<<going to read the whole story word by word; coz earlier I merely skimmed>> (sorry

Again, well written, Terry.

Lois's compassion for Clark in the "comfort scene" was touching, but no more than anyone would show for a colleague in such a situation.

This story remains a very Smallville take - there is no "Lois and Clark", and it's Lana who is the love of Clark Kent's life.

c

Too good!

That's our Lois!
Uh huh, right. Totally in character, unable to admit to having any consideration for someone else's feelings.

The way Lois is reacting to the trauma of her experience by bottling everything up and becoming 'Mad Dog Lane' comes across as very believable. Clark is in character as well, obsessing about being perfect & etc. So we have the same familiar characters with two significant changes: his grief and her already knowing the secret. It will be very interesting watching them interact in your next story.

Comment to CCMalo: I respectfully disagree. I don't really think it's 'Smallville' as much as it is 'pre-L&C.' This part is just a new back-story for what will be a Lois & Clark story coming up next.

Onaleia wrote:
And I respectfully disagree, too. I hope you don't mind
But, I don't think you can call it "pre- "L & C" " because the story rejects a fundamental premise of L & C : that Lois Lane is the great love of Clark Kent's life, and that there was an attraction between the two from the beginning. However, A major theme TRNT is that Lana Lang is the great love of Clark Kent's life (which is a fundamental premise of Smallville, btw) and that there was no attraction between Lois & CK/S once Lois came on the scene. So as a backstory, it can only set us up for a scenario in which Clark accepts Lana's death and at the most settles for a life with Lois, who by defintion, can never be the great love of his life.

Would Lois Lane settle for that? (would any women? - well maybe if the guy were really, really rich and very tolerant about her having outside realtionships, but I digress<g>)

But only Terry can tell us if he was more inspired by Smallville or L & C:TNAOS when writing this fic.

Nevertheless, I can see Lana as a "starter" marriage - after all, he married at what, the age of 20 in this fic ? So Clark's understanding of what love is may be a bit immature ( I can't think of a more diplomatic way to say that:( ) He likes the girl, she's pretty, and his hormones are active, so it must be love<g> And there's no Lois Lane around for him to compare Lana with at that point.
But that's not the story Terry has written here at all. There are no hints at all that Lana's anything other than the great love of Clark's life. He may very well go on to love others, but those loves will never be "that one great love" as H.G Wells put it. In Terry's fic, that was what he had with Lana.

What I did like about this ending, though, is that there's no suggestion at all that Lois is attracted to CK/S. He's her colleague and she respects him. She's empathetic towards him in is his bereavement. But Terry has thankfully spared us from suggestions that there will be any romantic kind of relationship between the two in the future, no implications at all that Lois will wind up in that dismal, second choice kind of relationship.

Now, I'll repeat my request here from an earlier post: if Terry does write a sequel, continue with a Lois Lane who is not attracted to CK/S and give us a new character who will be the "great love of *her* life."

c

I'd like to throw my two cents into the pot here (after all, this story did come out of my head). And I'd like to dig into the L/C canon and refer to a Lethal Weapon movie.

Remember the scene at the end of LW4? Mel Gibson is at his wife's grave, trying to figure out how he can love her and love Rene Russo at the same time and not betray his wife's memory. Joe Pesci (at his most irritating) walks up and tells him about the great love of his life, a frog he had when he was a kid. When Froggy died, he was devasted and never thought he'd care for anyone or anything again. Then he met Gibson and Glover and became friends with them, and learned that love isn't exclusive.

My point? Clark loved Lana. Lana is gone now. Clark can love someone else without betraying Lana or making this new woman the "sloppy seconds" in his life. Now who that might be is still hidden on my hard drive, and who knows? Since it's a work of FICTION (please let's remember that) and not REAL LIFE it's subject to change, so let's not get too wrapped up in this. Nobody gets paid for writing or editing this stuff, so let's all just enjoy it as the flights of fancy for which it should be intended.

That said, thank all of you for your feedback and your opinions. All of them are certainly valid and I do not discount any of them. It's nice that you care enough to let us (the writers) know how you feel about these stories. Believe me, it's like a shot of oxygen to someone who's just run a marathon.

Incidentally, in my previous message about changing the ending, I referred to Charles Dickens and used his actions as a precedent. I was certainly not trying to put myself on his level, nor was I comparing myself to him. I was merely citing an example. I happen to know what paying publishers think of my work, and they don't think highly enough of it to make me a best-selling author.

At least, not yet.

Keep reading! There are some incredibly talented writers on this site, and I enjoy reading all of their work. Y'all keep on writing, y'hear?

Hey Terry,

Somehow I know that Lana was going to bite it. There have been lots of Alt-Clark stories where Lana died and Clark ends up with Lois.

Frankly if Lana had a different personality (like i said before) he may well have married her young.

I take the different incarnations of LnC any way I can get them.

(including the comics)

Looking forward to the sequel.

That goes for you too Terry!

After reading the 'real ending' I'm pretty relieved, mostly because now there's a real chance for a good sequel.

I respectfully think, that ccmalo is only partly right. TRT is without a doubt a Lana story and we don't have to discuss that aspect. But there's also a little bit of preview into the sequel in Terry's post.

Well, here's my opinion: Although I don't know when this sequel will start (maybe the day after this ending or maybe some time in the future), I sincerely hope that it's not reduced to just getting Clark & Lois together. There's so much more in the universe you created by your first story that it would be a shame not to take it to a better use. On the other hand I also think that having them both develop romantic feelings for each other can be okay if it's done carefully, as there IS a lot of baggage present.

Finally, there are also little details which I'm interested in seeing continued - take 'Bob the Globe' for example: IIRC you pictured 'him' as continuously talking to Lana but only selectively to Clark, why's that or am I misinterpreting something?

Hi,

Great piece!


MAF

I can see both the "sloppy seconds" and "L&C backstory" points of view. IMHO, I just read this as a good story. I like Smallville enough to tape it and watch with interest only when Lex is onscreen. I love L&C, which is why I'm still here after all these years. I liked this ending, and was also happy that there was no obvious interest on Lois' part. Of course, I liked the fake ending too. Heck, I love everyone's stories. The best part of this one: confirmation that there will be a sequel! Terry: great story! Everyone else: keep writing more...I can always find time in my day to squeeze them in! Susan

> But, I don't think you can call
> it "pre- "L & C" " because the
> story rejects a fundamental
> premise of L & C : that Lois Lane
> is the great love of Clark Kent's
> life, and that there was an attraction
> between the two from the beginning.


I think Terry put lots of hooks in to the story that show the attraction between Lois and Clark. Lana's lines in part 9 " Something one of her psych professors had once said popped into her head." about love and hate set the stage very well.

Also Lois's thoughts about Clark and her clear attracion to Superman, part 10, also provide good hooks.

Patrick

Terry, I just read this story based on a recommendation in the non-Kerth thread.

If I had known when I started the story how little "screen time" Lois got, I probably wouldn't have read it. And if that had been the case, I would have been the loser, because your story was strong and captivating.

Some others have said that it wasn't really LnC, maybe it was Smallville, maybe it was comics. I don't really care where you got the inspiration from; I just know I liked it. Although I tend to think of most LnC stories as a alternate universes anyway, so I don't get very hung up on canon.

It's been over a year since you finished this story; are you still planning on a sequel? If so, you can count one avid reader at the very least!

Thanks for taking the time to write this, Terry. As usual, you tapped into an area that isn't often covered in our fandom, and you did it with style.

Mrs. Moseley wrote:
Thank you! Yes, there is a sequel in the works, entitled "Further On Down The Road." It's currently in the development stage (outline, beginning, ending, basic story arc all finished), but I have "Rebuilding Superman" going right now, too, and I don't want to abandon that one.

If I read a lot of the author responses to reader comments correctly, many of the writers on this site post chapters of their stories when the chapters are finished, not when the entire work is complete. I can't do that. Too many times I've written myself into a corner with no reasonable way out, so I've had to backtrack (sometimes quite a ways) and take another route. The best way for me to write is to get a finished product, let it simmer for a while, then go back and rip it apart and fix all the things I've left out because it was fine in my head but awful on paper! Only then do I go find a beta or two, and that beta process always points up other problems and shortcomings. Writing is fun for me, but it's not easy, and I almost envy those for whom it appears to be so effortless.

I don't know if you saw the "fake" ending I posted on the message board, but I did it because I was feeling evil that day. I got some interesting feedback on it, too.

Thanks again for your kind words. You've made my morning!

Soooo.... I just finished reading this fabulous story on the archive and noticed there will be more. Just wanted to pop in and say that I really enjoyed this one Terry.

I just want to add my voice to the crowd of people who can't wait for the sequel to this one. ^_^

Thanks, JoJo. I don't know how large that "crowd of people" really is, but I should be ready to send this latest monster out for beta shredding in about a month or so. I still have a piece in the middle that needs to say something special, and I know what it needs to say, but I can't get it in the word processor correctly! Dang! I'm still working on it, though.

And thank you so much for your kind comments. I'm now even more inspired than I was before.