Now, sinking back into the bed, careful not to disturb the sleeping form beside her she thought about the weeks following the kiss. They both treated it as the aberration they believed it was. Chloe got more information on Morgan Edge to keep Lex happy but her heart wasn't in it anymore. Clark came round more often and she threw herself into him, into Lana, into just being 17. She was starting to forget the past few months and the crippling fear. She was beginning to enjoy the last few weeks of the summer when yesterday happened.
She had spent the morning in the Talon with Clark and Lana, going over what she was going to do for her dad's birthday. Her and Lana had quickly allied together and started teasing Clark about something, she couldn't quite remember what. Something silly and meaningless. Something wonderfully teenage. Leaving them to their coupledom she walked straight into Lex on her way out. The sudden physical contact made them both start. She looked up at him and smiled awkwardly at the ridiculousness of the situation. She apologised with her eyes and he caught her arm briefly on her way past, his form of a wordless apology. She knew that he had been on a couple of dates, brunettes of course. It didn't affect her as much as she thought it might. Some part of her was relieved that things had semi got back to the way they were.
Chloe rolled over in her bed and came face to face with Lex. He looked at her like a lover would. Closing her eyes against the image she rolled back, tears collecting in her eyes but keeping her hand interlocked with his. Images came to her unbidden. Them on the stairs, against the wall, against the door and finally on the bed. She was getting ahead of herself. She wasn't crying for herself. She was crying for him. For what he was and what he would become.
She had been dozing off on the sofa, taking advantage of the holiday for an afternoon siesta when she had been woken by the phone. Sleepily reaching over she had answered;
"Chloe, it's me. My father has escaped. Listen carefully. I want you to call Clark, get him to come to you and stay with him. I can't think where would be safest. He can decide."
She was overpowered by otherworldly calm. She realised that she had been preparing, waiting for this day since he was sentenced, "He'll come for my father. He's at work, please get to him."
"It's covered. Remember stay with Clark. I'll call you when I have more news." Lex said before hanging up.
She quickly dialled Clark's number and he hurriedly told her that Lex had just spoken to him and he was on his way and to please stay put.
Closing her cell she got up and walked to the far end of the room. So this was it. This was what she had been waiting for and she was a little bit relieved. At the end of this, it would be over in one way or another.
Gently extracting her hand from Lex's she rose out of her bed and made her way to the bathroom. Softly closing the door she sat on the toilet seat and ran her fingers through her hair. Leaning back she closed her eyes and let the tears flow more freely.
They hid out at the Kent Farm. Clark figured on home turf advantage. She hadn't really cared, Lionel would find her whatever.
Nothing much had happened for a couple of hours. By a strange luck Martha and Jonathan were out of town. This was so bizarre that Chloe chose to take it as a sign. A sign of what she didn't want to consider.
Sitting with Clark in the barn she realised that there was no place she would rather be. He was her best friend and things like that don't change. More than shared interests, the history of a friendship was the most important thing she believed. When you have known each other for so long it surpasses everything else and the level of comfort you feel in the others company is like family. Her cell rang again;
"It's me. Come to the plant. There are some agents here that should be able to give us some amount of protection. A couple of them have taken your father to Metropolis for safe keeping."
"It's Lex" she said to Clark, "He wants us to come to the plant."
"I'll be there" she said to Lex before hanging up and following Clark out to the truck.
On the drive over she babbled. She was nervous but whereas before it had made her monosyllabic, it was starting to make her hyper. She felt more normal than she had done in a while. Arriving at the plant, she saw Clark making a quick scan of the place, she didn't know what he was doing since it was pitch black but then again with Clark, the impossible seems possible.
Suddenly, she heard a noise and someone grabbed Clark. She whipped her head round to see a balaclavered man holding a block of meteor rock to Clark's chest. She had never seen Clark look in so much pain. He dropped to the floor and that was when she saw the other person step out of the shadows. No balaclava for him. He was out and proud. Seeing Lionel Luthor standing there she turned and ran. Without thinking. For Clark or anyone else. The only thought going through her mind was self-preservation.
This would always make her ashamed. Chloe got up and sat down on the side of the bath. Running and leaving Clark there on the floor. Although a part of her knew he would be fine. This was Clark after all. Yet, she had expected more from herself and was dismayed to discover that she was afflicted with the same animal instincts as others.
She ran without grace. Hurtling from one spot to another. She spotted an open door and scrambled inside. Her heartbeat was drowning out her thoughts and she couldn't think coherently. She jogged towards the end of the hall and heard the door open again. Looking back she saw Lionel standing there, in black, looking very calm. A mockery of her panic. She started to run again and then heard a shot.
Things moved in slow motion. She turned and saw Lionel pointing a gun at her. Another shot. "Jesus Christ" she shouted and continued running. It was dark and there was some distance between them otherwise she was sure that she would be dead by now.
She was in a long corridor now. Her legs were becoming tired and Lionel was getting closer. She stumbled and fell and knew this was the end. Another shot. In that split second Chloe braced herself for death. Instead she looked up and saw Lex standing at the end of the corridor, gun in hand pointing at the other end. She felt disorientated. With difficulty she turned herself around; she had landed awkwardly, and saw Lionel slumped on the floor. Looking back at Lex she saw that his eyes had gone dead. She resisted the urge to scream. Hauling herself up she walked over to him.
"He was shooting at me, you had no option." She said. He looked at her blankly. They both jumped when they heard movement coming from the other end of the corridor. She looked over to see Lionel twitching and reaching. She took the gun from Lex, walked over to his father and shot him.
Chloe got up and looked at herself in the mirror. She knew Lex must be wondering where she was. What she was thinking. Something had happened tonight. After the initial shock, Lex had pulled himself together admirably for the authorities. A little too admirably. With a practised ease that shocked and frightened her.
Her shooting Lionel shocked Lex out of the stupor he was in. She walked up to him, looking him in the eyes, her vision blurred by tears.
"Lex, you injured him. I was the one that killed him. You realise that don't you? You did not kill your father." It was so important that he understood this. She knew, above everything that he must understand this if there was to be any hope for him. "I'll tell the cops that you came, dropped the gun, I then took it and fired twice. They knew he was after me, they'll accept it from me."
"What are you doing Chloe?" Lex asked "I can't let you do this"
"You have no choice." At his look she continued, "Please Lex. I'll be fine. Maybe not right away but I'll be fine." But you, I'm scared for you, she left unsaid.
Then there was no time and agents were all around them. They whisked Chloe off and that was that.
She still didn't understand her actions. Of course she understood them but she couldn't recognise herself in them. All she knew was that Lex being the only one to fire that gun at Lionel would have been catastrophic. Every fear that he had about himself and his future would have come to pass with that action. By administering the fatal shot, she had deflected some of that onto herself.
After the sheriff dropped her off she walked into the bathroom and vomited.
Unfortunately that only got rid of the chocolate bar and coffee and not the god awful pain and mind numbing torture in her head. Ah, sense of humour, you're still there my friend.
Looking at her face in the mirror she looked the same. She looked exactly the same. There should be some sort of visible change. She had just killed someone. She started to panic. Why was she the same? Normal Chloe would not have done what she had just done. Pulling her hair she felt her breathing constrict. She could feel a dull ache form in her head. A headache of uncried tears she thought. When you want to cry and its just there but it won't come out.
But suddenly it came. Great racking heaving sobs. She doubled over with the force of them. She didn't know what was happening to her. She had never cried like this before. Her mind was blank but her body was filling in the spaces. "Oh my God" she whispered, not really knowing why, it had come out instinctively. She was working purely on instinct and it was scaring her. She wasn't feeling better after a "good cry" she was scaring herself.
She heard the doorbell and she quickly straightened and composed herself. Walking with great effort down the stairs she opened the door and saw Lex standing there dishevelled and lost. They must have stood there for about 5 minutes, merely looking. She let him in and he brought her to him for an embrace. Basic human contact.
The horror, desperation and exhilaration of the last few hours slowly made way for the repressed latent attraction of the last few months. They kissed. Long languorous kisses where they leaned into each other, fitting each other like a puzzle, their bodies shaped like a question mark. He pushed her onto the stairs.
When Chloe thought about this now, she thought of how passionately lazy the whole experience had been. Things were happening quickly but in slow motion. Making their way up the stairs he had pushed her into the banister and they had started again. She remembered how it surpassed everything she had predicted. It was that irreplaceable feeling of doing something that you're not sure you'll ever do again so that every movement and touch is infused with an urgency that cannot be replicated. Almost like an affair she thought. Again, a stop against the door, before Lex almost dragged her in his arms to the bed.
Walking back into the bedroom she saw Lex slightly leaning up in bed. She smiled softly, her eyes saying things her mouth could not. Lex had put on the radio and there was a jazz playing.
"They're playing our genre" she joked. Lex raised an eyebrow and smiled back. They were quiet again.
"I've wanted last night for quite some time" Lex said. "I'm sorry it had to be like that."
"Well, at least it was memorable. I've heard a lot of first times are two second jobs." Her heart wasn't in it and he could tell. She wondered whether they'd ever be able to banter again. They were bound by tragedy and neither could see the other without remembering what brought them here. Going to him they kissed softly, urgently.
She wanted to be near him always. She wanted to be far far away. She knew which one would win out.
The mournful voice from the radio sang out, mocking them with its directness, its truth, its appropriateness. Kissing Lex, she drew back in time to hear the awful refrain;
"I see the passing of the years in your eyes. And when we part there'll be no tears, no goodbyes."