Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic The Long Road Home Part 9 - Comments

Thanks for reading and commenting everyone.

Regards,

Rac

Oh, Rac, you've nailed it! This is a perfect chapter! You've captured Clark's stress reactions, Lois's hesitancy about asking him combined with her deep-seated need to know what happened to him, Jonathan's gentle patience and soft guidance even now, when Clark thinks he's supposed to be a man and know all the answers:

It's never too late to be a parent for your children, even the ones who have rejected your counsel for years. And it's never too late to rebuild a marriage, especially if both parties want to rebuild it.

I have to tell you, I laughed at Bernie's complete clueless behavior. He's been taking Jon's blood for years, yet he couldn't let Clark know to distract the boy. I've known a few like him: brilliant in his own field and nearly moronic outside it.

Clark is going to think that showing Lois his scars will somehow make things better. It won't. She's going to want to know where they came from and if the person or persons who gave them to him are still in a position to hurt others. And then Clark will show Lois his worst scar: the one on his soul, the one that he thinks will somehow stain him for the rest of his life, the one that shows him killing Nor.

And he's already feeling inadequate beside Lois's accomplishments. He can't figure out why he's both attracted to and repulsed by Lois. He hasn't figured out yet that they'll have to rebuild their relationship brick by brick, almost from the beginning. They have an excellent foundation and the willingness to go forward, but he'll have to unload all that anger and self-loathing to someone who can help him. And that isn't Lois, nor is it his parents (although talking more with his father sure wouldn't hurt).

You were cruel to make us wait, but you were so generous to give us such a rich chapter! Keep up the excellent work, Rac. I'm with you till the end.

Whatever year that might be.

Oh that was horrible! I kept having to reach for a tissue and dab my eyes. Poor Clark. How sad!

Hi,

Great part!

Many years ago, I read The Rigth Stuff by Tom Wolfe. The book offers an in-depth desciption of the race to put America's first seven astronauts in orbit around the Earth. Most interestingly, to me, was the portrait the book painted of the seven men who were chosen to become astronauts. They had to meet a lot of strenuous criteria - they had to be pilots, for example, even though they would not be piloting their space capsules at all. If I remember things correctly they also had to have university degrees in engineering, and they had to be in great physical shape.

But what I remember most vividly is that these seven men seemed to be incredibly risk-takers. Since I myself am a non-drinker, I was flabbergasted at how heavily they drank. But I was even more mystified and flummoxed by the reason for their heavy drinking. They drank to prove that they could. They drank to prove that they were men enough to hold their liquor. They drank to prove that they could down one whisky after another and still be in perfect control of themselves, and still get up at five a.m. the following morning and be crystal clear and alert. In short, they drank to prove that they were indestructible. Because that is what you had to be, if you wanted to prove that you were made of the right stuff: you had to be indestructible. Did you sprain an ankle? Did you get cancer? Did you get killed in an accident like one of the first seven astronauts, Gus Grissom, who died when the spacecraft he had boarded suddenly caught fire? Sorry, buddy, but then you're a wuss. Then you didn't have the right stuff. Because real men are not the victims of anything.

I'm sure Clark has never thought of himself in such narrow, cruel über-male terms. But for all of that - Clark really had had the right stuff, hadn't he? Well earlier, before. That's when he had been indestructible. He had always quickly gotten over his bouts of Kryptonite poisoning. And he had always been strikingly handsome, with a beautiful face, great hair, and a sculpted, muscular body. He had been popular and personable. He'd been bright and witty. He'd been a highly respected, award-winning reporter. And he'd been able to fly, for heaven's sake, and he'd been super-strong and just generally super. And he's been so honest-to-God good, too, a perfect moral paragon... He'd been all of humanity's shining hero in brightly-colored spandex.

And he'd been the perfect fiance of Lois Lane. And for a single night, he had been the perfect husband and lover of Lois Lane. And it was to this perfect lover and hero-husband that Lois had dedicated her book, her Pulitzer, and a couple of her Kerths:

But what is Clark now? He is a wreck of a man, he's broken, emaciated, weak, full of aches and pains and covered in scars. He is moody and brooding, full of pent-up anger and resentment. He has the murder of a man on his conscience. His body is broken and his soul is blackened. He is ugly, isn't he? He is repulsive, isn't he? And every time Lois is looking at him, and every time she is touching him, he can feel the accusation in her eyes and in her body. She despises him for what he is, doesn't she? Because she married a beautiful man and got back a wreck. She has been short-changed, hasn't she? And yet she has thrived - as the mother of the child that he gave her the night before he left, as the brilliant reporter she could continue to be, while he was fighting his hopeless war on New Krypton, and as the superhero she could be with the powers that he transferred from himself to her. So, bottom line, doesn't he have the right to resent her?

I think that in some ways, Clark is like a male equivalent of a female rape victim. The shrine that is his body has been violated and desecrated, everything that he was proud of has been destroyed, and he is full of self-hatred. And just like many female rape victims find it so very hard to have an intimate relationship with a man again after being raped, Clark is finding it so incredibly hard to respect himself and his battered body and to present it to Lois with any sort of pride and joy.

Clark is going to need the courage to do what the guys who had the right stuff could never dream of doing - he is going to have to ask others for help. He is going to gave to ask a therapist for help, and he is going to have to ask Lois and his parents for help. And Lois, too, is probably going to have to see her therapist again, because the task she is facing is formidable:

Humpty Dumpty
sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty
had a great fall.
And all the king's horses,
and all the king's men,
couldn't out Humpty
together again.

But Lois is going to have to try to put Clark together again. Or rather, she is going to have to stand by and help him put himself together again. And I can see, Rac, that the third leg of this long journey has only started.

Ann

P.S. Rac, I loved your comparison of Clark and Lois to Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt. The Roosevelts are two of my idols. And to think that FDR was mostly wheelchair-bound during that part of his life when he did the most good... talk about being made of the right stuff.

Soooo powerful. Sooooo good. More soon!

~Lois Lane Wanna Be

Wonderful part - so glad you're back!

Liz

Rac, hate to break it to, but it's time for more.

I understand that you're a busy litigator who, if I'm reading your past comments right, graduated from L-school at about the same time I did. Thus, I truly appreciate how busy you probably are. But please understand that The Long Road Home is one of the few things I have to distract me from the brain-numbing doc reviews that are currently burying me. Please note that I would not be posting this if I were not absolutely certain that you'd prefer to write additional chapters versus numbing your brain with your own doc reviews.

Of course, if you're currently stranded on some far flung tropical island completely alone except for a stupendously hot guy who you know would like nothing more than to ravish you, please ignore me and get back to your previously scheduled activities.

[FYI for other posters: Partners at law firms worldwide use doc reviews to punish (torture?) their junior associates for graduating from law school, starting work, and expecting to be paid.]

Simply wrote:

I think their close cousins work as supervisors in computer programming shops. Those guys utilize the mind-numbing documentation update, the unexpected peer review of your code changes, and most especially the terrifying weekly status meetings with the vice-president.

And I agree, Rac. We need some more LRH! We can't even see the next curve from here, let alone the end of the journey. Clark has to suffer a lot more, Lois has to endure more guilt and shame, and little Jon has to help them figure out that they still have a future together just waiting for them in the next room.

Hi everyone!

So sorry for the long delay. Real life has been very hectic, and sadly, Simply, there was no tropical island involved at all. My guy and I actually had to take separate vacations this summer as we both went to visit family. My excuse, is therefore, substantially more mundane. I just moved apartments last week and my internet was down for a few days. Work has also been sending me to random places far and wide, so on top of the sixty page brief I had to write last week, there has been no time for anything else.

Simply, I am happy to report that as I enter my fourth year of practice, the amount of doc review I do is diminishing substantially. Now, I engage in the almost as mind numbing task of document management. But, assuming I get home at something like a reasonable hour tonight, I'll try to post the next part. Thanks for your patience, all.

Regards,

Rac

Another interesting chapter, Rac. Looking forward to the next! I'm wondering how explanation of Superman's and Clark's coincidental return will play out. As a journalist, Clark, who was supposedly kidnapped, will be expected to document his years of captivity and conceivably Superman's role on NK as well.

As for Clark's PTSS, certainly the issues here need to be resolved. He was obliged to serve not only as a statesman, but also as a soldier with no more combat training than he received from Ching aboard the star ship enroute to NK. And how much training did he receive to prepare him for his captivity? None, I would imagine. Even WITH such training as US military aviators receive, enduring captivity as brutal as Nor's would tax anyone's sanity. But through it all, Clark never gave into the temptation of wishing for death. He always held onto his hope for reunification with Lois. And he never gave up his "secret" to Nor. (i.e. "What is Lo-isss?")

Throughout their separation, both Clark and Lois remained faithful to each other, holding onto their hope that, one day, they would be reunited. Although both were dogged by dispair, neither surrendered themselves to it.

As for Clark's guilty conscience for having killed Nor, I suppose that is testimony to his sterling character and his reverence for the sanctity of human life, without exception; and his preference for mercy over vengeance. (Whereas *I* would have felt about as bad about snuffing Nor as I would for stomping a coackroach. - Hey, I never said *I* was a "super man!" *I* subscribe to Talmudic justice: "If a man comes to your house to kill you, make ye haste and kill him first!") Clark needs to accept the fact that Nor gave him no alternative to killing him save loss of his own life and never seeing Lois again. Perhaps, having been compelled to face that awful dilema, kill or be killed, Clark might be more empathetic of others faced with similar such hobsean choises.

I believe that if Clark and Lois can work through these issues, hopefully with the love and support of their family and friends, both will emerge stronger. Lois has been compelled to walk in the shoes of her husband, having assumed his duties as a super hero(ine). And Clark has been compelled to endure the stresses of living life without the advantage of super powers. Not only are both now more able to empathize with each other, but, from their travails, Lois and Clark, having endured much, will be even more compassionate and more sensitive to human suffering than ever.

As for Clark's battle scars, I do not see them as mutilation of his once flawless form. They are a badge of honor and a testimony that, far more than most of us, notwithstanding his Kryptonian physiology, he has endured pain and suffering. I do not believe many holocaust survivors had their number tatoos removed. Most have worn them as a badge of honor. And in every post-resurrection painting I have ever seen of Jesus, His crucifixion wounds are portrayed as a testimony of His suffering. I hope, with Lois' support, Clark will come to accept his battle scars for what they are; a badge of honor and not of shame.

Very thought provoking story, Rac. It's nice to find a story that both entertains and that makes you think.

Best regards,
TagsNOLA