Who: Lois What: a mother-daughter reunion of sorts When: backdated to Thursday night/early Friday morning Where: Watchtower Warnings: feelings? Status: narrative/complete
Lois Lane was not a stranger to losing touch with the people she cared about. Moving to different bases nearly year after year had taught her early that relationships dissolved fairly quickly without any face-to-face time. Letters would be written steadily for the first few weeks, phone calls made to old friends, but slowly new friendships formed on both sides and the letters and hour long conversations had dwindled until there were none to be made. The only oddity in the long array of moves and changes had been her cousin, the one constant in Lois’ life. Phone calls had been a weekly occurrence when they were little, a ritual kept to even when calls to grandparents had fallen to the wayside. The calls changed to emails and the emails to texts somewhere along the way, but there had never been a time when Lois hadn’t been able to pick up the phone and contact her baby cousin. She had been the one constant in a sea of change and Lois hadn’t realized how much she had needed that until Chloe was truly gone.
She hadn’t had time to dwell on it after Chloe’s supposed death the second time and the first time her cousin had ‘died’ she’d been so intent on finding out the truth that it had almost seemed as though Chloe had still been around. This time was different though. There was no funeral because Chloe was alive but unable to be reached. It was a cruel joke, one that in one part comforted Lois to know her baby cousin would be able to move forward and obtain all the dreams the wiki pages said were due her, but at the same time provided a constant barrier from contacting her. There would be no more emails, no texts, no late night gossip sessions over coffee or long arguments about ridiculous subjects that Lois wasn’t even sure why she’d fought so vehemently over anymore.
It had been easy enough to focus on the fact that Chloe was home and as safe as she could be, her future already laid out neatly before her at first. Lois had dove back into work, though made sure not to only do that, setting up activities with her other friends so Clark didn’t feel the need to kidnap her again. On the surface, she had thought she’d been doing a pretty bang up job of appearing fine. Focusing on other’s hurt, on other’s lives had been a decent escape until Stephanie had brought up quitting Oliver’s team. And then not long after that conversation, Lois’ phone had alerted her to her standing coffee date with Chloe.
It had been a ritual of theirs. Coffee on Thursdays, catch up on the gossip, maybe do some window shopping before Chloe headed back to Watchtower and Lois headed back to the complex. After so many weeks it had become routine, but Lois had always put it on her calendar, knowing how wrapped up she could get when investigating a particularly juicy story. She had been trying ever since Chloe’s not-death to make more time for her cousin, to arrive early and not late like she usually did, and the reminders on her phone had helped her usually accomplish that.
Lois had thought she’d deleted all of them, but the sudden beeping on her phone had alerted her that she hadn’t and all of her carefully crafted walls had begun chipping away. She refused to breakdown again like she had over a month ago, refused to be that vulnerable again, and worked at reforming the walls around herself, needing the stability of them. It hadn’t worked though and so she’d gotten out of any social outings she’d scheduled, figured a way to get herself out of the complex, and away from any prying ears that might be listening to what she was up to and headed to Watchtower after contacting Tess.
Part of her wondered if there were cameras in the apartments, if Tess would be able to see the inevitable breakdown that Lois knew she would be having soon enough, but she couldn’t bring herself to care as she opened the door to her cousin’s place. She’d not been to the new apartment since Chloe had moved in. Hadn’t had the time to stop by and visit...or no, Lois was pretty sure she could have made the time if she had tried hard enough, but back then she had thought they had all the time in the world. She’d kept putting off the visit, the housewarming gift she’d bought both Chloe and Oliver stuffed somewhere under her bed, still needing to be wrapped. Maybe someone else would enjoy an assortment of coffee beans and hot teas.
She wandered through the apartment, noting the little touches that told her Chloe had called the rooms home for a few weeks. It wasn’t until she reached the bedroom that Chloe had obviously used as her own, clothes still in the hamper, bathrobe strung carelessly over the back of a chair and coffee mug sitting on the dresser with the cold remnants of whatever flavor had been brewed still inside, that Lois felt the tears slide down her cheeks. She wiped at her face, nails digging into her wrists as she tried to fight back the pain.
The photograph of the two of them at the bar hopping event they’d gone to together was what finally brought about Lois’ downfall. She stared at the picture for a long moment, knowing it was the one thing she would be bringing with her when she finally left the room and headed back to the complex. She wasn’t ready to leave though, couldn’t bare the walk back to the complex or Clark’s questioning looks if she happened to run into him on the way to her room.
She’d only meant to rest for a few moments on the bed, but somewhere in between crying and remembering the good times Lois had fallen asleep. The touch of fingers against her forehead, brushing hair from her face woke her in the middle of the night. She shifted in the bed, blinking in the dark and body snapping up, ready to fight off whoever had entered the room. A witty retort died on her lips as she took in the woman sitting on the edge of the bed smiling softly at her. Lois rubbed at her eyes, certain her mind was playing tricks on her. It had to be. After all the woman in question had been dead for more years than Lois had known her. Her death had been the breaking point for her entire family, changing their dynamics forever.
“M-mom?” Lois’ voice cracked, not sure what to do, and hating whoever was behind this cruel joke. She stiffened as her mother reached forward, placing a hand on her shoulders and wasn’t sure what was happening at first, but eventually wrapped her own arms around the woman as she let herself be pulled into the hug.
Tears renewed and Lois clung to the woman she had missed every day for the last nineteen years, listening as her mother offered the same comforting words she hadn’t heard since she was six years old. In the morning she would try to figure out what the hell was going on, but for the next few hours all Lois wanted to do was hold tight to and remember what her mother’s touch had felt like.