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Features Writer
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OP
Features Writer
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 966 |
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Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 2,082
Kerth
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Kerth
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 2,082 |
Oh, what a nice, lovely day in the park. So kind of you to give us an angst-free part.  The ground is shivering, is sloping up and down (as if finally, so very belatedly, recognizing the extent, the enormity, of Lois’s crimes and is now trying to hurl her off into empty infinity, rid itself of her blemish) Uh oh...  (love the metaphor, BTW) Like the world had vanished beneath his feet. Like every rule and law of nature had been broken, remolded and shaped to oh so perfectly and neatly destroy the life he’d oh so carefully built. Like Earth itself had risen up in revolt against him.  “Are you okay?” the clerk asks in reply, eyes locked on the various cuts and scrapes carving a scrawled map of guilt and realization over Lois’s exposed flesh (her sins finally shown on the outside, bleeding out into the open). This visual is such a powerful metaphor. And then, the polite social lie again. No one is fine.  And then...sob  Clark truly has nothing if he doesn't have the people who remind him that Clark still exists. Heartbreaking! Such an emotional story!
You can find my stories as Groobie on the nfic archives and Susan Young on the gfic archives. In other words, you know me as Groobie. 
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Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 4,393 Likes: 1
Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 4,393 Likes: 1 |
 I am thoroughly sucker-punched. The only ray of hope is that Clark took his parents to a hospital. Had they been dead, I am guessing that he wouldn't have whisked their bodies off; he would probably have collapsed in grief beside them. Yes, the hope is slim, but that's all you've left us. To be honest, when Lois was in the store, I had been more worried about her disguise being displaced and her being recognized than I had been about the danger. I really did not think you would be taking this in the direction you did. And that just made the events all the more powerful. You wrote in another FDK thread that you were finishing up the final part. Does this mean that you will be posting more frequently? Now would be a good time. Or, to quote canon Lois, "This moment! Pick this one!" Joy, Lynn p.s., I loved the banter and lightness in the first part of the story, even if it did lull me into a false sense of security.
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 54
Freelance Reporter
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Freelance Reporter
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 54 |
Wow. Got sucked into all was going to be better. The new family unit will save Clark. And then, it won't. Great job writing this chapter. Totally took me by surprise but didn't seem forced.
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Joined: May 2011
Posts: 6,142 Likes: 2
Nobel Peace Prize Winner
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Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Joined: May 2011
Posts: 6,142 Likes: 2 |
past small shops filled with books or coffee or clothing or souvenirs stamped with an emerald sigil shaped like a lantern. Oooh! Is the Justice League starting...? Of course, it’s not the gardening that’s the miracle cure, she knows; it’s Jonathan himself, and James’s promise, and Clark’s forgiving smile, and Martha’s nervous efforts. Awww... and Lois wants to see the park because she wants them to be happy. YES! Good girl, Lois. You've earned one Clark smile. “It’s been a while, but I haven’t quite forgotten what your favorite cookies are.” Cookies! Can I have some too? who exactly will help me bake all these incentives Lois, because she can use the lessons. Not Lois, because no one needs the fire department to show up. She is included.
James pulled her into their teasing. Martha listed her contributions to their daily chores alongside Jonathan’s.
Her two detractors, and they are including her.
Accepting her.
Teasing her.
As if she’s part of the family. Part of their unit. One of them.
Not an outsider. Not a murderer. Not their worst nightmare.
An ally. A compatriot. Someone who will do anything for Clark up to and including giving up her life for him. *sniffle* So happy here...(so I'm anticipating a sucker punch). Regular, normal people who can relax in their average anonymity, their relative mediocrity…their alter egos. Love this, but this is who they really are, Lois. Just like Clark is Clark, not Superman. At least, how they used to be. “Well, he’s much sneakier than Clark ever was. You’re on your own with him--though I have the feeling that if he sees you headed into a shop, he’ll find a way to distract himself.” LOL! “They’re buttering us up.” Jonathan turns tender as he meets Martha’s gaze, their hands idly caressing each other when he takes a cookie from her. “Must mean we’re going to be stuck with an afternoon of shopping.”  She’s just tucking her wallet back into her purse and looping the handles of her plastic bag over her wrist when she feels it. A bomb? “Ma’am, you need to duck and cover!” Earthquake. This must be what Clark felt like that day.
This is what he must have thought was happening when he walked into the Daily Planet, straight into the firing squad. Because Jonathan and Martha were standing outside. <is gutted> His right arm hangs limp and lifeless at his side, Superman, when he comes once more into mortal sight, is on his knees. He is staring down at two bodies, uncovered by stone, drenched in blood, their angles unnatural enough to make Lois’s eyes skitter away from them. She looks, instead, back up to Superman. Anddddd what was left of my hope is dead. “I’m taking them to Mercy Hospital,” *sniffle* (I think you might owe me boxes of tissues now. You might have surpassed me on the cry-factor.) No, no, no! You cannot stop there! Why do you torture us so? Please? Pretty please give us more??? (Loved the installment even if I feel horrible for Clark.)
Battle On,
Deadly Chakram
"Being with you is stronger than me alone." ~ Clark Kent
"One little spark of inspiration is at the heart of all creation." ~ Figment the Dragon
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Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 4,393 Likes: 1
Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 4,393 Likes: 1 |
Quote:
past small shops filled with books or coffee or clothing or souvenirs stamped with an emerald sigil shaped like a lantern.
Oooh! Is the Justice League starting...? Oh... I had meant to comment on that line, but the earthquake shook those thoughts right out of me. I was amused that you placed them in Coast City. So does this mean that GL is real in your story, or is this the same as Chicago or Metropolis, Illinois hawking Superman chachkas? Joy, Lynn
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Joined: Jul 2014
Posts: 911 Likes: 2
Features Writer
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Features Writer
Joined: Jul 2014
Posts: 911 Likes: 2 |
This must be what Clark felt like that day.
This is what he must have thought was happening when he walked into the Daily Planet, straight into the firing squad.
Like the world had vanished beneath his feet. Like every rule and law of nature had been broken, remolded and shaped to oh so perfectly and neatly destroy the life he’d oh so carefully built. Like Earth itself had risen up in revolt against him.
This must be what he feels like every day. Each moment facing a quaking world, all stability gone, unable to find any form of balance. Facing the unknown while reality shakes him like a mouse in the jaws of a cat, and the lives of everyone he loves teeter on a fragile precipice. Beautiful description of Lois getting how Clark felt. Well you definitely caught me by surprise, and I would say sucker punched is the nicest way to put how I feel. Just when I thought things might be turning around, this happens. Oh. Clark. and Lois. Horror hits harder and longer and more devastating than the earthquake. Fear (as big as Nightfall, as vast as Superman’s silence, as debilitating as Clark’s death) assails Lois like a disease. Like a virus that attacks and drains and steals and wounds (and kills).
Because Jonathan and Martha were standing outside.
Because they promised to wait there for her until she was done shopping. Because James was there with them. Because they were in the open.
Unprotected.
In danger.
Because the only things left to Clark (the only people he loves and daily saves the world for; the only people he will talk to and for) were all in one place. And if they are gone (if they were taken from him while they waited for Lois, of all people), then Clark will not be the only one broken and crushed. Superman will be broken too. Superman will be devastated. Will be cut loose from the Earth, ripped from his only tether.
And there will be nothing at all left to save, no alter ego to keep him here.
And all because of Lois.
Again. She gets it. But Superman is gone. Vanished. Dead. Transformed, in an instant, in the blinking of an eye, back to the haunted, dying remnants of Clark Kent. It is Clark who kneels there before his parents, beneath the eyes of James and Lois (and the onlookers and the other victims and the cameras sure to come), unveiled. Stripped naked and exposed once more to everyone.
“Clark,” Lois whispers with a half-step forward. But it’s too little too late (and there is no comfort to be found), and when he turns to look at her, she does not see the devastation she expected. She does not see heartbreak or anguish or pain.
Instead, all she sees is emptiness.
Bleak, hopeless emptiness.
And she did not realize how much she depended on his last slivers of hope until they are gone. Beautifully written, devastating and hopeless to read. Your schedule of posting is obviously your own, but I hope you will take pity on us and update with finding out Martha and Jonathan's fate soon. This angst level is off the scale right now.
Cuidadora
"Honey, we didn't care if you were a Russian or a Martian... You were ours... and we weren't giving you to anybody." ~ Martha in Strange Visitor
"A love that risks nothing is worth nothing." ~ Jonathan in Big Girls Don't Fly
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,357
Top Banana
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Top Banana
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,357 |
Whoa. What a harsh ending to such a lovely day for the Kent Family (and I include James in this "Family" as well as he was essentially the liaison between them and the Superman Foundation.)
The big question Clark may have to face if James brings him the option of becoming "Clark Kent from Smallville" and "Superman" separately is whether he wants to do it without his parents by his side. If that, then Lois will have to face a world with just Superman. Forever.
CLARK: No. I'm just worried I'm a jinx.
JONATHAN: A jinx?
CLARK: Yeah. Let's face it, ever since she's known me, Lois's been kidnapped, frozen, pushed off buildings, almost stabbed, poisoned, buried alive and who knows what else, and it's all because of me.
-"Contact" (You're not her jinx, you're her blessing.)
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Joined: Sep 2013
Posts: 1,466
Top Banana
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Top Banana
Joined: Sep 2013
Posts: 1,466 |
Whoa!  An earthquake-- that was definitely something that I was not expecting! And Martha? Jonathan?  Clark has been through so much. Now this? I just don't know if/how he can survive loosing both of them in the 'place' he is in now. So...being that Clark really really really needs his parents right now, could you please put a band-aid on them, make them all better, and insert them surprisingly 'okay' into their hospital beds in the next chapter? Please?  And for Lois...Lois was really starting to heal, figure out her purpose, have a legitimate 'family' in her life. To loose them--to feel guilt, to be the cause-- again of more pain. Lois is just as vulnerable...she very much needs Martha and Jonathan to make it through this. “Helping throw some eggs and sugar in a bowl is hardly going to hurt you,” Martha tells him dryly. “Jonathan sets the table, Lois does the dishes--that leaves you to show us some productivity.”
James says something else that makes a silver, joyous laugh shake Jonathan’s frame, and Martha replies and James darts ahead to walk backward while saying more, but it all fades away in Lois’s consciousness. All of it muted and frozen in a picture-perfect moment by the sparkling, gilt-edged realization exploding in Lois’s mind and heart and being.
She is included.
James pulled her into their teasing. Martha listed her contributions to their daily chores alongside Jonathan’s.
Her two detractors, and they are including her.
Accepting her.
Teasing her.
As if she’s part of the family. Part of their unit. One of them.
Not an outsider. Not a murderer. Not their worst nightmare.
An ally. A compatriot. Someone who will do anything for Clark up to and including giving up her life for him. I really loved this. That glimpse she gets, those clues that tell Lois that she is becoming part of the family. “You okay?”
Lois smiles at Martha. At the concern in her voice. At the feel of her age-smoothed hand resting so gently atop Lois’s. “Getting there,” she murmurs beneath the flow of James’s voice and Jonathan’s chuckle.
Martha’s own smile is cracked and tremulous. “Me too. It’s a slow road sometimes, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Her voice breaks, but Lois doesn’t care. No need for false pride or defensive facades here. Not now. Not with this woman, with this family (with these few who see beyond her disguise and know her in all her forms). But she cannot help adding, in little more than a whisper, “I just wish Clark could be here.”
Instead of denouncing her for her hypocrisy (for wishing for the very thing she made impossible), Martha only tightens her grip over Lois’s. “So do I. He could sure use a day like this. Or even just an hour. Sometimes, I think he’s gotten so focused on what he still has left to him that he forgets he can have more.”
An idea sparks in Lois’s mind. It feels like creativity. It feels like purpose. It feels like adrenaline. It feels like an echo of what she lost when she pulled that metaphorical trigger. She’s afraid to look at it too closely, or examine it out in the cold light of day, but she cradles it close. Hugs it inside herself and lets it grow in warmth and seclusion and hope. Promises herself she will take it out and nurture it further when she is alone. This was such a tender moment between Martha and Lois. I could just picture the emotion flowing between them. The understanding. Really beautiful  . An idea? Hmmm. This sounds interesting. Hopefully happier times are ahead, and Lois can revisit this thought. Really looking forward to reading more--so I can stop worrying about the Kents  . Laura
"Where's Clark?" "Right here."
...two simple sentences--with so much meaning.
~Lois and Clark in 'House of Luthor'~
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Joined: Apr 2011
Posts: 9,509
Nobel Peace Prize Winner
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Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Joined: Apr 2011
Posts: 9,509 |
Man, you really know how to put visuals in a person's head, Anti-K. I've got to say, when one is sick one shouldn't read your stories, because I had terrible nightmares of Lois, Clark, and the Kents after reading this installment (okay, that might have had to do a little with my sickness). Everything was all blue skies and cheery and things looking up, but then Lois HAD to go shopping. I was all afraid that Luthor was going to find her because she did something stupid, such as use her credit card or something. Then the clerk is yelling "Duck and Cover" (which I associate with those old nuclear bomb drills that they used to do in schools, so unlike everyone else I was assuming bombing, not earthquake). I'm like, HOW did Lex find her so soon? They just ran her credit card! Then it became clear, you meant earthquake. I've never heard of it being safer inside than out during an earthquake (under furniture, yes, but unless buildings collapse and rain down on pedestrians, I thought outside would be safer.)
It's always brightest before the store... er... storm.
Well, let's hope that Clark taking his folks to Mercy means that they will survive. How is it in your stories that Clark always starts badly off and then things get WORSE?! Wasn't Lois airing his secret and losing his Clark-self enough to be dealing with?
Anyway, thanks for the nightmares. Hope there's some good news before Part 25 or I may never sleep again.
VirginiaR.
"On the long road, take small steps." -- Jor-el, "The Foundling"
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"clearly there is a lack of understanding between those two... he speaks Lunkheadanian and she Stubbornanian" -- chelo.
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Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 1,685 Likes: 1
Merriwether
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Merriwether
Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 1,685 Likes: 1 |
Wow. I'm with the others - what a surprise. Though being California, an earthquake shouldn't be unexpected. I loved the banter between Lois and Clark's parents. That she was staring to heal. How devastating that Clark's parents may be badly injured! You're killing me here. I hope you don't leave us hanging too long.
Joan
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Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 966
Features Writer
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OP
Features Writer
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 966 |
I knew this was going to be a hard chapter to get away with, so your comments kind of blew me away - thanks for not trying to kill me for the end of it!  I'm very bad at nice, easy, casual scenes, groobie, which may be why they almost only ever end up being set-up for bad things.  I didn't even notice that this also that that social lie there -- you're finding them all over the place! But then, this is that kind of story...too painful to really go into the truth of the matter. A slim hope is better than none, Lynn! In fact, that's kind of my mental image for this story: an almost-eclipsed moon, darkness but with that sliver of light still showing through around the edges. The disguise fear was a red herring I slipped in, though obviously a very dangerous one, because that is always a distinct possibility. And at the risk of sounding heartless, I'm glad to hear I was able to lull you into the false sense of security. With life the way it is now, every moment could potentially turn into a bad one. Thank you, AndyG! I did worry that the earthquake coming out of nowhere would seem a bit too coincidental, but it was planned from nearly the beginning (there are multiple reasons they are now in California), and in the end, everything that happens in a story is SOMEWHAT coincidental. Clark does rely a lot on his family unit, doesn't he? One of the reasons I love him. Hey, DC, Lois EARNING a Clark smile is a new thing in this story (as opposed to being given them undeservedly), so I take that as a good sign that the tables are being slowly turned.  You anticipated the sucker punch! Oh well, maybe one of these days I'll get you. I'll get back to you on the box of tissues! I did originally have plans of explaining that one of the reasons they chose to base themselves in Coast City (Green Lantern's city, for those who don't know) is because no one would ever suspect Superman of living in the city protected by another hero, and because Clark wouldn't have to worry about rescuing people here where he lives -- maybe in his Clark clothes -- when there's another superhero there to save them for him. But I never found a good place for the explanation, and in the end, I decided it would just be too distracting trying to explain the dynamics of the world having another interstellar-traveling hero, so GL remains just in the background, maybe a legend, maybe a hero, and not a distraction to the larger L&C story. Oh, well... Thanks, cuidadora! This was a hard chapter to write, though I admit that was mostly because of the first part. The second part was easier, but mostly because emotion is easier for me to write than narrative, and the second half was all emotion, messy and overpowering and catalyzing. I do hope to post more quickly in a bit, but sadly, this last chapter or two is REALLY hard to get exactly right, and I want to make sure that I haven't posted too far ahead if I need to go back and make a few key changes. I include James in the family, too, Christina! In fact, I keep typing 'the Kents' every time Lois refers to Jonathan and Martha AND James, and then having to go back and add his name because of that 'technically, he's not,' thing. It will be hard for Clark to decide what he wants to do from here on out! I'll see what I can do about those band-aids, LMA. You're very right about Lois's delicate emotional state right now. Everyone in this story is kind of depending on other people to hold them up and keep them stitched together -- which is okay for a while if the people you're leaning on are fine themselves, but as we've seen, no one in this story really is. That idea of Lois's hasn't seen its end quite yet... Oh, I'm so sorry, Virginia! I do hope you're feeling better now, and I certainly didn't mean to give you nightmares...BUT, on the other hand, I definitely feel flattered that the story left such a mark.  I can't quite fully explain why poor Clark always gets such bad treatment in my stories, except to say he's my favorite character, and my favorites are the ones I really like to put through the wringer -- just so I can see them shine even through the worst. Bad for them, good for me (and hopefully the readers). I...hope?...you'll be able to sleep again eventually.  Thanks, scifiJoan! I'm so glad that you enjoyed the banter, because that's always one of the most difficult things for me to write! I'll try to work on that posting schedule for you guys!
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