This story is just amazing, Shayne. I don't know when you've written something that wasn't amazing, but this story just keeps blowing me away.
I love your Lois. Guess you love her too, or you wouldn't write her so splendidly. And in this chapter, there were some absolutely wonderful lines about Lisa, and about Lois and Lisa:
Lisa nodded. Lois couldn't make out her expression; it seemed to waver somewhere between anxiety and excitement.
For her this was the chance of a lifetime. Lois had no doubt that she'd always dreamed of her father as coming in on a white horse to save them all. It wasn't all that different from her dreams when she was young, of a father who would turn his back on his work and spend time with his family.
Lisa has been dreaming of her father coming in on a white horse to save them all.... Oh, Shayne, it is as perfect as it is heartbreaking. It gets even better when Lois acknowledges that she had dreams of her own father when she was a girl, dreams that were not altogether unlike Lisa's. But Lois at least knew how her father was.
How much worse it would be to look at every man who passed you by and wonder if he was the one. Lois hadn't even been able to offer her the comfort of a name, or a picture, or even a description. She'd managed to keep the uglier details of the encounter from her daughter, but there had been questions she hadn't been able to answer.
Heartbreaking.
It was a sign of just how good a child she was that the questions had trailed off over the last few years. Lisa had seen how much the questions had hurt Lois, and she'd eventually stopped asking them.
Incredibly poignant. Lisa has only one parent who is there for her, Lois. And as much as she
needs to know about her father, she can't alienate or even truly sadden the one parent who is there for her.
That didn't mean that Lois didn't see them reflected in her eyes sometimes. Every time a good father would be shown on television, Lisa was riveted. She watched the same shows over and over again.
Knowing the void she'd left in her daughter's life made Lois want to cry sometimes.
The mental image of Lisa watching shows starring good father figures on television over and over again, because they are the only father substitutes she can find, brings tears to my eyes, too.
Lois frowned. In her experience, you could tell a lot about someone by the attitudes of the people who worked for them. Sullen, secretive employees usually meant a sullen secretive master.
Too true.
According to her research, he'd gotten the place for a quarter its value at action. Two hundred eighty acres, four trout ponds, horse paddocks, a gazebo and vast expanses of glass looking out onto the magnificent Colorado skyline.
And she understands that he has bought the place too cheap.
This was the place of someone who wanted to shut themselves away from the rest of the world.
And its owner doesn't sound like a very promising father figure.
Staring through the window, Clark wondered why she'd brought the child with her. That it was hers there was no question. The detective's report had been quite clear about that.
Clark seems incapable of doing math.
For a moment Clark toyed with the idea of having a child of his own, but he knew it was impossible. Lana had been a healthy, fertile woman and all the tests had shown that he was genetically incompatible.
So that is why he automatically assumes that Lois's child can't be his?
"Lana had been a healthy, fertile woman" - that sounds ominous. Lana
had been a healthy, fertile woman. Wasn't she healthy and fertile any more? If so, why not?
"All the tests had shown that he was genetically incompatible" - like Terry, I have to wonder who was doing those tests for him.
“Mr. Kent?” Lois asked.
The man turned and Lois felt her stomach drop. There was something indescribably familiar about him, as though she'd seen him every day for years without even registering it. Dark hair, exotic eyes, tanned complexion…she couldn't put her finger on it.
Wow! Brilliantly written, Shayne. Yes, there was something indescribably familiar about him, as though Lois had seen him every day for years without even registering it. Ah, but Lois, you
have seen his dark hair, exotic eyes and tanned complexion every day for twelve years now... in your daughter. And you have come here to meet the father of your daughter. When will you realize that he is standing right in front of you?
“He's given interviews to reporters before. Linda King for example…”
Lois hadn't been able to get hold of Linda to find out how she'd gotten the interview. Apparently, Hollywood had already gone to her head.
Did Linda offer Superman something in return?
“I'm not planning to do an interview with him. This is personal.”
“Oh?” Mr. Kent leaned forward.
“We're old friends who just lost contact with each other.”
“I highly doubt that. He's only been on the planet for…”
“Tell him that I know he's been on the planet in disguise a lot longer than most people think. I met him more than ten years ago, and I need to talk to him.”
Yes!!! Great going, Lois!
Clark froze. He'd thought she'd been unconscious when he'd flown her home all those years ago. His memories were fuzzy, tainted by the red poison, but he'd been sure.
Old familiar feelings of panic clutched at him as his mind raced. Had she known about him all this time? Was she toying with him?
How much was she going to want to keep his secret?
Clark lives in a very cold world. There is no warmth and comfort here, only financial gain. So what will it take to pay off Lois?
The Superman experiment was a mistake. He'd known it from the moment it had been proposed to him.
Like Terry, I so wonder who proposed the Superman experiment to Clark. Could it have been any of the usual suspects, such as Luthor? But we have seen no obvious signs of Luthor so far.
“I have incontrovertible proof,” Lois said.
He could hear the rhythm of her heart, the pace of her breathing…he could see the pupils of her eyes. She wasn't lying; she really believed that she had proof of what she had said.
Lois is honest. Is Clark used to honest people?
“How much do you want?” he asked.
Lois Lane stared at him for a moment, as though she didn't understand the question.
“What?”
“How much would it take for you to go away and pretend that you'd never heard of Kal El?” He reached into his pocket for a checkbook.
The woman scowled. “What are you talking about?”
“Life has got to be tough on a proofreader's salary.” Clark said. “Living paycheck to paycheck, never quite being able to make ends meet. Wouldn't you like to be able to buy a nice house and an education for your daughter? How would you like to be able to afford some of those things you always dreamed about?”
And I love that Lois doesn't even understand what he's talking about when he's trying to buy her off.
He glanced through the wall behind her, where the daughter had been sitting quietly in a chair.
To his surprise, she seemed to be staring right back at him.
Wow!!!! What a fantastic mental image, Shayne! Okay,
when is Clark going to realize that Lisa is his child?
Let me just say a few words about Clark in this story. This Clark is so much more dark and ambiguous than he is in almost any story posted here, yet he doesn't irritate me nearly as much as he does in other stories where his sins and shortcomings are so much fewer and smaller. Why can I accept this Clark so much more easily than many other versions of Clark?
I think it is because I often feel that when Clark is committing his usual transgressions, such as lying to Lois about who he is while at the same time trying to woo her, the story seems to suggest that Clark is
right about what he's doing. His transgressions are no transgressions because... well, because Clark is the sweetest guy in the world, and therefore he doesn't commit any transgressions.
In other words, when I feel that Clark's behaviour is really questionable, I also feel that I'm not supposed to really question it. And boy, that irritates me!
In this story, however, it is very, very obvious that Clark is being wrong about many things, and you, Shayne, aren't trying to defend him. So I don't have to stew and fume and wonder how on earth people can fail to really
see what Clark is doing, because what he's doing is obvious enough. Instead, I can concentrate on trying to understand why Clark is the way he is. And Shayne, you offer us some very tantalising clues:
This was the place of someone who wanted to shut themselves away from the rest of the world.
And therefore, it is the home of someone who isn't comfortable in the world. Is it, perhaps, the home of someone who is afraid of the world? Of humanity?
All the money in the world wouldn't protect him if the government became involved. They'd freeze the assets they knew about, and it wouldn't take them long to find out about the other, more deadly poison. He'd never be able to sleep soundly again.
Yes indeed, he is afraid. He's afraid that the world is out to kill him.
He was the last of his kind, and he was never destined to have children of his own.
And since he knows that he isn't fully human, and since he believes that he can't father children with a woman who is fully human, how can he feel a connection to the world?
It hurt a little, the thought that he was always going to be alone, but perhaps it was for the best. No one would want a father like him, someone afraid to go out into the world.
He despises himself for not fitting in. He is telling himself that no child would want him for his or her father.
This whole situation leads me to ask why Superman normally is this "perfectly good" person. Or rather, perfection aside, why is he good?
I think that in order to be good, you must be born with a natural ability to empathize with others. But then this ability of yours must be nurtured. You must feel a connection with others. You must feel that you are, to some extent at least, a part of others. Only then can you want to help others the way you yourself would want to be helped.
The Kents did this nurturing of Clark's compassionate side in the comic books and in LnC. And then it turned out that Lois was the one he needed to complete him mentally and physically and make him happy and whole.
This Superman, however, apparently lost his adoptive parents early. He seems to have married Lana, but something bad seems to have happened to her. He doesn't seem to trust the few friends he has. He seems to have become afraid of the world and of what it could do to him. And when someone puts forth a proposal to him about going public with his powers, he is apparently unable to turn that proposal down. Who is manipulating him? And why?
I don't think I can be angry at such a lonely and scared Clark Kent, no matter how rich and devious he may be.
Fantastic chapter, Shayne! Please give us more soon!
Ann
Stop it already!
Painful but VERY well done. We have a wounded man here. Lana hurt him so much. 
