Espionage / Special Agent Blonde (R) Complete as of 18th January 2013

[malugargula]

What a dream...
So Lex will find her now??? Oh yeah, I'll waiting to see this lol
Great job

[Ami Rose]

Absolutly amazing! Loving this story! Cant wait for more!

[HotCrossedBunny]

*Part Six*

Lex’s Aston Martin screeched out of the garage at break neck speed. In mere seconds he was out on the open road and was glad that there was no one else about so he could go well above the speed limit, if a speed camera caught him then he would pay the fine and have done with it, nothing was going to keep him from getting his hands on Chloe as quickly as humanly possible.

His anger was so absolute that he didn’t even feel a flicker of the thrill he normally got from going so fast and flirting with danger. He sped over the bridge where he had first met Clark without so much as a pang of regret, all that mattered was Chloe. At least the maid had managed to convince her to take a Luthor car so he knew that she was heading to school rather than home or the Talon.

Not only had she just left him without a word of goodbye or explanation, she had done so without eating breakfast and had even been planning on using public transportation. Lex shuddered. Not that she would have had much luck, there was none near the mansion, that meant that she would have rather have walked for an hour, if not more, along a road where anyone could have come along and attacked her rather than taking his car or speaking to him.

Lex’s hands were clenching the steering wheel so tightly that he would be surprised if he didn’t leave any indentations. Was she just plain stupid or was his company and car really so bad that she would rather risk her life? No, whatever else she might be: impulsive, stubborn, irritating Chloe wasn’t stupid; she wouldn’t have risked her safety unless she thought that she had no other choice, like at the club.

Did that mean that she thought that her life was in danger if she stayed in the mansion? Was she afraid of him? Lex paled at the thought. No, Chloe had also proved the night before, that she wasn’t afraid of him. So why had she been willing to risk herself again? Okay, so now that he thought about it, most likely she would have called Clark to come and pick her up once she was outside rather than risking walking all of that way.

That only left one option left to explain her actions; she really hated him that much that she could not bear to stay in his home for a second longer than was necessary. Things did not look good for Lex’s steering wheel.

After all that he had done to her, he supposed that he could not really blame her. Maybe all of his dreams the night before of her growing to trust him were just fantasies.

“Congratulations Dad, you finally got what you wanted, my final chance at redemption is gone”, he said softly.

Chloe clearly wanted nothing to do with him, he should turn around and head back to the mansion. There he could bury himself under paperwork and maybe one day he would forget about her. No, that was not an option; he had to stop what was happening at the club and protect her. After that was done, if she wanted nothing to do with him then he would obey her wishes but not until then.

Lex reluctantly slowed down as he reached the town centre, he wouldn’t risk killing someone just because he was in a rush. Chloe wouldn’t like that. It was beyond frustrating when he was now so close to the school but had to stop because people couldn’t walk across the street quickly enough. He attacked his horn in an outburst that his father would have said was unbecoming of a Luthor but at that moment he didn’t care, he just had to get to Chloe.

Lex could not shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen to her. He did not fear that anyone at the club would hurt her, first of all because they had no way of knowing who she was, nor that she would cause them any problems yet. Second of all, because she still had her security detail, as well as a second one which he had just employed to check on the first one. The evil that Lex feared as less definite than that, it was just a general sense of foreboding, linked probably to the fact that she had looked so fragile in his arms last night.

When he finally did get to the school he parked as close possible before leaping out of the car, barely remembering to push the button to lock it. He could buy another car if need be.

There had been very few cars in the car park and Lex didn’t see anyone as he barrelled into the school and began to stalk his way towards the office of the torch. He sneered at the overly cheerful decorations and the multi-coloured lockers, as if this place had not been designed to be a prison. He hoped that Chloe was okay, and if she was then she had better have a bloody good reason for what she had done and making him come all the way down here to get her; they could have had a far more cosy chat in his office.

High schools always set his teeth on edge, he couldn’t imagine anyone every being happy in one. As he moved through the corridors he could feel his anger returning as various memories of Chloe in this place flittered through his mind, she had been strong and healthy then. The more differing images of her he got the more confused he became.

Although his original anger had returned, it wasn’t just because she had shown him so little respect when he had gone out of his way to be solicitous. Nor was it because she was now effectively denying him information, having left before their conversation. It wasn’t even the fact that there seemed to be a vague possibility that at times she might actually be a tiny bit afraid of him – as disturbing as that fact was. He was really worried about her. Before his mother’s illness she had looked tired and pale. She had been running herself into the ground for a year before she caught the illness which ultimately took her life. She had been so kind and giving, every charity that applied to them had her full attention and if that meant that she to sacrifice herself then she was more than willing to do so.

At first it hadn’t been a problem, it was just a meal here and there, a few hours less sleep but it had soon spiralled out of control. Lex was sure that if his father had put his foot down and made her rest and eat that his mother would never have got sick in the first place. He was not going to lose Chloe. Even if she could never love him, even if she could never learn to trust him she would be alive and healthy. He would also do his damnedest to ensure that she was happy, even if that was with someone else and even if Lana had to disappear to make that happen.

As he finally reached the office of The Torch – the corridors had seemed particularly long that day - he noticed that the door was open and he could quite clearly hear Chloe’s voice, she was on the phone and facing the other way, looking out of the window. She had clearly not realised that anyone else was in the school at that moment.

“Thank-you so much Miss Smith, no really, this is the best news that you could have given me. They said that I was shoe in the other day but I wasn’t sure, I just got the email and your phone call just confirms it: I can go to College”.

He could only hear Chloe’s side of the conversation but he felt distinctly uneasy. She had been applying for financial aid? What about her LuthorCorp scholarship? Why did she feel that she needed financial aid as well? He hadn’t even known that she had applied, this really was getting ridiculous. His staff were completely incompetent.

“Yes”, she started speaking again. “I can confirm that my current address is apartment G, building IQ5, Gainsbury Street”.

Lex felt sick. Of course he had known that she was living in IQ5, Gainsbury Street – a fact that had never sat well with him – but not that she was in anything other than the penthouse apartment. He had never been happy with the fact that Chloe and her father had had to move out of their house and into an apartment, although he knew that it was a temporary necessity, but it was in a safe area and he had been around the apartment himself - the penthouse that was – and had ordered that it be completely made over with full security system and good furniture.

On his way out he had passed another apartment available for rent, apartment G, and being nosy, had had a look around before leaving revolted. He could not image anyone who would be willing to live in that. Why had his security told him that she was going to be moving into the penthouse? Wait, had they? No, they had just told him the apartment, he had assumed that that would mean the penthouse. Damn it.

Still, his security team should have worked out which one she was in and informed him of the fact that she had been left to live in misery. No wonder she looked so tired, all of this time she had been cooped up in that tiny hovel, it hadn’t even looked clean. There had only been one bedroom if he remembered correctly. Heads would roll when he found out who was responsible … other than his father and him, that was.

He had never truly realised how much devastation his war with his father had caused before, he thought that he had taken care of everything with regards to Chloe … what had gone wrong?

Lex was about to cough and make his presence known as Chloe hung up but the phone rang again immediately. He could see her checking the number and he swore that he heard her sigh before putting the phone to her ear and asking, “Have you got that damned leak fixed yet?”

His fists clenched. There was a leak to boot? And one that had clearly been going on for a while if Chloe’s tone was anything to go by. That could cause mould. Chloe could be breathing in mould every night as she slept. As soon as he had spoken to Chloe, he would go straight to her father. Chloe Sullivan would not wake once more in that apartment, and he owner would wake up somewhere very unpleasant indeed.

As he thought this, he must have made some noise as Chloe told the man on the other end of her phone that she would have to call him back and turned around saying, “Clark, you’re early”. Her gaze turned frosty as it fell on Lex, “What are you doing here?”

Hearing those words hurt Lex more than he would have admitted. For a moment he lost his momentum. He had been furious when he left the mansion, all of the way here, now that he finally had the chance to confront her he was just hurt and worried. He was pathetic!

He was fairly certain that he knew what was going on at the club – more or less –, he could afford to wait until that evening to get the rest of the information from Chloe as nothing could be done until after 9pm anyway. There was nothing stopping him from taking her to task about her health now.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked.

Chloe looked at him quizzically. She was still breathing a little too deeply, she was so annoyed/upset about that damned phone call and she was spoiling for a fight. Was Lex really going to come barging into her office and ask her for sensitive information about the club after he had deleted her recording? It was his fault that she had had to come in so early to research and get all of her information together so that she could write her article. Only once it was ready to go to print would she show it to him, she had decided. Chloe had worked out that even Lex couldn’t do anything until the club opened that night so she wouldn’t be putting anyone else in danger, it would make no difference to them if she made Lex sweat for a few hours and it might take her mind of Laura.

But more than that, Chloe wanted to be able to prove her theory to him, beyond any measure of doubt. She wasn’t sure that he would believe it just based on her word. Sometimes she thought that he respected her but others she felt like he was just playing her. Anyway, just because she was going to save the day for thousands of girls and their families, that didn’t mean that she couldn’t dig up enough ammo to blackmail Lex into giving her Dad his job back while she was at it. Multitasking was one of Chloe Sullivan’s many talents.

“Look Lex, if you have come here to pump me for information about that little club of yours then you’re wasting your time. Any information that I have will be straight to the po…”

“No, not that”, he interrupted her, “about your apartment. About the financial aid?”

“How long were you standing there?” Her voice grew suspicious.

“Since the end of the first phone call, but that is not the point”. Lex tried to get them back to what he considered to be the matter at hand.

“That is not the point?” Chloe balked at him. “How dare you come into my office, listen in on my private phone conversations and then tell me what the point is or isn’t”.

He should have been disturbed by this, rather than heartened. This was his Chloe, fierce and combative. He felt himself rising to meet her without even thinking about it. “First of all I am not technically inside”, he indicating the fact that he was standing in the door way, leaning against the frame, “second I believe that this is not technically your office, and I did not listen into your conversation. I came here to see you, when I arrived the door was open and anyone passing could have heard what you were saying. If you are going to be secretive, you really should pay more attention to little things like that”.

Chloe scowled, unable to refute any of those points but really wanting to none the less. Even worse was the fact that she knew that she had screwed up last night, she had been caught and he was rubbing her face in that fact.

“Well if you have said what you came here to say, perhaps you wouldn’t mind leaving. I have a lot of work to do”, she said frostily.

“No, I have not said what I came here to say”, he walked into the office and sat down in one of the chairs, “and as I imagine that what I have to say will take some time, so you might want to take a seat too”.

Chloe just scowled at him, was he really offering one of her own seats? Sod who officially owned The Torch, everyone knew that it was hers now!

“Suit yourself”, Lex shrugged.

Chloe continued to scowl at him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lex asked again, this time in a slightly more conciliatory tone. As fun as it was to see her return his fire, it wouldn’t do to raise her hackles too much right now, not if he actually wanted an answer.

“What is it exactly that you think that you were entitled to know about?” Chloe wondered, he clearly wasn’t going anywhere until they spoke.

Lex thought for a moment. He was entitled to know every damned thing that concerned her, but he did not think that phrasing it like that would get her to tell him anything.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were looking into financial aid for a start? Your Luthor scholarship should have been more than enough to cover all of your college bills, no matter where you chose to apply. If it wasn’t, then you should have come to me and I would have increased it”.

“What Luthor scholarship?” Chloe wondered.

He just stared at her. She couldn’t be serious. How could she not know that she had a scholarship?

“The scholarship that you won back in September, for excellence in journalism. You were sent a letter about it, they sent it to both your old and new house just to make sure that you definitely received it”.

Chloe was looking at him warily. Was he trying to play her? “I never received any letter”, she said slowly.

No, he wasn’t trying to play her, she realised as she stared at him. The look of fury on his face could not be faked even by Lex, he almost looked as if he were going to explode; he was shaking slightly.

“You mean that all this time you have been worrying about how you were going to afford college?” His voice was filled with suppressed rage and Chloe nodded.

“I am going to kill them”.

“Who?”

“Whoever’s bloody fault it is that you didn’t get the letters”. How had they not been sent to her? He had sent them to both addresses; her old house and the penthouse … Damn it! Still, they should have been redirected, what kind of person wouldn’t even bother to send a letter which wasn’t for them back to the post office.

No wonder she had looked so tired if she had been up every night worrying herself sick about that.

Chloe looked at him, her scowl melting away. She had won the award, all of that worrying had been for nothing. Maybe today wasn’t such a bad day after all, she would be able to go to college without worrying and what was more, Lex had not just forgotten all about her.

“Well, you won’t have to worry about that anymore, it will be taken care of”, Lex announced.

“That is very kind Lex, but it already has been taken care of. I got the college financial aid, remember?”

“Yes, but you will take the LuthorCorp money. It will be far more”, Lex said off-handedly, still preoccupied with how this confusion had come about.

“Um, I don’t know which one I will take”, Chloe said unsurely, “I have only just found out about both of them and whilst I am very grateful for your offer, I have earned the financial aid and …”

“There is no question, you will be taking the Luthor money, you earned it as well”. She had to take the money, it was not just because she was rejecting him by rejecting his money, she would suffer with financial aid. It would only just be enough for her to get by on, whereas the LC scholarship was more than generous. It would allow her to have everything had wanted for her without worrying.

“Lex, you have no right to tell me what I can and cannot do”, Chloe protested.

He was really angry now. He had made a mess, he could admit it. He had hurt her and her father and put them through months of unnecessary stress, now he was trying to put it right and she was trying to stop him. Well he would not be deterred by anyone; for once he knew what was right and he would do it!

“Well then you are really not going to like the rest of this. You are not living in that squalid excuse for an apartment anymore, you and your father are moving today”.

She was so shocked that she couldn’t speak for several seconds, a rare occurrence for Chloe. When she finally could, “Fuck you”, was her eloquent response.

In a trice he was on his feet. He grasped the tops of her arms and dragged her to him so her face was level with his.

“Understand this Chloe, the day that you agreed to go up against my father I gave you my word that I would protect you. That makes you and everything to do with you my responsibility. I know that I have failed so far, I am not sure how when I thought that I had made provisions for you, but I will find out and now I am going to make it right. You are going to go to college without having to worry about money, you are not going to spend another night in that apartment and you are going to eat an entire fucking meal and if you don’t like it then too fucking bad. I am Lex Luthor and I will get what I want! And if that means that I have to buy the damned apartment building and every college in the USA, then so be it”.

When he finished his rant he panicked. He was his father. He had threatened her, he had acted like Lionel. She would always hate him, she would be afraid of him, she would …

“Is that really supposed to scare me?” Chloe asked, an eyebrow raised. For a moment it had, until her anger had taken over. “All of this me Luthor hear me roar crap. You forget who you are dealing with. I went up against your father and won, so if you want to intimidate me then you had better bring a much bigger gun because quite frankly that was pathetic”.

She took a deep breath: “Besides, I already have my front page exposé on your dodgy club all lined up”.

Lex was gobsmacked. She must have felt at least a twinge of fear, but her response and attack had been impressive.

“Chloe, I’m sorry”, he said, rubbing her arms. He looked deep into her eyes and added, “the last thing that I want to do is hurt you”.

“I know”, she said, sounding almost sad.

“Do you really have your article all ready? Because seeing as you lost your recording from yesterday, I would tend to doubt it”, he tried to continue their verbal judo rather than taking her in his arms and kissing her breathless.

Chloe couldn’t help but smile. “You saw through that, huh?” She shrugged. “I have most of it but I am missing a few vital pieces of information”.

“I want to help you get them, if what I think is happening is happening then it must be stopped. I know that we are going to have many arguments about several things, but I hope that that won’t stop us working together for the greater good”, he continued to rub her arms.

“When you put that way, how can I refuse? Although I don’t think that we are going to have that many arguments on the subject of my apartment, you just have to stop being such an overbearing ass … you’re right we are probably going to argue”. She gave him a cheeky smile.

Lex tried to give her the patented Luthor glare but the effect was ruined by his twitching lips.

“4 o’clock?”

“4 o’clock”.

“Hey Chloe, I got here as soon as I could, I didn’t think that you would be back until later. Did you have a nice time? Did you get your financial aid? Now what is this article you wanted my help researching? Oh, hello Lex”, Clark had prattled as he entered, before seeing Lex and eyeing him suspiciously.

Lex looked hurt, Clark had known that she was applying for financial aid and he was the one who she went to for help on articles.

“Clark”, Lex nodded his head at his sort-of friend.

Chloe noticed with disapproval the frostiness between the two former friends, she would have to do something about that later. But right now she had more important things to deal with. She no longer wanted to let Clark in on the article, she wanted it to be just her and Lex; it wasn’t as if Clark could really do anything to help anyway. However, she still really wanted to get Lex back in some way for being so bossy. She grinned as an idea formed.

“Oh Lex, thank-you for agreeing so much to finally completing that exclusive interview with me”.

Both men turned to stare at her in shock. She could have hugged herself with glee, Lex couldn’t back down now, he would have to allow her to interview him at some point otherwise it would look as if he had broken his word, something that she had just found out he took very seriously.

[malugargula]

Lol Poor Lex, he doesn't have a way out of the interview now
Great chapter, really like their talk

[HotCrossedBunny]

No he doesn't *evil grin* first question: "What's your favourite colour?"

[TrinityR]

Nice chapter Now I understand why Lex is so worried about Chloe!! Because of his mother's health!

[HotCrossedBunny]

Yep, he is afraid of her getting sick and dying on him as well. Plus, she really was working herself into the ground.

[HotCrossedBunny]

*Part Seven*

Chloe slammed the door of the apartment so hard that she thought that the wall might be in danger of falling. She had been in a bad mood all day, well ever since breakfast. She had thought that she had been so clever getting Lex to agree to an interview and had eagerly watched his face for signs that he was displeased but he had just smiled easily at her and said, “Nicely done, Miss Sullivan”.

Then as he turned to leave, he had slipped something into Clark’s hand and recommended him to ask her when the last time she had eaten a full meal was. Chloe could have killed him. In fact, as he sauntered out of the office she had tried to go after him and at the very least give him a swift kick up the bum but Clark had barred her way.

“What’s going on?” He asked, looking down perplexedly at the 50 dollar note in his hand.

“I am trying to go and do some serious damage to Lex Luthor Armani clad add, if you will just get out of my way”, Chloe announced trying to get around Clark, not noticing that she remained unflustered by his proximity.

“Chloe”, he sounded exasperated as he held her in place and looked straight in her eyes. She didn’t feel rooted as she had earlier, good for her she must be over whatever weakness had seized her in the last 12 hours.

“Lex wanted my cooperation on something, my price was an interview. You don’t have to worry, I will be perfectly safe”, Chloe was still trying to get around her best friend.

Clark did not look convinced. “I am not sure that Lex can be trusted”.

“Well you don’t have to be sure Clark, I do. To be honest I am getting a bit sick and tired of people putting their noses where they don’t belong”

They exchanged a meaningful glance; they both knew how ironic it was that she was saying this.

“Okay, okay I know that in the past I have not known exactly where the boundaries lay”, she held up her hands, “but I am getting better about that and others should try too. I am a big girl Clark”.

“I’m sorry Chloe, I know that you can take care of yourself, I just don’t want you to get hurt and I’m not sure that Lex won’t put you in danger”, Clark explained. Chloe had been so brave last year, but he knew that she had been scared. Who wouldn’t have been? He also knew that he had played a part in getting her into that situation and had sworn to himself that he would not let her be hurt by the Luthors again.

Chloe was furious with Lex, really she was. She could have strangled him, but hearing someone else doubt his motives made her come to his defence. In fact, it required the majority of her self-control to take a deep breath and softly say: “I really think that he is trying to do the right thing” instead of jumping down Clark’s throat.

Clark seemed to consider this for a moment. He couldn’t trust Lex, but he did not think that he was all bad and that morning he had seen a glimpse of his old friend. He really did seem to care about Chloe and he usually had his facts straight. He sighed and asked, “Chloe, when was the last time that you ate a full meal?”

Chloe growled at the memory. Trust Clark to take Lex’s side over hers. Why was it that men always felt that they had the right to ask questions like that? What was worse, he hadn’t even let her explain that she had been so busy the day before since breakfast that she hadn’t had time to eat. No, he had just heard “over 24 hours” and had gone into ‘Clark mode’. It wasn’t as if she normally went so long without food, she was normally really good. Well, okay she was normally good. She tried to make sure that she was home for dinner with her Dad as much as possible but honestly other than that she usually just grabbed the occasional muffin or biscuit. Still that did not mean that Clark Kent and Lex Luthor of all people had the right to quiz her on her eating habits. It was a point that she had made repeatedly as Clark dragged her out of the school and down the road to a café for breakfast.

Last year she would probably have been thrilled that Clark wanted to spend some one on one time with her but now she was just annoyed by his impertinence. She could decide when it was or was not time to eat, although breakfast did sound and smell particularly good so as they had waited in the queue she resigned herself to the idea and then loaded her plate high. The thought of so many pancakes had almost made her sanguine, until Clark had tried to pay for her.

Naturally she had paid for herself and snarled at Clark that the reason why she had not eaten was because she had been too busy, not because she could not afford it. Just because her Dad was out of work, and had been for a while, that did not mean that they needed charity or that he could not afford to feed his daughter, he would have starved himself first before letting that happen.

Clark had of course apologised and explained that he was just using Lex’s money as it had been intended.

Chloe snapped back that maybe he shouldn’t be so ready to accept things from Lex, especially as he apparently didn’t trust him. There had been an uncomfortable silence thereafter. Chloe was seething; Clark had ruined pancake time for her. She had half a mind not to eat them just to spite the interfering boys, but they smelled really good and had Nutella on top so she took a large forkful and decided to think of different methods of revenge.

Even now that she was back in the apartment she was in a bad mood. The rest of the day had been a sea of pointless activity. She had already done all of her school work so in class she tried to piece together what was left of her clues about the club but kept coming to the conclusion that she had got all she could out of the evidence she had. There was nothing to be done until she saw Lex at 4, and Chloe hated being idle.

In the end she had gone to the nurse, who, noticing that she was pale had let her go home early – but only after giving her an interminably long speech on safe sex, teenage pregnancy, and bulimia. At least this way Chloe could go home and take a nap before her meeting with Lex, she was getting almost dizzy with tiredness now. When have coffee stopped working? She was on her seventh of the day at it was barely 11:30.

Trying to look on the bright side, she would get to see her Dad and wouldn’t have to rush. She had known that she would have to pop in at home for a few minutes before heading over to Lex’s, whatever happened. Gabe would have worried otherwise and he wouldn’t be satisfied with a phone call to say that she had got back safe and sound. Now she would be able to assure him of her safety and get a couple of hours shut eye.

“You’re home”, her Dad bounded over to her and wrapped her in a large hug that pulled her off her feet.

“Um yeah, hi Dad”, Chloe smiled a little perplexedly as she returned his hug. She had not seen him this happy in almost 6 months. Over his shoulder she could see that there were boxes stacked three high and what few possessions he had brought with them and left in the living room were missing. That could only mean one thing.

“We’re moving”, Gabe announced proudly, still not letting her go.

Chloe gaped at her father in shock. “We are? Where? Does this mean that you found a job?”

She knew how much her father hated being out of work and was beyond relieved that he was employed and happy again. Well, she assumed that this meant that he had found a job, he still hadn’t actually confirmed that part yet. As happy as she was, a small, very disloyal part of her prayed that he would not say that they were leaving Smallville, but if that was what it took for her father to work, then that was what they would have to do. Maybe it would be a good thing for her to be far away from Lex Luthor.

“We are moving back to our old house and yes I found a job working at LuthorCorp”, her father beamed.

Lex. He was behind this, how had she not seen this immediately? He had wanted her to move and now he had got his way.

“Are you sure about this?”

~*~

Gabe Sullivan was sitting at on the sofa reading through the newspaper once again, desperate for a help wanted ad of some sort. At this point he would take anything – anything that would get him through the next few weeks, anything to support Chloe.

When he heard a ring at the door bell, he got up with a groan. If this was a Jehover’s Witness he was going to be very annoyed, he had already turned them away five times this week already. How many times did he have to explain that they were Episcopalian?

“We don’t want to convert”, he announced as he opened the door, not looking through the spy hole first because they didn’t have one.

“How do you feel about a job offer?” Lex asked.

Gabe stood there looking stunned; Lex was the last person he had excepted to find on his doorstep.

Lex has done his homework on the man in front of him, whose expression was turning slowly from surprise to dislike, and the Sullivan family’s situation.

As he had suspected, the letters had been sent to the wrong address, but there was more to it than that. One of the men in his company was a known mole who Lex had been keeping around in the hopes that he would be able to turn him and use him against Lionel. Lex had been sure that the man had only ever handled fake information but somehow he had managed to make several key pieces of information, which would have revealed to Lex what a terrible situation the Sullivans were in, disappear.

When he had found that out, the kid gloves have come off. The man had disappeared, one of his fingers would be sent to Lionel the following morning, and would stay that way until Lex had extracted every single morsel of information man had in him.

Still, none of that would change what Chloe and her father had suffered or the fact that if Lex had just spoken to either of them, he would have known and could have resolved the problem months ago.

Under intense ‘cajoling’ the mole had also admitted that on Lionel’s orders he had called up all of the companies who had been black balling Mr Sullivan and told them that Lex’s request that they consider hiring Sullivan had been purely for show as he was being watched by the FBI in the wake of his father’s arrest. He had been believed; after all it was something that Lex would have done, had it suited him.

Lex had been so certain that everything had been taken care of that even when he had seen the evidence that it couldn’t be so – e.g. the fact that Gabe wasn’t actually working – he had convinced himself that everything was fine and that Gabe was just taking a well-deserved break. God, it was ridiculous how blind guilt could make one. Well that was over now, he was here to make things right.

During his first year managing the Smallville plant, Lex had he had built up a considerable liking for Gabe but had never thought to give his file more than a cursory glance. That had been a mistake. Gabe Sullivan was a large man, much larger than Lex, a fact made evident by the way that he was standing in the doorway. Over the years he had obviously let himself go but in the file there had been a picture of him when he was young, he was about Clark’s build there, with curly hair and a warm friendly smile.

He had been the captain of the football team and had won a full ride to the college of his choice, Met U. He had been only a year away from graduating when his girlfriend at the time had fallen pregnant. Being the stand-up man he was, he had of course married her and worked whilst trying to finish school. He hadn’t managed it. His grades had slipped because he was working so much and he lost his chance to play professional football but he had had no time to sit and bemoan his fate; he had a wife and child to support.

Gabe had got a job at LuthorCorp factory where he had distinguished himself, quickly rising to the rank of supervisor but then becoming stuck. There was no doubt that he could do the next job up, in fact unofficially he did. But in order to enter the next pay grade he needed a college degree. He was so few credits short of graduating that he had thought to go back at some point, in fact by the time that little Chloe had turned three he had got a mortgage on a nice little house in a good area and was ready to do so. Then one day, or rather night, his wife had up and left.

Lex had felt a lump in his throat as he had read that part of the files; they included the child psychologist’s transcripts of her conversations with Chloe. The little girl had been so confused, and who could blame her, she had come downstairs one morning to find her mother gone and her father trying to use the waffle iron. The report said that she seemed to have developed quite a phobia of people leaving her and was becoming slightly obsessive about taking notes on people. She needed to know everything about them; she said that if she knew everything then she would know if they were going to leave her. The psychologist suggested that they gave her some time and the possibility of getting her involved in the mini school paper when she moved into the next year, as that would at least provide a good outlet for her note taking.

It was sickening. Lex had lost his own mother, she had been taken away from him but this was entirely different, Chloe’s mother was alive and well and living only 30 miles away and she couldn’t be bothered to go and visit her little girl. That was in some ways worse than having ones mother die, to know that she was alive and well and just didn’t care.

He couldn’t imagine how Gabe had got through that time, but he had. The divorce had been terrible, the mother – using the word in the broadest possible sense of the word - had clearly stated that she didn’t want the child, but upon finding out that she would have to pay child support she had hit the roof and tried to get Chloe back. It was only when Gabe had agreed to pay the woman more than twice what she would have got in child support that she had backed off. That did not mean that he had wanted to keep his ex-wife from Chloe’s life, not by any means. He had written her hundreds of letters asking if she would visit her daughter, if she would at least send her a letter as Chloe was getting worried but none of them had ever been retuned.

There would be a reckoning with the former Mrs Sullivan.

As Lex looked up at the man before him, he could not help but admire him. Lex would have had the woman killed … he still might if, after all this time, she came near Chloe and upset her.

“May I come in?” He asked.

Gabe appeared to be wrestling with himself for a minute before nodding curtly and moving to let him in.

Lex forced himself not to look around the apartment. “I apologise for not having called first but there have been so many misunderstanding that I thought that it would be better if we did this face to face, man to man”.

“If you think that you are up to it”, Gabe mumbled, unable to help himself.

“Fair enough”, Lex didn’t take offense. He couldn’t really after what he and his father had put the man through. “Look, I know that you don’t trust me and quite frankly I cannot think of any reason why you should, except for the fact that you have nothing that I want”, ‘other than your daughter’, he added mentally.

“Not even the sofa bed?” Gabe asked, with a straight face.

Lex smiled. “I never meant for Chloe to become involved with my father, I was too wrapped up in my own problems to notice that he had got his claws into her. By the time that I did, she could not be easily extricated.”

“She told me that she came to you with the offer and that you gave her several options to get out of it”, Gabe said slowly.

“Yes, but that does not change the fact that she should never have been put in that situation in the first place”, Lex started.

“You won’t hear any arguments from me”.

“And neither should you”, Lex continued. “My father played with both of your lives in a way that was inexcusable. I gave Chloe my word that I would protect you both, and I did physically but once it was over I thought that it would be better to distance myself from both of you. I left the provisions which I had made for both of you in the hands of others and became so overconfident from my victory with my father that I never bothered to check that they had been carried out. It was my error”.

“What provisions? Your office calls every week with a patronizing offer of work at half my original pay. In fact, it is normally around this time …”

“You will never get another call like that”, Lex hastened to assure him. “I only just found the man who had been going against my orders, he won’t be making anymore phone calls from where he is”, he added darkly.

Before Gabe had the chance to say anything, Lex barrelled on. “I had the company rent your new house from you whilst you were in hiding for more than the mortgage so that you wouldn’t lose money and I know that they are continuing to do so, the blacklist against you should have been raised months ago, our job offer to you was supposed to be a six figure one and Chloe received a full scholarship months ago. She just didn’t get the letter”.

He didn’t mention the makeover he had given the other apartment or the security detail stalking Chloe.

Gabe just stared at Lex dumbly. He wasn’t sure how this had happened, but he found that he did not doubt him.

“Here is my new offer”, Lex handed him a wad of papers. “It is the most legally binding one that my lawyers could come up with. I have brought your old house and everything in it in your name, it is yours. Your new job will be yours for life, you cannot be fired, or at least until you turn 55 which is when you retire with 100,000 a year. There are also some very good benefits and the possibility of more training if you want it”.

The larger man took the papers in a trembling hand and read them over. It was more than he could ever have hoped for, it would mean that they would be secure for life and that he could provide for Chloe in the way that she deserved. But he couldn’t accept it and told Lex as much.

“It’s not charity”, Lex insisted. “You deserve this job, you were the one who helped me work out how to keep everyone’s job and how to turn that factory around. I should have promoted you years ago”, seeing that Gabe was still about to refuse he added, “besides, I acquired over 50 million dollars the day that my father went to jail, not to mention full control over LuthorCorp. By rights, 10% should go to Chloe anyway although I know that she would never accept it. This is a tiny percentage of that, which you fully deserve”.

“I don’t know”, Gabe sank down on the settee.

“Look at it another way”, Lex said, sitting down next to him, “this contract gives you power over how things are run. You will be able to stop other people getting trampled on. All of those ideas you had before, you can now implement”.

“How do I know that you won’t break the contract later if I do something that you don’t like?” Gabe asked, already thinking of several initiatives that would probably drive Lex crazy.

Lex shrugged, “It’s an iron clad contract. Although I probably could still break it somehow, it would take ages and cost far too much. Besides, I am a Luthor, it would be easier for me to just have you killed”.

Gabe laughed and shook Lex’s hand.

~*~

Chloe needed to sit down, this was a lot to take in all at once. She wanted to scream at her father, refuse to go, refuse to be lured into another Luthor plan but her father explained the situation to her, held her hand and asked her to trust him.

She sighed, “It looks like we are moving”.

A/N: Sorry, no Chlex in this one just sorting things out. But next time we will get to see how well LL can unpack boxes.

[justicea]

I love love love this story! Can't wait for the update.

[bluemarvel]

Loving this story! Anxiously waiting for another update.