As you probably know, I was one of those who was upset at the previous part of your story.
I liked this part a lot better. The reason for that is that this part was told from Lois's point of view. I like this Lois, just as I like most Loises.
I can sympathize with her utter grief, shock and total sense of betrayal at Clark's horrible treatment of her. I like her family loyalty and the fact that she has helped her sister and brother-in-law raise their daughter. I'm
very glad that she wants to be a reporter again. I was fascinated by her nervousness and determination when she was applying for a job, and I liked her response to John Emerson. I was happy to see her win her new job by writing a touchy-feely piece about a baby rhino. And I was fascinated by her mental struggle about whether, and how, she might write a piece about Superman.
As for Clark, though, I feel little sympathy for him. (But you should be aware that I tend to be a
lot more critical of Clark than most members of these boards, so I don't think you have to worry that most people here will regard your Clark as an idiot.)
Personally I'm deeply critical of him. Frankly, no, I don't believe that he loves Lois. There is no
way he would have let her grieve for him as
dead for ten years if he had had the least bit of consideration for her feelings.
Why didn't he tell her? The only reason I can think of is that
nothing, but nothing, was more important to him than protecting his secret identity. Lois thinks he is dead? What a pity. Lois is going slowly mad with grief? Too bad. Lois's whole life is slipping? She is coming apart? Well, sorry about that, but what could he do about it? What? What did you say? He could have told her? Revealed his secret identity to her?
Revealed it????? To
her????? You're crazy, right?
So, no. I don't think this Clark loves Lois at all. He may be full of a
selfish wish to be appreciated by her. To be loved by her. He used to take her adoration for granted - at least her adoration for
Superman - and he would bask in it. For ten years, when he allowed Lois to think that Clark was dead, she wouldn't give him her adoration, and he missed it. But he was pretty okay, for all of that. The fact that
Lois was going almost crazy with grief didn't bother him too much.
No, the reason why Clark is feeling so crummy these days is because Lois is suddenly so angry with him. He doesn't like that.
She is feeling better now than she used to, and her life is going better again, but she is angry at
him, and therefore he is wallowing. Let me quote that article he wrote in her name for her new newspaper:
Superman did not disappear for a week as he was needed somewhere far away as I know many of us imagined. He disappeared as he was grieving. He said little about where he was or what he was grieving for. But he told me very clearly that he had hurt someone very deeply and with alarming clarity that this person did nothing to deserve it. He, too, had believed he was above that kind of thing, and he had found himself wrong.
What Clark is saying here is that he abandoned his Superman duties for a week because he found it so devastating to learn, after ten years, that the woman he had so cruelly abandoned and allowed to grieve for him as dead was now
angry at him. She was angry, and she would not forgive him! That made him feel so bad that he had to hide his face from the world for a week.
This Superman is not a loving person. He does not care about Lois's feelings. He just hates it when she is angry at him.
A colleague of mine, a male teacher, has six children by his ex-wife. One day she informed him that she had fallen in love with another man. She walked out on him, just like that, and told him that he might keep the kids, too.
Now suppose that this woman was to come back home after ten years and say to her kids: Hi kids, aren't you glad to see me? Mommy is back again. Give us a kiss, won't you?
And if she did that, her kids were supposed to forgive her just like that? And if they told her they couldn't forgive her, then suddenly she would start pouting and crying and she'd run off somewhere to wallow and feel sorry for herself? She would feel sorry for herself because her kids were angry at her?
Personally, I believe that this woman's children may forgive her eventually - sort of. But they will never trust her again in the same way that most kids, and adults, trust their mothers. You can't
choose to turn your back on somebody for ten years and expect them to take you back again just like that, as if nothing had happened. And no, Clark obviously didn't choose to
walk out on Lois, but he did choose not to contact her for ten years, and not to tell her what had happened to him.
I have never, ever wanted Lois to move on before. But in this story, I would actually prefer it if Lois married John Emerson instead of Clark.
Ann