Lynn, regarding the story idea you proposed. If I get you correctly, an important reason for the premise you suggested was that you wanted to examine Clark's guilt. And that is certainly a worthy topic to explore.
But the question is what kind of guilt you want to concentrate on. Is it the guilt that comes from knowing that you have done something horribly wrong, which has led to awful consequences? Or is it the perceived guilt of having caused something horrible which probably wasn't your fault?
If Lois dies of cancer, then it probably wasn't Clark's fault. In LnC canon, as well in the larger Superman mythos canon, Superman's X-ray vision isn't dangerous to humans. So chances are that if Lois gets cancer, it wasn't Clark who caused it.
But even if it does turn out that Clark's X-ray vision was dangerous, it would have been very hard for Clark to know or suspect this. If Clark obsesses over his failure to realize the danger of his X-ray vision and take precautions, it is because he is holding himself up to an impossibly high standard. And that is of course a subject worthy of exploring. So is that what you want to write about, Lynn? Clark blaming himself for something that he is wholly or mostly innocent of?
Another possibility is to explore the guilt that Clark ought to feel if he really and truly has been the cause of something terrible. And while the idea of Lois's cancer is non-canon, the other scenario, with Clark truly causing another person's death, can easily be explored by just very slightly changing a perfectly canon concept. Namely, that Clark came within a hair's breadth of killing Lois with his freezing breath when he wanted her to appear dead in order to save his parents.
There is already a story in the Archive where Clark is unable to revive Lois after he froze her, and she dies. Interestingly, though, in this well-written and moving story Clark's guilt isn't explored. My impression is that Clark in that fic isn't feeling guilty. Maybe he is thinking that it wasn't his idea to freeze Lois, it was her idea, so he isn't guilty of her death. Or maybe he is too devastated by her death to feel anything at all except paralysing grief and bereavement.
My point is that Clark really, truly almost did kill Lois. It would take so little to change the scenario to one where Lois dies for real. And since no story has been written so far which examines Clark's guilt for really, truly killing Lois, the field is wide open for you to do so!
Ann
