8
"The dress really is pretty," Chloe said, trying her best to keep a smile plastered on her face. She had no more interest in being Helen's Maid of Honor any more than the other woman had in giving Chloe that honorary position. They were both doing it to please Lex who at least seemed happy by the arrangement. Still, Chloe didn't like Helen and the feeling was mutual. She had yet to see the woman give her anything approaching a sincere smile. Hell, she hadn't seen Helen look at her with anything but intense scrutiny since she'd had her fever.
Helen knew more than enough to know something was wrong with her.
And so Chloe got the stares.
"It's nice," Helen agreed, eying her as the seamstress finished pinning the off-the-shoulder straps into place. "I'd have preferred for my wedding colors to have been something in a teal."
Chloe had to chuckle at that. "But I got lilac. I guess Lex hinted."
"A lot. Purple is just a very Luthor color, apparently," she replied, a tight smile on her lips. "You look lovely, Chloe."
"Well thanks but it's just the bridesmaid dress. I'll shorten it, wear it again, and then people will know that I was at a wedding first."
"It's the taffeta right?" Helen joked, nodding as the little seamstress stepped back out of the room.
"Well, I think that and the full skirt. It's nice though. I think it's going to look great at the wedding. Plus, empire waist. That's a plus if you're a little hippy." Helen was rail thin. Chloe hated that. She really thought that if she had a supermetabolism she should also look like a supermodel-height and the whole nine yards. Now that would have been a superpower.
"You look very nice."
"We covered that."
Helen sighed. "We did, didn't we?"
"Yeah," Chloe replied, turning around and pulling the dress over her head. She moved as fast as was acceptable to shove on her jeans and t-shirt. "So, I guess I'll just be getting back to school."
"It's five o'clock."
"But there's always time to add to The Torch."
"Workaholic?"
She nodded. "Aren't we all? I mean, I know you must work overtime at Smallville Med. It's a small staff and it's Smallville so there's always some emergency case coming in."
"Smallville is a colorful town."
"Uh, yeah," Chloe said, trying to keep herself from blushing. "Is there anything else you needed Helen?"
The other woman quirked her head at Chloe and let her hand splay across the closed door. "I had a proposition for you. I wanted to talk to you about your blood work."
Chloe stilled. "There's nothing to talk about. This is Smallville. I'm not the only person in town whose blood is not exactly normal. I have files on a couple hundred who would look like me and, no, you can't have those files either."
"I've had other patients who were unusual," she hissed. "But yours is in a league of its own."
"Then I swept the lottery. Joy. I promise you, if there were a way to get rid of it, I would."
"That's not my point. I just wanted to know more about you, what you can do."
"Do?"
"Don't play dumb. The meteor infected come with different powers. We've all seen that. Blood as unique as yours, you must have some ability as well."
"My blood work isn't any of your business now that I'm better. It's all doctor-patient privilege, and you're supposed to respect that."
"Then as your physician-the only one it looks like from your records-I think it might be critical to examine who you are."
"Thanks, but I'd rather not."
Helen pursed her lips. "Maybe Lex would be interested-"
Chloe moved perhaps a little faster than she should have and grabbed Helen's wrist, applying enough pressure to make it uncomfortable for her. "Lex stays out of it."
"Isn't he already in it?"
"What?"
"Why would a billionaire and a man as smart as he is, waste his time with a sophomore cub reporter."
"I've actually interned at the Planet," she corrected.
"You spent time together pouring over the pictures from the Kawatchee caves."
Technically, they spent time together on it, but she threw in as many red herrings as she could. She liked Lex a lot, but, at the end of the day, her father was right and she couldn't trust him. She had her friends and no one else would be allowed to know, especially not Lionel Luthor's son. It was too dangerous. She certainly wasn't going to tell Helen.
"Skinwalker legends are fascinating and I've always had a love of decryption."
"Really? That's it?"
"I don't like what you're implying."
"Fine, but just between us girls, what is you interest in my fiance?"
"We're friends." Which, honestly, was the best word Chloe had for it. Mentioning that he helped her with the wet works in her life was too much to add.
"He spends a lot of time with you."
"Not as much as with Clark," she defended, and that was true. The two of them did guy things usually involving video games or the pool table. She and Lex conferred on cave symbols but she tried to limit her visits. It just didn't look right if she was over there all the time. Besides, it gave her just that many more opportunities to slip up and to be caught.
"After we're married, I don't want you coming around."
"I think that's a decision that Lex would make and I'm not trying to steal him. Clark and I have been dating almost since Lex moved to town. It's insane to think that I'd take him away. I don't like him like that."
"Well, I'd share him. If you talked about your blood work."
Chloe gaped. "He's not a commodity. How could you even-"
"It's a business arrangement first. My dad is one of the preeminent plastic surgeons in Metropolis. I know how these things work."
"Lex isn't like that."
"He'll learn to be. So, Chloe, if you want to be in his life, let's talk about the blood work."
Chloe narrowed her eyes and made an effort to reign in her heat vision. "No, Helen."
With that, she walked out the door of the salon.
"Chloe, this is a surprise," Lex said as he walked into his office. "I expected you and Helen to be finishing up girl things that I'm not supposed to know about."
She nodded. "It was just my dress at the fitting. There was no risk of seeing Helen in her gown before the ceremony, no bad luck."
"I had been a little worried."
"Nope," she replied, smiling brightly. "Just me and a lot of purple."
"It's technically lilac."
"That's what Helen told me. Can I say I expected her to be the one picking the color scheme. People will talk."
"When you're rich, you can afford to be eccentric," he replied, coming to lean against the desk next to her. "Besides, it's a wonderful color and I bet it looks beautiful on you."
"Oh you're quite the charmer. I heard all the sweet talk you've been giving Lana in order to get her to do more last minute errands."
"Lana is being compensated."
"Running ice buckets, Lex," she replied.
"Chloe?"
"Yeah?"
"Is something wrong?"
"No, why do you ask?"
"Because you don't just usually drop by my office. Clark, sure. We usually have a scheduled appointment or there's usually another meteor mutant on the loose and you're giving me the heads up. Am I being stalked again?"
"No, you're fine. There's no Defcon 1."
"But something's off?"
"No, it's nothing."
Lex turned to her and fixed his intense gaze on her. "There's something, Chloe. I just want to know what it is. Did you and Helen fight?"
"Why would you think that?"
"She's been tense about wedding stuff all week. I assure you it's nothing personal."
"Actually, I think it's other stuff. I mean, she's my doctor too, which is weird. She's getting me to take more of an interest in my health, I'd guess."
"You almost died a few months ago. She'd be a poor physician if she weren't worried about you."
"I know. She's great, really."
He frowned back at her. "You and Helen don't get along, do you?"
"Why would you say that? Of course we do."
"You're a good liar, Sullivan, but I've watched the two of you. There's less tension between me and my father."
Chloe turned to him and it was then that she realized how close they were, practically touching. She swallowed but didn't look away. "It's a lot of things, some of them girl stuff, some of them not."
"What's the 'girl stuff?'"
Chloe swallowed again. The room seemed impossibly small around her. "She's jealous."
"Of you?"
"I know. It's crazy, right? She thinks that we're competing for you."
"That's irrational."
She nodded too vigorously. "Completely."
"I love Helen."
"Oh exactly and Clark's great."
"Yes, of course. He's like my little brother."
"Oh yeah, and Helen just has wedding jitters."
"I would assume so. Cold feet."
Chloe nodded again and she could feel Lex's breath on her cheeks. "Exactly, there's nothing going on here."
"Not at all." And then he was kissing her and unlike with Clark she wasn't scared, wasn't standing stock still. Clark was fragile and sickly, Lex had a white blood cell count even the meteor freaks in Smallville would kill for. He wasn't as easily broken. Despite herself, despite everything, Chloe reached up and drew him closer to him, leaning into the kiss as it happened.
Eventually, he broke apart for air.
She wasn't even gasping.
"Chloe...I'm sorry," he stuttered, stumbling back a few feet. "I didn't mean it."
It took her a few minutes to get her brain working again after everything that had happened. "What? No, oh, I'm the bad one. I'm supposed to be the Maid of Honor and look what I did. It's just finals stress and the last few issues of The Torch and I'm just not thinking straight. I...it's not a big deal. And I need to get going," she finished, rushing (human speed) to the door.
"Chloe, wait!"
"No, I've got to go."
And it felt like forever until she could get back into her car and drive home.
