Part 6 Crave Me

They could both pretend that the words were not hurtful, but they were both too intelligent for that. Lex quickly glanced at Lois the way he would never have bothered had she not meant so much to Chloe.

"I'm sorry," his voice rumbled in his chest.

She smiled tightly, partly because as Lois Lane in Lex's truth, she deserved the slur, and partly because as Chloe Sullivan it went against her grain to put stock on the idea that Lex could exhibit such unpracticed humanity. He had hardly stretched those muscles since long before she left him.

"Lex, I don't really think that it's a good idea to stay under one roof, after everything. You despise me; and I don't trust you."

His lips curled into a smirk. "True. And you no reason to." He turned his attention to the passing streets outside the window and continued, "Late at night when I wake up from nightmares of Chloe burning alive in that attack, I get the urge to hunt you down and press on your windpipe until you're dying for breath." Then he regarded her in the darkness of the car. "Then I force myself to remember that Chloe had a mind of her own, and it would have happened anyway."

She had to know. It was not a good idea to open that can of worms, but she really needed to know. "Don't you sometimes also remember that she was gone from you long before she died in Europe?"

"What the hell do you know?" he whispered, the softness of his voice belying the rage that thrummed through each word.

"I know my cousin, Lex, inside and out. You would never find anyone who tell you straight out what she really thought other than me," she said with such certainty she knew she had to tone it down. "She told me everything she'd felt since the moment we were reunited. Lex, you have nothing to hide from me."

"She told you everything," he said slowly, digesting the words. "Then you really can answer my questions."

"Lex, don't do this to yourself."

He slid towards her on the cool leather seat and looked her in the eye. Chloe's eyes.

iHave you lost the bitterness
The bitterness that I can see in your eyes
Those wicked eyes/i

It was so clear. There was no denying it. Lex stared into Chloe's eyes and she could see him looking at them mystified, as if she had solidified from the million ashes and sat before him again.

Awkwardly, Lex straightened, putting distance between himself and Lois.

"Tell me how she died."

iAnd what is it you want from me
A best friend or a tragedy
It's hard to get inside your head/i

"It happened too fast," was her quick, practiced reply. She had been certain that she would be asked that question often. She would rather not remember. While everyone was focused on Chloe Sullivan, they could not realize how she had lost her cousin then.

He pressed on, uncaring of her turmoil. "Lois, my fiancé was a trained journalist. She knew the ins and outs of wartorn Europe. She knew which roads to avoid and had the survival instincts of a dozen men. I need to know."

She looked up at Lex's burning gaze and closed her eyes. As free of emotion as she could manage, she told him, "We were heading north and she… I wanted to stop or turn around because there was a slow moving car heading our way. And then I told her that it was more dangerous to go side by side than to continue along towards our base."

"She wouldn't just follow you if her instincts tell her not to," Lex pointed out.

"She was driving the car," she whispered.

i"Step on the gas, Chloe," Lois commanded.

"Lois, just stay put," the blonde argued. "I know what I'm doing."

The car flashed its lights, yet continued its minimal velocity on the other side of the road. "Chloe, step on it!" Lois yelled.

Instead of slowing down, the car hummed to life and picked up speed. "The faster we pass him by," Chloe reasoned, "the sooner we're out of the woods."

"I can't believe you're running again," Lois grumbled. "That's exactly why we're both stuck her."

"Lois," Chloe argued, "let's not do that here. If you haven't noticed, we're in serious trouble if that car is what I think it is."

Lois rolled her eyes at her cousin. "Of course."

The closer they got to the car, the clearer she saw the driver. Lois squinted and saw the driver's lips moving feverishly in a chant, with the driver's eyes closed. For a moment, she wanted to scream. She looked at Chloe and saw her intently focused on the road ahead of her, pressing on the gas and speeding up.

In the split second that they were side by side, Lois closed her hand around the hand brake and pulled up with all her night, sending both of them forward despite the seatbelts and the car careening towards the car beside them./i

"It was full of explosives," she managed. Belatedly she realized that she had been telling the story through sobs. For the first time, she replayed the events consciously, and not in the uncontrolled environment of her sleep. "A suicide bomber, and it was meant for the base that we had just left."

"You're not telling me what I want to know," he whispered. His hand closed around hers and she closed her eyes tighter at the sensation that she missed so much. He held her hand, and touched her ring. "Did she give you my ring? Did she mention me? What did she tell you, Lois?"

"I can't remember," she sobbed.

His hand tightened around hers. "This was the woman that I had built my world around," he reminded her in a tremulous voice. "And you've admitted that you played the most part in her death. You will remember everything, Lois, because you've taken away my chance to share a life with her. You owe me enough to relive her death and tell me what I want to hear."

"What do you want to hear?" she demanded, meeting his eyes now.

iIt's like the way you talk to me
Like we're just a memory
I need to be with you tonight/i

Lex Luthor's eyes were naked to her again, the way they had been as he loomed above her as he pumped her full of his child, the night that they conceived Eric.

"That she said my name, even once, before she was gone," came the whispered wish.

iShe cried out at the pain of scorching flesh, but managed to lift her upper body with her forearms, biting her lower lip at the searing burn.

"Lois!" Chloe looked around the smoke for her cousin. "Oh God, Lois, where are you?"

The car was shooting flames, and Chloe dropped onto her chest on the ground. "Roll on the ground," she screamed. "Get rid of the fire on you!" She had not seen her cousin yet. Chloe felt herself thrumming with adrenaline. "Lois, crawl away from the car. There's gas everywhere." Chloe took her advice and dropped down to kill the flames.

The ground beside her blew up fire snaking towards her leg. The moment she saw how her leg was soaked with oil, she grabbed some sand from the side of the road and rubbed her leg until it was dry and abraded. Soon it will pus and moisten with her own body fluid. Now she only needed to survive.

Chloe turned to the site of the crash and screamed, "Lois!"

An explosion burst beside her, throwing her off her feet a several feet away. She fell into a crumpled heap right on the sand, feeling her entire body being ravaged by white hot fire. The pain was so much that all she could see was blind white calling to her. Before she lost consciousness, she closed her fist around her ring, then wept./i

It was such a conscious action on her part then, because she had thought she was going to die. Chloe cried for the broken that would not be fixed, and she cried for the realization that everything she had placed faith on, of living and dying with the man she loved, would not come to pass.

It was something that Lex did not need to know.

iYou tried so hard to play the fool
Look at you now your all alone again
Do you find it hard to breathe/i

"Her fist was closed around your ring when she died," were the words that left her mouth, despite her decision. In the back of her mind she acknowledged that if Lex were to take away anything from this, he would know that he had at least been loved.

The statement was so simple and matter of fact that she did not expect the reaction from the man that had indirectly killed hundreds.

Lex Luthor bent down and covered his face with his hands, then was racked by tight shudders.

She moved close and swallowed at the sight. Reluctantly, she wrapped an arm across his back and slid her other arm across his chest. Then she drew him against her.

"Lex…" she said softly.

He did not stop, but trembled so violently in her arms she feared that he would just physically fall apart in her embrace.

"Lex," she hushed. "It will be alright."

There was no response. Caught in his own world, one that he seemed to have been hiding from for so long, Lex was lost. The tremors, the tight, almost inaudible sobs, the way he hid his face to the world.

He was protected at all costs.

iAnd now you've gone and left me here
Hope that I would disappear
And forget that we ever met at all/i

The car stopped in front of Lex's building, and she looked down at him still curled against her.

"Lex, we're here," she whispered.

He extricated himself from her embrace but did not straighten. Instead, he rested his elbows on his thighs and placed his fingers on his temples, still hiding his eyes from her with his hands.

iCrave me again
Won't you stay with me till the bitter end
Crave me
Stay with me/i

"Please go on upstairs. I've made arrangements for the guest bedroom to be prepared," he said in his hoarse voice.

"I'm really not comfortable with—"

"Please," he repeated.

One night. She'd give him that. She was unwilling to leave him alone tonight after this. "Fine," she surrendered. She got off the vehicle and looked back at him. "Come on."

"I'll be there soon," he told her. Then he picked up the phone beside his door. "Jared," he said, and for once Chloe realized that he still had in his employ the man who had taken Lex around the city eight times before Lex realized that she had truly left him. "Let's drive around."

She slammed the door shut and looked up at the tall building that was now Lex's home. She missed the house. It was their life, and now he was back living at the top of the world, so far from their dream world.

Chloe turned and watched the car drive away.

Lex was not the man she had fallen in love with. She needed to remember that. Yet there were times, just like tonight, that she wasn't sure anymore.

iCome back to me
Crave me
And it's you and me/i

Chloe walked into the building and rode the elevator to the penthouse. The doors opened to reveal the posh and luxurious suite that housed all that Lex was as the CEO of a dollar corporation, with nothing to represent who he had been when he was with her.

This was Lex Luthor today.

She had accepted it once, painfully, and that was the reason that she left. Chloe walked over to the glass windows and stared out at the black sky. A figure in blue and red zipped through the sky. She placed her palm against the glass.

iAnd it's you and me
You're my only desire/i

Heaving a sigh, Chloe proceeded to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. From memory, she took items and laid them on the table, then proceeded to lay ingredients on top of each other, making a thick and healthy sandwich.

It would not take long for Lex to come home. She was going to retreat to the guest bedroom and stay the night, because it would be too emotional to argue with Lex tonight. Tomorrow, she would leave, and try as much as she could to live her life and stay clear of him.

It was the only way he would recover; and the only way she could pick up the pieces.

Chloe proceeded to the first door she saw and opened the door, to reveal a masculine room of black silk sheets and a pair of boxers thrown on the arm of a chair. It left little doubt that this was not her room. She stepped inside and pulled the ring off her finger. She placed it on the side table to leave no doubt of what it meant. She was letting this life go, and giving Lex the closure of holding the ring in his hand.

She picked up the picture frame, and saw herself and Eric waving to the camera. Her fingertips traced the smile on her son's face.

iCrave me again
Won't you stay with me till the bitter end
Won't you crave me again
He is half the man I am/i

He came back from the drive, emotionally and physically drained. Lex flipped on the lights to his cold apartment. He was sure that she would be asleep, probably heading straight to bed the moment she walked in. On his way to get some water, he saw the covered plate on the table. When he lifted the cover, there sat a sandwich.

The door of his bedroom swung open, and he looked up to see Lois, teary-eyed as she held the photograph that had been the last thing he looked at at night, before he closed his eyes against his lonely world.

He did not greet her, but nodded as he lifted the sandwich to his mouth and took a bite.

The exact combination of ingredients that he bit into was the same as the one he had made with Chloe one weekend once upon a time.

iCrave me again/i

tbc