skauble
26th December 2009, 06:13
Title: Fate Takes a Holiday
Rated: PG-13
Spoilers: Through season 7, Gemini
Summary: After Lex’s near drowning at the Reeve’s Dam, he professed a desire to become a better man. What might have happened if Lex Luthor was not bound by the dictates of the Superman mythos?
A/N: Season 7’s not an easy one to fluff up, but hopefully it’s not too weighty. lol This is a friendship piece; leave your inner smut hounds at the door.
Chloe had slept better then she had in months and was reluctant to open her eyes and give up the rare moment of peace. She felt safe in a cocoon of warmth, with the heavy comforter above her and the silk sheets below as she stretched out in the large bed…
that wasn’t hers.
Playing the previous night back in her mind, she couldn’t remember getting drunk. Or having alcohol of any kind. Although spending Christmas Eve alone surely would have merited some hard liquor. And she was fairly certain that if sober she wouldn’t have fallen into bed with some random guy. Besides, the fact that she might have had sex with someone and it was so bad as to not make an impression that lasted at least until the morning after was beyond depressing. Not beyond the realm of possibility, but would definitely be a commentary on her choice of partners.
Left with little choice but to open her eyes and face the situation head on, Chloe slowly allowed herself to peek over the mound of covers. Despite the luxury of the bed, she hadn’t been prepared for the sight of such a large and richly decorated room. From the luxurious fabrics in rich blues and golds to the ornate carvings on the four poster bed she was currently occupying, the entire room screamed opulence. And Chloe only knew three people who had the kind of resources to not only kidnap her, but to have her brought to such an extravagant destination; Oliver Queen, Lionel Luthor, and Lex Luthor.
Oliver Queen could be quickly eliminated given that she was one of a handful of people who knew about his afterhours job. Besides, his history with Lois would most likely preclude him from doing something as monumentally stupid as kidnapping his ex-girlfriend’s cousin.
Lionel Luthor, although a bastard through and through, was also most likely off the list, given his campaign of sucking up to Clark. His disgusting attempts to play the father to Clark that he’d never even tried to be to his real son sickened her. However, Chloe knew that no matter how creepy Stepford Lionel was, he wasn’t an idiot. And messing with her again was definitely in the realm of idiotic.
Then there was Lex. Clearly he wasn’t above kidnapping her. A fact she knew for certain given…well, his previous kidnapping of her. And unlike the other two, Lex actually had a motive. A stupid motive, but a motive nonetheless. But if he was the culprit she would have expected to wake up in a cold and sterile lab surrounded by doctors or, worse, having to listen to one of a myriad of his longwinded “I’m saving the world” monologues. For him to kidnap her and put her in the lap of luxury instead of a high security testing facility would be simply ludicrous.
Which, of course, meant that it was Lex.
Although Chloe honestly did love Lana, she knew that her friend made men stupid. She didn’t know if it was her beauty, her unintentional yet equally unending need to be saved, or some kind of weird effect from wearing a meteor rock around her neck for years, but her mere presence seemed to neutralize intelligence in the majority of the male population. And as much as Chloe wanted to resent her for that, she found that she really couldn’t. After all, although Lana would always get the guy, by the time she did they were practically drooling idiots. She was like a romance monkey’s paw.
And since Lex had gone so far as to marry her, Chloe knew that stupid was strong with him. So of course he would want to expose all of her secrets and learn all of her truths and attempt to do so by making her unbelievably comfortable. Because it was dumb…just like him.
Climbing out of the large bed, she made her way over to the bathroom. God only knew who had handled her the night before and washing henchmen off of her was her top priority. On a chair next to the bathroom door sat a pile of clothes that she recognized as her own. A dark blue sweater sat on top of a pair of jeans and on top of that rested a pair of matching bra and panty set and a pair of socks. While she was still going to shower just to be on the safe side, she hoped that, for Lex’s sake, he’d seen to her abduction personally. Because if he let his moronic band of thugs go through her underwear then there would be more than just the halls decked this Christmas.
After showering, Chloe dried her hair and put on the clean set of clothes. Since the view outside her window was not of the Luthor grounds (and after falling out of one of the castles windows she considered herself a sufficient judge of the scenery), she decided that there was nothing for it but to find her host, inform him of his utter stupidity, and return home where, though her Christmas would be spent alone, it would be idiot free.
Stomping down the staircase and through the halls, she knew it wouldn’t be hard to find her host. All she had to do was look for a room with a big, pretentious fire place and she’d bet…well, if she had anything of value she’d bet it that Lex would be standing in front of it.
Seeing a flicker of light from a room up ahead she hoped, for Lex’s sake, that she knew him too well as opposed to him becoming ridiculously predictable. Walking into what turned out to be a large, spacious study, she congratulated herself on winning her imaginary wager.
“So, is the fireplace fetish for effect, or a convenient way to dispose of incompetent minions? Although,” she mused, “that would probably leave you with no minions.”
“Couldn’t it just be because I’m cold,” he returned.
“No, otherwise you’d just turn on a heater.”
“Do you know what it would cost to heat an authentic castle?”
Chloe stared for a moment, incredulous at the billionaire’s thrifty statement. “Well, then I’ll go put on a sweater, grandma, while you order the kids off of the lawn.”
A grin tilted Lex’s lips and it was so much more than Chloe had seen from him in so long that she wasn’t quite sure how to process it. Finally she settled on just trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
“Why am I here?”
“It’s Christmas,” he explained with a small shrug.
“And you got me a felony. How sweet.”
“Does this mean I’m not getting anything?”
Rolling her eyes she snapped, “Consider the fact that you still retain your manhood after this little stunt your Christmas miracle.”
With a deep sigh she tried again. “Lex, what are you doing?”
“I’m surprising you for the holidays.”
“By kidnapping me?”
“Well,” he reasoned, “you were surprised, weren’t you?”
Okay, moderately cheerful Lex was definitely weirding her out. “Look, I kind of want to cut you some slack here because the Lana stupid clearly hasn’t worked its way out of your system yet. But seeing as how this isn’t the first time that you’ve kidnapped me, I’m less inclined to be generous.”
Lex nodded in an acknowledgement of her point but was quick to add, “True. I have kidnapped you before. However, this time my intentions are much more socially acceptable. And, really, isn’t this the season where it’s the thought that counts?”
“Socially acceptable?!” Chloe began to wonder if his nefarious plan was to kill her with a Christmas aneurism. “You know, Lex, maybe you should think about cutting back on the evil and working a little harder on the genius.”
Crossing the room, Lex paused to pour a small amount of scotch into a tumble before taking a seat on the large leather couch. “I’d pretend not to drink before noon, but I doubt that a predilection for alcohol is in the top one hundred list of my greatest flaws these days.”
He was right; Chloe wasn’t going to admonish him for drinking. Frankly, she was hoping that if he had a few he might actually spill the reason for their holiday get together. Pinching the bridge of her nose in, she wondered if there was still time to stave off a Luthor induced migraine.
“Seriously, Lex; even if I believed that you actually thought that kidnapping was appropriate holiday etiquette, what on Earth would make you kidnap me?”
Lex looked at Chloe. Really looked. And he knew that she’d reached her limit of their customary, and often acerbic, banter and was demanding the truth. He was actually surprised that she lasted for the few minutes that she had.
“In the last few minutes you’ve insulted my intelligence, my employees, my choice in women, and implied a serious threat to my manhood. But the one thing that you haven’t done is demand that I take you home. You haven’t threatened me with exposure by family and friends eagerly awaiting your arrival today.”
He saw her jaw clench, her hands begin to curl into fists at her sides. Chloe could keep the deepest of secrets for others, but when it came to herself her emotions always showed through.
“You never spend the holidays with your father,” he said. “A fact that probably has little to do with his moving or any distance between you, and is more likely is based on not wanting him to be caught up, again, in the turmoil that characterizes your life.” Lex knew that he was right and it was one of the things he had always admired about her.
He liked to believe that the things that he did would ultimately protect people. And he knew that, no matter what had passed between them, that Clark actions, too, were often motivated by concerns for the safety of others. But, of all of them, only Chloe seemed to truly suffer for her choices. It made the fact that she continued on worthy of respect, even if her efforts often clashed his own.
“Your cousin is off on a lead about her sister, although I doubt that’s the only reason she’s taken some time away from Metropolis.” They both knew of the ending of Lois’s workplace affair, but he suspected that, although for different reasons, Chloe would be as reluctant as he to discuss it.
Looking at her tense form, he finally addressed the heart of the matter. What he knew Chloe didn’t want to hear, but what needed to be said for her to stay.
“Of course, none of that really matters, because you spend holidays at the Kent farm…or you did.” He saw the slightest wince; knew that her pain was so like his own that it’s what had brought him to this point – abducting holiday guests. “But lately, you and Clark spend less and less time together. Less meetings, less phone calls, less of everything.”
“So what,” Chloe asked, with clearly forcing casualness. “Lana and Clark have a lot of lost time to make up for and a lot of pain to work through. I’m sure you understand that what with playing so large a part in the whole disaster. Do you really think that I would begrudge them that?”
“Yes,” Lex held up his hand to stop her tirade before it could start. “But for all the difficulties we’ve had, I know that you are nothing if not an exceptional friend. You’d give up so much to make them happy, so what is one holiday?”
“Exactly,” she nodded, her arms crossed over her chest in what he was fairly certain was an attempt to keep from throwing something at him. Probably more out of respect for the expense of almost every item in the room as opposed to any real care for his safety.
“Still, did either of them thank you for your understanding? Appreciate your concern? Even notice?” Even if he hadn’t known the truth of his words he could see it written on her face. “In fact, I bet Lana has been dropping, what I’m sure she considers to be subtle hints about you needing to let Clark go.”
He saw the slightest quiver of her lip before she pulled herself together and glared.
“Fine; you’re right. Of my two best friends, one seems to resent my place in their lives and the other doesn’t even seem to notice that I’m not there. So there you go, I’m sad and pathetic and my Christmas is now even more unpleasant than it otherwise would have been…which I didn’t even think was possible. Apparently some of your evil plans can come to fruition; unfortunately for you it seems to just be the lame and pointless ones.”
“I didn’t bring you here to hurt you, Chloe,” he assured her. “I brought you here because if there’s anyone who can understand being rejected in that way, it’s certainly me, and so maybe we could be alone together.”
Confusions and indignation fought for ownership of her expression as she demanded, “Are you actually comparing the two of us?” Confusion seemed to win. “Really?” But indignation made a comeback. “Because let’s be very clear about something – you’re alone because you’re a bastard who went after a woman in large part because you knew that your former best friend loved her, tricked her into believing she was pregnant and then, for no possibly logical purpose that I can think of, had her secretly cloned. Your actions are so randomly bizarre that you’ve utterly destroyed my ability to be surprised by anything anymore.”
He waited for her to catch her breath before pointing out, “My kidnapping surprised you.”
“You’re right,” she exclaimed as she threw her hands in the air in frustration. “I stand corrected.; your lack of sanity will apparently always astonish me.
“But you and I,” she waved back and forth between them, “are not in the same boat. Hell we aren’t even sailing on the same ocean. We’re nothing alike.”
As she wound down, Chloe waited for the fall out – for the cutting words, for the veiled threats, for…
“Maybe I’d like us to be.”
…anything but that. And for a moment Chloe wondered just what in the hell Lex had drugged her with and whether it was responsible for the most surreal Christmas she’d ever had. Which was really saying something.
“Save your “Come to the dark side” speech, Vader. Not only would I never make that kind of deal with a Luthor again; I certainly wouldn’t do it for the exact same reason.”
And Lex knew that to be true. Of nearly everyone in Smallville, only Chloe seemed capable of having a bad experience, figuring out where she went wrong, and doing something different. Not that she managed it every time, but the rest of them seemed stuck in an endless cycle of the same choices no matter how often they led to the same places. It was why he was hoping that they could be more alike, just not in the way that she thought.
“That’s not exactly what I meant,” he told her with a rueful smile. “I was thinking more along the lines of being more like you.”
And Chloe knew that it must be the drugs. “This is the drugs, right? I mean, I don’t want to believe you’re a hallucination, because that says something about my mind that I’d rather not examine, but we’re definitely on the same page that this is drug induced, right?”
Lex laughed for a moment. It was nice to be able to shake up someone as unflappable as Chloe Sullivan, who may be one of the few people in life to have a credible claim to the phrase, “I’ve seen it all before.”
“Well, as you just so delicately pointed out to me, my entire life is ridiculous. And while we share a similar, and maybe unifying pain, yours seems to result in a profound loneliness, whereas mine seems to lead to delusions of grandeur.”
Suddenly Chloe realized why everything seemed slightly off; just not quite right. Because there, right at the edges of this man who had become less human with every passing year, was the Lex Luthor she’d known long ago. The one who’d saved the jobs of so many in a town that reviled him. Who’d clung to the friendship of an earnest farm boy in the hopes of learning how to be a good friend, himself. Who’d protected her life even when his father had tried to take his. And moving slowly, as if afraid she might chase that man back into the shadows, she stepped forward and sank into the chair across from him.
“Why?’
Lex could hear the myriad of unspoken meanings in the question. Why bother? Why now? Why me? And he found himself strangely eager to tell her. After all, it wasn’t as if Chloe hadn’t known the deepest of his heart’s desires before.
“When the Reeves Dam was destroyed, I was trapped in the back of a police car, drowning. Just as I was certain I was going to die, I was saved; pulled free of the water’s icy grip by an angel.”
“An angel?”
“Well,” he admitted, “I’m fairly certain that it was Kara Kent. However, in the interest of some kind of positive change here, I think that we might want to avoid that particular truth.”
“So, an angel saved you? Huh.”
Smiling because he understood that Chloe’s easy acceptance was an honest effort to help him, and not just an attempt to protect Clark’s cousin.
“Yes. And I decided then that I wanted, needed to make some changes in my life. To be better than my father was, not at business, but at life. I wanted to make the right choices; good choices. Unfortunately…”
Leaning forward as he trailed off, she asked, “Unfortunately, what?”
Lex snapped out of his thoughts and back to their conversation, offering her a small smile. “Unfortunately, it has recently been brought home to me that I might actually have no idea how to recognize just what “right” looks like.”
Sitting back again, Chloe felt rather gobsmacked. It had never really occurred to her that part of the reason that Lex was so bad was simply because he didn’t understand how to be good. And, she was honestly surprised that it hadn’t. After all, hadn’t she had the same experience…on a slightly less insane scale?
For years and years she’d wanted to be a reporter. And what she’d known of reporters then was that they exposed the truth. And so that’s what she’d done. She barreled into dangerous situations, invaded people’s privacy, compromised the safety of others, and committed who knows how many other transgressions in the cause of truth and the public’s right to know.
It took uprooting the life of her father and herself, faking their death, attempted murder, and nearly losing the very dream that had started it all, for her to learn that not all secrets were meant to be shared and that truth, quite often, made prisoners of those it was meant to set free. It wasn’t that she’d lost her love of hard core journalism, it was simply that she’d learned that, as with all things in life, there was a line that separated that which needed to be done and that which we simply wanted to do.
And if she, who had a loving father and good friends, had needed such a violent and pointed lesson to help her find that line, she could only imagine how nearly impossible it would have been for Lex to find it by himself. Especially at this point in his life.
Frankly, she was kind of impressed he even understood that there was a line out there somewhere; much less that he might be crossing it.
“And so, in an effort to get some help with doing the right thing, you abducted me for Christmas?”
He took a pull of his scotch before answering. “Of course it doesn’t make sense to you. You are a child of logic; I on the other hand, am the bastardized love child of an 80’s soap opera and ancient Greek mythology.”
Chloe laughed because it actually wasn’t even much of an exaggeration on his part. “Have you ever considered that if I help you then I’m actually reinforcing the fact that this kind of plan works?”
“Well,” he reasoned, brow furrowing, “since this would pretty much be the only plan I’ve had go right in at least two years, maybe we can chalk the success up to good intentions. Because clearly my strategizing has proven rather flawed.”
“True,” she agreed. “But don’t think that I don’t get the fact that for you to know this much about my problems with Clark, Lana, and holiday plans – or lack thereof – that you’ve had someone keeping an eye on me. I’m not remarkably happy about that.”
“Understandable,” Lex nodded. “But technically I did that before I had you to aid me in not doing that. So you see that it couldn’t have been helped.”
…
“Exactly how much alcohol did you consume before I got down here?”
“For a conversation like this? With you,” he gestured toward her with his glass before taking another mouthful. “Not nearly enough.”
Inwardly she conceded that that was probably true. Lex didn’t actually appear to be drunk. It only seemed that way because he happened to be drinking alcohol and making himself emotionally vulnerable at the same time. But that didn’t mean that one was the cause or result of the other.
“Also,” he admitted, “you’re meteor infected, which means that the likelihood of you killing me killing me goes up at least thirty percent. And it was no small probability before that either.”
“And you thought that putting me in a lab and kidnapping my mother decreased the likelihood of that happening?!”
Lex winced, and for the first time Chloe could see the deep regret that drove him to bring her there. And as much as a part of her hated Lex for what he did to both of them, there was a small dark place in her soul; something she kept tightly leashed and zealously hidden, that was glad about what Lex had done.
For years Chloe had thought that her mother had simply abandoned her. The, upon learning that she hadn’t, she’d spent the next few years thinking that her mother had just gone insane and that the same fate awaited her. But that hadn’t been what had happened at all. And knowing the truth, being able to have just that brief moment of time with her mother, to know that she loved her, was proud of her…that soothed places in her that had hurt for so long that she didn’t even recognize the pain, thinking it simply the normal state of being.
Which didn’t let him off the hook for what he’d done. It’s not as if his motive had been helping her settle old issues. But a genuine sense of remorse, not matter how beaten down or reluctant, was something to work with.
Chloe had no illusions that she could save Lex in spite of himself. That kind of denial was for women like Lana, for whom men would at least pretend they had changed. But if Lex actually wanted to change himself? Was that something she could really walk away from?
She had been working off and on with Oliver Queen and his group, to aid in taking out 33.1 locations. And it was working, but it was slow. So very, very slow. And even with all of Oliver’s resources, he would always be fighting an opponent with resources just as vast. The progress they made would be important and, in time, maybe even substantial.
But Lex wanting something different from his life; that wasn’t a possibility anyone had ever considered as an end game scenario.
Of course, it wasn’t without risk. She knew Lex. Knew the things that drove him; the good and the bad. Probably better than anyone, really. And so she understood the myriad of ways that she’d be risking herself – physically, emotionally, mentally. Not to mention her career, her home, her friends. All subject to change by believing that Lex could be more than the sum total of the parts his father had broken.
She wasn’t sure, but Chloe knew two things. One, it wouldn’t hurt to hear him out unless he kicked her at some point during the discussion. Two, she really didn’t have anywhere else to be and at least she knew that Lex would have fantastic food…
The second, of course, being of much less importance than the first. At least until lunch time.
“What I thought at the time was that you were an unknown quantity and a potential danger. It seemed prudent to try to determine both the benefits and threats your abilities posed and to what extent they could reach.”
It would have sounded like a justification if it he hadn’t looked so very lost. As if he knew the answer to a math problem but couldn’t understand how he’d reached it. He understood, in some way, that what he did was wrong, but the reasoning still seem right to him; and Chloe found herself feeling rather foolish that they had all idolized Clark to such an extreme that they actually expected that a few years of his friendship would erase the effects of being raised, for years solely by a sociopath.
“And it never occurred to you just to ask me?”
“Why in the hell would that occur to me? Wait,” he cut off her answer as he processed what she’d said. “You know what your ability is?”
Lex watched her carefully, hoping to see through the lie he was waiting for her to tell.
“Yes,” she admitted after a short pause. “I know.”
That hadn’t been expected at all. He was so used to a web of intrigued that trapped them all in its silken bands of blatant lies and hidden truths, that he wasn’t quite sure what to do with her honesty. Lex prided himself on having a plan for almost every situation. But he always realized too late that his plans seemed to turn on expecting the absolute worst from people. He blamed his father for that; although whether that was because that was Lionel’s outlook or because it was the fact that his father proved those expectations true, he wasn’t sure.
“And you’re saying that you would have told me?”
“No.”
He was at the point of considering that maybe he’d never actually figured out how to do the right thing because it was just so fucking confusing, when Chloe continued.
“I actually didn’t know at that time.”
“And now? You’d tell me now? Why?”
“Is this the part where I tell you that I’m trusting you because I believe in the goodness you have deep down in your heart,” she asked with a small huff of laughter. “If you need the lie, let me know, it’s easy to tell and prettier than the truth.”
Rising, he poured himself another drink before resuming his seat. “Okay, let’s go with the truth.”
“You’re an obsessive psycho.”
…
“Is the lying option still on the table?”
“Nope,” she informed him cheerfully. “Look, you already knew that I was infected. So there was no point in pretending everything was normal. And, let’s face it; you don’t handle secrets well. You’re like a two year old in a toy store – you don’t understand that everything isn’t yours for the taking. So it’s not like you would have let the matter drop. Eventually you would have twisted one of your “plans” back in my directions. Except, by that point, “getting to know me better” would require a sterile room and surgical instruments.”
She gave a small shrug, “So why not just tell you?”
It was quiet as Lex looked at her, eyes piercing as if trying to come to some kind of conclusion, and Chloe wondered just what was going through his mind. By the time that she’d narrowed it down to “this is some kind of plan to protect Clark” and “excuse me while I go call in the scientists”, Lex obliged her curiosity with a reply.
“Is this a test?”
Maybe she’d been too hasty in declaring her curiosity assuaged. “Is what a test?”
“This,” he motioned towards her. “You. Offering to tell me this secret. Are you waiting to see if I’ll decline your offer? Prove to you that I’m being sincere?”
“You want to prove you’re sincere, Lex? How about letting me wake up where I go to sleep from now on. I’ve always found that friendships seem to flourish more in the absence of abduction.”
Chloe stood and moved to the couch, sitting down on the coffee table in front of Lex.
“Give me your hand,” she told him, holding out her own. She could see the wariness in his eyes, but knew it wouldn’t take long for him to crack. “You wanted to know my ability, so man up, Sport.”
“Sport,” he asked, extending his hand. “Well, if you do kill me, at least I’ll never have to hear that again.”
“You’re such a baby, Luthor. And I need the other one.”
Lex had offered his left hand to her because his right still wore a bandage from a rather violent outburst of temper after his last meeting with his brother. But she seemed adamant, and so he offered his right hand to her instead.
He watched as she slowly unwrapped the gauze that had covered a particularly nasty cut from a rather sharp shard of glass he’d encountered when he’d upended his desk. Her movements were slow as she placed her hand over his and he could feel the reluctance coming off of her.
But before he could say anything he was distracted by the bright light spilling out from the space between his hand and hers. A feeling of warmth moved across his palm, and then deeper. And as quickly as it had grown, the light began to dim, fading away into nothingness.
Turning his hand over, he saw that all traces of his wound were gone. Not even the smallest of scars to mark its existence. Before he could even begin to focus on the wonder of what had just happened, he saw Chloe giving her own hand a shake before pulling it inwards to rub it. Reaching out, he caught it in his and brought it back towards him.
Examining it, he could see no injury at all; not even the hint of redness where his cut had been. And yet the partial flexing of her fingers told him that she was in pain.
Releasing her hand he asked, “It hurts?”
Rubbing at her hand to rid it of the last of the ghost sensations, Chloe nodded. “Some. It’s not like I’m actually hurt, it’s more like an echo of your injury.”
“And if the injury is substantial?”
Lex watched as her gaze shuttered and he knew that whatever story was there was painful for her. And while he wanted to know what had put that look in her eyes, he’d just been given so much more than he could ever remember getting from anyone in his life that he actually, for once, found it quiet easy to shelf a particular line of questioning.
Instead he smiled to ease the tension. “Well, with all of the scrapes you get into, that has to come in handy.”
“And when,” she asked derisively, “have you ever known those stupid rocks to be that helpful? I can’t even heal a paper cut if it’s on my finger instead of someone else’s.”
Chloe felt both vulnerable and self-conscious. She’d revealed a huge secret and exposed a part of herself that, even though it helped people, still made her feel frightened and ashamed. It was uncomfortable and the silence was making it worse. Probably for both of them as Lex broke the quiet.
“So, what happened between you and Mr. Olsen?”
Her head shot up. “Seriously? That’s how you distract from the fact that I feel like a freak - by bringing up the relationship that ended because I’m a freak? You’re lucky that you have looks and money, Luthor, because I’m not really feeling the empathy here.”
“And yet,” he pointed out with a smirk, “it seems to have worked. Apparently I am better at plans of the non-nefarious kind.”
“Oh please,” she scoffed. “Any plan that doesn’t land you in the hospital with a concussion has got to be considered a success for you.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“What do you want me to say, Lex? Jimmy Olsen is a rarity; he’s just a genuinely nice guy. He doesn’t want me to keep secrets or tell secrets, find facts or bury them. He just wanted me to be happy.”
“Well, that explains it then,” he said, sarcasm heavy in his tone. “Of course you had to escape from such a monst- Ow! You kicked me!”
“And I’m not fixing it, either,” she snapped. “Didn’t you hear what I said? Jimmy Olsen is a genuinely nice guy. Even if I were the love of his life, he doesn’t deserve the kind of crap that makes up our lives.”
That Lex could understand. Although he’d chosen to pursue Lana for a number of reasons, very few of them actually having to do with her as a person, one of the greatest was the fact that Lana had been shaped by Smallville, just as the rest of them had. And while it hadn’t left her full of doubts like Chloe, or nauseatingly self-righteous like Clark, or the near sociopath he feared becoming, it had changed her; woven its way into the core of who she was. And there was a sort of peace in that. In not having to convince someone of the weirdness that surrounded them or keep explaining the convoluted and fairly unhealthy dynamic between the main players in their little dramas. It was the temptation that comes, not just from being with the devil you know, but being with the devil who knows you.
“You know what we need, Lex,” she asked as she moved from the table to drop down on the sofa next to him.
“I’m sure that you’re about to enlighten me.”
“We,” she nudged him with her shoulders, “need lower standards.”
A shout of laughter filled the air. “Your answer to all our problems is that we should settle more often?”
“Well,” she nodded in consideration, “we both have self-esteem problems and rejection issues. You think we’d be naturals at low expectations. Instead we want to prove ourselves by being noticed by the “better” people.
“Although, when you think about it, I did move on, however briefly, to a very nice guy, while you actually tied yourself to your issues with the bounds of matrimony…Wow, you’re really fucked up.”
“And you’re not?”
“A bit,” she admitted. “Just wanted to point out that it’s not nearly as much as you.”
Lex leaned his head back against the sofa, but turned to look at her contemplatively. “So, you’d consider yourself someone I could settle for?”
Snapping out of her relaxed posture, Chloe gaped for a moment at the question before gathering herself back together.
“No. No way. You,” she pointed her finger accusingly, “keep your borderline creepy need to serial marry away from me or we’re pulling the friend train into the station right now.”
“Understood,” a smile tugged at his lips. “And I’ll work on being less creepy for you.”
Suddenly his face grew serious and his eyes burned with intensity. “What if I can’t do this? What if I’m on a path that it’s too late to leave?”
Shaking her head, Chloe laid a hand on his arm.
“Your dad lied, Lex. That’s not how life works. If you don’t want to be that guy, don’t be that guy. You choose.
“Save your thoughts of destiny for your deathbed retrospect. If you focus on destiny in the present, all you do is use it as an excuse to not have to make the difficult decisions that go with being an adult. You’ll blame yourself for things that you have no control over so that you can ignore the things that you can change but don’t want to, because you’ll have convinced yourself that fate will magically sort everything out for you.”
She looked at him. Matched his intensity with her own.
“You can be better than that, Lex. You need to be better than that.”
Her belief in free will, in his free will was a tangible, living thing and he grabbed onto her faith in the absence of his own. He’d always allowed the concept of destiny to rule him, whether destined to follow in his father’s footsteps or to be the friend Clark wanted. And it left him feeling naked and deeply vulnerable to have that defense for so many of his actions suddenly stripped away.
And yet, at the same time he felt reborn into a world where everything was new and life was a series of infinite choices instead of a path his feet were forced to tread. And he stared at her, slightly in awe at the shift in perspective.
“Is this what you do for Clark,” he asked. Because if it was, then he understood much more how Clark kept coming out on top in life.
“Are you kidding,” she asked with a short and somewhat resigned laugh. “Do you honestly think that Clark comes to me to talk about how wrong he is? The most I ever get from him are Clarkfessions.”
“Clarkfessions?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “You know; ‘Chloe, I was so wrong…to think that you could understand what this is like for me.’ Or ‘Lex, I was so wrong…to think that you could ever change.’ Clarkfessions.”
“I didn’t realize there was a name for them.”
“Writer’s prerogative,” she dismissed. “Honestly, I love Clark, and as we all know, probably far more than I should. But ninety percent of the time his idea of personal responsibility involves explaining to other people what he sees as the as the error of their ways.”
“You know,” he said, looking at her with new eyes, “I consider this the most successful kidnapping of my life if for no other reason than to hear that someone else actually noticed that, too.”
“Great. Good to know that this violation of my civil rights will make you sleep better at night.”
“I suppose it say something unpleasant about me that I don’t feel worse about this,” he acknowledged.
“Or maybe it just means that my company is so scintillating that it obscures the lines of morality,” she offered.
“Which do you think it is?”
Standing up, she grabbed his hand and urged him off the couch. “How about you feed me and we split the difference.”
“Deal.”
And as he led her towards the kitchen, Chloe felt something she hadn’t associated with the Luthor name in years. Hope.
Weirdest. Christmas. Ever.
~*~
“Chloe,” Lex greeted as she blew into his office. “I suppose you want to talk.”
"Why else would I be here in your oh-so-legitimate place of business?"
“Sarcasm. That was sarcasm, right?”
“Lex, you bought the Daily Planet. My Daily Planet. This newspaper is sacrosanct. You can’t come in here and be all world domination guy–”
“Chloe!”
She paused in her ranting, but mostly because she was considering how to lure him out from behind his desk so she could kick his ass.
“I didn’t buy the Daily Planet yesterday, you know. I’ve owned it for a while; I just didn’t make that public for rather obvious reasons.”
She believed him, and with a sigh, let go of her plans to bludgeon him with his stapler.
“Okay, I can see that,” she conceded. “But you have to understand, Lex. This paper is not a weapon.”
“Understood.”
“And it’s not some glorified spin machine for LuthorCorp.”
“Not a spin machine. Check.”
“And it’s not a platform you use to crush your enemies with lies and smear tactics until the populace is terrified of their own shadow and you seem like their last bastion of hope but you’re actually just waiting to–”
“Ummmm…Chloe?”
Stopping the pacing she hadn’t even realized she’d begun, she turned to face Lex. “Yes?”
“I thought we agreed that I’d ease back on the megalomania for a while. Maybe branch out into other, less dangerous branches of the mania family.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, smiling softly. “We did.”
It had been one week since their bizarre little get together and in that time she’d actually seen more of Lex than she had of Clark. It had been hard at times…at a lot of times, but Lex seemed genuine, although generally bewildered, about making some kind of change.
Still, she thought, he definitely should have told her about this particular purchase. Of course, seeing as how she’d been plotting his death via desk accessories mere moments ago, she could maybe, possibly understand his reluctance.
“Promise me this isn’t something bad, Lex.”
And without hesitation, he did. “It’s nothing bad. I promise. In fact, I’m trying to make something right that I’d damaged a while back.”
That convinced Chloe, more than anything else, that he was being truthful. “Yeah, well, I’d usually say that buying a media outlet is a pretty over the top way to fix a personal problem, but you tend to nuke your bridges instead of just burning them, so I can see why you might have to shoot for the grander gesture.”
“So I can assume that I’m not going to be concussed with my stapler as soon as my back is turned?”
“How did you–” she stopped as she realized she’d basically given herself away.
“Your eyes kept wandering back to it throughout your tirade. You have enough head injuries and you start to pick out the warning signs.”
“Alright,” she sighed, almost ready to let him off the hook. “But just so we’re clear. No–”
“Yes, yes, I get it. No plotting,” he assured her as he moved around the desk and began ushering her towards the door. “No manipulating, no using the press for personal game, no world domination, no hidden messages in the Sunday crossword puzzle, no randomly changing the font on the printing press.”
As Chloe’s eyes grew round with horror, he couldn’t help but laugh that that had been the one to get a rise out of her. Before giving her a nudge out of his office door he told her, “My last meeting ends at 7:00. How about we have Chinese tonight?”
“Okay,” she accepted, adding, “But if you do anything to my paper I’ll poison your egg–”
And the rest was lost to him as he pushed her out and quickly closed the door behind her.
It still felt weird, his freedom from fate. He wasn’t sure how long it would last; if he could make it work. And he knew that, sooner or later, Clark would realize that Chloe was no longer sitting around waiting for his infrequent phone calls and then they’d have to deal with him, too. But he was finding his way.
Not everything he’d done, or tried to do, had been wrong. It was taking time, but he was beginning to unravel which things fell into the “Good” column, which fell into the “Well intentioned by poorly executed” column, and which ones went straight to the “I hope there’s no afterlife” section of the ledger.
And for the first time in far too long, he faced a new year and felt something he’d stop associating with the future. He felt hope.
~End~
Rated: PG-13
Spoilers: Through season 7, Gemini
Summary: After Lex’s near drowning at the Reeve’s Dam, he professed a desire to become a better man. What might have happened if Lex Luthor was not bound by the dictates of the Superman mythos?
A/N: Season 7’s not an easy one to fluff up, but hopefully it’s not too weighty. lol This is a friendship piece; leave your inner smut hounds at the door.
Chloe had slept better then she had in months and was reluctant to open her eyes and give up the rare moment of peace. She felt safe in a cocoon of warmth, with the heavy comforter above her and the silk sheets below as she stretched out in the large bed…
that wasn’t hers.
Playing the previous night back in her mind, she couldn’t remember getting drunk. Or having alcohol of any kind. Although spending Christmas Eve alone surely would have merited some hard liquor. And she was fairly certain that if sober she wouldn’t have fallen into bed with some random guy. Besides, the fact that she might have had sex with someone and it was so bad as to not make an impression that lasted at least until the morning after was beyond depressing. Not beyond the realm of possibility, but would definitely be a commentary on her choice of partners.
Left with little choice but to open her eyes and face the situation head on, Chloe slowly allowed herself to peek over the mound of covers. Despite the luxury of the bed, she hadn’t been prepared for the sight of such a large and richly decorated room. From the luxurious fabrics in rich blues and golds to the ornate carvings on the four poster bed she was currently occupying, the entire room screamed opulence. And Chloe only knew three people who had the kind of resources to not only kidnap her, but to have her brought to such an extravagant destination; Oliver Queen, Lionel Luthor, and Lex Luthor.
Oliver Queen could be quickly eliminated given that she was one of a handful of people who knew about his afterhours job. Besides, his history with Lois would most likely preclude him from doing something as monumentally stupid as kidnapping his ex-girlfriend’s cousin.
Lionel Luthor, although a bastard through and through, was also most likely off the list, given his campaign of sucking up to Clark. His disgusting attempts to play the father to Clark that he’d never even tried to be to his real son sickened her. However, Chloe knew that no matter how creepy Stepford Lionel was, he wasn’t an idiot. And messing with her again was definitely in the realm of idiotic.
Then there was Lex. Clearly he wasn’t above kidnapping her. A fact she knew for certain given…well, his previous kidnapping of her. And unlike the other two, Lex actually had a motive. A stupid motive, but a motive nonetheless. But if he was the culprit she would have expected to wake up in a cold and sterile lab surrounded by doctors or, worse, having to listen to one of a myriad of his longwinded “I’m saving the world” monologues. For him to kidnap her and put her in the lap of luxury instead of a high security testing facility would be simply ludicrous.
Which, of course, meant that it was Lex.
Although Chloe honestly did love Lana, she knew that her friend made men stupid. She didn’t know if it was her beauty, her unintentional yet equally unending need to be saved, or some kind of weird effect from wearing a meteor rock around her neck for years, but her mere presence seemed to neutralize intelligence in the majority of the male population. And as much as Chloe wanted to resent her for that, she found that she really couldn’t. After all, although Lana would always get the guy, by the time she did they were practically drooling idiots. She was like a romance monkey’s paw.
And since Lex had gone so far as to marry her, Chloe knew that stupid was strong with him. So of course he would want to expose all of her secrets and learn all of her truths and attempt to do so by making her unbelievably comfortable. Because it was dumb…just like him.
Climbing out of the large bed, she made her way over to the bathroom. God only knew who had handled her the night before and washing henchmen off of her was her top priority. On a chair next to the bathroom door sat a pile of clothes that she recognized as her own. A dark blue sweater sat on top of a pair of jeans and on top of that rested a pair of matching bra and panty set and a pair of socks. While she was still going to shower just to be on the safe side, she hoped that, for Lex’s sake, he’d seen to her abduction personally. Because if he let his moronic band of thugs go through her underwear then there would be more than just the halls decked this Christmas.
After showering, Chloe dried her hair and put on the clean set of clothes. Since the view outside her window was not of the Luthor grounds (and after falling out of one of the castles windows she considered herself a sufficient judge of the scenery), she decided that there was nothing for it but to find her host, inform him of his utter stupidity, and return home where, though her Christmas would be spent alone, it would be idiot free.
Stomping down the staircase and through the halls, she knew it wouldn’t be hard to find her host. All she had to do was look for a room with a big, pretentious fire place and she’d bet…well, if she had anything of value she’d bet it that Lex would be standing in front of it.
Seeing a flicker of light from a room up ahead she hoped, for Lex’s sake, that she knew him too well as opposed to him becoming ridiculously predictable. Walking into what turned out to be a large, spacious study, she congratulated herself on winning her imaginary wager.
“So, is the fireplace fetish for effect, or a convenient way to dispose of incompetent minions? Although,” she mused, “that would probably leave you with no minions.”
“Couldn’t it just be because I’m cold,” he returned.
“No, otherwise you’d just turn on a heater.”
“Do you know what it would cost to heat an authentic castle?”
Chloe stared for a moment, incredulous at the billionaire’s thrifty statement. “Well, then I’ll go put on a sweater, grandma, while you order the kids off of the lawn.”
A grin tilted Lex’s lips and it was so much more than Chloe had seen from him in so long that she wasn’t quite sure how to process it. Finally she settled on just trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
“Why am I here?”
“It’s Christmas,” he explained with a small shrug.
“And you got me a felony. How sweet.”
“Does this mean I’m not getting anything?”
Rolling her eyes she snapped, “Consider the fact that you still retain your manhood after this little stunt your Christmas miracle.”
With a deep sigh she tried again. “Lex, what are you doing?”
“I’m surprising you for the holidays.”
“By kidnapping me?”
“Well,” he reasoned, “you were surprised, weren’t you?”
Okay, moderately cheerful Lex was definitely weirding her out. “Look, I kind of want to cut you some slack here because the Lana stupid clearly hasn’t worked its way out of your system yet. But seeing as how this isn’t the first time that you’ve kidnapped me, I’m less inclined to be generous.”
Lex nodded in an acknowledgement of her point but was quick to add, “True. I have kidnapped you before. However, this time my intentions are much more socially acceptable. And, really, isn’t this the season where it’s the thought that counts?”
“Socially acceptable?!” Chloe began to wonder if his nefarious plan was to kill her with a Christmas aneurism. “You know, Lex, maybe you should think about cutting back on the evil and working a little harder on the genius.”
Crossing the room, Lex paused to pour a small amount of scotch into a tumble before taking a seat on the large leather couch. “I’d pretend not to drink before noon, but I doubt that a predilection for alcohol is in the top one hundred list of my greatest flaws these days.”
He was right; Chloe wasn’t going to admonish him for drinking. Frankly, she was hoping that if he had a few he might actually spill the reason for their holiday get together. Pinching the bridge of her nose in, she wondered if there was still time to stave off a Luthor induced migraine.
“Seriously, Lex; even if I believed that you actually thought that kidnapping was appropriate holiday etiquette, what on Earth would make you kidnap me?”
Lex looked at Chloe. Really looked. And he knew that she’d reached her limit of their customary, and often acerbic, banter and was demanding the truth. He was actually surprised that she lasted for the few minutes that she had.
“In the last few minutes you’ve insulted my intelligence, my employees, my choice in women, and implied a serious threat to my manhood. But the one thing that you haven’t done is demand that I take you home. You haven’t threatened me with exposure by family and friends eagerly awaiting your arrival today.”
He saw her jaw clench, her hands begin to curl into fists at her sides. Chloe could keep the deepest of secrets for others, but when it came to herself her emotions always showed through.
“You never spend the holidays with your father,” he said. “A fact that probably has little to do with his moving or any distance between you, and is more likely is based on not wanting him to be caught up, again, in the turmoil that characterizes your life.” Lex knew that he was right and it was one of the things he had always admired about her.
He liked to believe that the things that he did would ultimately protect people. And he knew that, no matter what had passed between them, that Clark actions, too, were often motivated by concerns for the safety of others. But, of all of them, only Chloe seemed to truly suffer for her choices. It made the fact that she continued on worthy of respect, even if her efforts often clashed his own.
“Your cousin is off on a lead about her sister, although I doubt that’s the only reason she’s taken some time away from Metropolis.” They both knew of the ending of Lois’s workplace affair, but he suspected that, although for different reasons, Chloe would be as reluctant as he to discuss it.
Looking at her tense form, he finally addressed the heart of the matter. What he knew Chloe didn’t want to hear, but what needed to be said for her to stay.
“Of course, none of that really matters, because you spend holidays at the Kent farm…or you did.” He saw the slightest wince; knew that her pain was so like his own that it’s what had brought him to this point – abducting holiday guests. “But lately, you and Clark spend less and less time together. Less meetings, less phone calls, less of everything.”
“So what,” Chloe asked, with clearly forcing casualness. “Lana and Clark have a lot of lost time to make up for and a lot of pain to work through. I’m sure you understand that what with playing so large a part in the whole disaster. Do you really think that I would begrudge them that?”
“Yes,” Lex held up his hand to stop her tirade before it could start. “But for all the difficulties we’ve had, I know that you are nothing if not an exceptional friend. You’d give up so much to make them happy, so what is one holiday?”
“Exactly,” she nodded, her arms crossed over her chest in what he was fairly certain was an attempt to keep from throwing something at him. Probably more out of respect for the expense of almost every item in the room as opposed to any real care for his safety.
“Still, did either of them thank you for your understanding? Appreciate your concern? Even notice?” Even if he hadn’t known the truth of his words he could see it written on her face. “In fact, I bet Lana has been dropping, what I’m sure she considers to be subtle hints about you needing to let Clark go.”
He saw the slightest quiver of her lip before she pulled herself together and glared.
“Fine; you’re right. Of my two best friends, one seems to resent my place in their lives and the other doesn’t even seem to notice that I’m not there. So there you go, I’m sad and pathetic and my Christmas is now even more unpleasant than it otherwise would have been…which I didn’t even think was possible. Apparently some of your evil plans can come to fruition; unfortunately for you it seems to just be the lame and pointless ones.”
“I didn’t bring you here to hurt you, Chloe,” he assured her. “I brought you here because if there’s anyone who can understand being rejected in that way, it’s certainly me, and so maybe we could be alone together.”
Confusions and indignation fought for ownership of her expression as she demanded, “Are you actually comparing the two of us?” Confusion seemed to win. “Really?” But indignation made a comeback. “Because let’s be very clear about something – you’re alone because you’re a bastard who went after a woman in large part because you knew that your former best friend loved her, tricked her into believing she was pregnant and then, for no possibly logical purpose that I can think of, had her secretly cloned. Your actions are so randomly bizarre that you’ve utterly destroyed my ability to be surprised by anything anymore.”
He waited for her to catch her breath before pointing out, “My kidnapping surprised you.”
“You’re right,” she exclaimed as she threw her hands in the air in frustration. “I stand corrected.; your lack of sanity will apparently always astonish me.
“But you and I,” she waved back and forth between them, “are not in the same boat. Hell we aren’t even sailing on the same ocean. We’re nothing alike.”
As she wound down, Chloe waited for the fall out – for the cutting words, for the veiled threats, for…
“Maybe I’d like us to be.”
…anything but that. And for a moment Chloe wondered just what in the hell Lex had drugged her with and whether it was responsible for the most surreal Christmas she’d ever had. Which was really saying something.
“Save your “Come to the dark side” speech, Vader. Not only would I never make that kind of deal with a Luthor again; I certainly wouldn’t do it for the exact same reason.”
And Lex knew that to be true. Of nearly everyone in Smallville, only Chloe seemed capable of having a bad experience, figuring out where she went wrong, and doing something different. Not that she managed it every time, but the rest of them seemed stuck in an endless cycle of the same choices no matter how often they led to the same places. It was why he was hoping that they could be more alike, just not in the way that she thought.
“That’s not exactly what I meant,” he told her with a rueful smile. “I was thinking more along the lines of being more like you.”
And Chloe knew that it must be the drugs. “This is the drugs, right? I mean, I don’t want to believe you’re a hallucination, because that says something about my mind that I’d rather not examine, but we’re definitely on the same page that this is drug induced, right?”
Lex laughed for a moment. It was nice to be able to shake up someone as unflappable as Chloe Sullivan, who may be one of the few people in life to have a credible claim to the phrase, “I’ve seen it all before.”
“Well, as you just so delicately pointed out to me, my entire life is ridiculous. And while we share a similar, and maybe unifying pain, yours seems to result in a profound loneliness, whereas mine seems to lead to delusions of grandeur.”
Suddenly Chloe realized why everything seemed slightly off; just not quite right. Because there, right at the edges of this man who had become less human with every passing year, was the Lex Luthor she’d known long ago. The one who’d saved the jobs of so many in a town that reviled him. Who’d clung to the friendship of an earnest farm boy in the hopes of learning how to be a good friend, himself. Who’d protected her life even when his father had tried to take his. And moving slowly, as if afraid she might chase that man back into the shadows, she stepped forward and sank into the chair across from him.
“Why?’
Lex could hear the myriad of unspoken meanings in the question. Why bother? Why now? Why me? And he found himself strangely eager to tell her. After all, it wasn’t as if Chloe hadn’t known the deepest of his heart’s desires before.
“When the Reeves Dam was destroyed, I was trapped in the back of a police car, drowning. Just as I was certain I was going to die, I was saved; pulled free of the water’s icy grip by an angel.”
“An angel?”
“Well,” he admitted, “I’m fairly certain that it was Kara Kent. However, in the interest of some kind of positive change here, I think that we might want to avoid that particular truth.”
“So, an angel saved you? Huh.”
Smiling because he understood that Chloe’s easy acceptance was an honest effort to help him, and not just an attempt to protect Clark’s cousin.
“Yes. And I decided then that I wanted, needed to make some changes in my life. To be better than my father was, not at business, but at life. I wanted to make the right choices; good choices. Unfortunately…”
Leaning forward as he trailed off, she asked, “Unfortunately, what?”
Lex snapped out of his thoughts and back to their conversation, offering her a small smile. “Unfortunately, it has recently been brought home to me that I might actually have no idea how to recognize just what “right” looks like.”
Sitting back again, Chloe felt rather gobsmacked. It had never really occurred to her that part of the reason that Lex was so bad was simply because he didn’t understand how to be good. And, she was honestly surprised that it hadn’t. After all, hadn’t she had the same experience…on a slightly less insane scale?
For years and years she’d wanted to be a reporter. And what she’d known of reporters then was that they exposed the truth. And so that’s what she’d done. She barreled into dangerous situations, invaded people’s privacy, compromised the safety of others, and committed who knows how many other transgressions in the cause of truth and the public’s right to know.
It took uprooting the life of her father and herself, faking their death, attempted murder, and nearly losing the very dream that had started it all, for her to learn that not all secrets were meant to be shared and that truth, quite often, made prisoners of those it was meant to set free. It wasn’t that she’d lost her love of hard core journalism, it was simply that she’d learned that, as with all things in life, there was a line that separated that which needed to be done and that which we simply wanted to do.
And if she, who had a loving father and good friends, had needed such a violent and pointed lesson to help her find that line, she could only imagine how nearly impossible it would have been for Lex to find it by himself. Especially at this point in his life.
Frankly, she was kind of impressed he even understood that there was a line out there somewhere; much less that he might be crossing it.
“And so, in an effort to get some help with doing the right thing, you abducted me for Christmas?”
He took a pull of his scotch before answering. “Of course it doesn’t make sense to you. You are a child of logic; I on the other hand, am the bastardized love child of an 80’s soap opera and ancient Greek mythology.”
Chloe laughed because it actually wasn’t even much of an exaggeration on his part. “Have you ever considered that if I help you then I’m actually reinforcing the fact that this kind of plan works?”
“Well,” he reasoned, brow furrowing, “since this would pretty much be the only plan I’ve had go right in at least two years, maybe we can chalk the success up to good intentions. Because clearly my strategizing has proven rather flawed.”
“True,” she agreed. “But don’t think that I don’t get the fact that for you to know this much about my problems with Clark, Lana, and holiday plans – or lack thereof – that you’ve had someone keeping an eye on me. I’m not remarkably happy about that.”
“Understandable,” Lex nodded. “But technically I did that before I had you to aid me in not doing that. So you see that it couldn’t have been helped.”
…
“Exactly how much alcohol did you consume before I got down here?”
“For a conversation like this? With you,” he gestured toward her with his glass before taking another mouthful. “Not nearly enough.”
Inwardly she conceded that that was probably true. Lex didn’t actually appear to be drunk. It only seemed that way because he happened to be drinking alcohol and making himself emotionally vulnerable at the same time. But that didn’t mean that one was the cause or result of the other.
“Also,” he admitted, “you’re meteor infected, which means that the likelihood of you killing me killing me goes up at least thirty percent. And it was no small probability before that either.”
“And you thought that putting me in a lab and kidnapping my mother decreased the likelihood of that happening?!”
Lex winced, and for the first time Chloe could see the deep regret that drove him to bring her there. And as much as a part of her hated Lex for what he did to both of them, there was a small dark place in her soul; something she kept tightly leashed and zealously hidden, that was glad about what Lex had done.
For years Chloe had thought that her mother had simply abandoned her. The, upon learning that she hadn’t, she’d spent the next few years thinking that her mother had just gone insane and that the same fate awaited her. But that hadn’t been what had happened at all. And knowing the truth, being able to have just that brief moment of time with her mother, to know that she loved her, was proud of her…that soothed places in her that had hurt for so long that she didn’t even recognize the pain, thinking it simply the normal state of being.
Which didn’t let him off the hook for what he’d done. It’s not as if his motive had been helping her settle old issues. But a genuine sense of remorse, not matter how beaten down or reluctant, was something to work with.
Chloe had no illusions that she could save Lex in spite of himself. That kind of denial was for women like Lana, for whom men would at least pretend they had changed. But if Lex actually wanted to change himself? Was that something she could really walk away from?
She had been working off and on with Oliver Queen and his group, to aid in taking out 33.1 locations. And it was working, but it was slow. So very, very slow. And even with all of Oliver’s resources, he would always be fighting an opponent with resources just as vast. The progress they made would be important and, in time, maybe even substantial.
But Lex wanting something different from his life; that wasn’t a possibility anyone had ever considered as an end game scenario.
Of course, it wasn’t without risk. She knew Lex. Knew the things that drove him; the good and the bad. Probably better than anyone, really. And so she understood the myriad of ways that she’d be risking herself – physically, emotionally, mentally. Not to mention her career, her home, her friends. All subject to change by believing that Lex could be more than the sum total of the parts his father had broken.
She wasn’t sure, but Chloe knew two things. One, it wouldn’t hurt to hear him out unless he kicked her at some point during the discussion. Two, she really didn’t have anywhere else to be and at least she knew that Lex would have fantastic food…
The second, of course, being of much less importance than the first. At least until lunch time.
“What I thought at the time was that you were an unknown quantity and a potential danger. It seemed prudent to try to determine both the benefits and threats your abilities posed and to what extent they could reach.”
It would have sounded like a justification if it he hadn’t looked so very lost. As if he knew the answer to a math problem but couldn’t understand how he’d reached it. He understood, in some way, that what he did was wrong, but the reasoning still seem right to him; and Chloe found herself feeling rather foolish that they had all idolized Clark to such an extreme that they actually expected that a few years of his friendship would erase the effects of being raised, for years solely by a sociopath.
“And it never occurred to you just to ask me?”
“Why in the hell would that occur to me? Wait,” he cut off her answer as he processed what she’d said. “You know what your ability is?”
Lex watched her carefully, hoping to see through the lie he was waiting for her to tell.
“Yes,” she admitted after a short pause. “I know.”
That hadn’t been expected at all. He was so used to a web of intrigued that trapped them all in its silken bands of blatant lies and hidden truths, that he wasn’t quite sure what to do with her honesty. Lex prided himself on having a plan for almost every situation. But he always realized too late that his plans seemed to turn on expecting the absolute worst from people. He blamed his father for that; although whether that was because that was Lionel’s outlook or because it was the fact that his father proved those expectations true, he wasn’t sure.
“And you’re saying that you would have told me?”
“No.”
He was at the point of considering that maybe he’d never actually figured out how to do the right thing because it was just so fucking confusing, when Chloe continued.
“I actually didn’t know at that time.”
“And now? You’d tell me now? Why?”
“Is this the part where I tell you that I’m trusting you because I believe in the goodness you have deep down in your heart,” she asked with a small huff of laughter. “If you need the lie, let me know, it’s easy to tell and prettier than the truth.”
Rising, he poured himself another drink before resuming his seat. “Okay, let’s go with the truth.”
“You’re an obsessive psycho.”
…
“Is the lying option still on the table?”
“Nope,” she informed him cheerfully. “Look, you already knew that I was infected. So there was no point in pretending everything was normal. And, let’s face it; you don’t handle secrets well. You’re like a two year old in a toy store – you don’t understand that everything isn’t yours for the taking. So it’s not like you would have let the matter drop. Eventually you would have twisted one of your “plans” back in my directions. Except, by that point, “getting to know me better” would require a sterile room and surgical instruments.”
She gave a small shrug, “So why not just tell you?”
It was quiet as Lex looked at her, eyes piercing as if trying to come to some kind of conclusion, and Chloe wondered just what was going through his mind. By the time that she’d narrowed it down to “this is some kind of plan to protect Clark” and “excuse me while I go call in the scientists”, Lex obliged her curiosity with a reply.
“Is this a test?”
Maybe she’d been too hasty in declaring her curiosity assuaged. “Is what a test?”
“This,” he motioned towards her. “You. Offering to tell me this secret. Are you waiting to see if I’ll decline your offer? Prove to you that I’m being sincere?”
“You want to prove you’re sincere, Lex? How about letting me wake up where I go to sleep from now on. I’ve always found that friendships seem to flourish more in the absence of abduction.”
Chloe stood and moved to the couch, sitting down on the coffee table in front of Lex.
“Give me your hand,” she told him, holding out her own. She could see the wariness in his eyes, but knew it wouldn’t take long for him to crack. “You wanted to know my ability, so man up, Sport.”
“Sport,” he asked, extending his hand. “Well, if you do kill me, at least I’ll never have to hear that again.”
“You’re such a baby, Luthor. And I need the other one.”
Lex had offered his left hand to her because his right still wore a bandage from a rather violent outburst of temper after his last meeting with his brother. But she seemed adamant, and so he offered his right hand to her instead.
He watched as she slowly unwrapped the gauze that had covered a particularly nasty cut from a rather sharp shard of glass he’d encountered when he’d upended his desk. Her movements were slow as she placed her hand over his and he could feel the reluctance coming off of her.
But before he could say anything he was distracted by the bright light spilling out from the space between his hand and hers. A feeling of warmth moved across his palm, and then deeper. And as quickly as it had grown, the light began to dim, fading away into nothingness.
Turning his hand over, he saw that all traces of his wound were gone. Not even the smallest of scars to mark its existence. Before he could even begin to focus on the wonder of what had just happened, he saw Chloe giving her own hand a shake before pulling it inwards to rub it. Reaching out, he caught it in his and brought it back towards him.
Examining it, he could see no injury at all; not even the hint of redness where his cut had been. And yet the partial flexing of her fingers told him that she was in pain.
Releasing her hand he asked, “It hurts?”
Rubbing at her hand to rid it of the last of the ghost sensations, Chloe nodded. “Some. It’s not like I’m actually hurt, it’s more like an echo of your injury.”
“And if the injury is substantial?”
Lex watched as her gaze shuttered and he knew that whatever story was there was painful for her. And while he wanted to know what had put that look in her eyes, he’d just been given so much more than he could ever remember getting from anyone in his life that he actually, for once, found it quiet easy to shelf a particular line of questioning.
Instead he smiled to ease the tension. “Well, with all of the scrapes you get into, that has to come in handy.”
“And when,” she asked derisively, “have you ever known those stupid rocks to be that helpful? I can’t even heal a paper cut if it’s on my finger instead of someone else’s.”
Chloe felt both vulnerable and self-conscious. She’d revealed a huge secret and exposed a part of herself that, even though it helped people, still made her feel frightened and ashamed. It was uncomfortable and the silence was making it worse. Probably for both of them as Lex broke the quiet.
“So, what happened between you and Mr. Olsen?”
Her head shot up. “Seriously? That’s how you distract from the fact that I feel like a freak - by bringing up the relationship that ended because I’m a freak? You’re lucky that you have looks and money, Luthor, because I’m not really feeling the empathy here.”
“And yet,” he pointed out with a smirk, “it seems to have worked. Apparently I am better at plans of the non-nefarious kind.”
“Oh please,” she scoffed. “Any plan that doesn’t land you in the hospital with a concussion has got to be considered a success for you.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“What do you want me to say, Lex? Jimmy Olsen is a rarity; he’s just a genuinely nice guy. He doesn’t want me to keep secrets or tell secrets, find facts or bury them. He just wanted me to be happy.”
“Well, that explains it then,” he said, sarcasm heavy in his tone. “Of course you had to escape from such a monst- Ow! You kicked me!”
“And I’m not fixing it, either,” she snapped. “Didn’t you hear what I said? Jimmy Olsen is a genuinely nice guy. Even if I were the love of his life, he doesn’t deserve the kind of crap that makes up our lives.”
That Lex could understand. Although he’d chosen to pursue Lana for a number of reasons, very few of them actually having to do with her as a person, one of the greatest was the fact that Lana had been shaped by Smallville, just as the rest of them had. And while it hadn’t left her full of doubts like Chloe, or nauseatingly self-righteous like Clark, or the near sociopath he feared becoming, it had changed her; woven its way into the core of who she was. And there was a sort of peace in that. In not having to convince someone of the weirdness that surrounded them or keep explaining the convoluted and fairly unhealthy dynamic between the main players in their little dramas. It was the temptation that comes, not just from being with the devil you know, but being with the devil who knows you.
“You know what we need, Lex,” she asked as she moved from the table to drop down on the sofa next to him.
“I’m sure that you’re about to enlighten me.”
“We,” she nudged him with her shoulders, “need lower standards.”
A shout of laughter filled the air. “Your answer to all our problems is that we should settle more often?”
“Well,” she nodded in consideration, “we both have self-esteem problems and rejection issues. You think we’d be naturals at low expectations. Instead we want to prove ourselves by being noticed by the “better” people.
“Although, when you think about it, I did move on, however briefly, to a very nice guy, while you actually tied yourself to your issues with the bounds of matrimony…Wow, you’re really fucked up.”
“And you’re not?”
“A bit,” she admitted. “Just wanted to point out that it’s not nearly as much as you.”
Lex leaned his head back against the sofa, but turned to look at her contemplatively. “So, you’d consider yourself someone I could settle for?”
Snapping out of her relaxed posture, Chloe gaped for a moment at the question before gathering herself back together.
“No. No way. You,” she pointed her finger accusingly, “keep your borderline creepy need to serial marry away from me or we’re pulling the friend train into the station right now.”
“Understood,” a smile tugged at his lips. “And I’ll work on being less creepy for you.”
Suddenly his face grew serious and his eyes burned with intensity. “What if I can’t do this? What if I’m on a path that it’s too late to leave?”
Shaking her head, Chloe laid a hand on his arm.
“Your dad lied, Lex. That’s not how life works. If you don’t want to be that guy, don’t be that guy. You choose.
“Save your thoughts of destiny for your deathbed retrospect. If you focus on destiny in the present, all you do is use it as an excuse to not have to make the difficult decisions that go with being an adult. You’ll blame yourself for things that you have no control over so that you can ignore the things that you can change but don’t want to, because you’ll have convinced yourself that fate will magically sort everything out for you.”
She looked at him. Matched his intensity with her own.
“You can be better than that, Lex. You need to be better than that.”
Her belief in free will, in his free will was a tangible, living thing and he grabbed onto her faith in the absence of his own. He’d always allowed the concept of destiny to rule him, whether destined to follow in his father’s footsteps or to be the friend Clark wanted. And it left him feeling naked and deeply vulnerable to have that defense for so many of his actions suddenly stripped away.
And yet, at the same time he felt reborn into a world where everything was new and life was a series of infinite choices instead of a path his feet were forced to tread. And he stared at her, slightly in awe at the shift in perspective.
“Is this what you do for Clark,” he asked. Because if it was, then he understood much more how Clark kept coming out on top in life.
“Are you kidding,” she asked with a short and somewhat resigned laugh. “Do you honestly think that Clark comes to me to talk about how wrong he is? The most I ever get from him are Clarkfessions.”
“Clarkfessions?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “You know; ‘Chloe, I was so wrong…to think that you could understand what this is like for me.’ Or ‘Lex, I was so wrong…to think that you could ever change.’ Clarkfessions.”
“I didn’t realize there was a name for them.”
“Writer’s prerogative,” she dismissed. “Honestly, I love Clark, and as we all know, probably far more than I should. But ninety percent of the time his idea of personal responsibility involves explaining to other people what he sees as the as the error of their ways.”
“You know,” he said, looking at her with new eyes, “I consider this the most successful kidnapping of my life if for no other reason than to hear that someone else actually noticed that, too.”
“Great. Good to know that this violation of my civil rights will make you sleep better at night.”
“I suppose it say something unpleasant about me that I don’t feel worse about this,” he acknowledged.
“Or maybe it just means that my company is so scintillating that it obscures the lines of morality,” she offered.
“Which do you think it is?”
Standing up, she grabbed his hand and urged him off the couch. “How about you feed me and we split the difference.”
“Deal.”
And as he led her towards the kitchen, Chloe felt something she hadn’t associated with the Luthor name in years. Hope.
Weirdest. Christmas. Ever.
~*~
“Chloe,” Lex greeted as she blew into his office. “I suppose you want to talk.”
"Why else would I be here in your oh-so-legitimate place of business?"
“Sarcasm. That was sarcasm, right?”
“Lex, you bought the Daily Planet. My Daily Planet. This newspaper is sacrosanct. You can’t come in here and be all world domination guy–”
“Chloe!”
She paused in her ranting, but mostly because she was considering how to lure him out from behind his desk so she could kick his ass.
“I didn’t buy the Daily Planet yesterday, you know. I’ve owned it for a while; I just didn’t make that public for rather obvious reasons.”
She believed him, and with a sigh, let go of her plans to bludgeon him with his stapler.
“Okay, I can see that,” she conceded. “But you have to understand, Lex. This paper is not a weapon.”
“Understood.”
“And it’s not some glorified spin machine for LuthorCorp.”
“Not a spin machine. Check.”
“And it’s not a platform you use to crush your enemies with lies and smear tactics until the populace is terrified of their own shadow and you seem like their last bastion of hope but you’re actually just waiting to–”
“Ummmm…Chloe?”
Stopping the pacing she hadn’t even realized she’d begun, she turned to face Lex. “Yes?”
“I thought we agreed that I’d ease back on the megalomania for a while. Maybe branch out into other, less dangerous branches of the mania family.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, smiling softly. “We did.”
It had been one week since their bizarre little get together and in that time she’d actually seen more of Lex than she had of Clark. It had been hard at times…at a lot of times, but Lex seemed genuine, although generally bewildered, about making some kind of change.
Still, she thought, he definitely should have told her about this particular purchase. Of course, seeing as how she’d been plotting his death via desk accessories mere moments ago, she could maybe, possibly understand his reluctance.
“Promise me this isn’t something bad, Lex.”
And without hesitation, he did. “It’s nothing bad. I promise. In fact, I’m trying to make something right that I’d damaged a while back.”
That convinced Chloe, more than anything else, that he was being truthful. “Yeah, well, I’d usually say that buying a media outlet is a pretty over the top way to fix a personal problem, but you tend to nuke your bridges instead of just burning them, so I can see why you might have to shoot for the grander gesture.”
“So I can assume that I’m not going to be concussed with my stapler as soon as my back is turned?”
“How did you–” she stopped as she realized she’d basically given herself away.
“Your eyes kept wandering back to it throughout your tirade. You have enough head injuries and you start to pick out the warning signs.”
“Alright,” she sighed, almost ready to let him off the hook. “But just so we’re clear. No–”
“Yes, yes, I get it. No plotting,” he assured her as he moved around the desk and began ushering her towards the door. “No manipulating, no using the press for personal game, no world domination, no hidden messages in the Sunday crossword puzzle, no randomly changing the font on the printing press.”
As Chloe’s eyes grew round with horror, he couldn’t help but laugh that that had been the one to get a rise out of her. Before giving her a nudge out of his office door he told her, “My last meeting ends at 7:00. How about we have Chinese tonight?”
“Okay,” she accepted, adding, “But if you do anything to my paper I’ll poison your egg–”
And the rest was lost to him as he pushed her out and quickly closed the door behind her.
It still felt weird, his freedom from fate. He wasn’t sure how long it would last; if he could make it work. And he knew that, sooner or later, Clark would realize that Chloe was no longer sitting around waiting for his infrequent phone calls and then they’d have to deal with him, too. But he was finding his way.
Not everything he’d done, or tried to do, had been wrong. It was taking time, but he was beginning to unravel which things fell into the “Good” column, which fell into the “Well intentioned by poorly executed” column, and which ones went straight to the “I hope there’s no afterlife” section of the ledger.
And for the first time in far too long, he faced a new year and felt something he’d stop associating with the future. He felt hope.
~End~