Rac, it is a joy to read your fic and to savor the grace of your writing style and the emotional depth of the content.
It is so moving to see how Lois and Clark love one another, but how Clark's terrible trauma stands in the way of their happiness. More moving still was your portrait of the mighty Superman during his appointment with his psychologist, hands shaking, eyes fixed on the ceiling, trying to keep up appearances, trying to protect Lois and Jon and his parents, trying to prevent himself from shattering like Humpty Dumpty so that no one can put him together again, and trying to become his old self again and become a good husband, father and son again, all at once.
My favorite part of this chapter mayhave been this, however:
He closed his eyes and just listened, until he could hear the heartbeats of sleeping hummingbirds, and the sounds of water striders walking on the pond. When he was a kid, it had been one of his favorite sounds in the world because no one else was able to hear it. It was a soft, even "thump,' as the tiny appendages of the insects made contact with the water, never breaking the surface tension. He could even hear the rustle of the microscopic hairs on their legs as they moved across the water.
What a wonderful, hypnotic, almost heartbreakingly beautiful tribute to the loveliness of the fragile life on this Earth. And how beautiful this passage is as a reminder of how naturally Clark once fit in among all this life, whose trust he naturally owned when he was young, and whose trust he is now trying to regain. But first he has to regain his trust in himself.
Ann
