Wow.
To me, there is no question that Lana's baby is also Clark's. It has seemed obvious to me from the beginning that this Clark Kent was not a virgin when he met Lois Lane. But now it seems as if his one time with Lana was his only previous time with a woman:
She'd offered him comfort in her arms. Then later he'd sought a different kind of comfort that she'd given just as freely. It wasn't something he'd done before or since, but it had been exactly what he'd needed at the time.
So Clark had been with a woman only once before, but almost as soon as he met Lois he started flirting with her rather heavily. Not that I was complaining then or that I am complaining now. To me, the sheer bond between Lois and Clark is of overriding importance, not the institutions or expectations of society.
Maybe you had mentioned before that Lana was, or had been, Clark's fiancée, but if you did I had managed to forget it. I was surprised to hear about it, although Clark's history with Lana is not surprising in itself:
She was a difficult woman. Clark had always known so. She'd been a difficult child. But she'd known who he was and hadn't turned her back on him. She was demanding, impatient. She was also caring and gentle. He'd once loved Lana very deeply. He still cared about her, loved her as a friend. They'd known each far too long for him to turn his back on her.
This makes sense.
So Lana's child is Clark's. You have written another fic, Squid, where Clark finds out that he has fathered a child with an old girlfriend and he and Lois raise the kid together. I wouldn't be surprised to see the same thing happen here.
Poor Lana, though. I think it would be horrible to carry to term what everybody
knew was Superman's child and then give that baby up because you didn't want it - and do so in the limelight. You would forever be branded as the woman who got pregnant after sleeping with Superman and then giving up the baby and losing Superman too. I can't help thinking that Lana would be branded by everyone in the world, or at least by almost everyone in the LnC version of the United States, as a super loser.
But if this sounded like criticism, I didn't mean it like that. I'm completely fascinated by this story! One thing this fic really and truly brings home is that it would be pretty awful for Clark to lose his secret identity and lose his ability to be just another face in the crowd.
Ann
