Wow, eggs and chicken, chicken and eggs!
As the humble author who merely writes what the characters tell me to via my muse, I won't say that every one of their psyche's come from the same place.
I attempted to show some different POV's looking at the situation in this chapter - the parents, the sister, Lois herself... With Lois's introspection I was trying to show that it all was a bit surprising to her to realize that she did in fact have deep feelings for Clark. From the other standpoints, everyone was really making their own reads without knowing the entire story, so while some might have been spot on - some might have been way off, and then some might have been somewhere in the middle. You be the judge
I like Ann's argument for somewhat selfish reasons. I have created this motherless child who kind of chooses his family. I am paralleling Clark's own journey in a minor way - there are some Superman 'retellings' where Martha believes that Clark 'found' them, and not necessarily the other way around. In both cases (Clark's and Jory's) the question of what makes a parent has a lot to do with love. Of course there are other complications and considerations, but is Clark automatically a father? What would make him so? (I think Elisabeth already brought up these points earlier as well)
There has also been some conversation about Clark's need to wake up. I would like to submit that this was Martha's (and Jonathan's) position early on when he got kicked out of the house. I think that when kids are first placed on their feet to walk alone, they stumble a few times. Clark is stumbling. I offer no excuse for his behavior, but I wonder if not having someone to fall on will encourage him to pick himself up.
On that note, I see that we are on a bit of a deadline. The boards go on a brief retreat on Friday. It doesn't really affect this story, but I kind of like the idea of putting a little pressure on myself now that we are drawing near the end. So, I'm going to see if we can get these last 5 chapters in before the boards take their weekend hiatus. On y va!
