I love arranged or forced marriage stories too. I was thinking a couple of months ago about how I'd never written a Chlex one, so--when Julie asked me to write the Advent Calendar fic--I decided it was a perfect opportunity!
Probably about like I have managed to live the last few years without any of your amazing Chlex videos!
I thought this might be a good opportunity to mention that there's not going to be a huge amount of development of the details of Chloe's knowledge on Lionel and what he's hiding. The plot was really just a means to an end in the story--the forced marriage. Lionel, of course, will be a significant aspect of the story, but I don't want folks to be disappointed when the end comes and they don't know much more about all of the details of Lionel's project and exactly what Chloe discovered about it.
There will be the relationship tensions, of course, throughout the story as the Chlex relationship has ups and downs, but not very much real angst. And, when it comes at the climax, it's fairly short lived. I really think this story follows a similar pattern as Road Tripping--a lot of fun in different settings, a lot of developing romance, and a little bit of angst and emotional lows to keep the characters human.
I'm totally with you on this reading of Lionel. I don't know how, given his nature, he could really get over something like that.
Just to clarify, because the timeline might have been confusing. You're right that Lex and Chloe did break up when she was still seventeen, and it's been six years since she's seen and talked to him. But it's been more than six years since they broke up, so you can assume they ran into each other in Smallville or elsewhere for a while after their breakup. The story takes place ten years after that summer - so Chloe is twenty-seven.
Yes, that's right - the story will be twenty-four chapters, in addition to the prologue and an epilogue.
Regarding Chloe and Clark's friendship, I won't go into much in the future chapters, so I thought I'd answer you here. You're right that their friendship isn't as close as it used to be. Chloe knows that Clark would definitely protect her still, but they don't have the kind of close relationship where she'd naturally lean on him for help. I wasn't envisioning any big blow-out between them, but rather a gradual, natural distancing as they both grew up and had less in common than they used to.
Honestly, I'm so far removed from Smallville now that I really don't have much interest in Clark anymore, so he's not likely to be a major feature of any other story I write.
Thanks for the great feedback, everyone! As some of you know, I tend to answer questions and address issues from feedback in subsequent chapters of my stories. Since I can't do this in this story (as it's already completed), I will respond to this thread and try to clarify things that come up.
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