Typhoon – Chapter 10
"Chloe," Lex started in as she flung his hand off her arm and reached over and honked the horn in the car repeatedly. Seeing the side door open, she opened her car door.
"Excuse me! I don't know your name but if you wouldn't mind giving me a hand into the house, seeing as I guess I am now stuck here." Chloe held her hand out of the car and balanced on Charles' arm as he looked at his boss confused. Lex just waved him off silently and got out of the driver's side alone.
Leaning on Charles' arm, Chloe made her way through the house she had already been in once. Not even looking back over her shoulder at Lex as he moved the bags into the more sturdy structure, she limped along with Charles to a room she didn't remember and was completely devoid of windows. Chloe sat down at the small table and peered at the walls. The man had a wine cellar.
Lex followed them into the room and shut the door before turning on the lights. Chloe stared at the one wall that was racked with wines, another wall with a full kitchen and Murphy bed, and a cooler she could only imagine was stocked for the duration. "Sir, I'll be in my quarters," Charles stated as he turned to another door.
"You're going to make him go back out in that?" Chloe was livid at Lex's ability to blow off his help.
Lex slunk into the couch across the room as the lights from the generator were starting to finally kick in. "No, he has another room down the hall. I had a few modifications done, including this and a couple of other rooms that disappear into the side of the island. Modeled after fort here."
Lex sat and stared at Chloe as she continued to fidget in her seat, rubbing her hand along her ankle. She dared not to make eye contact with the ass that obviously was the reason for her being disconnected from the world for a month.
"Are you hungry?" Lex asked wondering if Chloe would even acknowledge him. He opened the cooler and pulled out one of the ready-made sandwiches, knowing to conserve the generator as much as possible. Mulling over his choices, he pulled two out and laid one next to Chloe on table.
She stared at the obvious peace offering and picked it up. Watching her flip it around, Lex hoped he had made a good decision but saw very differently when the sandwich went whizzing back into his lap across the room. "Chloe, you've got to eat."
She limped over to the cooler, turning and pointing at him with a determined to kill him look on her face, and pulled out a bag of frozen vegetables. Limping back over to the table, she rearranged the chairs and propped her foot up with the bag on her ankle. Digging into her backpack, she pulled out a granola bar, water, and a book.
"So, this is how you're going to handle this. Chloe, just let me explain." She could hear the pleading in his voice and could tell by his stance that she could see his feet were in, he wanted to apologize. He had broken her trust in him though. He had violated her by taking her things and lied to her about owning the place.
And to think she was ready to tell him that she was falling in love with him. That she would happily accept almost any deal to stay with him on a more permanent basis. She had no desire to return to Smallville, but she thought she had a legitimate case for him to stay with her. He was a different person on the island, or she once thought.
Now, he was just Lex Luthor all over again. Always with an agenda. He probably took her laptop and phone wanting to know what exactly she had been doing on the island the whole trip. And to think that she had opened up to him. "Chloe," she heard again.
"Shhhh." She spit across the room as she raised the book higher in front of her face. She knew the conversation was going to have to take place. Conversation my ass, she thought. It's going to be a brawl. She wanted to rip him apart for deceiving her.
***********
"Is it still raining?" Chloe asked as Charles emerged from the door leading to the outside world. The highly effective digital clock in the wine cellar/safe room showed that only a few hours had passed in the day.
"Yes ma'am. Can I get you anything?" Chloe looked around noticed the defrosted bag of peas and pointed at her leg. Charles smiled and quickly removed the vegetables. "If I may suggest, your skin is starting to turn, and you may be giving yourself freezer burn."
Chloe leaned over and touched her ankle. "Yeah," she said as she poked it a couple more times and felt nothing. Her ankle was completely devoid of any feeling and bright red. Charles watched and placed a blanket underneath and then turned to Lex. "Thanks."
"Anything right now sir?" Lex had watched the entire exchange with Charles and Chloe. Lex just eyed his servant and nodded his head. Chloe, meanwhile, disappeared again behind her book.
The two sat in silence and listened to the small radio play hurricane warning and updates over and over until Chloe had memorized the report for the last few hours. The woman from CNN actually had said two days. Chloe glanced over at the clock again and rubbed her hands through her hair. Silence for two more days. She was Chloe Sullivan, and beyond anything, that wouldn't happen.
"I am SO pissed at you. You were the asshole on the other line that took my computer and phone!" Chloe pulled her foot off the chair and balanced to stand higher than him. "You know how important those are to me!"
Lex said nothing, but not for the lack of words. He wanted her to be able to finish and get out whatever had been building in her system. He simply nodded yes and for once thought playing the normal husband role of staying quiet would do him more good than harm.
"I couldn't call you or email you or talk to anyone on the outside. I know surprisingly enough, I have enjoyed my time here but that doesn't mean I was ready to go live on a deserted island void of human interaction." Chloe started spinning her story in circles. She yelled and screamed and walked in small limping circles.
"You had Magnil, Safina, Don…you had interaction." Lex kept his eyes low and watched her as she continued to move, wondering when she was either going to explode or fall.
Chloe raised head and huffed. "YES! But not with the outside world. I mean this place as wonderful as it is only took a few weeks to either get the same as everywhere else or you disappeared into it so fast you couldn't find the real world again. I needed that connection."
"Why? It's not as if you talked to anyone else." He caught the glare that Chloe shot him. She knew he had checked her old phone calls and her Internet history. "Your best friends were completely ignored." She hated Lex when he was calm. She should have just continued yelling at him in the car. He was making having a fight difficult.
"You just don't get it," she screamed, throwing her hands up in the air. "I needed that … that link to something familiar that wouldn't piss me off or make me hate myself or make me feel guilty." Lex watched her flail her arms around as she tried to find the words to explain her reason for the technology need.
Standing up and edging toward her, he didn't want her to fall and hurt herself. He placed his arms around her shoulder and tried to draw her in. Chloe wriggled out of his clutches and slapped him across the face.
"Chloe, what the hell?"
"Quit saying my name like that! And don't try to comfort me – you …"
"What? Chloe?"
"QUIT THAT NOW!" Chloe hobbled across the room and picked up the wine bottle that Lex had slowly been nursing over the last couple of hours. As he approached, she waved the half empty bottle at him. "You come near me, so help me God, I will make sure there is only one person in this room to eat all that food!"
Shoving his hands in his pockets, Lex nodded and tried to keep the small smirk from appearing on his lips. "Have some more," was all he could say without suggesting a drunk Chloe would be more reasonable.
"Fuck You!"
"I would love to," Lex let slip from his lips and quickly looked up as Chloe caught it. She took several more swigs and stared at him. Her body suddenly felt warm and even more angry.
"God, you are SO freaking infuriating! Why don't you let go of your damn balls and argue back you sissy? You took my damn computer to spy on what I had been doing? FINE! I haven't been able to give up EVERYTHING that my high school life was about. I even asked about working at the goddamn newspaper here where I could write about the latest cruise ship arrival or hurricanes, not that I can see much through the fucked up wine cellar that is my grave apparently."
"Chloe, we're not going to die down here." Chloe twisted her neck around again and headed back over toward him, swinging her fist in the direction of his jaw. Her eyes flared when he caught her hand and dropped it. "Quit hitting me."
She pulled her hand from his grip and snarled at him. He was a pain in the ass, impossible to argue with. "You're an ass."
"Good, we've come full circle." Chloe glared at him silently. "So, really, why are you so angry? I took your computer and phone from you. I would have done it to anyone breaking into the house."
Chloe turned and threw her hands up in frustration of the circle she felt they were creating in the conversation. Firing off words faster than her brain could process, Chloe continued to ramble in a scream. "But you know they were MINE! You knew who they belonged to – you knew that if I didn't have them, we couldn't talk to each other and I would go crazy because I …"
"What?" Lex whispered, still cautious after being threatened with a wine bottle.
Chloe stared at him, "I fucking missed you ok? Of all the damn people in Smallville, I missed you – you and I had a connection that no one else attempted with me and everything was going so perfect having your emails to look forward to and phone calls and you cut me off!"
She watched Lex continue to stare back at her, waiting to see what else she would say. He wasn't going there, where she wanted him to go just yet. He had missed her contact too. The weeks that they had not spoken his secretary, poor woman, spent more time planning his trips out of town and away from his computer at the mansion for a reason. He couldn't stare at his email icon and refresh all night long.
He had started it as a game and somewhere along the third day, he wished he could have done things different.
Chloe watched as his gaze went from her to the floor. More anger welled up inside of her, disturbed that he was being so callous about the whole event. She ran her hands through her hair and leaned against the opposite wall, not daring to sit down and give him the upperhand.
"So, from that expression, apparently my needing to hear from you meant a hell of a lot more than the other way around. Well, thanks for that. I left Smallville to get away from people making feel like crap and the crap followed me after all!" She huffed and turned away, spinning one of the wine bottles on the shelf to see the label. "And to think I thought I had fallen in love with you," she continued and hitched a breath. Closing her eyes, she beat her head against the butt of a bottle. "Crap," she whispered.
Lex's eyes shot straight ahead as his heart started to beat out of his chest it seemed. He approached her, still keeping his hands in his pockets. Staying a clear foot from her, he could still duck if she swung at him. He couldn't decide on the phrase that would get him least likely injured. He closed his eyes and hoped the side of a wine bottle wouldn't break his cheek. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
"Heh. Just get on your damn jet when the rain blows through and get the hell out of my life."
"I can't do that Chloe," he whispered over her shoulder, taking another step closer.
"Why? Afraid your little mansion on the island will be exposed to the public if you leave me and I take my revenge out on you?" Chloe bit out, trying to gain her hardened composure.
"No, I was referring to my heart." Chloe turned and looked at Lex, still with his hands in his pockets.
"What?" she bit back.
Lex stood still and watched her eyes continue to blaze with anger. The worst that could happen was that she would just reject him for being scheming and he would leave. Leave and never be able to fall again.
Pulling his hands out of his pockets, he rubbed them together carefully as Chloe noticed the uneasy move. She lowered the bottle to the chair and stared at him. "I played with your heart and I ended up getting burned."
Chloe threw her head back in frustration. "Look, I'm not interested in your games or your devices or your schemes. I left to get away from all that crap. I'm tired of all of it, so say what you need to say and just leave me alone." She watched Lex's hands as he still nervously interlocked his fingers, wringing them repeatedly. Breaking eye contact with her, he dropped his eyes to her throbbing ankle. "Fine."
Chloe hobbled past him to the small bed. He turned and watched her start to arrange the pillows to sleep. "Fuck it," he whispered to himself as he grabbed his temples before walking over and pushing her back against the pillows. "You want me to say it?"
Chloe stared up at him and didn't move, knowing she couldn't with him holding her in place. She watched as his jaw move as if words were trying to be formed by a former mute. Changing his tactic, he plunged his lips onto hers and felt her fight underneath him and then her mouth open to his. Refusing to deepen the kiss, he pulled away and looked at her eyes. Tears rolled out of the corner of her eyes.
Her lip quivered with the sudden taste of him and the instant pulling away when she was about to give in. Her mind raced wondering if that was her last taste of him when she heard him whisper as he wiped her face, "I'm sorry. I just…" He didn't know how to finish it.
Chloe watched his mouth try to form the rest of the sentence. Touching his face with her hand, she bit her lip to stop the almost nervous quivering. Closing his eyes to her touch, he thought about the one four letter word that gave him so much grief.
Seeing her face, he swallowed, "I love you Chloe Sullivan."
TBC