"Lois—" Perry White sputtered, groping mentally for a middle name, and coming up with nothing. "Lois Lane, you march your butt back home right now."

The Daily Planet newsroom was a flurry of activity. Interns plugged in spare television sets and strung a dizzying suicidal web of cable just above the bullpen. The constant murmur of telephone conversation had reached a fever pitch. Computer screens were alight with information sheets from STAR Labs and the United States Air Force. Three photographers were clustered around the elevators, trading terse comments as they waited for the car to arrive. Murphy and Parrish were tucking extra steno pads into their bags, draining one last cup of coffee before departing to the launch pad. Everyone had a job; everyone had one eye to the televisions, waiting for the LNN newscaster to break into the lunchtime soap opera with the special report.

Lois stood in the middle of it all, purse still over one shoulder, her own gaze centered on the largest, crispest television screen. At Perry's outburst, she swung her head around toward him, her eyes wide with feigned innocence. Her hair even fluttered slightly; she had let it grow out a little, and it framed her face.

That wasn't what most people noticed, recently. Not the longer hair, not the flushed golden glow of her skin, not her energy. Rather, the eight-month-swelled belly that preceded Lois into any room, today hugged by wide white and navy stripes under a beige blazer that wouldn't button by any stretch of the imagination and a pair of incredibly forgiving maternity jeans. Navy enamel buttons hung from her ears, and her hands, so swelled that her wedding ring had already been resized twice, roamed unconsciously over her belly, up and down in a soft perpetual stroke.

"Perry, listen—"

"No!" Perry shook his fist, barreling out of his office. "No listening! I will not have you giving birth in my bullpen!"

Lois put her hands on her almost invisible hips, her brown eyes flashing. "I wouldn't have to, if you hadn't assigned my husband to do a human-interest piece at the launch!"

"Now, Lois—" Perry lowered his voice, waving his hand in a conciliatory gesture.

"And what place in Metropolis could possibly be safer?"

Jimmy walked by, carrying a stack of galleys from the press. "Metropolis General, for one?" he volunteered, hunching his shoulders protectively as Lois directed another glare at him.

"He's right," Perry said gently.

Lois shook her head. "There's two weeks until my due date. I'll be fine."

She watched Perry wonder whether to correct her with any of the statistics or facts she already knew from the million baby books Clark had read and quoted to her, but in the end he threw his hands up in exasperation and marched back into his office, muttering something about stubborn reporters.

Lois, letting a triumphant grin steal across her face, sat down at her desk and pulled open the second drawer. While the computer keyboard and glossy surface of her uncharacteristically clear desk were dulled by a thin layer of dust, the double fudge crunch bar she unwrapped had been bought right before her doctor-mandated leave of absence. Lois's eyes closed in rapture as she propped up her swelled feet, keeping herself at an optimal angle to view the large television set without straining, and took a big first bite.

--

"Lois, honey, I—"

Moving at human-speed through their front door, into the heart of their brownstone, Clark paused. Though he was mentally split into five different directions, was almost vibrating with need and obligation, all of him centered suddenly in the stillness.

He didn't bother calling for his wife again. She was not here. Her purse wasn't on its customary table by the front door; the television and lights were off. More than that, though, despite his fervent wish that she was keeping it easy, was asleep in their bedroom, he couldn't hear her heartbeat.

Wherever she was, her gaze was glued to a television set. That much he knew. Because if she was at the launch site—

Clark cut that line of thinking off with a curt shake of his head as he took the steps, two at a time, to their room. She wasn't there, but he found the chain he had forgotten in her jewelry box. Closing his eyes for a second, he parted the chain and let one end drop through the circle of his wedding band, then linked it around his neck, tucking it under the square neck of his suit.

Under no circumstances would he risk losing that ring, if there was any way he could possibly help it.

Just like he would not, under any circumstances, let Lois get away with this. Not entirely, anyway.

On his way to the launch pad, though, the high yellow sun bearing down on his back, the breeze parted by his fingertips as it skimmed down the sleek lines of his suit, Clark let his gaze drift to that familiar point on the landscape, his heightened vision splitting the barriers between him and the Daily Planet newsroom, down to the rectangle of Lois's desk. In the blink before she was out of his line of sight, her head dropped back, almost as though she could feel the weight of his gaze on her and was trying to return it.

Clark chuckled and shook his head, angling for his descent to the launch pad. His wife was, quite possibly, the most exasperating person he'd ever met.

He wouldn't change her for worlds.

--

To everyone else, their soon to be born son was a garden-variety miracle. Exactly three other people knew how remarkable, how amazing an event his birth would be: Clark's adopted parents, and Dr. Bernard Klein.

The Daily Planet readers didn't know that the same reporter who they trusted for updates on the latest conflict in the Middle East and hard-hitting exposes on corporate corruption had wept, her heart entirely broken, over two miscarriages, her grief only deepened when Dr. Klein admitted that he had no reason to give them, no advice to offer.

Clark had, bolstered by H.G. Wells' prediction of their future, finally come up with a plan. Dr. Klein's experience was limited to human physiology. But the Kryptonians, in their new colony, could provide some knowledge of their own. After they had weighed the risks, Clark had decided to go, although Lois had remained unconvinced, reminding him that he could very well kill himself believing that his future was set, when they had both experienced the exception to that particular rule.

Clark also hadn't been entirely able to forget that Zara had, for so brief a time, been his wife. Though Lois had forgiven that particular interlude, and harbored Zara no ill will, the irony was not lost on him. Presumably, with Zara, he would have had no such trouble. But Lois, the love of his life, his chosen mate, was bent by grief at their loss, and he was left powerless in the face of it.

He had to do it. If only to heal her broken heart, their broken hearts.

Three months after his return, two months after Dr. Klein had taken the enzyme Clark brought him and synthesized it into one Lois's physiology could metabolize, Lois had turned to Clark in the night and picked up his large, warm hand, cupped it over her side, over the warmth of her coffee-colored-silk slip.

"Lois?" he had whispered sleepily, his fingers drifting in slow circles toward the small of her back.

"It will be different this time, Clark."

"It will," he nodded, nuzzling into her. "It will."

Together they counted every single day once Dr. Klein confirmed this pregnancy, holding their breath through the dates that marked the duration of each of her previous ones. At the end of her sixth month, Dr. Klein was more cautiously optimistic than they had ever seen him.

It was when Lois was six months, one day along, that the government sent out the call for Superman's help.

--

Lois had already made Clark swear that he would be by her side for the delivery. Every woman knew her child was special; Lois was sure of it. Never before, never ever before, had there ever been a half-Kryptonian, half-earthling born. Never. Dr. Klein had become accustomed to worried calls from Lois at three o'clock in the morning, babbling about the importance of unfiltered sunlight in the delivery room, worries about how anesthesia might hurt the baby, but Clark heard the other overwrought nightmare scenarios Lois was fond of weaving, and even when he managed to talk her out of calling Dr. Klein, the nervous worry in her voice was almost infectious. Almost. But to give in to Lois's escalating nervousness was to send it spiraling out of control, and Clark had long known he was the levelheaded one in their relationship.

(He didn't like to actually say it, though, because then Lois brought up his 'for your own good' breakup, and he had to work very hard to distract her. While the makeup sex was great, he didn't like to think about it, because sometimes, that logic still held. He would do anything for her, would brave anything for her, if only because if he didn't, she would do it first.)

More than his promise, though, Clark would under no circumstance miss the birth of his first child. The Earth could hold its breath for a day. Nothing could draw her from his side. Once Dr. Klein told him that the baby would most likely live in the event of premature birth, Clark had been ripped from deep sleep by more than a few nightmares. He would be entirely powerless, if someone figured out this weakness. If she were kidnapped, he would kill anything in his path to get her back. Every time, he turned over and saw her beside him, feeling his heart slow, his panic sink back to tolerable levels.

Even so, it seemed the Earth wasn't willing to hold its breath.

It took every bit of Clark's considerable will to keep from screaming, to just stand impassive with his hands clasped and his expression neutral but concerned as the generals explained the issue. An unidentified body of unknown origin was on a collision course with Earth. While it was slightly smaller than the Nightfall asteroid, the risk was still great. If they waited until the asteroid was within range of their weapons, the repercussions of error or failure would be even greater.

And, of course, the asteroid was set to collide with the planet a mere three days before Lois's due date.

Of course.

With half his mind set to the task, Clark heard himself calmly discussing strategy, admitting that he had access to an alternate form of transportation that would make interstellar travel easier, memorizing schematics, while the other half was screaming.

I'm going to be a father. A father. Why can't it wait, why can't we try something else.

But he already knew. If everyone died, Lois would die too. His son could die too. He wasn't just saving them; he was saving everyone, giving his child a future. Fate just had a strange sense of an appropriate timetable.

--

Lois had been able to stay at the brownstone for exactly twelve seconds after Clark left. Then she had a panic attack, and the stillness had begun to file away at her already frayed nerves.

Nightfall.

What Clark didn't understand was that it didn't matter where she was, if something happened to him again. If he plummeted back to Earth, knocked senseless by the impact, or worse, it wouldn't matter if she was with his parents, or if she was surrounded by fifty of the best Secret Service agents; it wouldn't change anything.

Space. Cold, unblinking space. And Clark would be like an ant against a football, alone.

There was exactly one place Lois felt safe, without Clark. The Daily Planet bullpen.

From the moment she'd arrived, though, she felt out of sync. She had no assignment, nothing to be working on, and to everyone around her, the press briefing at the launch pad was just that: an assignment. Superman would win; he would vanquish the threat and the world would go back to what it was. That was the order of things. If he was lost, the military would take care of it, and the world would mourn, but that was it.

Superman had no girlfriend or wife, no child on the way, no parents, just a set of distant relatives on a far-off colony.

Clark, though. Clark had all those things. While she finished the last bite of her candy bar, smiling, inside she felt nothing but sheer terror; when the newscaster announced that they would begin the live feed from the launch pad after the next commercial break, her heart skipped a beat.

She knew the schedule. Although the reporters were all hoping to catch a glimpse of the sleek, otherworldly Kryptonian ship Clark would use for the majority of his journey, Lois knew that it was still safely hidden at his parents' farm. Clark had wanted to take her there, to leave her with his parents while he was gone, to keep her safe.

While she adored his parents, she knew that scouring the news outlets from a farm in Kansas would only make her more frantic.

"And now, live from the Metropolis launch pad—"

Lois clenched the candy bar wrapper tight in her fist, inadvertently sliding back a few inches in her rolling swivel chair as her palm pressed to the desk. Her brown eyes were riveted to the screen, and though she had felt overheated during the majority of her pregnancy, she was suddenly cold.

"Superman, how long do you anticipate this mission taking?" The reporter, his face carefully arranged in a serious expression, extended the microphone to Lois's husband.

"That depends on a lot of factors, many of which are out of my control," Superman replied, a little more severely than usual, his muscles standing tight under his suit as he crossed his arms.

Lois relaxed a few notches, even though she knew his assured answers were only for the benefit of the cameras and the general heightened mood of everyone watching. He couldn't help but sound good.

It was when Superman turned to Murphy, calling out the next obvious question, that Lois saw a single glint at the neck of his suit. The necklace he wore, to keep his ring close to his heart while he couldn't wear it on his hand.

At that, Lois almost slumped down to the desk and gave herself over to her panic.

All too soon, the press conference was over. With a parting assurance that everything would be fine and a quick wave of his hand, he was gone.

He would be back. He had to be back.

Lois closed her eyes and tried with every bit of her will to reach through that link between them, the telepathic communication that Clark shared with other Kryptonians and had, at times, been able to share with her, but she was frustrated, again, at her powerlessness, at her inability to tell him one more time that she loved him, that she would wait for him, that he had to come back in one piece, for her and their son. Just one last time.

For a second, the buzz and din of the newsroom faded, and she felt him, felt the ghost of his breath against her ear, the phantom brush of his lashes against her cheek.

You stay safe, Lois. If you have that baby while I'm gone, I promise I'll never forgive you. Ever.

I love you.

Lois shook her head, her lashes wet with sudden tears. Though she knew he couldn't hear it, she screamed it in her mind as loud as she could.

If you miss him being born, I'll never forgive you either. Don't you spend one more second out there than you have to, or I'll come get you, I swear it.

I love you, Clark.

"Lois?"

Lois's eyes jolted open, and she quickly dug her fists against her eyes, clearing the tears before she answered her editor. "Perry?"

"Long as you aren't doing anything, think you can go ahead and prep the story on Superman's return?"

Lois shot him a grateful smile before she pressed the power button on her terminal. "Counting your chickens, Chief?"

"Never," he guffawed. "Never. Now you get to work, before I send you down to the press to cart newsprint around."

As Perry headed back into his office, Lois opened a new document, staring at the monitor for a second before setting her fingers to the keys.

By Lois Lane & Clark Kent.

She smiled and got to work.