Do you realise there are only 3 parts left to this story?? It felt so much longer. <g>

Anyway. Once again, didn't comment on the last part, sorry... so I get to yell at you twice as much. Although, this time, I don't think I'll yell too much... because I did ask for a smoochie, but what you gave us was so much better:
This is where I go all smug and admit I knew this was going to happen, but I'm all mushy nontheless. <g> Nice!! Though... Vegas? Ever heard of a courthouse, Lois?

It's so sweet and heartwrenching... we finally got I-love-yous but what circumstance! Still - perfect. I think I'm going to reread this part now.

Wow, look, and I didn't even yell at you! Guess it was a truly perfect part. And it was!! Probably the best you've posted so far.

Julie (who is a puddle of WAFF... and tears)

At last!!! I have been waiting for this for forever.

/me rubs hands together in anticipation

Now, down to the serious business of reading.

Has any man ever been proposed to in a less romantic manner?

Come on, now. We all know you don't want to say no anyway...

Apparently your reputation preceeds you, Wendy.

Stop wasting valuable resources.

So good and so sad.

He's so sweet...I can't handle it.

Are you trying to make me cry?

Yes, it's official. Tears are falling...

Just when I don't think this story can get anymore heart-wrenchingly beautiful, you do it to me again.

Aww, that was beautiful. I'm glad they found a nice place to get married in the pomp of Vegas.

But you need to fix this. After those last lines, I'm already sniffling. And if Lois dies (oh, how cruel that would be) I'll be positively bawling.

I started to shiver once I read the first word. My oh my my heart is being wrenched.

Poor Clark.
The tears threatened to pour at this point.
However the anticipation kept them back.

Wow.

Tears are banging on the door again.

Ah! Finally they state their loves for one another. FINALLY!

19?

wow wendy, brillant as usual!!!

Ack, Wendy. I am being slowly ripped to shreds here. It hurt at the beginning when they were having a misunderstanding. So sad, when it's looking like they only have a few hours left together. But then the ending...

My breath caught, too.

Absolutely breathtaking. *sigh* Can't wait for the next segment.

As a general rule, I don't cry. Ever. Wendy, you almost made me lose it, and that's saying a very lot! I actually groaned *out loud* in *pain* when I read this:



After reading almost everything you've written to date, this line, I think, was one of the most powerful and heart-wrenching of them all.

Please post 19 soon!

What they said...

Absolutely beautifully written, those last few lines especially. I'm glad they've got all that emotional stuff out -- *when* you cure her, Wendy (you're not allowed not to, you know), it should make for an interesting morning-after conversation

PJ

I'm a wreck. This is so much moving and sad and wonderful, I can't help crying!

From here to the end it was a Niagara Falls for me! Actually I love cry on your story! Am I crazy?

Are we really going to have a marriage in your next post? How are you going to fix the poison problem? If the solution is not in a lightning and a trasfer of Superman'powers, what is it? I cannnot think a suitable solution! So I need your next post, Wendy!

simona

Oh, Wendy...I'm out of Kleenex. This was bitter sweet. I'm glad that they finally admitted their love to one another. And I agree with a previous comment that WHEN she gets better (she will) this should make for an interesting morning after!

Hurry up with part 19!

What a beautiful story! Only three parts left? It doesn't seem possible for you to wrap everything up that quickly (because, of course, we're still missing Lois' last minute recovery and a major WAFFY L&C scene!).

I'm happy to see that Lois and Clark found a nice place for their wedding. Despite the vast public opinion, all Vegas weddings are not cheap and tacky. (Some, of course, are...prime example: a friend of a friend who had a "Hawaii" theme wedding in Vegas complete with grass skirts and coconut bras!) Susan

Wendy... This.. was.... so....

Wendy, you are trying to kill me!!!!

And then this:
You are killing me!!!!

Ann

*sniff*

I'm confused here. Yes the angst meter is cranked up to the maximum, and Wendy is doing her usual job of manipulating her characters emotions in her typically exceptional manner.

But why is everyone all worried? Yeah, it's fun to let yourself get caught up in the angst, but no one actually believes that Lois has any chance of dying... do they? Such is not allowed on these boards without flashing neon warnings placed prominently beforehand. Wendy is evil, but she is not crazy. She knows she'd be hunted down. Too many folcs know where she lives.

Besides, she is a sucker for the happily ever after ending.

Tank (who thinks that since there is so little time left that, even though Lois will be cured, there has to be some collateral physical 'damage' that Lois will have to 'deal' with afterwards)

Well I can't even see the keyboard and you know I hunt and peck when I type! My eyes! something all watery and blurry, running down my face. Ah your killing me wendy. But i loved it. More soon. Waaaa!

Love it. Love it.LOVE it. And... post more soon? Please? Cause, well, it's Christmas and my family are getting worried, and... I bake really nice mince pies... just sayin'...

Sara

/me sniffs . . . You got tears out of me. That is rather rare--though seems to be happening more frequently with these awesome stories that are being written lately. That last bit was *so* adoringly sweet--and incredibly sad too! /me wipes away tears . . .

Wendy,

Wow, this story just gets better and better! I really love the marriage aspect... although I suspect it will have interesting repercussions once Lois gets well--which I'm convinced she will. I hope that once she's well, they consider having a wedding ceremony so that their parents and friends can be there, though.

I have a suspicion as to what the poison is, but... if I'm right, then she might end up with brain damage now that this has gone so late, so... I hope I'm wrong.

Looking forward to the last few parts! Post fast!

Hi,

Great part.

SO incredibly sweet! I am glad Clark told her how he really felt. I would hate for Lois to think that he was only marrying her because she asked him to and that it was due to his illness. At least this way she knows how he really feels and he gets to know that she feels the same way.

Of course it also puts you in the sick and twisted category for putting poor Clark through this-thinking that Lois is actually going to die and that he could have had the woman he loves were it not for that.

But she's not gonna die. You're gonna make her better, right?.....RIGHT??????

*sits and waits ever so patiently for the next part*

So far the best emotional post of this story!!!

"He couldn't save her..."

Oh, Wendy!!! I love Lois! I love Clark! I love you!! They did it! They told each other how they feel!! And now they're getting married! He said yes! YAY!!! I knew he would! This is so good. So happy! It's like a fairy tale (except for the part where she's about to kick it, and he'll be a widow, but then again, as a wise man once said , "how long do any of us have... it's the moments that count"... and what a moment this will be!) Marriage, cure (still have faith in you on that one, Wendy), love FOREVER!!

Wendy, so much to love here! Mostly I love the love!!!! I LOVE THE LOVE!!!

I am dying here, waiting for the wedding (and cure, but of course!!) so that Lois can see that he got her a ring!! So PLEASE more sooon!!!!!!

~NICOLE

Oh no, oh no, oh no... almost forgot!! I have to comment, because I really loved this: I was waiting for something like this, but I still teared up at this part; caught off guard! So nice how you did it! His uncertainty, her confusion was so great In character, especially at this point, in these circumstances... WONDERFUL! This whole scene just broke my heart in two... ahh.. okay. Done now.

MORE SOON!

~NICOLE

Thanks to Nicole, I see that there is one more thing that I absolutely must say about this chapter, and it is that I totally, totally love Clark here. And that is important, because I hardly liked him at all in Wendy's previous story, "You Don't Know Me". In that story, I thought Clark was being angry at Lois and feeling sorry for himself because Lois hadn't been able to see through the lies about himself that he kept feeding her. And that self-pity on Clark's part, as well as his readiness to blame Lois for what was both their fault, didn't endear him to me at all.

But if Clark was selfish and full of hurt and anger in "You Don't Know Me", he is so absolutely altruistic and so full of love for Lois that he is, well, like a mythological icon of love who doesn't understand what a miracle he is to the woman of his heart, as he completely selflessly shines his love and warmth on her. This part of the story just choked me up:
Clark, you make me cry and I love you!
Oh Clark, I love you! It has been practically your life's ambition to get Lois to love you, and you wanted to confirm that love with a true, heartfelt wedding, and now you are throwing all of it away on a tacky parody... because you love Lois so much! Because you'll do anything for her!!!

Well, I gotta run now. Maybe I'll come back and comment on how much Lois can see what a terrific guy Clark is here, even if she'd always denied it!

Ann

Perfect! They finally admitted how they feel. This is one area where Lois would have - should have - figured out how he felt from the way he was treating her, except that so much of her energy, emotional as well as physical, is focused on what is happening to her. If she were healthy, she'd have tumbled to it already. ...Of course, then there'd be no story. Can't have that, no matter how much this angst is tearing us all up!

Clark had a few less clues about her feelings for him than Lois had about his feelings for her - he might not have figured it out without her telling him explicitly how she felt.

That bit at the end was wonderful. He calls her his love, his life - she is, and he's losing that. They both think so, feel so.

It will be very interesting to see how you wrap this up, with so little time left. Even a quickie wedding and a Superman flight takes at least some time, so how many hours will she have left when they return to Metropolis? For that matter, are they even considering returning? They both think Lois is doomed.

And really, even to a dying person - if you've acknowledged you love someone, and you are getting married, what do you do after the ceremony? Do you really just straighten your lapels and go back to the city or the hospital? She's not getting married from a hospital bed. I don't mean they'll do anything physical, necessarily - she's awfully weak - but wouldn't they just want to hole up somewhere and cuddle, and grieve? Or grab as much togetherness as they can, while they can? Shut out the world?

And of course, Griffin said 24 hours. How could he predict that so precisely? Did he mean about 24 hours? This is just so down-to-the-wire. What happens at 23 hours? At 25 hours?

If she's saved in time, what about irreversible effects? If it were only GB, there'd still be up to months of recovery ahead. With the unknown added in... hmmm. Guess you'll just have to post again as soon as possible.

She asked him to take her away from the Planet. If they do return, I guess the logical place to go is to Clark's apartment. And of course, she does have to tell her parents. After all, she promised Clark she would.

And right now, no one knows where they are. Other than yelling for Superman and hoping he knows where they are , nobody can contact them. Like, say, in the case of a last-minute identification of the poison, and a cure... (hint, hint)

~Toc

Oh Wendy!!

You're breaking everyone's heart, including mine!!

They really love each other!! I just hope that love (after they're married) will make them fight harder to find her cure and to fight for their love and future together!!

Sigh!!!!

More soon!!

Missy

Okay, I have to come back here and write some more for the third time. But since I don't feel any quotes of mine can do justice to the the heartbreakingly beautiful way this chapter ends, I'm just going to ask everybody to get back to Wendy's story and read the last 58 lines all over again and consider I quoted them.

And while this chapter didn't take us all the way to the wedding between Clark and Lois, it did bring us the most exquisite marriage of LC angst and WAFF. FOLCs, when have you ever read such an unbearably sad and wonderfully poignant and romantic Lois and Clark relationship story? If you know of another one, please tell me, because I want to read that one, too!

Soo... While I can't improve in any way on what Wendy has already said so masterfully, consider, nevertheless, the way Lois begins to feel guilty about dragging Clark into a marriage which will only force him into
So because she realises she shouldn't saddle her best friend with what can only bring him nuisance and trouble, she offers him - with chattering teeth - one last chance to back out. But then - oh, I said I wouldn't quote, but I just have to!!:
"The words tumbled out, like water over rapids." Yes, indeed. Clark just wanted Lois to understand that he wasn't unwilling to marry her in any way. But when he was trying to tell her that, the confession of his true feelings for her came tumbling out as if the sluice-gates of his ironclad control had suddenly burst wide open. Oh, Clark. Lois couldn't believe you loved her, and she so, so needed to hear you say it:
And now, folcs, just read the last few lines of the chapter, too, and consider the way Clark is holding Lois, and the way he is kissing her. The incredible longing he is giving in to, and the incredible tenderness of what he's doing.

But, Wendy and everybody else, I do want to bring up one of my RL concerns here, and that is the mistreatment of women. Just a few weeks ago there was a UN report saying that more women die of male violence than of poverty, starvation, diseases and war put together. And I think we Lois and Clark fans, who are interested in fiction, should perhaps ask ourselves what we think about the expendability of male and female characters in the world of Lois and Clark. Personally I found it quite interesting as well as depressing that Mayson Drake was killed for trying to get her hands on Clark, while none of the potential Lois-snatchers, Dan Scardino and Lex Luthor, suffered a similar fate.

And now that Wendy is telling a story where Lois is dying, and where she might yet actually die, I'd like to remind you that there really is a whole genre out there where fictional women die for our entertainment. Madame Butterfly. Carmen. Aida. The woman dying of cancer in Terms of Endearment. Little black Sarah, a dying little girl in Africa whom I read about as a child, and who was so happy that she was a Christian, because now she was going home to God. A heartbreaking tale by famous Danish storyteller H. C. Andersen about a poor little beggar girl who freezes to death on Christmas Eve.

What makes many of these stories a part of a genre is that the death of the girl or the woman is seen as something beautiful. I do think there is no corresponding genre where we are asked to see a fictional male character succumb to disease or poverty or something like that and somehow feel good about it afterwards. To me, this suggests that we are somehow encouraged to accept, even like, the idea that fictional heroines may very well be struck down by the hardships of life. And I can't help feeling this is very much in line with a much, much broader consensus almost everywhere in the world that women are more expendable than men.

Phew! This got heavy. What I'm trying to say, however, is that if Lois dies in Wendy's story, I'm going to hate it for more than one reason. I'm going to think that this is one more story which treats women as a sort of natural resources whose passing can be mourned, to be sure, but hey - when we've chopped down one rain forest there is always another one waiting for us, isn't there? If we kill Lois then Mayson will be waiting for Clark - oh, she's dead already, but then there is Lana, or Chloe, or - well, there can never be a shortage of women out there, can there?

Ann

Hey, just a quick note in response to Ann's comments -

Ooh, a few things here While I too would prefer Lois to live in this story, if she did die, I would first of all cry like a baby for a month!... but still love the story... it's so beautiful and heartbreaking! It's about life, IMO, and how fragile it is, how quickly you can lose everything, and how you shouldn't waste a day or ignore the messages in your heart, because that day wasted could have been the day you got everything you ever wanted! I do understand that Lois dying might just make other people not like the story at all. That was just my opinion on that.

I agree that Wendy is using Lois's potential death here as a means for entertainment, but she is writing a story - she's got quite the following because we're all on the edge of our seat waiting to see what will happen, if she'll live... it's very entertaining, but more than that, it's so heartbreaking and just realllllly good! And the actual writers on the series did things like that for ratings, too, all the time ("The Witness", "Don't Tug on Superman's Cape", "Battleground Earth", "HoL", "TOGoM")... death or possible death is angsty and entertaining, and often is a means for bringing buried feelings rushing to the surface, a way of putting things into perspective for the main characters. I don't think any writers that write stories involving the issue of death are exploiting the characters - if done as Wendy's doing with this story (with care and concern and complete respect for the issues and feelings the story/characters deal with), they are merely telling an important story through them, and again if done as Wendy's doing, it's so real, that is why it can break a reader's heart!! Also, as I'm sure you know, Wendy's written a bunch of stories that deal with Clark's mortality (all her "TOGoM" stories, "For the Greater Good" to name a few), and the mortality of other principle characters (male and female). But yes, writing is about entertaining (hopefully ), so I do believe she is using death here to "entertain" so to say, and keep us reading, but I don't believe she's viewing Lois as expendable or anything. I'd say in this fandom, it's pretty even across the board, stories that involve the death or possible death of Lois and Clark. I'd say they each get their turn on the "deathbed" equally, not necessarily Lois more because she's the woman or expendable or anything...

Also, just have to point this out - I wouldn't worry about Lana (after loving Lois, Clark would never go back to her or even cast her a backward glance- she's in his past), and at the time Wendy's setting this story, he hasn't met Mayson and she definitely isn't dead yet (that happens mid-season 2). Lois & Clark are soul mates, and if Lois were to die in this story, I believe Clark would miss her forever, not date anyone else.

Okay, that was more than a quick note , sorry. Ann, I'm glad you voiced your opinions on this - that was just my two cents, just an opinion on what you've said. I'd be interested actually to read that UN article you were talking about. Thanks for sharing your thoughts~

~NICOLE

On topic: MORE, WENDY, SOON, PLEASE!!!!!

Okay, I feel I'm really making this veer off topic, but...

I don't think I could ever dislike Wendy's story as such, no matter how it ends. The story has been heartbreakingly lovely and beautiful so far, and not for a second do I doubt Wendy's ability to show us Lois's death in a way that makes it a celebration of life, of the heartbreaking fragility and wonderful, unique preciousness of the life of every person.

And so many of the other stories about the death of a woman are beautiful and lovely too. I really like most of them, considered as individual stories. I love to watch and listen to performances of Carmen and Aida, by the way - it's just that near the end, when we have to sit through the inevitable death of the heroine, I get this urge to get up and leave. The "death of a woman" stories are often beautiful in themselves, but they do get depressing when you start seeing them as a genre.

The most important rule of this genre is that the woman should die a relatively "passive" death - she should be the victim of the circumstances. That's not how fictional men generally die. They go down fighting, performing heroics. There is no doubt that Lois is primarily a victim in Wendy's story, which is why I think it is unlikely that a similar story would have been told about Clark, or for that matter, about Jimmy Olsen.

But Nicole is absolutely right that there are stories in the body of LC fanfiction about Clark dying, too. By far the best I've ever read is Stopquitdont and Jenni Debbage's A Gift For Life. Those of you who haven't read it, make sure you do.

So, Wendy. If indeed you kill Lois in the end, I'm going to think of your story the way I think of Carmen or Aida - it was a most wonderful experience to take it all in, except that I got this urge to get up and leave in the end. But I honestly don't expect you to kill Lois this time, because I don't remember you posting any sort of huge WHAM warning at the start of it. And I do think of you as a woman who likes to honour the rules, including the rules of WHAM warnings!

I'm so looking forward to the rest of your story!!!

Ann

There is indeed a WHAM warning about this story in the WHAM warning thread. I won't quote it, in case someone doesn't want to see it, but I understood that WHAM warnings are supposed to go there. Besides, the very first thing that happened in this story was Lois getting injected with poison. People who are injected with poison are ALWAYS in danger of dying.

I read the warning. I'm reading the story. It's fantastic! I can't wait to see how Wendy resolves this one.

This really does reach a point where I barely know what to say in response to your so generous feedback. I read and re-read your posts, and you leave me in awe and grinning like an idiot. It's impossible to thank you enough, but I'm going to have to think of a way to do it.

Sorcha, Sorcha... that you would say this...

ROFL!!

Seriously, to all of you who told me that this section made you cry, I thank you, I offer my shoulder and I buy you all a month's supply of Kleenex.

And I'm very, very relieved that the final paragraph of this section seems to have worked. I was very unsure about that one, and it was only after I tested it on a couple of people on IRC (thanks, Sara and Dave!) that I even left it in the file. Sometimes it's very hard for me to take an objective line on my writing, to know whether something works or is just clichéd or weak. So thank you!

There's a debate here, I see, on the role of women in fiction, in particular the tragic female death for the sake of emotional trauma. I think Ann and others have expressed views on that very nicely and clearly - and I entirely agree that where it does seem to be only the female characters who are killed off in that way, where men die as heroic sacrifice rather than for dramatic impact it's uneven, sexist and very unfair.

As far as the ending of this story goes, naturally I'm not going to give spoilers. Terry quite rightly points out that I posted a WHAM warning for the story in the appropriate thread; if anyone's especially concerned, it's there and can be read. Caution: it does say something about the ending of the story, so if you really don't want to be spoiled don't read it.

Anyway, there are only three parts to go, including the one I'm just about to post, so we'll be all done by Saturday night. Not that much longer to wait!

Thank you all so very much indeed once more. Your comments and feedback all mean a huge amount to me.


Wendy

Are you kidding me?

This is sooooooooooo sad

I have to read the next two parts but I just can not stop crying.

My god Wendy

Karla