EMPRESS
by ingrid
There's a ceremony to her life now, one that never existed until the moment she stood in front of her husband in the freezing cold, holding the Bible under his outstretched hand and wondering if the others before her had almost dropped it from their numb and aching fingers as he recited the vows.
"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States ..."
As a reporter, Chloe Sullivan had covered such ceremonies twice, standing in the crowd both times, commenting nastily on the First Lady's outfit to the other journalists standing there with steaming coffee in their hands and bored expressions on their faces.
Look at her, will you? So gaudy ... so stiff. That hat, what the hell was she thinking? She's not going to last a minute in this town. God, look at her hair. She's a mess.
A shame that karmic payback was such a bitch.
... and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend, the constitution of the United States.
It only took a minute, but to Chloe Sullivan-Luthor, First Lady of the United States, it felt like a lifetime.
There was a parade afterward, with hundreds of horses and displays, paid for by Lex himself and modeled on the extravaganza Ronald Reagan would have had, if the weather had cooperated.
Chloe joked at a pre-ceremony party that Lex would make a weather machine before he'd let Mother Nature ruin his parade and was amused by the nervous laughter that followed. He'd simply kissed her hand and winked -- at least their little jokes had some privacy left.
They, however, didn't have any privacy at all.
Between the press and the Secret Service, not to mention the staffers who fed off of them like leeches sucking on animal flesh at a watering hole, they rarely got a moment alone. Time for them was stolen, like nickels from a child's bank and they'd actually had sex in the White House bathroom once, only minutes after the tour given to them by the previous First Couple.
"The Presidential Club," Lex breathlessly called it as she lifted her legs higher and bit his suit-clad shoulder, trying desperately not to scream out his name. The Secret Service knocked once to make sure they were all right, and Chloe came with visions of them storming in, guns drawn, only to see The President in his final throes of pleasure.
That wicked thought kept her going, all the way up to the strains of "Hail to the Chief" as played during their triumphant march down the plaza and to the White House.
It was at that moment the enormity of what they were facing sunk in. Hard.
She couldn't shake her fears off, not even while the final adjustments were made on her inaugural gown, a lavender and black creation Lex had partially designed himself, picking the exact shades he knew would compliment her best.
Chloe wanted to laugh at the thought of the press catching that juicy tidbit about the nation's new Commander in Chief, but the joke wasn't funny anymore.
Not with the entire world at stake, hanging in the balance on their every utterance, look and movement.
Lex took it all in stride, as he did everything. He'd been convinced of his destined role in life since he'd taken the reigns of the fertilizer plant in Smallville, shoveling cow shit with Chloe's father, smiling seductively at her from afar.
Slowly, he'd twined himself and his dreams around her, until she believed in them as if they were her own, fighting her way through every step of the process with the same dedication she'd once shown to her own career. Joining him in the endless travel, the terrors and triumphs, the back-room deals that would have made Machiavelli shrink back in fear.
Chloe survived all that and more, sometimes with a ruthlessness that often surprised her with the ferocious joy it engendered.
And to think, people asked her if she missed having a job.
Superman showed up to the Inauguration, of course, floating discreetly to one side, probably the first and last time he ever let attention be deflected away from his very big, very blue self. Lex had asked her the night before if they should invite the Man of Steel to the Inauguration Ball and she'd casually replied that Boy Scouts should only be invited to weenie roasts in the woods.
That received such a passionate look, Chloe felt the tingle straight down to her toes.
Lex didn't like Superman very much and that was all right.
Because Chloe didn't like him at all.
He reminded her of Clark Kent, a creature fueled on self-righteous angst and extremely condescending to the frailties of the human heart. The alien part of him fascinated her, but in the same way it did Lex and they'd joked darkly more than once about laboratories and tables with wide, green straps attached.
When Lex came into his wife's dressing chamber that evening, he was resplendent in a tailored tuxedo, his eyes as bright as winter stars.
Chloe's last stubborn strand of hair was firmly tucked into place and she stood before him, feeling oddly shy, as if she were the same insecure girl stuck back in the old cow town and he was the gorgeous man who lived in the castle down the road, making her heart pound with every step he took through the streets he owned.
He held her chin in his fingers and lifted it. "You're beautiful. You are everything I've ever wanted."
Shivering with happiness, she smiled. "Right back at you."
A huge grin and suddenly, something very bright dangled from his hand. He motioned for Chloe to turn around and she did, feeling a cool clasp of metal wind around her neck.
She looked in the mirror and examined the gem-encrusted medallion hanging above her heart. It was an odd design, but appropriate -- an eagle on a staff, surrounded by stars.
"It's an exact replica of a necklace the Emperor Augustus gave to his wife on what is assumed to be his crowning day. They call it "Livia's Eagle," Lex explained, softly kissing the nape of Chloe's neck.
"Really?" Chloe fingered the soft gold, a sharp edge of diamond biting into the pad of her finger. "And this Livia? Were she and Augustus happy?"
"Oh yes," Lex sighed against her skin. "Right up until the very end. They lived happily, happily ever after."
Chloe smiled radiantly, and somewhere in the distance, the marching band began to play.
It was the beginning of their happily ... happily ... ever after.
~*~
fin