I Remember You (NC-17) (Updated 3/29/2015)

[phillydragonldy]

Awww, thanks guys! I did really want to give this story my own spin. I'm glad you guys agree that I'm managing that! So without further ado...next chapter!

[phillydragonldy]

It was a Monday like any other as Lex rode the executive elevator to the top level of Lexcorp plaza. He tuned out the mellow jazz music as he mentally reviewed his game plan for the upcoming board meeting. He knew the board would object to the new takeover. They saw the vulnerable offshore drilling company as a poor move for the company image. He saw it as a priceless opportunity to get Lexcorp an independent fuel share.

Well, let them whine about some fish, I'll crush them all into tin cans.

The elevator doors opened and he strolled into the executive lobby towards the Boardroom. As he made his way through the impeccable marble-clad lobby, he took a moment to admire the large new wall logo. He had only just had it installed. He liked the new design with the x buried in the L. He thought it better reflected that this was his company. Not his father's, not even his sister's.

His.

The only complaint anyone had dared utter was that the huge logo took up most of the wall, leaving only a small space for the television in the waiting area. His staff thought that made it seem as if keeping visitors happy while they waited wasn't very important. He smiled mockingly to himself. It wasn't, really. If they were waiting out here, they were supplicants, not visitors. Maybe he should remove the TV altogether.

He glanced at the area off to the side where the expensive flatscreen hung over a collection of well-appointed leather chairs. The TV was on and set to one of those horrible Celebrity Buzz shows. He frowned. He should ask Gina to set the channel to something more appropriate. He hated those shows. They were an expensive PR nightmare, though he had long ago ceased to care about anything they said.

Then he saw Her.

He froze instantly, staring at the screen.

Chloe.

It was Her. It was really Her!

Something stirred inside him at seeing her, something he had thought dead and gone.

Something he had tried to kill over and over again, only to find himself lost without it.

Chloe was alive and whole in the world.

"Mr Luthor, if you will follow me, the Board is waiting..." Gina interrupted his thoughts.

His hand flashed up to silence her with a gesture and a sharp, "Shh!"

His eyes never shifted from the screen.

Oh God. She really was that beautiful.

The TV host chattered on about the picture with obvious delight, "Billionaire Environmentalist Oliver Queen, also known as The Green Arrow, and his elusive wife, Chloe Sullivan-Queen, have filed for divorce after their three-month separation. The couple is seen here at a charity event earlier this year shortly before separating."

In the picture she was in a purple floor-length gown. In her bright hair, a red-and-teal butterfly wing hairclip flashed.

His breath stopped. The clip!

She was smiling at the camera, but it wasn't the bright, wide smile from his fantasies. It looked brittle, forced. There was a tightness around her eyes that hinted that not all was well in her world, but otherwise she looked...whole.

The marital problems would account for the tightness, but otherwise it looked like her.

Wait. She had married Oliver Queen???

His first thought was that she must have been after the money. But no...this was Chloe. She had never been the least bit interested in money. If he had never been able to buy her, he doubted Queen could have managed it. She was more interested in truth, which was something he had failed to give her in the end.

Funny thing, that. She knew of his darkness and hadn't run away. It was only when he broke her trust that she left.

Had Oliver Queen given her the truth she sought? Could she have married...for love?

He thought of the hairclip he had seen her wearing in that picture. The clip he had given her. She still wore it.

Had she really loved Oliver Queen? Or...had she settled?

His lips quirked in evil delight at the thought. Settling...for Oliver Queen. The idea tickled Lex's fancy as much as he knew Oliver would loathe it

His thoughts had distracted him from the TV. He looked back at it again, hoping to see more of her, but the host was now yapping about some country singer.

Didn't matter anyway.

She was alive and whole. He knew who she was, and where to find her.

Gina was still standing silently next to him, wringing her hands and glancing apologetically through the glass of the Boardroom to the waiting group.

He ignored them all. He spun on his heel and strode back towards the elevator.

"Mr Luthor!," Gina called after him.

"Call my jet. Tell them we take off in twenty minutes."

"But Mr Luthor, the board meeting!"

He spun around and pointed at the huge new logo on the wall.

"That is my name on the fucking building! They work for me! Reschedule."

He spun back around, marching to the elevator.

He jammed his finger hard on the down button, hoping the force of the push would somehow speed up the machine.

He heard Gina gulp loudly even from across the room. "Where should I tell the pilot you are going?"

"Star City."

After a short detour back to the loft for something...

A ding sounded. The elevator doors retreated back and he stepped inside.

His last view as the doors closed again were the open-mouthed gapes of Gina and the board members.

*******************

At last, he had found her...by chance of all things. All his power, all his money, and he hadn't found her. Truthfully, couldn't face finding her...if she had been broken. But chance, or fate, or whatever had stepped in, giving him another shot. He wasn't going to walk away this time. He still didn't know what had happened at Black Creek or since, but whatever it was, hadn't broken her.

There was still hope for him. For her. For them.

This whole time he had been unable to determine what exactly the visions were trying to show him, but now he finally understood their mad reasoning. He and Chloe were strong enough to survive apart, but were...incomplete.

In that light, the pieces of the sendings were finally making sense. They weren't just about getting him to find her. They were about what she was for him. To him. Telling a story, with layers of intention woven throughout. To show him how it had been -- the heat, the need -- not just for him, but for her too. Even during the fights, she had been a match for him. Accepting that, he now understood why he had failed so utterly to make her into something she wasn't -- something he could dominate. He now understood why the visions focused so heavily on how it had been when he stopped trying to control her, and just...was.

Seeing her on that screen finally made him understand. They had been stronger together. He never should have tried to subdue her. Any woman that could be his equal should be valued as such, and not bridled into being something...lesser.

Why hadn't he seen that before? That last awful vision finally made sense. In his quest for power and control, he had shattered them. He wasn't exactly sure what he had done, but he knew he had broken her trust doing it. That had been the end. The only woman to ever match him, and he had driven her away.

Away, but not down. Not like him. He should have realized how strong she was.

He should have known she was resilient enough to survive Black Creek. After all, she had withstood him.

He had fared much worse losing her. When he had broken her trust, he had destroyed himself. She was the only light in him and he had extinguished it. No wonder he had gotten so lost. No wonder he had died and come back a shell. His light was gone.

He wasn't a Phoenix. He was Frankenstein's monster. He had died and come back, but he hadn't arisen as he liked to think. He had been dragged back as an abomination -- just a collection of remade body parts and jagged memory, thanks to his father and Tess. Without Chloe, he was a body with no soul -- a true monster. She was his soul. He'd been a fucking idiot and lost her time and again because he hadn't understood that basic truth.

Well, he could finally make it right.

His mind may still be blank, but it was finally clear. He would find his soul.

Finally.

[Ami Rose]

Amazing! Loving this story. Cant wait for more.

[cbrunberg]

great update.lex finally figured it out.now can't wait to see what lex does to get chloe back.

[bluemarvel]

I'm absolutely loving this fic! Looking forward to the next update.

[phillydragonldy]

Glad to see you all are enjoying my story! I really appreciate the comments! Keep them coming! ;D

[phillydragonldy]

Lex settled back against the fine leather of the jet seat and opened his laptop. The trip to Star City would take a few hours, even flying directly there in his jet. He would use that time wisely. Like any enterprise he undertook, he had to develop a plan of pursuit. He knew that chasing after a woman that had just filed for a divorce may be considered unethical by some, but he didn't care. He was a Luthor, and Luthors were nothing if not predators. Predators sought out prey when it was weak or vulnerable. Right now Chloe might be vulnerable, though she was never weak. If ever there was a chance for him to strike, it was now.

He started by pulling up the website of the celebrity show from earlier. He just wanted to see her. That flash in the lobby had been too brief. He quickly found the story, and was reading the details the tabloid "discovered" when suddenly the page was gone. He refreshed and searched several times, but it was just... gone. He tried the overseas versions of the site with the same result.

Someone was scrubbing the story. Judging by the speed at which the story was disappearing from cyberspace, someone was using a powerful worm to track and remove the linked pages.

Someone was still trying to throw off her records.

His instincts told him he knew exactly who it was scrubbing her from cyberspace.

The person that would have the most interest in making all traces of Chloe Sullivan vanish was...Chloe Sullivan.

He found his face tightened into a grin. It was him battling against Chloe once again.

Well, for once he was determined to Win against her.

This time had had an Ace to play. He knew who she really was and a place to start.

Hunching over his laptop, he went to work running down Chloe Sullivan of Star City.

****************************

It was professional pride that finally proved her undoing. She scrubbed all mentions of her personal life, but she was a reporter born, and very proud of her work.

He smiled, thinking of her intact Daily Planet records. Once a reporter, always a reporter.

She had a few discreet mentions on journalism sites scattered throughout the internet. Currently, she worked at The Star City Register.

Got you!

As her employer, The Register would have a current address for her, and it just so happened that the silent owner of the paper owed him a favor.

Lex knew by cashing in that marker that he would be giving up the anonymity of his search, but one way or the other, his hunt ended tonight. He would confront Chloe and either she would reject him -- breaking any connection or hold between them -- or she wouldn't...

He released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. If by some miracle she didn't reject him, he would see to it that she fell under the full weight of Luthor protection. It took him a moment, before he started to chuckle softly. He suddenly realized how foolish that was. She had been married to Oliver Queen all this time, but she had still managed to hide in plain sight through ingenious means. She would have no need of his protection.

Still chuckling, he decided to amuse himself by reading through her back articles.

Going to the very beginning, he started to read from something called The Torch.

When he found an interview she had done with him, a huge grin split his face. He could hear her snappy, driven voice in the words. As he read further, a loud laugh escaped from him. She had clearly been trying to corner him with some surprisingly insightful questions. It seemed they had been trying to wrangle each other since the very beginning.

And they would again.

At least once more.

**********************************

It was Her.

At long last, she was there in the flesh.

He studied her carefully from the concealment of the doorway across the street. She looked different from his flashes. Her skirted business suit was of good quality, but he didn't think they were designer. The woman in those clothes seemed somehow sleeker, more finished.

More grown up, he guessed.

But as she turned to pay the cab driver, she flashed a smile and it was exactly as he remembered. Wide and warm and beautiful.

Chloe.

His Chloe.

He continued to lurk in the shadows of the doorway as she lifted a bag of groceries and climbed up the stairs of a modest apartment building. She was fumbling with her keys and trying to juggle the large bag.

That was when he chose to step from the shadows. Silently, he drifted to her.

"Hello, Chloe."

Her head snapped up on a gasp. She almost dropped the groceries, but caught the bag just in time. The keys fell instead with a tinkling clatter.

"Lex."

There was a world of emotion in that one word.

Then she backtracked.

"I mean...Mr Luthor."

He bent down and retrieved her keys from the step where that had fallen. His senses screamed at him to take her in his arms and ravish her on the spot, but he resisted. He moved past her and aligned the key with the lock.

"Don't play dumb with me, Chloe. It doesn't suit you."

He turned the key and they both heard the clunk of the lock opening.

She blinked at him in shock. "You know who I am?"

He turned the knob and gestured for her to precede him inside. She hesitated, then put her hand out for her keys.

He smiled at the mild challenge, but returned them to her meekly. "Well, that's the thing. My life in Smallville is more or less a blank." He purposefully sharpened his gaze to his "hostile takeover stare." The intensity of that look could stop a whole room in their tracks. He leveled it at her exclusively. "Except you."

She hesitated a moment before replying. "You remember me? You remember..."

The word hung in the air unsaid, but they both knew it.

Us.

"Yes." He wanted to move in on her like a predator, but held himself back. The wolf was at her door already. "You haunt me, Chloe."

She moved past him, being very careful not to let her body touch his. As she passed, he caught the fragrance of her. Citrus and soap and something uniquely Chloe.

"Is that so?" She seemed to be getting over her shock quicker than he would have expected. He heard steel thread through her words.

He let her regain her conversational equilibrium, using it as a distraction as he followed her inside. He closed the front door behind him softly. He didn't want it to sound out with a heavy "thump." He didn't want her to realize he was cornering her.

"Yes," he replied without inflection.

She moved down the hall. He followed after. Stalked after.

"I don't know what you want from me, Lex. If you remember me, then you must remember...what happened."

He gently took the keys from her again and opened the door where she paused. This time he kept his eyes from catching hers. He didn't want her to see the banked fires burning there.

"Not exactly, but I've come to realize that it doesn't matter."

The door swung open easily. He saw from the corner of his eye she had cocked an eyebrow at him sardonically. "Really? You think so?"

Sarcasm. Chloe loved sarcasm.

He could see her stiff spine as she moved past him. He watched her as she swished. She walked like a lady in high-heeled shoes now.

He followed her through into the apartment, again closing the door quietly. He kept his face blank, calm. He glanced around the apartment, idly noting the generic nature of it. A number of moving boxes were stacked by the door.

She only moved here recently.

After leaving Queen.

Chloe continued through the sparingly decorated living room and into the kitchen.

He watched her in silence as she began unpacking groceries. There was a stiffness, a formality to her. A coldness. For the first time, he felt a quiver of doubt in his belly.

It was her... but was it really Her?

She stopped unpacking after the silent moment stretched out interminably. She met his gaze in challenge. He thought he saw a flicker of her old fire in that look. "What? Nothing to say, Luthor?"

Finally he replied, holding her gaze steadily. "Yes. I was, quite literally, another person. That was another life."

She might be his Chloe, but it had been years. What if he had missed his chance? What if the woman he loved was gone? What if the woman before him had lost the Her he loved?

He had to know.

He put his hands in his pockets and sauntered towards her with a smirk, looking around the apartment with extravagant motions. Closing in on her, he waved a hand around the forgettable apartment.

"Given your tendency to fall in bed with billionaires, I would have expected you to make out with better digs than this, Chloe."

It was the most shocking, sucker-punch thing he could think to throw at her.

Any other woman would have screeched at him to get out. Maybe slapped him. Maybe a hard stare to try to make him back down and apologize.

Chloe carefully put the box of cereal she was holding on the counter. With extreme care, she slowly closed the few steps between them until she stood toe to toe with him.

She was only inches away from him. He could grab her if he wanted. He felt his heart begin to race, but keep his expression mocking.

She looked up at him with unreadable eyes. "Nice try, Lex."

When she turned away his heart sank. His Chloe was gone. She had gone cold and brittle in the years since his memories. She was gon--

The hard right hook took him square in the jaw.

[Rachet]

Just found your story. Looking forward to more. Thanks.

[trckyrcky]

Love it. Chloe could throw a mean right hook when motivated. Hope Lex see that fire in her.

[phillydragonldy]

trckyrcky - Yeah, I always liked that Chloe was a fighter, but violence was never her first trick.

Rachet - Glad you found my story and have been enjoying it!