From: "L-Soft list server at Indiana University (1.8d)" To: "ARTF@MemoryAlpha.nil" File: "LOISCLA-GENERAL-L LOG0004E" ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:14:36 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Alicia Utowski Subject: NEW: Story In Progress: Final Forgiveness II (7/?) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sorry it's been so long between installments. It's the end of the semester,= =20 so I have had a bunch of essays and projects to do for school and now I have= =20 finals to study for. =20 Do you think that Ellen's reaction is realistic? I'm not sure if it is=20 overboard or if it's in character for her. Here's the last few para. of part 6: Lois took a deep breath before she began, hoping for the best. "Okay, Mom,=20 Lucy, there's something Clark and I were planning to tell you tonight, but i= t=20 looks like I am going to have to tell you without him." Ellen looked over towards Lucy to see if she had any idea what was going= =20 on. Lucy didn't appear to know what Lois was going to say, and if she did=20 she was sure hiding it well. Ellen indicated for Lois to continue. However= ,=20 she now wondered if they had another secret other than the fact that Clark=20 was having an affair. Maybe Lois was pregnant and they were staying togethe= r=20 for the sake of the baby despite Clark's affair. Yes, that had to be it,=20 what else could it be? Lois ran her hand through her hair, hoping to stall for time so Clark=20 might have time to return. Ellen stared her patented stare of death at Lois= ,=20 and Lois stood in the center of the room unsure what to do. When it became=20 painfully obvious that Clark would not return, Lois continued. Clark just ra= n=20 out before because=E2=80=A6 Mom, Clark is Superman." =20 Final Forgiveness II: The Party-- Perry's Story (7/?) Ellen's jaw dropped. "Lois, you're kidding, right! You're just in denial=20 because he's having an affair." Lois took a deep breath trying to control her emotions before she spoke.= =20 How dare her mother think that about Clark! She closed her eyes tightly and= =20 counted silently to ten before she spoke. "No, Mother, I'm telling the=20 truth. Clark really is Superman. He'd never cheat on me! How dare you=20 think that!" Ellen shook her head violently. "I refuse to believe that, Lois. If yo= u=20 and Clark are having problems, just come right out and tell me. Lois, I=20 refuse to believe such a contrived story! Dear, your relationship has all=20 the signs of marital infidelity. Believe me, I'm an expert." Lois flopped onto the couch next to Lucy and her head fell into Lucy's=20 lap. The one time she had actually told her mother the truth about her life= ,=20 her mother didn't believe her. It was almost funny. Maybe Lois would look=20 back on this day and laugh, but at this moment she just wanted to break down= =20 and cry. Lucy had not yet commented, so Ellen turned to her. "Lucy, what do you=20 think about this story?" Lucy patted her sister's back and said, "I believe Lois, Mom. Why would= =20 she lie about this?" Suddenly a gust of wind blew through the window, they heard a soft woosh= ,=20 and then Clark emerged from the kitchen. He surveyed the scene, and took a=20 step back when he saw that he was the object of Ellen's death stare. "Hi?"=20 he tried timidly. Immediately Ellen rose from her seat. "Clark Kent, where did you go? =20 Wait; don't tell me. I know you're seeing another woman. You don't have to= =20 pretend any more. Lois told me. Okay, maybe she didn't tell me, but I=20 figured it out. And right in your mother-in-law's house! I'm ashamed to=20 even talk to you. Poor Lois tried to cover for you with the most impossible= =20 story. She must really love you if she makes up stories like that to lie to= =20 her family. Please. Like you're really Superman!" Clark looked at Lois blankly. Ellen had obviously caught him off guard.= =20 Her onslaught of outlandish allegations had startled him and he obviously=20 didn't even know how to respond. Lois whispered in a voice that only Clark=20 could hear, "Honey, I told her the truth, but she didn't believe me." Clark rolled his eyes in despair. Now they had let Ellen in on the=20 secret too. Plus she didn't even believe it! It was so hard for him to tel= l=20 anyone about his secret, let alone two people in one day. He sighed, "Ellen= ,=20 Lois wasn't lying. I am Superman. I had to leave before because there was=20= a=20 bomb on an airplane just above Metropolis." Ellen put her hand on Clark's shoulder. "Clark, I know you probably eve= n=20 believe that, and I see Lucy obviously does too, but I am the only sane one=20 in this room! I know you're not Superman. Now stop all of this lying and=20 tell me the truth!" Lois stood up to support Clark. He wrapped her in his arms and kissed=20 the top of her head. In an exasperated voice, he said, "Ellen, I am=20 Superman. Why else would I have left. I would **never** do **anything to=20 hurt Lois." He pulled her closer. "*Ever*." When Ellen still didn't look=20 like she believed him, he asked, "Do you need me to prove it to you?" Ellen nodded, and Clark levitated a few inches off the floor holding Loi= s=20 all the while. Lucy's mouth hung open for effect. Ellen looked like she wa= s=20 almost ready to believe Clark. Clark floated back down and he decided she=20 needed more proof because she still wore the doubtful look on her face. He=20 aimed his heat vision toward the candelabra that was sitting on the mantle=20 piece, and suddenly it lit. =20 =20 Ellen's breath stuck in her throat. Had Clark really just done those=20 things? Maybe he really was Superman. Besides, why would Lois blatantly li= e=20 to her like that? She hadn't really wanted to believe everything that she=20 had thought about Clark anyway, and believing that he was Superman was a lot= =20 easier than believing he was cheating on her daughter or maybe doing=20 something even worse. However, for a split second, she seriously considered= =20 hitting the liquor again. The thought passed as quickly as it had come,=20 thankfully. She had to keep reminding herself that not all men were like=20 Sam. Clark did seem to love Lois with his whole heart and soul, and appeare= d=20 to want to do everything in his power to make her happy. But Clark was Superman. That was something she'd have to think about fo= r=20 a while. Her daughter was married to an alien, an alien for God's sake. =20 Could they have children together? Maybe she should stop pressuring them fo= r=20 grandchildren. All of a sudden, Ellen spurted out, "But can you have=20 children together? If you're an alien, I mean, Clark." Clark wrapped his arms protectively around Lois' front again. They had=20 been talking about the possibilities of them ever having children since=20 before Sam had died. They still didn't know if it was possible for them to=20 have children, but they had decided to put the discussion on hold for at=20 least a year. Clark bent down and rested his chin on the top of Lois' head. Ellen watched the couple's interplay. She felt sorry for challenging=20 Clark's love for her daughter. Obviously Clark loved Lois more than she=20 could ever imagine someone loving another person. It was obvious in the way= =20 he looked at her, like she was the most precious being in the universe to=20 him.=20 All three had not noticed Lucy slip out of the room and go up to her=20 bedroom. She wanted to give them their privacy, and she felt like she was=20 just a third wheel. If only she could find someone like Clark to spend the=20 rest of her life with. Quietly, she set about the task of moving into her=20 room. Back downstairs, Clark was saying, "Well, Ellen, we're not sure about=20 that. I'm not sure how different we are genetically, and=E2=80=A6" Ellen interrupted, "But you still can=E2=80=A6 you know, right? Both Lois and Clark turned red, and they looked at each other longingly=20 realizing just how compatible they were. Lois nodded, and Clark smiled=20 nervously. Lois choked out, "Well, uh, Mom, he sure has all the right, um,=20 parts." Clark turned even redder as Ellen nodded, patted her arm, and said,=20 "Well, that's good, dear. I didn't want you to be missing out on anything." Clark looked uncomfortable, and Lois feared he would try to run away. =20 However, Ellen changed the topic of conversation away from sex because it wa= s=20 making her just as uncomfortable as it was obviously making her daughter and= =20 son-in-law. It took nearly half an hour before any of them realized Lucy was no=20 longer in the room. Clark was the first to realize that Lucy was no longer=20 there. "Hey, did anyone see where Lucy went?" Lois and Ellen, who had been heatedly discussing some of the excuses Loi= s=20 had used to cover for Clark's absences, obviously had not noticed Lucy was n= o=20 longer in the room. In fact, neither had even heard Clark's inquiry. Clark= =20 waved his hand in front of Lois' eyes as Ellen was saying, "Come on, Lois, h= e=20 had to pick up your chocolates of the world shipment. Please, who would=20 believe that?" Lois noticed Clark's hand waving in front of her face and grabbed it. =20 "Clark, quit it! You're making me dizzy." Clark stopped his hand and covered Lois' mouth with it. "Do you like=20 this better?" Lois tried to bite it, but he moved his hand so she wouldn't crack her=20 teeth. He said, "Lois, Ellen, have you noticed that Lucy isn't here any=20 more? She must have left a while ago, but none of us noticed." Ellen looked down; it was like when Lucy was a child again. Everyone in= =20 the family had the tendency to ignore Lucy and go on with their lives as if=20 she didn't exist. Ellen knew that Lucy had always felt that her family=20 wouldn't even notice if she ran away. Ellen bit her lip and sighed. "I'd=20 better go see what's bothering her." Lois and Clark both nodded in response. "I think she might have just=20 wanted to give us some privacy. Or maybe she was just tired and wanted to=20 get some rest or maybe she wanted to unpack," Lois said. Lucy appeared at the top of the steps dressed in a pair of old flannel=20 pajamas laughing at her family. "I wanted to get some unpacking done, so I=20 slipped upstairs. I didn't want to interrupt you, so I didn't say anything.= " Ellen met Lucy at the steps. "We're sorry we didn't notice that you=20 left, dear. I was just so shocked that Clark is, well, you know, my mind=20 wasn't working right." Ellen was consciously practicing not telling anyone=20 about Clark, since Lois had made her promise never to tell a soul about=20 Clark's identity. Lucy smiled, her eyes moving to each member of her family. "Really, you= =20 don't have to worry about it. I was happy to get some unpacking done. This= =20 is a big deal, so I wanted to let you deal with it without me there to get i= n=20 the way." "Are you sure, Lucy? This is big news for you too," Ellen pleaded. "I=20 want you to be able to talk about it too." Lucy grinned and descended the stairs. Her eyes took on a teasing gleam= =20 as she snuck up behind Clark and slapped him on the rear end. And Clark=20 grabbed her and twirled her around. She giggled hysterically as she choked=20 out, "I think it's cool, Mom. Superman's my brother. How many girls can sa= y=20 that, even if I can't tell anyone?" =20 to be continued... hopefully soon... but I think the next part might have to= =20 wait til after my finals are done (My last one is on May 9th :) ) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 00:55:34 PDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: "StarKitty :)" Subject: Re: NEW STORY: a Night At The Office Part 5 of 5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed hehehe! You guys've roped her into a sequel! Cool! Tara (who also liked the story) >From: Nancy Smith >Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" > >To: LOISCLA-GENERAL-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU >Subject: Re: NEW STORY: a Night At The Office Part 5 of 5 >Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 17:43:56 -0700 > >Hi, Gerry. Remy is a *female* henchman! I said so in the story! Glad >you liked it. Now I just have to figure out how I want to do the sequel. > >Nan > ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 05:32:25 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: "Alexis W." Subject: "ADITLOM" (RPG) Twenty-Sixth Installment, Week #27 (Part 1 of 2) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable This is the twenty-sixth installment of my rpg on yahoo called, "A Day in th= e=20 Life of Metropolis." For more information, please go to: Yahoo! Clubs= =20 adayinthelifeofmetropolis=20 Public and private feedback is more than welcomed! =3D) =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Cast List Clark Kent : Alexis W. (that's me!) Cat Grant: Renda Dan Scardino: Renda Mayson Drake: Renda Perry White: Renda Anya Starr: Tabitha Bruce Wayne: Sam F. Sam Falcon: Sam=20 Jimmy Olsen: Tina T. Ellen Lane: Tina T. Dr. Sam Lane: Rachel Lucy Lane: Liz * * * * WEEK #27 (4/17 to 4/23) Re: Back at Ellen=92s Place Ellen woke up and instantly knew it wasn't better. She was still angry.=20 She decided to call Sam's voice mail and leave a message: "Sam, I can't believe you did that. I was trying to be nice, after you=20 ruined my evening. First you were late picking me up, then you=20 almost got me killed by not keeping your eyes on the road, and finally you got me soaked to the bone because you were an idiot and left the=20 top down. You obviously didn't listen to the weather report that said it=20 was going to rain. Finally when I let you in my home, and dry your clothes=20 you=20 insult me. WELL I HOPE YOU ARE HAPPY NOW! YOU WERE THE ONE THAT ASKED ME OUT! ok I am going to calm down here, I want to ask one=20 question: Why did you ask me out on a date, if you really didn't miss me?" Ellen hung up the phone, she didn't really expect an answer to her=20 message but she hope he would. At least it made her feel better to vent=20 her anger. She went into the living room and found out that it was still=20 a mess from last night and she set out to clean it to keep her mind off=20 things. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Sam winced as he listened to Ellen's message. She could even affect him=20 through a recorded message. Since he was now alone and otherwise unoccupied for the night, he=20 decided to call Lois just so he could talk to someone. Then he=20 remembered that she was at that big party tonight. Oh, well. He hoped=20 she was having fun. He sat down on the couch and turned on the TV. There was nothing=20 interesting on, so he turned to an infomercial and turned the volume=20 down to barely audible. Finally, after an hour of regretting everything=20 he had said earlier in the evening, he drifted off to sleep.=20 >tbc< * * * * Celtic Queen! Perry White finished the business for the Planet and hung up the phone.=20 He heard a knock on his door and went over to answer it. "Diego! You=20 still up?" Diego smiled and nodded, "Coffee keeps me awake. I needed to=20 talk with you Perry." "Sure, Diego come right on in! You know Elvis had=20 problems sleeping." Diego smiled and replied, "Yes, but I do not think=20 that I should use his methods of sleeping and waking." Perry looked at=20 him for a moment then replied. "You know a lot of the things told on the=20 King were false." Diego nodded, "Si, but he admitted that he needed=20 sleeping pills to sleep." Perry had to admit that Diego spoke truth. They sat down at the kitchen table and Diego asked, "Perry, have you=20 heard from Star Labs or any of your contacts regarding those games that=20 killed one of the pilots and gravely injured the other?" Perry smiled.=20 "I am glad you ask, Diego. I just got off the phone with my friend. And=20 they tell me that those games were meant to stop someone who was on that=20 Jet with us. Lucky for us that Catherine Grant is a pilot." Diego nodded=20 and mumbled in Spanish. He came back to reality feeling Perry's hand=20 patting his shoulder and saying,.."Hey! Diego, no offense buy my=20 Espanola is not good!" Diego smiled and apologized. "I am sorry, Perry,=20 I think in Spanish!" Perry said, "That's okay, but if we are going to=20 work together I need to comprehend what you are saying." "Diego! Do you think we should call Clark and Lois and get them to help=20 us with this?" "No! Perry, I don't think we need to involve anyone else=20 in this. It is dangerous enough that Mayson and Catherine and Ramone=20 involved in this. You know that Catherine is gong to pilot that Jet back=20 to Metropolis?" Perry turned and shouted, =93Great shades of Elvis! Why?"=20 Diego answered him, "Because she believes that if she takes the jet back=20 to Metropolis and they make another move on that jet. we may get the=20 answers we are looking for." Perry stood up and said, "No, I won't allow=20 her to take a chance like that." "Perry, it is all right! The jet is=20 being checked out from top to bottom and Catherine is an excellent=20 Pilot. I believe in her." Perry looked at Diego. "Man, Catherine is a=20 gutsey lady, I thought she was gutsey by the outrageous fashions she=20 wore to work. But this takes the cake and the milk as well!" Diego=20 laughed and replied, "I think that Catherine has many surprises up her=20 sleeves!" Perry laughed and asked, "Did Cat ever tell you about the time=20 that several of us were kidnapped in the Daily Planet? " Diego said, "No!" "Well, anyway. There we were sitting handcuffed in the conference=20 room and the robbers were in my office tearing up the floor. In walks=20 Cat! We tried to get her to come over to where we were. She just smiled=20 and waved and showed us several sexy teddies, and left. Well we all=20 thought of course that she was crazy! Well, later I learned from a good=20 source that Cat was one of the people who called the police." Diego=20 smiled. "Oh yes, I think the guy was George or Harold or something."=20 Perry laughed. "You see right through Cat's guise don't you Diego?"=20 Diego sipped strong coffee and nodded. >tbc<=20 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Re: The Limo! And the Jet! Cat got out of the limo and instructed the driver to stay at the hotel.=20 "I have a room reserved for you! I need you to stay here so that I can=20 call you to drive me places." The driver nodded and told her he would=20 check in the hotel. Cat made her way to the elevators and up to her=20 suite. Mayson was sleeping, so she went to her room and ditched the=20 clothes she had on and slipped into a warm bath. She sipped juice and=20 just let the warm water work its magic on her weary body. Cat stepped out of the bath and towelled off. She slipped back the=20 covers on her bed and slid into the satin sheets. "Ohhh! This beats=20 that chaise lounge at Wayne Manor anyday!" Cat said to herself as she=20 pulled a pillow up into a more comfortable position under her head. She=20 fell asleep, dreaming of Diego riding his black stallion across the=20 desert. The phone rang and she jumped up and sighed. "I was dreaming!"=20 Cat picked up the phone to hear Diego's voice. "Hi Diego, checking up on=20 me?" "Princess! Perry and I have been discussing the events that have=20 happened to everyone. I told him that you are planning on flying the Jet=20 back to Metropolis yourself." Cat rubbed her eyes and said, "Yes, I=20 think that I should take the Jet back myself. It is afterall my Father's=20 Jet!" Diego laughed and asked, "Could we come to your suite and talk?" Cat=20 looked down at her unclothed body and replied, "Could you give me=20 fifteen minutes?" Diego lauged. "Sure Princess! Are the satin sheets=20 comfortable?" "Diego, they are very comfortable, but they would be more=20 so with you here!" Diego laughed. "Oh! I think I should take a rain=20 check on that invitation!" Cat chuckled. "Well, I think so too. See you=20 in fifteen minutes." >tbc<=20 =3D=3D=3D=3D Celtic Queen, Cat, Diego, Perry Catherine finished dressing and was slipping on some pumps when she=20 heard the knock on the door. She rushed to it so Mayson would not be=20 disturbed. Diego was standing there in a gray, long sleeved shirt and=20 Ralph Lauren jeans. He smelled of expensive aftershave and cheroots.=20 Catherine smiled and asked, "Did you get any sleep?" Diego smiled and=20 laughed. "Perry and I are running on strong coffee and about one hours=20 sleep!" Catherine looked past Diego to see Perry standing in the=20 hallway. "Well you both come on in, but Mayson is still sleeping so we=20 need to keep our voices down." Catherine lead them to the kitchen table=20 and poured fresh orange juice for them and some coffee. "Have you too=20 had breakfast yet?" They both shook their heads no. So Catherine ordered=20 room service breakfast for them all. "I ordered almost everything on the=20 breakfast list! Mayson will probably be awake soon and Ramone. So I=20 decided to be prepared!" Diego smiled and tugged at her dress. "You are=20 always prepared!" Catherine laughed and mock slapped his handsome=20 Spanish face. Catherine looked at Perry and Diego and said, "You know there is a good=20 possibility that the people who kidnapped Jimmy, are not the ones we are=20 after for the accident on the Jet and the attack on Lois and me." Perry=20 shook his head in agreement. "I agree! I think we should look at all the=20 angles that we can to find out who wanted that Jet that we all were on=20 to go down and why." Cat looked at them and stated, "Well, you know that=20 in the airport computers it still stated that my Father's itinerary for=20 the Grant Industries Jet 1863! It wasn't until I took the change of=20 flight plans to the airport and gave them to the Pilots that it was=20 changed." Perry looked at Cat and asked, "Where was your Father going?"=20 Cat looked at him and answered, "Dad was supposed to attend a business=20 summit dealing with trade to some third world countries. There could be=20 people in the business world that didn't want Daddy to complete that=20 journey. Since he feels that we need to open trade with certain=20 countries." Diego nodded and told them, "That is one of the things that=20 Ramone and myself have been checking out. But the paper trail always=20 gets confused and disconnected everytime we think we are making=20 headway." Catherine looked out of the window into the misty morning=20 dawing over Gotham City. "Perry, now you see why I think that it is best=20 that we keep this between ourselves? I mean the more people who suspect,=20 well the more people in danger." Perry smiled and replied. "Yes, I=20 really understand. You know Elvis did work for the FBI!" Cat nodded.=20 "Yes, but Perry we don't have Elvis here to help us!" Diego cracked up=20 with laughter at that one. "Catherine! I don't think even the King could=20 figure this one out just yet!" Cat smiled. "You are probably right!" >tbc<=20 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Mayson awakens! Mayson slept peacefully between the satin sheets. Dreaming of Ramone and=20 how brave he had been in the face of adversity and all the crisis of=20 last night. Dreaming she started smelling wonderful smells of coffee,=20 juice and ohh! "Pancakes!" She whispered in her sleep state. Suddenly=20 she awoke, sitting up and sleepily rubbing her eyes. "Oh Cat must have=20 ordered breakfast. She arose and showered. Changed into a lovely green=20 pantsuit and put on light makeup.=20 Mayson opened the door of her bedroom to hear the laughter of Perry,=20 Diego and Catherine. "Hey are you guys having fun without me?" she asked, as she walked into the kitchen of the suite. Catherine turned and=20 replied, "Well you know us Mayson, we can find something to amuse=20 ourselves even in the midst of all this debacule and mystery!" Mayson=20 laughed and nodded. "Is Ramone joining us?" Diego smiled and answered,=20 "Probably soon! I decided to let him get some rest and rise when he woke=20 up on his own." Mayson poured a cup of coffee and replied, "Well, I did=20 manage to get some sleep!" Catherine looked at her and replied, "I'm=20 glad someone did!" >tbc< =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Ramone knocks on Cat=92s suite door Ramone showered and shaved. He finished dressing and made his way to Cat=20 and Mayson's suite. He knocked on the door. Cat went to open it. "Hi=20 Ramone! Did you sleep well?" Ramone smiled and replied, "Yes. I managed=20 to get some sleep." She walked with him into the kitchen area and poured=20 him a cup of coffee. Ramone greeted Mayson, Diego and Perry. "It has=20 been a wild weekend." They all agreed.=20 Cat sat out another place setting for Ramone and told him to help=20 himself to the buffet. They ate, talked and chatted about all the=20 adventures they had been on. Cat wondered. *What will happen next?* Catherine looked out into the still dark early morning. "I wonder if we=20 will ever know who sent those games to the pilots and who started that=20 man-made quake at the Observatory?" Diego got up from his seat and=20 walked over to her. "Princess, I have hope that we shall find out the=20 who and the why for all of the strange and dangerous happenings of this=20 weekend. I for one am glad that I wasn't on the Jet!" Cat turned to look=20 at him. "Why?" Diego smiled and replied, "Because the thought of you and=20 Clark Kent flying the thing...Well." Diego chuckled and couldn't finish=20 the sentance. Cat Grant pounced on him and tickled his ribs. "Okay!=20 Speak or I'll tickle you until you tell me everything." Diego fell to=20 the floor and curled up into a ball trying to get away from Catherine's=20 long fingers, pleasantly tormenting him by tickling his ribs. "Okay=20 Princess! I will talk!" Diego rasped through his laughter. Cat sat up=20 and looked down at him. "Speak Spanird!" They both broke up into=20 laughter and rolled on the persian carpet with tears rolling down their=20 faces. Perry looked over at them and said. "Reminds me of Elvis and Priscilla!"=20 Mayson looked at Ramone and replied, "Well, Catherine and Diego are=20 Priscilla and Elvis so I guess that makes us!!!" Mayson looked at Ramone=20 for help. Ramone looked up and asked, "Lucy and Ricky?" Perry picked up the phone and said, "You young people have fun, I have=20 business to attend to!" >tbc< =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Cat and Diego! Oh la la...sizzle... Catherine and Diego fell onto the persian carpet laughing. Diego's=20 pupils dialeted from the tickling and from the closeness of Catherine. He=20 leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. Smiling, he reached for her=20 slender shoulders and pulled her lips back against his. She moaned=20 slightly as he teased her lips with light butterfly kisses and then proceede= d=20 along her lovely neck and the little pool below her larygnx. He looked=20 into her rich eyes and kissed her warmly and fully on her tempting=20 mouth. Diego and Catherine were lost in each other, unaware of the trio=20 observing them from the kitchen table. Ramone looks over at Mayson and=20 said, "Well when they say they heat up the kitchen...They really heat up=20 the kitchen!" Mayson blushed at him and said, "Wow! It must be a=20 wonderful feeling to be so close." Ramone smiled reached over and kissed=20 Mayson romantically on the lips. "Great General Custer's ghost! It is=20 getting deep in here!" Perry White stated and retreated to the living=20 room to finish his phone call. Ramone kissed Mayson again. "Amore! Si!!!=20 Amore!!!!" >tbc< * * * * Re: Sharing the Bedroom =93Are you finished in the bathroom, me lady?=94 =93What?=94 Lois asked as she opened the door. =93I asked your Highness if she was finished in the bathroom?=94 Clark said as he bowed. =93You Know, you stand on some really thin ice=20 here, Farmboy!=94 =93Sorry,=94 he winked. =93Go ahead. I=92m done...If it means getting you out of my hair, then by all means, go!=94 =93Thank you,=94 Clark grinned. =93You=92re amazing, you know that!=94 =93How?=94 Clark=92s face brightened. =93Well, I dunno. It=92s just you can go through a devasting thing like an earthquake and not have a scratch on you! How in the heck do you do that?=94 =93It=92s magic!=94 he added as he closed the bathroom door behind him. >tbc< =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Re: Sharing the Bedroom Clark walked out of the bathroom, wearing a=20 black t-shirt and plaid boxer shorts. He found=20 Lois curled up in bed, reading *the* book. =93Reading that Venus and Mars book again, huh?=94 =93Ah, no...no...=94 Lois said as she threw the book behind her. Clark laughed. =93Nice outfit.=94 =93What? You don=92t like boxer shorts?!?=94 =93No Clark. I was giving you a compliment.=94 =93Oh.=94 >tbc< =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Re: Sharing the Bedroom =93Well goodnight.=94 =93Excuse me, but what the hell do you think you=92re doing?=94 =93It=92s getting late and I=92m tired so I=92m going to bed.=94 =93Oh no you=92re not!=94 =93What?=94 =93You=92re not sleeping in this bed!=94 =93It=92s a big bed, there=92s room enough for=20 two!=94 =93It=92s not big enough for me...so I suggest you find somewhere else to sleep!=94 =93Lois...=94 Clark said as he sat next to her on the bed, =93what are you so afraid of? Are you afraid that=20 something like this,=94 he leaned over to kiss her,=20 =93will lead to something else? Because I don=92t. I=92m not afraid of what might result at all.=94 =93Clark...=94 =93No...=94 Clark ran his hand down Lois=92 cheek as their lips grew closer. Clark could hear Lois moan as he kissed her hard. He pushed her onto the bed so he could lie on top of her. Clark could feel Lois=92 hands go up his shirt as she caressed his chest. Clark moved his hands to the straps of her nightgown and=20 started sliding them off her shoulders. =93No,=94 Lois said as she moved his hands away. =93I can=92t do this...I just can=92t do this...=94 she stated as she got up from under Clark and walked to the middle of the room. =93I=92m sorry=20 Clark but I just don=92t feel the same way as you. I mean I only have eyes for...=94 =93Superman...Bruce Wayne...the guy next door?=94 =93No...I...oh I don=92t know! What I do know is that I can=92t do this.=94 =93Fine. But either share this bed or *you* can find some place else to sleep.=94 =93Fine,=94 Lois said as she grabbed her part of the sheets. =93Fine,=94 Clark said as he grabbed his part of the sheets. =93Could you please turn out the lights?=94 =93Sure,=94 Clark said as the room went black. >tbc< =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Under the covers *I can=92t believe I=92m sharing a bed with Mr. Green Jeans! I mean arrgh!* =93Sorry,=94 Lois said as she accidentally kicked Clark in the shin. =93That=92s okay.=94 *I bet he thinks I did that on purpose.* * I bet she did that on purpose.* *Then again, knowing him, he probably loved it. To think of the way he was all over me on the bed...* *She probably thinks I enjoyed it...especially since I was all over her on the bed...Dang it! I did enjoy it...why do I let someone like her, get to me so much?!?* *Why do I let him get to me so much?!? Why did I let him kiss me like that, touch me like that? Why did I touch him like that? Oh God, what if I actually liked it?!? What if I actually wanted him to touch me like that?!? OY!* *If Lois wasn=92t so violitile right now, I=92d be kissing her. Actually that nightgown would be a thing of the past...Wait a minute Clark, what on=20 earth are you doing? It=92s my stupid hormones...my stupid, stupid, hormones! If only she knew who she was really with...I wonder how far I would...Arrgh,=20 there you go again, Clark! Bruce definately doesn=92t have to worry about me and Sam! I=92m having my=20 problems worth just knowing Lois and I are in the same bed!* *I wonder what he would do if I leaned over and kissed him without warning?* =93Good Lord!=94 Lois said out loud. =93What is it?=94 =93Nothing Farmboy. Just go back to sleep.=94 =93Fine,=94 Clark said as he pulled on the sheets. =93Hey!=94 Lois exclaimed as she pulled them=20 back.=20 >tbc< =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Re: Under the covers =93Lois, this is what you want, right? I mean I don=92t want to do something you=92re not=20 comfortable with...=94 =93Clark, I=92m not sure...I really don=92t know what I want.=94 =93Lois, you say you love me, right?=94 She nodded her head. =93Well that=92s all we need...if you=92re not ready=20 yet, then I=92ll understand.=94 =93That=92s the problem Clark. I don=92t know...I don=92t know if I=92m ready...=94 =93Well there=92s no rush,=94 Clark smiled at Lois as he ran his hand down her cheek. Lois took a moment to look into his deep chocolate brown eyes. She was drowning in them. Drowning in her desire. =93Clark...=94 she whispered as she leaned over to kiss his warm skin. Lois didn=92t need to say words. She already knew what she wanted and Clark knew it too. She let out a small gasp of excitement as she felt Clark lay her body down upon the bed. He=20 positioned himself so he could kiss her mouth with all of the fire and passion that Lois had been longing for. He stopped only for a second so Lois could remove the black t-shirt that was covering his well defined body. Lois moaned as her lips touched the soft and hardened=20 surface of his abs. She felt the straps of her nightgown=20 slide as a sudden warmth covered her bare skin. =20 Clark wrapped himself around her waist as he massaged her thighs. =93Oh Clark...=94 she moaned. =93Mmm...=94 She felt like she was falling into eternity=20 with every stroke of Clark=92s hands. =93Clark...Oh God...Clark...CLARK!=94 she screamed. =93Oh my God!=94 Lois said as she tried to catch her=20 breath. It had all been a dream. Lois ran her fingers through her hair as soon as=20 she realized that she had a sexual dream about her reporting partner. She was dreaming about Kent and making love to him. *Oh God...I think I need a drink! No...no...drinking is not the answer. Try to calm down. Calm down Lois...Breathe in and breathe out...* Lois looked over at Clark who was out like a light. He had his face buried in his pillow. She was relieved that he was not awake to see her falling apart. >tbc< =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Re: Under the covers Lois mumbled something in her sleep. =20 She was dreaming about Superman. She was dreaming about lying in his arms. She let out a huge sigh as her body flipped=20 over on its side. Lois couldn=92t believe her imagination. Her dream was so vivid that=20 her soft pillow had turned into the surface=20 of Superman=92s chest...*Superman=92s chest=20 minus the spandex...* she giggled to herself. Lois could even feel his strong arms wrap around the upper part of her body as she=20 snuggled her face deeper into his skin. >tbc< * * * * Re: Jimmy improves on the Sofa Later, she was lying on him; they had their arms wrapped around each other.=20= =20 She kept her eyes closed and pretended to be asleep. She laid there,=20 enjoying the sound of his breathing and the rise and fall of his chest. *God, this feels good. If my family knew where I was right now, they=20 wouldn=92t approve. Thank god they=92re in Seattle . . .thank god I don=92t= talk=20 to them, don=92t have to answer to them. I hope everyone=92s okay, well alm= ost=20 everyone. I suppose I better call one of the boys and find out. If mom=92s= =20 gotten sick, there=92s no way he=92d . . .but they would have tried to reach= me. =20 I=92m not going to worry about that right now, I just want to . . ..* Her hand involuntarily started rubbing his chest. =93Hmmm,=94 he moaned. She quietly moaned back. She slowly looked up and something from the=20 conversation in the elevator flashed through her mind. =93Bruce?=92 she qui= etly=20 said. =93What?=94 =93There=92s something I want to tell you, before someone else does.=94 =93What?=94 he asked worriedly. =93It was a long time ago, when I was 13. I had to walk through this old=20 elementary school in the neighborhood to get to the bus stop. It was a=20 Friday and I walked around this blind corner. There was this guy there.=94 =93I don=92t like where this is going.=94 She laid her head on his chest. =93It=92s not a fun place to go. I don=92t= =20 normally talk about it, but in the elevator, I got mad and somehow it came=20 out.=94 =93What exactly was said in the elevator?=94 =93I don=92t remember exactly, we were both mad.=94 =93Go on,=94 he encouraged, knowing how painful some memories can be. =93He asked me my name and I was smart enough to know not to answer, so I=20 side-stepped and tried to get around him. He followed me and asked again.=20= =20 I tried to go around. He followed and grabbed me that time . . ..=94 =93If you need to . . ..=94 =93No, I want to do this. He turned me around and walked me back into the=20 covered basketball court I=92d walked through on my way to the blind corner.= =20 We got partway in and he stopped. He kept telling me not to yell and that=20 he=92d hurt me. I probably should have run, but I was too scared.=94 Bruce started to lightly rub her arm. =93He pulled out a nylon bootie and put it over his face, then pulled the ho= od=20 on his sweatshirt up.=94 =93After you=92d already seen his face?=94 =93Hm, hm. Then he grabbed me again. He got me . . ..=94 =93Sam, what?=94 =93He . . .=94 she stopped. =93He got me on my hands and knees . . .then,= =94 she=20 swallowed, =93 got on top of me,=94 she whispered. =93What?!=94 =93As far as I remember, he didn=92t do anything beyond that.=94 =20 Bruce tightened his embrace. =20 =93After a few minutes, he got me up and we started walking again. We were=20 heading to one of the playing fields. When we got about halfway there, I=20 looked over at the gate to the schoolgrounds. Two people were walking=20 through. I pointed it out to him and he let go and ran away. I can=92t=20 remember ever being that scared . . .I was scared in the elevator, but that=20 was different. I think it got worse after I started thinking about it later= .=20 I couldn=92t do anything. I should have yelled or run away . . ..=94 =93None of that does any good, I know, I did that for a long time, still do=20 sometimes.=94 =93I look back and wonder what in the hell was wrong with me. The other gir= l=20 he went after got away, why couldn=92t I,=94 she said, her eyes all welled u= p. =93He went after someone else?=94 =93That=92s what the police said after I finally reported it.=94 =93How long did you wait?=94 =93Until Sunday.=94 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 05:35:42 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: "Alexis W." Subject: "ADITLOM" (RPG), Twenty-Sixth Installment, Week #27 (Part 2 of 2) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable =93Why?=94 =93My mom was out of town . . .it=92s a long story. I don=92t understand wh= y I=20 couldn=92t have at least tried, there must have been something wrong with me= .=94 He ran his hand through her hair. =93There was nothing wrong with you. You= =20 were scared, he could have hurt you, and no one can blame you for that. I=20 wish I=92d been there.=94 =93You didn=92t even know me.=94 =93I know, but I wish I could have helped you. Did they ever catch him?=94 =93No . . .and it=92s too late for that now. He could already be in jail fo= r all=20 I know.=94 =93If he tried for two girls in one morning, I suspect he is.=94 He closed=20= his=20 eyes and leaned his head on hers. =93I=92m so sorry, Sam.=94 =93You don=92t have anything to be sorry for.=94 =93The fact that you had to go through that . . ..=94 She looked at him. =93It=92s something I=92ll never forget and in some ways= that=92s=20 a good thing. It=92s made me the person I am.=94 =93And you=92re amazing.=94 She smiled. He pulled her up and they started kissing. They rolled over an= d=20 continued kissing. His kisses were tender and deep. >tbc< * * * * Re: Cat and Diego! Diego reached out and tugged on Catherine's hair. "You know we have to=20 control ourselves. We have alot of work to do and not enough time to do=20 it in." Catherine sat up and nodded. "I know what you mean. But you know=20 sometimes a little horsing around can relieve some of the tensions that=20 we have all been under." >tbc< * * * * Morning Breaks Lois stretched as the sunlight danced upon her face. The morning rays=20 warmed her body as Gotham was waking up to another day. "Mmm..." she moaned as her fingers rubbed a smooth and very muscular=20 surface. She laid her lips upon this surface and started making a trail of=20 kisses. Lois giggled to herself as the sensation got greater and=20 greater. Clark groaned loudly as he felt a pair of female lips sliding up his=20 stomach and towards his pecs. His fingers blindly felt around his=20 surroundings. They rested on some very soft skin. He ran his index=20 finger down the object's spine. It felt a lot like Lois... "Oooh Superman!" she groaned. "Huh?" Clark remarked as he shot out of bed. "Oh s _ _ _!" he exclaimed=20 as he quickly grabbed his glasses off the nightstand and put them on. "What the heck?" Lois said as her head hit the mattress. She opened her=20 eyes to see Clark sitting next to her! "AHHHH!!!!" she screamed. "Shhh!!!" Clark pleaded as he took his rather large hand and covered her=20 mouth with it. "Do you want to wake up the others?" "Mmmpmf...umph...mmmmf..." "I'll only take my hand away if you promise to be quiet." "Mmmpf..." Clark removed his hand from Lois' mouth as her face turned a nice shade=20 of crimson. "Oh my God, Clark!!! I can't believe you...and I...you...I...you..." "Lois, you need to calm down, take a few deep breaths..." "Breaths...yes...breathing is good..." Lois slowed down as her face=20 turned back to it's normal color. "No Clark, I can't...I can't do that!=20 I was in bed with you and I was kissing you?!? And why the hell did you=20 have your shirt off? Did you...did we do something I don't remember?!?" "No...no...no...I just got hot, that's all." "Oh! You got hot. Oh okay, that's all..." Lois laughed sarcastically.=20 "Then explain this to me, why on earth did you find it neccessary to=20 sleep next to me while you were almost naked, when all you needed to do=20 was take off a couple of the bed sheets?!?" "Lois..." "No Clark. I don't want to know. I mean my first night here had started=20 off bad, so why should I be surprised about this!" "Wow Lois...I never thought you'd react this way." "Act what way?" "You're completely uncomfortable with the fact that I'm sitting here=20 dressed in only boxer shorts! I mean you even called me Superman!" Clark=20 chuckled. "Oh don't flatter yourself Kent! I was dreaming...I mean I'd probably=20 call the bed post Superman if I had been near it!" "Whatever you say Lois..." Clark grinned. "Stop looking at me like that!" Lois uncomfortably said as she tried to=20 push the sheets off her body. Clark continued to grin as Lois went on with her small trantrum.=20 "I said, stop it!" Lois yelled as she threw a pillow at him. "Ha, ha," Clark laughed as he threw it behind him. "You think you're so full of it, don't you?" "What?" "You think I find you so irrestible that I want to do this!" Lois added=20 as she wrapped her arms around Clark's waist and gave him a kiss. Clark looked at Lois with wide eyes. "You think I want you so bad...right?" "Uh..." "Right? she said as she got into his face. "Umm..." "You think I can't control..." Lois' voice trailed off as their lips=20 met. Clark engulfed Lois' mouth with his. She felt herself falling to the=20 mattress as he brought their bodies closer. "Oh Clark..." she moaned as he explored the contours of her back. The pair continued like this, until Lois slowly pulled away. "I'm hungry...I think I'll go see if breakfast's being served." She tried to walk towards the door but she ended up tripping over the=20 rumpled bed sheets instead. "Yeah, me too..." Clark sighed as he stared up at the ceiling. >tbc< =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Re: Morning Breaks Anya yawned and stretched like a cat in the warm sunshine of morning.=20 She quickly looked in a mirror. 'Augh I look like I've just been to hell=20 and back' she thought as her stomach rumbled. 'I wonder where Dick had=20 to sleep last night?' she mumbled to herself. She spied a robe in some=20 rumpled up clothes at the end of the bed. "Looks like he's not the best=20 at cleaning his room," she mused and slipped off her dress and into one=20 of his tee shirts and a robe. 'I hope he doesn't mind,' she thought and=20 smiled as she noticed her 'new clothing' had the same smell has his=20 cologne. She crept out of the room quietly taking her torn dress=20 and camera in her hand. "Good grief how to you get around in this maze,"=20 she said out loud to the walls. She opened a door to see Lois sprawled=20 out on the floor and Clark in the bed. "Wrong room, sorry. Hey what=20 happened with you two?" asked Anya with a smile forgetting about=20 breakfast. She was just so shocked to see them in the same room with=20 each other both alive....=20 >tbc< =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Re: Jimmy improves on Sofa! Lois' yell started to wake Sam up. She reached over and quickly woke up=20 when all she felt was sheets. "Bruce?" Then she heard someone moving around in the bathroom. She grabbed one of the sheets and climbed out of bed, wrapping it around=20 her. She walked over and grabbed his robe, then put it on and dropped the=20 sheet. She walked to the bathroom and opened the door. "Why didn't you wake me=20 up?" "I wanted to let you sleep." She stood behind him and put her hands on his waist. "Did I hear=20 someone scream?" "I didn't hear it." "Maybe it was in my dream then." He turns around and put his hands on her waist. "What dream?" "I don't remember, I just thought I heard someone scream. Often times=20 it's because I've dreamt about it. I'm sure it was nothing, I have=20 really weird dreams." "Are you sure you're all right?" "Hm, hm . . .Bruce, what's wrong?" "What do you mean?" "Something's wrong and I want to know what it is?" "I'm fine." "Whatever . . .is it what I told you last night?" "No!" >tbc< =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Re: Morning Breaks Jimmy woke up on the couch. He had no idea where he was. "Ow My head feels like its been hammered," he said to no one in=20 particular. He looked around. "Where am I and how did I get here?" He tried to think=20 but his head hurt too much so he just laid back down. He was hoping=20 someone he knew would come in and tell him what was going on.=20 >tbc< =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Re: Morning Breaks Lois looked up at Anya staring at the two of them. Clark quickly took=20 the bed quilt and covered his head in embarrassment.=20 "Uh hi..." Lois said as she quickly grabbed the morning paper and=20 pasteries waiting for them outside the door. "Uh bye..." she said as she=20 quickly shut the door from the confines of the floor. >tbc<=20 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Re: Jimmy improves on Sofa! "That's it isn't it?" "I said it isn't, it doesn't bother . . .I mean it does bother me . . .a=20 lot. It shouldn't have happened." "Yeah, I really wish it hadn't have happened too, but it did. It changed=20 me, in good and bad ways. If I could . . ." she covered her face with her=20 hands. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. "It bothers me, Sam,=20 it bothers me a lot. The thought that you had to go through that . . .I=20 don't like it." He pulled her hand off her face. She was on the brink of=20 tears. He gently wiped it away. "Tell me what I can do to help?" She shook her head. "You can't do anything. It's hard to talk about,=20 but I had to tell you." He pulled her to him and they started kissing. She wrapped her arms around=20 him. "Are you all right?" "Hm, hm." "I better get downstairs and see exactly who's actually staying here." "I'll be down in a little bit." He ran his hand through her hair. "Nice robe." "I thought, it's a little big though. Smells really good." They kiss again. He put his hand on her cheek. "I am going to leave=20 now." She smiled. "I've heard that before and I don't see you leaving." "I want to make sure you're all right." "It was a long time ago, it'll always be hard to talk about, but I=20 really am all right. I know I'm not ever going to let it happen again." He leaned forward and kissed her. Slowly he left the room. She started=20 getting ready. >tbc< * * * * Mayson and Ramone Mayson smiled at Diego and Cat's exchange. *Wow! I am so happy that Cat=20 has a man like Diego!* Turning she noticed that Ramone is watching her=20 intensely. Mayson blushed as he took her hand and kissed each finger. >tbc<=20 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Perry White Perry poured himself another cup of coffee and he reached for a buttered=20 croscent. He muttered things to himself as he walked back towards the=20 window. "Hey you all! Great Ceaser's ghost! We need to call STAR Labs=20 and get the latest they have on those deadly computer games." Diego=20 stood up and replied, "I have already had that information faxed to us.=20 Unfortunately all we know is that they were manufactured at a Lex Corp=20 owned company. We can't link Luthor to it yet." Perry shook his head.=20 "You know that man is slipperery as a snake." >tbc< * * * * Re: Morning Breaks He tried to sit up again but his head hurt too much.=20 "Hello is anyone there?" he tried to shout but it came out softer. Fortunately Alfred was in the next room and heard him. He came in. "Oh good you are up and about, you know you gave us quite a scare last=20 night." "Who are you? What happened to me? Where's Lois and Clark" Jimmy had all=20 these questions. He was so confused "I am Alfred and I will go and find Lois and Clark and they can explain=20 better what has happened to you," Alfred said as he left the room. Jimmy thought to himself as he laid back down, "Who is Alfred?" but he=20 didn't say anything=20 >tbc< =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Re: Morning Breaks (Lucy wakes up) "Mmmmmm" Lucy moaned to herself as she slowly opened her eyes to the=20 morning sunlight comming through the window. She stretched out under the=20 covers, and touched her toes to the foot of the bed. She yawned and=20 suddenly felt a slight pain in her chest... "Oh God.. what happened to me last night?? She asked herself as she sat=20 up putting her hand to her chest and feeling the Aid wrapped around her.=20 "And where is everone!?!" Lucy put her head back to the pillow. "Well,=20 if Lois really cares about me, she will check up on me soon....and that=20 goes for Jimmy too!" Lucy closed her eyes once again, and put a grin on=20 her face as she thought about Jimmy.... Jimmy decided to go in search of Lucy. He kept going from room to room =20 until he finally reaches her room. He walked in and saw her in bed=20 and smiled. She was ok. He went over to her. "Lucy, are you all right? I missed you. I just woke up myself. I have no=20 clue what happened to me or you. I woke up with a huge headache though.=20 What about you?"=20 >tbc< * * * * Perry White Diego looked at Perry and smiled. "I have another colorful metaphor to=20 describe Luthor. But with Ladies present, I shall keep it to myself."=20 Perry turned and laughed. "I knew I liked you Diego my man. Now I am=20 even more sure that I like you!" Diego smiled and answered Perry. "Si,=20 Gracias Senior Perry. I too find more reasons to like you more." Perry=20 patted Diego on the shoulder and asked, "Would you like one of these hand=20 rolled cigars?" Diego smiled and asked, "Are they Havana handrolled?"=20 Perry smiled and said, "Yes, they were brought back by a Navy buddy of=20 mine." Diego smiled and accepted the handrolled cheroot. >tbc< * * * * Re: Jimmy improves on the Sofa! She got out of the shower and put the robe back on. She walked into the=20 bedroom and Bruce was still there. "I thought you were going downstairs." "I got distracted." "Oh." He walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her. "So what are you=20 going to do today?" "Probably write. I'll spent part of my time avoiding Lois and Clark." "Why?" "I don't know exactly what's going on, but I'm getting sick of watching=20 it." "You didn't seem to mind being around him when he had his arms of steel=20 wrapped around you." "What did you say?" "I didn't mean it. We were going to drop that, I just . . .Clark isn't=20 as bad as you're making him sound." "I know that. He was fine when Lois wasn't around. Maybe we just need to=20 get all our wires uncrossed, there seems to be some mixed signals." He pulled her closer and they started kissing. "No problem there," she said with smile. "You probably better go, I=20 don't want you to, but you've got to go play host." "I hate doing that." "I know the feeling." She leaned forward and kissed him. "See you in=20 little bit." "Count on it." They kiss one more time before he left the room. >tbc< =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D The newspaper Lois picked herself off the floor and walked back over to the bed. "Well...let's see what the Gotham Herald has to say this morning!" she=20 grinned. >tbc<=20 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Re: The newspaper "Ok I get the hint. Something's defiantly going on," mumbled Anya to=20 herself with a grin. She had caught a peek at the newspaper. One of her=20 pictures was on the front page. She grinned very thankful she had given=20 some film to one of the workers of the herald before the earthquake.=20 She saw Bruce Wayne leaving a room. "Good morning, have you seen Dick?"=20 she asked with a grin=20 >tbc< * * * * Re: Perry White, Daily Planet arrives Perry got up from the sofa when he heard the knock on the door. It was=20 the bellman with the newspapers. "Is the Planet in these?" Perry asked.=20 "Yes Sir it sure is!" Perry gave the man a good size tip and went back=20 to the sofa. He looked at the papers until he found the Planet. "Well,=20 we made the deadline and we have a great cover photo." Cat walked over=20 and looked at the paper. "You are right Chief. That is a great photo."=20 Perry nodded as he continued to read. His hum and oh's kept the others=20 staring at him. >tbc< * * * * Re: Morning Breaks (Lucy wakes up) Lucy opened her eyes and she grinned. "Jimmy! Hi! Where have you been??=20 I feel like I haven't seen you forever!" Lucy sat up and gave Jimmy a=20 hug. As she released her tight grip around him, she leaned against her=20 pillow again. "I seem to remember something about an earthquake...and=20 Cat was there...but that's basically all I can remember. Give me a sec=20 to get dressed, and we'll go look for Cat, or Lois, or anything else=20 that can tell us the whole story..." "Ok do you want me to step into the bathroom while you get dressed or I=20 could step out." Jimmy didn't wait for an answer, he stepped outside into the hallway but=20 before he did he gave Lucy a kiss on the cheek. "I'm really glad that you are ok." he said as he left.=20 >tbc< =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Re: The newspaper She sat down on the bed next to Clark and noticed he still had the quilt=20 over his head. "Clark? You can come out now..." she laughed. Lois started trying to=20 pull it off his head. She felt like she was playing peek-a-boo with one=20 of her cousins! >tbc< * * * * Re: Perry White, Daily Planet arrives Perry looked up and smiled. "Sorry! Even though I wrote the story, I=20 still read it and edit for mistakes." Cat laughed and twicked his cheek.=20 "Chief you really do work to hard!" >tbc< * * * * Re: The newspaper Bruce stopped. "No. That reminds me, I should probably have a talk with him=20 at some point. If I see him I'll let him know you were looking for him." >tbc< * * * * Re: Perry White, Daily Planet arrives Cat excused herself from the group and went down to the Photo shop to=20 pick up the rest of the photos that she had taken and the first round=20 that Jimmy Olsen took and gave to her before all Hell broke loose at the=20 Ball. Cat paid the clerk and flipped through one of the packs. "Yiowww!=20 This man fits the description of one of the men who boarded the Jet and=20 we suspect got those games onboard." Cat pulled out her jewler's loop to=20 magnify the image of the man. *On God! This is person is cutting the=20 Chandaleer cord! He is the reason that Mayson was almost killed!* Cat=20 hurried back to her suite to alert Perry, Diego, Ramone and Mayson. As she hurried she wasn't watching where she was going and plowed right=20 into Agent Dan Scardino. "Well Cat! Where are you going with your tail=20 on fire?" Cat looked up and replied. "I have to get these up to the=20 suite. Follow me!" Dan nodded and followed her on down the corridor. >tbc< * * * * Look for Week #28 coming to a PC near you! =3D) Enjoy! Alexis ;-.) {"ADITLOM" arbitrator} "And let's get something straight. I didn't work my buns off to become an=20 investigative reporter for the Daily Planet just to baby-sit some hack from=20 Nowheresville." (Lois) {LnC, Pilot} ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 07:14:38 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: "C.C. Malo" Subject: Trask vs Luthor ( was Re: Connections (Final) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Charlotte explained why she thinks Trask is a more hateful villain than Luthor. <> I've been thinking about this, Charlotte, and tried to come up with some strong argument, other than , "I think Luthor is the bigger villain because I just feel it." Not sure I did but I wanted to reply anyway. :) Luthor is more fun as a villain than Trask because he took such joy in being a villain, was always dressed appropriately, and always selected the right wine for his plot du jour. Luthor had style so he was hard to hate which makes him more sinister as a villain than the too serious Trask. Where Trask kidnapped Lois; Luthor bought out the Planet, threw people out of work, and blew up the Planet. While I agree with what you've argued here about Trask's bigotry, I think Luthor is more dangerous because he's a sociopath and inherently evil. He's also much, much brighter than Trask; so where Trask is an impusive bully, Luthor is the plotter and the charmer. He's so charming that he cons Lois Lane, and even Clark Kent during that brief manipulative moment in Clark's apartment in the wedding aargh when Luthor mentions Lois's tears. He "smiles and smiles and still is a villain." [apologies for the misquote] His sole motive is his own power and he's prepared to destroy those who get in his way even if they are innocent bystanders. Because many of those deaths were *in fact* carried out by or were consequences of the actions of his allies or employees he may appear less responsible for them but he's not. In a sense, Luthor is the ultimate bigot -- it's not just aliens he's against, it's everyone. He's out for himself -- for his own pleasure, power and wealth. Still, Trask is #2. -- or maybe Tempus is, or Mindy Church, or ..... Carol ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 05:00:19 -0700 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: "Irene D." Subject: Re: NEW: Story In Progress: Final Forgiveness II (7/?) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii --- Alicia Utowski wrote: > Sorry it's been so long between installments. It's > the end of the semester, > so I have had a bunch of essays and projects to do > for school and now I have > finals to study for. > > Do you think that Ellen's reaction is realistic? > I'm not sure if it is > overboard or if it's in character for her. > Alicia, you know I love this story as I've said so on the boards. I actually think Ellen's words are realistic but her reaction has been toned down a bit. I'd love to see a bit more Lane-babble in there and have her say things in a more excited tone of voice. It wouldn't take much to change it. Just my humble personal opinion. Irene ===== "All writing is essentially bricks of plagarism secured in place by the mortar of original thinking." --William Dukane __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online and get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 08:39:16 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Mary Scibetta Subject: Working Against Time 4 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The next feeling that Clark felt was the cot he was on being tipped and his head hitting the ground. He looked around and saw a bunch of the men in his squad looking at him, laughing. The man in five stripes looked down at Clark, holding his cot in his hand. Clark looked up at the man whose nametag said 'KENT.' Clark looked at his face as he rose. He could remember from the pictures that it was his dad, but he had a much colder yet excited look in his eyes. "You Dorothy?" Kent asked. "Yes, " Clark responded "Glad to know you, I'm Sergeant Kent." He leaned over and gave Clark his hand to pull him up. The other men had since gone back to packing up. "The Lt. tells me that you're my new 60 gunner," he said as Kent pointed to the machine gun at his feet. "I guess so, " Clark replied, still trying to gain his balance. "Well, I hope you last longer than the last gunner. Two weeks in the field and the idiot set off a Bouncing Betty and lost his legs. Well, anyway, welcome to the bad Bravo." "HOOAHH," all the men shouted as they grabbed their gear and started walking out. "Get your gear and get with them; we have some trails to clear," Kent seemed to yell at Clark as he walked out of the tent. Clark picked up his gear and followed his father out of the tent. "We're expected on the hill in 30, so get anything you need up there together. You might want to take a meal - we'll miss dinner. I just hope we see some action tonight - the last two months have been horribly boring. I'm so tired of digging trenches and filling bags. You ok?" Looking up at his father and then back at his things, Clark wondered what he had gotten himself into. He looked through his sack, sighing, pulling out a bagged meal, some repellant, and his can of a hat. "I'm ready. Why don't we just go." "Umm. Kid, you might want that." Jonathon pointed over to the corner where Clark had laid M-60 before. He looked in his sack again and found a full clip of ammunition, hoping he wouldn't have to use it. Seeing Jonathon smile in anticipation, Clark followed him out the tent and started the trudge in the mud and waist deep grass up to the lookout point for the area. "Most nights I've been here there isn't anything to do, so I usually write to my wife. How about you uhh.." "Clark, I'm married too. I hear that a lot of the kids are barely dating that get sent here." Clark kept feeling of the heavy gun that he had to lug up the hill for apparently no reason. "Well, you got to be careful with these kids. They'll warn you before your first time on leave, but the Viet women here incredibly pushy. And the other guys; I try not to stick out but it's really hard on the weekends. Needless to say, some of the things that you do here shouldn't be shared with wives." Clark could feel his heart drop as he thought of what his father was saying; that he could have cheated on his mother and to think that it went with the war. Clark began thinking that the whole world he knew had betrayed him on some topics. "Well, I don't think I'll be writing to mine. She's kind of out of touch." "I here ya there boy. Well, I'm gonna you know..." Jonathon slithered off as Clark sat back against the mud wall and started pulling grub looking lizards off of his legs. He could see nothing, hear nothing. He decided that writing to Lois, even in a different time, would at least tell her he's still all right. He borrowed some paper and a scrappy pencil and a tiny light from his father's things and started to write, hoping the rain would stop long enough to get something down. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 08:43:57 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Mary Scibetta Subject: Working Against Time 5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lois sat in the room with Martha and Jonathon, waiting for better signs of recovery. If Jonathon could recover then Clark could return and now all three of them knew that. Pushing the door open, Ms. Fairchild was at the door. Lois ran over to the door and walked back out with the nanny. "Thank you for coming so quickly." "I had figured as much Mrs. Kent, so I had packed us up before you even called. How are the Kents holding up?" Ms. Fairchild took Kally from the carrier and handed her to Lois as they sat down in the waiting room. "Not any better. And our nerves have just about had all they can take. Were there any messages at home for us?" Lois sat Kally up on her lap and bounced her gently to try to wiggle a smile out of her daughter. "These were on the machine that afternoon when I returned to the house. Perry called again and said that you take all the time that you need and then some. You seem to have a lovely boss." Lois smiled as she continued to play with Kally Elizabeth. Lois thought back at the strange things that always happened to her and Clark. Then the child entered their lives and for six months they had been almost normal. But now a normal life was being taken from them, but they were in the position to save it. Lois looked down at Kally who started yawning again. "Ms. Fairchild, here is the house key. Take her to the Kents and both of you get some rest. I'll be along sometime." Lois handed her baby back to the nanny and quietly went back toward the room where Martha and Jonathon were. But was stopped suddenly by the short little man dressed normally this time. "Mr. Wells, where's Clark?" Lois looked panicked. "Dear, he's in Nam. I can't very well be there at my age. My dear, he's fine and I will be checking on him soon enough. How's Jonathon holding out?" "I think ok, but I hope you put Clark close enough in time. We can't wait around for months." "Lois, I put him within a couple of weeks of the first blast. It will be alright." Lois started to shiver. "Blast? What blast?" "These blinding blasts that I have only read about. Not at all like the Utopia you and Clark represent." "Mr. Wells, are you talking about the same blasts that the Congress is now denying was killing of vets? The story was that LNN didn't research the story enough and discredited themselves." Lois started turning redder in anger about working in the same media world that was reporting painful news that could be true. "That is the problem my dear. There are many imperfections in this world and one is that governments many times work for their benefit. That is the change in Utopia." Lois, running her hands through her hair, started walking in circles. "Look, just get Clark out of there or placed closer to whatever he has to go through. There's too many things at risk here." Lois was almost in tears. She had seen pictures and read about it, but never envisioned having to worry about it. "I want you to get my husband back as soon as you can. He is not invincible there and you're scaring me." "I have an idea Mrs. Kent, but you must be patient. I must go now, and you are being paged." Mr. Wells disappeared as fast as he came, pointing all the while in the direction of Clark's mother. She looked over sadly, not to see her son with Lois. *************** "I see that you are alone." Clark almost jumped out of his pants when the little man appeared. He had not been there more than a day yet but already was grabbing for the M-16 next to him. "Don't do that and hurry, my father is on watch with me." Clark calmed down. "That's excellent. I think I have thought of a way for Lois to be here." "That's great. I have some kind of leave next weekend. They're sending all of us to Singapore from what I heard. Could you take this to her for me? And get out of here." Mr. Wells looked at Clark differently. The man who was Superman suddenly came across very rough. "I will. And I will see you soon." Mr. Wells faded into the background as Clark sat back. As he sat still, he had never felt so much pain run through his body. From the waist down he felt completely numb. Looking over he could see the sun coming up in the East. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 08:51:09 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Mary Scibetta Subject: Working Against Time 6 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "What are you sighing about?" Jonathon returned, sitting down and lighting up a cigarette. Clark was taken aback by his father smoking but figured it was part of the war. "Just tired of staring into the dark. It's boring," Clark answered as another man came and sat down across from them and lit a cigarette. The three sat silent for a few seconds until **CRACCKK** was heard nearby. Looking over, Clark and Jonathon saw right after the gunshot, their other man's head seemed to explode and his lifeless body fell to the ground. Everybody in the vicinity hit the ground and began to open fire. All Clark could do was say and quick prayer and be happy he didn't have superhearing. Suddenly, Jonathon jumped and ran. "Village half a click ahead that way. Go.!" Following behind, the group brought up the rear where his father was leading through the trail. "Dorothy, get up here!" Clark heard and started running up to the front and hit the ground by his dad. "Dorothy. B Team flank left. See that stump - you lie there and wait for my signal to mow that hut down. A Team - come with me." The squad leader took the others further up the trail, and Clark got down to aim at the hut. Clark waited for a little longer, wondering what his signal was. As if on cue, an explosion went off right next to two people behind the sandbags. Looking over, he could see one that was blown in two. Then, gunfire erupted all around him and saw people running through the camp, firing into the bushes around them. He noticed the people had no uniforms and were shooting at random. He saw a few fall to the ground and cry out in gibberish. Things around him seemed to move in slow motion as he saw A Team up ahead aiming toward the hut he was aimed at. *** CRACK CRACK CRACK*** Clark looked up and saw three people in the A Team fall, including his father. "NO!!!" Clark screamed as he sat up and took aim at the hut and started firing the machine gun randomly. The world seemed to fall silent as a feeling Clark had never known before ran through his body. Clark approached the hut and with his regained power and kicked the door wide open. Not comprehending his actions, he suddenly filled the hut with machine gun fire. Turning around, he could hear the gibberish of the enemy. Firing in the direction of the voices, he saw three men dressed in black pajamas fall to the ground. Running out of the hut, he saw four others were on fire and other men were leaving the area. Pointing the gun in their direction, he released another round of bullets and watched the men fall one by one. Before finishing the last one off, he dropped the hot empty gun and started running. Jumping on the man, he drew his knife from his side and slammed it into the man's back. Turning the man over, the little Viet Cong pulled a machete and threw it against Clark. Cutting Clark in the upper arm, Clark pulled the knife out and drove it into the man's neck. Pulling out the knife for the last time, Clark wiped it down, hit the man one last time, and then stopped cold, hearing "Cease Fire." Looking around, he saw men in green emerge from the bush and walk back toward the little fire ravaged village. Putting the knife back in its case, he headed to the hut to pick up his gun. There in the hut, he saw 4 black dressed men, 3 women and 4 children, one with a gun in his hand. He kicked the men around a little to look over their bloodied, riddled bodies lying on the floor. Leaving the hut, he turned and stared, and then headed toward the rest of the group. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 08:56:12 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Mary Scibetta Subject: Working Against Time 7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Oh my God! I have never seen anything like that!" One of the squad boys yelled. "That was incredible!" Clark suddenly noticed he was the attention of everyone as they headed his direction. Approaching him, Snake gave him a tight punch in the shoulder, "and the way you took that guy down. It was like you were some Super human or something." Clark looked at Snake strangely as Sgt. Kent approached. "Look there, I guess you made it huh man?!" Clark looked at his father at his hand and even bloodier shoulder. Clark suddenly snapped back to reality and realized that was the scar his father never talked about. Slapping Clark on the back, Kent announced to his group, "Well, I think Dorothy has earned his new name. By the powers invested in me by Uncle Sam, I now christen thee Superman - Destroyer of Viet Cong Huts." "HOOHAAH!!" The men shouted again. "You better get that arm looked at, you're still not invincible." Clark looked at his arm to see a cut in his uniform that was tinted red. "But my powers," Clark thought to himself, confused. Walking back to their equipment, Clark heard the distinctive sound of the US Army choppers approaching. "Gather up the stuff and our rides are on the way. That was some show private," he commented to Clark, "You'll make your momma proud; let's get you back and cleaned up." *************** Lois walked out of the room again to see Mr. Wells back. "He said to give this to you." He handed Lois the dirty envelope as she sat down in the in the waiting room. He tried to stay back while she read. Dearest Lois, I've been here almost six hours now, sitting in the mud and hoping it would stop raining. I have come to the conclusion that my father was a completely different person before I knew him and I think I may even change some. That scares me. How is my father there? He seemed so interested in this damn war, beating the Viet cong. I never pictured my parents going through any sort of ordeal like this. And I thought I was hard to live with. I miss you desperately, and Kally. Please kiss her every night for me. You should see me Lois; no bright colors anymore - even my face is painted an awful green and black. This place is more awful than the media was ever able to make it. In six hours, it's rained 5. I had this bizarre lunch in plastic a couple of hours ago. We did have a small attack here though, lasted only a few minutes. Some guy in the lookout heard a shot fired and it turned into the tennis match with bullets. I've never shot a gun before; it was strange. It blew me back against the bunker wall the first time and now my shoulder hurts. Anyway, you could see where the bullets were leaving the guns for a few minutes until ceasefire was called. We were shooting at other Americans, and we could have killed them. This is the weirdest thing I have ever been through. At least the only thing blown to bits was the grass above our heads. I'm ok though. Just been inducted into real life I suppose. Well, my watch is almost over and I get to sleep a bit. Tell everyone I'm ok. Lois, I love you and I'll get out of here and back to you as soon as I can. Kiss Kally and my parents for me. See you soon Honey. Love Always, Clark "Oh god. He sounds miserable. I want to see him." Lois turned to Mr. Wells with tears in her eyes as Martha watched from across the ICU. "You will, in good time. He has a leave coming up soon dear, but he will be very busy until that day next week. You must trust that he is doing what he thinks is right for you, Kally, and his family." Lois continued to cry as Mr. Wells tried to convince her that everything was for the best. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 09:01:12 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Mary Scibetta Subject: Working Against Time 8 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Clark, wake up. We have the later breakfast and got to be there in 5." Clark rolled over to see his father staring at him and feeling he was still drenched. If it wasn't his luck that their tent had sprung a leak the night before. "I'm freezing." Clark sat up and looked for his coat. "You won't be when you get out in the sun. Let's go." Clark stood up, trying to focus better and followed his father and several other men to the Chow hall. Sitting down, Clark suddenly woke up when he looked at the meal. All white, no color in the food at all. "Hey Jorel...you never see Army food before? How'd the hell you get here anyway?" "Long story. I just thought it would be different Briggs." Clark was surprised he remembered anyone's name. It was hard for him to eat; his right arm was still pulsating with the pain from the firefight the day before. The group of kids that had volunteered to throw themselves in this situation sat around Clark as they tried to swallow what was on the plate. Suddenly, yelling began from outside the Chow tent. A cook came around the kitchen and ran out the door. "We've got incoming. Let's go." The whole group woke up and started for the door as a whizzing sound came over their head. Clark had heard that sound before and grabbed Jonathon. "DON'T MOVE!! STAY HERE!!" Clark hollered over the noise at the other guys that had been sitting with him as his father even tried to pull away. "GET DOWN!!" The other guys didn't listen and ran out the back door toward the bunkers while Clark held Jonathon down inside the tent. Seconds later the blast came with their faces in the dirt inside the tent. "What are you doing Jorel?" Jonathon sounded angry that he was missing the fight. "Shut up." Clark was mad that his father couldn't see he was being saved. "Let go of me Jorel. You are in direct violation. That may have been my time - those were my men!" Jonathon pushed Clark off of him and moved across the ground toward the tent opening. Clark hurried behind him trying to stay out of his way. When the attacks stopped, Clark and Jonathon could hear cries coming from the direction the guys had run before. Moving toward the door, an officer stopped them. "Are you sure you want to go out this way. The medics are doing the best they can to remove the bodies. We need help relocating the main communications and barracks areas. And new trenches need to be dug." The officer decided that during his speech that Jonathon and Clark deserved a peek. Clark lost his footing for a moment after seeing the carnage. Jonathon turned to Clark. "What the hell was that act of bravery? Those are my men out there lying dead and with any brave bone in my body, I would have died with them. You may be super but do not ever violate orders of a superior again. You got it?" Clark stopped short and quickly answered. "Understood Seargent." Seeing Clark's face, Kent softened, "You can't save everyone. Now get out and start preparing more trenches for the next mortar attack. I'll see you later." Clark saw his father walk away angry, cussing as he walked through the canopy with the officer that had walked in. Clark started out of the tent and saw someone point as his leg. "Man, you asking for your leg to fall off where you can leave this place or sumthin'?" Clark looked down where the captain had been pointing. He had been hit also; he finally started to feel the pain. He continued over to the medical tent and leaned against the door pole. "I was told to come here before working the trenches." A young blond woman pointed to a cot and put gloves on. "What is it?" Clark winced as she dug around in the gash for any traces of metal. She could see him in pain and tried to smile as he grabbed the cot harder. "Part of a plate. Shrapnel. Nothing serious - you were lucky. VC got 3 kills out of that one." She could feel Clark twitch as she pulled the metal out, leaving a deep cut in the back of his thigh. "Here, just lie down on your stomach." Clark did as he was told and wondered what was coming next. "What's wrong?" he asked almost frightened. "Nothing, we just have to sew it up where it won't be infected." The little nurse gave him something to bite on and proceeded to stitch his leg up. "Now, try not to stretch it out much. Wrap it up good while you're working in the trenches. Keep pressure on it where it'll stop bleeding." She threw him a bandage and ran back toward the operating room. Clark sat up and felt of the gash in his leg and followed the nurse's orders. He returned to his tent to see his first pair of fatigues ruined. He quickly changed, making sure to wrap his wound, and headed to the trenches. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 08:22:19 -0500 Reply-To: truitt22@flash.net Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: timothy truitt Organization: tnt technical services Subject: Re: NEW STORY: a Night At The Office Part 5 of 5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Great merry "StarKitty :)" wrote: > hehehe! You guys've roped her into a sequel! Cool! > > Tara (who also liked the story) > > >From: Nancy Smith > >Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" > > > >To: LOISCLA-GENERAL-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU > >Subject: Re: NEW STORY: a Night At The Office Part 5 of 5 > >Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 17:43:56 -0700 > > > >Hi, Gerry. Remy is a *female* henchman! I said so in the story! Glad > >you liked it. Now I just have to figure out how I want to do the sequel. > > > >Nan > > > > ________________________________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 14:45:31 -0400 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Gerry Anklewicz Subject: Re: NEW STORY: a Night At The Office Part 5 of 5 In-Reply-To: <390A304C.4BD316FB@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Nan, I just wondered why any woman would want to be a man. I know that henchwoman is stupid, but a whole new word might work like "colleague", "accomplice", or "crony" . I'm sensitive about sexist language (this probably dates me) and so I look for alternatives. All I know is that if "Men" was written on a bathroom door, I wouldn't be very welcome. Gerry ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 12:43:01 PDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: "StarKitty :)" Subject: Re: NEW STORY: a Night At The Office Part 5 of 5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Y'know, I've always considered 'henchman' a generalized term that refers to either gender. It's just a part of the language--at least it will be until the militant feminists get around to changing the language around so everything has a female slant lol! Tara :) >From: Gerry Anklewicz >Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" > >To: LOISCLA-GENERAL-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU >Subject: Re: NEW STORY: a Night At The Office Part 5 of 5 >Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 14:45:31 -0400 > >Nan, I just wondered why any woman would want to be a man. I know that >henchwoman is stupid, but a whole new word might work like "colleague", >"accomplice", or "crony" . I'm sensitive about sexist language (this >probably dates me) and so I look for alternatives. All I know is that if >"Men" was written on a bathroom door, I wouldn't be very welcome. >Gerry ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 16:31:30 -0400 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: kubitc Subject: Re: NEW STORY: a Night At The Office Part 5 of 5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tara wrote: >Y'know, I've always considered 'henchman' a generalized term that refers to >either gender. It's just a part of the language--at least it will be until >the militant feminists get around to changing the language around so >everything has a female slant lol! I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but your post could be taken to be offensive. A feminist is not militant simply because she wants to improve the situation of women. The entire point of feminism is not to transfer advantage from men to women, but to equalize the playing field. Therefore, a true feminist would not want anything to have a female slant; she would not advocate simply replacing the word "policeman," for example, with "policewoman," for that would defeat the purpose. A true feminist would advocate gender-neutral language, such as "police officer." The question, therefore, wouldn't be whether "henchman" *is* a part of the language, but whether it *should* be. Personally, I agree with Gerry; I am not comfortable with gender-biased words. It is also inaccurate to simply say that words don't matter, because they clearly do; I wouldn't want to join the police force, for example, and be called a "policeman" my entire life. I'm a woman, not a man, and adding the adjective "police" doesn't change anything. Turning this debate to the other side, do you think one would ever use the terms "maid" (which has feminine connotations) or "serving girl" to refer to a man? My guess is that they'd choose a gender-appropriate term. Christy (can you tell I'm in favor of gender neutral language? ;) kubitc@kenyon.edu "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." -Michaelangelo ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 14:35:15 -0700 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Nancy Smith Subject: Re: NEW STORY: a Night At The Office Part 5 of 5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I know this whole thing got started because I used the word "henchman" in the story. It was meant simply to identify Remy as the assistant of the terrorist leader. Since "henchwoman" would, in my opinion sound silly, I used the term female henchman. I really don't see the problem here, unless we're concerned about upsetting a female villian in a story. Unless any of us plan on becoming a villian in the future, I don't think any of us on this list really need to worry about being called a henchman. I am neither a chauvinist, nor particularly concerned about my female identity, and since I'm starting to find this whole thread upsetting, could we drop it, please, just as a favor to me? Nan kubitc wrote: > Tara wrote: > > >Y'know, I've always considered 'henchman' a generalized term that refers to > >either gender. It's just a part of the language--at least it will be until > >the militant feminists get around to changing the language around so > >everything has a female slant lol! > > I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but your post could be taken to be > offensive. A feminist is not militant simply because she wants to improve the > situation of women. The entire point of feminism is not to transfer advantage > from men to women, but to equalize the playing field. Therefore, a true > feminist would not want anything to have a female slant; she would not > advocate simply replacing the word "policeman," for example, with > "policewoman," for that would defeat the purpose. A true feminist would > advocate gender-neutral language, such as "police officer." The question, > therefore, wouldn't be whether "henchman" *is* a part of the language, but > whether it *should* be. > > Personally, I agree with Gerry; I am not comfortable with gender-biased words. > It is also inaccurate to simply say that words don't matter, because they > clearly do; I wouldn't want to join the police force, for example, and be > called a "policeman" my entire life. I'm a woman, not a man, and adding the > adjective "police" doesn't change anything. > > Turning this debate to the other side, do you think one would ever use the > terms "maid" (which has feminine connotations) or "serving girl" to refer to a > man? My guess is that they'd choose a gender-appropriate term. > > Christy (can you tell I'm in favor of gender neutral language? ;) > kubitc@kenyon.edu > > "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." -Michaelangelo ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 18:46:16 -0400 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Pam Jernigan Organization: http://www.geocities.com/~chiefpam/ Subject: Re: NEW STORY: a Night At The Office Part 5 of 5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I know that > henchwoman is stupid, I prefer "henchperson" myself, but it is a tad silly I've always thought that if we're going to go for gender neutral language, we need to come up with new terms that are exclusively masculine, not mess with the perfectly good gender-inclusive terms that we have. "Mankind" means all of us, male and female. But I realize I'm not in the majority on this one :) -- Pam Jernigan / ChiefPam / jernigan@bellsouth.net http://www.geocities.com/~chiefpam "What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure." --Samuel Johnson ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 23:40:41 +0100 Reply-To: "yconnell@ukf.net" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: yconnell Subject: Re: Trask vs Luthor ( was Re: Connections (Final) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I agree, Carol, and I also think Lex is the more dangerous of the two because he conducts his nefarious business through stealth and the use of hired guns etc to do his dirty work. He has a strong position in society - at least in the first half of the series - making him doubly dangerous because he can use the power and respect he commands to further his evil works, all without implicating himself or losing the position he holds. Sorry if someone already said this - I only just noticed this interesting thread. Yvonne (yconnell@ukf.net) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 16:06:11 -0700 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: StarKitty Subject: Re: NEW STORY: a Night At The Office Part 5 of 5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I would like to point out that the English language is an evolving language--as all living languages are. Terms such as policeman (and henchman) are coming to be gender-inclusive terms. I, for one, will continue to use them as such. I would like to request that nitpicking about such things not be posted to the elist. Thank you. Tara ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 18:37:13 -0500 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Wendy Richards Subject: Gender-inclusive language Tara wrote: >>>Terms such as policeman (and henchman) are coming to be gender-inclusive terms. I, for one, will continue to use them as such. I would like to request that nitpicking about such things not be posted to the elist.<<< Actually, Tara, I'm not at all sure everyone would agree with you about 'policeman' being seen as 'gender-inclusive'. I know the British Equal Opportunities Commission wouldn't, and I'd be surprised if the EEOC did. I would also suggest that a debate about gender-inclusive language isn't 'nitpicking,' but is in fact a very relevant topic for a list about writing and aimed at readers and writers. Some people prefer not to use gender-neutral terminology: that's up to them. Others do use it, and that's their choice too. But a *discussion* of the merits or otherwise - as long as it's conducted with the good manners and civility which I know we're all capable of - would seem appropriate for the list. Wendy ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 18:52:23 -0500 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Kathy Brown Subject: Re: NEW STORY: a Night At The Office Part 5 of 5 On Sat, 29 Apr 2000 16:06:11 -0700, StarKitty wrote: >I, for one, will >continue to use them as such. I would like to request that nitpicking about >such things not be posted to the elist. Thank you. Well, as List Mom, I'm afraid I'm going to have to overrule you on this one, Tara. None of the readers in this "gender neutral language" thread have been anything but polite and articulate when expressing their point of view. You may consider it nitpicking, but I'm sure other people could say the same about comments you've made (ones we've all made) or threads that have been interesting to you. Threads evolve on a listserv; one comment sparks another, one tangent sparks another, and the discussion is off. Sometimes we go off topic, sometimes we should really be changing the subject line. But there is nothing less "right" about this topic than the ones about Clark's religious upbringing, or our least favorite episodes, or whether fanfic authors outline their stories before they begin to write. What you call a nitpick is what someone else calls an interesting topic of conversation. And in this thread, the only questionable responses have been from those who have gotten defensive over an innocent suggestion. I'll say it again -- if you can't handle constructive criticism, you are well within your rights to ask people to not to give you any. But then don't get upset when people stop commenting on your stories. Kathy LIST MOM ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 11:23:40 +0930 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Jill Kaye Subject: Re: NEW STORY: a Night At The Office Part 5 of 5 In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Nan, I just wondered why any woman would want to be a man. I know that >henchwoman is stupid, but a whole new word might work like "colleague", >"accomplice", or "crony" . I'm sensitive about sexist language (this >probably dates me) and so I look for alternatives. All I know is that if >"Men" was written on a bathroom door, I wouldn't be very welcome. >Gerry I agree with you. ~Larissa~ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 22:43:44 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Mary Scibetta Subject: Working Against Time 9 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I was told to tell if each part was a continuing saga of the last and I will try that from now on. Sorry about the confusion. And the anticipation of how everyone will turn out; you have to have faith. ****************************************************************************** ******************** Lois had since gone back to the farm with Martha to pick up some other things and to rest some finally. Martha went into her and Jonathon's bedroom and lied down. She hadn't slept more than three hours in the last three days. Lois made sure that she would get some rest before returning to the hospital. "Mrs. Kent, Kally is down for a nap. I was hoping I could drive into town for a little break." "I'm sorry. Of course; we're staying around here for a little bit if time to rest, so you go on." Lois walked over to Kally's crib and tucked her in tighter and then laid down on the bed. In plain clothes, Mr. Wells had volunteered to watch over Jonathon for any changes while they went to the house. Lois quickly fell asleep thinking about Clark. Just a week earlier, he had been helping Kelly sit up on her own and letting her chew on his hand to cut her teeth. Lois was not upset about missing that part of the parental duties. "Honey, Kally's asleep." "Clark, but you know not for long." "But I think we need some time for each other right about now." Clark led her away from the nursery and into the bedroom, where he carried her to the bed. He could feel Lois smile as he put her down and leaned over her. "It's been awhile." Clark gently pressed a finger over Lois' mouth to tell her to stay quiet as he undid her shirt. Lois trembled, not remembering the feeling of being touched. She closed her eyes as he kissed her down inside her neck and down as the shirt was undone. She felt him shake when she touched him; the feeling was still there after two years. "I can't..." Clark and Lois erupted in quiet laughter when Lois got caught on Clark's belt but recovered when Clark pulled his clothes off without any worries. Lois giggled but was interrupted by his kiss locking to her lips. "Do you want, you know...Clark?" Lois was serious but Clark wasn't paying attention. Looking up from her chest, he gave her a definite stare. "Not this time; there's only one way to prove a doctor wrong." He moved her hands around and pulled the sheets up. Lois closed her eyes again and felt her heart race. She felt of Clark's back and was almost thrown that he was sweating this time. More human everyday, she thought to herself before he pulled her back in. She could hear herself gasp in surprise and Clark slowing down and then speeding up again. "Don't ever leave me. I love you, " she whispered as he looked at her, smiling. Putting his hand on the back of her head, he brushed her hair out of her face. "I love you Lois. Never again." Reaching up to touch Clark's face, he vanished. Lois woke up sweating. "It was a dream. He's gone. Oh god. He's gone." Lois couldn't hear herself but Martha raced in to calm her down. "He's gone. He left me." "But he's doing something no one else could." Lois stood up and looked at Martha. "YEAH AND FOR WHAT? WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE SOMEDAY. I COULD DIE TOMORROW AND HE WOULDN'T KNOW BECAUSE HE'S TOO WORRIED ABOUT SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED YEARS AGO! I AM TIRED OF ALL THIS..THIS...'I HAVE TO BE A SUPERHERO IN EVERY TIME.' I WANT MY HUSBAND BACK HERE!!!" Lois stormed out of the bedroom and past Kelly, who was now crying for anyone. Martha picked up Kelly and bounced her quietly. "I want him back too Lois; he's also my son." Martha said to herself. **************** Clark sat down for a quick drink after digging the trenches for the last several hours. Jonathon had since joined him in the last few minutes but was quickly replaced by a younger kid. It was still raining and hot. Clark had never understood why people were so bothered by the heat but was beginning to understand more and more everyday. "You new?" The young man next to him asked. "Yesterday new. My name's Clark, how about you?" "Ben, I came in last month. This place is almost ridiculous. Auughh, and the bugs." The young man picked another slimy something of his chest. "They're actually anoles, but after seeing hundreds, they can get annoying." The two men traded smiles and continued digging. Although Clark could have taken his rest and moved back into a tent, he felt that work kept his mind off of Lois as much as possible. Sitting alone in the halfway dug bunker, Clark ate his dry MRE again; this time he was alone. "Sorry to disturb your dinner." Clark jumped when he noticed it was Mr. Wells. "Lois wanted me to give this to you. She caught me at the hospital and told me it was important." Clark looked at the envelope as Mr. Wells disappeared again. He started reading the note written, he could tell, by shaky hands. Clark, I have really tried to calm down and tried to be patient writing to you, but I can't. I can't handle the fact that you have put your life on the line and have ignored everything sacred to you. I am your wife. You have a daughter. And still you go off and try to solve a problem that has naturally occurred to thousands of soldiers. You could die. I don't want to hear about your stupid rains and any more mess about lizards and food and violence. Just come home. I beg you. I am a strong woman Clark, but I can't continue to stare at our daughter and not cry. I'm going back to work next week. The doctors told your mother that your father has just about two weeks left, if he takes the life support. She said there was no need to stay and submit Kally to this. So, if you plan on seeing your father before his death and me before I leave, come back home. Your wife Clark sat back and stared at the letter for a moment. He was confused like never before. Reading it again, he wondered what was really happening back in the present day. He felt good about himself that he was helping out the country at the same time getting to know his father from the past but at a loss for Lois. He whispered to himself the last line of the letter over and over. Was Lois leaving him over this? Clark thought back and realized he had never really heard Lois out. Maybe she was serious. He looked back at the letter that was now smudged. With the sudden realization she could be telling him it was the end, Clark started crying. And the rain kept falling. TO BE CONTINUED>>> ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 22:56:39 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Mary Scibetta Subject: Working Against Time 10 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Clark woke up to gunshots and immediately grabbed for his gun, but it stopped before he was set up. He looked over and saw his father next to him. "It's horrible today..." Clark nodded. "I didn't want to wake you, but we have a form up in ten." Jonathon struck him on the back and took back off to the barracks. Clark figured he could change; the sun had come out again and the mud had turned to crust all over his second uniform. Laundry was going to be a major task on his R&R trip to Singapore. He remembered he had to pick up his pass too. "Private Jorel, follow me." Clark stopped and nodded. "But I need to clean up a little and..." He knew that he shouldn't speak with the stare he got back from the other private. "Stand here." Clark stood where he was told and watched the other little man leave. A few minutes later, all the camp seemed to arrive and Clark saw the officers of the camp approach him. Clark took a deep breath. "Private Jorel, I am Lt. Casper. I heard what you did yesterday during the mess and although Kent is somewhat miffed at his chance to gain something, I feel you had the courage to see when something was going wrong. I think you ought to have a few days of no labor before things get bad. We're sending you to Singapore, yes, but you will be returning to another group." Clark's head was spinning but he followed the man into his tent, which was neatly arranged with all the equipment. The man scurried around and handed Clark several things. "Here's your map, your codes, and ammunition chart. Take these and learn these over the weekend while in Singapore. And your pass." Clark looked at the pass. "What group would that be?" Clark took all the things that the officer was handing him. "A Team - I know Kent will get used to the idea that you move up - he's just getting on and doesn't know his time here is almost up. You are being briefed for his spot. He leaves in three weeks, you'll be in his place." "But sir." "It's a good wise position. You watch his moves, his thoughts - you'll get the idea. Now, have a nice trip. The chopper is waiting for you. Get your gear together and take off." Clark smiled and took off to his tent. When he got there his father was packing his clean laundry up. "Have a good time; now that you're one of us, kiss the trips goodbye." Clark smiled. He was still hurt by Lois and his father feeling betrayed by him. Either way, Clark felt he was still in the right place. "I'll see you Tuesday. You stay safe." Clark patted him on the back as his father nodded back to him. *************** At the same time, Lois was back at the farm again. Mr. Wells was with here. "Lois dear, you must stop this packing right now. I have an idea. I read your letter and I think you may be taking this the wrong way dear. Ms. Fairchild is a fine nanny and can be trusted. I think you should come with me. Take this." H.G. handed her a key and pressed the controls to the time machine before she could speak. Lois was screaming as she floated through the empty space. Moments later, she landed on her feet; or so she thought. "Where are we; It's all wet." Mr. Wells nodded affirmatively. "We are here. Clark will be here in a few hours, and you, you are the call girl that his buddies in his group have arranged. You see the way in this frightful place is for the boys to have fun during R&R, whether they are married or not. I arranged that you would be his fun." Lois looked down at herself. Dressed in a tight brown dress cut to the thigh, Lois huffed. "Get me out of here." "No my dear, it's for the best." H.G. guided Lois to a dingy little room with an almost bare bed and dresser. "Lois, you need to give him a chance. I understand your anger but you must see what he is going through. He would do the same for you - he has done the same for you." And with that, the little man left Lois in the dark room and took the key. Lois walked around and sat down on the bed carefully. Little did she know that a chopper was landing on the other side of the city. "Hi, Clark Jorel. I was told to check in here." Clark looked around at the bar that doubled as a hotel check in. The man across the bar handed him a beer and pointed another man out that had a key in his hand. "You are the luckiest SOB alive. Have a good weekend." Clark looked at the man funny and went on to his room, not thinking anything of it. Opening the door, he heard a slight shudder and voice in the corner. "Who's there?" He saw someone light a match and walk toward him. "They said that you soldier boys enjoy company." Lois stayed in the dark to hide herself and her voice. She hoped that he wouldn't take the bait. "I think they were wrong. I'm married." Clark sat his bags and the beer down and headed toward the woman. He squinted to see when the woman blew out the match, and she rubbed her fingers across his neck. Clark grabbed her wrist and spun her around, "I said I was married." "Ouch. I know you are." Clark felt the woman pull away and turn on the light. "You're married to me." Clark turned and saw Lois standing in front of him. "Lois, I thought you...." Clark was speechless looking at Lois all decked out like a common call girl, more so because of the irony of her visiting after the letter. "I haven't changed my mind yet. This was you know who's idea. This Utopia thing keeps putting us together regardless of whatever is in the way. I'm still mad at you." Ignoring Lois, he took her in his arms. Evidently, Lois and Wells never discussed the letter she had sent to him. "I'm sorry Lois. I love you." Ignoring him, Lois pulled away from Clark's sudden grasp of her. Clark could tell her visit was forced and she had no intention on forgiving him that easily. "We might as well light these and try to get something nice going here before we rip into each other." Lois pulled out another match and lit the red candle. She suddenly saw the candle fly across the room as Clark grabbed the wick and screamed. "What did you do that for?" Lois was confused. Cracking the candle open, he poured out the black powder on the floor. "Talk about us having a blow up? Here's a new definition. Lois, it's gunpowder - enough to blow us into the next block. Try the white one instead." Lois was shocked by how abrasive Clark had become in a few days, but was pleased that he had learned how to use his senses without his powers. Lois lit the candle and sat it on the bare dresser that was across the room from the bed. The rooms at the motel were definitely made up for seedy pleasures and had no intention to be used for family outings. "How are my parents? My father?" Clark ran his fingers along the dresser in the room. "You're father is still hurting. I hope whatever is wrong you can fix soon." Lois got quieter as she finished the sentence. Clark could tell she wasn't there to talk about his family. "Are you ok?" Lois looked over at Clark pacing on the floor, looking at his hand. Without answering, he shook his head and waved her off. He sat down in the chair and looked across at her. "You've changed." She glanced at Clark from across the room. He was sitting comfortably in the chair near the window. The candle gave enough light off for Lois to tell he was upset. Rarely had they ever stood so far apart. "Am I? Do tell; I'm very interested in what you think. I'm listening." Clark continued to sit stone like with his arms crossed. Lois knew when she pulled away after him saying he loved her set him off. She moved slowly toward her husband. "You're more serious. Cold." She pulled the other chair up to the opposite of the little table between them. Clark sat and watched, with no emotion. "You've never been quite like this. The last time you looked at me like that was when I had the editor's job." With pursed lips, Clark folded his arms in front of him, "Maybe that's the last time I felt like this." Lois thought he had just scored one for himself. "OK, maybe I shouldn't have said that; we weren't going to talk about that." She reached across the table for Clark. He decided the picture above the bed was a better fixation. "I think we need to talk." "So talk. You moved out yet?" Not changing his stare, Clark played the game along side Lois. Lois stood up and stood in front of Clark. "That hurt. You don't have to be so callous." She saw Clark's eyes move around to her direction, his lips still tightly pressed together. "Me? Me? Callous? I don't recall being the one who wrote the Dear John letter and sent it without any warning!" Clark stood up throwing the chair back against the wall and put his hand under the table. Lois nearly jumped out of her skin when the little table between them suddenly flew across the room. "What in the hell gives you the right to think I'm the one treating you cold?!" Lois turned her cheek to the side, waiting for a physical response. Clark had never raised his voice at her before, much less a hand, but now Lois wasn't so sure. Softly she whispered, not looking at him, "You're hurting me." Clark looked down at his grip on Lois' wrist and immediately let go and collapsed on the floor in tears. "What have I done?" He could feel Lois kneel down next to him and take his hands. He looked at her wrist that had turned red. He rubbed his fingers across it as she pulled it away. "I'm ok. It doesn't hurt, really." Clark quickly turned to face her, "I wouldn't have hit you; I'm sorry." "I know; we just need to talk about some things. Let's just set up the table and chairs again and sit down." Clark shook his head and started across the room to pick up the table. Glancing over at Lois, she was still rubbing her wrist. He wished he could tell if he had really hurt her. "Sit down Clark." Sitting down, he couldn't look at anything but her wrist. "Clark, I'll be ok. But I'm worried about you, us. I wrote that letter after a real disturbing dream I had. It was a fit of rage and I should have never sent it." "No, I'm glad I know how you really feel... And I have changed, I can even tell. Let me see this." Lois carefully held out her arm and let him gently feel for what was wrong. "I think I sprained it." He let go her and slid his hands in his lap. "I am worried about your time here though. Wells never discussed how the emotional strain here would figure in to your return. But more importantly, I'm worried about us and Kally." Clark looked up in a panic. "She's ok, but I can tell she misses you. She doesn't eat for Ms. Fairchild or me like she did for you. She doesn't sleep through the night. I can't exactly rock the entire bed like you do." She looked over at Clark who had his head turned with his eyes closed. Lois reached for him and he turned, his face once again filled with tears. "And what about you," Clark asked in an almost inaudible whisper. "I'm going out of my mind. The bed is cold every night; the nights that I can even get to bed. Mostly, I sit in the living room of your parents' house and stare at the pictures, when I'm not at the hospital. You father is getting worse by the days. He shakes all the time now. They had to stop the oral feedings because it has become too messy. Clark, his time is close." "Well, at this end of things, I lost control yesterday. Someone took a shot at dad. Lois, I killed a person." Clark covered his face with his hands and waited for an answer from Lois. "It's the war. Wells said it could change you." "But I killed 10 or so. It's frightening. I'm scared of myself. I want to go home." Lois and Clark met in stares across the table. "But," Lois knew it was coming. "It's only a few more days; we're so close. I promise I'll be back after that." Lois nodded and decided that she could take a backseat a few more days. For the next few moments, the silence could have been cut. Both looked opposite direction, still knowing the large rift between them. "I love you Lois; I really do." Still not looking in his direction, Lois whispered, "I know." Clark waited to hear more but nothing came. "Do you still love me Lois?" Clark waited for a moment and then turned toward her. "Lois?" TO BE CONTINUED>>>> ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 09:47:24 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Mary Scibetta Subject: Working Against Time 11 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Today is the official anniversary of the Fall of Siagon ************************************************************ now, on to the story>>> "It's just really hard; after all we've been through, I..." "Don't finish that sentence." Clark flashed a look at the ceiling, wishing he could fly away. He touched her good hand. "Make love to me Lois. I need you." "It won't solve our problems." Lois looked over at her husband, still in his army issues, and halfway smiled. "But it might make us feel better." For the first time that day, Clark cracked a small smile, just so slight and kissed her hand. She pulled away and walked over to a bag that had accidentally ended up in the time transfer. "I remember that this was with me. It's something new that we both would like." Clark watched curiously as she reached over and locked the door, took a box out of the bag, and disappeared with the bag into bathroom. Clark pulled the covers off the bed and made sure there were no traps in it. Removing his boots, socks, and jacket, he threw them on the table and looked at the box on the dresser, turning it on. He laughed when he remembered that Lois would never go anywhere without her player now. Turning around, Lois stood in the doorway of the dingy bathroom in the silk nightgown he had gotten her on their two year anniversary just a few weeks ago. Clark moved toward Lois speechless and placed his hands on her chest and moved them along her hips. "It amazing all the things that I packed when I was going to leave you. I guess it's hard to let go of people you care about so much." Her words stopped when his lips touched hers. He could feel the tears start as he picked her up. Carefully, Clark lifted her arm around his neck and put her gently on the bed and moved in beside her. "Clark, what happened?" Lois ran her hand along the scar on his arm and leg as he put his arms around her. "It doesn't hurt, don't think about that." Clark pulled the shoulders down on the gown and kissed her shoulders. He had learned over the last year that Lois truly loved his lips there, while his hands worked on rubbing her chest. Looking up, he could see she had stopped crying and had found grips on the bed rail. He shook his head after seeing her wrist still swelling, she still smiled through it all. Now he knew how Lois felt. He saw Lois react with a smile on her face. Sliding her hands down his back, she forced him until he almost collapsed from exhaustion. Lying down beside Lois, Clark wiped his face with the sheet. Drenched in sweat, Lois rubbed his wet head. "So how's it different being human." She felt a hand rub down the side of her face like so many times before. "More tiring and much more exhilarating." He turned toward her. "I love you Lois." He rubbed her hair out of her face as she fell asleep. Wrapping her tighter in his arms, he listened to the music and fell asleep next to her. Lois and Clark spent much of the next two days in bed, resting. Lois had evidently been very worn from the lack of sleep the last few weeks and the same for Clark. But each with the other's company proved worthwhile for rest. "You sure you have to go back now?" Lois asked reverently as Clark came out of the shower and changed to return to work. Clark moved closer to kiss her on the shoulder as she continued to pack her things. "Look, the sooner I get back - the better off I'll be - we'll be." Clark threw his sacks next to the door and took Lois in his arms. "A week or so more - that's it." "Take me with you." "No way - not out there. Lois, this is NOTHING like you have ever seen in your life. Aliens, interplanetary war, clones - this beats it all. I would rather have everything we went through for the last five years to happen again instead of take you out there." He put Lois down and headed out the door with her following behind. "You meet back up with Wells, go home and take care of Kally. Give me a little more time. I think we have patched up things for good right now. I just need faith right now." He could see Lois stop in her tracks and set her bags down. "I'll wait for you." Clark went back quickly and kissed his wife. "I love you Clark." Walking away, he smiled back at her. Looking down, she could feel her feet sinking and wondered if she was leaving too. Looking back up, she saw Clark running through the people in the street, headed who knew where. Lois waited for a few moments and noticed nothing was happening to her as she waited for Mr. Wells to show up. Looking around, Clark could feel the wind get harder as the chopper came down on the small patch of grass after a few minutes. Several other men met up with Clark at the landing pad, waiting for the same transport. "Man, you look like you got a lot of rest." Clark turned and looked at the little boy it seemed laughing at Clark. "And you smell good - she must have been good." "Yeah." Clark halfway remarked as he threw his gear in the chopper. The young man looked upset as Clark blew him off and sat as far as he could away from the kid. Looking out the side of the chopper, Clark could barely see where he had left Lois and tried to picture her still standing there and sighed. Meanwhile, Lois decided to check out this little foreign town she had been stuck in. Mr. Wells seemed to always find them in the past regardless; she figured he would again. Walking around town, women kept approaching, speaking in gibberish and showing her strange pieces of cloth. Waving them off, Lois continued with her bags through town. Stopping suddenly, she saw something that she thought was familiar - BNN, the beginnings of LNN. "Hey!! Are you the new correspondent? We have been looking for you all over town!! Come on, our flight is about to leave. Harry will get your bags - we're supposed to be gone right now." The little white haired man pushed Lois in the direction of a rickety looking plane. "You expect me to get on that?! Wait, I'm not the correspondent." Lois protested as they pushed her into the plane and threw her things into the back. "Look Ms. Harper - I know this assignment sucks, especially with the military hating us already, but you got assigned - you get a lot of awards for this later anyway- or die trying. Buckle up." Lois' head was swimming with thoughts of stories and chances and then remembered she wasn't supposed to be there. "Look, how about oldy there go." Lois pointed at he old man that pushed her on the plane. "Harold, he got Korea - they want youngins in the field." Lois gasped. "Youngins in the field?" "You know - people that can take the in the middle of battle interviews. Live gruesome TV - the new thing - and in color this war!! By the way, I'm Frank the cameraman." Lois shook his hand and smiled nervously. "Frank, you have a bag or something?" Lois leaned against the edge of the seat. "Huh? Oh, here - don't fly in these much." Lois gave Frank a dirty look. "How about never," Lois replied before losing all the breakfast that her and Clark had a few hours earlier. "Sit back and get some rest Ms. Harper, the next few days is going to be hell." Lois leaned back and closed her eyes. 'I already thought I was there when I got to this hole,' she thought as she continued to block out the feeling of the plane and yelling of the other passengers. TO BE CONTINUED>>> ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 09:54:53 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Mary Scibetta Subject: Working Against Time 12 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Clark woke abruptly when the chopper made another hard landing, but this time the chopper was shut down. Looking around, he followed suit with unloading the gear from the chopper and following the other soldiers into a tall patch of grass. There were no trees near to the sight and the ground was incredibly dry in comparison to the places he had been. Seeing all the other troops stopping, he threw the equipment down and laid on the ground. After lying down, the pain of having to move again hit him hard in the legs, causing him to stumble. It seemed hours before they arrived at what he thought was supposed to be a new base. He had arrived at Khanh Duong. Other soldiers had already arrived and the Lt. Casper from the last base ran out to meet him. "Your ride ok?" "Yeah, just a little shaky," Clark replied as he followed Casper to a small tent that had been set up. "This is yours. You have the ammunition and this file for your reading. We're walking tomorrow, so have your troops ready to go." This man was serious; he was in charge. Clark had no idea how or what to do. "I...have no idea what to do here," Clark shakily replied as he leafed through the reading material. "None of us do. That's the fun part. Survey team is here and is going to try to turn this weed patch into a base. Get your sunscreen on come help us. You have time to read that tonight." Clark rubbed his hands through his hair and squeezed his head. As he left the tent, a thought crossed his mind, where was his father? *************** Returning to the hospital, Mr. Wells felt somewhat worried about the news he had. Running into Martha in the cafeteria, he became more nervous. Sitting down across from her, he took a deep breath. "Mrs. Kent, I may have myself in a bit of a spot." Martha looked up at him. "What are you going to say now?" Martha had become more restless and tenser than she had been in the past. The once soft woman seemed to make nervous, smart remarks. "I'm sorry, what happened?" "Clark is in the place he needs to be, but I seemed to have lost Lois. She seems to have taken off. I am afraid she was mistaken for a female reporter that is going into the bush. The good news is that she will be with Clark by next week. Albeit a surprise for him." Mr. Wells looked at Martha to see what her reaction would be. "Sounds like the perfect end to this whole mess. Jonathon isn't getting any better and now my children are both trapped in another world that neither one of them has ever known before. I've heard of tough places to be in, but me being a mother and a wife right now." Martha sat quiet for a moment before looking across the table at Mr. Wells. Taking his hand in hers, she spoke softly, "You bring them back." Martha got up from the table and walked back into the waiting room and onto Jonathon's room. Mr. Wells followed her quietly and watched as Martha went and sat down by her husband. She spoke quietly to Jonathon as Mr. Wells watched. "Jonathon, Clark is fine and Lois is going to be with him. It's almost over. They are going to find out what happened to put you here. Everything is going to be reversed where we won't remember that we were here." Jonathon squeezed her hand slightly where she knew he understood. To him, the details were sketchy but he knew something was happening to help him get better. Martha was somewhat happy that Jonathon was not to worried. Mr. Wells decided it was time to find the two that always seem to hide from him in the other worlds. ***************** Lois tried to tighten her seatbelt tighter as she cringed at the kid named Frank and the little Vietnamese man that was to be the translator. She couldn't imagine the story that Frank had told her earlier on their ride. She was to be one of the first journalists going into the action. Lois Lane as another person rubbing shoulders with Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather. They may from other networks that seem a world away from Metropolis, but they are famous. "Ms. Harper, we're here. You might want to try those boots over there. Just put them over your own shoes. When we set up, we'll get you in some better clothes for the field. We're joining up a group from the Khanh Duong." Lois looked at Frank strange while jumping out of the chopper. 'This place is completely different than the other place,' Lois thought to herself. Even with the neck high weeds, she still could feel sand biting at her legs and blowing in the wind. She faded back to hear Frank still prattling on about the camp. "This is the shower. You get a bottle from here and attach it like so - like an IV bag. You get one a day so plan on it at the end. That's the ration tent. You eat there. But this is only until the troops meet up with us. They're working up to Nah Trang. We're packing up and going with them." "Excuse me Frank. Just a minute. You're telling me that we are in the middle of no where having to fight for our own lives right now and then we're supposed to meet up with a bunch of guys..." "Grunts, they're called grunts." "Grunts, ok, we're supposed to meet them here and march to the next place that they will be building camp?" She was having to run to just keep up with Frank, who disappeared into another tent and pushed her out. "Yes, now go back to your tent and change where you won't die of heat stroke. By the way, don't disturb our South Vietnam friends helping us - they could turn on us." He couldn't see but Frank could almost feel the dirty looks and mocking he was getting from his prim and proper newswoman. TO BE CONTINUED>>> ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 10:04:21 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Mary Scibetta Subject: Working Against Time 13 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Walking out to the meeting area, Clark met up with his group and noticed his dad seemed distant. It hurt him that he had changed history. His father had never won any medals and never even mentioned that he led a squadron. Taking a big breath, Clark looked around, "I am Sgt. Jorel and been put in charge of this squadron. Our job has been laid out to clear mines and burn villages to Nah Trang. We start tomorrow, so get packed up tonight and have all your defenses cleaned and ready to go." The group started to disperse and Clark headed to his tent behind Lt. Casper. Casper seemed to have been pleased with Clark's apparent grasp of giving orders although Clark wasn't so sure of himself. More tired than he had been in days, Clark went in to sleep. Three hours wouldn't be much but something. Within hours, he was up again packing up the camp he had just arrived at. The platoon trudged slowly through the rice patties and weeds until sun up. The VC obviously liked to fight in the daylight. Hitting the ground, both waves of the platoon pulled guns and waited for the count. Clark closed his eyes and directed one wave northeast and the other to hang back. From the Southern edge whirring fire from AK47's started right above the weeds they laid in. Clark felt more scared than ever. This was the largest group he had come in contact with, this VC was out for blood. "GIVE ME THAT!!" Clark grabbed his shadows phone and called back, "WE NEED RAIN...I SAID RAIN!!! OUR COORDINATES ARE ..." Clark handed the phone back to the shadow as he read their coordinates. He signaled two of the grenadiers to cut off escape routes into the jungle as he moved up to the front line. He felt he belonged there with his dad in case this was the moment one of them would be killed. Clark fell deeper into the ground as the first grenade went off with blinding power and then another and another. After a few minutes the bullets seemed to silence as the VC were seen running into the trees. Calling them back up, Clark led his platoon into a barrage of gunfire, shooting randomly into the trees. Clark noticed bodies dropping in the woods and called the shooting off, but the men were angry. Most ran to the VC dead and collected their ears or dragged them back to camp for interrogation. The rest of the week's walk tended to be calmer. Everyone was so tired of walking by the end of the week, Clark wondered if he could somehow keep their enthusiasm up. News from the front at Nah Trang was the media had arrived, and they were the group to be on TV. Announcing this, the men got excited that wives and girlfriends would see them. "May I come in?" Jonathon stood outside Clark's crude tent. "Sure. What's up?" He couldn't believe that his father was afraid to speak to him as a person. "I just wanted to tell you that you made some wise decisions and I'm glad that you took over my post. I think I would have lost my cool. I noticed though, you didn't collect any VC prizes." "I understand killing the enemy, but defacing them is past cruel." Jonathon looked at Clark weird and couldn't believe that this man was considered a good fighter. "It was a courageous effort though. I was told at the last camp that NahTrang was my last fight before I go home. I feel sorry for the boys that have to stay but it's been a hell of a fight. I just gotta tell you. I really can't believe that a sweet guy like you would leave a Mrs. and come out to a damned place like this." "If I had known about this place more in depth, I may have skipped out. Actually, I am really here looking for someone.." Jonathon looked at him strangely. "I was told about someone before I came that I was to watch out for. It's personal." "Well, in that case I'll back off. I hope you find whatever you are looking for." Jonathon left Clark's tent and went back to his tent to sleep. The next morning was quiet. All the platoon woke to a bright day but humid, almost wet. The men quickly packed up and started off again northeast. Clark had calculated the night before with the navigator that they were within 6 hours of the destination. ************* "When the troops arrive, they must immediately set up shop here for a day before we get in their faces. But when we are introduced at chow that night, you all need something prepared and dress like grunts dress. Anything that sticks out could attract enemy fire. We want to see some action but not when we're not prepared." Lois raised her hand, "So, we're following them into enemy territory because isn't this the heavy artillery group that is joining up to Duc Pho. That's practically crossing the border." "Yes, and we are going to be there." Lois sat back in her chair stunned. At least Clark was able to defend his life - he had a gun. Crawling into bed that night, Lois started fearing for her life. *********** "You are to unpack at the sites saved for our platoon. There is not going to be much space so you must place tent to tent. There you will have the chance to take a brief shower before the meeting the press. Reporter Sharen Harper is covering the story on our Platoon. So, I order you to be gentlemen." Clark heard them all seem to lick their lips at the thought of seeing a woman again. Clark knew this was going to be asking for trouble. Hours later, the little band turned over the last hill and saw the camp as the men jumped out of formation and ran for the camp. Watching the woods carefully, Clark saw no reason that they could drop guard and take shelter. Assisting in throwing up tents, he visited briefly with the Lieutenant and planned the next days moves around the media that was assigned to them. The good news was she was a writer and wouldn't be putting them on TV. The troops would be disappointed. Walking back to his tent in the dark, he caught a glimpse of a shadow of a woman. She had her hair tied up in a knot like Lois would do after a shower. With that vision in mind, he felt calm enough to rest, to sleep again after three days. TO BE CONTINUED>>> ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 10:20:04 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Mary Scibetta Subject: Working Against Time 14 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The next evening came quickly, Clark stuck his head out to see preparations were being made for the introductions of the new media people. Clark gathered to eat with his men at one of the tables before forming up for the introductions. About an hour later, all the men gathered around a little podium waiting for the anxious glance of a woman. Another young man introduced her as Clark looked on. "Gentlemen, we have a treat for you. She doesn't sing or dance, but she is a great writer and a better listener. May I introduce you to Sharen Harper." Clark watched the guys get excited and then heard a lull when a woman came out dressed in fatigues too big for her. Clark looked up and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. "I am very excited about joining this platoon to cover your activity over the next few weeks. It's such a privilege to get a position like this. I know we will have a lot to share with each other." Clark listened closer and then saw it. The sun hit her face just right, and it was Lois. Clark closed his eyes in anger and shook his head. He couldn't believe the lengths she went to in order to be with him. As she started off stage, he dodged soldiers to get to the stairs. Grabbing her arm, he calmly remarked, "So Ms. Harper, how do like your new life here in the weeds?" Lois was about to answer until she looked up. "Clark? I swear I didn't plan this. I was waiting for Mr. Wells and this guy grabbed me thinking that I was a reporter. Well, I am a reporter, but not this kind of reporter. Anyway, I thought if he's not picking me up I might as well get to see something I haven't." Clark dragged her into the kitchen tent. "You are way over your head here. This is serious business. I have been at my wits and bodily end on a daily basis. I'm sure whoever you are supposed to be has probably at least read and trained for some of the situations we come to. I know I have told you this stuff before, but this time I AM NOT LYING. YOU GO HOME." "I can't. I can't blow our entire cover. 'Sorry, I really am not Sharen but someone from the future who came back for my hubby from the future who is really an alien and Kent's son.' They would believe that." Clark started pacing inside the tent with his hands on his head. Stopping in front of Lois, he took her hands, "I love you. I fear for you being here, but you got in this so we have to stick with it. You just can't let anything about us slip. Anything. And there may be things that happen that are out of the ordinary, but I am here a soldier and a leader. If you don't like watching it, then don't watch." Lois shook her head like an obedient child. From the way Clark was talking, things could be really bad. She wanted to hug and caress him, she couldn't compromise their lives. Besides, he smelled like a jungle. Lois watched as he left to get the troops under control and went to her tent, not to reappear until the camp was ready to pack up and move on. **************** As the sun started coming up, Clark already had risen to join the lieutenant in the mess tent. "So, what do you think of that Harper woman?" Casper asked as Clark sat down across from him to start eating. "She's fascinating. I saw her work the last few years and she can really move readers with some of her writing. Why you ask?" "You think she has seen any action, you know what I mean?" Clark looked at Casper and smiled. "I have a feeling she has her own action. But I doubt she flew across the ocean to get some action from you sir." Casper looked up at Clark and acted like the rest of his chow would end up in his lap. "Jorel, if I didn't know that you had such a good chance at a military career, I would just ignore what you said and let the little lady decide. But you seem to be protactive of anything but VC so I'm gonna obey your wishes even though I outrank you man." Casper got up and slapped Clark on the back before dumping the rest of the food away. Clark watched him as he walked out of the tent and passed Lois coming through the door. Casper winked at Clark and planted his hand right on her butt. Clark saw Lois shoot the man a look as Clark laughed and threw his biscuit across the mess at him. Lois sat down across from Clark and watched as the other news crew filtered in behind her. "Friendly people you work with." Lois resisted reaching out for Clark's hand. "Well, they haven't seen much of a woman in several months. Some of them for years." "Still, " Lois replied while trying to eat, "that was a nice way of being told good morning." Clark just laughed and started to leave the table. "You have about thirty minutes before we start moving on. Get your guys and pack up. I'll be around to get you in the lead group before we start off. Make sure you pack where you can reach your boots and socks in minutes." Clark turned and started out the tent before Lois could put a word out. Clark knew if he had stayed any longer with her something very wrong could have happened between them. The sun had fully risen in the sky when the troops were completely packed and ready to move on to An Khe. Clark knew to pull his father up close to him in the command row along with Lois. Casper agreed, for no other reason than to have Ms. Harper able to see all the action. Clark worried about the vision of her seeing everything and being involved. Within hours of starting off toward the new camp, Clark stopped the platoon for a rest and read over Lois' shoulder. He could see her face, which usually alive with excitement and wanting the next big story, was clam and almost a white as she wrote. 'The pain she feels. Why did she do this to herself?' he thought as he read. All the way along the highway are little villages and temples, thatched huts. It is 40 miles of pure poverty - garbage and other material lying on the streets mixing with thick mud and leftover Vietnamese drinks. It produces a stench not comprehendible to the normal man. Everywhere we walk, little brown kids seem appear around the equipment wanting food or water, begging with their little hands. Most are naked or have only the use of raingear as their clothing. The children are there running alongside mothers and little bent women who had to balance giant bundles of grass or food. They too were deep in the mud. We never saw any men. Those were reserved for the only other jobs available at The time. Either death or the army. This is real. "Sounds good. I mean the best it can considering its the truth." Lois smiled at her husband, who at this point, had not given one word or thought to being kind to her in the way he usually was. But Lois was starting to understand now what he had been through. "Thank you. It's hard writing something objective out here. You feel so sorry for some and hatred toward others." Clark moved away from her and toward Casper and the other troops guarding the press people. "You may learn to hate more than you think. Don't get emotionally involved." Lois looked down at what she wrote and over at Clark as he settled in next to Casper and his father. "So, what are we doing, this is wasting our valuable time." "Look, Jorel. This is one of the trickiest roads that have formed since we started this damn war effort for something I really don't get. But I'm an LT. So, I simply follow the orders in front of me. Now the thinking is that a VC attachment are coming up over the ridge for tomorrow and we have the wonderful press to deal with. Jorel, just keep them busy. Let her write her stories of the sad little people. Kent'll keep the ammo loaded to the grunts and we'll get out of this soon. Then back to digging trenches." Clark listened to Casper continue to his mindless orders and understood he was taking Clark away from his father and putting him on the press. "Look, I think the press can take care of themselves. They volunteered to stick themselves here. I want the troops." Clark looked right at Casper and then over at his father, who shook his head in agreement. "Anyway, Kent is out of here as soon as we get there. Putting him in charge might confuse matters when we get there." Casper sat back and pulled out a wad of paper stuffed in his pocket. "Happy trails Jorel." Casper got up and signed for the troops to continue walking forward. Jorel took his father and the gear and started behind the second sector of the platoon. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 10:30:13 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Mary Scibetta Subject: Working Against Time 15 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Pacing in the waiting room, Martha waited for news from Mr. Wells, who had promised to return with any news. Coming around the corner, she almost ran right into him. "Mrs. Kent, I have news. Clark and Lois are together. She became mixed up in a horrible accident of mistaken identity. She and Clark are on their way toDuc Pho. I have really no idea what that means to you or Jonathon, but things are very worrisome now." Martha looked frighteningly at Mr. Wells who had suddenly become a blank for kind and justly pronounced words. He followed her into Jonathon's room silently. She walked over, put her drink down, and held onto her husband's hand. Jonathon had somehow become better in the last few days that the two had been gone but was not out of the woods. "Jonathon, where do you believe the accident happened? The one that is causing this pain." Jonathon seemed to strain and look in the direction of Mr. Wells, knowing he was the one that should be asking. He breathed deeply and whispered something to Martha. She turned around and was about to tell Mr. Wells when Jonathon continued. Mr. Wells waited outside the room until Martha came back almost a half hour later. "He says An Khe or something like that. He says it's something with his last attack. He's never talked about it, even to me. The last fight before they returned him home to me was evidently something he never wanted to remember. Where is my son?" Mr. Wells dipped his head and tried to mutter the same name of the village. Martha watched him intently and could read his lips. Suddenly, she felt that of all the times she had been in peril, this time she couldn't take it. She looked Mr. Wells in the eyes, "You bring my son back with his bride whether you save my husband or not. I can accept the loss of my husband. We have had some great years together, but i will not accept the loss of my son to something like this. This is insane." Martha let go of the little man and walked back into the room with her husband, who had begun coughing again. Mr. Wells felt compelled to now to finally end the charade that he had voluntarily started. Finally, he had learned that regardless of fantastic books and Utopia, time travel was not the answer to any of the world's questions. Walking down the hall of the hospital, he disappeared suddenly. ************* "What's going on?" Lois crouched next to Clark as he sat back in a hole waiting for something to break. The camp had only been able to manage half the miles they had planned for the day with the press along. Clark could tell that Lois now was understanding what she was in for. "The platoon is dying for a good buzz and the village has reams of good Vietnamese drinking water. Daybreak, it's ours." Clark continued cleaning the rifle in front of him and watching over the hill at the other men standing post for the village. "Do they know we're here?" Lois was intrigued, which worried Clark but not like it would have if she had spoken of danger in Metropolis. She could see that Clark spoke without feeling more and more since she had arrived. She wasn't sure if it was an act or he really felt differently about her now. "What is going to happen?" "We're burning them. And all runners, anyone that moves. All the browns, all the VC, they're all enemies. You kill them all." Clark stood up and grabbed his gear. Turning around, he pointed the barrel of the rifle toward the village. "Do they know we're here waiting?" He looked at Lois and pointed the gun at her. Lois stopped breathing, she never remembered Clark so callous. "They know - they know you are here, and that in itself gives them the advantage. So, Sharen Harper, are you ready to die? Because, this time no comic book hero in tights is going to sweep you up to safety." Lois started crying as Clark walked away and into his tent. Later that night, Clark awoke to a whining in a tent near to him. Waking in a sweat, he had been dreaming about his first night with Lois as his wife. He remembered how he had treated her earlier that night and realized he had gone over the line and that after all was said and done, he would return home to Metropolis as Lois' husband. He felt Lois was owed an apology. Clark went over and over in his mind what exactly he wanted to say as he walked to her tent. He could still hear her whimpering. He moved to open the flap of the tent and stopped. "So, there's nothing I can do for you? I know this must be hard to be sent out here with all these men and no one to protect you. Jorel has been fairly friendly but pointing a gun at you in order to say goodnight seems out of line." Clark peeked in the tent and saw Casper sitting on the ground next to Lois. "I'm fine, I just got a little frazzled. I've actually been through worse." Casper laughed, "I can't really imagine that being possible." Clark caught a glance of Casper's hand pulling her hair back out of her face and handing her a washcloth. Clark filled with rage. "I have been. I have been chased by mobsters and tracked by assassins. I really have an interesting life." Clark could hear Casper and Lois both laughing and decided to head back to the tent. For some reason, he felt that he shouldn't leave. Squatting down outside the tent, he decided to wait. "You must be really hot in that outfit. I know they told you to dress for the weather." Lois giggled, "I know, but I always have to try the odds. But I believe you." Standing up, Lois started remove her jacket and boots. "Let me help you with that. I can be pretty good with getting off a pair of sweaty boots without ripping off the top layer of skin." "That feels really good. Are you a regular in the foot masseuse." "No, I know that it is physically hard, especially on a woman, to walk miles and miles in any shoes. That better?" "Thank you. I think now I just want to crawl into bed and sleep. It's been a very long and strange day." Lois started crawling into the cot and dropping clothes on the floor from underneath the covers. Casper continued to sit on the ground and watch as Lois settled in for the night. "Well, I guess I should say goodnight and do a little of that myself." Casper reached over and rubbed his hand down Lois' face on more time. Standing up, Casper reached over and wrapped his hand around Lois' head to kiss her. Suddenly, Clark heard a scream come from the tent and ran inside the tent. Without caring, he grabbed Casper, who had wrapped his legs around her cot to press her down. Casper turned around and hit Clark across the face. "You are out of line Jorel." "Me? When was the last time you allowed any of your men to do this even with the women in the villages. Get out of here and the leave the woman alone." Casper pulled his shirt back in order and grabbed his hat. "You have a lot of nerve. Now I know who really wants to get in her pants. You're a dead man Jorel and your career is over here." Casper left the tent bleeding from his nose. Clark turned around and saw Lois sitting up in bed scared out of her mind. Lois immediately got out of bed and headed for the towel hanging on the edge of the portable table. "You're bleeding," Lois whispered as she touched Clark's lip with the towel. "I'm really sorry. I knew that I should have been watching better for that." Clark lowered Lois' hand and looked deeply at her. "Also, I am really sorry about earlier tonight. I just got caught up in the whole thing and started talking to you like you were anyone else." Lois crawled back into bed as Clark held the corner of the towel to his face. "Clark, don't apologize about anything. We're almost done here I think. I have a feeling and we're going to be fine as soon as we get back to our time. This whole thing has been strange for all of us. We just will need a long break after we get back and take care of ourselves." Clark sat down by her bedside and cradled her in his arms and cried. Lois continued to talk about how much better things would be after they returned until Clark and her both fell asleep. TO BE CONTINUED>>> ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 10:37:08 -0400 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: kubitc Subject: Re: gender exclusive language (was RE: A Night at the Office) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Since our list mom has declared this an okay thread, I thought I'd respond and clarify my previous post. Nan wrote: >Since "henchwoman" would, in my opinion sound silly, I used the term >female henchman. I really don't see the problem here, unless we're concerned >about upsetting a female villian in a story. Unless any of us plan on >becoming a villian in the future, I don't think any of us on this list really >need to worry about being called a henchman. My worry is not about becoming, or being called, a henchman or -woman in the future; it is about gender exclusive language. Obviously, it does not offend any characters when they are referred to with gender exclusive terms, but it may well offend some of your readers. That's your prerogative, of course, and in fact, offending readers is something that some writers I know actually enjoy to do. But it is common practice in academia to use gender inclusive language so as to not offend those who are offended by such things. Pam wrote: >I prefer "henchperson" myself, but it is a tad silly I also prefer "henchperson," and my guess is that the reason it sounds silly, or perhaps even wrong, is simply because it is not a commonly used word. That's probably why, rather than calling people "policeman" and "policewoman" according to their gender, the inclusive term "police officer" was developed. It's much easier on our tongues ;) Tara wrote: >Terms such as policeman (and henchman) are coming to be gender-inclusive >terms. I, for one, will continue to use them as such. Actually, the trend is *away* from words such as "policeman" and "henchman," as I mentioned in academia above. I work at my school's writing center and we are taught to advise correcting all gender exclusive language since many professors grade down when reading a paper containing gender exclusive words. It is difficult to imagine a word such as "policeman," where the noun-part of the word is man, being used to describe women. It's literally saying, "a man who is police." Pam's suggestion of "mankind," OTOH, makes more sense as gender inclusive; in "mankind," the noun-part is "kind." In this case, you're saying "the kind like a man," which, in comparison, I suppose, to animals, includes women. However, the reason why I personally don't use the word is that one of its definitions on dictionary.com is "men, as opposed to women." Christy kubitc@kenyon.edu "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." -Michaelangelo ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 10:42:11 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Mary Scibetta Subject: Working Against Time 16 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The next time Lois saw Clark was from a distance as they were still trudging to the next destination. To Lois, she just wanted to be in An Khe because that was to be the end. For her, she just wanted to get out of it alive. Listening to the talk in the morning at chow and during some early interviews in the field, she could tell where the end was was definitely going to be the hardest part of the whole tour, even for Clark. A light rain had just stopped falling and the sun came out again as Lois continued to walk several meters behind Clark. The platoon had slowed up a little knowing that enemy territory was in reach. A crack of AK47 rifles shrieked out of nowhere as Lois hit the ground faster than anyone. Another soldier landed on top of her and pushed her face further into the dirt and screamed for her not to move. She could feel him move away but she never moved. Machine gun fire ripped through the air as Clark looked around at the men in his platoon. Casper was still not talking to him on a personal basis but was waving off orders for Clark to carry them another direction. Lois could see all the movements of the different men and wondered if she would be left alone. Clark was at the southwest corner of the meeting zone and wondering what had happened. Clark knew what happened the moment the green tracer bullets started streaking through the sky. Clark began slithering across the ground the direction he was pointed. Two Charlies began running out of the woods nearby but were taken down quickly by two of his own. Seeing two of the Charlies down, another dozen started running for the woods. Looking over at Casper, Clark pointed the troops toward the woods. Clark followed the platoon through the grasses trying to desperately catch up with the leftover VC that must be downed before they sent for help. Not remembering anything about this being the final fight that could possibly be the reason for his father's illness, he ran instinctively after the Charlies without thinking. He looked back and saw his father running ahead. He pulled his father back and pushed forward then felt intense pain hit him. Lois heard the bullets stop flying and looked up over the grass but still crouched to the ground. Looking out toward the woods, she saw Clark stop and pull his father back and then fall in the grass. Getting up to run, she felt something tug on her leg. "Don't. He'll be fine." The man from last night that had been so horrible to her was now telling her that she could die if she went for him. "Clark?" He could hear his name being called but couldn't fathom the person calling to him. Grabbing his leg, Clark could only feel the white-hot flash of pain from the poisoned prong on the punji stake he ran into. "Take over. I got hit by the stake," Clark pushed his father off of him and told him to keep going. "No, you go with me. Five other soldiers are off in the direction. We need to get you back to the road where medic can look at you." Clark wrapped his arms around his father as they limped back toward the road. Lois ran out to the grass area and helped Clark and his father back to the medic. "Clark, are you ok?" Lois leaned over him as Jonathon pulled her away. The medic came over and started to look over him. The rest of the men started returning to the road with news that the gooks were dead and proved it by the number of ears they had collected. "He'll be ok Ms. Harper. You need to move away." Lois stepped further back and watched as Clark's eyes started to close. Clark started humming as if he was falling into unconsciousness and could feel himself being slapped harder and harder. Looking up, he could Casper standing over him. "What happened?" "Being a hero again sir. Stepped on it without even knowing it. Stupid cherry move." Clark winced in pain as the medic did his best to take the pant leg off and start stitching the wound closed. Lois put her head into Kent's chest, not bearing the blood that seemed to start puddling around her husband's leg. "Well, you gotta walk for a few more miles. We gonna take a rest here for the moment but we are real close to the objective." Clark shook his head some in affirmation. Lois sat wondering if this was the mistake that might be costing Clark's father's life. Lois went over and sat down near the grass where it looked like a line of trees had been cut down for it. She had seen everything she wanted to see right there. She didn't need anymore. Her husband was dying from a stupid piece of wood with poison ripping through his leg in a lifetime he shouldn't even had come to. The day was starting to get darker and Clark's wound was still bleeding bad, but he was now convinced he would walk around in order to get ready for the rest of the night walk. Looking over at Lois, he could see the concern on her face as she sat by herself on the log. A hollowed out log. "Lois, did you ask anyone if you could sit there?" Lois looked up at him in surprise to hear his voice. Nodding her head, she smiled, "No, it just looked better than the ground. Why?" She started looking around at her arrangements and realized it wasn't a tree stump she had found. "Clark, what is it?" She started to cry profusely as Clark tried to clam her down. "Casper, check her out please." The Lieutenant walked around Lois and then carefully looked in the log's hollowed out space beneath her legs. Looking back at Clark, he shook his head. "She got herself a hot one here." "What do you mean exactly?" "Sharen, don't move at all." "Ok, what is it?" "It's a cluster bomb. Goes off once the weight is removed. This one is badly placed because we might be able to undo it." Casper called over the two ammunitions experts. "What happens if it can't be diffused?" "Then you and one of my mutions experts won't feel any pain of death and the rest of us will get to go back to the US without all of our limbs. Thanks for the great reporting." Casper left the mutions expert there to watch Lois if she moved and smiled at Clark as he passed. "Looks like I should have done her last night. It would have been her last screw. Unless you fit the bill after I left that is." Clark just looked back at Lois and the white face she was staring back at him with. " Can she try to stand up without moving it?" The mutions expert looked back at Clark and gave him the dumbest look. "I guess she can try. It's tucked back pretty good, she might not touch it off." The ammunitions man moved father back than Clark and the medic moved Clark away. Clark called across the road to Lois, "Listen to me. Stand up very slowly and carefully. Just don't nudge the stump or the bomb when you walk away." Lois started breathing harder. "Sharen, slowly get up. Trust me. Walk toward me, slowly." Lois swallowed hard as she moved off the mouth of the open stump of a log. Seeing herself away from the stump by several feet, she ran for Clark and fell into his arms. "You ok?" Lois couldn't come up with words to explain her relief, but Clark could tell she truly was happy to be in his arms and alive. The platoon continued into the little town of An Khe that night before the platoon would stop for Clark wound. He had now bled through three sets of his pants and several miles of gauze. The lightheadedness started getting to him as he could now see more than one Lois walking down the road next to him. Reaching the newly arranged American camp, Lois followed the medic and Clark into the hospital tent. "He was hit about five hours ago. He lost a lot of blood and some other men we know have died already from this loss of blood. This guy is made of steel." Clark looked at Lois and could see her smiling at the thought of the man of steel, if they only knew. Lois saw that Clark needed some time to be worked on and waved to him before she left the tent. "He'll be ok. He's been tough from the beginning," Jonathon remarked as he put his arm around her. "You seem to have sort of bond with him none of the men in the platoon understand. He's going to be upset that you're leaving." Lois looked up at him. "Leaving?" "Yeah, the chopper over there is waiting to take you out to Singapore and back to the states. The week was all you were supposed to get. I get on one of those tomorrow and head to Hawaii. I'm going back to Kansas. It'll be nice going home to my girl for Christmas. I plan on asking her to marry me. She said no one other time, but now I'm a war hero." Lois smiled as Jonathon walked her to the chopper and realized that she was going somewhere else besides back to the present. But Jonathon already had her on the chopper. "I have to go back now. I'm not supposed to leave yet." Lois started to panic and looked at the little man sitting next to her. "Ms. Harper, it's time to return to Metropolis. Clark will follow if the time is right." Mr. Wells was pressing buttons on some new gadget she hadn't seen yet. "What do you mean if the time is right?" "Be patient." Lois could see that Clark was coming out of the hospital tent and talking to Jonathon. Suddenly the small body of Clark started dragging his leg across to the chopper's landing site and screaming. She started waving out the chopper door when light flashed near the chopper and it tipped. TO BE CONTINUED>>>> ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 07:53:12 -0700 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Nancy Smith Subject: Re: gender exclusive language (was RE: A Night at the Office) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit All right, I'm going to make my position on this as clear as I can. It is never my intention to offend anyone. However when a person writes, there is always the potential for offending someone. I have discovered over many years that if someone tries they can find something to offend them in *anything* someone else does. Does this mean no one should ever write anything? No. If I spent all my time worrying about whether something I say is politically correct then I wouldn't be able to write at all. I am not going to apologize for my use of the term "henchman", or any other term that I may use in a story someday. If someone is that afraid they may see something they don't like in something I write, they are quite at liberty not to read it. And that is my last word on the subject. Nan Smith kubitc wrote: > Since our list mom has declared this an okay thread, I thought I'd respond and > clarify my previous post. > > Nan wrote: > >Since "henchwoman" would, in my opinion sound silly, I used the term > >female henchman. I really don't see the problem here, unless we're concerned > >about upsetting a female villian in a story. Unless any of us plan on > >becoming a villian in the future, I don't think any of us on this list really > >need to worry about being called a henchman. > > My worry is not about becoming, or being called, a henchman or -woman in the > future; it is about gender exclusive language. Obviously, it does not offend > any characters when they are referred to with gender exclusive terms, but it > may well offend some of your readers. That's your prerogative, of course, and > in fact, offending readers is something that some writers I know actually > enjoy to do. But it is common practice in academia to use gender inclusive > language so as to not offend those who are offended by such things. > > Pam wrote: > >I prefer "henchperson" myself, but it is a tad silly > > I also prefer "henchperson," and my guess is that the reason it sounds silly, > or perhaps even wrong, is simply because it is not a commonly used word. > That's probably why, rather than calling people "policeman" and "policewoman" > according to their gender, the inclusive term "police officer" was developed. > It's much easier on our tongues ;) > > Tara wrote: > >Terms such as policeman (and henchman) are coming to be gender-inclusive > >terms. I, for one, will continue to use them as such. > > Actually, the trend is *away* from words such as "policeman" and "henchman," > as I mentioned in academia above. I work at my school's writing center and we > are taught to advise correcting all gender exclusive language since many > professors grade down when reading a paper containing gender exclusive words. > > It is difficult to imagine a word such as "policeman," where the noun-part of > the word is man, being used to describe women. It's literally saying, "a man > who is police." Pam's suggestion of "mankind," OTOH, makes more sense as > gender inclusive; in "mankind," the noun-part is "kind." In this case, you're > saying "the kind like a man," which, in comparison, I suppose, to animals, > includes women. However, the reason why I personally don't use the word is > that one of its definitions on dictionary.com is "men, as opposed to women." > > Christy > kubitc@kenyon.edu > > "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." -Michaelangelo ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 10:56:20 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Mary Scibetta Subject: Working Against Time END MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lois grabbed the handrail inside as the chopper leaned further to the right and headed for the ground. Mr. Wells smiled at her from across the way, why she didn't know. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want Maketh me lie down in green pastures, he restored my soul..." On the ground, all that Lois and Jonathon could see was the chopper heading into a ball of flames several miles from the camp. They both jumped into jeeps headed in the same direction of the downed chopper. Clark was already in tears knowing that even Lois died in this life, it would be forever before he could find her again. Arriving at the chopper, snipers from the woods had arrived to take out any other help that was arriving to help. Clark hunkered down in the jeep floor and waited for most of the firing to stop. Jonathon was already out shooting like a madman. Clark wobbled out of the jeep to take a look around. The other men had already pulled the bodies from the wreckage but no woman. At the same time, Clark knelt, he felt something pierce him in the chest. He saw that he was bleeding again form his chest this time. It was perfect, he and his wife would both die in a time they weren't even supposed to be in. Maybe he really wanted to die. In order to meet up with Lois. Clark thought, 'But if I die now, I'll never come back.' Clark gave up and lied back in the grass. By slowing up the group and taking over his father's postion during the rain fight, he saved his father but cost Lois and him eternal happiness. **************** "Clark. Clark. Clark, did you have a rough night last night? I know that crime is up but I thought I heard you come in at two and that's not out of the ordinary. Perry's going to have your hide if we don't get to work on time. Kally's up. Get out of bed." Lois pushed Clark onto the floor before he floated back up into a standing position. She smiled and walked back into the bathroom. "For once, I wish I could cause you a little pain." Clark got out bed and met his wife downstairs to go into work. Later at work, Clark was leaning back in the seat at his desk talking on the phone and smiling at his wife. "Sure. Thank you Dr. Klein." Clark hung up the phone and walked over to his wife's desk. "That was Dr. Klein; he said that he would run another set of tests on that transmitter we found. What do you have?" Lois leaned in closer to her husband and slightly pulled on his tie. He smiled and did it up tighter. "Well, seems that the Newtrich sisters has a little brother that was just picked up by the police - some car painting incident, nothing they need Superman for." Clark looked at the copy that was Lois was printing out for the evening edition when he heard a scream from across town. "Go." Clark smiled and started off when his phone rang. "I'll get it." Lois walked over to get the phone. "What is it?" "It's for you." Clark forgot about the call for help and took the phone. "Really, that is incredible. Of course, we would love to. We'll meet you at the airport this weekend to go." Clark hung up the phone. "What was that about?" "My father is meeting a bunch of his old war buddies in Washington and asked if we would want to go. It's some special date for them and my dad wants me to see my namesake. I said we could go." Lois smiled and took Clark's arm as he went back to his seat. "Clark, do you have a feeling about this trip, something special." Lois looked at Clark as he started to stare into space. "I mean I could swear I remember being in a helicopter in Vietnam but I was barely one." Lois and Clark both went into the conference room and closed the door. They started hashing out details of something they weren't quite sure of and remembered that this was the day that Clark's father had fallen ill from before. "Wells, he must have put us back earlier thinking we wouldn't remember." Clark turned white remembering things that he and Lois had gone through and the fights they had while he was there. "Do you see me any different at all now. After we have returned." "No, what it is Clark, you seem to take our priorities a little more seriously and aren't dashing off as much as before. Lately, some the people you have picked up haven't been quite as kind when speaking of you. But nothing much different. And you have been less romantic in some ways, but it's been a busy week." Clark started to pace, "Wells said this could happen. I don't even really remember and it comes back to haunt me - change my ways." Lois wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed his neck. "We'll make it through this. Maybe write it down like a historical fiction. Your dad might like that. Now, look out there to the two empty desks and the mad editor, we better get back to work." Lois to Clark's hand as they walked back to desks. Clark sat down, unable to think of anything else, and started to type. "The Vietnam apparition, so heavy with the bones of countless bodies, had forced upon me an awareness of the fragility of the body and soul; had made me stare terror into the vulnerability of my life, of all life; had drained the youthful arrogance of assumed immortality from my veins. Death, which we had kept at a distance in the bush because it was always so close, now hovered and hid in every peaceful corner. Vietnam had made death as intimate and imminent as life. I had journeyed to Vietnam under the sails of an obsession, a glory lust that compelled me to trace the boundaries of my manhood in the exploding terrain. I found that I had to trade pieces of my soul for the silver of my decorations for valor; that I must have to barter my integrity away to satiate my passion for glory." ***************** "I never thought I would get to show you this Clark. See, here it is." Jonathon rubbed his hand along a name that Clark thought he knew. "His name was Clark Jonel, I swore to Martha it was something else. But his uniform was so bloody at his death at the chopper, the recorder messed up the 'r' and made it into an 'n.'" Clark rubbed his fingers across it and could almost feel the pain of being shot that last time. Since the revelation he and Lois had, he had written a book and remembered in minute detail all the experiences he had. Lois had become worried that he was going to start with the nightmares like the real vets do. But nothing that bad had occurred. "It's just too bad that the nice woman reporter was never found. You know the US government still has her listed as missing in action? I almost felt glad that Clark died there in front of the chopper - he was in love Sharen Harper from the beginning and would have done anything for her. Almost like you two." Jonathon looked up at Lois and Clark before he sat up from the wall. "We better get ready. You have that speech to give, remember?" Clark nodded as the family turned toward the parking lot and the Washington Monument. About an hour later, Superman appeared in front of about 300 vets that had gathered for the special day. "I was asked to come and speak today on the behalf of peace. I have been lucky enough to live in a time where peace has been relatively easy to keep. But in the last few weeks, the world has watched while a certain small country drives further and further into a smaller province. Now I can do a lot of things as Superman, but fending off a war that brews for centuries is not something I can do. The fright remains that massive weapons will start playing a role in these new fights. The destiny of the human race and the planet on which we live demands we never use these weapons. The tragedy of the humankind is that our fate lies now in our own hands. Unfortunately, the history of our violent past offers us little hope for the future. I am hoping though through meetings and conferences like this, we can convince countries to do otherwise." Superman stepped down and was met by his parents and Lois. "Are you ok?" "I am fine for the first time since before all this mess started. I just want to take my wife home and love her." His parents laughed as Lois blushed. Walking to the car after changing, Clark took Lois in his arms, "We're going to be fine. I think we're finally going to be fine." "I'm glad, but there is something that is left over from our trip to Nam. I wanted to tell you before but you seemed so bothered by everything." Clark looked at her worried and wondered what she was talking about. "What's wrong?" Clark looked worried as his parents followed up behind him. "Well, remember something you told me after that night in the motel - about how you felt after we..." Lois stopped since his parents seemed intent on listening. "Use some of that Supertouching now." Lois took his hand and moved it to her belly. Clark looked at her stunned and a smile cracked on his face. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 11:13:59 EDT Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Mary Scibetta Subject: Working Against Time credits et al MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I feel that on this particular story I should for the sake of the past writers and vets that I should give them their due. Plus, I am currently trying to get this story put on my page with pics that match the the storyline. Mad Minutes and Vietnam Moments by Michael Clodfelter Better Times Than These by Winston Groom A Combat Intelligence Officer in Vietnam by Eric McAllister Smith In War and Peace by Edward K Eckert God bless our Vets. Mary www.megsfamilyhobbies.homestead. com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 08:16:16 -0700 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Nancy Smith Subject: Re: Working Against Time credits et al MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, Mary: I read the rest of your story this morning. I like it. I spotted some minor grammatical and spelling errors ( not that *I* ever make them ) but the story was a real attention grabber. I look forward to seeing more of your work, I hope not too far in the future. Nan Smith Mary Scibetta wrote: > I feel that on this particular story I should for the sake of the past > writers and vets that I should give them their due. Plus, I am currently > trying to get this story put on my page with pics that match the the > storyline. > > Mad Minutes and Vietnam Moments by Michael Clodfelter > Better Times Than These by Winston Groom > A Combat Intelligence Officer in Vietnam by Eric McAllister Smith > In War and Peace by Edward K Eckert > > God bless our Vets. > > Mary > www.megsfamilyhobbies.homestead. > com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 17:28:28 -0400 Reply-To: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" Sender: "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Fanfic" From: Gerry Anklewicz Subject: Re: gender exclusive language (was RE: A Night at the Office) In-Reply-To: <390C48D8.40CAD216@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Nan wrote: >All right, I'm going to make my position on this as clear as I can. It >is never my >intention to offend anyone. However when a person writes, there is >always the >potential for offending someone. I have discovered over many years that >if someone >tries they can find something to offend them in *anything* someone else >does. Does >this mean no one should ever write anything? No. If I spent all my time >worrying >about whether something I say is politically correct then I wouldn't be >able to >write at all. I am not going to apologize for my use of the term >"henchman", or >any other term that I may use in a story someday. If someone is that >afraid they >may see something they don't like in something I write, they are quite at >liberty >not to read it. And that is my last word on the subject. > Since I began this thread, I'd like to begin by stating that I had no intention of nitpicking. I enjoyed the story very much, but the one word stood out. As I said, I'm conscious of biased language because that's part of my job. I see the trend towards gender inclusive language, not by creating words like henchperson or personhole-cover, but by using alternatives such as officer or flight attendant where there are no gender expectations built into the name. Why do we have to say male nurse? Shouldn't nurse be adequate? My response was not one based on a fear that I might read something I don't want to, but was based on my desire to point out a different perspective on language. Some use English and turn it into a beautiful language filled with excitement and imaginative nuances (as I've read in many fanfics, especially yours Nan); others use language to be hurtful and biased. We need to be aware of both. That's why we teach about bias and propoganda in school. Our children need to be aware of the impact of language. My purpose was for open dialogue. I believe what has been happening here on the list is very healthy. When we are aware of how we use language, we improve how we express ourselves. Gerry