This will be my first-ever post. I hope I don't embarrass myself too much.
Very nice story. Very intense.
I found the story to be very moving. I lost my Mom when I was 21 and reading this took me back to that time. That sort of loss rips a gaping hole in your soul and that pain was evident. The story conveys this emotion very well. I think my favorite section was the passage where Clark heard the woman laughing. The idea of “How can the world just go on when I hurt so much?” is something that we can all relate to at one time or another.
Based on my vision of the standard L&C universe, I would not normally expect that intense of a reaction by Clark on the sudden death of his Dad. However, I find it easy to think in terms of either a)this is a variant vision where he had a much closer relationship with his Dad or b)his Dad was always that important to him and it simply was not obvious most of the time.
As to the ending with Lois, while I would probably have not expected this sort of an intimate end to this story, I don't have any problem with it as a possible outcome. These hyper-extreme life experiences can have the effect of ripping away the emotional “control rods” that we normally use to govern the way we interact with others.
I found the story and the emotional intensity very enjoyable.
