"With forty-five minutes to spare."
Lex glanced at the time and murmured to himself - he had managed somehow to fall asleep again next to her, lulled into calmness by the warmth of her body and the rhythm of her breathing. Slowly returning to wakefulness, he was admittedly surprised at himself - his ability to sleep in recent months was an enormous change in and of itself. This sense of peace he felt in another person's presence was not what he'd foreseen in his working with Claire Branigan.
He traced a fingertip down Claire's spine, reasonably certain that she was not just pretending to be asleep - she lay on her side, facing away from him with the sheet of the bed pulled over her front, leaving her back mostly exposed. His fingertip traced over the lines of the tattoo that he'd first gotten a fleeting glance of in prison - the Jabberwocky. He'd known at that point that she was a woman with a story. With secrets. With vulnerabilities. With demons. He'd known at that point that in a way that she perhaps wouldn't ever understand, she was like him. She stirred slightly at the touch of his fingertip, however, and gently rolled her shoulders. It seemed to take her a few moments to register where she was or what had happened. However, even when she had, even when it was confirmed by her turning to face him and looking at him with a look of drowsy curiosity, Lex did not have the feeling of staring down a frantic doe. There was a peace about he that did not leave him with the fear that she was going to scurry off into hiding.
There would be time later, Claire had conceded, to mull over the consequence of what had just happened. The fact of the matter was that it had, and if it ruined her life later, she would have the rest of it to be miserable. There would only be consequences when they returned to Metropolis. This was still Central City - a place where their names and their stories meant nothing, even if solely for the fact that this was not their home. If things were just going to inevitably fall to pieces anyway, then she could give herself a few precious hours of buying into this illusion of whatever this was with Alexander Luthor Junior. For a few precious hours, she could be a little blind.
Lex, on the other hand, could no longer bring himself to see the moment as fleeting at all. This was the sealing of the deal that, in his mind, they had been negotiating since the instant Claire had first appeared in his life. Time and again, he had done everything he could to try her resolve, to the very last offering her the opportunity to walk away, and she did not. To the very last, he had blatantly shown her the door and invited her to leave through it - had even, in many instances, given her a hard nudge out. If he was the devil, then she had made her deal with him of her own accord.
And that meant that she was his now. That was the only thing it could mean.
In the time Lex had taken to mull over these things - to solidify his justification for his claim over the woman in front of him - she had already given a small cat-like yawn and stretch, reaching over to the foot of the bed for her clothes and starting to slip them on.
It was a waste, Lex decided with a smirk. He very much appreciated the sight of her without them. He almost reluctantly left the bed himself, making his way toward the bathroom to take a shower.
Perhaps it was a little delusional, he decided under the stinging warm needles of water, but what had happened now in his mind justified what he had done... what Claire would likely soon find out about. He'd taken a course of action that had been meant as yet another test, but surely now, it would be nothing. Perhaps, Lex decided to himself, she would even be grateful for it when she realized it. Whatever this was, it was all-consuming, just the way his hatred for Superman had been. He knew no other way. Superman - Clark Kent - had been a symbol of the ultimate power. Claire Branigan in his mind was his new conception of the ultimate good. The ultimate understanding and compassion, even to the extent of bearing this final test Lex had been planning.
He emerged from the bathroom to see Claire standing in front of the mirror, lazily braiding her hair off to one side. She was still wearing the same black pencil skirt she had been wearing before, but instead of the prim, secretary-marmish chiffon blouse she had been wearing, she had instead put on the shirt Lex had been wearing the night before, knotted in the front so that a sliver of skin along her midsection peered between the shirt and the high waist on the black skirt.
"People are generally thick-skulled - I figured you'd want to ensure the general public gets the hint," Claire said matter-of-factly, and Lex chuckled, walking over and kissing her soundly on the mouth for being so quick to continue the ploy. Being seen at breakfast wearing his shirt he'd been photographed in from the night before was, he agreed, a clear message. He pulled back from the kiss, the side of his knuckle tipping her chin gently upward so that they could meet one another's eyes.
"Brilliant idea," he said with a smirk. "I do like them clever."
And for a glimmer of a second, he saw in her eyes that she was, perhaps somewhere in the deeper recesses of her mind, enamored with him the way he was sure no one ever had - he saw for a moment that for once, the compliment had meant something to her. For the first time, the same little phrase Lex used to invariably push her buttons in fact did the opposite. Even if she quickly shook the stars from her eyes and pulled away from him, he'd already caught it. He'd succeeded in sinking his talons into her.
"So breakfast and back home?" she asked with forced nonchalance, sitting at the foot of the bed and reaching for the remote control to the large-screen television, turning it on and zoning out slightly to the local news channel that came on by default.
"In other news," the perfectly-coifed news anchorwoman lilted as a picture of a man popped up on the corner of the screen. "Attempted robbery suspect Leonard Snart, who just last week allegedly attempted an armed robbery on the Central City Superior Courthouse, posted two million dollars bail this morning thanks to an anonymous donor and will be released in a matter of hours..."
Two million dollars. Claire stiffened slightly, and Lex could see the gears turning in her head at the realization that two million dollars was nothing to scoff at - it was an amount that did not lend itself to coincidence. First came the epiphany. Then, there was the fear. Now, there was the inkling of possibility that she was putting two and two together, and would potentially again withdraw. Lex felt his hands clenching into fists at his sides as he closely observed her, waiting for a response.
"Was it you?" she asked, her voice calm.
"What do you think?" he replied, his voice tense and guttural. Claire didn't respond just yet and instead lifted the remote to turn off the television set, facing him with a lopsided grin.
"I think," she began in a collected tone, leaning back on her forearms and crossing her legs at the knee, cocking her head to one side, "that we should get downstairs before we miss breakfast. I'm starving."
Lex knew that she knew. He knew because one of the things he valued most about her was her ability to solve puzzles, to not miss the clues. But, if she disapproved, he didn't see it - she instead got back to her feet and stood in front of him, almost absently straightening and smoothing the collar of the shirt he was wearing. She was with him. He smirked back at her as he gently caught her hands at the wrists - slowly becoming his possessive gesture of choice - and looped one of her arms through his.
"Shall we?"
The air between them was substantially different than it had erstwhile been - there was a sense of casualness and lack of needed effort in the way Claire leaned into his side as they walked, the way Lex's arm draped over her shoulders as they exited the hotel elevator. They leaned across the table towards one another over their coffee, focused on one another and not on anyone else. For the first time, it was not about being seen by anyone - in the haze of the events of the earlier morning, there was a focus and a comfort between them.
It had taken only a matter of hours, Lex had not yet quite realized, for Claire to be completely transformed, and now she was no longer a tool to be held at arm's length. All he knew was that now, he had the urge for her not to leave his sight, to always have his hands or his eyes on her because what else did one do when something or someone belonged to you? He didn't know, and did not purport to.
"I can't say I've ever had anyone nearly beat me at basketball in heels," Lex pointed out at some point during their breakfast, partially because he knew that things were likely not to be this way once their short time away from Metropolis was over, and he wanted to commit to memory the way she smiled and lit up for him - he had one more test planned for her, and it would very possibly, he realized, change everything. For now, however, she simply laughed and shook her head, drinking from her coffee mug.
"I would've won in heels if you'd played fair," she smirked.
"Me? Play fair?" Lex asked with a matter-of-fact quirk of his eyebrows and a tilt of his head. "Clearly, you haven't known me long enough yet."
Claire rolled her eyes, but not in the way Lex was accustomed to, not in the way that made it clear she was infuriated with him. Everything about their interactions, even the small expressions and gestures Lex had seen countless times before, seemed somehow new and different in light of the turn their morning had taken.
Lex had made a point of avoiding attaching too much to particular moments - because it was even more dangerous than being attached to people. You couldn't become attached to the latter without the former, he concluded. As a boy, he'd been attached to moments with his father - brief, fleeting moments that gave him misguided hope that his father cared for him as much as for Metropolis and for LexCorp. Moments were fleeting and were nothing to build upon. But Lex allowed himself to grow attached to this moment, and was indeed reluctant to leave it.
But it had to be left behind eventually, and soon, they were back in the car, back on the jet, back in the air. The jet was heading back to Metropolis, where Claire was not for him like an open flower, but closed off. He thought for a moment of cherry blossomed that bloomed for a moment and then were gone. He found himself growing more and more frenetic in anticipation of their return to Metropolis, because there was one test that Claire had yet to pass. He found his mood darkening slightly at the thought of the possibility of Claire Branigan failing this last test, and what this would require him to do in response.
As they neared the private airstrip outside of Metropolis and slowly began their descent, he noticed the sudden shift and tensing in Claire, who had very literal tolerance for this part of flying - he had instructed her to sit beside him instead of across from him this time for precisely this reason. It still surprised him, however, when immediately upon feeling the plane begin to descend, her hand shot out and immediately grasped his, her eyes clenching shut. Now, for the first time, it was Claire whose hands shook, whose fears and anxieties, though different from Lex's and perhaps not as significant, took over her. And now, it was Lex who clasped his hands over hers.
Like she had done for him many times before, he gently coaxed her grip open, and when he did so, her eyes opened as well- it distracted her enough from the descent of the plane, because the role reversal was so jarring. For the first time, Claire looked at him with such vulnerability and gratitude, and the expression seemed to lance Lex deeply. He'd knew that look well enough - he knew it because in those brief, glancing moments where his father had been a father, Lex had given it to him. It was a look of hope, and he knew that giving that look to someone was a giving over of power to them.
Even if only out of pride, out of determination to not be his father, Lex found himself bent on not wielding that power over Claire in the way his father wielded it over him. Claire, he concluded, had been sent to him as a way of him being different from his father - of setting himself apart.
When the plane was back on the ground and no longer in the air, Claire slowly got to her feet, slipping back on the shoes she had taken off during the flight and smoothing out her clothes. When Lex got to her feet, however, his first move was to gently grab the crook of her arm and pulled her back to kiss her with a strange, sinking curiosity if this was perhaps the last time. Already, he could feel her hesitation returning.
"So," he said, pulling away and stepping off ahead of her to open the exit door where the airstrip attendants had already set up the stairs for their descent. "Home?"
Still grasping Lex's hand for stability as she stepped down each stair and off the last step on the rollaway staircase, Claire used her other hand to reach into her bag to switch her phone back on. Immediately it began buzzing with a flurry of missed calls - she lifted the phone and glanced at it as she set foot on the ground of the airstrip.
"The nursing agency has been calling," Claire said with a confused expression, and almost like a reflex, she also pulled her hand out of Lex's grasp because now, they were back in Metropolis. Now, she was a nurse again, she had a job again. She was his nurse and not merely his. Lex's jaw clenched slightly, and he again reached over for her hand, coaxing her in the direction of the lot where his car was parked, mouthing silently, not for long. "Lex, hold on, let me make a call before we-"
"I'm sure they can wait," he dismissed, waving a hand as he opened the passenger side door for her and gently tapped the palm of his hand on the top of the car in hopes of rushing her inside. "Tick-tock, Claire. Places to be."
She rolled her eyes gently in disdain but still complied in getting into the car, buckling her seatbelt before finally hitting dial on her phone while Lex was walking around to the other side. His expression fell when he get into the driver's seat, but he started the car and began pulling out of the lot while Claire waited for an answer on the phone.
"Hello?"
"Miss Branigan, I'm glad you called," Lex heard the garbled female voice on the other end reply through Claire's phone. "I'm very sorry to bother you, just some light housekeeping and paperwork that needs to get squared away."
"Paperwork?" Claire asked, her brow furrowing. "Is there a problem?"
"No, no problem at all! Just paperwork, honestly. We recently closed out your direct deposit account with payroll and we need an address to send your last check to."
"My..." Claire's voice trailed of as she struggled to process what was being said. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand."
"Oh, I'm sorry - it's just that you had a few days of work time logged into our system," the woman from the nursing agency's office said, genuinely apologetic. "After your turned in your letter of resignation? I know it's an inconvenience, but -"
"Resignation?" Claire's voice went slightly shrill as she repeated the word, feeling almost as though she was choking on it as it ascended her throat to leave her mouth. "I'm not sure I... know what you're... talking about..."
And while she was still on the phone with the woman at the agency, who now paused in attempts to decide how to respond, Claire glanced briefly at Lex, who pointedly avoided her gaze and kept his eyes focused on the road ahead of them. She picked up at the sight of his knuckles paling while his grip on the steering wheel, the tensing of his jaw, and he realized he knew something just as the woman on the other end of the phone provided Claire with a response.
"The resignation letter Mister Luthor brought by for you last week?"
A/N
I know, I know! This is why I can't have nice things. But I gave Lex and Claire a handful of nice moments, and it's now time for things to get a little more complicated.
Your enthusiasm and feedback both for this chapter and for the, ahem, deleted scene have been amazing. I unfortunately had to opt against putting the deleted scene on this site, as I felt it pushed the boundaries of Rated M, as the guidelines state: "Detailed descriptions of physical interaction of sexual or violent nature is considered Fiction MA". There most definitely was some level of detail, and I didn't want to risk impropriety. So, I really, truly apologize for the inconvenience of having to leave the site in order to see the material.
Next chapter, dirty laundry is aired and skeletons come out of the closet. It might be a slightly longer wait this time, as there are some parts that still need a little massaging, but I will do my best to get it to you. Until then, cheers!