Chlexville Season 3
WHISPER FORGOTTEN LIFE
"What do you want?" Chloe asked, her voice dropped low and raspy. "I'm at school." She looked around quickly, then said, "This isn't the best place to talk. I don't even know if we should still be talking about it. I'm done with this, Lucas."
On the other end of the line, her remaining lifeline said slowly, intently, "You have to talk about this. You will not run away from this, Chloe. I'm going to swing by and you are going to tell me why Lex slammed into his study last night and hasn't come out since. Only one person can affect him like this, Chloe. I know he's been to your place."
"No!" she cried out too quickly. "Don't come here. It would be too suspicious."
"Then you are going to a private room and you are going to talk to me. Is anyone around?"
"No one can hear me," she assured Lucas. "I can't even believe you're calling me, especially after everything that's happened. I'm not ready to talk, Lucas."
"Then when will you be ready?" he demanded.
"I don't know!" She heaved a deep sigh. "He came to my house. He wanted to be with me. I told him I would leave you. And then… he found out."
She could almost hear his jaw clench. "Did you think he wouldn't when you were up close?"
"No one else did."
"Lex looks at you so much more closely than anyone else ever does," he informed her, as if she had not experienced evidence of it.
She shook her head. "Your brother is a brilliant man. He should be able to connect the dots by himself."
"And he probably would," Lucas agreed, "if all his faculties are working fine." He was reluctant to say the next words, but he knew he had as much responsibility to Chloe as he had to Lex to say them. "Lex isn't the same man you fell in love with Chloe. Right now I don't see you fighting to get back what you lost. Do you still want to be with him?"
"I fell in love with a boy. He was definitely not the man from last year, or the year before that. I'd always love Lex, no matter what's left of him," she confessed. "That doesn't mean I will find it easy, Lucas." She clutched at the phone so tightly, because there were things she did not want to admit.
"That's alright," he assured her. "We can work with that. Nobody will ever say it's easy. Chloe, your relationship is by no means stable. The crack is horrid and so conspicuous," he continued. "I see the way he looks at you, even without the memory of where you guys started. I see him and I see you, and I know that crack never reached the foundation."
"The pressure—"
"It's going to turn coal into diamond," he cut her off, with a faint smile in his voice. "When you finally get him back, Chloe, nothing on earth can shatter you."
Meanwhile, in the castle, Lucas turned off the phone and strode to Lex's study. He had not presumed the night before, especially because he was not armed with any facts. Now, with Chloe's brief and emotionless version of the story, he was able to conclude basic truths. The colder the message relayed, the hotter was the fire that burned underneath.
He did not knock. Instead, he pounded on the door with his fist. Then, Lucas barged in using the housemaid's key. He saw Lex pouring himself a glass of orange juice.
"Lex," Lucas began, "I don't have much time. I need to talk to you about something."
The older brother's eyes flickered at Lucas, and then he looked down into the juice in his glass. "There's something I need to tell you as well."
"Go ahead."
Lex tipped the glass back and emptied it of its contents in one gulp. "When I came back, I thought this would be hell. I had no memory, and even in amnesia I knew dad wouldn't really care about me. You made it all better, Lucas." Lucas stared at his brother and saw him as vulnerable for the first time. "And then I had to go and fuck it up by falling in love with your girlfriend." Lucas shook his head. "This is humiliation. I despise myself."
"That's stupid," Lucas told him.
"I wanted her for myself. God, she's pregnant with your baby and I still want her for myself!" Lex covered his eyes with the back of his hand. "They were right to put me in an institution. This is sick."
"Lex, please," Lucas said, taking his wrist and pulling the hand away. "Listen to me. There's nothing wrong with what you feel." When he saw his brother about to protest, Lucas squeezed Lex's wrist. "It's true, Lex. I have been disappointed with your performance in the past, but that's nothing I haven't said to you. We dealt with it, and it's over. I've gotten to respect you since. You were the better Luthor son. You were probably the better human being, only time will judge. I've come to accept that."
"If you're saying that as the better one I can have Chloe, you're insane, Lucas. She's going to have a baby."
Lucas nodded. "She is," came his agreement. "It's not mine though."
"Then whose—"
"It's yours."
Lex stared at Lucas blankly. Then, he shook his head. He waited for Lucas to reveal the entire hurtful joke. When nothing came, Lex sputtered, "But that's impossible. She's five months along, by the looks of it. If that were mine, we'd have slept together—" he trailed off.
"That's right," Lucas murmured softly, allowing the answer to sink in.
"I cheated on Helen," was Lex's conclusion.
Lucas shook his head. "You were never Helen's, Lex."
A whisper brushed by swiftly, softly against the curtains of his memory.
i"Just hold on, okay?"
Chloe nodded. "I'm holding on."
"Good." He kissed her on the lips. "It's the best that we can do right now. Just think of how much happier we'll be when this is through."/i
Lex closed his eyes and convinced himself it was only a dream.
"All those nightmares that you've been getting treated for, even the ones that haunted you so much—they weren't nightmares," he told him. "They weren't signs of sickness, Lex."
Lex swallowed, and kept his eyes closed. He was far from succeeding in the battle against oblivion, but he recognized more and more scenes from a distant memory filled with fear and anger and worry… Most of all, they were scenes of need and of love. "We were going to get married when I came back for her." Only he did not come back. He left and sent an inadequate substitute.
"She was your forgotten life," Lucas concluded. "And you've broken her heart one too many times, Lex."
fin
Tune in to Chlexville: DELETE ALL TRACES
Someone in Smallville wants Chloe dead. Will Lex and Lucas be able to reach her before the mysterious emails cause her fall?