End: Lois Tells Clark Everything

In a state of shock, staring at her distended abdomen, not caring that she was half-naked before Clark Kent, Lois Lane recounted the whole story. Her hands roamed over the naked stomach. So...firm. The skin taut. There were red striations where the skin had stretched too far, too fast. The events that Lois recounted felt as if they had happened months or years ago, yet the reporter knew they had happened just that night.

Clark Kent listened. Like a good reporter, he asked the occasional clarifying question, but let Lois go at her own pace, in her own way. His blue eyes fixed on the dome of a belly as if staring through the pale skin and stretched muscle to the bulging womb within.

It sounded so strange to Lois...the club, the shrine, the bottle, the ghost...and yet here she was.

"Magic," he said, his handsome mouth twisting into a frown. "I'll call the Justice League—Zatanna, Doctor Fate, they might be able to deal with this."

Lois Lane's spine stiffened.

"What do you mean 'deal with it?'" She said.

He raised his head and their eyes met.

"I just...think you should have options. You don't have to..." Clark Kent searched for words. "I'm not suggesting an abortion, if you want to keep the baby. I'm just saying we should find out how this happened..."

"I told you how it happened," Lois said, shaking with emotions she couldn't name.

"...and who is behind it. This didn't happen by accident, Lois. Someone put that bottle in your path. Manipulated events so that this would happen. Please. Let me help you."

The reporter's jaw worked. It was so hard to process what was happening to her. The implications for her life, and the life of the fetus inside of her. A part of her wondered whether it was even really her child at all. Clark loomed there, a monolith of patience...and in the end, it came down to trust. She trusted him.

"Make the call," she said simply. He nodded and left.

Leaving Lois alone with her bump. Running her hands around it. Wincing at the occasional cramp that went through her body, probbaly from staying too long in one position. She shifted on the hospital bed, the weight of the gravid abdomen sitting low on her, hips sore. The cramp stretched to her lower back...and Lois winced. Wondered how pregnant women did this for nine whole months...

When Clark Kent came back, a few minutes later, he was followed by a leggy, dark-haired woman in a top hat, tails, and fishnet stockings—Zatanna Zatara, whom Lois had known of old...and a tall man with a golden helmet, the mask drawn down to totally conceal his face, a strange amulet on his breast, a golden cape behind him; Doctor Fate, the sorcerer or wizard or whatever he was, rumored to be thousands of years old. They treated Clark Kent as equals...Clark Kent who moved right back to Lois Lane's side as though he had never left, who no more slouched or stammered.

They consulted Lois as a pair of doctors might a patient. Asking questions, doing strange, arcane proceedings without telling her why. A pale, golden light washed out from Doctor Fate's amulet to shine full on the reporter's bared belly. Zatanna spoke incantations in that strangely clipped backwards-speech of hers. Somehow, Lois Lane's hand slid into Clark's...and he held it there, her rock.

The magicians conferred for a moment, and then the strangely echoing voice of Doctor Fate spoke.

"You were marked tonight...certain protections inherent to your aura were forcibly removed. This made you an attractive vessel to certain roaming spirits. One of them...the ghost you encountered...has taken advantage of that. The spirit of their dead child was reincarnated in your womb."

"We can repair the damage to your aura...no other ghosts will try to make you pregnant," Zatanna said. "But the baby itself is...it's basically a clone of you. Flesh of your flesh. It tried to grow too fast, but it's stabilized now. You might give birth at any time. Because it's a highly magical pregnancy, we can reverse it...but the fetus is viable. If you want to go through with it."

Lois swallowed hard. There it was. The choice. She knew she had a lot to think about...whether to keep the baby or give it up...but in the end, she couldn't condemn an unborn soul back to whatever limbo it rested in.

"I'll keep it. Fix the...whole in my aura, or whatever it is. Do you know who did this?"

The two magicians stared at one another, then back to the reporter.

"The magical signature is familiar to us. A powerful demon named Blaze. Superman has fought with her and her brother Satanus before. That...may be why you were targeted. Or perhaps it was simply chance that led you down to that shrine. Once we are done here, we will cleanse that place...to keep any other innocents from suffering."

Clark Kent's jaw was set. He gave Lois Lane's hand a little squeeze.

"I don't think it was an accident," he said. "Do you need me to deal with anything?"

Zatanna gave a sad smile. "No, I think your place is here. As for Lois: .arua reh leaH"

The reporter didn't feel any different, but white light poured out over her stomach again, and then winked out. The magicians left, seemingly satisfied. Lois leaned back in the bad. That cramp was flaring up again, and she shifted uncomfortably.

"What am I going to do?" She asked aloud.

"Well...start thinking of names, if you're going to keep her," Clark Kent joked. She looked at him, discomfort in his face. His smile faded. "I'll help you Lois. Any way I can. You know that, right?"

Lois gave a sly grin through the pain. "Like what you see, Smallville? Even though I'm big and fat?"

He stared at her and said gravely. "You're not fat. You're beautiful."

Lois snorted, and then pulled up her hospital gown a little higher. Her breasts looked much the same as before, the half-teardrop shapes only different now because the nipples were thicker and more prounced, a dark brown where once her eraser-nubs had been a soft pink.

"I had hoped my breasts would grow more. They're supposed to do that with pregnancy," Lois said.

"Wait until your milk comes in. Maybe they'll grow bigger next time," Clark said, a twinkle in his blue eyes. Lois smiled as she turned to him.

"Oh? You think I'm going to do this again, the old-fashioned way? Who's going to knock up a single mother?"

Clark brought her hand to his lips...and for a moment Lois Lane's heart skipped a beat. It was just short of a promise...a promise she desperately needed right now, from someone...

...and then she peed herself. Or at least that's what it felt like. She stared down at her legs, the spreading puddle on the bed, face flushed and embarrassed. Except Clark Kent was on his feet, bellowing for a nurse...and Lois realized her water had broken.

Dawn broke over Metropolis as Lois Lane was wheeled to the delivery room, Clark Kent with her every step of the way, holding her hand...and her night ended there, with the cry of newborn life, and perhaps the blossoming seed of friendship becoming newborn love.

"Welcome to the world, Martha Lane," Lois whispered, as she held the child in her arms. She looked for Clark, who was speaking with a doctor...Lois had made given him a medical power of attorney in what had to be the quickest bit of legal paperwork she'd ever seen...and with him out of earshot, or so she thought, the reporter leaned in and whispered to her daughter: "How would you like a baby brother?"

Clark Kent's left ear twitched. She saw him swivel his head...and she smirked at him.

Maybe her night out hadn't been so bad after all.