AN: Sorry it's been a while. I'll post once a week to make-up for it if I still have any readers. :) ENJOY!
Chapter 11
"You're being followed."
The voice was loud in the unrelenting silence of her car. Chloe hadn't bothered to turn the radio on and she had been lost in the various scenarios that repeated in her mind on her way to have a conversation with Lex. Her conversations with him were emotionally draining. It hadn't always been that way. Time and distance had made them all bitter. The negative memories banished any nostalgic memories she might have harbored. She sighed and glanced at the passenger seat.
"I know, Zod. They've been following me for a couple of weeks now. Ever since Martha's outing."
Zod smiled brightly at her. It was the smile that Zor-El had seen when both of them had enlisted and they were both so new and eager. Time and distance had dulled their memories of each other too.
"Do you know how you know? Or is that not on your mind nowadays?"
"You're always on my mind, Zod."
Zod gently caressed her leg, "I know. But do you know why? When will you indulge the luxury of caring, Chloe? Maybe you should begin before it's too late."
Chloe gripped the steering wheel harder and yelled into the confines of the car, "I know!"
Calming herself, Chloe said, "Why do you think I'm meeting Lex?"
Zod tsked at her and spoke indulgently, with understanding, "He is not the problem. Agent Waller is not the problem. You know the problem, Chloe."
Chloe relaxed her grip on the steering wheel since calming herself hadn't included releasing her death grip. "Lex can give me something I need. I can use that to solve my problem. Agent Waller may not be the problem, but she is a problem. I must address it. Why do you think I'm in Lois' car?"
"That didn't seem to help, Chloe. It only shook off Kal-El."
Zod turned in his seat, looking out the front window one moment and the side window the next. She looked as well and spotted her tails. All three of them.
"It wasn't really supposed to work on Agent Waller. She's tracking Lex and now she's tracking me, but I can give her something to make her believe that I am not a problem. That Lex and Martha were always her problems."
"What? You would betray Martha Kent?"
He was mocking her now. The faux concern in his voice gave it all away.
Chloe furrowed her brow and looked again at Zod, "It isn't betrayal. Martha is guilty. I report and investigate."
Zod chuckled, "You think Clark will view it as such?"
"Who says I won't tell Clark? I said that I would make her believe that I'm not the problem and that Lex and Martha are. It doesn't mean Martha has to suffer. Some misdirection that results in a lesser sentence. Martha should've been more careful or stayed out of it entirely. She was out of her league. She had one job to do, one damned job, and that was to be a good senator. Protecting Clark so foolishly, so obviously, only brought Waller closer to Kal-El. I can fix that."
Zod was silent and stared out of the window as she drove towards Lex.
"Zor-El, I loved you more than anything and it destroyed our world."
It was Chloe's turn to mock him and laugh. "No, you didn't. You loved power. You loved Brainiac. I loved you, but not more than anything. Not more than our world," she continued in a whisper, "I love nothing more than our world."
Zod placed his hand onto her face, but it was smaller and felt like Alura's hand. Chloe closed her eyes briefly. "Then fix our world's problem again, Zor-El, and find what has been missing."
When Chloe opened her eyes and once again looked to the passenger seat, she saw Kara. "You aren't missing. I know where you are."
Kara looked at Chloe the same way she had looked at Zor-El when her father was being her father, "But I'm not the problem."
"No, no you aren't. But neither are you here. You should be here. Your sacrifice was for something. It meant something."
Kara shrugged, "I don't know that. How could I? But that doesn't matter right now, does it? Solve the problem first, father."
Chloe shook her head. "Solve the problem first."
A million things littered her path.
She smiled at her reflection in the rearview mirror. "I got 99 problems but sanity ain't one."
Chloe looked down and saw indents of her fingers in the steering wheel. It was also slightly warped. Chloe could hear Zor-El laughing at her.
Lex was sipping his water when he saw Chloe park her car. He noticed her staring at the steering wheel and her touch it. He also noticed that she was driving Lois' car, which was odd. Chloe slowly exited the car and headed towards the entrance. Lex furrowed his brow. "How is it possible that she looks this healthy?"
Chloe looked to be in exceptional form. She may have worn simple jeans and a t-shirt, but her movements seemed far smoother than he remembered. It reminded him of the way Clark walked through crowds. It should've been the thing everyone noticed about Clark Kent. He was self-assured, even if, at times, he seemed a bumbling teenager. There was this aura that came off him that told the world that he could handle it all. Chloe's hair wasn't the buzz cut it had been, but it was still too short for her normal cut. She seemed to take everything in about her surroundings.
If everything had gone the way he had wanted, Chloe would've been one of his study experiments. There was very little chance that she wasn't a meteor freak. A series of bizarre coincidences had prevented that and it was nearly impossible after her car accident. "Maybe whatever makes her special let her survive and recover so well."
His and Chloe's eyes met and she actually offered a small smile. Lex stood when she approached and offered her a seat. He watched as she looked around the restaurant. He had chosen it because it offered good home-style cooking, had lots of people, and it was a place that really didn't care about Lex or the outside world. He was just another patron.
Chloe was the first to break the silence. "Well. This is awkward."
"As well as surprising. I figured you'd never meet with me again."
It was simple honesty.
"You are not incorrect, Lex. We are terrible people to each other."
Lex raised his glass to that. It was undeniable. This seemed to be the meeting where all their cards would be on the table by the time everything was said and done. He vowed to be civil.
"You ever wonder what it would be like if we weren't terrible people to each other?"
Chloe summoned a waiter and they gave their order. It would be steaks, medium rare, with mashed potatoes for both of them.
She took a drink of her soda. "I wonder all the time, Lex. Could we have been better then? Can we be better now? Should we even try? The answers are: of course, of course, and obviously. But the reality is that we are who we are and we haven't changed yet. So that tells you everything you have ever needed to know about the metaphysics of our particular being."
Lex sat back in his seat and raised both eyebrows at her. He was stunned to be honest. "Do you wish it was different?"
Chloe looked outside at her car. "Do you see the light blue sedan? At the building across from the gas station," Lex looked to where she indicated and she continued, "That car has been following me all day. Anyway, yes. Yes, I wish we were different. I wish that we could find a way back to each other."
She met his eyes for the first time, "This? Right now? Isn't about finding a way back to each other."
He smiled ruefully, "I didn't think it was. So how do you want to do this? We'll be eating shortly. So we could talk about what you want to talk about now, make small talk, or, my personal favorite, we could stare at each other in uncomfortable silence."
Chloe tapped her glass. "How about a happy medium? There's no way we can simply make light conversation. How about some truths mixed in? I promise to not get upset. You promise not to get upset. No one makes threats until after the meal and we simply…be honest. Stark, unrelenting honesty. We ask questions until our food arrives and then we do the small talk thing during dinner itself, and end with bitter hatred because the actual reason."
He raised his glass and she did the same in agreement.
"Why do you protect Clark so relentlessly?"
She rolled her eyes, 'The same reason you purse him relentlessly; he's special and better than both of us. There's something in him that can make him great, which is the same thing that can make him the worst thing we've ever seen. I understand why you want it, why you fear it," she continued and leaned closer to him, "My turn. Was it your profound fear of rejection that led to you rejecting me first? Did you forget about me after the Lionel situation because I couldn't be Lana to your Clark?"
Lex clinched his fist tightly around his glass. He looked down into his water glass and met her eyes again. "Yes, it was. The age difference, the experience difference, the perception of the thing, the ability to feel things was something I didn't want to overcome."
He watched Chloe process the information. Neither one of them had said something the other didn't know already. These were feints before the fight could begin.
"Did you ever really love me?"
"No, Lex, I never loved you, but I think…I think I could have. I think we could have made it work. I think we could've changed together, but I would never have given up Clark. And now, I don't think I ever could."
That was news to him. He was still so wound tightly around the notion of his villainy and it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"Lex, many times when destiny is mentioned, it really isn't a good thing. It's something to be averted. Prophecies happen when our gods want to tell us bad things will happen for one reason or another. That's when we get the call. 'Sacrifice your son, Abraham.', 'You are destined to kill the king, marry your mother, and destroy things, Oedipus.', 'Troy will fall, King Priam.', 'A rain of blood will soak you, Lex.' And here you are, Lex, soaking in a rain of blood. But of course the tragedy is in the attempt to avert it and you follow the pattern," she continued, "What is your favorite thing, Lex?"
"Knowledge. Sometimes it's about the power it brings, but mostly it's about how much I love it. I think that in another reality, I was a great engineer, or maybe biologist, or chemist. Not just great, Chloe, but good"
He meant "good" as in not "evil".
Chloe shook her head at him, "None of those things. You would clearly be a great, good philosopher."
He was skeptical, "You think so?"
"I really do, Lex."
He was going to ask his actual question when their food arrived. Lex and Chloe both realized that they had gained more than they had lost, but the loss hurt so much more.
Twenty minutes of light conversation later, they both became aware that it was time to be serious. They were going to be the people they were and not who could've been.
Lex set his glass back down and lobbed the first volley, "What is it that you want from me now?"
Chloe hardened herself. "You don't remember this, but you found a structure in Antarctica. You thought it was of alien origin and you were right."
This information floored him. He searched his memories, trying to grasp onto something, anything that would make her a liar. But he found nothing. He came back to herself when she placed her hand over his own. She didn't continue until he looked at her.
"You found alien crystals and you stored them. You have a repository from that structure and other caves with alien writings. I want a few of those crystals and one in particular."
It took Lex a few tries before he could form words, before he could make a sound and convey it into meaningful communication. "Why? Why would I agree to give you this? Do you think I'd just let this go without figuring it out myself?"
In his agitation, Lex's voice rose enough to draw the attention of the patrons closest to their table.
"You have to calm down, Lex. I know you can't let it go. I don't expect it. But you will give me what I want."
"And how will you make me?" His words were forceful enough that he nearly spit. "So this is what they mean by spitting mad"
"Yes, Chloe, how will you make him? Asking nicely didn't help. What carrot? What stick?"
Lionel's mocking words were nearly enough to make her lose her own composure. This was the Lionel that she had worked for and not the man of later years. His full head of hair, the beard, the voice, the not-so-disguised hostility in his eyes were all there, all enough to make her remember the teenager she used to be and not the woman she was.
Lionel snapped his fingers. "I got it! Tell him you know that he cloned and killed Julian Luthor! You know, not the real Julian, he had nothing to do with the death of his infant, younger brother. Just a clone in the form of Gabriel Grant. Or, my lovely dear, tell him that killing me was not a good idea. Those are sticks. Maybe you could offer him…hmmm…what could you offer him?"
He was more playful than she remembered. Deep down inside she had known both of those things, but she had always wanted to believe that Lex Luthor was not a murderer. That he was only "evil" in the sense that CEOs of large conglomerates were generally "evil". He was not wrong about Clark. His execution was wrong, but that was a localized situation. This was confirmation that his moral compass was fatally wrong.
"Oh, Lex."
"Lex, I can fix Luthorcorp's problems. I can even give you a leg up on the competition if you want. Just give me access to your repository."
"I did not expect that, Chloe. Such a good carrot you found!"
"How? How can I trust you?"
"This time, Lex, this one time, we can actually be those other people. Just once, Lex. That's all I'm asking."
Lex looked at the car that had been following her all day.
"You won't tell me anything, will you?"
"That's for you to find, Lex. I can't help you."
His fingers played along the rim of his water glass.
"Just this once, Chloe," after checking the time on his watch, he pulled out a pen and wrote on a napkin. He continued, "Go here. Whenever you want and key in that code. A guard will follow you and catalog everything you take. One day, Chloe, there will be a reckoning."
His movements were jerky when he rose from his seat. He left without looking back.
"I love nothing more than our world, Lex."