Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK: The Girl Next Door 38/40ish

What a splendidly written chapter, Janet! So unbelievably tense. Like here, for example:

Lois is in danger, and everyone who is held hostage with her is in deadly danger, but above all, Clark will be in the most unspeakable danger if he bursts in on the scene to pull off one of his patented Superman rescues. That mustn't happen! Lois hasn't been crying, hasn't broken down, but the thought of Clark playing hero and getting himself killed for her sake threatens to break through her self-control.

Janet, you write Clark's love for Lois so absolutely beautifully. I didn't praise you enough for "Any Time At All", I think.

And this is so horrible. When I first read it, I momentarily didn't understand what "it" was. Then I understood that the "it" was Superman. Talk about "A Boy Called It" - but just as in Dave Pelzer's book, it's the person calling another sentient being "it" who is the horrible one, not the person who is the target for this verbal dehumanization.

Lois, who has kept herself in the background so far, will have to use her powers this time and be the hero that she has it in herself to become. It is indeed time for Lois to slay the dragons... or, at the very least, to stable them. Again, there is a wonderful, beautiful description of Clark's love for Lois. That line about feeling what Clark's smile felt like was absolutely poetic.

And then Lois starts trying to melt the lid of the box enough to fuse it shut. It's agonizingly slow, and the way Lois is interrupted several times, and the way you make us wonder if she will be discovered before she has managed to complete her task, is nerve-wrackingly well written. I loved finding out that Perry knew about Lois's powers, too, and that he was there for her and helped her:

He tries to tell her that he knows. And later there can be no doubt:

Definitely a signal: Go ahead.

After a lot more creepy tension, Lois manages to melt the box. After that, Trask is really defeated. Your description of him at the end is more than scary:

Either Trask is an "it" himself, or (more likely) he suffers from psychotic paranoia.

I completey agree with what you say about Superman's ability to melt lead. Of course he can melt it - why shouldn't he? Melting lead is just a matter of applying heat to it. As a space buff, I have to mention that the surface of planet Venus is hot enough to melt lead - the temperature, if I remember it correctly, is more than 400 degrees Celsius, and I believe it's close to 800 degrees Fahrenheit. And if Superman can melt steel, he most certainly would be able to melt lead, just like you point out here.

Wow, what a tense and pulse-quickening chapter this was, Janet. Extremely well written, too.

Ann

If you want more justification for melting the box closed, make it lead-lined steel, something like a cash box with an inner lead lining. All-lead boxes don't actually make much sense, they would be incredibly heavy, there would be problems making the hinges work, and it distorts so easily that if it was dropped or bashed it wouldn't close properly.

We use an old lead shield from a radiation detector as a door stop in the labs where I work - it's about 2 x 3 x 3 inches with a cavity in one side, and weighs somewhere around 2 kg (4.4 lb). The box Trask used in Green Green Glow was much bigger, I think, no way would he be able to handle it easily if it was more than lined with lead.

Hi,

Great part!

Good idea to seal the box.


Yes!


More ASAP, please.

MAF

Great chapter, Janet. I'm looking forward to seeing how Perry figured it out.

I'm also really, really hoping that there is a proposal before this story is over. Your B-plots make me swoon!

Good job! This was a great part. I am so glad Lois thought to melt the box shut. In so many stories Superman stares at or spots the box before it's opened, but doesn't even try to seal it. It drives me crazy.

I just read the whole story yesterday and I love it. It's not common (at least in the fanfic I've read so far) that Lois has the superpowers, but I'm really enjoying this version. So lonely, though - I'm glad that she found Clark and the Kents.

I love Lois' Mama. It's amazing, but so true that a loving relationship in the early years can give a person the ability to love later, whereas if you miss that in the first six years, it's so much harder to develop a truly intimate relationship later in life.

Loved Perry's easy acceptance of Lois in this last chapter and how he helped Lois to seal the box. It'll be interesting to find out if he knew prior to that evening or if the red tint in her eyes gave her away.

More soon, please.
BJ

Janet, I just couldn't wait for you to finish! I'm all caught up with this beautiful, engaging story now and am tapping my toe impatiently for the final chapters. There were too many fabulous parts up to now for me to quote them all, but I particularly loved this one from part 31:

What a delightful picture this paints! Their happiness together, their delight in finding someone who understands, Martha and Jonathan's happiness for both of them... it's all just beautifully captured in those sentences.

And then, when Clark gets sick and Lois calls Martha...and calls her 'Mama'...

*weeps*

Yes, that was another favorite part. Lois's loneliness is so poignantly drawn in this story, and seeing her pulled into not only Clark's love but the love and support of Clark's family is just...perfection.

And then, of course, I held my breath through most of the last chapter. Your Trask is a particularly terrifying dragon, and I took great satisfaction in seeing him vanquished in the end. Lois did it! And I have a not-so-secret weakness for omniscient!Perry, so that was like a special bonus I never saw coming.

I'll be watching eagerly for the final chapters

Caroline

Thank you all - I'm so glad this section worked for you. I'm glad you thought Trask worked - I found him one of the scarier villains in the series, in a way, because he was so willing to dehumanize Superman. Even Lex Luthor, as amoral as he was, considered Superman to be a person. And I found it easy to imagine Trask as someone with a thinly masked psychosis - it would be only a matter of time before it was no longer concealable, and it wouldn't respond at all to reason.

Maria, vive60 - I have to credit my husband, Jim, with the idea to have Lois melt the box. I had her trapped in the convention center, with Clark on the outside, and the kryptonite in place. I asked him for ideas, and together we decided that knocking out the electricity or setting off the sprinklers wouldn't guarantee that the box would stay closed. Then Jim suggested that I have Lois melt the box, and it was such a simple, elegant solution that I went with it. I'm glad it was believable.

Thank you, Marcus, for the information on the suitability of lead alone for a box. I've gone back and edited - very slightly - that section in my own master copy of the story (but not here on the boards) to make the box lead-lined aluminum, which still melts with less effort that steel.

I'm glad you all liked Perry knowing. If he does know, that is - Lois isn't completely sure - but it sure seems like he does, doesn't it? How did he find out? I do have an explanation, which I'll be posting soon.

Elisabeth, BJ, Caroline, and TOC - thank you for your comments on the b-plot parts - you've mentioned some of my own favorites, if that's allowed in one's own story.

I'll also say, Caroline, that one of your comments gave me an idea, which I think I'll be using toward the end of this story. I have an epilogue in mind (which will be included in this story rather than as a separate story) and I think it will fit nicely in there.

'Toc

I apologize for not having left sufficient feedback. This is, indeed, an excellent story. Your explanation for Lois's ability to melt lead but not being able to see through it was so completely logical and brilliantly simple I don't know why no one has ever thought of it before.

But maybe your particular genius is doing just that, coming up with stuff no one else has thought of. This story is a prime example of that. It has bad guys, good guys, an excellent portrayal of the central relationship, and Lois has super-powers! Yay! And she's overcome so much heartache and tragedy in her life to work up to her current position and her career, and she hasn't let bitterness or pain over her own losses get her down. She chases the dragons and 'slays' them, but instead of dying they simply end up caged.

So sweet, so tender, and so very Lois at her best. I like the apparent fact that Perry knows something (maybe not everything), that Lois and Clark are learning to love each other before they make a physical committment to each other, and I even like Lois's reluctance to be 'out' as a super-powered heroine. It fits this Lois perfectly.

I also await the completion of the story, if for no other reason than to read your epilogue. I'll bet it's going to be great, too.

See you next post!

Thank you, Terry.

That's exactly what I've been aiming for. This Lois has had to overcome a lot of adversity, a lot of loss and loneliness. There are many people in the world who wouldn't - or couldn't - overcome similar tragedies - who would let, as you say, pain and bitterness rule. But there are also people who do overcome incredible difficulties, who persevere, as this Lois has - and that is how I've always seen "our" Lois. Yes, she's driven and insecure and closed off - or she was, until she met Clark, and now she's letting go of a lot of those protective mechanisms.

And yes - she's obviously got a future with Clark - and probably a future as a superhero - but she has a lifetime of... aloneness to overcome. Growing out of that aloneness is a slow process (although, actually, when I look at the timeline I'm using to keep everything straight, it's only been a couple of months at the most since she met Clark).

Thank you all for your comments. These most recent ones - on Any Time At All and on this part of TGND - came at a time when I really needed to hear them.

'Toc