This was a very sweet chapter. As Ann and Maria already mentioned, I really liked the "pre-proposal" scene in Clark's kitchen and Lois's "pre-acceptance" in response. I like the fact that they're on the same page as far as the intimacy question, although I had to go back and check out a couple of previous chapters (20 & 21) where I assumed they'd already crossed the "intimacy threshold." Guess I was wrong, since you didn't actually say that, and now they're talking about waiting for the wedding. Yay! This echoes one of the themes I like to put in my own stories, so it's nice to hear from someone who apparently feels as I do about this subject.
However, I must register a question which approaches a complaint. As sweet as the story has become, and as much as I'm cheering for a positive romantic resolution to this story, I'm wondering where the dragons have gone. Luthor has been apprehended, Superman's "out" and getting rave reviews, Clark and Lois are totally simpatico on their relationship, and Lois has found not just one person but an entire family who accepts her just as she is, so where's the conflict?
I'm hoping there's some coming. Not that I ever root for bad things to happen to people (even fictional people), but life just doesn't seem to work like that. Every time I think I've got Alice's flamingo under control, it sticks out a wing or a leg or a beak and I have to spend time wrestling it back into line. Lois's conflicts of the earlier chapters were so poignant that I looked for the next chapter of this story on a daily basis, hoping to find out how she might overcome the next set of problems tossed into her path. But the story seems to have lost some momentum and some of its direction. Maybe this is just the calm before the storm. I hope so, because you write very well and I always enjoy reading these chapters, even the romantic ones.
Here's rooting for some dragons to appear and be soundly defeated! (Even if they leave some scratches on our heroes in the process.) They don't have to be big, scary dragons. They can be little ones that just singe Lois's toes before she cages them. But I have to believe that you've brought us this far and made us feel so "awwwww" about them that the dragon impact, when it does appear, will be that much greater.
Keep them coming! I like it, despite my feedback. And I plan to read all of it, I promise.
