Fallout (NC-17) 8 September, 2009 - Complete

[autumngold]

Thank you so much for continuing this story!! I'm so glad that Lex and Chloe had a chance to talk, even though it was so hard for both of them!! I hope that Chloe really allows herself to heal, instead of just trying to hide from the pain that is her life!! I can't imagine the pain she is going through right now, and with no friends except Adam to help her it must be so difficult!! You're an amazing author and I really appreciate you updating this fic!! Is there anyway we can bribe your muse so that it feels more like writing Chlex?!! This story deserves it!!

[ThraceC]

Any chance you'll ever take this one out of the graveyard???? Pretty Please?

[scifichick774]

Lana stayed late at the Talon, claiming that someone called in sick and she had to cover their shift—which meant she didn't come home to confront her about what had happened with Adam.

Instead, she sent Clark to do it for her.

In retrospect, Chloe thought, she should have expected the move. Lana wasn't good with confrontations and had a disturbing tendency to avoid them if she could, usually by passing the task onto someone else.

She sighed. Clark had adopted his stubborn look—feet planted hip-width apart, arms folded across his chest, eyes narrowed—and didn't appear as though he would let it slip any time soon.

'Adam's my friend' apparently wasn't a sufficient answer to his accusatory 'What were you thinking? How could you do this to Lana?' questions, but she'd had to try. She had precious little energy and it needed to be spent packing up her wardrobe and the most important mementos of her life, not explaining how the real world worked to her former best friend, a boy who had already made up his mind that she was the scarlet woman in a love triangle that didn't even exist.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what I said,” she said and placed another pair of folded jeans into the open suitcase on her bed.

How it had escaped Clark's notice that she was packing up the majority of her possessions was beyond her, but he hadn't asked why she was doing so, and because of the way he'd jumped to take Lana's side, she wasn't going to point it out. Yes, she was bitter and her actions were ever so slightly mean spirited, but she didn't think she owed him a goodbye, or even an explanation of why she was leaving, if he wasn't a good enough friend to realize that she was.

“Adam's my friend, Clark; one of my closest ones for a while now.”

“I think I would have noticed.”

“Yeah? I thought you would have, too,” Chloe replied snidely, but then shook her head to clear away the anger. She didn't want to spend the time she had left in Smallville fighting with someone she had once thought she was in love with. She didn't think that anymore, obviously, but she didn't want to end their relationship on a sour note either. “I love you like a brother, Clark...”

True enough, she thought. Especially when one considered that family members were always the first suspects in homicide investigations.

“But you don't always see things unless they directly relate to you.”

She motioned at the suitcase on her bed with a flippant wave of her hand, ignoring her resolution not to tell him anything he didn't ask from just minutes before. “Point in case. Did you even wonder why I'm packing up my entire freaking room? Why there are moving boxes in addition to the baggage?”

She tried to sound and look as calm and collected as she could, but she was pretty sure that wasn't much. From the startled expression on Clark's face, Chloe surmised that all of her anger and frustration and hurt had all welled up to mix in her statement.

Lord knew she felt them all, just under the surface; waiting to erupt in a spectacular explosion of emotion.

“What?”

“Exactly,” she said, and though she was tempted to return to her packing, she kept eye contact with him instead. “You and Lana both have an uncanny ability to overlook anything and everything unless it somehow effects you. Adam and I haven't kept our friendship a secret. Heck! We were having coffee together at the Talon right before I had my meltdown.”

Clark squirmed where he stood, but Chloe couldn't take any pleasure in his discomfort like she thought she would; not even a small, petty, 'So, there!'

A part of her still wanted to, but for once it looked like understanding had finally lit in her friend's eyes and remorse quickly after that.

Or maybe she was just projecting her hopes for him onto what she was really seeing. Sadly, that seemed more plausible.

She sighed again and then went back to packing, albeit considerably slower than before. “I assume you came over here because Lana told you that Adam was seen comforting me during my breakdown last week, right? But you didn't ask why I suddenly fell apart, just why I chose your crush's boyfriend to blubber on. How do you think that makes me feel, Clark?”

“I... God, I'm sorry, Chloe. I didn't know... Lana didn't say anything about... that.”

A mirthless laugh passed through her lips. “Again: not exactly observant. She probably got the information secondhand from her gossiping cheerleader buddies—who, of course, only focused on the fact that Adam was hugging me instead of the reasons behind it.”

Clark dropped his gaze to the floor and ran one of his big hands around the back of his neck. It was another embarrassed gesture, one that normally would have had her rushing to apologize for being bitchy to him—because of a combination of a lifetime of insecurity and the feelings she used to harbor for him—but now...

Now she said nothing.

“So you're... uh... going on a trip?”

Ever the dreamer, she thought. There wouldn't have been anything wrong with that if he stuck to dreams about his own life and future, but when his delusion spread to anything that remotely came in contact with him—say his former best friend, for instance—it became a problem.

Clark found it easier to lie to himself, even when the facts were staring him right in the face, than to accept reality and try to work with it. As a reporter, a seeker of the truth, her opinion of that particular character quirk had rapidly gone from 'kind of cute' to 'incredibly annoying'.

“I'm moving.”

The blouse she was holding was folded with shaking hands and then placed in her suitcase with entirely too much care. It was that or just ball the thing up and shove it in there roughly, and Chloe didn't think her poor garment ought to pay the price for Clark Kent being clueless and insensitive.

He was silent for a long moment before she heard a hint of a chuckle pass his lips, startling her enough to make her look up at him.

He thought she was joking?

She stared at him blankly until the grin slid from his face, replaced by the same kind of surprised, horrified expression he generally only used when someone's life was in danger and he didn't think he would be able to rescue them in time.

“You're serious? But Lana... She would have said...”

“I thought we already established that she's not the most observant person,” she said with a glare, but then shook her head tiredly. He didn't get it. He just didn't. And as long as he had his Lana-goggles on, he never would. “I'll give you the abridged version since I need to hurry up and have all this packed by tomorrow.”

It went unsaid that taking time to explain herself to him cut into the precious few waking hours she had left, but she hoped this was one of the few rare times that he actually read between the lines.

“I found out recently that my mom had an affair when she and my dad were married. According to the DNA test I was forced by law to take, I was the product of that affair. Bio-dad wants to get to know me, and since he has the kind of money that can pay for college and keep me surrounded by bodyguards to protect me from Lionel Luthor's wrath, he and my dad conspired to send me to live with him. Hence the packing.”

Speaking of bodyguards, she wished that Holcombe hadn't given them pictures of her so-called 'safe' friends. She was glad her dad told her that was the case, since she'd been wondering how Adam slipped past them, but she sort of would have liked some say in who they let through and didn't.

Currently, they were being very Special Forces and keeping to the shadows unless a potential threat showed up, and since it was Smallville—emphasis on the small—and Lionel wasn't an idiot who would strike back the very same day she gave testimony, they hadn't really been visible at all.

“Lex's dad? Why would—?”

Wow. He really was out of the loop.

She would have thought that Lex might have mentioned something about his father being arrested, even if it was only in passing when Clark was over at his house chewing his ear off about things he had no real interest in.

“I testified against him this morning. I researched, I found evidence he paid corrupt cops to bury, and I testified for the FBI. The evidence is enough to put him away for a long time if his high-priced lawyers can't find a way around it. I'd say it's a safe bet that he's going to look for revenge at some point.”

Clark furrowed his brow and then gave her his patented kicked-puppy expression. “Why didn't you tell me about any of this?”

Why would she?

It was the reply that immediately came to mind, but Chloe kept her snark to herself this time. This conversation might very well be the last one she ever had with him; she had to drive home how much his willful ignorance of her feelings—of her life—had hurt her or she would hold on to that pain forever.

She had enough pain to last her a lifetime. She had to let some of it go.

“About what? My paternity? My investigating Lionel Luthor? Why didn't I tell you, Clark? I think a better question is: Why didn't you ask? Adam noticed that something was going on the second I wound up in the hospital. Before that, even. So did Lex for that matter—and you'd think if anyone had a right not to notice it would be him with everything else he has going on in his life.”

It was a deflection that wouldn't have worked if Clark had paid even a little more attention to her, but since he hadn't, he didn't catch the inflections in her voice that would have clued him onto the fact that Lex had already known about everything because they'd been working together.

And that he'd immediately understood the reasons behind her currently screwed-up mental state once he regained his own sanity enough to ask.

She frowned. She wasn't sure what it said about her that she'd so easily forgiven Lex for the things he'd done—which could actually be considered criminal in a court of law—but she couldn't find it in her heart to give Clark a second chance.

Maybe it didn't say anything, she thought. Maybe she was just tired of giving Clark second chances when he'd never once shown remorse for his actions.

Lex had shown remorse the second he remembered what he had done under the influence of powerful psychotropic drugs and he hadn't stopped showing it even after she had made it clear that she didn't blame him for what happened.

She couldn't imagine Clark ever reacting that way if he and Lex somehow switched places. Instead, he would probably do the same thing he always did in an uncomfortable situation with consequences: pretend the whole thing never happened and avoid her until he thought she'd forgotten about it.

Even though it broke her heart a little to do so, she couldn't help thinking that the move to England might be a good thing. She could finally make a break from her bad habit of constantly forgiving people who didn't deserve it.

Like Clark. And Lana.

But then, she would be leaving people behind who her heart had come to depend on and she didn't know if she could live without.

Like her dad—her real dad, the one who'd raised her, not just contributed his genetic material.

And Adam. The knowledge that she was probably going to lose him forever soon anyway—since the only thing keeping him alive was the drug Lionel's labs had come up with and many of them would be shut down during his stint in prison—didn't ease the pain in her chest in the slightest.

And Lex.

There were too many conflicting emotions that sprung up when she thought of him; she needed the time and space that her move would provide her to sort through them.

She just hoped that by the time she was done that she won't have lost him forever, too.

[scifichick774]

Some people called him a genius; a mastermind at all things relating to business.

A smaller number of people called him a sociopath.

He was quick to accept the praise, but Lex could have done without the condemnation. He'd had enough of the latter during his childhood and early adult years to last him a lifetime, and no one knew the reasons behind the choices he made—couldn't know, because he was very good at making his past all but disappear—so he hardly thought they were in a position to come to rash conclusions about his character.

He had done a lot of things that the majority of the populace would consider terrible in his life, he was willing to admit that to himself if no one else. But could those things really be that terrible if he felt no remorse for his actions?

Every plan had its pitfalls and casualties—was he the monster some members of the press made him out to be simply because he was willing to acknowledge and accept that aspect of business instead of wasting his time trying to find a compromise that didn't exist?

He thought not.

In regards to his personal life, on the other hand...

Lex sighed softly. He was the only passenger on his private jet and none of the crew was close enough to hear him, so it was safe to indulge in a rare moment of showing weakness. Truth be told, he hadn't really had a personal life for a long time now and he knew it.

He'd had companions, of course; women to fill the void at his side when he needed to be seen in public. Women to warm his bed for a night here and there when he needed to prove to himself that he was still human.

But in the end, they weren't anything more than props and accessories. A couple had wormed their way into his bank vault, but none had made it into his heart.

None had even come close.

Not since Chloe.

Ah, he thought. That must be the reason he was suddenly feeling so maudlin.

He generally only traveled internationally for business when his well-paid underlings needed his presence—and the power that came with it—to close a deal. Thus far in his career, he'd been forced to attend only seven such meetings, as video conferencing was usually sufficient.

It probably would have been adequate for this deal as well, but the possible sale of one of his subsidiaries was to Gregory Holcombe, Chloe's biological father, and the temptation to possibly find out anything about her that his investigators hadn't already told him was too great for him to turn down the opportunity.

Cameras could only capture so much, after all, and he found himself abnormally hungry for details.

Chloe and Clark had a falling out before she left Smallville, and while Clark seemed confused and indignant about it, he had no trouble placing the blame for the fight solely at Chloe's feet. Lex was willing to bet an exorbitant sum that the truth was substantially different from the farm boy's version, and he'd been careful to keep an eye on Chloe from a distance ever since then.

From what he'd been told and shown, he knew that she'd been severely depressed for a period of almost six months after she first moved to England, not just because she had left her previous life behind against her will, but because her friend—and one of his father's twisted projects—Adam Knight had died (this time for good) within a few weeks of when she moved.

He knew that she came back from that depression stronger than ever, but he didn't know what the cause of her sudden turnaround had been, nor did his detectives offer up any possible theories.

He knew that she'd had a couple of boyfriends here and there over the last five years, but no one she let herself get close to.

He'd noted more than once that they were alike in that respect—and he'd always been pleased when the men she saw flitted out of her life because they realized that her regard for them wasn't as strong as what they felt for her.

It was too much to hope that the feisty blonde would show up at the meeting he had with Holcombe, since all reports indicated she was very busy with her last year of university classes and not all that interested in taking over the family business when she graduated.

But still, there was the flicker of a wish, a spark that smoldered deep down inside him, that desperately wanted her to prove his investigators wrong.

The steward—male, as he'd had too many negative experiences with female staff thinking they could become the next Mrs. Luthor if only they interrupted his strategic planning time with offers of sexual favors—came by to tell him to fasten his seatbelt because the plane was going to begin its descent.

He obliged, but his mind hardly noted the minor task as he performed it, nor were his thoughts really on the meeting he had scheduled with Holcombe like they would normally be. Instead, his mind was focused on the one person in his life who he actually felt regret for hurting, and the impossible hope that she might some day truly forgive him.

~*~*~

The meeting was fairly straightforward; nothing that couldn't have been accomplished without him flying across the Atlantic to be there.

Both his and Holcombe's people had hashed out most of the terms of the agreement weeks ago and the lawyers had written up preliminary paperwork accordingly. This just happened to be the only mutual break both he and Holcombe had in their schedules and Chloe's father didn't like to delegate 'the important stuff' to people below him in the company—which meant he took on a lot more work than he needed to, Lex thought, but it was difficult to argue when the man was so successful.

Sir Holcombe probably would have been willing to go over the paperwork with a couple of the LexCorp vice presidents, rather than waiting for him personally, but Lex had wanted to be there for other reasons, and since he was the boss, he got what he wanted.

Most of the time, that was.

He had yet to rid himself of the increasing nuisance that was Superman, unfortunately.

And Chloe hadn't been present at the meeting.

He hadn't really expected her to be, but God, he'd wanted it.

“Lex!”

His entire body went stiff with surprise. He hadn't thought he would actually see her—especially not when he had just convinced himself that he'd been a fool for hoping. But there she was, stepping off the lift he'd been impatiently waiting to arrive to take him downstairs.

A smile split his lips the second he recovered. “Chloe.”

She looked amazing. A little older, a lot more confident, and as gorgeous as ever. He would have said 'more so', but that wasn't possible.

The photographs his detectives took hadn't done her justice.

She stepped off the elevator and didn't even hesitate before moving forward to greet him with a hug. People didn't generally give him hugs—ever—so he was slower to return it than he should have been, and disappointed when she pulled away too quickly for his liking.

“Greg said he was meeting with you today.”

Greg, he thought with a smirk. He almost felt bad for Holcombe. Regardless of how long Chloe had been living with him in England, Gabe Sullivan would always hold the title of 'Dad'.

“I was hoping to see you.”

She was?

“But... You probably have a lunch appointment already, don't you? I thought we could try and catch up, but...” She sighed. “I should have just skipped class. Sorry.”

“I don't already have lunch plans,” he admitted with a grin.

If the expressions on his lawyers' faces were anything to go by, the twist of his lips probably looked maniacal. Either that or they were in shock over hearing him admit that he didn't already have plans when it was so out of character for him to do so on the occasions that someone essentially cornered him like Chloe had.

Her bright, beaming smile was worth all the questions he would have to field from his employees later.

“Really? So, you want to...?”

He took a step forward and rearranged his position so he could comfortably put his hand on the small of her back. He never would have made such a bold move in the time that directly followed the recovery of his memories, but years had passed since then. They had both changed and she didn't seem to harbor any of the ill will he would have expected—that she was completely entitled to.

“Absolutely.”

Absolutely, he repeated in his head. Because seeing Chloe wasn't the closure the emotionless pragmatist part of him was hoping it would be if he ran into her again. Rather, it ignited that part of him he'd given up on a long time ago.

Life was offering him a second chance. If he chose not to take it, then their reunion could be the end of the story his head had long thought it would be.

But if he grasped at it like he wanted to, then it could be the beginning his heart had dreamt of.

He smirked again.

When he looked at it that way, it was hardly a choice at all.




The End

[lexie]

Well, as anybody can attest on these forums, I hardly ever read NC-17 fiction, but I´ve read several fics of yours and- when I saw an update after so long- I copied and pasted the whole thing and read it in one sitting. This was a lovely fic and I´m really happy it didn´t end up in the graveyard for ever.

Finishing it the way you did, with the right amount of hope after everything Lex and Chloe had suffered, was the perfect ending.

Now, I´m crossing my fingers for your Chlex muse to inspire you to keep penning more stories with this ship.

[hfce]

Thanks for finishing this story. It was a great ending. I miss your fics.

[ThraceC]

Wow! I had lost hope that this fic would ever be finished! Thank you so much! Does this mean you're back at NS and writing chlex again? Or did you finish this off for closure?

I do hope you are inspired to write again, I have adored so many of your fics.
Thanks for a great finish for a great story.

[autumngold]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the hopefully ending to this incredible story! Stupid Clark, I can't believe that he didn't notice what was going on in Chloe's life and then thinks it's her fault. Dumb alien! I'm glad that Chloe was able to recover from all of the pain she had to go through and come out stronger in the end! I'm so glad that there is a chance for her and Lex to have their happy ending! Thank you for coming back and finishing this heartbreakingly wonderful fic!

[wdge]

Wow. I figured I would read a quick, fun story before bed. Instead, I'm up much later than I planned and that was alot more intense than I planned - but, I couldn't stop reading!

[curi]

I just really wanted to say hi to you here. And prod your muse to visit Smallville via Wolf Lake.

Hi.

*cattle prods muse*