Chapter 5: Soul Mates
Lois popped the pan into the oven and stepped back, admiring her handiwork. So far so good. She licked the drop of the batter that had dripped onto her finger, preparing for the sweet taste of banana nut bread. Instead, it tasted like...toothpaste? Lois shook her head. It must just be her paranoia, she'd followed the directions exactly – there was no reason for anything to go wrong.
She couldn't afford for anything to go wrong. This was her big chance to show him how she felt about him. Everything needed to be perfect. She set the timer and looked back to the stove. The angel hair pasta sat in the still water of the pot, not yet at a boil. How long did it take to boil anyway? Impatient, she turned up the heat a notch, and forced her attention away.
“After all, a watched pot never boils,” she reminded herself.
On the other burner, a mixture of tomatoes and spices simmered. Lois was almost astounded by how simple it had been to assemble the ingredients, and how good they were beginning to smell.
She wanted this night to be perfect. Lunch had gone well today, but she'd had to compete with Lana's for Clark's attention. Tonight she would have his undivided attention. They could talk and enjoy each other's company. And just maybe, she'd work up the courage to give him a more blatant signal that she was interested. So far he had reacted well to all of her subtle hints, but she wasn't sure exactly what he was feeling. Hopefully tonight would help clear that up.
In the meantime, she needed to make the salad. She found a large glass bowl in the cabinet above her head and started pulling vegetables from the grocery bag on the counter. She rinsed the vegetables, then glanced down at her stack of recipes and extracted the one labeled, “Perfect Garden Salad.” She felt a bit stupid for using a recipe to make a salad, but this was an important night, so she was taking every precaution she could.
First lettuce. That she could handle. She found the largest knife she owned and hacked it into a bunch of pieces, then dropped it in the bowl as the base. Next, shaved carrots. Hmm. She pondered the bag of carrots. She hadn't been able to find any shaved carrots, so these were just going to have to do. Maybe she should try to shave them herself.... That sounded like a recipe for disaster if she ever heard one, Lois thought. No, better just to cut them up. She chopped each carrot into three or four chunks and tossed them in the bowl.
Lois eyed the bowl warily. It looked a little...odd. But she supposed it would taste fine. And with dressing no one would be able to see what it looked like anyway.
On to the next item.
Cucumbers, sliced. Okay, that was no problem. She slit the cucumber end to end until she was left with long strips. Somehow she didn't think that was the intended result. Oh well. She chopped the slices into more manageable bites and tossed it in the bowl. Next on the list was green pepper. She chopped it in half and patted herself on the back for remembering to clean out the seeds. Then she chopped it into square pieces and added it to the mix.
Last on the list was cherry tomatoes, whole. She had no idea what the difference between regular tomatoes and cherry tomatoes was. She thought it probably had something to do with cherry juice, but she wasn't putting that in her salad no matter what the recipe called for. Keeping in mind that the salad called for whole tomatoes, she'd picked the smallest ones she could find, but they still looked pretty big. She was really tempted to cut them up regardless of what the recipe said.
Lois sighed and looked at the salad disapprovingly. It still looked weird. Everything was kinda...big. Like it was a bowl of vegetables rather than a salad. Maybe that was what it was supposed to look like though. That would explain the whole tomato thing. Lois nodded, satisfied, at least temporarily, with that explanation. She added the tomatoes to the mix and stirred gently.
She took the bowl to the table, then started to throw away the grocery bag but stopped when she realized there was still something inside it. An onion. Oh, right, she still needed to add the onions to the sauce, she remembered. Speaking of the sauce.... Lois decided to give it a quick stir. She squinched up her nose, pondering the bubbling red liquid. The book had said simmer. Was this simmering? How much bubbling was simmering? Better safe than sorry, she lowered the heat until it was almost off.
Lois glanced at her watch and realized she only had about fifteen minutes until Clark was supposed to arrive. She could add the onion after she changed, she reasoned. After one last check to make sure that everything was fine, she dashed to her room and slipped out of the sweat pants and t-shirt she had been wearing to cook and into the outfit she'd laid out on her bed before she'd started. She moved quickly into the bathroom, checking her light makeup and running a brush through her hair. Examining herself in the mirror, she smiled tentatively. She looked casual but nice in her jeans and soft wool sweater. She ran her hands over the thin, red material and smiled. It was so soft it seemed to cry out to be touched. Definitely a good thing tonight.
She stopped for a minute to contemplate what she was doing. Was she absolutely certain this was what she wanted? It seemed so sudden. But Lois Lane was never one to hold back. When she wanted something, she went after it wholeheartedly. And she wanted Clark Kent.
After her revelation the other night, she had realized that she had to act quickly. She was in love with him, and she needed to let him know that before he did something that made it impossible for them to be together. He had loved her once, she knew he had, now she had to convince him that he could love her again.
Somewhat cheered by her pep talk, she left her bedroom and headed back to the kitchen.
Back the cutting board. The recipe called for a quarter cup of finely chopped onions. She eyed the vegetable sitting on the kitchen counter warily. How was she supposed to know how much would be a quarter cup? It wasn't like butter, which came with the measurements on the side of the wax paper. Apparently she was going to have to chop it and then measure. She had measuring cups around here somewhere; she'd used them when she was making the banana nut bread. She found the quarter-cup measure and rinsed it, then grabbed a knife to chop the onion.
The outer layers of the onion were making chopping hard, and she couldn't recall ever seeing this flaky part of the onion before. Did it cook off somehow? She'd find out soon enough.
The knife faltered as it encountered the onion's skin again, but Lois persisted resolutely, determined to finish chopping a quarter cup worth. After a few minutes, she declared victory and dumped the onion into the now rapidly boiling sauce.
Before she could give it anymore thought, her eyes fell on the noodles, still sitting in the stagnant water. What in the world was the problem? Why wasn't it boiling? The sauce was boiling...a lot. A whole lot.
“Oh no, oh no,” Lois muttered, as she fiddled with the stove's knobs. “I'm an idiot.”
She smacked the palm of her hand to her forehead. Apparently she had turned the heat on the noodles down and the heat on the sauce up when she had checked on them earlier. That would explain why the pasta slowly disintegrating in the still-cold water while the sauce was popping and spewing all over the counter.
Disgusted with herself, she jerked the knob controlling the heat under the sauce and was horrified when it fell off in her hand.
No. No. No.
This was not supposed to happen. This was supposed to be foolproof!
Just then a gurgling, splatting sound came from the oven. Lois wrenched her attention from the still-bubbling sauce to the oven. Hurriedly opening the door, she discovered that the banana bread batter had exploded all over the sides of the oven.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Lois' gaze whipped back and forth between the stove and the oven.
The sauce that had once smelled so good was now beginning to smell scorched. She reached for the handle to yank it away from the heat, but in her haste, she forgot to grab a potholder and succeeded only in burning her hand.
Tears leapt to her eyes. She could *do* this. It wasn't that hard! All across America, every day, people made spaghetti. Why couldn't she do it? A thick cloud of smoke began to rise from the pan as she frantically looked for her misplaced potholders. Finally she located them, grabbing them off the counter, and smoke detector above her head began to screech.
“Nooo!” she yelled, giving in to her tears. She jerked the pot off the burner and began frantically fanning the smoke detector.
“Lois?! Are you all right?” Suddenly Clark was there, disconnecting the smoke detector and turning off the burner. He flipped on the fan above the stove and the smoke seemed to disappear and quickly as it had appeared.
“Are you all right?” he repeated, pulling her to his chest.
“I'm okay,” she mumbled against his solid chest. Lois sniffled, wiping her eyes. It felt so good to be held in his arms like this. She wasn't really scared, just frustrated.
“All right,” he said soothingly, stroking her hair. “It's fine. Nothing out of control.”
“Oh, Clark,” she said, pulling away. She wiped at her eyes again and turned away from him, unable to face him. She'd wanted to badly to impress him tonight and she'd been an utter failure. How would she ever convince him to fall in love with her if she couldn't even do something simple like cook? Lana was probably a great cook. She'd grown up at the knee of her mother, a Kansas farmwife.
“What?” he asked, coming up behind her and placing his hands on her arms, rubbing them reassuringly. “Did you hurt yourself?”
Her gaze went automatically to her hand, though it didn't hurt nearly as bad as her pride.
“Let me see it,” he said softly.
“It's...it's fine,” she protested, holding her injured hand to her chest with the other hand.
“Just let me look, Lois. I won't touch it.”
Slowly she relaxed, extending her hand to him. He cradled it in his hands, examining it from a variety of angles.
“It looks okay; just a little red,” he said finally. “Does it hurt?”
He looked up, and his face was only inches from hers. Her breath caught in her chest and she found herself unable to answer his question.
“Lois,” he breathed.
“It's fine,” she managed finally. “It hardly hurts at all anymore.”
She couldn't hold his gaze though, and she dropped her eyes to the floor, examining her shoes. “I just wanted to make us dinner. Is that so much to ask? I'm so stupid.”
“You are *not* stupid,” Clark gasped. “Lois, how can you say that? You're the most intelligent person I know. So you messed up dinner. It's not the end of the world. It happens to everyone.”
“I know, but this was supposed to be special,” she whispered.
“Lois?” He hooked a finger under her chin and gently raised her head until she met his questioning gaze.
“I....” She wanted to explain. She wanted to tell him that she was in love with him and that tonight had been meant to show him how she felt. They should be eating at a candlelit table right now, gazing deep into each others' eyes. Instead, her kitchen was in shambles and he was comforting her as she cried. She couldn't tell him now. There had to be another time.
“Talk to me,” Clark pleaded. “This isn't just about burning dinner. Please tell me what's wrong.”
“This was supposed to be special. This was supposed to be an important night. I needed to show you.... I just wanted you to know.... What will I ever do without you?”
Clark stood, watching her, hesitating. “I don't understand.”
“I'm losing you,” she said finally, her voice choked by barely-restrained tears. “I just.... I'm so.... I just wanted to do something special tonight.”
“Losing me? Lois, you're not losing me. You could never lose me.”
“But I am,” she cried. “You don't even know it yet, but I can see it happening. One day it's dinner a movie and the next you're picking out names for your children! I can see it Clark! She's not going to be content until she's walking down the aisle! And once she does...I've lost you forever.”
“Lois...what are talking about,” Clark asked, truly baffled.
“Lana! Are you blind? How can you not notice what she's doing?”
“She's just flirting Lois, that's what she does. She's only going to be in town for a couple of days, I figured it was easier to just let her flirt than fight with her about it. I'm sorry if it upset you. I never thought you would see it that way.”
“What was I supposed to think? You spent every waking moment together. As far I as I knew, if wasn't just waking moments either-”
“Lois, Lana and I *never* – I swear!”
“I called and she answered your phone! She seemed awfully at home!”
“Was that you? I was in the bathroom changing when the phone rang. I hollered for her let the machine get it, but she said she'd already picked it up.”
“You've been practically inseparable! First dinner, then the movies and-”
“How did you know we went to the movies?”
Lois felt her cheeks flush, but she was too far into this now to hold anything back. “I was there – I saw you. And after the movie, I just happened to....”
“To follow us down the street? I *knew* I saw you. I thought I was imagining things. I kept seeing you – sensing your presence, but I'd look up and you were gone. I thought maybe I was just seeing you because I wished you were there.”
Lois smiled reflexively. Even through the pain of this predicament, Clark's sweet words charmed her. But Clark was missing the gravity of the situation. “It wasn't just that, Clark! She *told* me she was going to marry you! She had a whole plan!”
Clark inhaled sharply, shock written across his face. Then he slowly exhaled and ran his hand through his hair. “I'm not going to marry her, Lois.” There was no hesitation. “Not her or anyone else.”
Her eyes asked questions her mouth couldn't form. How could he say that with such certainty? What was he saying?
“Clark?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. Lois' heart pounded in her chest as she waited for him to say something. Instead, his head dipped, and his hand came up to cradle her cheek. She swallowed nervously, her tongue darting out to moisten her suddenly-parched lips. He was so close, so achingly close. And then finally he was there, his lips connecting with hers. She gasped slightly, as their lips touched, clasping and caressing.
His hand slid back to tangle in her hair, pulling her closer still. All rational thought fled her mind as the world swirled around her. Her skin tingled, and she gave into the urge to press her body closer to his, her arms snaking around him, holding him to her. Finally, she felt herself begin to relax. After days of constant worry and stress, she finally allowed herself to believe that things were going to be fine. In his arms, there was nothing she couldn't handle, nothing they couldn't handle together.
Still, though, a nagging doubt persisted.
“Clark,” she murmured against his lips, unwilling to pull away even long enough to ask him the question that weighed heavy on her heart.
He whispered her name in return, deepening the kiss. She gave herself over to the sensations he was creating for another moment before dragging her lips away from his. “But she said you never get over your first love...” she whispered.
“She was right.”
Lois' heart lurched in her chest. No. It couldn't be. The way he was kissing her.... He couldn't still be in love with someone else.
“But she wasn't my first love,” he whispered, kissing her again. “You were.”
Lois whimpered, a soft cry escaping the back of her throat. It was more than she had ever dreamed of. He loved her; he was in love with her. She wasn't going to lose him after all. And then his mouth was on hers again, exploring, teasing, reminding her of all the things they had left to share with each other. Finally their lips parted, and Clark rested his forehead against hers. Their breathing was short and labored as they both struggled to bring themselves back to reality.
“Amazing,” Clark breathed. Lois sighed and basked in the glow of his adoration. So this was what it felt like to be loved.
After a few more minutes, and a few more sweet kisses, they pulled apart.
“I was so scared,” Clark said finally. “I heard you scream....”
“I was just startled.”
“I thought....”
“What, Clark?”
“I don't know. I don't know exactly what I thought. In an instant every possible horror flashed before my eyes, and all I could think about was getting to you.”
“You saved me.”
“I saved you from pasta,” he said, cracking a grin.
“You always save me,” she said softly, raising one hand to stroke his cheek. Clark smiled and captured her lips once more, in a brief, tender kiss.
“Should we see if we can salvage dinner?” Clark asked tentatively, gauging her reaction.
Lois wanted to be upset, but it *was* kind of funny. In fact, this whole situation was kind of funny. And it hadn't ruined anything after all. Clark was here, holding her in his arms and looking at her as if she was the most precious thing he'd ever seen.
Clark eyed her suspicious as she giggled, obviously waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Oh, Clark. Stop looking at me like I'm going to bite your head off. I'm fine. It's not like I've never ruined dinner before.”
Finally, Clark allowed himself to join in her laughter. “All right, let's see what we can do with what's left. And then, while we eat, we can talk...?”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I think that's a good idea.”
Lois watched as Clark surveyed the damage and his brow furrowed deeper and deeper. “Lois...” he started tentatively. “Umm.... Do you have anymore pasta?”
She nodded and retrieved the box from the cabinet as he dumped the contents of the pot into the sink, rinsing it and filling it with clean water. He turned on the burner and accepted the box from her, setting it on the counter beside the stove. “You can't add the pasta until it's boiling. Otherwise it will go mushy.”
Lois nodded, wondering why the recipe hadn't said anything about that.
“The sauce actually looks salvageable,” Clark said, pouring it into a new pot. “The bottom layer is burnt to the pan, but look, the rest is okay. I think you got it off before there was too much damage.”
Clark sniffed it and smiled, eliciting a small smile from Lois. He was trying so hard to cheer her up. Any other man would have made her feel like a failure, whether he meant to or not. But even with Clark standing in her kitchen explaining what she had done wrong, she still didn't feel like he was belittling her. He was so patient and understanding.
“Is it edible?” she asked, attempting humor.
Clark's grin widened. “Definitely. Let's see-” he paused suddenly, examining the sauce, then dipped the wooden spoon in and extracted a piece of the onion. “Lois, you did *peel* the onion before you cut it up, didn't you?”
“Umm... How was I supposed to know I should peel it?! Those things should come with instructions!”
Lois smiled as Clark shook his head in defeat. How could he argue with that logic? He picked out the big flakes of onion skin, and set the pot back on the stove, turning the heat on low.
Next, he opened the oven door cautiously, flinching as he got his first peek. “What...was that?”
“Banana nut bread?”
He extended a finger slowly and dipped it into the batter. He popped it into his mouth and immediately blanched. “Lois, how much baking soda did you put in this?”
“Just a cup!”
“A cup?!”
“I followed the recipe!” she protested, pointing to the stack of papers. She pulled out the instructions and began skimming through them. “Ah ha! See? One...teaspoon baking soda.... I don't understand. I *swear* it said a cup earlier. Oh no! Oh, I mixed it up! One cup sugar, one teaspoon baking soda! Oh, no!”
Clark cut his laughter short as Lois silenced him with a pointed glare. “Sorry,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “Is there anything else?”
“Just the salad,” Lois said, gesturing to the table. “But I think that's okay.”
Clark picked up the bowl for a minute, examining it from different angles. “Everything looks a little...big,” he said finally.
“I know. I think it's supposed to be like that.”
Lois watched as he started to speak, then stopped, repeatedly, her brow furrowing deeper with each aborted effort.
“Spit it out, Clark.”
“Maybe it's some sort of new salad I've never seen before....”
Lois raised her eyebrows skeptically.
“Okay, it's an easy fix,” Clark conceded. He carried the bowl back to the counter and spread the ingredients on the cutting board.
“All right. Lettuce first. It's usually best if you tear it with your hands.”
Lois nodded and helped Clark rip the lettuce into smaller pieces. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, and noticed that he surreptitiously threw the stem pieces in the trash when he thought she wasn't looking.
As she finished that, Clark picked out the tomatoes. “Is there are reason you didn't cut these up?”
“The recipe said not to.”
Lois threw her hands up in frustration at Clark's skeptical look. “I'm serious, Clark! Look!”
She thrust the recipe into his hands and waited for him to read.
“Lois, this calls for whole *cherry* tomatoes.”
“Well, I didn't have any cherry juice, and besides, you'd have to be crazy to put cherry juice in a salad. I mean, I may not know what I'm doing, but even I know cherries don't go in a salad. Well, maybe a fruit salad, but this isn't a fruit salad, it's a garden salad. And cherries don't grow in gardens...at least, I don't think they do. So I can't see why anyone would put them in a salad.”
Clark nodded slowly, obviously pondering her explanation. He started to say something, then shook his head as if he had changed his mind.
“Why don't we just forget what the recipe said and cut these up into smaller pieces?”
That was a little suspicious, Lois thought. She was fairly certain he had been going to tell her something about cherry tomatoes. She was tempted to ask him about it, but decided she didn't need to invite any further humiliation. Instead, she accepted the knife he handed her and began chopping.
“Lois, what...happened to these carrots?”
“Oh, that's not my fault. The recipe called for shaved carrots, but the grocery story must have been out, because I couldn't find them anywhere. So I had to make a substitution.”
Clark's jaw dropped and he sputtered for words.
“What?”
“Carrots don't come already shaved. You have to shave them yourself.”
“Really? With what? How?” Ridiculous visions of her Lady Gillette razor flitted through her head.
Clark took a knife in one hand and a carrot chunk in the other and deftly shredded it into the bowl. He continued until all the chunks were shredded. Then he sifted through the small green squares left on the cutting board.
“What are these?”
“Green peppers.” Really, sometimes he could be so dense. Had he never seen green peppers before?
“Oh. Of course,” Clark said, taking a deep breath, then scooping up the pieces squares and dumping them in with the other vegetables. Amazingly, the salad now looked like...well, like a salad.
Lois stepped back and watched as Clark deftly boiled the pasta, drained it, and combined it with the sauce. He was so good at everything he did. It amazed her sometimes, though she'd certainly never let on about it in the past. He was
“Ready?” Clark asked, jolting her out of he pleasant musings.
Lois smiled nervously, suddenly worried about the conversation they would have over dinner. They served dinner and began eating in silence, both of them hesitant to begin the conversation.
After a minute, Clark set down his fork and slid his hand across the table to cover hers. “Do you want to explain what led up to this?”
Lois took a deep breath and forced herself to begin. At first she stuttered and was reluctant to meet his eyes, but eventually the story began to come easier and she found herself pouring out the story of overhearing Lana's phone conversation and her subsequent decision to protect him from her clutches..
“I was just so scared that it was too late,” she finished. “I thought that you were going to fall for her charms, even though I didn't understand why you couldn't see through her. And at first I was just upset because she is so manipulative and I didn't want to see you get hurt.”
“Why didn't you come to me and tell me what you'd heard?”
”I didn't think you would believe me. I didn't have any proof.”
“You didn't need proof, Lois. I would have believed you.”
Lois swallowed hard, choked up by Clark's heartfelt declaration. He trusted her so completely. If only she had been so trusting. He had tried to tell her about Lex, and not only had she not believed him, she had yelled at him, accused him of making up his accusations because he was jealous.
“You okay?” he asked, sliding his chair closer to hers so he could take both her hands in his, and hold them in his lap.
Lois cleared her throat and pushed all thoughts of Lex from her mind. “I'm fine. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, it just seemed so ... unbelievable. I mean...those things that she said on the phone. I would never have believed it if I hadn't heard it with my own ears.”
“Well, it's not that unbelievable if you know Lana.”
Lois' eyebrows shot up. This was a new development.
Clark took a deep breath and exhaled noisily, shaking his head. “See, you don't know Lana. You didn't grow up with her. Lana was infamous in Smallville for her shenanigans. It was one thing after another. She was spoiled absolutely rotten by her parents. She was the baby of family. They had four boys and thought they were done. Then, when their youngest was in high school, along came Lana. She was the apple of her parents' eye, and they let her get away with anything.”
He extracted one hand from hers and ran his fingers through his hair. “By the time she got to high school, she was used to getting everything she wanted. It didn't help that she was pretty, and she knew it. She was head cheerleader our senior year, and I was captain of the football team. Lana got it in her head that we would be the perfect couple. Now, I never had anything against her. She'd always been perfectly nice to me. But it bothered me that she didn't seem to like *me* - she just liked what I represented. So I tried to turn her down as gently as possible. But, honestly, I wasn't interested in anyone else, and it was kinda nice having Lana around.”
“To keep all the other girls at bay?” Lois asked, smiling at Clark's obvious discomfort. She laughed. “It's okay, Clark. I can imagine you were quite the catch in Smallville.”
“It wasn't like there were so many,” he said, blushing. “I just didn't know what to say. I didn't want to hurt their feelings...but with Lana as my girlfriend, I didn't have to worry about turning girls down anymore. But then she suddenly decided our casual dating relationship to become something more. She was convinced that we were going to be the perfect high school couple – get engaged at prom, married right after graduation, live happily ever after. She couldn't understand that I just wasn't that serious about her. Besides, I didn't want to get married right out of high school. I tried to tell her that, but she tried everything she could think of to talk me into it, and when that didn't work, she just started telling people we were engaged, thinking she could railroad me into it.”
“Amazing. The way she told it, you were desperately in love with her, and you were heartbroken when she left you to go to Hollywood.”
Clark laughed suddenly. “Well, Lana's always been able to rewrite history to suit her. I'm sure five years from now she'll be telling anyone who'll listen the story of how I pursued her and tried to rekindle our relationship and she broke my heart yet again.”
“So she didn't leave you broken hearted?”
“Hardly! We had a *huge* fight right before prom. I'd found out that she was telling everyone we were engaged, and that she was threatening some of my friends to keep them away from me – trying to isolate me so that I'd feel like I had no other friends and be more willing to marry her. I told her I wouldn't tolerate it anymore, and that we were over. She changed tactics then – crying pitifully and telling me that she loved me. At first I felt really bad, but then I realized it was just another act, one more manipulation. So I stuck to my guns.”
“And that's how you wound up taking Rachel to the prom?”
Clark looked surprise. “How did you know I went to prom with Rachel?”
“She told me about it when I was in Smallville. Remember, she wanted to dance with you "for old time's sake.' I asked her about it later, when you weren't around, and she explained that you were just friends and took her because you'd just broken up with your girlfriend. She didn't give me any details about the breakup, but I remember that Lana's name sounded like a curse word when she said it.”
Clark shook his head. “Yeah, Rachel was on the receiving end of Lana's wrath most of the time. I think Lana was jealous that Rachel and I were such good friends. I should have realized she would do the same to you. I'm sorry.”
Lois couldn't hold back an eye roll. When she thought back on all the things Lana had said to her in the past week, an eye roll was really an understatement, she thought.
Clark didn't miss the eye roll for a second. He looked at her, eyebrows raised, eyes asking her to vocalize what she was thinking.
“Well, I just think it's no wonder Rachel hated her. If Lana said half the things to her she said to me, her hatred was completely justified. She never missed a chance to attack me. I really thought I was going to lose it at lunch today.”
“I'm sorry, Lois, I should have done something to stop her. I know what a pain she can be, and I could see she was bothering you. But I didn't want to step in. You're always telling me that you can take care of yourself. I figured that if Lana went too far, you'd tell me – or annihilate her.”
“Well, I did let her have in today.”
“In the bathroom?”
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“You should have seen her face when she came barreling out of there! She barely even stopped to grab her coat. And then two seconds later, you waltz out looking like the cat who ate the canary. I figured I was right to assume you could take care of yourself – Lana Lang is no match for Lois Lane, especially not when you're on the warpath. I doubt Lana's ever seen anything like you in action.”
Lois cracked a grin. Looking back on the confrontation from this vantage point – after hearing Clark's declaration that he was in love with her and Lana had never been a threat – it *was* kinda funny.
He paused for minute before continuing, his voice softer and more intimate. “I can't believe you asked Rachel about our prom date. You seemed so...uninterested at the time.”
“Don't let that fool you, Kent. I was a lot more interested than I let on,” she said softly, grinning at his obviously pleased reaction.
He raised her hand to her face, cupping her cheek tenderly and his thumb stroking her skin with a feather-light touch. “And now?” he asked quietly, and she could hear the nerves in his voice. “Are you interested now?”
Lois turned her head just slightly, closing her eyes and kissing the palm of his hand before turning back to look at him again. “I'm interested,” she said, her voice low and breathy.
The words were barely out of her mouth before his mouth claimed hers, his hands cradling her face and holding her to him, though she offered no resistance. When they finally pulled apart, eyes sparkling and chests heaving, Lois was speechless.
“Wow,” Clark said softly.
Lois nodded, then pulled him down for another kiss, this one lighter and shorter. “Food's getting cold,” she teased, as she pulled away slightly.
“What food,” he murmured, drawing her closer and tangling his hand in her hair as her settled his mouth over hers yet again.
*****
