Everything In This World
By Viv
A long chapter this time around. Just popped up to say that life is not so gently squeezing every ounce of free time I have at the moment, so if you don't see a new chapter posted in the next week - don't panic. I will most definitely finish the story; it's just that I think new parts may take a bit longer than they used to, at least until Christmas.
And with that horrifying confession out of the way - Hope you enjoy this latest chapter! ;-)
*~*~ Part Thirty-Eight ~*~*
"It's raining." What had begun as a trickle had quickly upsized itself into a genuine storm and now seemed to be auditioning as a torrential downpour during a particularly violent early summer storm. Blinking miserably through the thick deluge, she wiped blond strands that were plastered to her face with cold fingers that could barely remember what it felt like to be warm.
Chloe watched as Lex raised his pale blue eyes to meet hers, blinking through the rain that now drenched both of them to the bone. "I hate to break this to you Chloe, but it's been raining for a while."
Despite her worry and the almost incessant tug of anxiety within her, she rolled her eyes in mock derision. "Thanks for the newsflash." She looked out to the rocky outcrop where Lex had fallen. "They should've been here by now."
"Relax." She felt him reassuringly squeeze her hand. "They'll be here."
Chloe sighed, hating herself for being unable to contain her worry. "I know. It's just - I feel bad. And not just for the mutant fish hunt thing." Lex grimaced as he attempted to chortle, which Chloe blithely ignored. She swallowed, feeling the timbre of her voice start to shake. "I ... it feels bad that you're hurt. Like if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be out here, you wouldn't be hiking because you've never been hiking and so you wouldn't be out here and now I'm sounding like I've totally lost it but I can't help it because you're hurt and I can't stand to see you hurt."
Her aching sincerity caught him unaware. She watched in wonder as his confident demeanour slowly dissipated before her eyes, his eyes flaring with sudden emotion in the torrent. "Don't." He whispered pleadingly.
Chloe looked away in confusion. Don't what? Don't feel like this was all her fault? Don't feel bad that he was probably having the suckiest time ever, owing to the fact that he had several broken bones that he wouldn't otherwise have had and probably a cracked rib or two or three, just to round off the funnest day ever in the history of Lex?
She let his plea drift into the darkness. Chloe felt the rain beating down heavily on her body, but she didn't seem to care. All that mattered was getting Lex to safety, mutant fish and meteor fragments and her guilt be damned. The wait seemed interminable.
"Still awake?" Lex's musing voice broke her out of her temporary melancholy.
"I'd hope so, if I were you." She bit back, her peaked anxiety making her tone harsher than she had intended.
"Good. I'd hate to think I was being deprived of your lively company."
Chloe expelled an explosive breath. "How can you be so calm about all this? Here you are, possibly on your way to a horrible, watery death and all you can think about is making small talk? I don't understand you Lex."
"Chloe -" He broke off, his grimace reminding Chloe of his currently injured as hell status. Sudden remorse welled up inside her, and she hurriedly shushed him gently with her finger on his mouth.
"Sorry, I shouldn't ..." Her voice trailed piteously off, accompanied by the cacophony of rain that currently seemed determined to drown them where they sat. "Does it hurt?"
There was a slight pause from Lex as if he was weighing her mood. Finally he said almost cheerfully, "Strange as it sounds, yeah it does."
"I kind of know how it feels." He looked up at her with incredulous eyes and she elaborated. "Chloe history reload? You do remember that I was actually thrown out of your ancestral castle, don't you? So I can say with absolute certainty that I may have some experience in the whole having broken bones, hurting like hell thing."
His laughter rang clearly in the darkness before it degenerated into a racking cough. Chloe looked on worriedly, the thought of internal injuries fleetingly crossing her increasingly panicked mind. Lex had always seem so strong, so confident and so determined that she had never contemplated the idea that he could actually be hurt. Not that she thought that he was some freakish humanoid incapable of sustaining normal injury or anything, but she had always thought him so impervious - despite all the times that Clark had rescued Lex from almost certain death. Maybe it had to do with the fact that over the past few months she had come to depend on Lex's presence in her life like she had never depended on anyone else's before, except maybe for her father's.
It was a confronting and jarring realisation for her normally independent self to stomach, especially in the middle of nowhere stuck in a torrential downpour with Lex lying so blatantly helpless by her side.
Not that she would ever have betrayed the thought of his helplessness with any outward signs. She had gotten that much from the past hour or two. Just as no one in their mentally competent mind would ever dare fling her maybe Lex dependence into her extremely independent face, she would never dare fling Lex's helplessness in the face of his, well, helplessness.
She pondered this as she made an internal resolution with herself. Firstly, behave like the cool, calm and collected in a crisis individual like she was not. Secondly, save the self-recriminations for later. And thirdly - help Lex.
In an effort to take his mind off his injuries, she said lightly. "So your name's Alexander Joseph huh? Weird. It's not very Lex-y."
She could hear him biting back a laugh, probably for fear of cracking a few more previously uncracked ribs. "Ah, yeah. I'm named after Alexander the Great."
"That conqueror who had the God complex? That's comforting." Chloe joked half-heartedly.
That brought an irresistible chuckle to Lex's lips. "I've always admired him to a certain degree. He conquered much of the civilised world at the time. He died young, but for the brief time he did live he was considered the most powerful man of his time. Some say he was the greatest General that ever lived."
"Oh." Chloe frowned, trying to dredge up hastily crammed facts from her mind. Whoever said dating was a distraction had obviously never heard of Lex. It was a constant challenge trying to keep up with his facile mind. "And ... you think that's cool?"
He smiled whimsically. "I think so. I've always said I wanted to do great things with my life."
"Power doesn't always equal greatness." She reflected almost to herself.
She felt him give a slight start under her. "That's true." He conceded, in a tone that made Chloe wonder whether she had actually imparted an original thought in there somewhere. "It's what you do with the power that matters."
They sat in silence as the rain drummed down. Chloe felt cold and miserable, and to say that she wished herself a million miles from here would have been the understatement of the century. She opened her mouth to bitch as much but was stopped short of actually voicing her discomfort by the thought that Lex was probably having a worse time than her, being injured and hurting like hell and all.
The wait took on a dream-like quality as Chloe lost all track of time. Time had either slowed to an imponderable crawl or had sped up in spurts and starts, because in retrospect she couldn't for the life of her recall how long she sat there with Lex's head cradled in her arms, waiting for Pete or Lana or the so-called cavalry to arrive and take her out of coldly drenched misery.
She stared sightlessly at the river rampaging next to them, and then the thought struck her - struck her so hard that if she hadn't already been hunched almost helplessly onto the muddy embankment, she would have promptly collapsed into an oddly hysterical Chloe heap. "Lex."
He shivered in her arms. "What?"
She gestured blindly to the water's edge as she swallowed down the rising bile of panic. "Water."
Lex's eyes widened as he took in the water level, unmistakably encroaching upon his sodden form lying prone underneath her. In fact, cloistered inside her self-recrimination and worry for Lex's state, she had obviously missed the what should have been unmissable eventuality that with rain came water, and with a lot of water came a rampaging river intent on drowning them where they sat.
Water now lapped at Lex's knees. For a moment Lex looked ready to give in to his panic, which almost goaded Chloe's barely checked terror to break free from her tenuous clutches.
Almost, but not quite. He swallowed down his panic, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he looked directly into Chloe's eyes, now brimming with frenzied tears. "Chloe, we have to move - now."
She managed a nod, but not much else. She would need the energy just to haul herself - and Lex - to some place other than here.
Chloe could honestly say that she had never been so scared in her entire life. Sure she had been the target of some meteor freak's crazy rampage before, but it had never shaken her this badly. When Shawn had gone after her in the school's swimming pool, or when she had been thrown out of Lex's study window, she had never had time to think about what was happening. It had all happened at such a frenzied pace, the images and pain blurring so indecipherably in her mind even now that she didn't have the time nor the inclination to actually be scared witless by it.
But now? She was scared completely out of her not so large brain. The gnawing fear probably also had something to do with the fact that, for once, she couldn't rely on anyone else - like Clark or Pete - to get her and Lex out of trouble. Not that she couldn't have escaped from the rampaging waters herself, but that would have involved leaving Lex to drown where he was, a proposition that had the distinct flavour of 'not in this lifetime, not ever' tattooed all over it.
It also probably had to with the clearly mind-numbing possibility that Chloe Sullivan - bumbling reporter to be extraordinaire - now had the sole responsibility of keeping Lex Luthor alive and relatively healthy, broken limbs and all.
Chloe wanted to retch so badly she could almost taste the extraordinarily large breakfast that she had ingested that morning and the copious amounts of coffee that she was sure was still resident in her blood stream, not to mention the delicious gourmet lunch that she had eaten just hours before.
She straightened, resolution and determination colouring her pallid features. She and Lex may drown, or they may be rescued at the last minute - but she simply would not run away from any responsibility. Especially responsibility for Lex's life.
"Okay." She muttered, almost as much to Lex as to herself. "Let's get you up."
"Chloe." Lex winced as she disentangled herself from him, gently resting his head on the ground before she dragged herself up. Instantly Chloe felt blood rushing back into her legs and she marvelled at the length of time that she must have been sitting there with Lex. Normally nothing could have convinced her to sit still for so long.
"What?" Suddenly every badly made 'people triumphing over natural disaster' telemovie that Chloe had ever watched insisted on flashing across her mind with the speed of a train wreck. What she wouldn't give now for a fittingly happy, soppy ending.
She bent down and grasped Lex under the arms, preparing to drag him to safer pastures - or in this case, muddier and less watery pastures. "Something on your mind? I mean, besides the fact that you might die here?" She asked absently.
"I'm glad you stayed." He said simply, looking wretched with pain and an indefinable something else at the same time. It made Chloe pause to realise that this must kill him - being out of control and hurt, and the helplessness that he must have been feeling. Not that he hadn't been in this position before, but it must have been a different proposition to be dependent on Chloe than say, Clark, the resident very much sung hero of Smallville.
But Chloe loved him. Which naturally meant that she had to do this, no strength and scared as hell and all. "It's the least I can do. Now shut up, I need everything I have to do this." She took a deep breath before dragging Lex, inch by pitiful inch, away from the encroaching water.
Lex's muted grunts of pain grated against her, but she steeled herself against them. Chloe knew that she would most likely break down if she let his obvious pain linger in her ears. That was one thing that she had discovered about herself from this whole experience - she couldn't bear to hear people in pain. Bloody deer carcasses she may be able to withstand with impressive indifference, but actually being in the presence of someone in pain? It made Chloe's head hurt to just think of it.
Finally after an interminable time, Chloe judged it safe to stop. Actually, it wasn't strictly due to her obviously unskilled judgment per se - it was just that it was physically impossible to drag him any further away from the rapidly rising water level.
She slowly allowed Lex's upper body to rest onto the muddy ground against the surface of the outcrop, sighing with pent-up relief. The wind lashed at her and the rain still beat relentlessly down on them, but at least Lex was safe from the raging river - for now.
She had never felt so entirely drained of energy in all her life.
"Are you okay?" Chloe asked, palpable anxiety coursing through her veins at the look of intense pain on Lex's face.
He winced, not even bothering to cover it up. "It ... pretty much hurts. I think this might qualify as a personal record. With the hurting." He gritted out, his teeth chattering uncontrollably.
"Here." Chloe retrieved the blanket that had been discarded when she had dragged Lex away from the river and quickly wrapped it around him again. "They shouldn't be long. Pete and Lana - I'm sure they'll be here any moment."
On impulse, Chloe lowered herself to the ground so that she was now lying beside him. "Chloe, I want you to promise -" Lex began solemnly, as she snuggled carefully even closer beside him.
"Remember the last time we did this?" Chloe interrupted bluntly, knowing full well where Lex had been heading. Lex was a member of the male species and therefore was painfully transparent at times, especially now as his pain seemed to have robbed him of whatever disguise he usually employed with his emotions.
He stubbornly pressed on, ignoring her efforts to change the subject. "Chloe, you have to leave when it gets too dangerous for you - "
"I know Lex. I know." She shushed him with the intense imploring look in her eyes. True to form, Lex was being the knight in shining Armani again, looking after her welfare long past the time when he should have been worried about his own health. The thought chewed at her insides, to think - and now know - that he cared about her that much.
There was nothing like the whole 'almost dying' thing to bond two people for life, she thought wryly.
She settled down as she carefully wrapped an arm over his chest, not entirely enjoying the sensation of mud squelching against her soaked body. She was also trying to keep her anxious wiggling to a minimum, although knowing Lex's more than playful sense of humour, he was probably enjoying the sensation a whole lot more than he should have been. "So I was saying in a blatantly obvious attempt to distract you from this sandbox of non-fun - remember the last time we did this mud wrestling?"
"As subtle as a sledgehammer Chloe, but I appreciate your motive." Lex said, in a gently mocking tone. "And bonus points for all that wiggling you're doing. But I don't think it was raining or this unpleasant the last time we did this."
Chloe's eyes shined through her worry as she cracked a brittle smile. "Well d'uh, we also weren't stuck near the rampaging river from hell."
Chloe sighed, nestling restlessly against Lex as they waited silently in the looming darkness. Chloe battled to not shiver violently against his body as the rain and wind whipped all around them, almost driving all coherent and sane person thoughts from her mind. She was also trying to forget the monumental fact that Lex was hurting and that it was partly - if not entirely - her fault that he would probably have to spend the first glorious months of summer recuperating from his injuries.
The roaring gurgle of rushing water grew increasingly deafening in Chloe's ears and try as she might, a rising clump of panic insisted on shadowing her like a particularly bad smell. If the metaphorical or physical cavalry didn't arrive soon - well, she didn't know how long she could remain this still and not scream out her frustration and thereby alarm Lex into catatonic pain.
She suppressed the unpleasant thought. Of course nothing unpleasant of the dying variety was going to happen to Lex. Sure he was hurt, but he would recover. She had it on good authority that Luthors were remarkably resilient in the face of broken bones.
Chloe sighed pitifully, unconsciously checking her wristwatch for the time. Of course, she should have known that in all the confusion and Lex getting hurt and the torrential downpour, her watch would have been broken and thereby adding to her already woeful woes.
Suddenly she heard rushing voices in the distance. Chloe quickly jerked her head up, naked hope flickering across her face as she tried to discern any man- or woman-made noises against the torrent of rain and water. She would absolutely murder her imagination if the faint voices she could now definitely hear were some crazy hallucination conjured up by her sometimes lame excuse for a brain.
Chloe waited with bated breath.
When she saw Clark's familiar form emerge from the solid curtain of rain and wind, Chloe couldn't decide whether to laugh hysterically or to cry even more hysterically. The pain and anxiety of the last few hours that she had resolutely squashed for fear of making Lex even more uncomfortable than he already was suddenly poured forth from her. It was all Chloe could do to keep from hurling herself into her friend's strong arms; only the need to help Lex to safety and specialised medical attention motivated her to retain her outwardly cool composure.
"Chloe! Lex!" In an instant Clark was by her side, his grey blue eyes looking anxiously into hers. As she broke out into an overly relieved smile, she was surprised to find tears streaming down her face.
Chloe figured that it was okay to indulge in a little over-the-top melodramatic water works right now. Clark Kent was here which meant - well, she didn't know what it meant, but her brain was vaguely telling her that since Clark was here everything would be okay, because Clark was a freakishly strong hero type guy who had a tendency to rescue people from life endangering situations and those said people had an encouraging propensity to live.
While Clark bent down and checked Lex for injuries, Chloe found her eyes darting wildly around, not knowing exactly what it was she should do.
But before she could sort out and categorise her rapidly tumbling thoughts, she saw Pete rushing quickly to her side, followed closely by Mr Kent, Lana and - Chloe's breath hitched with naked relief - her extremely worried and harried looking father.
"Chloe." He quickly broke into a sprint ahead of the others, reaching her, Lex and Clark first. Bending quickly to the ground he looked earnestly into her eyes, his arms trembling with profound relief. "Sweetie, are you okay? Are you hurt?"
Chloe shook her head numbly, looking at Clark then back at her dad while a cornucopia of barely checked emotions fought to explode from inside her. What could she say to him? Yeah, she was okay, except for the fact that she wasn't cradling Lex's head in her lap as some kinky fun activity thing, but because he was hurt and needed serious medical attention? And incidentally, the entire situation was all her fault.
So yeah, she was okay. Or more accurately, she wasn't okay at all.
Chloe waited patiently while her dad checked her over for injuries, her face surprisingly passive given the overwhelming relief that should have been adorning her face now that the metaphorical cavalry had arrived. She felt drained, like she had run the annual Smallville marathon, except for the fact that Chloe had never run that or any other marathon in her life, so she didn't really know what it felt like.
All she knew was that if it resulted in her feeling anything like the way she was feeling right now - that is, confused, fatigued and not really minding whether she dropped on the spot and napped for a few million years, pools of muddy water and rampaging river from hell and all - then it would make the happiest crazy girl in the world to never have this experience ever again.
Amidst the confused babble of voices from the suddenly overcrowded embankment, Chloe quickly jerked her wandering attention back onto Lex, suddenly aware that he hadn't moved or spoken or done any of those crazy moving things that most people did when they were alive.
"Lex?" Chloe asked anxiously, wondering whether it was entirely inappropriate to slap him a thousand few times to ensure that he hadn't drifted off into oblivion. His blue eyes looked wan but alert, like he was trying to conserve much needed energy. Or maybe just hanging onto the energy he had left.
She allowed herself to breathe again when she saw him blink. She almost wanted to slap him for giving her the slight hitch that would have triggered off the panic attack from hell, but held off on account of the whole being hurt thing.
Chloe also felt slightly put off by his freakishly calm demeanour. She opened her mouth to snark as much to him, hoping to jolt him into some red hot reaction and thereby keep his energy burning, but just at that moment his gaze grew unfocused and she had a feeling he was about to drift off into unconsciousness, which she remembered from TV wasn't exactly a good thing. "Lex?" She asked, the need to know that he was truly okay infusing her being.
"Told you they'd be here." Was all he said, before his eyes closed hazily.
"Lex? Lex." Chloe was about to go into full panic mode when Mr Kent gently prised her tightly clamped fingers from Lex's arm.
"Don't worry, we'll take care of him." Strangely comforted, and oddly knowing that she would be canvassing the absolute irony of the statement light years later, she nodded blankly at the older man as she allowed herself to be led away by her anxious father, who had helpfully procured a blanket from either Pete or Lana, and was now wrapping it snugly around her shivering and thoroughly soaked frame.
Bereft of her responsibility for Lex, she felt lost, dazed and confused. What was she supposed to do now? Where was her bag and the rest of her stuff? How did Clark and the others get here? How were they going to get Lex to hospital?
"Sweetie, it's okay." Chloe found herself looking up into the gentle strength in her father's eyes, those eyes that were at times confused by the incoherent rants of his slightly hyperactively paranoid daughter, but now were now so acutely focused on her safety and well-being.
Despite the rain and the uncomfortable squelching of the mud and rain as it rained down her form, Chloe launched herself into her dad's protective arms, letting the strain and tension of the last few hours pour forth from her like a breached dam. A single tear coursed down her face, followed quickly by another one and soon Chloe found herself weeping like there was no tomorrow.
Seeing Clark materialise out of the darkness around her and Lex had been magical. Seeing Pete and Lana and Mr Kent emerging after him had cemented in Chloe's mind that what she was seeing now wasn't some extremely realistic hallucination that her wacky mind had suddenly conjured up. But seeing her dad, standing drenched in the rain and tightly clutching a flashlight in his outstretched hand - that had been stark raving relief for Chloe.
"You're okay now, everything's going to be okay." He whispered as she buried her face into his arms, not bothering to hide the curiously high-pitched sobs that racked her trembling body.
Chloe soon heard the muffled roars of a MedEvac helicopter and she guessed that the stretcher that would winch Lex to safety was already being lowered. In another few minutes, Lex would be safe and on his way to Smallville General to the best medical attention that money could buy.
She gently disentangled herself from her dad's protective hold, throwing him a casual yet teary smile. Never let it be said that Chloe didn't appreciate the coolness that was her dad, although she still reserved her birth right of cringing at his truly heinous fertiliser jokes.
Her eyes automatically zeroed in on Lex's unconscious form as he was attended to, then strapped securely to the stretcher by the two paramedics that had hopped off the helicopter just minutes before. A brace was placed around Lex's neck while his vital signs were checked.
Soon the helicopter winched Lex up and after a breathless few moments, Chloe saw that he was finally inside the helicopter. Chloe blinked against the harsh glare of the lights as it took off, instinctively using her hand to shield her eyes from the rushing wind generated by the rapidly whizzing blades of the helicopter.
Chloe blinked at the blank darkness where moments before the helicopter carrying Lex had been. She felt empty, strained past all emotion and caring. But strangely, all she wanted to do was to find her way to Smallville or Metropolis General or wherever they were taking Lex.
Because one thing was clear in her mind as a fresh wave of determination washed over her - there was no way Lex was going to wake up without her by his side.
(c) November 2002