Survival, NC-17, - Aug. 2, 2009 - Epilogue added

[tiger04]

Please update, please.

[SVfan1286]

God, I really miss this fic...It's to good of a story to be stuck in the graveyard. I hope you will update again.

[tiger04]

Please update. so close to the end. I will cry, beg, even bake a cake, cookies, or pie please please update!

[tatie87]

I fell in love with this story. I love the Chloe and Lex relationship. I need more, its not to late for a sequel.

[merdeliquesce]

this story = so good. i want more.

[Nimmie]

Wow, I really enjoyed this epic first story. Would have loved to see some more developement in the lex lionel resolution area, but nicely done you mainted the dynamic between them very well. And Like seriously the interaction between lex and chole is at times spot on. Well you know we all want an epilogue, so

Thank you
N

[glista]

this story is good, please update...............

[skauble]

Hi all! In place of nonky I'm posting her epilogue for this story.

She asked me to tell everyone that "the ghost of nonky wanted you to have closure, even though closure is made up to sell books about getting over your pain and becoming a better person through carrot smoothies."

I want to take a minute to address the fact that, early on in this story it was going to be part of a trilogy. However, that's no longer the plan and the epilogue definitely answers the unresolved issues in this story and wraps things up so the lack of other stories will in no way leave anyone hanging.


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Survival Epilogue

One of the security officers pried Deidre from Chloe's tense grip, laying the unconscious woman on a folding stretcher on the floor. He patted his employer's wife on the back once, awkwardly and gently, telling her in her wordless state he would take care of her friend. Chloe nodded as she scooted back to make room.

She watched until the man took a pulse and threw a nod to her. His face was grim but the signal meant Deidre would live.

There were perhaps twenty more people in the room, their legs passing along at eye level. She couldn't tell them apart and the identical dark suits gave no hints. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, looking at anyone except Elsie. The faces she'd been trying to remember didn't make any sense. After a while a man crouched beside her and she knew him. They'd only met officially that day.

“Dave, are we getting an ambulance? I want Deidre in the hospital right away. Elsie had something in her purse like chloroform.”

She stood up, accepting his help.

“Yes, ma'am, it's a few minutes out,” he told her. “It might be wise for you to go and get looked over. You could ride along with her.”

Her shoulder would bruise and Lex would be a bear when he heard about all this, but Chloe knew she didn't need a doctor. She groped for focus because there must be something she could do to help. No one was complaining she wasn't doing what she should, which was too bad.

I'd appreciate the guidance, she thought. Lex wouldn't be standing around like I am.

“I'm . . . I'm not hurt. So we have three injured and we're sure Eddie is already at the hospital?”

Dave nodded. “I called and made sure he got there.”

She glanced at her watch, surprised at how little time had passed since the alarm went out.

“Okay. His wife needs to be here; I can call. How do you feel about our security right now?”

The screening of the mansion employees had been flawed to miss Elsie several times. The security officers passed a different background check – standard policy when you were hiring a private armed guard.

“I can guarantee my men. The regular staff members are sequestered. I'm inclined to believe this was supposed to be a quiet attempt,” he said uneasily. “Mrs. Luthor, I have almost 100 people whose backgrounds I can't guarantee in light of today, and I can't keep them locked up for much longer. I can't tell you what to do but my professional advice would be to go back to the city and stay put.”

It was her second chance to get out and Chloe couldn't believe she was going to turn it down. She was frightened and uncertain. It would be great to walk away from the hurtful shocks and feel safe. Her husband wouldn't leave his employees or his home. Since it was her home now she had to act as he would.

She met the eyes of their de facto head of security firmly. “I owe Mrs. Haring a call. Who do I talk to about using the helicopter to bring her to the Medical Center?”

Dave grimaced and beckoned two of his men over.

“If you're making it an order I have to insist you let Todd and Howard be your personal guard,” he said wearily.

“I'm making it an order,” Chloe replied.

She took his bemused look and the numbers he wrote on a scrap of paper. When Lex came back he was going to yell at everyone he could find, but he would be yelling at live people instead of their ghosts. She could hug and kiss forgiveness from him.

The guards walked her to a smaller room to use the telephone. Her eyes stung as she dialed Eddie's wife. The poor woman had no idea her husband was hurt. He had children and rarely saw them during the past few months. Her greeting was bright and unaware.

“Hello, Mrs. Haring, you don't know me but my husband employs your husband,” she said, struggling with the phrasing that might make it easier to hear. “My name is Chloe Sullivan-Luthor.”

Caution choked the softly pitched voice that repeated her name slowly. “Mrs. Luthor . . . “

“Yes. I know it's odd that I'm calling but Eddie needs you. He's been injured.”

The other woman exhaled loudly, her throat catching and dragging. “Was he shot?”

Chloe gripped the armrest and flinched. It sounded like his wife knew the dangers of his job all too well.

“He wasn't shot. He has a head injury. An ambulance took him thirty minutes ago. If you don't mind a helicopter we can get you to him in less than an hour.”

There was a long pause and the sound of objects being roughly searched in a purse or a drawer. Eddie's wife was angry the next time she spoke.

“A half hour? Why didn't anyone call me,” she asked. “I've been home since 7:30. I've been next to the phone all morning.”

Eddie's job was to protect other people at the expense of his own family. If the heavy responsibility and guilt lodged in her heart was any shadow of the way Lex felt when his employees suffered for their jobs, he did a lot more than the job of an executive.

“I realize you're frightened. I don't know why you didn't get a call immediately. I can't make up for that but I can get you to your husband as quickly as possible,” she said carefully. “Please let me send a car to take you to the helicopter.”

The sounds of fierce movement stopped and fear was the only emotion in the woman's reply. “I can't get on a helicopter. If something happened to both of us . . . “

“I just want to get you here safely. The driver can bring you all the way.”

The desperation was contagious and Chloe was biting her lip trying to think of another way. Maybe Eddie could be moved to Metropolis but he would need to be examined at Smallville Medical first and it might take hours to get word if tests were necessary.

“Did you see him?”

“No, I'm sorry. I didn't . . . I've only heard what happened to him. He was struck on the head and he might have been drugged,” Chloe said hurriedly. “We think we know who did it and have stopped-”

“I don't care. He's alive. Send the car. I'll be ready in ten minutes. Get me to him.”

Chloe closed her eyes in relief. She wanted to be with her own husband so badly.


Lex watched Banks put a box of evidence into the trunk and nodded coolly to the former military man's acknowledgement before he walked away. The interrogations were over and all of the captives had admitted their guilt. They would be released and given twelve hours to turn themselves in voluntarily or the next time they were snatched they wouldn't be released alive. The hold out, James Crane, broke after his dominant hand did the same.

The need to go home battled with the urge to hide what he'd done. Talking to Chloe at the end of the day put events into their place. Even the major upsets didn't seem as bad with her encouragement seconding the ideas he had for fixing what hadn't worked. Telling her the lengths he'd go would make himself feel better and provoke a reaction he couldn't risk from his wife.

They killed Gabe, he told himself. She deserves to know and she will in a few days.

His actions weren't written on his face and no spot of blood came anywhere near him. No witness saw him in this seedy area of Boston, nor did any of the kidnapped men have contact with him. He was innocent according to the law, simply because he could never be proved guilty.

The nervous thoughts of his wife wouldn't be put to rest until he was with her. He took his seat and tried calling her as the car started moving. She didn't answer. Lex hung up without leaving a message and called the security room. Chloe was probably busy and he was overreacting. That morning she was in good spirits and she might be spending time with Deidre.

In a few days he'd know what to tell her. Surely he could keep a secret from a woman who trusted him for less than a week. The greatest difficulty was the way he felt about it.

“Yeah?!”

Frowning at the rude answer, he replied. “This is Lex Luthor. I want to speak to Haring.”

The silence on the other end was telling and he was satisfied to know that his authority stood for something. “Sir, he's not here.”

“Is Dave on shift? Let me talk to him.”

“I'll get him, sir. Please, um, hold.”

It was the better part of ten minutes before there was another voice on the line, a subordinate guard.

“Mr. Luthor, Dave asked me to give a report of the situation until he is able to speak to you. There was a breach early this afternoon. Haring was attacked, knocked out and possibly drugged. He was off duty at the time and has since been taken to hospital. Your wife wasn't harmed, but her friend was drugged, so we sent her to the hospital.”

Lex froze, his chin tilted down in an effort to brace for the news. He had been in the wrong place – doing the wrong thing to protect her. He should never have left her alone. He brought his head up and barked at the driver. “I have to get to the airport right away! Break any laws you have to,” Lex said. He held the phone tightly to his ear, despite his knowledge that the loud pounding of his heart was inside his body and couldn't be blocked out.

“Tell me about Chloe. Where is she right now?”

The guard didn't have an answer except that she was inside the house and with two guards. Lex leaned forward and pounded on the divider, frustrated and guilty beyond anything he'd felt before. He had been too impatient and left her alone. Lex held his useless cellphone and pushed the speed dial and disconnect buttons compulsively. No one ever answered his wife's phone. He only stopped during takeoff on the request of the pilot.

The flight would take too damn long and he could only think about his failure.


Chloe was sitting on the sofa making her lengthy and rather circuitous statement when Lex arrived home. She jumped up and ran over to him with her arms out like a little girl, and threw herself into his embrace. He caught her face and kissed her hard for a moment, then pulled her tightly against his body. He felt hot, as if he'd been running or panicking. He put his hands in her hair and she gripped his back. He was breathing heavily and she felt bad for not calling him.

Just like she expected, her eyes welled up and overflowed once he was with her. Chloe leaned on him and sobbed half a dozen times before she heard the other people in the room retreating to give them privacy.

“She had a gun – and the poison, Lex, I don't understand,” his wife murmured to him brokenly. Lex closed his eyes and rubbed her back until she sighed. “I'm okay. I'm just shocked. I don't think I'll ever get what happened today out of my head.”

He knew what she meant. Julian's death was stored in his memory with blinding detail. The vague unreality of it made no sense except to let Lex live in a tiny bit of forgetting. Edges blurred over time but wouldn't fade. He'd hoped Chloe wouldn't have to add another horrible event to her life.


When they let each other go enough to step back a few inches the police officers came to take Chloe back to the sofa. She nodded and kissed Lex's cheek softly. “I'll be fine. Go talk to Dave. Everything's a mess and I didn't know all that should be done,” she apologized.

He squeezed her hands and smiled tightly. “You did fine. Stay with your guards and I'll find you soon.”

She felt a shiver down her back as he walked away. Physically, she was safe. She could ask him to come back, even. But Chloe sat down and kept talking in the quiet voice that was the only way she could express what had happened. No matter how many times she saw the police officers straining to hear her, she couldn't speak up.


Lex found his acting head of security and was told the employees other than guards were giving statements. It was a long process to wade into the ballroom and find a specific person, then deliver them to the room where they would be interviewed privately. The police also wanted to search certain areas of the house before they were touched. The kitchen, staff quarters, master bedroom and library would be off limits for the time being.

Eddie Haring and Deidre Bennet were going to recover. Lex was surprised to find out Mrs. Haring had been contacted. He was usually the person with the ugly task of telling an injured employee's loved ones the name of the hospital and offering help to get there.

“You called Mrs. Haring,” he asked Dave.

“Mrs. Luthor insisted on calling. She offered the helicopter but it was declined. One of the drivers picked Mrs. Haring up in Metroplis and she arrived at the hospital a little more than an hour ago.” Dave paused. “I tried to send Mrs. Luthor with your receptionist to be checked by a doctor. Mrs. Luthor refused to leave. She appeared to be unharmed.”

Lex nodded. “I understand. And I hope you understand that protecting her might mean disobeying her orders in the future. This place and everything in it can burn before I'll consider it an acceptable risk to have her in danger. If security ever becomes impossible to verify she's the first one out.”

When he received a nod, Lex started trying to settle the security, at least for the night. He convinced the Sherriff to let his employees go to a few local hotels where they could be reached for questioning. He ordered double guards everywhere and called in everyone he could trust to help secure the castle. He went to the master bedroom with a police officer to get some clothes for himself and Chloe. They would stay in one of the smaller bedrooms. Without employees they wouldn't be comfortable for long, but they could manage for the night.

It was past midnight, and the security teams were preaching extreme caution in using anything Elsie would have purchased. The entire food supply would have to be purged, and the toiletries were similarly suspect. Lex was careful to take the dry cleaned clothing instead of the items laundered in the castle. He packed an overnight bag, then took Chloe's birth control pills and her laptop. As he shoved the little plastic pill case into his pocket, he realized they might be tainted.

I sent her here, alone, to be safe. I was looking at the men who killed her father, but I couldn't figure out they were going to try again to get Chloe. I didn't ask the right questions and I didn't look around my own home well enough to see a killer, Lex thought tensely. I was up to my own crimes, and too worried about hiding it from her.

He was lucky, several times over lucky now that Chloe was safe. His priorities would get a strict overhaul – the overhaul he'd been half-attempting throughout their short marriage. It wasn't protection for a wife not to know what he was truly capable of doing. He wouldn't implicate her, but if she asked he would give Chloe an honest answer. He didn't think she would leave him for what he had done in Boston. If she left him for something else . . .

The worried husband shook his head and sighed silently. The point of their marriage was her safety and he was relieved all the near misses hadn't taken Chloe from him. If she decided for herself to leave, he could manage. Their's was not a traditional marriage, nor would it be a traditional divorce. No one could blame her for wanting a little more time to just be herself before she tied herself to a shared life. At least she would be taken care of financially, and he thought he could count on her to accept bodyguards.

Exasperated with himself, Lex tossed the birth control pills in a drawer and took a box of condoms instead. His wife needed comfort, support and rest. Anything else could wait until it became a bigger issue than the madwoman who had overseen their home. There had been a time when his life was not filled with a quick blond, and he could fill that empty space if it came to that.

The day seemed to fall like a layer of weight on his skin, and Lex grabbed the clothing he would need quickly. He walked to the guest room with his escort, and thanked him at the door.

“The door has a lock?” Lex nodded. “I hope you and Mrs. Luthor have a better day tomorrow,” the deputy said sincerely. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

The clip of boots on stone ventured off as Lex opened the door. He put everything in his arms down on a chair, and looked to the bed. Chloe had showered and wrapped herself in a robe. She rose to her knees when he secured the door..

“I – Lex, I don't-” She slumped down and he could see her begin to cry, her hand raised to hide it.

“It's okay, sweetheart, you don't have to write about this. You don't have to find words unless it helps you. All I need to know is how I can help you,” he whispered, sitting down and leaning in. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

She moved to shake her head, but tears rolled down her face as she sobbed on a shallow breath. Her hands clawed into his shirt.

“I thought she – Elsie -” Her face crumpled, throat shutting off her words. Lex nodded rapidly, rubbing her back so she didn't have to fight them out.

“She was motherly, and caring to me, too. She seemed to be really in my – our lives. I don't understand it, but we'll find out. I don't know if it will make any sense, but there will be some kind of answer. So it hurts here?”

He pushed past the robe and touched between her breasts. Chloe nodded, flecks of water dripping down her shoulders. He sighed.

“I'll make it better,” he promised. “Does it hurt anywhere else?”

She pushed the robe off her shoulder to show him a broad, round bruise. It was still hot to the touch, swollen. Her arms lifted to let the robe fall back from her wrists. Small, deep bruises marked her, some of them with a crescent moon gouge in the centre. He had been away at the wrong time, and no number of security guards would make up for that. Something would have to be done to keep her protected, other than chaining her to his side as he went about his life and she followed like a child bride. Lex pressed dry lips to each one, feeling her body tremble as she let him comfort her. Her eyes closed, she took one hand down and pulled her robe over her hip. The bruise there was larger than his fist, making her poor leg look exceptionally pale.

“It only looks bad,” she said, her voice thick and sad. “I took a bath and it's not very sore.”

He put his hand over the nasty purple blotch, his eyes closed as he pulled her in to lean their faces together. “I'm going to feel guilty about this, Chloe, you can't keep me from that,” he told her. “But I don't want you to worry how I'll react. I want to know everything you want to tell me.”

She touched his wedding band, and he shook his head. “Not because of that.”

Chloe drew back to pout at him, confused. He had been trying to let her know they had more going on between them than a marriage she wasn't sure of, but he had been vague and she had been nervous. It was hard to express without laying himself out completely, gutted feelings spilling everywhere. It wasn't the night to get into the topic, so he smiled gently.

“Don't worry. If you're okay, I'm okay. The rest will be worked out. I brought some clothes for us. Why don't you dry your hair and change for bed?”

She licked her lips, staring at him, having no luck reading his eyes. He was breathing easily, letting confidence show through the slightest motion. Lex pulled her robe over her legs and kissed her forehead.

“You're tired,” she asked, searching for a hint of something under the blankness he was sending out. “I'm glad you're back. Grab a shower and I'll wait for you.”

He went into the bathroom and stripped down, leaving the door open. Chloe saw him look back at her a few times, but she didn't say anything. It was a good feeling. Lex was there and he was protecting her. If it came down to the very last of his strength, he'd defend her instead of saving himself. She didn't want that, but it eased the quaking unreality of the day. She nearly had to leave him, and it would have hurt him so badly. A close call like that made feelings come into startling clarity.

She grabbed a towel and scrubbed her hair dry, trying not to stare at her husband. The shower curtain was translucent, a pearly coloured fabric that showed his skin when it brushed his limbs. She put on the nightgown he brought. The bed creaked with newness, and she hated it. For all the unfamiliarity of their own bedroom, in Metropolis and at the castle, those felt like bedrooms. The guest room was nicely furnished. It had everything, except the kind of sacred privacy she felt in a room where Lex had slept.

It's only one night, she thought. Don't bother him with this. He'll be out in a minute and you'll feel better.

Lex took a few extra minutes, letting the water beat on his spine. He would likely be knotted up for weeks, but he could try to hide if from his frightened wife. She would need him to appear un-fazed. Normal for them was to get over attacks from inside their own home. He would be paranoid so she could forgive Elsie. He could easily imagine the possible stories Chloe was thinking up as excuses why Elsie tried to kill her. He could even stomach helping the bitch if Chloe recovered more quickly as a result.

He turned off the shower and pushed the curtain away, determined not to let his anger disturb Chloe. He could hold it in. There would be plenty of yelling to be done tomorrow, and perhaps a few dozen firings.

He smiled at his wife, happy to see a tiny leer as he stepped out and dried off. She flipped the bedcovers back, throwing off the piles of decorative pillows that marked an unused guest bed. He pulled on boxers and hesitated. He wanted the gun from his jacket in the night table, but he didn't want her looking when he moved it.

“I saw the gun,” she told him, her expression neutral. “Go get it if it will make you feel better.”

“Chloe . . . “ He paused, hard pressed to tell her in a new way that she was safe now, that he would protect her. The words only meant as much as he acted upon them.

She smiled a very tiny smile, looking both tired and drawn. He got the gun and checked it, putting it on the table nearest the door. He would put himself between Chloe and danger and hopefully she would sleep. She climbed in and looked expectantly until he did the same. He head bent to his shoulder, and he put his arm around her. Once he flicked off the lights he felt her start to cry quietly, but she did fall asleep. He waited for morning.


She woke up, and got out of bed nearly immediately, startling Lex. He sat up, squinting in the sunlight eking between the drapes. Her body moved a little stiffly, but she was moving purposefully. Her hair swept up and she ran water in the sink. She washed her face and put on minimal makeup. A brush dragged her wavy blond strands into a bare style. She brushed her teeth and grabbed some clothing. After a few minutes behind the closed door, Chloe came out fully clothed.

“I want to see Deidre as soon as we can,” she said. “And Eddie. Or at least we can meet his wife. Do we have any drivers or should we take one of your cars?”

He shook his head, regretting the hours of staring at the ceiling. If he had known she was going to be this flurry of movement and tasks he would have tried harder to make himself sleep. Sliding to the edge of the mattress, he grabbed his nearly dead phone and dialed Dave.

“Good morning Mr. Luthor. What can I do for you,” the man answered in a snap-to-it tone. It was impressive for someone who hadn't had even a few minutes of lying down.

“Dave, my wife and I would like to go to the hospital now. It seems wise to get our visiting over early in the day. In your opinion is it better to take a car and driver or drive ourselves?”

The considering silence on the other end was diplomatic. Haring would have barked about The Luthors staying at home and out of reach of reporters. He would have complained about the manpower needed to get them into and out of a public building.

“I think we'll use security men only, and three of the SUVs,” Dave replied. “No offense sir, but at least the SUVs are black. Your cars all spot fairly easily.”

“They cost enough,” Lex joked grimly. “We'll be ready in twenty minutes. Don't bother with food, we'll figure out something later.”

He washed and put on a suit, keenly aware of his wife's silence. She was packing and repacking her purse, taking out items and putting them back in a few seconds later. He put his hands over hers and looked into her eyes.

“Chloe, while we're there, maybe you should get an x-ray on your hip. It will only take a few minutes to have a doctor examine you.”

She shook her head. “No, I'm not the one who's hurt. I want to see Deidre and apologize for putting her in the middle of all this, then I want to talk to Elsie,” she told him. “I want to look at her as she explains killing me. I want to know what I missed.”

She had missed what security experts had missed several times, but he didn't say so. Chloe needed her own answers, and failing that she needed to be allowed to look for the answers and be denied them in person. She pushed the small can of mace back into her purse and reached up to touch his shoulder.

“Don't worry, I'm okay,” she said.

They made it to the hospital in the lull between nighttime reporters and their daytime replacements. If one of them had been brought in the reporters would have camped out, but with just employees hospitalized they had to give lower priority. Some would come back, trying to get the pictures of an alleged assassin or the Luthor couple. Others would go to less juicy but more reliable stories. The nurse at the charge desk was adamant none of them were going upstairs before 9 a.m. She suggested breakfast in the cafeteria.

Bodyguards took tables around a smaller booth, leaving Chloe and Lex to sit alone with muffins and coffee. She let her head hang, ignoring the food. He extended his hand flat and she smoothed a fingertip over his nails. She stroked down to his watch strap and curled her thumb under his palm. She overlapped them so their rings were together.

“I want to speak to Elsie alone,” Chloe murmured. “I don't think she's crazy, and I don't think she had a personal reason for killing me. I think someone was making her do it. She said she had to.”

He studied her face, looking for signs of vulnerability. If Elsie hurt her again, he would have to kill the old hag, and it would be a publicity nightmare. Green eyes looked at him clearly, her mouth held in a determined line. She put both hands on his, and they were dry and steady. Her heart beat normally. She wasn't even flushed. Not quite a Luthor mask, but a professional facade. She was a survivor of many crises, and she knew how this day would go. They would tread carefully, words chosen with great pains, hands still, bodies tense, faces blank. They would not descend into hysteria. Yesterday the world tried to end them, and today they were still in the world, so they would try to shape it into order. They were not going to assume each step would pitch them into the void. They would not forget the void was waiting to exist.

“I'll be outside the door, and I'll be looking,” he insisted. “Call me in if you need to, even if it means you don't get all the answers. You're more important than the interview. You do not owe her anything.”

The clocks crawled to visting hours, and they headed up through the stairwells. The doctor who met them in the hallway told them both Eddie and Deidre were going to be fine, and it meant a lot more after a night of observation than it had at Dave's last report before they retired. Chloe's hand moved away from Lex and he let her take a single step toward Elsie's room. She was staring at the police officer outside the door. The observation window was covered by blinds.

“How is Elsie Urset,” she asked. “Has anyone from the psych department spoken with her?”

The positive expression the doctor had been wearing slipped. He looked to Lex, who refused to offer any kind of opinion. If anyone had the right to question Elsie's treatment now, it was his wife. She had poise and her voice was even. She had handled the danger long before anyone else identified the the source. Dave stood back, gave a hand signal to his men, and the doctor alone took Chloe to the side.

“She has refused to speak to anyone, including the deputies. Her injuries were slight, but she was agitated. Due to . . . circumstances, she is restrained to a bed. If I were to guess, I would say her mental state is fragile,” he said. “Mrs. Luthor, I'm aware of what you've been through, but I can't let you vent upon my patient. She has been advised of her legal rights and chosen to be silent.”

Chloe almost wanted to leave it to police and doctors, but she knew there was something wrong. Elsie hadn't been insincere in her affection for the Luthor family. She had genuinely loved her work. Not everyone hated them just for their last name, and assuming her to be a disgruntled employee was a mistake. Elsie had bits of a story that would add to finding the people who killed her father. There was no comfort until she was confronted.

“Doctor -”

“Allan,” he supplied. She was used to people being offended by things like forgetting names and faces. Now, no one expected her to even acknowledge them.

“Dr. Allan, I'm not here to browbeat her. I was there, so I know what she's done. I'm here to see three employees who have been hospitalized because of their association with my husband and I,” she assured him. “The other two patients have no fear of legal difficulties, but Mrs. Urset will need a good lawyer. I want to offer her the reccommendation of counsel not part of our retinue, but well-regarded and capable. As such, that may well fall under privilege.”

She was talking fast and loose, but he seemed to be taking it in without any doubtful gestures or attempts at cutting her off. The idea of privilege between a victim and attacker was ridiculous, but there was the notion of Luthors and their odd dealings. Perhaps Lionel and Lex sent flowers and chocolates to all the people who nearly murdered them. The state of being Lex's wife was nebulous even to her, so she couldn't fault others for not knowing her lies for what they were.

He fussed with his stethoscope, glanced at Lex, and nodded. “I suppose I could go in and ask Mrs. Urset if she would speak with you,” he allowed. “But only briefly, and if she becomes upset I'll have to empty the room.”

“I'm not bringing my bodyguards,” Chloe said. “I'll be quick. Thank you, Dr. Allan.”

She gave him a close-lipped smile, and he ducked past her. After a word to the officer at the door, Dr. Allan let himself in with a keycard. Lex walked over to her, grasping her shoulders.

“You don't have to be the one to do this. I'll get you justice,” he vowed. “I remember what I promised and I've never stopped working to find those men who killed your father.”

He bit off the phrase harshly – those men – like it was more personal than she knew. More personal than it had been since they cleared Lionel of her father's murder. If she pushed at that spot, Lex would give her more information than he was saying. She didn't have time. Elsie would be in custody soon, never again accessible.

“I have to, because she had to,” the blond said sadly. “I have to because all the horrors recently come back to me somehow. This is my only peace right now. It's the only way to save myself from breaking. I love that you want to protect me. I appreciate all of it, but this is mine because it happened to me.”

He seemed to know holding her would drive her beyond the calm she needed, so Lex touched her cheek and let go. He looked over as Dr. Allan came out of the room. He stepped back deliberately, lining the hallway with their guards, as she went in.

It was dim, and Elsie was lying flat on her back with velcro arm and leg cuffs. She darted her eyes toward Chloe, then looked toward the window. The morning was blocked by a set of heavy aluminum slats.

“Elsie, I'm not here to get angry with you. I am angry, but it just won't touch you. I think I saw how you really feel in your face, when we struggled for the gun,” she said, staying away from the bed. “I think I saw desperation, and fear for people nowhere in that room, but very close to you. I've been threatened. I've had friends threatened. It's like someone makes a knife out of helplessness and stabs you with it. Who made you do it?”

Her ever-neat updo had degraded into a fuzz of grey hair, and the hospital gown showed bruises and cuts from the fight. Elsie moved as if to bring a hand to her face, and flinched as the strap stopped her.

“There are studies on kidnapping victims' families,” she continued. “The stresses of it are huge. More than one person has been traumatized, even after getting a safe return. It makes the world unsafe, and it's unbearable knowing you can't save someone you love from the random brutality. It's the kind of thing that judges will take as temporary insanity. People have been acquitted from serious crimes on consideration of the pressure a loved one feels being taunted with a family member's safety.”

Chloe opened the blinds, and the sudden wash of light showed tears on the housekeeper's weathered face. She turned her head, but the reporter's instincts were on to something.

“I have a name of a good lawyer, one who could use those studies to make a defense for you and get you freed after a little time in a hospital. The deal you made fell through yesterday, and they won't try to help you now,” she reasoned, approaching the foot of the bed to lean in. The other woman's face was twisted with anxiety.

Pity wasn't beyond her, but neither was rage. Time wasted put Lex in danger, and she couldn't forgive that. Elsie had to know she was trapped and needed all the help she could get. She had to see reason, or nothing Chloe said would make a dent.

“I think they killed my father, in cold blood, just to get me,” she said. “You're a good person, but I can't take too much time in here waiting for you to stop being afraid to cross them. It's already done, but you can help stop them, too.”

Minutes passed and Chloe had to give up. She had tried, and she truly did believe Elsie was under duress. She put the lawyer's card on the rolling tray, turning to leave. A ragged breath from the woman on the bed became a sob that became a word.

“Wait.”


Lex sprang off the wall as Chloe slipped out the door, nodding to the police officer. Her face was disturbingly blank, and he pulled her in for a hug. She melted to him, her face hidden. He felt her hand in his pocket, opening, pressing, then withdrawing. Her mouth rose to his ear and she whispered.

“Elena Urset, Elsie's daughter. She's a recovering drug addict and going through a divorce. They said they'd grab her and make her death look like an overdose so the husband got the kids. San Diego, living in one of several shelters on any given night,” Chloe said softly. “Elsie will talk when she gets a call from her daughter.”

He suspected the names Elsie had to provide were the same men due to give themselves up to the police, but Lex wouldn't willingly let someone be destroyed by vague association to him. He kissed his wife and folded his hand over the paper she'd stuck in his pocket.

“I'll have her found and set up somewhere safe,” he promised.

She pulled away and stopped a nurse. “Please tell Dr. Allan Mrs. Urset complained of some deep pain in both her arms. She was restrained by several security men yesterday, so it might be an injury.”

Chloe hadn't spoken to Elsie about her health. She thought it would buy some time in a hospital room instead of a cell, and possibly save the despondent woman's life. She had given up on herself, but she had to make a final appeal for her grandsons. The marriage that was meant to save Chloe sent out waves of explosive consequences. Families were being wiped out for the most peripheral connections. Elsie wasn't some villainous accomplice. She was snagged by the conspiracy against her employer and his wife.

She hadn't been able to accept the gloom and doom of Lex's outlook until she lived it for a few months. They were creating new targets. Bodyguards and drivers were hired with awareness of the danger. There were a few local hotels full of regular employees who couldn't have thought domestic service was hazardous. Deidre couldn't have known befriending her was going to put her on the scene of her murder.

“I feel like some kind of Greek tragedy,” she sighed. “Like for every person I'm trying to lay to rest, I'm getting another half dozen killed. What do we say to Eddie and his wife, or to Deidre?”

Lex took her hand firmly, his face set into confidence. “We say we're sorry they got caught up in what was meant to hurt us. We tell them we'll do as much as we can for them, and they are welcome back to their jobs whenever they are ready. We offer them early retirement, on a full pension. And we don't apologize for the men who use us as targets, because being a Luthor is not a crime.”

Hard lessons, ones he'd learned from grovelling through several industrial accidents, and more than a few inexplicable events that harmed his workers. Lex was sorry people were hurt, but he refused to take the blame for his enemies, just because he was in the spotlight while they hid in shadows. What he was didn't make him inhuman, and he deserved success as much as anyone. To apologize for that would negate all the suffering his employees went through during bad times, and their triumphs when they helped LuthorCorp thrive.

Her glance at him was searching, a little too curious for his comfort level, but Lex didn't have time to question Chloe. She was walking into his receptionist's room, pulling him behind her. She kept going right up to the bed, where she leaned down to throw her arms around her friend.

“I'm so glad you're all right,” Deidre said soulfully. “I heard you were, but I wasn't sure how that could be.”

Something tight in Chloe's spine loosened and he could see her take the acceptance at face value. Deidre didn't blame her, and no one had any right. He stepped up to kiss the receptionist's cheek, smiling easily to thank her.

“Chloe has a left hook you wouldn't believe,” he joked. “How are you?”

Elbowing him, Chloe hissed for him to be quiet. “She's great, and she looks great,” his wife insisted. “You make her sound like she's a wreck. She looks better than I do.”

Deidre's eyes twinkled with determined humour. “I probably got more sleep. I've been meaning to ask about that sedative. It was kind of great!”

Chloe sank into a chair and kept bantering, while Lex sat back. He interjected a few times, but mostly let them talk past the awkwardness. It was really no different than making up after a fight, or healing after a wound – perhaps a combination. One learned what one could from it, made amends and moved forward. His life was always going to be disaster and recovery. He couldn't spare Chloe, so he had to trust in her quick mind to cope.

She had never blamed him, not even for the things he'd done wrong. He hoped like hell it didn't occur to her to keep score. He was still at sea with her, depending on her forgiving nature to help him along.

Deidre would be discharged after lunch, and Chloe volunteered to see her home. They left on a high note, the two women smiling and chuckling at each other's jokes. The visit with Eddie Haring was harder. The sedative was nothing very serious, but the head injury had resulted in a challenging surgery to repair bleeding into his brain. He was stable, but he wasn't in any shape to talk. Mrs. Haring was frosty and unwelcoming. They only stayed a few minutes.

Shaken by how frail the man looked, Chloe cleared her throat and murmured, “He used to loom over us and just glare. He never approved of me. He was never mean, or anything, but I could tell he just wanted me elsewhere.”

They decided to stroll the hallways until Deidre was ready to go, his arm around her like a brace to keep her from bawling her eyes out. Lex had done this more than once, and he would show her how it was done. He would have the castle cleaned up and secured, so they could try again to make it their home. He shook his head.

“I was the one he didn't approve of, Chloe. Eddie Haring was a transfer from a company LuthorCorp bought out. He didn't want to come work for me, but he couldn't afford to let his insurance lapse. He has a sick child who needs to be near Metropolis General. It's why he and his wife live separately,” he said. “I forced his hand, and he was bitter. I assumed he had all sorts of horrible ideas how I got you to marry me.”

Her arm came up around his back, protective despite the bodyguards trailing behind them. “He didn't know anything about us,” she said clearly. “No one really does, and that goes double for anyone with a press pass.”

“Except you,” he commented.

She wasn't so sure about that, but it wasn't too hard to distract him until Deidre was wheeled out by an orderly, flirting as she was pushed between the ranks of fit security men. Getting out of the hospital took a long, annoying time as the SUVs inched around camera operators. Chloe and Lex stayed with Deidre until she was settled, making her promise to call if she needed anything.

At home, the guards dispersed and Lex excused himself to make some calls. Chloe escaped to the guest room and turned on the television. She flipped past the soap channels she'd always suspected the maids of loving to watch while they did the rounds of the never-used guest rooms, and landed on a breaking news item. She watched exactly four minutes before she turned it off and started to cry. She had seen nothing very graphic, only a series of faces, a series of men. Her father, his killers, and her husband, tied together in a cruel, poetic story she didn't even need words to understand.

She knew Lex a little more than yesterday, when he'd been gone on sudden and important business. Tears turned into shaking and sweating as she held on – held on to anything that stayed solid under her hands.


Lex knew when the news outlets would get the names and photos of the conspirators. He forced himself to let Chloe find the reports on her own. She never went long without checking the internet or a news channel. He wanted to be there for her, but the implied foreknowledge was too hard to explain away. He would give her an hour, and if she didn't find him he would go see her.

His head slanted down to the work that waited for his rare moments of concentration. The company couldn't slide now, not when it was getting stabilized. He was confident he could provide for Chloe; he knew she didn't care about the money, but it was the example of his future good. Eventually, given her indulgence and patience, he could do as well with the things she did care about.

He just wished the damned reporters hadn't put his file photo right at the end of the other men, as if to imply he was one of them.


“You didn't leave me just to make money,” she said, closing the library doors behind her. She was barefoot, her hands curled up into a big sweater. The jeans were older, her own from her non-Luthor life. She had dressed as Chloe Sullivan to confront Lex Luthor. He wanted to know if she was wearing her ring.

He shook his head. There was some relief in not having to play dumb. “It was very important, and I'd never have considered it if I thought you were in danger here.”

Her eyes were reddened, her hair damp. She had cried and then showered. Showered off his touch and put on her old clothes? Maybe just showered to calm down? He didn't know. His pulse wasn't racing yet, but it skipped as she crossed her arms, not sitting down.

“They didn't just confess. You did something to . . . leverage their honesty.”

He couldn't tell her what he'd done, or that he wasn't a torturer by his own hands. He wouldn't make that her problem to mull over whether standing aloof made him worse or better. Guilty was guilty and he had tortured the men in a way that would never come around to implicate him. Her face was pale and she kept taking deep breaths. She kept looking at random items on his desk, looking for answers. He gave her the unvarnished, but unadorned truth. A lie of well intentioned omission, which wasn't much of an omission when she could figure it out.

“I love you. I'd do anything for you. They killed your father, and they nearly killed you,” he told her, his tone stark. Her mouth moved on silent protest. “I was sure, and I was smart about it. I'd never leave you. You exist outside my limits, and I have to go outside my limits to meet you.”

She shook her head, eyes narrowed. Her hands went to her hips and down, rubbing along her thighs. He stood up slowly, watching her as she stiffened. The twinge in his chest deepened when Chloe backed away. She had never backed down and he tried to find some comfort that made sense to her.

“They declared war,” he insisted. “They killed, but I didn't kill. It was war, and I took prisoners. I've never taken prisoners before, Chloe, no one taught me how. Justice will be served. I would have done it for your father alone.”

He hadn't killed them for her. He would have called it self-defense, the prerogative of an enemy soldier, but he'd thought of her and done less. Chloe knew it was wrong, almost as wrong as killing them, but she also knew it wasn't done out of evil. Lex had gone to the people who marked her for death and made them contrite. He'd set up a way for the legal system to take over punishment.

“They killed my father,” she whispered.

Her husband nodded, his mouth collapsed into sadness. He put his hand out, and she imagined it holding a blade or a gun. Imagined her husband's hand as a threat so powerful it made another man seek out imprisonment for the rest of his life. He'd done a terrible thing for her, but he'd made it less terrible. If she stripped it down to war – us or them – he had been the better man. There was no sign of joy, but there was also no regret. He had done it, for her, for her father, only to the point he thought she could bear contemplating.

“Thank you.”

Chloe's left hand lifted up and lay across his palm, and she stopped imagining. She didn't turn to Lex for protection with the assumption he'd be averse to hurting the people who would hurt her. She undersood how he had done it. Very honestly, she thought she might have been planning the same if she found out names and faces. She wouldn't even have called it war.

“I want to go see my dad,” she mumbled. “Not today, but sometime soon. I want to tell him that you think of me with everything you do.”

Lex touched her ring, then sheltered her whole hand.


The castle was slowly being put to rights, employees coming in small groups as they were cleared by the security teams. Some were empty-handed, but others brought food and beverages. They took back the areas held for evidence collection. They dumped suspect food and other products into trash bags while making lists to resupply. They organized themselves around Dave, who decided it was most important to have food for the small army currently buzzing around the estate. A convoy of employee cars and trucks drove into town, nearly filling grocery store aisles with their sedate uniforms. They returned in a victorious noise of horns and slamming doors. Dinner was on time at the Luthor household, and everyone relished the normalacy.

Lex and Chloe ate in the dining room, making a good showing of gratitude for the people who had come back to run their home. There was a distinctly guilty feel to the three-course meal, and two-course dessert, as if the other servants should have known Elsie was being blackmailed. Both of them had stopped marveling at the things that went unnoticed in people working intimately. Secrets were found out or they stayed hidden – no one could be blamed for not looking for something they didn't know was present.

The Sheriff visited, as did a few lawyers. Lex worked from home. Chloe avoided the news. They both avoided conversations. Two days after the upset, they moved back into the master bedroom. She had been thinking nonstop. Words were building up to the point she feared they would be a formless blurt – no clearer a message than lobbing a tennis ball at her husband's poor bald head.

She had worked out what to say, but wasn't sure when to say it, or how. She changed into a nightgown and sat quietly as Lex got ready for bed. He climbed in next to her and gave her a slow, sweet kiss. His body curled around her, but he didn't make any demands.

They were working hard to be normal. It was difficult when the media attention was weighted toward Luthors in one way or another. They were witnesses in Lionel's upcoming trial, gossip columnists dragged every scrap of false information around like stray dogs raiding a dumpster, and everyone knew Chloe had been the subject of three attacks in as many months. She knew the reporters couldn't let that go, but 'no comment' was her mantra. She spoke enough to Lex to make sure he knew she wasn't angry or sick. He tried to ask her about recent events and she usually told him she didn't know.

The stand-by light from her laptop flashed from the corner. She walked her fingers on Lex's forearm, letting the green glow illuminate her rings. Her day wasn't over until she had his arm around her. She could do without it, probably go on without any of Lex, but it wouldn't feel like her life anymore. The transition had been made, rough and permanent. His touch settled her into her own skin. His chest rising made her lungs work. Unity, far above the inconveniences of being two forms.

Chloe sat up quickly, her hair down in her face as she shook him awake. Her voice pitched too sharp, because he had waited too long and she felt a temporary bravery. He fumbled to his elbows and she pushed him flat.

“Lex? I'm sorry, I just had to tell you,” she said, looking at the shadows of his features. “I love you. I'm sure of it.”

He reached for her and pulled her into a tight hug, her arms pinned. Chloe threw her leg over his. She squeezed down into a huddle until she needed to wipe away silly tears. Her biggest problem had just been solved, but there was something too giving about Lex moving his hands and his head, trying to hold her more as she crushed him.

She sat up and he touched her face, probably loving her post-cry splotches. Moonlight was falling on her upper half and she was sure it looked very ethereal and lovely, as a Mrs. Luthor should. Chloe grinned. “I bet you wish you'd waited until now to propose, right? We had the emotional time bomb going off and now there's straddling and moonlight,” she teased. “Could have been quite the moment to immortalize our love.”

Lex smirked, his head tipping to the side to show he'd taken it on the chin. “My timing is awful,” he agreed. “It would be an act of great charity that you remain my wife forever. I'd hate to be put in the position of another proposal. I have no talent for romance.”

His hands cupped her cheeks, showing a rather impeccable sense of when a kiss would be proper punctuation, but Chloe stopped her downward journey. She pushed his arms down and huffed.

“Hey, you don't talk that way about my husband. He's not perfect, but that would be insufferable. This was an exception, because I was genuinely confused. I never want to catch you acting happy if I'm not making you happy. You can ask for things I'm not giving you. You can ask for things I am giving you if you want them more often. You can deny me things that are too personal, and keep parts of yourself separate,” she told him seriously. “I won't be any good at this unless you tell me what I don't know to do. Ask for something, right now!”

He was so delighted with her he couldn't imagine having any demands, but she looked quite serious. “I want the kiss I was trying to get a minute ago,” he said, meekly shutting his eyes. “Please?”

He even flopped his hands back over his head in a swooning posture, feeling her shake with laughter.

“Disgusting,” Chloe muttered. “You used to be a steely negotiator. You used to be indimidating and get everything you wanted. You're going to have to practice much more.”

She threw herself on top of him and planted one on him, fighting his self-satisfied chuckles to get her tongue past his lips. His docile act ended abruptly. Lex cradled her head and sent her backwards to fall softly. She shifted underneath him, rubbing up against his erection. He looked slightly dazed, but he was smirking with his utmost degree of arrogance.

“I will devote myself,” he said, catching her mouth in short, deep kisses calculated to coax her desire. “You will find yourself out-manoeuvred at every turn.”

Chloe caressed his shiny moonlit head, humming with relief. She hadn't understood how much she was dwelling on Lex. She liked thinking about him, being with him, but she didn't want to agonize anymore. Or if she was going to agonize, she wanted it to be resisting cooing over his curly, silvered eyelashes.

“I'm not going let you win,” she told him, trying to be stern while beaming up into his own broad smile.

“Never, never let me win! Make me work for every,” he pressed himself between her legs, “-single inch.”

She was giddy and charmed by Lex flirting like an idiot. He was excited, but at least half of it was stunned affection. His hurried words were the opposite of his usual careful replies. She cupped his face and felt how warm his cheeks were.

Blushing, she gloated to herself. If the lights were on she could see him pink as hell. As much as he was worth in billions, he was officially priceless to her. This was the difference between what she offered him compared to any of the other women – their strange ways made him unable to distance himself. They had him, but she kept him.

Chloe felt his mood shift, expected him to become serious and sensual. His hands moved down and pulled her gown until it was up her arms, trapping her. He twisted a few times, tying her hands.

“Is this payback,” she asked. “Torture?”

Lex put his mouth above hers, breathing her air, blinking slowly at her to let his eyes adjust. His wife's cute nose looked impertinent, so he bit it lightly. He mouthed her cheek and found the triangle of moles there with his tongue.

“I am showing you the opportunities I had to learn, while I was waiting,” he husked. “Even if you weren't saying it, I felt you love me. With your smile.”

He kissed the lower curve of her lips, taking it between his teeth and wetting it. Licked along her upper lip until she was floating up to him with delicate little pants.

His hands slipped under her shoulders as he kissed down her arms. Lex skipped her wrists and pressed his lips to her knuckles. Her tapered fingers fanned along his jaw, and he imagined green fire lighting her eyes.

“My breasts loved you first, I think,” Chloe told him. “But then, they were the first thing you noticed on me.”

He pushed her hands down, offended. “I'll have you know my leering was excellent. Not one person in a thousand would have seen me looking. You were fifteen years old.”

Chloe had wiggled out of her nightgown and freed her hands. “I'm a Luthor observation prodigy.”

She was ready for more teasing and fooling around, but his face went serious and hungry. Lex got to his knees and picked her up, turning them back toward the head of the bed. He set her down softly and followed. His fingers combed her hair out on the pillow, tugging pleasantly. She brushed her nose along his neck, inhaling his cologne and his unique Lex smell.

She loved when he was happy. It created a funny lightness in her belly, rising and building alongside desire. It felt like he grew happier as the warm energy filled her, driving them both higher and higher, like a feedback loop that wouldn't burn out. She had things to say, big things that had waited months to shove past her mental walls. She had a lot of things that didn't need to be thought to death before she could do them.

Ultimately, it came down to a noise he made in the back of his throat, like a horny sigh of relief. However long she'd waited, Lex had waited longer. He'd brooded and sulked quietly, letting her have time to know for sure. He'd been a saint.

Chloe reached down and stroked his stomach, sucking on his neck tenderly. He collapsed heavily between her legs, bending her and searching out his place. Any other time she'd complain, but he was overwhelmed. He played fingers on her limbs and plucked at her shoulders and nipples with trembling lips.

“Lex,” she stretched up to kiss him, earning only a few seconds of his focus before he was nuzzling at her earlobe. “Now, please? No more waiting.”

She curled around his neck, holding him over her as she arched up to him. He entered slowly, gazing at her with dark eyes. She changed his world, not once or twice, but many times a day. It made sense they'd needed time to get to mutual love, and the waiting compressed into a knot of tension he could feel between his shoulder blades. It fell right under her hands, letting go in increments as he moved.

Chloe would have thought gentleness would fit the moment more, but she loved the graceful force as he thrust. She braced her feet on the bed and moved to meet him. She felt their body heat increasing, multiplying with every second.

She caught his lips and they both moaned. Lex's hands gripped tighter on her hips. He shuddered and felt a frightening amount of tension blur to nothing but drive to be closer to his wife. His hand slid under her back to touch the graceful turn of ribs. His thumb stroked the side of her breast.

He was holding her still, pushing up into her, his face gleaming with effort. Chloe cupped his jaw and whispered, “Lex, now, Lex.”

In the midst of rocketing hormones and uncharacteristically free emotions, Lex let himself do as he felt. He pumped his hips in time to Chloe's clenching squeezes, looking into her eyes as she came. They fluttered to stay open, jewel-bright flashes of passion softening to green like a soft lawn. He breathed through his nose, his nose and mouth filling with her. He tensed for a brief, deaf moment, then turned to rubber.

They did a kind of slow dance lying down, still joined as they swayed. He kissed the pulse in her neck and traced her skin randomly.

“I love you,” she told him, sniffling as the waves of nerves and happiness dwindled just to the latter. “When I get used to it, I will be able to say it without crying all over you.”

“I will let it go just this once,” Lex bluffed, pulling out so they could get comfortable. He kissed the top of her head, breathing like he'd just been allowed to stop running, completely at ease.

His body slumped next to her, arms becoming heavy as he drifted off nearly instantly. She felt smug for having made the impossible happen, and closed her eyes.


The world didn't ever stop coming after Luthors, but things calmed once the whole story was out. Elsie was undergoing psych evaluation and her daughter was in a rehab facility, while her children were cared for by nannies in a nearby apartment. The people working against LuthorCorp were keeping their heads down and speaking through their lawyers. Eddie Haring woke up and immediately quit, having been assured his medical expenses would be paid by Lex. He was transferred to Metropolis General Hospital to allow his family time together.

The danger, for the moment, seeemed past, so Chloe and Lex went to visit Lionel and give the first-hand accounts of most of what had happened. She had decided not to ask about the men who had given themselves up, nor the methods used to produce compliance. It wasn't important. She was more concerned with Lex's reaction to his father. They had very little time to get him out of prison if any treatment was going to help.

He met them with a smirk that lit up his cell, she told him cheekily, taking the floor while Lex opened their folding chairs.

“I love your son,” Chloe said postively, her body language daring Lionel to question it. Lex said nothing, his hands shuffling papers as if he wasn't paying attention to his father and wife.

“I'm glad to hear it, Chloe,” the prisoner replied agreeably. “I love my son, too. We should get along famously, though I think I should disclose your love was a poorly kept secret.”

Blond hair bounced cheerfully. “But I didn't know until recently, and now he knows we both love him.”

She took her seat with satisfaction, aimed a smile at Lex, and ignored the haughty figure Lionel cut even in prison wear.

“Yes, it's a wonderful life sentence,” her father-in-law bitched mildly.

Lex murmured, “Let's go over some names, Dad. We'll start with the prosecution's witnesses.”

Chloe Sullivan-Luthor reached over and hooked her fingers under his cuff, smiling with joy when he didn't even need a moment to adjust to the contact. They were going to make it work.


Chloe looked over her desk in the little office she'd decorated near the library. She was riding the high of beating Lex in a bidding war for Deidre. Since it was all Lex's money, they had resorted to wooing her with perks. Weekly spa days from Lex were trumped with monthly spa weekends by Chloe. He suggested flex-time, and Chloe introduced margarita Fridays. He started stacking up medical benefits and charitable donations, but Chloe made herself a kitchen assistant. As Lex was distracted by freshly-glazed lemon buns, his wife whispered a final offer.

And so, she and Deidre sat across from each other, their laptops in complementary shades. Chloe's was a custom shade of green, and Deidre's had a purple case with butterflies. Gold wallpaper with filigree shone in the abundant sunlight nourishing the wall of flowering plants. It was the prettiest office they'd ever seen, and female sensibilities had beaten Lex's best ideas.

“I really feel like I should be doing something,” the receptionist-turned-executive-assistant said, wiggling her mouse. “I mean, you're paying me three times what I was making and we're having a scrabble tournament.”

“We are testing our equipment and internet connection,” Chloe said. “And we are waiting for my husband to let me actually take on some of the tasks he was going to let me tackle. I'm not saying buying food for 100 or more is the same as stopping by the store after school, but he has about three more days to set me up before he's sleeping on the couch.”

The household staff was doing well, but Elsie had been gradually taking on a lot of roles. She had been a de facto administrator for the castle. Very little of the information for the weekly supplies and local contractors was written down. Enrique stepped in, but he had to go back to his real work. Hiring a housekeeper was going to take extra time while security checks combed applicants. Chloe volunteered her free time to help.

“Only if you're sleeping on the same couch,” the other woman scoffed, then remembered she was at work. “Oops. Was that insubordination?”

“I'd call it honesty. I physically can't get mad at him. It's a problem.”

A dry look passed between their two desks, and Chloe scowled. “It is a problem! A big problem!”

Someone knocked on the door and Deidre stood up to answer. She held the door open wide, and looked over at Chloe. “I think it's my coffee break. I'll leave you to it,” she said.

Lex stepped back and she moved past him and toward the kitchen. He entered his wife's office with a strange half-step and shuffle.

“Leave you to it,” he asked.

She grinned. “You, being a problem,” Chloe said, going to greet him. “Very distracting. Disasterous to my consequence - if I had such a thing.”

He let her put her arms around his waist, but his return hug didn't have much conviction. She let him go to take in his silence.

“Lex?”

“You called the lawyers,” he remarked, giving her a little push toward her desk. Chloe nodded. “You had a question about divorce.”

Oh. This is how a subtle inquiry too minor to bother a hard-working husband turns into a shit-storm, Chloe mused. And now he's upset.

“No, not about divorce, not really. I wanted to know about how long it takes after a divorce before a person can marry again. It's the other side of the coin, but I thought – Um, I'm sorry you're upset.”

He flicked at his collar, making it even less neat than it had been. His nose turned up a little, pride giving him a brittle edge. He stuck his hands in his pockets, and looked around her office with more concentration than required. He'd already had the tour.

“I'm not upset. I just wanted to ask what's going on,” he said.

“I've been thinking – about authenticity,” she told him. “About how we're legally married, but it took some fictional details. Even now, I'm not old enough to sign for myself.”

He knew her age all too well, and the stigma of marrying her that young. She was smart enough to know there was too much time between them, and lots of her life to outgrow what he could give. Chloe didn't care about money. It just hurt to lose her after she'd been sure of him. It was confusing and it didn't make sense. But love was not and would never be a soft pillow to land upon.

“It's not the end of the world, Chloe,” he ground out. “I would have liked to have some warning.”

“I don't intend to do anything right away. It bothers me that my father's forged signature is what makes us married. When I said I'd marry you, I didn't mean it the way people should mean it. It couldn't be a happy time for us and we had to bond the best way we could. It wasn't a fair start.”

She tried to take his hand and he licked his lips. She was not getting to the point fast enough. He thought she was being silly and entitled, wasting his time and money.

“I know we have a lot of things to do. Your father needs to get out of prison and into a good hospital. LuthorCorp is only just recovering. There are two trials in our future and you don't need to spend more time doing paperwork. But we can call it my birthday present, and you don't even have to wait a day to be married again.”

He was getting more and more confused, increasingly hurt as she went on like it was nothing. Her last words made Lex reach out and grasp her by the arms. “I don't understand, Chloe. I thought you loved me. How could there be anyone else,” he breathed. “Who is he?”

She gaped at him and pulled back, shaking her head. “The lawyer?”

“The groom?!”

He had to know all of it now. Even if he was just tearing at his own bloodied corpse, he had to know. It came out weak and he didn't care. He was weakness molded into the form of a man. She was still holding him together.

Chloe hauled off and gave his chest a slap that made more of an impact than she intended. She gasped, “You are!”

They were quiet for a long five minutes. Chloe broke the silence, her voice hoarse and tentative.

“I want to marry you properly, with my own hand signing the certificate. The things that I expected to have I don't have. And the things that I didn't expect to have, I do have. I don't know how I got here. I want to be able to say I stepped up and made a commitment to you.”

Lex folded himself into a chair and pulled on her arm to get her on his lap. Once they were both safely off their feet, he peered at the ceiling. The lawyers were either messing with him or trying to drum up work, because the information the way they reported it made everything sound like his marriage had gone to shit in the span of the morning.

“Chloe,” he groaned. “Am I to understand you want to divorce me so you can marry me again?”

“You make it sound irrational,” she grumbled. “You're all I feel, see or touch. Everything else is blurry, far away and the volume is low. Every movement is trying to get closer to you. It's a romantic impulse that I don't need, but I want it.”

He swallowed hard, finally feeling the knot in his stomach let go. She wanted a romantic divorce, followed by a romantic re-marriage. Followed by the rest of his life worrying about her impulses and where they would lead her next. He hugged her tight and sighed.

“Do you want to have the wedding here,” he asked peacefully.

Her smile beamed with the promise of many future upsets, and he resisted a chuckle. He could take it.

~End~

[westwingwolf]

Thank you nonky and your muse or whatever for giving us an ending. Nice to know everything turned out relatively well and is working toward it's way to a better place. Poor Lex nearly had a heart attack thinking Chloe wanted a real divorce, but I think only these two could have a romantic divorce and re-marriage. I thought it was sweet what Chloe wanted to do, a bit seemingly impractical but she had her reasons.

[lexie]

I rarely read NC-17 fics- Zannie´s being the exception- but this was a very entertaining read, nonky. Thanks to your muse for enlightening you and to you for finding the time to put pen to paper and finish it.

I´ve noticed there are several other fics of yours in the graveyard. What do we have to offer to your muse to help you update?