I'm sorry – I know this is late. Things got much busier for me this week than I expected. As a result, I barely had a chance to turn my computer on this week. Going forward, I think I'm going to have to post once a week – both as I got no writing done at all this week and if I continue not to get online, posting during the week is clearly not going to work. If things ease up, I'll definitely go back to posting more often.

Thanks as always to Kelly, Beth, and Carol – who were all incredibly helpful in providing comments and suggestions to make this chapter better.

For any readers outside the US for whom the reference may seem strange, macaroni and cheese is a common college food and a “just add water” kind is available in a small box (it actually takes water, butter, and milk, I think, but still pretty idiot-proof). (My apologies – this may be true all over the world – I just don't know.) There are usually lots of versions available, but for some reason, Kraft's version, which comes in a blue box , is usually considered the tastiest (and the most expensive).

Ramen noodles (which Beth tells me are called Ichiban noodles in Canada) are another common college food. They are long, thin Asian noodles with a seasoning packet (also “just add water”) that can be used to either season the noodles or to make a broth (kind of like the way udon noodles are served at Japanese restaurants except no veggies or anything else included).

From Chapter 21

I awoke a half hour later to hear Chad's even breathing on the other end of the line.

“Honey?” I asked quietly.

“Hmmm…” he asked sleepily.

“We should probably get off,” I said.

“Off?” he mumbled. “Lois, move closer,” he said and I giggled.

“Chad, I'm not there.”

There was silence for a second and then sounding more awake, Chad said, “Oh, I forgot.”

“We should go,” I repeated.

“Yeah,” he said. “I love you, Lois.”

“I love you, too.”

I hung up the phone, turned out the light, and held Pooh as tightly as I could until I fell back asleep.

Chapter 22

October 1994

It had been six weeks since Chad had moved to Smallville and I was settling into the new norm. I didn't like it as much as the old one, but I was getting used to it.

We saw each other often – Clark was true to his word and flew us to see each other almost every weekend. The only problem was that Chad was busy at the hospital and had pretty much no days off so I had done all the travel. This meant that when we didn't see each other for a weekend, this was more often because Clark and I had work to do at the Planet than because Clark couldn't take me for some reason.

I was lucky to have Clark for a friend. In addition to the travel, he came over often to make sure I was okay and he made me dinner at least once or twice a week. In fact, if he hadn't, I probably would be fat already. My eating habits had really declined with Chad gone and not wanting to order in every night, I had regressed to my old college diet of mac-n-cheese (only I bought the good kind in the blue box now, rather than the store brand) and Ramen noodles. Between that and copious amounts of chocolate, I was not eating quite as healthily as I had been when Chad was here.

Clark had taken to being my personal nutritionist, though, and seeing my eating habits, had taken to making me healthy dinners. It was depressing. I missed the times he brought fish and chips by, but now he insisted I had enough fat in my diet. I found this a little rich coming from someone who could easily eat a box of yodels for lunch, but it was true that I had to worry about these things and he didn't. Duck, too, was out as apparently it was a very fatty meat – no wonder it tasted so good!

Still, I couldn't complain. Clark's meals of chicken and vegetables were good and he made a mean pasta sauce. He had tried to pass fruit off as dessert one too many times, but I had cured him of that.

Besides, with the evenings to myself, I had more time to exercise. I have to admit, I didn't use it that way at first. The first couple of weeks, I moved around living the same type of life I had when Chad was around, just without him. Eventually, though, I had settled into my own routine and realized that without Chad there, who always wanted dinner at six o'clock, I could get a good work-out in before dinner. I was perfectly happy to eat at seven or eight.

I had settled into the life Clark had talked about and he was right – Chad and I had fought once or twice when I visited and I wasn't ready to eat at six. That was the weird part. It was actually easier to settle into a routine on my own than it had been to settle into one with Chad when I visited. I missed him so much, but it was true, we fought more than we had before. I often felt superfluous at the cottage and in the way. Chad insisted that wasn't true, and I believed him, but the truth was that I didn't fit in there.

The knock at the door startled me. With a sigh, I got up to answer it. “Hi,” I said, smiling brighter when I realized it was Clark. “Did you come to make me dinner?”

Clark laughed as he came inside. “Is that all I'm good for?”

“Well, no,” I assured him. “I also need you for the fast, free flights to Smallville.”

“Very cute, Lois. Very cute.”

“So no dinner then?”

“You are persistent, aren't you?” Clark grinned at me. “No, I was actually in the mood for some macaroni and cheese tonight, so I thought I'd let you make it.”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked him.

“I've seen your mac and cheese,” he assured me. “It seems that you can measure butter and milk okay.”

I pulled two boxes out of the pantry, certain that like Chad, Clark could eat one on his own. “So, you came over here so I'd make you dinner?” I asked.

“Well, no. I came over here as I thought you might like the company,” he said.

“I could. I was wallowing,” I admitted. “Not sure why, though.”

“It's hard to be apart,” Clark said quietly.

“Yeah.”

“I talked to Rachel today,” Clark mentioned.

I nodded while I measured out the milk.

“She said she had lunch with Chad today. I guess we're all going to go to dinner this weekend,” Clark told me.

“You're staying?” I asked. Clark often visited his parents when he dropped me off at the farmhouse, but rarely hung around for the weekend.

“Well, I wasn't planning to, but I guess I am now.”

“Will it be weird?” I asked. “To have lunch with Rachel?”

Clark shrugged. “I don't know. I hope not. I want to be friends with her and if I only talk to her on the phone, then I'm not really doing that.”

“You're a good guy, Clark Kent,” I said as I placed a bowl of macaroni and cheese in front of him.

“Why, thanks, Lois,” he smiled at me. “It's good of you to notice.”

************************

“Is there someplace else that can go?” Chad asked me.

“What?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Your laptop. Does it have to go there?”

“On the desk?” I asked. It seemed like a reasonable place to put it to me.

“On my desk,” Chad corrected.

“Well, I don't have a desk here,” I pointed out, starting to get annoyed.

“Of course you don't have a desk here. You don't live here!” Chad pointed out.

“So, this is your place?” I asked.

Chad looked at me like I had two heads. “Well, yes.”

“And the place in Metropolis?”

“Well,” Chad appeared to consider the question for a moment. “It's ours.”

“So this place is yours and the place there is ours?” I asked.

“Yes,” Chad answered, clearly not understanding what was bothering me.

“So you have two homes and I have one? And when you visit me in Metropolis, if you ever do, this won't be a problem as you'll fit in there, but here I need to make sure I don't overstep my bounds since I'm just a guest?” I asked, nearly yelling.

“Don't be unreasonable, Lois! This place is smaller than the one in Metropolis!” Chad insisted, yelling as well now.

“Aside from the extra bedroom, this is still bigger than the apartment that we shared in college. And Lucy lived with us,” I pointed out.

“That was different.”

“It was different because you wanted me there,” I said, feeling the tears building. I often cried when I was annoyed and I hated it. It somehow always seemed to diminish the impact of my anger.

“I want you here, too,” Chad said, his tone softer, but I was not appeased.

“As long as I don't take up any room!” I said, swiping angrily at my cheeks. “I'm not even sure why I bother visiting!”

************************

I walked into the farmhouse to find it all quiet. I took a seat in the living room anyway and a minute later, Martha came in from upstairs.

“Oh, Lois. I thought you were… Are you okay?” she asked, putting down the basket of laundry she was holding.

I nodded. “We just got into a fight,” I said, swiping at my cheeks again.

“It'll get easier,” she said, sitting beside me and putting a hand on my arm. “Over time, you'll figure out the new boundaries.”

“Did this happen with you and Jonathan?” I asked.

Martha sighed. “We've never tried to live apart,” she admitted. “But this was what it was like the first time you moved in together, right?”

“It was different then,” I said and Martha pulled me towards her.

We sat there in silence for a few minutes before the door opened. I didn't move from my position leaning against Martha, but I saw Chad come in and walk over towards me.

“I'm so sorry,” he whispered.

Martha pulled away from me gently and quietly picked up her laundry and left the room. Chad stayed where he was, crouching down in front of me.

“You're right,” he said. “I'm not being fair. I do see this place as mine and the place in Metropolis as ours, but not because I want to have two places while you have one. I just want to have something that is ours. I think I need that, Lois. Some real connection that I can point to and say, we are as together as we've always been.”

I nodded to show I understood, although I thought he was still avoiding the real problem – which was my place here, not his in Metropolis.

Chad bowed his head but took my hands in his. “I know I need to make more room for you here. It just seems hard to do when you aren't here that often. I'm not saying that's your fault,” he rushed to add when he saw me start to protest. “But it's true. I'm mostly here alone and so it's easy to use all the space here for me. But that's going to change now, Lois. I promise. Come home with me, please?”

“We'll find a space for me?” I asked, lifting his chin so I could see his face. His apology was all over it.

He nodded. “I want you to fit in here. I don't want to ever be anywhere where there's not room for you, too.”

I leaned forward to kiss him softly.

************************

This time I knocked on the farmhouse door. Martha answered it and smiled broadly at the sight of Chad and me holding hands on her porch. “Clark'll be down in a second. Come on in,” she said.

Chad and I came in and took seats at the kitchen table. The kitchen was full of good smells as Martha prepared dinner. “What are you eating tonight?” Chad asked, and I could tell that like me, he was wondering if we should ditch Clark and Rachel for dinner.

“Oh, Jonathan just got some blood work done that shows he's done a good job of lowering his cholesterol, so I'm making him a treat. Fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy,” Martha said as she checked on something in the oven.

“Maybe we should just eat here,” Clark said as he came downstairs.

Martha shook her head at him, smiling. “I made this for Rachel. You'll bring it over?” she asked as she handed him a casserole dish.

“Mom, you have to stop feeding all of Smallville,” Clark said as he reached for the dish and kissed his mother on the cheek.

“I'm not feeding all of Smallville. Rachel is part of this family. Regardless of how things worked out for the two of you, she was too good to us all for too many years for me to forget that. Besides, aside from those of us in this house, she's the only one who knows your secret and that's a bond nothing else can break,” Martha gently scolded him.

“You're right, Mom,” Clark smiled. “And I'm glad you're still looking out for her.”

“Besides,” Martha said as she turned to stir the gravy, “I saw her in town the other day and she looked like she'd lost a little weight.”

“I thought so, too,” Chad said.

“Do you think she's okay?” Clark asked and the concern was clear on his face.

“It wasn't that much,” Chad said.

“I know your body is impervious to food, Clark, but Rachel's is not. And as you well know, Rachel tends not to eat when she's upset. I'm sure this has been a tough adjustment for her,” Martha said.

“I should have called her more or visited,” Clark said, the self-recrimination coming through loud and clear.

“That's not true, Clark. You need some time apart to adjust to the new status quo,” I said. “But that doesn't mean it wasn't hard for Rachel.”

Clark nodded his head, but still looked unconvinced. “Let's go,” he said softly as we went back out to the yard. Chad had suggested we drive so Clark didn't need to borrow his parents' car.

“Clark, I'm sure she's just a little depressed. That's normal,” I said as we piled into the car.

“I know,” he said quietly, but he didn't say anything else the rest of the way over to Rachel's.

************************

“Hey,” Rachel said, smiling brightly as she came to meet us in her driveway. She did look a little thinner than last time I had seen her, but not alarmingly so.

She gave us each hugs, Clark's a little longer than strictly necessary. “Mom sent this for you,” he said as he pulled the casserole dish from the hood of the car.

She opened the lid and sniffed. “Your mom makes the best bread pudding. Tell her I said thank you, and I'll drop the dish off next time I'm out there.”

“Is there anything your mom doesn't make the best of?” I asked Clark.

“Nope,” he and Rachel said in unison.

“So, are we ready?” I asked after Rachel had moved the dish inside and joined us on the porch.

“Maisie's?” she asked.

Clark shrugged and I just waited, because what did I know about places to go in Smallville?

“What about the new Asian place?” Chad asked

“Did Barb and Evan finally open it up?” Clark asked.

“Two weeks ago,” Rachel said. “I heard it's pretty good.”

“What kind of Asian?” I asked.

“I don't think they know,” Chad laughed as we all got into the car.

“Barb and Evan saved up for their dream trip to Asia about six years ago now,” Clark said.

“They were gone for a month and explored China, India, Thailand, I can't remember all the places they went,” Rachel added.

“And since they got back, they've been wanting to open a restaurant with all the different foods they had. Smallville didn't have any Asian food at all here before that,” Chad said. “They took classes over in Kansas City for a couple of years, making sure they knew how to cook all the food and just opened up.”

“How do you know this?” I asked Chad.

He shrugged. “Their neighbor, Bill, brought his little girl in the other day and he mentioned it. I decided to give the restaurant a try and ended up chatting with Barb.”

“Was something wrong with Daisy?” Clark asked.

“What's not wrong with Daisy?” Rachel laughed. “That child can get herself into more trouble than anyone I know.”

Chad laughed. “Yeah. She had… brace yourself, swallowed one of Barbie's shoes.”

We all laughed and Clark asked, “But she was okay?”

“She was fine,” Chad said. “Just scared. Her dad had found her swallowing the second one – she didn't like the idea of the pair being separated.”

“How old is she?” I asked between giggles.

“Four or five,” Rachel said, giggling as well.

************************

“How are you really?” I heard Clark ask. I had gone to the bathroom while we waited for dessert. I guess Clark and Rachel forgot as they had chosen to talk in the hallway outside the bathroom. I didn't really want to listen in… well, I did sort of, but I knew I shouldn't, but I also didn't want to disturb them.

“I'm fine,” Rachel responded, but not convincingly. “I miss you,” she said a minute later.

“I miss you, too,” Clark said, his voice soft. “So much sometimes.”

“But this is the right decision,” Rachel said, her voice sad. “I know it is, even if it hurts now.”

I didn't hear anything else for a moment, but when I opened the bathroom door a minute later, they were standing there, holding each other tightly.