Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK: Ten Years in the Making (11/?)

Loved it! Loved it! Loved it! I'm still enjoying your story and am so glad to see a new chapter. But, unfortunately as I told Nan, I am just overwhelmed with school and haven't a lot of time to comment. But do know that I am still following and still enjoying, very much.

I am not sure how I feel about Lois dating John. I just feel so sorry for Clark. He loves her so much in spite of what he has done.

Thanks for that reprieve!

~Sheila

I loved how you wrote the beginning of this chapter, where Lois was first unaffected by the kiss that John had given her, but then, when she came to work, she was nervous. Then she was relieved that John wasn't there, and then she was worried about his absence. And then she started to wait for Clark, and she began feeling lonely and sad when he didn't show up. I thought all of that was great. It showed so clearly, to me at least, that Lois still loves Clark.

But I was so angry at this:

She had such a crush on Superman! So he didn't want to encourage her! Honestly, isn't he blaming her for the fact that he didn't take her flying? I think he is. He is blaming her for having such a crush on the wrong him, so that he couldn't encourage her, or take her flying, or share his secret with her!

Gaaahhh!!! It was his decision not to take Lois flying! It wasn't Lois's fault! And yet he is still sort of blaming her. Shouldn't he have apologized to her instead?

Clark should have told Lois that he thought that Lois had such a crush on Superman, and he wanted to fly with her as himself, but he didn't know how to tell her who he really was. That way he would have put the blame, or at least the explanation, where it belonged - on himself.

Of course Lois needed to understand who Clark really was before she could love him. But she couldn't love him for himself when he stubbornly kept hugely important aspects of himself hidden from her.

I think Lois is too forgiving here, and too willing to, sort of, accept that it was somehow a measure of his love and her fault that he had to lie to her. Honestly, anonpip, if that is what her relationship with Clark going to be like, then I would rather see Lois married to John than to Clark in the future.

Of course I don't mean that Lois should be blaming Clark all the time and reminding him of what he did wrong. No, they need to turn over a new leaf, put the past behind them and start over. But please don't let Clark put the blame for their past mess on Lois.

I'd actually much rather see Lois with Clark than with John in the future. But only if Clark accepts responsibility for his rather dreadful past mistakes himself, rather than blaming Lois.

Ann

Thanks so much for the feedback. Sorry to have fallen off the face of the earth, my computer started acting weird, including smoking one evening, and I went out of town for a few days, so I didn't have a chance to fix it. I still haven't actually, but I'm hoping that since almost everything is working and it's not smoking anymore I can play with it until I have a chance to bring it in.

Sheila - I'm so glad you are enjoying this and no worries about being busy with RL. I can completely understand.

Ann – It makes me feel very proud that you liked the beginning of the chapter since I was worried that it was still too soon for Lois and Clark.

I think, though, that my views on Lois and Clark are quite different than yours. So while I do agree that it was Clark's choice not to tell Lois about his secret and this led to her crush on Superman, I don't think it's fair to say that Lois shouldn't feel a bit guilty for this.

Basically, I feel like Clark should not be expected to tell Lois he is Superman just because he is in love with her. I imagine that would make him want to share this piece of himself with her, but it's a big secret and the less people who know it, the better. As a result, it seems to me that Lois and Clark need some sort of commitment before it's fair to say that Clark owes her the truth. And by the time Clark “died” in this story, they had no commitment to each other. While they may have been in love with each other, Clark was unaware of that. Last he heard, Lois had told him that she loved him like a brother. So while she was being much kinder to Clark than she had before he told her he loved her, they weren't really at a stage where I would think it's fair to expect Clark to put his life and his parents' lives in danger to share his secret with her. (Of course, all of this changed when he found out how she reacted to his death, but right now they are talking about emotions prior to that.)

I don't hold Lois responsible for this, but I wasn't really trying to make it seem like Clark was either. It was more that Clark did want to have the type of relationship with her where he felt he should tell her, and so far her feelings for him hadn't made him feel comfortable with that, so he was hurt. This isn't Lois' fault, but when you want to be with someone and it seems that they don't want to be with you, it hurts, even though you can't blame them for how they are feeling (or not feeling).

That's what Clark was trying to get at – he had wanted to share this part of his life with her, but he couldn't except as Superman and he didn't want to share it with her that way.

Given that this is how I see it, I had Lois understand this. She wasn't really forgiving him – because in this instance he hadn't really done anything wrong. She was just understanding how he had felt and feeling a bit badly about it as she had actually been in love with him and things may have been different had he known.

I will say, as this keeps coming up, that none of this is ever intended to lead to Clark blaming Lois for the past mess. The situation here is nearly 100% Clark's fault. But they got there from their past before that, and in that past Lois was not 100% blameless. It was her actions there that led Clark to believe that Lois wouldn't care that he had died. His mistake was in not taking some time in the past 10 years to correct that, but I guess I don't see the initial “not telling” her as really a problem. It hurts to think that someone you love is dead, but if you shoot someone down enough times, it takes more than a few months of being really nice to them before they are willing to think you may care for fear of being hurt again.

For them to have a successful relationship, I think they need to work past their old issues – Lois needs to see past Clark's lying to her for 10 years and Clark needs to feel confident in Lois' emotions for him now. They need to put both things behind them in order to move on.

I don't really see any more apologies as necessary. Clark has already apologized countless times for lying, now he needs to show Lois that he means those apologies and is different now. And Lois never did anything to apologize for, but Clark needs to work past the hurt some of her very old actions caused.


Unfortunately, with the computer issues, I am still far away from having the next chapter up, but I'm working on it diligently.

Just wanted to let you know that I'm still reading this!

Clark and Lois' relationship looks like it is slowly on the mend. I am curious about what you're going to do with John. Of course he and Lois aren't going to end up together, so I'm wondering what will happen to them. Is it going to be a clean break-up, or will it be messy and have lots of tears and hurt feelings?

I'm waiting to find out!