Chapter 11 – Dazed and Confused
Leaning over closer to him, Chloe repeated the question again, "Who is this?" Standing over him, her breathing became more focused as she waited for Lex to come up with something of an answer.
Lex swallowed and waited to see if the yelling would commence. He grabbed the pictures out of her hand and ripped them in half twice. "I don't know."
"Did you cheat on me?"
Lex peered up at her and chewed his bottom lip in confusion. Getting up, he pushed lightly past Chloe and sat down on the couch, wedding album in hand. Turning around, he could see that she had not moved since she walked in. "If I did," his voice cracked as he laid the pieces of the picture down on the coffee table, "then I am truly sorry."
Chloe edged her way into the living room, never taking her eyes off the man. "You can't possibly think I would buy that crap from you. You were always a ladies man even when we were firmly attached. Who is she?" Chloe stood with her hands on her hips, pushing by the large lounge chair to see exactly Lex's reaction.
Lex sat rubbing his head and pinching his temples as his headache worsened over the obvious frustration of not knowing. Choking between words, he stared at Chloe and wished he knew the right words to make the situation go away. "I don't know," he raised his voice. "I have no idea. If I did, don't you think I would tell you about it now?! Now, after everything we have been through everything I've been through. I mean it's not like that woman is here right now. You are."
"Yes, I am. I have been through it all. You ass. You accused me of subterfuge with your father and running around with Clark Kent all the while you have your little fling tucked away in a drawer somewhere. Where did you find them? You finally had a stroke of luck and came to?" Chloe didn't change her stance but simply leaned slightly forward as she wondered how far Lex was going to take their little argument. She had hoped that they both had this out of their system.
Lex peered up at her and threw the album on the floor along with the wedding picture he had removed. "I was looking for something and I found them. I didn't know they were there. There's ashes left of one in the bathroom upstairs. I don't remember her! God!" He got up and teetered unsure of his footing from the developing headache. Turning to Chloe, he picked up the scraps of pictures and shoved them in her hand. "Here, do what you fucking want with them. I don't remember anything – I don't even recall half of these damn photos at the wedding." Chloe's body shook as Lex grabbed her hand so hard and crammed the pieces in her palm before stumbling to the kitchen.
"Lex, calm down," Chloe stated quietly and assuredly. She had seen him get worked up already once today and didn't want to cause more headaches.
Lex leaned in the doorway of the kitchen and squeezed his fists together before throwing his hands up in the air. Chloe could see the intense pain on his face in his clenched jaw and his watery eyes. "Me calm down? Are you fucking kidding me? You come in here on your high and mighty tirade and accuse me of a relationship I don't even remember." He took a breath and slapped his already aching forehead. "I was screwing another woman in a picture that I don't remember taking, remember posing for, and honestly can't remember doctoring. You don't get it – I DON'T REMEMEBER ANY OF THIS GODDAMN PLACE!"
Chloe followed him as he teetered around the kitchen. Leaning against the kitchen counter, she watched as the man that destroyed her family and created more than one of her tried to find the words to explain away the photos or his situation. She took the pile of ripped photos and dumped them in the garbage before following him heading back into the living room. He picked up their wedding album and flipped to the page he had taken the photo from. Placing the photo back into the sleeve, he stared at the front of the book and shook his head. "Lex," she whispered.
Lex sat and traced his fingers over the pictures and pleaded, "I just wish, I could remember us. It's like there's these thoughts that come and go that don't match up. Like a trip to Paris you took on my jet and saw some museum, but you never went to Paris." He grabbed his head and put it between his knees. "Dammit," Lex yelled as he grabbed the back of his head and gritted his teeth in agony. The headache was just getting exponentially worse by the moment.
Chloe watched as his worry about them turn into excruciating pain. She stared at his increased bait for breath as he grabbed his head and moaned louder with each few seconds that passed. Getting up, Lex pushed her onto the couch and out of his way as he made his way, stumbling down the hall. Chloe stayed on the couch and put the fake album on the table. She rolled her eyes and silently cursed the eldest Luthor and wondered exactly how much cash she should ask for in return for all this. Hearing a large thud and something break, she jumped in the couch and found Lex laying on the floor.
Running to the kitchen, she wet a cup towel, grabbed a bottle of water, and his painkillers. She turned him over, brushing the pieces of the vase out of the way. She placed the cold towel on his head and tapped him on the cheek several times, silently thinking if she could get away with just slugging him a few times for sport. Leaning over him, she propped his feet up with a couch pillow and continued to shake him slightly.
Hearing a slight moan come from him, she stopped slapping him. "Lex? Open your damn eyes."
His eyes looked as if they rolled into the back of his head as he opened them slightly. Feeling his way to her leg, he ran his hand along the floor and looked up at Chloe questioningly, "Why am I on the floor?"
"You passed out," Chloe quietly stated while rerolling the washcloth. "You think you can sit up?" Watching him nod his head, she helped him restabilize himself and lean against the wall. She supported most of his weight over to the couch.
Laying his head back against the pillows and propping his feet up on the table, he ran his fingers through Chloe's hair, "You had a perfect opportunity to leave. And every right."
"Just lay still." Chloe got up just as Lex caught her hand.
"Why are you still here?"
Chloe felt the conflicted emotions that she had for the man in front her. The man from a few months ago deserved to be left with a slamming door to drown in his own spit. Biting her lip, she looked to the side, glancing at her bag knowing the information that she had from his lab. She didn't want that man to return. The monster deserved to die, but no one in his condition deserved that. Staring at the front of a wedding album that the only real part of the front picture was the fake smiles they both put on for the cameras the day of that true hellish wedding, she sighed. She looked back at Lex's hand in hers. "Because through all of this, affairs, family, shady deals, we fell in love once," Chloe choked out in quiet desperation. Ok, she thought, that was stretching the truth, but what girl never had a secretive, and sometimes not secretive, crush on the billionaire. Never vocal about it, but teen wanderlust was always a powerful things, and not just for Superhumans.
Chloe let his hand fall from hers as she went into the kitchen and took a deep breath. She silently talked her through the conflicted feelings while finding his necessities. Lex slowly leaned back into the couch, groaning and breathing heavily as the stiffness in his neck seemed to increase with every movement. Returning to the room, Chloe handed him the bottle of water and the painkiller. "No, just Excedrin. Those things just wipe me out."
"You've had a long day," Chloe said, thinking she still had a long day to go. "You need your rest."
Lex swatted her hand away and rolled his head to meet her eyes, "Just give me the damn towel and get what I asked for please." Chloe's mouth halfway dropped at the Luthoresque request. She huffed before getting up and passing him on the way to the kitchen. She felt his hand tug at hers, and she turned around. "Chloe, I didn't mean the way it sounded. Please," Lex quietly asked as she pulled from his grip.
Coming back, she handed him what he asked for and sat in silence on the couch as he closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. Chloe watched his chest rise and fall slower as if he had fallen asleep. She picked up the album off the table and flipped through the pictures that Lex was looking at. He seemed much more sentimental than before, part of her wished he wouldn't lose that part of himself.
"I like the one of us with your dad. He was so worried I would do you wrong," Lex whispered as he turned his head and looked at Chloe leaning back in the couch next to him. Turning away, he continued, "I guess now I have." Rubbing the towel on his head, he threw it on the coffee table and looked over at the picture of the two cutting the cake at the reception. "I'll have my things out as soon as I get better. I'm really sorry." Grabbing his head in one hand, he lightly kissed her shoulder and walked out of the living room. She watched him slowly ascend the stairs, closing her eyes.
"Lex," she turned on the couch and looked at him halfway up the stairs. "Come back here and talk to me. First, you not remembering is something I should understand and not attack, and second, where the hell would you go in your condition?"
Lex stood in the middle of the stairs and stared at her. She was seriously giving him another chance. Lex moved slowly down the stairs, careful not to look down with the headache he still had. Situating himself in the same cushion he was just in, he leaned back and stared at Chloe's shoulder as she flipped through the wedding album.
It was a true sign of a professional talent. Every picture was perfectly paired as if Lionel had taken Lex's original photos from the album and spent hours in a photoshop laboratory. Staring at the picture of her, Lex, and Gabe, she felt a small fire towards Lionel building in her. She eyed another picture from her computer and rolled his eyes; he tapped her computers. She was going to wipe them clean first chance she got and buy a new one. "This is a nice one. Tell me about our honeymoon again." Chloe was fishing.
Lex placed the book on the table and turned his head slightly to at last try to meet Chloe's gaze. She seemed so far away. Chloe watched Lex try to focus as she wondered if she had just given up her only chance to escape. After the outburst he had, there was still a Luthor tendency in there. She nervously watched as his fingers ran against hers as a way to call a truce for the evening. Slightly closing her eyes, she wavered against her emotion of hatred toward the man. He didn't know the difference; she hoped he never would. She broke a half smile and took his hand in hers. "I'm sorry," he repeated.
Chloe leaned over and saw his eyes glaze over with tears. Pulling into him, she swallowed her fears again from what she had seen that afternoon. Trying to convince herself, she was with someone else, she moved toward him and wrapped her arm in his. "I have an idea. We need dinner. I'll order us a pizza and then we'll do some reminiscing. I think that may be a really good idea."
Lex leaned back to lock eyes with her and smiled. "No hamburger." Chloe nodded and headed into the kitchen. Lex grabbed his head and leaned forward to see her busy. He reached for the album again and looked over all the pictures and noticed there were no other honeymoon pictures in the album except for her fishing and him smiling from a balcony somewhere in the country. He remembered the trip, just not the photos. Were they somewhere else? He leaned back against the couch and squeezed his eyes shut trying to picture the trip. Images flashed by that were strange and jumbled.
"Lex?" Chloe sat down on the couch and gently squeezed his shoulder. Moving the album back to the table, she watched his constant rolling of his neck and wondered if he was ok. He used to do that in the months that his father had been drugging him. Lionel. She took the pill jar from the table and shoved it into her pocket. She would have them looked at carefully as well as the shots Lex was giving himself. Lex was a monster in his right, but Lionel had no right to control him if he was.
She was startled out of her thoughts feeling Lex's hand slip across her thigh as he slumped in the couch. She looked at the bottle that she had retrieved. It was Excedrin, PM that was. Lifting his face up slightly, she moved down the couch and placed a pillow underneath his head. Walking up the stairs, she watched him adjust in the couch.
Chloe pushed the door of the bedroom open and gasped at the mess strewn about the bed, including all of his underwear drawer. A drawer hung open slightly that she opened and saw that most of its contents were randomly thrown into place. Damn Lionel, why do you continue to fuck with his head she thought to herself. Closing the drawer, she shoved his underwear back in the other drawer and rinsed the ashes of the other photo down the sink.
His curiosity was getting more similar to the old days. She walked back down the stairs and strolled into the office to see books ripped from shelves and files all over the desk. Placing the files back in some semblance of order, she noticed all the minute little plants of files on car accidents, insurance claims, doctors visits. She wondered if this was Lionel's little way of covering his ass or if Lex really lived like this in other rooms of the mansion that no one but Lana ever saw.
Chloe's concentration broke at the sound of the doorbell. She threw the last few books she could on the shelves in no particular order. Turning the corner, she watched Lex lean against the hallway wall and hand the driver money. Looking back down the hall, Lex closed the door and handed Chloe the pizza. "I nodded off."
"Yes, you did, but you shouldn't be up. But, if you're up for it, let's eat. It's well after time to." Chloe took the box to the kitchen and pulled plates off the shelf. "You go and sit down."
Lex glanced in her direction as he entered the kitchen and turned on his heel and slowly paced back into the living room. Opening the closet, he pushed the coats aside and stared. "Hey, where are the tray tables?" he called across the house.
Chloe stopped and set down the plate slowly. She had no answer; she wouldn't have even pictured the two of them ever eating on tray table to begin with. She picked up the plates and headed into the living room. "I don't know."
"But they're always in this closet on the right side, next to the," he faded as his head, which still hurt, disappeared again.
"Get over here and don't worry about them," Chloe begged hoping that Lex would just let the matter drop. She sat the two plates down and went back for drinks.
Lex sat down on the couch and picked up a plate and stared at her. "Things just all seem out of place. I wonder sometimes if you just up and moved when I was out for those days." Chloe smirked at him and continued eating.
The two flipped pages in the album as Lex laughed at how pissed his father had been during the whole ceremony. The wedding was not of his taste, and the reception was worse. Lex just laughed mentioning the impromptu roast that he had given his dad thanking him for teaching him all the things he shouldn't do as a husband. Chloe let out a hhmph in agreement.
As the night wore on, Chloe found herself wrapped in his arm and leaning into his shoulder as Lex continued to speak. The honeymoon Lex so aptly put was all Chloe. She had demanded that they got somewhere cultured and full of mystique. He had planned Paris, but Chloe told him that it had been overdone. The beach was out because it wouldn't expand her mind, and Lex refused to try anything that involved tropical hiking or adventure. Chloe seemed intrigued that she actually had chosen Russia for the trip, but as Lex talked, the trip sounded more and more like something she wished she had actually been there for.
Pulling her up into crook of his shoulder, Chloe slunk further back into the cushions next to Lex as he ran his fingers along her thigh. "I remember when I was first applying four the visas to travel the business partners I got them through were hesitant first because you were a journalist. One asked me what in the world was I doing marrying the enemy." Chloe smirked slightly at the statement and found herself loosening her grip of her own hands. "We arrived at the apartment and you actually complained that it was small – you," Lex stopped and sat her up and stared at her. Chloe hunched her shoulders cluelessly wondering if the motioned passed for innocent.
"Anyway, the first night there we went to Café Pushkin. I thought I was going to have to strap your mouth shut from the moment we hit the door. The amount of drool that fell from your mouth in the library room caused the steward to follow you around with a rag." Lex stopped and intertwined his fingers with Chloe's. Taking a small hitched breath, she mentally uncurled her stiff body at the small touch. "You spent more time staring at the names on all the books on the walls, which were still in Russian mind you, than looking at the menu." Lex stopped and laughed. "And then you tried it and I thought we were going to have to apologize to the waiter. After getting you coffee and a decent dessert that you would eat, you wouldn't let the driver go back to the apartment until we found a McDonalds."
Lex continued his contrived version of their trip through Moscow, including stops in the between to make fun of Chloe's reactions as he remembered them. The two had found a way to crush what normally would be done in a matter of weeks in one week. They had been all the tourist traps, Lenin's tomb, the Kremlin, the Moscow Zoo, St Basil's Cathedral, and the odd tour to the cemetery. "I still don't get the reasoning for the cemetery trip. Chasing dead authors in their resting place makes me wonder. Nikolai Gogol? There are better, honey."
He continued relaying the honeymoon in vivid detail except for some places they has stopped to eat and buy knick knacks that have since been put in the attic, or so he guessed. "I have to tell you though, I had never seen you smile so big as when I took the blindfold off you and let you see exactly which Bolshoi I had dragged you too." He stopped and smirked at her, nodding his head. "You still didn't trust me to not drag you to something overly cultured. I knew you hated the ballet and opera. You had slept through the first two we had ever gone to. Still, those acrobats were impressive."
Chloe looked at him and thought a minute. He took me to a circus, for real. Lex Luthor in his little world took me to a circus for our last evening on our honeymoon. Looking up in his eyes, she watched his expression as it continued to soften. She felt his hand from his arm around her neck rub up and down her arm. "That was a nice trip. We should really try to get away again." She stopped and realized that she had been caught up in the fantasy as much as his brain was. Trying to recover, she squeezed his hand, "I mean as soon as you're well and we have money." Smiling back over his direction, he had moved in closer and she could feel his breath on her shoulder.
"Are we done fighting," he whispered, kissing her shoulder.
"It won't make the problems go away," she commented blandly. She glanced down at her shoulder where he continued to add soft kisses of forgiveness. "Lex."
"I love you Chloe. And if there was another, I'm hoping I never remember." Lex pulled her into him and kissed her. Feeling resistance from her, Lex let his arm around her shoulder drop, hoping she wouldn't leave. Bringing his hand up to her, he ran his hand through her hair as he felt her stop resisting.
Chloe's mind was torn. He was letting her go; she could just back up and walk way. Instead, she found herself leaning in. She closed her eyes and wrapped her hand around his neck as she choked her thoughts of leaving down. Deepening the kiss, she felt tears well up as she felt her tongue slide past his. Pulling out of the kiss after many long moments, she noticed them both out of breath.
"Chloe, what's wrong?" Lex asked as he wiped a tear off her face.
"Tell me again – after everything that has happened in the last few weeks – say it again." Chloe grabbed his hands and turned on the couch toward him, looking him dead in the eye.
Lex shook his head somewhat confused. "I love you, more than anything in the world." Chloe stared at his reaction and watched his emotion change to pleading as he ran his thumb over the top of her hand.
Leaning over, she whispered, "I love you Lex." She started to shiver as she bit her lip and whispered again, "Please don't ever forget this moment, ever." Lex pulled her face back away from his and stared at her. She looked scared and happy at the same time.