It's such a delight to find that a new part of this completely wonderful tale has been posted. Like LabRat said, reading this story is like seeing the show all over again, only this time with a thoroughly enchanting twist to the whole thing and an amazing, fantastic understanding of a just-the-same yet incredibly different Lois Lane.
Personally I loved, loved, loved the worse-than-Mad-Dog Lane who made all the various critters of a metropolitan newspaper scatter or hide at the sight of her:
Jimmy, approaching with a stack of printouts Clark had asked him for, stopped abruptly half the newsroom away from her, flashed a rather sickly, apologetic smile at him, and fled down the hall toward the research rooms. Planet employees in the immediate vicinity kept their heads down, apparently intensely focused on their work. More people than usual donned headphones or earbuds; there was little talk between desks as most of them apparently discovered the joys of music.
Mad Dog Lane. Wow. (Though I think this part possibly contained the very first typo I have spotted in your story. I think perhaps you should have written "flashed a rather sickly, apologetic smile at her" rather than "at him".)
And when Clark sees through her and understands that something is wrong, then asks her if they should start working on Doctor Platt's notes, this is how she answers him:
“Get this straight,” she snarled at him. “There is no *we*. There is *you* and there is *me*, but *there* *is* *no* *we*.
Such a beautiful twist on the pilot. Lois appears every bit as bitchy here as she was there, but now we know her idealism as well as her terrible fear of exposure, and we know that the reason for her almost felonious insolence must be something else than simple arrogance. And this is the reason:
She had heard the final, gasping cries of one of the victims. She’d been unable to help any of them.
And she
should have been able to help them. She should have done more as a reporter, and she should have done much more as a person with amazing physical abilities. And when her guilt is almost suffocating her, she can't tell herself what canon Lois once told Superman: Whatever you can do is enough. But wonderfully, Clark tells her the next best thing:
“But I should have found a way…” she said.
“Sometimes you just… can’t,” he said. “You can’t protect everyone, no matter who you are – policeman, fireman, rescue personnel, doctor – or investigative reporter. What you *can* do is not let their deaths be in vain.
And so he helps her to start working on that fire and its causes, to try to stop that slumlord permanently. Hard to know if they should have concentrated on Dr. Platt's notes instead.
But - what's up with Clark? The next morning he disappears
again: Clark excused himself without further explanation, saying only that he would be back shortly.
What's going on? Cheese of the Month shipment? Is this Clark a Kryptonian, too? Is he running off to rescue people? Or was he really just getting Lois and himself their morning coffee?
I love how Lois begins to let her guard down around Clark:
the room seemed more intimate than it had in the morning. Maybe it was the intimacy of eating together - or maybe she was just getting too comfortable with Clark. Lois realized suddenly that she’d forgotten to be Mad Dog Lane with him.
And she can see that he's fascinated with her:
She looked up and caught his eye; he was leaning back in his chair and watching her, and she could see clearly the admiration in his eyes.
But this mustn't happen! She mustn't let him close! Because if she does, where will her safety and her life as Princess Elizabeth be? Where will
she be?
She almost panicked. Caught in his gaze, for a moment she couldn’t look away, and the room seemed to narrow down to just the two of them. Heart pounding, she looked down, shuffling Dr. Platt’s notes around and no doubt disarranging the carefully ordered pages. Right now, she didn’t care about that.
“Lois?”
“No!” she cried. To her disgust, she even sounded panicky.
And Lois is distancing herself from him as much as she can. Consider this:
Clark – no, *Kent* - looked at her, one eyebrow raised in inquiry.
He can't be Clark to her, he must be Kent! And for the rest of this part, Clark is consistently referred to as "Kent".
I want to hug this Lois, except that I don't think she responds to hugs. Please, Clark, make yourself Clark to her, and wear her resistance down as patiently as you did in the TV show. This Lois needs it even more.
And Jimmy finds the nonsense code that will abort the launch of the shuttle. I found this part so touching, when Lois felt sufficiently unthreatened to be nice to Jimmy:
“Good job, Jim. Thank you,” Kent added.
And Lois was willing to admit, albeit grudgingly, that he had a point. Jimmy *had* done a good job. Without him, they’d probably still be struggling over those few lines of code.
Catching the young man’s eye, she flashed him a genuine smile. “Yes, thanks, Jimmy. You’ve done an excellent job. And wasn’t it more fun than doing… whatever… for the City Desk guys?” Her smile widened as he blushed and stammered a semi-coherent agreement.
So touching. And it's Clark who makes Lois give Jimmy credit. Now she even feels better about Clark, although he's still Kent to her:
She glanced at Kent, who grinned and shook his head at her mock-reprovingly, and she found herself fighting a smile. Honestly, the man just wasn’t intimidated by Mad Dog Lane at all. She couldn’t decide for sure if that made him very foolish or very brave.
We are getting closer to the point in time when Superman had to reveal himself to the public by saving the Prometheus. What's going to happen here? Will we see Ultrawoman make her first public appearance? Will there be two heroes to the rescue?
I love this story, and if I didn't, I'd be as thick as a brick.
Ann
Thank you!
I meant "him." Jimmy's headed for Clark, sees the danger, doesn't catch her eye - flashes a sickly smile at CK as if to say, sorry buddy, you'll have to wait for your printouts, and skedaddles.
