As you could see, Carol, I was not very happy about this part. I just felt that Lois was being treated rather disrespectfully by Clark, who had been so careful about hiding his secret from her, his wife, but so careless about hiding it from people he had just met. And then, to seemingly add insult to injury, Clark started to semi-date Mayson Clark, and Lois was jealous. I felt as if you were telling us that in spite of Clark's lack of respect for Lois it was Lois who was in the wrong, who needed to be given a wake-up bout of jealousy, and who needed to change her ways.
And then I remembered the title of this fic, Learning to Love. You have clearly shown us that it is Lois who will not admit that she loves Clark. So maybe this will be another of those "bringing up Lois" fics, where Lois is made to repent?
But I seriously hope that your story will not be as simplistic as that. Yes, even I admit that Lois needs to learn to love Clark. Even though I respect her for being unwilling to truly commit herself to him when she is so young, it is of course still a problem that she doesn't dare to trust him with her heart. She needs to make that leap of faith.
Ah, but then Clark has to show her that he deserves that trust, too. And so far I don't think he has really given her reason to trust him that unconditionally. Oh, he has been a great friend to her. Absolutely wonderful. And the fact that he lied to her did not impair his ability to help her out financially or provide a home for her or help her take care of Lucy. In no way whatsoever.
But asking Lois to love him is different. Asking her to trust her body and soul with him is different.
Have you heard about that horrible, horrible case in Austria, where a 73-year-old man, Joseph Fritzl, held his daughter Elisabeth captive in a cellar for forty-two years and fathered seven children with her? And burnt up one newborn baby in a furnace when it died?
Do you know that Joseph Fritzl and Clark Kent have one thing in common? Oh, but they do. They lied to their wives.
Joseph Fritzl built a bunker-like cellar to his house more than forty years ago. He forbade his family, his wife Rosemarie and his seven children, to ever go near that cellar. No one, but no one, had access to it. No one was allowed to go near or to ask him about it. And when he drugged his daughter Elisabeth and carried her down to the cellar and locked her up behind a steel door which only he could open with a secret code, no one asked to see what was in the cellar.
Joseph Fritzl's and Clark Kent's motives for lying couldn't have been more different. And yet this fact remains: they lied to their wives. They lied systematically and for a long time. Three months isn't comparable to forty-two years, but when it comes to carefully and deliberately hiding one's true self from one's wife, it is a long time. It is a too long time.
I was sad to see that Lois didn't feel let down when Clark so easily revealed himself to Perry, Alice and Jimmy, even though he had worked so hard to keep herself in the dark. Why wasn't she more upset? Could it be because she really doesn't believe in her and Clark's marriage, and therefore she doesn't expect Clark to honour her the way he would honour his real wife?
And now you are making Lois jealous, to make her see the error of her assumption that she doesn't love Clark. Oh well. I hope you will make Clark realize the error of his ways, too. Yes, he has stopped lying to Lois. But I'm left with the impression that he is untroubled about having lied to her, so that he doesn't seem to think that his lies to her were any sort of big deal. As long as Clark thinks like that, he doesn't love Lois the way a husband should love his wife. Therefore Clark, too, needs to learn how to love.
Ann
