this was basically inspired by a tumblr post that said "A baby's laughter is one of the most beautiful sounds you will ever hear. Unless it's 3am. And you're home alone. And you don't have a baby." i lamented not being able to explore lena's POV in my baby fic "you and me" and an anon on tumblr suggested i just write something small about it anyway? so obviously i didn't keep it small. i actually used this baby fic to distract me from that same baby fic but i don't see it coming out too long - maybe 3, 4 chapters max. it's going to be a short one.

also: this is basically a what-if-clark-landed-on-earth after kara. but way, wayy more AU in the sense that 1.) kara is not supergirl but has powers, 2.) lena is not a CEO but rather an author, 3.) lex luthor is still very anti-alien but has no super powered nemesis, and 4.) baby clark is just that - a baby

p.s. i'm over on tumblr at pippytmi if you want to check it out - i write some stuff that i don't post here & try to take prompts but i'm awful at anything not AU :(

It's 3 A.M. and she hasn't slept a wink but Lena knows she can't be hallucinating.

The sound is soft, faint, but she hears it nonetheless, as if it's coming from behind her. She checks her computer to see if some sort of ad or video is playing, but no; she's been stuck on the same Word document for the past two hours, and no other browser is open. She pushes back the curtain to her bedroom window to see outside, but the street lamps don't offer any answers; they barely reach the edge of the sidewalk, leaving the rest of Lena's house in darkness.

In retrospect, the whole staying-up-all-night doesn't give her much credibility. Her next action is call Jess and tell her everything: that she had just been sitting at her desk, working, and then she heard a baby laugh. A baby.

Jess sits quietly and listens to everything. And then she sighs. "Lena," she says. "Are you drunk?"

"I'm not drunk." Lena scowls. "I'm offended you think I am."

"Okay," says Jess placatingly, well-versed by now in how to handle the situation. "Then please go to sleep. Your book's going to still be there in a couple of hours."

"But I heard a baby laughing, Jess," Lena repeats. "That warrants investigation, doesn't it?"

"Lena. I'm going to forgive you because you're just so white," Jess says, "but that's how horror movies start. Please do not leave your house at"—here, she must look at her alarm clock to check the time—"3:15 A.M. Wait, this is worse than yesterday. Did you even sleep?"

"I slept a little." Lena taps her nails against her keyboard's keys, fingertips jittery. It hasn't helped that she's only consumed stale cereal and five cups of coffee in the last two hours. "Should I at least call the police?"

"They're not going to drive out there based on one suspicious sound you heard."

"It was a baby laughing."

"I'm sure it was," says Jess, patronizing enough that Lena fights the urge to pettily hang up. "Or it's just your imagination. Let me guess—you're messing around with the idea of babies in your novel."

"That's...irrelevant to the point," Lena says. "I know what I—" She freezes, suddenly, as the baby laughter comes back. But this time it sounds like it's right outside her window. "Jess, I hear it again. Listen." She moves the phone cautiously close to the window, not daring to part the curtain just yet.

When she pulls the phone back to her ear, Jess is silent. Then, "Okay, that doesn't have to mean there's a baby out there. It could be a recording. Or some kids playing a prank."

"I'm going outside," Lena says, getting up out of her desk chair.

"Lena! Babies don't laugh that much. It's obviously someone messing with you and you're going to die and I'm going to listen to you being stabbed seventeen times in the throat and then I'll be scarred for the rest of my life—"

"Jess, just stay on the line," Lena hisses as she cracks open her front door. The chill of the night air creeps in and she steps out onto the walkway, concrete cold and rocky under her bare feet. She walks around the edge of the house, feet sinking into the dewy grass as she listens, helplessly, for anything.

Jess stays blessedly quiet, murmuring something to the side of the receiver that Lena can't quite hear. Probably a prayer. Or a curse of Lena's rash decision making at 3 A.M.

Lena reaches the area where her bedroom window would be, but it's still too dark to see. She tries to inch her way forward as slowly as possible, calling out a cautious,

"Hello?"

In her ear, Jess's voice crackles to life. "And now you're alerting the murderers of your presence. Great. Have you ever even watched a horror movie? Or are you just dumb?"

Lena turns on the flashlight on her phone and lights up the empty grass. Her breath catches in her throat when she hears the laughter again, this time sounding like it's over her head, and she slowly pans her phone up over her head and sees a hovering—baby? Wait.

"Jess I'm going to have to call you back," Lena whispers, so light she's not sure if Jess heard, before she clicks end call and stares up in horror. Whatever is floating by her roof, it's small and giggling and kicking its legs as if propelling itself through water.

And then it falls.

Lena is so disorientated she doesn't notice that she's on the floor until it's too late, and the floating thing—which looks and feels like a real life baby—is on her chest. The wind's been knocked out of her and the wet grass is beginning to seep at her pajama bottoms and, oh no, now the baby's crying shrilly. Lena, at this point, wishes it is all a 3 A.M. hallucination.

Eventually she sputters out a breath and gets up, staggering to properly lift the baby who grips onto her T-shirt in a disturbingly strong way.

"What do I do with you?" Lena murmurs, but just then the baby drops their head, cheek flat against her shoulder, sniffling and miserable and Lena bites her lip and gives in.

(She takes the baby inside.)

It takes thirty minutes for Jess to get there, and that's mostly because it took Lena too long to call her in the first place. The baby still hasn't let go, whimpering pitifully against Lena's shoulder, probably scared—if not hurt—from the fall.

Jess lets herself in with the spare key; Lena barely even lifts her head up from the couch when she hears the front door open. Jess stands in the doorway for a moment, dressed in pajamas and holding a Walmart bag, and it would make for a hilarious scene if Lena weren't so relieved just to see her.

"Lena," Jess says slowly, "what the fuck."

Lena raises an eyebrow at her. "There are small ears here, Jess."

Jess shakes her head. "You know what? I don't want to know. I don't." She shuts the door behind her and starts to rustle through the bag, producing three different types of baby formula, two baby bottles, diapers, wipes, and a bottle of wine.

"You know the Walmart cashier must've judged you for that."

"It's 3 in the morning," Jess says, defensively hugging the bottle of wine to her chest. "They don't get to judge me."

"This," Lena says, looking at the baby—who seems to be relaxed now, head up off Lena's shoulder, eyes wide and marveling at the spinning ceiling fan—"is the weirdest thing we've ever done."

"Yeah, you kidnapped a baby, great job," Jess grumbles, setting the wine down before her words truly sink in and then she's whirling around in horror, saying, "I'm an accomplice, aren't I? I'm going to lose my job. I'm going to go to jail."

"Jess."

"What?"

"I think the baby's pooped."

Jess throws her hands in the air. "Great. Thanks. I can always count on you to reassure me, Lee," she grouses, but she helps Lena grab the stuff she needs and lay the baby out.

"This outfit is really impractical," Lena huffs as she struggles with the baby's dark blue onsie. "And flashy."

"You're one to talk, you've got yesterday's makeup all over your face." Jess pokes her head over Lena's shoulder as Lena undoes the baby's diaper and says in her best doctor impersonation (which is really just a bad British accent), "Congratulations, it's a boy."

Lena winces at how woefully unprepared she is for baby diapers. "Jess?" she croaks out through her disgust.

"Yeah?"

"Get the wine."

.

.

.

Lena isn't proud to say she hasn't left the house in a week.

Eventually she has to take the baby—who she and Jess have just been calling the baby, no name—out with her when she goes to her editor's office. She doesn't know how old he is, but just by guessing, she'd say he is around six months; old enough to start eating baby cereal and stuff, so she takes him a little bit while she waits for Cat to come in.

Cat's secretary, Siobhan Smythe, is already there, tapping away at her keyboard keys and throwing glares in Lena's direction because the baby likes to yell. Not because he's upset or anything. Just to make noise, when he's excited. And he gets excited every time Lena feeds him another spoonful of baby cereal.

Carter Grant, Cat's son, is there too; likely Siobhan's picked him up from his dance class, because he's still wearing tap shoes. He's very interested in the baby, hovering nearby and begging to let Lena feed him. Lena lets him once or twice, and even indulges some of his questions.

"When did you get a baby?" Carter asks. "Is he yours?"

"He's my brother's," Lena lies. Carter doesn't have to know that she and Lex haven't spoken in years and for all she knows, he may actually have children by now.

"What's his name?"

Lena's eyes dart around the room helplessly and she says the first name she notices on a nameplate: "Clark."

"How old is he?" Carter pushes his face close to the baby's, entranced by the way he giggles.

"Um," Lena looks at Siobhan (who ignores the plea for help), "six months, I think."

"Are you keeping him or is your brother coming back?"

Thankfully, Lena is spared from answering the question when Cat finally comes striding out of the elevator, the sound of her heels echoing down the hallway. Lena nearly sags out of relief. The baby (Clark, she has to stick with that now), manages to smack his hand into the bowl in Lena's hands and smear cereal mush over her neck. Fantastic.

"Lena Luthor as I live and breathe," Cat says, removing the sunglasses off her eyes and surveying Lena—and Clark—curiously. "Should I ask?"

"It's been a long week," Lena says, dropping the messy bowl in a grocery bag that she unceremoniously shoves into her purse.

Cat, at least, looks at her sympathetically up until they get into her office. Then she's all business when she declares, "I take it this is your way of saying you don't have a manuscript for me."

"I just need more time," Lena says. "A month, at the very least."

"I'm not the one who needs to push you, Lena," Cat says. "You know you'll always have a deal with us. But if you keep delaying your next book, there's not much I can do for you. I'm just the head of this company. I don't have control of the board. And they already think a fall promotion tour will cost us too much money—assuming you can even get a book out before the fall."

"I'll have a book by the fall," Lena promises. She always feels small in Cat Grant's presence, but today she feels even more inadequate than usual; the cereal on her neck has begun to dry and Clark is squirming, fussing to be picked up. She's a mess and she knows it, but she wishes—not for the first time today—that Jess had taken the baby today.

"I have complete faith in you," Cat says, "but you know I can't shield you forever. Your mother—"

"Please don't call my mother," Lena interjects, breaking one of the unspoken rules of the universe: don't interrupt Cat Grant. Ever. But it feels necessary to object to this; she's twenty-four, not ten, and she shouldn't have to veto her mother's involvement in her job.

"I was going to say," Cat's eyebrow raises; a warning, "that your mother has been trying to buy into my company. The board loves her money, but I know Lilian Luthor, and she's not someone I wish to be affiliated with."

Lena's mouth falls open in mortification. "Oh God," she says. "I'll—I'll talk to her, I'm so sorry."

"Frankly, I don't care if you do or don't," Cat says. "But I thought you'd appreciate the head's-up. Listen, don't stress about your mother. I can handle her. If you need to stress about something, stress about your novel."

"Somehow I think I have room to stress for both," Lena says dryly, and she looks down at Clark. "And then some."

.

.

.

"He's floating."

"I know, Jess, you said that already," Lena groans, digging frantically through her closet in hope that she'll somehow summon the stepladder that's likely in storage.

"He's floating. Does this not freak you out?!" Jess shakily balances on the edge of the couch and tries to reach for Clark, who is content hovering in midair and chewing on the ear of the teddy bear Jess brought him earlier.

"I've seen him floating before," Lena huffs. "It's not exactly new."

"Right, but I chalked that up to your drunkenness."

"I wasn't drunk."

"Okay," Jess says, "but you're pretty defensive for a supposedly innocent woman."

"Can you reach him or not?" Lena gives up, slamming the closet door in disgust and surveying the scene before her again.

Clark giggles from overhead, moving just out of Jess's grasp by kicking hard enough that he floats shakily through the air. Jess fruitlessly keeps reaching, but Clarke steers clear from the couches—aka her only vantage points.

"Should I get the broom or something? Maybe we can swat him down."

"Jess."

"Do you have a better idea?" Jess flops down onto the couch with a sigh, brushing her sweaty hair off of her forehead. She looks exhausted, and rightly so; she's just gotten home from a long shift and Lena feels bad for calling her over in the first place.

"We can't just wait for him to fall again," Lena says. "Last time I cushioned the fall, but this time..."

"Well, at least you have carpet."

"...not helping, Jess."

Just then, there's a knock at the door. Jess's eyes widen. "Oh my God it's the police."

Lena is sure the police aren't really at her door, but her heartbeat quickens anyway. Whoever is at the door cannot see Clark. She sure as hell doesn't know what to do with him, but she's seen enough movies to know that turning him over to the government or something will only end badly.

"Hide him," Lena hisses, putting on some shoes. "It's probably just my mother."

"How am I going to hide him?!"

Lena cracks open the door, prepared to send her mother away, but her spiel vanishes the minute she realizes that it is not actually Lilian at the door. A young blond woman stands at her door instead, smiling nervously and rearranging a pair of glasses on her face.

"Hi," the woman says with a sheepish half-wave, "I'm moving in next door, and—I know this is going to be very cliché, but I was wondering if I could borrow a cup of sugar?"

Lena hasn't opened the door very much, but she risks opening it a little wider. "Sugar?" she echoes, mind still stuck on Clark's situation.

"It's move-in day," the woman says, gesturing over to her house; movers are indeed hard at work, taking boxes off of a large black truck. "I bought a bunch of black coffees from down the street, but I didn't get enough packets of sugar. I'm really sorry to bother you, but black coffee just isn't my thing."

"Sugar," Lena repeats, blinking. "Yeah. No. I can get you some." And she shuts the door in the woman's face before she can get another word in, hurrying to the kitchen.

"Who was it?" Jess asks, wandering in after her, broom in hand.

"A neighbor," Lena replies, taking the broom away with a scandalized glare. "Please tell me you didn't hit him with this."

"I nudged him. Gently."

Lena sighs. "Just—watch him," she says, pinching the bridge of her nose tiredly. She pulls an unopened bag of sugar off the shelf of the pantry and makes sure Clark has drifted out of sight before opening the door again and thrusting the bag into her new neighbor's hands. "Don't worry about giving it back. I don't use it very often."

"Oh, no," her neighbor protests. "This is too nice of you, I couldn't—"

"It's just sugar." Lena tries to smile but just then she hears Clark shriek—hopefully with laughter, and not because Jess brought the broom back. "Listen, I'm sorry but I really need to go."

"Golly, I'm sorry," the woman says. "I've just been taking up all of your time! Well, thank you for this." She cradles the bag of sugar in one hand and beams, holding out the other and saying, "I'm Kara, by the way."

"I'm Lena," Lena says, all at once surprised by Kara's firm grip. For a woman so small, she's stronger than Lena expects. "Um, welcome to the neighborhood."

Kara beams. "I guess I'll see you around?"

Lena nods politely. "Sure. See you."

She closes the door and briefly wonders what happened to the old couple who lived next door, but her thoughts are interrupted by Jess's sudden scream.

"Holy shit, Lena, close your windows!" Jess yanks Clark out of the air as he zooms towards the open window leading to the backyard, startling him so much that he starts to cry.

Lena nearly sags with relief against the door. "Oh my God," she says. "We need to baby proof this place."

"We need to figure out what the hell is going on," Jess says, passing Clark over to Lena so she can throw herself face first into the couch. "Why, exactly, can he fly?"

Lena wipes Clark's tears away with her thumb, fingers smoothing gently over the back of his neck as he sinks against her shoulder. "I don't know," she says. "What should we do?"

"I don't know!" Jess lifts her head up only to declare, "Babies aren't supposed to fall from the sky. Babies aren't supposed to fly. He's obviously an alien."

"Maybe," Lena says, brushing Clark's soft black hair off his forehead. Here, so small and vulnerable against her chest, he feels very human. But she's never met an alien before; she probably wouldn't know an alien just by looking.

.

.

.

Kara the new neighbor likes to walk around shirtless.

Lena tries not to stare. Really. She just doesn't know how to break it to her neighbor that their bedrooms have windows that face each other and Kara's is never, ever covered. When Lena sits at her desk and works, she often can look up and stare right into Kara's room. She tends to draw her blinds just to give Kara some privacy, but sometimes it gets so hot she can't bear it and has to leave her window open. Like today.

And it looks like Kara's working out, just in a sports bra and shorts, doing so many pushups on the floor Lena wonders how she can manage. She tries not to invade her neighbor's privacy and focus on her novel; she needs another thirty pages soon.

But it's easy to get distracted. And not only because of the attractive neighbor, either; Clark is kicking around her room in the little walker Jess had scrounged up somewhere, shrieking every time he bumps into the bed frame. He's still a little small for it—still a little young—so Lena pads the front of the walker with a blanket so he doesn't smash his face against the front. He doesn't really walk so much as he kicks himself forward, but it's better than him floating.

Lena finds herself watching Clark move. He's easily excited, inching closer and closer to Lena's desk as if seeking her out, smiling so deeply that she sees the one little dimple by his right cheek.

She doesn't know what to make of him yet. Babies aren't typically her thing—they're too vulnerable, too needy, too messy. But there's something about Clark that makes him stand out even though he's all three; he's got a way about him that makes Lena smile. But she's still not cut out for motherhood; she briefly toys with the idea of calling a social worker to intervene.

Clark's walker bumps against Lena's chair and he peers up at her, blue eyes so wide and smile so big, that she doesn't think about it a second longer. Clark's the one who landed on her doorstep (or literally on her), and she feels guilty about it but she can't let this little boy fall into the wrong hands.

"Come on, Clark," Lena says, powering off her laptop as she bends down to pick him up. "Let's go out."

She makes the mistake of looking right across from her desk. Kara the neighbor makes awkward eye contact and promptly turns a shade or red so dark Lena can see it from all the way over here. Lena is ashamed to say all she does is stand and weakly wave at her, as if to say surprise? I can see you and the clothes you're not wearing?

(Kara promptly vanishes from sight.)

Lena brushes off the encounter and takes Clark outside. She doesn't know what babies like to do, but Clark seems excited enough; he coos in delight when Lena sits down with him by the small garden she's been growing. The backyard of the house is small, just concrete and no grass, a table and two chairs that Lena doesn't sit in resting by the door. Her garden is just a strip of dirt enclosed by a brick ledge where she grows a few flowers, a few herbs, but Clark loves the flowers.

He's particularly fond of the roses, and Lena doesn't realize the severity of the situation until Clark lunges forward and ends up pawing at a thorn-covered rose.

Lena gasps louder than intended, and that startles Clark more than the thorns do. In fact, when Lena scrambles to get up and uncurl his fist, she finds that the thorns have not even pierced his skin, crumbled uselessly against his palm.

"What else are you hiding, huh?" Lena murmurs against his forehead, trying to relax enough that her heartbeat stops racing out of horror. He's okay, but she shouldn't be okay, and this is only worrying her more.

The sound of shuffling feet draws her attention, and she turns to find Kara standing by the fence, the one that's low enough so she can see into Kara's backyard.

"Hi," Kara says, and this time she waves, albeit just as awkwardly as Lena did the first time. She's thankfully wearing a shirt (or not-so-thankfully, in Lena's honest opinion), hair damp and frizzing as if she's just washed it. "It's a hot day, isn't it?"

"Yes, very," Lena says, but there's no hope for reigning in her panicked heartbeat now. How long has Kara been there? Surely she couldn't have seen—?

"Is this your son?" Kara smiles winningly at Clark. "He's really cute."

Lena pauses, remembering her story a bit too late. "He's my brother's," she says. "I'm just taking care of him for a while." When Kara nods, accepting the information in silence, Lena surges on to say, "Listen, I'm sorry about earlier, I should've kept my blinds closed or—"

"Oh, no, that's okay!" Kara rubs at the back of her neck, chuckling uncomfortably. "I didn't mean to—sort of flash you. Or your nephew."

"Clark understands," Lena says, giving the baby's waist a quick squeeze. "Plus he still wears diapers. He's just as likely to flash you back one of these days.

"Clark, huh?" Kara leans against the fence, arms crossed casually over the top. "That's a funny name. It sounds too grown-up for such a little guy. But you'll grow into it, isn't that right—Clark." She takes a beat too long to say his name, panic flitting briefly over her face.

The ensuing silence isn't tense, exactly, but it isn't comfortable either. "So," Lena says, just to break it, "how do you like the neighborhood?"

Kara brightens. "I love it," she says happily. "It's so beautiful out here."

It's really not, but Lena plays along, smiling as Kara lights up about the beauty of suburb life.

"Do you by any chance know what happened to the couple that used to live here?" Lena asks when the rambling dies off, curiosity getting the best of her. "I didn't even know they were looking to move."

"Sorry, no," Kara says. "But I did move in pretty quickly. I think my realtor knew them."

"Well," Lena says, "I guess that's that." She has a nagging suspicion that's not all there is to the story, but she steps back and says, "We'd better go back inside. It's too hot out here for Clark."

Kara blinks. "Right," she says. "Babies...overheat. Sometimes."

"...sometimes they do, yeah."

Kara's cheek flush red. "Um," she says. "So by any chance—would you want to hang out sometime? It's just," she hurries to justify, "I'd love to have a friend here. I'm sort of...new to town."

Lena tilts her head and surveys Kara for a moment. She doesn't know where this is coming from; someone as peppy and friendly as Kara surely doesn't need any help making friends. But, she decides, why not—there's no harm in making a new friend herself. (Jess might even be proud.)

"Sure," Lena agrees, and she gestures to her house. "You know where I live."

Kara ducks her head with a shy smile, and this—this could be interesting.