9-1-1

Instinct took over. She punched in the numbers, heard the operator. Croaked something into the phone...and then closed her eyes, letting the phone fall onto the floor next to her.

Lois sat by the window in her parent's house. The sun was setting, a fresh breeze blowing in, the scent of honeysuckle, dandelions catching in the screen. The baby cried. She turned her head—the room was decorated as a nursery, just it had been when her sister was born. The crib was there, a mobile rotating slowly over top of it. The reporter rose, she was dressed in some kind of gown, naked beneath. The baby cried again, more insistently, and she took a step toward it, then froze in sudden fear. Overcoming it, she stepped closer...closer...until she could stare into the crib...

"Lois?"

The reporter woke with a start...and stared into the familiar, worried eyes of Clark Kent, behind the thick black plastic frames of his glasses. He was dressed in the crumpled suit he'd been wearing at work, obviously not having changed yet. She blinked and looked around.

A hospital bed, IV tubes in her arms, an identity bracelet around her left wrist. There was the noise of hustle and bustle of a hospital, but they were screened off by ugly curtains. She tried to sit up, and felt suddenly weak and dizzy. Clark leaned forward and placed the controls for the adjustable bed into her left hand. Lois thumbed an arrow and motors hummed, moving her back up.

"The emergency medical technicians found you; they said you were dangerously dehydrated...especially for someone in your condition," his glasses were slipping down his nose and he instinctively pushed them back up. "I was passing by the emergency room when you were wheeled in, and fortunately I'm on your emergency contact list."

"My condition?" Lois said. She felt weak, but better than she had when she had passed out.

Then she noticed the bulge beneath the blanket.

With a shaky hand, the reporter pushed it aside. She was wearing a paper smock, light blue in color. Not caring that Clark was here, she crumpled it up, pushing it over her stomach.

Her stomach.

The pale dome of her belly looked nearly full-term, blue veins clear against the shiny white skin. Her navel had popped out, going from an innie to an outie, looking absurdly like a nipple on a tremendous breast.

"Lois," Clark said. "I know you weren't pregnant this morning. I need to know what happened to you tonight."