Author's note: Rugrats and All Grown Up are properties of Nickelodeon and Klasky-Csupo, while "Manic Monday" is the property of The Bangles (no idea who the composer is). Watch for lines borrowed from other fanfics, TV shows, actual personages, and…you get it.

Second, the POV shifts here are mostly between Tommy and Kimi, but there'll be a few times Chuckie or Phil will tell the story. Otherwise, let's bring it on!

Rugrats Midlife: Seven Years in Seven Days

Chapter One: Some Coffee Talk

Tommy

Third Street was bustling again, as usual, at four o'clock when I got to the Java Lava, a coffeeshop our gang hung out when we were kids. The street, and the many other thoroughfares in the city, was full of people leaving work, exhausted and ready to meet their soft, comfortable beds (if they're lucky to have earned them). Now that I got here, there was a chance for me to unwind here with my friends (seriously, a cup of coffee in the evening?), namely Chuckie (Charles Crandel Finster III), my best friend and brother-in-law, and also CEO of the company that owns the establishment, and Phil (Fr. Philip DeVille, SJ), a biology professor at Xavier Catholic Academy and associate chaplain there.

The first thing that greeted my arrival was a crisp "Ten hut!" from Phil (owing to the fact that I served as a Marine Corps Reserve colonel for three years before I retired) followed by a David Hyde Pierce look-alike (Chuckie, if it weren't for the freckles and glasses) and a brown-haired man clad in a black suit and white collar (Phil) at a table near a counter. I don't find that very funny, but I let it pass. Just like I always do.

"'Lo Chuck, 'lo Phil," I said, in a rather roundabout manner.

"'Lo Tom," Chuck replied rather dryly, and so we sat down.

"So what's news?" I asked Chuckie, knowing the as-usual reply will come out unbidden from his mouth. I was not disappointed.

"As usual, fine. Madie just got promoted to director of accounting at MergeCorp, Carl is still smarting from the wounds he got from bumping his bicycle into a lamppost, and Melinda has just finished her gang sleepover, while Tancred has another star for his pottery project in school. As for me, Uncle Edmund is giving me the headache-now I know what Mama feels being woken up midnight by a call from a frantic cousin-in-law. Otherwise, Henson's Chicken House just opened another branch in Sao Paulo." He stared at me, hinting that it was my turn.

"Got work from Palmerston Bank, on screening potential executives and on armored car personnel training. Turns out they can't pass Highway Seventy-Two without something bad going on. On the bright side, Kimi lost fifteen pounds, Clemmie got her typhoid shots, and Desmond can read a whole sentence and tell us what it means. Fred, meanwhile, is working twice as hard now that Lil's a housewife. How about you Phil?"

"Finally finished computing the third quarter grades-they are so appalling! Imagine, Pickles, 64 percent of my students got a C in Biology overall! Wonder if I'll see some of my students next year-hope Mitch wouldn't be a pain in the ass, sorry for being so frank." Well, so much for a priest who slips out profanity once in a while. "I kind of sense you're bored with your lives, huh?"

The both of us looked at him, eyes telling, "How long have you known?" The past seven years have been eventful, but lately things were growing stale. How could someone leave a meaningful friendship that lasted for 44 years land in limbo? Someone who has the world bearing down on him or her, that's who.

It's just another manic Monday

Wish it were Sunday

That's my fun day

My I don't have to run day

It's just another manic Monday

"Is it me, or did that song by the Bangles just sum the general atmosphere here?" Chuckie remarked. Both Phil and I nodded in agreement. And it was in the nodding that Philip had hit on an idea.

"Retreat! A Holy Week Retreat! I've got just the place-House of Solitude Retreat Center, Berkel Creek. The place is perfect for a Rugrats Lenten Retreat, you know." Did he just say we were going to a retreat?

"Geez, I don't know 'bout that," Chuckie, always the nervous skeptic, stated as he loosened his tie. "W-w-we-well, umm, not that I'm not a fan of spiritual rejuvenation activities, but I assume that you know, as well as I do, that Berkel Creek is in GRIZZLY COUNTRY! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?!" At this, Phil cut him off and said, "Relax, Chuck, no such problems at that place! We won't do much getting out anyway, well, unless you would want some hiking. Besides, grizzlies are few and far between, and the few that are there are harmless unless provoked."

"How can you be so sure this Retreat Center in Berkel Creek's safe?" I asked.

"I've spent some time there a month before my ordination, as well as in some family seminars. Don't worry, it's interdenominational." Thank God.

Chuckie, now regaining some composure after that panic attack that so often grips him, now avoided that touchy subject. "So what the heck will happen?"

Phil just gave a grin. "Simple. First off, this is the Rugrats Lenten Retreat, so only we and our spouses as well as our closest friends will come. That would be Tommy and Kimi, Fred and Lil, you and Madie, Malcolm and Susie, Calvin and Angelica, Dil and Katrina, and me. No old geezers, no kids. Just the old gang and the, quote, "new arrivals," unquote. We'll be staying there from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, wherence we shall leave. I know this is hard quarters, spending a week with only your spouse and friends, but this may be the break we may need for our sterile, unhappening lives, as well as a chance to improve our stagnant relationships." Chuckie and I just looked at him, eyes saying that it may be. Not will be.

He just looked at the both of us, nonplussed at the reaction, and continued, "Second, this is purely voluntary. If you don't wanna go, don't go. However, you'll be missing a lot, especially if your partner volunteers to go. Oh, which reminds me, ask your bosses and/or your wives if you can come. Especially your wives, them being invited and all.

"Thirdly, decide where to leave the kids. Tom, you won't have much of a problem, as Kira lives nearby, and so does your dad, and I do think Chuckie over here can leave his kids at Rupert's or his-sorry to call her this-stepmother's place, but Fernando and Celia are in Mexico settling deals and Mom and Pops are in-no, they're here. God knows where the rest of us will leave the kids. So what do you think?"

"Holy Week's two weeks away," I volunteered. "How the heck do you plan on making transport and activities arrangements?"

"I'll do that once I get your responses. In case all of us are going, I'll borrow the shuttle that'll bring us to Berkel Creek and back-I'll drive. As for activities, Fr. Roel and I will handle them, worry not, but it still depends on feedback. Other questions?" None.

"So I'll be expecting replies then?" Two nods from Chuckie and me were all that he needed. "Good. Well, I'll talk to Lil and Malcolm about this, while you can contact your folks. We'll meet, all of us, say Wednesday, and then I will tell you the rules. Claro?" We got that loud and clear. Two nods met him again.

"Well," Chuckie said as he stared at the rest of us, "the frappe is getting cold. Let's get on with our coffee, shall we?"

Kimi

A honk from the driveway. Tommy's here.

The first thing that greeted me when the Cresta parked into the garage was an exhausted but nevertheless moderately conscious man that is my husband, who, normally, would have passed off for a leaner, purple-haired Baldwin brother (closest I can come up with is Alec). Conclusion: he just downed three cups of coffee with Chuckie (and maybe Phil).

"'Lo, hon," he said to me as he took a peck on my cheek.

"'Lo there yourself, Tom," I replied. "How was your day?" Do I really have to ask that? I'm his co-worker at CFP Securities who just happened to go home early, for Pete's sake!

"No prizes for knowing, Kim," he replied rather flatly. He then entered the door nearest the carpark, headed for the kitchen. "Hmmm, gazpacho again?"

"Take a wild guess." Mama would occasionally drop by to help me cook something aside from the twenty-something recipes I can cook, as well as the TV dinners we eat for the rest of the time.

"How about the kids? They can't stand-I mean, they don't eat gazpacho." The soup is as cold as our relationship-still palatable, but with some indication of going to the rocks.

Seven years are strangely long when you're married, working and have little, if no time, for children and your spouse (even if he's your co-worker). Sometimes the lines of communication are left unused, and we foot the bill.

"Macaroni and cheese, and maybe some bacon bits to go with it. So what did you talk about?" I queried. By then Clemmie and Des, six and four years old respectively, greeted him with kisses.

"Some sort of retreat for Holy Week," he replied as he sat down on the nearby sofa, unbuttoning his coat and loosening his tie. "Wanna come?" Clemmie tugged on his coat and asked, "What's a retreat?" Mine was almost the same question, except that I knew the answer.

"Ummm, let me see, huh, a retreat is some type of get-together where, erm, you get to live for awhile with other people and talk about being friends and pray, most of the time." What would we do with prayer, I asked myself. Predictably, both kids asked if they could come. Tommy said a plain sorry, causing them to pout.

"But you can stay with Granna-san," he added as his tie went off, giving them a big smile on their face-Mama always treated them darlingly, even more than the two of us, working as we are everyday, are treating them. "And I promise you, we will be with you when you need us after all this, okay?" A resounding "Yeah!" was heard from the both of them.

"Hey, the three of you," I told them, "dinner's almost ready. I do believe you better get to the dining room now, OK?" Mac and cheese with bacon for them and gazpacho and crackers for the two of us. Some dinner, but it'll do.

"OK Mom," came the reply from the two, and as we came to the table, I tapped Tom on his shoulder and whispered, "Let's talk about this tonight, shall we?"

"Yeah sure, hon, we will," he whispered back. "Oh, and by the way, it's in Berkel Creek, Oregon. I think you'll like it there."

"Berkel Creek, huh," I thought. Some small town on the California-Oregon border, near the mountains, would be the location of our retreat. My old sense of gangly adventurism was returning. "I will love it there."

Too early to tell whether Kimi, or for that matter Tommy, Chuckie, or the rest will indeed love it there. First, some arrangements with the kids and parents, as shown in Chapter Two: Sort This One Out, coming soon.

P.S. Any corrections? Suggestions? Pls. read and review!