Wow, Sara, this is
brilliant! It must be one of my favorite chapters ever of this great story.
It's so emotional. Take Lois's musings. You manage to infuse them with so much hopefulness. But there is something even better here: I think you make us feel how Lois is slowly being taken over by an incredible love for Clark, but she doesn't yet realize that she actually loves him at all! Yes, she knows that she needs him, but I don't think she really knows that she loves him. That's so brilliantly done. The way she observes him, notes the faint smile on his sleeping face, his mussed hair and flushed cheeks. There is such tenderness here when Lois watches him, but she doesn't seem to notice that tenderness herself. And when she considers his awesome strength, and realizes how his strength is about so, so much more than just his muscles, then she is really so awed by him, but again she doesn't really see how much he blows her away. She realizes there is an absolutely incredible connection between them, so that she can actually feel his pain, but she alternates between taking this connection in her stride and being confused and bewildered by it. Just imagine what it must be like to start realizing the absolutely amazing
love that has to be there for this connection to establish itself at all. She remains in turn matter-of-fact and bewildered about her future with Clark, but there is, at the bottom of her soul, an overwhelming joy inexorably rising upwards, and she just hasn't discovered it yet. (But when she does...!) I'm not going to quote much, sorry, but I love this paragraph:
Her gaze turned to the window and the brilliant rays of sunlight being cast through it. A handful of trees were visible from where she was sitting. There must have been a light breeze out because the leaves were swaying to a delicate rhythm. Funny, that everything seemed so... cheery. So right. The bad guy was dead. There was a finality to that she could almost feel. Someone was supposed to cue the orchestra for the denouement.
Yes, Lois, nature itself is celebrating with you! Or else it's just you, your own happiness, you know? Reminds me of a beautiful Swedish poem about a man walking home from meeting his loved one. The weather is as bad as can be, with sleet, snow and howling winds. Yet when this man is walking home, he notices how everyone he meets is smiling and looking so happy... yeah right!!! Is this guy in love, or is he in love?
And then there is Pete. Well, he's the one who has interested me the least in you story so far, which is not your fault, Sara, believe me.... But I found myself empathizing with him so incredibly when you said that he was burning hot, all of him except his left foot, which was freezing. Somehow I found the idea of it so painful and yet also a little bit funny. It just got to me, believe me!
And then there was the agonizing part with Elle. It was just brilliant, and excruciatingly painful too, the way you made us share her fear, her vulnerability, her loneliness and paranoia. I don't know if it's such a good idea to quote, because I may have to quote pretty much all of it, but I loved this (well, the black humour gets to me, you know):
Better yet, they might just revoke her citizenship. Extradite her back to Ireland. Mam and Dad would be so proud. She wouldn't have to worry about the New Troy death penalty; her parents would murder her for sure.
Wonderful, Sara. Absolutely great. What a ride your story has been. I'm impatiently looking forward to the rest of it!
Ann
