Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK The Other Shoe 6/10

Woohoo! I swear I just happened to be passing through when I noticed part 6 was posted. I was *not* stalking the boards incessantly.

Who knew Bobby Bigmouth could be the voice of reason? Glad Clark listened to him and sit tight for a bit at least.

And now comes the part in which writers such as yourself make me feel extremely wishy-washy... After part 5 I could not fathom how Clark could get as close to Lois as both Clark and Superman and not reveal Lois his secret. Yet after reading his POV, I'm sitting here, "oh ok, I guess that makes sense that he'd feel that way. It is a pretty big secret and he has kept it his entire life. I guess I'll cut Clark some slack." Really enjoyed being in Clark's head and even somehow his voyeuristic tendencies seem an act of love rather than a violation.

Yay, a lead! Go get'em Supes. Hell hath no fury like a Superman crossed!

Can't wait for the next part (yeah I know we just got this one, but what can I say, I'm insatiable).

deleted

I said it before, Sue, but I really liked Bobby in this part, both for the reasons that Emily mentioned and because Clark snuck up on him for once.


Framework said:
Um, can we please try to remember that this story occurs in the same universe as Mentamide 5, Revenge, Space Rats, human/Kryptonian cloning, radioactive perfume, project Valhalla, Resurrection, lifeforce aging chambers, cryogenics, cyborgs, shrinking shampoo, soul-transference and a man named Fathead. I think that being able to identify the chemicals included in a drink spill is definitely in the believable realm of possibility.

Personally, I loved seeing Clark investigate in this chapter. I silently chuckled at the fact that the cops didn't blink an eye at how good Superman was at asking all the right questions. I guess they just chalk it up to another super power.

I also loved Clark's introspection. He gives some good reasons for not telling Lois, but he also realizes the most important reason to tell her - she's already shown him that she's ready to do the scary things for him.

Can't wait for the next part.
B

Poor Clark!

And you left us hanging:
Can't wait for the next part!!

Loved this part too and Bobby was great! I also like that Clark managed to sneak up on him for once

Looking forward to the next part and see the progress of how far Lois has managed to walk so far!

Not necessarily, Star labs being a private research lab would most certainly have the instrumentation needed to run this kind of analysis with much better equipment than that available at a public facility.

Yeah a 2% solution, which is more than adequate for trace analysis.

Hmm. I was reading this as the drink Lois spilled managed to sprinkle onto her shoes.

Now, that's what you call payback. After all, Bobby always shows up unexpectedly and scares Lois out of her wits.

At least someone is keeping a cool head.

On the other hand, Lois might actually go home first and call the cops later when she gets home. And Clark just happens to find her there

Talk about TMI for your parents

So he was going to tell her after the movie, then?

Um, could you please help me out here? Twitchell's not the guy from the warehouse, is he?

Poor tortured Clark. And I do notice a certain alternating theme. With Clark, it's the despair and the relationship trouble, with Lois it's the adventure and the more action oriented relationship stuff. Am looking forward to seeing Lois's day. Not that I mind Clark's day. Far from it. It's just, Lois's day is the next part, so...

Michael

Wow, Bobby Big mouth is making sense.

Sometimes I find myself annoyed with Clark that it's so hard for him to tell his secret. But it's a really big one. And something he's had to hide all of his life.

Regarding the drink on the shoe, didn't Lois fall against the table? That might've knocked some of it onto the floor.

Joan

Yeah! I was happy to see this posted! I had been tempted to post another prod, but I'm never sure when gentle prodding crosses over into unwelcome harassing.

I think my favorite scene was Bobby Bigmouth. I never cared all that much for his character on the show. I think this is the first story I've ever read that left me with a positive feeling about Bobby Bigmouth! Words of wisdom. Not that Clark is listening.

For some reason, I've always been more likely than many others on these boards to cut Clark some slack for not telling Lois sooner. Maybe because, like Clark, I tend to obsess. And there is no better food to feed a really good bout of self-recrimination than putting off something that needs to be done; the longer it is put off, the harder it becomes to do, the more likely an unfavorable outcome, and the more there is to obsess about.

I'm still trying to figure out what Clark is going to do. Especially in light of your comment in previous feedback, where you ask if he would lie to save Lois. Lie about what? Will he tell the bad guys that someone else is Superman? That doesn't seem likely. What is he going to do?

More, please!

Suey bear!!!! I jumped into this story a little late and was so happy to see that you had a new fic!! Woo hoo!!!

Bleeergh, I have been so ridiculously remiss in commenting on this amazing story, so please forgive, but I want you to know, I've been loving every bit of it. Your writing makes me wish I had a time machine so I could find you before the show aired and make you go to the producers of Lois and Clark so you could write all their episodes. We would have had a lot more than four years with a lot better material if you had been writing for them.

I gotta admit I missed the first three sections because I rarely think to look for a Sue story outside of nfic, but what's really great about this one is that I can paste the contents into an email and send it to myself at work to read there without much worry that it'll be flagged as inappropriate. I mean it REALLY is like watching a episode and I get to do it on my lunch hour. HOW COOL IS THAT?!?

Anyway, reading it, loving it, chomping at the bit for more!!


TEEEEEEJ

Good thinking of Clark, to go see Bobby as himself. But you know, I think Bobby's heart broke a little just hearing Clark make the offer ...

Yup, I had the same thought. Once the offer is made, even if he gets Lois back, Clark would have a huge target on his back. And that would mean his real secret would be that much more likely to be revealed. Good thinking, Bobby!

Bobby probably doesn't even realize it, but he just proved himself to be a bigger friend to L&C (&S) than any of them ever realized. *high fives Bobby*

Whoa, stalker much, Clark?

I think it's safe to say that Lois considers Superman someone who would only look through the curtains if she was in trouble or he needed her help. Her leaving them open is an act of trust, not an invitation. In fact, I would think no matter how in love with Clark she was, or how quickly she might forgive him his whole Superman cover, finding out that he's watched her sleep "so many nights" might be a deal breaker. Hopefully she won't find out about this seriously creepy tendency of his. Yikes.

I'm with you, Clark. I think you have your suspect!

Kathy

This reminds me of something else. There's various fanfic stating that Clark's primitive lock combined with Lois's lock-picking skills combine to an implicit standing invitation for Lois. After all, he could just build in a more sophisticated lock if he minded her showing up at all times. So, Clark's reasoning is a wonderful mirror of this attitude ascribed to Lois

Michael

I *so* second what Teeej said! You should have been a writer on the show.

Suspenseful, good, more soon!

Artemis

Kathy said:
Really? I thought it was kind of sweet. Now, if he'd been using his xray vision to watch her bathe...

It is so interesting to consider different people's "takes" on Lois and Clark. Different people "read" Lois and Clark very differently.

Since Sue's latest chapter was Clark-centered, let's consider portraits of Clark. Basically, Clark comes in two major "flavors" on these boards. There is angelically good Clark, and there is "trying-hard-to-be-very-good-but-not-always-succeeding" Clark.

Sue's Clark is the flawed kind. This Clark is the most interesting.

Angelically good Clark never makes a morally questionable choice. He always and pretty much automatically does the right thing, and he never gives in to temptation. Bad things may still happen because other people do the wrong thing, or because Clark doesn't have divine powers so that he can't, for example, deal with two disasters at the same time. When bad things happen even though it wasn't, of course, his fault, this Clark will nevertheless obsess and blame himself for what wasn't his fault, because this Clark holds himself up to truly divinely high standards.

Sue's Clark, on the other hand, is a flawed human being (or a flawed Kryptonian - same thing). He really and truly wants to do the right thing, but doing the right thing doesn't come automatically to him. He is not immune to temptation. When it comes to things like not telling Lois his secret, this Clark doesn't have a good solid moral reason not to tell Lois, as angelically good Clark would have. This Clark delights in being both Lois's unattainable demigod hero and her good old down-to-Earth work partner. And he is truly terrified of losing everything with her if he tells her. So Clark gave in to temptation in the worst possible way, by ignoring what was actually Lois's call for help:

The way I read this, Clark was so terrified of telling Lois his secret that he was looking for any sort of excuse not to have to do it. He heard Lois's voice - well, it must be his imagination, because he was already imaging her wrath after he has told her his secret, so it just didn't seem possible that she would whisper his name so softly right now. And besides, there were sirens going off in the distance, so clearly he was needed somewhere else right now, wasn't he?

Afterwards, when Lois is gone, Clark even admits to himself that he hadn't looked for Lois when he heard her whisper his name because he was trying to postpone the moment when he would have to tell her his secret:

Of course, when Clark made the fateful decision not to take Lois's soft call for him seriously, he didn't admit to himself that he was trying to postpone the inevitable. I think he really did manage to tell himself that he was doing the right thing. It wasn't as if he knew, or truly acknowledged, that he was putting Lois in danger by ignoring her. He was just relieved that he would have a few more hours or days before he had to tell her his secret.

It was Shakespeare who said something to the effect that every human being is a whole world of discordant wills. Each of us is full of a cacophony of disagreeing voices. Which voice is shouting the loudest? Which voice do I listen to right now? And which voice do I listen to in a few hours?

The fact that Sue's Clark is flawed comes down to this particular thing, I believe, that he is governed not by a single, morally strong and dead-certain conviction. Instead, Sue's Clark really is full of discordant voices. He wants to do the right thing, but it isn't always clear what the right thing truly is - and sometimes it is so tempting to listen to the voice that finds a good reason for him not to do something morally right but emotionally unpleasant right now.

Yes, it was better to let her go without telling her tonight, because you shouldn't do tonight what you can postpone until tomorrow. At least if it is unpleasant.

This Clark is prepared to do other questionable things too, like paying money to criminals and selling Superman's secret in order to get Lois back. Not because he doesn't realize that it is a crazy thing to do, but because he is so desperate to get Lois back.

A fantastic thing about Sue's portrait of flawed Clark is that we can see how his emotional and moral struggles affect him so strongly in a purely physical way. This Clark isn't deadpan, and he surely isn't a cardboard cutout:

Clark is trying to work up the courage not only to invite Lois to come to Kansas with him, but to tell her that he can actually fly her there, courtesy of Superman Express. He couldn't bring himself to say it, though. I thought the rapidly bouncing knee was a wonderfully telling detail about his nervousness.

I think Sue's fantastic portrait of flawed Clark is a reminder of what Superman could be, at best, if he really existed. We all have that cacophony of voices in our heads. Superman would too. With a man as supremely powerful as him, it would of course be overwhelmingly important which voice he chose to listen too.

Sue has shown us a fantastically moving superpowered Clark Kent who wants to do the right thing, who tries to do the right thing, but who isn't always able to do the right thing. Because we humans simply aren't able to do the right thing all the time. But, like Clark Kent, we can come back and try to rectify our mistakes, over and over.

Ann

Hi y'all! Rather than repeat myself (which I do most of the time anyway), I'm going to address a couple of things to start out and then I'll do some individualized loving. The key word in this passage is glimpsed. I didn't want it to sound like he was some perv hanging around outside her window all hours of the night. I think he "flies by" whenever he's on his way home (sometimes even if it's not exactly on his way) and he justifies that by telling himself she knows darn well that Superman is out there but she still isn't pulling her curtains closed. The subject does come up again and it does get addressed.

I have a special fondness for Bobby Bigmouth. I think it's his love of food combined with the fact that he seemed to take a fiendish pride in sneaking up on both Lois and Clark to surprise them. Plus, and this is just me, I think Bobby knows. He's such a fount of knowledge on everything else (like knowing that Clark is mooning over Lois and that Dan wasn't really a DEA agent). I don't say it explicitly in the story simply because they never did on the show. That's why he reacts so strongly to Clark's offer and it's why he talks him out of it. (For what it's worth, I think Perry knows, too. <g>)

Emily - Yes, it's a HUGE secret. Why would Clark tell anyone until he was absolutely certain of both his feelings and theirs? I'm glad I made you feel wishy-washy. My thanks for your later defense. I work in a lab and I did do some calculating before settling on using a 2% solution. It was nice to know that the percentages made sense to someone else.

Framework - I'm sorry you deleted your post. I hope to see you again.

BJ - Thank you for the 'unreality' check. Reading that list made me remember just how lame some of those episodes were. I laughed out loud at "and a man named 'Fathead'." Truly, that one stretches the limits of credulity. :p

mozartmaid - You do realize that leaving people hanging is the point of a multi-part story? Otherwise, why come back for the next part? Hopefully Clark won't be forever haunted by ignoring her cry for help. I just enjoy watching him wallow sometimes.

DW - Don't forget that Lois is walking around in her bare feet, it's going to be hard to make serious time when you're walking on nothing but railroad ties and gravel.

Michael - Ha! Yes! It is TMI for your parents. That's one thing I don't see popping up in fics that much - at some point Clark has to cut the apron strings and be a grown man. He can't talk about every little question or concern with them (I have an nfic that I've been working on for almost four freakin' years that touches on this theme).

Yes, Clark was going to tell her after the movie. He's still hoping for that perfect window of opportunity to tell her. Twitchell is the head of R&D for Alliance Technologies. He's the one holed up in the warehouse that Lois had under surveillance.

Joan - Bobby Bigmouth always makes sense. I think Clark has every right to keep his secret secret (but he also loves Lois enough that he wants to share it with her). The sequence for the drink spillage was: Lois realizes she's been drugged, she pushes the glass away, it tips over and spills all over her and the counter.

Vicki - Gentle prodding is always welcome. I was lol at your all-too-familiar cycle of procrastination. Did I say he was going to lie? I thought I phrased it more along the lines of his declaration to Tempus - that his ethics disappear when Lois is threatened. Looked at in that light, ask yourself how far he'd go to get her back.

STEPH! - Long time, no see! Thank you for picking out my absolute favorite line in the part to highlight. There's no greater declaration of love that Clark can make than to give Lois the secret that could destroy him. Would you trust someone that impulsive, short-tempered and ambitious with the power to ruin you?

TEEEEEEEEEEJ! - OMG! I have missed you! Thank you for the sweet compliments! It's probably just as well that I wasn't a writer back in the day. I was only 23 when the show first aired and the ensuing years have done wonders for my ability to express logical thoughts.

Kathy - Yes! <fist pump> Oh, you got it! Bobby's heart did break a little when Clark made the offer (see my opening rant).

If and when Lois learns that Clark is Superman, she's going to be able to piece together the fact that he knows which side of the bed she sleeps on and all that that entails. You're right, it could be read as creepy. I'll work on it.

Artemis - Yay! You're still with me!

Ann - Wow! Thank you! Thank you for trusting me enough to read the story and then taking the time to reply at such length. It means the world to me that you're in on it now. Thank you for your very kind and insightful look at Clark. You're absolutely right - Clark has zero appeal (to me, anyway) when he's default angelic.

The entire reason that I got sucked into this show when it first aired was because he was a different kind of Clark Kent. He was flawed and he was fascinating. I loved watching him verbally spar with Lois. I loved watching him struggle to find a balance between being like everyone else and using his powers to help people. Deep down he's a good person. He was raised to be kind and loving and honest. Well, mostly honest. There was just one thing that he must never, ever tell anyone because to do so would put his very life in danger.

That's why I'm willing to cut him so much slack when it comes time to tell Lois. He doesn't actually *have* to tell her, does he? Sure, it would be dishonest to keep something like that from her, but people become involved all the time and don't tell their partners about the money they have squirreled away, or that spouse they haven't quite divorced, or that child they had out of wedlock. Clark wants to tell her because she deserves to know. She's earned his trust. She's his best friend and he desperately wants to include her in everything, not just the mundane day-to-day stuff.


My sincerest thanks to everyone who has replied. We're coming down the homestretch now and I'm very appreciative of all the encouragement.

ETA: The idea that Lois is leaving her blinds open on purpose for Superman isn't unfounded. Subconsciously, I think she's "flirting" with him by doing so. After all, in "Barbarians at the Planet" she puts on a silky nightgown (and no robe, although she disingenuously offers to put one on) when she knows that Superman is coming by to visit. Likewise, at the end of "Metallo", she gets out of the bathtub only to find Superman there in her apartment. If she knows that it's likely he could drop in, wouldn't she close that window before taking a bath? Lois knows he's out there and she not only leaves the curtains open, but the window, too, in the hopes of luring him inside.

Hi Sue. Thanks for the feedback on the feedback.
I didn't read it as creepy, but cute. That's because Lois has a yearning for the S-man. So don't weaken it, but maybe express Lois' opinion.
Yes, Framework4 gave us something to think on. If it's a new drug, I'd vote for Star Labs to break the code. If it was standard roofies, any crime lab could handle it. Not all police labs are CSI level.
More soon. Also as to the four year old story, hop to it gal! (after this one, that is.) We're waiting!

Artemis

I got confused by this: The way you phrased it, I wasn't sure if you meant would he lie about who Superman *isn't* (which he kind-of does every day, and got about as close as he could to the line without crossing it in the episode with the laser hologram and then again in Sex, Lies & Videotape) or, would he lie about who Superman *is* (like saying he is Ralph or something )