Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Fifth Taste's The Charm 1/2

A/N: Sorry it took me so long to get this one up--life got busier and these stories got harder with every sense! Anyway, here it is. Hope you all enjoy!

Disclaimer: A multitude of episodes are referenced, none of which are mine. Thanks to the writers for their great material, and the actors who made them beautiful. No copyright infringement is intended.

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LOIS:
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I'm not a big donut fan, to tell you the truth. I much prefer a cup of coffee or a Double Fudge Crunch bar, but when Clark smiled at me, broke his donut in half, and gave me a piece, I didn't complain. I didn't tell him that he should keep it since he likes them so much better than I do. I didn't think about the extra hour I'd have to spend at the gym if he started making a habit of it. No, I took the donut, and I bit into it.

It was a cinnamon cake donut, which, again, isn't even my favorite type of donut. And yet...there was something about this one that made it seem richer and fuller and tastier than any I had ever eaten before. Maybe it was the conversation--trying to find a time both Clark and I had free to go on our first date, which had already been delayed an interminable amount of time. Maybe it was the look in his eyes as he handed the piece to me, giving over what was his just as he always did.

The cinnamon barely registered on my tongue; the texture of the cake scarcely mattered. What mattered was that Clark had touched it. Clark had given it to me without even being asked. And as I ate the donut, I realized that that's just the way Clark is.

And yet there I was, sitting on his desk, pretending to look for a feasible date when really I wasn't willing to give over my fear and *make* time for him. And I was eating his donut.

Of course, there are always consequences for kindness. I think the official saying is "No good deed goes unpunished." If anyone knows the truth of that, it must surely be Clark, AKA Superman. He always puts the needs of everyone else above his own, and sometimes--a great deal of the time, in fact--it backfires on him. You see, the world just isn't set up that way; it doesn't make allowances for someone like Clark, who's willing to suffer for others, willing to endure anything so long as it makes others happy. So it ends up devouring Clark's sacrifices and spitting them out again, as if to punish him for his audacity in daring to think he can change the order of things.

This time, the consequences were relatively painless. Perry was angry with him for stealing the last donut. With the taste of Clark's selflessness still in my mouth, I tried to cover for him--not very convincing, I know, but at least I tried. It certainly wouldn't be the last time I covered for Clark, and I got much better at it as I grew to know him--and myself--better.

So, no, I'm not a big donut fan. But I don't have to appreciate donuts to appreciate the fact that Clark will always put me first. It's a truth that never changes, and it's a truth I remember every time I catch a taste of cinnamon.

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Chocolate is definitely my thing. I don't even remember when I first discovered the allure of the rich, smooth taste; it was probably before I could walk. So, for almost the whole of my life, I knew that the taste of chocolate could soothe a great many woes.

Or enhance an already good moment.

Like the moment when Clark recognized my not-too-subtle hints, laughed at himself, and fed me a taste of the chocolate dessert on his plate. It was a tiny bite, little more than crumbs, and yet it was hypnotic. Much more so than any chocolate I had ever tasted before.

There was something about the fact that Clark had fed it to me, the feeling of his eyes locked on me, the echoes of his laughter, that made it a thousand times more powerful. Suddenly it was all I could do to stay upright, as if the taste of chocolate--a taste I had encountered more times than I'd like to count--had metamorphosed into something so much stronger than I could handle, something that swept through me and changed the way I saw things, something that made everything seem at once so much clearer and so much more confusing.

I don't know why I was surprised by that transformation. From the moment Clark entered my life, he'd been quietly changing everything for the better.

My work, which had once been the sole purpose of my life, had become fun and engrossing and new, but it was hardly the center of my world anymore.

Friends, before a thing of the past that often came back to haunt me, had become something that grew to encompass much of my life--Perry and Jimmy and several others at the Daily Planet, but mostly just Clark, my best friend.

And then there are the activities that took place when I wasn't working--there hadn't been any of those before Clark entered my life. Well, not unless I was forced to admit to the soap operas and romance novels. But after Clark...suddenly, there was a large variety of things to do. We watched movies, played board games--I'm serious, board games!--posed each other trivia questions, got together for pizza and conversation, and just generally enjoyed each other's company.

Then Clark asked me out on a date.

Sure, I had entertained the notion that I might care for Clark as more than just a friend before, but I had never had to act on it. Until suddenly he was asking, and no matter how scared I was of losing all the great things he had brought into my life, I couldn't say no. Abruptly, everything changed. I felt it almost like a physical sensation on our almost-first date, but it clicked fully and terrifyingly into place as I confided secrets to him and begged for a taste of his chocolate dessert.

It was as if I had never seen him before, never realized exactly what was sitting across from me, never understood just how much he could give me. With the taste of chocolate dissolving in my mouth, I stared at Clark as if for the first time, cataloguing every fact about him, running through a thousand memories of him in my head, and coming up with the shocking and terrifying conclusion that I could keep everything he had been to me and yet have him as more.

Chocolate was my guilty pleasure, one that I craved and enjoyed yet resented when I stepped onto the scales. But Clark...Clark could be mine, if I chose, and I realized then that if I made that choice, I would never regret it.

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So of course I panicked. I slammed the door on Clark's hopeful, patient expression, and I kicked my shoes off, and I went straight for the ice cream in the freezer. Everything else in my life might have changed, but ice cream was a constant. It had been there for me after a long evening of putting my drunken mother to bed and helping Lucy get her homework done. It had been there for me during all the late nights studying to pass my classes and qualify for the scholarship I needed in order to afford my apartment. It had been there for me when Claude had thrown me away as soon as he got what he wanted. It had been there for me when both Clark and Superman confused me the most.

But nothing about the creamy dessert was comforting that night. It couldn't chase away the knowledge that I had just made what was probably the stupidest mistake of my entire life--and there had been quite a few of those, most of them starting with the word "Lex." Nothing about the cold feel of sugar melting on my tongue could wash away the sharp remorse eating me alive just as surely as I was consuming the ice cream.

The truth of the matter--the truth that was turning the ice cream in my mouth into ashes--was that this wasn't the first time I had done this to Clark. In fact, this was pretty much par for the course since the first day I had met him. Sure, he hadn't always said the right things, and sometimes his sense of humor was...well, different...but through it all, he had been there for me.

I had shielded my heart to keep anyone from being able to hurt me again, but in doing so, I had become the one that hurt others. I had done to Clark something very similar to what Claude had done to me--led him on and then slammed the door in his face when I was done.

Not my proudest moment, and the fact that I was shoveling spoonfuls of ice cream into my mouth only attested to that fact. I'm so brave in my professional life, but in my personal life, I know better than anyone that I'm a coward.

So there I was, sitting alone and eating ice cream when I could have been with Clark. Story of my life. Dating Lex when I could have listened to Clark. Throwing myself at Superman when I could have been spending time with Clark. Spending hours working on stories that were forgotten as soon as the Kerth awards were over when I could have been having fun with Clark.

But up until that night, I don't think I had realized just exactly how much Clark could--and had--come to mean to me. I had known looking into the mirror before my almost-wedding that I could love Clark. I had known when confessing to his sleeping form that I loved him as more than a brother that I did love Clark in a way I couldn't really explain.

But only then, eating ice cream straight from the carton and shivering--not from the cold, but out of regret--did I realize that I could love Clark in a way I had thought existed only in fairy tales. I could love him with all of my being, with all of my soul.

Ice cream didn't help me feel better. But it did help bring clarity to my heart.

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The taste of bitterness is harder to stomach than any dessert. Watching Clark walk away with Mayson to enjoy an intimate lunch with her--knowing that I had been the one to send him on his reluctant way--all I could taste was bitterness and regret. Clark had tried to make things right, but I had cut him off and shoved him away, even going so far as to push him into the arms of a woman I severely disliked.

And I? I would sit alone at my desk and go hungry, regardless of the fact that if I had kept my mouth shut, I would have probably been spending the hour talking to Clark over a delicious meal that he would refuse to tell me where he had found.

The fact that I got a tip that led Jimmy and me to a road where we were duped into tricking Superman...well, that was just more regret to throw on top of everything else.

At the time, however, there was one moment when I was immeasurably pleased, when the bitterness was submerged beneath triumph.

Because Clark, in the middle of a private lunch with a woman who obviously liked him a great deal, came running the instant I called him. He dropped everything, did exactly as I said, and was there for me. The fact that it turned out to be a set-up was immaterial next to the realization that Clark would *always* put me first.

That memory came back to me later, after I discovered that Clark and Superman are one and the same. You see, almost every single day, Clark hears cries for help, and he looks to me with that distracted, meaningful glance. And almost every single day, I smile at him and I nod and I tell him to go. And almost every single day, he leaves me--for a few minutes, for an hour, sometimes for a few days altogether if the disaster's big enough.

But I know: if I call, he'll come. If I say his name, he'll be there. He's proven that fact over and over again, so many times that it's even more irrefutable than gravity. Lois Lane calls; Superman answers.

And even if I don't call him, Clark Kent will always return to me.

It was hard to see that back then with the taste of bitterness in my mouth--hard to realize that no matter how many times Clark ducked out, he'd always come back. No matter how many times I pushed him away, he'd always be there waiting for me to look over my shoulder and find him watching out for me.

So, yes, bitterness is hard to swallow. But it's not impossible, not when Clark is there to turn it into triumph.

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The other tastes I've described...forget them. They don't really mean anything compared to the last--the best. They were all just leading up to the final course, the single taste that now encompasses the whole of my life.

Walking down that brightly lit street with Clark at my side, thinking of how much I had almost lost, reeling with disbelief that he was giving me another chance...I should have known it was coming. I did, actually, but no amount of preparation could have prepared me for the actuality of the event.

Clark and I had kissed before--a handful of times, in fact. Several times, it had been to distract the people around us, something I didn't exactly make a habit of doing with co-workers and that always, with Clark, took me unexpectedly aback; once had been a sad goodbye kiss that had scarcely registered next to the terrible fact that Clark was walking away from me. Later, after combining the two most important men in my life into one, I was able to realize that I had kissed him a few more times, once in a moment of weakness he faked--and I didn't--and once just before he flew alone into the vastness of space to single-handedly knock aside an asteroid the size of a small town.

But at that moment, looking up at Clark as he murmured something about doors and leaned nearer to me, I couldn't grab hold of those memories to prepare me for what I was about to experience. They slipped away from me, and then, with the suddenness of lips meeting, were simultaneously obliterated and enhanced by the taste of his kiss.

One sip was enough to rock me back on the heels of my feet but wasn't enough to satisfy me. I needed more, and he supplied it, his hands rising to cup my face and tilt my head toward him. Whatever expression was on his face, I couldn't see. I couldn't open my eyes, couldn't think past the explosion of flavor that consumed me.

No matter what happened afterwards, the memory of that single taste never left me. It was there all through the long weeks after Mayson's death and Daniel Scardino's intrusion into our lives; it was there even while I struggled to come to terms with the fact that Clark and Superman were one and the same.

And the thing is, the thing that struck me the most, is that Clark's taste never changes. It's as steady as he is, as unwavering as his love for me, as fixed as the fact that he will always come when I call. The world may change--it may explode around us and come crashing down--but Clark is always there for me, always the same, always that taste that wipes away tears and births happiness and joy.

I love the way Clark kisses me. It's a gesture he makes with his entire body, as his love is given with the whole of his being. There is always an undertone of awe in the way he touches me, as if even to this day, he can't quite believe this is real, that I'm his to freely hold and kiss. But when he takes me fully into his arms and uses one hand to caress my shoulder or cheek or hair, granting me more of that life-sustaining taste, *I* know that it is real, for it's far too amazing to be a dream.

He makes me feel cherished, beautiful, desirable, and safe--as if all of those can exist together, merge into one as never before. He makes me feel as if I am enough all on my own--no need of straight A's on my report card or the perfect job and salary or a closetful of Kerth awards. As if I am exceptional and extraordinary just as I am--no need to change my habits or alter my quirks or quit my career. As if I am more than he--a super man in every way--deserves.

He makes me feel loved.

And that taste--the essence of all that--more than anything, is the anchor and center of my world. My refuge, my comfort, the very air I breathe.

Clark Kent *is* my world.

And every time he kisses me, he lets me know that I am his as well.

That taste...what can I say? It's almost as extraordinary as he is.