Horizon Lines

"In other news, Middle-Eastern governments are reacting..."

Seven members of the Bullpen elite held up glasses towards the news monitors near their desks, cried "HO!" in unison and tipped back their heads to take shots of tequila out of mini water cups from the bathroom. Jimmy put down his cup and looked sick, Clark grimaced and shook his head like a dog, Lois slammed hers back down and smacked her lips, and Kyle tipped all the way back in his chair and groaned.

"... citing the terrorist group..."

"HO!" Seven shots.

"Oh god Lois, make it stop..."

"No, I just made this list, you like it, shut up," Lois snapped back as she moved around the circle of desks, sloshing liquor on mouse pads and filling up everyone's twin cups. It was 8:15 at night and Lois' old crew was smaller than it had once been, some members getting too old and tired for late night drink-a-thons in the middle of the week, some with families and wives to go home to now. The still single and unattached members of her old collective of miserable misfits sat around for one of Lois famous drinking games, still all editing their day's work on their monitors and thinking sadly about alcohol gone by.

The Bullpen was dim, someone was playing quiet music out of their speakers, and it had the late-night feel of an academic library come finals. It was some version of the respectful silence humans could share in universal self-pity.

Clark stared at the news, horrified that some great emergency was going to crop up at any second, and he kept sending furtive glances at everyone else, drunkenly paranoid that one of them would notice. He recalled that years ago, when Lois first invited him to one these games ("Move Smallville, we need your desk. Actually, you know what, never mind. Stay.") that he had thought it was a cold and heartless thing to do, drinking on cue to the keywords of human chaos. But now, after years of having people walk away from his protective arms without so much as a 'thank you' he was starting to appreciate the professional detachment, if not dark amusement, that his journalist colleagues threw towards the monitors as they debated whether "multiple homicides" was the same as "killing spree."

Pictures moved across his vision, well-kept anchors moved from one topic to another without letting their eyes shift as they read teleprompters, and Clark contemplated being Superman, just as he had done upon returning to earth. Why should he lend his every waking moment to a planet of selfish, greedy, ignorant people who (despite his constant efforts) did seemingly nothing to end their own destructive behavior... what difference did he actually make?

And yet, even in these moments of cynical digression he still sat on tenterhooks over the news feed. This is how he lived his life, this was his misery, to be on edge about everything: about Lois, the world, fatherhood...

Lois misinterpreted his dazed expression, "Look at you, drunky, wake up!"

"Lois, I think this game is really swell..." she laughed in his face as she filled his cups, "... but maybe we've played long enough..."

'...as I am now contemplating why the world doesn't need Superman...' he finished the thought sadly.

"Ugh, Lois, I really hate tequila," Jimmy suddenly added as if answering Clark, the words muffled from between his arms from where he sat with his head down on Lois' desk, his chair pulled up besides hers. She turned around from attending to Clark and picked up a remote to turn up the volume on the closest monitor in response. Kyle groaned again.

"Superman's efforts to stem the mudslide..."

"HO!"

"OhgodI'mgoingtobesick..."

"Sit the next one out, Jimmy, I'm not trying to kill you," Lois said this with a grimace, as she too hated tequila. The only reason they were drinking it was because it was the last bottle left at the Planet from Lois' old secret stash (under the sink in the breakroom), gone unopened this long for that very reason: they all loathed it. Clark was now moping and sent another look around the polygon of slid-together desks.

Janet, hailing from Business on the 18th floor, was back reliving old times after accepting a new position Downstairs about two years ago. Recently divorced, she was spending more time around her old friends, trying to rekindle old connections and memories of easier times. She was sitting near Clark, whom she had not heard was back, and was glancing around with bleary eyes. It was, after-all, a handle of Mexico's finest. Clark sent a small smile at her that Jimmy noticed before he put his head back down.

Maurice looked like he was trying to taste his own tongue and had been staring at his phone for ten minutes.

"In environmental news, scientists are reporting that the sun is about to go through some serious changes. Dr. Eric Menovese is here to discuss this year's solar maximum. Doctor?"

"Environmental news was supposed to be climate change! Damn."

"You're stacking the-" Kyle belched. Terribly. "You're stacking the deck."

"Shut up, Kyle."

Richard pulled his fingers in from prying open the blinds and let two slats snap shut. He moved his face away from the window and went back towards his desk, easing the tension that standing across his office had put on his phone cord.

"She's drinking."

"At work?" Laughter filled this statement.

"Yeah, it's a tradition apparently, one that was abandoned only when she realized she was pregnant and that she never really took up again. Another resurrected memory..." Richard gave a long-suffering sigh as he sat back down and kicked his stocking feet up onto the desk.

"Hmmm?"

"You would not believe the number of stories I've been told recently."

There was a pause in the conversation, Richard listened to Jake type something out fifteen hundred miles away.

"How's Emily?"

"Vengeful. She threw out all my magazines while I was gone, claimed they were overtaking the bathroom and upsetting the balance of the universe. Or something." Jake sighed into the phone; he was a living example of a faceless marriage, the kind that ends in two people simply sharing a residence rather than living together. He lectured Richard on the joy of a prolonged engagement whenever he bemoaned the fact that Lois put their nuptials off for another year, "See? You have it good, Rich."

Richard rolled his eyes at no one and shook his head. He should have never mentioned Emily, he could hear it coming. He tried to stem the flow before the looming conversation about marriage got the chance to bleed to death-

"What about th-"

"-you should be happy she doesn't want to marry you," Jake finished his thought.

Richard stopped dead in his attempt, "What?"

"Um..."

"Just because she's pushed it off a little-"

"-she's pushed it off three years-"

"-that doesn't mean..." Richard sighed, defeated, and realized he should not bother ignoring the truth he had so recently discovered: "Fuck, Jake. I don't even think I know her anymore," he hung his head, pressing the phone against his ear, listening to another muffled "HO!" from the Bullpen.

"What do you mean?"

"She's been so different lately, I'm just... it's small things, like stuff I never noticed before. "

"Since Superman came back."

"Um, no. Since Clark came back," Richard took a deep breath, "I told you, Superman isn't a problem."

"Richie..."

"No, listen, for the hundredth time-"

"No, you listen-"

"Shut up!"

Silence.

"Look," Jake tried another route and made himself to sound understanding, "I know you don't want to think about competing with the world's most eligible alien..."

Jake, who had not left the United States for five years after college, had been the first person to respond with, "Lois LANE? The Lois Lane?" when Richard confessed that he had impregnated a one night stand. Richard, of course, had heard of her every Thanksgiving that he could remember spending with his uncle, but he didn't know that she was something of a celebrity outside the circle of Uncle Perry's professional journalist world. It was an unwelcome shock to hear recognition in Jake's voice, and he struggled to explain his actions:

"She found me at a bar, no red-blooded heterosexual man would have said no, trust me..." had been his initial response to Jake's questioning his choice of bedmates so soon after landing such a career advancing position. Jake had understood, made commentary on the 'modern woman,' and had bolstered his sentiments that maybe being a father would 'be fun.'

But, becoming aware of her minor tabloid status made those first weeks an even tougher time in Richard's life, as he never wavered from "doing the right thing" but really would have preferred to have actually known the woman who would be the mother of his first child. And then there was the matter of how ridiculously intimidated he had been when he did get to know her: how she lived, how she worked, his uncle's reaction so soon after being employed in his newspaper...

And then, Jake took the time to clue him into the Superman story and the reasons people cared about the personal life of his earthly ambassador. Emily read a lot of tabloids and was a well of suspicion and gossip about the swelling journalist with a haunted expression on her face in the first months of her pregnancy. As soon as they got wind of who Richard was now hopelessly attached to, they had launched into the 'but what about Superman?' discussion:

"What do you mean, Superman's human mistress? That's ridiculous."

It did seem ridiculous, but there wasn't much time to dwell on it, so any suspicion was short-lived. Instead, Richard realized that trying to convince a strong woman to marry him for the sake of the child, turning his childhood home into a place for a new family, getting to know the steel-trap that was Lois... was a lot more important and consuming than a missing alien who used to grant Lois interviews and the useless gossip that followed. But the shock lingered well into her second trimester, and the intimidation followed him ever since.

Jake had taken a longer time in being blasé re: The Superman Idea and actually tried to bring it up whenever Richard noted any problem or confusion about Lois. Truthfully, Richard had rarely given Superman a second thought, especially as He had disappeared and was wholly considered dead by most of the world. Besides, this professional liaison was unreal, the kind of stories his Uncle Perry used to tell, and she never even talked about it.

Hence, Superman's impact on Lois never had the chance to register with Richard until Lois almost died a mile off the surface of the planet and soon after was kidnapped in a flurry of near-death. Then, just as suddenly as Richard had become attached to the Lois Lane, the Superman was back in their lives. And Jake freaked out.

Yet, Lois had taken it all in stride and he told Jake (who rang his phone for two straight days after Superman returned) for the eighth time that he was just going to approach the subject:

"If I don't just ask her what am I going to do? Besides, what is she going to do? Leave me and Jason to fly around the world with Superman and live at the North Pole? So what if there was something, it was a lifetime ago for her. And if there is something there she'll chase after it eventually, won't she? I'm just going to ask her. It will work! "

And that was exactly what Richard had done. Assuming the worst, hoping for the best, he had gone all out.

In a way.

He had asked her, directly, and stood back, indirectly. He didn't want to put pressure on her, didn't want to seem suspicious or insert his own paranoid opinion into the cauldron of emotion he saw stir in Lois when Superman reappeared suddenly and seemingly for the sole purpose of saving her life. He didn't comment on the subsequent interview, and even helped a man who up until recently had thought could not die. He didn't say a word or let Lois see a hint of emotion on his face when he heard the desperation in her voice and finally, finally and most significantly, suggested he drive her to the hospital to stand by his bedside.

For every moment of that week (and the next and the next) Richard waited for a conversation, waited for a confession, wondered at the past. And nothing happened. Superman was miraculously resurrected and that was it. Lois got up, ate her breakfast, and went about life in such a normal way that any claim that she was pining over an old lover was just... unlikely. He could detect no change, other than those she manifested at the office.

He had explained this all to Jake, assured him that his non-interference was important in that Lois did not react defensively and feel the need to cover herself, and just... that was it. No real Superman problem; in fact their "working" relationship was actually quite interesting, and certainly a good story.

But Jake still brought it up every chance he could; Richard suspected he was secretly fascinated by it, by the idea of having a woman coveted by such a powerful man. Richard turned from old thoughts and back to the conversation at hand:

"Besides, I've seen them together..."

"You said she was desperate for him to stay in the plane!"

"I mean since then! Listen..."

"Just what in the hell do you people think you're doing?" Perry was an old man, and so many "HO's!" was one too many. He slammed open his office door and stalked across the Bullpen, aiming straight for Lois. Clark, who had the worst poker face on the planet, caught his eye first as he rounded the aisle.

"Um..."

"Pull up a shot glass, Perry, stay awhile!" suggested Lois from where she was blowing out her keyboard with a compressed air can from the supply closet, "Crazy! Look at all the dust; how long have I had this keyboard-?"

"Do you realize it's Tuesday?" You had to interrupt Lois when she was drunk if you could even entertain making a point.

Clark groaned. He hated Tuesdays.

"So what, it's Tuesday, I can't get drunk on a Tuesday?" A small feather made its way past her Tab key and swirled around, settling in Jimmy's hair.

"You can, but what about these sorry excuses for journalists that you've gathered around you? Hi, Janet." He sent a head-nod in her direction. She was currently sitting at Betty's desk and looking quite content in her renewed whimsy.

"Hellooooo Mr. White!"

"Shush Janet, you're too drunk to live," came Maurice, trying to play Tetris on his computer and really far too intoxicated to keep up with the keys as his stack of blocks approached the top of the screen.

Clark gave Janet a sympathetic look, Perry glared at Maurice who was two days late on the circulation statistics.

"You know, you're like the Pied Piper to Hell, Lois," he gestured at Clark and Jimmy, both of whom looked by far the worst for wear. Clark, a sucker for historic allusions of any kind, gave a personal grin while he slid further down in his chair. Kyle snorted and mimed playing a flute at Lois; she glared at him and sent a harmless shot of cold air in his direction. Jimmy hadn't moved in ten minutes.

"I'm toughen-ning them up, now sit down, the news waits for no man!" she waved the air can above her head.

Perry looked up after she gestured towards the monitor and everyone decided to pay attention to the steady world commentary for the first time in five, dazed minutes.

"...discussing immigration and its impact on..."

Lois looked down at the list, checking, "Nope. But I'll add it," and penciled in the word 'immigration' under 'stock exchange.' Perry was sure she spelled it wrong. She looked up and sounded a solitary, "Ho!"

"Screw you, Lois, you can't drink retroactively..." came Kyle.

Lois crushed her empty solo cup, "The hell I can't!"

"Lois," Perry sighed on the word to push his idea forward, "Go home and take these idiots with you; hangovers won't get them out of the staff meeting tomorrow! God damnit, RICHARD!"

"Shut up, Perry!" Lois flapped her hand in a shushing gesture and looked around at Richard's office worriedly.

"You think he doesn't know?"

"Oh he knows, I just don't want to go home yet..." Lois was still facing the office, and missed the shrewd look that must have crossed his face. Kent, who noticed everything, looked away quickly when Perry shot a questioning glance his way. His non-existent poker face coupled with an obvious buzz let more than Clark could know cross his face. Downcast eyes and the fact that his right hand started to fiddle with his jacket meant that Clark knew something, knew Perry would see it, and wanted to keep it to himself.

'Humph. Interesting. When he starts keeping her secrets for her I know something is really wrong.'

The editor stared at the side of Clark's face as he moved backwards to settle onto the edge of Jimmy's desk. Kent was one of the Planet's secret weapons, hidden in Lois' shadow. Perry knew that the mild-mannered reporter deserved an award that did not exist (save Sainthood) and was forever unrealized in their professional circles as the intellect that he was. Almost as responsible for her ground breaking journalism as she was, being Clark Kent meant only so much when you stood next to Lois Lane, and Perry lamented the unsung efforts in the man before him: rather than recognition for his researching, fielding, or editing her stories, Clark instead stood silent in his most important role as a vital sustaining force in her life.

She told him more of her sins than anyone, let go most of the kinds of thoughts that could kill a person, and he kept them closer to his heart than all the priests in all the churches in all the dioceses in all the world. Clark served a stint as another part of Lois' soul, stored carefully in the only person with a long enough attention span to stand her. And Superman, while a sentinel against physical evil, could not play such an important role in her life so far removed from it, so hidden behind ideals and symbolism, so untouchable and perfect.

Clark Kent was the man responsible for most of Lois Lane's secrets. And if Perry was correct, it kept her alive.

Perry directed his gaze away from the flushed face of awkward innocence and towards the closed blinds of unfortunate ignorance. Richard could never know that the role he had stepped into, as the male who took up most of Lois' time over the last five years, was only a temporary one. That was what he was finally realizing.

Sometimes something can change your mind in an instant, and Richard's indirect observations about Clark had made Perry's perspective shift for the first time in eight years of knowing the man.

Clark Kent.

Brilliance wrapped in awkward farmboy. Who, Perry now realized, was the oxygen for the fire, the only person Lois Lane both let listen and listened to. Perry turned to look at Lois, a heel hooked in her drawer handle and her head tilted back, staring intensely at her Pulitzer (which Perry had demanded she hang). Brilliance wrapped in the devil, incarnated as a beautiful, unapologetic woman.

In a typical, distracting way, Perry had a wayward thought and wondered for a brief instant what Superman saw in her. They were so different.

So, the point was: Richard made Perry realize that Lois had changed, but not in the time since Clark's return - she had changed in the five years prior, and had only reverted in these past three and a half months.

The distinction was everything.

He had thought it was motherhood.

He had thought it was Superman's disappearance.

He had thought it was Richard's proposal.

He had thought it was anything but Clark Kent.

Clark didn't occur to you, didn't strike you with his presence or his absence, he just came and was gone. What he said didn't register, his silence wasn't obvious. He was Clark, and until Richard had pointed this out to him, Perry had never noticed never noticing. Now, Kent was on his mind whenever Lois was.

It was... unfamiliar to Perry, to have missed something like this. Because now it seemed like the most obvious thing in the world, now small moments stood out like blaring horns in the fog of years:

Five years ago:

"What do you mean 'he resigned yesterday?' That fuck, now who's going to pick up my dry cleaning?" He hadn't told her.

"By the way, I'm taking Clark's desk, my top right drawer is broken." A physical connection, as well as some kind of stab at his ghost.

"I wonder if single women get pregnant in Kansas, hahahaha." A self-depreciating moment, the kind she would always try to lighten by making fun of him.

Four years ago:

"I'm not picking a partner Perry, I work alone, you know that." What a ridiculous statement.

"We're not going to Betty's, I hate Betty's." Clark's favorite diner.

"I don't care about post cards, stop showing them to me! He sends me one more and I'm going to move!" She did, soon after, and refused to forward her mail.

"Stop telling that story, Jimmy, I don't want to hear it anymore, can't you tell other stories?"

Three years ago:

"I don't want a partner, Perry! GOD DAMNIT!" she slammed the door in his face.

"Who's Clark Kent?" A newbie reading a plaque. "No one," Lois answered over Jimmy's enthusiastic response.

Two years ago:

"I haven't got anyone, Perry," a rare, desperate, drunken moment. She had called him for a ride home, having maxed out her credit card on one of her Lost Weekends while Richard and Jason were off visiting Perry's sister at her shore house upstate. Lois was never alone anymore, and had curbed her behavior so significantly that the aged editor had thought these nights were behind her forever, "No one listens to me anymore."

One year ago:

"'And golly, I forgot where I put my hat!'" the punch line to a redneck joke that Lois had rolled her eyes at, smiling in a sentimental way, as if it were a memorable story and not Heather reading a forwarded e-mail aloud.

Perry looked now at Lois, resplendent in her stupor, surrounded by old friends and currently patting Jimmy fondly on the head where he was probably drooling on her desk.

She was back.

He looked over to Clark again, who was as usual trying to look at her without anyone noticing.

And so was he.

Her secret keeper, her devoted servant, the one man unaffected by her...

'But you know what was odd, though?' He looked back at Lois, now trying to tickle Jimmy with the random feather...

She had hated Clark for leaving, had damned his memory - just like Superman's - had refused to say or hear his name. Yet here, everything seems back to normal. Perry looked on as Clark tried not to smile at Lois trying to annoy Jimmy. She caught his eye and they shared an amused look; Clark made a silent gesture that indicated she should tickle more aggressively.

Where had all that resentment gone?

"It was actually quite terrifying."

"But you flew with Superman! Again!"

"I was rocketed through existence with Superman, it felt like my skin was going to rip off, Jake, not fun."

"So that was it?"

Richard sighed.

"It was a like battlefront meeting, nothing else." Richard was suddenly reminded of the other crisis he'd been having lately, about his chops as a journalist.

"So still nothing?"

"There's something, but nothing like everyone keeps implying. She knows everything about him, but from what I can gather the big secret is that she's his friend."

"I'm telling you Richard-"

"No, I'm serious, he's the story of a lifetime, Jake, and she got to know him. It's easy."

"Rich..."

"It's a reporter thing," he paused, looking up at the ceiling in a familiar gesture of hopelessness, "Do you want her to leave me?"

"No, no, alright, alright."

There was a pause as Richard moved in his chair, tipping back to stare at the ceiling and kick his feet out onto his leather desk pad. He pictured Lois in his mind, drunk in the middle of the week and happy to have hired a babysitter so she could indulge herself again. He never saw her coming anymore.

"So who's Clark?"

"Clark Kent. Her partner, the guy from Kansas."

"What about him?"

"He knows her really well. And I think he's in love with her." He might as well mention that, too.

"Is she in love with him?"

Richard laughed, the thought darkly amusing, "Um, no, that's never even occurred to me. She kicks him around like a puppy."

"So what then? Does he give you shit over it?"

"No no, nothing like that, he's just…" and there it was, defining Clark as Clark, "He's nothing. She's just different since I met him; he left a weird impression on me, but he's the," Richard struggled with this word, "silliest man I know."

"So maybe she is in love with him?"

"No way."

"So how does she act differently?"

Richard sighed. "I guess it's the same observation: she's his friend. And not mine."

Silence followed, the kind you hear after you've made a final point and need to reflect on it.

Jake sighed on the other end of the phone, "How's Jason?" A great attempt at changing the subject.

"Good, his birthday is coming up."

"Oh I know, I'm mailing my present tomorrow."

"Thanks. I'm sure he'll love it."

"But really? He's good?" Jake, for all his insensitive outlooks, loved Jason.

"He's getting smarter everyday."

"Just like his dad? Ha! Goodbye, Rich, I'll talk to you Saturday."

"Hey Lois?" Richard tried to ask gently, wondering how this was going to go. Pulling Lois away from what she wanted rarely went well.

"Yes, Richard?" She was holding the bottle of tequila and looked ready to pour herself more, eyebrow raised.

"Home? Bed? I'm exhausted and you'll want your hangover vitamins."

Lois opened her mouth, ready to argue, as Perry and a recently (rudely) awoken Jimmy looked on.

In the instant before the spiteful words were sure to pour forth from Lois' open mouth, a long arm reached across the aisle and plucked the bottle from her hand. Lois looked around, drunkenly shocked beyond belief to see Clark smiling down at her and holding the bottle out of reach. He didn't say a word.

Richard, Jimmy, and Perry all tensed in sympathy for Clark as much as themselves as they waited for Lois to tear him apart. It was hard to wait.

She sighed and let her shoulders slump, "Fine, where's my purse?"

Kyle and Maurice shared a significant glance, and grinned. Point: Clark.

"At your feet," answered Clark.

"Yes, good. Um, to pick that up I'm going to have to fall over," she stared down at the two purse handles at her right foot, partway under her desk and really far too complicated to retrieve right now. Clark smiled and glanced down.

With a balance and coordinated effort beyond which any man with that many shots of top shelf tequila should have, he bent down on one foot (still dangling the bottle in his left hand) and rose to hand Lois her purse with the grace of a dancer. Lois did not notice this drunken feat in the midst of her abandon and snatched the purse off his hand.

"Goodbye everyone," she waved.

Perry stared as Richard's face twisted into a glare. He was looking directly at Clark and seemed irritated at the way Clark could just act without consequence.

'Fantastic. He's really is jealous of the wrong guy.' Perry was happy at least that someone finally appreciated Clark's exception-hood... one way or the other.

Perry watched Clark watching Lois clear her desk. He was leaning on the pillar near her and a small smile on his face, the audience forgotten in his abandon. Clark always watched Lois, but only let it show very rarely. Then Perry looked back at Richard, now also watching Clark and still looking resentful.

"G'night, Lois."

"Good night, Jimmy," she waved again on the way to the elevator. She was barefoot, her heels dangling from her finger.

Richard hit the elevator button and then looked back over at Clark, his frown turning into an outright glare. Perry's eyes shot over and saw that Clark was absorbed in the news monitor again. His ears caught mention of a summer forest fire.

Lois less pushed and more slammed against the elevator button, sliding down the wall a little and making Jimmy laugh.

"Shut up, Jimmy!" she called. He started to laugh outright. Kyle was smiling.

Perry saw Clark's head turn for a fraction of a second to glance her way before turning back to the news. He caught Richard's glare before the other man was forced to attend to a flailing Lois.

The elevator was rising.

Clark started to move, at first only a few steps, his eyes still on the monitor, and then he was stalking towards his desk and quickly gathering his possessions. He moved incredibly fast for a drunk, love struck man.

"Where's the fire, Kent?" Just a turn-of-phrase.

"Missouri."

"I LOVE IT WHEN HE SAYS MISSOURI! HAHAHAHAHA!" and Lois slammed her hand against the elevator door and cackled, her head thrown back, the sound of laughter rising out of her like a jet of steam. Lois was known to demand Clark say 'Missouri' at work parties and the kind of Friday afternoon lunches that lasted all day. She always mocked his accent, but thought this was especially funny.

Now Kyle, Jimmy, and Maurice were also laughing; it was hopeless, the indulgence around him. Clark slammed the bottle of tequila in the recycling bin, undeterred in his efforts to leave and obviously annoyed. Maurice was gasping for breath.

Clark moved towards the elevator, shrugging off his jacket as he approached the double glass doors that were kept open into the Bullpen. Perry realized in a flash that he was in no way inebriated and the editor sat forward off Jimmy's desk as Clark's profile came back into his line of vision. He was focused, more so than even his sober self was usually seen to be. He looked almost angry.

"How did you do that, Kent?" Perry wondered aloud, far too low for Clark to hear him from where he was by the stairs.

Clark shot, "Do what?" over his shoulder, and then turned to say, "Goodnight, Lois," -

And it happened. Right before slamming open the gray, steel door into the echo of the empty stairwell, Clark finally answered Richard's glare, finally shot a cold, hard look straight at him over Lois' head while he wished her goodnight. With the force he applied to the door it was clear he was pissed. And Richard flinched, taken aback and now unsure in his childish resentment.

Jimmy's jaw dropped, and then Perry realized they were all watching. All the laughter died in the same heartbeat, everyone had seen.

Perry stood motionless, the elevator DING!ed.

Lois waved at the stairwell door as it slammed back into place, her reflexes obviously impaired while she gathered herself up from her laughing fit. Everyone looked down at her after watching Richard's face. She sent an oblivious smile towards the stairwell and walked blindly into the elevator cabin, full of mirth.

"G'night, Clark!"