Well, Merry Christmas, everyone! And A Happy New Year for tomorrow.
I'm not sure where to begin here. You've given me such a lot of wonderful comments and insightful feedback throughout this story that it's hard to know how to respond to it all. Perhaps thank you would be a good start. I'll try to move onto something a little more intelligent and considered further down this unstructured ramble.
This has to rate as the most exhausting, all-consuming story I've ever written and possibly ever want to write. An awful lot didn't get done while this story was progressing, and I'm sure that sitting still on the sofa for hours at a time, moving only the odd finger or thumb on the laptop keyboard, didn't do anything terribly good for my back.
However, it was a very rewarding experience and I have to admit that I'm actually quite pleased with the result. Ask me in six months, of course, and I'll probably hate the story, but that is the lot of many writers I know.
Now, this sequel business. Well, I can quite understand why some of you might want a sequel. I've left things unfinished, insofar as Lois isn't yet well and Clark doesn't even know if they'll ever get together. A little bit of me would quite like to write the story of Lois's recovery, because of the unique role Clark would have to play in it. The process would undoubtedly be very draining for Clark, thus giving me lots of opportunities for more juicy sessions with good old George. <g> I wouldn't get so much of a thrill out of writing Lois's experience of the recovery process, because so little of it would relate directly to the Lois/Clark world (who wants to read about grim goings on in drug-dealer's house in Brazzaville?).
Anyway, I've already written one 'Lois regains her memory while Clark supports her and hopes she'll eventually come to love him' story (one of the Fear of Discovery series; can't remember which). The prospect of writing another similar story just doesn't appeal, unfortunately. You sequel-hunters will just have to imagine your own sequel - which can be just as much fun. In fact, that's more or less what got me interested in fanfic in the first place - inventing my own stories about Lois and Clark.
By the way, you have Wendy to thank for a couple of very important features. One is the fact that Lois appears at all. <g> I was originally tinkering with having Perry show Clark irrefutable evidence of Lois's death, which would then give Clark the closure he needed to move away from his obsession and onto other relationships. However, Wendy said Clark needed a Lois and that was that <g>. I'm glad she did, because otherwise I'd never have had that telepathy idea, and I would have missed all the fun of writing the Clark/Mayson break-up.
The other feature you have to thank Wendy for is the destruction of the red kryptonite - it was just a throw-away comment which passed from her to me one night, but I soon realised that it was the *only* way to finish the story satisfactorily - as someone said, it brings the story full circle.
Actually, you (and I, of course) should also thank Wendy and Elena for beta-reading this story - without their support and reassurance that I wasn't writing total rubbish the thing may never have been posted at all.
Well, I haven't managed to move onto an intelligent response to your feedback, but I feel I've probably rambled on enough here as it is. Suffice to say I really appreciate all those comments on sections you've singled out for special praise, and all of your insightful remarks about the story - which reassure me that, for the most part, I got across the message I'd hoped to convey.
Yvonne