Stare Decisis
Disclaimer: Not mine. I don't own Smallville or the song lyrics preceding each chapter or any of the literary illusions made or quotes referenced. I don't own them and I'm really not attempting to claim otherwise. Let's leave the law out of this one, shall we?
Rating: R (adult themes, sex, violence, strong language)
Summary: Stare decisis: Latin, to stand by things decided; a reliance on precedent. The past dictates the present, and we are obliged to follow. We play connect-the-dots with humans and history alike and allow memory to shape the outcome. Chloe/Lex. Futurefic. AU.
Author's Note: I feel like there should be some fair warning regarding this story. There will be some Lex/Lana in this story. I know, there are some rabid opponents to Lana in general, and I personally don't find her character as depicted on the show that interesting or likable, but then again I feel that way about Lex and Chloe as characterized on the WB. The Lana of this story is not going to be dull one-note Lana with a heart of gold and obnoxious self-absorbed nature. But she's not even in this chapter. So this might be a moot point for now, but not for next chapter. Alright. That's out of the way. On another note, these chapters are written more so as vignettes rather than chapters. They can all pretty much be read on their own, but when you add them all together you get a greater story. That said, I'll just reinforce what I already wrote in the prior author's note: there is no sense of chronology here. None. Just thought I'd clarify that. Alrighty, on with the chapter. Please read, review and enjoy. Thanks!
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Like radium
You look like a perfect fit
For a girl in need of a tourniquet
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You struck me dumb like radium
Like Peter Pan or Superman
You will come to save me
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(C'mon and save me from the ranks of the freaks
Who suspect they could never love anyone)
- Save Me – Aimee Mann
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2015
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This is a true story.
This is a true story and it goes something just exactly like reporting the news, newspaper print style: stark headlines, a quick byline and a barebones plot for the busy reader to follow over fast-food coffee and fast-paced transit. There is no once upon a time, and more likely than not, there will be no happily ever after.
On second thought and late-night, last minute revision the newspaper analogy should probably be thrown out for recycling and can come back instead as a prepackaged cable news network instead. It would be more appropriate.
This is Chloe Sullivan bringing you today's top headlines.
She lives alone, and when she really thinks about it, she imagines that we all really do live this way: alone. We may have other breathing bodies or fourteen cats wandering the hallways of our homes, but really, we're alone, thinking those silent thoughts we never really express because civility would never really have it that way, and when it comes down to it, this might just be her way of justifying the fact she is 29 and single and living in a one bedroom apartment with a bed only one person sleeps in.
We all live alone and we all lie to ourselves. Chloe works in broadcasting and generalities and hyperboles and carefully veiled metaphors have become her way of life. That, and her fine-tuned articulation and monthly hair appointments. Blonde newscasters work better. More popular. It's a statistic.
She arrives a few minutes late for work, and it's really not surprising, because, really, this happens every day. Cup of coffee in hand (venti, extra shot of espresso) and she stomps her way across the lobby, sharp high heels clacking, more murder weapon than fashion choice,over the studio's logo, embossed, marble, and she waits in front of the mirrored elevator doors for the sharp chime of its arrival.
She walks the hallway of the twenty-third floor and turns out some poor, sad son-of-a-bitch thought it would be in his best interest to bring a gun to the airport, and once there, swing it on out and pop the safety and unload a few rounds in the security guard, the business man behind him, a couple other equally sad, aimless travelers and the metal detector just for kicks before letting the last bullet get intimately acquainted with the gray matter hidden behind his skull.
It's going to be that kind of day.
The news van is waiting, but she checks her messages anyway. Deletes most of them, spills coffee on her desk, and races out the door, back down the way she came. Handheld mirror snapped shut, lipstick on straight, hair curled just enough to not look styled, but instead, natural. It's an art.
The van speeds its way down city streets, near-death almost accidents and break-neck turns apparently on the morning's agenda.
The airport is crawling with ambulances when there probably should be hearses instead. The police are there, weapons draw, wandering around, the adrenaline palpable on the air. She sees the SWAT team and the other nervous news crews and knows for sure it is going to be that kind of day.
One crazed shooter is never enough. Turns out there was another gunman, the word terrorist whispered as though in a play, dramatic, theatrical, and in some strange gesture of God only knows what is holding baggage claim hostage, and Chloe smirks, thinking how much they (the police, the audience at home) love this shit.
This is a regular shoot-'em up, cloak and daggers, heroes and villains kind of story.
They stay there a couple hours. SWAT team shoots him, and this time, there's no extra collateral to add to the list. She reports the unfolding drama, mixing fear and compassion and flawless bravado into a strange concoction that always seems to go down smooth.
The ride back to the studio is uneventful and she still has the six o'clock news to shoot. She goes over the notes for the evening and checks her voicemail. Like fucking clockwork.
And Tim, Tim left her a message on her phone. Meet him at his house after work. Meet him at his house a half-hour's drive outside the city.
She wishes he would just phrase it honestly, to the point and without all the euphemisms and polite innuendos. Hi, Chloe. It's Tim. My wife got the night shift and I'm horny as hell and was hoping you'd drive the half hour out of your way for a good fuck. Thanks. Bye.
Being the other woman, being the other half of an equation that adds up to a messy extramarital affair, is really anything but glamorous. She is fucking the city's prominent architect who just so happens to be married to the same city's prominent orthopedist, neither of which seem to mind the whole half-hour drive to work every morning. She imagines it's because they are getting paid in something tangible and rewarding, while all Chloe is left with is a heavy sense of guilt and unsatisfied appetite for something she can't name or have.
This is a motherfucking Harlequin romance novel.
She gets to his place at around nine. She hasn't eaten dinner and she knows he has no intention of preparing a meal. That's what his wife is for. Or takeout. Or the cook. Do they have a cook? It seems fitting.
He answers the door before she even knocks, and that's just great. That's just really great.
He kisses her once the door is closed, and maybe he really is this paranoid in all aspects of his life, or maybe it's just because it's her and he's married and the neighbor's might be watching with binoculars across the street.
"I've missed you," and she knows he hasn't missed her; he's missed the sex. But she guesses it's alright to be the same in his book. Better than resentment.
They fuck on the couch. There's just something too weird about having sex with a man in the bed he shares with his wife.
She keeps her shirt on. So does he. As she pulls her shoe back on, he brings her a glass of wine and sinks back down on the couch next to her.
"Ellie's pregnant." It takes her a minute to process what he's said. Ellie is pregnant. His wife is pregnant.
"Is that your way of saying this is over?" Her voice is hard to hear over the opera music he has playing on the conveniently hidden speakers around the house. She spies one behind the potted plant.
"Something like that."
"Congratulations. Light a cigar for me." She lets herself out. And really kind of sort of hopes the neighbors saw her leave.
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This is based on a true story.
She can feel the tears before they come, and this is really so goddamned stupid. She really didn't expect Tim to ever leave his wife. She never was going to ask, and he was never going to do it. They were a society couple, and she was the newswoman, telling people the horrors of bombing Baghdad and the triumph of technological advancements. It really doesn't work that way.
Good evening. I am Chloe Sullivan, reporting from the scene live, and this just in: I am a giant fuck-up. In related news, nothing else really matters.
A sharp turn to the right, and it really wasn't supposed to go like this. In the style of some simple narration she was supposed to go to college, get a degree in journalism, marry Clark, write Pulitzer Prize winning articles exposing corruption at its basest level and save the world while sitting cozy with a mug of coffee and her laptop.
Instead she went to college, got the degree, Clark died, she got a job at some alphabet soup news station, fucked Lex Luthor a few times amidst it all and instead of saving the world, she just fueled the same old shit on and on and on. And took up with a married man as of recent. Whose wife is now pregnant. With their first child. Their, as in his wife and his. Their, as in a family in the making.
It hurts a lot more than it should. And she really doubts it's Tim's fault. Somewhere, mixed up between the heavy on-air make-up, the stacks of notes and old newspapers she keeps in her bedroom and the tangled affairs, she took so many wrong turns she not only ended up in no-man's land, but rather, somewhere akin to where she started from. Older, but none the wiser.
It starts to rain, and yes, it's been that kind of day, and she really shouldn't be all that surprised.
Blinding light and she slams on her brakes.
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This is the movie adaptation of the novel based on the true story.
So. This is how I die.
She thinks it without meaning to, the thought entering unwanted as the airbag deployed right into her pretty little face. Her nose better not be fucking broken. If so, GM is totally going on her shit list and she will do everything within her power, right down to a frontline expose on anything she can get her little injured hands on.
The car didn't stop, it had just kept going, and amidst the crunch of metal and her fingers slip-sliding off the steering wheel, she knew the side of her car had just been smashed in.
God bless four-way stops.
But then, freeze-frame, Cirque-de-Soleil acrobats, she's flipping over, seatbelt biting into her collarbone, head hitting something shy of soft.
She closes her eyes. And when she opens them again. She can smell gasoline.
She wiggles her toes. Tries to wiggle her fingers, but finds her right arm awkwardly trapped.
A thumping in her ears, and yes, the blood is rushing to her head. She is hanging upside down, bat-style, in her brand new car.
This will be aired on the eleven o'clock news if the choppers can get here in time. Probably Kenneth, filling in for her.
This, this is the story of Chloe Sullivan's life.
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She goes to work the next day anyway. Late, and it's even less of a possible surprise today. Arm in a sling, hair kind of limp. They put one of those strip things on her broken nose (newly realigned), a black eye is forming around her right eye, and her arm rests in a fucking sling. She looks like the dumpy battered wife she interviewed last month.
"Christ, Chloe. What the fuck?" And it's Kenneth. More homo than metro, but they keep that on the low-down, because, really, that's all Page Six needs to hear.
"You should see the other guy," she offers weakly, and he rewards her with a chuckle, equally weak on his part.
She can see it in his caged smile. This fucker is stealing her job.
"Have you talked to Leonard yet?" Leonard, Leonard the head of the station, a multimillionaire with a love for barely legal wives he shuffles through like a bad hand in a high stakes poker game. And it just reaffirms her suspicions. Kenneth is stealing her job from right under her broken, bruised nose.
"No, no," she adds softly.
And as though on cue, a secretary waves her down, informing her Leonard requests her presence in his office. Now. And PS, you look like hell. Get some sleep.
She walks the hall to the elevator, riding it to the top floor, and it's the fucking Tower of London and she's heading towards her own beheading like goddamn motherfucking Anne Boleyn.
The doors open with a ding, and she marches forward, wounded soldier, and arrives at his office a little too soon for her liking.
The woman at the desk acknowledges her in one glance that is more a judgment than appraisal and lets her know she can head on in. Chloe didn't have to say a thing.
She knocks once, with her good hand, and a voice barks from inside to come on in. She twists the knob and in she goes.
"Miss Sullivan!" And Jesus Christ she hates this man and his office. It reminds her of Smallville, it reminds her of LuthorCorp, it reminds her of the men who sit a the top of the food chain and try as you might you just slip slide down it's slanted sides and there's nothing you can really do about it.
"Good morning, sir."
"I imagine you know why you're here?"
"I have my theories. Sir."
He exhales heavily, his fingers a steeple before him. "I'm afraid we have to let you go, Miss Sullivan."
And she smiles. "Is this because of the car crash?"
"Well, of course we can't have our lead anchor looking like the losing end of a prizefight, but, no, Miss Sullivan, it isn't because of the car crash. It's mainly due to the fact that you have helped us lose three of our largest sponsors. Your exposes, while entertaining, and more importantly true, don't belong here. We are a multimillion corporation funded by the multibillion. With that comes a short leash, and I thought you understood that."
"And I did. Sir."
"Did you? Then why did every news report come with a subtle editorial, tacked on neatly at the end? Oh, don't look at me like that, Miss Sullivan. I'm a bright man and you're a bright woman. I caught them all, and better yet, understood them. And guess what? The men who run those multibillion corporations that basically run us caught them too. And they didn't like it.
And besides. You're late every damn day of the week."
"So I'm fired?" Oh, God, it's back to the freelance writing and the dread every month of paying the rent. Goddammit. Goddammit.
"It's been a pleasure, Miss Sullivan."
He shakes her hand, and looks at her. Smiles, sad.
"It's just that kind of world, Miss Sullivan."
She exits his office with a nod, closing the door behind her, and if yesterday had been that kind of day, she can only imagine today is following suit as well.
It's just been that kind of year.
Who the hell is she kidding? It's just been that kind of life.
As she waits for the elevator, she can hear the interns behind her chatting, and she concentrates on them rather than the fact she is about to scream or cry or break something or maybe all of the above in one fell swoop.
"Did you hear the news? Lex Luthor is running for president."
"No fucking way! Lex Luthor? He is so hot. Did you see him on the cover of last month's GQ? So hot right now."
"I know," and the elevator doors open. "And now he's running for president!"
"Un-fucking-believable," she mutters to herself, the doors sliding shut on the top floor of her former office building, and she knows this is her last day in New York. She can't stay here. No. She can't.
This is a saga based somewhere in history and probably ending in tragedy.
This is Chloe Sullivan's life.
This is not the end.
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