If Lara is sorry about being so late posting feedback, what can I say about me? <hangs head in shame>
Okay, let's go straight to my favorite parts:
Oh god, he wanted to throw his arms around her and hug her tightly to him.
Not that she would have let him do that.
Part of her just wanted to wrap her arms around him and shut out the rest of the world.
But he wouldn’t have let her.
Oh, DJ, you and Sue are so cruel! Imagine, both Lois and Clark just want to hug the other one, but both of them believe that the other one wouldn't let them. All right, but this is sweet, too. There's hope for Lois and Clark, isn't there?
And really, Lois and Clark think a lot about each other in this part:
Lois sat behind the little glass pane, staring at the telephone receiver next to her on the wall of the cubicle. She probably should have called Clark to tell him where she was going.
But why? What was he? Her nursemaid? He certainly wasn’t her boyfriend. So why call him?
Because he’s your partner... and your friend, her mind berated her.
Clark checked his watch again. Lois still wasn’t back yet and he was getting worried. He had called the doctor’s office and they had told him that she had left over an hour ago in a cab.
He had tried calling her cell phone but she wasn’t answering. He strode purposefully up the ramp to the elevators and reached out to press the down arrow.
So where was she?
I really, really like this!
Ah, but... you know me. I seem to get a special kick or something out of being angry at Clark. So this had me quietly fuming:
His mind immediately jumped to conclusions. What if she was being held hostage by some criminal mastermind? What if she was hurt? What if she was lying unconscious somewhere in a gutter? Images flashed through his mind of lifting her unconscious body up into his arms and flying her to the hospital.
He had known that she wasn’t dead, even before the doctor had explained that she had a concussion, but that hadn’t made him feel any better.
And these thoughts weren’t making him feel any better now...
Clark, you idiot! You broke up with her because you had somehow gotten it into your thick skull that Lois is going to be in terrible danger if Clark Kent has a relationship with her. So you broke up with her. Okay, Kent, are you happy now? You don't have a relationship with her any more. Is she in less danger now?
Oh, and... I'm scrolling down, reading the text, and I just love this sentence and this image:
“Mmmpf,” she exclaimed, bouncing off of him like a pinball.
I love it!!!
Like Nancy, I absolutely love this sentence and this image, too:
His body perked at the contact of her body against him.
Adorable!!!!
And you know what? I have to quote my favorite part once again, but this time as an unbroken flow of text:
His body perked at the contact of her body against him. She was here and she was safe. The anxiety that had been building inside him slowly ebbed away. Oh god, he wanted to throw his arms around her and hug her tightly to him.
Not that she would have let him do that.
“Lois! Are you okay? Where have you been?”
She could hear the concern in his voice and her heart lurched, making her feel just the tiniest bit guilty. She held onto him a little tighter even though she had regained her balance. It wouldn’t take much for her to embrace him. Part of her just wanted to wrap her arms around him and shut out the rest of the world.
But he wouldn’t have let her. And she certainly wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of turning her down, again.
Okay, Lois's anger at the end of this is a little disappointing, but apart from that... oh, this is so full of longing and regrets, and it's so beautifully written. Please, please get Clark and Lois back together soon.
And this... I love it:
“Why didn’t you call me? I could have gone with you.” His face looked hurt and the ache in his voice broke through the barrier to her heart, causing her to briefly wonder exactly why she really hadn’t called him.
And look at how Lois has to
remind herself why she didn't call him:
Because you’re mad at him, she reminded herself. Focus.
Yes, she has to
remind herself that she is angry at him!!!
“I’m perfectly capable of tracking down some leads on my own, thank you very much. I’m an amnesiac, not a five-year-old,” she scolded him.
And this is so, so Lois!!! Wonderful! "I'm an amnesiac" - such a tiny little problem - "not a five-year-old"!!!!
Lois steeled her heart against the pain in his voice. Not this time. She wouldn’t be feeling this way or treating him this way if he hadn’t abandoned her to begin with. How could he expect her to lean on him now when he had deserted her like that before? Was he really that dense?
I like this. Lois is right. I'm glad that she responds to his pain, but it's true that she wouldn't feel so strongly for him if she didn't love him. And loving him when he has turned her down is very painful for her.
Of course.... Lois does tend to jump in without checking the water level first. Leaning on Clark, for her own protection, may not be such a bad idea after all!
She waved him away and started heading towards her desk. “Clark, I’m not going to call you up every time I have some eensy weensy little problem – after all, you’re not my boyfriend.” She turned and eyed him pointedly.
So Lois! Love it!!
“I’m your partner,” he chastised her. “And hopefully I’m still your friend. And your doctor told me to look out for you.”
There was that whole ‘friend’ thing again. He couldn’t be engaged to her, married to her, but it was okay to be friends with her?
No, Clark, you can't be friends with her on those terms.
Clark *did* want to talk more about things. He kept trying to look for an opening, watch for an opportunity to tell her that he had been wrong not to discuss his decision with her. That he was ready to hear what she had to say.
That he was willing to concede that he might have been wrong.
What? Are you saying he is thinking of taking back the taking back of his proposal? Are you saying he wants to be her boyfriend again? Are you saying he wants to propose to her again?
Clark knew immediately where Lois’s brain was headed with this... amnesia or not. “And you think she could possibly be the one behind the break-in at STAR Labs?” He paused for a moment and then shook his head, a broad smile breaking out on his face. “You’re not serious, are you? Mindy? Are we remembering the same woman? Have you forgotten how...”
Lois gave him a stare that could pierce steel.
Love it!!!
He ducked his head and gave her an embarrassed grimace. “Sorry, bad choice of words. Of course you don’t remember her. Lois, believe me, Mindy is not the one behind this. She called Bill, Sr. her ‘Hunky’.” He rolled his eyes. “She’s nothing more than a ‘trophy wife’ – the looks of a Barbie Doll with the depth to match.”
She scowled at him. “Maybe your hormones are clouding your judgment. I haven’t actually met her.” The scowl deepened. “At least not, that I can remember, anyway.
Oh, how funny and poignant! And anyway, as someone pointed out - Nancy? - that Clark himself has been called a Ken doll, so he probably shouldn't dismiss Mindy just because she seems like a Barbie doll to him.
“Nope. Sometimes partners have to work together and sometimes, for the greater good, they have to split up.” She gave him a pointed look. “Especially if we’ve only got one more day to get something for Perry. I’ll interview Dan, you interview Dr. Klein and we can meet up tomorrow and compare notes.”
He didn’t look happy.
The funny thing was, Lois didn’t feel very happy, either.
I love this...
Isn’t this what she had wanted to do? Hurt him? Make him realize that he was wrong? Show him what it would be like if she moved on without him?
No. That’s not what she really wanted. What she really wanted was to be with him.
And I just
love this!!!
Ahh, but... this makes me sad:
But she wasn’t about to tell him that.
Oh, Lois. I wish you
would tell him.
“Oh? You read our articles?” She was surprised Mindy would admit to that if she was trying to pull off being a bombshell boob, which if Mindy’s outfit was any indicator, that’s exactly what she was going for.
A bombshell boob... Right now, I'm teaching a class of mine a little something about the literature of the Middle Ages, and then we have talked a little about the Black Death, the plague, too. And seeing that you called Mindy a bombshell boob, and remembering I've just been talking about the plague... do you know there is a student blooper which goes something like this: "During the Middle Ages there was a disease which made people grow boobs under their arms"?
(Speaking about student bloopers, this one is my favorite: Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 120-foot clipper.)
Lois risked a glance over at Clark to see what he was looking at... Mindy’s face. His eyes appeared to be glued to Mindy’s, not allowing his vision to drift even a millimeter lower.
Good.
Good? Was she honestly even thinking of feeling jealous over Clark? Better yet, over Mindy? Yes, yes she was. She sighed inwardly. Apparently Clark wasn’t the only one who hadn’t thought about what it would be like to see the person he loved move on. She hadn’t thought about it either.
Aaaawww!!! (But honestly, Clark, if you were to choose Mindy over Lois... well, then you would deserve whatever tragedies you might suffer.)
“Mrs. Church,” Clark said, catching Mindy’s attention before Lois could say something insulting, “we came here to find out if you know anything about something your... uh... stepson...” Clark stammered. It took an extreme stretch of the imagination to think of Bill Jr. as her stepson, “...was working on, called Project Nirvana?”
It took an extreme stretch of the imagination to think of Bill Jr. as her stepson.... Yeah, I'll bet!!!!
She crinkled up her mouth into what she obviously deemed to be a cute little pout.
And it would have been a cute little pout - to um... the right interested party. Clark just happened to *not* be that party. He found Lois’s pout much more persuasive. In fact, when Lois turned that look of hers on him, he was putty in her hands.
Oh, so sweet.... *sigh*
He wondered if she knew that?
He wondered if that’s why he had left so abruptly the night he told her that they couldn’t be together any longer.
Oh, it was true that there had been an emergency and Clark had been called away. But it hadn’t been *that* big of an emergency. A drunk driver had run into a fire hydrant in the uptown commercial district; water had been shooting everywhere, flooding the street.
But hardly something that had required the assistance of Superman.
And yet he had flown there anyway. He had stopped the leak and assisted the police with the cleanup and removal of the wrecked vehicle.
Anything to have gotten him out of Lois’s apartment.
Oh, the idiot! The coward!
He had already seen the look on her face, the tears in her eyes, when she had realized what he was telling her. The same tears he had seen in her eyes last night. If he hadn’t left that night when he had, he might not have stood by his decision.
Would that have been such a bad thing?
No, Clark. No, no, no, it wouldn't.
And Mindy is playing the brainless Barbie doll, while Lois and Clark are telling her everything they are on to regarding her.
“Hey... are you guys still a *thing*? You looked so cute together at that museum party. I just knew you had to be a *thing*.”
“Uh, no,” Lois answered her, throwing an annoyed look over at Clark, “We’re not a *thing*... anymore... It didn’t really work out.” Lois shook her head mentally – what was she doing telling this woman about her social life?
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Mindy told them, doing a good job of sounding sincere. “What happened? I mean, it’s not like you found out he was the crime boss of Metropolis or something.” More sniffles.
“I, uh,” Lois stammered, feeling increasingly more uncomfortable about disclosing information from her private life to a complete stranger... especially with Clark sitting right here.
Clark... sitting right here...
“You’ll have to ask him,” Lois told her, jerking her thumb over towards Clark. “He’s the one who broke it off.”
I can understand Lois - I wouldn't have been able to resist embarrassing Clark like this, either.
Well, Lois is right about Mindy, though - she is the one running Intergang, even though Clark can only see her as a stupid blonde bimbo. And he doesn't take Lois's side when they are talking to Perry, and Perry backs Clark up. I can see that Lois is feeling angry and belittled by Clark (not that he wasn't right that it was too dangerous to try to break in to find Mindy church inside Costmart, of course).
She took a step away from him. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I need time to get ready.”
“Ready?”
“Yeah, you know, for my date. I have to wash my hair, shave my legs, paint my toenails... oh and then there’s my eyelashes – I probably should curl them since Dan made that comment about them being pretty. Then again, after all that effort, I might not feel like going out at all. Maybe we’ll stay in and I’ll make him something. *He* loves my cooking, you know...” The elevator opened and she stepped inside. “Goodnight, Clark. Have fun on your date with Dr. Klein.”
Hah! That was a good one!
Then the elevator doors closed and Clark was left standing there to contemplate the jealousy that was flaring up inside him.
What did she mean she had to shave her legs?
Well, you know, Clark, you have told her yourself that you can't be her boyfriend any more. Maybe she is looking for another beau? How about Dan? Maybe she is going to show Dan some thigh tonight? (Oh, I seriously hope not, but it may be good for Clark to feel jealous for a while.)
Very good part! Looking forward to more.
Ann
Of course, you don't 
Of course they both want to be with each other, I wish Clark wasn't being so dense and Lois so mad. eh...
And regarding the "blonde" comment - well, it takes one to know one. <g> Thanks for the fdk!
It's me, slacker Jojo coming in to say that it was an interesting chapter. These two kids... I feel so bad for them both. I keep hoping that Lois will remember a bit more each day with the help of those pills.