadn't been had neither understood nor accepted. He'd thought, now that he had accepted his destiny, that the time of testing was over. Still, it was possible Jor-El thought he had more to learn. On the other hand, it wouldn't be like Jor-El to do so and not tell him. That thought bothered him - he was an adult now, had been for years - but he put it aside. If he was being tested, it was important that he focus on the lesson being taught. Robbie was alive again; that meant there would be ramifications to be dealt with. He needed to be alert to those and consider them carefully, and, he reminded himself, certainly before he discussed the matter any further with Lois. She adored Robbie, and she knew what had happened to Jonathan. It would kill her with worry to think that the same, or worse, might happen to her little cousin. On the other hand...
Clark had to force himself to finish that thought. On the other hand, Robbie might be perfectly fine. He might be perfectly fine for a long, long time. Longer than Lois might live. Far longer, in fact, than Lois would live. If, that was, Jor-El had not healed Robbie. If Robbie had, as it happened, revived for other reasons. Reasons like the energy he'd received from the clear Artic sun.
How Robbie would be able to do that, he had not idea. Well, maybe a small idea. A very small idea:“You don't think we...” “Exchanged vows? Said 'I do'? Did the deed? Oh God. Don't say that.”
Clark grunted, shifting in his seat.
“You okay, Smallville?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah. It's a bit cramped.”
“Yeah, well, A) The compact was a better deal, and B) Hello? Invulnerability.”
“Being invulnerable doesn't mean I fit into a C-Max.”
She offered him a commiserating grin. “Well, if he takes after Ollie at all, in a year or two he'll be out of that car seat and we can put him into the back of an extended cab.”
He smiled, trying to match her recovering cheer. He also snuck in a look at Robbie, whose chin had fallen to his chest as he slept. “Grow fast, kid,” he whispered. Lois chuckled. They sat in companionable silence for a moment or two before her smile fell and her brows came together.
“What are we going to tell them?” she asked.
“You mean Chloe and Oliver?”
She nodded.
“We'll tell them the truth.”
“Of course,” she said quickly. “But how? 'Sorry, Ollie, but we turned our backs on your kid for a second and he kinda got hit by a car?'”
“We'll just stick to the facts. They'll be mad at first, but they'll be happier he's alive.”
“Mad? You think 'mad' is gonna cover it? Chloe's gonna shoot me. No, she's going to forbid me from ever seeing Robbie again, and then she's gonna shoot me. And then she's gonna whip out the Kryptonite on you.”
Clark drew a deep breath. Chloe. He would need to talk to her, find out what she knew. What she had been keeping from him.
“I'm sure we'll survive,” he said.
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They decided, after a short debate, to take Robbie directly to the Watchtower and text both Emil and Oliver to meet them there. Doctors, in Clark's experience, had a tendency not to notice the obvious, but it would be difficult even for them to explain how Robbie had survived his ordeal in such good shape to anyone who didn't know his secret. Besides which, there really wasn't a need for medical attention. He'd scanned Robbie every fifteen minutes or so during the trip and had yet to see anything odd, but Lois pointed out that nobody else could see what he saw; Oliver was going to want confirmation. Somewhat reluctantly, Clark agreed. Lois sent the messages once they hit the stop-and-go of Metropolis traffic while Clark tickled Robbie awake. As a treat Clark downloaded the LegoAngel app to his phone and let Robbie scroll through it with manic zest until they reached the Watchtower.
Courtney was on duty at that afternoon, which allowed Clark to relax a little. Courtney, like Lois, was not one for probing questions, at least not of her fellow teammates. Her smile for Robbie was as wide as his was shy, but after a few minutes of clinging to Lois and smiling back at, then hiding his face from, then lifting it up to smile again at Courtney, he relinquished his hold and demanded a keyboard to type on along-side his new crush.
“What happened?” Courtney whispered once she'd unplugged Robbie's keyboard from the tower. “He looks okay. Did he eat something funky?”
“No, nothing like that,” Lois said.
“He'll be fine,” Clark reassured.
“We're just being cautious,” Lois added.
“It broke,” Robbie announced.
Courtney smiled at him. “What's broke, sweetie?”
Robbie rolled his eyes, and pointed at the monitor. “The 'puter.” He pounded a few more keys. “See?”
“How 'bout we let Courtney fix it in peace,” Lois told him.
“How 'bout you fill me in on what happened?” Oliver said from the doorway.
“Papa!” Robbie yelled, jumping off the stool Courtney'd dragged out of storage for him and throwing himself into Oliver's arms. “Papa! We went, um, we went to the cold place and um, we went really fast, and um, um, Uncle Clark throwed up.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, he went, um, he went blaaaargh,” said Robbie. “Like this: BLAAAAARGH.” To demonstrate he leaned over Oliver's arm and stuck out his tongue. “BLAAAAARGH.”
“Really.” Oliver's lips twitched. “Did he throw up in the cold place?”
“No. After.”
“After the cold place?”
Robbie nodded. “Clark was just so worried,” Lois interjected.
“But everything's fine now,” Clark said. His cheeks were hot. Robbie obviously got the grand-standing gene from his Sullivan side.
“I'm sure it will be, but I gotta admit I'll feel better once I know what's going on. Lois, your text said there was an accident?”
“There was,” she answered.
“So all you've told me is it was bad enough that he had to go to 'the cold place,' which, no offense, doesn't exactly soothe my troubled mind.”
“It should,” Lois said. There was the slightest of edges to her voice as she said it. “Jor-El saved Robbie's life.”
“You're saying Robbie could have died?”
“He'll be fine,” Clark repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. “He's got no broken bones, no bruises, no pupil dilation. There's nothing wrong with him.”
“You don't mind if we double-check that, do you Big Blue?” It shouldn't have bothered Clark that Oliver immediately set the boy on Chloe's old desk and started running his hands over him, but it did.
“How are you feeling, buddy?” Oliver asked. “Do you feel dizzy? Like your head's a little wobbly?” Oliver demonstrated with his own head and Robbie giggled, twisting his own head around. “Okay, you don't feel dizzy. Can you see okay? How many fingers is Papa holding up? Show me with your hand.” Robbie carefully unpeeled his right index and middle fingers from his fist and held them up with his left hand. “Okay, good job.”
“I told you,” Clark gritted. “He's fine.”
“Yeah, you know what? I just sent my kid out to lunch with the Man of Steel and now I find out he's been in an accident so bad the only you'll tell me about it is that you had to visit the Winter Palace to make it all better. You'll forgive me if I'm a little anxious. Lois, you said you called Emil?”
“This is not Clark's fault. Some stupid b*tch pulled her stupid, giant SUV out of a parking spot and she wasn't looking and she hit Robbie. There was no way Clark could have stopped it without revealing to the whole damn town that Su … that the Man of Steel had been their next-door neighbor for 20 years. Is that what you would have wanted?”
“Yes!” Oliver yelled. “Jesus Christ, Lo! You think I'm gonna be objective where my kid's life's at stake?!”
Lois opened her mouth to yell back, but fell silent when Robbie gave a little grunt from where he'd been smushed into Oliver's chest. Oliver loosened his hold on the boy but kissed his forehead.
“Too hard!” Robbie protested.
“I'm sorry, buddy.”
The exchange seemed to dampen Lois' fire. Her shoulders slumped and her chin quivered. “It was like a nightmare happening right in front of us. I don't think either of us really believed it was happening. I mean... What else …” She wrung her hands. “I am so, so sorry.”
Hearing the apology, Oliver's ire dissipated as well. He gave her a tired little smile. “Did you a least punch the driver for me?”
“No. She was a mess. If she'd known she'd hit the Gre--, well, if she'd known who's kid he was we woulda have to have carted her off to Belle Reve.”
At “who's kid he was”, Clark flinched. No one noticed. Both Oliver and Lois were focused on Robbie, who was leaning out of Oliver's arms and reaching for Lois. The kid did have such a strong affinity for her, the way Connor had. Could that attraction be genetic? Was it possible to pass something like that on? Granted, Connor was a clone of him, but only a partial clone. He only shared half his genes with Clark - just as any natural-born child of his would. It was something to consider. He knew nothing about what to expect from a non-genetically engineered offspring. For that matter, he knew almost nothing about what to expect from the early years of a genetically engineered offspring. He wondered if Tess had kept any records, and, if so, where they might be.
Lost in that train of thought, he jumped when he heard Emil's footsteps crossing the threshold. “Sorry I'm late; this year's batch of students needs some extra hand-holding,” the doctor said. “Hey, Robbie!”
Robbie stared at the doctor, then at Oliver.
“Hi Dr. Hamilton!” said Lois, full of encouragement. Robbie craned his head up to look at her. The kid was smart enough to know something was up, if not exactly what.
“I heard you had an accident,” said Emil to Robbie. “How are you feeling?”
Robbie leaned his head into the crook of Lois' neck.
“Do you feel dizzy?” Emil asked. “You feel like you have to throw up?”
Robbie sat up in Lois' arms. “No. Uncle Clark did!”
Emile turned to frown at Clark. Balling his hand up, in quick succession he pointed his index finger and then made a 'V' with his thumb in the joint. G K - Green Kryptonite. Clark shook his head.
“Well, that sounds exciting,” Emil told the boy. “How 'bout you and Aunt Lois and your dad come upstairs with me? Have you been upstairs here?”
Robbie shook his head. “No.”
“Well then it's time to explore strange new worlds,” Emil told him. He led the way up the stairs, followed by Lois carrying Robbie and Oliver. Clark, uninvited, followed as well. In the medical bay Lois deposited Robbie on the cot while Emil punched a few buttons on the equipment and asked Oliver, in a low voice, “What happened?”
“From the sounds of it, an SUV,” Olivered answered.
Emil looked at him sharply. “Was he hit?”
Lois nodded. “He was running across the parking lot and a driver pulled out without seeing him. Luckily Clark was able to get him up to the, uh, 'cold place'.”
Emil stopped punching buttons. “I see. And what happened at the 'cold place'?”
“We went fast,” offered Robbie.
“I bet that was fun,” Emil said.
“Yeah, and then he throwed up --”
“Robbie, right now Papa and Aunt Lois and Uncle Clark need to talk to Dr. Hamilton,” Oliver interrupted.
“It wasn't anything momentous. I ran him up there and Jor-El did the rest,” Clark told Emil.
“Examined and treated him?”
“I'm a flopsy bunny,” Robbie informed Lois.
“The Fortress is programmed to accelerate tissue regeneration,” Clark said.
“You are?” Lois asked.
“You call that 'nothing momentous' and I'd give my left arm to know how it was done. Hey Robbie, can you look up at me for a minute?”
“An' you a mopsy bunny,” Robbie told Lois while Emil shone a penlight into his eyes.
“You'd have a mine a lot of space debris to replicate it at the hospital,” Clark said with a smile.
“Robbie, sit still,” Oliver said.
“Crystals can be synthesized. If we knew how the crystals of the fortress were coded, we could make them to spec, replicate their functions and bring them to patients all over the world.”
There was something in his eagerness Clark found disconcerting, although he wasn't sure exactly what it was. “Maybe. I'm not sure humanity's capable of handling all their functions.”
“You're not giving us much credit,” Emil answered before turning his attention back to his patient. “Hey, Robbie. How does your tummy feel? Does it hurt?”
Robbie shook his head.
“What about your head? Does your head hurt at all?”
Robbie shook his whole body this time, flopping back and forth on the cot.
“Okay. Can you touch your fingers to your nose? Like this?” Emil lifted one arm, then the other, to shoulder level and tapped his nose alternately with the forefingers of each hand.
Robbie guffawed, for some reason known only to him finding the operation funny, but he managed to mimic Emil perfectly.
“Well, you don't appear to be have coordination problems. What about walking?” Emil asked the adults. “Is he maintaining his balance?”
Lois shook her head. “Not that I've noticed. He slept most of the way back. Is that bad?”
“It's not recommended, but if the 'cold place' really did what Clark says it can do,” he said, darting a quick glance at Clark, “I'd say he's fine. His pupils contract. He's got no nausea, no headache, he remembers what happened to him afterward, he appears alert and stable. You may want to schedule a CT scan; in fact, if you do I'd be curious to see the results, but he looks thriving to me.”
“So is it safe to bring him back to Star City to see his pediatrician there or should I make an appointment here?” Oliver asked. There was a bit more edge to his voice than Emil's explanation warranted, thought Clark, but then Oliver had just been walloped with a nearly averted catastrophe.
“It's your call. In other circumstances I'd be worried about the plane ride; kids can go downhill pretty quickly, with little or no warning, and you wouldn't want to be stuck in the air when he does, but I'm sure Clark would be available for back-up. I know with Chloe's situation you're probably anxious to get home.”
Clark frowned . No one had mentioned a “situation” to him. “What's going on with Chloe?” he asked.
Author: latetothpartyhp / FlyingHigh
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, angst
Pairing(s): Chlark, Chlollie, Clois
Summary: Four years after his bachelor party, Clark is still pulling skeletons out of his closet. Sequel to Eradication, The Lens Through Which We Look and The Secret Parts of Fortune. None of them need to be read in order to understand this story. Note "The Secret Parts of Fortune" is rated NC-17.
Author's Note: Season 11? What Season 11? This story takes place after Clark becomes Superman but before the "seven years later". It assumes that Lex was first elected president in 2014 and the 2018 headline was announcing his decision to run again.
Table of Contents
Totally unrelated note: Thanks to bella8876 I found this nifty text-to-html converter that preserves formatting. Thanks!
“Clark? What's going on?”
“Just get us out of here.”
Lois nodded and pulled the van out. Thankfully the gawkers moved out of the way as she did so, the adults keeping a firm hold on the kids. The interfering man had gotten himself a phone, Clark noticed, so he had to speed out and knock that from his hand as well, but he was back in the car before even Lois knew he'd done it. She was peeling out of the parking lot, rolling through the stop-sign and racing down the county road at 60 miles an hour less than a minute after strapping Robbie into his seat.
Clark twisted back to look at the gossiping by-standers surrounding the interfering man, who was howling about the disappearance of the second phone. He swallowed a few times. “I think that guy back at the lake is going to call the cops on us,” he said.
“That sonuva--” Lois began, before remembering Robbie. She gave a quick glance back at him through the rear-view mirror and Clark heard her heart begin to speed. “His eyes are shut,” she said. “Should they be shut?”
Clark switched his gaze to Robbie, conked out in his car seat. He was, from what Clark could see from X-raying him, perfectly healthy: still no soft-tissue damage, no damage to the skull or any other bones, temperature normal, heart-rate and breathing normal for sleeping. He reached back and shook him in his car seat. “Hey, buddy. Wake up. Hey. Robbie!”
Two reluctant toddler lids raised themselves to half-mast and two sleepy eyes stared at him resentfully with rapidly contracting pupils.
“He's fine,” Clark said. “Aren't you buddy?” Robbie blinked a few times and then settled back against the side of car seat.
“Thank God,” Lois breathed. She twisted around for a second to smile at her little cousin before giving Clark a worried frown. “Did you … did you bring him to your father?”
Clark nodded.
“What happened? What did he say?”
“He'll be fine,” Clark mumbled. He felt odd, like his stomach was frozen. Or had gotten really tight.
“Okay, but what did he do? Did he give you any instructions, anything to watch out for? Say anything at all?”
“No.” It was getting hard to swallow. His saliva felt thick and stringy in his mouth. “Pull over.”
“He said 'pull over'?”
“No, you,” he panted. “Pull over.”
“Is something wrong?” she asked, but dutifully slid the mini-van to the side of the road. As soon as it stopped his door was open and his head was hovering over the gravel, his mouth spewing the ham sandwich and potato salad and baby-cut carrots he'd had for lunch over a clump of dandelions. In the back seat he heard Robbie sit up and begin to whine.
“Hey Robbie!” Lois called back. “Hey! It's okay. Just a pit stop. Go back to sleep.”
Robbie ignored her, his thin, nasal wail turning into a full-throated sob while Clark dry-heaved.
“Okay, how 'bout we sing your song, baby boy,” Lois suggested. “Aquaman, Aquaman, doin' the things an Aquaman can! Talkin' to fishes, holdin' his breath,” she sang, weaving pitchily through Chloe's rewrite of Particle Man. Her hand ran up and down Clark's back in time to the music, which was a little too fast to be soothing, but he gave her credit for trying. Plus his abdomen had stopped convulsing, which helped. Sucking in what would have been, for a human, a giddy-making quantity of oxygen, he sat up and sang along with her: “When he's underwater he's super-strong, fights the bad guys all day long, Everyone's friend, Aquaman.” They were both flat, but Robbie's cries quieted to whimpers when he saw Clark sit up and then faded completely when Lois started the car again.
“You gonna make it?” she asked.
He smiled reassuringly. “I will now.”
She smiled back, not quite reassured. “What just happened with you? Did Jor-El --”
“Jor-El didn't do anything.” That is, he didn't think he had. With Jor-El you never knew. “I think it just hit me all of a sudden that Robbie could have died.”
She took his hand. “But he didn't.” Her eyes were wide and her hand was trembling a little, but her voice was firm. In spite of her own anxieties, she was trying to comfort him. She always tried so hard.
“No,” he agreed. “He didn't.”
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It was quiet in the mini-van as they drove back. Robbie slept the entire ride to Metropolis and Clark told Lois he needed to listen for any deputies following them, which she didn't question even though they were back on the freeway and out of the Lowell County sheriff department's jurisdiction. As he listened, he could hear her heart slow until it was beating at its normal pace. She'd relaxed. The situation, as far as she was concerned, was under control. In her mind, Clark was on it and that was all she needed to know. That, more than anything she'd said, comforted him. She trusted in him so implicitly, and that meant he could trust her. Even now, when there was a huge question begging for an answer, he didn't have to worry about worrying her looking elsewhere for answers or going behind his back for solutions.
He loved her for that.
Her trust in him was precious and unique. It was a gift to him, one that he still didn't entirely believe was real. So many people had betrayed him, but Lois never would. He needed to protect that gift, and that meant he needed to be honest with her. He needed to tell her what had really happened. But neither could he dump unfounded suspicions on her willy-nilly. That wouldn't be fair to her. He had to be sure, himself, of what had happened before he unburdened himself to her. It was better to deal with the reality together than to let conjecture create doubts in her mind.
After all, it was possible that what he had told her was true. Jor-El could have taken pity on him after he'd left the Fortress and revived Robbie. It was by far the most likely explanation. Jor-El could and did act remotely, and he had only begun to tap the secrets the Fortress held. The fact that there had been only one crystal designed to turn back time didn't mean that Jor-El couldn't resurrect Robbie.
The question was why would he have done so? For pity? For some other reason? His early relationship with Jor-El had been filled with trials Clark hadn't been had neither understood nor accepted. He'd thought, now that he had accepted his destiny, that the time of testing was over. Still, it was possible Jor-El thought he had more to learn. On the other hand, it wouldn't be like Jor-El to do so and not tell him. That thought bothered him - he was an adult now, had been for years - but he put it aside. If he was being tested, it was important that he focus on the lesson being taught. Robbie was alive again; that meant there would be ramifications to be dealt with. He needed to be alert to those and consider them carefully, and, he reminded himself, certainly before he discussed the matter any further with Lois. She adored Robbie, and she knew what had happened to Jonathan. It would kill her with worry to think that the same, or worse, might happen to her little cousin. On the other hand...
Clark had to force himself to finish that thought. On the other hand, Robbie might be perfectly fine. He might be perfectly fine for a long, long time. Longer than Lois might live. Far longer, in fact, than Lois would live. If, that was, Jor-El had not healed Robbie. If Robbie had, as it happened, revived for other reasons. Reasons like the energy he'd received from the clear Artic sun.
How Robbie would be able to do that, he had not idea. Well, maybe a small idea. A very small idea:“You don't think we...” “Exchanged vows? Said 'I do'? Did the deed? Oh God. Don't say that.”
Clark grunted, shifting in his seat.
“You okay, Smallville?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah. It's a bit cramped.”
“Yeah, well, A) The compact was a better deal, and B) Hello? Invulnerability.”
“Being invulnerable doesn't mean I fit into a C-Max.”
She offered him a commiserating grin. “Well, if he takes after Ollie at all, in a year or two he'll be out of that car seat and we can put him into the back of an extended cab.”
He smiled, trying to match her recovering cheer. He also snuck in a look at Robbie, whose chin had fallen to his chest as he slept. “Grow fast, kid,” he whispered. Lois chuckled. They sat in companionable silence for a moment or two before her smile fell and her brows came together.
“What are we going to tell them?” she asked.
“You mean Chloe and Oliver?”
She nodded.
“We'll tell them the truth.”
“Of course,” she said quickly. “But how? 'Sorry, Ollie, but we turned our backs on your kid for a second and he kinda got hit by a car?'”
“We'll just stick to the facts. They'll be mad at first, but they'll be happier he's alive.”
“Mad? You think 'mad' is gonna cover it? Chloe's gonna shoot me. No, she's going to forbid me from ever seeing Robbie again, and then she's gonna shoot me. And then she's gonna whip out the Kryptonite on you.”
Clark drew a deep breath. Chloe. He would need to talk to her, find out what she knew. What she had been keeping from him.
“I'm sure we'll survive,” he said.
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They decided, after a short debate, to take Robbie directly to the Watchtower and text both Emil and Oliver to meet them there. Doctors, in Clark's experience, had a tendency not to notice the obvious, but it would be difficult even for them to explain how Robbie had survived his ordeal in such good shape to anyone who didn't know his secret. Besides which, there really wasn't a need for medical attention. He'd scanned Robbie every fifteen minutes or so during the trip and had yet to see anything odd, but Lois pointed out that nobody else could see what he saw; Oliver was going to want confirmation. Somewhat reluctantly, Clark agreed. Lois sent the messages once they hit the stop-and-go of Metropolis traffic while Clark tickled Robbie awake. As a treat Clark downloaded the LegoAngel app to his phone and let Robbie scroll through it with manic zest until they reached the Watchtower.
Courtney was on duty at that afternoon, which allowed Clark to relax a little. Courtney, like Lois, was not one for probing questions, at least not of her fellow teammates. Her smile for Robbie was as wide as his was shy, but after a few minutes of clinging to Lois and smiling back at, then hiding his face from, then lifting it up to smile again at Courtney, he relinquished his hold and demanded a keyboard to type on along-side his new crush.
“What happened?” Courtney whispered once she'd unplugged Robbie's keyboard from the tower. “He looks okay. Did he eat something funky?”
“No, nothing like that,” Lois said.
“He'll be fine,” Clark reassured.
“We're just being cautious,” Lois added.
“It broke,” Robbie announced.
Courtney smiled at him. “What's broke, sweetie?”
Robbie rolled his eyes, and pointed at the monitor. “The 'puter.” He pounded a few more keys. “See?”
“How 'bout we let Courtney fix it in peace,” Lois told him.
“How 'bout you fill me in on what happened?” Oliver said from the doorway.
“Papa!” Robbie yelled, jumping off the stool Courtney'd dragged out of storage for him and throwing himself into Oliver's arms. “Papa! We went, um, we went to the cold place and um, we went really fast, and um, um, Uncle Clark throwed up.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, he went, um, he went blaaaargh,” said Robbie. “Like this: BLAAAAARGH.” To demonstrate he leaned over Oliver's arm and stuck out his tongue. “BLAAAAARGH.”
“Really.” Oliver's lips twitched. “Did he throw up in the cold place?”
“No. After.”
“After the cold place?”
Robbie nodded. “Clark was just so worried,” Lois interjected.
“But everything's fine now,” Clark said. His cheeks were hot. Robbie obviously got the grand-standing gene from his Sullivan side.
“I'm sure it will be, but I gotta admit I'll feel better once I know what's going on. Lois, your text said there was an accident?”
“There was,” she answered.
“So all you've told me is it was bad enough that he had to go to 'the cold place,' which, no offense, doesn't exactly soothe my troubled mind.”
“It should,” Lois said. There was the slightest of edges to her voice as she said it. “Jor-El saved Robbie's life.”
“You're saying Robbie could have died?”
“He'll be fine,” Clark repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. “He's got no broken bones, no bruises, no pupil dilation. There's nothing wrong with him.”
“You don't mind if we double-check that, do you Big Blue?” It shouldn't have bothered Clark that Oliver immediately set the boy on Chloe's old desk and started running his hands over him, but it did.
“How are you feeling, buddy?” Oliver asked. “Do you feel dizzy? Like your head's a little wobbly?” Oliver demonstrated with his own head and Robbie giggled, twisting his own head around. “Okay, you don't feel dizzy. Can you see okay? How many fingers is Papa holding up? Show me with your hand.” Robbie carefully unpeeled his right index and middle fingers from his fist and held them up with his left hand. “Okay, good job.”
“I told you,” Clark gritted. “He's fine.”
“Yeah, you know what? I just sent my kid out to lunch with the Man of Steel and now I find out he's been in an accident so bad the only you'll tell me about it is that you had to visit the Winter Palace to make it all better. You'll forgive me if I'm a little anxious. Lois, you said you called Emil?”
“This is not Clark's fault. Some stupid b*tch pulled her stupid, giant SUV out of a parking spot and she wasn't looking and she hit Robbie. There was no way Clark could have stopped it without revealing to the whole damn town that Su … that the Man of Steel had been their next-door neighbor for 20 years. Is that what you would have wanted?”
“Yes!” Oliver yelled. “Jesus Christ, Lo! You think I'm gonna be objective where my kid's life's at stake?!”
Lois opened her mouth to yell back, but fell silent when Robbie gave a little grunt from where he'd been smushed into Oliver's chest. Oliver loosened his hold on the boy but kissed his forehead.
“Too hard!” Robbie protested.
“I'm sorry, buddy.”
The exchange seemed to dampen Lois' fire. Her shoulders slumped and her chin quivered. “It was like a nightmare happening right in front of us. I don't think either of us really believed it was happening. I mean... What else …” She wrung her hands. “I am so, so sorry.”
Hearing the apology, Oliver's ire dissipated as well. He gave her a tired little smile. “Did you a least punch the driver for me?”
“No. She was a mess. If she'd known she'd hit the Gre--, well, if she'd known who's kid he was we woulda have to have carted her off to Belle Reve.”
At “who's kid he was”, Clark flinched. No one noticed. Both Oliver and Lois were focused on Robbie, who was leaning out of Oliver's arms and reaching for Lois. The kid did have such a strong affinity for her, the way Connor had. Could that attraction be genetic? Was it possible to pass something like that on? Granted, Connor was a clone of him, but only a partial clone. He only shared half his genes with Clark - just as any natural-born child of his would. It was something to consider. He knew nothing about what to expect from a non-genetically engineered offspring. For that matter, he knew almost nothing about what to expect from the early years of a genetically engineered offspring. He wondered if Tess had kept any records, and, if so, where they might be.
Lost in that train of thought, he jumped when he heard Emil's footsteps crossing the threshold. “Sorry I'm late; this year's batch of students needs some extra hand-holding,” the doctor said. “Hey, Robbie!”
Robbie stared at the doctor, then at Oliver.
“Hi Dr. Hamilton!” said Lois, full of encouragement. Robbie craned his head up to look at her. The kid was smart enough to know something was up, if not exactly what.
“I heard you had an accident,” said Emil to Robbie. “How are you feeling?”
Robbie leaned his head into the crook of Lois' neck.
“Do you feel dizzy?” Emil asked. “You feel like you have to throw up?”
Robbie sat up in Lois' arms. “No. Uncle Clark did!”
Emile turned to frown at Clark. Balling his hand up, in quick succession he pointed his index finger and then made a 'V' with his thumb in the joint. G K - Green Kryptonite. Clark shook his head.
“Well, that sounds exciting,” Emil told the boy. “How 'bout you and Aunt Lois and your dad come upstairs with me? Have you been upstairs here?”
Robbie shook his head. “No.”
“Well then it's time to explore strange new worlds,” Emil told him. He led the way up the stairs, followed by Lois carrying Robbie and Oliver. Clark, uninvited, followed as well. In the medical bay Lois deposited Robbie on the cot while Emil punched a few buttons on the equipment and asked Oliver, in a low voice, “What happened?”
“From the sounds of it, an SUV,” Olivered answered.
Emil looked at him sharply. “Was he hit?”
Lois nodded. “He was running across the parking lot and a driver pulled out without seeing him. Luckily Clark was able to get him up to the, uh, 'cold place'.”
Emil stopped punching buttons. “I see. And what happened at the 'cold place'?”
“We went fast,” offered Robbie.
“I bet that was fun,” Emil said.
“Yeah, and then he throwed up --”
“Robbie, right now Papa and Aunt Lois and Uncle Clark need to talk to Dr. Hamilton,” Oliver interrupted.
“It wasn't anything momentous. I ran him up there and Jor-El did the rest,” Clark told Emil.
“Examined and treated him?”
“I'm a flopsy bunny,” Robbie informed Lois.
“The Fortress is programmed to accelerate tissue regeneration,” Clark said.
“You are?” Lois asked.
“You call that 'nothing momentous' and I'd give my left arm to know how it was done. Hey Robbie, can you look up at me for a minute?”
“An' you a mopsy bunny,” Robbie told Lois while Emil shone a penlight into his eyes.
“You'd have a mine a lot of space debris to replicate it at the hospital,” Clark said with a smile.
“Robbie, sit still,” Oliver said.
“Crystals can be synthesized. If we knew how the crystals of the fortress were coded, we could make them to spec, replicate their functions and bring them to patients all over the world.”
There was something in his eagerness Clark found disconcerting, although he wasn't sure exactly what it was. “Maybe. I'm not sure humanity's capable of handling all their functions.”
“You're not giving us much credit,” Emil answered before turning his attention back to his patient. “Hey, Robbie. How does your tummy feel? Does it hurt?”
Robbie shook his head.
“What about your head? Does your head hurt at all?”
Robbie shook his whole body this time, flopping back and forth on the cot.
“Okay. Can you touch your fingers to your nose? Like this?” Emil lifted one arm, then the other, to shoulder level and tapped his nose alternately with the forefingers of each hand.
Robbie guffawed, for some reason known only to him finding the operation funny, but he managed to mimic Emil perfectly.
“Well, you don't appear to be have coordination problems. What about walking?” Emil asked the adults. “Is he maintaining his balance?”
Lois shook her head. “Not that I've noticed. He slept most of the way back. Is that bad?”
“It's not recommended, but if the 'cold place' really did what Clark says it can do,” he said, darting a quick glance at Clark, “I'd say he's fine. His pupils contract. He's got no nausea, no headache, he remembers what happened to him afterward, he appears alert and stable. You may want to schedule a CT scan; in fact, if you do I'd be curious to see the results, but he looks thriving to me.”
“So is it safe to bring him back to Star City to see his pediatrician there or should I make an appointment here?” Oliver asked. There was a bit more edge to his voice than Emil's explanation warranted, thought Clark, but then Oliver had just been walloped with a nearly averted catastrophe.
“It's your call. In other circumstances I'd be worried about the plane ride; kids can go downhill pretty quickly, with little or no warning, and you wouldn't want to be stuck in the air when he does, but I'm sure Clark would be available for back-up. I know with Chloe's situation you're probably anxious to get home.”
Clark frowned . No one had mentioned a “situation” to him. “What's going on with Chloe?” he asked.