Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK: When the Sky Falls (17/26)

It was a bit long. What can I say, it was a busy day.

Feedback here.

Bob

First off, WOW

Nice part. It is progressing so well that I'm not even impatient for Clark to get his powers back or figure out that he is Superman.

I'm now hoping that Lois and Clark, with help from Klein and Henderson and the others will figure out that Lex is the "Boss" and take him down without Superman.

Perhaps Superman will only appear in a epilogue taking place years later; when Lois and Clark's son is old enough to assume the role.

It would be nice if Lois could win the Pulitzer for writing an upbeat editorial entitled "Why The World Doesn't Need Superman". Nice job. Now we know why Clark has such a strong negative reaction to Luthor.

Looking forward to much more.

Like Patrick said, wow! The revelations here blew me away!

So Clark may never regain his memory? At first, I felt a sharp sense of loss when I read that. But then I thought that maybe that wasn't so bad, certainly not for this one fic. I think it was Corrina who said that she loved Clark this way, the honest, open Clark, and I agree. With his memories intact he was a lot more sneaky and borderline deceitful, and now that all those memories are gone he can have a brand new start. He is well-functioning in all other ways, after all, so it's not as if his loss of selective memories will prevent him from leading a normal life. And by the way, now I'm starting to believe that Martha and Jonathan may indeed be dead. They may be dead because they were part of Clark's old life, which he can't regain because he has forgotten it. (On the other hand, I guess they may still reappear if Clark can somehow be made to remember his past.)

And Lois and Clark found parts of the survival suit that Superman wore as he was trying to deal with Nightfall! That's great! Hopefully Bernard Klein and his colleagues can prove that the suit had been manipulated. I very much hope they can find evidence of Lex's involvement, too!

And Lois learned that her building hadn't been hit by Nightfall, but instead it had been bombed. It had been deliberately destroyed on her account, so it was her fault that all her neighbours were dead. Except that isn't true, of course. Lois didn't kill her neighbours. Lex did.

Looking forward to the next part, where I really hope you'll let Lois and Clark find more evidence against Lex!

Ann

Wow, indeed.

When you started talking about the memory loss expert without naming him, I kept expecting to meet Deter The nerve gas solution was ingenious

I never expected them to find pieces of Superman's equipment. Interesting about the smaller bits, especially those that didn't come in attached to Superman. I never saw that coming.

And Clark made the connection behind the reason for bombing Lois's apartment.

I actually exhausted now

Michael

Whew! The whole thing is ingenious, wonderfully creative.

I too am starting to think that Martha and Jonathan may be dead, but if Clark never gets his memories back, his grieving will be much less. At the moment they are only names to him, not the wonderful people who shaped his personality and are his original support system.

Lois is going to be the one who needs a support system right now, because of the guilt she feels over her building. No, it's not her fault, and she knows that intellectually, but emotionally it's going to take her a long time to get over it.

I really like the way you've taken the original Nightfall premise and built such a complete story from it. I'm looking forward to reading every one of the next nine chapters, and they can't come too soon.

I love this story; it's a very original take on a much-rewritten episode. Lex is even more fiendishly evil than usual, and each new revelation (especially this latest one of blowing up Lois's building) makes him even more hateful than usual (although he's still completely and diabolically in character).

This latest information, that Clark may never get his memories back, makes the whole story take a much darker and more angsty turn. I'm having a hard time accepting a) that Martha and Jonathan are dead and b) that Clark now will never remember them, and seems fine with that. (I think I could handle the first on its own, but not both). I agree that Clark's lack of memory of them will spare him any trauma or extended grieving process -- but that seems to me even more tragic!

If this condition is permanent, then forgetting them completely with no hope of recovery seems to make them even more dead than if they were simply killed by Nightfall fragments. Clark can now never consciously access the values they gave him or the experiences with them that formed him. These memories, experiences and values, and the whole complex ethical framework he relies on as an adult, will not be available to him in new situations requiring difficult decisions.

So not only will his parents' actual love and support not be there any more, but now there won't even be any memories of that experience of unconditional love and support. If Clark's powers come back and he starts to feel like a freak, he will have no memory of their unconditional love and acceptance to stabilize him. Even if he relies on his gut feelings to get him through difficult situations and problems, he will no doubt be very dependent on Lois for a long while yet. Personally, I can't see how he wouldn't be a damaged and depleted Superman if he has absolutely no memories of his former life.

I'm speaking from a little (second-hand) experience here because a close friend of mine suffered a brain injury in a car accident. It didn't affect her memory of her earliest life, but over time she discovered there were gaps. She mourned and grieved those gaps as you would grieve the loss of a family member or friend. The brain injury also affected things like reading comprehension (it really slowed her down), concentration, etc.

This seems analogous: if he has lost all his conscious memories, then Clark has suffered the equivalent of a brain injury. The thought of a brain injured Superman makes me as sad as if he had been blinded or deafened, or had lost a limb.

Kudos to you for coming up with a thought-provoking premise, but I'm hoping you can fix this somehow. He's not getting much sunlight these days -- maybe the clouds will clear enough for some sun to shine through, and those neural pathways will be repaired? Pretty please? (Just kidding ...)

I'm as interested as can be in where this story goes. Bravo.

Absolutely awesome chapter! The discovery of parts of the survival pack etc will hopefully now lead to exoneration of Superman and maybe something will trigger a realisation in Lois that he also survived! Could she finally put two and two together and realise Clark is Superman?! I also wonder that, when Clark totally recovers from the Kryptonite, his healing powers will repair the damage from the nerve gas and restore his memory! And hopefully Jonathan and Martha will have left Smallville before the meteor strikes and suddenly appear in Metropolis... afterall it would take a long time to get through the destroyed areas to make it to Metropolis, right? And if they didn't drive themselves then the public transport system was severely disrupted or disabled, right?

Looking forward to the next chapter! More soon please; this is too exciting to have to wait too long!!



Cheers
Elizabeth

I love this bit.

Wow! This part is packed!

First you have that hilarious scene where Clark says that going to the physician's office seemed completely unfamiliar. Then the fabulous idea about the chemical attack causing Clark's memory loss.

It was nice that Clark was easily able to talk Lois into being cautious regarding the investigation into the equipment that potentially might be tight to both Superman and to Clark's memory loss.

I loved the flow of this part, particularly as it led to the ties at the end between Luthor and the Boss.

Can't wait for more.


Elisabeth

I am so blown away by all this great feedback. I had hoped that this was a strong chapter. I’m so happy that so many of you liked it.

As many others have pointed out before, the idea of Clark’s amnesia being caused by the physical trauma of the impact with Nightfall never felt right. The idea that this was a side-effect of the attempt on his life was too tempting to pass up.


Framework4:
First off: Thank you! This is such a wild idea. I’m not a huge fan of that movie (I do love Dandello’s “Plane Storm”) but I should have thought of that myself.


Ann:
There were many issues that I found difficult to come to terms with in this piece. I wanted to approach a piece with enough “serious” ideas to build an interesting story around. The challenge, as I saw it, is the existence of all those wonderful stories over in the archive. Nightfall in particular has been done well many times. This meant that I had to think outside the box and take some chances with ideas I hadn’t seen before. The worldwide tragedy of a failed Nightfall mission is one of those issues. The possibility of Clark’s memory loss being permanent is another.


Michael:
I can’t stand Deter. If I ever write him into a fic of mine it will only be to abuse him. I wanted a serious and knowledgeable professional of the highest standards. That’s why he’s a friend of Bernie’s.


c-mom:
As I said in Ann’s note above, I knew going in that to provide a new perspective on this story, I’d have to introduce some more volatile elements. Removing Martha and Jonathan at the same time that Clark has permanently lost his memory wasn’t something I did lightly. I just hope that I don’t take things so far that I lose my better-than-I-deserve audience.


Betty:
I have to respond to this: First, Clark himself is disturbed that he isn’t feeling more. Beyond that, I think if you read that section of chapter 16 carefully, you’ll see that he’s refusing to acknowledge that they might be dead. I’m *so* glad you mentioned this. Your right, the “impact winter” is definitely something that can’t be ignored. Imagine what might happen when the sun returns in force.

Now, that said, memories that were actually dissolved by that gas cannot be recovered.

Thank you so much for your note. I hope this doesn’t get too dark and I promise that it is my intent to bring this to as uplifting a conclusion as I can given the circumstances.


Elizabeth:
The pack is definitely a key thing to have. As to what they can do with it, well, we’ll see.


Iolanthe:
That was a fun part. This section of the story needs all the light moments it can get.


Elisabeth:
The doctor’s office was fun. I’m glad you liked the chemical basis for the memory loss. It seemed much more reasonable that getting bonked on the head. And now that they have the combination of the mission pack, they should be able to move the investigation forward nicely.


Again, I want to thank all of you for sharing your thoughts and opinions. It is what keeps me going on this monster...I mean story. I never had any idea how challenging it would be to develop a story of this size. My first “big” story was 25K words. When I went to a 50K word story, it was a challenge but it didn’t surprise me. When this one is done it will be over 100K words. Somewhere in there is a line that says, “As of now it gets WAY harder.” I don’t know exactly where that line was, but I crossed it. I hope I can hold it together long enough to get the last 9 chapters out the door.

For those of you that regularly generate long stories, I am more in awe of your abilities than ever!!!

Again, thank you also much for hanging in this long.

Bob

Totally cool part!!!

Looking forward to reading more soon.

Love the section were Clark thought it funny about the medical history questions for the memory-challenged...

James

Hi James:

Thank you. Yeah. I couldn't resist. When I have to go the the doctor, the Fabulous Beverly almost always fills out those forms for me. (Yes, I know I'm spoiled.) I've never been to a memory specialist but I'm sure they will ask you to answer the same medical history questions that all other doctors do. Asking a memory-loss patient their medical history just seemed funny.

Bob