After taking some time to compose herself and give the matter full consideration, Martha realized something. She wasn't going to run away again, not this time, not from Jonathan. If the mountain wasn't coming to her, she was going to go to the mountain. Whether the mountain liked it or not.

"Or..."

Jonathan's head jerked up. "Or? What 'or'?"

Without so much as another word, she marched off toward the unopened bags of feed that still lay next to the fence.

"Or what?" he tried again, more urgently, as if she weren't completely ignoring him. Now it was his turn to stumble and try to keep up as she walked faster. She still didn't answer, but as she walked he must have realized her plan, though she hadn't completely thought it out herself yet.

"Oh, no. No-no-no-no-no. Didn't you hear what I said? I don't want your help," he informed her sternly.

"I heard what you said," she answered, still calm, and kept walking. By the time she reached the sacks of feed, he'd become completely flustered.

"Martha Clark, you stop right there," he demanded.

She lifted a bag.

"Don't you--you c--if you take another--Martha, come on. Those bags weigh at least forty pounds. You could hurt yourself," he sighed helplessly, finally giving up any pretense of having any control at all over the situation.

"I'm doing just fine, thanks." Even if she was taking twice as long as Jonathan to do the same job. That wasn't the point.

"Martha..."

She prepared herself for still more complaints and objections--but what she hadn't been prepared for was the very girlish shriek that escaped her when her feet unexpectedly left the ground while the sack she held was dropped there with a heavy thud. "Jonathan! Jonathan, you put me down right this instant!"

"I'm sorry, what? I don't think I got that last part," he announced loudly over her protests and squirming, his arms wrapped securely around her waist.

"Jonathan Kent, you put me down, do you hear me!"

There was a good chance he might've done just that, too, eventually, had her struggling not managed to shift his center of balance, causing him to step back and fall, sending them both to the ground in a heap. Martha wriggled her way around just enough to turn onto her stomach and face Jonathan, who was lying on his back, panting. Then he did something he hadn't done in a very long time.

He laughed.

Sitting up and blowing a wild strand of hair from her face, still breathing hard herself, Martha joined him. "You do know how to sweep a girl off her feet."

He started laughing again, more freely this time. But when she stopped for breath, grinning down at him, she saw that some of the humor had faded from his eyes. Jonathan managed the beginnings of one more chuckle before it trailed off to a nervous swallow. It took a full second longer for her to realize what had already become evident to him: She was sitting in the crook of his hips, leaning forward, her face again inches from his, but in a very different way from before.

His breathing slowed and deepened as he watched her, his eyes never leaving her while the fingers of his right hand reached up and touched lightly along the soft skin of her cheek. She closed her eyes and felt his warm breath over her mouth, then his lips on hers as he pulled her more fully against him. When Martha touched his face and opened her eyes again, she froze.

"What's wrong?" Jonathan asked, sitting up on his elbows, alarmed at her troubled expression.

"You're crying," she whispered, still staring.

"I am not," he protested, almost chuckling again at the suggestion.

"Jonathan..." As she sat back on her heels and said his name in that certain way, she ran her thumb over the trail of tears that ran down his face. He wiped the back of his hand over his cheek and looked disbelievingly at the wetness there.

"It's okay," she tried to assure him, only to have him swipe more roughly at his damp cheeks and try to stand. She moved to the side at once to oblige him, fully expecting to go chasing him across town and back this time.

But he just stood there, looking lost, like a man who'd run as far as he could and had nowhere left to go.

He hadn't cried, not once since his father's death, and certainly not in front of her. As embarrassed and confused as he must have been at that moment, it took every ounce of her being not to put her arms around him and hold on tight until he'd given up this foolish male pride of his.

Then again, maybe there are times when pride is all that stands between a man and the most broken version of himself.

"Come on," she said caringly, and took him by the arm to lead him home. "Let's go have breakfast."

xxxxxxxx

"Overnight? You let her stay overnight?"

Sarah Clark turned from the mirror she'd been primping in, putting on the diamond earrings her husband had bought her for her birthday last month and rolled her eyes at him. "Oh, Bill, the poor boy's father just died. What exactly were you worried would happen?"

"I sympathize with that fact, Sarah," he grumbled. "But that doesn't mean the rules have suddenly changed. We would never have allowed her to stay overnight with any boy four months ago. Jonathan Kent is not an exception."

Sarah crossed the room to grab her purse from the chair in the corner, giving her husband's diatribe about as much attention as she would a bothersome gnat that flitted around her head. "Honey, Martha's a smart girl with a good head on her shoulders. And it's not as if they were alone. I spoke with his mother and she seemed like a lovely woman."

"You know that isn't the point."

She turned and cast him the same half-tired, half-irritated look as when he'd leave his wet socks on the bathroom floor. "Then what is the point? Honestly, I'd like to know."

"The point is," he said, keeping his voice low, walking over to her, "I don't think it's appropriate. Boys that age are all hormones and hands, Sarah."

"Especially after their father's funeral," she finished, openly mocking the absurd notion.

"You are not helping--and taking this far too lightly, I might add," he complained, crossing his arms in front, the frown he'd been wearing all morning deepening into a scowl.

"No, dear. That's not true. I'm just not overreacting. There's a difference," she corrected him, while rumaging through the purse she'd picked up. "Martha's found a nice boy that she cares about. I think it's wonderful. She practically glows whenever she mentions his name."

"Well, fine," he groaned, exasperated with her feminine sentiment. "I thought eventually you'd see things my way, but obviously I was mistaken. I can see now that I'll have to handle this situation myself."

Sarah looked up at him sharply. "You do that, Bill. I'm sure that would be very helpful," she answered bitterly. "And don't forget to wave good-bye to our daughter after you've made a complete fool of yourself."

"Sarah--"

"This isn't one of your business deals. You can't maneuver the pieces and capture the queen. Just leave them alone," she pleaded. "Before you do something you can't undo." She held his gaze a second, then two, then grabbed the keys she finally spied on the dresser and walked out.

TBC...