Clark rushed forward, catching her just before she hit the floor.
"Oh, my God!" Linda wailed. "What did I do?"
"Linda, just calm down," Clark could hear his mother saying as he straightened with Lois.
"But I... I broke her." Her voice hitched. "I mean, I thought she could handle it, but now I... broke her."
"She's not... broken," Martha was saying as Clark carried her to the master bedroom, their voices following him.
"No. She's just drunk off her ass," Bart said, snickering slightly.
"Bart, that's not helping, Sweetie. Now..."
Clark placed her on the bed and glanced up as they all crowded in the doorway.
"You think this is funny?" Linda screeched.
"Well... not as a whole. But Lois is a pretty funny drunk. I mean, did you see her talk to the elevator?"
Linda glared at him, turning redder by the second.
"What? I think we'll all have a good laugh about this some..."
"Yes. Someday," Martha cut in. "But for now, we should possibly concentrate on what to do."
Linda nodded, eyes on Lois as Clark laid her out fully, scanning her body. "You're right. Murray, we need to get in the Bell. We'll go to Chicago and get her in your lab and..."
Martha took her by the shoulders. "Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of getting her home. I think she's had enough shocks for one night without waking up in a lab. She might be more comfortable in her own bed until she figures out what she wants to do."
Linda took a deep breath. "You're right. You're right. I mean, she said the headaches are gone. So... You know. It's fine. I better get my stuff from the bathroom and I have no idea where the hell my suitcase is and I'd better bring all my pills because it might be a long time before..." Her voice trailed off down the hall.
Victor appeared in the doorway. "You sure she's okay?"
Clark leaned on the edge of the bed, looking her over again. He knew she didn't hit her head, but he was no doctor... "Murray?"
He stood back, shaking slightly as Murray came forward, bending over her, gently pulling one eye open. "Well... Hmmm..." He brought his hands to her jaw and felt around. "Let's see..."
He gritted his teeth, wondering if he could let the panic out now that Linda wasn't in the room to pick up on it and blow it up to five times the crazy. "For God's sake, is she..."
"Oh, physically, she seems alright. Except for, well, the obvious..."
"I think she's just passed out, Honey." He felt his mother at his side, her hand on his arm. "I happen to know she had three good shots of whiskey. What she had besides that, I don't know for sure, but..."
"Hey, I'm sorry about the joking there," Bart said.
"It's alright," Martha said quickly. "Maybe we shouldn't crowd her."
"Sure. Because... I mean, there is nothing funny about this. In fact, this is dead serious. We could be talking complete mental breakdown." Clark clenched his fists, reminding himself that Bart couldn't know that this was exactly her worst fear. He'd known for a long time... "First it's talking to elevators, then it's household appliances..."
"Not helping," AC hissed grabbing him by the arm. "We'll give you some space."
Victor nudged Murray. "Doctor T and I should go over those tapes, see if maybe there's something to what she said about Albright."
"Oh, that's an excellent idea. It seems as if she somehow inadvertently received some sort of hypnotherapy, similar to what I was doing with the victims themselves, really, but it's fascinating to think..."
"Murray," Victor prodded. "Space."
"Oh, yes." Murray smiled encouragingly at Clark. "This could turn out to be a wonderful development."
Martha put a hand on Clark's clenched arm when they were alone. "Are you alright?"
He took a deep breath, knowing that Martha wasn't trying to shoo them away from Lois so much as him. Of everyone, she alone knew exactly what mood he was in. "I'm fine," he said, borrowing Lois' favorite word.
"Liar," she said, squeezing his arm. But she didn't crowd him, either, only moved around the bed and dropped into a chair. "Oh, God."
Clark came around to her side of the bed, feeling like an inconsiderate ass. "Mom... are you okay?"
"Of course not," she sighed.
He let out a sad sort of chuckle. "Here I thought you were holding it together for all of us."
"I must put on a great act," she said, rubbing her forehead.
"Well, thanks for... the space and all."
"I had to do something. This is partially my fault," Martha said miserably. "She turned up at my door and she was a bit slurry, but I thought she was just cold. So I gave her a little Irish coffee, then I realized that was probably the wrong thing to do as she was already pretty drunk, then she drank hers and mine and... Well, I thought..."
"You thought bringing a drunken Lois to the Lois meeting was the right thing to do?"
"Don't you get sarcastic with me" she warned, snapping her head up. "I'm still your mother."
"I'm sorry. But I just might be a little edgy right now," he began, his body tensing as he spoke, "what with training and my ex-girlfriend in town while my... my..." He didn't even have a category for her. "Lois is apparently on a drunken bender with this idea that she's the kind of villain that could give Lex Luthor a run for his money. And don't even get me started on Lex..." He squeezed his eyes shut. Whatever she thought about her past with Lex, he could have done without that little reminder. "So forgive me for thinking this wasn't best idea."
"Well, I didn't know there was a meeting, did I? I was bringing her here so Linda could talk to her. I had no idea that you were having this meeting that I apparently wasn't supposed to be told about."
"But you..." He deflated slightly, remembering that she hadn't known about it. "Linda said you were under too much pressure and we shouldn't..."
"And since when have you listened to Linda? Even when her advice was good, which it clearly wasn't in this..."
"Okay. You know now." He raked a hand through his hair. "And I would have told you had I thought this would happen."
"This was happening whether she came and here tonight or not. She's obviously been left on her own to draw these kind of conclusions for too long and... I should have known." She moved to the bed and stared down at Lois. "I could tell there was something off when I saw her in town, but I..."
"Wait, wait, wait..." Clark moved to his mother's side. "In town?"
Martha paled slightly. "Yes. I was in Metropolis and I..."
"No. That would be in the city to you. When you say in town, you mean in Smallville."
She opened her mouth, then deflated. "Okay. Yes. I saw her in Smallville."
"Mom..."
"What was I supposed to do? She made me promise not to tell anyone, mainly you. And I figured I shouldn't interfere."
Clark's body sagged. "Yes. That's about what we all figured." He found himself unable to be angry anymore. Martha saw her one time in town. He'd been only city blocks away and he'd done nothing to stop this spiral. "She said she wanted space. We were trying to give her space."
"Well, that stops now." Linda, who must have the ears of a hawk, announced, dragging a suitcase and an armful of toiletries she stopped to drop in it. "I'm thinking round-the-clock guard." She moved to the dresser and began tossing clothes into her case. "I'll obviously be there constantly, but Martha and I still have an election to run, so everyone can take a shift and make sure she doesn't step foot..."
"A shift?" He shook his head. "Linda, this guard thing is a little..."
"Necessary," she finished, moving to the closet. She tossed several things, still on hangers in her case. "See, this is what happened when you drop your guard. Before you know it, people are drinking and talking crazy. Well, I won't stand for it. I'm not letting my baby cousin run all over town announcing that she's a Luthor-screwing, co-conspirating identity thief."
Clark thought she might have a point there. Lois needed to be set straight on quite a few things.
She turned from the closet. "You think Victor can put a tracking device in that ugly bracelet she won't take off?"
"Linda, you are not lojacking..."
"Okay." She clapped her hands. "Time's a wasting. We've gotta get her set up at home." She sat on her case to zip it. "I bet the place is a mess, so we better get there yesterday." She moved to the bed. "I don't want her waking up to a..." She started to pull at Lois' arm. "Hey, Martha, can you take one side. She seems a little too..."
"I'll take her," Clark cut in, moving to the bed.
"Take her down to the car, you mean. No. Martha and I will take her. Besides, doesn't Superman have to go do something... super?"
"Linda, I thought we agreed that we were on the same team, but if you're going to go back to controlling everything, then..."
"What?" Linda's mouth worked in silence for a blessed moment. "You are so paranoid. I'm only thinking that she doesn't need to be jostled at high speed through the streets of the city and puke her guts up. Jesus!" She tossed her head and grasped the handle on her suitcase. "Just for that, you don't get a shift." She moved to the door.
"A shift..."
"Come on!" She yelled from the living room. "I have no idea what state her apartment's in and we need fresh sheets and hangover cure-alls ready... Oh, Bart, you should get me some eggs, alka seltzer, pickle juice, saltines, and..."
Her voice trailed off and Clark stared at the empty doorway. "She's insane."
"It's just hormones. She has too many feelings and impulses and she doesn't know where to put them."
"Well, she could put into something besides turning Lois' apartment into a prison."
Martha sighed. "I'll talk to her. Meanwhile, one thing at a time..." She gestured to Lois. "Could you take her down?"
"God, you're bossy tonight." But he obeyed, bending to pick Lois up, his anger dissipating as he straightened carefully with her.
"I'm not bossy," Martha said as they waited for the elevator to come up after Linda. "I'm right. One thing at a time, Clark. It applies to everything. You're stomping around like child with a tantrum and..."
"I'm not a child anymore."
"Compared to me... Yes. You are." She pushed him through as the doors opened. "You think I don't know about pressure?"
"Mom, I never said you..."
"I raised a super-human, helped run a farm, a baked goods service, and a coffee shop. And that was before my ascent to the senate. You don't deal with all of those things at the same time. You don't rage around, moaning about how much it stinks. You just take it one day at a time. Tonight, you have to patrol. Tomorrow, you have to go to work. After that, you can see Lois and..."
"So I'm just supposed to patrol and work when..."
"The world doesn't stop because you have a problem. So, yes. You patrol, you work, and you train. And, in between, you do what you can. And you... You have a team of friends that want nothing more than to help you with all this. You father and I never had anything near that kind of support. The day we realized you could fall and smash a tractor hood in, we still had stalls to muck out and..."
"I get it."
She pressed the basement button. "Wonderful. Glad to know you know everything."
He glanced at her as the doors closed. His parents had handled a lot alone. And, for years now, she'd handled everything completely alone. "Mom... You wanna hear something crazy?"
"What?"
"I think you're kind of awesome. I'm sorry if I was..."
"Oh, don't bother." Her lips pressed together, as if suppressing a smile. "You're just buttering me up so I won't ground you for keeping secret meetings from me."
"I'm not the only one who had a secret meeting," he pointed out.
"Fair enough." She finally glanced up at him. "Clark, maybe I don't bring any superhuman skills to the table, but I have a few years on all of you and I don't want to be shut out. God knows you all need someone to slap some sense into you sometimes."
"We might." He couldn't imagine the mess this night could have been without his mother settling everyone down. "And maybe you might admit that, had we known what Lois was doing with her spare time, we might have headed some of this off."
She sighed. "I might," she finally said. "At any rate, I'm glad I ran into her that day. I might not have run for town council, otherwise." She brushed Lois' hair from her forehead. "She gave me that extra push."
"Yeah?" He looked down as Lois' hand came up, batting at the air before dropping down. "Yeah. She'll do that."
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