Home for the Holidays
Written for livejournal user "monicaop" for the Summer/Fall 2011 round of Secret Chlark. If anyone reading is learning more about the Secret Chlark Community, please check the link in my profile to visit the site!
Chloe sighed and pushed her hair behind her ears. She had grown it long, down her back, because she knew Clark loved it. Still, she missed the days when she'd been a college kid and her short hair needed nothing more than a comb through with her fingers to stay in place. Looking over her shoulder, she could see where Clark was laying splayed out on the floor by their tree. Their apartment was modest, nothing like the wealth Lex could have afforded once, like the penthouse she'd visited once or twice as a kid. Still, it had enough space for a modest Douglas fur and for the modest packages they'd assembled. Lilly was asleep in her carrier, the events of the dinner having exhausted her. Alex, more somber than she'd remembered him, was still awake, talking quietly with his godfather and playing with the remote control car he'd been given.
She smiled sadly as Clark coaxed Alex into talking. He'd been so sullen without Lana, so sad. He brightened just a little with her husband. It was a nice exchange perhaps. Clark couldn't...he wasn't compatible with humans, as Emil had told them after a year of their own clandestine attempts at starting a family, something they wanted to do without their parents' pressure and without rubbing it in Lex's face.
Not after the year their best friend had had.
Still, Alex needed more parental figures in his life; Lex didn't always have the energy on long days to give him what he needed.
And Clark, well, there was no one on Earth, pardon the expression, who loved children as much as he did. The playing under the tree with his godson was just good for both of them.
Shaking her head again, smiling as Alex began to brag to his godfather about all the things his toy could do, Chloe eased her way into the kitchen. Lex was there, nursing a real eggnog and staring at nothing in particular. She knew he was seeing Lana. "Hey."
Lex nodded and took another sip of his drink. "'Lois.'"
She rolled her eyes. "After your father...well I've been blown up once, publishing the book under the name of a cousin stationed overseas in Korea seemed like a safer bet. It's not like Lois minded me borrowing her name."
"No, I know. I read the whole book, cover to cover, even if I provided the secrets for two-thirds of it. It was nice to see the SEC cart dad off. That was a real trip."
She nodded. Lionel was currently the guest of the state, being investigated for numerous counts of corporate fraud. The company had defaulted into control of the board and there was talk of offering a chairman position to Lex to save some face and keep everything within the family name. Stock prices and all that. The irony that Lex was now in line to have billions and the money he'd have needed to save Lana's life was hitting him hard; it hit all of them hard.
"I know and a lot of good is going to come of this. The things he's done...well this is just what people can prove. I'm not stupid enough to think he doesn't have dead bodies and literal skeletons in his closet."
"Exactly," Lex replied, setting down his glass. "Chloe, really, you and Clark have been more than amazing. Every holiday having us over, every weekend, Clark comes up with a new guys' thing for me and Alex to join him on. I don't even know how I'd get through raising Lilly without you. I am not exactly up on 'girl things.'"
Chloe laughed. "Well I've never been exceptionally girly but I assume you mean there are things from when she's about thirteen and grocery store aisles you won't be caught dead in."
"I love Lilly, not that much," he quipped, blushing. "You two...I couldn't have made it through day one without you. You're both so wonderful and I...god, it hurts. This would have been our first Christmas together, the four of us. I miss her every day."
She nodded. "I felt that way after my mom left. I know it doesn't make it better, and I know you learned this with your mom and Julian, but it gets easier to breathe."
"I miss her. I never thought this would happen. We were going to be forever."
Chloe sighed and looked back to the swinging door between the kitchen and the living room. "I know how you feel."
Lex frowned. "You and Clark can't possibly be having troubles. You're the most perfect couple I've ever seen."
"Not exactly," she said. And really they weren't. She'd never be mad at Clark for not...she was going to broach after the New Year about looking into adoption or fostering kids.
"You know," Lex said casually. "Sometimes Emil or Bruce call me. Sometimes the League needs another genius to look at things."
It was her turn to blush. "Oh."
"I know about you and Clark, about how he-"
"Emil overstepped," she huffed and then frowned. "Is that part of why you have Alex over here every weekend, ready to hang?"
"Clark's my best friend. He's practically the brother I never had. I'd do anything for him. It's good for Alex too. Clark can be happy in ways I can't right now, but you didn't answer my question exactly. Why wouldn't you and Clark be forever?"
She sighed and shook her head. "I meant literally. Emil did a lot of tests while we were trying. Clark's going to live a very long time, much longer than I am. It's because he's Kryptonian. Even if I were meteor-infected, I'd have higher white blood cell count, might get a few more decades out of it."
"Like me."
"Self-healing mutant, probably be around a bit longer than me. It had occurred to me, yes, Lex."
He nodded and drummed his fingers on the table. "You want me to look out for him?"
"Yes. I...he won't do well alone."
"No one does," Lex admitted.
"If I'm not around and you and Lilly and Alex still are, then you need to take care of him. He wasn't really meant to be alone. Clark's such a people person."
"Not a misanthrope like us."
She laughed bitterly. "That too. I love him, but I know I won't always be there for him. I'd like to think that if Lana had asked me, I'd still be doing just as well with you. I'm just getting enough warning to know I won't always be here and I can't always be what he needs. Lex, take care of him."
"You've got sixty years, yet, easily Sullivan, don't be so maudlin. It's Christmas, after all."
"I'm serious. I'll take care of you and Lilly and Alex as long as I can. Anything, especially, Lilly needs, she can just come to Aunt Chloe, but I want to know that Clark won't be alone, that as long as you'll around, he'll still have a family."
"You don't even need to ask. I sometimes think he'll get tired of me mooching off of him," Lex said, taking her hand. "Chlo, I'm going to take the offer from the board. They'll announce it after the new year. If there's any way I can use that to help speed up an adoption for you two..."
"Bruce already hinted strongly he knew the legal channels well enough in Gotham after everything with Dick. You billionaires all think alike."
"Returning billionaire," he amended. "Whatever he needs, I promise."
"Thank you, Lex," she replied, leaning across the table to kiss him on the cheek. "Lana would be so proud of you."
"Hope so," he said, standing and heading to the door. "Come on, we need to check on our boys."
Laughing again, she threaded her arm through his. "Isn't that the truth?"