Part 2 Hero

One year ago, 2010

Her son was already fast asleep in the car seat when she arrived in LexCorp. Chloe reached for the toddler. "Sorry, baby," she cooed soothingly as the boy stirred in her arms. She rocked softly until the baby settled back and buried his nose in the crook of her neck.

Her heart thundered in her chest as she looked over towards the entrance, then stalked her way towards the reception area. "Where's Lex?" she asked with quiet fury.

"He's in his office, Ms Sullivan."

"Alright," she muttered. Her face was flushed, she knew. She could never hide her emotions the way Lex always could.

iI am so high, I can hear heaven.
I am so high, I can hear heaven.
Oh but heaven, no heaven don't hear me./i

She entered the elevator and pressed the key to take her to the top floor, where Lex's office was. He adored it there. It made him feel like a king and his high was to stand behind his glass walls overlooking Metropolis as if it were his kingdom. It had not worried her at first. And then it came, when she turned to him at night and thought she saw his father in his eyes.

It was the hunger, she supposed. There was hunger in his eyes. It was a hunger that she could do never quell.

On the year their son was born, tragedy struck. Two hundred and thirty four LexCorp employees were killed in a blazing fire that turned the Smallville plant to a pile of ashes.

"Chloe, there's more to it than an accident," Clark claimed that morning, when he dropped by her apartment.

She had turned to him and saw him hunkered down over the playpen, making a toy Superman doll fly right above her son's head. "What are you saying, Clark?"

His eyes fell to the folders he had brought along with him. "It's my latest scoop, and it's going on print tonight. I wanted to show you first."

Chloe followed his gaze and then walked over to the papers. With the thick folder in her hands, she glanced up at Clark. "Can you—"

He met her eyes and picked up the boy. "I'll take him down to the ice cream shop downstairs." Clark walked over to her and reached for Chloe, then placed a kiss on top of her head. "Are you sure you can do this? I can stay," he offered.

She leaned against him, then froze. "Clark, no. We can't do this. Not here." He saw her glance up at the corners of the ceiling.

"Is he taping you?"

"I don't know anymore," she confided. "Go. I want to do this alone."

And that was when she knew. More than two hundred people, including her own father, perished in another one of Lex's pet science projects. And he did not apologize to her, not really, not enough. She had been pregnant and orphaned but her fiancé had drifted further away, sucked into the abyss of discovery and invention.

Chloe had had enough. She was taking her son and leaving him for good.

The door to his office opened easily enough. It was empty save for a single glass of scotch on the desk. He had probably been called in for an emergency in the lab.

Chloe opened the adjoining door that led to a small makeshift nursery that Lex had had installed. Her issues with his spiral towards becoming less the man she had hoped him to be involved nothing regarding his fatherhood. He gave all the time he could to his son. Chloe turned on one nightlight and laid the baby down for a nap, then proceeded to the office to wait for Lex.

That was when she noticed the smoke. It was coming from the vents. Immediately, Chloe lunged for the nursery door and pushed, but it would not budge. "Eric!" she cried, pummeling at the door. "Oh God, Eric!" She tried to open the door, but it had shut so tightly she knew that this was premeditated.

Chloe grabbed for her phone and called Lex's number, but the call rolled to voicemail. "Lex! Lex, we're trapped in your office," she gasped.

Her mind was growing numb. Chloe rammed her body against the door until her bones turned to must and the last thing she remembered was sliding down the door.

iAnd they say that a hero can save us.
I'm not gonna stand here and wait.
I'll hold on to the wings of the eagles.
Watch as we all fly away./i

She awoke to find him standing beside her hospital bed, his eyes bloodshot, his clothes rumpled as if he had not slept for days and paced for hours. "Where's Eric?" she rasped through her thick throat.

When he looked at her, she felt her insides quiver with something close to fear. "I will stop at nothing until I expose Superman to the world."

"He's a hero, Lex."

"A hero would have saved my little boy," he spat.

The father was angry the exact moment a mother's world ended.

iSomeone told me that love would all save us.
But how can that be?
Look what love gave us.
A world full of killing, and blood-spilling, that
world never came./i

In her mind she accepted one truth. She would never live again.

Yet every day, she existed. One day turned to week, then a month. Every day, she told herself, he had lost the same essential in his life that she did. Sometimes she almost lived an entire hour without remembering that she was now half a person.

On Eric's birthday they sat down for a quiet dinner and toasted to the precious life that ended too soon. She spoke of Eric's brightness, of his playfulness, of a smile that would forever be stamped in her brain. "It's your turn, Lex," she prompted.

And his offer was, "He let him die because he was my son."

And she stood up quietly, placed her utensils side by side on the plate, then tossed her napkin on the table. "I can't live with you like this."

"You will not leave me."

She turned liquid eyes at the man she no longer knew. "I'm not going to go on like this, Lex," she said.

iNow that the world isn't ending, it's love that I'm sending to you.
It isn't the love of a hero, that's why I fear it won't do./i

Before her eyes, the heavy cloak of fury and revenge seemed to fall off his shoulders. Her proud Lex Luthor stumbled towards her and knelt, then wrapped his arms around her thighs. The moment tears soaked through her clothes and touched her skin, she buried her fingers in his shoulders and sank to her knees.

"Swear you'll not leave me."

She cradled his head in her chest. "Lex, you're hurting me," she whispered as he squeezed her hip.

"Swear."

iAnd they say that a hero can save us.
I'm not gonna stand here and wait.
I'll hold on to the wings of the eagles.
Watch as we all fly away./i

The next day, Chloe Sullivan ran out of the building to meet Lana. The brunette handed her keys. "I paid for it in cash, just like you asked."

Chloe took the keys, then embraced her friend. "Thank you."

"Where are you going, Chloe?"

"An editor friend of mine got me a job to cover a story in Eastern Europe. He'll never find me there. Lana, promise me no one will know."

"I promise," Lana swore.

"Look in on Lex? Especially the first few days…" Chloe got in and drove away.

iAnd they're watching us (Watching us)
They're watching us (watching us) as we all fly away./i

tbc