Chapter 2

Challenge Accepted: Richard's Laugh

Part 1

It wasn't until Richard came down three hours later for breakfast that Harvey thought about how this would affect him. And by then it was too late. Jack had been downstairs, moving into the small space, and rearranging it to his liking. Harvey had helped for a while, and then decided to go back upstairs for some coffee.

He had just finished making his wakefulness in a cup, and was leaning against the counter sipping the hot beverage when Richard came in, and began to pour a bowl of cereal. Harvey thought nothing of it at first, and was going to comment on the fact that he rarely saw Richard for breakfast when he suddenly heard Jack's footsteps on the stairs. His eyes widened in horror, and rushed to the stairs to stop his friend, only to lose his footing on the first step in his haste, and go tumbling down into the basement.

Jack, who had seen the D.A.'s overstep, very helpfully stepped to the side so as not to impede Harvey's descent.

"Really, Two-face, if you needed to get into the basement so badly, it would be much easier if you took the stairs properly."

Jack turned around and continued his trek into the kitchen and sat down at the table, feeling exhausted. He hadn't slept well for the past several nights, and had spent the last of his energy on getting settled into Harvey's basement. At the sound of a small clink, he looked up into the startled face of Richard.

They stared at each other for a moment in silence. Who's the kid? Joker thought.

Without taking his eyes off of Richard, Jack turned his head to the side, and shouted into the open stairwell door, his voice shooting up an octave halfway through the first word.

"HarvEEYYY! Is there something you want to tell me?! Did you become a father while I was away?"

Harvey trudged up the steps heavily, rubbing his head. When he reached the kitchen, he glanced up at Jack, giving him a perplexed look. But before he could say anything, Richard pushed away from the table as Jack and Harvey watched, and left the room. After a moment of quiet, the sound of feet pounding up the stairs in the hall could be heard, followed shortly by the slam of a door.

"Was it something I said?"

Harvey looked back at his disfigured friend in disbelief.

"It was more like what you didn't say."

Jack looked confused. What was that supposed to mean?

Harvey walked over to the table, watching Jack carefully.

"You don't remember? You're the one who brought him here. His parents were the owners of the circus that was here almost a year ago. They died in an accident, and you brought him here so he wouldn't be left in the foster care system."

Jack looked past Harvey, lost in thought, trying to remember. But he couldn't. He found that was the most shattering and life-altering thing about his accident: he had lost a lot of memories. He looked down at the table.

"I don't remember much before the accident. I don't know exactly what the clown goo did to me, but it took a lot of my memories with it," he said sadly.

"Oh, well, that won't help at all."

Harvey reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. Richard had gotten so attached to Jack after his parents died, and when Jack disappeared, he seemed to have given up on living life. But now that Jack had returned, looking like a living corpse, Richard had just gotten a shock. On top of that, Jack didn't know who he was.

That was not going to help matters one bit.

"You're sure I'm the one who brought him here?"

"Absolutely. The two of you bonded after that. He almost seemed to accept you as a second father figure."

Jack looked back at the door Richard had walked through. He didn't remember the boy, and he certainly didn't know what he had been going through the last two months, but he did see that his presence had shaken him up and he seemed to have some sort of deep hidden sorrow.

"He doesn't seem very carefree for a former circus performer. Surely my absence couldn't have given him that long face. It rivals a giraffe's neck."

Harvey shook his head as he grabbed his forgotten coffee. His friend's new and strange sense of humor was going to give him headaches.

"He doesn't really smile much anymore. In fact, I don't think I've seen him smile since the last time you were here. He never laughs anymore," Harvey said taking another sip of his coffee.

Jack looked back at his friend, "Reeeaaalllly? Well, we can't have that, now can we? I think I might be able to crack him," Jack rubbed his hands together.

"Challenge accepted."

Richard sat on the window seat in his room, just staring out the window. It was a beautiful day; it was a day he had often taken advantage of and gone to help with the circus animals and work hard on learning every trick anyone was willing to teach him in their spare time. He wanted to one day be the best circus performer ever, being able to do almost anything during a show.

But that was before his parents died.

It had taken him a while to function properly after their deaths. And Jack, the detective who had taken him under his wing had been there all along the way. He had held him in the middle of the night when he had nightmares about that fateful show, he coaxed him out of his room and into doing something productive with his day, and had even taken him on a case he got from someone who had been robbed. Eventually, he had come out of the depression he had fallen into, and had come to think of Jack as his best friend and surrogate father. Yes, Harvey Dent was his guardian and caretaker, and Richard would never be able to thank him enough for taking him in instead of sending him to foster care. But it was Jack that Richard had actually bonded with more closely.

And while Jack could never replace his real father, he did a good job of filling that hole in his heart. They had begun to just spend most of their time together when Jack wasn't working on a case. On good days, they would go out to a ball game, or go to the park and toss a ball around, and even went out and got ice cream. Once, Jack had convinced Richard to show him how to do some basic acrobatics.

And then Jack disappeared.

Harvey had tried to keep them both positive, saying that maybe he had an emergency to take care of, or maybe he had to go under cover and forgot to tell them. But Richard knew the truth; Jack was gone. Missing. Most likely, dead. And Richard would never see him again.

When the news report on the t.v. confirmed it, Richard hadn't been all that surprised, but it hurt just the same. More so than when he lost his biological parents; yes, he missed them greatly, but now he had begun to wonder if he was just cursed. Doomed to lose everyone important in his life. Would Harvey be next?

Life was just a struggle after that. There was no way of knowing if/when Harvey was going to kick the bucket next. He determined to be extra vigilant.

But just now, in the kitchen, Richard found that his fears were unfounded. Jack wasn't dead. He was alive and well.

Well, as alive and well as a corpse could be.

That was his first impression upon seeing the ghastly sight in front of him at the table. And he had very nearly screamed when the corpse moved to look at him after he dropped his spoon into his bowl. Then he saw that the creature staring at him in surprise resembled more of a disgruntled clown.

A clown that looked like death warmed over.

Then the clown spoke.

It was a voice he had heard for months and come to rely on until the owner was ripped cruelly from the world. A voice he thought he would never hear again.

Richard had then looked more closely and noticed the features of the face in front of him and realized that it was, indeed, Jack. But he had no time to celebrate the fact that he had returned from the dead; even if he looked like the stuff nightmares was made of.

Jack didn't recognize him. That fact alone hurt enough to make him wish Jack had never saved him from the foster care system. His friend may have been brought back from the dead, but he wasn't the same man as when he left. Richard still wouldn't have his surrogate father anymore.

Just then the door opened behind him. Heavy footsteps stopped at the edge of the door, but Richard didn't look up. He had come to the conclusion that if he didn't acknowledge anyone ever again, there would be no basis for bonding. And if there was no bonding, then there would be no pain when those around him left him forever.

The footsteps echoed as they moved closer. He still didn't look away from the window.

Richard jumped as a hand landed on his shoulder. Before he could try to shake it off, he found himself being dragged out of his room and down the stairs into the kitchen. He blinked, and suddenly found himself sitting at the kitchen table, once again in front of his abandoned cereal bowl.

He looked up, and found himself staring at one of the most bizarre things he had ever seen. He was no stranger to clown jokes and pranks, but the clowns in the circus usually chose a member of the audience that was laughing at the pranks, just to make sure they actually got a reaction.

Never had he seen a clown prank someone as straight-laced as District Attorney Harvey Dent.

Standing absolutely stock still in apparent shock, was Harvey Dent, blinking comically through the layer of cream spread all over his face. Sitting on the table in front of him was an empty container of Cool Whip.

Richard switched his focus over to the grinning clown he had once called friend. Jack appeared to be waiting for a reaction to his impromptu prank on the D.A. Richard just blinked at him, then looked over at Harvey again, who was now trying to wipe off his face while spluttering in righteous indignation about getting a warning and rescinding his offer.

Jack ignored Harvey and continued to simply stare at Richard in explanation.

The young boy simply looked back at him for a moment, then, without a word, he rose from the table, and left the room. Jack's jaw dropped as he watched the lad walk back up the stairs to his room through the open kitchen door. How could he not laugh at that?

The last thing Richard heard from the two grown men as he shut his door was Harvey warning Jack to behave himself.

His voice rising in disbelief over Harvey's, Jack shouted, "How do you not laugh at the pie-in-the-face gag? Is it because it wasn't really pie?!"