This isn't nearly as bad as I worried it would be!
You're on fire with Clark. I love his thought processes--he knows people have other priorities, and that they're busy, and that Lois is probably overexcited about getting the Planet back. But he also has his reservations; he knows Lois, and he knows the circumstances she came to him under. I like that he gets frustrated with himself and with the situation as a whole. Clark is really holding his own here, which makes him seem like less of a victim. He feels important, like he's going to have a very active part in all of this.
You’re so good, Clark, and I can’t get in the way of that.
When you’re already dreading a situation like this, everything good and vulnerable is going to pop out of the other person. It’d be hard to do this to anyone, let alone Clark.
I just needed something good, so I… It doesn’t matter, obviously it was a bad idea.
Poor Lois! Her pain makes me cringe. I was a fairly severe migraine sufferer as a little kid, so I can sympathize. Though if Clark will do anything to relieve Lois of her pain, maybe this is a good thing. The more pain Lois has, the more Clark searches for the source of it; the more he finds out, the closer we are to getting out of this mess.
Was she letting the memories in because she was about to send the final blow, or was she just needing the comfort before she told him the truth? She probably should have just told him whatever it was anyway, but looks like she got too sick too quickly for that. I can't really pin blame on someone who's out of it almost as soon as Clark steps in the door.
Is Lois keeping things slow because her source wants her to, or because she's dreading giving Clark up?
His dad had told him and his mom once that when the migraine is at its worst, it makes him careless of anything but the pain, heedless of anything but the nausea (makes him say and think things he might not any time else).
I'm glad Lois is letting some things slip. Hopefully Clark will realize that here, with Lois so vulnerable, there are truths.
Truthfully, Lois, you make me so much better. It’s hard to know what to do, sometimes, but you have such a clear-eyed way of looking at the world, that it makes things so much clearer for me. I know you think you’re cynical and jaded, but I think you’re idealistic--I think you believe in the best of things--and that makes me want to live up to those ideals.
I know Lois is nearly unconscious, but please,
please let her remember that. Let her realize that she's doing exactly the wrong thing.
Lois has this compulsive need to make everything work. To get every story. To help everyone. If her source was merely asking to give up her own future, she would be able to struggle through it just as much as she and Clark do in the NK arc. This time, it's different because Clark can’t know what’s going on. Because she has to make sure he hurts. And since she loves him, that task becomes even more difficult.
In that light, I don't know that Lois is going to make it to the end of this deception, which I like. I like seeing a persevering Lois, but I also think it’s important that she fall just as much as anyone else. She’s strong, but she’s also fallible. She can't always be resilient--she has a breaking point like everyone else. I fear she’s somewhere on the path to having a nervous breakdown, at least eventually.
One of my favorite aspects of the relationship between these two is that they draw from each other's strengths. This situation gives a lot of potential for them to grow, and in that light I think Lois and Clark will be equally dependent once this all ends. Clark is going to need Lois's persistence and faith in Superman, and Lois is going to need Clark's hope and optimism. Hopefully they’ll be able to use those things to bring down the source and slowly redefine their relationship.
That’s all just speculation, of course. Whatever happens, I hope Clark gets to be as important/as much of the hero as Lois is. That would make this epic.
She smiles against his throat, and then she lets out a deep sigh, and her eyes flutter closed, her lashes butterfly-kissing his skin. Her body relaxes completely against him as she slips into sleep, her hands still fisted in his shirt, keeping him near.
This was a great chapter. I was expecting something really, really painful, but it had a very tender feeling to it. Thank you!
