Well, Caroline, I'm so grateful that you gave us all of this in one helping, so to speak, and didn't leave us hanging with Clark trying to escape from that cage and Lois being forced into marriage with Luthor. I think I can imagine where you had planned to stop:
He had a sudden vision of Lois in a wedding gown, standing at the front of a church, and for the first time since he’d been trapped, he felt tears sting his eyes. That moment, that breathtaking moment, was meant for Clark Kent, and Luthor was going to defile it, to turn it into something as filthy and dishonest as he was.
No.
He reached for the tie again and tossed it through the bars of the cage in the direction of the key.
Thank you so much for going on well past that point! Still, I love it that Clark found the strength to go on fighting for his freedom when he thought of Lex forcing Lois into marriage. You made me feel that Clark wanted to escape more for Lois's sake than for his own, because he needed to get out so that he could try to do something, anything, to save Lois. It was so appropriate that the thought of her fate would energize him into continued resistance, continued attempts to escape.
As for Lois, all this business about her marriage to Lex evokes so many negative emotions in me. I am primarily a comic book reader, and the idea that Lois might ever be prepared to marry Lex seems totally perplexing to me. While it's true that the comic book Lois Lane of the sixties was suffciently whimsical, optimistic and reckless that you wouldn't put it past her to try to marry Lex - well, just for the fun and adventure of it - it was also true that in the Superman comics back then, marriages were taboo things that just didn't happen. I know for a fact that in the sixties, I
never contemplated the possibility that Lois might really marry Lex. It was as impossible as the idea that Superman would stick his middle finger up in the air and say a four-letter word, or that the Sun would one morning rise in the west. Couldn't happen. Later in the comics, in the 1980s, when a dark and threatening undercurrent of sexuality began seeping in, Lois wisened up vis-à-vis Lex, and although she briefly dated him, she dumped him most resoundingly. Again, the idea that she might even contemplate his proposal seemed so ridiculous.
So whenever I come across a story where Lois is about to marry Lex, or, worse, where she has already married him, I feel like protesting. This isn't Lois! She just wouldn't
do that!
And because of that, I very much appreciate how you handle the situation here, where Lois finds herself facing enforced marriage to Lex, and how you show us her reactions. It's totally right and perfectly in character that Lois would be prepared to play along for Clark's sake, to marry Lex in order to save Clark. But at the same time, it's so right that she should wonder if her marriage to Luthor would really save her loved one:
Could she bring herself to marry Lex? If she knew for certain that it would save Clark’s life, she’d do it in a minute. But she knew better than to think Lex would keep his word, so where did that leave her? Oh, Clark, she thought. I wish you were here to tell me what to do. I need my partner!
I love it that Lois acknowledges that she needs Clark in more ways than one. She doesn't just need him as her lover or husband, but she needs him as her partner too, as the man who will be there for her and give her the best possible advice. And I'm so glad that in the end, Lois managed to see her situation from Clark's point of view, so that she knew what her only possible answer to the minister's question could be:
“And do you, Lois, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, from this day forward, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do you part?”
“I…” She looked into Lex’s eyes, and saw the deceit there, the cold, calculating malice, and she knew in that instant that she couldn’t do it. She would give her life to save Clark’s, but this…this would only destroy him, if he lived to know about it. To marry Lex would be the ultimate betrayal of Clark’s love, and she knew with sudden clarity that if she couldn’t speak these words to Clark, she would never speak them to any man, and certainly not to Lex Luthor, his sworn enemy.
“I can’t,” she said firmly, tugging her hand from Lex’s grasp and stepping backwards, away from him.
How true, Caroline: Lois's marriage to Lex wouldn't mean she was saving Clark, but instead it would be the ultimate betrayal of him.
And then Perry and Henderson arrive, thank God, and it's over for Lex. And Lois and Perry find Clark. They save him and drive him to a hotel (not the Lexor, thank goodness). I loved this conversation between a delirious Clark and Lois, who has to keep up the pretense that Superman is not Clark Kent in front of Perry:
“-oisss.”
“It’s me, Superman,” she whispered, carding her fingers through his sticky hair.
“’M glad you’re here,” he slurred.
“I’m glad, too. You’re going to be all right.”
“Don’t…” he said, sounding suddenly more lucid. “Please don’t…”
“Don’t what?” she asked, concerned.
He shook his head a little from side to side. “Don’t have kittens on my favorite shirt.”
She glanced toward the front seat and saw Perry eyeballing them in the rear-view mirror. “He’s delirious,” she said weakly.
This is a veritable "Rosebud" moment from Citizen Kane! Ah, these powerful men with their prized possessions from their humble childhoods or youths! But unlike Orson Welles' character, Clark still has someone who loves him, someone who knows his weaknesses and still embraces him, which is why he can ask her to protect his horrible shirt. And this is why he needs to tell her how much he respects and loves her, too:
“Being top banana…it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“No,” she said, somewhere between laughing and crying. “It sure isn’t. Partners is better, I think.”
“Partners,” he whispered. “I should have told you about the Kryptonite.”
“Yes, you should have,” she murmured. “And I’m going to yell at you for that later…when you’re better.”
“You rescued me.” He sighed, closing his eyes.
“I figured I owed you one.”
“I love you, Lois…” It was the barest whisper, and if she hadn’t been hovering over him, she’d never have heard it.
Tears pricked her eyes and she leaned forward, her lips just millimeters from his ear. “I love you, too, Clark.”
But she wasn’t sure if he heard her. When she drew back and looked at his face, she realized he’d slipped into unconsciousness.
Lois isn't the only one who needs a partner, someone to depend on. Clark needs a partner too. He needs her as much as she needs him.
I loved Perry's reaction, too. I wonder if he heard Lois call the unconscious superhero "Clark". Probably not, but that wasn't necessary. Perry didn't become editor of the Daily Planet because he can yodel:
“Yeah,” Lois agreed. She drew away and took a deep, fortifying breath. “Listen, Perry, about what you probably heard in the car…”
Perry held up his hands. “I didn’t hear a thing, Lois. I was concentrating on my driving…all that traffic…I had better things to do than listen to a man who was probably delirious anyway.”
She nodded, grateful. “Thanks, Perry.”
“Call me if you need me. I’ll be at Clark’s.”
This is lovely. Perry knows that Clark is Superman, and Lois knows that Perry knows, and Perry knows that she knows that he knows, but when Lois pleads with him to pretend that he doesn't know, he so readily agrees. I love it. And I love LnC's - and your - Perry!
Then when Clark is left in her care, Lois takes such loving, respectful care of him. I know that others have already quoted this, but I must nevertheless repeat it:
Once upon a time, Lois Lane would have been repulsed by the sticky sheets and the sour smell of the sweat-soaked body in her care. She wasn’t good with sick people, she’d said a hundred times, with a careless little flip of her hand. But this wasn’t people, this was Clark, and for the first time in her life, she wished she could absorb another person’s pain and suffering, take it into her own body and go through it for him. Suddenly, the concept of loving someone took on a whole new meaning, and whatever she’d thought it meant before was but a pale shadow of what she felt for the man whose fevered skin she soothed with her hands.
And I really, really loved the ending, too:
“Clark,” she said soothingly. “It’s all right. You’re all right now.” She cupped his cheek in her hand and pressed a kiss to his damp forehead. “Try to rest, Clark. It’s all right.” She said it over and over again, trying to calm him, trying to make it be the truth.
“Hurts,” he whispered back.
“I know,” she said, laughing and crying at the same time from sheer relief at the sound of his voice. “I’m so sorry, Clark. I wish I could make it better.”
“Just…stay,” he breathed, and then his eyes drifted shut again and he slipped back into sleep.
Lois is so maternal here. But I hope and think that Clark isn't ashamed of having been so helpless and so dependent on her. I hope and think he knows that he can let down his guard around her and show her his weakness. Similarly, I hope he is ready to be there for her when she needs his care.
This has been a wonderful ride, Caroline. I'm impatiently looking forward to the conclusion, and to the beautiful B-plot moments I'm hoping for!
Ann
Like to see what happen when the Kent's get there.
