This chapter is overwhelmingly full of emotion, and consequently I feel somewhat overwhelmed when trying to write feedback.
First of all, though: Thank you so, so much for not abandoning this, Sara. It's been a fantastic, beautiful, world-shakingly dizzying ride, and I so want you to bring us to the end of it, instead of leaving us hanging, upside down, in that rollercoaster, until we just forget we are hanging there and start to fade away from there, forgetting what the ride was about.
So, it is about Lois going slightly crazy when Clark "dies". It's about her finding out that Clark is Superman in a horribly shocking manner, when a crack of thunder suddenly... makes her superpowered? Transfers superpowers to her from...Clark? Who therefore has to be Superman, and who therefore never died at all when he was shot? And these brand new superpowers of hers combine with her fury and send her running into...nowhere, or into a jungle somewhere on another continent? Talk about a rollercoaster ride, Sara. It was literally out of this world.
Now Lois not only shares Clark's superpowers, but she shares a mental link with him. You really make more of this concept than any other story I can remember:
//Get out of my head!!//
<Get out of mine!!>
"Isn't this funny, Lois?" His voice tiredly amazed. "Isn't this so funny? Millions of couples would kill to be in our position, being able to read the other's thoughts, and here we are and we can't stand being this honest with each other."
But I love it how you manage to really make them communicate mentally and
feel their love for one another:
Most of all, she saw herself. She saw herself in almost every thought, she saw every image of herself he'd kept tucked in her brain. She saw endless imagined scenarios between them and she saw endless memories. She'd always known he'd loved her, but now she saw exactly how much. And she liked it.
This is truly adorable. I just love the idea that when she can read his mind, she can truly see how much space she herself occupies in there! (I think there might be a small typo there, however; it should probably be "his brain" instead of "her brain".)
I absolutely love it how you make Lois see the inhuman pressure that Clark is constantly living under:
She saw his life of control and restraint and constant choice. Answer minor distress call versus miss conference meeting and possibly lose job. Reheat cup of coffee with eyes or trek across a busy newsroom to refill it normally. Miss a deadline or miss a child standing frozen under a heavy billboard dangling from one rapidly unravelling piece of rope.
These are the choices Clark have to make daily - these and more. I was very moved by how you show us how Clark is so strongly affected by the things he has to do:
//...appealing for help... reported to be over five hundred passengers on board...//
"Oh god, it sounds bad," she said, as her heart leapt in her throat.
She could hear him becoming panicked, too. //Gegung gegung gegung gegung gegung gegung gegung gegung...//
I love it. Clark becomes so frightened that his heart starts racing. And this description of his thoughts, when he is beyond coherence and he has reached a nadir of existential anguish, is so incredibly moving:
Swirling water and pulsing reflections and his voice bounding around the silent ship, how every room melted away before his eyes, how he was so scared so very very scared but kept going because after all what was he for but to help, and if he couldn't do that what was the point of him...
And yet, you make us believe that even though he is really such a wreck of fear and nerves, he manages to present a strong, confident exterior to the world, thereby probably fortifying the courage of others.
And I love this - how you show us Lois's intense hurt as well as her incredible love for Clark:
Maybe she could have walked away before. Maybe if his death hadn't thrown the world off its axis and made each breath seem to scorch her lungs, she would be able to walk away now, to take her anger and her pain and her hatred and make them more important than the thousand things about him that made her ache with love.
..."made each breath seem to scorch her lungs"..."made her ache with love"... it's wonderful, and somehow terrible, how you show us Lois's intense physical reactions to Clark.
Maybe before, the strength and power of his lies would have obliterated each thought of his that had rung through her head. Maybe if she hadn't seen how wracked with guilt, how completely and utterly wretched he'd felt every time he'd had to lie, she would have been able to banish his existence with a thousand tagged-on names.
..."the strength and power of his lies"..."how wracked with guilt, how completely and utterly wretched he'd felt every time he'd had to lie"... "banish his existence with a thousand tagged-on names"... The magic and power of these expressions make them feel almost like incantations.
Maybe if she hadn't been at this rescue with him - if she hadn't seen that under the strong, indomitable image he presented to the world, there lay a silent, terrified, extraordinary man - she would have been able to stop loving him.
..."a silent, terrified, extraordinary man"... You'll have to excuse me for just repeating your words, but the sheer beauty of them is irresistible. As is, by the way, the picture they paint of Clark.
But she had. And she couldn't. Had seen the purest, most truthful form of Clark Kent that existed, and couldn't turn her back on it, now that she knew it was there.
The purest, most truthful form of Clark Kent. Who is that? And can he bear to show that side of himself to Lois?
He shook his head frantically. //No, not you, I don't want you to be a part of this, you can't see me... this... you can't... I can't fail in front of you...//
So incredibly moving. No, he doesn't want to show her the purest form of himself, the rawest pain and fear inside him. But this is so wonderful, how she makes him at least hope he will succeed, even if I don't think that he feels comfortable about showing her his fear yet:
<Remember what I said to you, years ago? Whatever you can do, that's enough. It's as true today as it was then. Trust in me, Clark...>
//No... I can't lose you...//
<You won't.>
He could have dreamed it so easily at that moment - and looking back, years later, he would swear that he had - but for an instant, she kissed him fiercely, and that brief contact was enough to stoke a fire within him. It was all he needed.
He still has this feeling of inadequacy, of letting Lois down by failing to carry out his Herculean achievements:
//Why am I never enough, why is it never enough, why am I constantly not fast enough, not strong enough, not smart enough, why do people have to die because of my failures, why... why... why does she have to see me like this, please don't let her hate me any more than she already does...//
And then again, his guilt and shame, his sense of failure and his need to hide aspects of himself from Lois:
"I don't think I want you seeing this side of me. I don't think I want to let you into this side of me." His quiet voice drove at her heart.
He then starts talking about a thing that irritates me about him, his insistence that he wants her to love him as Clark and not as Superman. But I loved the way you let her explain to him what he loves about Superman, and what she loves about Clark:
"Superman... didn't hide. Superman was completely, perfectly, fully honest about what he was about. *You* were completely, perfectly, fully honest like that. Because when you're in the suit, the part of yourself that you're hiding is considerably smaller than it is when you're in the glasses."
He looked taken aback. To say the least.
"Even your eyes are different when you're being him. They're... clearer. Superman was so transparent to me, Clark - I could see three fundamental parts of his personality - how much he wanted to help, how genuinely good he was, and how not being able to save everybody ripped him apart."
She saw the truth and honesty about his goodness as Superman. That's a very good reason to love somebody. But she still chose Clark, and for a different reason:
"I cared about Clark because I saw how hard he was trying for... something. I saw how much he wanted... something. At the end of the day, Clark, even through the crappy excuses and how mad I was at you, even through me being blinded by Lex, through it all - I saw you trying, and *that* set you apart, and I loved you for it."
His voice sounded strangled. "Trying for what?"
She shrugged. "Trying to fit in. Trying to be a success. Trying to keep going. Trying to be a good person. Trying to hang on to your beliefs. Trying to make a life. Trying to make a difference. All the things we all try. I saw how your life was - is - a constant struggle to be happy, and..."
Lois loves Superman because he is, somehow, so perfect in his goodness. But she loves Clark because he's
imperfect - because he is struggling, because he is trying to do better, become better, achieve better things, and because he knows that he himself is very, very far from perfect. Ultimately, this is why she loves his struggling side:
She could hear him breathing very lightly and quickly. "And?"
She closed her eyes. "And I understood completely," she whispered.
Superman is, in a way, a god, but Clark is a struggling human. Ultimately, Lois chose the human over the god, because she herself is a human, most certainly not a god. It's so, so beautiful.
His greatest struggle was the most beautiful, the most important. Because it was, ultimately, despite all his lies, a struggle to show his true self to Lois and to ask her to love this true self:
"When you died, I realised that there was another struggle in you that I was missing."
"There was?"
"There was." Now she opened her eyes, looked at him. "One to make me see you."
Again, Lois thinks of all split-second decisions Clark has to make everyday, how they weigh him down, and how she can't blame him for sometimes perhaps choosing badly:
She saw it and she couldn't blame him any longer, couldn't hang on to the vestiges of her own selfish hurt when one of those split-second choices had resulted in the thud of his body hitting the floor. She couldn't blame him for choosing the easiest option - to drop and fade and pretend he'd never been.
She can't be angry any more about his choice to "die" from her, to leave her. Because it was perhaps a relief for him to just let go, to stop struggling.... But in the end, she can't be angry with him any more because she loves him. And she knows that he loves her.
I could go on talking at this at length, about your brilliant expressions - joined at a telepathic hip, a flame of red rushed up her neck to ignite her cheeks, a mighty superhero, clothed in scarlet and billowing blue - I really think it's the scarlet that would be billowing, as that is the colour of his cape, but do you know what, Sara? It doesn't matter, because the power of these expressions is pure magic anyway.
And there are many other jewels in this part that I have overlooked, but... well, what I have said already will have to be enough. I'll just add one thing: I so much look forward to the epilogue!
Ann
