Plot/canon Note: Despite my efforts to keep this in line with the Season 6 world up to "Freak" we are making one change . . . Because it makes no sense to me anyway, and because I just don't feel like dealing with the huge emotional fallout that would accompany it, Lana is not pregnant in this world so we are fake baby free. This should be the only thing up to "Freak" that I'm changing. However, you should keep in mind that if it wasn't exposed by 'Freak' I consider it fair game to be messed with and manipulated, so project-Ares, Chloe's ability, etc . . . anybody's guess.

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I'm used to living on the edge.
-- Chloe Sullivan "Hug"

----

She sat in Lex's office longer than she'd intended, pressing her bruises and staring at the empty vial of Levitas. Mentally constructing extraordinarily detailed lists of Pros and Cons, that always came out heavy on the Cons side.

Still when Rebecca materialized beside her with a glass of water and a validated parking pass and the obvious directive to get her the hell out of Lex's office, Chloe made sure to let her know that she would be needing another appointment with Mr. Luthor

Chloe didn't know what the receptionist thought was going on, but if she had an ounce of natural curiosity she hid it astonishingly well. Just smiled, and said she'd pass on the message in a way that made you feel like it was the first thing on her high priority list.

Rebecca might be Lex's most formidable weapon. Chloe decided she kind of hated her.

She took the long way back to Smallville, needing the extra space from what she'd just done. Finding the alt-rock station on her radio, she cranked the volume and put the top down on her car, and tried to let the overabundance of sound drown out the thoughts in her head.

Rebecca called at the start of her shift at the Planet on Monday evening, to tell her 'Mr. Luthor' would like to meet her at 3 p.m. on Thursday. This time the appointment came with an address in the warehouse district on the outskirts of Metropolis.

When she hung up, Chloe stared down at the time and address she'd instinctively scrawled in her reporter's code, traced over the words a few more times until they were a hard pen-ink tattoo in her notebook. She ran her thumb along the indentations, smudging the ink and turning her skin blue.

There were words for what she was now—collaborator, sympathizer, turncoat—labels that came with their own punishments and special circles of hell.

Absently, she brought the side her thumb to her mouth and sucked, trying to taste the words in the metallics of the ink. When she couldn't, she told herself it was because they weren't true.

The explanation lost its comfort when she had to lie to Clark about why she couldn't come over for dinner on Thursday.

----

The address Rebecca gave her led to an apparently abandoned building in the seedier part of the Metropolis warehouse district. Chloe actually drove past it three times before she realized the unlit shell that looked like it was held together with graffiti and a prayer, was her destination. When she did all she could manage to do was sit in the car and stare in disbelief.

Lex and his goddamned flair for the dramatic.

A sharp rap on her window jerked her attention away from the building. Then someone was opening her drivers-side door, and Chloe had to bite back a scream as she fumbled for her tazer.

Lex leaned down in the doorway. "Neighborhood this bad. You should really lock your doors."

She wished she had found her tazer.

"Go to hell."

Ignoring his proffered hand, she got out and cast a disparaging look towards the black Audi she supposed he considered inconspicuous.

Lex just smirked as if to say 'I can afford it,' which of course he could.

Glaring at him, daring him to say one word, she hit the lock button on her keys. Other than a slight flare of amusement in his eyes at the chirp of the alarm, Lex remained obediently quiet.

Then he just turned and started towards the building. Because she wasn't going to trail after him like a dog, Chloe kept right on standing in the middle of the alley.

Apparently realizing she wasn't following, Lex stopped and looked at her. "Don't you want to see all the trouble I've gone to for you?"

The inner rooms of the building were as modern and sleek and sterile as the outer facade was dilapidated. Chloe looked around in a mixture of awe and no little fear. The equipment alone must have cost upwards of half a million, not to mention the security measures and the three scientists who were looking at her expectantly. She knew Lex was rich, knew he was powerful, but knowing and seeing the physical manifestation of it in such a tangible way were two totally different things.

"Well, I would say that I'm impressed, but I bet you do this for all the girls."

"You'd be surprised," Lex murmured, and there was something in his gaze that made it feel dangerously close to a compliment.

Ignoring the disconcerting mixture of feelings that created in her, Chloe crossed her arms and looked up at him in challenge. "So. Where do we start?"

-----

The pain in her leg was awful. She'd experienced worse. Clark's heat vision on her shoulder. The thawing of her limbs following the near hypothermia in the Yukon. Lying in the grass outside Lex's mansion, feeling every broken bone and shard of glass right before she lost consciousness. She knew any one of those experiences was ten times more excruciating than what she was going through right now.

But her body didn't fucking remember those times right now. As far as it was concerned this was the worst thing she had ever put it through and it was going to make her pay.

"Argghhh" she clamped her jaw tighter, trying to swallow the exclamation, refuse Lex the satisfaction of a scream as the pain shot through her once again.

And then it was gone and she was left panting and sick. Leaning her head back she listened to the voices go on around her.

"I think that's enough for tonight." That was Jacobsen, the doctor brought in to see to her vitals.

"Very well." That was Lex. His voice so completely unaffected, you'd think they were discussing whether or not to change the oil on his car.

The thought that he viewed her that way, like some inanimate object he could make all the decisions for managed to make her angry enough to push back through the pain.

"No." Three heads turned to stare at her. Struggling to sit upright and look like competent human being, she repeated her refusal. "No. We talked about this. Three successive pulses of increasing intensity to be able to measure the changes. Two points don't give you line. Three do. Just give me some time to recover, and we can do it again."

Lex just looked at her for a long uncomfortable moment reading her resolve. Without looking away, he asked, "Doctor?"

"Her vitals are at the upper limits, but they're not outside the acceptable ranges we set."

"Hall?"

The elder scientist looked up from his computer screen. "I've always maintained a third data point is necessary."

If Hall had his way, they'd have twenty data points. The man was more computer than human being.

"All right." Lex looked down at his watch. "Give her the maximum amount of time to recover and then call me and we'll do it again." He turned to make his way towards the door.

It was enough to make Chloe give him that scream she'd been fighting back. "Don't you dare walk out!" Lex pulled up short, like the words were a choke collar. "I mean it. The deal was you stay. Walk out now and this is done."

"I need to make a phone call."

She set her jaw. "Then you can make it here."

Lex rolled his eyes, but flipped open the phone, and thumbed one of the numbers on speed dial. After a few seconds of waiting for someone to pick up, he spoke.

"It's me." At the warmth in his voice, Chloe's eyes flew to his in realization. "I'm going to have to meet you at the gallery opening. There's something I have to finish up here, before I can get away." Lex's gaze stayed on her as he listened to the conversation on the other end. Listened to Lana on the other end. "I'm afraid it's very important. Tell you what, have Davis take you in the car, and I'll drive you back, or if we're tired we can just spend the night in the city."

All the while he kept looking at her, kept watching her as if daring her to look away. Chloe wanted to. She really did, but she couldn't, just couldn't. He was talking to Lana about their social engagements, and watching her. And she couldn't stop staring.

Chloe sucked in a shaky breath. Suddenly it was all too much for her, too incredibly disorienting, to have her real life slam into this strange separate world that wasn't supposed to include anyone else.

They'd been doing this for two weeks now, meeting at different times in this neutral no-man's land of a lab that seemed detached from everything else—Smallville, Metropolis, her life, his. And for a little while as she'd stared at him while the electrical pulses ripped through her leg, she forgot. Forgot about Clark and Lana, forgot about the Planet and Jimmy, forgot about all the normal parts of her life until all she was left with was the pain and Lex.

And now here real life was slamming back into her with nearly physical force. And she couldn't take it.

Twisting around, she bent her head over the guard-rail of the bed and threw up.

"Lana, I have to go." Apparently not waiting for a response, Lex snapped his phone closed, and looked over at Jacobsen. "Is she okay?"

"I'm not deaf." Chloe gritted out.

Lex ignored her and repeated the question. "Is she okay?"

"I'm fine." Accepting the cup of water from Jacobsen, she commanded, "Tell him, I'm fine."

"Despite all evidence to the contrary?" Lex asked sardonically.

"Despite all evidence to the contrary."

Lex looked up and had some wordless conversation with Jacobsen over her head, that Chloe didn't even try to follow. But apparently it did not add up to her being fine, because Lex said "We're done for the night."

"I said-"

But Lex, who had already stepped back to let Jacobsen remove the sensors, interrupted her with a shake of his head. "You're no use to me damaged." Well at least she knew he wasn't getting sentimental about it. "I'll see you in two days with the results."

Unable to help herself, she called out, "Tell Lana I said hi."

-----

That night after one of Lex's men drove her home in her car, she laid awake longer than her body really wanted thinking about what had happened.

She'd gotten lucky the past two weeks. Clark had been gone more than usual, investing all his energy in tracking down the escapees from the Phantom Zone in his effort not to think about Lana and Lex. Lois had been investing all of her focus in the Inquisitor, in an effort not to think about Oliver. Jimmy had been sweetly attentive in his renewed efforts as the world's most perfect, if slightly insecure, boyfriend, but she'd managed to deflect any requests for extended periods of time together.

Yet, at the slightest hint of one world crashing into the other, she'd lost it.

She couldn't afford that kind of weakness. Not when Lex obviously didn't have a problem with it at all.

He'd stood there talking with Lana, watching her like she was nothing. Like she was a project.

Which she supposed she was.

Just a project. Just a subject, a number. 213. And who the hell cared what you did to a number?

She had to find a way to make him see her. See Chloe. See Lana's maid of honor. Clark's friend. His damn co-conspirator. She wanted him to connect her to pieces of his life, what little human pieces were left in him. Because she was scared of what would happen if he didn't.

And she had to find a way to toughen up. Because she obviously couldn't keep things separate forever.

Twenty hours later she was still trying to figure out a plan when the answer dropped in her lap . . .

In the form of Lana Lang.