Beautiful *Chapter Three*
A/N: I know it's been a while since I've updated, but I've had a million things going on, vacations, parties, etc. Hope you guys like this. I warn you now, this is going to be a depressing chapter.
A quick question. Is this totally crap?? Tell me the truth please. I was stuck as to what to do for this chap, and this is what I came up with. Tell me what you think.
Thanks so much to Hope who grammar checked me!
*Kelly
And now, on with the show.
****
It had been three weeks since he had seen her and it was driving him crazy. He needed answers to the myriad of questions that were swirling around in his head. What had happened to Gabe? Did that have to do with why she was working there? Would she let him help her?
The worst part was that he couldn't just go to the run-down strip joint that she worked at. She had asked Frank to not let Lex near her or able to talk to her and he agreed. "If one of my girls doesn't get what she needs, then the rest of them aren't happy. I can't afford to have my girls mad at me." Frank had explained to him, somewhat apologetically, when Lex had asked.
So he was stuck here. Waiting for her to call. That's how it had been for the past three weeks and those weeks crawled by so slowly he thought they'd never end. Every time the phone rang, his heart would leap up into his throat and he would think to himself excitedly, 'It's finally her, she's calling me!', only to pick up the receiver and have his hopes dashed. He had thought she would have called by now.
'I guess it's time to go to her.' He thought as he dialed the number for his PI, a woman named Jane Roget. He instructed her as to what information he would need and she promised to have it back by the end of the hour.
That was forty five minutes ago. Nothing left to do but wait. God, how he hated waiting. Even if he did have plenty to do so he wouldn't have to be idle, he couldn't concentrate on anything but Chloe. He had to find out what happened. And what Luthors' want, Luthors' get.
****
It was Saturday morning; time to do her weekly chores. She started her laundry and began to clean the rat-trap her landlord called an apartment. She had tried her best to spruce the dingy place up, but with no money -all the money she made went to the necessities; clothes, food, coffee, and paying off the bills- it was a difficult task to undertake. But still, each week she tidied up and tried to make the place look a little more presentable. She was so happy that none of her friends from high school could see the way she was living. She supposed she could thank God for the tiny miracles. And she supposed she would have, had it not been for the tiny little fact that she no longer believed in a higher power of any sort.
She heard her doorbell buzz and grumbled at the interruption. This was her only day off work; she needed all the time she could get out of it to do all of the things she had been putting off since the beginning of the week.
She pressed the button next to the intercom to let the person up. She then went back to her work, scurrying about the tiny room until everything was picked up. She didn't stop until she heard a knock on the door. "Come on in!" She yelled from across the room, "The door's open."
She saw a familiar smirk materialize from the other side of the door and heard him say, "Isn't that a little dangerous in a city like this? Especially with a woman as pretty as you?"
She scowled at him, choosing to ignore the compliment, "I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, thank you very much." She waited a moment before adding, "I know you didn't come all this way just to lecture me about leaving my door open, so what is it you want?"
His smirk faded slightly at that. "I wanted to talk."
"Listen. I already told you, I'm not quitting. I don't care what you or anybody else thinks. I need to pay the bills somehow and I won't accept charity, so you can-"
Lex cut her off, smiling slightly, "That wasn't what I came here to talk about, although that doesn't mean I'm happy about you working there, or approve of it in the least."
"If you think I give a rat's ass about what you do or do not approve of -especially in matters concerning my life- you have another thing coming, Luthor." Chloe retorted, not happy about being lectured by Lex.
"I guess that's another matter for another time. What I want to speak with you about is more important than that for now."
Chloe gulped, this couldn't be good. "I take it you went to talk with my dad." She managed.
Lex nodded. "What happened to him?" He questioned.
****
When Chloe had told Clark that the worst day of her life had been when her mother left, she had been lying. She couldn't tell him the truth; that her worst day had been only weeks before. She didn't have the strength to deal with it and somehow not talking about it made it less real. * Her father had been feeling crappy so he decided he should go to the doctor and get it checked out. He figured that he just had a cold, but maybe the doctor would know something that he didn't that might make him feel better. Besides, it was covered by LexCorp.
When he was out at the doctor, Chloe had been at a party. She felt guilty about that later, but there was no way she could have known. But in hindsight, she wished she had been there, wished that she had been available for him to talk to as his world crashed down around him.
Chloe had been only sixteen when her father was diagnosed with cancer. Her father had only been forty two.
They went through everything together, the two of them. Every last treatment, every last announcement. They would get their hopes up together. And they both had their hopes cruelly crushed time and time again. They tried any and every treatment out there and occasionally, Gabe would go into remission and they would be happy. But it never lasted long.
No matter how hard he fought it, it kept coming back. And it came back stronger and in larger quantities. Once it got into his bone marrow, the doctors said that his days were numbered. They didn't expect him to live longer than a month more at the most. That was when Gabe left work. But just because he had quit his job didn't mean that he had given up. He fought that disease even with his very last breath. He lasted two more years.
The Gabe she loved had been a strong man, a healthy man, a happy man. That was the one everybody saw. No one saw him during those last few months, no one else had to watch that man disintegrate into nothing, to watch his own body attack and eventually kill him. No one still is haunted with those images sometimes at night. The pictures of a dying man. A man who had raised her and loved her since birth. A man that she could barely even recognize. One that was so out of it that he couldn't even recognize her.
Tears still form in her eyes as she thinks of that day. She was visiting him after school as she had made a habit -any time she wasn't in school, she was in his hospital room, no matter how much it depressed her; he needed her and she wasn't going to let him down. She came with a bouquet of flowers to make the room a little more cheerful. "Hi, Dad." She had greeted him, in as chipper a voice as she could manage. She set the wildflowers -his favorite- down on the night table beside him and placed a kiss on his cheek. She held his hand and squeezed it.
He smiled up at her. "You're such a pretty young lady." He said, "Are you the nurse?"
She couldn't take that. She ran out of his room as fast as she could, tears running like a river down her face. That day has haunted her ever since. So now, every time she tries to picture the compassionate, loving face of her father she sees instead the confused face of a man who thinks that she's his nurse.
He died only a few weeks after at the age of forty six. Leaving Chloe with all of his hospital debts. She needed a way to pay them off. That's how she ended up where she is now, a year later.
A/N: I know it's been a while since I've updated, but I've had a million things going on, vacations, parties, etc. Hope you guys like this. I warn you now, this is going to be a depressing chapter.
A quick question. Is this totally crap?? Tell me the truth please. I was stuck as to what to do for this chap, and this is what I came up with. Tell me what you think.
Thanks so much to Hope who grammar checked me!
*Kelly
And now, on with the show.
****
It had been three weeks since he had seen her and it was driving him crazy. He needed answers to the myriad of questions that were swirling around in his head. What had happened to Gabe? Did that have to do with why she was working there? Would she let him help her?
The worst part was that he couldn't just go to the run-down strip joint that she worked at. She had asked Frank to not let Lex near her or able to talk to her and he agreed. "If one of my girls doesn't get what she needs, then the rest of them aren't happy. I can't afford to have my girls mad at me." Frank had explained to him, somewhat apologetically, when Lex had asked.
So he was stuck here. Waiting for her to call. That's how it had been for the past three weeks and those weeks crawled by so slowly he thought they'd never end. Every time the phone rang, his heart would leap up into his throat and he would think to himself excitedly, 'It's finally her, she's calling me!', only to pick up the receiver and have his hopes dashed. He had thought she would have called by now.
'I guess it's time to go to her.' He thought as he dialed the number for his PI, a woman named Jane Roget. He instructed her as to what information he would need and she promised to have it back by the end of the hour.
That was forty five minutes ago. Nothing left to do but wait. God, how he hated waiting. Even if he did have plenty to do so he wouldn't have to be idle, he couldn't concentrate on anything but Chloe. He had to find out what happened. And what Luthors' want, Luthors' get.
****
It was Saturday morning; time to do her weekly chores. She started her laundry and began to clean the rat-trap her landlord called an apartment. She had tried her best to spruce the dingy place up, but with no money -all the money she made went to the necessities; clothes, food, coffee, and paying off the bills- it was a difficult task to undertake. But still, each week she tidied up and tried to make the place look a little more presentable. She was so happy that none of her friends from high school could see the way she was living. She supposed she could thank God for the tiny miracles. And she supposed she would have, had it not been for the tiny little fact that she no longer believed in a higher power of any sort.
She heard her doorbell buzz and grumbled at the interruption. This was her only day off work; she needed all the time she could get out of it to do all of the things she had been putting off since the beginning of the week.
She pressed the button next to the intercom to let the person up. She then went back to her work, scurrying about the tiny room until everything was picked up. She didn't stop until she heard a knock on the door. "Come on in!" She yelled from across the room, "The door's open."
She saw a familiar smirk materialize from the other side of the door and heard him say, "Isn't that a little dangerous in a city like this? Especially with a woman as pretty as you?"
She scowled at him, choosing to ignore the compliment, "I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, thank you very much." She waited a moment before adding, "I know you didn't come all this way just to lecture me about leaving my door open, so what is it you want?"
His smirk faded slightly at that. "I wanted to talk."
"Listen. I already told you, I'm not quitting. I don't care what you or anybody else thinks. I need to pay the bills somehow and I won't accept charity, so you can-"
Lex cut her off, smiling slightly, "That wasn't what I came here to talk about, although that doesn't mean I'm happy about you working there, or approve of it in the least."
"If you think I give a rat's ass about what you do or do not approve of -especially in matters concerning my life- you have another thing coming, Luthor." Chloe retorted, not happy about being lectured by Lex.
"I guess that's another matter for another time. What I want to speak with you about is more important than that for now."
Chloe gulped, this couldn't be good. "I take it you went to talk with my dad." She managed.
Lex nodded. "What happened to him?" He questioned.
****
When Chloe had told Clark that the worst day of her life had been when her mother left, she had been lying. She couldn't tell him the truth; that her worst day had been only weeks before. She didn't have the strength to deal with it and somehow not talking about it made it less real. * Her father had been feeling crappy so he decided he should go to the doctor and get it checked out. He figured that he just had a cold, but maybe the doctor would know something that he didn't that might make him feel better. Besides, it was covered by LexCorp.
When he was out at the doctor, Chloe had been at a party. She felt guilty about that later, but there was no way she could have known. But in hindsight, she wished she had been there, wished that she had been available for him to talk to as his world crashed down around him.
Chloe had been only sixteen when her father was diagnosed with cancer. Her father had only been forty two.
They went through everything together, the two of them. Every last treatment, every last announcement. They would get their hopes up together. And they both had their hopes cruelly crushed time and time again. They tried any and every treatment out there and occasionally, Gabe would go into remission and they would be happy. But it never lasted long.
No matter how hard he fought it, it kept coming back. And it came back stronger and in larger quantities. Once it got into his bone marrow, the doctors said that his days were numbered. They didn't expect him to live longer than a month more at the most. That was when Gabe left work. But just because he had quit his job didn't mean that he had given up. He fought that disease even with his very last breath. He lasted two more years.
The Gabe she loved had been a strong man, a healthy man, a happy man. That was the one everybody saw. No one saw him during those last few months, no one else had to watch that man disintegrate into nothing, to watch his own body attack and eventually kill him. No one still is haunted with those images sometimes at night. The pictures of a dying man. A man who had raised her and loved her since birth. A man that she could barely even recognize. One that was so out of it that he couldn't even recognize her.
Tears still form in her eyes as she thinks of that day. She was visiting him after school as she had made a habit -any time she wasn't in school, she was in his hospital room, no matter how much it depressed her; he needed her and she wasn't going to let him down. She came with a bouquet of flowers to make the room a little more cheerful. "Hi, Dad." She had greeted him, in as chipper a voice as she could manage. She set the wildflowers -his favorite- down on the night table beside him and placed a kiss on his cheek. She held his hand and squeezed it.
He smiled up at her. "You're such a pretty young lady." He said, "Are you the nurse?"
She couldn't take that. She ran out of his room as fast as she could, tears running like a river down her face. That day has haunted her ever since. So now, every time she tries to picture the compassionate, loving face of her father she sees instead the confused face of a man who thinks that she's his nurse.
He died only a few weeks after at the age of forty six. Leaving Chloe with all of his hospital debts. She needed a way to pay them off. That's how she ended up where she is now, a year later.