Better Than I Know Myself (Alt. End to 4x22 Commencement) [PG/PG-13]

A/N: Yes, I know, I know! If I have time to write I ought to concentrate on 'Shut Up & Drive', but please forgive me, my mind was taken over by a plot bunny last night!! There I was idly clicking through various Chlex-related vid clips on my comp, working out a possible new vid, when suddenly I find myself watching that scene from Commencement in Lex's office, with him yelling at Chloe and her saying they need to get out of Smallville, and I get this idea and... well, here's what happened in my head next! :D

Better Than I Know Myself

“Your curiosity seems to always have a way of landing you in precarious positions” Lex told Chloe, anger rising to the point of boiling over as he turned and grabbed her by the arms, forcing her back and getting in her face, “only this time you’re out on a very narrow ledge with only one way back!” he yelled, obviously scaring her, “Now who took the element?!” he demanded to know.

To the very last she would protect her friends, that was Chloe’s way and Lex ought to have known it. The very next words out of her mouth were bound to be a lie, for Clark’s sake, Lex was certain. What he failed to understand was that, in spite of her better judgement, Chloe still counted him amongst her friends. As much as she wanted to keep the element from him, she would not see him hurt, or worse.

“Lex, I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about” she lied like a pro, despite the fear she felt rising inside her at the almost feral look in Lex’s eyes before he turned his back on her then, “but I think we need to get out of Smallville before the meteor shower hits” she reminded him, hoping her words would bring back the man of sense she thought she knew.

“I’m going to find that stone, Chloe, even if that means dodging a few meteors in the process” he told her with determination she ought to have known would remain constant, despite the sky literally falling in on them.

“Then you give me no choice” she said with some regret as she produced a gun from behind her back, a weapon Lex recognised as belonging to him.

Things felt very different, standing at the business end of the thing that usually protected him from others. Not that Lex could really blame Chloe for feeling like she needed to be armed given the way he was acting. It brought his anger down in a second, made him feel surprisingly calm. Maybe it just felt better to Lex that somebody else was in charge now, since it stopped everything from spiralling out of control and being his fault.

“Chloe, you’re not going to...” he began, the question or statement, whichever it might have been, obviously going to end with ‘shoot me’ or similar, which she did not need to hear.

“I’m going to get us out of here, whether you like it or not” she told him, keeping the gun trained on Lex as she gestured for him to lead on out of the office, and out of the mansion entirely.

They were stood beside her car before long, wind blowing in their faces as they stared each other down.

“Chloe, this isn’t you” Lex said, and if he were any other person she would have said he was actually nervous right now.

Of course, this was the great Lex Luthor, and he didn’t have that emotion within him. Lately, he had less and less feelings, as far as Chloe cold tell, but she wasn’t about to write him off as a human failure yet. He could be saved, from the meteors and from himself. She hoped this one act had the potential to do both.

“You don’t know me anymore, Lex” she told him flatly, “And that’s your fault, not mine” she said, with an edge to her voice that he didn’t miss, “Now, turn around” she instructed him.

He hesitated in doing so at first but soon complied. After all, she was right, he didn’t really know her anymore, not like he had a year ago when he’d considered the two of them to be friends. This past twelve months, she’d grown up a lot, whilst they had only grown apart. It was ironic, Lex noted; he had feared that getting involved with his family would change Chloe, and in fact it had been his unconscious abandoning of her that seemed to have done much more damage.

This was perhaps the last thought to pass through Lex’s mind, before the world went black.

* * * * *

Lex woke in a dark room with a foggy head that refused to clear. At first he was a little worried to find himself alone and in a place that was foreign to him, until his eyes adjusted to the gloom and he realised his surroundings were no more sinister than a hotel room, the view from the window telling him he was in Metropolis.

Easing himself off the bed, Lex’s head felt a little sore but nothing that would concern him. He’d had hangovers that hurt worse than this, not that alcohol had caused this particular feeling. No, Lex remembered the mansion, and Chloe, an argument and her pointing a gun. Glancing down at his own body, he saw no wounds and recalled that she never had pulled the trigger, which made him grateful for both their sakes. She must have hit him when he turned his back on her, it was the only explanation that made any sense, but Lex being a Luthor wanted more answers than that.

Chloe must have read his mind, he realised, as he reached the window and found an envelope on the sill. In her neat, but slightly hurried handwriting, it said ‘Lex - Answers within’.

With a smirk tugging at his lips, Lex propped himself on the window sill, and opened up the letter she had left for him. He ought to be more mad at the person who had forced him out of his home at gunpoint, hit him over the head til he was unconscious, and pretty much kidnapped him, but before he even read her words, Lex knew Chloe’s intentions were good. All the things she did, be they stupid, irresponsible, illegal, or worse, she was always doing it for the greater good, for truth and justice, for her friends...

‘Lex,

I know you probably don’t understand what happened, I barely understand it myself. I just knew I had to get us out of Smallville before the meteor shower hit. My own self-preservation is pretty easy to understand, what you probably haven’t figured out yet is why I had to bring you here to Metropolis with me. It’s actually quite simple, despite the ass you can be sometimes, you’re still my friend, and that’s one thing I care about more than anything else in the world.

I knew you’d stay in Smallville given half the chance, chasing down that stupid rock that means so much to you. I’m sorry if I spoilt some master plan you had, but Lex, I will never be sorry that I saved your life.

You scared me back there at the mansion, I won’t deny that you did, but not enough to stop me caring about you. We’ve been through too much. I love you too much, to let anything happen to you. A bump on the head was a small price to pay to keep your life safe, not that I even did that. It was the plan, to hit you with the gun and hope it kept you groggy enough to get you here. Fate intervened at the last second - check out the paper weight that held this letter down.

Lex stopped reading a moment picking up the unusual piece of stone that had sat atop the paper he was now reading. Oh yes, he recognised that, and knew that whatever damage may or may not have been done to the Luthor ancestral home in the meteor shower, there would be a piece missing from somewhere in the stone architecture at the front of the building.

The mansion fought back at you after so many years of suffering your wrath, I guess. I should be surprised it didn’t do more damage, but hair or not you Luthors obviously have hard heads.

I told the hotel staff you were drunk and they helped me get you up here. They didn’t ask any questions, but this is the kind of cheap place where you just don’t, I guess.

What else can I say, Lex? Except that I hope you understand that I did what I had to do, just like you always do.

Love, Chloe x

Lex Luthor was not a man who often found himself lost for words or not knowing what to think, but Chloe had completely sucker-punched him with her words and actions both. You didn’t love a Luthor, it was a ridiculous suggestion that anybody could or would, and yet that was what she had said in this letter. She had risked her life to save his, she had ensured his safety from the meteor shower, despite the way he’d behaved, yelled at her, threatened her. Despite her young age and impossible naivety in times past, Chloe Sullivan was without doubt one of the most incredible young women Lex had ever known and would ever know, and there was one more reason for that yet.

Looking up from the pages he’d been reading, Lex realised there were two doors leading out of the small hotel room he’d found himself in. It could only mean one thing, he thought, as he got to his feet and walked over to the one that was evidentially not the exit. The door wasn’t closed all the way, and though the space beyond was as dark as his own side of it, Lex knew it wouldn’t be empty, he didn’t know how he knew it exactly but he did.

Chloe was by the window as he walked into the adjoining room, bathed in the glow of the city lights of Metropolis. She was as much a woman as she’d ever been, despite only having graduated high school earlier the same day. Her adult status didn’t come from age, of course. Lex knew she’d had to grow up fast, and not only because of his own family’s intervention in her life. In some ways, she was even smarter than Lex himself, and that thought, which ought to have worried him, only made him all the more glad they were here together.

Though she knew he was there, Chloe didn’t say a word to Lex, didn’t even turn her head when he entered the room. She thought she knew him well enough to know what his reaction would be to this whole situation. Given the chance to think on it, Lex would see the sense in her getting him out of the danger zone any way she could. She trusted him not to hurt her, even when he’d been holding onto her and yelling in her face at the mansion, she never believed he’d do her any real harm. The gun, loaded or not, was the only way to get his attention and make him do as he was told. It was a means to an end to bring them both to this point, gazing at each other with a hundred words to say and none that came to mind.

Standing there, lit by the glow of the city beyond the window, Chloe saw nothing but the emotions written in Lex’s eyes - astonishment, gratitude, and something more that she only dared to dream was there. For Lex there was only this young woman to look at or think of now, the rest of the world and all its wonders be damned, he had all he needed stood right here in front of him, and he’d been such a fool not to notice before.

Chloe had told herself that she wouldn’t sleep tonight, given all that happened she would never be able to, but by the dawn her eyes would be closed, her body rested against that of the man she had always loved. This she knew, without a word being spoken, as sure as she was both forgiven and loved by Lex, from the moment his lips touched hers.

- The End -

I have to say that I liked this version better than the actual show. I liked how everything happened. Chloe's trust in Lex and his trust in her. I love that aspect of the story. Anyway, now that you've got this plotbunny out of the way, means Shut up and Drive should go next. I'm just saying...:D

This was lovely, and I wish the S4 finale had a scene like this--great work:D

Lovely one-shot, Ultra. I wished they had kept the Chlex alive with a scene such as this.

Thanks for writing it.:blinkkiss

Great fic
:)
So much better than the real show

Oh my that was really good. ;)

i like this verson much better i wish it really had ended this way.

Loved, loved, loved, loved, LOVED this! :)

-emms14

Amazing would of loved to see thoss in the show instead of what happened