Hold Your Tongue

Chapter Six: Run That by Me Again

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Jimmy went back to his apartment shortly after Clark had taken his leave, unable to concentrate and no longer interested in the grisly crime-scene photos that Chief had ordered him to dig up. The walk home seemed to take longer than usual. He hadn't realized that he was this tired.

Jimmy was in his kitchen, pouring himself a glass of milk, his sluggish mind occupied in formulating thoughts about a sandwich to be eaten at some point in the near future, when he heard a knock at his apartment door. He almost expected it to be Clark, in his mind having only recently escaped from a positively furious Lois, and now looking to throttle Jimmy for forcing him into such a stupid course of action. Jimmy couldn't say he hadn't seen it coming, but he wished that he could have at least been given the chance to finish his milk.

It took him a moment to come to the door, which, despite his full knowledge of the potential dangers awaiting him on the other side, he still had every intention of answering (Clark wasn't the only one who's mother had instilled in him a rather deeply ingrained sense of politeness.) A quick look through the peep-hole, and he was somewhat startled to see that it was, in fact, Richard, looking more exhausted than he would have after a good share of jet lag and holding a suitcase in his hand.

Jimmy's first impulse, of course, was to let the man in, even while his brain had suddenly thrown itself into overdrive and began buzzing with questions, each clambering for consideration, a prime spot in line. What was he doing here? Not only standing forlornly in unfamiliar territory so late at night, without a bed of his own to sleep in, but here. What he meant was that Richard, being the person he was, was decidedly popular, both among his fellow employees at the Planet and elsewhere. Jimmy was sure that he had numerous other friends, fellow pilots, college buddies, all of whom would have been better candidates for this sort of "crashing". Why him? How many "revelations" had actually occurred tonight? What the hell had Clark actually done? What in the Sam Hill was going on?

Instead of instantly berating the poor man with rude inquiries, he did his best to be hospitable.

"Come on in."

Richard answered with a sad smile, trying his absolute best not to appear in the least bit pitiable, and did as he was told. Jimmy watched him steady himself, take a deep breath, and prepare to get all the un-pleasantries out of the way as soon as possible.

"I moved out." It was an unnecessary comment, to say the least, but Jimmy let him take the Mulligan. There was a great deal more waiting behind it, and he sat still.

"Oh. Well-" Jimmy did his best to fend off the coming subjects, but Richard seemed to want to have everything said and out in the open, which was a very Richard-ish thing to do. So much the better.

"I mean, we've been separated for… a while. Lois and I. We both agreed that I should stay around, for Jason's sake. Things just-" He gave a noncommittal gesture that was something between a shrug and a sweep of the hand, but Jimmy got the idea, and he certainly wasn't going to press things any further.

"Ah," Jimmy looked around for a moment, trying to find some way to alleviate the heavy amounts of awkwardness that just came with the subject matter, before his eyes alighted on his (open) refrigerator. "Could you use something to eat? I was just about to make myself a sandwich or something…" He trailed off, but the idea seemed to resonate with Richard, who looked like he hadn't had much of an appetite for a while.

When he was busy putting together a meager dinner, Richard set his suitcase down and took a seat on the couch. Across the counter, Jimmy watched him sit hunched over, his head in his hands, in much the same pose as he had watched Clark sit in only a few hours earlier. Once again he felt obliged to look away.

Having stowed away the mustard and cleaned up the rest of the kitchen as much as he felt able, Jimmy took the two newly-sandwiched plates into the living room. Setting them down on the coffee table, he was about to take a seat…

"I don't think Jason is my son."

Jimmy thanked God or Buddha or whoever it was calling the shots that he hadn't been about to swallow a mouthful of coffee at that moment, as Richard would have gotten it full in the face. As it was, he was having a hard time getting his jaw off the floor.

He tried desperately to compose himself, even while many of the questions buzzing frenetically in his head were suddenly answered out of existence. This, at least, explained why the older man had chosen to come here, of all places, as opposed to the residence of one of his college friends. Jimmy thought it would be quite impossible to express these sorts of sentiments to someone you once saw in a toga.

Now all Jimmy had to do was actually decide how exactly he intended to respond to this particular pronouncement. It was quite a pickle he was in, yes indeed.

"What makes you think that?" Of course, his words just had to sound like they were coming through a dog whistle, and it would have been clear to a two-year old that he knew much more than he was letting on, but Richard, for his part, seemed relatively relieved that Jimmy had just said something. And, pathetic as it was, it was probably a better thing for Richard to hear than the straight truth. God, Jimmy really did fee like he had just stepped into a never-ending episode of "Days of Our Lives."

"Oh yes. You know, you're absolutely right. Turns out you've been raising Superman's kid all along. Bummer, that." That would have gone over exceptionally well.

It took Richard a while to collect himself and reply (which was certainly understandable.)

"I-I don't even know. I have no reason to think-" He cut himself off, frowning, as if he suddenly realized that he did have a reason, or multiple reasons, none of which he had chosen to recognize or examine until now.

Jimmy searched frantically for some way to effectively change the subject. There had to be something, anything, that might get Richard's mind off of his memories of the time that Jason had seen something incriminating through their next-door neighbors wooden fence, or snapped a stapler in half (was that the reason, Jimmy wondered, why Lois could never find her own to work with?) Now, today, in Jimmy's spartan little living room, was not the best of circumstances for Richard to hear the painful bit of news that he would eventually have to receive.

"Well-"

"I mean, the timing was always…" he was not in a mood to finish his sentence, but Jimmy could see that this conversation was far from over. If he managed to get a completely grammatical sentence in edgewise it would be a miracle, but allowing the older man to just run freely with these doubts in his head would not allow either of them to arrive at a happy conclusion.

"That doesn't mean, necessarily-"

"I know that she wouldn't, if she knew, I guess-"

"It's just been a weird couple of months, that's all…"

"I didn't pay attention. That stupid rumor mill, when he left-"

"None of that was-"

"She never liked to talk about it…"

"I'm sure that she-"

"She never liked to talk about it…"

"Everyone was trying-"

"I'm right, aren't I?"

It wasn't a matter of admitting defeat. Defeat was standing over him with a club, looking murderous. Jimmy had no idea how his friend should know anything about the information that he possessed, but he knew. Richard had figured it out on his own; put two and two together, just like Jason had. They really were so alike, in so many ways. It was entirely unfair that they should be so convincing, so believable as father and son. It made all of this so much worse.

Richard rose to take his untouched plate back into the kitchen, and Jimmy used the opportunity to scurry back into his own room, to give the other man some time and space to think things through on his own. And so they both ended the night knowing full well that Richard was correct in his assumptions, and, while neither of them mentioned it, while Richard scarcely allowed himself to think of it, also knowing the role that a certain extraterrestrial in tights had played in all of this.

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When Jimmy woke up, the older man had already left, his suitcase missing from the spot it had occupied the night before. The three of them, Clark, Lois, and Richard, were all at their respective desks when Jimmy walked into the office, a few minutes later than usual but not late enough to elicit any reflexive shouting from the Chief.

Jimmy took the time to study them for a moment. Lois was seated, typing rather dramatically, her eyes narrowed and her fingers tense in what Jimmy would have considered a relatively relaxed position for her. Clark was on the phone, buttering up whoever happened to be on the other end of the line with a heaping helping of Midwestern charm and taking notes at a terrific speed. From what he could see of Richard, all the way across the bullpen in his elegantly executive office, his one-time (and hopefully never again) roommate was doing nothing more than reading e-mails.

They all seemed to be operating under a strange amount of assumed calm, almost as if they were basking in acceptance of the previous night's events. They looked, for all the world, as if they had experienced nothing remotely life-altering or even mildly unusual. They were at work, it was nine in the morning, and there were things to be done.

And that was how it went for several hours. Every short span of interaction that he had with them gave Jimmy the distinct impression that all of yesterday's strange events had just been some sort of bizarre, Carrolesque hallucination, a "bad trip", or whatever those sorts of things were called.

Jimmy was just about to give in to the possibility that he simply had a frighteningly overactive imagination, when Clark approached him.

It was around lunchtime, and Jimmy had just been about to head downstairs, when he noticed the taller man walking towards him, wringing his hands, which wasn't an all-together unusual thing for Clark Kent to be doing, but there was something in his expression which made Jimmy think that this was no longer play-acting. There wasn't much of a point to it anymore, after all. Any nervous gesture, at this point, should only be genuine.

At this, Jimmy was sort of annoyed. As interesting as it was to suddenly be thrust into the tumultuous personal lives of his office mates, he wasn't sure he really wanted to be their shoulder to cry on anymore. Would it have killed Clark to take his problems somewhere else?

"Jimmy?" The voice was Superman's, undoubtedly, unquestionably. The gloves were finally off, and Jimmy was glad to know it. The downside, however, was that underneath the infamous superhero timbre (perhaps way underneath it) was an undercurrent of genuine concern and uncertainly.

"Uh huh?" Jimmy mumbled, just looking up from the stack of negatives he had been thumbing through.

"I'm worried about Lois." Jimmy found himself feeling like he was sitting behind the desk in some shrink's office with a clipboard in his hand, fingers steeped, and he had to resist the urge to ask Clark to tell him about his childhood. Instead, he took his time in setting down the negatives, adjusted the position of his camera bag, and swiveled in his chair to face his confused and evidently distraught friend.

"How's she worrying you?" Jimmy could think of a host of reasonable answers on his own, but he thought it best to start from the beginning.

Clark seemed to take stock of this question for a moment, seemingly frustrated with his own inability to describe the situation properly. He tensed for a moment, wondering how best to make his point.

"Well, look! " he whispered, having lowered his voice to compensate for the expansive gesture he made in Lois's direction, where she was standing, chatting quite normally over the phone with some government bozo whose cooperation she required for her most recent assignment. She appeared to be entirely oblivious to their observation.

Jimmy turned a questioning eye to Clark, unsure of what it was he was even talking about. Obviously he was trying to puzzle together why his announcement the night before (an announcement that Jimmy could only assume he had actually made) wasn't having its anticipated effect. Though, Jimmy couldn't help but wonder what sort of reaction had he expected? Lois would be Lois, after all, no matter what situation she was put in. As far as Jimmy was concerned, she was taking it all in stride, and doing a remarkably good job. Far from being concerned, Clark should be thanking the heavens that he had escaped from this whole debacle with his head still intact. That was what Jimmy would have been doing, anyway.

Still, Clark probably wouldn't have been so obviously anxious without some sort of logic behind it.

"Well, how'd it go yesterday? You know, when-" Clark raised his hand distractedly, indicating to Jimmy that he didn't need to continue. He took another second to collect himself, as if he was almost ashamed of what he knew he had to say next. For one brief and terrifying moment, Jimmy was sure that Clark would tell him that it hadn't "gone" at all, and that he had, as Jimmy feared, chickened out at the last minute. What he did say, however, was not nearly as disappointing, but far more confusing.

"I…don't know." Jimmy had to process this most recent fragment of information, but he didn't take his time.

"What do you mean, you 'don't know'? What she do, I mean, when-" Jimmy forced back his irritation at being shut up again, telling himself that Clark really didn't think that he'd be dumb enough to blow his secret, this late in the game. The guy was just a little over-cautious, that was all. Jimmy supposed it was understandable.

"Nothing."

Clark's eyes were wide, perhaps with terror at the fresh memory. By now, Jimmy was entirely lost. What on earth was that supposed to mean, 'nothing'? Did 'nothing' mean that she had not tried to physically remove him from her presence with a desk lamp or a pair of stilettos? Or did 'nothing' mean that she hadn't ruptured a lung screaming obscenities at him and cursing his name? What Lois were they talking about here?

"She didn't do anything?" Jimmy was fighting to keep all signs of incredulity out of his voice, but whether he succeeded or failed at this point wasn't of much concern to him.

"She didn't yell or throw anything at me. She just…stood there. And then she sat down and went on with the book she had been reading."

Jimmy, who had been staring at the floor, let his eyes travel upward to alight on Clark's miserable face, and then on to Lois, who was still on the phone, the satisfied smirk plastered on her face that told him she was getting exactly what she wanted, then to Richard, who was engaged in some sort of verbal sparring match with Perry, and back to Clark again. And then he started laughing.

He really couldn't help himself. It was, all of it, the funniest thing that he had ever encountered in the years of his life. Yes, it was frustrating, and it was confusing, and dramatic, and so many other terrible things, but it wasn't impossible to find the humor buried deep beneath all the theatrical, affected layers. As long as someone could find it funny, than maybe it really wasn't so bad after all. It may have to get worse before it got better, but it was only a small price to pay. They'd come through it alright, he knew that now.

After a few more seconds, Jimmy was able to put his mirth aside enough to force out some coherent words.

"Man are you in trouble."