Lois was frowning, "Incompatible? What would make you give up someone you love?"
Clark sighed, he was going to have to dredge up some ghosts it seemed like. Well, he did still owe Lois for sharing her experiences with Claude and Paul he guessed. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, "Well, take my high school girlfriend, for example."
"Rachel Harris?" Lois cut in sharply.
Clark blinked, "Uh no. Lana. Lana Lang." Off Lois' look of total confusion he pinched the bridge of his nose before continuing, "Lana and I were childhood sweethearts. Our parents got along so we knew each other as children, and Smallville's only got one school of each level so of course we saw each other in school. We'd always been close, and by 15 we were dating, and 'going steady' almost immediately." He glanced up at his partner and noticed her jaw was loose and she looked utterly appalled. He frowned at her for a bit before continuing his story, "But then came college plans, carrier dreams... Lana wanted to stay in Smallville and raise a large family on either her parent's farm or her husband's."
His head tilted as he remembered how trapped he'd felt in Smallville at 17. He'd felt the stifling shame of constant secrecy with people he'd known his entire life combined with a constant need to *belong* somewhere that neither the farm nor the town could alleviate. "I wanted to go off to college, and I'd already been bitten by the wander-lust that carried me on between college and my interview with Perry." Clark cleared his head, "By winter break our senior year Lana and I had both realized we wanted different things in life. I think most of the town was stunned when their 'golden couple' broke up. But by senior prom she was with another friend of ours, Pete Ross (to whom she's now married) and I went with Rachel."
Lois looked mystified, "There was no fight? No angsty breakup?" she looked at him in blank incomprehension, "no awkwardness when you see each other now?"
Clark shook his head. "No, we're still friends, even though we lost touch eventually. She and Pete married by age 20 and both of them exchanged letters with me all through college. Once I was traveling, of course, it was harder to keep contact, but by then they were busy with other things too. She'd just had her third baby, and first girl, before the mess with Trask or you'd have probably met her at the corn festival."
"Three kids?!" Lois looked horrified by the prospect and Clark couldn't suppress a wry grin. But then Lois seemed to push the thought out of her head. She thought for a moment before hesitantly asking, "So, you two just realized you couldn't make it work?"
