Maybe my comment will be considered superfluous at this point, in which case I apologize in advance. However, I believe I can shed some light on one of the many reasons people's reactions to this story are so surprising to you, Terry.
While it's true that a great majority of the stories in this fandom feature happy endings and/or WAFFy contents, I don't think the conclusion should be that most people here dislike any story lacking either or both of those. I've come across a fair amount of L&C stories featuring liberal amounts of WHAM angst, character deaths and broken-toy situations, and yes, even the occasional not-quite-happily ever after. Some of those were, IMHO, stellar examples of good fan fiction; some not so much.
Knowing this, you'll understand that for me, the most important measure of quality in fan fiction has nothing to do with the way the story ends, or with the amount of warm and fuzzy feelings it generates. The most important question, to my mind, is whether the story stays *fundamentally* true to the characters I've come to know (and love) on the show.
To be clear, this is not a simple yes or no question. A fan-written story that puts its characters in front of one roadblock after another, but never allows them to grow and evolve, and thereby break free from the basic behavioral templates established for them on the show, is almost never a worthwhile story. Hence the emphasis on *fundamentally*. The other extreme isn't good either, though. A story that allows its characters to become unrecognizable (as compared to their TV counterparts) may well make for good fiction, but it almost never makes for good fanfic.
In short, what we should all be aiming for when writing fanfic, I think, is a kind of 'continuity in discontinuity'. As fanfic readers, we don't want to be bored to death reading things we've seen on TV already, so a certain amount of growth and change will certainly be welcomed. We do, however, want to recognize the people we are reading about.
In essence, we recognize Clark Kent as the man who loves Lois Lane, and Lois Lane as Mad Dog Lane, but with a soft side hidden beneath the cold and ruthless exterior. People here have argued that in this story, both of those essences are gone. Clark can't really love Lois all that much, if he's washed his hands off of her already, and never really tried to set her straight; and to 'destroy' the Lois we know and love was pretty much the whole idea behind this story.
So what we're left with is a story about two strangers. And many of us *love* reading stories about strangers. But when that's what we want, we don't usually come looking for it on a fanfic board. We have original fiction for that.
In the end, I think the story you are trying to tell here is very worthy of being told. I'm just not sure that writing fan fiction -- in any fandom -- is the right way to do it; and I think that's where a lot of the vocal reactions to this story are coming from.
ETA:
Maybe next time you have a good idea for a story, but writing it in the L&C universe would require major changes to the basic nature of show's characters, you should instead come up with some original characters, and tell the story from their perspectives. If you post it here on the original fiction board, you can be sure I'll read it, because as many people have said, you are a terrific writer, Terry. It's just that not every good story is also a good L&C story.
