By Tracy (biancaheart@yahoo.com)
Rating: PG
Category: Whitney centric! Pre "Today" Pilot fic!
Spoilers: The Pilot
Summary: The fateful day in October 1989 through Whitney Fordman's eyes.
Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville. If I did, I'd be off hanging with the male contingent of the cast instead of writing this (wouldn't you?)
October, 1989
"Whitney!" Mrs. Fordman called, trying to find her hyperactive son. He'd taken off running as soon as they hit Main Street. They had went to the homecoming game; but it really was too much to expect a six year old to sit still- even for a quarter.
And besides, she had errands to run.
"Whitney Ellsworth Fordman!" She called. "If you don't show up, so help me."
"I'm here, Mom!" Whitney was standing on top of the mailbox, his blond hair glimmering in the mid-morning sun.
"What are you doing up there? Get down!"
"I'm trying to see the sun!" He said, hopping down with the ease that only a child can have. "I'm gonna go to the sun, one day, Mom, and to the moon, and to the Milky Way Venus! And I'm gonna meet aliens and become their friend and together we'll save the world from the evil draggooons of Zargon 5!"
She chuckled. "Sounds like an
adventure. But first we've got to go
and pick up flowers for dinner tonight?"
"Ewwww!" Whitney said, scrunching his nose. "We're gonna have flowers for dinner?"
She stopped walking and laughed, long and hard. After a good laughing session, she wiped her
eyes, and looked down at her son. "No,
Whitney. For the table as a
decoration. We're having hamburgers to
eat."
"Hamburgers! Yes!"
Mrs. Fordman grabbed her son's hand. "Here we are. Stay close and don't break anything."
Whitney rolled his eyes and followed his mother into the store.
"Nell!" his mother
exclaimed, and walked towards the owner of the shop.
Whitney took the chance and ran off to explore the other end of the store. The part that had the cool stuff, like the
balloons and stuffed animals to go in flower arrangements.
But they needed to have more GI Joes. GI Joes were the best. But the dumb flower shop didn't have any.
He took a wooden stake, the kind that would go in a garden like Mom had outside of the house, and pretended that it was a gun. And he was GI Joe, fighting against the evil….
Girl.
There was a girl sitting a the table, playing with teacups.
And she was dressed up, in a pink frilly dress.
"Who are you?" She said, looking up at him. Her hair was dark and long.
"I'm Whitney." He said, dropping his "gun" to the floor. "Who are you?"
"Isn't Whitney a girl's name?" She said wrinkling her nose. "There's a Whitney that lives in my building but she's a girl."
Whitney grew indignant. "Well, I'm not a girl! Girls have cooties! How old are you anyway?"
"I'm this many." She said, holding up 4 fingers.
"You're just a baby!"
"Uh-uh!" She said, standing up. "My Daddy says I'm a big girl!"
"You don't even go to school!" He said. "You're just a baby!"
"I am not! I am not!" She began to cry.
Whitney's mother and the Ms. Nell rushed over at the sound of the girl crying.
"What in the world is going on over here?" Nell exclaimed, picking the girl up.
Whitney felt many sets of eyes glaring at him. "What?" He said with a shrug. "I didn't do anything!"
"I'm not a baby, Aunt Nell!" The girl said with a sniffle.
"Of course you're not, Lana, honey." Nell said, patting the girl on the back.
"Whitney! Honestly!" His mother exclaimed, and pulled him towards the door. "I can't take you anywhere!"
"It's okay." Nell said. "Lana's just a little tired- it's been a big weekend, and she hasn't had a nap. Hopefully when her parents get back from the game, she'll be able to settle down and take a nap.
"No nap!" Lana exclaimed indignantly.
Whitney snickered.
"Come along, Whitney!" Mrs. Fordman said as they exited the store.
***
Finally they were going home.
After the flower store, they had stopped to get some coffee, and then they'd stopped at the store to pick up numbers on stuff for his father.
It was a beautiful Fall day.
Whitney waved enthusiastically to the Kents as they drove by. Martha and Jonathan were great babysitters- they would actually play games with you, and make you ice cream sundaes, unlike the other babysitters who just talked on the phone.
"Looks like the Crows won!" Mrs.
Fordman told Whitney as a parade of partying teenagers drove by. "Who knows, maybe one day you'll be on the
team!'
"I play on Saturdays!"
"Not on the pee wee team, Whitney, but the high school team. When you get older."
"Oh, okay."
Whitney gazed up at the sky. Clouds, clouds, clouds, and something….falling?
"MOM!" He said, pointing up at the thing in the sky. "The sky's falling!"
"Oh my word!"
The words had barely gotten out of her mouth when the rock fell on Main Street.
Followed by one, and another one.
One hit near a car that went up in flames.
The noise hurt his ears.
He was thrown to the ground by his mother, who was lying on top of him, covering him with her own body.
He was scared. More scared than he'd ever been before. This was scarier than the dark, or the monsters that lived in his closet, or climbing to the top of that big windmill that was in the middle of the field. The sky was falling, and Chicken Little wasn't even here.
They had been in front of the flower shop when the meteors fell.
He could hear Lana crying in her aunt's arms.
"Mommy! Daddy!"
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the meteor shower stopped.
***
There was no dinner party at the Fordman house that night.
They were in the waiting room of Metropolis General.
Something had happened to Dad, some kind of accident in the hospital. And he was rushed here. They had only just entered the door to the
house when his Mom got a phone call.
Whitney himself had been poked and prodded by the doctors when the ragged party arrived at the hospital. They said that he was fine except for a couple of cuts and scrapes caused by being pushed down to the pavement so fast.
He swung his legs back and forth. The chair was too tall- his feet didn't touch the ground.
He shifted positions again. He wasn't comfortable, and he wasn't happy. He wanted to go home. He was tired. And he wanted his Dad to come out so they would all go home and things would be just like they were last night and the night before that.
"I gotta go to the bathroom." Whitney said, tugging on his Mom's sleeve.
Her face was red and teary. "What
honey?"
"I gotta go to the bathroom!" He said a little louder this time.
"Ms. Fordman?" A person in a white coat said.
"Here." She said, pulling Whitney to his feet. "Just a second, honey. Momma's gotta talk to the doctor."
"I gotta pee!" He exclaimed, jerking his body up and down. "Bad!"
She sighed. "You can't hold it?"
"NO!" He said in anguish.
"Okay." She said. "Can you be a big boy, Whitney and go to the bathroom and then come back by yourself?"
He nodded.
"Right back, you hear me?"
He was already gone.
***
He was lost.
Whitney had made it to the bathroom fine.
On his way out, he'd seen a man walk by.
A man that looked just like his Dad…at least from the back.
He'd followed the guy, and now he was lost.
"Hey!" He heard a voice call from one of the rooms on the hallway.
Whitney followed the voice. "Help
me!"
"Where are you?" He asked. "Who are you?"
"Behind the curtain. Can you let me out of here?"
Whitney pulled back the curtain.
There was a boy in a bed. A boy a
little bit older than him. There were
all sorts of machines and tubes hooked to the boy.
The boy was bald.
"Who are you?" Whitney said, his voice growing shrill.
He was scared. The sky falling, going to the hospital, and now a bald boy were almost too much for a six year old to handle.
"I'm…Le…." The boy started, as a nurse walked into the room.
"Who are you?" The nurse said to Whitney, grabbing his hand and pulling him out of the room. "This is a private room in the intensive care area! God knows that Luthor would have my ass nailed to a tree if they saw you in there. Now shoo."
It was too much.
Whitney began to cry. "I'm lost."
***
"Hey Sport." His Dad said weakly from the hospital bed.
"Daddy!" He said, running to the bed. "You're okay!"
"Whitney!" His Mom said, rushing into the room with a cup of coffee in her hand. "Oh, baby, I was so worried."
He'd get chewed out later for wandering off.
He'd have nightmares of the sky falling for weeks.
He'd spend a significant amount of time waiting in the hospital for his father.
And that little girl in the fairy princess dress would play a large role in his
life one day.
But that was in the future.
Right now, Whitney Fordman was ensconced in his mother's and father's arms, safe and as warm as could be.