Christmas in Metropolis
Author: Cy Panache
Rating: PG-13
Category: Holiday Romance
Timeline: Alt universe where neither Chloe nor Lois ever moved to Smallville and Lex and Clark have not yet parted ways (other details will be filled in). Chlex and Clois.
Disclaimer: Someone else's sandbox. I just play here because other people have all the best toys.
Author's Note: For some reason I have a ridiculous enjoyment of the ABC Family movie 'Christmas in Boston'. It's completely ludicrous but I still love it. So anyway, I was watching it online while waiting for my pies to bake the other day and suddenly I was seeing Chlex possibilities. Hence this fic was born. It will loosely follow that movie's plot, but there should be enough originality to keep you interested even if you've seen it. I would however recommend a certain suspension of realism with this. Again this fic was started on the N-S board, and I am posting the completed chapters here. I figured I might as well try to get them in before Christmas.
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"Bill. Bill. Over commercialized holiday card. Another over-comercialized holiday card."
Looking up from her computer, Chloe scowled at her cousin as she tossed each missive on the kitchen table with the accompanying announcement. "Way to engender the Holiday spirit Lois."
"Oh please. This whole magic of Christmas thing is really just a big marketing ploy designed to make you the consumer go broke . . ." Going back to her litany, she tossed another envelope down, "Credit card bill no doubt made heavier by your so-called Christmas spirit . . . Card . . . Oh!"
Chloe's heart sank as she saw what had caused Lois's squeal of joy. A beautifully hand-addressed envelope made of fine cream-colored paper. Holding it up high, out of Chloe's immediate reach, Lois made the final announcement with a triumphant crow, "And our centerpiece . . . the annual holiday love letter from our mysterious, likely fake, Alex."
"You're a grinch. And its not a love letter. How many times do I have to tell you that Alex and I are just friends?" Standing up, Chloe tried to grab the letter, but Lois danced away to the other side of the table.
"Friends who have never met, never talked on the phone, and in the age of email have for the past seven years used a means of communication that basically went out with candlelight. Please these are love letters. And you are digging the whole Jane Austen vibe."
"You're delusional. I think those nicotine patches have finally poisoned your brain." She feinted to the right. Lois moved left, but when Chloe tried to reverse course and cut her off, Lois proved too quick and circled back.
"Really?" She taunted, "We'll see about that."
And before Chloe could stop her, Lois tore into the envelope.
"Lois!"
Still keeping one eye out for any moves Chloe might make, Lois skimmed the letter, then began to read out loud, "Dear Chloe . . . God, he has sexy handwriting."
"Lois!"
"All right, Dear Chloe. I'm writing this after yet another excruciating family (and I use that term loosely) Thanksgiving. It had all the trappings, all the adornments, magazines could have come and photographed it, and yet still I would have given anything to have been with you and your father eating your annual Chinese takeout feast because I know there would have been more love and joy in that room than in any moment I spent around my table. So you'll have to forgive me if this is written too late or I'm a little too inebriated to be coherent, but this was the best way I could think of to spend a holiday which is supposed to be about what we're thankful for . . ."
Chloe had long ago stopped trying to chase her cousin around the table, just letting herself get lost in Alex's letter. Only now she realized, Lois's voice trailed off and when she looked up her cousin was arching one eyebrow at her in triumph. "Tell me again how this isn't a love letter?"
"It's not. There is not one mention of love in there."
"Yes there is!" Lois pointed down to the middle of the letter. "There. Love."
"He's talking about me and my dad!"
"Oh please, your dad could be in Kalamazoo for all he would care! That is about you and him, and I'm betting very interesting ways to eat Chinese."
"You're perverted, you know that?"
"Doesn't mean I'm not right." Chloe just held out her hand for the letter. Apparently sensing that the joke had run as far as she could safely get away with, Lois turned it over, but not without a parting shot, "So when am I ever going to get to meet your Cyrano?"
"Never."
"Really? Never? I thought he worked for LuthorCorp. Surely you're going to run into him eventually."
God. I hope not. Chloe thought, but she just shrugged, "Probably not. He works at the division in Star City, and at twenty-one its not like he's high enough up to need to come to Metropolis for business."
"Okay." Lois rolled her eyes. "If that's how you want to conduct your love life . . . on paper."
"Its not my love life. I date!"
"When I fix you up and force you out. You'd rather just stay home with your boxes of love letters."
"Arrgggh!" Chloe groaned, "For the last time, they're not love letters."
And she knew that was true. After all, Alex had written to her about girls he'd dated, had counseled her about her own boyfriend troubles.
Ever since she'd gotten the assignment to trade letters with a student at Excelsior Academy and had found in Alex another soul who actually read books and talked about something other than sports and clothes, the relationship had been one of the highlights of her teenage years. She'd been lucky enough to get a full scholarship to Forsythe, the premiere private school in Metropolis, but it had also meant she'd sometimes felt a little isolated by her inability to afford the most expensive purse or most recent model car. Alex had been her lifeline and by the time she'd graduated he knew her better than anyone.
Still, they were just good friends. And the fact they both appreciated the tangible permanence of pen and ink communication, and finely crafted words, didn't mean they were love letters Alex was writing her.
She added the most recent one to the box she kept under her bed. Ran her fingers along the line of his name.
Except she sometimes kind of wished they were.
----
"Sullivan!"
Chloe jumped a little at the sound of Perry White's booming summons rattling coffee mugs and pen cups on every desk in the basement. Everyone could count the number of times White had shown up personally in the basement on one hand and it was usually accompanied by someone clearing out their desk.
She shot a nervous glance over at Lois who just shrugged and then made a choking face, in return. Rolling her eyes she muttered, "Thanks for the support."
"It's Christmas. He's never fired anyone three weeks before Christmas."
"Yet."
"Go. Be a trailblazer." Lois made little shooing motions with her hands. "If we need alcohol, I'll buy."
"Thanks. I almost mean that."
"Sullivan! I'm not getting any younger!"
Grabbing a pen and pad, she hurried over to answer White's call, thought about her credit card bill and prayed. Please don't fire me. Please don't fire me.
"Jesus, Sullivan you move any slower and you'll miss the story completely."
"Story?" Her heart started to beat again, then a little faster as the implications of what he was saying sunk in. "You're giving me a story?"
"Don't get too excited. We're not talking breaking news here. But you've been doing a good job with those obituaries and wedding announcements. You've got a personal touch people like.
LuthorCorp's charitable foundation has been holding a massive nationwide charity drive for the holidays, and to boost its image no doubt. Anyway apparently they blew every fund-raising projection out of the water and to celebrate and probably gain more publicity they're holding a celebratory Christmas party with every executive who was involved where they're making the presentations to the charities. It's really just a fluff piece, but you know people eat that kind of holiday cheer crap up. Besides its LuthorCorp so keep your ears open and there might be an angle."
Chloe felt her poor heart stop again. "Did you say every executive who was involved?"
"Yeah apparently Lex Luthor made the call as the head of the foundation." White shook his head. "Never quite sure what to make of that one. Sometimes I swear he's the spitting image of his old man, sometimes he couldn't be more different."
"Every executive? Even the out of town ones?"
"Did I stutter? Metropolis, Star City, Edge City, Gotham, Smallville. Every executive. As I said the drive was a big success."
Yes. It was. She knew because Alex had told her. Alex who had been in charge of the drive for his office. Beautifully far away Alex who would be coming here. To Metropolis. To an event she'd be covering.
She was so screwed.
"Sullivan? Do we have a problem? Do I need to give this to your cousin?"
That jerked her out of her near meltdown. "Wha-? No! No. Absolutely not. I'm on it. Trust me. This will be the best charity-event story you've ever gotten. And if there's an angle . . . I'll find it."
As soon as she went and committed suicide with her pen.
Chloe walked back to her desk in a near daze.
"So?" Lois prompted anxiously.
"I-" she swallowed hard, "I'm not fired. He gave me a story."
A story covering an event Alex would be at. Maybe she could just not mention it. No. No, if he read her byline in the Daily Planet he'd know she'd been there, and then he'd be hurt. No, she had to tell him. She just had to tell him. She opened her email before she could talk herself out of it, and typed in the not often used email address.
"So, no need for alcohol then." Lois continued, blissfully unaware of her cousin's inner turmoil.
"Oh," Chloe murmured despondently, "I think we're still gonna need it."
-----
At the ding from his computer, Lex set down the quarterly projections he'd been looking over, and got up from his chair by the fire to walk over to his desk. He knew people might find it strange that he gave an email that much importance, but then this wasn't any usual email. That ding was for a special account that only one person had the address to, a person who he'd be happy to interrupt any work for.
After all no other person had the power to make his day exponentially better with just a few lines. Anticipating just such a pleasant event he stopped over to refresh his coffee, then sat down at his desk intent on savoring Chloe's correspondence.
Choked on his coffee the moment he opened the email.
She was going to be at the foundation's close out events. Was going to be covering the events. All of them. And ohm by the way, since she knew that, as the leader of the Star City offices efforts, he'd be coming in for the event, maybe they could meet.
Shit.
She wanted to meet him.
No. He corrected himself. Not him. Not Lex Luthor, not the only slightly less ruthless son of the most ruthless businessman Metropolis had ever seen. No she wanted to meet Alex Mason. The anonymous junior executive at LuthorCorp's Star City offices, six years his junior, who had supposedly responded to Chloe's letter as part of an Excelsior Academy class assignment.
Alex Mason. Who didn't exist at all.
Shit.
He should have known this would come back to haunt him. But it had all started out so innocently. He'd been doing three weeks at Excelsior as an alumni educator (part of his penance and start on the track his father demanded). The annual batch of letters from Forsythe had come in, and he'd dutifully distributed them, only the count had been one off due to one of the boys being expelled.
He'd just been trying to keep her from being disappointed, remembered the assignment all too well and how it felt like rejection when no one chose to write you back. Signed it Alex because even at twenty-one 'Lex' had been too distinctive, too recognizable.
He'd never expected her to continue to write back when the assignment was over.
Certainly never expected to get letters that had insight and wit far beyond that of a fifteen year old girl, or to find threads of loneliness and isolation that spoke so acutely to his own soul.
He kept telling himself he was writing her back because he didn't want her to feel more alone or unwanted than she obviously already did. Managed to believe that for almost a year. It was when she interned at the Daily Planet one summer and her letters became fewer and further between, until he couldn't wait to get her response to write her again, that he had to admit this was just as much for him.
By the time he had gone so far to establish a P.O. Box in Star City that got immediate same day service to his mansion in Smallville he knew he was in trouble.
And he also knew he was in too deeply to care.
Seven years later, he was only in deeper.
And now apparently he was about to drown.
No. His hand tightened on the coffee mug.
No. That was unacceptable. He could do something about this. He was Lex Luthor and he wasn't about to lose the most important, most real, and most honest relationship he had ever had with a woman . . .
Even if she didn't know it was with him.
Pulling out the small candid photograph he kept tucked in his wallet, he looked down at the beautiful features he'd long ago committed to memory, and picked up the phone.
"Clark, I need a favor."
He knew he was about to test the absolute limits of their tumultuous friendship, but he looked down at the photo again to strengthen his resolve.
Traced one of the long brunette curls that spilled down her shoulders.
Chloe was absolutely worth it.
----
"You did what?!"
Chloe shoved another shot in Lois's direction, and mumbled, "IsentyourpicturetoAlexinsteadofmine."
Lois didn't even pause, just knocked back the shot and motioned for another. "That's what I thought you said. Jesus, Chloe! What were you thinking?"
Oh yeah, she was definitely buying the drinks tonight.
"I was sixteen. I wasn't thinking anything. It's just, you know what I looked like in high school."
"Yeah, you looked great."
"But not you great. And he was from Excelsior, and he was expecting what all those other girls at Forsythe looked like, you know statuesque and poised and glamorous. So I went looking for a photo that kind of made me look like that and instead I found the one you sent me from the officers party at Reinhardt. You know the one where you were actually wearing a makeup and a dress and you looked so right. And I guess I just went temporarily insane, because the next thing I knew it was in the mail."
"Six years is not temporary!"
"Well, once I sent him one, I couldn't suddenly lose half a foot and turn blonde, could I?"
"Yeah, except don't you think he's going to figure it out now?"
Chloe was silent for a long time.
Too long.
"Oh. My. God. You're going to stand him up. This paper Romeo who has written you a letter every week for the past seven years, is coming to Metropolis expecting to meet you and you're going to leave him hanging."
"No! No, I would never do that to Alex."
"Well, then I don't see how you're going to prevent this shocking discovery, unless . . ." Lois slowed down as Chloe fixed her with a pleading gaze, then started drunkenly shaking her head back and forth, "No. Oh no. No way. There is no way, I am pretending to be you. You are going to have to find some other patsy missy, because there is nothing you can offer me-"
"Two leads."
"What?"
"The next two real story leads I get, I'll hand them over to you. No reservations. No keeping the good ones for myself."
Lois was suddenly a lot less drunk. "Three leads."
"Two and I'll edit all your articles for a month."
"Make it three months." Lois held out her hand.
Chloe met it. "Deal."
"You do know of course that in one move you are seriously challenging my standing as the family screw up."
"Don't worry I'm sure you'll get it back."
Lois just lifted her beer and murmured the start of the holiday toast they had used since they were children. "Bah Humbug."
Chloe clinked the neck of her bottle against Lois's. "Merry Christmas."
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