YES!

Caroline, I wasn't expecting this for days! Yea! Your kids must have finally let you get some sleep.

Oh, boy.

oh, boy. (there's really no other comment to make!)

I love how well Perry knows Lois, and admires her anyway.

LOL! That's for sure.

This is great.

Yeah, no kidding!

Yes, but we know he is grinning because he has never seen Lois so kerflummoxed!

No, Lois, he already did.



Beautiful. I think this is the way we all wish it had happened.

Lovely kisses in the sky, and this...

Absolute perfection.

Dang, if I'd know about the ending, I'd have included that clip of them kissing in front of the moon in the trailer. Ah, well, that's what I get for jumping the gun.

I truly enjoyed this story so much, Caroline. Thank you for sharing it with us, and I am looking forward to your next one.

A beautiful ending to a wonderful story.

Hi,

Great part!


MAF

A wonderful conclusion to a beautiful story.

I hope I can find the time to come back here a little later and say a bit more.

It was lovely, Caroline!!!!

Ann

Caroline, what a sweet ending to a wonderful story. I always like the revelations where Lois doesn't get mad.

Thank you for sharing with us and I hope you write another soon!

Caroline!

I have been following this all through. You write so well and this story was so sweet. Thank you for sharing your talent with us. I do hope you will continue to write L&C. You really have the characters down and your descriptive writing is a joy to read.

Write on!
Anne

Ah, Caroline! What a wonderful, wonderful story! I loved the way Clark asked Lois to "see" him, "really see" him, to look past the surface and see the person beneath. What a contrast to the beginning of the story, where Lois sets Clark up to not see her!

I think that when the blue-clad flying man guided her with his hand in the small of her back, something in her body dinged and said, "That's Clark's hand!" Women are so much more sensitive to smell and touch than us guys are, so I think that was really her first clue, even if her brain didn't get it right away. And she had to realized that his voice was familiar, even if that particular datum didn't register fully, either.

Wonderful ending to a wonderful story! Now, hurry up and send it to the archives so we can vote you a Kerth next year!

Awesome! One of the best Pilot rewrites I've ever read

Just one thing though... maybe I missed it but does Lois share the byline on Superman exclusive with Clark? I mean considering the whole newsroom including Perry had their doubts on Clark's assertions of seeing the flying man...

Caroline, I owe you some better feedback than what I've posted so far.

Like others have already said, this is an absolutely wonderful rewrite of the pilot. To see why this is so, let's consider what happened between Lois and Clark in the actual pilot - and discussing that isn't altogether easy for me, since I haven't seen it!

However, this is how I understand the pilot. Clark arrives at the Daily Planet, lays eyes on Lois, and falls head over heels in love with her. Lois, on the other hand, is totally focused on her job, on the supposedly stupid story that Perry tries to saddle her with, and she doesn't even notice Clark. Later, when Perry has not only hired Clark but made him her partner, she gets very upset. She probably finds it an attack on her dignity that she, the award-winning investigative reporter, has to stoop to being the nursemaid to a newbie. But she may also be somewhat scared that Clark Kent will not actually need a nursemaid, that he will turn out to be too good at her job, because what will that say about her own journalistic skills if a hack from Nowheresville can just walk into the newsroom of the Daily Planet and trump her as a reporter?

Also, no doubt, the Lois Lane of the pilot feels threatened by Clark Kent's obvious attractiveness and charm. She has convinced herself that if she lets herself indulge in another office romance this will be her undoing, and Clark Kent, whom she so much wants to fall for, is therefore very dangerous to her and has to be kept at bay.

In your story, Lois gives in to her incredible attraction to Clark almost right away, and she does so for two reasons; one, because she thinks that this opportunity is too overwhelmingly tempting to miss out on, and two, because she believes that this wonderful guy will never be a part of her life again.

When it turns out that Clark is in fact going to be her colleague at work, she panics. If Clark was a threat to Lois in the pilot, he is so much more of a threat in this story. Not only is he every bit as attractive as he was in the TV series, not only is he every bit the reporter that he was in the show, but here in your story he has the most intimate knowledge conceivable about Lois Lane, who is so deathly afraid of letting people too close, and who is so horribly frightened of office gossip. Is she supposed to work around this man and know that every time he even looks at her, he can see in his mind's eye exactly what she looked like when she was naked?

Because of her terror, Lois tries to force Perry to fire Clark by making a lot of untruthful accusations against her new colleague. I was actually shocked that Lois would behave so badly and stoop so low, but fear can make people do contemptible things.

So in your story, Lois was even more afraid of Clark than she was in the pilot. But, conversely, your Lois was also even more attracted to Clark than she was in the pilot. Because your Lois didn't have to imagine what it would be like to have a real romance with Clark and to make love to him, because she knew what it would be like. The impression I got of your story was that Clark was not necessarily a very skilled lover when he made love to "Wanda Detroit" that night, but he was wonderfully loving, sweet and caring. Undoubtedly he made love to Lois by honestly, truthfully worshipping her. To Lois, this must have been such an incredible contrast to her previous sexual encounters, and it must have been something that a large part of her was crying out to experience again.

So in your story, Lois is absolutely terrified of Clark, but at the same time she is absolutely overwhelmingly attracted to him. You wrote the story of how she overcame her fear of him and became able to really see the beauty of the soul of the man who had taken her to bed on two hours' aquaintance. And you wrote this story so delicately, so sensitively, so beautifully.

In this final chapter, I absolutely loved how Lois sacrificed her dignity and confessed to Perry the nature of her first encounter with Clark, so that Perry wouldn't fire the man whose love has now conquered her fears. Imagine, she went from making those horrible, wrongful accusations against Clark in order to get him fired to confessing her most frighteningly embarrassing secret in order to make sure that the man she loved would keep his job.

The last scene of this story mirrors the main plot. Lois is both delighted and afraid of what a glorious man offers her - in this case being held in his arms among the clouds. The way I remember the first chapter of this story, Lois didn't see Clark's face too clearly as he made love to her. Here, he asks her, pleads with her, to see him:

And indeed, she did:

This is so beautiful, so wonderful. There have been many stories where Clark has confessed his secret to Lois and she has reacted with anger and shock. And there has been a fair number of stories where Lois has figured his secret out on her own, and lashed out at him in anger for deceiving her. Here, Clark figuratively holds out his hand to Lois, asking her to walk with him on her own road to discovery. They overcome his secret hand in hand, as it were.

Your story is so lovely and so heartwarming. There are so many more things I could quote from it - like how Lois isn't bothered by the fact that this lovely man is an alien, because he is Clark - but I still don't have that much time to comment. So let me just say that this is absolutely vintage Lois and Clark, beautiful, magical, sensual and heartwarming.

Ann

Ok, I have to make the Terrible Reader's Confession. I got curious and read part 20 tonight while I'm waiting for my art project to adhere...

But it's the only part I've read!

That being said, I still loved it anyway, and I'm kind of dying to know what happened in the rest of the story, especially since it's a pilot rewrite.

So I look forward to digging up the rest of the story next time I have a chunk of free time!
Happy writing,
JD

This was an enjoyable, well-written fic. I like that the conflict and level of angst was based on actual situations and circumstance and not on some silly misunderstanding that could be cleared up if the two parties just talked to each other.

The problems they had were real, and an outgrowth of their own personal hang-ups. And then they were able to eventually work through their difficulties in a logical and rational manner. You allowed them to examine their feelings and their fears and based their actions on those. And just like in any happily ever after, the feelings overcame the fears.

This, of course, allowed Lois to be able to handle the revelation in stride because there was no reason for Clark to keep the truth from her for so long.

Nicely done... NEXT!

Tank (who thinks the only additional thing this story needed was a nice haircut for Lois)

Thank you all so much for the lovely feedback! I'm so pleased you enjoyed the story and appreciate your hanging with me until the end

Lisa, Maria, Ann, and Sheila, I think you all responded to every single part of this story. Thank you so much for your faithful support and encouragement! It's been a delight reading your comments along the way and finding out which parts you particularly enjoyed. I'm glad that you enjoyed the ending as well.

And Ann, you did a lovely job of summing up exactly what I was trying to do with this story. The inspiration for "Stardust" came from the pilot episode of Grey's Anatomy, in which two main characters meet at a bar and sleep together, assuming it's a one night stand, and then, the next day, find out they'll be working together. I wondered what would happen if Lois and Clark found themselves in that same situation - how that premature intimacy between them might change the events of the L&C pilot. I think that virtually everything between them is changed by Lois acknowledging her attraction to Clark before he's handed to her as a co-worker, and by circumstances being such that Perry doesn't force Clark on her but instead lets her decide when she's ready to work with him. It makes for a very different dynamic.

Jen, you cracked me up, but I confess, I've done the exact same thing many a time. I hope if you find time to read the beginning that it lives up to your expectations

Anne, thank you so much for your encouragement along the way! I'm so glad you enjoyed the story.

A few specific responses:

You know, I think this would come down to Clark preferring that Lois be the one to write the story. I imagine that she would be willing to share the byline - as she already is on the colonist transport story, which will also contain information about the 'new hero in town', - but that he might prefer that the actual 'interview' go to her. I see him as not yet comfortable enough with the superhero side of himself to move fluidly between that persona and Clark Kent's. Later, he'll reach the point where he can interview himself, but in the early days, he needs Lois's help to flesh out his character, and I think he would recognize that.

I agree, Terry. In both cases (with 'Wanda' and with 'yet-to-be-named-Superman') I had them recognizing the other pretty quickly after they'd had a reasonable opportunity to. I find first season Lois's cluelessness a lot of fun, actually, but I think in this story, when they were already so close, it would have been natural for her to begin to put together those small clues, like scent and touch, subconsciously. So when he wants her to really see him, she's able to, and she's not angry because the charade hasn't gone much longer than it had to.

BTW, I'm sorry I couldn't work in the request you made early on for Lois to sing "Stardust". It was a lovely idea that just didn't fit logically into the story. I haven't forgotten, however, and it might yet make an appearance somewhere

I'm on your side. I loved Lois's short hair! Pretend she got a haircut the next day, OK? She didn't want it blowing in her face anymore when she and Clark were making out in the clouds.

And thank you for your comments on the story. I'm delighted you enjoyed it

Yes, I thought this was important, too. I had this scene in mind from the time I wrote the initial scene with Clark in Perry's office being blessed out for something he knew nothing about. Lois needed to balance that out somehow. She needed to make that right by confessing to Perry.

Thanks again to all who have commented and all who have followed the story as it was posted. I adore these characters and have had so much fun writing them this past year - and so much fun reading about them in the year prior to that. This fandom has given me a great deal of pleasure, and it delights me if something I've written can do the same for someone else.

Best,

Caroline

wow what a great ending. I loved this story.

Hope to see new stuff from you soon.

You are a great writer. "If I were you" is still one of my favorite fics.

Great ending to a fantastic story. I now am faced with the dilema of being so happy to see the resolution and so sad to see it end. I think I loved every moment of this rollercoaster of a story. What a fantastic AU to explore. I really like your characterizations and how they grew and matured throughout the story. Wonderful job.

Hutch

You continue to impress me something fierce, Caroline.
You write intense romance that isn't cloying, and everything flows naturally from the developement of the relationship.
Your combination of dialogue, enviroment, mannerism, props make them seem REAL in way that something as unreal as superman shouldn't be. I loved the lop with "I'll make you believe in Fairy tales."

It was interesting to hear were you gotten the idea from.

Thank you for sharing this with us.

A five?-day rollercoaster-ride for them

Not blind Lois.

But it's over? More, please.

Michael