TRUTHSEEKERS

Part 17

"Of all the jackasses in school, you're the last one I ever expected to reform," Bruce told his companion as he lifted his champagne glass in a mock toast. "I never figured you to go into this much trouble, Luthor."

Lex waved away the compliment-laced mock insult. "You're gaining a lot in this deal, Wayne, so don't piss me off," he advised his old friend.

He watched the people mill by, spotting several of the Gotham women eyeing the two of them with interest. He was used to these affairs, and to this attention. Where once he would have approached the one boasting the most luscious figure, Lex nodded curtly in dismissal.

After her, no one would ever come close to a comparison.

"Why don't you mingle with a few of my guests? It's been a long time, Lex. Gotham misses you, I'm sure."

Lex tipped the glass to his lips, his ennui apparent in the lazy way he leaned against the wall. "Any city I've ever been to would miss me if I so much as blink, Wayne." He informed his old friend arrogantly, making sure to say the exact words that would hide the fact that the years have changed him. His change was a vulnerability, one that he would not reveal to even Bruce Wayne. "Is there not even one woman who doesn't appear like a vapid statue in this affair of yours?"

Bruce's eyes wandered through the faces gathered in the room. A few years ago, most of the faces and bodies in this party would have made Lex hot and ready for wild nights. From the corner of his eye, he studied the Metropolis native again. He had matured years since they have been together last. It was not only in the features of his face or even the choice of clothing. It was not even the fact that he was remaining sober, nursing the same glass of alcohol that he had been holding for most of the half hour he had been there. The old Lex would have run through about four to six glasses by this time. No. The difference in Lex showed lucidly in his eyes, in that sharper and more intense regard he had for what was going o in front of him, even through that veneer of carefully cultivated interest.

"Well there are a couple of women here tonight who would pass the litmus test of actually having something inside their heads. Unfortunately, they're both missing at the moment."

"What did you expect? Of course fate would mock me by hiding the females who can actually talk without stumbling over their words. Life's cruel like that."

Bruce's gaze shifted back to Lex, who despite the sneer on his mouth appeared convinced that the hands of fate really were against him. He could not blame the man. He had had a lot happen, and if he bore any doubt about how he had according to the papers fallen in love in Metropolis, it was gone now. How unfortunate that he never even got to meet the woman who managed such an incredible feat.

And then he realized something all of a sudden. Lex had lived and breathed Metropolis, Kansas before and after his exile in the sleepy town of meteor rocks. "One of my guests may actually be familiar to you," Bruce told Lex. "I'm sure you've read an article or two by Lois Lane."

That caught Lex's full attention. He turned to Bruce. "What could she possibly be doing here?"

The dark-haired businessman shrugged. "I extended a special invitation. She's an acquaintance."

Over Bruce's shoulder, another flash of gold caught his eye. Lex stiffened and felt his throat constrict so tightly he choked. Bruce had seen his disconcertment and turned around, effectively blocking Lex's view. Bruce excused himself from his companion. "Well, I should leave you to mingle for a while. If I can get them to meet you, I'll be right along."

When Bruce Wayne moved away to go to the windows, the figure had vanished. His grip of the champagne flute tightened. "God," he whispered, "I am going insane." He closed his eyes and took deep breaths to calm his racing heart. He kept seeing her everywhere he turned. Had this been a ghost, he would have welcomed the haunting. Anything to be closer to her, even if it were her restless spirit. How a man could be so selfish as to wish that a woman he adored above anything would suffer eternal unrest was beyond him. But maybe this was just who he was. He would gladly live and breathe Chloe Sullivan's scent, ghost and memory if it meant that he would never be alone again.

But Chloe was not dead. She was out there, unsafe and probably despising him for every sin he had committed borne of his obsession. The way his heart kept leaping at every blonde head and small shadow since his arrival in Gotham was as unhealthy as his insistence that she be kept alive in a freezer.

It was unhealthy, but it was the only way he could keep himself from slipping into a living death.

~~

Chloe stood alone in the balcony, needing the time alone after her conversation with Bruce Wayne. He had urged her to come into the party, and she was well aware that the reason she was here was to interact with the guests. This was her job in Wayne Enterprises, and it was a job that she enjoyed and excelled at before tonight.

She and Lois have been gregarious until Bruce Wayne had come out of nowhere and taken her aside.

"The turnout is magnificent, Lily," he had told her warmly. "You have done a wonderful job."

"Was there ever any doubt?" she replied glibly.

"There was a minute or two."

"Hey!" She playfully slapped him on the arm. "I'm glad it's working out well. Now we better get back and charm them into putting all their money in your company."

Bruce nodded at her. "But I have someone for you to meet first."

Chloe arched her eyebrow. "Someone you think needs female persuasion to sign a deal?"

"Nothing like that. Well, maybe someone a little like that. But I'm already pretty sure he's going through with the deal. It's an old friend, and he's just looking for a beautiful woman with brains."

Chloe grimaced at her employer and friend. "How highly you think of me, Bruce, to extend a compliment like that!"

"You know what I mean, Lily."

"Fine." She had seen the guest list. Bruce would have had a difficult time looking for women who could actually conduct an in depth discussion from the group out there.

"All right then. I'll be a few seconds and then I'll bring Lex Luthor out."

And so here she was, in that clichéd position standing outside in the balcony, with a soft shawl hanging from her arms, looking up at the stars. Chloe Sullivan hated clichés with a passion, but there was nowhere to run anymore, nowhere else to hide.

There didn't appear to be any other choice for Chloe Sullivan than to come face to face with her soulmate again silhouetted in starlight and the night sky.

Nothing had ever been more trite.

~~

She felt them even before she heard them.

It was as if everything around her had dropped away and all she could focus on was the overwhelming scent of Lex Luthor. She had not even turned around yet but she knew that he was in pain. She could feel the loneliness rolling off of him in waves.

And if there was anything in the world that she hated, it was knowing that Lex was hurting. Her decision to leave him had been clouded by her own emotions, and she fought hard to tamp down the need to stay beside him in bed and kiss his guilt away.

Chloe Sullivan steeled herself not to break and slowly turned to face them. Bruce Wayne's words barely registered in her mind. Bruce Wayne barely took any of her attention. Briefly, she heard him say the name she went by in this life. All she could see was Lex.

He handled himself well. She had to give him that much credit. For someone who was seeing an apparition halfway across the country, Lex held himself like the astounding man that he was. She could see the intensity in his eyes, and knew from the way his nostrils flared that he was breathing deeply. His gaze ran down her body before resting back on her eyes, and their silent conversation was nothing but words of longing and love.

Lex had never said "I love you," except for that night when she told him about the baby, right before the car crashed. In the years they were together in the simulations, he never uttered the words. In the night that they spent together after he had brought her back to life, the words "I love you" never passed through his lips. His actions told her what she needed to know everyday, so much so that the extreme magnitude scared her into flight.

But now his eyes were screaming the words to her so much that she felt she would suffocate from tears.

No teardrop though, with Bruce Wayne so close. She learned so much from Lex.

She forced lightness in her voice when she asked Bruce to leave them alone to get acquainted. After all, with her entertaining calendar full of Mr. Luthor, he needed to step up and host the party himself.

And then he left, and silently, they stepped close enough to reach out to each other. But they did not.

"You chose a beautiful name," he said, his voice gruff to her ears. She stopped the urge to pepper his throat with kisses to soothe his obviously worked vocals.

She smiled. "You won't even ask how…" she allowed her voice to trail off.

Lex shook his head. "All I need to know is that you're in front of me now, real and not a figment of my imagination. And you'll come home with me. We'll live the life we never got a chance to."

"We've always been poetic in our diction, haven't we, Lex? Or at least you have, and I just caught up with you. But we never could get a fairy tale ending."

His brows furrowed. "Why not?"

"Because you have a soul to save."

"Save me," was his simple response.

"And a world to help," she continued sadly. "And all I seem to bring out in you is that capacity for evil. Lois Lane showed me the article she wrote on your interview, Lex."

"A capacity for evil that was reached precisely because you weren't there!" he argued. "And I made up for it, Chloe," he pleaded. "I started at least. I'm making reparations for the people in Smallville."

"You hurt them because of me," she whispered.

Lex stepped closer and cupped her face in his hands. He repeated the same plea. "Save me."

Chloe looked up into his eyes, and with her head thrown back just so, his was the face framed in starlight. This was the man she had fallen in love with, before the accident, before the computer simulated sequences, before his obsession. "I—" Two years of lies and a beautiful baby gone like a puff of smoke. It was the real issue. Lois had been right. "I can't," she choked out.

Lex closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers. There were things he had never done before her, and things he swore never to do even for her. But he had been stripped bare and presented to be judged. So he breathed out, "I'm sorry, Chloe, for what I did to you."

With a stifled cry, she threw her arms around his neck and pressed her lips on his when the fragilely contained passion broke free.

Inside, at the party, Lois Lane cornered Bruce. "Where is Lily, Bruce?"

Bruce Wayne's mouth curved into a satisfied smile. "Ms Alexander is taking care of business." He shook his head. "I can't thank you enough for forcing me to take her, Lois. She's the perfect partner. And for a first timer in this kind of job, she's doing a marvelous job keeping Luthor interested."

Lois' jaw dropped open. "Luthor? Lex Luthor?" she demanded. Bruce nodded and waved towards the doors leading to the balcony. "You made her entertain Lex Luthor?" she repeated and Bruce Wayne started to suspect something wrong with her hearing. "Ouch. Well… I think you're going to have to say goodbye to her, Bruce."

Bruce Wayne frowned as he regarded the reporter. He offered her his arm and led the way to the balcony doors.

To find the blonde woman resting back against Lex Luthor, whose arms were wrapped around her waist securely, their fingers entangled on her belly, and gazing up at the stars in a position that Lois scoffed at as being too hackneyed for her taste.