Corrina,
I didn't take the ending warning seriously enough, because, after all, there is a persistent awareness of what is good and right in your stories. But no one can say they weren't warned.
After the first section I couldn't sleep the whole night, it was so awful and intense. And that's even with you deliberately leaving some things vague. So I promised to stay away. No more gut wrenching, sleep stealing, peace of mind disturbing story. Clark is, after all, fictional, right? So I didn't, couldn't, haven't, won't read several of the other early segments.
But you make them all real and I love your stories so much that I had to come back and see you make it all ok. This, and your other stories, convey so much emotion that I had to check back. Somehow it feels like you get each character's point of view across viscerally... as if you were inside them, feeling what they feel, and even more so with Clark's enhanced senses.
I just couldn't leave knowing Clark was still in there and things were still so bad.
The last few sections are beautiful, but especially this one. Their awareness of each other's needs, and putting each other first in such bizarre circumstances, shows how much love there could be between them.
Only this story's version of Lois, with what she's been through, could possibly understand this Clark. Canon Lois would have just handled it a la bull in a china shop, with no chance of getting him out eventually. And this version's Martha and Jerome must have been even more amazing, for Clark to be so persistently good in the midst of such evil. I fear things can't be anywhere near ok for them.
Please please keep posting but if it's not going to be ok I need another warning to get myself some distance.
