A/N - Here's the next installment. Chlex is coming I promise.

Moving Forward – Chapter 3

Lucas stood in the waiting room of an upstairs floor in Metropolis General. Dressed in tuxedo, he couldn't wait to get the call from Lex telling him that he needed to make an appearance before the business deal at dinner went bad. Lucas wondered why Lex even cared. Lucas didn't even know or care where his office was; work killed people faster.

Sitting down in the doctor's lounge, he stared into the mirror and undid his tie. The family wasn't worth all the trouble; still, he had to respect the work his father and brother did. He was the youngest and would eventually take over if Lex ever died. Lucas silently prayed he wouldn't.

"Hey, what are you brooding over?" Helen walked up and wrapped her arms around Lucas and leaned over to kiss his cheek. She smelled of flowers, something simple and not overstated like his mother used to wear.

Turning in the chair, he pulled her down on his knee. "Nothing. I was simply marveling at the wonderful shade of gray that the lockers are colored here."

Helen stood up and laughed at him while removing her jacket. "Sure you were. Look, I am so sorry about missing the dinner with your brother and his clients. I'm sure you will catch hell for it later. But I am starving."

Lucas stood up and wrapped his arms around her and smiled. "Then how about we go back to your place and I run you a bubble bath and fix you a Luthor omelet with more ingredients than should ever be mixed together?"

Helen turned around to face Lucas and smiled. "What did I do without you before? You are the best."

Lucas tilted his head to the side and smiled at her. "You're being easy on me. I think you would have survived. You saved someone's life and I offered to cook dinner. Not much of a comparison."

"I'm easy on you? Then why don't you marry me?"

Lucas stared at her for a moment and waited until the nurse that entered at the way wrong time poured her coffee and left. Looking around the room and back at Helen, he smiled. "Ok."

Helen pulled out of his grip and opened the door to the lounge. She turned and looked at Lucas. "Don't joke around like that." She walked out of the lounge and headed down the hall. Lucas walked the door close in front of him and stared at himself in the mirror wondering if he could actually take the plunge. The feeling was there. She made him happy. Would make Lex ecstatic. A smile crept across his face as he ran down the hall after her.

Grabbing her around the shoulders, he whispered in her ear, "ok."

Turning to face him, she smiled at his idiocy. "Are you sure you know what it is?"

"Yeah, it's that thing where you spend a lot of time together and sleep in the same bed and button each other's buttons. I know what marriage is."

Helen kissed him before he could make another stupid reference. "Then I accept."

Lucas pulled her back to look at her and check her for a fever. "Really, why?" Helen smiled and wrapped her arms around him, knocking him into the wall of the hospital parking garage.

The next day, Lucas sat down at the breakfast table across from Lex and his father. "Glad that you could join us last night. The meeting went well despite the absence of a particular person that is still a part of this family," Lex snidely dropped as he stared at his brother.

"Sorry, I was a little preoccupied." Lucas hesitated as his Lionel sat back and silently let the boys bicker. "I…" Lucas hesitated. "I'm getting married."

Lionel leaned in and stared at his son in amusement. Looking over at Lex, he nodded approvingly. Pointing with his hand at Lucas, he calmly dropped one of his more recent one-liners. "Now there's someone who knows how to mix business with pleasure."

Lex stared at his father and rolled his eyes, "Dad, he has nothing to do with the business. You know that."

Lionel sat back in his chair and sighed. "At least he knows how to have fun."

Lex ignored the second statement and turned his attention to Lucas. "You actually think that you can make this marriage work?"

Lucas stared stunned at his brother. He thought this is what his father and brother wanted him to be, responsible but now they were just doubting him. Lucas stood up from the table and waved off the breakfast he was about to be served. Still on cloud nine from the night before, he wasn't going to be pushed around by his overbearing brother. "Look, just stay out of it – I'm happy."

Lex and Lionel looked at each other in amusement as Lucas tromped off out of the dining room. "Well son, you never cease to amaze me. And I thought you were actually going to break into a smile."

Lex leaned over as he dressed his eggs, "This isn't over."

Lex leaned back in his chair after seeing the bright red Ferrari pull up in front of the building. He knew what was coming, but played the whole incident down. Turning, he looked at the two men that were taking notes on the latest corporate takeover that Lex was ranting about.

Lucas ran out of the elevator on the floor he knew his brother occupied most of the time. "Mr. Luthor, how nice to see you again."

"I need to talk to my brother," Lucas stated as he walked clear past the main desk and Lex's personal secretary as she grabbed him by the jacket.

"He's in a meeting."

"I really don't care – this needs to be dealt with," he responded as he pulled away from the woman and threw open the double doors of Lex's office.

"Lucas, we're in a meeting," Lex calmly stated as he continued reading off figures to the men in front of him.

"How often do I come here?"

Lex looked up and remembered it was part of the scheme, "Gentlemen, if we could continue this in a bit. I apparently need to teach the younger Luthor some business etiquette. Thank you." The men spied Lucas and rolled their eyes in response to Lex's comment. Leaving the room, Lex sat back his chair, somewhat prepared for what was coming next.

Lucas slammed the newspaper down on the desk and pointed at the small article on the front page of the business section. "I was wondering why I was suddenly being treated with respect. You and dad were pushing me into this marriage in order to make a merge with Bryce Industries. This is just like you to take something meaningful and turn it into this."

Lex stood up and walked around the desk and stared at his little brother. "Pushing you? I could go to hell for the lies I told about you. You begged me to make you look good."

"You never said a word to me before this ran today that this was all a sham for a business deal."

Lex cut him off. "Talk about my accomplishments you said. My qualities. Be creative. Lie you said." Lex watched Lucas' expression change from anger to remorse for ever making the suggestion.

Lucas stood staring at his brother, who wouldn't drop his intent gaze, in order to obviously make a point and remind Lucas that he had asked for the help from the beginning. Lex simply added a little to the nudge for both families' behalf's.

Lucas sighed and sat back in the chair," I can't do this Lex. I'm not cut out to get married. I can't make this kind of commitment. You know me."

Lex sat down in the chair across from him and smirked, "Oh, how sweet. She wants an actual wedding date."

"I don't know what came over me? First I was enjoying talking about a bubble bath with her and then we ended up engaged. This is all very surreal. I'm not in a position to take care of wife."

Lex spun around in his chair, not facing Lucas and not truly interested in talking about affairs of the heart. "Helen is a wonderful woman who is surgeon and a millionaire. I hardly think you are going to be taking care of her. I am imagining it actually the other way around." Turning back around, he looked at Lucas and leaned over his desk. "You don't deserve her, but she appears to love you for some reason."

"See doesn't that worry you a little about her mental health? I mean this was all so sudden and …" Lucas stopped and picked up the paper off the desk. "And this is all a coincidence."

"Correction Lucas, it's an opportunity." He watched as Lucas squirmed in his seat and repeated Lex under his breath. Pulling out a gun from the drawer of his desk, Lucas backed up as he grew frightened. "You expect be to kiss off a billion dollar merger just because there might be family connections."

Lex pulled back the trigger and shot three shots at the LCD panel across the office from the desk. Lucas tried to climb further in the seat in reaction to his brother's insaneness.

"Shit, what is your problem?" Lucas stood up and walked to the other side of the room.

Lex got up and walked over to the screen after putting the gun back in the drawer. Rubbing his hand over the panel, he smiled at his own fortune, "Look at this thing. Not a scratch on it."

Lucas moved slowly toward Lex, "Is this a way of changing the subject or are you just fucking nuts?"

"No one has the technology like this except for Bryce Industries. Everyone on Wall Street knows it, and it's right here in Metropolis. We've got so much competition on this merger even with our name…"

"Wait a minute, Lex, you're talking about more than your stupid deal. You're talking about my life."

Lex rubbed his forehead and lays a hand on Lucas's shoulder. "My life pays for your life. My life makes your life possible."

"I resent that."

Lex turned away from his brother, "So do I." Turning back and looking at Lucas, he couldn't help to wonder which parent dropped the boy on his head. "Look at yourself, you went to law school but never took the bar. You went to business school, but I can't get you anywhere near your office, you studied languages in foreign countries that you don't speak, instruments that you don't play, you have a series of girlfriends that you never see more than twice. You see a pattern here?"

"Who are you to lecture me about long term relationships? Your idea of closeness is giving your date time to order dessert."

"I don't have time for dessert. I'm busy working. You're a grown man Lucas; finish something. Helen Bryce is the best thing that has ever happened to you, and you told me so yourself."

Lucas stood in the middle of Lex's office and watched as Lex sat back down in his chair. Looking over some documents, he called the men back to the office and waited for Lucas to leave.

"She wants to make sure I tell you that she misses you all and send her love," Gabe closed the letter and sat it next to him on the table as the rest of the house servants looked at him blankly.

"What does she say of the engagement?"

Gabe lowered his head and continued to eat.

"You didn't tell her?" another servant asked.

"I don't know how. I don't know what to say."

The thick accented woman that irritated everyone with her stories spoke up, "You say darling Chloe, your life is dream and now it is over. I know."

The rest of the servants looked at her before getting up from the table and cleaning up the kitchen. Gabe sat and listened halfway to the woman as he tried to put his thoughts together for the email to her.

Dear Chloe, although I am sure this will come as a shock, it is my belief that what I am about to tell you is all for the best. I know how strongly you have always felt about this, and so I have been reluctant to write. Lucas is getting married.

Chloe sat and stared at the sentence on the email she printed out. Stunned into silence, she couldn't fathom what to do next.

"Chloe, what is it?" James looked over from his lunch and watched as her eyes seemed to almost tear up and then suddenly dry out. She looked over at him and smiled as she crumpled the small note from her father up and shove it into the bottom of her bag.

"Nothing, some news from home. It's just weird." Chloe looked up at James and smiled; the teary look now completely gone. "What do you say we get out of here and do something spontaneous."

James looked at her and grinned. "What did you have in mind?"

Chloe took him by the hand after throwing some money down on the table and walked with him down the street. Stopping momentarily, she took a deep breath and resigned herself to completing the act. Lucas had been her life, but she had found another in London; James was all there was now.

She cracked opened the door of her small apartment and held the door open for him. "Kiss me."

James stood and looked at her and grinned. He had wanted to make his move from the beginning but she seemed so timid and sometimes so far away from where she was that he didn't dare tread on whatever was going on in her mind. But the moment had finally fell in his lap. He wasn't going to give it up. Taking her around the back of the head, he pulled her down on the small couch and pressed his lips to her.

Chloe let his tongue enter her mouth and closed her eyes, hoping the wave of emotion would finally drown out any kind of feelings she had left for Lucas. Margaret had been right; it was hard to be with an illusion because they always disappointed. James, however, really did care for her and wanted her, and Chloe had no reason now to let him.

Leaning further back in the couch, Chloe felt James slip his lips down to her neck as his hands slipped under her shirt. Closing her eyes again, the image wouldn't go away. The eyes on the ad became sadder each time she glanced in the direction.

James leaned back on the couch and looked at her, rubbing his hands through her hair. "What's going on? You're not even here."

"I'm sorry."

Leaning in, he took her hand and smiled. "I can only help you so much Chloe, but whatever is going on, you and I sleeping together is not going to make to make it go away. You have to answer to whatever is bothering you before we can get past this."

James moved over closer and put his arm around her. "I know. It's just something I have to work through. But I am really happy that you are here with me."

Kissing her on the cheek, he smiled and rubbed her hair out of her face. "I'm happy I'm here too." Chloe glanced over at the bulletin board one last time as James turned on the television. She spied the same eyes peeking out from behind her other odds and ends that covered the rest of the picture. This time the face almost looked as if it begged her to move on.

TBC