Oh, Sara... I don't even know what to say. I know I've already scared you with lots of comments on this (and btw, *I* got the better end of the deal by far!)... just re-reading it here, you've got me - mouth hanging open, speechless, in complete and total awe and... Well... this is just absolutely amazing!
You have the ability to break my heart with these little devices you use and re-use, from Lois's childlike moments, where she assigns all her feelings names (ie Lois's Patience) to her recollections of lonely conversations to no-one.
Would you like a highly fattening, artery-clogging, nutritionally worthless snack item, Clark? Isn't it amazing what somebody with a bellybutton ring and a voice box can do these days, Clark? Can I get you a high-sugar, high-saturated-fat, fully-caffeinated cup of coffee, Clark? You realise at this rate you're going to develop diabetes before you're thirty, right, Clark?
Clark? Right?
"...Clark?"
... Wow. You take something that seems so light and layer it, weigh it down... with loneliness, with her fear of going on without him by her side, with her dependence on him, which she never wanted to have, with her razor sharp pain at how quickly he was torn away from her... to the point where she's talking to thin air almost expecting it to answer her back, so accustomed she is to his constant presence
As if the gods were listening to her disjointed thoughts and growing tired of her babbling, the heavens suddenly opened. She stood there for a second or so, shocked into silence as the rain assaulted her, beating her head and shoulders with angry fists.
This description is wonderful - of the heavens opening up, the rain coming down... and just that the rain would (to her) be
assaulting her, beating her with angry fists... It's so fitting for the way her thoughts have been moving. Ever since Clark "died", she's been beating herself up over it, angry, grieving, guilty and now he's back and she still has let time slip by and she's imagining that even the rain is fed up with her, beating her up over everything. As if Clark has nothing to do with their fate. She doesn't let him take any of the blame, not after everything. And the whole scene here, it's breathtaking and so sad, the descrription is so wonderful I can just picture it in my mind - her hovered on his doorstep, an emotional, scared wreck, and the heavens opening up, intensifying those feelings... SOOO amazing
I know a lot of people here have used the word "raw" and I'm going to have to too. This honesty, her thoughts, the candid truth, how it's emerged out of this tragedy and then miracle... you've created something wonderful by exposing Lois's raw emotions in the face of these recent experiences and you've done it in such a creative, wonderful way.
And at the end of this part, her facing the very clear truth, the proof, of how much he loves her... well, I can see why you made Dave cry (sorry, Dave, I had to <g>)...
Facing it after everything that's happened so painfully recently...
Yes. Oh, yes. She did know that Clark Kent loved her. No matter how much she tried to rationalise it away, no matter how she tried to make it unimportant, she knew he loved her - with a certainty that was petrifying in its steadiness.
All the little things he did for her spoke for themselves. Unspoken avowals of love in the cups of coffee, the jelly doughnuts, the supportive hand on her shoulder as she pounded the keys of the computer in a desperate effort to squeeze the story in before deadline. The look in his eyes when she made him laugh, that warm sparkling appreciative... thing...
And then the big things - the unspoken understanding that flitted between them, the shirts she'd ruined with mascara after a particularly poignant scene in whatever movie she'd forced him to sit through, the way he'd tried to teach her how to cook, the way he hadn't strangled her when she'd nearly burnt his kitchen down, all the times he'd saved her life. Weak and prostrate on the floor after her ordeal with Mr Makeup, how his arms had been around her, his large hand cradling her head against his neck.
Big things he'd done for her...
Like when he'd challenged a dangerous gangster for her.
Like when he'd stepped in front of a bullet for her.
Like when he'd died for her.
When he'd died for her.
A misty veil rose quickly in front of her eyes and her breath caught in her throat. Suddenly she couldn't breathe, something was tearing at her lungs and scrabbling wildly at her chest and oh god, it was happening. She was choking on her own grief.
...
Sara, this is absolutely mind-blowing stuff and I hope you know that. Fantastic, amazing and oh-so-much more.
Can't wait for the rest
~NICOLE
ps- Okay, so you got me on the "speechless" thing - I can usually find *something* to say <g>
