A/N: I really did have this outlined to be three chapters. Only as I continue to write scenes and go back to where I want all the characters to be by the time Pandora rolls around and all the gaps I want to fill in . . . it expands. So to keep me from turning this into an epic, but give me enough room to cover all my points, we're doing two months a chapter. So we're going from approximately 3 chapters to 5-6 chapters. *Sigh*
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Chapter 2
October 2009
Oliver is suitably wary of the assistance from the get go.
"This is a big risk."
"It's all a big risk. But come on, two bars of kryptonite, we couldn't get that much on ten scavenging missions. This is our break Oliver, and you know it."
He turns the bar over in his hand, runs his thumb along the edge. "How did this X even get a hold of it? There's maybe a handful of places that I can think of that were refining kryptonite like this before Zod, and they were all connected with LuthorCorp."
"And I can tell you stories about kids in Smallville turning the rocks liquid for the high. If we've got it now, does it matter where it came from?"
He sets the bar back down. "I don't trust this guy."
He shouldn't. None of them should, but there's trusting and there's using, and she's learning to do one without the other.
"You don't have to," she promises. Locking gazes with him, she offers a compromise. "Just trust me."
Oliver looks at her for a long moment, and then picks up both the bars. "I'll get the kids started." Then before he's gone, he looks back over his shoulder one last time, "I trust you. You're the only thing left that I trust."
She wants to tell him not to say things like that, not to look at her that way. Instead, she just nods, goes back to making a list of supplies, trying to prioritize them.
He stands there for one moment more, waiting for something that she won't give him, then finally turns and walks away. He been doing it more and more lately, standing at the door to her heart and knocking, asking to be let in.
But she can't, she just can't. She's lost so many people and before this is all over she's going to lose more. She'll probably lose him or he'll lose her.
They can't care for each other too much when that happens.
The team can't afford the fallout.
-----
True to his word, Lex gets her what she asks for. Not as much as she'd like, not as quickly, and on one occasion not at all. It's only a trickle, but it's something.
And sometimes he gets her things she didn't ask for . . . dried fruit, paper back books, a child's ball, a couple packs of cigarettes.
Every week or so a little luxury she'd never put on the list tucked in with the practicalities—kryptonite and maps and medicine. Wool sweaters with the winter and clean socks for their feet. The things that keep the camp functional.
But it's the other things, the things he adds on his own that people look forward to, that raise their spirits and keeps them going.
Trust Lex to understand the human need for physical comforts.
The playing cards that start a weekly poker game for chores and the extra shift on the guard line that she used to have to rotate.
The razors and cheap soap that still make them all stand a little straighter, feel a little better.
The fifth of scotch tucked in with the blankets and kryptonite bullets that turns the mood into something almost jovial.
They pass it through the camp like communion wine, each one of them taking a swig, making a toast. And she doesn't realize what they're saying until Neil (a wiry, tattooed bar tender from North England of all places) passes it to her with a broad smile, and repeats, "To X, the gorgeous bastard."
Chloe thinks she's about to be sick. Still she takes the bottle in a numb hand and repeats the toast, "To X," because it's expected.
She downs her portion a little too hard to chase the taste. Passes it over.
Oliver looks down at the label. Doesn't drink, doesn't toast. Just hands it off with a frown.
----
November 2009
She's barely out of the subway tunnel before there's a hand over her mouth, another at her waist, and she's being lifted up and unceremoniously tossed into one of the boxcars that sits just at the entrance to tunnel. The door firmly slid closed behind her.
It takes her a moment to realize what's happening, to recognize friend over foe (well, sort of), protection over assault, and before she does she's rolled into a crouch and brought her pistol up in one fluid movement.
Only the fact that it's too dark to see, and she's in an enclosed metal space keeps her from firing.
Lex clicks on a flashlight, puts a hand out to move the gun away from where it's aimed at his chest. "Charming."
"Christ," she stands and puts her gun away with a sigh, "Don't scare me like that."
"I'll be sure to keep that in mind for next time."
"What the hell?"
"Fly-over patrols. They started fifteen minutes ago. Zod is blanketing the city for Thanksgiving. Assuming they're just x-raying and don't come down and walk for sound, we should be okay."
Chloe's heart drops in her chest, and she makes a lunge for the door. "My team-"
Lex catches her around the waist with his good arm. "You can't do anything for them. Not without getting caught yourself and putting us both at risk."
"I don't care. I have to-"
A quiet snick and the press of a switch-blade to the outside of her thigh cuts her off, as Lex whispers low and gentle against her ear, "I'll hobble you if I have to. How far will you get then? How much help will you be?"
There's no question he'll do it.
"Bastard."
"Are you going to be smart?"
She nods grudgingly, and he relaxes his hold ever so slightly.
The knife stays at her thigh.
They're working on their trust issues in baby steps.
The worst part is he's right. There's no way she could get back in time to be of help. Oliver's either got everyone underground into the sections of the tunnels they coated with lead paint to up the interference (thank you Metropolis's slum-lord population) or he doesn't.
Either way there's nothing she can do, other than lead the Kandorians straight to them.
The last of the fight goes out of her at that thought. As if sensing her resignation, Lex releases her and steps back, snaps the switch blade closed.
"Looks like we'll be spending the night together."
"And you didn't even buy me dinner first."
A flash of amusement cross his face at that and he squats down to unwrap one of the parcels, tosses her a power bar, follows it with a piece of chocolate, and then holds out a hip flask, "Dinner, drink, dessert. Don't let it be said I didn't wine you and dine you."
She laughs because she has to. Because joking about it is so much better than thinking about the reality. About her team and the flyovers. . .
She unscrews the flask and takes a swig. The scotch has been heavily watered down and she doesn't know whether it's rationing or precaution against over-indulgence. It still uncurls in her belly with a pleasant artificial warmth.
Handing it back over, she asks, "So does this make me your cheapest date?"
"Cheapest, most expensive. Depends on the measure."
She's not sure she wants to know by what measure this paltry little offering has cost him the most.
----
Two hours later they're sitting back to back in the middle of the box car in the pitch black—the bar of kryptonite out on either side of them their only illumination—each facing a door, a crossbow in her hand, a gun in his. The combination gives them both silence (if they're found by one) and numbers (if they're found by more).
It's not an unfamiliar position for her. She and Oliver have done it a dozen times in all kinds of settings, having two different conversations around the fires, at the end of a long night on the watch line. She even thinks she fell asleep once that way. She'd never let herself do it in his arms, but against the hard steady safety of his back . . . well that's not really taking comfort at all.
Everything's different with Lex, misshapen and wrong. The feel of him there, just behind her, his back against hers, his breathing in sync, it doesn't make her comfortable or reassured. It makes her itchy, makes her alert and keyed up in a way that has nothing to do with adrenaline or fear, just a horrible awareness that this moment encapsulates just how far off course the world has gone.
More than a red sun, or a devastated Metropolis or a world without Clark Kent . . . Chloe Sullivan letting Lex Luthor watch her back is truly a sign of the end of days.
And suddenly she starts to laugh.
Silently, madly, hysterically laugh.
"Should I even ask?"
She shakes her head, forgetting for a moment that he can't see her. Finally manages to gasp out, "After everything, who'd have ever thought we'd be here."
Lex doesn't laugh.
"I did."
That makes her stop. "Wha-? God, you really are crazy."
"This was always coming. From the moment those meteors fell to earth twenty years ago, maybe even before that. This was always where we were headed. You saw in Clark the savior of humanity. I saw a harbinger of its ultimate threat. Either way, we were trying to protect the world. At the end of everything, we were always going to wind up on the same side."
"Are you really still telling yourself that?"
"Tell me that you wouldn't give anything for a handful of meteor powered soldiers with all the same abilities as the Kandorians, who can't abandon you, can't turn on you. Who don't have anything to lose?"
She has to admit the thought is tantalizing. What wouldn't she give not to have to keep sending ill-equipped and ill-trained people into battle knowing they're horribly outmatched, knowing it's dangerously close to a suicide run? What would she give to even the playing field?
"I wouldn't give up our humanity."
Now it's Lex who laughs, a silent mirthless chuckle that she can feel like a cold hand against her back. "You say humanity like it only means good things."
"It can be. It can be the best of things. We love and we hope-"
"And we hate and we lie and we betray. We're greedy and selfish and cowardly, and perfectly capable of enslaving ourselves without the outside help. Don't claim humanity as your standard, Watchtower. My methods of protecting us were just as human as yours, maybe moreso."
"Then why fight? If we're all so horrible, so unworthy, why not cut your losses and throw your lot in with Tess? It would be safer. Let Zod save us from ourselves."
"We're not his to save."
She supposes it's as good a reason as any.
Still in the silence that comes after, she can't help but think it's incredibly sad. Every one of her team fights for something they believe, for someone they've lost. They fight for a dream or a memory or a hope.
And this man at her back fights out of nothing. Just stubbornness and pride and a refusal to bow.
The idea makes something in her gut clench and before she knows it, she's talking again.
"My team thinks you're wonderful."
Lex doesn't respond.
She doesn't know why she's telling him, except she can't help but think everyone should be able to fight for something, so she continues, "They call you a gorgeous bastard. Neil, he's from England, started it. It kind of stuck."
"I'm guessing you haven't told them who I am."
She shrugs. "I didn't see the point. In this world, none of us are who we used to be. They call me Watchtower. They call Oliver Arrow. They call you X. And that's who we are. Who they need us to be."
He doesn't say anything. She doesn't expect him to, but something shifts, ever so slightly, an easing of muscles, a change in the wind.
Fifteen minutes later . . . "Gorgeous bastard?"
She smiles just a little, and giving in to the ache her neck, momentarily drops her head back on his shoulder. "It grows on you."
"Mmm," is his only response as he turns his head to glance down at her and then away.
But somehow in the darkness, she thinks she feels him smile.
-----
Oliver puts it together by the second bottle of scotch and the fourth bar of Kryptonite.
"This is insane!"
"It's practical. He has resources we don't, access we don't, and he's willing to put himself at risk to feed it to us."
"Yeah the great personal risk of sitting on his ass behind the front lines."
She arches an eyebrow. "Do you want to fight beside him?"
That shuts him up, and he flops down on one of the crates positioned against the wall. "I can't believe we've sunk this low. Taking Kryptonite from Lex Luthor."
"His Kryptonite stops the Kandorians just as well as the stuff we scavenge. And we put less people at risk to get it."
"This is why you've insisted on doing every run yourself, isn't it? You don't want the team knowing that their gorgeous X is the man who gave Tess Mercer the keys to end the world."
Dropping her fists to the plywood table, she braces against it and sighs, "I like the way they look forward to something. The way their eyes light up when there's a little piece of their old life tucked inside a shipment. Tell me you really want to take that away from them."
Oliver shakes his head, as if in disbelief at the world. "There should be limits."
"There should be, but there's not. Not anymore."
"But this . . . Lex, of all people?! After everything he's done? After the meteor freak experiments and Project Ares and what he did to Clark-"
She slams her fist into the wood. "And he kidnapped me and took my mother from me and kidnapped me again! Trust me, I remember exactly what he's done. But you killed him and the world ended and this is my team, so if I tell to you call it even and put the schoolyard brawl to bed? You'll damn well put it to bed."
He stands and snaps off a mocking salute. "Yes, Ma'am."
For a beat they glare at each other, the air electric with resentment and frustration and frayed nerves.
Chloe cracks first, rolls her eyes and mutters under her breath. "Asshole."
Oliver lips twitch, and she knows he's fighting a smile at being called out like that. Then he steps forward with a sigh and picks up the bottle of scotch that started this fight. Cracking it open, he takes a small sip and hands it off to her. "Just be careful, okay?"
She accepts it with a smile of her own. "Always am."
They don't know how to stay mad at each other.
----
