Mary You got me. I'd watched your posts with interest, but decided to wait until this one was finished and then read it all at once.
No worries.
To be honest, knowing what I know about my publishing style -- the fact that I tend to post the whole story very quickly -- if the story looked to be angsty at all, I would probably wait for the end too.
Even though it clearly *had* to end happily (because it just had to), this was still very chilling.
The REAL story was always going to end this way. However, I had to fight off the temptation to post an alt-chapter 12 where, instead of Clark ending up immune to kryptonite, he had his powers burned out and Lex killed him. In that version, the brainwashing worked and Lois ended up being the exact Mrs. Luthor that Lex wanted.
Bob
