Beautiful. I like the compare and contrast between the two parts. What a difference the filling the void in her heart made to the sound of silence. I know that since becoming a mother I appreciate the sound of silence. I've always liked it but now it's soothes me like the taste of chocolate. Silence is chocolate to a mother's ears.
It's so sad of how Lois felt complete in her life, in her heart, except for this one thing, this one failure that she couldn't overcome.
When I saw it was two parts, I didn't know if you'd show Clark upstairs, not sleeping in the silence either (as Lois had thought), but in his own depression hole for not being able to become a father, blaming himself as Lois blamed herself.
I'm glad you ended it on a happy note. Christmas stories are much better with a happy ending. (I was afraid you might go full circle and return to silence being bad, children grown & gone and Superman killed or something.) It's so sweet to see how much happier Lois is knowing that, but for Clark, she is no longer alone. Clark always had the Kents to fall back upon, but Lois really had no one (other than her friends).
Thanks, Virginia! The comparing and contrasting was important to me. It's something that actually plays on my mind every Christmas now that I have my girls. For me, the "before" sadness wasn't so much the silence on Christmas Eve, but putting up the ornaments and taking them back down - another Christmas come and gone without a baby in the house. Now, with the "after," I have two kids and roughly 9,000 "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments on my tree.
Still, the silence is something I appreciate every night when the kids are asleep. But even though I'm glad for the break, I do miss the chaos!
Lois' feelings here very much come from where I was in my darkest infertility days. Feeling complete and at peace with myself except for not having kids, no matter how hard we tried. And the knowledge that, even with the help of fertility specialists, there was never a guarantee that we'd be able to have a family.
It's funny, I never considered Clark's view on the matter. It always felt very much like a Lois piece, given that she's often been home alone and smothered in absolute silence.
Of course I had to end on a happy note. Even my dark, twisted muse couldn't leave a Christmas fic on a sad note! BUT! I'll admit, when I first thought of this story, I considered it as a "looking back" fic with Lois and Clark being older, their children grown and out of the house, with families of their own. Or maybe all of the kids and grandkids visiting and sound asleep in the middle of the night.
Thank you for reading!
