cuidadora: Welcome to the boards! It's an honor to have you leave some of your first comments on my story. Thank you for reading.
What I saw was Clark standing up for his decision, and felt he was being strong here not letting Lois get away with her accusations.
He did feel a bit as if she was accusing him and felt the need to defend himself, even though he couldn't say what it was that delayed him.
Clark is not thinking clearly from the residuals of the torture. He's having trouble finding the words and quickly finding a suitable reply to Lois's temper.
One usually needs to have super powers to be on an even playing field with Lois. Without them he feels at a distinct disadvantage.
I didn't see Clark as being whinny or weak (other than the understandable weakness from the torture of kryptonite and that video). He's in physical and emotional pain. His reluctance to deal with this now is totally consistent with not being physically or emotionally able to cope with the added stress, and does not mean he can't deal with it later.
That's what he's hoping.
Despite Lois yelling, pulling him out of the sun (she obviously knows he need to be in the sun to heal) and exposing him by removing his sunglasses, he calms her down and tells her he loves her. Which shows a quiet strength of character in Clark. Lois's impetuous nature is shown well here, unfortunately adding to Clark's pain. And consistent with Cannon S1 Lois.
At the point where she yelled and pulled him into the shade, she hadn't realized that he was dealing with Kryptonite sickness. As soon as she did, Lois (for the most part) stopped yelling. Technically, it was the hangover more than the Kryptonite which made him sensitive to loud noises.
Thank you for your comments.
In case anyone is wondering, I based Clark's hangover with how I felt during the first day away I spent with my husband away from the kids in 9 years. It took me two days of migraine headaches, dizziness, nausea, lightheadedness, body aches, and general weariness (and a description of my symptoms to my sister over the phone) to realize that perhaps I wasn't dying of a viral infection after all. Romance, sadly, was the last thing on my mind. (Thanks, Mom, for refilling my wine glass without telling me the previous two nights at dinner.) I'm usually a one glass of alcohol type woman and what we figured out was about 3-4 glasses of wine had hit me like a ton of bricks. Figuratively, but it sure felt literal.
