Threnody
"It doesn't make you any less of a man to cry for him, you know." Richard takes Shawn out for dinner, after.
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Disclaimer: I own naught of The 4400 and her characters. They belong to those with more money and talent than I. Make love, not litigation.
Rating: Hmm…that's a toughie. PG-13, mayhap?
Warning: Shawn and Richard get (slightly) poetic and Jordan does some (blink-and-you'll-miss-it) beyond the grave Shakespeare quoting; how frightening is that?
Spoilers: As Fate Would Have It
Note: I'm not entirely pleased with this, but it's been sitting around finished for a week so I've finally said, 'To hell with it'. I love Jordan and do not care what everyone else thinks. Capiche? If you don't like Jordan, or think that he was generally not a nice happy camper, than don't read this. Because I do; like Jordan that is. Also, Shawn's slightly less than sane here. And, yes, this was originally titled To Lucasta, Going to the Wars. Now—what is it I normally say? Oh yes: All plot holes are figments of your imagination, all grammatical and spelling errors done to enhance the story. And as for logic—dream on. Enjoy the show.
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Threnody, n.
1: a song of lamentation for the dead
—Merriam-Webster
RequiemaeternamdonaeisDomine
—First words of the Mass
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Richard stood outside of Jordan's—No, Richard thought, correcting himself. It was Shawn's office now. Because…because Jordan was dead. Dead and gone, and he wasn't coming back, no matter how hard everyone was wishing he would, no matter what they thought the future was meant to be and Jordan's part in it. Jordan was dead and it was on Shawn's shoulders. It was Shawn now.
He sighed. Richard had just been getting to like Jordan, too. He had seemed to be so good with Isabelle (personally, he didn't think Uncle Jordan sounded that bad) and Richard had to admit, if both Shawn and Isabelle were willing to accept the man, why couldn't he?
In fact, Richard had just been talking to Lily about that, when Richard had suggested what he was about to do.
"He needs someone right now," Richard had told his wife. "Shawn just lost—well, I don't know quite what he was to Shawn, but Jordan was certainly something. A big brother," he had suggested with a waving hand. "Maybe even, to some degree, a father."
"Sometimes," Lily had said after a long lull in the conversation, Isabelle rested in her lap with Lily's chin on the baby's head, "Sometimes, when he was here, I couldn't get what Shawn saw in him."
"Hope," said Richard. "Maybe it was hope that we could get a better future. Maybe Shawn would look at Jordan and see the same thing we see when we look at Isabelle."
Lily had tapped her fingers against the table. "I suppose I can understand that."
There had been another pause and Richard confided to the air, "I was beginning to like him."
His wife had shrugged. "To a degree."
"Oh, come on," Richard had laughed, suddenly in the mood to joke. There wasn't much to joke about at the Center, lately. "Don't tell me you didn't open your heart—just a little—when Jordan sang to Isabelle."
Lily had smiled, shyly, and admitted, "It was pretty cute." She had nodded after that, adding, "Go take Shawn out for dinner: You're right. He probably does need someone who understands grief right about now."
And if there was anything Richard knew, it was grief.
So there he was, standing outside of the office that-once-was-Jordan's-but-now-was-Shawn's. Richard shifted on his feet with another sigh. He didn't know exactly how Shawn was going to respond to the invite out to dinner, but Richard had it on good authority that Shawn was being quite the bear lately so anything could happen. (Richard had hit up some of the secretaries that were wandering around for information.) But Richard waited outside the office anyway. Because Shawn was his friend and, like Richard and Lily had discussed earlier, Shawn needed someone.
The door to the office slid open unexpectedly and Richard gave a little jump. A group of suits wandered out, grumbling angrily amongst themselves. Richard watched them pass, silent with an eyebrow raised upwards. After they were gone, Richard ducked into the office.
Shawn was sitting behind the big desk that Richard always associated with Jordan. Shawn's head was in his hands, his body hunched low over the desk which was covered with papers.
"Hey." Richard slid into the chair on the opposite side of the desk. Shawn's head sprang up, eyes wide and startled.
"Richard?" he said. The other man gave a little wave, settling back into the chair and watching Shawn. The younger man sighed, running a hand through his hair. Shawn gave Richard a little, apologetic smile: "I'm just…jumpy these days, you know?"
Richard nodded. "I can understand that."
"Hmm," whispered Shawn, playing absently with the edges of loose papers. He seemed lost in thought, so Richard let him be. There was a lost look on his face, Richard noted, that made Shawn appear younger. His eyes were turned inward, sad and reflective, and Shawn looked very small behind the desk and in his clothes. He looked, for all intents and purposes, like a young boy playing dress up in his father's clothes and pretending to actually be his father, behind that desk.
Richard wandered if that's what Shawn felt like he was doing now.
"What is it that you wanted, Richard?" asked Shawn after a moment. He had taken his hands away from the papers now, resting one hand atop the desk and using one finger from the other to knead against his temple.
"I thought you could use a break," said Richard, "so I came to offer you dinner."
"But there's no rest for the weary," retorted Shawn.
"The weary can still eat, though, right?" Richard rolled his eyes. "Shawn, I'm not asking you to dinner in Cancun and to stay a week. Just somewhere right around here. We could even eat here, in your office, just some takeout. Though, if you wanted to," he added, "I wouldn't object to taking you to Cancun for a week. You look like you could definitely use the break. And I've never been to Cancun," noted Richard with a smile. "But I hear good things."
"If I went to Cancun," began Shawn slowly, "I think you'd be hard pressed in getting me to come back."
They laughed together, shortly, and there was no denying that it was a broken noise.
"So," said Richard, after the laughter and a moment of silence. "Dinner?"
Shawn leaned back in the chair, stretching his arms up over his head. He sighed: "Sure; why not?" He got up, pulling the suit jacket that rested on the back of his chair up and swinging it on. He looked at Richard for guidance. "Where to?"
"I know this pizza shop on the edge of town…"
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The place they went to was a tiny little shop owned by a grandmotherly Italian woman with very dark black hair that had a shock of white threaded at her widow's peak. She smiled at them as they entered, even greeting Richard by name. She stared at Shawn for a moment before bustling them into one of the high-backed booths in the back of the restaurant. Despite obviously recognizing him, she said nothing to Shawn, merely patting him on the shoulder sympathetically and throwing down menus before rushing off to greet her next group of customers.
"Mama Olivetti," said Richard with evident fondness as the woman left.
"Come here a lot?" asked Shawn.
"Enough," replied the older man with a nod. They looked at there menus in silence; Richard put his down first, and watched Shawn surreptitiously as he looked over the menu. There was a drawn look around his eyes that, in the harsh lighting of the pizzeria, Richard could see better than before, in the office. Richard sighed silently, figuring that Shawn hadn't been sleeping too well the past few days.
"What's good here?" asked Shawn softly, looking up from the menu.
"Everything, bellissimo!" (1)
They both turned to the speaker. It turned out to be a fairly young looking (not to mention fairly pretty) Italian woman. She had to be twenty-one, or maybe twenty-two, and appeared to be a younger version of the restaurant's proprietor. She smiled widely at them—winking at Shawn, to his surprise—before pulling out an order form.
"May I get you drinks, Signore?" she asked warmly, her bright smile still in place. (2)
"Coke," said Richard, smiling back. He knew this waitress: Ilaria Olivetti, granddaughter of Mama Olivetti and resident flirt.
"And you, bellissimo?" she said, turning to Shawn, who looked at her, baffled to have become the object of Ilaria's affection.
"Same?" he said, turning the word into a question in his confusion. She laughed lightly, her nose scrunching up in amusement, before whisking away to get them their sodas, her soft-soled sneakers barely making any noise as she glided effortlessly away. After she had gone, Shawn turned to Richard: "Who's that?"
"Ilaria," he said. "And I think she's taken a liking to you. Mind you, I think she'd hit on a tree if she found it attractive enough."
"Oh," said Shawn, looking back down at his menu. He stayed silently for a moment, staring in concentration at some section of the menu. He looked up after a minute, saying to Richard, "I think I'll just have some pizza."
"It is a pizzeria," noted Richard; "I believe pizza is there area of expertise. Anything special you want on it?"
Shawn looked down again before snapping his head up, realizing something. He admitted, a little shyly, "I don't have any money; I forgot my wallet."
"Don't worry," said Richard. "I'm buying."
"In that case," began the younger man, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, "I think I'll be having the lobster."
Richard chortled. "Your own your own there."
"I thought as much, but you can't blame a guy for trying, can you?" said Shawn. He glanced down at the menu, looking at the extra available toppings and dragging a finger down them. Richard watched Shawn doing this and stared as Shawn's finger froze over something. His face appeared to crumble in.
"What is it?" asked Richard in concern.
"Pineapple," he all but whispered. Before Richard could ask what exactly was wrong with pineapple as a topping (besides the fact that pineapple, as a fruit, had no place on a pizza what so ever—at least, in Richard's opinion), Ilaria swept back in with their drinks. She smiled brightly at them again.
"Ready to order?" she asked.
Richard looked to Shawn, and Shawn, his face having made a remarkable transformation away from the crumpled, lost look, said, "New York-style pizza okay with you, Richard?"
"Sure," Richard nodded.
"Toppings?" she asked. Shawn shook his head negatively. Ilaria scribbled down the order on her pad: "The boys in the back will have that right up for ya, adeguato?" (3)
She swept away again, moving fluidly like the waves of an ocean, and Richard continued to look at Shawn, who was tracing the patterns of the grain on the wooden tabletop. Absently, he said, "Jordan—he liked pineapple on his pizzas. I—I always thought it was disgusting." He paused, finger still, and looked up at Richard. "Sometimes, when he was working late, I'd get him pizza—half pineapple, half extra cheese. He forgot to eat a lot, when he got to working."
So maybe, thought Richard, going to a pizza shop for dinner wasn't the best idea. But they were here now, and, though they didn't speak for the rest of their time in the restaurant, Richard sat, regardless, in silent understanding, silent empathy.
When they were finished with the pizza, Richard paid the bill and they stood, exiting the pizzeria; Ilaria winked at Shawn again on the way out: "Come back soon, bellissimo!" Shawn smiled back at her, very softly, and they drove back to the Center in silence.
"I think I'm going to go for a walk in the gardens," said Shawn abruptly as he exited the car, pocketing the keys. His demeanor had changed since the pineapple incident, more angry and sad now. Richard, on the passenger side, too got out and he rested his hands on the roof of the car. He didn't close his door.
"Do you mind if I join you?" asked Richard. He knew he was pushing his luck, what with dinner and bringing up the bittersweet memories of Jordan and now asking to join Shawn in the place where Jordan had sealed his own fate, but there were still questions unanswered and Richard had to know: Who was Jordan to Shawn, when they were alone? He had to know, because then, maybe, he could help Shawn cope; and the young man needed to. He was barely functioning as it was.
Shawn stared at Richard for a long moment, obviously debating with himself. For a moment, he looked like he was going to outright refuse, but, instead, he said, beginning to walk away, "Suit yourself."
Richard's car door closed with a metallic snap and he walked after Shawn. They walked in silence because what else was there? Shawn didn't look at Richard as they walked, only absently staring out at the flowers whose names Richard didn't know. Still as absent, Shawn stopped and ran his hands against the waxen blossoms, looking up into the night. Richard stopped too.
"I've felt as though something very tragic would happen," began Shawn, staring upwards at white stars, "ever since I came back. Now I've met it."
He looked at Richard now and smiled. Richard didn't know whether or not to smile back. But Shawn was speaking again.
"I told Jordan about it," he was saying, "but he told me—he said that they were nothing but vain fancy. You know, I still remember his exact words: he said that I 'talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fancy'. He was quoting something. I don't know what; I haven't looked it up yet." He paused, a painfully broken look curling into his smile. "I wonder if Maia felt the tragedy, when she saw him go down. I wonder if she thought it was vain fancy. Probably not," Shawn said, almost to himself. "She lives with the visions."
Richard didn't know what to say, was only able to watch Shawn watching the stars, haunted by tragedy and tragically ambivalent. So Richard thought: Tragedy, he had learned, happened to the good, the young, the brave. They were the ones who faced loss. Yes, Jordan had died, died painfully and sadly, but it was Shawn that had to take up the banner, to walk with shoulders laden with sorrow for the rest of days and still put on the brave face for the rest of the world. And, of course, that only brought Richard in further to his thoughts: Who had Jordan been to Shawn to make Shawn feel that pain but still instill in him the need to do this for Jordan?
Shawn was still staring upwards into the night. His eyes, Richard suddenly noticed, shown not only with the light of the stars but with the wetness of unshed tears.
"Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?" asked Richard quickly. Shawn glanced at him, eyes darkened as the light was taken away. He appeared to be thinking it over. He laughed shortly, a bitter, sad noise, and looked back up to the sky.
"Go ahead; I'm used to it," Shawn said, "what with all these reporters and newsagents after me now."
"Have you cried for Jordan? Because it helps, helps with the pain," said Richard gently. Shawn looked at him sharply, and Richard pressed on, "It doesn't make you any less of a man to cry for him, you know."
Something in Shawn's face changed, like he was realizing, for the first time, where he was and whom he was with. He was suddenly open.
"I know," he said, "it's just…crying makes it real, no matter how badly it hurts me to not do it. If I mourn for him, then he's really gone. But if I don't—then that means I can live in a little bubble where, maybe, tomorrow, when I wake up, I'll see him at breakfast." Shawn's eyes lit up as he spoke of the possibilities. "And he'll be eating Fruit Loops, or something but I think it will be Fruit Loops—he likes Fruit Loops—and reading his paper, and I'll sit down and say, 'Hey, Jordan, I had this really weird dream last night' and I'll tell him all about it. Then he'll laugh when I'm finished, say he's too…something, I don't know what, to die and say I really should stop eating leftovers before I go to bed at night." He paused, smiling, and said, "And everything will be fine."
Richard understood that mentality, had even dealt with it and in it. He knew it wasn't healthy. "Shawn—"
But Richard was cut off; Shawn spoke quickly, trying to make Richard understand. "If I cry for him, I'll have to talk about him in the past tense. I'll have to say things like Jordan would have done it this way, or Jordan could have, or Jordan did or was or had. I'll have to stop dreaming that I saved him and that he's there at the breakfast table. If I cry for him, he'll be dead."
They stared at each other for a long moment, Shawn breathing a little heavily at his rushed omissions. Richard shut his eyes tightly and fought for a way to get through the younger man's hurt and pain and into the rational mind he knew was there, the mind that could cope with what was happening.
"I know it hurts," Richard said, forming his words as kindly as he could, "but he is. He is dead. And he wouldn't have wanted you to go on like this, barely functioning. He would have wanted—"
"I know that—on some level, I do know that." Shawn's voice had taken a note of pleading into it. "But I can still have my dreams, can't I? So I can't cry, because that'll take away the dreams. And I can't have that. I need them, even if they're nothing but vain fancy—because they give me him. Do you get it?"
Abruptly, there was a little part of his mind that thought, maybe, just maybe, that he was beginning to get it, get what Jordan had been to Shawn: And he hadn't been a big brother like Richard had originally thought. He asked, hesitantly, "Jordan was a father to you, wasn't he?"
"No," Shawn said with an emphatic shake of his head. "He is my father. Maybe not biologically, but in every other way, the ways that really count."
And Richard got it. He got why Shawn couldn't cry, couldn't mourn, couldn't let go of the dreams. He got why Shawn refused to speak about him in the past tense. That was Shawn's way of grieving, his way of keeping the man who was like a father to him for the past year alive. Shawn's grief was not letting go, not mourning, keeping the memories close. Richard knew that Jordan would still not approve of this, knew that he would want Shawn to let go and build up what Jordan had started, but Jordan could wait for him to let go still. And Shawn, thought Richard, knew it too.
"Maybe," Shawn said, "someday I'll let go. Maybe it will be tomorrow morning, maybe next Wednesday; maybe it won't be until years from now. But someday I'll be able to let go. Just not now." He smiled again, real this time, and Shawn paused, and asked, "So, do you get it?"
Richard nodded.
"You don't have to worry about me, Richard," said Shawn. "You don't have to look after me and watch over me and worry that I'll break. I'll be fine."
He nodded again, and they started walking out of the gardens, back to the Center. They did it in silence because there was still nothing else. Richard and Shawn entered the building quietly.
"Thanks for dinner," said Shawn as they broke apart, each to go their separate ways; Richard to his family with Lily and Isabelle, and Shawn to an empty part of the Center were a family once lived and now only the memories resided. Shawn added, "We should do this again some time."
"Sure," said Richard, smiling. Shawn smiled back, turned, and went up the stairs. Richard, too, turned away and started on his own way back.
"Hey Richard?"
"Yeah?" said Richard, stopping and turning and looking. Shawn had stopped midway on the stairs, one hand grasping the railing so tightly that his fingers turned white at the knuckles. Shawn gave him a brief, small smile and nodded gratefully.
"Thanks for getting it. I need someone to."
Shawn turned away then and continued on his upward journey. Richard stood there for a while, watching Shawn make his ascent. The younger man was humming something as he went, very quietly, and Richard, in all actuality, could not understand the words, only make out a faint tune. But Richard had heard it enough to not even need the words. Give eternal rest to them, O Lord, translated Richard in his head as he watched. And he fancied, vaguely, that this Shawn was letting go today and that, somewhere high above them, in a place that Richard had never been, Jordan was smiling. But, of course, there were some things that were nothing but vain fancy.
Richard turned away from the scene of ascension, his hands in his pockets, and started home, faded music against his ear.
The End
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Italian translations
(done rather roughly)
(1) Gorgeous
(2) Sirs; gentlemen
(3) Directly translated, this means 'adequate', but the way Ilaria uses it is more of a 'okay?' or a 'that jive?' because, honestly, I couldn't find a direct translation for 'that jive?' other than 'che jive?' which, quite frankly, doesn't make much sense.