Smallville Players III: The Final Curtain
by Barb Pillsbury
Smallville Players III: The Final Curtain is the third in an LnC elseworld series. (See Smallville Players - posted to the archives on July, 2002 and Smallville Players II: The Next Steps - posted to the archives on October, 2002)
In this elseworld Lois and Clark are teachers at Smallville High School, and are participants in the Smallville Players, a talented community theatre group directed by Martha Kent; where they met, fell in love and became engaged in 1993.
Eventually as the fanfic unfolds over the next few weeks, you will find interlaced within this story, as usual, a number of scenes from a theatrical play; but also the reader will encounter a series of radio announcements, music and drama. The use of a character’s name--slash--Smallville name will allow the reader to envision the play within the play while ####### will set off the radio broadcasts.
Smallville Players III begins in 1994, reminds us what happened in 1993 and then journeys to 1938 to span several decades. The story vacillates back and forth quickly between the various years and between months within those years, as well as between several locations highlighting the lives of the characters that live there. I encourage the reader to pay very strict attention to the dates and places before each section, which hopefully will be sufficient to enable the reader to navigate my jumbled mind.
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The pieces of material used from various other mediums will be cited and credited at the end of the story.
As usual there are just so many people to thank: Erin, LabRat and Bethy who got me started, Tricia, Wendy, Karen, who kept me going, Carol, Meredith, Pam, and Saskia who made such wonderful suggestions and Yael, Vicki, Christina and so many others who cheer me on. But most of all thanks to Laswa my incredible BR who has acted the part of my wonderful and insightful muse.
Part 1
Libby Barton took a gun
And killed her family, everyone....
Smallville, Kansas
Monday,
February 14, 1994
8:20 p.m. CST
Clark moved a lock of hair that had fallen over one of Lois’ soft brown eyes, and gently placed it behind one ear. He looked longingly at the beautiful woman standing in front of him. She was so brilliant, so gifted, and so utterly incredible. He looked deep into those eyes, searching for the love reflected there.
“...I...I can’t wait that long. Where could we be married in a hurry--say tonight,” he said, as he reached out and lightly cupped his hand next to her cheek. He moved his thumb ever so slowly over her delicate cheekbone and leaned in to kiss her, as he had done so many, many times before. But this time it was completely different, this time they were....
“Stop!” Martha Kent’s voice rang out from the seats in the darkened auditorium of Smallville High School.
Clark pulled back and turned toward the sound of the shrill voice. Lois took a couple of steps back and folded her arms across her chest, a gesture closing him out--a gesture Clark had become all too used to this past week.
“What’s wrong with you two?” Martha asked coming up the steps to the stage. “You’re supposed to be in love with each other! You’re supposed to be engaged to be married,” she explained, excitedly waving the script of ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ at both of them.
Clark looked down at his feet, while Lois couldn’t even meet Martha’s gaze.
“Clark,” his mother continued. “Try to focus. You’re Mortimer Brewster, a very brash young critic for the Metropolis Star. It’s 1938 and you’re here, standing in the living room of your aunt’s home, kissing the love of your life, your fiancée. You’re trying to convince her to make it a short engagement. She’s somewhat apprehensive and you’re reassuring her by showing just how much you love her,” she directed.
“Lois,” she went on, turning toward the woman, whom she had furtively hoped would one day be her daughter. “You’re acting the part of Elaine Harper, Mortimer’s fiancée. And, although the daughter of a minister, you’re extremely passionate; and most of all, you’re wildly in love with Mortimer Brewster.”
Martha looked back and forth at both of them and sighed. “I just don’t see it, and I definitely don’t feel it.” Painfully, she gazed down at where the engagement ring was now missing from Lois’ hand. “Clark, Lois,” Martha said gently. “Let’s forget the play for a minute. Can’t we please just talk about what’s really going on with the two of you?”
Clark looked up at Lois. He didn’t want to talk about it. He wasn’t even sure if he could continue with this pretence. Of course he was just rehearsing a play and he was supposed to be acting a part; and he, Clark Kent, *did* love Lois Lane; but Lois no longer loved him--she was in love with another man and it was his fault.
“Clark?” his mother asked?
Clark turned on his heels and resolutely walked off the stage.
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Metropolis, New Troy
Monday,
February 14, 1994
11:30 p.m. EST
Richard Thurston picked up the phone in his hotel suite and dialed her number. As soon as he heard her voice, he smiled. “Lois, darling,” he said. “I wanted to call you and ask if you received the flowers I sent today, to wish you a happy Valentines Day, and to tell you that I love you.”
Lois Lane looked over at the two dozen long stemmed red roses, fanned out amidst several sprays of baby’s breath, which resided gracefully in a crystal vase that now adorned her dining room table. She took a very deep breath, and calming her shaking voice, she answered. “Yes Richard, they’re lovely. And when will you be back in Smallville?”
“I’m so sorry, dear, that I had to return to Metropolis for some business; but I should be home soon. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too,” Lois echoed numbly.
“Til’ then, love,” he said softly, and hung up the phone.
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Smallville, Kansas
Monday,
February 14, 1994
10:35 p.m. CST
As Lois put down the receiver, a tear trickled down her cheek. She swiped at the teardrop and looked up at the framed quotations hanging on her wall--quotations by Thoreau, her favorite author. ‘The only remedy for love is to love more’ she read. Yeah, right!
She turned on her heels and walked deliberately over to the coffee table and picked up the glass case that held the beautiful quartz rock from Brazil, a piece of quartz that Clark had given to her four months before. Well actually it was Superman who had given it to her, and then Clark had finished the engraving on the pink stone, letting her know he was Superman and that they, uh...he loved her.
Clark *had* loved her. But he loved her no longer.
Lois thought of that evening’s rehearsal and how Clark couldn’t even *act* as if he loved her. Anger welled up inside of her, and she threw the case holding the precious stone onto the floor, where the glass shattered.
“No!” she yelled, and sank down onto the floor to pick up the pieces to try to...to what? Put it back? Back together again? Could she ever put what she and Clark had had, back together again? Could they ever re-ignite the love that they had once shared?
One of the shards pierced her finger and several droplets of blood fell, bringing her back to face reality. She glanced at her cut finger; and turning her hand over, looked at the vacant spot where her engagement ring used to reside. The pain resulting from the cut finger was infinitesimal when compared to the pain she was feeling because of Clark shutting her out of his life.
She put her finger in her mouth and closed her eyes to try to stop the tears that were welling up inside her once again. Clark didn’t love her any more. He didn’t want her any more. Once again, she was all alone. Alone! For years she had believed being alone to be a good thing--to be on her own, independent, beholden to no one but herself.
Yet over the past few months, she had learned how wonderful love could be. Lois Lane, self-reliant, autonomous career woman--had felt how a nurturing and warm relationship could enfold her--keep her close, keep her safe.
She could still feel Clark’s arms around her, his lips on hers--their desire moving them closer and closer to...but no! She wouldn’t let her mind go there. There *was* no Clark! There was only Lois, alone again to face the world. No, there was Richard.
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Metropolis, New Troy
Monday,
February 14, 1994
11:40 p.m. EST
Richard walked away from the phone and toward his hotel bedroom, but stopped abruptly as he passed a gold-framed mirror hanging in the suite. He turned and regarded himself. He stroked his goatee and then adjusted the green paisley ascot he was wearing beneath his robe. He smiled at what he saw reflected there. Then his smile gradually changed to a more sadistic grin, the eyes a more powerful hue. The man in the mirror now looked more familiar, closer to the face that once had been, the face prior to the plastic surgery--the face of Lex Luthor. The face that had “died” two months before.
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Smallville, Kansas
Saturday,
November 12, 1993
9:25 p.m. CST
The Smallville Players were moving methodically and dramatically toward the climax of their dinner theatre presentation. Suddenly, there was a blackout and all the stage lights went off, plunging the entire room into abject darkness.
The lights came back on, and as everyone’s eyes adjusted to the brightness; they could see Lex Luthor lying dead in a pool of blood with Clark’s hand on the play’s dagger that protruded from his back.
“Nobody move,” a voice yelled out from the crowd, and a man unknown to most of those in the room, rose and crossed over to Clark and the lifeless body of Lex Luthor.
The man drew a gun from a shoulder holster and pointed it at Clark. “Now, slowly with your hands in full view, move away from the body,” he said firmly.
Inspector Henderson, with his drawn gun still on Clark, leaned down and with his other hand, felt Luthor’s neck for a pulse; although it was obvious to all that Lex Luthor was dead.
“I...I...didn’t do this,” Clark insisted, backing away with his arms raised.
“Of course he didn’t,” Lois injected forcefully, jumping down from the makeshift stage to join Clark at his side. “He’s Su...uh...not capable of doing such a thing!”
Henderson paced up and down before the group gathered in front of him. “Lex Luthor was a depraved, degenerate and corrupt man.... He was responsible for the death of his own wife,” the detective said looking at them. “Not only his wife, but Henry Brady, and Matthew Drake as well, not to mention his complicity in the misdiagnosis of Lois Lane and the scurrilous attack on Vivian Cox. So as Rachett in the play we have just witnessed, Luthor directly damaged five lives and hurt an additional dozen lives.
“So did they all do it together? Just like the play,” Sheriff Rachel Harris asked. “Is that it?”
“Or is that what the perpetrator wanted us to think?” the Metropolis detective asked somewhat rhetorically. “Why not make it appear that the murder is life, imitating art. Why not *make* it look like a conspiracy, which would then shift the focus away from the real killer?”
Detective Henderson pulled up a chair and straddled it eyeing all of them. “Look everyone,” he began. “I’m not Hercule Poirot and I’m not Superman, and believe me, in this instance I don’t even want to be a homicide detective. You are all decent people who have been abused in one way or another by a particularly evil man. But unlike Hercule Poirot in your play tonight, the police cannot come up with an easy solution that allows the revenge, deserved or not, to go unpunished. We cannot allow someone to take the law into their own hands, and so the murderer must pay,” he said standing up.
“Rachel,” Detective Henderson said firmly. “Please arrest....Bill Saxon for the murder of Lex Luthor.”
Just then, the double doors to the banquet room opened and two men pushed a gurney into the room. Rachel Harris pointed out the body to the Coroner’s assistants. Entering behind them was Smallville’s new Coroner who had only been on the job about two weeks. The attractive thirty-something-aged woman came up to Rachel Harris.
“You must be Sheriff Harris,” the Coroner stated efficiently. “I’m here to take charge of the body.” She leaned over and pulled the tablecloth down and made a cursory examination. She then signaled the two men to place the body on the gurney and remove it to the Coroner’s wagon.
“I will begin the autopsy tomorrow morning,” the new Coroner informed Rachel. “If you need anything just call me. Here is my card,” she said following the gurney out.
Rachel looked at the card. It read Dr. Gretchen Kelly.
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Smallville, Kansas
Saturday,
January 8, 1994
10:00 a.m. CST
Lois and Clark snuggled together on the overstuffed couch that Martha Kent had in her bookstore. Clark smiled at his fiancée and took Lois’ hand to his lips and gently kissed her fingers.
Lois smiled back at him and moved her hand to stroke the handsome face of her future husband. “It’s funny about this thing,” Lois said admiring the ring on her finger. “When I look down at it every day, I’m almost surprised to see it there. I think about it, and it what it means, and about you.”
Clark glanced down at the ring and then looked deeply into Lois’ eyes.
“We’ve been through a lot,” Lois acknowledged.
“An awful lot,” he agreed.
“But we’re together now,” Lois said, snuggling even closer, and will always be...”
Clark leaned in and gently captured Lois’ lips in a brief kiss.
“Don’t let me interrupt,” Martha said smiling, as she brought them both a cup of coffee.
“No....No, Mom,” he said, blushing just a little and then quickly returning his gaze to look lovingly at Lois, who seductively watched him from under her lashes. “It’s okay,” Clark told his mother, not taking his eyes off Lois as Martha sunk into the chair opposite them.
“So, have you two decided on the date for the wedding?” Martha asked.
“We know it’s corny, but since it’s Kansas, how about June?” Lois said to both of them. “That’s what we were talking about before...before Lex.”
“Let’s not talk about Luther,” Clark said. He’s dead and buried.
The bell above the door to the Cabbages and Kings Bookstore tinkled. Martha looked up to see Miss Barton enter and head directly for the used and rare book section toward the back of the store. Miss Libby Barton was a regular customer who came into the store one to two times a month to purchase books. The patron walked up one aisle and then down the next one. She browsed through several books and then with her selections clasped close to her, came forward to the cash register.
“How are you today, Miss Libby?” Martha asked, rising to meet her at the counter.
Libby Barton was about to say something when the bell over the door tinkled again and Keith Haley burst through.
“I’ll distribute these, Mrs. Kent,” the young high-school student told her, grabbing a handful of posters from the counter and running out the door.
“How much,” the customer asked, without responding to Martha’s question as she put the three books down on the counter.
“Thirty-one seventeen with tax,” Martha explained, taking the stickers off the old books.
The older woman opened her change purse and after a few moments, put the exact amount, most of it in small change, on the counter and turned to walk out. As she did, she stopped to look at a large, colorful poster in the window of the bookstore. Miss Libby took out a piece of paper and a pencil and jotted down some information and then exited the store.
“Well, I’ll be,” Martha said, turning to Lois and Clark. “Who would have thought *she* would be interested.”
Martha Kent looked at the stickers still in her hand and shook her head. She placed the large colored labels on the spindle next to the cash register and made a note to herself to consider getting replacement copies of the just purchased books, ‘House of the Seven Gables’, ‘Miss Lizzie: A retelling of the Borden Ax Murders and Mary Shelly’s ‘Frankenstein’.
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Butler County, Kansas
Saturday,
January 8, 1994
1:30 p.m. CST
In an old silo south of Smallville--a silo heated by a long bank of electric radiators, several rats ran along the edge of a shelf, picking up and nibbling small kernels of corn. Their squeaks intermingled with the sounds of steam emanating from a large glass enclosed vat.
“Well? What is his status, Gretchen?” Nigel St. John asked off-handedly.
“His vital signs are fluctuating wildly,” Dr. Kelly responded, as she checked several dials on a large machine attached to the vat.
Nigel looked around the silo, shivered slightly and brushed perfunctorily at his suede jacket. “I certainly hope I haven’t made the trip here for nothing,” he said frowning.
“You were one of Lex’s chief supporters in this community,” Gretchen informed him. “Your concern is overwhelming,” she said sarcastically.
“Mr. Luthor didn’t have me on the board for my congeniality.”
An almost imperceptible change in the level of beeping caught Gretchen’s attention before she could have snapped an answer at the tall callous man. She walked over to the machine and once again fiddled with the dials.
“What are you doing?” Nigel asked her.
“I’ve got to stabilize his electromagnetic field,” she explained worriedly. “Otherwise we’re going to lose him!”
Abruptly, bubbling sounds from the vat increased, as did a variety of electronic noises from several instruments, the loudest of all--an erratic beeping from the heart monitor. Intermittent hissing sounds ensued as jets of steam erupted from the vat. The electronic devices peaked, subdued, peaked again and then faltered, coming to a complete stop.
Gretchen Kelly and Nigel St. John turned to look at the heart monitor as the spiked waves, displaying ongoing life signs, beeped irregularly and then flat lined.
“No!” Gretchen shouted. “Lex?”
“It’s over, Gretchen,” Nigel told her emotionlessly.
“Oh no!” she cried, somewhat softly, as if resigned to the inevitability of her failed attempt.
“It was a noble experiment,” Nigel informed her, putting his hand firmly on her shoulder.
Gretchen glanced over at the table toward a small red-bound leather book with the initials LB embossed on it and closed her eyes. It had been folly to believe that...that....
Suddenly an arm burst through the glass that had been enclosing the vat. It slowly twisted and contorted into a fist.
“Lex,” gasped Gretchen.
The appendage stretched out, grabbed hold of the side of the vat and lifted the lid. Lex Luthor covered, in what could best be described as a kind of amniotic fluid, sat up, reborn.
“Lex,” Gretchen said again with renewed assurance, stepping toward him as she realized that he had come back--come back to her.
“I...I can’t believe it,” Nigel uttered, uncharacteristically at a loss.
Lex Luthor’s face distorted into an evil and vindictive visage. “Believe it!”
Nigel backed away from the vat and reached out toward the table to steady himself. The small red leather book fell to the floor.
The steam from the vat gusted out once again, flipping the pages of the small bound volume until it rested on a page where a shaky scrawl was barely discernable.
Sunday
October 30, 1938
7:28 p.m.
Success!!! Resurrection achieved!!!
LB
tbc
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