Two Dozen and One Holiday Lies - Complete (NS Advent Calendar 2008)

[skauble]

Title: Two Dozen and One Holiday Lies
Summary: Holiday platitudes never worked quite right for them
Spoilers: This story takes place in season four. I’m not going to really get into the specifics of different episodes and the arc of the stones because…well, much of it was ridiculous and stupid.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine and hence I make no money from it...sadly.
Rating: PG


A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed this story and encouraged me. It helped more than you know to keep me on track. Love you all and you guys rock so hard!


Prologue


1. Giving always makes you feel better


“‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”

Hugging the walls and sticking to the darkest of the shadows, Chloe preferred to think of herself as less of a mousey intruder and more of an ambassador of good will. After all, it wasn’t as if she was breaking into the mansion for a story…this time.

Her fingers tightened briefly around the small package she was carrying as she remembered just why she was there – to spread a little holiday cheer. Because even if it gave Lex Luthor a coronary to imagine it, she was going to show him that someone thought about him, despite his recent upgrade from mere bah humbug to all out Grinchiness.

However, she’d be teaching him that lesson anonymously. For all of the bravado that went on in the loudest part of her mind, Chloe knew that she simply couldn’t take it if she reached out to Lex and he rejected her friendship outright instead of in the more subtle way of simply avoiding her.

His absence in her life after their closeness during her time in hiding hurt, but Chloe pushed that feeling aside because, yes, Lex was awful at the whole friendship thing, but she found that she couldn’t blame him too much.

Although he certainly hadn’t blurted out his entire life story during the enforced emotional intimacy of their time together, they had grown close. That, coupled with her innate ability to ask seemingly innocuous questions that were anything but, had given her a much clearer picture of Lex’s life. And, sadly, that picture contained very few friends.

Sure, he had Clark; but that didn’t really count.

Although Chloe was grateful that her own relationship with Clark was back on track, and she truly wouldn’t trade it for the world, she had to admit that his mixture of open innocence and awkward lies sent mixed signals that a friendship novice like Lex might interpret as the way that relationships were supposed to be. So it was no wonder that he flailed so badly in them.

It was also no surprise that he was now courting Lana’s…friendship. Because the truth was that Lana was remarkably like Clark in that both of them had expectations that he be everything except himself. And though she knew that there was somehow more to it than met the eye, she still couldn’t shake the feeling that Lex was trying to prove something in his strange, quasi-pursuit of the girl who was already the object of a tug-a-war between two men.

Lana wanted him, as she did with all men, to play the perpetual hero to her damsel in distress, while Clark just wanted Lex to be more Kent-like. And Chloe knew him well enough, at this point, to understand his fear of himself, his future, of his potential to become his father. He was desperate to avoid what he’d come to see as his probable destiny, and so he clung to those who demanded that he be someone other than Lex Luthor, in whom he often found so little value.

So it was almost understandable that he’d avoid her and, by extension, her friendship. She happened to like Lex just as he was – even if he was made up of more than his fair share of stupid recently - and didn’t doubt, for one moment, his worth. Which meant that it was up to her, as the only one with realistic experience in the area, to pick up the slack. Even if that slack gathering had to be done at an emotionally safe distance.

Of course, he’d probably assume that the present was from Lana…Actually, he’d probably assume it was a bomb. But after it failed to kill him, Lana would be his next thought. And though it galled her on some level that the brunette would be his chief suspect, it didn’t bother her as much as the thought of him having a holiday completely devoid of warmth and some kind of human connection.

And with that thought in mind, Chloe set the festively wrapped package on the sleek desk and left as silently as she had come; her deed done, but heart heavy that this was the only thing she’d be sharing with Lex for Christmas.

TBC…

This thread is closed. If you would like to leave a comment regarding the story, this thread - Story Reviews - is the place for them.

[skauble]

Prologue from the flip side


2. A gift brightens everyone’s day


It was probably a bomb.

Okay, it probably wasn’t. But the fact that he’d even had to consider that the small, unassuming package was a murderous, incendiary device told Lex all he needed to know about how the holidays were shaping up.

He looked back down at the box with two questions on his mind. One, who would give him a present and, two, who would give him a present anonymously? The contents of the package made him only mildly curious because when one had enough money and power at their disposal to instantly fulfill even the most extravagant of whims, it really did end up being the thought that counted most when it came to giving.

His first thought was Chloe…

But before the name could even take full form in his mind he resolutely pushed it back. Such thoughts were useless and counter productive. Whatever bridges had been built between them over the time of Lionel’s trail had been burnt, and he’d been the one to light the match. Lex knew that he’d do well to remember that fact.

There were three options, provided that the LuthorCorp board hadn’t signed him up for the Jelly of the Month Club.

Of course, deciding that the package was not of the explosive variety, Lionel was immediately ruled out. Even if the man had decided to give him a gift of the non-lethal variety, he wouldn’t do so without being there so that he could prod whatever painful memories a Luthor gift would be chosen specifically to provoke.

Which left Clark and Lana.

Clark was, clearly, a contender. There was no question in Lex’s mind that his young friend lived and breathed the idea that it was better to give than to receive.

But as generous as the boy could be, he knew that anonymous gifts like this weren’t quite his thing. No; the gift would be completely incidental and it would be the “experience” that he’d want to share. If Clark had a present for him he would have nagged him into journeying to the farm where Lex could open his gift amongst all the traditional trappings of Christmas.

Regardless of the Norman Rockwell images that brought to mind, Lex was unsurprised at the utter lack of joy he found in contemplating a scene that included the suspicious and censorious stare of Jonathan Kent. A disapproving father was the one aspect of family life he had covered. He hardly needed to borrow that from Clark.

And then there was one.

Lana.

Despite the fact that he’d been strengthening his friendship with the young woman while his others faded away, she strangely hadn’t been the first thought to cross his mind. Lex frowned at the realization, but then concluded that it was because the box before him seemed so much like him and, therefore, so unlike her.

Wrapped in a matte paper with bold blocks of muted color that blended golds, silvers, and greens in a subtle and sophisticated manner, the package seemed less in keeping with the glittered snowflakes, smiling snowmen, and other homespun icons that generally represented the holidays for Lana.

But then Lana had been playing at appearing worldly ever since her return from Paris - an attempt that only seemed to work because the majority of her audience had never left Kansas. Still, it wasn’t impossible that she’d simply had it wrapped at whatever store she’d bought it from and asked a staff member to leave it for him in his office.

The mystery was solved.

Lana had given him the gift.

Probably the sole gift that he’d receive that year.

And as Lex picked up the parts acquisition reports he’d been reading, he told himself he was glad; that it was better that way. He might miss his friendship with Chloe – her wit, her insight, her laughter – but that relationship, that closeness, hadn’t been safe. For either of them. So it was good that she hadn’t given him anything. It would have meant that all of his hard work at creating a divide between them had been undone.

No, it was for the best that it was from Lana…Lana, whose gifting choices would be inspired either by her rural, small town sensibilities or her faux European persona.

And he would have to pretend to like it.

Feeling a headache looming, Lex pushed the box into a drawer, vaguely wondering why he had hoped it wasn’t a bomb.

TBC

This thread is closed. If you would like to leave a comment regarding the story, this thread - Story Reviews - is the place for them.

[skauble]

3. Holidays are the best time to catch up with old friends


Unlike her trek onto Luthor property the previous night, there was little good will involved in Chloe’s current night’s sneaking.

She’d been surprised when a conversation with a contact she’d made during her internship at the Daily Planet had yielded some unrelated information that there was, supposedly, something going down at a warehouse at the edge of the slums that night. Of course, something seedy was always taking place in the Suicide Slums, so that, in and of itself, hardly merited the drive in from Smallville. No; what had interested her was that it was a LuthorCorp warehouse.

It wasn’t that Chloe had a grudge against the large, multi-national conglomerate whose former CEO had tried to have her killed. It was that she knew how hard Lex was working to clean up all the messes his father had left behind – the dirty dealings, the underhanded negotiations, the general lack of the most basic of ethics. When Lionel had been released from prison, she’d worried about a million things that he might do, who he might hurt. But he was somewhat inhibited by the fact that Lex was currently wielding the power that LuthorCorp held. If Lionel was doing something to upset that balance, to take that power back, he’d be ten times the threat he was now.

Which was why she’d left her car a few blocks down, crossed over a darkened and distinctively creepy alleyway, and was beginning to climb some rather rickety crates in hopes of catching a glimpse of what was happening inside through one of the large windows that overlooked the loading dock.

As she reached the top crate, the wood wobbled dangerously before settling into a more stable position. She briefly gave thanks to the news gods who were quite clearly on her side as, not only had she not been assaulted, kidnapped, of buried under a pile of shaky containers yet, but her father was also out of town until the next day, leaving her blissfully free to uncover hidden conspiracies, bring wrong doings to light…snoop.

With an almost giddy sense of anticipation, she peeked over the window’s ledge to see something rather unexpected.

Inside were two large trucks and, by Chloe’s count, seven men. It required absolutely no experience with the inner workings of warehouses and their employees to know that they clearly didn’t belong. She’d certainly been in enough places she didn’t belong to recognize the way they held themselves alert, how, no matter what task was being preformed, every minute or so, heads would raise to scan the area. Even if that behavior hadn’t seemed suspicious, the fact that she could clearly see that at least three of the men were armed certainly was. And a number of months spent in close contact with federal agents told her that the hardware they were packing was not your standard revolver in the glove compartment, trucker fare.

But, being fairly satisfied that something nefarious was underway, what bothered her most was that all of the activity below her was not in an effort to load the large boxes that the building contained into the trucks, but was actually an unloading of similar containers that were then carefully placed amongst the other crates in a seemingly random manner.

Deciding that she needed to get close enough to hear at least some of what was going on, Chloe cautiously and quietly made her way back down the unstable pieces of wood. Just as she was ready to make the small hop to the ground, strong arms grabbed her, spinning her around and pressing her against the side of the building. Within a matter of seconds she found herself trapped between the solid concrete and a lean, hard body, her gasp of surprised stifled by the hand placed over her mouth.

And just as she was about to begin struggling in earnest, Chloe looked up into the stormy gray eyes she would recognize anywhere.

Lex.

Normally the site of Lex filled her with a sense of security. But the rage that was clouding his face and the tenseness that she could feel in every line of his body as it pressed against hers, could not, in any way, be construed as reassuring.

Still, he wasn’t some nameless gunman trying to kill her so, no matter how intimidating he was in his anger, he was clearly the lesser of two evils. In fact, he was the non-evil that was messing up her night of snoo-journalistic field work.

Lex’s eyes narrowed as he saw the fear fade and the fire snap to life in Chloe’s eyes.

When he’d first seen a familiar form balanced precariously on a pile of rotted wood, peering in on what he was certain was some less than legal activities, he’d known instantly, with every fiber in his being, that it was Chloe. You could have the woman committed, dress her in a straightjacket and lock her in a padded cell and, within an hour, she would have uncovered an insurance fraud ring, a doctor working without a license, and suffered no less than three attempts on her life. Some days he just wanted to lock her up in the castle for her own safety and throw away the key. But then he remembered that many of the greatest dangers Chloe had faced in her life had been because of her connection with the Luthor family, not in spite of it.

Shelving those thoughts for another time, Lex pushed away from Chloe, catching her wrist in an iron grip and pulling her with him as he turned to cross the alleyway, back to where he’d left his car.

Chloe knew that there wasn’t much that she could do at the moment, other than go where Lex led, but that didn’t mean that she had to be happy about it. And she wasn’t. She wasn’t happy at all. In fact, the only thing she was happy about was the fact that, when they were somewhere safer, she could Lex know just how very, truly, extremely, not happy his interference was making her.

Unfortunately, in all of the pushing and pulling and smooshing into walls, neither of them had noticed that the hem of Chloe’s black sweater had gotten caught on one of the splintered pieces of wood until the entire wobbly structure began to shake.

Immediately identifying the problem, Lex tugged Chloe sharply towards him, and out of the path of the falling debris. However, there was little time for relief at the crisis averted as loud shouts from inside the building filled the air.

“Come. Now.”

Chloe would have rolled her eyes at his bossiness if she hadn’t been busy with all of the fleeing. She’d lived in Smallville longer than he had. If anyone should be in charge of the ‘running for your life’ portion of the evening, it should be her! But all indignation was momentarily forgotten as the sound of gun shots split the night.

As they reached the end of the alley, her move to turn left was thwarted by Lex’s momentum which was taking them in the opposite direction.

“My car-” she called.

“Is staying here.”

There was no room for debate as he pulled out a key with a small remote attached. Before they’d even reached the vehicle, the doors were unlocked and the engine started. Thrusting Chloe into the passenger’s side, Lex was behind the wheel within moments, speeding from the scene as bullets continued fly.

They were both silent as they started the long trek back to Smallville in the contemplative way that often follows cheating death; no matter how many times they may have cheated him before. And yet, for all that their thoughts were the same, they were tellingly opposite.

Lex was furious. Chloe could have been killed.

He didn’t need the whole story. Oh, he’d get it, but it was enough, for now, to know that someone had tried to hurt her. And as he nearly shook with the intensity of the feeling inside of him, he told himself it was anger that someone had tried to undo the months of works he’d put into keeping her safe and whole and not a mind numbing fear at almost having lost her.

Chloe was livid. Lex could have been killed.

She didn’t know what exactly what was going on, but she would. Although, when Lex was in danger the situation usually had Lionel’s fingerprints all over it. And because it was easier after being shut out for so long, Chloe focused on her outrage at the father’s actions towards his son, and not on her heartbreak for the little boy inside who she knew, better than anyone, just wanted to be loved.

So lost was she in her thoughts, that Chloe didn’t realize that the scenery was no longer a blur, and that the car had slowed to make the turn towards town.

Only it didn’t turn in that direction.

“Umm…Lex, I know that I’ve been uncustomarily silent, and so you may have forgotten that you have company, but my house is in the other direction.”

The car merely picked up speed as he replied without taking his eyes from the road.

“You’re not going home. You’re staying at the mansion.”

TBC

This thread is closed. If you would like to leave a comment regarding the story, this thread - Story Reviews - is the place for them.

[skauble]

4. Holiday hospitality is always welcomed


Chloe had been to the mansion more then enough times to storm through the halls in a fit of righteous indignation without the humiliating chance of turning down the wrong corridor and ending up fuming in a guest bathroom. Making use of this valuable knowledge, she stomped ahead of Lex, pushing through the doors of his office and waiting for the soft click of their closing to let her know that he’d followed, before whirling around to face him.

“And here I thought I’d make it through the night without being kidnapped.”

Despite the irritation he could clearly read on her face, Lex only rolled his eyes at her before crossing to the bar.

“I would hardly call this a kidnapping, Chloe.”

“So what exactly would you call shoving someone in your car and refusing to let them continue on to their destination?”

“A rescue?” Lex asked as he finished pouring some scotch into a glass full of ice. “We did leave your car in the general vicinity of the warehouse. A car that I’m assuming contains your registration with your name and address plainly listed. Do you honestly think that on the even remote chance that, whoever those men were, they now have such information about you, I’m going to allow you to go back to an empty house in the middle of the night?”

Chloe’s mouth snapped shut on the incensed reply that had been bubbling to the surface and followed a new and yet, she suspected, equally vexing train of thought.

“How do you know my house is empty for the night?”

Seeing the briefest of tensing before he forced himself to relax confirmed her suspicion that Lex wasn’t simply being overly cautious. He’d known that her father was out of town, that she’d have been alone.

“Are you having me followed? Is that how you knew where I’d be tonight?”

Lex downed the rest of his drink and set the tumbler back onto the bar before turning to face Chloe for what he was absolutely certain was going to be an unpleasant confrontation.

“I’m not having you followed.” It should have been enough but, seeing her there, decked out in her snooping attire, all he could think about was the danger she’d foolishly placed herself in. “Believe me; if I had been even slightly aware of what you were planning tonight you wouldn’t have stepped one foot out of Smallville.”

“As if you could have stopped me,” she returned, nearly choking on her outrage before she realized that she was being diverted from her original question. “Which is so not the point here. How did you know that my dad was out of town?”

“I’ve been keeping a very general and discreet eye on you and your father,” Lex admitted. “Nothing invasive; but with Lionel’s release from prison, I thought that it was prudent to err on the side of caution.”

Chloe could see that Lex would probably not be much more forthcoming as to the specifics of whatever ‘eye keeping’ was going on, but she reasoned that it wouldn’t be too difficult to find out for herself, now that she was aware of the issue. So she decided that her time with Lex would probably be best spent pushing for information that she could only get from him.

“So if you weren’t having me followed, then how did you end up there tonight? Don’t you have thugs on your payroll to prowl around dark alleys in the night?”

Glad to be away from the touchy subject of extending the Sullivans his indefinite protection, Lex had no problem answering her inquiries. He knew her well enough that giving her no information would simply push her into investigating matters herself. Besides, of all the people in his life whose trustworthiness was in question, Chloe’s Sullivan’s was beyond reproach.

“I’m hardly in the habit of employing thugs. But, yes, I have many people that could have been sent in my place tonight.”

“But none you could trust?” Chloe asked, reaching what she thought was the logical conclusion. Only logic so rarely influenced life in their little corner of the world.

“Actually,” Lex admitted, “the problem isn’t me not knowing who to trust, it’s not letting my father know who I trust.”

And that…actually made quite a bit of sense to Chloe. Of course Lionel’s first move in a power play for LuthorCorp would be to undermine Lex’s powerbase from the inside out. But every person Lionel made a move towards turning exposed him just a bit more. By not knowing who was absolutely loyal to Lex and who was up for sale, he might very well make overtures to the wrong person and reveal his machinations.

It was really quite brilliant of Lex and Chloe couldn’t help smiling in approval at the thought of him outmaneuvering Lionel in this manner.

“Good plan. The only downside being, of course, that you’ve been forced to do your own dirty work.”

A small smirk tilted his lips. Lex knew that Chloe both judged less and understood more than anyone else that he was willing to dirty his hands if necessary.

“I’d gotten wind of something occurring tonight at that particular warehouse. There was every chance that it was a move on my father’s part to learn who I most trusted to handle such situations, but since I couldn’t be sure which it was, there really was no other choice than to look into the matter personally.”

The answer was honest and to the point but, he hoped, vague enough to keep from rousing her curiosity even more…although it was a very dim and feeble hope. It did, however, lead him to the question he’d wanted to ask from the moment he’d seen her peering into the warehouse window earlier that night.

“What were you doing there tonight, Chloe? Why on earth would you get anywhere near anything to do with LuthorCorp? Haven’t you learned anything after your dealings with my father?”

She could hear the concern hidden in his words and so she disregarded the harshness of his tone.

“You better believe I’ve learned the lessons Lionel was kind enough to teach me. But you’re sadly mistaken if you think ‘ignorance is bliss’ was among them. If your father’s up to something, if he’s making a play to regain what he’s lost, then you better believe that I want to know about it before hand.”

She stepped forward, letting him see the determination that she felt down to the very core of her being.

“You weren’t the only one to hear rumblings that something wasn’t right. I got a tip from an old source that something wasn’t quite right and when I heard the name LuthorCorp, I knew I’d be looking into it if only to ease my mind that your dad wasn’t behind it.”

Now that she was, once more, focused on the happenings of the evening, she recalled what had been bothering her before Lex had shown up and ruined her fun—her investigation.

“Lex, those men, they weren’t loading their trucks with LuthorCorp merchandise. In fact, they weren’t taking anything at all. Before your ill timed ‘rescue’”, she paused to make the insulting air quotes, “they’d actually unloaded five separate crates and placed them in seemingly random places throughout the warehouse.”

His brow furrowed as his mind turned over what Chloe had told him and searched for possible explanations. The warehouse was LuthorCorp owned, but not in such a direct manner or as such a necessary hub of transport that anything found there, short of children being shipped in from third world countries to work in sweat shops, would have actually had an impact on the company as a whole. It would be useless for Lionel to be planting anything at the site. And if the men weren’t connected with his father, then why hadn’t they simply been stealing the merchandise within.

It was a puzzle he planned to solve, just not with Chloe. Never again would he do something that placed her in danger.

“Chloe,” he began, trying to reason with her. “I appreciate the information that you’ve given me, but I’m asking you to please let me handle this.”

He could see that she wanted to protest, but Lex didn’t even let her begin.

“I know that you’re curious; that you want to help. And I know that you’re worried that this might be the work of my father. But honestly, that’s all the more reason for you to stay out of this. Haven’t you been in enough danger because of this family?”

And suddenly the reason for all those months of pain and rejection became blindingly clear. Lex wasn’t tired of her friendship. He hadn’t simply moved on to greener, Lana-filled pastures. He was scared…for her.

And not just because of what his father had done. Lex was afraid that somehow, because he was a Luthor, he was cursed to bring her the same kind of pain that Lionel had.

Looking downward, Chloe quickly blinked back the tears that threatened at the realization that Lex did still care.

“Alright, Lex,” she said, looking back up into his eyes while she assured him, “I won’t get in your way.”

And she wouldn’t, she reasoned. Lex needed someone to watch his back when it came to Lionel, and they’d already proven that they tackled that particular endeavor well as a team. So there was no reason to believe that she’d be anything other than an asset in this investigation. And if anyone could appreciate an asset it was a businessman like Lex.

So, with a smile that was innocence personified, Chloe left the study and headed upstairs to the room that she’d sometimes used during their brain storming sessions before she’d been forced into hiding, hoping that maybe the time and distance between them had dulled Lex’s knowledge of her enough so that he bought that.

TBC

[skauble]

5. Holidays bring the joy of family


Lex sat at his desk, pretending to read.

There were, of course, files and reports that actually needed his attention, but Lex knew that he was operating on borrowed time and he saw no reason to be wrapped up and distracted when Chloe finally made her way downstairs.

He wasn’t stupid, and he knew Chloe far to well to believe her innocent act of the previous night. Clearly she thought that she could placate him and then make use of the fact that he would be engrossed in the problems with Lionel to go on her merry way, throwing herself into one dangerous situation after the next.

Well, that wasn’t going to happen.

The trouble, however, was convincing her of that without strengthening her stubborn streak. Which, honestly, was less of a streak and more of the entirety of her makeup.

And, as he needed every advantage possible, he was attempting to appear busy without actually distracting himself with LuthorCorp business. In addition, he’d already had coffee and a tray of pastries sent to her room. There were few things that terrified a Luthor. But a hungry, un-caffeinated Chloe Sullivan came amazingly close.

Hearing steps in the hallway, Lex glanced back down at the file, waiting for the blonde whirlwind to blow through the doors.

“Hello, son.”

Lex’s head snapped up in time to see his father step into the room and close the door behind him. His heart lurched with panic as he realized that Chloe would be also be making an appearance at any moment. The need to protect her that was always there was twice as strong when it came to Lionel, and he knew that he had to get the man out of the mansion and on his way before he realized that Chloe was there.

“What do you want, dad?” Lex asked, hoping, just once, they could cut through all of the Machiavellian maneuverings that were the cornerstone of all of their interactions, and get to the actual point so that they could go their separate ways.

“I was hoping that we could talk,” Lionel said as sat in one of the sleek chairs on the opposite side of the desk. “You’ve been avoiding me. I know that we’ve had our problems, but we’ve been given a second chance here, Lex. Let’s not waste it in pointless recriminations and senseless power struggles.”

It was only years of repressing his emotions that kept Lex’s expression blank as Lionel simply dismissed all that had happened between them the previous year.

“I’m not sure who it is that you’ve gotten this miraculous second chance from”, he coldly informed his father, “but it’s nothing to do with me. I’m sorry that you find it petulant, but I’m still slightly put out over the small matter of you trying to kill me.”

Any justification Lionel might have made was lost as the large door flew open and Chloe announced her presence.

“I’m heading home, Lex. And don’t worry, I remember our talk last nigh-”

Chloe froze as she took in the scene before her and realized that, not only was Lex not alone, but exactly who was there with him.

“Miss Sullivan,” Lionel stood to greet her, only to be cut short by Lex, who also rose and moved around the desk.

“Don’t,” he warned his father before turning his attention to Chloe.

“Go home. Williams will drive you. We can talk later.”

There were a million and one situations in which Chloe was comfortable arguing with Lex. This, however, was not one of them. With Lionel they were a united front. Chloe wouldn’t necessarily do what Lex said, but she wouldn’t bicker about it in front of the man and give him a chance to play them against each other.

Lex was relieved by the acquiescence he read in Chloe’s eyes. The situation was bad, but it could be salvaged as long as he knew that she was out of the direct line of fire for the moment. But just to be safe he called out to her as she reached the door.

“Call me when you get home.”

And with a terse nod, she was gone.

“You know, Lex, you didn’t have to run her off on my account. In fact,” he turned back, “I’m rather glad to see that news of the dissolution of the relationship between you and Chloe was false.”

“Leave it alone, Dad,” Lex warned. “Haven’t you caused Chloe enough problems for a lifetime?”

Lionel smiled and extended his hands in a gesture of appeasement. “I have no reason to harm that young woman any longer. And as I’ve said, I consider all of the unpleasantness of the last year as water under the bridge.”

He paused for a moment before shooting Lex a sly look.

“Actually, I’m quite satisfied with this turn of events.” At Lex’s incredulous look, he continued, “She’s a strong woman, son, and a Luthor’s life, an the lives of those around them, is never an easy one. You certainly could…and have, done worse.”

For a moment Lex was mesmerized by the sincerity he could read in the other man’s eyes. But he quickly shook of the feeling, knowing better than anyone how adept his father was at manipulation and deceit.

“Look, if you’ve come to do nothing more than stand here offering olive branches I’m sure you’re more than prepared to beat me with and making ludicrous assumptions about my personal life, then I suggest you go. I have a meeting in Metropolis at ten and I have to be on my way soon.”

It was a clear dismissal, and Lex waited to see how Lionel would react in his current, semi-penitent mood. Thankfully, he simply shrugged, and nodded his consent.

“Of course,” he made to leave before calling over his shoulder, “and be sure to watch for Henderson, Lex. He’s been putting out extremely discreet feelers concerning the acquisition of a certain LuthorCorp subsidiaries. Nothing good can come of that.”

Lex ground his teeth together to bite back the retort that was clamoring to spring forth. He knew that his father was baiting him; both with the knowledge of whom his meeting was with, and the fact that Carl Henderson was planning a major double cross.

He knew that Lionel was aware that he was already in possession of such information. If the man had thought, for one minute, that Lex was ignorant of such a plot, he would have stepped in and handled it himself, regardless of which of them had actual control of LuthorCorp.

Walking back to his desk, Lex began placing the pertinent folders into his briefcase. He didn’t think that his father was foolish enough to actual make any kind of move against Chloe, but it certainly wasn’t a chance that he was going to take now that it appeared the man might have some renewed interest in her, for whatever reason. Pulling out his cell phone, he dialed the number of one of those few, trustworthy men in his employ.

Maybe it was time for his ‘eye keeping’ to become the slightest bit more invasive.

-----

Chloe knew that Lex wouldn’t let his father stay long. There was simply too much going on for him to risk a lengthy confrontation with the man with no warning.

And she knew that the visit must have been a surprise because, no matter what happened between them, Lex would never willingly expose her to Lionel again.

But as serious as Lex was about keeping her safe, he didn’t seem to realize that she’d fight just as hard to see him remain unharmed. No matter what form that harm took; physical or emotional.

And it was that deep seated need to protect that kept her waiting outside the mansion instead of searching out Williams to take her back home. And, indeed, her patience was rewarded as Lionel exited the mansion shortly after her.

Pushing away from the wall she’d been leaning against, she caught up with him just as his driver opened the door to his limo.

“We need to talk.”


TBC

[skauble]

6. Christmas is a time to let bygones be bygones


“We need to talk,” Chloe told Lionel as she moved to towards the limo he was about to enter.

With a surprisingly open smile, he gestured towards the open door. “Of course, Miss Sullivan. I could provide transportation home and we could discuss any concerns you might have on the way.”

With a laugh far too bitter for her years, Chloe declined. “I’d rather walk home barefoot over broken glass…while on fire. Besides, this won’t take that long.”

She waited for Lionel to turn and face her fully so that he could see just how deadly serious she was before she issued her warning.

“Leave Lex alone.”

“My dear,” he offered appeasingly, “you’ve understandably misinterpreted my reason for being here. I don’t want to hurt Lex; I want to make amends with him. With the both of you, actually.”

A roll of her eyes dismissed his words as ridiculous and borderline insane.

“The best thing you could do for Lex, is stay out of his life. If you really have changed,” she told him, “if you’re really sincere, then time and not much else will prove it.”

Lionel frowned, but his eyes held hers and the urgency she saw in them caught her off guard.

“I know that I’ve made mistakes with my son, Miss Sullivan. Terrible, terrible mistakes. But my time in prison, my nearly dying changed me more than you can know.”

Chloe scoffed as she stepped closer; her body vibrating with the repressed violence she wanted to commit.

“I’m remarkably unmoved by your jailhouse revelations. I don’t care if you found Jesus, Waldo, and where the missing socks from the dryer go. You’re dangerous. And since the only thing that will prove that fact a lie is the absence of you and yet, here you are, I’m not disposed to reverse that opinion.”

He didn’t seem angered by her words, and the lack of his irritation shocked her. But not as much as his next words.

“Miss Sulli- Chloe,” he spoke the name softly. “As you’re most likely aware, I’m generally disinclined to be quite so open with my feelings, but you’re very important to my son. And both his and your opinion that I’m some kind of threat to you may be one of the largest obstacles I face in reconciling with Lex.”

The use of her name angered Chloe; made her feel violated in a way. He had no right to that level of familiarity after what he’d done to her; to her family. But, more than that, he had no right to stand there confusing her with words and actions that were so outside what she knew of him. It infuriated her that, after all of this time, she was going to have to work out the complexities of a new facet of this man’s malevolent machinations.

She just wanted him to leave. She knew the hope of actually getting him to do so was slim to none, but she’d had to try. If there was one massive chink in Lex’s armor it was the need to be loved. And the need to be loved by his father made up a large part of that particular weakness.

But she wasn’t going to let Lionel exploit that again. In this area, Lex, the strongest and most capable man she knew, was vulnerable. Far too vulnerable for her to let him face this on his own. And although, in the deepest part of her, she could admit that Lionel Luthor scared the living daylights out of her, this was one fight from which she had no intention of backing down.

Anger pulsing within her, crying to unleash itself in the older man’s direction, but she was abruptly halted as he went on.

“I know that you’d prefer that I cut myself out of Lex’s life, Miss Sullivan.”

She could see that he’d noticed her reaction to his use of her name.

“But,” he continued, “I have the very real fear that if I leave, if I lose this chance to heal things between Lex and I, I’ll never regain the opportunity. That the time and distance, rather than proving my good intentions, will just show my son how little he needs me.”

And Chloe was officially stunned. By his apparently openness, his seeming earnestness, the fact that she was actually standing in front of the man who’d tried to have her killed and yet felt very little danger.

Of course, even without her threat meter dancing off the charts, the kind smile she saw seemed rather creepy on Lionel’s face, and his words only confirmed the official weirdness of her day.

“Now, if you don’t mind me saying so, you should probably hurry home before Lex begins to worry.”

With that, he turned, entered his car, and waved his driver onward, leaving Chloe standing there in a daze, staring after him.

Every instinct she had – gut feelings that had been developed and honed by a love of journalism, a curious nature, and a million and one life threatening adventures – said that the man might just be genuine. That he might actually feel whatever passes for Luthor remorse, and truly wanted to attempt to fix what he was foolish enough not to see was most likely irrevocably broken.

But every piece of her rational brain, which she had desperately been trying to listen to with greater frequency, told her that Lionel Luthor couldn’t be trusted. Not now, not ever.

However the tug of war inside of her didn’t matter because in the end, whether he was being honest or not, they simply couldn’t afford to extend the man the benefit of the doubt. Not after what he’d done to her in the past year; what he’d spent a lifetime doing to Lex.

Glad to have the matter settled in her mind, Chloe could admit that Lionel did have one point – she had to get herself home posthaste. Because a worried Lex was…really a rather obnoxious pain.

TBC

[skauble]

7. ‘Tis the season to gather and do things together


Lex was glad that he was alone.

Yes, Chloe’s investigative skills were beyond formidable, but he’d sacrifice the benefit if it kept her out of trouble…out of danger.

Besides, it wasn’t as if he was a novice at piecing together mysteries himself. Not that that particular talent was helping him at the moment.

The first thing he’d made sure to do upon returning to the mansion the previous night was to send someone to investigate Chloe’s car, which he’d had picked up after they’d cleared the city limits with no one on their tail. The men charged with that task had meticulously gone over it checking to see if it had been entered and the contents tampered with. It was only because that didn’t seem to be the case that Lex had let Chloe leave the mansion that morning. Otherwise he would have had to find a way to keep her there long enough to place what he was certain would have been an excruciatingly painful phone call to Gabe Sullivan.

However, that didn’t mean that he’d completely dismissed any threat to Chloe’s safety. And merely as a precaution, he reasoned, he had sent one of his men to keep an eye on her for the next week or so.

There was no way of knowing, at this stage, whether or not his father’s hands were in this mess. The absence of proof against him was equally vindicating and damning in that the man would never start a project like whatever this was and link himself too closely. So Lionel could never really be ruled out of anything.

Although Lex would never admit it to her and risk Chloe believing that he approved of her various midnight excursions, the fact was that the information she’d given him was the best lead he had.

She had seen men, some of them clearly armed, along with two trucks in the warehouse. All of that was well within the realm of the expected when dealing with this type of theft. Except for one major detail.

The boxes were being placed into the facility as opposed to being removed from it. And, that one aspect turned every theory he might have head on its head. And it only got stranger from there.

The fact that items were being added rather than subtracted ruled out the obvious suspicion of having stumbled into a burglary. Which, of course, led Lex to the next probable explanation – someone was framing LuthorCorp.

He’d given the order, late the night before, to have every crate pulled, examined, and verified as actual LuthorCorp property. All of them were legitimate except for nine. And those nine were…empty.

And that made the least sense of anything in the entire bizarre string of events.

Why leave a number of empty crates inside of a warehouse. It would be understandable if there were items there of an extremely valuable nature, but that fact was that it was one of the most minimal security level facilities that the company had in Metropolis. According to the shipping invoices, it was currently housing nothing more than some manufacturing machinery, surplus parts, and temporarily holding the toys that were a part of the Give the Gift of Christmas campaign that LuthorCorp spearheaded every year.

All of those things were valuable in their own way, but certainly not worth stealing. The machinery parts were specifically designed for mass production. So all one could really do with them would be to open up a plant that produced the given product. Since the introduction of the new product on a large scale would make any new company a suspect it would be completely unproductive to steal said parts.

The surplus that was stored was, again, all geared towards the needs of LuthorCorp, and would be fairly useless in the hands of another entity.

As for the toys, they certainly had a value, but to make it worth the time and effort to steal they have had to be taken in total. Which would mean, according to the figures he’d been provided with that morning, 107 crates. A number that was hardly manageable, even on the edge of the Suicide Slums in the middle of the night.

Which, quite frankly, was why all of those various items had been placed in a low security complex.

It would probably have helped if the crates that had been left behind had some kind of information on them that indicated what the intruders had wanted to see done with them. Clearly they thought that they would go unnoticed in the sea of containers awaiting shipment. However, they must have been interrupted before having a chance to implement that stage of their plan.

It was, to say the least, a vexing problem. It was also one that Lex planned to solve without Chloe. Because no mystery, no crime, no threat to LuthorCorp - whether his father was involved or not – was worth putting Chloe in danger, ever again.


----


Chloe was glad that she was alone.

Yes, Lex’s resources were nearly endless and would have made her investigation much easier, but she wanted to find out if Lionel was behind this before Lex got hurt by the man…again.

Besides, if Lex had been around she probably would have killed him once she realized that the bland car that had trailed her to and from town earlier that morning had been one of his.

Not only was it a clear invasion of her privacy, but it had scared the bajeezus out of her until she realized that it was most likely one of Lex’s men. But, worst of all, if had made her call in an extremely precious favor to have the license plates run through the DMV only to learn that the car belonged to LuthorCorp.

Or course, it could have theoretically been someone sent by Lionel. But the fact was that, although she didn’t necessarily believe anything he said about changing, she did believe that he wanted people to believe that he had. He wouldn’t risk hurting her until that plan either failed entirely or it outlived its usefulness.

In fact, a part of her kind of wanted to search Lionel out in a more public place and see just how far she could push his new found good will. But the rest of her wanted to keep breathing, so she wouldn’t be tugging that particular tiger’s tail any more than necessary.

After she’d worked out who was having her followed and why, Chloe had set about pulling together all of the information her resources could provide. By noon she’d managed to get her hands on the police report of the incident, the schematics of the warehouse, and the latest inventory list.

All of which had gotten her almost nowhere.

But the afternoon had turned her luck around as she managed to get a hold of the source of her original tip. Gerald Keegan was a fascinating man. His activities placed him on the periphery of the underworld in Metropolis; close enough to know the players, but far enough to not be exposed by the tips he passed on.

He’d contacted Chloe once, during her internship with the Daily Planet because he’d needed to pass some information along and he’d grown up in Smallville, where his elderly parents still lived, so he’d kept up on local news. And Chloe knew that she was local news often enough that it wasn’t strange that he’d heard of her and her journalistic endeavors. She’d assumed that’s why, when he was looking for a low level intern at the Planet, as opposed to a hard nosed, seasoned reporter, he’d chosen her.

Chloe was naïve about many things, but journalism was rarely one of them. She’d understood at the time that she was being used in a way by Keegan. He was looking to get rid of someone who was calling unwanted attention to his door by passing on some information related to a string of robberies that had been committed. It was self serving, but the info was good and Chloe had seen no reason not to run with the story. It hadn’t been a front page headline by any means, but it was a solid story for her and had cleared up Keegan’s problem quite handily.

Thus a relationship of mutual benefit had been born. It worked well for them both and, it was the reason that he had called her when something had been going down at a LuthorCorp facility. Her problems with the Luthors were hardly private, having splashed all over the front pages of every major newspaper for months. He must have known she’d be interested in the goings on of that particular company.

Hoping that he might have more for her, Chloe had contacted him again. And what he’d related was surprising.

“It’s big, Sullivan,” he’d told her. “Whatever’s going on here is major.”

He’d paused and she waited. She’d learned, over time, that sometimes the best way to keep someone talking was to give them a silence to fill.

“I’ve seen people from forgers to weapons specialists turn down jobs lately. But not one of them has mentioned anything going down.”

Curiosity got the better of her Zen silence plan and she’d asked him why he thought any of it was connected. Couldn’t they just already have picked up different jobs?

“It’s the silence; it’s absolute. There’s always the one guy that wants to brag, no matter how vaguely he does it, that’s he’s involved in the next big thing. But the silence from every single person who’s suddenly out of the game; it’s deafening.”

There was another moment of quiet and it laid over them even heavier than the last.

“You watch yourself, Sully. Whatever this is, it’s not something the people behind it will take kindly to you bringing to light. Maybe you might want to think about takin’ a miss on this one.”

She had told him that she’d think about it but, of course, they both knew that she was just being polite. Chloe wouldn’t have stopped investigating if it had simply been a story to which she had no connection. But something like this? Something that could possibly involve Lionel and probably hurt Lex?

Yeah, there was no way she was staying out of it.

Not that she was just going to rush into anything blind. Once she had enough information that Lex would have to include her in whatever was happening, she’d go to him. She really didn’t want to do all of this alone. After all, dying was a terrible way to spend her Christmas vacation.

TBC

[skauble]

8. Holiday pastimes bring joy and cheer


Clark Kent was a jerk.

Chloe had arranged to meet her best friend for coffee at the Talon to plan their annual trip to Metropolis for Christmas shopping. But after fifty minutes he was still a no show and, of course, unreachable by phone. She wondered how she wasn’t used to it by that point, but consoled herself that what had once been the sharp ache of heart break was not just the dull throb of disappointment in a friend.

Deciding that she’d grab another cup of coffee and hang out for ten more minutes, because an entire hour seemed like a much more impressive number to shout at Clark when she reamed him out for making her wait, she was halfway to the counter when she noticed Lex there, having been waved over by Lisa, the cashier.

“Sorry, Mr. Luthor,” she remarked in a voice that seemed strangely knowing, “but if you’re here for Lana then she left about an hour and a half ago with Clark.”

Chloe knew that no one else would see it, but she’d been with Lex through enough stressful situations to notice the slight tensing of his jaw.

So he had been there for Lana. Who’d stood him up just as Clark had her. And as much as her misery often loved company, this wasn’t one of those times. A sentiment that grew as the young woman continued.

“And what with you planning a lovely carriage ride and all.”

Lisa stopped for a moment, her hand flying up to her mouth as if she’d revealed some great secret, although her eyes showed the clear delight of a small town busybody who knows something and can’t wait to prove it.

“Oh! I’m sorry if that was supposed to be a surprise, but my uncle works out at the mansion and saw the carriage being brought in from Metropolis. I think it’s awful sweet of you to do that for Lana since she’d been talking about wanting a traditional Christmas for weeks now.”

Lex wasn’t happy.

Yes, he’d arranged to surprise Lana with a carriage ride. He needed to get some answers from her and getting her to lower her guard by doing something special for her had always worked before. So he’d asked to meet her at the Talon, not revealing to her his plans in the hopes that the surprise would aid his strategy. However, what he hadn’t counted on, stupidly he could now see, was that a gesture that he had cringed at even as he conceived it, to become common knowledge.

And, a million times worse than being thought a complete and utter sap by the town’s residents, was the fact that instead he would now appear as a rejected fool. It was already starting. He could see it on the young waitress’ face – pity.

Lex had suffered many things in his life. Familial rejection, childhood ostracism, more murder attempts than he cared to count; and yet nothing left him feeling so raw, so vulnerable and humiliated as people’s pity. He’d hated it as a child who’d lost his mother, his brother, and his hair all in a remarkably brief period, and his loathing of it had only intensified over time to the point that he felt it might suffocate him.

“Geez, Lex; billions of dollars and you can’t buy a working cell phone. You could have called and told me you were running late.”

Chloe stepped to the counter beside him and shot him a significant look that he knew her well enough to catch but that their audience would be too oblivious to follow.

“Of course, I know how you get when business is involved; which probably explains most of those billions. And, as you promised me a carriage ride, I’m inclined to forgive you. Although buying me some hot chocolate for the ride wouldn’t hurt.”

Lex watched as the pity in the cashier’s face was replaced with confusion followed by a keen interest, and the relief nearly leveled him. In a slight daze he placed the order for Chloe, paid for it, and was out the door with her before he knew it.

Once in the parking lot, they made their way over to Lex’s silver Porsche and Chloe slipped in the door he held open and waited for him to join her.

She’d questioned her decision at first, but the moment that she saw the relief blaze ever so briefly in Lex’s eyes, she knew that she’d made the right choice. She’d been stood up by Clark so frequently that no one would even have noticed her sitting at a back table, silently fuming over her best friend’s desertion.

But Lex Luthor being stood up, especially by a girl still in high school, would be food for the gossips for weeks. He’d be the recipient of countless pitying looks, the subject of endless whispers as he walked by. And she knew, without doubt, that it would eat away at him as surely as the poison he’d fought off earlier that year.

Not that it was completely unexpected. Lana wasn’t cruel by intent. She simply saw everyone’s behavior in terms of how it affected her and hers only in terms of how it affected herself. It was annoying, to say the least, but the risk that was taken when courting the town princess.

Starting the car, Lex pulled out of the parking lot and on to the main street. He knew the road like the back of his hand; didn’t need to watch it so closely, but kept his eyes glue to it as he spoke.

“Thank you.”

It was hard to say; to acknowledge his weakness. But Chloe had seen him through some of the lowest moments in his life. She’d never judged him; never used her knowledge to hurt him or create advantageous situations for herself. So, while it was difficult for him to express the sentiment, it was a thousand times easier with her than it would have been with any other person on the planet.

“Oh please,” Chloe dismissed his words. “You always think everything’s about you. I was supposed to meet Clark there. And yeah, like I want to be the girl who was stood up for Lana instead of the one the billionaire shipped in a carriage for.”

While Lex definitely knew that there was some truth in her words about not wanting to be seen as secondary to Lana, he also knew that she was letting him off the hook. By making it about her insecurities, she’d taken the focus off of his own and he felt the warm connection that he’d tried to break after his father’s trial spring to the forefront once more.

“And now,” she continued and he knew that the sour tone of her voice was the harbinger of bad news, “we actually have to go on this ridiculous carriage ride. Because, of course, you couldn’t pick a holiday activity with more warmth and less horses.”

And suddenly, although he, too, was not greatly enamored with the idea of a trek through the Smallville country side in the blustery, winter weather, he couldn’t think of a thing he’d rather do if it included spending some time with his estranged friend.

And finally, after months of denying it, of focusing on his goals with LuthorCorp, the mystery with Lana, and the potential threat his father might pose, he could admit the truth.

He’d missed Chloe.

TBC

[skauble]

9. Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh


The open carriage swayed gently as the large wheels bounced along the grooves of one of Smallville’s many country roads. Lex would have chosen a sleigh, but despite the increasing chill in the air, there hadn’t been a snowfall yet that would have provided an adequate groundcover.

Although they were both warmed by the thick, heavy throw that had been provided, there was a crispness to the air and he couldn’t help but notice the becoming color it brought to Chloe’s face…

Rather, it would have been becoming had it not been for her look of utter disdain as she took in the farms they passed, the empty fields, and the horses pulling their conveyance.

“You know,” Lex said blandly, “in this weather your face might actually freeze like that.”

Chloe couldn’t help but laugh. She knew that she wasn’t hiding her lack of enthusiasm for their current outing, but she was a city girl. Moving to a small town hadn’t changed that about her. In fact, if anything, she’d urbanized Smallville more than it had countrified her. Open carriage rides through the countryside with besotted men might be Lana Lang’s idea of a winter wonderland, but Chloe would have preferred trudging through the dirty snow of Metropolis as she fought the crowds to take in the spectacle of Christmas in the city before settling in at The Ugly Corner Cafe to warm up with the greatest cup of coffee to ever to spring from a bean.

Looking over at Lex, she noticed a softness about his features. He looked less like a man bracing to take on the world, and more like the friend with whom she’d fought side by side. Slowly her smile faded.

“What happened to us, Lex?”

“Chloe,” he paused, not quite sure what to say to her, how he could make her understand why he’d done the things he had. “The trial, our time together as it went on, it was a world all its own. It never could have continued like that.”

He wasn’t sure if his words had been too harsh or his tone to soft, but he saw pain shade her luminous eyes.

“But it could have continued like something else. Instead you just shut me out and walked away.”

One of the benefits of being close to very few people was the decreased chance of being hurt. The other, Lex had found, was that he had less of a chance to hurt others; to see their pain, feel their sadness as he was doing now, with Chloe.

He had certainly never meant to hurt her; not like this. Of course he knew her well enough that she would feel a certain amount of pain at the loss of their friendship. But plenty of people had left him before. None of them had seem to suffer overly much or for too long. He had simply assumed that, once she had her former life back, was once again surrounded by her family and friends, any lingering fondness she might have felt would fade over time. It was what he wanted for her. What was best for her.

But, he could admit, in a small corner of his heart he hated the thought of how easy it would be for her to move on as if their friendship had never happened. Only now did he see that was exactly how he had made her feel by pretending he had simply grown beyond her.

He understood, finally, that instead of keeping Chloe safe and out of his life, he’d simply rubbed salt into the wounds of previous rejections that had left her with her own wariness and fear. Feelings that she had breached to let him in, only to be left hurting and alone, and he knew that the very least that he owed her was some sort of explanation.

“I only wanted to keep you safe.”

Chloe had suspected that was the reason for Lex’s desertion; had all but had it confirmed after her ill-fated reconnaissance a few nights past. But hearing him openly acknowledge his motivation filled her with a near crushing sense of relief. Relief and…anger.

“Safe?” The word was a mockery of his every well meaning yet twisted intention. “You wanted to keep me safe? And how well is that working out, Lex?”

Twisting to face him fully, Chloe leaned back against the side of the carriage and unleashed the full force of her ire.

“Let’s set aside the fact that I live in Smallville where being ‘safe’ means that you ended the day with a concussion instead of in a full blown coma. And we’ll ignore the fact that I face death on a bi-monthly basis and have since I was fourteen.

“But Lex,” she continued, keeping her voice low to avoid sharing their conversation with the driver, “even if we just took the last week of my life, I interrupted a robbery, was shot at, fled criminals in a high speed dash for the city limits, and had a confrontation with your father. All of which, although involving LuthorCorp, were due to circumstance that I initiated completely on my own. Even after you’d kicked me to the curb. So what’s your big safety plan now, huh?”

Lex wanted to protest that he hadn’t kicked her to any curb. She wasn’t tossed aside like refuse, but had been isolated from his life in an attempt, which he could see in retrospect had been ill conceived, to keep her protected.

But those thoughts were cut short as the last of her tirade processed in his mind.

“What confrontation with my father?”

Chloe bit her lip, aware that she’d just opened a rather large can of worms. It simply hadn’t occurred to her that Lionel wouldn’t taunt Lex with their last meeting by his car. She could have killed the older man for not being a jerk the one time in which it would have been beneficial to her. With a sigh, she decided that the only way out was through.

“I told him to stay away from you.”

Lex waited, hoping that if he gave them a moment the words would make sense. But time didn’t seem to make things clearer, so there was nothing for it but to ask.

“What?”

Chin jutting out at a mutinous angle, Chloe glared at him.

“I told him to leave you alone. I don’t know what he’s doing Lex, but I do know that it can’t be anything good. I won’t let him hurt us again!”

The word ‘us’ rang in his head, and the clear declaration that Chloe still saw them as a team set something free inside of him. And he didn’t know if it was that the evidence did back up her words, or because he so desperately wanted it to be true, but he realized that Chloe was right; she probably spent more time in danger than in school. Although her ability to often work the former into the latter probably helped.

If she wasn’t safe away from him, then the sacrifices he had made in keeping her at arms length were pointless. Perhaps it wasn’t too late for him to regain what he had lost.

“Chloe-”

But before he could say more than her name, he noticed that he had lost her attention and that her eyes were focused on something behind him. Turning, he saw a gray sedan approaching them at a speed far too extreme for the location and the conditions. His hand shot out and grabbed hers, and he used the leverage to pull her towards him and then push her down onto the seat, covering her body with his own.

He shouted to his driver, but everything except his initial order to ‘go’ was lost as the sounds of gunshots filled the air.

TBC

[skauble]

10. There’s joy to be found in the hustle and bustle of the holidays.


The men chasing them were either remarkably fixated or incredibly dumb. Obviously they’d been sent to kill Lex, but by aiming at him and Chloe, instead of at the driver, they had lost their chance to use the element of surprise to disable the carriage and kill it’s passengers at their leisure.

Lex, however, was not dumb. He’d made a lifetime of profiting from the miscalculations of others and the people currently shooting at them had made more than just the one. Setting aside the fact that it was never wise to attack a Luthor, as countless others had learned to their regret, they had also been extremely foolish to assume that Lex had learned nothing from his past mistakes.

After taking control of LuthorCorp, Lex realized that he simply couldn’t afford to play as fast and lose with his safety as he had during his initial time in Smallville. Rare was the time when security wasn’t within easy summoning distance and only in the most unavoidable of circumstances was it completely absent.

Luckily, these were not those circumstances. A fact proven as the carriage’s driver slid a sleek pistol from beneath his coat and returned fire before jerking the reigns sharply to the right and sending them off onto a smaller access road for one of the local farms.

Reaching into his pocket, Lex retrieved his cell phone. Clutching it tightly, he pressed the first number on his speed dial and was immediately answered by the no-nonsense tone of his chief of security. Relaying the current situation and their location took less than thirty seconds, and he flipped the phone shut, jamming it back into his coat pocket, to take stock of what was happening.

Clearly, their pursuers hadn’t planned on such an extremely rural detour. And, while the carriage was by no means deftly handling the terrain, his man’s familiarity with the area and the fact that their vehicle’s, admittedly minimal, speed wasn’t hampered by the body being so low to the ground, did much to balance out their odds in the short term.

Even the horses were doing well. Having been initially spooked by the gunshots, they’d responded well to Linder’s strong hand and, while certainly skittish, were moving at near break neck speeds without veering off course in a wild panic.

Turning his attention to Chloe, he felt her holding him with a strength that seemed greater than her small form could muster. At first he thought that she was terrified, but he slowly realized that she wasn’t clinging to him in fear – she was pulling him closer to her, her arms spread across his back, covering the widest area possible in what was clearly an attempt to shield whatever part of him she could. And, although it was a futile gesture, it meant the work to Lex.

“We’re going to be okay,” he spoke close to her ear, pulling back slightly to let her see that he believed his words to be true.

“Of course we are,” she shot back. “You don’t actually think I’m going to die in a carriage on some farmer’s back forty, do you?”

And he couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at his lips despite their dire circumstances. Because, only Chloe would be less bothered by the prospect of dying than the prospect of doing so in their backwater town instead of on the trail of a front page story in the middle of the seamy underbelly of Metropolis.

Suddenly, the carriage swerved right, once more, and the tree lined road they’d been bumping over became a much rougher and exposed field. The change would have concerned Lex had he not heard the booming sound of whirring blades moments before seeing the LuthorCorp helicopter sweeping over the hillside before passing above them to engage the sedan in a massive exchange of gunfire.

Taking the chance to peer over the seat, Lex saw that the car that had been chasing them was quickly retreating, and that his security team in the air was landing to take them safely home.


---


Chloe followed Lex into his study as eight armed men in dark suits trailed behind them. Just as she was about to start demanding answers, she saw him grab a file and turn to walk back out.

“Lex! Don’t think you’re leaving me out of this,” she warned him.

“Chloe,” he came back towards here. “Just give me a few minutes to wrap some things up.” Seeing her reluctance he added, “Please.”

“Alright, but you better be back here in ten minutes.”

Forty five minutes later, Chloe was furious. She would have been angry at the extra waiting time under any circumstances. But the fact that she had tried to leave the room three times only to be politely “asked” to wait for “Mr. Luthor” by the two men he’d left behind had her so mad she was almost seeing spots.

Just as she was contemplating leaving via the window – after all, she’d survived it once before – Lex returned, taking one look at her face and hurriedly dismissing his men.

“What do you think you’re doing locking me in here with Dasher and Dancer?” she demanded.

His step faltered and he paused before questioning bemusedly, “You gave my men reindeer names?”

“I was in a festive fury,” she bit out before adding, “and don’t think I don’t know that you’re having me followed by Blitzen.”

Chloe saw his lips twitch and had to fight back the urge to smile in return. She wouldn’t be so easily distracted.

“Lex, is this about the other night?”

She knew that Lex, both on his own and as the head of LuthorCorp, was often the target of these kinds of attempts. But this seemed a little too coincidental when coupled with their late night escapade and the facts she had subsequently uncovered.

“Honestly? I don’t know.” He ran a weary hand over his head before taking a seat on the large leather couch and gesturing for her to do the same.

“I’m not exactly sure what’s going on,” he told her. “Facts are few and far between. I don’t have any hard evidence that this is my father’s doing, but neither can I rule him out which means I have to split my focus just to be safe.”

“Well,” Chloe said, drawing out the word in her reluctance to tip her hand and earn yet another lecture, “I may be able to help.”


---

Four hours, one dinner, and innumerable cups of coffee later and Chloe and Lex had combined the information they had each obtained separately in the hopes of uncovering the bigger picture.

They didn’t have any definite answers, but Lex was both impressed by the information that Chloe had managed to gather and encouraged that things had finally started moving forward.

He watched as she stood and stretched before reaching to retrieve her purse and he, too, rose.

“I have to get home before my dad realizes I’m missing. And,” she cut him off before he could get a word out, “no, you can’t have someone drive me home. That’s all I need is to show up in one of your limos.”

He wanted to protest, but knew it was useless. Chloe wasn’t the kind of person who could let things go, but her father had a great deal of understandable fear for his daughter and so Lex could see that she was making the effort to at least pretend to not be an utter trouble magnet.

He nodded shortly and was surprised as moved to briefly embrace him.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she whispered and was gone before he had time to react.

Walking to his desk, he pressed a button on the sleek, silver phone and was rewarded with the near instant appearance of the head of his security team.

“Donaldson is trailing her now, but I want three more men watching.”

The man turned to carry out his orders, but Lex stopped him.

“Discretion is essential. She’ll tolerate her current shadow, but any further attempts will be met with resistance and, most likely, defiance.” Lex was silent for a moment and when he spoke again his words were laced with a dark promise. “And if something were to happen to Miss Sullivan, it would be extremely unfortunate…for everyone.”

TBC