Can I just add my name to Laura's post? Laura, you did an excellent job of articulating just what I was thinking as I read this. I especially liked the way you described the beginning as down time as it all sinks in and Clark says goodbye to himself.
...and you picked my favorite quotes!
AntiK, what can I say? You are a darn good writer.
I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. Great suspense.
The tiny sharp-toothed creature trying to escape from his stomach brought to my mind images of the Spartan boy with the fox.
I also really liked the way the phone conversation in the beginning was written. I liked that Lois pretended to mistake Superman for Clark when he first answered. And then this sentence:
Lois was a master performer herself, the slightest tinge of dread mixed with palpable surprise and swirled all together with that adoration she’d held for Superman before The Window.
And this paragraph:
“No!” The denial was so immediate, so broken, so disbelieving that for a minute Superman seriously wondered if he’d hallucinated Lois being in on the Secret. But her perfume still danced in the air and the coffee still sat, cold and untouched, on the counter, and she had always been a good actress, able to twist him around her little finger at her slightest whim.
That paragraph in particular was just so sad - especially since it begins in a way which *should* have given Clark hope.
Altogether an excellent chapter, although, as others have noted, we are no better off now than we were before. And worse, I already played my "please post early" card!
I cannot wait to read what happens next....
