I love this part, Jenni. Your description of Lois's lonely night, interrupted by her young daughter Victoria, was so moving. I love this:
Lois tossed and turned, and waking up plumped her pillow exasperatedly. Inanimate cotton and feathers just weren't a substitute for Clark's warm muscled chest. She was just deciding to go downstairs for a cup of Oolong tea when a furtive scratching on her bedroom door reached her ears.
"Come in," Lois said softly, though in the silence of the night, her words sounded overloud.
The door creaked open and a tiny white face peaked round the crack. "Can I come in, Mommy?" a very young female voice asked, yet the owner didn't wait for an answer as she propelled herself onto her mother's bed in a tumbling rush. Victoria Kent never moved anywhere slowly.
"What's wrong, Vicky? Can't you sleep?" Lois pulled her daughter ro her side, in a tender hug. Her children were always a welcome distraction when she felt at her lowest. It was almost as if they had a radar system which recognized her moods.
It's so incredibly poignant that Victoria seems to sense Lois's loneliness and her need to hold and touch Clark. Victoria can't give Lois her husband, but she can give her mother her own presence. Because, as Lois tells Victoria,
You, my precious, are the best part of me and of Daddy.
And, Jenni, I also loved this:
Contrary to Lois' worries of long ago, she had bonded deeply with each of her children and adversity had only drawn them closer.
And Lois helps Victoria understand about a very important place where her father is:
"Daddy is here in my heart, sweetie, and as long as my heart beats, then Daddy's will too." Lois took their clasped hands and touched them to Vicky's pyjama-clad chest. "He is in your heart too, isn't he?"
"Yes, he is," Vicky announced with all the conviction of her five years.
And then you explain to us, so movingly, what the endearment "Princess Tory" means to Victoria, and what it says about her father's love for her:
As soon as she was old enough to make sense of nursery rhymes, Clark had read her to sleep almost every night. His younger princess had soon progressed to fairy tales, the more romantic the better, and as soon as she could string even the fewest words together, she had demanded of her Daddy a 'tory' at bedtime.
But it is Lois who will read Vistoria a story, now that Clark is no longer there. But his love for his family is still so much a part of their lives, and it is part of the bond between Lois and her daughter:
The little girl smiled again as the bad dream faded from her mind, and while Mama told her the story, she would cuddle up close to Mama's heart, where Daddy would always be.
I hope I've made it clear to you that I absolutely, absolutely loved this part of "part 3a" of your story, Jenni. I liked all the rest of it, too, but the rest of it didn't speak volumes to me, the way your portrayal of Lois and her youngest daughter did. But I really like Adrienne and Janik - Stephan, who is happy that Adrienne asked - a lot. They are basically good people, caught in a terrible situation, who have decided, even though they are not naturally brave at all, to try to free Superman from his captivity and from impending death.
As for your portrait of the man who used to be Clark, his absolute need to escape from utter loneliness, to form a bond with the people near him so that, almost whatever the cost, he doesn't have to be a complete solitaire, is shatteringly clearly revealed in this passage:
Besides, the alternative to accepting what he now knew about himself was unthinkable. Without some sort of anchor, he was lost and totally bereft. He needed some sense of being... of belonging, and no one else, neither family nor friends, had stepped forward to claim him.
So because of this utter need to hold on to
something, the man who used to be Clark accepts the words of his captors: that they are treating him, taking care of him, and that he should accept their name of him, "Specimen". Still, there
is something in the deepest recesses of his shattered mind, fleeting images of something - some
one - who is not part of this bleak laboratory. My favorite part from this part of your story must be Clark's - or rather "Specimen's" (shudder!!!) - dream, a sort of counterpoint to his daughter's dream:
But the nightmare had claimed him, and again that night they came for him; vague outlines of people he felt he should know, but their faces always remained in shadow, their presence merely faint sketches on the pages of his empty mind.
Such powerful writing, Jenni. What a bleakly beautiful way of bringing home the utter loneliness of the mind that has lost itself. Yet Lois is not completely gone from this nameless man, but agonizingly out of reach:
A woman staring at him through the gloom. Perhaps the doctor, for she was the only female he was acquainted with. No, this woman had chestnut coloured hair which framed her face like a halo. If only his vision wasn't so clouded then he might recognize her, but the only other features he could discern were her eyes - - eloquent brown eyes with a glint of tears mirrored in their depths. Who was she, this sorrowing woman who haunted his nights?
At the end of this part, Adrienne, Stephan and Teo have come to Superman's rescue. Something tells me that the journey ahead, before "Specimen" can become Clark and return to his family, will be a long one. But keep it coming, Jenni - this is a marvellous story.
Ann
for the next part tomorrow. I too totally agree the chapters should be smaller but only because we can savour the story for longer 
hehehe.. luck me.)
