I really liked writing this chapter and I hope y'all enjoy it! It's all Lex and Chloe, so I'm sure it will delight many :)
It was a safe place...well, as safe as either could guarantee. He needed to be sure that they wasn't being listened in on and she wanted to meet in a semi-public area for the obvious reasons. The park seemed like a good place to satisfy both requirements. She had checked the nearby bench for bugs nonetheless, but with all of the background noise eavesdropping seemed unlikely.
She waited for less than five minutes before he appeared. Per usual he was in an opposite state than she was, while she had her arms crossed and felt unfathomably anxious and overwhelmed with fear, her prior paramour was showing none of those insecurities. Lex strutted down the winding trail wearing a wide brimmed hat, a pair of loose fitting slacks and a jacket, seeing her before she saw him. Sunglasses were perched on his nose to complete the disguise, and no one bothered to cast him a second glance.
Chloe stood alongside the bench as agreed, hugging her arms tighter to her for warmth and in order to self-soothe. It was a beautiful day, but chillier than she had reckoned. Her heart was going a mile a minute, and it started doing cartwheels when she first spotted Lex approaching in the distance, incognito of course. It shocked her to realize that this was the first time she had seen him outside of a suit in the better part of a decade.
Seeing as he had the highest approval rating ever documented for a President, the possibility of being spotted was always high he needed to be incognito in order to keep any sense of privact. No one would expect that the head of their country would be stopping by a local park in Kansas dressed like a local with a poor sense of style, so at least he was safe from recognition for now. The moment their eyes met both of their spines straightened and shoulders squared simultaneously. No matter how hard she tried to deny it and avoid it, there was always a perceptible change inside of her when she was in close proximity to him.
He hadn't sounded surprised when she asked if they could meet, but she knew he must have been burning with curiosity. And she had no idea how all of this was going to play out, and she only hoped that it worked for the better. A folder full of photocopied paperwork was wedged inside the folds of her jacket, and as she started thinking about its contents it started to feel progressively heavier.
Clark wasn't happy when she told him where she was going, but he understood and didn't try to stop her. He understood the necessity and never questioned her loyalties. With every passing day she realized how very lucky she was to have him in her life, his unstinting support never ceased to amaze him. She knew that it was hard for him, but she also knew that he felt secretly superior to Lex when he was able to contain his disproval when Lex had always been utterly incapable of doing so. He trusted her, and though it was hard to resist the temptation to swoop in and save the day...and in the mean time killing or disabling Lex. But he had always been in control of that part of his nature, though it was admittedly more difficult with Lex involved.
Chloe was well aware the pains Clark had to go through to give her the privacy she desired, not using his extra senses to super spy on her. She felt a rush of emotion as she thought of this...if Lex had his ability, he most certainly would have used it otherwise and definitely upped the ante on her security detail and monitored her every movement.
When she bundled up to head out and into the park he had kissed her on the nose and pulled her to him, slipping a folder into the front of her jacket. "Be careful," he said, "I'll see you soon." He was prepping for their impending flight and the idea was terrifying. The end was in sight, and she could only hope that this meeting was going to work out in their favor.
He spoke first. "This is the first time I've seen you since…well," he said in an intentionally gentleman-like manner, as though too polite to allude to their last meeting.
"Since you assaulted me, cuffed me to my desk and then proposed?" she interjected helpfully.
He nodded. "Precisely," he smiled, "how did you get out of that little conundrum by the way?"
He was just asking to be polite; he had the surveillance footage and was well aware. "Lois."
Lex quirked his eyebrows, feigning surprise. "Not Superman? You didn't call upon him to rescue you from the clutches of evil?" She knew his game and simply smiled.
"He was busy." And that was a lie. She knew that Lex was trying his hardest to try to trap Clark in a situation to showcase his 'talents' in order to have some leverage against him and this would have been the perfect opportunity. Though he hadn't said it, she knew that her office had to be equipped with cameras. The very last thing they needed mere days before they fled the country was undeniable proof of his superior genes.
"How is Lois, by the way?" he asked.
She shrugged. "Good, all things considered. She scored my office and got a slight raise." As little as Chloe wanted to admit it, she knew that somehow Lex was to thank for that.
He smiled. "Was there a reason you called me here or did you just want to flirt?" Their exchange hardly counted as flirting but he succeeded in eliciting an embarrassed blush, which was clearly his main objective.
She opened her mouth to speak but he raised his hand to stop her. "I hate to set a poor precedent, but I need to make sure that you aren't wired."
She rolled her eyes and Lex took out what looked like a handheld metal detector and did a quick scan before being satisfied. "Of course I had men position a device to disable electronics in this vicinity, but it can't hurt to be doubly careful."
She rolled her eyes. "Of course, you're nothing if not efficient."
"I have a feeling that you don't mean that as a compliment," he said, feigning surprise.
She smiled in spite of herself. "And circle gets the square."
Chloe tossed him the folder and in his surprise he caught it. He weighed it in his hand, frowning theatrically. "What's in here? A very heavy letter of surrender?" he asked, flipping it open. She wished that she had a camera to capture the moment he realized exactly what it was that she gave him.
"Not exactly." It was hard to keep from sounding smug, but she succeeded rather admirably.
"What's this?" he asked, poring over the data with a growing expression of unease.
"The burden of proof. My leverage." He tore his eyes from the papers and fixed them on her.
He could hardly process it. "You found this...how? You really did it," he said shell-shocked. He couldn't believe it. She won, she thought that she won. She may have beat him...but her victory would be short-lived.
"Did you know that he hid all of that? Is that why you got rid of him?" Chloe asked just for the sake of asking. She didn't know whether he would respond.
He shook his head slowly, not bothering to contradict. There was no point lying now. "No, we couldn't trust him...Randall was starting to make waves, threatening extortion. I thought that...that they had handled it before he was able to get organized," he answered, stunned.
"You were wrong." He couldn't argue that. "How did this happen? Why'd Randall go to Lana so long after you two broke up?"
Lex gaped, leafing through the folder. "He didn't know about you, even after that abduction disaster he just thought that you were...with Clark and I never bothered to correct the impression," it must have taken some restraint, "but Lana was public. He must've went after her when he sensed the tide turning, after the Clark debacle. He wanted to go public, make a fortune with his findings but I kept stopping him. After I declared the project over he went underground, but he didn't stop.
"He periodically harassed me for years, but since he 'disappeared' he had trouble contacting me." Chloe was sure that Lex didn't make it easy, either. She could hear Randall's anger and frustration and when she listened to those tapes she could tell from the desperation in Lex's voice that he wanted nothing more than to just have Theodore Randall drop off the face of the earth and never bother him again. "I thought it would stop...but every so often I'd get another call, another letter," he said, shaking his head in disgust. "And when I started being groomed for the Presidency there was...pressure to get rid of him."
He saw her face contort in disgust and went on the defensive. "He was a nuisance and had already been living under the radar for years, operating some chop shop in Vegas. I...never ordered anything, but he just went away. He could be in Bora Bora for all I know." But there was no conviction in his voice. While he may not have approved anything, he hadn't objected, either.
She shook her head, but didn't bother to chastise him. He was more apt to respond if she didn't push his buttons. "I've given quite a few people this information and they won't act unless I disappear."
Lex nodded, looking tired and old. "What are you going to do?" he asked, caution coloring his tone.
"Nothing," she said with gut-wrenching sincerity, "I'm going away and as long as I'm safe and sound this will never get out." She was trying hard to keep everything in the singular, referring only to herself and not so much as alluding to Clark. It was the best way to go about wrangling his cooperation.
He stared her down, studying her face astutely. There was a look on his face that conveyed nearly unfathomable loss, as though he had just discovered that she was dead. After a moment, he nodded. "I believe you," oh joy. "But there are those who won't," oh boy.
He tucked the folder carefully under his arm and began to pace. "It was smart, but you've seen too many espionage movies," he said listlessly. She felt her heart stop for a long moment.
"It's not good enough. Those who I answer to aren't going to take that chance. They'll find you and they will kill you without hesitation, doing the same to those who you've communicated with. Maybe they'll brand them traitors beforehand, or they'll just disappear or be the victim of a mugging gone wrong but every last one of them will die. These people are not reasonable, they will see this as intent to reveal and they will act accordingly." Her jaw dropped and he pulled the information out from under his arm, flipping it open and skimming it hungrily.
"The fact that you know all of this," he said, brandishing the folder, "will just make it vital that you die. There's no bargaining. Lucky you brought this to me first. You didn't try anything yet, did you?" She shook her head, feeling suddenly lightheaded. She collapsed onto the nearby park bench and cradled her head in her hands. All that she had wanted was to create a reason for them to let her disappear, and as it turned out she had signed her own death warrant. They certainly would have killed her before, hunted and took her out mercilessly and she had hoped that this would change that, but she was wrong. She had seen this information in an entirely different light, but now that Lex pointed out the flaws in her logic she was dizzy from fear and intense disappointment. All of this...for nothing.
He stepped forward hesitantly, halting when she spoke. "What can I do?" Desperation was bringing her to despair.
"You mean what can you and Clark do," he corrected coldly.
She met his eyes unflinchingly, and even in this public venue she felt as though they were the only people in the park. She nodded. "Yeah, I guess I do." And she had been so careful to keep from mentioning him.
He frowned, and the lines etched in his face made him look years older. "I know that you think I'm a monster incapable of thinking or acting outside of self interest," that was a pretty apt description, "but you're wrong. I don't want anything to happen to you. You think that I always put myself before anything else, and that can be true, but for the longest time you have been the first and only thing I think about. Every time I see you it's like a light goes on..."
"Where are you going with this?" she asked wearily. She was sick and tired of hearing about how much she meant to him, especially now. She was as good as dead and all he could do was try to convince her of the sincerity of his regard.
He smiled humorlessly, equally tired. "I've said it so often that it's almost lost it's meaning, but I love you and I am ask...begging you to reconsider." She knew to what he was alluding, and it scared the ever-living daylights out of her.
"I'll level with you." What did she have to lose? All of their cards were on the table and further deception would get her nowhere. Withholding information would serve neither of them now and in a way it was freeing knowing that they could talk likes adults.
"I've never stopped loving you. Call it a character defect or pure stupidity, but there it is," she said and Lex felt his eyebrows raise involuntarily and his heart momentarily stop. She pressed on, ignoring his incredulity, "and you know me, you get me and you know as well as I do that I could never say yes to that. You knew it the first time you suggested it and you damn well know it now," she said as curtly as she could manage in her current state of paralyzing fear.
He pretended to consider this for a moment. "No, I didn't 'know' that," he said rather testily.
She raised an eyebrow. "Of course you did. What kind of woman could, in good conscience, agree to marry someone under the threat of death?"
"That's not what--" She cut him off.
"Of course it was, it was a scare tactic. But you could never entertain the notion that I would agree." She had him there.
"Fine," he said, "then forget about all that. Forget I asked." He dropped to one knee in front of Chloe and she looked away in embarassment, feeling a flush creep up her cheek. Some passersby paused for a moment and Chloe heard a jogger exclaim in joy at the seemingly romantic scene. Ha, if only they knew.
He reached for her hands and held them tight. "I don't want this to be the solution to a problem, I don't want this to be about the stakes I want you to be with me because you love me. You do, don't you?"
She forced herself to look him in the eye. "I do. You know it, I know it, hell, even Clark knows it! But so what? That ship sailed years ago. It doesn't change how I feel...even you killing a loose canon subordinate and plotting to dissect Clark like a frog couldn't change that." She freed her hands and wiped the tears brimming in her eyes.
He rose to his feet, a fleeting expression of pain and longing crossing his face. "Why not? Why can't it change? We could be happy, we would love each other I could...you could have everything you want." Except the one thing she needed.
She couldn't be enslaved, it didn't matter how nice her cage was. She would still be trapped in a life she was unwillingly thrust into, and she wasn't the type of person that could just accept that. Maybe it could be like he said, maybe it could be all right...but she would forever be a prisoner. It didn't matter what Lex's mysterious and nefarious backers did, she couldn't live the life she wanted and she wouldn't be the person she fought to hard to become. And that was only one of the more recent reasons on the mile long list titled "Why Chloe and Lex Can't Be Together."
He read her expression like a book. "We could have kids." Her eyes flew up to his face in shock. How was it that he was able to hone in on her latest insecurity? How could he possibly...
"Have you been spying on me?" she asked, her voice infused with anger and embarrassment.
He looked surprised and vindicated. "No, not recently. Other than the security detail, but you always have that." His tone was so matter-of-fact that she was overcome with the sudden desire to laugh. "Do you have anything to say?" he asked, clearly annoyed that she hadn't responded to his primary question.
She paused, trying to conjure up an intelligent response. "I can't do that," she said. Her voice betrayed her, and she winced at the pitchy crack.
"Could Clark ensure such a future?" he asked, tone dangerous and irrational. "Can he be there for you, have children, surrender his crusade for your well being?"
Chloe was careful not to gesture either way. "That doesn't matter. You need to finally realize that he has nothing to do with us, I know it's easier to pin all your frustrations on him but it's irrelevant." They seemed doomed to repeat the same conversation over and over again.
Lex paced. "If it wasn't for him we'd still be together, if it wasn't for him your life wouldn't be on the line!" He snarled.
"If it wasn't for you my life wouldn't be on the line!" she accused. "But I can't blame you, and I don't want to. If I had the chance to do it all over again, I'd do it exactly the same." She didn't regret loving Lex, though life would have been much easier if she didn't. It was a vital part of her DNA and without it Chloe didn't know who she would be.
"We could be happy." She didn't doubt it, if things panned out the way she had hoped they would all those years ago. They were a fine pair, equals, and if life hadn't worked out the way it had she knew that they would have had a life together. Clark would have been no competition. But it was irretrievable and irreversible, the past was the past, but she couldn't stop herself from thinking about what life would have been like if Lex had never betrayed her.
"We could have been," she edited softly.
He shook his head fiercely. "We still could be. Do you have any idea what you could do if you were my wife?" She felt a rush at the word but guarded her expression.
She needed him to understand, it was absolutely necessary that he take his blinders off and realize exactly what the stakes were. He was a highly intelligent individual, but he was capable of amazing feats of self-deceit when it fit his purposes. He wanted to believe that they could live happily ever after, that he and Chloe could somehow end up together despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He was the only thing standing between her and death, and she needed him to understand.
"Your friends don't sound like patient and trusting people. They'll kill me sooner or later, or at the very best they'll have me under constant supervision from here until eternity. That isn't a life, Lex!" she exclaimed. "Would you really prefer that I be with you and give up any meaningful future, surrender my free will and live on borrowed time?"
She needed him to recognize the facts, to see the big picture because it was looking as though he was her Obi Wan Kenobi...the only hope. The errant thought nearly brought a smile to her face at its pure silliness, but the severity of the situation stopped her.
This gave him pause for a moment. "No," he said, as though his answer surprised him.
Her heart jumped into her throat. She needed to strike while the iron was hot. "Do you think I'd be better off locked in a gilded cage with a lo-jack in my spine rather than being free to do what I want? Yes, I love you and yes if...if things were different I might entertain the notion of being with you but I can't even see it as a possibility." She was conflicted, but not indecisive.
He stepped forward, a mere foot away. A battle was clearly going on in his head and it took a moment before he reached a decision. Lex looked straight at her but seemed adverse to sitting.
"Is Lois involved in this?" he asked and she straightened her posture and tried to contain her reaction. That was quite the subject change, and Chloe was noticeably blind-sided.
"No, no, I'd never involve her in any of this." He believed her.
Lex shook his head, walking back and forth. They were lucky it was early morning and the park was relatively inactive or else the confidentiality of their discussion would be seriously impugned upon. "You need to give her this information. They'll figure she's in on it," he promised.
Chloe blanched. "I don't want to put her in danger."
His eyes snapped up. "You already have. Give her a transcript of this and she'll know what to do with it if the time arises." His willingness to share this incriminating knowledge with a prominent member of the media surprised her, especially seeing as it could spell his own doom.
He resumed his pacing, but limited the stretch in order to continue the conversation with relative privacy. "I'd tell you to go public but they're already watching you and they'll kill you if you even try. You've sent this to a lot of people, I gather. Senator Kent?" She nodded before she could stop herself. "Good, good. They'll be loath to go after her."
She was shell shocked. How could he be so desirous of spelling the end of his political career? It was impossible to not be affected by his eagerness and his willingness to assist despite her refusal. "What should I do?" she asked.
"What were you planning on doing?" Her innately suspicious nature made her pause at the question. Could he be just trying to get all of her information before he had her stopped or captured? Was his ultimate goal to thwart her and Clark's escape? But as she looked up at him, she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was sincere. She couldn't explain it, and if Lois were here she would find her absolutely mad, but she knew Lex.
"We were just going to leave, go to a different country, preferably one far away. I'd contact my people every two weeks for the first year, then a month, then two months…" she trailed off, studying his expression for any sign of deceit. He simply nodded. She failed to mention that it was Clark who would be doing the contacting, she was still married to her decision to keep Clark out of the conversation as much as humanly possible.
"Are you going to help?" she asked, forsaking the 'me' or 'us' for the sake of avoiding confrontation.
He looked at her for a moment, face void of expression. "Yes." Of course. He would never and could never do something that would ensure that harm befell her, even if he had the added benefit of ridding himself of the ultimate fly in the ointment…Clark.
She nodded, a wave of gratefulness washing over her. She hated being in his power, so weak and vulnerable but she and Clark had done all they could to try and guarantee their safety and there was nothing more that they could do. She felt oddly empty inside, she and Clark had worked so hard and exerted so much effort to find some sort of insurance so that they could safely get away and now she was forced to realize that it was all for naught.
The idea of looking over their collective shoulder for the rest of her life wasn't appealing, but it was better than unavoidable death. Maybe this hadn't all been a waste of time, it in the very least spurred Lex into action that would actually help her. Without some proof he would have certainly rebuffed her attempts, but when it came straight down to it he cared about her too much to ignore the truth. He couldn't avoid the truth now and he loved her enough to know that he couldn't entertain a course of action that would bring about the end of her life.
It wasn't as easy as Clark and Chloe had hoped...and they had been very pragmatic when considering it all. She had hoped that they could fly off into the sunset and never be found, but if these people Lex was so afraid of and indebted to had even half the resources he did they wouldn't last very long. And from his evident hesitance, Chloe knew that these men must have held a much larger stake than even he did. Without his help they were doomed...or at least she was. Clark could survive and endure, she would only slow him down.
One of the many things she loved about Clark was his loyalty and she knew that he wouldn't just accept the status quo. He would fight until the end for her, for them, and with each passing day she came to realize that she would do the same. Of course she had known that she would risk everything for him, but as they became more and more of a unit as opposed to two people she knew that she would do the same. Without the benefit of super powers, of course.
He finally sank onto the bench, leaving a fair amount of space between them, but they would both feel the raw electricity spark between them. The silence amplified the tension and to quiet the racketing in her head Chloe extended her hand and placed it upon his, squeezing. She didn't cast so much as a glance toward him, she was afraid of what she would see. She was grateful and confused and completely uncertain of the future, but it didn't matter.
Lex looked up at her in surprise and inched closer, arms touching. He gazed up and she met his eyes.
To the disinterested joggers and families milling around they looked like a married couple, comfortable in each other's presence and clearly in love without showboating or flaunting the fact. They emanated an aura of care and devotion as they simply held each other's hand and looked at the expanse of trees in front of them.
It was simple and it was forgettable for all who might have witnessed it. They sat there for some time, never doing any more but both reluctant to break the contact. It comforted them both and meant more than they would ever care to admit.
"Thank you," she said, and she meant it.
He clasped his free hand onto hers. "You're welcome."
Tell me what you think! I think I'm approaching the end...and I am very pleased with how it's turning out. I want to thank you all for being loyal readers and I couldn't ask for a better audience!