11. When friends come together in celebration, good cheer abounds.
If Lex had a dollar for every reason that he didn’t want to attend the annual Christmas party at the Talon…well, he really didn’t need another billion dollars.
The intrigue with Lana was quickly losing its luster. He didn’t know if he was tired of the mystery or tired of catering to her to solve it.
He tended to think that it was the latter because, although he was frustrated with the lack of progress with the LuthorCorp warehouse break in, he wasn’t fatigued by the mere thought of it. But then that particular situation involved Chloe.
With both Lana and Clark, things always felt like a struggle. Even when they were supposedly on the same side. It always felt as if he was on probation, and that one small move that they considered a misstep would ruin everything between them.
But with Chloe he’d felt like they were partners. She understood the reality that life was not black and white and that not even the best people were perfect. With her he’d never experienced that feeling that he was the first piece of dead weight to be tossed overboard in a storm. With Chloe Sullivan, you sank or swam together.
Lex had begun to admit that he missed that. Craved it. Longed for that connection with another person. And for all that he’d believed that Chloe wasn’t safe with him, she was right when she’d pointed out that she wasn’t safe, period. She was simply too passionate about too many dangerous things, like justice and truth, to ever truly be safe.
The clock caught his eye, and Lex nearly groaned. He didn’t have the time or the focus to spare for thoughts of what might have been. He had a party to attend.
And thinking, once more about Lana, Lex remembered the gift that had been left for him that had been shoved into one of his drawers. A brief search produced the small, tastefully wrapped package, and he realized that he needed to open it so that he could pretend he had liked it when Lana began dropping rather heavy handed hints about his reaction.
With a handy letter opener, he cut through the tape binding the paper, peeling it away to reveal a small, blue box. Removing the lid, he stared down in shock at the contents.
Inside, on a bed of blue velvet, was a silver lighter with the LuthorCorp logo engraved on it.
There was nothing remarkable about it. It was of good quality, but wasn’t ostentatious or overly expensive. In fact, it would have been seen as nothing more than a tasteful and generic holiday gift by someone who didn’t realize that he remembered every moment of their time together.
She’d called the game, “What would you do if…”. Apparently she and Pete Ross had played it often, and Chloe had said that it made her feel strangely better about living in Smallville to create hypothetical, perilous situations and devise a realistic course of action. After one was solved, the next would be slightly more difficult.
He had been rather awestruck at just how many contingency plans Chloe actually had.
With her at the time they were playing, awaiting a chance to be useful, was a bobby pin in her hair, a handcuff key in the lining of her purse, and a small travel box with both Ipecac and charcoal tablets.
Lex hadn’t known whether to applaud her preparedness or drag her far away from Smallville and never let her return.
He, of course, had done abysmally. And not just by comparison. Even the most basic scenario of being tied to a chair in an empty room had been something for which he’d had no answer other than, “I’m sure I’d think of something”.
Not one to let him so easily off the hook, she’d thrown numerous suggestions at him, the last of which being that he use his lighter to burn through the ropes.
Admitting to her that he had no lighter seemed somehow like telling a child that you’d put the quarter under their pillow after they’d lost their tooth. And she’d reacted with just as much disbelief.
“But- but,” she’d sputtered, “How would you light a signal fire? Sterilize a needle to give yourself stitches? Find your way through an air conditioning duct?!”
Lex had laughed then. He wasn’t laughing now.
Because the small box in his hands held more than just a Christmas gift, more than even an all purpose, life saving device…
It held a second chance.
TBC
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