A/N: My dear readers, the long awaited update :)

First of all I want to thank my readers and especially my reviewers, busard, Guest, Superfan2, AliceOfCards, TwilightNewMonnEclipseMidnight, dragonqueen909, titemb-bm, ProwlHawthorne, sassygirl9811, and last but certainly not least joylinnn who brought me back to the story!

In this chapter there will be some of the mysteries solved, answering a view of the questions you had in your reviews ;)

Thank you Phillipe and Ivy for being such amazing dancers performing the dance I used in this update! The song is Colorblind from Counting Crows.

This chapter is dedicated to Supesfan18.

17.

Clark walked into his apartment throwing the keys and his glasses on the coffee table. Sitting down on the couch, he pulled his hands up to rub his weary eyes. He felt as if a train had struck him over and over again. After a couple of minutes just sitting there, he looked up, totally confused.

Where was Celeste?

Making the decision to find out if she was at home, he wanted to get up, however, getting sidetracked by a DVD lying on the table, he picked it up, looked at the cover and read 'Ronan O'Lion Show'.

Curious about a record of his most favorite talk show, he fed the DVD into the CD-Rom drive of the laptop, lying on the table in front of him. As the DVD was loading, he tried to remember what Celeste's last project had been about, but all his efforts failed. Resigned, he realized that his ability to remember what had happened before he had been almost killed by Lex Luthor was totally off.

All of the sudden, he hared people clapping. Concentrating on the computer screen, he saw the talk show host looking into the camera.

"Ladies and Gentleman," the man smiled broadly. "A new movie will hit the cinemas at the beginning of next month. There is a big anticipation, and people are desperate to know what will happen to the provincial ballet dancer, trying to find her fortune in the biggest city of the world. Today, I have the honor to welcome the lead actress and dancer, Celeste McPherson, her dancing partner, Julian Tanaka, and the producer of the movie Mr. Chung Hong in my show."

Applauding enthusiastically, the audience started to scream when Celeste, Julian, and Chung Hong entered the stage.

Clark gulped as his heartbeat accelerated just by seeing the woman he loved so much on the computerscreen.

The three guests made their way to the host and settled in the comfortable chairs next to the huge desk, after Ronan had given the producer and male ballet dancer a handshake, and his charming female guest a gentle kiss on her hand.

"So," Ronan smiled at Celeste who was sitting next to him. "I had the honor to watch an advanced screening of 'Lovedance' and I have to say, wow. Just wow!"

The young woman smiled, but Clark could notice that her eyes were displaying anything but happiness. He noticed deep desperation and sorriness in her glance. "Thanks", she answered simply.

Turing to the audience and concentrating on the camera once more, Ronan continued. "I've never seen such an amazing dancer and guys, you really have to check this movie out." Turning back to Celeste, he asked, „When did you start dancing? I'm only asking as I'm considering taking ballet classes after watching the movie. You really convinced me that dancing should be my next career."

The audience started to giggle as Celeste looked at the middle-aged man. A slight smile escaped her lips.

Clark watched her, feeling a strong urge to pull her into his arms and kissing her until the end of time. She looked absolutely stunning in her black dress and her hair pulled into a nice up do with only a few blonde corkscrew curls escaping the hairstyle.

"I started to dance when I was three," she explained.

"I'm almost three," Ronan noticed. "Well, maybe if I could go back in time, and with lots of practice over the years, I would be able to be as good as you," he added depressed.

"It's hard work", she continued. "I missed out on many things kids at this age do all day long, but being a dancer isn't only just a job for me. Being a dancer is my passion."

Ronan took her hand and kissed her for the second time. Celeste blushed.

"I could see that," he said breathlessly, indicating that he had as serious crush on his Australian guest.

Turning to the producer, he smiled. "Chung, I have to say, you are a genius. There hasn't been a movie comparable to this one in ages of movie history. How did you convince this young lady to be your lead?"

Celeste looked at Chung. "He stalked me," she said reproachfully, "Even in the supermarket."

Now the audience laughed.

"No that's true," she confirmed.

"Only because it was really hard to get a hold of you," the producer tried to defend himself. "I've followed Celeste's carrier very closely in the past five years. Even before she came to the United States. After watching her dance with La Vierge at a fundraising gala in Metropolis, I desperately wanted to have her for this movie, which was on hold as we had to find a suitable female lead."

"Well, I have to say, there is nobody in the world I could imagine to play the part other than you," Ronan said dreamingly to Celeste. Turing back to the camera and still holding the young ballet dancer's hand he said, "Lets show our audience what we are talking about, shall we? - Ladies and gentlemen, it is a honor for me to show you in a world premier the trailer of 'Lovedance' in my show!"

He turned around as the audience clapped. The camera focused on the huge plasma screen behind him. The screen changed, showing the trailer of the movie. After the trailer had ended, the whole room got dark as the camera was focusing on a shirtless Julian Tanaka, only dressed in pyjama bottoms, sitting in front of a piano.

When the music started, he pretended to play. All of his well-defined back muscles danced in sync to the sounds. The song was absolutely breathtaking and Clark felt shivers running all over his body. His most favorite song. The young male dancer stopped to play, and Celeste showed up, dressed into a crimson dancing dress, kneeling in front of the piano player, starting softly to caress his back with her right hand.

Julian got up and touched her head, turning her and supporting her body as they both almost touched their lips. She went into a split with one leg still straight on the floor. As they were touching each other's faces, Celeste got upright again and rested one of her leg on the keys of the piano, slipping slowly into Julian's arms, falling on the floor as he supported her, putting her gentle on her back. He lay down on top of her only for a few seconds, turing on his back in the next move. Celeste followed him, straddeling on him in a split. He got up and Celeste slipped down his legs into another split on the floor. Getting up again and jumping into a midair split, the female ballet dancer twirled around the piano and sat on the chair where Julian joined her for a view seconds. She collapsed backwards on his lap, extending her whole body over him. He leaned back on the piano keys as she rolled slowly down his legs until she touched the floor where she extended her whole body backwards and got up into a sitting position and next into a pirouette. He walked up to her and stopped her spinning by holding her right leg. Grabbing her hair band, he pulled it out of her hair as she collapsed back on his chest.

Clark gulped as the camera was now focusing on her beautiful face, covered in tears as she turned her head and slowly closed her eyes.

The male dancer caressed her face with his right hand and lifted her over his head where Celeste touched his waist from behind as he lifted her over his shoulder. She did a split as he carried her to the piano, where he gently put her into a sitting position on top of it. He then closed the piano and sad down on the chair. Celeste embraced him as her blonde corkscrew curls felt over his shoulders. There she remained in this position, and it was obvious that she was crying.

Clark stopped the DVD and looked at the screen with his eyes wide open. Collapsing back into the couch, he buried his head in his hands, tears brimming in his eyes.

It was almost unbearable for him to see how badly she was mourning. But after all what Bruce, Oliver, Mathieu and most of all Emil had told him, he could certainly understand what she must had gone through in the past months.

After Lex Luthor had almost killed him, the criminal mastermind had been taken into custody by the Justice League, and was now rotting in a prison cell somewhere underneath the Starlabs. However, for the general public, and mostly, for the American legal system, Lex Luthor was officially deceased.

Clark had been really stunned when his friends had told him that his earthly persona had been missing since the Doomsday incident. Even though Clark had not been in the condition to sit upright for longer than a view minutes, he had had to know why he was still alive.

After a long sight, Bruce had explained to him that the world hat put Superman's body to rest almost ten months ago. Afterwards, the world had been fallen into a deep depression. The Dark Knight had continued to explain that the crime rate had shot up to a sky rocketing level, and that the Justice League had worked almost twenty-four-seven to get the world back into order. However, they had succeeded in the last couple of months as the people in this world had finally accepted a life without Superman.

Mathieu had continued to explain that Tess Mercer had worked undercover at Luthorcorp, and that her real name was Lena Baker, a NSA agent that had investigated to find out the true identities of the heroes. Oliver Queen's private pilot had further explained that the female agent had taken him into custody, accusing him, and most of all Clark Kent, working against the government by secretly supporting the heroes. In the time Clark had recovered in the Starlabs they hadn't had a chance to tackle the Lena Baker problem. Most annoyingly for Mathieu was the fact that her team was following the young man literally on his heels, every day and every step in his life what made it pretty hard for him to show up in the special designed lab in order to get an update about Clark's condition on a regular base.

There was something else that worried the league of heroes. The new Vigilante Registration Act, released just a view days before, regulating the secret heroes to reveal their true identities in order to prosecute them for their crimes. Every hero failing to do so within a month would end up in prison for life when caught.

Oliver hadn't almost been able to tell Clark what had happened after he had been injected with the green and blue Kryptonite.

Clark had listened to his friends with his eyes wide open, not being able to process most of the events that had happened. Even though he had felt extremely weak and exhausted, there had only been one question throbbing in his head. What had happened to Celeste and his son during that time? Had his friends been able to save her and Jason, and most of all, were they okay?

At these questions, his friends had felt into silence, not wanting to say a word.

The hero had had to go to great measurements in order to force them to finally tell him the truth. Mathieu had just sighed, looking at the other heroes and had finally answered his question by telling Clark that Celeste and Jason were okay, but that they did not know that he was still alive.

To say Clark had been shocked was a total understatement. He had been beyond believe.

"Are you completely out of your mind? Not telling Celeste that I am still alive?", he had asked, looking at the other heroes one by one, clenching his fists so hard, that it had started to hurt him, a sensation he had never experienced before.

When his friends had finally managed to calm the injured hero down, Emil had explained that his condition hadn't been stable for the past ten months. During that time they hadn't even known if he would ever come back to life at all. Until a view days ago, when his body suddenly had shown some signs of recovery, and him finally waking up just a couple of hours before.

Even though Clark had felt very upset, he could understand that his friends had just wanted to protect his wife and son, and for that he could not fault them. No, he realized. His friends had done the right thing by keeping Celeste out of the experiments they had done with his body. She wouldn't had been able to handle that procedure. Not at all…

Still sobbing and burring his head into his hands, Clark didn't realize the little girl slowly scrabbling into the living room. She had heard the noises and had associated her mother with the music. But now she stopped, sat back on her bottom, and looked at the odd looking person.

Slowly, she got closer, just too curious about who was sitting there.

Meanwhile, Clark tried to get it all back together in his throbbing head as he closed his eyes and concentrated on his memories before he had been almost dead.

The little girl just watched the man and tilted her head to the side. She realized that he was crying, something her mother did very often. She pulled herself up on the side of the couch and walked very slowly, as her feet wobbled dangerously, up to the man.

When Clark felt a soft touch on his right leg, he stopped sobbing and looked up. Opening his eyes, he looked stunned into the most beautiful cerulean eyes of a child, he had ever seen before.

Slowly, he shifted a bit closer to the edge of the sofa and looked fascinated at the little girl.

She tiptoed and touched softly the tears running down his cheeks. Turning around, she looked at the laptop screen. Giggling, she pointed at the frozen image of her mother and turned back to Clark to indicate that she exactly knew who this was, yelling repeatedly and very excited, "Mumum, mumum, mumum!"

The only thing Clark could do was just to watch her with his mouth wide open. Can this really be?, his thoughts worked through his shock. Could this really be his child?

As he looked at her, he took in every small detail of the little girl. From her rainbow colored woolen tights, her jeans dress, her blonde hair to her face, her chin, her neck, her red cheeks, and the cute little dimples in her tiny hands…

She was perfect!

Still looking at her, he extended his right hand. Grabbing one of his fingers, the girl walked closer to him.

Stunned, he realized that she was the splitting image of Celeste. She even had a touch of her mother's blonde curls just at the tips of her silky fine baby hair.

The little girl just held her arms out. Clark picked her up. She cuddled instantly into his arms, hugging him as tightly as she could.

Martha, who came back from watering the plants on the rooftop garden, went into Lara's room. "I'm back my little butterfly," she smiled. "Now we can read the book about Rubber Duck's Adventures together".

When she realized that Lara wasn't in her room, she panicked as the child usually always obeyed the rules, even in her young age.

Absolutely outraged, Martha walked out of the child's room, looking for her granddaughter.

"Lara where are you?" she yelled through the apartment, looking in every little corner.

When she came into the living room, her heart skipped for more than a beat. Absolutely stunned, she realized that Clark, her only son who hadn't been alive for almost a year, was sitting on the couch with Lara in his arms.

Clark, who hadn't noticed his mother, just rocked the little girl as he held on her very tightly, his chin resting on her brow.

Concerned Martha noticed, that he had obviously difficulties to breath. "Clark!" she shouted out, running up to him.

He looked up and was simultaneously happy, and surprised to see his mother. Jumping up from his seat he hugged her tightly, making sure not to squeeze the little girl in his arms too much.

Lara, who noticed her grandmother, jumped excited up and down in her father's arms, starting to yell "Mumum" again, pointing on the computer screen.

Martha stroked gently over the golden hair of the child and smiled. "Yes my little butterfly, this is your mother," she confirmed. Looking to her son she asked astonished, "Where have you been all this time?"

He gave the child in her arms and sat down. Trying to get more air into his burning lungs, he shook slowly his head.

"Mum, you wouldn't believe it anyway."

His mother sat down next to him, putting Lara on the floor, who walked straight back into Clark's arms.

"Well try me. My threshold is pretty high at the moment!" she stated, brushing lovingly a hand through his jet-black hair.

He leaned into her touch and smiled. It took him a while to be able to speak as he felt very weak. "A… after Lex Luthor had literally killed me, Batman rescued my body just in time as Lex had apparently instructed two of his henchman to get a sample of my DNA in order to clone me." Now his mother was utterly shocked. She put a hand on her mouth and looked at him with her eyes wide open. "When Batman managed to get my body out of harms way," he continued, "he and Dr. Hamilton found out by accident that I had still some signs of live in me. They tried to find a way to bring me fully back to live, and realized that the only way to remotely do such a thing was to involve the yellow sun. They placed me under an intense light, Emil had especially developed to speed up my recovery. Aapperently it helped," he shrugged, too exhausted to continue to talk.

Martha didn't know what to say. She pulled him into a hug, soothing him by stroking his back. Her boy was still alive. A miracle from her point of view.

After a minute Clark looked up. "Mum, where is Celeste?"

Martha looked at the little girl in front of them. "She is at the film studio."

Suddenly everything came back into Clark's mind. A week before the monster had shown up to destroy the world they had had the conversation about her accepting the lead for the film. He could remember her saying that she was considering not to take the offer as she felt their lives would be too much exposed if the movie would actually succeed.

"They are about to finalize the movie for to release it next month," Martha explained.

"Where you here all the time?" Clark extended his hand, touching very gently Lara's head.

"Most of the time, together with your dad, Heather and Christopher. We tried to support Celeste. Clark, she is a total mess. There were days when she was not able to look after the baby, or even herself," she tried to explain after a little pause.

He nodded. He had seen her on the DVD. Memories coming back into his mind from the time when he had been sick prior to their wedding ceremony.

"I can imagine," he realized, his voice almost breaking.

Reluctantly, he looked into his mother's eyes. Coming back to life, and finally coming home to find out that he had another child, was not an easy thing to digest. It was even harder to take in as he estimated the age of the child at about a year. Exactly the time he had been away. Biting down his bottom lip, he turned to the little girl and looked at her absentmindly.

"Clark, this is your daughter."

Turning back to face his mother, he just gulped. „Mum, there must be a mistake. Even though I can't remember everything what happened before that monster showed up, Celeste being pregnant would be something I would never forget, and the last time we were together, she had still the contraception device implanted," he added as he blushed crimson.

Martha just sighed. Of course it was hard for him to take it all in. Especially the fact that Celeste's pregnancy had literally taken half a day in this timeline.

"I am so sorry, but it's not my place to tell you what happened. Only Celeste can do that."

He gulped again, totally confused about the odd behavior of his mother.

Martha pulled his head down and kissed his brow as she could sense his extreme exhaustion. The most important thing at the moment was that he was safely back with his family. Everything else would fall in place in time. "I love you, and now meet Lara."

When Clark realized that Celeste had chosen to name their child after his birth mother, he collapsed back on the couch as he wasn't able to hold back the tears anymore.