Everything In This World

By Viv

*~*~ Part Forty-Six ~*~*

Chloe leaned against the window frame as she gazed sightlessly out into the Kansas night. She blew absent minded spirals of warm air against the window, frosting the glass in front of her as she waited for Lex in the crystal silence of the fall night.

Chloe had rugged up to ward off the onset of the wintry chill, despite the momentous occasion of the night. The occasion being, the Chloe and Lex one year of having fallen in the mud together anniversary special.

It was definitely a plaque-commemorating, melt-worthy event.

She sat unmoving as a truck roared past outside, idly adjusting the gauzy sleeves of her shimmering, neutral brown dress, settling the delicious material against her smooth skin. To say that time had flown by like the hint of a summer breeze would have been the understatement of the millennium and therefore, greatly redundant. In fact, time for the past few months hadn't just flown by with the force of a breeze, it had jet-propulsioned by at probably close to - if not at the absolute - speed of light.

After the whole mutant fish hunt, Lex recovering from his injuries followed by them having emotional meltdowns all in the space of a two weeks thing, things between them had settled down remarkably well. Somehow, the force of the emotions from both her and Lex that had collided that night and produced emotional fireworks worthy of Times Square on New Year's Eve had ironically been the perfect therapeutic balm for the thousand little passionate anxieties that they had held in check for so long. That somehow, after releasing their inner most fears about their emotional dependence on each other that night, a barrier of immeasurable proportions had crumbled, leaving them weak and mewing like little baby lambs.

Okay, that last part wasn't strictly true, and it would have been a strange visual even if it was.

But the key point was - for there often was one, even within the convoluted ramblings of Chloe's mind - that they had attained a new level of closeness that hadn't been there before. Call it the unimaginative meandering of a slightly cliched-laden individual, but Chloe felt the truth of the knowledge resonate within her. That now, instead of being the billionaire-to-be and the ambitious reporter-to-be, they were just Lex and Chloe, dependent on each other for their small slice of happiness in this world, but comfortably so.

Chloe smiled as she tilted her face up to the moon. It was a calm and gentle night, the air full of the earthy deliciousness only evident in the wide open spaces that a small town like Smallville possessed. Far from being over-excited or anxious about the coming night, Chloe just let herself drift along the eddy of the blissful tranquillity of her heart.

* * *

Lex's eyes shone brilliantly, the candle light imbuing his pale blue orbs with more than a hint of warmth. "You look gorgeous." He remarked, the edges of his mouth curling into a deliciously devilish smile.

Chloe blushed before glancing down at her nervously twittering fingers. Even after an entire year spent being the lucky recipient of Lex's amazing variety of smouldering gazes and heartfelt looks, it always made her blush and wonder fleetingly why in all seven circles of hell Lex actually liked her. There was always that fleeting moment of 'would she actually wake from her dream this time', before the thought was resolutely pushed away by her tenacious consciousness that repeatedly told her that all this wasn't a dream. Because time still ticked along at its sometimes stately, sometimes frenetic pace, and she was still quite capable of feeling hurt and pain just like normal people in normal life.

It wasn't a dream - it was just a beautiful, pulsating reality.

She exhaled slowly, chuckling softly like a particularly deranged idiot. "Thanks. It's like, only the 267th time you've said that tonight, for which my under-primed ego is eternally grateful for. Not that there's actually a limit on the number of times you should say that to me. I'm personally hoping you'll break the magical thousand barrier mark before the night is out. They say it's never been done by a human being without the aid of an electronic device before."

Lex laughed quietly, reaching over the table to grasp her hand, his eyes twinkling merrily in the candlelight. "I think I can get a little more creative than that." He paused to allow the maitre'd to refill their drinks before continuing. "So, today - or tonight really - is a special occasion." He began.

"The spectacular occasion of me dressed in the most revolting clothes I own, foraging in the mud for non-existent meteor evidence and instigating the first mud bath you've ever had?"

"For easy reference, we'll just stick to one year anniversary."

"Of the Chloe and Lex travelling freak show." Chloe grinned, her teeth white and glistening against the darkness. "Okay. Continue."

"Anyway." He mocked glared at her as he leisurely sipped his red wine. "To commemorate the occasion - there's a poem by Donne that I've always loved but I've never really thought it could apply to anything in my life. Until now."

"I don't see where all the difficulty is in quoting metaphysical poetry around a fertiliser plant." She quipped. "Because it's just so entirely obvious that people around a plant should always speak in rhyming couplets."

"Donne didn't write in rhyming couplets, and you're sucking air out of my romantic sails. Can I finish please?"

Chloe straightened, wiping all traces of humour from her face. She waited patiently, her hands tightly gripping the edge of her chair in order to keep the fit of giggles that threatened to bubble up from within her and spill inappropriately over what should have been a very romantic moment. When had she gotten this irreverent about romance with Lex?

Since she had gotten so completely comfortable and unwary around Lex, her mind answered.

"Well?" She asked impatiently at the blank look on his face. "Don't tell me you've forgotten it?"

"Of course I haven't forgotten it." He snipped back. "Chloe, I'm sad to say that this is a serious romantic moment and you - gorgeous and creatively amusing as you are - are completely ruining it. When I said I wanted you to let me finish, I didn't mean for you to look so constipated."

Chloe gave a shriek of laughter before clapping a sheepish hand to her mouth, her eyes running over the other startled faces in the restaurant. It was inordinately funny - the idea of the heir to the Luthor billion-dollar fortune trying to be serious about his momentous milestone with his insanely inattentive girlfriend - plus the added bonus of having the word 'constipated' spill out from Lex's cultured mouth.

"I'm sorry." She impulsively launched herself out of her chair and gave him a quick kiss. "I'm just - I think my feelings are running rough shod around my body at the moment. It's kind of prompting me to do wacky things. I mean, more wackier than usual things."

"Like laugh at inappropriate moments in key romantic interludes."

"Well - yeah." She simpered. "But you still love me, right?"

He let the sparkle in his eyes do the talking.

"Okay, back to the point." He emphasised, trying to sound painfully annoyed but failing dismally. "There's a line in one of Donne's poems that perfectly expresses what I feel at this moment." He paused expectantly.

"And how does it go? Or is this one of those kinky games where I'm supposed to drag it out of you? Should I get a whip, and chains?" Her eyes flickered as Chloe fleetingly wondered how big the odds were that she wouldn't be able to understand the much touted poem. It was an awful thought, but Chloe wondered whether she would have to dig up some Cliff Notes lying around her room on the metaphysical poetry that they had to tackle last semester. She tacked a mental note inside her head and highlighted it in bright fluoro marker to try to find her notes when she got back home.

Chloe blinked, waiting patiently as she watched Lex stare into space. "Uh, colour me impatient but - did I just miss the metaphysical poetry express?"

Lex shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips. "Why do you do that?"

The grin that was already well on its way to gracing Chloe's features abruptly faltered. "Do what?"

The sparkle in his eyes dimmed slightly, the pale hue of his orbs darkening. "You retreat when things get too real. When things get emotional. You - for lack of a better expression - flip out."

"I don't flip out." Chloe retorted with unexpected emotion. "There has never been and will never be any flipping out from me - ever. I don't flip. Flipping is so not my style and besides, who's the kettle calling the pot black? You're not exactly Mr 'I'm fully in touch with my feelings' guy." With shaking hands she took a sip of coke, taking care to place it carefully out of throw's reach. "I mean, I admit I may ridicule your tendency to quote poetry at key romantic moments but that hardly constitutes flipping out. In fact, I don't think that's flipping out at all. It's more a gentle swaying and - why are you giving me that look?" She asked, annoyingly flustered for no good reason.

"What look?" Lex asked innocently, the tell tale twinkling in his eyes alerting Chloe to the possibility that Lex didn't feel as seriously about the issue as she had initially thought.

"That look that you do when you don't believe a word I'm saying. You know -" Chloe waived her hands about wildly, "you lean back in your seat and clasp your hands together and just have this total look and -" She forced herself to breathe deeply, the thought of hyperventilating in this exclusive Metropolis restaurant as unpleasant as over-grilled cheese on toast. "I'm flipping out big time, aren't I?"

Lex smiled a little whimsically. "Believe it or not, I think flipping out is good sometimes. It's ... probably a much more comfortable way to live in the long run."

"Than?" Lex looked at her in confusion, forcing her to elaborate. "Flipping out is good because it's probably a much more comfortable way to live in the long run than?"

"Than ..." Lex frowned as he carefully sipped his wine again. "Than keeping things in. Keeping emotions hidden, hidden so well within your psyche that even you begin to doubt the veracity of its truth. Until you begin to doubt that you ever had emotions ... doubt that you're even capable of having emotions."

Chloe looked down at her hands which were absently tugging the edge of the tablecloth, trying to gather the tenuous thoughts flashing through her mind as she groped for the right words. "Lex, I know you're safety guy when it comes to showing the strange deranged phenomenon called 'feelings', but you know you don't have to be that way with me, right?" He acquiesced, giving her a wry smile. "In fact, I'd go out on a very oversized limb and say that once someone gets to know you, you're not that way at all. I mean sure you may be slightly scary with the limitless reservoir of money and resources you have at your disposal, but it's pretty obvious that you're a normal human being underneath all that ... power." She let a sweet smile creep onto her face for a millisecond, before it transformed into one of mischievousness. "An unbelievably nice human being, although don't worry - I won't tell the simple town folk of this sad little fact. It may cause one too many coronaries and basically herald the end of the world."

Lex reached over the table and grasped her hand, his skin suddenly too warm against hers. "How can you be 17 and still understand things so clearly?"

"Maybe it's because I'm 17 that I can still see you clearly." Chloe rejoined, her heart suddenly hammering against her ribcage as she absorbed the intensity blazing from Lex's eyes. She didn't know how the conversation had suddenly made such a serious turn, but for a second she felt jolted with the sheer force of his emotion - his very real, mostly hidden feelings for her that he had suddenly allowed to come blazing forth. It made her hands shake even more, as if she had just been the recipient of a particularly intense lightning strike of the Lex variety.

She blinked, trying to clear the sudden haze clouding her thoughts, clearing her throat conspicuously. "Hey I wonder where my strawberry dessert thing went? Seriously, do they really have to handpick those strawberries right now or what?" She asked lightly as she playfully grinned, her fingers feather light as she brushed against his.

"I mean it Chloe. You're -" A waiter sauntered by, asking them whether they needed anything. Lex hurriedly waved him away as he smiled tightly at the interruption. "You're incredible and amazing and I don't think there's anything I can really say to make you understand how you make me feel. How ... how wanted and loved and needed." He reached inside his expensively tailored jacket, bringing out a beautifully wrapped package that Chloe thought defied all earthly description - and probably all heavenly description too. "I know the last thing you like about me is my money, so this - I didn't buy this." He slid the package slowly across the table, the pale intensity of his gaze never leaving her face. "It belonged to my mother. You're the first person that I could imagine giving this to and I want you to have this - to have something beautiful. To give you a glimpse of how I really feel about you ... as someone indescribably precious to me."

Chloe stared, ungracefully bug-eyed at the elegant package that he placed in front of her, her mind churning at well over a hundred miles per hour at his heart rendingly honest words. For anyone - stranger, friend or otherwise - to say all those things to her would have made her blush like a lobster with pleasure. But for Lex - those words coming from Lex, a man whose hard glances and unsmiling demeanour spoke of countless moments of pain and disappointment in his life - for him to have reached out, saying those words to her and offering a piece of his love of his mother to her - to Chloe that was the purest gift that he could have ever given her tonight.

She became conscious that staring unblinkingly at the unopened package in suspended shock was probably not the best way to show heart felt appreciation at Lex's words to her. Long and slim, even the dim-witted, extremely clueless part of her could not have mistaken the care that had gone into its wrapping.

She bit her lip as she slowly untied the ribbon, unwrapping the delicate emerald green gauze as if it was ancient treasure, unearthed from some ancient tomb for the very first time. Her heart was beating erratically for no sane person reason, causing her to berate herself for her extremely sentimental, un-Chloe like behaviour.

Her eyes flickered quickly to Lex's, who seemed entranced with the laboured work she was making with unveiling his gift. It seemed a little eerie - but in the good sense - that he was giving something that belonged to his mother to her.

Get a grip Chloe, she reminded herself. This was an extremely good, thoughtful, kind, unbelievably generous and what every sane girl on the planet would want kind of gift - and she was turning it into some huge, extremely boring and unwieldy production.

"I promise it's not going to bite." Lex joked, his eyes carefully surveying her less than ecstatic reaction.

"It's not that, I -" Chloe laid the box back down onto the table, accidentally running it against her glass, which produced a gentle clink as it collided against the delicate crystal. She winced. "The absolute undeniable truth about Chloe Sullivan is that I do tend to flip out when things get too close. When I'm ... feeling too much." She took a few deep breaths as her hand grasped the box again, nervously flipping it over in her hands. "It scares me - the way that you like me and show it and trust that I won't do anything typically stupid and I don't know how I'm anyone you can get excited about but you do and I really ... I really love you for it and I'm just scared that one day you'll come to your senses and see me for what I really am and then go away, because that's what people do - they go away like my Mom ..." She hastily wiped the stream of tears that were now trickling down her face, tears that were falling despite her innate stubbornness to not let anyone see. "She went away and I'm not cut out to have people go away. So in summary - I do tend to flip out."

Chloe bent down to retrieve her bag and hastily grabbed a Kleenex, dabbing at her eyes and hoping she didn't look like a deranged panda in the middle of one of the most exclusive restaurants in Metropolis. Lex looked on in compassionate silence, allowing her to gather her out of control emotions.

"Sorry for the meltdown." She said at last, grinning at her - for lack of a better phrase - psychotic breakdown. "You know me, I tend to - flip out. Way to spoil the night." She smiled wanly.

"I do know you." Lex replied gently, reaching over to trace the edge of her cheek. "And you know me." She laughed at his seemingly innocuous statement. "You haven't spoilt the night, you've enhanced it by being here."

He leaned forward and gave her a searingly warm kiss that took her breath away that she realised - a few milliseconds late - that drew the gaze of the entire restaurant to their table. But by then she was already a few million miles from caring.

Lex's lips against hers made her want to dissolve into a mass of warm and fuzzy jello goo. In the midst of the intensity of the emotions careening through her mind and body, she happily realised that all this emotion - those feelings that she and Lex had just shared - was a symbol of how much they truly trusted one another now. They were comfortable around each other and comfortable with sharing intensely felt emotions. Which was, Chloe guessed, truly symbolic of just what tonight meant for them rather than a date on the calendar.

At long last they broke apart, with Chloe grinning like a recently certified lunatic. "Ah - wow." She breathed, blushing several shades of red as she eyed the other patrons in the restaurant. "Again - wow. I feel like I should do a PSA. You know, something like 'kiss Lex Luthor - it's good for your health. You'd be swamped in no time."

"I wouldn't object to such blatant publicity." Lex stroked her upper arm softly. "I'll put you in touch with my PR firm."

"You do that." Chloe said softly, for once not giving a second thought at the power he had over her. Because she knew that the same applied for him - she had that unspoken but almost tangible power over him. The power to invoke or provoke emotions and feelings that went way beyond the normal course of daily life.

Their gazes remained locked for what seemed like an eternity, but what was in reality probably no more than a few Earth seconds. She chuckled appreciatively at the delighted sparkle in his eyes, giving her inner thanks again to whichever higher power was listening that she was allowed the extremely rare sight of seeing Lex's emotions as it happened. Which sounded like a particularly deranged reality TV show - 'Lex Luthor's Emotions - As It Happens, tonight on the WB'.

Chloe breathed deeply, willing herself to reign her emotions in to a more sedate and comfortable level. She was in a public arena with Lex - and she had to face it - in a city that was renowned for its voracious thirst for knowledge for all things Luthor. It was probably a good idea to tone down the free for all right now.

"So." She turned the still unwrapped package over in her hands, saying apologetically. "I didn't get you anything."

Lex casually brushed her apology off. "Open it."

Chloe untied the ribbon, flinging it impatiently aside before she quickly took off the gauze material to reveal a long, slim blue velvet box. She ran her hands over the soft velvety material, glancing once more at Lex's slightly rapped expression before continuing.

With hands trembling with emotion, she opened the box to reveal a gorgeously wrought necklace that glittered against the dark blue velvet that surrounded it, delicately inlaid with diamonds in a design so intricate that prompted Chloe to briefly wonder whether it would actually stay together when worn around an actual person's neck.

She smiled in wonder as she gently lifted the necklace from the box, her eyes saucer wide with disbelief. It was far too elaborate and beautiful for everyday high school wear, but even Chloe's less than elegant fashion sense had to admit that it was sumptuous and stunning and absolutely defied all earthly description, so Chloe refrained from further attempts to actually describe it to herself. To Chloe it looked like a remnant of some far flung, long lost civilisation, where people weren't people but ethereal beings full of beauty and light, who could perform miracles and an assortment of all other wonderful things that higher beings were supposed to be able to do, like walk on water dressed in flowing, gorgeous white robes.

"Lex." She breathed, the cynicism that usually coated her voice for once leaving no trace. "It would probably be redundant to say it's beautiful but," she gulped, taking her eyes off the necklace to gaze into Lex's dancing blue eyes, "it's beautiful. And gorgeous, spectacular, description defying and probably a lot of other words I can't think up right now. Although," she joked, her eyes annoyingly misty. "I'm not sure what Dad's going to do with it. Probably drive it straight to Smallville Savings and Loan and stick it in a strongbox, thereby making sure I won't see it until I'm 21."

"Don't stick it in Smallville Savings and Loan." He replied, a wry smile gracing his features. "Dad owns it, and I'm not sure how I'd feel knowing he has possession of something like this. But do you like it?" He asked abruptly.

"Do you even have to ask, being an annoyingly knowledgeable Luthor and all?"

"No." He slid his hand over hers, caressing the palm of her hand. "But I'd still like to hear you say it."

Chloe gaze dropped, flickering over the necklace before she sought his eyes again. "I love it. And in the interests of making this a special occasion - I love you. I really, really do." She cleared her throat as she felt the beginnings of a spectacular blush paint her cheeks. "But don't expect such a blatant ego boost every day. I'm so not the right person to give it."

"You're exactly the right person Chloe." Lex replied, his pale grey blue eyes flashing with so much feeling that almost knocked Chloe off her chair.

The words and the emotion that they had surrounded themselves with tonight evoked such an ethereal feel about them that Chloe felt herself momentarily transported to the fairy incandescence of some magical place that contained purely them. And as her hazy, happiness seduced mind reflected, life probably couldn't get any better than this.

(c) January 2003