Aww. I really love you for this story.
I love the argument and make-up part, especially.
Heh :biggrin:"Here's the thing, the Golden Gate Bridge has been there for over a century. I don't think it's going anywhere."
"So, if we switch the order of those things…"
Update soon!
GOD! this story is fantastic! i didn't thought of writing a feedback so i'm giving the authorization to anyone to violently bash my head into acid at anytime!!! :goof:
i love every damn little thing about ir, the dialogues, the plot, the natural course of events which u're creating...it's simply fabulous, so i want the rest missy!!artyhat:
xoox LaLa:
loved it
love lea
xxx
Aww, I'm glad they made up, and I can't wait to see how dinner plays out.
Great chapter!:chlexsign2:
:biggrin: fantastic chappy, love it all, more soon? :yay:
Sorry for the lack of updates lately, my life has been sorta hectic. Let me just say that I adore this story just as much, if not more than you're other stories! (that STILL doesn't get you out of updating FM sometime soon...) Lex and Chlore are so great in this and I can't wait for more!!!
~Manda
A/N: Thanks for all the lovely FB. Hope I don’t let you guys down at any point. This chapter is for Manda - for many, many reasons. Love ya, dear.
Chapter 7
Metropolis Planetarium…later that evening…
Chloe blinked rapidly as she felt Lex guide her through the throng of impeccably dressed people in the entrance of the new Metropolis Planetarium.
“Are you OK?” he asked.
“Sure, vision’s overrated anyway.”
“Sorry, I should have told you to look slightly above the line of photographers. Minimizes the glare of the flashbulbs.”
“I’ll know that for next time. How long does this last? I still can’t see.”
“Give it a few more seconds.”
Sure enough, with a few more blinks, Chloe was able to see shapes again and then finally Lex standing in front of her.
“Better?”
“Much. There were more of them than I thought there would be.”
“They couldn’t miss this. This grand opening is a big event with a pretty exclusive guest list.”
“So how’d you rate an invite?” teased Chloe.
“Funny.” replied Lex, helping her out of her coat. “Luthor Corp. was major donor to the renovation of the museum and especially to the addition of the Planetarium.”
Chloe smiled at him. “Stargazer.”
“Don’t let it get around.”
While Lex handed her coat to the attendant, Chloe looked around at the gleaming new space.
The new Metropolis Planetarium and Space Research Center was a unique facility, a seemingly impossible combination of technology and beauty. The building was an essentially a ten-story glass cube lit by a strategic combination of its own light and the night sky. Suspended in the middle of the cube was a huge aluminum clad sphere surrounding by scale models of the planets and other objects in the solar system. Chloe knew from the plans Lex showed her that inside that sphere was a virtual-reality powered theater which projected the actual positions and brightness of millions, if not billions of celestial objects.
“Wow.”
“Amazing isn’t it?”
“The plans you showed me didn’t do it justice, this is incredible. I’m sure there isn’t anything like this anywhere else in the world.”
Lex slid his arm back around her waist. “I told you Metropolis had its own unique advantages.”
“Subtle as a ton of bricks, Luthor.”
Lex only grinned at her. “Come, let’s look around,” he said, leading her through the glass and steel doors.
The reception celebrating the grand opening was based in the center hall of the first level, though the well-heeled guests we encouraged to stroll through the entire facility, up the sweeping ramps, through all the sparkling new exhibits.
The Metropolis elite in attendance had reached deep into their pockets to help raise the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to build the Planetarium. Now they wanted to make sure that they got to celebrate it’s opening… and that their names were spelled correctly on the gold donor plates lining the entryway. And, of course, a few photographs of them in their cocktail party best wouldn’t hurt either.
Chloe was a giddy as a twelve year old. She was itching to push through the crowds and climb, three inch heels and all, to the top of the catwalk surrounding the great sphere and poke into the galleries and rooms flanking the center hall. But, she knew that before she could do that, she had to attend to her role as Lex’s date.
Lex apparently noticed her excitement. “Don’t, worry. We’ll get to see all of it. We just need to make a few rounds first,” he said.
Chloe nodded and looked at the faces around her. She recognized some politicians, business executives and city social climbers from seeing their images in the newspapers. She steeled her stomach, reminding herself that back home she would have no qualms about talking to any of their West Coast equivalents for a story. But it was another thing entirely to try to relate to them while on the arm of Lex Luthor, to act as if she were one of them.
She snapped her attention back to the present in time to hear Lex introduce her to the director of the museum. He gave only her name, making no attempt to explain their relationship. She bit back a laugh as she remembered their ‘girlfriend/boyfriend’ conversation from months earlier.
They repeated the action with several more people as they moved about the room. Waiters were circulating among the guests with trays of hors d’ourves and glasses of wine, both of which were being as consumed at an astonishing rate. Chloe remembered what Jen had told her before her first assignment at a Bay Area high-society event. “No one appreciates free food and drink as much as the rich do. Mind that you don’t let your fingers linger too long on the canapé trays, they might get chomped off.”
None of the people Lex and Chloe greeted at first seemed too curious about who she was, to her immense relief. They greeted her politely, for the most part, though some made no attempt to hide their obvious scrutiny of her from head to toe.
‘So much for refined manners.’
She had just begun to relax when she heard a raspy voice purr Lex’s name.
“Lex! Aren’t you going to say hello?”
They turned in tandem to see a middle-aged society matron with a botox-frozen smile hovering near them. Chloe tensed immediately and Lex squeezed her hand reassuringly, even as he extended his other to the woman.
“Gloria, hello. I must not have seen you there.”
The woman ignored Lex’s hand and leaned in for a stiff hug that put *Chloe* downwind of her overpowering scent, a heavy mixture of cigarette smoke and heavy perfume.
Lex stepped out of her embrace smoothly, but quickly. “Gloria Brooke, Chloe Sullivan. Gloria is the Chairperson of the Metropolis Arts Committee. They raised a lot of the funds for this place.” Lex explained.
“It’s nice to meet…” began Chloe but Gloria immediately cut her off.
“It’s nice to see you here *with* someone Lex. If you showed up to another one of these things stag, I think there was going to be an intervention.”
Inwardly, Chloe did a little touchdown dance at the words, even though the bitch had cut her off to say them.
Gloria pressed on, raking her eyes over Chloe, “I don’t believe we’ve met before. Did you say your name was Sullivan? There’s a Randall Sullivan in the State Legislature. Any relation?”
She was obviously assuming that whomever Lex was with would be *connected*.
“No, no relation. I don’t live in Metropolis.”
“Oh really, then how did you two meet?”
‘Hell-o, nosy much?’ thought Chloe.
“Chloe and I are old friends, we go back a few years,” replied Lex, smoothly.
Gloria ran her eyes over Chloe. “Well, you can’t go back that far. Chloe looks like a very *young* friend to me.”
“Good genes,” replied Chloe. Lord, she wasn’t *that* young. It’s not as if she was still a seventeen-year old with a massive crush.
“And what do you do, Chloe?”
“I’m a writer.” Chloe wasn’t sure if the crowd would part like the Red Sea if she said the word ‘reporter’ so she decided to err on the side of caution for a while.
“Very interesting. Well, I hope to see more of you, both of you. As an *old friend* of Lex’s, I hope you have some good stories to tell. He’s still such an enigma to us.” Gloria looked pointedly at Lex., who only shrugged.
“We’ll see.” Chloe said, cryptically.
Gloria scampered away, calling out greetings to people in her raspy voice.
Lex caught Chloe’s eye. “Wasn’t too bad, right?”
“We’ll see,” repeated Chloe, as she took a glass from a passing waiter and took a large gulp.
*****
News that Lex Luthor had a new “friend” traveled through the room at the speed of light as and soon many of the guests in attendance were ‘causally walking by’ for an introduction.
Lex watched with admiration as she conversed easily with all of the people, even those who seemed intent on getting both of them to give away more information about their relationship. Still, she weathered it admirably. Lex observed, refusing to lower herself to the levels of ass-kissing and pandering already rife in the room, stating her opinions on various topics openly yet succinctly, and without hint of apology or even hesitation. Chloe could think on her feet, Lex knew, she always could. That was why when he got called away to pose for photographs with the other major donors, he didn’t worry about leaving her on her own… Well, he didn’t worry much.
He returned just in time to see a red-faced man backing away from Chloe before finally turning and fleeing at high speed.
Lex approached and put his hand on her back. He caught her eye. “Do I even want to know?”
“Short version: he offered to give me a tour of Metropolis' finest hotel rooms.”
“He said that?” Lex immediately began compiling an alphabetical list of the specific ways he was going to cause the man pain.
“No, of course not, he just said that he would *love* to show me the sights of the city. I know that tone."
"He's married with three children!"
"That what I told him…in slightly more aggressive words. Pig. I hate politicians!" grumbled Chloe.
"How are you holding up, otherwise?"
"Not too bad actually. It's funny to watch everyone try to figure out who I am. I actually thought people might remember the name from the trial."
"Not likely, at least not without someone to refresh their memories." replied Lex. "Someone will make the link eventually; we'll just have to be ready for it."
Chloe nodded in agreement. "My money's on your buddy Gloria. She's been racking her brain all night trying to figure me out. What'd you do, date her daughter or something?'
"Not to my knowledge, but my college years are still kind of hazy for me," said Lex, not really joking. He traced small circles on Chloe’s bare back as he spoke.
Chloe shot him a look, but then decided to drop it, "Anyway, she's seems to have overtaxed her brain on the matter and I think she's calling out the big guns."
"Big guns?"
Chloe motioned to a super-slender middle-aged redhead across the center hall.
"I saw her talking to Liz Myers and looking in this direction. They could have at least tried to be more subtle. Geez."
"Myers? The Planet gossip columnist?"
"One and the same, Gloria s probably asked Liz to figure out who I am for her."
"Ah… how did you know that was Liz Myers?" Lex asked. Chloe hadn't been back to Metropolis in over six years and she seemed to know a frightening amount of detail about the city.
"Intern, remember? Not to mention my *very* brief stint as a columnist. She said the same thing to me every day of my internship. 'Do you work here?' and 'Iced coffee, black.' In that order."
"Think she'll remember you?"
"She couldn't pick me out of a lineup, but she'll probably have her assistant do a search of the Planet's database before morning."
"So…tomorrow's edition, then?"
"Probably."
They looked at each other for a moment and Lex squeezed her hand. "Well, is the fact that it will be the Planet getting the scoop comforting at all?"
"Not really, but I suppose it could be worse. It's just been along time since I've looked at other reporters and felt like we were on opposite sides. Hard to get used to again."
Lex leaned in to kiss her lips briefly, when he pulled back, he saw someone standing directly behind Chloe.
"Speaking of other reporters…" Lex whispered.
Chloe spun around…to come face to face with Clark Kent.
*****
Some months earlier…Lex's study…
Lex frowned slightly as the next lines of text appeared on the screen of his laptop. He immediately began typing his response. He was *talking* to Chloe. She was still in her office working late on a story so they were messaging instead of using their phones. Chloe didn’t like talking where her coworkers could overhear her.
ArabicaBeanz: Please don't make this into a thing.
AJL1980: I'm not making it into a thing, I'm just saying I'm not thrilled with the idea.
ArabicaBeanz: Why not? It's my job.
AJL1980: I know it's your job, but that doesn't mean I am *thrilled* when you do something dangerous.
ArabicaBeanz: It's called investigative journalism and it wasn't that dangerous.
AJL1980: Pretending to be a college student in a bar and picking up guys to see if they try to slip you a date rape drug sounds pretty dangerous to me.
ArabicaBeanz: Well, when you put it that way…
AJL1980: Chloe, I'm being serious here.
ArabicaBeanz: I know, I know. FYI, I wasn't alone. Jen sent another reporter along to keep an eye on me in case anything went wrong.
AJL1980: Good. I'm still not thrilled about it, though.
ArabicaBeanz: Well, I'm sorry you feel that way but it's my job.
AJL1980: I know that
ArabicaBeanz: And I'm going to do it, whether you're *thrilled* about it or not.
AJL1980: I know that, too.
ArabicaBeanz: So what are you saying then?
AJL1980: I'm just saying be careful. Sometimes staying in one piece is more important than the story.
ArabicaBeanz: Now you're just talking crazy!
AJL1980: Chloe, please
ArabicaBeanz: Well, since you asked so nicely…I'll *consider* your input...
There was a knock on his study door and Lex looked up from his laptop.
"Yes?"
William entered "Sir, Clark Kent is here to see you."
Lex suppressed an eye roll. He had tried calling Clark three times in the last week and gotten no returned calls. Now the farm boy just decided to drop in unannounced.
"OK. Send him in."
AJL1980: I have to go, Clark's here.
ArabicaBeanz: Woo-hoo
AJL1980: Be nice.
ArabicaBeanz: Aren't I always?
AJL1980: No.
ArabicaBeanz: Then why should I start now? I'll call you when I get home.
AJL1980: Thanks. Good luck with the story.
Lex looked up in time to see Clark shuffle in. The flannel and jeans were gone, replaced with the khakis and rumpled shirt and tie of a small-time reporter, but he was still Clark.
"Hey, Lex. You weren't busy, were you?"
"I was, but since you're so difficult to get a hold of these days, I figure I should talk to you when I have the chance."
"Oh…sorry about that. Some things came up in Smallville that I had to take care of…" Clark replied, vague as ever. "Uh…my parents say 'hi'."
Lex raised an eyebrow, "Really?"
"Well, my mom does, anyway."
"I thought so. I have to hand it to your dad, Clark. When he makes his mind up about someone, it stays made up." Jonathan Kent was as thickheaded as ever when it came to all things Luthor. At least there were some constants in the universe.
"Yeah, well…What did you want to talk to me about?"
One corner of Lex's lips curled up. "We don't talk as much as we used to these days, Clark, but I still consider you a friend. You know I don't have many people in my life that I can apply that term to."
Clark only looked at him expectantly so Lex continued.
"A few months ago, I went to San Diego on business. While I was there I ran into someone. Someone we both know."
"Who?"
"Chloe Sullivan."
Clark's eyes widened and it took him a few seconds tried to get the words out of his mouth. "Chl-Chloe Sullivan?"
"Yes, she was there on business as well, and we spent some time together. She…mentioned that you two don't really communicate very much anymore."
"That's not true…"
"Clark, a Christmas card and a few forwarded emails is not communicating. Look, I know that what Chloe did upset you but you know as well as I do that she's more than paid for her mistakes. She's the one who had her life uprooted, not you, if I recall correctly."
"She made a deal with your father…"
"Because she felt betrayed by you. You and your *secrets.*" Lex said pointedly.
Clark shifted in his seat. Though they never talked about it, Clark knew that Lex knew more about his abilities than he let on. But so far, Lex had honored their friendship and kept quiet. Of course, it was always *there* hanging over them.
"Lex, why are you bringing this up now? That was six years ago, your father's dead. And Chloe lives halfway across the country; I doubt she wants much to do with me anyway."
"Chloe and I are dating."
"What?"
"You heard me."
"You're dating Chloe Sullivan?"
End chapter.
A/N: The building described herein is inspired (I made some modifications) by the Rose Center for Earth and Space aka the New Hayden Planetarium at New York’s American Museum of Natural History. If you ever get an opportunity to visit it, do not pass it up. In the meantime, visit http://www.amnh.org/rose to see pictures of how truly breath-taking it really is.
That was great! I love the flashback with Clark. He never ceases to amaze me with his stupidity. I can't wait to see what happens when Clark and Chloe see each other.
Susan S
These are great NBG...I just read nightswimmers and then moved on to this one....what wonderful stories...please update soon, i want to know how clark feels about their relationship..more soon.
Thank you! I have this huge-ass smile on my face now cause this chapter was just fantabulous, as usual. You had my in giggles from the first two lines...
That's *so* a Chloe phrase too. I could just SEE her saying that in my minds eye. I :heart: this story so much.Are you OK?” he asked.
“Sure, vision’s overrated anyway.”
~Manda
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