Part 10 The Scientist
iCome up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are/i
It was with something close to reverence that her trembling fingers traced the name on the marble. Chloe tried to swallow the lump blocking her throat, but it felt so heavy that she could do nothing but try. Chloe placed the flowers that she had brought with her in front of his name. The tears that flooded her eyes flowed freely down her cheeks.
"I'm so sorry, Eric," she choked out.
When his name left her lips, Chloe sobbed and it was hard and noisy and racking. She wrapped both of her arms around herself, hoping against hope that she would calm down and that she would not break here. Since her escape from her life with Lex, Chloe had been unable to come back to her son's grave.
She looked up at the porcelain angel looking down at her from the top of Eric's name. She could not meet its eyes. Chloe looked down and through her bleary, tear-muddled vision she saw the droplets of her tears darkening the floor.
"Eric," she whispered. "Mommy's so sorry she abandoned you here."
iI had to find you
Tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart/i
Lex had not been to see her son, she was sure. When she was around she made her frequent visits to Eric's grave alone. Lex had drowned himself in his job and abandoned their son even before she did. It was not surprising that she would find out now, given the dust that covered Eric's marble memorial, that Lex had run away even before she did. Her eyes wandered briefly towards the place right beside Eric's, where her name was placed in gold cursive letters.
Her eyes fluttered closed. "Lois," she said softly. "I'm sorry I couldn't even give you the memorial you deserved."
She had screwed everything up. "What was I thinking?" Her shoulders shuddered with her grief. "Did I think that I could slip away every day for the rest of my life to visit my son without anyone knowing about it? Did I really believe that this would work, and I would live with Lex forever without his finding out who I am?"
She looked up again at her name. Below it, right under the date of her birth and the date that Lois died, was one word – Beloved. Torn between two severely opposing positions on the case, Chloe wondered if she really even wanted to hide who she was anymore. Beloved. And then she remembered how life with Lex was, of mornings when she would wake up to find him gone, of days when he would beg off from visiting their son, of nights she spent alone crying herself to sleep and midnights when she would wake up to find his hands all over her body and hear him whispering in her ear, pleading her to tell him that she was never going to leave.
iTell me your secrets
And ask me your questions
Oh let's go back to the start/i
Tomorrow it would be the fifth year anniversary of the night in the castle when Lex had taken her in his arms and promised a lifetime of happiness. That was the night when she agreed to be his wife. Thinking back, Chloe marveled at how, as intelligent as she was, she had been so gullible as to think that a ring and a promise ensured that life would be paradise.
But when she replayed the moment in her head, Chloe could see it clearly still. She remembered the earnest way that Lex had given her all those promises, and the tender sincerity that accompanied his voice when he told her that she would make him the happiest man on earth if only she said yes.
Back in those days Chloe had no goal other than to make Lex the happiest man on earth.
Could they have both been victims of events in their lives that controlled their choices.
"Lex didn't start out like the man that he turned out," she murmured.
Then again, she thought, neither did she.
Chloe wiped at her cheeks and dried her palms on her skirt. She stood up on the tips of her toes and placed a kiss on Eric's name. "I love you, baby." She turned around and walked towards the direction from which she came in. Chloe stopped in her tracks at the steady sound of footsteps.
iRunning in circles
Coming up tails
Heads on a silence apart/i
There should have been a hundred moments such as the one that he was about to experience, Lex thought to himself as he parked his car in front of the wide grassy expanse that he had last visited two years ago, in a time devastating to both himself and Chloe. The last time he had been here, dozens of photographers lined the cordoned plot, and hundreds of LexCorp employees crowded to show their support. He had held himself well, his only focus to remain in control the way Chloe was not. For each tear she had shed that morning, Lex returned with a firm hand on her elbow, straightening his stance so that no one else would be privy to the desolation that only parents could feel when they lost a child. He should have been back, even if it was for that one time when another member of his family was immortalized there.
It was a visit he would have escaped has Lois not put her foot down and told him not to take her to the Daily Planet. He was free, he realized when he woke up this morning. He had been freed from the dark rails that had been surrounding him since his son died. Even so, he knew that he would not completely be able to go back to his life if he did not come back here.
Today, as he walked across the grassy lawn towards the mausoleum, Lex prepared himself to see Chloe's name on marble for the first time. He let himself into the cold building. As he passed the names of the Luthors who had come before him, Lex skimmed through. He paused for a moment in front of where his mother rested, then swallowed. Eric was at the end of the first aisle. Right beside him was a marble slab that held Chloe's name. He was a coward. He knew all these but had never been there. Even the print on the marble had taken him seventeen days to send out.
iNobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard/i
When Lex got closer to Eric's grave, his eyebrows furrowed at the sight of fresh flowers sitting there. He looked around for anyone who had just left, but found the place empty. His shoe slid on something on the floor. Lex looked down to see what looked like teardrops.
And then he heard the sound of heels as the visitor started running. Lex started after the noise. He saw the flash of dark hair round the corner, and Lex took a shortcut through the hall where his grandparents lay. That was when he saw her silhouetted against the bright noon sun.
"Wait!" he cried.
She whirled around and stopped, her features shadowed with the sun behind her. Lex registered the shape of her body and the dark trim of her work clothes, and he could swear for that one split second, he thought he was seeing a ghost.
iOh take me back to the start/i
And on that moment he was as frozen to the spot as she was, as he took in the silhouette that he had dreamed of seeing again, if only for one more time. It was the same silhouette that he had become used to in the early days of their relationship, when after a long night in conference calls he would stay in bed and she would get ready for the office. She was always running late. On those days she would give him a quick peck on the cheek and run to the door. Always, when he called out to her, he would say, "Love you, babe."
Right at the door she would stop and turn around, then smile at him. He knew she was smiling even though he could not really see. She would be standing against the light, and her silhouette would be etched in his brain even as he drifted off to sleep again.
iI was just guessing
At numbers and figures
Pulling your puzzles apart/i
"Lex," she said breathlessly.
"Why were you running?" he asked gruffly.
"Because I'm expected at work," was her simple answer.
He walked over towards her. "Is this why you didn't want me to take you? You didn't want me to know that you'd come here?"
"I didn't see the need to unearth past hurts."
He nodded. "Be careful, Lois."
She turned around and walked away from him. Lex watched as she grew smaller and smaller in his line of vision. He watched her get into the car and leave. Only then did he turn around and walked back inside.
iQuestions of science
Science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart/i
He stood in silence in front of his family. If someone told him five years ago that he would have had a son and Chloe Sullivan as his fiancé, he would have grinned, because it was exactly the future that he had planned. It was certain it would come true, because he wanted it. However, if someone had told him that this would be his future—standing in front of their graves while the woman he despised for Chloe's death would be living in his apartment, haunting him with her presence—he would have attacked him.
He said nothing. People said that it was best to walk even to your dead. It allowed you to unload some of the burden in your heart. Lex had nothing to unload anymore. He only had a wish.
If it was impossible, then it was best not to say it.
iTell me you love me
Come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start/i
He stayed for an hour, then as silently as he came, he left. He got into his car. Despite Lois' words not to handle a car, Lex found himself able to drive around with some pain that he could grit his teeth through.
He was not going to do it. It was pathetic and a step back in his progress. Still he found himself driving down a familiar road. He stopped in front of the building and pressed the same familiar floor.
iRunning in circles
Chasing our tails
Coming back as we are/i
When he got off the elevator, a hushed murmur came in the room. His eyes searched for her and he walked over. Clark stood right beside her, and Lex shut out his presence. When she finally looked up and saw him, Lex could not help but drink the sight of Chloe's green eyes.
iNobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part/i
"Tomorrow," he rasped.
Chloe nodded, knowing what he needed, needing to hear it from him.
"Tomorrow is an important date in my life," he told her. "I'd appreciate it," he managed, "if you can keep me from spending it alone." Lex swallowed painfully.
Tears filled Chloe's eyes. Asking for someone else to help him through a tough time… it was something her Lex never did… could not bring himself to do.
iNobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard/i
She gave him a bright smile. "I'll stay with you tomorrow, Lex."
iI'm going back to the start/i
tbc