Elisabeth said:
Throughout the day we repeatedly see Lois failing to give Clark the benefit of the doubt or underestimating what he does do. She thanks him when he bakes her a cake, but since it's not in her love language she immediately forgets it. He hugs her, but since it wasn't all day long she discounts it as too little or forced. She assumes that if she cries he will hold her, but only for show. She assumes that if something were to happen to her he would move on, untouched. She blows off all of his requests for conversation and sleeps with her back to him, even though he makes himself available to her.
In other words, if he doesn't express love to her in the way she expects it to be expressed, it's nothing to her.
Did Clark express love to her? Was it love? As I read these two parts, up until you-know-what, I was going out of my mind with frustration and grief at Clark's inability to really reach out to Lois when she needed him. I was reminded of how tender and physical Lois had been with him, when he was in shock after Pop Pop's death. She held him all night, and he thanked her for it, because he realized that it had indeed helped him. But he touched her so briefly, with so little conviction, up until you-know-what.
I agree with Elisabeth that Lois should have been more grateful to Clark for he did in fact do for her, like bake her favorite cake, when she had probably not eaten all day. That was a very sweet gesture. But coupled with his helpless distance from her, it was a careful friend's gesture, not a loving husband's one. Consider this quote from part 87:
She wasn't okay, no matter what she said, but what was I supposed to do to make it better?
She hadn't wanted me anywhere near her all day, why would our bed be any different?
And to be honest, while I would hold her tonight if she needed me to, I wasn't sure I really *wanted* to.
<sigh> <groan>
The nightgown – and glimpse of her back – only served as a reminder that I wasn't married to Lana. After nearly two years and everything Lois and I had been through, she was still the one who filled my dreams more often than I would ever admit to anyone.
But Lois...
She *was* a beautiful woman and she *was* my wife, but that still didn't mean I felt right thinking about her like that; like a woman.
My heart still belonged to Lana.
At this point I was ready to cry myself!!!!
But Clark did a one eighty and made love to Lois. And because Lois was so fragile at this moment, their lovemaking is going to be absolutely hugely important to her. Will it not be even more unbearable for her to be rejected by Clark now than it was before?
But what will their lovemaking mean to Clark? Will it just mean that now he and Lana are sort of even, because both have lost their virginity, so now they can meet again as equals when he divorces Lois in three years? Seriously, has Clark's romp in the hay with Lois cured him of the notion that he will divorce her in three years? I'm not sure. He has to admit to himself that he has not saved his body and his virginity for Lana only. But what if he still thinks that he has saved his heart for her? That is what he was thinking to himself, not long before he made love to Lois, that his heart still belonged to Lana. (At the very least Clark might admit to himself that Christopher is probably his biological son. I think that this lovemaking should jog both Lois and Clark's memories of what really happened in the cabin that night when they were both almost dying of hypothermia.)
So I agree with those who fear that this lovemaking could blow up in Lois and Clark's faces. In any case, one romp in the hay won't take care of two years of heartache, misery and silence. And I'm not sure it will take care of two years of divorce plans.
But like Mellie, I was definitely thinking that Lois could be pregnant again, which would be an interesting complication. But it is certainly not a given that Lois is pregnant, and it won't happen unless Carol wants it to!
And what about Navance and his kidnapping threats? I keep wondering *when* Christopher is going to be kidnapped, not *if* it's going to happen.
Oh, this story is so, so far from over!!!
Ann
