Title: Freak
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Allison Mack's on the cast list for season 4. But what if Chloe really is dead?
Disclaimer: If someone was paying me to do this, I wouldn't be pimping it across the 'net for free!
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Lex swallowed hard. He didn’t deal well with funerals, probably due to the circumstances surrounding his attendance at both his brother’s and his mother’s while still a young child. But even if he had been more at ease with the ceremonies, this one would still have been extremely difficult. He had promised to protect these people, and now they were both dead. In the blink of an eye, they’d been blown out of their living, breathing bodies and into the great unknown.
The loss of Gabe Sullivan was hard enough. The man had been completely innocent, yet he’d suffered the most. He’d lost his job and been blacklisted from finding anything more lucrative than a spot in the kitchen of the local McDonald’s. He’d been forced to give up his home to go into hiding with his daughter, all the while dealing with the terrifying knowledge that she’d pulled a stunt so stupid, she had to risk them both to get out of it. And he’d trusted their lives to the ill repute of Lex Luthor because it was the only chance he had to protect his baby girl from the devil himself.
But thanks to his failure, he’d also lost Chloe. She wasn’t only a business associate, she was his friend. She’d inadvertently learned his deepest secret, and she’d had the grace to never mention it again. She’d known just when to gently squeeze his hand when he thought he was masking his fears, and when to casually rub his shoulders when he hadn’t even noticed his muscles bunching up. He’d never had to keep up the façade of the person he wished he was when he was alone with Chloe, because she was the only person in Smallville that seemed to recognize that to achieve one’s goal by any means necessary meant to sometimes act unencumbered by the confines of moral conflict.
And where had he been when these two people had been extinguished forever? He’d been writhing in agony on the floor of his office, powerless to rise from the shattered glass of the table even as he felt it burrowing its way into his burning skin. He’d been completely helpless, unable to protect them as he’d promised, because he’d become too confident and underestimated the reach of his father’s grim sickle. His failure was absolute, and his sense of loss was more profound than he’d ever imagined grief could be.
Finally, the time came to lower the coffins into the ground. Lex concentrated on breathing deeply as he watched the elegant boxes simultaneously disappear into their final resting places. He was just trying to find something to concentrate on besides the audible sobs of the family when a sickening crack echoed across the cemetery. Everyone pretended not to notice that Chloe’s coffin had dropped halfway into hole, and had most likely just cracked open at the bottom. Lex tried very hard not to think of all the creatures that would easily find their way in to violate her decomposing body. By the time the service ended, he was struggling to maintain his composure long enough to retreat into the privacy of his limousine.
When he reached the mansion, he raced to the bathroom and emptied his stomach into the sparkling porcelain bowl. He pressed his fingers into his closed eyelids in an effort to erase the image of Chloe’s burned and decaying face from his mind. When that didn’t work, he knew there was really only one thing left to do: drink himself into oblivion. He’d had a new liquor cabinet installed in his office, and he had the only key. He’d stocked it the night before in preparation for this moment.
He strode purposefully down the hall and into his office - and got the shock of his life. Gulping for air, he pulled the doors shut behind him and hesitantly crossed to the figure sitting on his desk.
“Chloe? How… but… you’re… you’re…” He reached out to cup her cheek, and gasped as his fingers passed through her skin.
“Dead?” she asked with a smirk. “Yeah, I noticed.”
(TBC)
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