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**Chapter 7:Verbal Judo**

Lex had to admit, he was surprised. He'd expected her to back down. That was interesting. Walking over to the nearby cabinet, he opened a bottle of wine and grabbed two glasses. Then he gestured for Chloe to follow him and walked her back to the study, to sit on the chairs before the fire. "We might as well be comfortable," he said as he poured them both a glass.

"Thanks..." She said as she accepted the glass of wine and sat on a chair. She was a little reluctant to drink along with Lex, who already wasn't totally himself, with what he had already drink. She had to use it at her own advantage as much as she could.

Lex looked at Chloe and said, in all seriousness: "Now, I suppose it's my turn to ask you a question. So how does a woman like you let yourself play second fiddle to Lana all the time?"

Chloe almost choked as she heard Lex. What kind of question was that! If she had doubts about Lana's behaviors, she still didn't think it felt right to talk against her. And surely not in front of Lex.

She had to think. And fast. "I don't get where you are going with this, Lex. I'm not going to spit my venom on Lana to help you feel better." Anything to avoid the question.

The wine was good, she had to admit. Chloe took another sip, frowning a little, but more in a curious way than in any other way. "And what kind of woman would I be?" Hopefully, all of this would help her elude the question. Though now, she had lost her turn to ask a question.

Lex couldn't quite stifle his chuckle. "It's admirable, how quickly you're willing to jump to Lana's defense. But, rest assured, I have no intention of asking you to spit virulence about her. I may be wounded at the moment, but I was telling you the truth when I told her I love her. And, believe me, I know better than most that loyalty is as admirable as it is rare." Taking a sip of his wine, he paused and then said, "My interest this evening isn't in my erstwhile wife. I'm more interested in you at the moment."

"Me?" It was more of a rhetorical question, since she had perfectly heard him, but wondered how in the world tonight was about her. She wondered how they had gone from trying to get information about Lana to speaking about Chloe. "But..." She didn't finish her sentence. It seemed useless to insist. And it didn't mean that she couldn't ask questions about Lana. She was a little glad she wouldn't spend the night speaking about Lana to be honest. That wasn't the most interesting conversation possible and she had been trough that a lot with Clark.

"And how does me, being here tonight, means… Wait…" Chloe paused. "Never mind. That doesn't count as a question." If she was going to answer by asking questions related to everything he said, she would never get to the end of her means.

Because he didn't want to put her on the defensive too early, Lex decided to slow down a bit. It had been a tactical error, hitting her with both barrels too soon. He should wait until she's had more to drink. So he was willing to let the fact that she never answered her question go...for the moment.

Her question to him would have been boring, coming from anyone else. A patently obvious search for compliments. But Chloe wasn't anyone else, and he found it hard, if not impossible, to believe that she would go looking to him for compliments if she felt a need to have her ego assuaged. No, from Chloe, such a question was a double-edged sword.

Still, the best way to address her question without revealing too much was to treat it dismissively, as if it were coming from anyone else. "You really need to ask? You get yourself into far more trouble than you should, given the fact that you're generally more cautious than some. Maybe you've learned from mistakes your impulsiveness has landed you into in the past." He paused consideringly. "Though your presence here tonight would suggest otherwise. Smart. Canny. Always looking for the truth, even when your own best interests would be served looking the other way. Loyal to a fault. Perhaps even to your own detriment."

He paused again and then fired off a question of his own. "So tell me...I know you had a crush on Clark for quite some time. Longer, certainly, than he ever realized. Does he still hold the same place in your heart today, or have you moved on?"

He was going to ease her into the questions he really wanted answered, but he definitely wanted to keep her a little unbalanced on the way.

*

And there we go. If it wasn't about Lana, it had to be about Clark. This one was easier though. Six years of her life had been enough. She had been resigned for a moment now, knowing Lana would always be the first and with time, her feelings had grown more into genuine friendship.

"No, I don't. I've given up on these a while ago."

Chloe looked at her glass, as she started to feel a little heat on her cheeks, then back at Lex. "What about you? Still have an obsession over Clark?"

Lex threw her his best innocent "Who, me?" expression, then he laughed. "I suppose. In the end, I don't think there's anything particularly remarkable about Clark except how he so easily gains everyone's loyalty, even when he doesn't deserve it." He scowled. "Of course, if Lana were to be believed, there really is more to him beneath the surface, but..." He paused with a sigh, "Even if there is something remarkable about Clark, I don't think finding it will give me the answers I'm looking for."

Chloe was trying to read Lex's eyes, wondering whether he was telling the truth or not. Could he really stop his obsession over a man who had the power to get Lana whenever he wanted. She always had suspected, mostly in the beginning, that Lex had a crush on Lana only because she was Clark's most precious thing. She wondered for half a second whether the story would be different if Chloe had been in Lana's place in Clark's heart all this time. Chloe shook her head and finished her glass of wine after which Lex pourred a new one.

Now it was Lex turn to ask a question again. He'd noticed the strange look that had crossed her face before she'd answered the last question, and he pondered it. "And what are you looking for, Chloe? What is it that drives you on?"

Her obsession? Chloe thought and realized the answer was right into her face. She had a little laugh just thinking about it. "I'm surprised you're asking the question Lex. Even that is the first thing you talked to me about the first time we met. The inexplicable." She paused and almost forgot what the whole situation that was surrounding them. "I always had a thing for inexplicable. At some point in my life, it used to be my obsession…"

Now it was her turn to ask a question. Chloe thought about it as she took another sip. It seemed like each sip was easier to take. Made her feel almost a little better. She wished things in life weren't so complicated. Maybe she would have enjoyed moment like this a little more. She could talk about Lana. it was the main reason she had accepted this drink after all. But god she was tired to talk about her. Maybe a little break before going back in the subject wasn't so bad and if things turned out ugly, she would throw back the question and leave.

"I got one. Why did you stay in Smallville? I mean, obviously before this whole Lana crush. When you finally got to be the CEO of LuthorCorp, what stopped you from moving away of this small quiet town where you've been threatened so many times by so many people..."

Lex shrugged. "I get threatened everywhere; that's hardly new. I suppose I stay here because...I have friends here. Or I did. People I cared about. Maybe it's time to move on, though."

Her glass was empty again. Chloe hadn't realized she had been drinking more than she had intended to in first place. And since she hadn't eaten in few hours, she could feel the effects of the wine in her stomach, the heat going out of her body. She was sitting but guessed she'd feel it even more if she had to walk. And more than anything, she almost forgot why she was there.

"I'm sorry it turned out this way..." She unwillingly admitted, about the 'friends' subject.

Lex topped off her glass again and then took another sip of his own. Was it time to...no. Not yet. She was pretty tipsy, but she wasn't that far gone. She was, however, intriguingly not entirely sober. He wondered, sometimes, about Chloe Sullivan. Of course, he wasn't a man who took advantage of a woman who wasn't willing (or was incapacitated) - he didn't need to; there were plenty of women who were - but back when they had worked together in a semi-amiable relationship, when he'd saved her life, he'd thought for a moment... plus, she remembered what they'd talked about when they first met, so maybe he wasn't entirely off base.

Curious about his little theory, he leaned forward and brushed some hair gently off her cheek, just wanting to see how she'd react. Maybe she wouldn't...but, then again, maybe she would.

"What did you really come looking for here tonight, Chloe?" he asked softly as he brushed her hair back. He wondered if his proximity was throwing her off balance. "The truth about Lana, or the truth about me? Or is there something else your inexhaustible curiosity is trying to figure out?"

Chloe slightly frowned as Lex approached, but didn't move. She was a little frozen on place. They were so close from each other. Chloe blushed without realizing it, although it might have been hard to see it since her cheeks were already a pink, thanks to the wine.

She wanted to look away and she would if she had been entirely sober, but right now, she was looking into Lex's eyes, unable to move or talk, as if she was under some sort of spell.

After a moment, Chloe finally found her voice, looking away. "You? Of course not... I'm here... Lana. I'm here for Lana." She had to regain some balance. Get back to her senses. Harder than it should have been. Damn wine.

"I guess we have been a little off-topic." She cleared her throat, looking back into Lex's eyes, fighting thoughts she knew she would regret so bad in the morning. Thoughts that made her regret he was Clark's enemy and Lana's husband. Thoughts that drove her to take a big sip of her 3rd glass of wine, as if she was trying to chase the thoughts by drinking, which was horribly the worst idea ever.

"So, erhm, yeah about Lana... You have told me several times about being careful without saying why... Would you mind telling me why now?" Hopefully, this would do it. Get back to their initial, but oh so boring, conversation.

Lex arched an eyebrow as he assessed Chloe's reaction. Well, now, that was interesting. He filed it away for later. And if he hadn't been entirely mistaken, she'd seemed a little uncertain about the fact that she'd come over for Lana's sake, so perhaps his plan was already showing some results.

Damn. He forced himself not to scowl when she asked her question. She would ask that, wouldn't she. With a slight frown, he sat back and pondered how best to answer her question. How to give a little away without giving away too much? Should he pretend like he knew more than he did, or should he admit to knowing nothing but make it clear that this was not due to lack of trying on Lana's part?

Damn damn damn. Every time he thought he had Chloe pegged, she surprised him.

"I thought you didn't want to talk about Lana," he said lightly, hedging the issue. "I am not particularly interested in trying to turn you against her, but you might want to ponder in the future whether or not you really want the answer to a question before you ask it. Do you really want to risk finding out something about Lana that you didn't want to know?"

He paused again, then gave her a half-shrug. "In response to your question, as hard as this may be to believe, I didn't make it a habit to ask my wife about Clark. Foolishly, I found I was not particularly interested in making it a three-person marriage, and on the chance that she was as loyal to Clark as you are to him, I didn't want to risk driving her away. I gave up my - as you call it, my obsession - with him, in part, for her.

"It was no great secret, however, that Lana was very interested in Clark. I tried not to ask her about it because..." he sighed, "Well, to tell you the truth, I didn't trust myself not to push too much. The problem with trying to let an obsession go is that it's entirely too easy to fall back into it. For Lana's sake, I didn't want to take that chance." He paused and took a sip of his wine.

"I suppose I should have found it curious, those hints she would occasionally drop about how very special Clark is. About all of those secrets of his that she knew, that she knew that I would want to know. I wondered why she'd do such a thing, when she offered to...well, when she made it clear that she was willing to answer any question I put to her about Clark, but I thought that, perhaps, she was...testing me, I suppose you could say. Testing my devotion to her." He smiled wryly. "She did like to do that on occasion, you know. And I figured that, in her mind, she wanted to make sure that my feelings for her had nothing to do with Clark. I didn't blame her for it."

He frowned and took a sip of his wine. "My turn." He pondered what next to ask. "Why do you constantly let Lana get everything that you want? Why don't you ever take the chance and just take it for yourself?"