A/N - Lemons ahead. Read at your own risk!
Chapter 42
"Diana," Lex said with pleasure when their private penthouse elevator deposited her into his LexCorp office.
He'd spent a productive morning tying up loose ends of business in preparation for their honeymoon while Diana was on the Watchtower delivering her wedding invitations, but as Lex had a rather special afternoon planned for his fiancée before their meeting with Tess, he was more than ready to set his work aside and welcome his woman home.
Diana did her best to give him a smile, but Lex could see the droop in her normally confident, thrown-back shoulders, despite the fact that she'd already changed out of her uniform and was wearing one of her new dresses that left a little more to the imagination.
"Come here, baby," Lex said sympathetically, opening his arms wide with an understanding softness in his eyes.
Diana sighed and gratefully made her way over to where Lex sat at his desk so she could climb into his lap, slinging her legs sideways across his and curling into his chest as Lex consolingly wrapped his arms around her.
"It didn't go so well, I take it?" Lex asked her, pressing a kiss into his woman's forehead.
"Kara was excited," Diana said as her fingers came up to play with the collar of Lex's crisp white button down shirt. "Mera was happy for us, too, genuinely so and very supportive."
"But…?" Lex said, filling in Diana's brow with criss-crossed trails of tiny kisses.
"But I embarrassed myself horribly when I tried to invite Dinah to the wedding. I was so tongue-tied and ineloquent, Lex!" Diana moaned in dismay.
"I let you down," she said, looking up at him with sad eyes.
"Diana, how could you possibly have let me down?" Lex asked her in amazement. "I expected that inviting Black Canary would be difficult for you. It was brave of you to do it."
"But I acted so flustered and ashamed," Diana said, her eyes filling with tears. "Like I wasn't proud to be marrying you," she sniffed, "and like Dinah wasn't wrong for judging me for it," Diana sobbed out, turning her face full into Lex's chest in guilty self-recrimination.
"And I am proud to be marrying you," Diana said with muffled voice as she shook with tears, "and I should have conveyed that instead of acting like a child stammering out foolish excuses to her mother when she's been caught throwing knives that she'd been explicitly told not to use unsupervised," Diana moaned, "even though the fact that I'd hit every bulls-eye on my homemade targets should have made her proud."
Lex chuckled, warm and fond, his chest rumbling against Diana's tear-stained face as one of his hands found its way up to knead the back of her neck.
"Stealing your mother's knives, hm?" he laughed. "Your infatuation with villainy goes way back, I see," he teased her, and Diana couldn't help but let out a small giggle.
Lex had such a way of turning every dark situation brighter, Diana thought to herself with gratitude, finding herself awestruck again that this was the man she was marrying. How had she gotten so lucky, Diana wondered, to find someone who, unlike Batman, lifted her spirits instead of dragging them down abysmally lower?
"I love you so much," Diana said, raising her wet eyes up to Lex's, "and now I feel like I've disgraced that," she said sadly, "and only a few days before our wedding, too."
"Stop that," Lex said firmly, taking Diana by surprise with his commanding tone before plundering her mouth with his tongue, kissing her so fiercely and passionately that Diana's stomach clenched and her toes began to curl and her hand, which had been loosely tangled in Lex's shirt, suddenly found itself clinging to the back of his head for support, because the way Lex was kissing her, Diana feared that she would lift off and combust on the spot, and Hera help her, her clit was on fire and her panties were getting wet despite the fact that the only place Lex's hand had strayed was to the side of her face, which he was holding with decisive ownership as he kissed her into the stratosphere.
"Lex," Diana panted out when he finally drew back the slightest bit, his dark eyes glittering over her dilated ones, and God help him, he wanted to take her right here and now; to stretch her out on his oversized desk and strip off her panties and eat her out from his desk chair like the rich-ass business magnate he was, with Diana's legs quivering on his shoulders as she shuddered and writhed under him while he sucked and licked at her dripping core until she was crying his name and begging to come and swearing that she understood that nothing she did could ever possibly tarnish the love that she had for him, because the fact that she loved him at all was a miracle, and what Lex wouldn't give to force those words out of Diana's mouth as he edged her until the fierce Amazon warrior was a whimpering mess helplessly arching for his tongue and thirsting for his fingers until he finally granted her release, plunging a probing digit into that tight virgin pussy as he lapped up her juices and feasted on her clit until she was screaming out her climax and shattering all around him while chanting the name that didn't even deserve to be on her lips, like it was a prayer to one of her false gods and -
- and Diana's blue eyes were staring amazed into his, wide and blown, and Lex's cock was hard as a rock.
"Go upstairs and make yourself come," Lex ordered her in a rough voice. "Spread out on my bed."
"Ok," Diana whispered in shock, loosely removing her limbs from his body in an obedient daze.
Lex felt sure that his heated gaze must be rivaling Superman's in the eternal seconds that lengthened interminably as a woozy Diana stumbled her way to the elevator. He almost cursed out loud when she paused to turn back to him before getting in.
"You will, too?" she asked him, biting her lip.
"Fuck, yes," Lex said in a tight voice.
"Ok," Diana whispered again, but with a wispy, delighted smile lighting up her very-almost-nearly-fucked-out face.
"Scream my name," Lex added harshly, just before the doors shut on her.
"You, too," he barely heard float out to him in Diana's sultry tones that had a hint more of the commanding warrior peeking through.
"Oh, I will," Lex muttered to himself, already undoing his pants.
It was a much less wound up Lex who made his way into his bedroom ten minutes later.
He growled low in his throat to see a post-orgasmic Diana curled onto her side on top of his covers, her arms wrapped around his pillow as she wantonly inhaled Lex's scent from it. The visible wet spot on his blanket nearly made Lex get hard again, but he was Lex Luthor, dammit.
Surely he could practice at least a little self-control.
"I screamed so loud," Diana said, looking up at him with a dreamy smile on her face that made Lex regret the sound-proofing in his bedroom.
"I did, too," Lex said with deep satisfaction as he sat on the edge of the bed to pull his shoes off before stretching out next to Diana and rolling her into his arms.
"No more talk about you desecrating our love," Lex said sternly, looking down into Diana's eyes, "because for you to ever do that would be impossible."
"Ok," Diana said softly, her will to argue gone.
She closed her eyes into their cuddles, sighing in delight as she wiggled her way a little tighter into Lex's arms which squeezed her even harder in return.
"This feels so much better than normal snuggling right now," Diana mumbled against him.
"Science says post-coital cuddles increase the oxytocin rush," Lex murmured back.
"Is that what the scientists call it?" Diana said sleepily. "Post-coital cuddles?" she giggled.
"That's all Lex Luthor," he bragged back, stroking a hand along the silky fabric of her dress.
"We could trademark it, then," Diana said thoughtfully as she nuzzled in closer. "As a catch phrase for our sex toy line."
Lex burst out laughing, his belly shaking against hers as his sleepy girl smiled with a hint of pride.
"I love you so much," Lex wheezed out.
"I love you, too," Diana said. "I'll try not to fear dishonoring that from now on," she said softly.
"Mm," Lex hummed against her cheek. "I have ways to balance you out if you start to go into a tailspin again," he said, smacking Diana's clothed ass playfully, but with a healthy enough amount of force that Diana twitched and shivered against him as a small moan escaped her lips.
She buried her smiling face in Lex's chest as she squirmed from the new moisture leaking out of her core.
"Oh, Diana," Lex chuckled, dark and low, "I am going to enjoy every minute of our sex life."
"Me, too," Diana promised, raising her sparkling eyes back up to his.
"Batman," the Green Lantern said as he answered his incoming comm message on the Watchtower. "What can I do for you?"
"How are you feeling?" the Dark Knight grunted out, which was kind of new.
Batman usually didn't go in for interpersonal chitchat, and it touched John's heart more than he wanted to admit that the Bat was clearly making an effort to repair their friendship.
"Back up to form," John said, "although J'onn doesn't want me going out on any missions until tomorrow, just to be safe."
"That's wise," Batman muttered. "What bar were you at last week when you blacked out drunk?"
"Oh," John said, furrowing his brow as he thought, although he was unoffended by the rapid change of topic.
Bats was still Batman, after all, and truthfully, John didn't mind his friend's laser focus and direct approach to business.
"Uh, it was off of Frederick Douglass Boulevard," GL thought out loud, "around 134th, 135th street maybe? Just a hole in the wall place. Nowhere I'd been before. I was looking to drink incognito a good distance away from my own pad."
Batman sighed.
"I need the name. Can you find it again today and let me know?" he said.
"Sure," John said, sounding puzzled, though. "How come? You think I got roofied?" he chuckled.
"Maybe," Batman said grimly.
"Oh," John said, sounding more serious. "I was drinking alone as far as I remember," he said.
"But you don't remember getting home," Batman said.
"No…" GL said. "But I don't see what last week's blackout would have to do with the Legion of Doom raid."
"It probably doesn't," Batman lied, "but I want to rule out any possible connections so we know for sure."
"Ok," John said easily. "Well, since J'onn doesn't want me answering any distress calls at the moment, I can zeta down to Earth now and locate the exact coordinates of my watering hole."
"Good," Batman grunted. "Let me know."
Although Lex and Diana would have gladly stayed wrapped up in bed together for the rest of the afternoon, they did have lunch reservations at Chez Maurice, which Lex was eager to keep due to his surprise for Diana afterwards, so he had reluctantly coaxed her out of bed and downstairs to their waiting limo, although they had freshened up a bit first.
"I feel like I should change dresses as well as panties," Diana had murmured with a small blush when she got up, but Lex had stopped her in her tracks with a ravenous stare.
"Don't you dare," he growled. "I want to spend the rest of the day imagining what you did in that dress."
Diana had turned even redder, but she'd left the dress on, to Lex's great delight and his cock's great discomfort, even though the hard-on was worth it. Maybe he'd make it through the next three days after all, the way his heart truly wanted to despite his body's arguments to the contrary, if he kept finding new ways to spice up the waiting.
God, he loved his Diana and she'd been so hot and willing to play along with his masturbation fantasy and soon she wouldn't be stretched out by herself on his bed, and she was glancing at him under smirkingly hooded eyelids with a knowing smile as they dined.
"Not much longer," she said, rubbing a gentle high-heeled foot along his calf underneath the cover of the floor-length tablecloth at the swanky French bistro.
"Tell that to my cock," Lex mumbled in quiet dismay, and Diana giggled.
"I love you, Lex Luthor," she said affectionately before leaning in to whisper in his ear, "and soon I'm going to love your cock."
"Diana!" Lex choked, coughing on his sip of wine.
His face was red as Diana cheerfully whacked on his back, but the color in his cheeks was definitely not due to the lack of air in his lungs. Diana's eyes twinkled merrily at him as Lex regained his composure and she innocently went back to eating her lunch while amusing herself by giving him demure little glances every time he lifted his wine glass to his lips.
"Minxes get punished," Lex eventually murmured to her out of the corner of his mouth with a sexy growl.
"Maybe I want to be punished," Diana hummed right back with a flirty eyelash bat.
Lex's hand slammed abruptly onto the table and he quickly stood, giving Diana a dark but longsuffering look of misery-mingled-elation as he briskly strode to the men's room. Diana giggled to herself and swung her heels against her chair leg, feeling rather elated herself, even if she didn't need to rush off to take care of it.
"Ah, Mademoiselle Prince," the restaurateur Maurice said, approaching their table. "Lunch is satisfactory, I hope?" he asked her.
"It's delicious," Diana said sincerely. "May we please get some dessert to go?"
"But of course," Maurice enthused before launching into a description of the day's specials.
Diana chose a mille-feuille and a selection of macarons for her and Lex to share and she was just finishing her glass of wine when Lex made his way back to their table, giving her an amused but smoldering glance.
"You delectable villainess," he muttered into her lips as he reseated himself and pulled Diana into a possessive kiss. "I love you," he said.
"I love you, too," Diana smiled up into his eyes. "I ordered us some dessert to go."
"I've already had mine," Lex said.
"Hiya, Mr. Pennyworth, this is Wally West," the neatly dressed redhead on the videocom said from the gated entrance of the security walls surrounding Wayne Manor.
"I'm a friend of Clark Kent's. I was hoping I could see him?"
"Of course, Mr. West. Please come right up," Alfred said politely as he remotely opened the estate gates for the incognito speedster.
He could tell Master Bruce that the young man was here, but Mr. West had requested to see Master Clark, not the master of the house, so Alfred chose to leave the Bat be and went to the front door to welcome their guest.
"Master Wally, welcome," Alfred said, extending a hand to shake. "It is a pleasure to meet you at last."
"You, too, Mister P," Wally said with a beaming smile. "I've heard a lot about you from Shayera lately," he grinned, "but before she started dating Batsy, I didn't even know you existed."
"Master Bruce can be rather tight-lipped," Alfred solemnly agreed.
"Tight-other parts, too, if ya know what I mean," Wally winked with a giggle that actually made Alfred's lips twitch in amusement.
"How's the Big Guy doing?" the speedster asked as Alfred led him through the manor.
"Master Clark is nearly recovered," Alfred said, "much to the relief of us all."
"That's good," Wally breathed out. "I was really worried about him. I would have come sooner but Bats had me working the case with him over at the Legion of Doom HQ and then I had to catch up on some cases for my civvie job. Good thing I'm a speedster," he sighed, shaking his head dramatically.
"Indeed," Alfred said with a kind smile. "I know of no other hero who works such a heroic day job, young sir, and one that is so demanding to boot. And yet you find time to protect Central City as the Flash on top of it and to serve the Justice League, as well. It is a wonder you manage it all even with your speed, Master Wally," Alfred said with true sincerity.
"Aw, Mister P!" Wally said, a little overcome. "Thanks, buddy!" he beamed. "That means a lot, coming from you," he said.
"Coming from me?" Alfred asked him, raising a curious eyebrow as they ascended the stairs.
Wally leaned in conspiratorially.
"Shayera said that you used to be a warrior yourself, back in the day."
Alfred stopped in his tracks as both eyebrows went as high as his receding hairline.
"Did she, indeed…?" he said slowly.
Wally winked.
"Don't worry, Mister P, your secret's safe with me," he grinned. "Although," he said, as they resumed climbing, "some edible bribery would sure help me keep my mouth occupied with other things than your secrets," he said, skipping a little as they reached the top of the stairs.
"Shayera said you make the most awesome biscuits…"
Wally looked up at Alfred with puppy dog eyes.
"Biscuits are best in the morning, Master Wally," Alfred said regretfully, "as the dough needs to rise. But I believe that I may be up to the task of providing you with an equally delectable backhander."
Wally gave him a look.
"What's a backhander?" he whispered. "Not a sock to the mouth, I hope," he said with mock anxiety.
"Good heavens, no," Alfred chuckled. "A backhander is the Queen's English."
The butler slyly slipped his hand behind his back to Wally in a pantomime of paying him off.
"Ohhh, I get it," Wally laughed. "I like it, Mister P. Very apt."
"Indeed," Alfred smiled.
He rapped on the door to the guest bedroom before opening it to reveal a suited up Superman sitting on top of the made bed next to Lois, both typing away on laptops under the still-shining rays of the solar light lamps.
"Wally," Superman said with a big, surprised smile. "I wasn't expecting to see you!" he said.
"Papa!" Wally cried, dramatically racing around the bed to fling his arms around Superman's neck. "I missed you!" he wailed.
"Good Lord," Lois muttered under her breath, although she accompanied her words with a somewhat amused snort and an eye roll to the equally gently-appalled Alfred, who took the opportunity to bow himself out, closing the door behind him.
"You didn't tell me we adopted him," Lois said to Clark, nudging him in the ribs with an elbow as she continued to type.
"It was going to be a surprise," Clark grinned back. "For our wedding. 'I now declare you husband and wife and man-child.'"
"Aw, Mama, I love you, too," Wally cooed as he clambered over Superman and wedged his way in-between him and Lois on the bed.
Wally tried to wrap his arms around Lois's shoulders in a giant squish, but even as Lois was angrily shrugging and elbowing him off Wally found himself plucked backwards and deposited on the other side of Superman.
"Mommy doesn't like to be touched," Clark scolded him - playfully in tone, but with a serious enough look in his eye that Wally hung his head.
"Oh. I'm sorry, Lois," the speedster said, looking genuinely abashed. "I won't do it again."
"Ok," she said, glancing over at him and apparently satisfied with what she saw.
"Is this a secret meeting?" she asked. "Or can I keep working in here?"
"I don't think it's secret," Wally said thoughtfully, leaning back against the pillows and kicking his heels up and down on the bed. "I was just coming to say hi and check up on the Big Guy."
"Thanks, Wally," Clark said with a genuinely touched smile. "I appreciate it."
"Of course, Papa," Wally smiled back. "This is some mattress," the speedster commented with admiration as he continued to drum his feet on the bed while reclining next to Clark.
"How much do you think this cost?" he asked the couple.
"A lot," Lois said dryly.
"I have a lot," Wally said thoughtfully. "Bats gave me a whole bunch of cash the other day for a new memory card for my camera. Plus dinner. Because he stole my card. But there's a lot left over. Maybe I'll get me one of these," he said, rolling first to his right side, then his left, as he wiggled deeper into the cushioning to test it out.
"Wally, you don't have a good mattress?" Lois said with some concern.
The speedster shrugged.
"Not as good as this," he said honestly.
"For heaven's sake," Lois fussed, "with all the money Bruce has, you'd think he could buy decent mattresses for the heroes on his team!"
"Aw, no," Wally said, turning a little red, "Bats already does so much for us. He built the whole Watchtower and he pays for all our gear and he doesn't need to buy the little stuff, too. I mean, most of us in the Justice League have to work real jobs to pay our bills," he said, looking embarrassed.
"Even Supes," he said, looking up at Clark for confirmation.
"Yes," Clark agreed, laying a gentle hand on Lois's knee. "From the outside it seems simple, but we all have our pride," he tried to explain to his fiancée. "It's good for us to stand on our own two feet and feel a little normal in one aspect of our lives," Clark said.
"Hmph," Lois said, pursing her lips up.
She'd let it go for the moment, since the topic clearly distressed Wally, but she was going to have a word later with Bruce.
"Oh, hey, there is one thing I wanted to talk to you about," Wally said to Clark. "We need to throw the Princess a bridal shower."
"Oh, God," Lois groaned. "She needs one of those, too? I'm already roped into throwing the bachelorette party with Shayera, and God knows what that's going to turn out like, because apparently Thanagarian brides go around killing people the night before their wedding."
"Kinky," Wally winked with a grin and a giggle, getting a pillow thrown at him by Lois, although it was with a playful smile.
Clark smiled and patted Lois's knee.
"If we throw the bridal shower on the Watchtower, it can just be for the Founders."
"Plus Vixen," Wally said.
"Plus Vixen," Clark agreed. "You won't have to come, honey," he promised his dispirited fiancée.
"Good," she grunted.
Lois really did sound like Bruce at times, Clark thought to himself with a quickly suppressed giggle. Maybe he was noticing it more because they were in Wayne Manor, but it wouldn't do to draw Lois's attention to the fact. Clark valued his life, after all, and nearly losing it once this week was more than enough.
"Would you be up to doing the bridal shower tomorrow, Big Guy?" Wally was asking him. "Because Thursday's the bachelorette party - which I should definitely, one hundred percent, be on the guest list for, Mama," the speedster said to Lois with a big, pleading, puppy dog smile.
Lois snorted.
"Fine by me," she said.
"Hooray!" Wally squealed but Clark shook his head, laughing.
"No, no, I need Wally for Lex's bachelor party. You can't have him," he said.
Lois groaned loudly with disgust even as Wally's eyes lit up.
"A bachelor party!" he exclaimed with glee before suddenly frowning and saying severely, "No strippers."
"Of course not!" Clark gaped at him. "I would never!"
"Ok, good," Wally sighed with contentment. "Then I'll come."
"That's very sweet you don't want strippers there, Wally," Lois said approvingly.
Wally beamed at her.
"My Aunt Iris raised me right," he said, "to respect women who strip but not to partake of their services. I'm supposed to be a gentleman," he smiled, "because everybody loves a gentleman," he said, clearly quoting his aunt.
"My son takes after his father," Clark boasted with a proud grin that made Lois chuckle as he reached out to ruffle Wally's hair.
"Well, he couldn't have a better role model," Lois smiled up at Clark, who looked back down at her so lovingly that Wally got uncomfortable and decided to turn his head and gaze out of the window.
The moment was saved by Alfred's light rap at the door.
"Come in!" Lois called cheerfully.
"Ah, Miss Lois, Masters Clark and Wally," Alfred said as he entered carrying an enormous silver tray laden with a dozen gorgeously prepared bistro-style sandwiches as well as an enormous cheesecake.
Wally's jaw fell open as he took in the fresh baked bread laden with tenderly flaking pot roast and perfectly cooked steak and gourmet cheeses and hot grilled onions.
"Mister P!" he breathed out in awe. "You outdid yourself!"
"No one goes hungry in my house," Alfred gently tutted as he set the tray down on the sideboard. "And there are more where these came from," he smiled gently at the young man who was already on his feet so that he could drool up close and personal over Alfred's delicacies.
"What kind do you want, Lois?" Wally asked her, his manners earning him a secretly pleased smile behind his back from Alfred.
"I'll have steak," Lois said. "Thanks, Wally," she smiled, meeting Alfred's eye.
"Big Guy?" Wally said as he dished up Lois's meal.
"Pot roast for me. Thank you," Clark said, feeling a happy warmth in his heart at their young friend's genuine kindness of spirit and generosity.
It was no wonder that Batman had called Wally the heart of their team, Clark mused. Although, he thought with a little shiver, it was precisely because Wally was so endearing and loveable that Superman, in the alternate Justice Lords timeline they had visited, had been so enraged by Lex's murder of the speedster that the Man of Steel had broken his own morals to kill Lex in retaliation, setting off the Justice League's terrifying descent into cruelty and injustice as they became the dictators of Earth.
As Wally happily scarfed down Alfred's spread while Clark and Lois dined at a more reasonable pace, Clark couldn't help but consider once again the potential for evil that lay in his own heart, which had haunted him ever since encountering the Justice Lords. He'd once thought that he'd never be capable of murder, but to realize that even he, Superman, could fall from grace under the right set of circumstances?
It was a sobering thought.
Clark had talked long and hard with his Ma and Pa about it, who had counseled him to be more mindful about deliberately choosing his response to every situation rather than automatically relying on his good upbringing which, while it rarely steered him wrong, didn't exercise Clark's self-discipline muscles or allow him to pause and think through his actions before reacting.
Lois had backed up his parents' advice.
"It's the difference between being an investigative reporter," she'd said thoughtfully, "versus interviewing people for your slice of life fluff. I have to be way more savvy and cunning in my every reaction to my victims -"
" - interviewees -" Clark had murmured with a small smile.
" - whatever," Lois had grinned. "It's like playing chess. I have to consider my every word, my tone, my facial expressions, and foresee the consequences of my choices ten moves ahead in the game."
"But for your fluff pieces, you just have to be yourself," Lois had said to him. "It is more reactive. I think your parents are wise to advise you against overly relying on instinct now that you know that you could snap one day."
"So I need to be more like Batman?" Clark had groaned, dropping his head into his hands in mock agony.
"Well…" Lois had sighed. "He's never killed anybody. Not even in the Justice Lords timeline," she said. "If there is anyone who's the definition of deliberate..." she said regretfully.
Clark had moaned a little more, but he'd taken his girlfriend's and his parents' words to heart, which was undoubtedly what had given him the patience he'd needed to deal with the fracturing Founders over the last few weeks when he and J'onn had been unwillingly thrust into the role of parents to a disruly bunch of squabbling superheroes.
Although the extended Justice League was still divided about Diana's romance with Lex, at least the Founders were slowly reconciling, Clark thought to himself, and no matter how they'd tried his nerves in the process, Clark felt good that he'd maintained his integrity while he and J'onn had leaned on each other to shoulder the burden of the team's unity.
Still, Clark couldn't deny that Lex's reformation had been a welcome relief that had greatly eased his anxiety about Superman's possible future in his own timeline. If Lex was no longer a villain, then Clark didn't have to worry about him killing Wally one day or about killing Lex himself.
Not that other disasters couldn't befall his team, but knowing that the one very specific crisis of conscience that he had most feared had been averted? Clark was incredibly grateful.
In fact, Wally was babbling between bites of sandwiches about how he and J'onn were going over to Lex and Diana's tonight to watch a movie, and wasn't that sweet? Lex Luthor, hosting the Flash and the Martian Manhunter for movie night, with Wonder Woman at his side.
It made Clark feel downright cozy and right with the world, the way that Lex had embraced change. And if Lex could override his destiny from that awful alternate universe, that meant that Clark could escape his, too.
A/N - Thanks for reading! The next update will probably be out in 3-4 weeks. Only a few chapters left to go on "Red Knight" which are taking a bit longer to write, and then once that's off my plate I'm hoping to get back to bi-weekly updates on "Light in the Dark," although we'll see. This last chapter took more time than some of the others, so I'll get a better sense as I write the next few as to what the future update schedule will be.
