Title: What A Wonderful World
Chapter: (4) Seeing The Dark Side
Summary: Martha shows Clark the dark sides of Luthorville, Clark treats Lana to dinner, and an argument breaks out.
Disclaimer: Smallville belongs to the Warner Brothers! Not me! Don't sue!
A/N: Decided to write this chapter in narrative form... seems a bit troubling tho... I'll decide if I'm gonna write in narrative or script form for the rest of the fic later... anyways, enjoy the chapter!
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"Ahem..."
Clark watched as his father rose from his seat, and coughed once more.
"Ahem..."
Slowly, Jonathon Kent began to pace, back and forth... back and forth... and slowly, Clark lost patience in the situation.
"Do you believe me or not?" Clark snapped at last, and his father stopped pacing.
"You've... spun up a pretty wild story... Clark." Jonathon said at last.
"It's the truth..."
"Do you have any proof?" Jonathon asked.
"I—wait, yeah." Clark answered as he suddenly remembered something.
Digging into his back pocket, he pulled his wallet out.
"I've got some pictures..." Clark muttered, pulling a few pictures out of his wallet.
"This one..." Clark said, handing one of them to his father.
"Is me when I graduated middle school, see—you and mom are standing right next to me... and this one is of you and me working on the tractor..." Clark explained, handing his dad another picture.
"Alright... I believe you..." Jonathon said, handing the pictures back to Clark.
"Really?" Clark couldn't believe it.
"Yeah..." Jonathon confessed.
Clark couldn't hide the smile that appeared onto his face.
"That doesn't mean anything though."
The smile disappeared.
"What do you mean?" Clark asked.
"We can't do anything can we? To reverse all this? You're still going to be stuck in our world no matter what, right?" Jonathon asked, and a frown reappeared onto Clark's face.
"No... there isn't anything I can do... but it's for the best anyways... Smallville was too—ruined after the meteor shower..."
"But if the meteor shower didn't happen... look what happens to this town..." Jonathon got to his feet, and walked over to the window.
"Families are ruined... some live in fear of the Luthor Cops..."
"But I was there a few hours ago—they looked happy—"
"They aren't." Jonathon stated.
"But..."
Knock-Knock
Both Clark and Jonathon turned to see the door being opened. Martha Kent enters the office.
"Jonathon, I'm going down to the homeless shelter... I'll be back in a few hours..." Martha said and Jonathon nodded.
As Clark's mom turned to leave, Jonathon called her back.
"Take Clark with you."
"What?" Martha has a confused expression on her face.
"He's good the good side of Luthorville, now show him the dark side..." Jonathon instructed, and Martha nodded her head.
"Go Clark... go see the other half of the truth..."
Clark could only nod, before following his mom out the door. After making sure they had left, Jonathon sat down at his desk, and sighed.
"You can come out now."
In a corner covered by the blanket of darkness, Jor-El creeps into the room.
"Well done..." Jor-El says as he sits down in the chair that his biological son had once resided minutes ago.
"It's not as if I had control over myself..." Jonathon glared at Jor-El, who smirked for a moment, before shooting a ray of fire through his eyes, directed at Jonathon.
The ex-farmer moved to a side, and the rays caused a dent in his office wall.
"I didn't want to believe it at first you know..." Jonathon said, moving back into his position.
"But you knew it was the truth..." Jor-El countered, and Jonathon nodded.
"Why are you doing this?" Jonathon questioned, giving Jor-El a suspicious look as he does.
"In order to rule over the Earth properly... he must return to the world he was originally in, for that world is not as corrupted as this one..."
"What do you mean?"
"LuthorCorp has ruined part of America... the pollution his plants produce have prevented the sun from shining its rays upon the Earth fully... it weakens Kal because of that..." Jor-El explained in a logical way.
"He won't listen to you... no matter what." Jonathon stated, flinching and ducking out of the way as Jor-El shot another beam of fire at him.
"He will human... you'll see... for he will..."
And with that, Jor-El disappeared into nothing, leaving Jonathon Kent sitting at his office desk with a confused expression on his face.
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"Where are we going?" Clark asked as the Kent truck sped past several cars and stores in town.
"Homeless shelter." Martha answered.
"Do you... go there often?" Clark looked out the window to avoid eye contact as he asked this.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do." Martha said, turning towards Clark's direction.
"Why do you ask?"
"Just... wondered, that's all." Clark replied, his eyebrows frowning as they entered the rough side of Luthorville.
"What happened here?"
Out on the streets, there were people living near allies, pushing shopping carts around searching through the dumpsters for food, and sights so horrible Clark couldn't bare to watch. Tearing his eyes away, Clark looked downwards in shock.
"LuthorCorps happened." Martha answered.
"What?"
"Almost all the people here were driven out of their homes when Lionel Luthor decided to take over half the city and start building factories... families like the Rosses, the Langs, and Sullivans were forced to give up their old jobs. Mr. Sullivan now works with LuthorCorps, but the Rosses and Langs—they're not as lucky..."
Tears formed in Clark's eyes when he heard this.
"Oh..."
During the rest of the drive, Martha and Clark both remained silent. Stealing glances from each other only when sure the other wasn't looking. After what seemed like a million years, they stopped outside the homeless shelter.
"I'll get the food." Clark offered as he got off the truck, and headed towards the back.
"I could get one of the boys inside to help you, it's really—" Martha paused as she watched Clark lift up the large box on his own, "—heavy."
She watched in shock as Clark walked into the homeless shelter carrying the large box without breaking a sweat. Once they were inside, Martha spoke.
"You do realize you could've brought the food in one plate at a time," Martha pointed out.
Clark looked into the box, and his face turned red when he saw the amount of food that was inside it.
"I um... didn't think." Clark began, but Martha waved him off.
"Doesn't matter, we should get the food over to the people... they must be starving..."
Clark picked up the large box once again, and followed his mom into the back kitchen, where he lowered it near the stove.
"Here we go..." Clark said with a soft sigh, before reaching into the box and beginning to remove the contents.
Unknown to him, the people around him who had seen this were all staring at him in shock. One in particular.
"Clark?"
Clark nearly dropped the food he was picking up when he heard the familiar voice. Turning around, a small smile appeared onto his face.
"Lana." He acknowledged her with a nod of his head, and she gave him a smile back.
"I'd offer you some help, but it seems you've got it under control there..." Lana said as she made a gesture towards the carton full of what looked like chicken, turkey, and soup.
"Heh... yeah..." Clark mumbled, lifting the soup out of the box, and placing it onto the shove.
"Here are the bowls Lana," a women who looked like Lana said as she approached the two teenagers with a bundle of bowls in her arms.
"Your mom?" Clark asked with a raised eyebrow as Lana took some of the bowls from the women, and nodded.
"Hello Mrs. Lang, I'm Clark." Clark said, offering his hand to her.
"You're here with Martha, aren't you?" Mrs. Lang asked, shaking his hand politely.
Clark nodded.
"Well, we should get started, shouldn't we?" Lana cut into the introduction abruptly.
"Yes, we should," Mrs. Lang agreed, moving off towards the hand-off window with the bowls.
Clark, gave Lana another smile, before grabbing some bowls from her, and began to fill them up with soup, or food. After what seemed like hours, the food finally disappeared, and the people left.
"Man... that was a lot of people." Clark said, pretending to wipe some sweat off his forehead.
"Give me a break, you didn't break a sweat at all," Lana mumbled, rolling her eyes.
"Clark..."
Clark turned to see Martha staring at him.
"You head on home, let Jonathon know I'll be back in a few hours..." Martha said, not noticing how a smile appeared onto Clark's face as she did.
"You too Lana..." Mrs. Lang shouted over from the kitchen sink, where she was washing the dishes.
"But mom, I can help—"
"No buts Lana... go home, go eat dinner already." Mrs. Lang instructed as Clark gave Lana a look.
"You haven't eaten dinner yet?"
Lana shook her head.
"Come on, I'll treat you to dinner." Clark offered, getting to his feet, and grabbing his jacket which hung near the back exit—he didn't even remember taking it off.
"Are you asking me out on a date Kent?" Lana asked, following him.
"No... just... dinner." Clark answer awkwardly, avoiding eye contact.
"Really? Just dinner?" Lana asked, a smile appearing onto her face as she watched Clark squirm uncomfortably.
"Ahem... yeah," Clark replied.
"Well, lead the way." Lana said, following after Clark into the dark alley.
The two of them walked down the dark and nearly empty streets of Luthorville for a good few minutes before Clark stopped in front of a fancy restaurant.
"This place looks pretty good," Clark suggested, pretending to not have seen the horrified expression on Lana's face.
"Are you kidding me? There was a McDonalds back there—why didn't you—"
"Come on," Clark said, dragging her into the restaurant.
"Um, McDonalds is a block that way sir," the man who stood at the front said, pointing towards the direction they had just came from when Clark and Lana entered the restaurant.
"Table for two." Clark said, staring into the eyes of the man with a raised eyebrow.
"Clark, do you have any idea how expensive it is here?" Lana asked, trying to pull Clark out of the restaurant.
"I suggest you listen to the young lady sir, I doubt anyone like you can afford to—" the man paused when he saw Clark pull a bunch of twenty and fifty dollar bills out of his wallet.
"I believe I can," Clark stated as the man turned slightly red, before nodding.
"Follow me," he said, heading towards further into the restaurant.
"We'll take a window table," Clark said, and the man nodded, leading them to a spot where everyone in the restaurant could see them.
"Clark you idiot—can't you tell we're severely underdressed?" Lana pointed out as she looked towards the other couples in the restaurant, who were giving them weird looks.
Those couples were all in fancy dresses and tuxedos. Lana turned back to Clark, who, to her surprised, was looking through the menu.
"I heard the food here was delicious—"
"Clark!" Lana grabbed the menu out of his hands, and glared at him in disbelief.
"I'm not eating here..." Lana said as a shadow appeared over them.
"Of course not, theater girl's not good enough for a restaurant like this... and Kent, what happened to you this afternoon?"
Clark looked up to see Whitney cowering down upon them in a fancy tux.
"Hello Whitney." Clark said politely.
"Forget about hello—what are doing with theater girl here?" Whitney asked, throwing Lana a dirty glare.
"I know she's pretty and all, but really, associating with a Lang? I thought you Kents were better then this..."
"Whitney, back off," Clark hissed, getting to his feet.
Beside him, a worried expression made its way towards Lana's face.
"Clark..."
"I don't have to do anything, you two are sitting at my table," Whitney stated as Clark looked towards the waiter who led them there.
"We were here first Whitney," Clark tried talking to him logically, but Whitney wouldn't have it that way.
"Get out of here Kent."
"Come on Clark, let's go." Lana muttered, getting to her feet.
She was about to walk towards Clark when Whitley suddenly tripped her. Clark grabbed her as she stumbled, before glared at Whitney with a look of hate in his face.
"Let's go." Clark said in low whisper.
"We can eat elsewhere," Clark stated, walking away from the football star in LuthorCorps.
Once they were outside, Lana turned to face Clark with a hateful expression.
"What's wrong with you?" Lana asked angrily.
"What? I—" Clark was confused.
"I told you we didn't belong in there... the rich people of Luthorville eat in there... not people like me..."
"But Lana..."
"Whitney's never going to shut up now because of you, and I'll be laughed at everyday in school" Lana shouted.
"Lana—" Clark tried to explain, but the teenage girl refused to give him the chance.
"No... just go away Kent... go back to Metropolis... a rich hotshot like you belongs in the big city, not Luthorville..." Lana said, turning around, and walking away.
"But I'm just a farm boy..." Clark muttered as he looked downwards, not wanting to believe how bad his luck was.
He continued to walk, until he noticed the Talon. Through the window, he saw Lana working away with a forced smile on her face. He sighed, knowing he had pissed her off. He was about to head on home when suddenly, a whooshing sound was heard (imagine Superman flying sound or Clark speeding away sound); turning around, Clark groaned when he saw who it was.
"What do you want Jor-El?" Clark asked, beginning to walk down the street, and heading towards home.
"Perhaps... make you a farm boy again?" Jor-El suggested, as Clark spun around.
"You can change things? Back to normal—back to the way they were before?" Clark asked.
"Yes, but the question we need to ask here is this Kal—do you want to go back?" Jor-El asked.
"Of course!" Clark exclaimed, taking a step towards his biological.
"Then your wish is my command," Jor-El said with a small smile, which slowly turned into an evil smirk.
Before Clark could question the smirk, Jor-El snapped his finger, and another burst of powerful energy flowed through the air, forcing Clark to lean towards a nearby poll for support. When the energy suddenly disappeared, Clark looked up, and realized that Jor-El had also disappeared.
"Where'd he go?" Clark asked, looking around.
He paused when he heard someone shout his name.
"Clark!"
Clark turn around, and a look of surprise appeared onto his face when he saw who it was.
"Dad?"
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A/N: Almost done! Just one more chapter to go! PLEASE REVIEW!