Richard called in that day, but came into work the next. All that fortnight, Perry saw him staring at Lois, at Clark, at the two of them together. It reminded Perry of when he'd first learned Clark's secret, and had spent two days just staring at the Man of Steel. But Richard stared at not just at Clark, but at Lois too.
Richard kept his short conversations with Perry strictly work-related, and didn't talk to Clark at all. In fact, he deliberately seemed to go out of his way to avoid contact with Clark. If Clark looked up to see Richard staring at him, Richard would quickly avert his eyes.
Richard did talk to Lois, though, terse and quiet conversations at intervals throughout that week. All their interactions seemed to end with one or both of them angry.
The newsroom began picking up on the strain, and soon the gossip began to rage. Lois Lane was always a beacon of attention – the multiple award-winning writer was one of those people whose personality stood out. People watched her. They paid attention to her. And now, they saw her relationship with Richard on the rocks, disintegrating in slow motion, in full view of the Daily Planet staff room.
Perry stayed out of it.
Jason stayed with Martha Kent in Kansas. Lois and Clark visited him every day. Richard did not.
Lois talked with Lieutenant Sawyer, her statement obviously not answering all of Maggie's questions. Perry could tell that from Sawyer's frustrated body language. (Sawyer had come to the Planet to interrogate Lois – Perry figured the change in venue was part of the corruption investigation.) Perry knew for a fact that Sawyer walked out not knowing that Lois and Jason had stayed on the Kent Farm.
Clark did continue to go off at odd intervals, making the "pulling on tie" or "handwave" gestures that Perry and Clark had agreed meant that Clark was going off to do some Superman thing.
Clark didn't talk with Richard. Clark talked with Lois, and the two spent much time out of the newsroom, working on various stories. If Perry noticed a renewed interest for each other in their glances that hadn't been there before, he never saw overt or public display of affection.
The newsroom picked up on the Clark-Lois romance anyway. The gossip got more frenzied.
Lois moved in with Clark.
Lex Luthor regained full awareness, continued to heal. The shifts of police guards at his hospital bed were changed every two days. Perry suspected it was an attempt by Lieutenant Sawyer to limit Lex's opportunity for corruption. Or was it an expanding of opportunity for Lex to suborn more officers?
Maggie Sawyer of the Special Crimes Unit worked uneasily with Internal Affairs. Perry suspected that the rot in the Metropolis Police Department had infected the IAD as well, but from talking with Lois, Perry learned that the MPD-IAD was nowhere near as corrupt as their counterparts in Gotham City. And, thanks to Clark and Lois's careful tips, Sawyer's investigation was more successful than it might have been without clandestine "super" assistance. Perry harbored no illusions that the MPD was clean after this; they'd merely pruned back the worst of the encroachment. As long as men were human, bad seeds would remain, ready to blossom at the right conditions.
Perry arranged an early retirement for Joann Evers, Luthor's MPD spy. He hoped that Luthor hadn't had a backup plan, and that if Luthor did, that Clark would have detected it. But he didn't want to ask Clark, didn't want to bring back the memory of Clark's shame.
Perry went home at night and counted his blessings. He was grateful to have Alice, and she was grateful to have him alive. He'd told Alice the (mostly) full story of the events at Richard and Lois' house, and she'd embraced him wordlessly, hanging on to him tightly. He'd embraced her back with equal fervor. And since then, Perry had made an extra effort to be with Alice, to spend time with her.
Perry's nightmares eased.
Richard walked, a brittle air about him, through the newsroom. He often, absently, rubbed his left arm, where he'd been shot.
Internal Affairs made some arrests in the MPD. Perry, querying Clark, found that Sawyer, working with IA, had gotten all of Luthor's known moles. The arrested officers were charged and arraigned.
One of the arrested MPD officers ate his gun. Lois got the story.
Lex Luthor recovered fully, and was moved back to prison. Perry wondered how much brain damage there really was - Luthor seemed to be unkillable. All Perry could do was hope that the authorities managed to keep him in prison this time. Perry had no doubt that Luthor continued to plot Superman's downfall from his cell.
*********************
The eggshell tension finally broke on Friday. Richard came into Perry's office early that morning. Instead of starting a terse conversation about International, he edged his way closer to Perry.
"I'm invited to Smallville," Richard said in a low voice.
"What?" Perry asked, his mind on the front page. It was a slow news day, and they'd had to hype up Lois and Clark's story on the business-as-usual incompetence in the Metropolis Road Commission into a bigger headline than it deserved.
"I've been asked to come to Smallville," Richard repeated. "To the Kent Farm, to be specific."
"Are you going?" Perry asked, keeping a poker face.
Richard sat down wearily. "Yes," he said.
Perry nodded.
"Yes," Richard repeated. "I can't go on like this. I need to see my son." He laughed bitterly. "My son, and he isn't. My fiancée – and she isn't."
Perry nodded again.
"I've been thinking a lot, Perry," Richard said intently. He looked Perry in the eye. "Will you come with me?"
"What?" Perry asked again.
"Perry, I'm going to Kansas. Clark's mother will be there. Clark will be there. I want someone from my family there. Someone on my side."
"I'm not on anyone's side," Perry warned.
"I know, Perry, you're neutral. But you're fair. Please say you'll come," Richard asked, almost pleading.
What could he do? And, Perry thought wryly, proving that God probably wanted him to go, this was the weekend that Alice was taking off for her five-day cruise with "the girls" – her friends of many years duration. Perry hadn't been looking forward to rattling around in the empty house, anyway.
"All right," Perry acquiesced.
"Thanks," Richard said. "I'll get your ticket."
Perry only sighed. He'd forgotten how much he hated to fly commercial. But flying with Superman probably wasn't an option this time. "When do we leave?" he asked.
"Can you be ready by two p.m.?" Richard asked.
Richard finally spoke after they'd driven their rental car for thirty miles down the quiet Kansas roads.
"It's weird, you know," he said conversationally.
Perry looked over at him from the passenger seat. "Which?" Perry asked.
Richard quirked a tiny smile in recognition of what Perry had found to be true – when you hung around Superman, the weird factor – the sheer number of improbable happenings – expanded to affect you, too.
"Seeing Clark every day," Richard said. "Knowing he's Superman…and he's there making phone calls and spending time at the keyboard…and nobody realizes it."
Perry shrugged. "It hit me the same way when I found out." He glanced over at Richard. "You're not over it yet, are you?"
Richard swallowed. "I keep on wondering what he's going to do. He can do anything, you know. And we couldn't do anything to stop him…"
"There's always kryptonite," Perry said shortly. Richard was really worried about this, he realized. Didn't he know that Clark was harmless? Well, not specifically harmless, but Clark wouldn't hurt anyone….well, actually, he had invaded people's minds with the express intention of destroying or suppressing their memories, and he had taken Lois away from Richard, and he had attracted the attention of numerous bad guys, one of whom, Lex Luthor, had gone so far as to invade Richard's home and shoot up its inhabitants….actually, maybe Richard was right to be concerned.
"I'm always wondering if he's watching me with that X-ray vision of his," Richard muttered.
Perry had often wondered that too. He tried to put it out of his head.
"So, you think I should start carrying kryptonite?" Richard asked. "Hard to find, isn't it?"
If only you knew, Perry thought.
"And, just maybe, it might be perceived as an unfriendly act?" Richard said sarcastically.
Well, there's that. Carrying kryptonite sure wouldn't help settle this thing.
"I've actually thought about it, Perry," Richard said.
"I thought about it too," Perry blurted out.
Richard looked at him in surprise.
"When I first found out….when I started totaling up all the things he could do, and all the things he's done to me….I thought about it." It was rather a relief to make this confession. For all Clark wanted to be seen as normal, for all that Clark Kent, Kansas farm alumnus exuded an air of normality – once you knew, you could never un-know. Things were never quite the same. You couldn't help but wonder, Superman is bigger and stronger than me. He has those powers. He could do anything to me and I couldn't stop it.
"So?" Richard asked.
Perry told the truth. "In the end, I just trusted in God….and in Martha Kent."
Richard cast him a questioning look.
"You'll understand when you meet her," Perry promised.
Richard thought about that for a few miles, the blacktop unfolding inexorably beneath them, the yellow lane markers passing by in a hypnotic cascade.
"It's Lois too, you know," Richard said. "I see her, I want her….I love her, then my mind just goes back to that night…" he trailed off.
Perry's mind flashed back to Lois, rising from the dead – no, she was only mostly dead, Perry – and healing. An apparently benign power, but what if she could turn it, use it for ill?
"And then, she'll be in the newsroom, and she'll turn, and I'll see her smile, and I'm right back to being fascinated with her…" Richard mumbled, interior monologue slipping out.
"Uh-huh," Perry said noncommittally. Not my business. Stay out of the triangle.
"And then there's Jason," Richard said. He sighed. "Is he really human?" He looked as if he'd been asking himself that question too much over the past two weeks.
Perry looked over at him, confused and a little shocked. Would the man deny his own – well, what he thought was his own – child? A son he'd raised for five years? Knowing the boy since infancy? Pulling him through his toddler years? Seeing him grow? Richard hadn't seen or talked to Jason since the night of the shooting - what were his feelings for his putative son?
"That's why we're on this trip, Richard," Perry said gently. "We – you – have to get some things decided." He fixed Richard with a gimlet eye. "And do it. Because the newsroom is in a shambles. It's too public, what the three of you are doing."
He caught a flash of irritation in Richard's eyes, then a rueful smile. "All right, Perry," Richard said softly, "I'll do it for the newsroom. For you."
Perry didn't believe it for a minute, but it sounded good anyway. "One last thing," he said.
"What?"
"Sometime this weekend, ask Clark to tell you about his father."
"Why?" Richard was curious.
"Just do."
