Oh-My-Goodness!
The
emotion that you create, Anti-K, in your writing!?!
I am sitting here, completely in dumb-founded bliss. Your talent totally amazes me--how you can take our characters, with your words, and create such moments of feeling. I've been so excited for Lois and Clark to come face-to-face, experience each other, feel everything together that has been haunting both of them. I had really built this 'moment' up in my head. And you made it everything I was hoping for, and honestly
so much more
.
I'm really glad for Lois gaining some more time with Martha and Jonathan. I think she needed as much understanding as she could get before she had any time with Clark. Seeing how they've lived, created somewhat of a 'life' for themselves. Finding out more about Clark from them. Clark's hands shaking--it was great Lois knowing that beforehand. Just getting a bit of understanding was huge for Lois.
Dark periods. Bleak moments. But she does not think she’s ever felt so bad as she does now, her hands wrist-deep in soapy, dirty water, holding a ceramic bowl and a washrag. Teardrops fall into that water (further dirtying it, sullying it with guilt she shouldn’t even have the luxury to feel, to indulge in), tiny ripples pushing aside soap bubbles, plink-plink-plinking alongside the rim of the bowl.
“I think that one’s done now, honey,” Martha says gently, and she reaches out, infinitely slowly, and unwraps Lois’s fingers from around it. Before Lois can do more than take in a shuddering breath, Martha has placed another bowl in her hands. “Start on this one, okay?”
Lois gives the impression of a nod. She doesn’t say anything and Martha lets her hold on to her impossible hope that neither of them know she is crying.
It takes a while to finish up. There are a lot of dishes (but not so many that Lois doesn’t notice Martha taking the empty plate set aside earlier and filling it to overflowing with leftovers, wrapping it in plastic and placing it in the fridge), but Lois wishes there were more. She wouldn’t mind if she never ran out of dishes, if Martha just kept handing them to her one by one (giving her an excuse to stay; giving her the illusion that she can possibly do something to help them, to give back to them, to make up for what she’s stolen).
This part really moved me. Lois having some time with Martha. Lois--never being very good at
saying how she feels--
showing Martha with her tears. I think this really gave Martha some insight into 'where' Lois has been during these last few months. Brought Martha understanding. And I think Martha knew how therapeutic letting out some of those tears was to Lois. How Martha very quietly kept the process going, kept Lois washing yet another dish.
A bolt of sheer terror sparks a revolution in Lois’s system, deadening her nerves system, shooting adrenaline through her veins. Freezing her in place. “Wh-what…what do I say?”
Something like compassion, like sympathy (or maybe just pity) moves through Martha’s eyes, turns them almost silver, highlighted with sapphire, reflecting gold sparks from the warm tones of the kitchen. “Oh, honey--whatever it is you came all this way to say.”
And this moment between them. I think Martha is starting to really grasp the enormity of this time together with Clark Lois is feeling. Lois
needed someone to care about her--she's been alone, completely living in guilt for months. I love that that person was Martha.
She does not want to talk to him if he will not speak to her in turn (if he will give her only silence, as she gave him coming back from their trip to Smallville).
Smallville clue! Bad car trip home? Hmmmm...Lois mad because of how she found out Clark was Superman possibly?
Out of everything she could imagine him doing, though, out of all the possible scenarios, he chooses the unlikeliest of all.
He smiles at her.
And as Clark Kent exited this world with a single word, so this stranger enters her world with the same one.
“Lois,” he says. A breath. A murmur. A sound (when for so long there has been only silence).
Perfection! Goosebump-provoking
.
“You came.” She hears the words, recognizes her own voice, and yet, she doesn’t know where those words came from. Doesn’t know why they are the first words she chooses to say to him. But nonetheless, it is her voice and she is the one who said them, and everyone can hear the tears surging up behind them, can hear the disbelief and the relief tainting those two words with a weight they aren’t strong enough to bear up under.
His smile (another one, and this is a Clark smile, teasing and slight, curling up higher at one end of his mouth than the other) makes the room steady around her. Makes the light dim a bit so that it isn’t stabbing into her eyes, into her brain. “Shouldn’t I be the one saying that?” he asks wryly.
Going for complete honesty here: I about bawled my eyes out during this moment. The back-and-forth. Clark, being just a little bit like
Clark. Teasing her. Calming her. Balancing her. Lois
needed him right here, he sensed that, and he was there for her. LOVE this!
He gives a short nod, this stranger, not a real nod, just confirmation that she spoke. He waits (she holds her breath, afraid she has scared him away, has lost him again), then, as if he cannot help himself, says, “I missed you.”
Lois swallows. Hard. Curls her hands into fists so tight that she feels a couple of her nails puncture the flesh to release tiny pinpricks of blood. As if in response, the stranger (Clark, her heart stubbornly says; Superman, her mind reminds her; neither, she thinks) flinches. His eyes dart toward her hands, and for the blink of an eye, she thinks he will drop his arms from their crossed position and stride across the distance separating them and then, with hands as gentle as his mother’s, will uncurl her fists and tsk over the puncture wounds and chide her about being more careful. (She thinks he will turn into the Clark she killed; thinks she can resurrect him from the dead with less effort than it took to kill him.)
But then his own hands form into fists, and he tightens his position, resettles his arms across his chest, and does not move (does not rise from his grave to comfort her).
WOW! The glimpse of 'I missed you'--'Clark' is still so much there. I love that peak you gave us, letting us know that he hasn't lost any of that initial and immediate love he felt for Lois (regardless of
this--the last four months). And Lois' reaction is amazing, how her body reacts so intensly to Clark's admission by curling her hands into damaging fists. I love that deep down she knows that Clark notices the pain,
wants to comfort her, but can not.
The wordage of 'Clark, her heart stubbornly says; Superman, her mind reminds her; neither, she thinks' is absolutely poetic. I've come back to it multiple times, by the way.
He nods, but there’s a flicker in her eyes, and Lois realizes, with a pang, that Clark Kent didn’t work at the Daily Planet long enough to know what was annual and what wasn’t. She forgets, most of the time, that he wasn’t there very long (only two months; only eight weeks and four days); he slipped in so easily, fit in so well, that it seems he was always there.
This is a really powerful paragraph. How Clark immediately fit in. From the start. Completely. How Lois associates Clark with all of everything related to the Planet. I love that.
And also...the timing. Her knowing percisely how long he was there is amazing, like Virginia pointed out. But I was also struck with how
short of a time he was there, that Lois and Clark knew eachother, worked together. Two months. Not long at all, really. And I knew that--from knowing the show and where this story diverted from--but I hadn't really acknowledged it to myself (if that makes sense
).
And now it's been four months--since they last saw each other. I was really struck by how they've been apart longer than they ever really got to know each other. But yet, how
profound the effect of that time together was (on both of them). And not just because of the damage of a newspaper article...
I also LOVE Lois' plan
. And I get the feeling she's going to succeed. She's too head-strong not to
. Something tells me that (for Clark) the 'best medicine' for him is going to be having Lois back in his life. I think they need to hash a LOT of stuff out. But they will. And during that time, Lois being there--being a distraction for Clark of his fears, being a 'hope' of his for his future--I think Clark will heal.
Counting down the days till this weekend
.
Laura
