Well, there seem to be two questions here. One, do I believe it's in character for alt Clark to kill himself and, two, would I read deathfic.
To the first, I've always been a strong advocate of the theory that you can make a character do anything - and I do mean anything - even something that at first glance might seem to be out of character. You just have to provide the proper motivation for the action. If you do, the story will succeed. If you don't, it won't. Simple as that. Lead your readers with logic to where you want them to be and they'll happily follow. [Or most of them will.
] Throw a curveball at them without any warning or explanation as to why the character isn't acting like himself and they'll stop reading.
With SF, like LNC, it's easier to provide the motivation than with many other genres, because you have a wealth of the weird and wacky to call upon to get your character to where you want him/her to be.
It wasn't in character, after all, for Superman to go around vandalising parking meters or hand a child over to kidnappers - but the motivation was there in the fact that he'd been hypnotised. IOW, you can have your character act out of character and still have the story work, if there's a darn good reason why he's acting OOC. Provided the groundwork is done fully and well, the story should fly. [pardon the pun]
As to the second question: deathfic as a genre, generally, isn't the first thing I'd read. I've found most of it to be maudlin and depressing. And I do like a happy ending on my stories. You can drag my heroes through hell and back, but I like them to get all their problems sorted out by the last paragraph.
Having said that, deathfic written well can be very satisfying. Poignant rather than maudlin. I have more than a few deathfics in my favourite story collections. So I wouldn't discard one out of hand. I'd definitely give it a try first. And in your capable hands, Sarah, I'm sure it would work.
LabRat
