Deserted (NC-17)

[gina]

That was just wonderful! It was so great to see Gabe find out Chloe was alive. The end was interesting, I'm really curious to see where Chloe, Lex, and the babies are going to end up.

Can't wait for your next update!

[roslyn]

Can Gabe move with them???

I really loved this update and i can't wait for the next one...so update really soon! and i kinda like the clone Lex as well, he's a logical thinker, and he's got a good point. their kids would never have a good childhood because thier parents would be tortured by the people pof Smallville...stupid people...so again, update really really really soon

Roslyn

[Val]

Yay gabe knows! I can't wait to see his and Chloe's 'reencounter'!
I wanna know what will happen to Chloe, Lex and the babies! More soon!

[Kit Merlot]

Kris,

Great update! I am glad Gabe knows that Chloe is alive :biggrin:

But I think the clone has some evil clone plans of his own

Please continue--SOON!

[sara_noele]

Finally an update of this wonderful story! :biggrin:

So Gabe knows and wasn't it sweet what the Lex clone said. Awww...
But I don't trust this clone , well who would?

[hippiez]

New reader, just want to tell you that I WORSHIP your story!! :worship2: Please update soon!! :chlexsign4:

[Sab_Luthor]

Originally posted by hippiez@Mar 12 2004, 01:56 PM
New reader, just want to tell you that I WORSHIP your story!! :worship2: Please update soon!! :chlexsign4:

yay well i will worship you and your story too if you want but please i beg you update more :worship2: :worship2: :worship2:

[scifichick774]

A/N: Again – apologies for the delay. My Smallville muse seems to be leaving me, but I’ll do my best to get all my ongoing fics done before she’s gone for good.

~*~*~*~*~

The room wasn’t dark, but wasn’t light; the sun seeping through the blinds on the window enough to illuminate the area enough to see well.

See only too well as a matter of fact.

Gabe intensely watched the sleeping baby he held cradled in his arms, remembering how long it had been since he had performed such an action, and a lump growing in his throat when he compared how much the slumbering tot looked like his daughter after she had just been born.

The thought lifted his eyes to gaze upon Chloe’s still-sleeping form. She barely even looked like the young woman he had raised and though it saddened him a little, he also found himself strangely proud.

Chloe had faced Lionel Luthor’s wrath, survived a plane crash in the middle of the ocean, and managed to stay alive for almost two years with no modern conveniences. No heat (not that he’d reckoned she’d needed much of that given their location), no running water, no grocery stores…it was amazing that she had managed to keep herself alive, let alone looking out for Lex and being able to maintain a pregnancy with twins almost to term.

Gabe cringed and tried to push back the anger that was rising to the surface once again. It wasn’t supposed to end up like this. Chloe was supposed to graduate from high school, go to college, and get a job at The Daily Planet or The Gotham Times; not…

He sighed and the baby shifted but thankfully didn’t wake in his arms. He realized that anger was useless at this point, as was reminiscing about what he felt should have happened.

At least Lex had been gentleman enough to not jump his daughter immediately. If Clark had been the one to be stranded with her… Gabe shuddered at the thought. Chloe would have been subject to his teenage hormones and pregnant within mere days of being stranded on the island. Not to mention the possibility of dying if a similar circumstance to the pregnancy she just went through had occurred.

And he never would have known. He would have been stuck with the lie that she died in a car accident rather than ever knowing the truth. He glanced down once again to the small bundle in his arms. No. Even with his trepidation, this way was infinitely better.

Chloe let out a small croaked moan and lobbed her head over to the side and she started to wake up. Her eyes fell upon the back of a man who seemed to be cradling one of her sons and widened as a moment of panic struck her. The stranger wasn’t wearing hospital scrubs and God only knew how many enemies Lex’s clone had managed to acquire in his absence.

“Put him down,” she ordered, inwardly cursing that her voice came out as little more than a loud scratching sound. But it would hardly do to reach over and pour herself a cup of water before bothering to stand her ground about the stranger putting her son back in his bassinette. “I said ---”

Gabe turned around to face her with a bemused look on his face, the smile twitching at the corners of his mouth tugging further upward when he saw Chloe’s jaw drop open in shock.

“You’re lucky you didn’t wake him up with that loud voice of yours,” he teased in a half-whisper.

“Dad?” Chloe whimpered out.

Gabe smiled fondly at her and she held her arms out to indicate that she wanted him to come over and hug her. His smile fell into a lopsided grin and he quickly looked around, striding over to where the empty plastic bassinette was so he could put the baby down. Seconds later, he had his arms tightly wrapped around his daughter, burying his face against her hair so she wouldn’t see the tears that were welling up in his eyes. He sighed against her and stroked the back of her head lovingly before pulling away.

“I’ve missed you,” he said quietly.

Chloe smiled and brushed her own tears away from her eyes. She knew seeing her dad again after so much time had passed would be emotional, but she hadn’t expected to actually *cry*. Sloughing it off by blaming it on the excess hormones left in her body from pregnancy, she let her smile fade and breathed out a soft breath.

“You thought I was dead.”

Gabe frowned.

“I visited your grave every day,” he said sadly.

Chloe grinned and would have chuckled if it hadn’t been so inappropriate for the situation.

“I’m sure whoever Mr. Luthor really had buried there appreciated it,” she commented with surprisingly no venom in her voice, as finding out that the man was dead had done wonders for helping her come to terms with what he had done.

“About that ---”

“Do you want the long version or the short version?”

“The short version,” Gabe answered immediately, knowing his daughter only too well.

Chloe smiled.

“Good. Because there actually isn’t a long version,” she said.

Gabe narrowed his eyes at her playful tone, but there was no animosity behind the action. If anything, he was more than happy that he and Chloe had skipped past a drawn-out emotional reunion and gotten right back into their familiar routine of teasing each other even though they hadn’t seen each other in almost two years.

“Do you remember when I came home crying because somebody vandalized the Torch office?” Chloe asked. Gabe frowned and nodded. “Mr. Luthor paid for everything to be fixed – for all new computer stuff too.”

“Public relations,” Gabe grumbled under his breath.

“Something like that,” Chloe said, not really wanting to delve into the specific details about how the elder Luthor asked her to betray one of her best friends, or that she had almost taken him up on the offer.

“So then what?”

“He called me. Said he wanted to talk to me about a job,” she said. Gabe narrowed his eyes again, causing Chloe to roll hers. “I’m not naïve, Dad. Everything has a cost. I just wanted to see what he thought he could get away with for fixing the Torch; you know, write an in-depth exposé on how corrupt he really was.”

Gabe sucked in a breath and then nodded once. It was in the past and there was nothing he could do about it now. Of course, now that she was…or would be getting married to Lex – he’d make sure of that – then he could tell Lex to have a hefty bodyguard following her around at all times and making sure she didn’t get into any trouble like she had a propensity to do in the past. He sincerely doubted that Lex would put up a fight about it. A small grin quirked at the corners of his mouth. Yes. That would work nicely.

“I don’t suppose that’s a smirk of pride in your little girl?” Chloe asked suspiciously.

“No,” Gabe said.

“O-kay,” Chloe strung out. “Don’t want to know then.”

Gabe grinned at her and folded his arms across his chest.

“What happened next --- or should I ask?”

Chloe rolled her eyes again.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but the story isn’t filled with a lot of lurid details,” she said. “Well…not until later,” she continued with a blush as she looked past him to her sleeping boys.

“I don’t need to know *that* much. I just want to know how you ended up on the plane.”

“Lex didn’t tell you?”

“He did – or rather, his clone did,” he said with a modicum of disbelief. “But I’d like to hear it from you.”

“Well, I went to meet him at his house at the time he asked me to and – surprise, surprise – no guards were actually doing their jobs. So, I decided take a quick look around…”

“Snoop,” Gabe interjected.

Chloe shot him a tiny glare and cleared her throat.

“And I ended up overhearing him and Helen talking about their grand scheme,” she continued.

“And they caught you,” Gabe pointed out.

“You make it sound like it was my fault,” Chloe objected, raising her voice as she became more defensive.

Gabe cringed, glanced at the still-sleeping babies, and then looked at her apologetically.

“No. I know it’s not,” he said. “It’s just…you’ve been gone for so long…and then to find out that you’re alive and…I guess I’ve just been trying to make sense of everything.”

Chloe once again looked over at her sons.

“That makes two of us.”

One side of Gabe’s mouth rose ever so slightly.

“You’re going to have to name them, you know. You can’t call them ‘the twins’ for the rest of their lives.”

“Julian and Joshua.”

“Pardon?”

“Their names. We finally agreed a few hours ago, but I don’t know if Lex has gotten around to filling out the paperwork yet.”

“Huh,” Gabe said thoughtfully.

Chloe narrowed her eyes a little.

“What?” she asked.

“No ‘L’ names… that’s good,” Gabe said, a teasing smile lighting up his face. “I was afraid you were going to carry on the Luthor tradition or possibly name one of them after Lex. And quite frankly, I think two Lex Luthors are more than enough.”

Chloe laughed but her mirth slid quickly from her face.

“About that…” she trailed off and cleared her parched throat. “I’ve been thinking about…I still don’t know what I’m supposed to call him,” she mused to herself.

“You’ve been thinking about Lex’s…brother’s…plan,” Gabe replied knowingly with a sad twitch at one corner of his mouth.

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“And…” Chloe looked down and started to pick at the hospital blanket covering her with her fingers. From his daughter’s many hospital stays in Smallville, Gabe knew that he wasn’t about to hear good news.

“You think he’s right.”

Chloe shook her head a little, but still didn’t look up at her father. She could feel tears beginning to sting her dry eyes and damned if she was going to cry anymore in front of him. She had survived a plane crash, being stranded on a deserted island, and a labor that had gone horribly wrong – she wasn’t about to lose her inner resolve because she needed to tell her dad that she was never coming home again.

“No, not entirely,” she finally answered. “But as much as I’d like to see Clark and Pete again…”

The fact that she didn’t mention Lana’s name wasn’t lost on Gabe and his lips curled up into a snickering grin. He pushed the expression from his face though. There were things Chloe didn’t know that she needed to hear before making her final decision.

“They really miss you, Chloe – especially Clark.”

Oh.

Well, it didn’t really matter anymore, did it?

Chloe shook her head.

“They don’t,” she said sadly.

“I think I’d know better than you,” Gabe retorted. “Clark visits your grave practically every day.”

“Because he blames himself for my death,” Chloe said morbidly.

Gabe arched an eyebrow at her. He knew they were – or had been – best friends, but there’s no way she could possibly know what was going through the young man’s mind after thinking he lost someone so close to him.

“Chloe ---”

“It’s how he is, Dad,” Chloe tried to explain without giving any details or examples. “Trust me on this.”

“I still say it’s because he misses you.”

Chloe gave him a sad grin.

“I’d like to think that, but the truth is…” she paused and drew in a breath to steady herself. “The truth is that he never really knew me to begin with; he never took the time to get to know who I was beyond the image he had of me – beyond the spunky sidekick who had a tendency to get in trouble - and who he thought stood between him and Lana being together.” Her voice trailed off near the end, her last word rasped out in little more than a choked whisper.

It had been so long. How had she managed to forget how badly he made her feel? Or forget him in general? And why was talking about it now affecting her so much?

‘Because you’ll never get to rub it in his face,’ a snide voice answered in the back of her head. ‘Because now that you remember, you want to see his pained expression as you have that one final argument where you tell him everything – how miserable he made you but how happy you are now – how you hope he rots in ---’

Her dad let out a deep sigh and gave her the tiniest of grins.

“Nothing I can say is going to change your mind, is it?”

Chloe frowned apologetically.

“I don’t think so. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, honey. You know I’ll support you no matter what,” Gabe said. “I just hope Lex doesn’t mind having his father-in-law live next door because I’m not going to lose you again.”

Chloe blinked and then her lips spread into a surprised smile.

“Really?”

Gabe grinned at his daughter’s response.

“Sure. So…any ideas about where we’re going?”




TBC…

[Val]

Noo, your Smallville muse can't leave you! :'( what are we going to do without your fics!? Tell her to come back! Please!

I loved the chapter! I love Gabe! He is so cute! I want more, I wanna know what Lex thinks of all this!

[Not An Addict]

Aww! And not aww in a cheesy way; aww in a . . . that was so beautifully done! kind of way. ^_^ *snuggles you* Hope your muse feels better soon--few things are quite as painful as a muse going through her death throes. Great job on this chapter!!