A/N: I'm gonna assume that the gun will still work even after being
submerged in salt water, so go with me on that, eh?
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Lex?" Chloe's voice was almost inaudible.
Stumbling in surprise, and eternally grateful that she wasn't as far gone as he thought she was, Lex carefully set her down, about halfway up the cliff.
"Chloe, are you there?" Lex asked, as her eyes had drifted shut again. "Chloe?" Resisting the urge to shake her, he reached out and ran the back of his hand across her cheek. Her eyes fluttered open.
"C'mon. Stay with me. We're not out of this yet. I need your acerbic comments to drive me on." Lex said.
Chloe managed a weak smile. Slowly, forcing the words to come out audible, Chloe said, "Wimp. Can't even carry a girl up a cliff..." She trailed off, speaking being too much effort.
Pleased that Chloe was still coherent enough to form a come-back, Lex scooped her up, and continued to the top of the hill.
Reaching the top, Lex halted, and moved cautiously, still being aware that he was only a wall away from their assailants, and that the cameras on the wall had been pointed this way.
Chloe moaned softly, as Lex made his way across the beautifully landscaped back yard. She seemed to be getting worse. Whenever her eyes did open, they were glazed and she didn't focus before shutting them again. Lex realized he needed to get her warm, and quickly.
He reached the back door. It was massive, made of wood, and no amount of determination was going to get Lex through. He turned, and moved along the side of the house, hoping for a window or a patio door that he could smash.
Luck was on his side, as he quickly found what he was looking for; a ground level window that appeared to lead to a guest bedroom of some sort. Lex smashed the glass with the butt of the gun, and flipped the latch. Praying that the home was solely equipped with silent alarms, and would only alert the police and not the unfriendly neighbors across the fence, Lex shoved the window open. It was wide enough for one person at a time.
"Chloe you have to stand on your own, okay?" Lex said.
She opened her eyes, and nodded. Then he gently lowered her through the window. She leaned against the wall inside, her arm hanging out, still attached to Lex.
Lex followed, and closed the window after him, hoping that if the kidnappers had followed, they wouldn't look to closely at the window.
Lex could feel the temperature rise a few degrees, just by getting out of a slight breeze he hadn't even noticed.
Not wanting the kidnappers to have an inkling as to their location, Lex picked Chloe up again, and carried her further into the mansion.
Across the hall from the guest bedroom, Lex found a sort of den with no windows. He shut the door, and flipped on the light.
Chloe was pale, and had closed her eyes again. Setting Chloe down on the only couch in the room, and fearing the worst, Lex put his ear to her mouth again. Her breath was still coming, albeit slowly and quietly.
Lex moved quickly. Hoping that pillows would muffle enough of the gunshot not to alert the kidnappers, he pulled their wrists apart, and shot a bullet through the handcuff chain. Lex was free to move around.
Switching the light off, Lex crept back over to the bedroom, and yanked the blankets he found off of the bed.
Back in the den, Lex sat Chloe up. Chloe's eyes opened momentarily before her head tipped over onto Lex's shoulder.
Lex wasted no time in peeling the still wet and freezing cold shirt off and tossing it away. Fear for Chloe's life kept Lex's mind on the situation at hand, but only just. He unzipped the zipper at her hip, and slid the soaking wet skirt off as well. Lex paused then, staring at the sexy black underwear he was faced with.
Under different circumstances, Lex had no doubt what his course of action would be, but with Chloe in the state she was in, delirious at best, Lex was surprisingly unsure. Finally, he just wrapped the comforter around her, and pulled her wet hair away from her neck.
Feeling that he'd done all her could for her at that moment, Lex stood and stripped his wet clothes off. Not having a problem with removing his own underwear, but realizing Chloe might prefer him clothed when she was lucid, he wrapped a lighter blanket he'd found around his waist and sat back down
He rubbed her arms and legs vigorously, to encourage circulation. Chloe's eyes drifted open again. She looked at Lex through slightly glazed eyes, and forced her tongue to form words.
"Did you undress me?" She asked, so quietly that Lex had to lean in to hear.
He nodded. Chloe managed a slight smile then, but slowly closed her eyes again.
Not likely her drifting in and out like she was, Lex pet her face gently to wake her up, fearing that any sudden changes, like him shaking her or dumping her in a tub of hot water, might kill her.
She opened her eyes again. Lex smiled. "You need to keep your eyes open, Chloe. Do you understand me?"
She managed a slight nod. "I'm fine, really." She whispered.
Lex shook his head. "You're not even shivering, you're so far gone." He smiled at her bravado. Did she ever stop? "Listen, I think we need to get to a hospital. Hopefully there's a car we can, uh, borrow. Do you think you can move?"
"Of course." Chloe answered, but made no move to get up on her own. Lex stood, and scooped her up into his arms again. He flipped the lights out, before moving into the hallway. Barefoot, and wrapped only in a blanket, Lex was still warmer then he had been dressed in wet clothes. However, he was aware of the spectacle he would make should he show up in an emergency room dressed as he was.
Despite the situation, he still gave a thought to appearances. He began poking his head into doors that looked promising as bedrooms, hoping that the inhabitants of the house would have left some clothes.
They had worked their way around to what Lex hoped was close to the center of the building when he lucked out. They had found a wide marble staircase, and having set Chloe down at the bottom, Lex had run up the stairs, to see if he could find something useful. Like a map of their location, car keys, or clothes.
Off the to right of the stairs, Lex found the master bedroom. He returned to Chloe and carried her up. There he found everything but the map. 'Borrowing' a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt from the walk in closet, Lex found a warm flannel nightgown for Chloe.
He had set her on the bed. When he walked out of the closet, he saw that she had curled into a ball, so Lex pulled her onto her feet, and was about to help her pull the flannel over her head when she stopped him.
"Wait." She said, as she tried to reach behind her to unhook her bra. Hypothermia had chilled her muscles and retarded her motor skills. Still too cold to care, she turned her back to Lex, and motioned for him to undo it.
Lex deftly unhooked her bra, and pushed it over her shoulders, as Chloe pulled it all the way off. Resisting the urge to turn her around, Lex pulled the nightgown over her head. She bent, and pulled her panties off, kicking them away.
Wondering what the owners of the mansion would say when they returned to find clothing littering their home; Lex went back to the closet to see if he couldn't find some warm slippers for Chloe. He found that and better.
He found the slippers, and turned to leave the closet when he noticed a leather driving jacket hanging on a hook. It was emblazoned with the rearing Ferrari stallion. Smiling, and pushing his luck, Lex felt through the pockets of the jacket.
His fingers closed over keys, and he pulled them out. There was a set of three keys, one of which was obviously the ignition key to a Ferrari.
Smiling to himself, because he'd even managed to escape a kidnapping with class, Lex returned to Chloe with the slippers.
Her eyes were closing again. At her name, Chloe opened her eyes. Lex was dangling keys in front of her.
"We're out of here." He put the slippers on her feet, before lifting her again, and heading back downstairs.
"Lex!" Chloe said, as he made his way down the stairs. "Lex, stop being a chauvinist. I can walk!" Her voice was a little louder, but her eyes still looked unfocused.
"I'm sure you can." Lex agreed, but made no move to put her down. "But I would like to get out of here as quickly as possible, and to be honest, I really don't think you're that much better." He smiled as he made eye contact. "Just better enough to be a smart alec."
Recognizing truth when she heard it, Chloe resigned herself to being carried everywhere for the time being. She wrapped an arm around Lex's neck, and rested her head against his shoulder.
Lex wandered through the unfamiliar mansion, seeking a way to the garage. For all that getting Chloe into dry clothes had helped, Lex knew she should be in a hospital.
He periodically had to rest. Setting Chloe on her feet, and leaning her against the wall. He knew that under normal circumstances he should have been able to handle her weight, so he attributed his weakness to the cold water immersion. And if he was still feeling the effects, he knew Chloe would be feeling it more.
Not knowing how far a hospital was, and how long it would take to get there, Lex felt a sense of urgency to get under way as soon as possible. But the garage, and the Ferrari whose keys he had, eluded him.
It was Chloe who finally found it. Lex had been going from window to window, looking out and trying to see anything resembling car storage, when Chloe pointed slowly at the green house.
"What?" Lex asked, not sure if she was lucid or delirious.
"Look at all the cameras." Chloe pointed out. "Who'd want to wire up a bunch of flowers for security? I don't think it's actually a greenhouse. And there are ruts in the grass leading from the driveway to the front of it." She paused. "I bet that's where the car is."
Lex wasn't so sure. He sure as hell didn't keep *his* Ferrari in the green house, but the tracks and the cameras did seem to warrant some investigation.
"You stay here." Lex said, easing Chloe down by the window they were looking out of. "If it is the car, then I'll come back and get you."
"No." Chloe said, not having the energy for eloquent arguments. "Don't leave me. What if they catch me?"
Lex didn't have to ask who 'they' were. "That's more likely to happen outside!" Lex pointed out.
"Please don't leave me." Chloe implored.
The desire to protect her swept over Lex. He was surprised that he was reacting to the damsel-in-distress situation like, well like Clark... but he couldn't leave her.
"Fine. You can come." He said, smiling at his own almost petulant tone. "You better be right about this!" He said.
A few rooms down, they found a family room, complete with patio doors, and a deck outside. Lex held the door for Chloe, before shutting it so as not to give their exit point away.
The slight breeze outside the mansion, was enough to re-chill Chloe. She waited, hugging herself against the cold, for Lex to shut the door. She craved his body heat like an addict.
He picked her up again, and she wrapped both arms around his neck, and snuggled into him.
"Miss me?" He asked, somewhat amused with her behavior.
"Just cold." She said against his neck. He smiled, and then grew somber as he glanced around the open grounds, and didn't see anyone.
Just because he couldn't see them didn't mean they weren't out there, but there wasn't a lot that he could do about it beyond that. He walked across the grass between the mansion and the green house as casually as possible, hoping that if he looked like he belonged there, then maybe they wouldn't shoot him if they saw him.
They reached the greenhouse unharmed, and Lex breathed a sigh of relief as they sunk into the shadows beside it.
Peering into the glass panes of the greenhouse, Lex was surprised to see that Chloe had been right. The glass building had thrown him. But he now saw that it was a fancy showroom.
A bright red Ferrari Testarossa was parked on a slightly raised platform in the middle. There were a couple of potted geraniums sitting on the windowsill, which had just further enhanced the image of a greenhouse.
Relieved that they had finally found the car, Lex quickly found the door, and discovered that one of the keys on the key chain opened it up. Lex turned the dead bolt, and pulled the door open.
The show room was not equipped with a silent alarm.
An alarm that sounded like it was alerting the neighborhood to a nuclear threat went off, blaring into the night. Wanting to avoid a conflict with Chloe in the state she was in, Lex hurried to get Chloe into the passenger's seat and buckled up, before rushing around to the driver's side.
Giving stealth up for lost; he revved the car up and gunned it down the slight incline of the platform, and out the pane glass side. As the car burst through the showroom walls in a shower of glass shards, Lex mentally promised to replace it. The car and the glass.
Roaring down the driveway, Lex felt around the car for the remote that had to be there. An automatic gate came standard with a mansion like that, Lex figured, as he fumbled to find the remote that opened it.
He found it in the ashtray. He faced forward, aiming it at the gate as they approached. The gates swung open, and Lex hesitated before pulling onto the road. He saw a car approaching from the kidnapper's side, and it was moving fast.
Not wanting to wait around and see if it actually was the kidnappers, Lex pulled onto the road headed in the other direction. Hoping that he wasn't driving into a dead end, Lex floored the gas pedal, leaping away, and soon lost the car behind them.
TBC...
A/N: Should I wrap this up soon? Get them back to Smallville in a couple of chapters? Or should Lex and Chloe figure out who wanted Lex kidnapped? Your call...
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Lex?" Chloe's voice was almost inaudible.
Stumbling in surprise, and eternally grateful that she wasn't as far gone as he thought she was, Lex carefully set her down, about halfway up the cliff.
"Chloe, are you there?" Lex asked, as her eyes had drifted shut again. "Chloe?" Resisting the urge to shake her, he reached out and ran the back of his hand across her cheek. Her eyes fluttered open.
"C'mon. Stay with me. We're not out of this yet. I need your acerbic comments to drive me on." Lex said.
Chloe managed a weak smile. Slowly, forcing the words to come out audible, Chloe said, "Wimp. Can't even carry a girl up a cliff..." She trailed off, speaking being too much effort.
Pleased that Chloe was still coherent enough to form a come-back, Lex scooped her up, and continued to the top of the hill.
Reaching the top, Lex halted, and moved cautiously, still being aware that he was only a wall away from their assailants, and that the cameras on the wall had been pointed this way.
Chloe moaned softly, as Lex made his way across the beautifully landscaped back yard. She seemed to be getting worse. Whenever her eyes did open, they were glazed and she didn't focus before shutting them again. Lex realized he needed to get her warm, and quickly.
He reached the back door. It was massive, made of wood, and no amount of determination was going to get Lex through. He turned, and moved along the side of the house, hoping for a window or a patio door that he could smash.
Luck was on his side, as he quickly found what he was looking for; a ground level window that appeared to lead to a guest bedroom of some sort. Lex smashed the glass with the butt of the gun, and flipped the latch. Praying that the home was solely equipped with silent alarms, and would only alert the police and not the unfriendly neighbors across the fence, Lex shoved the window open. It was wide enough for one person at a time.
"Chloe you have to stand on your own, okay?" Lex said.
She opened her eyes, and nodded. Then he gently lowered her through the window. She leaned against the wall inside, her arm hanging out, still attached to Lex.
Lex followed, and closed the window after him, hoping that if the kidnappers had followed, they wouldn't look to closely at the window.
Lex could feel the temperature rise a few degrees, just by getting out of a slight breeze he hadn't even noticed.
Not wanting the kidnappers to have an inkling as to their location, Lex picked Chloe up again, and carried her further into the mansion.
Across the hall from the guest bedroom, Lex found a sort of den with no windows. He shut the door, and flipped on the light.
Chloe was pale, and had closed her eyes again. Setting Chloe down on the only couch in the room, and fearing the worst, Lex put his ear to her mouth again. Her breath was still coming, albeit slowly and quietly.
Lex moved quickly. Hoping that pillows would muffle enough of the gunshot not to alert the kidnappers, he pulled their wrists apart, and shot a bullet through the handcuff chain. Lex was free to move around.
Switching the light off, Lex crept back over to the bedroom, and yanked the blankets he found off of the bed.
Back in the den, Lex sat Chloe up. Chloe's eyes opened momentarily before her head tipped over onto Lex's shoulder.
Lex wasted no time in peeling the still wet and freezing cold shirt off and tossing it away. Fear for Chloe's life kept Lex's mind on the situation at hand, but only just. He unzipped the zipper at her hip, and slid the soaking wet skirt off as well. Lex paused then, staring at the sexy black underwear he was faced with.
Under different circumstances, Lex had no doubt what his course of action would be, but with Chloe in the state she was in, delirious at best, Lex was surprisingly unsure. Finally, he just wrapped the comforter around her, and pulled her wet hair away from her neck.
Feeling that he'd done all her could for her at that moment, Lex stood and stripped his wet clothes off. Not having a problem with removing his own underwear, but realizing Chloe might prefer him clothed when she was lucid, he wrapped a lighter blanket he'd found around his waist and sat back down
He rubbed her arms and legs vigorously, to encourage circulation. Chloe's eyes drifted open again. She looked at Lex through slightly glazed eyes, and forced her tongue to form words.
"Did you undress me?" She asked, so quietly that Lex had to lean in to hear.
He nodded. Chloe managed a slight smile then, but slowly closed her eyes again.
Not likely her drifting in and out like she was, Lex pet her face gently to wake her up, fearing that any sudden changes, like him shaking her or dumping her in a tub of hot water, might kill her.
She opened her eyes again. Lex smiled. "You need to keep your eyes open, Chloe. Do you understand me?"
She managed a slight nod. "I'm fine, really." She whispered.
Lex shook his head. "You're not even shivering, you're so far gone." He smiled at her bravado. Did she ever stop? "Listen, I think we need to get to a hospital. Hopefully there's a car we can, uh, borrow. Do you think you can move?"
"Of course." Chloe answered, but made no move to get up on her own. Lex stood, and scooped her up into his arms again. He flipped the lights out, before moving into the hallway. Barefoot, and wrapped only in a blanket, Lex was still warmer then he had been dressed in wet clothes. However, he was aware of the spectacle he would make should he show up in an emergency room dressed as he was.
Despite the situation, he still gave a thought to appearances. He began poking his head into doors that looked promising as bedrooms, hoping that the inhabitants of the house would have left some clothes.
They had worked their way around to what Lex hoped was close to the center of the building when he lucked out. They had found a wide marble staircase, and having set Chloe down at the bottom, Lex had run up the stairs, to see if he could find something useful. Like a map of their location, car keys, or clothes.
Off the to right of the stairs, Lex found the master bedroom. He returned to Chloe and carried her up. There he found everything but the map. 'Borrowing' a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt from the walk in closet, Lex found a warm flannel nightgown for Chloe.
He had set her on the bed. When he walked out of the closet, he saw that she had curled into a ball, so Lex pulled her onto her feet, and was about to help her pull the flannel over her head when she stopped him.
"Wait." She said, as she tried to reach behind her to unhook her bra. Hypothermia had chilled her muscles and retarded her motor skills. Still too cold to care, she turned her back to Lex, and motioned for him to undo it.
Lex deftly unhooked her bra, and pushed it over her shoulders, as Chloe pulled it all the way off. Resisting the urge to turn her around, Lex pulled the nightgown over her head. She bent, and pulled her panties off, kicking them away.
Wondering what the owners of the mansion would say when they returned to find clothing littering their home; Lex went back to the closet to see if he couldn't find some warm slippers for Chloe. He found that and better.
He found the slippers, and turned to leave the closet when he noticed a leather driving jacket hanging on a hook. It was emblazoned with the rearing Ferrari stallion. Smiling, and pushing his luck, Lex felt through the pockets of the jacket.
His fingers closed over keys, and he pulled them out. There was a set of three keys, one of which was obviously the ignition key to a Ferrari.
Smiling to himself, because he'd even managed to escape a kidnapping with class, Lex returned to Chloe with the slippers.
Her eyes were closing again. At her name, Chloe opened her eyes. Lex was dangling keys in front of her.
"We're out of here." He put the slippers on her feet, before lifting her again, and heading back downstairs.
"Lex!" Chloe said, as he made his way down the stairs. "Lex, stop being a chauvinist. I can walk!" Her voice was a little louder, but her eyes still looked unfocused.
"I'm sure you can." Lex agreed, but made no move to put her down. "But I would like to get out of here as quickly as possible, and to be honest, I really don't think you're that much better." He smiled as he made eye contact. "Just better enough to be a smart alec."
Recognizing truth when she heard it, Chloe resigned herself to being carried everywhere for the time being. She wrapped an arm around Lex's neck, and rested her head against his shoulder.
Lex wandered through the unfamiliar mansion, seeking a way to the garage. For all that getting Chloe into dry clothes had helped, Lex knew she should be in a hospital.
He periodically had to rest. Setting Chloe on her feet, and leaning her against the wall. He knew that under normal circumstances he should have been able to handle her weight, so he attributed his weakness to the cold water immersion. And if he was still feeling the effects, he knew Chloe would be feeling it more.
Not knowing how far a hospital was, and how long it would take to get there, Lex felt a sense of urgency to get under way as soon as possible. But the garage, and the Ferrari whose keys he had, eluded him.
It was Chloe who finally found it. Lex had been going from window to window, looking out and trying to see anything resembling car storage, when Chloe pointed slowly at the green house.
"What?" Lex asked, not sure if she was lucid or delirious.
"Look at all the cameras." Chloe pointed out. "Who'd want to wire up a bunch of flowers for security? I don't think it's actually a greenhouse. And there are ruts in the grass leading from the driveway to the front of it." She paused. "I bet that's where the car is."
Lex wasn't so sure. He sure as hell didn't keep *his* Ferrari in the green house, but the tracks and the cameras did seem to warrant some investigation.
"You stay here." Lex said, easing Chloe down by the window they were looking out of. "If it is the car, then I'll come back and get you."
"No." Chloe said, not having the energy for eloquent arguments. "Don't leave me. What if they catch me?"
Lex didn't have to ask who 'they' were. "That's more likely to happen outside!" Lex pointed out.
"Please don't leave me." Chloe implored.
The desire to protect her swept over Lex. He was surprised that he was reacting to the damsel-in-distress situation like, well like Clark... but he couldn't leave her.
"Fine. You can come." He said, smiling at his own almost petulant tone. "You better be right about this!" He said.
A few rooms down, they found a family room, complete with patio doors, and a deck outside. Lex held the door for Chloe, before shutting it so as not to give their exit point away.
The slight breeze outside the mansion, was enough to re-chill Chloe. She waited, hugging herself against the cold, for Lex to shut the door. She craved his body heat like an addict.
He picked her up again, and she wrapped both arms around his neck, and snuggled into him.
"Miss me?" He asked, somewhat amused with her behavior.
"Just cold." She said against his neck. He smiled, and then grew somber as he glanced around the open grounds, and didn't see anyone.
Just because he couldn't see them didn't mean they weren't out there, but there wasn't a lot that he could do about it beyond that. He walked across the grass between the mansion and the green house as casually as possible, hoping that if he looked like he belonged there, then maybe they wouldn't shoot him if they saw him.
They reached the greenhouse unharmed, and Lex breathed a sigh of relief as they sunk into the shadows beside it.
Peering into the glass panes of the greenhouse, Lex was surprised to see that Chloe had been right. The glass building had thrown him. But he now saw that it was a fancy showroom.
A bright red Ferrari Testarossa was parked on a slightly raised platform in the middle. There were a couple of potted geraniums sitting on the windowsill, which had just further enhanced the image of a greenhouse.
Relieved that they had finally found the car, Lex quickly found the door, and discovered that one of the keys on the key chain opened it up. Lex turned the dead bolt, and pulled the door open.
The show room was not equipped with a silent alarm.
An alarm that sounded like it was alerting the neighborhood to a nuclear threat went off, blaring into the night. Wanting to avoid a conflict with Chloe in the state she was in, Lex hurried to get Chloe into the passenger's seat and buckled up, before rushing around to the driver's side.
Giving stealth up for lost; he revved the car up and gunned it down the slight incline of the platform, and out the pane glass side. As the car burst through the showroom walls in a shower of glass shards, Lex mentally promised to replace it. The car and the glass.
Roaring down the driveway, Lex felt around the car for the remote that had to be there. An automatic gate came standard with a mansion like that, Lex figured, as he fumbled to find the remote that opened it.
He found it in the ashtray. He faced forward, aiming it at the gate as they approached. The gates swung open, and Lex hesitated before pulling onto the road. He saw a car approaching from the kidnapper's side, and it was moving fast.
Not wanting to wait around and see if it actually was the kidnappers, Lex pulled onto the road headed in the other direction. Hoping that he wasn't driving into a dead end, Lex floored the gas pedal, leaping away, and soon lost the car behind them.
TBC...
A/N: Should I wrap this up soon? Get them back to Smallville in a couple of chapters? Or should Lex and Chloe figure out who wanted Lex kidnapped? Your call...
