"I know just exactly where you are."

Chloe sat at a table in a Metropolis fast food restaurant, sipping a lemonade and talking to a young brunette woman named Maxine. Nearby, the little green-eyed girl (whose name turned out to be Leah), jumped into a ball pit.

"Four years ago," Maxine said, taking a bite of a thin, limp french fry, "I was seventeen and out of my mind. I was pregnant, and I didn't even know where the father was. I was at a crossroads, and I did a lot of serious thinking. Now, looking back on it, I can't believe that I almost though of..." Her eyes wandered over to her daughter. "I almost did it, too. Had an appointment and everything. Would have made things a lot easier...then. My parents wouldn't have kicked me out. I wouldn't have had to get those two jobs. I wouldn't have had to drop out of school. But now, it was all really worth it, if you can believe that. I've got a beautiful baby girl, a nice boyfriend, and an okay job."

Chloe shrugged, looking out the window. "But I...it's complicated. I don't want to hurt my father. My friends. Myself. And I thought maybe...maybe if things went back to normal, it would fix my relationship with Lex."

"What relationship?" Maxine asked bluntly. "From what you have described, there is no relationship there. It's just meaningless, empty sex. If you want to have a relationship with him, you're going to have to start from the bottom. Building blocks. You've been working on the roof of the house when there was no solid foundation at all. That's a dangerous game to play, Chloe, because sooner or later, you'll get crushed."

That left Chloe quiet for a long time.

Gabe Sullivan had lived with his daughter for seventeen years, and he knew when something was wrong with her.

Something was definately wrong with Chloe.

She had been sitting in her room, music turned up very high, with her American history book opened to the exact same page for over an hour. Every few minutes, Gabe would pass by the room and see Chloe, still seated there at her desk, staring off into space. He wondered what she could be thinking about, but he didn't want to intrude. She'd come around in her own time.

Gabe sat down on the couch, flipping on the television. Some ridiculous movie was on, having to do with prostitutes and music and, strangely, something about an elephant. He wasn't following it well, and he immediatly noticed when Chloe entered the room. Tears lined her face and automatically Gabe flipped off the television.

"Honey! What's wrong? Come. Here. Sit."

Gabe was eager to find out the problem, and solve it. It had been so long since he had been his daughter's knight in shining armor. Sometimes, he really missed the days when a band-aid and a kiss made the world bright again...

Chloe practically collapsed onto the sofa, into her father's arms. Now he knew there was definately something wrong. Chloe had always been so tough. So independent. Whatever it was that brought her down to this...it was big.

Taking her shoulders, Gabe looked into his daughter's eyes. "Chloe...did someone hurt you?"

Chloe shook her head, wiping her eyes and laughing dryly. "No...no. I'm just so scared about what I'm going to say...what you're going to say when you..." She took a long pause, and Gabe didn't even breath. He could think of only three things that would really hurt him.

"...I'm pregnant."

And that was one of them.

"Honey..." he said, breathless and disbelieving, "What...tell me what happened. How. When. How could you do this? Who did this?"

Chloe laughed again, and Gabe wanted to tell her to stop. He had never heard such hate-filled laughs come from her. They reminded him far to much of the way her mother used to laugh, whenever they would fight, right before she left them.

"Do you really think I want to go through the sordid details of my sex life with you, Dad?"

A sex life. His daughter had a sex life. Not only a sex life, but a sordid one. Gabe pushed the thoughts from his mind. The whole situation was just far too upsetting to think about all at once. "Well then...can you at least tell me who?"

The words came tumbling from Chloe's mouth immediatly. "Lex Luthor."

Anger surged through Gabe, and if it had been for Chloe pulling him back down on to the couch by his arm, he would have gone and killed Lex Luthor right there.

"Please," she said in a wavering voice, "Please, Daddy. Let me explain."

"Explain?" Gabe hissed, in a low, censorious voice, "Chloe, that man is six or seven years older than you, not to mention my boss. And it is well known that he...gets around! Who knows what he could have given you, besides a baby!"

His voice had now risen to shouting range, and Chloe was trembling. Gabe immediatly felt terrible. Sure, Chloe deserved reprimanding, but not now. Now she was scared and confused and she needed the reassurance that her father was there for her.

"Oh, Chloe..." he whispered. Scolding could wait. He made sure his little girl wiped her tears. Not speaking anymore of the thing that was on the top of both of their minds, Gabe made his daughter some hot cocoa, then sent her to bed.

It was a Saturday.

Chloe had said he didn't have to come along, but Gabe insisted. He had the right to be involved. She was his daughter, and this baby was his...grandchild.

"Luthor!"

Lex was suprised to see Chloe, but even more surprised to see Gabe. The man stood in the doorway of his study, hands in his jacket pockets, glaring at him. Lex's eyes flitted over to Chloe in surprise, as if to ask what was going on. After all, she had wanted to keep everything so quiet. Had she told him?

"Chloe told me everything."

So she had.

"Not everything," Chloe interjected immediatly. She had left out the underage drinking out, and quite a few of the more...intimate details. Things you wouldn't exactly want to share with your father.

Lex took a deep breath, nodding and motioning for them both to sit. He looked down at his desk for a long time, then finally looked up, looking straight into Chloe's eyes. "So...I'm taking it that you didn't abort the baby?"

"What?!"

Obviously detail the young Miss Sullivan had conveniately forgotten to mention to her father.

"You were trying to force her to have an abortion, weren't you? Not good for you public image, right? Well you should have thought of that before you seduced a teenager, you vile, disgusting-"

"Daddy! I wanted the abortion! Me! Me! Lex tried to talk me out of it, but when I insisted he gave me the money. Then I decided against it. Lex had nothing to do with it, almost. So if you'd stop jumping to conclusions..." She gave an exasperated sigh and stalked over to the window, rubbing her temples. "God, I can't stop crying lately. Must be all the fucking hormones."

"Chloe!"

"Oh, don't 'Chloe!' me." She turned around, and took a deep breath to calm herself. "Dad...please. Let me talk to Lex alone for a minute. I promise that I'll be alright."

Gabe paused for a moment, considering the possibilities. Then, deciding that it'd be easier to just give Chloe a few moments with Lex than fight with her in her current condition, he nodded and left the study, closing the doors behind him.

Chloe continued staring out the window, tapping at it, then letting her fingers slide down. Lex stood behind her, and she could feel his eyes, looking at her.

"Well..." he said slowly, "I guess we should work out some arrangements."

Chloe nodded absentmindedly, staring out into the cool autumn of Lex's estate.

"I know some fabulous doctors. I can get you an appointment; you need to have a check-up, make sure everything is okay..." He could feel that she was listening, even though she wasn't looking at him. "I'm sure you'll want to continue with school. It is your senior year, after all. That's perfectly fine. I don't want you to do anything crazy like drop out. You deserve to graduate and go on to college. I can handle-"

"Do you want custody?" Chloe turned around from the window, her eyes red and puffy. "Because I...I don't want to end up never seeing the baby. A baby needs a mother. I don't...I don't want to be like my mother. Absent from the child's life. If I go through this pregnancy, I don't want it to be a phone call here and a birthday card there, then nothing. I want to be...a mother."

"I'm not trying to take the child away from you," Lex said softly, "I've just been thinking...it makes sense if the baby stayed here. I have lots of extra rooms I can use as a nursery. I have a job, and I don't have to go to school. I can get a nanny, and...and you'll be welcome over anytime you want. I'll even give you a key. You can have your own room if you want, right next to the baby's, if you ever want to stay over with it. I don't want you to feel like I'm trying to keep distance between you and your child. I just want what's best. For you and the baby."

Chloe finally nodded. "...alright." She then sat down, taking in the sight of the room. Memories of the times she had in this room were foggy and cloudy and only halfway there.

"We tried to have something that would never work," she said quietly, almost in a whisper, "We tried to be not-even-friends- with benefits. But to make this work, Lex...Lex, we're going to have to at least be friends."

Lex's eyebrow raised a little at the ambiguous 'at least' part, but held out his hand. "Friends, then?"

Chloe smiled, and shook his hand. "Friends."