I have been far too critical of this fic, and when I said that Clark only wanted Lois if she could have a child, I knew I was being completely wrong and unfair even as I wrote it.
For all of that, I think that a major injustice is being done to Lois here. I think it has to do at least partly with the assumptions of how much time Clark and Lois can be expected to have at their disposal, and what they are supposed to do with their time.
A major theme of this fic is that Lois has misused her time. She has spent, almost wasted, all of her time at work, and therefore she has had little or no time for what really matters. She has, for example, had little time for her sister:
The sisters had a reasonably good relationship ... had, occasionally, experienced times of closeness when they had more openly shared their feelings and hopes and dreams.
But ... this last year.
Lois sighed.
This last year.
This last year, her life had been nothing ... except work.
Not only has she ignored her sister, but she has not stayed in touch with Perry:
Lois shivered a little with anticipation as she waited for her knock to be answered. She hadn't been sure about coming, but now she was here, she realised her instincts hadn't failed her.
The door opened and there he was – Lois sprang into his arms and let his comforting presence encompass her. Then, she leant back and drank in his big smile.
“Perry,” she said. “It's so good to see you.”
His grin was like a salve. “Darlin',” he said. “It does an old man good to see your pretty face.”
And she has ignored Clark, thereby leaving Clark with an ocean of lonely time that he has had to fill by coming up with creative solutions. He has, for example, apparently spent a lot of time with the teenagers that we met in chapter eight:
you can tell from the snippets the history clark has with them... probably earning their trust over time..
was lois at all aware of all the time he's spent with them? surely it would've come up in conversations?
Vicki agreed with Flowerpot that Clark had probably spent quite a lot of time with the teenagers to fill his lonely evenings:
At least Clark was doing something productive with his time, rather than sitting alone at home night after night (which was sort of the image I had been forming in my mind up until now.)
But seriously, would there be anything else that Clark could do with his time, apart from being a coach and mentor for some teenagers? Well, for starters Clark is Superman. What would Superman be expected to do with his time? I checked out USA Today just a few minutes ago to find out what Superman would have been expected to do right this minute, if he had existed:
Winter storm slams Northeast
Severe weather cuts power to at least 1 million people and disrupts travel.
8.8-magnitude earthquake hits central Chile
The earthquake would certainly require Superman to be in Chile perhaps for days in a row to help out. And if he needed to take a break from the earthquake chaos, well, there would always be the people hit by the winter storm in the United States to require his assistance.
Anyway, Clark lives in Metropolis. There must be sirens going off there at least a dozen times every day. Superman could certainly spend hours every day helping out in Metropolis.
My point is that Clark could so easily let his unpaid job as Superman become a full-time occupation. But Clark also juggles a paid job as a reporter. Clark is an investigative reporter, and investigations can't all be carried out at superspeed, particularly when Clark himself is unable to solve the case and find the evidence he needs right away. Here in this fic, he hasn't been immediately successful in his investigations. Remember, too, that he has to interview people, and interviews can't be conducted at superspeed.
I'm sure that Clark needs a lot less time than an ordinary person to do the journalistic work that he does, but that doesn't mean he won't have to spend at least a couple of hours being a reporter every day.
Between being Superman and being a reporter, Clark finds time to fly to Smallville and talk to Martha. The flight there can be done at superspeed, but the talk to Martha can't.
Clark can also be immediately available when Lucy needs someone to come with her and confront her cheating husband.
Clark can also build a relationship with a group of teenagers. He can invite them to his home for a full-time pizza night. He can promise the parents of the kids that he will be with the kids all night and assure their well-being.
And in spite of doing all this, Clark can
still sit at home all alone and pine for his wife who refuses to come home.
It doesn't make sense. Superpowers or not, Clark can't be in two different places at the same time. He can't talk to people at superspeed, and he can't build relationships with other people at superspeed. Realistically, Clark would be enormously pressed for time.
But in this fic Clark has all the time in the world to multitask at will, whereas Lois can't find time to do anything at all but work. Lois is the one who gets blamed for spending time away from her husband, but Clark, who would realistically be forced to stay away from Lois for days and nights in a row each month, is the one we are asked to commiserate with for being neglected. This Clark has so much time that he can deliberately stand his wife up when they have a lunch date and spend time at a children's hospital instead. Just to have somethig to do.
I have complained earlier that I think that Lois and Clark are treated very differently in many fics. Lois gets blamed for her shortcomings, but Clark gets commiserated with for his.
Ann
Thanks!