Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK: Above Alt Else 10/?

I do believe answers will start coming soon... just have to get the setup in place.

Any thoughts on how its going so far?

Well, wow. I'm so totally fascinated. And of course, it suits me so perfectle because I'm mostly a Lois fan - okay, okay, of course I'm a Lois and Clark fan, too - but really, I love to see Lois being "right" and Clark being the one who needs to learn to trust and have his perspective changed.

I love this. Lois keeps being there for Clark, every bit as much as Clark was there for her in the show - more actually, because so far she hasn't made him fall into a dumpster or tricked him into getting lost at the Metropolis Sewage reclamation plant.

Interestingly, Lois is there for Clark not so much because she has fallen in love with him - indeed, I'm not sure she has really fallen in love with him at all. But here in this fic as well as in the show, Lois believes in Superman. And she is so right about doing that. She is fighting for Superman, and it may be, too, that she wants to fight for Jory.

And Lois comes up with Clark's lame excuses!!! Now that is priceless!!

Yes, Lois is sure sticking up for Clark - and for Superman.

Wow!!! Oh wow!!! Fantastic!! OMG, how brave Lois was here! She knew that Clark was scared of touching people during rescues, and she knew that she must make him do that - so she launched herself off a roof, even if she had no idea if she could actually trust this Clark to catch her! OMG!!!

But Clark wasn't too grateful, more like really p***ed off. I'm very glad Lois got the last word, though, and I'm proud of her(!!!) for being able to act so cool even though she was still so totally shaken.

This is mysterious and ominous. It might be that Martha is telling Lois that with Jonathan's failing health the older Kents can't keep looking after Jory. I hope Martha isn't saying, however, that her own health is failing as well.

I also get the impression that Martha is asking Lois to help look after Jory. Hmmm. That would be interesting, to be sure.

Yes, something bad seems to be going on all right!

Well, wow! Right now, neither Clark nor Lois loves the other one. They would have no interest in living together, much less getting married at this stage. But if Lois is going to help Clark look after Jory... will they have some sort of "joint custody", or what?

This is all so fascinating!

Ann

Clark doesn't seem very Clark-like lately. Very immature and a bit of an unappreciative JERK.

He reminds me of my uncle who disappeared for awhile. It turns out he didn't feel like being a husband and a father so he just up and left for Alaska. He came back when he felt like it. After that the marriage didn't work out so he moved back in with his mom. Couldn't find the money for rent or groceries, but he always had cigarettes. He got mad at his mom when she decided to move into the senior center because he wasn't allowed to come too. Definately wasn't any Superman. It seems incongruous that a man with his lack of character would also be a superhero.

I also wonder why Superman has issues with touching people. Did he hurt someone along the way?

It's not fair of Martha to put Lois in this bad situation. Jory isn't her responsibility any more than Clark is. Even if Lois and Clark were married, it wouldn't be Lois' job to mother him. He's grown, if he hadn't noticed.

I'm not sure I like him anymore. He seemed fine at first, but he lost me somewhere along the way. I hope I find that I like him again somewhere in the future.


Elisabeth

I love the role reversal. Clark's attitudes is a perfect portrayal of an overwhelmed person... consequences of keeping everything bolted inside. I think this Clark Kent is hiding two secrets instead of the usual physical one. He's also wearing an emotional mask, which is normally worn by Lois Lane.

And your Lois is not afraid to take emotional risks, which is what Martha might be betting on.

I still don't understand all the internal character strifes, but that's all the more intriguing and gives me 1 more reason to look forward to MWF (thanks for the accelerated posting schedule hehe).

<<before it's too late>>
Does Jory have some other (fatal) illness?...

After I had posted my first reply, I started wondering why you had started your chapter off with this motto. Surely there wasn't that much friendship to be seen in this part?

Then it struck me. Lois. Hasn't she been giving a ton of friendship to Clark? Consider. She drove all the way out to Smallville to tell him that she knew his secret, to tell him that she wouldn't reveal it to anyone, to give him the journal that he had been looking for, and to tell him to stop running away from everything. She put in a good word for him with Perry, so that he got a job at the Daily Planet. She asked to be his partner, too, so that she could help him getting adjusted to his job. She found him a good apartment. She spoke to the Daily Planet daycare staff about their readiness to accept a deaf three-year-old. She wrote the article that would make people in Metropolis (and elsewhere) ready to accept Superman. And when she found that he was afraid of touching people (because he was scared of applying too much force on them and hurting them) she risked her life by creating a situation where he would have to save her life by bodily catching her. She has protected his secret, come up with bad excuses for him, she is ready to take on some responsibility for Jory and she hasn't even asked him about the mother of that kid... what hasn't she done for him?

The show repeatedly made the point that Clark was Lois's best friend. In a way he wasn't really, because in reality he was wooing her more than being there for her when she needed him. If he had really, really been her best friend, he would have come to her as Superman and warned her against getting married to Luthor. And he would have told her as soon as possible that he wasn't dead after he had been shot in TOGOM. There was an episode where Clark was packing because he had decided to give up and leave, without even discussing it with Lois.. Clark wouldn't have done any of these things if he really, really had wanted to be there for Lois as a true friend. In a way it wasn't so much Clark who was Lois's best friend as it was Lois who needed Clark to be her best friend. Crazily enough, that was one of her reasons for wanting to marry Luthor - that she didn't dare to complicate or compromise her friendship with Clark by adding (selfish) romance to what she thought was Clark's unselfish, friendly relationship with her.

But if Clark wasn't always a truly dependable friend of Lois in the show, Lois has been a fantastic friend of Clark's in this story. Amazingly enough, she has been his friend without flattering him for a moment. She hasn't been telling him any lies, white or otherwise, that's for sure. Maybe her refusal to tell him sweet little nothings has made it harder to realize what an amazing friend she has been.

I'm with ANKS, by the way, in his assessment of Clark. I, too, feel that Clark is overwhelmed by his own situation and by all the pressure that has been put on him. He thinks Lois has put additional pressure on him, which is why he is not grateful to her. I think he'll come around. I think he will say to her, just like Lois said to Clark in the show, that she has been a fantastic friend to him. And then, of course, I think that these two will eventually fall in love with each other.

Huh. In the show, Lois denied to herself that she was in love with Clark. It is interesting to consider the possibility that here, too, Lois may be in love with Clark without even realizing it. After all, I guess we all want these two people to be together. Clark is just being stubborn, and I think he could definitely be made to change his mind about Lois. But if Lois doesn't already love Clark, it may be somewhat hard for her to learn to do it. (Of course, if she sees Clark hug Jory, that may do wonders for her...)

Anyway, it could be that Lois's quite amazing altruistic friendship with Clark has an ulterior motive that she isn't even aware of: it could be that she is subconsciously attracted to him, and that she subconsciously wants him to become attracted to her, too.

Well, I love this story!

Ann

I'm fascinated by how much of Clark's troubles/concerns Lois is assuming. I'm wondering what is driving her - pity? compassion? awe? curiosity? a combination of all the above? She is a very different Lois than the one we know so well, but still very much the essence of Lois Lane - great job with that. I'm not as happy with the change in Clark's personality that has made him so wrapped up in his own pain that he can't connect with other people or even just be friendly. I'm hoping this is only a temporary attitude!

Is Lex that is testing Superman? Looking forward to more on that, too!

I want to know more about Jory. Why doesn't Clark want to be a father - or why hasn't he been, etc.? That doesn't seem like Clark. Was he married to Jory's mom and she died in childbirth and he can't bring himself to connect with Jory because of the pain of the loss of the mother? Who is the mother?

Could it be that Jory isn't Clark's biological son? Is he 'adopted' or just in Clark's custody for some reason? Pete Ross' son or something?

Clark not particularly wanting to be a father isn't 'our' Clark, imo and I'm very interested to know why.

I don't see it so much as Martha putting pressure on Lois or anything, just that she knows Lois is going to be working with Clark etc. and can be her eyes and ears if she notices something. If Lois notices that Clark looks like he hasn't slept in a week or whatever then she would call Martha - just a heads up kind of thing. How is Clark going to be Superman as a single dad? I forget who did it with Becca... but what happens if there's a major chemical fire at midnight or whatever. He and Lois certainly aren't close enough to drop him of whenever. I wasn't certain from the description, but is the apartment Clinton Ave?

More soon please .
Carol

I also find Clark's attitude very interesting. I'm sure there more to his past than what we see now, and I'm very curious to find out what that is. And where Jory fits into that past.

Again, great and very valid comments, so thank you very much for those. I realize that we have spent most of the time with Lois's POV but I think it would be hard to keep certain things a mystery if we had more of Clark's view. I mean, after all, he *knows* what his secrets are.

That said, I can understand how he seems to be really cantankerous and ungrateful right now, but justifiably overwhelmed. I can't say that you'll be ready to give him a clean slate, but I think he will become more of a understood character in upcoming sections. It is a really fine line I'm toying with, and most of all, I am grateful that there are countering opinions about him right now. Hopefully, I will be able to stay on the right side of that line where he is concerned. The differing opinions help me evaluate if I'm doing that.

My intention with Martha was more along the lines of what Carol said. I didn't see her as imposing on Lois so much as realizing that she was putting a child into an iffy situation, but felt obligated to do so (for whatever reason). Knowing that Lois would be watching anyway, she just wanted an extra set of eyes and ears on the situation. I think the level of involvement is up to Lois.

I think the comments on this part especially bring out the role reversal premise I'm playing with. Lois is making the excuses - maybe in part because Clark just doesn't think about making them. Most importantly, as Ann pointed out, Lois is the one extending friendship into a hostile environment. When I think back to the general consensus in the comics, movies, and shows, the impression is that Clark was the tried and true even while Lois treated him badly. I'm not saying that it is a valid consensus - but it seems to be out there all the same. I'm attempting to refute that with this story - here Lois is not blind, not comic relief, and is not tricked. Her motivations, while not exactly clear, are pure. I think she has seen glimmers of what Clark can become and wants to help him coax it out. Who can help it if with every swatch of dirt she brushes away more stuff gets uncovered?

Thanks again for all of the discussion. I find it interesting and hope you do as well!

~Sonia