Delightful start. I really like the way you used Mayson Drake. It really sets Clark up with a painful dilemma sure to fill him with GUILT no matter which choice he makes.
If you returns the Universe to normal to bring Lois back, Mayson dies.
Unlike some I always liked Mayson. I tend to think of her as the inverse of Lois.
Lois meets Clark, feels something between them at once and tells Clark not to fall for her, talking as much to herself as to him. Lois meets Clark as Superman and feels that same connection she felt with Clark, but here it is safe to admit and zamm!
Mayson meets Clark and falls for him. She knows about Superman but as a DA is faintly uneasy with him and his role. She meets him and feels drawn to him, just as strongly as she does Clark, at once she uses that feeling of minor unease to build a wall, a defense against her feelings for Superman. If she admited to those feelings she'd have the dilemma of being in love with two men.
So I see Mayson and Lois as both being in love with the same man, both dealing with loving him in both roles and making a choice between them.
Thus when I see you using Mayson and putting Clark into his same dilemma,
"The woman I love doesn't love all of me how do I tell her?"
I am overjoyed. I mean it I love that you are setting Clark up with some really hard decisions. Decisions that will have no good answer.
I also love that you have Luthor still around and going strong. Without Lois to teach Clark to cut some corners Clark won't be able to get the proof that Luthor is a bad guy.
For that matter without Lois and her special insight I'm sure that many crimes and much corruption has been missed.
This is good because when Clark does have to pick between Lois and Mayson there will be many many people who are alive because of Lane & Kent that are not alive in the Laneless universe. So Clark won't be picking "JUST" but Lois and a bunch of children burned to death in an arson, Lois and the smartkids, and so forth.
Also I can see Clark and the tests and Clark with the heatwave. Somehow without Lois in this universe Clark made it past these Superman stopping events. But knowing Clark it was much later and only after people were hurt and killed that were not hurt and killed in the Lane & Kent universe.
I am looking forward to more.
Patrick
