Family Road Trip

By Sara Kraft <skfolc@gmail.com>

Rated: G

Submitted: February 2023

Summary: Lois and Clark are on a family road trip with their 7-year-old daughter, Hannah, and they are positively baffled how she’s been awake so long. Another in the series of Sweet Kid Stories (including “Playing Pretend&rdqup; and “Teacher’s Pet”).

Story Size: 805 words (5Kb as text)

Author’s Note: This one’s been floating around in my head since…well, since my kid did a similar thing on our drive home from our vacation after Christmas. Seeing as how it’s Ficlet Friday once again, and I knew I wasn’t going to be otherwise productive, I thought I’d see how easily this little plot bunny would come out. I have to say it came out way better and far more easily than I thought it would! Thank you to SuperBek and AnnaBtG for BRing and laughing in all the right spots! And thank you to SuperBek for a quick and thorough GE job!

***

“Why isn’t she asleep yet?” Lois hissed at Clark under her breath after checking on Hannah in the rearview mirror for the hundredth time this road trip.

“I don’t know!” Clark whisper-exclaimed back, and Lois could tell he was equally baffled and vexed by the situation. “I thought for sure she’d fall asleep ten minutes in, but we’ve been driving since 9 a.m.”

“It’s noon, Clark… She’s been awake since 3 a.m. That’s…”

“Nine hours. Plus she went to bed late last night,” he said, still whispering.

“And whose fault was that?” She looked over at him for half a second, her eyes wide with accusation. “Going on and on about how Niagara Falls State Park is great, but that it’s not the right side of the Falls and that someday we’d take her there.”

“Honey, she was babbling so much she might as well have been the Falls.”

“Oh, like you’ve never babbled!” she whisper-yelled at him. “The point is that she’s only had like 5 hours of sleep in the past 28 hours! That’s not enough for a 7-year-old.”

She saw Clark glance back at Hannah briefly and shake his head. “Maybe we should take away her Nintendo DS? Thank your father for that. At least he got her headphones.”

“Well, thank goodness for small miracles. Leave it to my dad to send an expensive, state-of-the-art toy instead of actually coming to visit for Christmas.”

Clark put a comforting hand on her thigh, giving it a small squeeze.

“I hate how she gets laser focused on that thing,” Lois said, her voice still quiet.

“We could take it away?” he suggested again.

“No!” she hissed again. “There’s NO way I’m playing another hour of I-Spy. Nope. Let her have the GameBoy.”

“Nintendo DS,” Clark corrected.

Lois took her eyes off the road for a full second to glare at her husband. “Really? You’re going to edit my copy right now?”

“You know I can drive, honey, if you’re tired. I don’t…need as much sleep as you.”

“It’s not that… It’s that I was hoping to…discuss grownup things.” Lois frowned.

“Oh? Like what?”

Lois gasped quietly. “You don’t think that’s it, Clark, do you??”

“Think what is what?”

“That maybe…there are certain types of people…” Lois indicated toward the back seat behind her with her eyes. “…who…don’t…needasmuchsleepashumansdo?” she mumbled under her breath.

Clark opened his mouth and shut it again. Then finally, he mumbled back, “She’s too young… I mean…she’s only…half-you-know-what…and…I was…10 before I started…getting things…”

They hadn’t really talked much about…the possibility since Hannah was much younger. It was easier to joke about a 3-year-old learning how to fly when Clark was playing ‘airplane’ with her around the living room. But it was another thing altogether to think that there might be some Kryptonian physiology at play when it came to Hannah’s seemingly superhuman ability to stay awake for far too long.

“Why are we whispering, Clark?” Lois pointed out. “She has headphones on…”

“I don’t know…because…” he trailed off, and she didn’t need to glance over to know he had that look on his face, his brow raised just so and his eyes starting to shine a bit. “Do you think?” he asked, this time sounding some yearning kind of hopeful.

Lois shrugged slightly, keeping her eyes on the long stretch of highway in front of her. “I don’t know, honey. It’s possible.”

The car went silent once more as Clark shifted in his seat so he could stare back at their daughter, and Lois could almost feel the hope and wonder coming off him in waves. Her heart swelled as she couldn’t help but look back again in the rearview mirror at their daughter, still wearing her headphones and bopping her head along to whatever music her game was playing.

“Do you think it’s time to tell her?” Clark asked aloud.

“Tell me what?”

THE END