A/N: Thank you Kit Merlot and Cousin for taking the time to review! I do have a real reason for not posting sooner. Lightening hit our (meaning my parents home, I'm just living in it for now) house and fried our television and internet modem. The microwave is a bit wonky, but other then that, everything is fine and I'm back online. As a reward for patience, here's the next chapter!
Spoilers for Tomb, Hypnotic, Void, and Fragile in season five.
Chapter Two
Chloe Sullivan stared at the outside of her dorm room tentatively. The last time she and Lana had exchanged words, they hadn't exactly parted with a hug and kiss. She had spent the night in Smallville after a pleasant dinner with her father and then dragged herself to work for a few hours overtime at The Daily Planet. All actions she had dragged out as long as possible in hopes of evading the unavoidable discussion.
"Hey Chloe, did you get locked out?" Tom, her dorm neighbor inquired as he walked up behind her. His bare feet sauntered lazily toward her.
"Uh, no, just roommate drama." Chloe smiled. Her eyes examined how his partially damp blonde hair spiked. "Just get out of the shower?"
"Yeah, just got back from a crazy party and wanted to clear my head a bit before I passed out for a few hours." Tom's face lit up and he waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "There's always more room in my room, just incase you're…" He grinned, a mild gap between his teeth peeked at her from within his perfect lips. "Interested in a little bit of fun?"
"Maybe another time Tom," Chloe chuckled, going out on a casual date or two with the guy was admittedly entertaining. However, she wasn't about to do anything even remotely risqué unless the boy got tested first. "Besides, I thought your lady of the hour was Angie?"
On-cue, a tall, slim redhead poked her head out of Tom's dorm room. "Tommy, come on, I'm waiting for you." She eyed up Chloe with a possessive skepticism. "I thought I told you I wasn't into threesomes."
"Goodnight Tom," Chloe turned away before Tom could begin negotiating terms with Angie. Just a regular night on campus, snickering, Chloe shook her head and finally swiped her student ID to her dorm door and slid in. Not willing to risk turning on a light, Chloe took a few steps, tripped over something soft and solid, before plunging forward.
"Ouch!" The lights immediately come back on. Lana, who was sitting cross-legged by the door, was now standing by the nearest lamp.
"What were you doing sitting by the door?" Chloe swore as her palm had a scrape on it. "Aren't you supposed to be, I don't know, sleeping in your bed?"
Lana starred at Chloe through damp and mildly swollen eyes as if she was a stranger.
"Lana," Chloe's protective instincts finally kicked in. "What happened to you Lana, are you okay?"
"Chloe," Lana bit her lip and blinked dramatically at Chloe. "I kissed Lex."
Chloe felt like she had been punched. "I'm sorry, what did you just say?"
Lana's eyes drifted out of focus. "I went over to Lex's house, and after we both concluded like adults that we were only friends, I kissed him. I kissed Lex Luthor twice."
"Lana…" Chloe felt the room churn somewhat before she began feeling years of her resentment overtake her. "Why did you tell me this?"
"Because you are my best friend," Lana laughed deliberately, it was pointed, forced and rang false. "Actually, other then Lex I'm pretty sure that you are my only real friend."
"Shut up." Chloe said sharply she could start feeling her fury blocking access to the personal restraint she could usually rely on.
"Chloe…?" Now it was Lana's turn to look uncomfortable.
"How… I can't even…" Chloe sputtered. "God, how could you?" She threw down her purse.
"I don't understand." Lana's eyes started to fill with tears. "I thought that you of all people could—"
"No Lana, this time I can't." Chloe snapped. "I can't believe you told me this!" She stood right back up and started pacing. "I defended you to that shiny bastard, I had you come around and bite my head off right after I told you that it would be okay if you…" Chloe breathed. "I was wrong, I was so wrong, I can't keep a secret from Clark you KNOW that!" Chloe's voice started getting louder and there was nothing she could do to control her volume. "I can't do this anymore, I can't watch you purposely hurt Clark, I won't let you hurt me, and I hope you and Lex are happy."
"Chloe, please," Lana pleaded, grabbing Chloe's hand. "I need you to—"
"No Lana, I can personally say you damn well don't need me, you want what I can't give you. You've used your last quarter on your vending machine of forgiveness and right now I can't even bring myself to stay in the same room as you." Chloe spat. "Have fun destroying Lex, because he's all you have left." With that, Chloe's head still spinning, she slammed the door and stamped out.
Lana's hand groped for her cell phone and she pressed the number she could probably recite backwards. "Lex?"
"Lana, is everything alright?" Lex's voice was muzzy but readily getting clearer.
"It's Chloe, we had a huge argument, and I'm fine." Lana said quickly, irritated that the tears pooling down her face didn't have an off switch. "I'm just worried at what Chloe is going to do."
"Look, Lana, I'm sure that whatever argument that you had about Clark will be resolved within a few days." Lex's voice sounded increasingly tired.
"Lex, we weren't arguing about Clark, I told her about how you and I…" Lana trailed off, hating how childish she sounded; they had been avoiding the subject for the past few days. "How you and I had kissed, I just wanted someone to confide in and I had no idea that she would take it so badly." Lana's tone was getting increasingly defensive as a little voice in the back of her head told her she knew exactly how Chloe would have reacted. "I don't think she wants to be anywhere around Clark because then she would have to tell him why she's upset."
"Where do you think she would go?" Lex's voice had regained an alert, business tone.
"Her father is currently across country trying to find another job." Lana suddenly felt a foreign wrench of guilt she quickly pushed down hoping it would just stay anchored there. "It's a long shot, but she might have gone to see her mother."
Nothing but silence filled the space between her cell phone and Lana's ear. Suddenly, for the first time in weeks, Lana felt very alone as Lex took his sweet time to answer.
Chloe was furious. No, she was beyond that, to her annoyance, the energy burst she had gained from her confrontation with Lana was starting to ebb away. She strode frantically to the nearest bus stop and sat. What made her even angrier was the fact she had left her purse in fit of self-righteous rage. Now she was just tired, and she had no bus money to go see her mother.
An elderly lady sat besides Chloe on the bus bench and began fussing with her little, bug eyed dog tucked into her oversized purse. The gems reminded her eerily of the one Simone had tied around her neck. Chloe's mind unwillingly took her to an event she had been trying so hard to forget.
The shot was fired and Chloe's hands were still clutched tightly around Lex Luthor's fingers. With a faint moan Simone fell spread-eagle onto her back, blood beginning to pool out of her chest.
Chloe starred at what she had down wide-eyed with horror. Twice she had shot someone, in the same year she had shot two people.
Clark's cries of pain were getting weaker.
Lex continued to stare at the collapsed body of Simone, trying to register what had happened in the last few moments.
Snapping out of her daze, Chloe rushed toward Clark, taking advantage of Lex's rare shock, and yanked the meteor rock out. With the kryptonite in her hand she chucked it down the hall and returned her attention to Clark. "Are you alright Clark?"
Clark stood up shakily and barely registered Chloe dusting some of the broken glass off his jacket. "I think so." He muttered, his eyes falling onto Simone's fallen body.
Lex's eyes refocused onto Chloe and Clark.
"Oh god, Lex, you have to call 911." Chloe rushed forward, yanking off her scarf and applying it to the wound on Simone's chest. "She's still breathing, we have to get an ambulance here."
"Lex, where… what is… Chloe?" Clark's memory started piecing together the most recent events. "Are you okay?" He uneasily asked Lex, realizing that tossing the billionaire across the room like a rejected toy was not an everyday occurrence in the Luthor mansion.
"Twice," Chloe's stomach clenched tightly. "It's happened twice." The look of surprise and hurt on Gabriel Duncan's face as the shot fired off and his blood hit the window behind him.
Lex already had his cell phone to his eardrum. "I'll be fine," Lex turned his face away from Chloe and Clark so he could wince without either of them seeing him weakened. "Yes, I need a medical unit here immediately, I have a twenty year old female who is in need to assistance, and she has a single gunshot wound to the chest."
"Guys," Chloe's eyes started to get burry. "I think the two of you should get over here, it doesn't look like she's breathing."
Clark rushed over and gasped. "Chloe, you look like you're about to—"
Whatever Clark had to say never met Chloe's ears as her body chose that moment to pass out.
Chloe was warm, too warm, grimacing; she cracked a heavy eyelid and then blinked in confusion. Where was she again?
"I know you're awake." Lex Luthor's voice lashed through her groggy mind. "You don't have to get up or anything but it'd be childish to pretend you're still asleep."
"Lex, why is it so hot in here?" Chloe's tongue felt almost foreign in her mouth as she tried to regain her ability to speak.
"Clark insisted you had the couch closest to the fire to keep you warm and ignored me when I said it gets alarmingly hot when seated in for extended amounts of time."
Chloe turned her head and forced her eyes to use Lex's face as a point of focus. "Where is Clark?" The light within the room was brighter then before. Her stomach twisted when she felt like she was abandoned at the hospital in the middle of the Yukon, only having Lex to save her of all people.
"While you were unconscious, Simone had gone into shock and stopped breathing." Lex rubbed the back of his head in frustration. "Clark and I took turns doing CPR but by the time my med-team finally came to help her—"
Chloe examined the faint worry lines that were highlighted by the fire on Lex Luthor's exhausted face.
"Is she dead?" Chloe managed, trying to swallow the bile that was trying to work its way out of her throat.
"Shortly after she stopped breathing, her heart stopped functioning. The medic that pried Clark off of Simone informed him that even if she had survived, she would have massive brain trauma."
Chloe turned away from Lex, wishing she could just vanish in the uncomfortable couch she had been dumped on.
"It wasn't your fault," Lex continued mildly, as if he was merely discussing a possible rearrangement in furniture. "If you hadn't of stopped me I would have shot you and then myself."
"I really hate myself." She wrapped her arms tightly around herself instinctively, intuitively loathing that Lex was seeing her so weak. "Next time, I'm just going to let whatever happens, happen." Next time, Chloe was just going to let the bullet take her.
"You saved my life," Lex's voice continued. "You cannot deny that eventually, she would have probably hurt Clark when he no longer served a purpose. Do you really believe that Clark character would allow his morals to stay suppressed forever?"
Chloe felt Lex's hand placed on her shoulder. Before she could stop herself, she grabbed Lex's hand and pushed it off. The long sleeve of her jacket slid back and presented the horizontal scar she had been trying so hard to hide.
"How are they…" Lex gestured to the exposed wrist. "Healing?"
"They are healing just fine, but the doctors say that the scar is always supposed to be there." She stared at Lex, nothing was comforting about the hand he had touched her with, nor was the question he asked with reliable concern. Still, for some reason Chloe didn't want to examine to closely, it helped. "To be honest, I'm still more freaked out at the fact you had the gun pointed at me then anything else."
"I didn't get the chance to thank you for stopping me." Lex continued, his voice sounding tired and rehearsed.
"To be honest Lex, I just want to forget this ever happened." Chloe sighed, not interested in what bizarrely elaborate display of gratitude the Luther may have in store. It had been a long day and all she wanted to do was go home.
"Chloe?" Clark's puzzled face peaked in from the doorway.
"Where did you go?" Chloe's need to get away from the Luthor mansion became the most desirable activity.
"I had to go check up on Lois and my mother." Clark cast a suspicious look at Lex. "If you want, you can leave now."
Chloe rolled over and stood on her shaky legs. "Yeah, I think I'd like to go home and see my Dad now."
Lex reluctantly watched Chloe and Clark's retreating backs.
Chloe hesitated at the entry way and looked back.
"Are you coming Chloe?" Clark called from down the hall.
"Just, wait for me by the truck, please?" Chloe looked at Lex. "Thanks."
"For what?" Lex commented vaguely, his eyes assessing the shattered glass that still covered the floor of his office.
"What you said, it's not much, but genuine gratitude is the best thing you could ever give me. Chloe left the room, leaving Lex alone allowing her mind to add, 'In your own way, you may have saved my life.'