I just want to say a really big thank you to everyone who is supporting my writing and everyone who reviewed/favourited/followed the third Far From Perfection. Without that encouragement, I really don't know if I could have sustained writing this series for so many years... Thank you. I really hope you all enjoy what is in-store over the next 31 chapters!

Also, my lovely FanFiction friend Marril96 has made some awesome fan-art on Tumblr for FFP... Please go and check it out! It includes an adorable Clewis + Link fan-art to get in you in the mood for this chapter.

Chapter Two: What Do You Go Home To?

Sleep.

Sleep has become a valued, prized and treasured thing within the McCartney household since the arrival of baby Lincoln, who has helped his parents to realise that they didn't know what a luxury they had until it was gone.

Even the dark bags under the new parent's eyes had their own luggage, too.

Come 8 AM Saturday morning, Cleo and Lewis had been sleeping for about an hour and a half since Link's 6:30 awakening, with another one not due for another hour or so.

However, when Lewis's mobile phone starts vibrating with his ringtone blasting out nosily, it is clear that whoever is on the other side of the phone does not realise just how sacred the Saturday morning sleep-in is for the new parents.

"Your phone" Cleo groggily utters, sabotaging her husband's attempts to ignore the phone call.

"Nah... I can choose not to answer my phone. The baby, not so much."

There's a wordless moment of 'amen sister' between the couple who proceed to ignore the phone call until it eventually rings out, no doubt sending the caller to Lewis's message bank.

Finally, no baby, no phone, just quiet.

... For two seconds.

"Good grief, we're not emergency services! Who on earth tries to call twice on a Saturday morning?!"

Cleo groans. "Just answer it."

Now it's Lewis's turn to grumble, sitting up and snatching his phone off of the bedside table at a volume that is far louder than what Cleo approves of.

"Hello?"

Cleo tries to resume her rest and tries to remain sleeping as quickly as possible, preferably before her husband speaks again.

"Yes this is Lewis McCartney. Who, may I ask, am I speaking to?"

Another pause. This one is substantially longer. In fact, Cleo is almost at the point of dozing once again before a part of the conversation catches her attention, waking her up all over again.

"I see... Alright, well if you email that through, I'll have a look over it and speak with my wife about it. I'll see you on Tuesday. Thanks for the call."

Seconds later, the phone call has ended and while Lewis is collapsing back into his pillow, Cleo is sitting upright.

"What exactly are you speaking to your wife about?"

"It's just a job offer. Let's sleep. We can discuss it in a few hours."

By telling his wife those teasing keywords, Lewis basically, albeit unintentionally, is signed on and consenting to the fact that there is no way that he'll be getting back to sleep now.

"A job offer? Who from? Is it with your same company? Is the pay better? What hours? What's there to talk to me about?"

"It's no big deal. I'll probably say no, but I'll explain it all to you once we wake up properly..." Lewis says, trailing off, partly due to the fact that he can't see the teasing and tempting carrot that is being dangled in front of his face working out in his favour at this point in time. It couldn't possibly. Not with a new baby. Not right now...

Cleo doesn't attempt to push for any more information at this stage, knowing that it is probably more trouble than what it is worth. She doesn't think she'd be geting any more information out of him at this stage, and quite frankly, the prospect of sleeping is far more tempting than her nosiness about her husband's job offer.

Later that day and closer to midday, Cleo and Lewis are now well and truly up and about by now. Cleo is preparing lunch as Lewis walks around their flat, rocking their son in his arms, attempting to settle and coerce him into sleeping as he explains the job offer to his wife after she quizzes him about it once again.

"Really, I'm sure I'm going to have to say no. It just won't suit us at this stage. Not with Link."

"Lewis! You've said more about what you're not going to say about the job than what you have said about the job itself! Run the details by me before you make your mind up."

Lewis reluctantly sighs, having wanted to sign off on the prospect of the job as soon as possible. The longer he pondered about it and the longer he allowed himself to imagine the 'what ifs' of the job offer, the harder it would be to say no to the job. Band-aids hurt less being ripped off in one motion, rather than being drawn out painfully.

"Well the job is based in Cairns. It involves working out on some of the smaller islands up there, studying the biology, environment and atmosphere of marine animals and plants for conservation purposes. It sounds amazing, but the problem is that is that it's two weeks on and two weeks off."

Cleo pauses from the piece of rye bread that she is buttering to consider the seriousness of the job offer; the difficult conditions, but also the amount of interest in her husband's voice over it.

"Well... Northern Queensland is closer than Northern America... That's a start."

"True, but it's still not a possible option for us right now."

Cleo hesitates. "It's not not a possible option, but it is not an easy option. But, if it's something that you're really interested in, then I do think it is something we should weigh up."

Lewis shakes his head, pausing to speak after first checking whether or not his son is asleep yet, before he continues walking around the flat and continuing with attempting to rock Lincoln to sleep.

"No Cleo. I admit that I do love the sound of the work, but I've been coming to terms with the fact that it's just a timing issue. I can't leave you and Link for half a month at a time."

"That's not necessarily the only way around it... If it is a job that you are really, really interested in, we could always move north and come with you."

Again, another head-shake is borne from Lewis.

"No. No way. You love it here on the Gold Coast. It's your home, our home. I wouldn't let you leave your family and your friends here just for my sake. We'd have to uproot our whole life and start again."

Cleo sighs and both she and Lewis know that is not an option that would make both of them happy. Putting down the knife that she had been using during lunch prep, Cleo walks over and takes a seat on their lounge where Lewis joins her within seconds.

"Honestly, how interested are you in the job?"

"It sounds amazing – like a dream job. Working off the islands, swimming, a bit of diving and then testing back at some of the labs."

Cleo laughs under her breathe. "Wow. It sounds like your dream job in a nutshell. What's the pay like? And what's the likelihood of the same or a similar job offer coming around again?"

"Well money is a big jump from what I'm getting at the moment, plus it'd be more hours. And put it this way, do you remember that job that I went for while we were engaged? It's that job. I was the next in line for that job and I was first on the waiting list if they got another position like that and now they have... Almost six years on."

A sigh slowly releases itself from Cleo's lips as the realisation and decision strikes her.

"So, let's see. This is basically your dream job. You'll be getting paid more. It'll mean working in paradise. And, it's the first time the job has come around in 6 years... You have to take it Lewis."

"You forgot to mention the fact that it's also over a two hour plane ride away and it'll mean that I won't get to be with my wife and our son for two weeks at a time."

Cleo places a hand on Lewis's shoulder, the second best option to his hands which are occupied with holding the baby.

"We'll make it work. We always make it work. We could always come and see you from time to time and then when you're not working, you'll get two, whole weeks at a time to spend all day with us."

Lewis sighs, looking between his wife and son before be proceeds to speak again.

"No Cleo. I can't do that. I can't be away from the two of you for so long at a time. You'll basically be a single mum when I'm not here."

"Okay. Let's both just give it some thought, and then get back to each other about how we feel about the idea, then. It's too big to just say yes or no to right at this stage."

As the room falls to a sad silence, there is this feeling of discontent that settles upon the couple as realisation dawns. There is no going back now. There is no way to un-hear the job offer and there is no ideal option between Lewis taking the job and either leaving his perfect family behind; uprooting them and their perfect life to move with him or turning down the most perfect job in the world for the twenty-five year old.

Later that day, the girls came over to the McCartney's apartment for a coffee and catch up as Cleo had organised a week or so earlier; with the timing working out as the perfect distraction that she needed today.

Over the last five years, each girl has grown in their own ways and achieved their own things. None of them, not Cleo, not Rikki, not the other two girls are still the same person that they were five or so years ago. Just as they have, their catch ups have also advanced from meeting up in the moon pool or on Mako in between homework to discuss petty boy troubles.

Now, they are women. They're women with husbands, with families, with grown up issues. So, just as they have matured, so have their meetings and discussions, evolving to coffees and chats instead.

"So, how's the new home been, Cleo?" Emma asks. The topic of houses has been on her mind non-stop with the planning for own new one.

"Good so far. I miss the extra hands from my family helping with Link, though. Lewis and I are just exhausted all the time. I have no idea how you did it on your own, Bella. What on earth did you do and how did you stay human when Allie wouldn't sleep?"

The current discussion is also very reflective of just how different this point in the girl's life is to that of a few years ago. Instead of giving Bella advice on 'does he like me, does he like me not?', Bella is administering the advice this time.

"She was a pretty good baby overall but if she was particularly unsettled I'd just give her a little swig of Jack Daniel's with some formula... That would work a treat!"

While Rikki and Emma can see the humourous side to Bella's response with smile's breaking across their faces, Cleo appears as though she may just die with her leg up in the air, out of shock.

"I'm kidding! That was a joke, Cleo. Joke..." Bella emphasises to save the new mother from her generally uptight outlook. "I honestly have no idea how Allie, or I, lived to tell the tale of all those sleepless nights. It's all just one big blur."

Upon breathing a sigh of relief, Cleo hesitantly raises another question, seeking the advice of her friend's again. This time she's prepared with a pinch of salt to digest and process their initial responses.

"Alright I've got another question, girls..."

In Cleo's eyes, each of her friend's represents one option that she and Lewis have the choice of.

Over the last few years, Emma and her family had uprooted and moved away -as a family- to be together permanently through their travels and eventually as she and her brother studied and as her parents found work once again. She and Lewis too have the opportunity to follow his work and uproot for the sake of taking the job and staying together.

Rikki had been left behind. As Zane left and moved away to prison almost nine months ago, albeit forcibly, she'd been left behind at home until he returned. While the terms are much different to Zane and Rikki's, she could also choose to be left behind, left with the support of her friends and family in between Lewis working away.

Finally, Bella has always had the best of both worlds. Despite travelling with her family when she was younger, she had also spent some time travelling with Will not long after they got together venturing here, there and everywhere for Will to compete in diving competitions, but always returning with the Gold Coast as their home base.

The only other alternative not represented by her friends is that of Lewis declining the job offer. While some people may see the fairness in the fact that she had let him go during their final year of high school to pursue his career, it may seem as though it is her turn. That it's her turn for Lewis to give in for her sake, to stay with their family.

However, despite what may or what may not seem fair, Cleo knows that she cannot be the person and the reason for standing in the way of her husband's dream job, regardless of whether he wants to or not...

Later in the evening, Lewis moves through he and his wife's new apartment to locate her in their son's bedroom standing to watch her from the doorway as she nurses the young child with the high hope of coercing him to sleep.

"Cleo?" Lewis softly whispers as he stands, arms crossed, against the door-frame that envelopes two rooms between one another.

As his wife's head raises to watch him instead of the baby in her arms, Lewis proceeds to whisper in the dark room, just illuminated by a single lamp.

"I think I know what we need to do."

With a sigh, Cleo's gaze returns to Link as she gently strokes his sparse amounts of baby hair.

"I know, Lewis... I do too."

So, Cleo & Lewis have a pretty big decision to make. Does he say yes or no, and, should they stay or should they go? Clewis can get through anything together... right? ;)

Next chapter: Things aren't quite wrong, but things aren't quite right in the share house and between Rikki, Zane, Will and Tam. What is everyone hiding from one another?

I'll post again at around 25-30 reviews.