lucy mars
30th May 2003, 19:59
Title: Strange Love.
Author: Lucy Mars
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I’ve got nothing witty to say. Really, they don’t belong to me, but I’ll return them when I’m done.
Summary: Their love, it was a strange love. Chloe and Lex. This is a future fic. How I see Lex becoming evil and him and Clark becoming enemies.
A.N: This isn't anything new but someone pointed out that I hadn't posted this here, so here I am. Enjoy.
***
1.
She’s forgotten what the fresh morning mist feels like on her hot face. The air here is stale and thick with lies, desperation and anger. The air at home was never like this. At home, she would tilt her face to the sky and feel refreshed with the tranquility that it was intoxicated with.
She can’t recall the sound of silence that accompanied every Kansas night. The silence she lives with now is neither peaceful, nor comforting. The dark sounds here just lull her into a restless sleep filled with memories she just wants to forget and one face she knows will haunt her to her grave.
The gentle beauty of swaying fields of grass under the hand of the hot summer breeze eludes her. All the lines are blurred with pain and once sharp images have been reduced to muddled shades of grey. She can’t bring up the memories that she locked away for prosperity, because she’s stoned her heart off to even herself. It was the only way she could survive. It wasn’t her choice. She’d been given none.
The water’s rising and it’s rising fast. There used to be days that she could deceive herself into believing that she could tread the cold black water for a little while longer, that her time wasn’t up yet, but she knows that her time is rapidly coming to an end. All the things she still wants to do and still needs to do will be left undone.
The water’s risen up to her neck and soon, she’ll be immersed in it.
Soon, she’d be dead.
Clutching a simple silver band in her frail hand, Chloe tenderly ran her calloused index finger over the simple words etched in side the ring and on her heart.
‘In vestigio, e vestigio.'
‘At that moment.’
It said so little, but like them, it said so much. A dead language and a bare ring were how he decided to express what they meant to him. At that moment, when they were together and the world was locked away by a single door, everything was all right. They were together and for a few stolen moments, it was just the two of them and nothing else mattered. No world, no prying eyes, no wife for them, and for Chloe, most importantly, no reminder of what waited for her once she decided to return to reality.
Of course it had to be Latin. Only he would give her a gift with his message encrypted in dead language and carved in the hidden recesses of cold metal. Over all the years and after all the clandestine moments that they shared, it had been the only gift he’d ever given her that she cherished. She didn’t need the extravagant gifts or the useless toys that Lex showered her with during the long stretches of time she spent alone. All she needed was the ring because it was the only evidence of them she had.
It was the only thing she had kept since she’d let him, and belief that they had a future together, go.
It was, quite simply, all that she cherished anymore. She held her life in her hands. Figuratively, and literally.
Slipping the simple band onto her finger, Chloe knew that there was only one thing left to do. It was finally time to go home.
***
2.
His hands barely skimming her hot skin, Chloe arched into his touch and desperately reached over to find the face that haunted her when she had no distractions to let her forget the love she harbored for him.
Tracing the smooth contours of his face, Chloe burned the feeling of every arc, curve and valley into her mind. It was in her mind she spent most of her time with him.
She could feel his laughter as he kissed her. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t possibly understand her need to memorize it all. These stolen moments with him were all she had. Every ounce of happiness that she felt belonged to these stolen nights, days or weekends that he could spare for her.
She would take all that he gave until she knew she had to break away. Until the day came that she couldn’t take anymore because she didn’t have the breath to. Until the day it came for her turn to leave him.
“Chloe?” Lex asked, surprised by the desperation of her kiss.
“Just kiss me, Alexander.” Chloe begged, her voice wavering with emotion, “Nothing matters when you kiss me.”
He did as she asked, because Chloe never asked for anything from him. He complied because he wanted to soothe away the fear he felt on her lips. He kissed her because there was nothing else he liked to do more.
He was here, with her, because there was nowhere else he’d rather be.
***
“You were with him again?”
Stretched out comfortably on the chic coffee colored sofa that stood out against the dark tones of her hotel room, Chloe looked up at the towering figure that blocked her sunlight. She knew she shouldn’t have opened the balcony doors. It was his favorite mode of entry since he’d become the man he was destined to be.
“You were with him again?” Clark repeated, letting himself into Chloe’s hotel room.
“Asking questions you already know the answers to?” Chloe remarked casually as she lowered her newspaper to give her unexpected visitor an annoyed glare, “Has the Planet lowered their standards, or do you save the stupid questions just for me?”
“Avoiding the question?” Clark asked, trying to not let Chloe’s words hurt him. He knew she didn’t mean them.
“Actually, avoiding you,” Chloe quipped tossing her paper carelessly onto the floor and watching with amusement as they spread over the space between her and Clark, “Obviously, I’m not doing a very good job of it.”
“Not true,” Clark grinned despite himself, “Compared to last time, it’s taken me twice as long to find you.”
“So I guess that doesn’t make you as super as the world thinks you are, huh Superman?”
Lowering his eyes, Clark felt the familiar uneasiness of his youth fill him again. Chloe always had that power over him. She could always make him feel unsure about his actions and himself. For some reason, Clark had never stopped fearing disappointment from his petite blonde friend. The uncertainty that Clark felt though, was quickly replaced with the helplessness he was always consumed with whenever he saw the Chloe that was before him now and compared her to the Chloe he once knew. Oh yeah, the guilt. Clark couldn’t forget the healthy dosage of guilt that he felt too.
“So you were with him again?” Clark asked uneasily, knowing that he was treading on thin ice. Lex had always been a sensitive issue for the two of them.
“Yes,” Chloe answered simply, giving Clark a warning look.
“Why?”
“Why do any of us do the things we do?” Chloe asked leaning back against the plush cushions surrounding her gaunt frame, “Why are you here even though you know I don’t want you to be? Why do you keep breaking the one promise you made me?”
“Because I’m worried about you,” Clark answered honestly, shifting nervously as he stifled the urge to cross the room and envelop Chloe in his arms. It hurt to know that he never could.
“Don’t be,” Chloe answered seriously, “I’m fine.”
“Chloe,” Clark argued gravely, “you’re not fine. You’re not well…”
Smirking, Chloe gave Clark an incredulously look. “Are you seriously going to stand there in red and blue spandex and tell me that I’m the one who isn’t well?”
Sighing, Clark watched as Chloe stood from her seat and slowly moved away from Clark. “Chloe, let me help you.”
“You shouldn’t be here, Clark.” Chloe replied, tired now. “Leave. I don’t want you to be here. Leave.”
“Chloe,” Clark begged, “Let me help you.”
Her laughter hollow and cold even to her own ears, Chloe gave Clark a disbelieving look. “How can you help me, exactly? No one can help me, Clark. There’s this thing with dying, you can’t stop it. Even you don’t have the power to stop it, Superman. Sorry.”
“Let me take you away from here.”
“I don’t want to leave.”
“Let me take you away from Lex.” Clark clarified.
“Clark, I’m not getting into this again.”
“He hurt you,”
“Yeah,” Chloe answered nonchalantly.
“He betrayed your trust,”
“Yeah,”
Frowning at her blasé attitude, Clark resisted the urge to grab Chloe and shake some sense into her. “He’s married.”
Clenching her fists, Chloe whirled around to face Clark. “You have a real way of stating the obvious, you know that?”
“I’m just worried about you,” Clark snapped angrily, frustrated that Chloe couldn’t see that he was just trying to help.
“What?” Chloe demanded, her eyes sparkling a dangerous shade of green, “The weight of Metropolis’s helpless on your shoulders isn’t enough for you, Superman? Does trying to save me bring you to your quota for the month?”
His chest seizing with the same pain it always did when he was near Chloe for too long, Clark gave her one last chance. “Let me take you away from here.”
Narrowing her eyes, Chloe watched as Clark blanched before her. “If you’re so eager to leave this place, why don’t you?”
Stepping backwards until he felt nothing but air encompass him, Clark gave Chloe one last forlorn look before disappearing into the blinding brilliance of the morning sky.
Her eyes fading back to their normal hue, Chloe sat down tiredly on the downy softness of her bed. Being close to Clark always drained more from Chloe then she expected.
“I don’t need you to take me away from this place, Clark.” Chloe whispered sadly to the empty room, “I’m leaving whether I want to or not.”
***
Tossing and turning, Chloe tried in vain to clear her mind of his laughter, his smile and his infuriatingly sexy smirk.
She lay alone in bed wishing that he was lying next to her, knowing full well that he was at home with his wife. She would reach out when depressingly weak, begging to the dark corners of her room for Lex to come. Chloe was sure that she’d called out for him in her restless sleep, praying that he’d come away from his perfect wife, just to hold her. But he never did. Lex never could. They lived in different worlds and it wasn’t fair for Chloe to try and pull him into hers.
She had him for so long and so little. It was never enough. It never would have been enough. Chloe knew she could never make a life with him, so she took what she could. It was selfish and sitting alone while death taunted her with its looming stare, Chloe wanted to apologize to Lex, because she was sorry.
Sorry for so many things.
But he was the only reason she had for living. The only illusion strong enough to make Chloe believe that there was a reason she was still alive.
It’s not hard to understand. Chloe lived for him. Chloe lived for so long because she was living for the next moment she could hold him, touch him, talk to him. She had nothing else in her life. Nothing that would have kept her going the way Lex did.
It was wrong, and she knew she’d never be able to apologize for what she did but Chloe didn’t regret it. She never would. You don’t regret happiness like that.
You don’t ever regret love like that.
All you regret are the wasted seconds.
She can’t remember how it all started again, but she can remember wishing that it had started earlier. Time wasn’t something that she could ever afford to waste and there was so much wasted time between them.
She would never be able to describe what the first time he ever touched her felt like because every time felt like the first. Every touch burned straight to her soul and warmed her heart. All his whispers lifted her laden soul and eased the pain for a few blissful seconds. Each kiss was special in its own right.
Her craft lay in her words, but there were simply no words she could conjure to adequately describe what being with him did for her. Clichéd phrases were never enough and with him, they only made light of what Chloe held dear to her heart. What she could say though was that she loved him. She could never tell him but that didn’t make her bitter. It only made her sad, and sadness she’d mastered over the years. Some would say, made an art form.
***
He’d never kept track of her before, or ever really thought of doing so. Lex never thought that he needed to. That all changed when she decided to go and disappear without saying a word.
For once, he was left without a means of contacting her. They used to have a system. A well oiled one that had stood the test of time. If Lex had wanted to see Chloe, all he ever used to have to do was simply drop an unsigned letter with a place and a time to a mailbox she kept and he never once doubted that she wouldn’t show up. The first time she didn’t show up, he brushed it off as nothing. The second time he was angry at her and himself for having cancelled an important meeting because he’d had an impromptu urge to see her. The third time though, he was worried.
Worry and fear were both foreign feelings for him. Chloe had that ability. She was the only one that could make him feel anything other than coldness and contempt.
It’d been two months since he’d last held her, and Lex craved her smile like a drowning man seeking air. Her mere company soothed him to a point he’d never been to before. She brought him peace with every smile, laugh and look.
When they were together, Lex knew to expect that they would never share words about his life, his work or his wife that all waited for them outside. There were no questions, no requests for interviews or sneaky attempts at getting insider information. The first time, it had been disconcerting to see a woman so different from the girl he knew in Smallville, but Lex never questioned it. Why would he? The banter was still good between them, and the sex was even better. Chloe was a realist. She knew why he couldn’t leave his wife and he knew she would never ask him too.
Now though, sitting alone in his dark office and drowning with worry for her, Lex couldn’t help but wish that just once Chloe had asked him to leave his wife. Left alone with the hundred and one different scenarios that ran through his head, Lex wished that just once he’d given into the urge that gnawed at him every since time he touched her and offered what he knew he shouldn’t. His heart was already hers, just not his name. Everything that counted belonged to Chloe and only Chloe.
He and his wife were perfect together on paper. They suited each other in everyway but the ones that counted. There was no warmth or love in their marriage, just a mutual understanding that this was just another business venture. It was cold but it suited them just fine. Or at least it suited Lex until he caught a glimpse of Chloe again and her blinding smile all those years ago.
***
3.
Filling her lungs with the fresh morning air, Chloe looked up at the clear blue skies and let the first sliver of daylight stroke her pale cheek. The stillness was just as she remembered it to be, comforting and rich. The sound of the wind brushing past her was sweet music to her ears. The silence wasn’t deafening to her anymore. Now, unlike during her youth, Chloe welcomed it.
The noise of Metropolis didn’t exist here. Nothing of Metropolis existed here, nothing but the memories that would follow her to the ends of the earth and back.
Sinking down onto the dewy meadow, Chloe buried her fingers in the long strands of grass, only to jerk back upon making contact with the cold hard ground. Bringing her pale hands up for inspection, she frowned at the streaks of black staining her skin. Wiping her hands furiously over her pants, Chloe tried desperately to clean her sullied skin. The skin of her hands burned under the midnight dirt and scorched at the knowledge that it would never be clean.
The sound of her frantic breaths filling the peaceful morning, Chloe scrambled to her feet and stared down in horror at her own headstone. The morning sun was suddenly replaced with a hollow moon and its mocking smile. The warm air turned into a biting chill and the peace of the morning was replaced by the dead of the night.
Wrapping her arms around her frail body, Chloe stumbled away from the site of the fresh grave and taunting shadow of death. The stench of it filled her nostrils and made tears spring to her eyes. Turning to run away from it all, Chloe came face to face with one person who just couldn’t keep one promise to her, no matter how many times she asked.
Sighing, she raised her glowing green eyes to his fearful blue ones. “You promised you would stay away.”
“Chloe,” he sighed, his voice echoing through the night, “Chloe. Chloe. Chloe.”
Tiredly forcing her eyes open to greet the new day she’d been dreaming of, Chloe rapidly blinked away the fragments of her dream to face the reality of her nightmare. She wasn’t surprised to see him standing in the farthest corner of her room. “You’re awful at keeping promises.”
“Funny, I don’t remember ever promising,” Clark answered, forcing himself to stay back as he watched Chloe strain to find the strength just to sit up.
“Get that look off your face,” she ordered, never once raising her eyes to look at him.
His smile barely moving his down turned lips, Clark took an involuntary step forward when he saw Chloe falter slightly but was forced to step back again when the familiar searing pain ripped through him like it always did when he got too close to her.
Sighing, Chloe wearily swung her legs off of her bed and shivered as the cold seeped into her bones. “Don’t even,” Chloe warned seriously, seeing Clark unconsciously inch closer again as she struggled to command the energy just to get out of bed.
“Chloe…”
“I’m fine,” she lied, slipping her too thin arms into a knitted sweater. Even cocooned in the bulky sweater and baggy sweatpants, Chloe still looked small and gaunt. Bringing her glowing eyes up to meet his, Chloe shook her head when she saw how he struggled to even stand a room’s span away from her. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“You shouldn’t have disappeared again.” Clark countered, stepping back as Chloe moved around her stark room. It was a dance they’d perfected over the years, each avoiding each other with the intricate understanding of the consequences. “I’ve been looking for you for 6 weeks now. I’m not the only one,” Clark added, watching as Chloe’s eyes glimmered dejectedly at the vague mention of Lex.
Turning her back to Clark, Chloe looked out at the buzzing Metropolis morning and reached out and touched the warming plane of glass that held the world just out of reach. “I wanted to do this alone,” Chloe whispered, breaking the silence that usually fell over them.
His throat tightening with the fear that he’d been plagued with since the day Chloe had told him her fate, Clark shook his head stubbornly. “No,” he croaked, feeling the room being to spin.
Bringing her hand up to streak the glass, Chloe watched with indifference as Superman’s reflection stared back at her. “I know you don’t believe me,” she said, her soft voice filling the empty room, “but it bears repeating. It’s not your fault, Clark.”
“Yes it is,” Clark argued. Everything was his fault. He could spend the rest of his life atoning for it all and it still wouldn’t make up for the destruction his arrival onto this planet had caused. He’d destroyed Lana’s life by killing her parents, Lex’s by making him an outcast and countless others. Now, he could add Chloe to that long list.
Tiredly, Chloe leaned her forehead against the thick glass. “I don’t want to fight with you,”
“I don’t want you to die.”
Laughing humorlessly, Chloe turned around to face Clark’s tight face. “Well that should be enough to stop the natural progression of life from happening. Are you making that request as Clark Kent, mild mannered reporter, or as Superman, savior of mankind?”
“There’s nothing natural about this, Chloe.”
“Death is a part of life.” Chloe answered simply.
“Since when is death due to meteor exposure a part of life?” Clark demanded, ignoring the pain coursing through him as he stepped towards Chloe.
“Don’t,” Chloe ordered fearfully as she scrambled away from Clark and his cringing face.
“Why?” Clark snapped grabbing Chloe’s arms before she could run away from him, “The pain I’m feeling is nothing compared to the pain your feeling. It’s my fault you’re dying, Chloe.”
“And what?” Chloe yelled, watching as Clark weakened and fell to his knees writhing with pain, “You want to die with me?”
Gasping for breath, Clark finally released Chloe when the pain became even too unbearable for Superman. His veins throbbing and his head spinning, Clark forced the breath of life back into his lungs and shuddered uncontrollably at the power Chloe had over him.
Tears clouding her vision, Chloe stepped back from the image of Clark kneeling before her shattered by her pain and his. “Don’t blame yourself, Clark.”
It was the last thing he heard before darkness consumed him and Chloe disappeared again.
***
Standing passively in the middle of the ballroom as his wife easily worked the crowd, Lex couldn’t be bothered to fulfill his duties as host of his party. All he was capable of doing was standing immobile in the very spot he stood two years ago when Chloe walked back into his life. He never truly understood why she came back to him but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t grateful for it. Lex was a lucky man and he knew it. After he had left her and married the wife that would make him king, he was sure that she would never forgive him. He’d chosen power over her love and forsaken their happiness for the chance to rule. He’d done exactly what he’d promised he would never do. He’d hurt her and he would never forgive himself for it, even if she one day did.
Maybe it had been a game all along. Maybe, all along, this had been her plan. If she had wanted to hurt him as much as he had hurt, Lex couldn’t blame her. Who was he to place blame for the ache that had consumed his weary heart? Chloe was merely sharing the wealth. He had given that wealth to her when he had broken her heart and wounded her pride. Lex had crudely offered her compensation for her no longer needed companionship.
Feeling his scotch burn his throat, Lex had to blink hard and concentrate on the muted noise of the party to keep from falling into a memory that would always make his stomach turn. The sound of the rain that had beat down on her frail shoulders that night blended in with the laughter and chatter of his party and made Lex wonder if he was slowly losing his mind.
“You want to compensate me for my time?” Chloe had asked bitterly as she squared her shoulders against the pressure from the sky.
“Yes,” Lex had answered simply, trying not to drown himself in her tears.
Crossing her arms in an attempt to shield herself from the misery that had threatened to engulf her with its cruel hands, Chloe laughed humorlessly. “Do you want to compensate me for my time, Lex, or my services?”
Lex could still remember the involuntary flinch that had coursed through him and the anger that filled her eyes melt into sadness.
“You want to do something for me?” She had asked resigned and tired. “Don’t ever try to find me.”
And he had honored that request until now. For the past two months he’d had the entire city and world turned inside out searching for her. He would find her, even if it took him the rest of his life. He would find her and fix it all. Fix all the mistakes that he’d made and all the promises he’d broken. He would give up his throne if it meant that she would return to him. Another could have his crown if it meant Lex could just hold her in his arms and bury his face in her hair. All he needed was Chloe.
“Lex?”
Bringing his eyes up to his smiling wife, Lex nodded silently in understanding and took her arm. Until he found Chloe, Lex would continue to play the role of loving husband. Once he found her though, the game was over and Lex was leaving. All he had to do now was telling his loving queen that her reign was about to come to an end.
***
His touch was always so gentle and it drove her crazy. His eyes were always so clear that there were times Chloe felt like she could lose herself in them all over again. His lips were so delicately soft that she’d grown sadly addicted to them. His voice was like honey over her skin. Seeping through her pores, warm and smooth, patching the worn edges of her heart. Every part of him was part of her.
The sex, though undeniably great, wasn’t what Chloe craved from Lex. It was his presence that made her heart flutter. Sitting silently with his arms wrapped securely around her was what made her happy. All she wanted was to feel the rhythmic beats of his heart while she was nestled against his chest.
But Chloe never got what she wanted. It was just the way her life went.
Some would say that it was sad that she couldn’t be with the one she loved, but as death neared and acceptance became her mantra, Chloe could honestly say that she was lucky to have found someone she loved. Though it wasn’t the love of fairy tales or happily-ever-after’s, it was still love. It didn’t matter that it was a love that burned and scored across her heart. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t a love strong enough to hold him near. None of it mattered. All that mattered anymore was that Chloe would die knowing that she had truly loved another in her life, and in his own way, he had loved her.
The simple knowledge was almost enough to die peacefully, if there was ever such a thing.
Her hand trembling slightly, Chloe put down the newspaper she clutched in her hand and smoothed out the wrinkles she’d caused over the picture of Lex and his smiling wife.
The blank ink stained her almost transparent fingers and streaked the perfect picture of happiness. Chloe had never asked him about his wife, never even spoken her name out loud. It hurt too much, the knowledge that he was married to another. After all the nights, all the touches and all the laughter, Chloe had never asked him if he loved her. She never asked how he felt towards her or how he felt towards his wife. There was that overpowering fear that he would tell her he loved his wife. That what he felt for Mrs. Alexander Luthor was real and what he felt for her wasn’t. All he felt for her was a physical attraction that held no deeper meaning.
Blinking back useless tears, Chloe let her hand drift over the words that sealed her fate. He was going to Europe with his wife. They would be gone for weeks. This was it. This was her chance to go home and finally do what her body was telling her it was time for.
It was her time to die.
***
The quiet hum of engine as it soared the plane through the night sky was the only sound to be heard. Sitting comfortably as she watched her husband study the latest progress report he’d had sent to him, she could tell that he wasn’t happy with the results. His face was cold and hard, and his lips set in a thin tight line. Lex hadn’t been happy for weeks now. Whatever patience he had was quickly deteriorating into frustration and, dare she even guess, a little bit of desperation.
Twirling the delicate glass between her equally delicate hands, she gave her husband a sympathetic smile. “You still can’t find her?”
“No,” Lex answered honestly, trying not to let his worry seep through.
“How long will you keep looking?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
Taking his scotch from their flight attendant, Lex waited until he was left alone with his wife before answering her question with a question. “How long do you think I’ll keep looking?”
“Until you find her,” she answered, feeling the anxiety she’d been harboring for 2 years resurface after weeks of latency. Being married to him for so many years, she’d learnt a lot about Lex and the way he worked. Lex was all about control, restraint and power. This woman he was looking for though, she was enough to take the Lex she’d married and make him into another man. Two years in her company, which couldn’t total more than a handful of stolen weeks together, Lex had become a man who laughed, smiled and disappeared. Mrs. Alexander Luthor wasn’t in love with Lex, but she was in love with the life that came with being his wife. Catching her husband’s piercing look, she spoke before he could. “It’s over, isn’t it?”
They both knew that it was over. They both knew that it’d been over since Lex had caught site of Chloe that night. Now though, they were just finally facing the fact. Who said Luthor’s weren’t good at denial?
“What if you never find her?” she asked, playing on what she knew was her husband’s greatest fear.
“I will,” Lex answered, leaving no room for doubt.
“But what if you don’t?” she demanded, angry now. “You’ll still need a wife, Lex. We’re a good team.”
Rising, Lex chastely kissed his wife’s cheek. “But she and I make a better one.”
Watching him calmly walk away from her, she waited until he disappeared into his private office before hurling her glass at the closed door. The glass shattered magnificently and splintered into a thousand different shards of invisible spears.
Ever the gentleman, Lex had left the silence of his office and arrived at his wife’s side once they’d landed. Walking her past the throng of reporters waiting to take their picture, Lex ever-so-generously shielded her from the blinding flashes of persistent cameramen hoping to get a good picture of the ever glamorous Mrs. Luthor. His face was placid, while hers was brimming with silent fury. Holding her head high, she easy slipped into their waiting limo, knowing full well that she would be the only one using it. Catching her husband’s arm before he could walk away from her, she asked him firmly to reconsider. “You can’t rule as king without a queen, Lex. You need me to do everything you know you can.” she told him.
Dropping a warm kiss on her surprised lips for the world to see, Lex shook his head. “I only need her,” he told his soon-to-be ex-wife before turning on his heal and heading to re-board his plane.
Walking down the tarmac a new man, Lex ignored the flashes and yells from the paparazzi demanding to know where he was going and why his loving wife wasn’t going with him.
Climbing the steps with new energy and hope, Lex gave his confused pilot the simple order to take him home.
***
The spring air encompassed the rising buds and blossoming trees. Inhaling the sweet fragrance of renewal, Chloe let the soft scent of life and revival overwhelmed her vacant senses as birds sang their songs of birth and beginning. A new season was here and with it brought hope and chance. On the ground of the dead, new life was being built. The tears of yesterday refreshed the soil of today and thawed the frozen ground.
Shielding her eyes against the brilliance of the afternoon sun, Chloe stood on the vista that Lex had brought her to all those years ago when there was so much innocence between them and hope in them and what their love represented.
Closing her eyes when the brightness began to sting and the memories washed over her, Chloe readily fell into them. She didn’t have the energy to fight them today.
He’d held her close as they watched the fading sun sink from the sky and paint the horizon a blaze of colors. The light of the day had faded, but not the warmth. In his arms, she’d always been warm. Stars were scattered across the sky and lying in his arms, she’d taught him all the constellations he already knew. Nestled together, they spoke of the future and what chances it held. They’d secretly planned their escape from the world they knew, to the world they would build. There had been so much optimism that night, too much faith. She’d set herself up for the fall of her life as she’d laid in his strong arms through the night and into the pre-dawn light. She’d fallen in love with him.
Listening to his promises and his desires, she’d given her heart over to him. Willingly, she’d fallen in love with Lex and she’s never been able to force herself out of love since.
Lost in a memory that she could never forget, his arms felt so real and secure. The tenderness of his grasp held her demons at bay and melted the tension from her aching heart. Even his skin felt real pressed against her own. The softness of his skin was never lost on her. Arching her body against his, Chloe relished in the sensation of his muscles rippling beneath her touch and his heart racing along with hers.
“I’ve missed you,” Lex whispered, burying his face in her hair.
Jolted out of her reverie, Chloe hastily stepped away from Lex. It wasn’t a memory. It was reality. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, anger and sadness filling her tired eyes.
“You’re hard to find,” Lex smirked, ignoring her question and closing the distance between them.
Standing in his arms, Chloe shook her head stubbornly. “You’re supposed to be in Europe with your wife. You’re not supposed to be here.”
“And you’re not supposed to disappear.” Lex replied, capturing Chloe’s left hand and inspecting the single band that sat on her wedding ring finger. The simple band that he’d given her. It fit perfectly. He’d always known that it would. All he had to do now was make it official.
“You’re not supposed to try and find me,” Chloe snapped, her green eyes flooding with silent tears as Lex lifted her hand to his lips.
Bringing his free hand up to wipe away her tears, Lex told her softly, “I missed you.”
“You promised,” Chloe whispered, instinctively leaning into his touch.
Cupping her ashen face in his warm hand, Lex held her tightly and lovingly. “I’m sorry,” he told her, his eyes speaking volumes.
“Why aren’t you with your loving wife?”
“Because I wanted to be here with you,” Lex answered truthfully.
Closing her eyes against the onslaught of emotions that she’d locked away from herself, Chloe rested her heavy head against Lex’s sturdy frame. “Don’t say that,” she begged desperately, “Not now. Not ever.”
“Why?” Lex asked, holding Chloe close and stroking her golden strands, “It’s true.”
“Don’t, Lex.” Chloe repeated her voice chocked with tears and pain. Clinging to the warmth that he always gave her, Chloe hungrily drank the comfort that Lex offered. She was so tired of being tired, so sick of being scared, so revolted with her own misery. Their lives weren’t supposed to go the way they did. Their lives were meant to be brimming with happiness, not regret.
This love they shared was a strange love.
They just couldn’t stop hurting each other, no matter how hard they tried.
Tilting her down turned chin up to look at him, Lex kissed her closed eyes affectionately before letting her hear the words she longed for and feared of. “I love you, Chloe Sullivan.” Lex whispered, his breath washing over the shell of her ear and grazing past her heart, “Only you.”
Torn between joyous laughter and venomous rage, Chloe settled for the truth. Her eyes fluttering open to face Lex’s waiting gaze, Chloe mustered up her last breath to tell him what he already knew. What they’d both always known. “I’ll always love you, Lex. Remember that.”
His eyes lighting up and his face breaking into that smile that she loved, Chloe didn’t even feel the darkness finally catching up to her. The face of the one she loved, full of unconditional love for her was the last site she saw. It would be the picture that she would hold with her for eternity.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to die.
***
He can’t recall how it felt to have her hair spread across his chest as he watched her as she slept.
He can’t remember the taste of her lips, it’s been so long.
The last time since he’s felt her warmth spread through him is so far in the past that ice has replaced his blood, successfully numbing his broken heart.
The healing power of her smile is gone and the light she brought to his life extinguished with hers. He’s submersed in darkness now, left alone to fight the demons that are an undeniable part of him. There’s no will left in him to fight it. She was his only shield, his only reason and with her gone, he accepts the evil willingly.
The world has taken everything from him. Why should he try and preserve what destroyed all that was his? If he can’t have who he wants, then he’ll have everything he wants. At whatever the price.
Power is the only thing he’s found that fills the void that she left in him. It’s the only thing that lets him forget the despair he carries inside, for a few glorious moments.
Her laughter still haunts him, when the deafening silence of the night wraps its cold arms around him. Her scent follows him with an incredible range because he’s burned it into his mind.
His life is as empty as his heart and as cold as his touch.
Because, when she died, so did he.
***
“You have no right to be here.”
Keeping his back turned to Lex, Clark looked down at the headstone that would haunt him for the rest of his life and beyond. “I never got to say goodbye.”
“Why are you here?” Lex demanded clutching the simple bouquet of flowers that were identical to the ones he’d been bringing nightly for the past two weeks.
“Because I loved her too,” Clark answered truthfully, turning to face Lex’s cold eyes.
“If you loved her,” Lex bit out, “you shouldn’t have killed her.”
Flinching against the truth in Lex’s words, Clark cautiously stepped closer towards Chloe’s eternal resting place. “I know you loved her, but in your own way, you killed a part of her too when you left her.”
“I still love her. I always will.”
Regarding Lex with pitiful eyes, Clark sighed. “I know you will.”
“You have no right to be here.” Lex repeated as he watched Clark struggle to make it to Chloe’s headstone without succumbing to the pain it caused him.
Stepping back when he knew that it would be impossible, Clark turned to face Lex and his hatred. “She never stopped loving you, you know. Despite everything you put her through, she never stopped loving you.”
“Despite what you did to her, she never blamed you.” Lex admitted, “I blame you though, Superman.”
“I know you do,” Clark sighed, “I blame myself too.”
“It’s your fault. All of it is your fault.” Lex declared angrily.
“I know you hate me…”
“It’s not you I hate,” Lex replied, “I owe Clark Kent my life, but I owe Superman nothing. If anything, I owe him my vengeance. I won’t destroy you Clark, but I will take great pride and pleasure in destroying Superman.”
“Lex…”
“We were once friends,” Lex told Clark as he walked past him and placed flowers on Chloe’s cold grace, “but we’re enemies now. Remember that.”
Watching Lex as he kissed the top of Chloe’s headstone, Clark felt his heart break for him. So many lives destroyed because of him. Now, Lex would try and destroy his.
“Lex,” Clark called out, as Lex disappeared back into the shadow of the night, “I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” Lex replied, his coat flowing behind him as he left the man who had killed the only person he’d ever truly loved and loved him in return to await the future he deserved. Lex would get his revenge.
Superman would die.
THE END.
Author: Lucy Mars
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I’ve got nothing witty to say. Really, they don’t belong to me, but I’ll return them when I’m done.
Summary: Their love, it was a strange love. Chloe and Lex. This is a future fic. How I see Lex becoming evil and him and Clark becoming enemies.
A.N: This isn't anything new but someone pointed out that I hadn't posted this here, so here I am. Enjoy.
***
1.
She’s forgotten what the fresh morning mist feels like on her hot face. The air here is stale and thick with lies, desperation and anger. The air at home was never like this. At home, she would tilt her face to the sky and feel refreshed with the tranquility that it was intoxicated with.
She can’t recall the sound of silence that accompanied every Kansas night. The silence she lives with now is neither peaceful, nor comforting. The dark sounds here just lull her into a restless sleep filled with memories she just wants to forget and one face she knows will haunt her to her grave.
The gentle beauty of swaying fields of grass under the hand of the hot summer breeze eludes her. All the lines are blurred with pain and once sharp images have been reduced to muddled shades of grey. She can’t bring up the memories that she locked away for prosperity, because she’s stoned her heart off to even herself. It was the only way she could survive. It wasn’t her choice. She’d been given none.
The water’s rising and it’s rising fast. There used to be days that she could deceive herself into believing that she could tread the cold black water for a little while longer, that her time wasn’t up yet, but she knows that her time is rapidly coming to an end. All the things she still wants to do and still needs to do will be left undone.
The water’s risen up to her neck and soon, she’ll be immersed in it.
Soon, she’d be dead.
Clutching a simple silver band in her frail hand, Chloe tenderly ran her calloused index finger over the simple words etched in side the ring and on her heart.
‘In vestigio, e vestigio.'
‘At that moment.’
It said so little, but like them, it said so much. A dead language and a bare ring were how he decided to express what they meant to him. At that moment, when they were together and the world was locked away by a single door, everything was all right. They were together and for a few stolen moments, it was just the two of them and nothing else mattered. No world, no prying eyes, no wife for them, and for Chloe, most importantly, no reminder of what waited for her once she decided to return to reality.
Of course it had to be Latin. Only he would give her a gift with his message encrypted in dead language and carved in the hidden recesses of cold metal. Over all the years and after all the clandestine moments that they shared, it had been the only gift he’d ever given her that she cherished. She didn’t need the extravagant gifts or the useless toys that Lex showered her with during the long stretches of time she spent alone. All she needed was the ring because it was the only evidence of them she had.
It was the only thing she had kept since she’d let him, and belief that they had a future together, go.
It was, quite simply, all that she cherished anymore. She held her life in her hands. Figuratively, and literally.
Slipping the simple band onto her finger, Chloe knew that there was only one thing left to do. It was finally time to go home.
***
2.
His hands barely skimming her hot skin, Chloe arched into his touch and desperately reached over to find the face that haunted her when she had no distractions to let her forget the love she harbored for him.
Tracing the smooth contours of his face, Chloe burned the feeling of every arc, curve and valley into her mind. It was in her mind she spent most of her time with him.
She could feel his laughter as he kissed her. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t possibly understand her need to memorize it all. These stolen moments with him were all she had. Every ounce of happiness that she felt belonged to these stolen nights, days or weekends that he could spare for her.
She would take all that he gave until she knew she had to break away. Until the day came that she couldn’t take anymore because she didn’t have the breath to. Until the day it came for her turn to leave him.
“Chloe?” Lex asked, surprised by the desperation of her kiss.
“Just kiss me, Alexander.” Chloe begged, her voice wavering with emotion, “Nothing matters when you kiss me.”
He did as she asked, because Chloe never asked for anything from him. He complied because he wanted to soothe away the fear he felt on her lips. He kissed her because there was nothing else he liked to do more.
He was here, with her, because there was nowhere else he’d rather be.
***
“You were with him again?”
Stretched out comfortably on the chic coffee colored sofa that stood out against the dark tones of her hotel room, Chloe looked up at the towering figure that blocked her sunlight. She knew she shouldn’t have opened the balcony doors. It was his favorite mode of entry since he’d become the man he was destined to be.
“You were with him again?” Clark repeated, letting himself into Chloe’s hotel room.
“Asking questions you already know the answers to?” Chloe remarked casually as she lowered her newspaper to give her unexpected visitor an annoyed glare, “Has the Planet lowered their standards, or do you save the stupid questions just for me?”
“Avoiding the question?” Clark asked, trying to not let Chloe’s words hurt him. He knew she didn’t mean them.
“Actually, avoiding you,” Chloe quipped tossing her paper carelessly onto the floor and watching with amusement as they spread over the space between her and Clark, “Obviously, I’m not doing a very good job of it.”
“Not true,” Clark grinned despite himself, “Compared to last time, it’s taken me twice as long to find you.”
“So I guess that doesn’t make you as super as the world thinks you are, huh Superman?”
Lowering his eyes, Clark felt the familiar uneasiness of his youth fill him again. Chloe always had that power over him. She could always make him feel unsure about his actions and himself. For some reason, Clark had never stopped fearing disappointment from his petite blonde friend. The uncertainty that Clark felt though, was quickly replaced with the helplessness he was always consumed with whenever he saw the Chloe that was before him now and compared her to the Chloe he once knew. Oh yeah, the guilt. Clark couldn’t forget the healthy dosage of guilt that he felt too.
“So you were with him again?” Clark asked uneasily, knowing that he was treading on thin ice. Lex had always been a sensitive issue for the two of them.
“Yes,” Chloe answered simply, giving Clark a warning look.
“Why?”
“Why do any of us do the things we do?” Chloe asked leaning back against the plush cushions surrounding her gaunt frame, “Why are you here even though you know I don’t want you to be? Why do you keep breaking the one promise you made me?”
“Because I’m worried about you,” Clark answered honestly, shifting nervously as he stifled the urge to cross the room and envelop Chloe in his arms. It hurt to know that he never could.
“Don’t be,” Chloe answered seriously, “I’m fine.”
“Chloe,” Clark argued gravely, “you’re not fine. You’re not well…”
Smirking, Chloe gave Clark an incredulously look. “Are you seriously going to stand there in red and blue spandex and tell me that I’m the one who isn’t well?”
Sighing, Clark watched as Chloe stood from her seat and slowly moved away from Clark. “Chloe, let me help you.”
“You shouldn’t be here, Clark.” Chloe replied, tired now. “Leave. I don’t want you to be here. Leave.”
“Chloe,” Clark begged, “Let me help you.”
Her laughter hollow and cold even to her own ears, Chloe gave Clark a disbelieving look. “How can you help me, exactly? No one can help me, Clark. There’s this thing with dying, you can’t stop it. Even you don’t have the power to stop it, Superman. Sorry.”
“Let me take you away from here.”
“I don’t want to leave.”
“Let me take you away from Lex.” Clark clarified.
“Clark, I’m not getting into this again.”
“He hurt you,”
“Yeah,” Chloe answered nonchalantly.
“He betrayed your trust,”
“Yeah,”
Frowning at her blasé attitude, Clark resisted the urge to grab Chloe and shake some sense into her. “He’s married.”
Clenching her fists, Chloe whirled around to face Clark. “You have a real way of stating the obvious, you know that?”
“I’m just worried about you,” Clark snapped angrily, frustrated that Chloe couldn’t see that he was just trying to help.
“What?” Chloe demanded, her eyes sparkling a dangerous shade of green, “The weight of Metropolis’s helpless on your shoulders isn’t enough for you, Superman? Does trying to save me bring you to your quota for the month?”
His chest seizing with the same pain it always did when he was near Chloe for too long, Clark gave her one last chance. “Let me take you away from here.”
Narrowing her eyes, Chloe watched as Clark blanched before her. “If you’re so eager to leave this place, why don’t you?”
Stepping backwards until he felt nothing but air encompass him, Clark gave Chloe one last forlorn look before disappearing into the blinding brilliance of the morning sky.
Her eyes fading back to their normal hue, Chloe sat down tiredly on the downy softness of her bed. Being close to Clark always drained more from Chloe then she expected.
“I don’t need you to take me away from this place, Clark.” Chloe whispered sadly to the empty room, “I’m leaving whether I want to or not.”
***
Tossing and turning, Chloe tried in vain to clear her mind of his laughter, his smile and his infuriatingly sexy smirk.
She lay alone in bed wishing that he was lying next to her, knowing full well that he was at home with his wife. She would reach out when depressingly weak, begging to the dark corners of her room for Lex to come. Chloe was sure that she’d called out for him in her restless sleep, praying that he’d come away from his perfect wife, just to hold her. But he never did. Lex never could. They lived in different worlds and it wasn’t fair for Chloe to try and pull him into hers.
She had him for so long and so little. It was never enough. It never would have been enough. Chloe knew she could never make a life with him, so she took what she could. It was selfish and sitting alone while death taunted her with its looming stare, Chloe wanted to apologize to Lex, because she was sorry.
Sorry for so many things.
But he was the only reason she had for living. The only illusion strong enough to make Chloe believe that there was a reason she was still alive.
It’s not hard to understand. Chloe lived for him. Chloe lived for so long because she was living for the next moment she could hold him, touch him, talk to him. She had nothing else in her life. Nothing that would have kept her going the way Lex did.
It was wrong, and she knew she’d never be able to apologize for what she did but Chloe didn’t regret it. She never would. You don’t regret happiness like that.
You don’t ever regret love like that.
All you regret are the wasted seconds.
She can’t remember how it all started again, but she can remember wishing that it had started earlier. Time wasn’t something that she could ever afford to waste and there was so much wasted time between them.
She would never be able to describe what the first time he ever touched her felt like because every time felt like the first. Every touch burned straight to her soul and warmed her heart. All his whispers lifted her laden soul and eased the pain for a few blissful seconds. Each kiss was special in its own right.
Her craft lay in her words, but there were simply no words she could conjure to adequately describe what being with him did for her. Clichéd phrases were never enough and with him, they only made light of what Chloe held dear to her heart. What she could say though was that she loved him. She could never tell him but that didn’t make her bitter. It only made her sad, and sadness she’d mastered over the years. Some would say, made an art form.
***
He’d never kept track of her before, or ever really thought of doing so. Lex never thought that he needed to. That all changed when she decided to go and disappear without saying a word.
For once, he was left without a means of contacting her. They used to have a system. A well oiled one that had stood the test of time. If Lex had wanted to see Chloe, all he ever used to have to do was simply drop an unsigned letter with a place and a time to a mailbox she kept and he never once doubted that she wouldn’t show up. The first time she didn’t show up, he brushed it off as nothing. The second time he was angry at her and himself for having cancelled an important meeting because he’d had an impromptu urge to see her. The third time though, he was worried.
Worry and fear were both foreign feelings for him. Chloe had that ability. She was the only one that could make him feel anything other than coldness and contempt.
It’d been two months since he’d last held her, and Lex craved her smile like a drowning man seeking air. Her mere company soothed him to a point he’d never been to before. She brought him peace with every smile, laugh and look.
When they were together, Lex knew to expect that they would never share words about his life, his work or his wife that all waited for them outside. There were no questions, no requests for interviews or sneaky attempts at getting insider information. The first time, it had been disconcerting to see a woman so different from the girl he knew in Smallville, but Lex never questioned it. Why would he? The banter was still good between them, and the sex was even better. Chloe was a realist. She knew why he couldn’t leave his wife and he knew she would never ask him too.
Now though, sitting alone in his dark office and drowning with worry for her, Lex couldn’t help but wish that just once Chloe had asked him to leave his wife. Left alone with the hundred and one different scenarios that ran through his head, Lex wished that just once he’d given into the urge that gnawed at him every since time he touched her and offered what he knew he shouldn’t. His heart was already hers, just not his name. Everything that counted belonged to Chloe and only Chloe.
He and his wife were perfect together on paper. They suited each other in everyway but the ones that counted. There was no warmth or love in their marriage, just a mutual understanding that this was just another business venture. It was cold but it suited them just fine. Or at least it suited Lex until he caught a glimpse of Chloe again and her blinding smile all those years ago.
***
3.
Filling her lungs with the fresh morning air, Chloe looked up at the clear blue skies and let the first sliver of daylight stroke her pale cheek. The stillness was just as she remembered it to be, comforting and rich. The sound of the wind brushing past her was sweet music to her ears. The silence wasn’t deafening to her anymore. Now, unlike during her youth, Chloe welcomed it.
The noise of Metropolis didn’t exist here. Nothing of Metropolis existed here, nothing but the memories that would follow her to the ends of the earth and back.
Sinking down onto the dewy meadow, Chloe buried her fingers in the long strands of grass, only to jerk back upon making contact with the cold hard ground. Bringing her pale hands up for inspection, she frowned at the streaks of black staining her skin. Wiping her hands furiously over her pants, Chloe tried desperately to clean her sullied skin. The skin of her hands burned under the midnight dirt and scorched at the knowledge that it would never be clean.
The sound of her frantic breaths filling the peaceful morning, Chloe scrambled to her feet and stared down in horror at her own headstone. The morning sun was suddenly replaced with a hollow moon and its mocking smile. The warm air turned into a biting chill and the peace of the morning was replaced by the dead of the night.
Wrapping her arms around her frail body, Chloe stumbled away from the site of the fresh grave and taunting shadow of death. The stench of it filled her nostrils and made tears spring to her eyes. Turning to run away from it all, Chloe came face to face with one person who just couldn’t keep one promise to her, no matter how many times she asked.
Sighing, she raised her glowing green eyes to his fearful blue ones. “You promised you would stay away.”
“Chloe,” he sighed, his voice echoing through the night, “Chloe. Chloe. Chloe.”
Tiredly forcing her eyes open to greet the new day she’d been dreaming of, Chloe rapidly blinked away the fragments of her dream to face the reality of her nightmare. She wasn’t surprised to see him standing in the farthest corner of her room. “You’re awful at keeping promises.”
“Funny, I don’t remember ever promising,” Clark answered, forcing himself to stay back as he watched Chloe strain to find the strength just to sit up.
“Get that look off your face,” she ordered, never once raising her eyes to look at him.
His smile barely moving his down turned lips, Clark took an involuntary step forward when he saw Chloe falter slightly but was forced to step back again when the familiar searing pain ripped through him like it always did when he got too close to her.
Sighing, Chloe wearily swung her legs off of her bed and shivered as the cold seeped into her bones. “Don’t even,” Chloe warned seriously, seeing Clark unconsciously inch closer again as she struggled to command the energy just to get out of bed.
“Chloe…”
“I’m fine,” she lied, slipping her too thin arms into a knitted sweater. Even cocooned in the bulky sweater and baggy sweatpants, Chloe still looked small and gaunt. Bringing her glowing eyes up to meet his, Chloe shook her head when she saw how he struggled to even stand a room’s span away from her. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“You shouldn’t have disappeared again.” Clark countered, stepping back as Chloe moved around her stark room. It was a dance they’d perfected over the years, each avoiding each other with the intricate understanding of the consequences. “I’ve been looking for you for 6 weeks now. I’m not the only one,” Clark added, watching as Chloe’s eyes glimmered dejectedly at the vague mention of Lex.
Turning her back to Clark, Chloe looked out at the buzzing Metropolis morning and reached out and touched the warming plane of glass that held the world just out of reach. “I wanted to do this alone,” Chloe whispered, breaking the silence that usually fell over them.
His throat tightening with the fear that he’d been plagued with since the day Chloe had told him her fate, Clark shook his head stubbornly. “No,” he croaked, feeling the room being to spin.
Bringing her hand up to streak the glass, Chloe watched with indifference as Superman’s reflection stared back at her. “I know you don’t believe me,” she said, her soft voice filling the empty room, “but it bears repeating. It’s not your fault, Clark.”
“Yes it is,” Clark argued. Everything was his fault. He could spend the rest of his life atoning for it all and it still wouldn’t make up for the destruction his arrival onto this planet had caused. He’d destroyed Lana’s life by killing her parents, Lex’s by making him an outcast and countless others. Now, he could add Chloe to that long list.
Tiredly, Chloe leaned her forehead against the thick glass. “I don’t want to fight with you,”
“I don’t want you to die.”
Laughing humorlessly, Chloe turned around to face Clark’s tight face. “Well that should be enough to stop the natural progression of life from happening. Are you making that request as Clark Kent, mild mannered reporter, or as Superman, savior of mankind?”
“There’s nothing natural about this, Chloe.”
“Death is a part of life.” Chloe answered simply.
“Since when is death due to meteor exposure a part of life?” Clark demanded, ignoring the pain coursing through him as he stepped towards Chloe.
“Don’t,” Chloe ordered fearfully as she scrambled away from Clark and his cringing face.
“Why?” Clark snapped grabbing Chloe’s arms before she could run away from him, “The pain I’m feeling is nothing compared to the pain your feeling. It’s my fault you’re dying, Chloe.”
“And what?” Chloe yelled, watching as Clark weakened and fell to his knees writhing with pain, “You want to die with me?”
Gasping for breath, Clark finally released Chloe when the pain became even too unbearable for Superman. His veins throbbing and his head spinning, Clark forced the breath of life back into his lungs and shuddered uncontrollably at the power Chloe had over him.
Tears clouding her vision, Chloe stepped back from the image of Clark kneeling before her shattered by her pain and his. “Don’t blame yourself, Clark.”
It was the last thing he heard before darkness consumed him and Chloe disappeared again.
***
Standing passively in the middle of the ballroom as his wife easily worked the crowd, Lex couldn’t be bothered to fulfill his duties as host of his party. All he was capable of doing was standing immobile in the very spot he stood two years ago when Chloe walked back into his life. He never truly understood why she came back to him but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t grateful for it. Lex was a lucky man and he knew it. After he had left her and married the wife that would make him king, he was sure that she would never forgive him. He’d chosen power over her love and forsaken their happiness for the chance to rule. He’d done exactly what he’d promised he would never do. He’d hurt her and he would never forgive himself for it, even if she one day did.
Maybe it had been a game all along. Maybe, all along, this had been her plan. If she had wanted to hurt him as much as he had hurt, Lex couldn’t blame her. Who was he to place blame for the ache that had consumed his weary heart? Chloe was merely sharing the wealth. He had given that wealth to her when he had broken her heart and wounded her pride. Lex had crudely offered her compensation for her no longer needed companionship.
Feeling his scotch burn his throat, Lex had to blink hard and concentrate on the muted noise of the party to keep from falling into a memory that would always make his stomach turn. The sound of the rain that had beat down on her frail shoulders that night blended in with the laughter and chatter of his party and made Lex wonder if he was slowly losing his mind.
“You want to compensate me for my time?” Chloe had asked bitterly as she squared her shoulders against the pressure from the sky.
“Yes,” Lex had answered simply, trying not to drown himself in her tears.
Crossing her arms in an attempt to shield herself from the misery that had threatened to engulf her with its cruel hands, Chloe laughed humorlessly. “Do you want to compensate me for my time, Lex, or my services?”
Lex could still remember the involuntary flinch that had coursed through him and the anger that filled her eyes melt into sadness.
“You want to do something for me?” She had asked resigned and tired. “Don’t ever try to find me.”
And he had honored that request until now. For the past two months he’d had the entire city and world turned inside out searching for her. He would find her, even if it took him the rest of his life. He would find her and fix it all. Fix all the mistakes that he’d made and all the promises he’d broken. He would give up his throne if it meant that she would return to him. Another could have his crown if it meant Lex could just hold her in his arms and bury his face in her hair. All he needed was Chloe.
“Lex?”
Bringing his eyes up to his smiling wife, Lex nodded silently in understanding and took her arm. Until he found Chloe, Lex would continue to play the role of loving husband. Once he found her though, the game was over and Lex was leaving. All he had to do now was telling his loving queen that her reign was about to come to an end.
***
His touch was always so gentle and it drove her crazy. His eyes were always so clear that there were times Chloe felt like she could lose herself in them all over again. His lips were so delicately soft that she’d grown sadly addicted to them. His voice was like honey over her skin. Seeping through her pores, warm and smooth, patching the worn edges of her heart. Every part of him was part of her.
The sex, though undeniably great, wasn’t what Chloe craved from Lex. It was his presence that made her heart flutter. Sitting silently with his arms wrapped securely around her was what made her happy. All she wanted was to feel the rhythmic beats of his heart while she was nestled against his chest.
But Chloe never got what she wanted. It was just the way her life went.
Some would say that it was sad that she couldn’t be with the one she loved, but as death neared and acceptance became her mantra, Chloe could honestly say that she was lucky to have found someone she loved. Though it wasn’t the love of fairy tales or happily-ever-after’s, it was still love. It didn’t matter that it was a love that burned and scored across her heart. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t a love strong enough to hold him near. None of it mattered. All that mattered anymore was that Chloe would die knowing that she had truly loved another in her life, and in his own way, he had loved her.
The simple knowledge was almost enough to die peacefully, if there was ever such a thing.
Her hand trembling slightly, Chloe put down the newspaper she clutched in her hand and smoothed out the wrinkles she’d caused over the picture of Lex and his smiling wife.
The blank ink stained her almost transparent fingers and streaked the perfect picture of happiness. Chloe had never asked him about his wife, never even spoken her name out loud. It hurt too much, the knowledge that he was married to another. After all the nights, all the touches and all the laughter, Chloe had never asked him if he loved her. She never asked how he felt towards her or how he felt towards his wife. There was that overpowering fear that he would tell her he loved his wife. That what he felt for Mrs. Alexander Luthor was real and what he felt for her wasn’t. All he felt for her was a physical attraction that held no deeper meaning.
Blinking back useless tears, Chloe let her hand drift over the words that sealed her fate. He was going to Europe with his wife. They would be gone for weeks. This was it. This was her chance to go home and finally do what her body was telling her it was time for.
It was her time to die.
***
The quiet hum of engine as it soared the plane through the night sky was the only sound to be heard. Sitting comfortably as she watched her husband study the latest progress report he’d had sent to him, she could tell that he wasn’t happy with the results. His face was cold and hard, and his lips set in a thin tight line. Lex hadn’t been happy for weeks now. Whatever patience he had was quickly deteriorating into frustration and, dare she even guess, a little bit of desperation.
Twirling the delicate glass between her equally delicate hands, she gave her husband a sympathetic smile. “You still can’t find her?”
“No,” Lex answered honestly, trying not to let his worry seep through.
“How long will you keep looking?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
Taking his scotch from their flight attendant, Lex waited until he was left alone with his wife before answering her question with a question. “How long do you think I’ll keep looking?”
“Until you find her,” she answered, feeling the anxiety she’d been harboring for 2 years resurface after weeks of latency. Being married to him for so many years, she’d learnt a lot about Lex and the way he worked. Lex was all about control, restraint and power. This woman he was looking for though, she was enough to take the Lex she’d married and make him into another man. Two years in her company, which couldn’t total more than a handful of stolen weeks together, Lex had become a man who laughed, smiled and disappeared. Mrs. Alexander Luthor wasn’t in love with Lex, but she was in love with the life that came with being his wife. Catching her husband’s piercing look, she spoke before he could. “It’s over, isn’t it?”
They both knew that it was over. They both knew that it’d been over since Lex had caught site of Chloe that night. Now though, they were just finally facing the fact. Who said Luthor’s weren’t good at denial?
“What if you never find her?” she asked, playing on what she knew was her husband’s greatest fear.
“I will,” Lex answered, leaving no room for doubt.
“But what if you don’t?” she demanded, angry now. “You’ll still need a wife, Lex. We’re a good team.”
Rising, Lex chastely kissed his wife’s cheek. “But she and I make a better one.”
Watching him calmly walk away from her, she waited until he disappeared into his private office before hurling her glass at the closed door. The glass shattered magnificently and splintered into a thousand different shards of invisible spears.
Ever the gentleman, Lex had left the silence of his office and arrived at his wife’s side once they’d landed. Walking her past the throng of reporters waiting to take their picture, Lex ever-so-generously shielded her from the blinding flashes of persistent cameramen hoping to get a good picture of the ever glamorous Mrs. Luthor. His face was placid, while hers was brimming with silent fury. Holding her head high, she easy slipped into their waiting limo, knowing full well that she would be the only one using it. Catching her husband’s arm before he could walk away from her, she asked him firmly to reconsider. “You can’t rule as king without a queen, Lex. You need me to do everything you know you can.” she told him.
Dropping a warm kiss on her surprised lips for the world to see, Lex shook his head. “I only need her,” he told his soon-to-be ex-wife before turning on his heal and heading to re-board his plane.
Walking down the tarmac a new man, Lex ignored the flashes and yells from the paparazzi demanding to know where he was going and why his loving wife wasn’t going with him.
Climbing the steps with new energy and hope, Lex gave his confused pilot the simple order to take him home.
***
The spring air encompassed the rising buds and blossoming trees. Inhaling the sweet fragrance of renewal, Chloe let the soft scent of life and revival overwhelmed her vacant senses as birds sang their songs of birth and beginning. A new season was here and with it brought hope and chance. On the ground of the dead, new life was being built. The tears of yesterday refreshed the soil of today and thawed the frozen ground.
Shielding her eyes against the brilliance of the afternoon sun, Chloe stood on the vista that Lex had brought her to all those years ago when there was so much innocence between them and hope in them and what their love represented.
Closing her eyes when the brightness began to sting and the memories washed over her, Chloe readily fell into them. She didn’t have the energy to fight them today.
He’d held her close as they watched the fading sun sink from the sky and paint the horizon a blaze of colors. The light of the day had faded, but not the warmth. In his arms, she’d always been warm. Stars were scattered across the sky and lying in his arms, she’d taught him all the constellations he already knew. Nestled together, they spoke of the future and what chances it held. They’d secretly planned their escape from the world they knew, to the world they would build. There had been so much optimism that night, too much faith. She’d set herself up for the fall of her life as she’d laid in his strong arms through the night and into the pre-dawn light. She’d fallen in love with him.
Listening to his promises and his desires, she’d given her heart over to him. Willingly, she’d fallen in love with Lex and she’s never been able to force herself out of love since.
Lost in a memory that she could never forget, his arms felt so real and secure. The tenderness of his grasp held her demons at bay and melted the tension from her aching heart. Even his skin felt real pressed against her own. The softness of his skin was never lost on her. Arching her body against his, Chloe relished in the sensation of his muscles rippling beneath her touch and his heart racing along with hers.
“I’ve missed you,” Lex whispered, burying his face in her hair.
Jolted out of her reverie, Chloe hastily stepped away from Lex. It wasn’t a memory. It was reality. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, anger and sadness filling her tired eyes.
“You’re hard to find,” Lex smirked, ignoring her question and closing the distance between them.
Standing in his arms, Chloe shook her head stubbornly. “You’re supposed to be in Europe with your wife. You’re not supposed to be here.”
“And you’re not supposed to disappear.” Lex replied, capturing Chloe’s left hand and inspecting the single band that sat on her wedding ring finger. The simple band that he’d given her. It fit perfectly. He’d always known that it would. All he had to do now was make it official.
“You’re not supposed to try and find me,” Chloe snapped, her green eyes flooding with silent tears as Lex lifted her hand to his lips.
Bringing his free hand up to wipe away her tears, Lex told her softly, “I missed you.”
“You promised,” Chloe whispered, instinctively leaning into his touch.
Cupping her ashen face in his warm hand, Lex held her tightly and lovingly. “I’m sorry,” he told her, his eyes speaking volumes.
“Why aren’t you with your loving wife?”
“Because I wanted to be here with you,” Lex answered truthfully.
Closing her eyes against the onslaught of emotions that she’d locked away from herself, Chloe rested her heavy head against Lex’s sturdy frame. “Don’t say that,” she begged desperately, “Not now. Not ever.”
“Why?” Lex asked, holding Chloe close and stroking her golden strands, “It’s true.”
“Don’t, Lex.” Chloe repeated her voice chocked with tears and pain. Clinging to the warmth that he always gave her, Chloe hungrily drank the comfort that Lex offered. She was so tired of being tired, so sick of being scared, so revolted with her own misery. Their lives weren’t supposed to go the way they did. Their lives were meant to be brimming with happiness, not regret.
This love they shared was a strange love.
They just couldn’t stop hurting each other, no matter how hard they tried.
Tilting her down turned chin up to look at him, Lex kissed her closed eyes affectionately before letting her hear the words she longed for and feared of. “I love you, Chloe Sullivan.” Lex whispered, his breath washing over the shell of her ear and grazing past her heart, “Only you.”
Torn between joyous laughter and venomous rage, Chloe settled for the truth. Her eyes fluttering open to face Lex’s waiting gaze, Chloe mustered up her last breath to tell him what he already knew. What they’d both always known. “I’ll always love you, Lex. Remember that.”
His eyes lighting up and his face breaking into that smile that she loved, Chloe didn’t even feel the darkness finally catching up to her. The face of the one she loved, full of unconditional love for her was the last site she saw. It would be the picture that she would hold with her for eternity.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to die.
***
He can’t recall how it felt to have her hair spread across his chest as he watched her as she slept.
He can’t remember the taste of her lips, it’s been so long.
The last time since he’s felt her warmth spread through him is so far in the past that ice has replaced his blood, successfully numbing his broken heart.
The healing power of her smile is gone and the light she brought to his life extinguished with hers. He’s submersed in darkness now, left alone to fight the demons that are an undeniable part of him. There’s no will left in him to fight it. She was his only shield, his only reason and with her gone, he accepts the evil willingly.
The world has taken everything from him. Why should he try and preserve what destroyed all that was his? If he can’t have who he wants, then he’ll have everything he wants. At whatever the price.
Power is the only thing he’s found that fills the void that she left in him. It’s the only thing that lets him forget the despair he carries inside, for a few glorious moments.
Her laughter still haunts him, when the deafening silence of the night wraps its cold arms around him. Her scent follows him with an incredible range because he’s burned it into his mind.
His life is as empty as his heart and as cold as his touch.
Because, when she died, so did he.
***
“You have no right to be here.”
Keeping his back turned to Lex, Clark looked down at the headstone that would haunt him for the rest of his life and beyond. “I never got to say goodbye.”
“Why are you here?” Lex demanded clutching the simple bouquet of flowers that were identical to the ones he’d been bringing nightly for the past two weeks.
“Because I loved her too,” Clark answered truthfully, turning to face Lex’s cold eyes.
“If you loved her,” Lex bit out, “you shouldn’t have killed her.”
Flinching against the truth in Lex’s words, Clark cautiously stepped closer towards Chloe’s eternal resting place. “I know you loved her, but in your own way, you killed a part of her too when you left her.”
“I still love her. I always will.”
Regarding Lex with pitiful eyes, Clark sighed. “I know you will.”
“You have no right to be here.” Lex repeated as he watched Clark struggle to make it to Chloe’s headstone without succumbing to the pain it caused him.
Stepping back when he knew that it would be impossible, Clark turned to face Lex and his hatred. “She never stopped loving you, you know. Despite everything you put her through, she never stopped loving you.”
“Despite what you did to her, she never blamed you.” Lex admitted, “I blame you though, Superman.”
“I know you do,” Clark sighed, “I blame myself too.”
“It’s your fault. All of it is your fault.” Lex declared angrily.
“I know you hate me…”
“It’s not you I hate,” Lex replied, “I owe Clark Kent my life, but I owe Superman nothing. If anything, I owe him my vengeance. I won’t destroy you Clark, but I will take great pride and pleasure in destroying Superman.”
“Lex…”
“We were once friends,” Lex told Clark as he walked past him and placed flowers on Chloe’s cold grace, “but we’re enemies now. Remember that.”
Watching Lex as he kissed the top of Chloe’s headstone, Clark felt his heart break for him. So many lives destroyed because of him. Now, Lex would try and destroy his.
“Lex,” Clark called out, as Lex disappeared back into the shadow of the night, “I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” Lex replied, his coat flowing behind him as he left the man who had killed the only person he’d ever truly loved and loved him in return to await the future he deserved. Lex would get his revenge.
Superman would die.
THE END.