The end of August brought several things to pass in Metropolis. The first was the installation of Henderson's Kryptonite Division within the police, an office devoted to collecting, destroying, containing and monitoring kryptonite, doubling the attempt to stem the flow. Bruce, as Batman, and Gordon in Gotham had been less successful starting a similar program of their own, but that had been expected.

The second event was the beginning of Joe's trial in open court. Of course, Lois, Richard, Perry, and Clark were all called to testify against him. The four of them were placed in the same room, closed-in and alone, for the first time since Richard had left Metropolis. Lois sat by Perry and avoided looking at them all.

To call it awkward would've been the understatement of the century. The zenith of the experience was when Richard had pretended not to notice one of Jason's inhaler's stashed in Clark's briefcase.

Clark had been paying more attention to the outside world than to the tension in the room, a distraction that hadn't helped things any. The world at large was mostly quiet so far as major crimes and disasters went, but it still had him edgy. He didn't even notice the serious look Perry had fixed on him through the time they shared the waiting room.

- - -

"Dad," Jason said, looking up from his coloring at the kitchen table the moment Clark walked through the back door into the kitchen of Rick's house. It was very much like the Kent farmstead, but it was in the heart of suburbia and definitely decorated by an aging bachelor. Jason had a half-eaten plate of chips and ham sandwich next to him, his coloring pages and crayons spread out around him in a manner that definitely reminded Clark of Lois in the middle of a project.

"Yes, Jason?" Clark asked, running a hand through his hair and glancing around in search of his uncle—Rick had sportingly agreed to watch Jason on three seconds' notice when there had been a desperate call for Superman over the dinner hour while Lois was, once again, mysteriously in need of Clark's babysitting ability, though he wasn't sure the term 'babysitting' applied when he was watching his own son. He also wasn't sure if she was actually busy or just being nice in a roundabout sort of way and providing an opportunity for him to spend time with his son.

"Why is Mom mad at you?" Jason asked, setting his crayon aside and examining his completed picture instead of meeting Clark's eyes—the tidy lines of Jason's crayons depicted Lois, Clark and Jason all sitting on a checkered picnic blanket together in the park eating lunch and a dog that looked a bit like Shelby holding a Frisbee nearby. Clark's heart sank a little in his chest.

"It's complicated."

"That's what Mom said," Jason sighed, beginning to pack his papers together, handing a few pictures to Rick for his fridge before snuggling into his father's chest for the flight back to Metropolis.

-

For the rest of the night, after Clark had put Jason to bed in his bed, which was much too big for such a little boy, the Kryptonian contemplated the question. All things considered, he should've had a better answer for his son. How many kids had he read about, seen for himself, or heard about—or even known, back when he was a child—whose parents fought, who spent so many hours wondering what was wrong with their family, what was wrong with them.

He loved Jason—he loved Lois—too much to let his life spiral into a continuation of the scenario. He couldn't think of a way out of it, though. Lois would be angry with him until she decided otherwise. Anything he could do—and he had tried a few things—would be met with violence, the cold shoulder, or just ignored completely. If she was giving even Jason vague answers about the argument, things were just as bad as they could be.

The ball was in her court and she was much too stubborn for his own unrelenting attempts to open channels of communication, to mend fences, rebuild bridges, all that, to have an incredible impact.

AN: Well, there's a scrap of a chapter... more (longer, too) next week!