Wonderful chapter, Rachel. Again.
Lois washed her face and looked at her pale reflection in the mirror.
Hmmmm, that reminds me - I'm sure
Clark did the same thing a while back.
He looked at
his very pale face in the mirror, which reinforced to all of us how bad he felt. Lois isn't feeling too great either, as she has woken from a nightmare.
“All right, Lane,” she said firmly to herself, though her voice shook. “S-snap out of it. It’s j-just a dream. It’s always just a dream, now. K-Kal was here last night. R-remember?”
Lois is stuttering, as bad as Clark ever did.
“See? It’s just a dream. Everything’s fine.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks and took a deep breath.
She's telling herself that everything is all right, but she's crying. Because Lois is
not all right. It's like she told Superman two chapters ago - the two of them are both wrecks.
She had unconsciously brought Superman’s cape with her from her room, and now she wrapped it around herself as she moved into the living room to turn up the thermostat.
I'm so moved by how she keeps wrapping herself in Superman's cape. Right now, because Superman basically keeps avoiding her, his cape is the best comfort she can find. I feel so sorry for her.
She turned on the TV as she fixed herself some coffee.
“Counts are coming in all around the world. Dozens of Superman sightings are flowing in from as far as Seoul to as close as downtown Metropolis. The rescue spree seems to have started early this morning, and Superman doesn’t seem to be slowing down for more than a word and a wave.”
Oh yes, Lois would most definitely watch TV to find out about Superman's rescues...
Lois turned down the volume and grabbed her laptop, snatching her laptop and getting into the internet. In a moment she had typed in the familiar address of supermanrescues.com
I love it!
Of course there would be such a site if Superman had really existed!
and the homepage popped up, bearing a massive, strong, and highly attractive close-up shot of Superman from a rescue from some time ago.
Who can doubt that Lois would find a picture of Superman attractive?
Blazing across the top of the page were the letters “SUPERMAN RETURNS,” and beneath that “Back to Earth, Back to Work.” There was no prying article as might be expected, but instead beneath that there was a small counting box.
“Rescues (For the last 24 hours):
117 reported and catalogued.
Lives saved: approximately 54.
Last updated: Sunday, 6:00 ET.”
Hmmm. Yes, I can easily imagine
that kind of homepage. Better yet, it would list each of Superman's known rescues according to time, place, type of emergency and numbers of people rescued.
Lois scrolled down the page. On the right side of the page was a very long sidebar listing the known Superman rescues since his reappearance. Lois scanned down quickly but thoroughly.
Ah yes - of course it would be there....
After that, he had disappeared for three entire hours.
Was that when Superman was in the Arctic, watching his Fortress building itself? It had nothing to do with Clark camping outside Lois's door, then? (My own sense of the timeline here is getting a little confused.)
Lois nodded to herself in satisfaction. She hoped the man had taken the time to get some sleep in the sunlight. He had looked tired, and he was going to work himself to death if he kept this up.
No, I guess it was the Fortress thing. Clark waited outside Lois's door after sunset, didn't he?
Superman was flying down from the brightly burning building, carrying in his arms a mother and two small children whom he set down gently and gave them a small smile before he paused, tilted his head as if hearing something darted back upwards.
I love how you make me feel Superman's gentleness.
Lois’s laptop was forgotten as she saw him shoot through a flaming window again. Her heart stopped as he disappeared to her view, and suddenly she felt as if the room had gone cold.
What if his powers gave out for some reason? What if Lex planted kryptonite somewhere, knowing that Superman was too good to resist going to rescue, no matter the danger to himself? What if he was hurt?
What if he died?
Considering how horrified Lois is at the thought that Superman might possibly die during an ordinary rescue, how will she be able to bear watching him do his ordinary hero stuff in the future? Particularly if the two of them get into a relationship?
The minute stretched out. Lois felt as if her heart had stopped beating, and the taste of her coffee was ash in her suddenly dry mouth.
Love the image of how Lois's coffee tastes like ash to her, when she is thinking of the possibility that Superman might die.
And then, there he was.
He darted out of the flames and downward, his hair and suit smoking from the heat and flames, and his face smudged, but he actually grinned as he landed and unwrapped his cape from the burden he was carrying to reveal . . .
A cat?
Oh, I love it! I always loved it when Superman saved cats.
Lois shut down her computer and rose, putting her cup in the sink and glancing back at the television, where Superman was rising into the air with a small wave before he shot off and disappeared.
Lois smiled to herself. She loved that wave. It was so sweet. So simple.
Like Lois, I can see how sweet Superman's wave is. But I can also see how pure Lois's love for Superman is, and how it has nothing to do with thoughtless hero worship.
Well, he looked like he was doing better—or at least like he was succeeding in hiding most of his tiredness behind that mask of his, which was well and good for now. Later, though, he’d better take it right back off or Lois would have to do it for him.
It is so ironic when Lois is talking about Superman's mask. Yet she isn't totally, totally wrong about what
she knows about his mask. She did see him, after all, with every last trace of a mask well and truly off in that white room.
Superman might be busy cleaning up the world, but for now Lois Lane had a job of her own to do. She had to get her apartment ready for Kal-El to come.
...
It was a good thing she had woken up so early, Lois realized seven hours later as she unloaded the last clean dish from the fourth full load of dishes from her sink. Why did she even have so many dishes, anyway? It wasn’t like she had company over very often, after all.
But as she turned around and viewed her pristine and spotless apartment it was with no little pride. No doubt it would have taken an average woman twice as long to clean up a mess. Everything was clean—even under the couch and the ancient untouched crevice beneath her bed. Of course, she expected Kal-El wouldn’t intentionally use his x-ray vision to look under such places, but there was no harm in being prepared.
I find Lois so - I don't know, little-girl moving? - when she will spend
hours cleaning her apartment to make it nice enough for Kal-El to pay a visit to it.
And not only will she clean her apartment....
She had done more than just cleaning, however. A not-so-short trip to the furniture outlet and Lois was having a new couch delivered any minute now (she had had to bribe the drivers for them to put her at the top of the list)—something comfortable and homey, rather than the uncomfortable piece of stuffing, wood, and cloth
She has bought a new couch! And paid extra to have it delivered in time for Kal-El's arrival, to boot!
that sat in front of her television, which hadn’t been turned off for a second all morning, even when she left her apartment to go to the store.
She hadn’t tuned out for a minute. She’d been with him when he rushed into the mine collapse disaster in Brazil. She’d felt her heart break when the screen had shown him easing the broken body of a man who hadn’t survived a terrible highway car crash in Washington. She’d flinched every time she saw a bullet hit him, no matter that it couldn’t hurt him.
So moving - she's been with Superman the only way she knows how all morning, never letting her mind wander far from Superman's rescues on the TV screen.
How could he do it? How could he go out there, after everything he’d been through, and still smile? Still help? Still be able to face the sort of men who would do anything if only they could hurt him? How could he still give that small but encouraging smile of his that made the most terrified looking adults and children alike settle down and breathe of life and hope again? Oh, Lois had seen the smile hesitate and shake more than once before appearing, and it had made her heart wrench, but somehow that only made the actual appearance of it all the more powerful.
This isn't any kind of shallow hero worship. This is true understanding - yes, even though there is so much that Lois doesn't understand about Superman,
this is nevertheless true understanding, as well as wonderful respect and deep love. Lois sees and marvels at how Superman not only rescues people's bodies and lives, but how he keeps giving so many people new hope and keeps lifting up the spirits of others.
The world didn’t know how strong Kal-El Superman of Krypton really was. They knew he could lift rockets into space and catch flying bullets without flinching, but they didn’t have a clue of the strength of his spirit.
But Lois understands a lot about the strength of Kal-El's spirit, and she loves him so deeply for it.
A little over two weeks, that was all. A little over two weeks since he had been hovering between life and death. Since he had shrank and shivered under the white light. Since that terrible piercing green glow of kryptonite had caused him the sort of pain that no man should have to face. Two weeks since he had looked at her from those dark, soulful eyes and told her to let him go and move on with her life.
Fat chance, Krypton, Lois thought.
Just over two weeks since he had stopped breathing on that terrible cold metal bed. Two weeks since Lois’s own heart had almost died along with him.
Lois looked around her now clean apartment. Had it already been that long? It felt like yesterday. At times she felt that if she closed her eyes for even a moment she would open them to that terrible white despair.
Had it really been only two weeks?
In this relatively short space, you use the words "two weeks" no less than six times and the word "since" five times. It's hypnotic. It certainly reinforces how the horror of the white room is with Lois all the time, hardly ever letting go of her.
Had she really only spent a little over two weeks buried in this story—driving herself to her very core in her efforts to figure out the five reporter’s questions—who, what, where, when, why?
Here the "two weeks" get mentioned for the seventh time. But this whole sentence is so depressingly, painfully ironic. Because while it is true that Lois has been driving herself almost to a mental and physical collapse trying to make sure that the people who tortured Superman in the white room will never get their hands on him again, her utter frustration at
Clark Kent may cause exactly what she most wants to avoid - that Lex Luthor and Bureau 39 may indeed capture Superman once again. Because in her frustration at Clark Kent Lois may very well unknowingly tell Superman's enemies precisely that which she wants to make sure they must never learn - namely, how to find Superman again and capture him. I have not forgotten how Lois ranted about Clark to Melinda, and how Melinda was blackmailed to tell someone, probably Luthor, what Lois had told her about Clark Kent.
She still didn’t know very many answers, but she knew Superman was safe. With him she could do anything. Together they could get through anything. They had already proved that to Logram, to Lex—to the world.
They could get through this.
I so hope that this is true, and that Lois's frustration at Clark Kent won't be the final undoing of Superman.
Rain rattled the window panes
...
The weather had been shifting between a faint, mist-like, gloomy sprinkle and a torrential downpour intermittently since mid-morning
...
the storm was still thick and dark
as if the clouds had lumbered over Metropolis and just found that they didn’t have any energy to go any farther
so they just hunkered over the tall buildings.
Oh wow, Rachel. How wonderfully you describe the rain.
There was a knock at the door. Lois looked over cautiously, then slowly walked over, noting the presence of a table lamp that would be useful if Lois needed to hit anyone over the head.
Can't help smiling a little at this - how Lois is prepared to hit someone over the head with a table lamp - yet in view of recent events, I must certainly take her fears seriously, too.
She darted over to turn off the TV, and opened the door as the man began to knock again.
I love this - how Lois turns off the TV before she lets the men with her new couch into her apartment. As if she didn't want to share Superman with anyone. As if she didn't want anyone to know how much Superman means to her.
Lois directed them inside and situated the perfectly colored, comfortable couch in the middle of her living room, then slipped them an extra thirty dollars for them to take the old piece away.
Even though . . . She was strangely hesitant to see it go. Of course there was no room for her to have two such couches in her apartment, but she couldn’t help but remember how Kal-El had looked sprawled out on it—looking pale, vulnerable and so innocent as he slept with the healing glow of the sun in his soft dark hair.
How moving.
Lois’s apartment was clean and ready, and she had the fanciest frozen dinners she could find stashed carefully away in her newly-emptied freezer.
I love this! Lois the horrible cook is going to treat Kal-El to the fanciest of the frozen dinners she could find at the supermarket!
A taxi ride and a short wait later, Lois had picked up her beloved and repaired Jeep and was driving it through the Metropolis streets, listening to the radio prattle on and on about Superman—where he had been, where he was now, and what everyone was doing about it.
She keeps immersing herself in whatever news she can find about Superman.
Lois hesitated in the silence of the empty car, then pulled out her cell phone and speed-dialed a number. She waited,
listening to the distanced drumming of the rain
and tapping her finger against her steering wheel as if to the beat of its humming, thrumming rhythm.
I love how you make the rain such a powerful presence here, and how strongly it influences Lois. I simply love the haunting, poetic way you describe the rain, too.
“Hello. This is Clark Kent. I’m not at home right now, so if you could just leave a message I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
Lois hung up, waited for a minute, and then tried again. She realized she was tapping with her finger and forced herself to stop.
“Hello. This is Clark Kent. I’m not at home right now, so if you could just leave a message I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
Wow. I can just hear Clark's friendly voice. But the fact that Clark
isn't at home is makes even more - haunting? ominous? sad? - when his "bodyless" voice is heard against the backdrop of the rain, whose presence is so overwhelmingly persistent.
She hurried across the street. Rain splattered against the asphalt and the wind carried it beneath the shelter of her umbrella, scattering dark droplets on her charcoal work pants.
Another very fine description.
Shivering and not exactly dry despite her long coat and her careful use of the umbrella, Lois bent down and lifted the potted plant under which her naïve coworker always hid his spare key.
But it wasn’t there.
It was a simple observation. It shouldn’t have been shocking. The idea that Kent had kept a key there in the first place was absolutely ridiculous—the farm boy was obviously too trusting and naïve, and Lois had ranted about it before. But he had kept it there nonetheless. It was part of what made up the strange and confusing character of Clark Kent.
Why was it gone?
And why did it matter so much that it was? Kent had just decided to listen to her at last. He’d smartened up. It shouldn’t mean anything.
Then why did the fact that the key was gone shake Lois so soundly?
This is so moving. Indeed, why is Lois so shaken by the fact that Clark Kent doesn't keep his key under the potted plant outside his door any more? Perhaps because Lois needs to hold on to Clark's trust in the goodness of the world in order to be able to hold on to some measure of hope herself. If not even Clark Kent believes that the world is a good place any more, how can you find the trust you need yourself in order to keep on living?
Rain pittered and pattered on the broad expanse of the windows,
and water ran down the panes,
reflecting a dark and slickly shifting pattern of light and shadow on the carpet and walls
like wriggling snakes.
Thunder rumbled darkly outside.
Wow. Amazing imagery and descriptions.
She didn’t really know what she imagined Kent to read in his spare time, and she wasn’t too surprised to find a the complete works of Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, philosophers Plato and Aristotle, Nietzsche, several Mark Twain books, all the way to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
Was it Alcyone who said she didn't like Nietzsche? I agree. The way
he defined "Superman" is enough to make you shudder. Another philosopher I personally dislike quite a lot is Aristotle. He regarded women as creatures lower than slaves and as beings that existed solely for the comfort and pleasure of men.
Of course, the fact that Clark Kent has read these books doesn't mean that he has to sympathize with Nietzsche's or Aristotle's views. He might simply be interested in finding out what those views were, and he might very soundly reject them.
They had clearly been read through more than once, Lois thought, pulling down a thick copy of what she concluded was a very Russian copy of Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov and paging through the dog-eared pages. There were even notes in the margins, though heaven knew what they said—they were clearly in Russian, and the writing looked as if it could certainly have come from Clark Kent’s hand, though it was a bit cramped in the small space.
Hmmm. Clark Kent read Brothers Karamazov in Russian and wrote comments in the margins in Russian. I really like it.
She had long since believed that you could tell a lot about a person by the books they read.
True....
She kept about half of her own bookshelf hidden, of course, choosing to show the classics and intimidating novels that she loved which she knew would cow anyone who looked close enough.
Nobody but a very select few (in fact, only one—Lucy, by Lois’s knowledge) knew about the hidden half of her bookshelf. Oh, and Superman. He had come by once while she had been reading one of her favorite romances, and found her bawling her eyes out.
Oh, so funny! And can't we sympathize?
“Had she but turned back then, and looked out once more on to the rose-lit garden, she would have seen that which would have made her own suffering seem but light and easy to bear—a strong man, overwhelmed with his own passion and his own despair. Pride had given way at last, obstinacy was gone: the will was powerless. He was but a man madly, blindly, passionately in love, and as soon as her light footsteps had died away within the house, he knelt down upon the terrace steps, and in the very madness of his love he kissed one by one the places where her small foot had trodden, and the stone balustrade there, where her tiny hand had rested last.”
Oh, so exquisitely lovely. I read
The Scarlet Pimpernel long, long ago, and in Swedish. I don't remember much of it, except that I did love the story. I loved the hero's secret identity and double life, too. I actually don't remember this wonderful description of the hero's love for his wife - a love that he seems quite unable to really show to her. Oh, how poignantly fitting it is that Clark Kent, the man who is secretly the hero and who can't show his loved one what he feels for her, should love this book, too.
So that was it. The Scarlet Pimpernel. A story of romance, adventure . . . lies, betrayal, and of love overcoming all. A story of a beautiful, able woman, and an apparently foppish man, who really carried the strength and nobility enough for a thousand heroes, but who hid that strength behind a façade of idiocy.
I love that way of summing up the book.
Was this one of the books that Clark Kent would prefer to have hidden under his bed? He never seemed too much like the romantic, really. But clearly the book was clearly well-loved.
...
Superman liked The Scarlet Pimpernel as well. He had said so in the white room, during one of the long conversations they had had in the timeless air. Perhaps he had even held this very book, and read that very passage on that very page . . .
Aaarrghh! It's so painful that Lois understands that
Superman may indeed have been reading this very book, this very physical copy of
The Scarlet Pimpernel, Clark Kent's own personal copy and one of his favorite stories... and yet she can't see that Superman and Clark Kent are one and the same person.
Some football pictures from high school and college—which was odd. She never would have pictured Kent as a sportsboy, despite his claim that he had gone running the other day.
Oh, Lois. How can you so totally have missed the fact that Clark Kent at least used to be well-built, before he was kept a prisoner in the white room?
There were graduation pictures, around-the-house pictures, and a bespeckled, maybe 12-year-old, awkward-but-charming-looking plaid-garbed boy beaming out at the camera as he hugged a cow around its neck as he held up a bright blue ribbon with utmost pride. It was so classic that Lois couldn’t help but chuckle.
Lovely description of 12-year-old Clark.
Clark Kent, Kerth Winner—First Place Cow in the Smallville Country Fair.
Clark Kent, Kerth winner - how cute! And the "First Place Cow in the Smallville Country Fair" is just adorable. And very, very farmboy, too. Here we have the adorably naïve Clark Kent whose faith in the world Lois needs in order to believe in it herself.
The search ended up being both intriguing and somewhat disappointing at the same time. Everything she found pointed to everything Clark Kent had ever told her to be as true as gold. He was clearly the farm boy she believed him to be, though perhaps a bit more of a sentimentalist than she had formerly thought, and as clear of an idealist as she had ever guessed.
So sweet. So reassuring. And so disappointing.
She had even looked under the bed (and it was disappointingly and almost disgustingly clean under there), but to no avail.
“Clark? Clark, honey, this is mom. Give me a call when you get home, okay?” There was a pause, filled only with the soft thrumming of the rain on the window, and Martha’s voice shook slightly. “I hope you’re being careful out there. And you better not be overdoing it, or I’ll have to come over there and drag you back to Smallville whether you like it or not.” Another pause. “I love you, honey. You’re the best. I hope you know that. I’ll be waiting for your call.”
Please, Lois. Please understand what Clark's mom is saying here. She is asking her son to "be careful out there" and not "overdo it" - and you have just spent hours and hours watching TV and listening radio reports about Superman performing all kinds of rescues.
Where was he?
She didn’t know. Her apprehension of him finding her in his apartment had faded to general confusion as time had passed. She’d been there for almost a whole hour. Where in the world would Kent go on a Sunday?
Oh, Lois. Think. Please think.
What if she was wrong? What if there really wasn’t anything else behind Clark Smallville Kent? What if it was all just in her head? What if she really was just going crazy?
There is something about the fact that Lois is going crazy over Clark Kent that moves me so. Lois has no idea that her utter frustration about Clark Kent may already have caused her to do what she wants to avoid most in the whole world - it may have caused her to betray Superman. And Clark doesn't realize that his own secret identity game with Lois is indeed driving Lois crazy and may be causing her to unknowingly give his secret away.
Had Superman taught Clark all of those languages? Surely that was impossible. She had known that one of her dad’s friends could speak eight, but he was an Oxfordian, brilliant, and 67 years old besides.
Or were those Superman's letters?
Think, Lois. Think.
She certainly didn’t want to invade his privacy.
Lois bit her lip. But she had invaded Clark’s privacy. And quite knowingly, at that.
It was for an investigation. Mad Dog Lane. No mercy. Kent was going down.
It was Clark Kent’s apartment. How would you feel if he broke into your apartment looking for why you acted so inconsistently towards him?
Lois stiffened. Why, she had Superman’s cape stuffed under her pillow, as she always did. And if Clark were to find her stash of hidden books under her bed . . .
She’d probably die. Or maybe just have to kill him.
But Kent wouldn’t ever do something like that . . .
I aboslutely love those voices in Lois's head.
Was it so illogical to wish that she had found something more out of place than some books and letters in different languages? At least that would justify some of her suspicions.
What suspicions?
She didn’t know, okay?! They were just there.
Lois shifted in her seat under the bright florescent lights, grumbling mentally to herself as her very unreasonable guilt continued to grow. The silence was deafening, and she wished for the steady roar of the rain instead of that cursed hum of the lights. It brought back bad memories and made her feel uneasy.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t all that unreasonable. But she had done such things before, hadn’t she? And she’d never felt too guilty about that, had she? Especially when something had turned up because of her snooping.
No. Not snooping. Investigating. She was an investigative reporter, and Clark Kent was maddening enough that he was being investigated by Lois Lane. The end.
Besides, Melinda had told her to investigate!
But wasn’t this a little extreme? Breaking into his apartment and prying around in his personal things?
Of course not!
Yes.
Well, maybe.
Great. Great. I love how she is questioning her own motives, then trying to defend herself, then questioning herself once again.
She had found his journal in a small drawer next to his bed, but she had stayed her hand there. There were some boundaries that even she would not cross, even for a potential lead.
But maybe she should have.
No. It’s a very good thing you didn’t!
She could just imagine one of his entries . . .
Dear Journal—Another good day at work. I told Lois I was right about Lex, and she finally got off her so-high-horse (which is about three times as large as old Buck who won first at the country fair last year!) and then admitted so! Oh, I left her in the middle of an investigation (again) and now she’s all furious and spitting at me (again), but with those chocolates and flowers she’ll no doubt be back in shape in no time (again) .
Idiot.
I loved that imaginary entry in Clark Kent's journal, with all those "agains"!
But even as she thought it, the imagined words rang sour like an out-of-tune copper-green church bell.
A wonderful piece of imagery again...
Lois’s frowned as her thoughts pulled to a stand-still. What would Clark Kent’s journal be like?
Today I waited outside Lois’s apartment for four hours . . .
Lois blinked. Four hours? Surely not . . .
But she’d come home after nine, and he hadn’t left until after eleven . . . How long had he been waiting before?
Imagine that she hasn't been giving Clark's vigil outside her own door much thought before. But then, she has been too busy thinking about Superman.
Dear Journal. Today Lois came into work at 8:03—one minute and thirty-two seconds later than usual . . . She was wearing her black stilettos and her hair looked just hot . . . Maybe I’ll try to ask her out (again), after I sit outside her door and make her feel bad for me so she’ll say yes. She came home at exactly forty-seven seconds after 9:07 . . .
Hm. Stalker Kent. It just didn’t fit.
Dear Journal . . .
Cows, maybe? Sheep? Corn? She chuckled.
Her inner voice scorned her. Now you’re just being stupid. You know there’s more to Kent than just the country boy. You can’t deny it, even if you did before.
Oh, shut up.
Dear Journal . . .
Dad died today . . .
Lois winced. Idiot man. He always was too much of a softie—that was his problem. He was in the big city now—he had to hit hard, get down and dirty. Dig in with his nails. The world wasn’t going to stop for things like that. People died. The world went on and didn’t wait.
Amazing. Wonderful. Lois's doubts and self-recrimination and her guilt at belittling Clark Kent are warring with her still strong, well,
belittling of him, as well as with her need to take comfort in her belief that Clark Kent really
is just a naïve, trusting farm boy (and therefore the world is still a place you can believe in).
At least you had enough conscience to let Kent keep that privacy, at least.
Conscience? Lois shook her head. It had been propriety, not guilt that had kept her from opening it up. Kent was a . . . a friend.
Some way you have of showing it—first brushing him off and then breaking into his apartment.
Lois winced.
Okay. Fine.
But what was she going to do about it? Go apologize? For goodness sakes, who knew how the man might react? He might . . . He might . . .
What would he do?
Clark . . .
Lois is feeling more and more guilty. She is also realizing, more and more, how much Clark really menas to her. I love it.
He’d look so hurt if he found out. His dark eyes would widen behind the glasses, and he’d look just like a kicked dog—or like she’d reached in and ripped his heart out with her bare hands while he had been watching her with those open, trusting eyes. Or maybe he’d actually get angry at her, though the thought was ridiculous.
And it hurt.
This reminds me of how Clark feels that he can't tell Lois that he is Superman, because he can't bear to see the hurt and betrayal in her eyes when she finds out.
Would he get angry at her? Would the cow-hugging, football-playing, philosophically-minded, secretly-romantic, brilliant, multi-lingual, generous, patient, personable, friendly, cheerful, open, caring, self-less Clark Kent (and who cared what he put in his journal?) finally decide not to put up with her?
Wow. The way you write this. The way you make Lois admit to herself that yes, indeed, Clark Kent is one of a kind, he is absolutely wonderful, but she has been treating him awfully, and he might just have had enough of her.
Lois felt her heart sinking. Rapidly. Dropping down to the very darkest corner of the darkest crevice in the deepest section of the sea.
The imagery...wow....
She couldn’t say why, but the thought of Kent finally getting sick of her and her disgustingly irritating nature made her feel ill.
You should have thought about that before you broke into his apartment, her inner voice muttered.
Yes, maybe.
Maybe she did take him for granted. Maybe she was too quick to judge him, time after time after time . . .
There’s no maybe about it.
She realizes it. She finally does. Please let her remember and hold on to this realization.
She paid for the photos and dropped them in the trash can on her way out.
What? Lois's guilt makes her throw away the pictures she has taken of Clark's things in a public trash can. I have a bad feeling about this. What if someone else finds the pictures and takes a good look at them?
Oh, Lois! The way you keep doing things that put Superman at risk! Just because you so stubbornly refuse to understand who Superman is!
She had underestimated Clark Kent, one way or another. So he was a farm boy. So he was a bit naïve. But she had found pictures of him standing amongst starving African children, his face as pure as an angel and so beautifully sad yet loving as he looked at their suffering and he held one of the thin and bedraggled little ones in his arms.
Dear Journal . . .
Clark Kent was more than just a good man. Clark Kent was more than just a tag-along of Superman’s as he had flew around the world. No. Clark Kent had a heart and soul as big as that smile that had burst out of that old picture from the country fair.
I love it. And it so beautifully, poignantly written.
There was a reason, Lois realized, why Superman had chosen Clark Kent. They were just alike. Caring far beyond themselves, and strong enough to do something about it.
Oh, groan. Lois, please understand that Clark and Superman are more than just alike.
So. Perhaps Superman hadn’t just been being charitable in taking the blame from Clark Kent. Perhaps Superman really had separated himself from Clark Kent for Kent’s own safety.
Lois felt a chill. Perhaps Kal-El meant to do the same thing to her.
Lois is really on to something here. Because wasn't that one of the reasons why Clark decided that he couldn't let Superman near Lois again? Isn't that one of the reasons why he decided that from now on, he could only be with her as Clark Kent?
You know, Rachel, that is probably the only thing I never quite, quite understood about your story. Why Clark so cruelly kept Superman away from Lois after she had rescued him. Oh, I could so perfectly understand why he kept Superman away from the world - because he really
wasn't Superman for a while, and because he was a broken man, really, and because he was so scared, so scared, so scared....
But Lois. She had saved his life. She had encouraged him, stayed with him, given him her everything - and he just took the man she had saved away from her? She had saved
Superman. And she had told him that she found Clark Kent irritating. Oh, that must have been very, very painful for him to hear, of course. But still - he put on his nerdiest glasses and made himself as unlike Superman as possible when he had to be close to Lois again? After all she had done for
Superman? I couldn't understand it. Oh, I could understand parts of it - you described his horrible, crippling fear so brilliantly. But how could it be so much safer for him to fool Lois so cruelly?
It wasn't safe to fool her. It's because he fooled her that she is now going crazy and dropping hints everywhere about what she can't see herself, namely, that Clark Kent is Superman.
I never like Clark's lies to Lois. I don't think I ever like them.
And Clark might be good at being generally kind to people, but how often did people really take the time to be kind back, besides a casual wave? The only one Lois had ever seen Clark succeeding in beings friends with was Jimmy, who was young and sometimes just plain annoying to be around, and . . . herself.
Herself. Her. Lois Lane, who never let him get close. Who slammed him down so hard that he was reduced to a stuttering, bumbling bulk of awkwardness.
Poor Clark.
Lois stopped herself flat. Poor Clark? The same man she was so cursedly furious with, after he had run off the day before?
Brainless, selfish lunkhead!
Oh, she was going to get an answer to that mystery, no matter how deep she had to dig!
Dear—
SMASH!
Lois took a mental hammer and crushed the annoying repeating voice into nothing but a pile of bent and crushed metal and some screws which went spinning off somewhere into the depths of her mind.
Like she was saying, she was going to get an answer to that mystery, no matter how deep she had to dig!
Feeling satisfyingly indignant again, Lois drove back to Kent’s apartment, returned to her parking spot, tried his phone number again, and when she got the message machine again she just sat back and waited.
Wow. Amazing.
Brilliantly written, Rachel.
She had done stake-outs before. Of course, this wasn’t really an official stake out, because she was ready to dart out there as soon as she saw Kent.
To say what? She didn’t know. Her thoughts bounced between an open confession of what she had done and a forceful confrontation of his secrets.
I would love to see such a confrontation. What would happen if Lois really demanded that Clark told her the truth about himself? What if she demanded that he explained why he kept running out on her? Would he have told her?
How could the uncertain creature that was her partner be the same man who was in that picture from Africa, calm, confident, and capable of the trust that shone up from the children’s eyes as they looked at him?
Clark Kent in the Congo? Facing the wilds of Brazilian jungles, carrying around a machete like she had seen in that thick book of photos in his drawer? The thought was laughable. She couldn’t see him lasting a day.
But he had. He had traveled the world for four years. He had the sort of experience that could turn men into arrogant narcissists, the intelligence to turn men into overconfident prigs.
Instead, he was just . . . Clark Kent.
Somehow, that made what he had done all the more amazing.
I'm so glad she sees it.
But...
Lois didn’t trust it. There must be something else she was missing. But she had taken the wrong road to try and get it.
The hours slid by. Lois was tired, and her eyes drooped to the comings and goings of the rain, but she forced herself to stay awake. She almost wished she had kept those pictures she had taken from Kent’s apartment, just to keep herself occupied.
Almost.
Finally, tired, cramped from sitting so long, and feeling like a useless and low-life dirt reporter if she ever had felt so, Lois started her jeep and headed home, disappointed that her waiting had come to naught.
But Superman would be coming over soon. She didn’t want to be late.
Besides, she had to talk to him too.
Arriving at her apartment, Lois parked her jeep, darted inside before she could get too wet, and in a minute was up in her apartment, turning on the oven and glancing out the unlocked window.
He was coming soon.
She turned on the TV, double checked to make sure everything was in order, and then sat down to listen and watch the news, which was still caught up in the storm of Superman’s mysterious disappearance and return.
And there, she waited.
Disappointingly, Clark never shows up. There is no confrontation.
So, will Superman come to Lois's apartment, then? That remains to be seen.
To summarize, this is another just plain brilliant part, Rachel.
Ann
My evil plot is succeeding . . . 
!!!