This is a long chapter, but it's a really good one and a LOT happens in this one. :P

Chapter 11: Heart Skips A Beat"

"So where should we go to celebrate tonight?" Mark asked Clare.

She looked at him and smirked coyly. "What are we celebrating?"

He smiled crookedly back at her. "Ten amazing years together, that's what?"

She returned a smile. "Sienna, honey? Would you come here, please?"

A girl with long, pitch-black hair down to the small of her back and large, crystal blue eyes framed by thick, dark lashes rounded the corner of the hallway into the living room. "Yeah, Mom?"

"How would you like to go to Aunt Alli's house tonight? You would get to see Jaden and Adele and Uncle Dave."

Sienna grinned broadly, displaying a missing tooth on the bottom row. "Really? Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mommy!"

She trotted off back to her room. "Finish your homework first!" Clare said as an afterthought.

Mark smiled. "She really loves Alli and Dave, doesn't she?"

"I did make Alli Sienna's godmother, and I think that she's a good influence on her. She's always so happy to go there."

"Yeah."

"The point is that now we've got the whole night to ourselves." She put her arms around his shoulders and moved closer to him.

He laughed under his breath. "Whatever will we do with our time?"

"Maybe a little bit of this." She kissed him softly. His arms wrapped around her waist.

"Ewww!" Sienna yelled. Clare and Mark jumped apart and saw the horrified and disgusted look plastered on her face. "Could you guys do that whenever I'm not around?"

Clare chuckled awkwardly. "You ready to go?"

"Definitely." Sienna shuddered.

Clare drove her down the street to Alli and Dave's house. Dave was working as a police officer and Alli worked as the youngest ever advanced physics professor at Smithdale Community College.

Clare let Sienna run around with Alli's kids Jaden and Adele.

"Sorry to spring this on you suddenly, but Mark and I are going out tonight for our ten-year and, well, we both really want the house to ourselves tonight."

Alli waved her hands away animatedly. "Don't worry about it. So it's really been ten years, and he still hasn't proposed yet?"

"Well, no, but I have a good feeling about tonight."

"If he does, what are you gonna say?"

Clare opened her mouth to reply, but somehow couldn't.

Alli's eyes widened. "You don't know?"

"Of course I do. I would say yes. I love Mark."

Alli pursed her lips and lowered her voice. "And what about Eli? Have you even talked to him to see how he is in the past ten years?"

Clare clenched her teeth. "I told you that I never wanted to see him or speak to him again. Why would you even bring him up?"

She huffed. "Because I think that there's a lot of unresolved feelings there. Feelings that you've been fighting all these years that-"

"I have to go. I'll pick Sienna up in the morning."

"Bye, Mommy!"

Clare turned and hugged her. "Bye, baby." She walked out the door and drove quickly back down the road, her mind reeling, wondering, worrying, about Eli Goldsworthy.

DEGRASSI STREET BAR

Eli sat at the wooden bar on a rickety bar stool, wielding a half empty glass of Jack Daniels. Every year since Clare left on this day, he commuted to the bar and had himself a one man pity party. He was very successful as the lead editor of the Gothic Tales magazine, and he had many close friends, including Adam still. But tonight was his night to sit alone in a bar and pray for Clare to return.

An atheist is praying. What irony, Eli thought to himself bitterly.

"Drowning her memories away?"

Eli turned to see Adam, who was now officially Adam, staring at him. He walked over and sat beside Eli.

"What'll it be?" the bartender asked him.

"A Scotch, please."

The bartender walked off.

Eli tapped the glass on the bar. "I can't keep doing this to myself, Adam. Why can't I just accept that she's gone?"

"Because you still love her. And she has your only child that you have never seen grown up."

He sighed. "That was rhetorical."

Adam sighed too. "Eli, you've had ten years to find her and get her back. Why haven't you?"

He thought about this for a moment. "Because I do love her. She's better off without me. So is Sienna."

Adam laughed humorlessly. "Spare me the self pity. She wants you. That little girl needs her father. You know that. But yet you sit here, in this bar, every year on the same day feeling sorry for yourself, drinking away your memory of her little by little."

"I know." Eli was close to tears. "I love her now as much as I did ten years ago, Adam. That's why I have to let her go."

"You don't have to, Eli. You never had to. But now it's too late because Fitz is gonna propose to her." Adam closed his mouth and knew instantly that he shouldn't have said it.

"What? You'e been talking to Fitz?"

"He's not a bad guy, Eli. I can see why she thinks that she's in love with him. But guess what?"

Eli looked up from his glass wearily. "What?"

"He's not you."

DEGRASSI PARK

"I had no idea that that restaurant was even there. That was amazing, Mark," Clare said as she and Mark walked through the park hand in hand, only being able to see by moonlight.

"I'm just full of surprises."

She smiled at him. "You certainly are."

Mark took a deep breath. "Listen, there's something that I want to ask you, Clare."

"What?"

He stood in front of her. "You remember when you asked me if I loved you, and I said yes?"

She chuckled. "Yes. What are you getting at?"

"Well, now I'm asking you. Do you love me?"

Clare was ready with a response, but something stopped her from saying it instantly. She hesitated slightly, and swallowed. "Yes."

He paused questioningly, but brushed it aside. "Now I can ask you what I really wanted to ask you."

He got on one knee, and Clare gasped loudly.

"Clare, do you want to be married to me?"

She nodded. "Yes. Yes, I want to be married to you."

He smiled widely. "Fantastic."

He placed the ring on her finger and stood up to hug her tightly. As he held her, he asked, "What about Sunday?"

"What about it?" she asked.

"Let's get married Sunday. I know it's only a few days away, but why wait?"

"Yeah. That would be great," she replied. Even though she tried to sound enthused, he could feel her stiffen against him.

Thoughts of doubt at this moment filled her mind, but she brushed them off. Just pre-wedding jitters. That's what it was. That's all it was.