Chlexville

Season 1

Episode 8 : YOU GAVE ME THE JITTERS

It was not as if Lex expected him to stick around.

Lex Luthor watched as the official company helicopter rose above him with that loud rhythm he had come to associate with his father's comings and goings. While kids perked up at the sound of a car coming into the driveway—he personally knew that Chloe loved hearing her father's inexpensive shoes approaching—Lex was disgusted when he heard the dramatic entrance and departure of his parent.

LuthorCorp puts family first. What a load of bull.

With his mother gone and Pamela a traitor, the only family he had left was a girl he couldn't understand what he felt for. And now, all the families have left after their show of happy reunions with their children to continue their celebration at home. The Kents had even given Pete a ride with them when his mother got hung up for a few minutes with the legalities of Earl's case.

Lex stood on the helipad of Plant Number Three all alone. His security personnel were scattered inside the factory, looking for signs where the security was breached and hunting for any other possible portions of the building that Lex had not been privy to before.

The wind whipped at his hair and he breathed deep. The night air was cool. Just like the rest of his life would be cold because he was destined to spend it just like this. Alone. On the top of the world where he could see just how happy those below him were.

"Lex."

He turned around and saw Chloe standing with her father just outside the doorway leading back to the building. "I thought you'd gone home."

Chloe waved his words away. "Would we do that?"

He walked towards them and felt the air around him getting warmer with each step. It was probably the heat of the building. Or maybe just the proximity to two human bodies. He directed his response to Gabe. "I'm sorry you were caught in the middle."

"It's part of the job, Mr. Luthor."

It was a formality that Lex disdained, but one Gabe insisted on adopting when they were within the premises of LuthorCorp. "You should probably be going home. I know you'll want to spend sometime together after the scare."

Gabe nodded. "It's late." Lex felt his heart sink. "It took a long time to make sure that all our equipment was online and the production was in sync."

"You didn't have to do that. It could have been fixed tomorrow."

The older man shook his head. "Chloe didn't mind."

"Not at all!" the girl chirped.

"And we were losing money as it was. You wouldn't have wanted to give your father more ammunition against you. We can't really afford downtime in this plant."

"Not yet at least," Lex admitted.

Gabe threw his arm around his daughter's shoulder and started for the stairs. He turned around and raised his eyebrows at Lex. "I know that you enjoy the time you have conversations with yourself, Mr. Luthor, but Chloe is going to make some of her delicious mocha latte to drain the tension and we can easily command her to make enough for three."

Lex stared blankly at Gabe. He heard Chloe whisper to her father, "He must be slow in the uptake because he almost fell down thirty feet."

"Lex," Gabe repeated. "My daughter is making coffee. I am inviting you to come home with us and relax."

Geniuses were not necessarily smart or quick. Chloe raised two hands and started counting off the seconds with her finger before a hint of a smile teased Lex's lips.

"I'd like to take you up on that, Gabe. Anything that involves bossing Chloe around." He hoped that Gabe would interpret the sudden redness of his cheeks as the bite of the wind.

When they settled in Gabe's comfortable if old car, with Gabe insisting that Chloe sit with Lex in the back, he watched Chloe talk to herself silently. He always knew when she did this. The play of emotions and expressions on her face was priceless. He adored trying to guess what she was saying to the other Chloe. And he usually got it correct since she would turn to him and reveal just what the topic of her mind discussion was. Finally, she turned and looked him in the eye.

Chloe grinned at him, but he could see just how much of the fright still remained in her eyes. "You scared the hell out of me going in, Lex!"

"I try," he answered dryly. "Walking into a possible death trap is a hobby of mine, didn't you know?"

"Well if Metropolis me didn't know, I certainly know now."

He gave her a lopsided smirk. "You're right. First the bridge and then this. Good thing there's a guy with the luck of a thousand men in this town."

"It's always Clark, isn't it?" she smiled thoughtfully.

Lex rolled his eyes. He was still not prepared to Clark swooner Chloe after the terror. "Well I'm very glad then because you're not someone to scoff at either. You squirm through so many holes of trouble I can see your ass wiggling and your head buried in some dangerous story."

A wiggling ass. He just couldn't let it go, could he? Fortunately, his statement seemed harmless enough because he saw Gabe grinning from the rearview mirror. "He's right, honey," Gabe told his daughter. "You two probably have the same high risk mark tattooed on your foreheads."

Chloe made an offended grumble. "Who was it again who drank himself to oblivion in the Free Zone in 1997?"

Lex sat back in surprise. That was not something he made known to Chloe. At the time, he was her hero. She wasn't supposed to know the dark side of fun teenage Lex.

"Or the magnificent escapades in Excelsior before you apparently reformed." She said this with mock quotation marks gesture that made Lex grin. "How about the binge of 98? Ah, or my favorite…" Lex's face shuttered. The last one was something that she knew but he never wanted to discuss. "When you protested the new rules in your boarding school and you mooned the vice—"

"That's enough." He didn't really want Gabe to hear that. He was relieved that Chloe didn't mention Zero. Lex saw her smirk, and knew that she remembered that story half as well as he did. It was only around her that he didn't feel that it was such a dirty experience.

"Chloe, stop trying Lex's patience."

"I wouldn't dream of it, dad," Chloe answered from the back of the car. She looked at Lex and edged closer. She laid her head on his shoulder. "You really did scare me, Lex," she whispered.

"Not as much as knowing you were inside scared me," he answered back, just as softly.

"Let's not do that to each other again, okay?"

He looked down at the earnest eyes pleading with him and nodded. "I'm going to stay safe if you are." She agreed with a smile. "So you really wouldn't dream of trying my patience? Someone I don't believe that."

"I said I wouldn't dream of stopping, moron."

"I heard that, Chloe!"

"Sorry, dad."

The heater of this car was old and cranky. Lex settled back on the seat and felt very very warm.

fin