End: Lois Lane is Perpetually Pregnant

Doctor Midnite slid the ultrasound probe over Lois Lane's slightly-distended abdomen. Superman held her hand, mouth a taut line, face utterly unreadable. The reporter couldn't imagine what he must have felt, when she had finally gotten through to him on the phone and explained the situation. Which is how she had ended up here, in a Justice League medical facility, still trying to wrap her head around what madness had gripped her tonight.

"...three...four...five embryos, about four weeks along, I'd say. Impossible to say at this point if they're human or otherwise," the doctor muttered under his breath. Lois noticed that the probe had made a slow circumnavigation of the glowing pentacle on her stomach. She swallowed hard as the probe spiraled in to the center...and the image on the screen became a squirming dark blob.

Right before it exploded.

"Ah," Doctor Midnite said, and Lois was glad the old man was wearing those smoky goggles. He pulled the probe away from her abdomen.

Zatanna, who had been standing behind him muttered and gestured:

".tcejbo riapeR"

Lois Lane felt a tingle in her womb as the screen un-exploded...and they stared at the final image that was locked on there.

"Well, normally I would say you look like you're four weeks pregnant with quintuplets, which accounts for the distension of the abdomen. All very normal for a multiple pregnancy. This, however..." He tapped the screen.

"It's a hellgate," Zatanna said, the sorceress shaking her head ruefully. "Millions of damned souls and demons, trying to squeeze through to occupy a fertilized egg before it becomes ensouled."

"Which might well be all of them. I examined the sample of semen from her vaginal canal I took earlier," the doctor said. "Normally, sperm dies in a few hours or days. This sperm is...resilient, possibly immortal."

The reporter sucked in her breath and squeeze Superman's hand.

"So...what happens when I give birth?" she said.

"I think...you get pregnant again. Automatically," Doctor Midnite said. "I think every time your body releases an egg, it will automatically be fertilized. If the fertilized egg attaches, you're pregnant. We'll need to monitor you to make sure it attaches in your womb, otherwise you'll have an ectopic pregnancy. But short removing your ovaries entirely...I don't think there's any way to cease the process." the doctor's voice sounded sad.

"I don't think surgery is a good idea," Zatanna said. "This gate is stable now, but any changes to the anchoring-points, and it could collapse...or open entirely. Lois Lane would be nothing more than a flesh-gate to hell, her soul destroyed, her body warped as legions of demons and damned crowded through."

"Can the gate be closed?" Superman asked, as his thumb caressed Lois Lane's knuckle. "Or the sperm removed and destroyed?"

Zatanna and Doctor Midnite looked at each other.

"Maybe," they said in unison. There was a brief smile, and then Zatanna went on. "But we couldn't try it until after the current pregnancy is finished, or else it would risk the fetuses."

Doctor Midnite coughed. "That is to say, if you don't wish to...terminate the pregnancy. That is an option."

Lois Lane frowned. She knew this choice was coming, but had tried to put it out of her mind.

"Give us a minute, please." The pregnant reporter asked.

Doctor Midnite and Zatanna left. Lois looked up at Superman, tears in her violet eyes.

Superman placed his other hand over hers. His hands were so warm, it was as if a summer day had cupped her hand in his own.

"Whatever you decide, Lois," the Man of Steel said. "I'll be there for you. I promise."

"Even if I'm perpetually pregnant?" She whispered. "Just bloated and fat, giving birth again and again?"

The grim line of his mouth turned up a little at the corners. He guided her hand over to his crotch...and Lois Lane's eyes went wide as she felt the hardness there, beneath the cloth. Bigger than Blaze.

"I...have a bit of a pregnancy fetish," he confessed.

Lois licked her lips. Maybe their relationship had a future after all.