Beloved - NC-17 - Complete

**Czech Angel** · 25th July 2003, 05:58

:worship2: :worship2: :worship2:
I am so happy you updated! I love the Lex and Luthor interaction. I can't wait until Chloe visits the manor.
:yay2:
Is it just me or is a jealous Lex so FREAKIN' HOT!

UPDATE SOON. :balloon:

**crazygirl** · 25th July 2003, 12:25

Oh, I so adore your fic. I love the fact that Lx and Lucas are getting along better, even if it's just to drive Lionel crazy. But I wonder whom Chloe is going to choose, now that she's back home. :chlexsign1: *hint* :angel:

**sabby** · 25th July 2003, 17:14

Two updates in a row, good thing. And of course Lex has ulterior motives all the way, just like Lucas *shakes head* will those Luthors never learn *sighs* Anyway, can't wait to see how things will develope now that Chloe's home. Update soon again

hugs,
Sabby

**Blaire023** · 25th July 2003, 17:16

Oh good god, we have two devious luthor's on our hands...what's the dimension coming to?

And poor Chloe...huffing over Lucas when she should be shacked up with Lex, fucking him like a rabid bunny.

Sorry, i need smut bad. *injects smut straight to the vein*

much better...

looking forward to seeing how this turns into a chlex fic.

~B

**krahmogh** · 25th July 2003, 22:16

I must agree that i am thouroughly enjoying the two devious Luthor brothers. I would like to know why Lionel is in prison. How easy is Lucas going to adapt to modern technology? How is Lana going to react to seeing Chloe again? More updates please!!!

:chlexsign4:

**drina** · 26th July 2003, 18:26

Lex and Lucas seems to be getting along...for now. But i bet this will immediately change when Lex actively pursues Chloe.

scifichick774 · 28th July 2003, 00:05

“Lana? We’re home,” Gabe called out as he opened the front door.

Chloe clenched her jaw as she prepared for the worst. From what she had heard, Lana still believed she was dead, despite what the coroner had said, so it proved to be a unique encounter when she found out that she wasn’t.

“We?” Lana asked with confusion before she and Clark completely turned the corner. The brunettes wore matching expressions of wide eyes and gaping mouths when they finally caught sight of Chloe. “I – I – I,” Lana stammered.

“You – you – you,” Clark added on. Chloe snickered.

“Well, nice to know that your babbling idiot status hasn’t changed while I’ve been gone,” she said to Clark before smiling brightly at Lana.

“Oh my God,” Lana exclaimed in a half whisper, her eyes then lolling back in her head as she collapsed into Clark’s arms.

“You – you’re alive,” Clark said, slowly leaning Lana back so she was lying unconscious on the floor.

“Yeah,” Chloe said, her eyes still fixed on Lana’s unmoving form. “Is she gonna be okay?”

“I ---” Clark started in a flustered voice before trailing off when he realized he couldn’t form a coherent sentence because of the shock he was in. Gabe smiled at him and slapped his arm as he walked by.

“It’s great, isn’t it, Clark?” he asked rhetorically. “I’ll go get the smelling salts.”

Chloe shook her head lightly in amusement, silently wishing that she had a camcorder to capture the moment for posterity’s sake. Clark finally snapped out of his stupor enough to take in what she was wearing, causing his brow to furrow in confusion.

“Did you go to a costume party or something?” he asked, confused by glare Chloe shot him right after the words came out of his mouth.

“Yes, Clark,” Chloe said, the heavy sarcasm already evident in her voice. “A costume party – that’s where I’ve been all this time. I was just having so much fun that I couldn’t bear to leave.” His face contorted into a wounded puppy dog look and Chloe let out a small, exasperated sigh. “No, Clark. I wasn’t at a costume party. This is just the sort of thing they wore in the world I went to, okay?” Clark’s eyes widened again, this time ending up so large that they threatened to pop out of his skull.

“W-world?” he asked carefully, stumbling over the first part of the word. “You mean like…” he trailed off and pointed a finger upward, making Chloe erupt in a fit of giggles. His face fell again, not used to hearing Chloe giggle.

“No, Clark,” she said. “Like an alternate dimension or whatever.” Chloe saw an expression of relief pass over Clark’s face, and although he quickly covered it with a nervous grin, she still wondered why he would be relieved.

“So, um ---”

Chloe held up a hand to stop him from saying anything more. Just like with Lex and her dad, it was a long story and she didn’t want to explain it more than once, especially since both Clark and Lana were a little slower on the uptake than the men she had to tell the story to previously that night.

“Just wait until my dad wakes Lana up, then I’ll tell you everything.”

Clark nodded almost absently, shoving his hands in his pockets as Gabe arrived right on cue and crouched down to wave the small stick of smelling salts under Lana’s nose. Lana’s nose crinkled at the scent and her eyes slowly flitted open.

“Chloe?” she squeaked, again wide-eyed as Gabe and Clark both helped her up. Chloe smiled in amusement at the other girl’s reaction.

“That’s it?” she teased. “No ‘welcome home’ or ‘wow, I missed you’?” Lana blinked rapidly several times and then practically launched herself toward Chloe, catching Chloe completely off guard. ‘For someone so tiny, she’s pretty strong,’ Chloe thought as Lana refused to pull away from the hug that was squeezing every last breath of air from Chloe’s body. “Okay, okay, I get it,” Chloe said with a little laugh as she tried to push the other girl off of her. “It’s good to see you too.”

Lana shook her head, her smile beaming across her face.

“I can’t believe it’s you – it’s really you.”

“It’s really me,” Chloe confirmed, a bemused grin on her lips.

“Wow. Where were you? And why are you dressed like a princess? And ---”

“Uh, well, that’s kind of a long story,” Chloe said, cutting off Lana’s other questions. She then shot her father and friends an almost desperately hopeful look. “Don’t suppose we have any coffee?”

An hour or so later, Chloe found herself in one of the reclining chairs in the living room, laughing and surprisingly enjoying her conversation with her dad, Clark and Lana; though she thought the third cup of freshly brewed coffee running through her system didn’t hurt.

“So, you’re *really* a princess?” Lana asked excitedly.

“Well…technically,” Chloe answered. “But it’s not like I’m ever going back there, so it doesn’t really matter.”

“And you were married to Lex,” Clark said in a voice seeking clarity, his tone lacking any enthusiasm whatsoever. In fact, he seemed considerably uneasy with everything that Chloe had told him.

“Again, *technically*, but ---”

“You’re never going back there,” Clark finished for her. Chloe nodded.

“Exactly.”

Clark didn’t even try to mask the stubborn frown that placed itself on his mouth.

“What if ---” Clark stopped and paused, trying to think of a way he could word his question without Chloe getting angry at him. “What if he finds a way to come back here?” Chloe blinked.

“What?”

“Lex – Alexander – whatever,” Clark said. “I mean, they found a way here once to kidnap you, and he sounds kind of…”

“Psychotic?” Chloe offered.

“Obsessive,” Clark countered, unwilling to speak poorly about his friend, even if it was just his friend’s double. “Anyway, what makes you think he won’t just come here and take you back?”

“He won’t,” Chloe said, her voice not coming out as strong or convincingly as she had hoped. “The portals have something to do with star alignment, or so James claimed, and he wouldn’t be able to open in for a long time from now.”

“We could move,” Gabe suggested, tilting his head to the side as he waited for his daughter’s reaction. “I’m sure Lex could transfer me to the plant in Littleton or maybe we could go back to Metropolis.”

“Dad ---”

“Chloe, it would be for your own safety. I don’t want to lose ---” Gabe trailed off as an image of his biological daughter lying dead on Chloe’s bed flashed into his mind. Chloe frowned, suspecting that her dad still hadn’t dealt with all of the emotions that he needed to.

“Dad, I appreciate the offer, I really do, but I can’t just leave Lucas here like that,” she said. “He’s my best friend. I already told you everything he did for me while I was there and I’m not going to desert him by moving on the off-chance that Alexander might find a way over here.”

“Chloe ---”

“No,” Chloe interrupted firmly and rose from her chair. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m tired and I need to get some sleep.”

“It’s only a little after eight,” Clark said with confusion. Chloe looked at him; it wasn’t a glare, but she presented it with an attitude that he couldn’t place – as if her word was law and he shouldn’t question it. He grimaced as the realization came to him. Despite her protests, Chloe had apparently gotten used to how things were done in the other world, and that included the power that came along with her title. It might be a difficult transition getting used to her the way she was now.

Chloe nodded her head once at Clark’s apparent acquiescence and turned to leave the room, leaving a bewildered Lana and Gabe behind her.

“What was that all about?” Gabe wondered aloud.

“I don’t know,” Lana answered, not realizing that it hadn’t really been a question for her. She started to rise from her seat on the couch. “Maybe I should go talk to her.”

Clark frowned, but didn’t stop her. He had a feeling that Lana needed to figure out for herself what he had just learned the hard way.

Lana slowly padded up the stairs, stopping to suck in a breath when she reached Chloe’s closed bedroom door.

‘She’s just getting used to being back home,’ she told herself, gathering the confidence she needed to confront Chloe while she was visibly upset. She raised her hand and lightly rapped on the door. “Chloe? It’s me.” She heard the shuffling of feet against the floor and let out a small breath of relief when it seemed that Chloe was going to open the door for her.

The door creaked open and Chloe stood in front of her, an expression of dismay on her face. Lana frowned.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Instead of answering her, Chloe stepped to the side to allow Lana to come into the room, closing the door behind her.

“It’s going to sound crazy,” Chloe started quietly, trying to tug at the laces that held the back of her dress closed. Lana saw what she was doing and went over to help her, giving her a slightly condescending grin as she did so.

“You show up out of nowhere, all of us thinking you’re dead, claiming to have been in a parallel universe…Chloe, I’m not sure ‘crazy’ is the right word.”

Chloe shook her head and lifted the back of her slightly grown-out hair so Lana could get the laces.

“It’s not that,” she said. “It’s…Lucas is the only real friend I have.”

“Chloe, that’s not true. I ---”

“But I don’t know if I’d be able to stay here if…Alexander came here for me,” Chloe continued as if Lana hadn’t spoken at all. Lana gave her a perplexed look.

“What do you mean? You just got back, you ---”

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” Chloe said, cutting the other girl off. “But Lex – Alexander,” she corrected herself, “and I have this weird physical connection. It’s like chemistry overload.” Lana’s eyes grew large with surprise.

“You’re joking,” she said with a chortle of disbelief. “You and Lex? Come on Chloe.”

“Me and Alexander,” Chloe corrected. “Granted, he looks the same, but he’s definitely not.”

“Do you love him?” Lana asked, trying to keep the astonishment from coming through in her voice.

“No, I --- I don’t know. Like I said, it’s hard to explain.”

“Well, from what you’ve told me, it sounds like he’s worse than Lex – and that’s *really* bad,” Lana said, causing Chloe to arch an eyebrow at her.

“You make it sound like Lex is a bad guy,” Chloe said with some amusement, the quirky smile on her face falling when she saw the extremely serious look on Lana’s face.

“Chloe,” Lana started slowly, moving back so Chloe could shimmy out of the top layer of the dress. “When you were gone – some stuff came up that ---” Lana stopped and shook her head. “Clark found out some stuff – some *bad* stuff – about Lex. They’re barely even civil to each other anymore.” Chloe opened and closed her mouth, unsure of what to say in response.

“Oh,” she finally said. “He seemed okay to me.”

“You haven’t been here. You don’t know what’s going on,” Lana argued.

“Well,” Chloe responded, stripping down to the tiny slip underneath all the bulky layers of the dress, “I’ll ask him about it tomorrow, but you know how Clark likes to blow every moral or ethical decision out of proportion.” ‘Except when it comes to him,’ she quickly added in her thoughts.

“You’re seeing him tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Chloe answered as if it was nothing. “He’s having someone come over to fit Lucas for clothing and ‘so kindly’ offered to get me some new things too.” Noticing the frown on Lana’s face she let out a small sigh. “What?”

Lana shook her head again.

“Nothing,” she lied as she rose from the bed to walk to the door. She placed her hand on the knob, but stopped before she turned it.

“Lana?”

“Just don’t let your feelings for…your husband,” Lana tripped over her wording, the sentence sounding wrong as it came out of her mouth. “Don’t let it cloud your judgment when it comes to Lex. Like you said, they may look alike, but they’re very different people.”

TBC…

**hler** · 28th July 2003, 00:57

*tackle hug* Thank you Thank you!!! I love this story, and I've been in such a funk all day, this really picked me up.....Lana fainting, Chloe basically dismissing Clark with her super-princess powers, really great!!! More soon! :yay:
~Heida