Okay, I'm so sorry. It has been a horrendous week and I haven't had a chance to get online much. Sorry for not responding sooner - and for not posting yesterday as planned. The next post is not quite ready yet, but I hope to get it up tonight.
Sara - I wouldn't count on the long distance thing not being tried at some point...
Michael - The phone call actually was a bit of a... I can't think of the term. But basically, it was nothing more than a way to show how much Lois and Chad were focused on each other and not the outside world on their anniversary. It won't be mentioned again.
Ann - You know when I first read your feedback I felt like I had missed this huge part of the Clark/Rachel thing. But then I remembered (bear in mind that I wrote this awhile back) the Clark/Rachel revelation as it went in my head and remembered why he didn't feel guilty. I was going to write it up as sort of side-along piece (since it couldn't be from Lois' perspective) so you could see what I was thinking, but given my writing problems recently, never got to it. I may do it at some point, but suffice it to say that Clark did feel badly, but Rachel is not Lois and handled the figuring out on her own thing a lot differently. As a result, he and Rachel talked about it and he no longer feels guilty. Or at least less than the fear he has that he could be discovered.
This isn't to say that I think I could explain what happened that wouldn't make you feel a little annoyed at Clark - he does still act unreasonably about his secret. Just that it wasn't that he didn't care at all about Rachel's feelings.
I have to say, I'm not sure I'd ever skip chocolate mousse for protiferoles, but when we were in Paris in September we went to a restaurant a few times that advertised the protiferoles mentioned here - with homemade chocolate sauce. I so wanted to try them, but we never did (mainly as we're cheap and went to this restaurant as it was good and had a dinner special that came with other desserts, but not the protiferoles). Anyway, I was thinking of this when I wrote the chapter. Besides, I can make a good chocolate mousse myself, but protiferoles take a lot more work. (Not that Lois could make either, but Chad could.)
Okay, so I was thinking that, wow, the man is white as a sheet because Rachel knows about his secret. She knows because she figured it out on her own, and now he so wishes that he had told her himself. Now he regrets his secrecy! But no. Clark isn't worried about Rachel's feelings at all. He isn't feeling the least bit guilty about having kept her in the dark. No, the reason for his worries is that he is thinking that if Rachel could see through his disguise, then maybe other people can, too! So he is worrying about himself and never giving a thought to Rachel! 
