11: Exclusive

The day Chloe goes to meet with his father, Lex can't breathe properly until his phone rings to tell him she's safe. It was never a reasonable fear that his father was going to murder her on a park bench in the middle of Metropolis—Lionel doesn't have to murder people. He breaks their confidence, ends their careers, destroys their futures. The thought of any of that happening to Chloe . . .

To keep her safe, Lex should have stayed far away. But he was selfish, and now it's too late.

You're not alone anymore, she told him. As soon as she spoke those words, Lex lost himself in the comfort of them, in the overwhelming gravity of feeling loved in a way he'd never been loved before. But the truth is, it would be better if he was still alone. Then she wouldn't be in danger.

"Lex, I'm okay," Chloe says again, her voice quiet through the phone against his ear. "I'm on my way to the mansion."

"Drive carefully," he says.

Will his father have her followed? Or is Lionel's attention already elsewhere—on her job at the Planet? On her family?

Lex's knuckles whiten around the phone. He can't bring himself to hang up.

Maybe Chloe senses that, or maybe it's for her own comfort she says, "So, uh, how's that new experiment at the plant going? You said they were close to a breakthrough."

Haltingly, he talks about mundane things at work, and his eyes rest on the clock at the edge of his desk, counting down the minutes from Metropolis to Smallville, until finally, he hears the crunch of gravel beneath her tires as she pulls into the driveway.

He meets her at the door to his study, and she throws her arms around him in a hug. He holds tightly and breathes the scent of her—the floral of her shampoo mixed with the newspaper ink that often rubs off on her hands.

"What did he want?" he asks. It didn't seem right to discuss it over the phone. Chloe must have thought so as well.

She pulls back, glancing toward his brandy tray. For a second, Lex worries his father's sent her so over the edge, she's about to start drinking. But she asks for a water. He sends the request to a member of his staff.

Finally, water bottle in hand, she sinks onto the corner of the sofa. Lex sits next to her, his arm loosely over her shoulders.

"Well, let's review the notes." Chloe tries for a faint smile that quickly fades. "He opened with a lot of passive-aggressive flattery. Things about how hard it is to be a journalist these days, the cost of college, the struggle of a single father with an ambitious daughter. How great I am for facing all the struggles. Then we finally got to the offer."

Lex clenches his jaw. He can imagine what the offer was: some kind of payment to make her disappear from his life. Lionel did the same to the only caregiver Lex trusted after his mother's death.

Instead, she says, "Lex, he tried to pay me to spy on you!"

She waits for him to be shocked, but nothing his father does ever shocks him anymore. It's just another day as the son of Lionel Luthor.

"What did he say, exactly?" he asks.

To that, she smiles. It's a faint, wolfish-type of smile, predatory and self-satisfied, and it briefly catches Lex off guard. Perhaps he hasn't given enough credit to Chloe's ruthless instincts.

"Oh, listen to this." She pulls her phone from her pocket. "This is a trick I came up with once Clark and I started facing real threats from meteor freaks. The sheriff doubting my 'wild stories' got old real fast, and it's hard to dispute a death threat when you can listen to it yourself. So I started using my voicemail."

She presses a button, and suddenly Lex is listening to the very conversation she had with his father.

"Don't deny it, Ms. Sullivan," says his father's sultry voice, the one he uses for wooing women and clients alike. "You have sharp journalistic instincts, and Lex is a veritable vein of secrets you're just dying to mine. Bring me his, and I can ensure you receive access to people and stories you can only dream of. You could be the top reporter in all of Metropolis, starting here, starting now. Or, if you prefer, you can remain in obscurity, just one more name on a long list of fleeting relationships for Lex Luthor. I do wonder how long this one will last."

Lex clenches his jaw, but before he can speak, he hears Chloe's response on the recording.

"Mr. Luthor, with all due respect—which is none—I'd rather live in obscurity than in your pocket. So you can take that check, and you can burn it."

Chloe flips her phone closed. "Anyway, you get the idea, I guess." She sighs. "He was so smug, and anything I said just got twisted or flipped back on me. It made me realize I need to get much better at interviewing."

She's trying to play things off lightly, but Lex can feel how tense her shoulders are, see how tightly her free hand is gripping her water bottle. The plastic pops and crackles beneath her hold.

Inside him is a war, one he wishes wasn't raging. One side of him can't help wondering if it's all an act, a staged recording, if she did make a deal with his father, and this is the beautifully crafted defense to cover it. He hates that side of himself.

The rest of him clings to the fire in her voice, to her promises and the thousand evidences of honesty she's already given him, starting with their very first email chain, when she told him about why strange things happen in Smallville.

Chloe is an honest person. He's never seen any evidence to the contrary, and if she's been conning him for well over a year, then it's the most dedicated, pointless con in history, one that's even put her life at risk. To gain what? Within a few weeks of a relationship with Lex, Victoria almost had a corporate takeover, and Desirée almost had his entire trust fund. After a year, Chloe is living in a cramped dorm room and driving a battered VW on its last leg, insisting she can't part with it because that car is a story.

One side of him has to win the war. Either Lex chooses to believe in the conspiracy, or he chooses to believe in Chloe. He knows which one he wants to believe, and if he can't believe in her, then he'll never believe in anyone.

If he doesn't break the cycle now, he never will.

Lex hesitates, balanced on the edge of a razor. No matter which way he falls, he'll bleed. But there's only one side where he might heal.

He reaches out and takes Chloe's hand.

"Before my father contacted you," he says quietly, "he told me you were only dating me for the story. He offered you a check to make that prediction real. Because if you'd taken it, if you'd given him whatever information on me he asked for, he could have come back to me and said, 'See, Lex? I was right.' And in that moment when I doubted everything except him, he could have maneuvered me into whatever latest scheme he's lining up."

Chloe's face is pale. She looks sick. "Why does your dad treat you like this?"

"Love, he claims. That's always his defense." Lex rubs his thumb absently across the back of her hand. "If so, it's a two-legacies type." Catching her puzzled look, he recites part of a poem. "You left me, sire, two legacies. . . . You left me boundaries of pain, capacious as the sea, between eternity and time, your consciousness—and me."

The room is quiet. The words echo in Lex's mind. He draws in a long, slow breath.

"There," he says, giving a fleeting smile. "Now you know the first of my deep, dark secrets; there's an Emily Dickinson collection in my bedroom. How much was my father offering for it?"

"It doesn't matter," says Chloe. "I—"

"I know you turned him down." He believes her. He's chosen to believe her. "I want to know how high he priced your integrity."

Some of the color flushes back into her cheeks. She takes a sip of water, then mumbles, "A hundred thousand dollars."

His smile must confuse her, so he explains, "Chloe, you're a college student surviving on scholarships, working a low-stipend internship. I thought my father would underestimate you, something in the ten-thousands, not the hundreds. It means . . . he really wants to derail this. He can tell my relationship with you is different."

It also means he knew Chloe couldn't be easily bought off. He was offering her entire college education and more. Trying to force her every dream into a box that could be handed over at once. A box more enticing than Lex.

And she didn't take it.

That's the reason for his smile.

"He also offered me a guaranteed promotion at the Planet. I hate to think how he can arrange that." Chloe sits up and digs in her pocket before producing a brass key. "Oh, and this. He said it's a master key for every door in the mansion. So I could snoop wherever I wanted."

She drops it into Lex's palm like it's a venomous spider she can't wait to expel from her home. Lex holds it up to examine it, and it certainly looks like his own master key.

She could have told him the rest but still kept it.

She didn't.

Where she held it with disgust, Lex holds it with reverence, curling his fingers gently around the metal as if it's the key to his heart. That key just might be the woman sitting next to him. If he can let her in.

In a moment of bravery, he hands it back. "Keep it. I have nothing to hide from you, Chloe."

The tender appreciation in her gaze is worth any risk. She leans in to kiss his cheek affectionately. He opens his arms, shifting on the couch, and she snuggles into them, releasing a sigh. Unfortunately, her shoulders droop in a way that tells him there's more bad news to come. She rests her head against the curve of his shoulder.

Quietly, she says, "He wasn't very happy I turned him down."

Lex wraps his arms around her and waits for the rest.

"He 'encouraged' me to reconsider, to think about the consequences of my actions. Consequences, meaning . . . he's going to fire my dad from LuthorCorp."

Lex had been hoping that bargaining chip wouldn't come into play. It was always a frail hope. He closes his eyes in a wince.

Chloe's father is a single parent, struggling to help his only daughter through college. He's a standout manager at the Smallville plant, a reliable employee with over a decade of loyal service. And it won't just be a matter of ending his current employment; Lionel will ensure he can't get another job anywhere else.

For another long moment, Lex holds his girlfriend, imagining what life could be like.

Then he lets go, sitting back.

"If we go our separate ways"—his tone is composed, but every word scrapes his throat—"my father will count that as a victory. He'll let your father keep his position. Maybe even promote him."

Chloe doesn't even pause to consider it. "Lex, I'm not going to give in to the demands of a tyrant. Not a chance! I'll explain everything to my dad, and even if he's upset, I'll tell him the same thing. Lionel Luthor has gotten to where he is in life because people give in when he threatens, but I'll be damned if I let him have his way this time. I'd rather live out of my car and peddle my best articles to hokey conspiracy outlets than help him hurt the man I love."

The man I love. She says it so casually, Lex has to replay it in his mind to be sure he registered the right words. A strange restlessness takes hold of his limbs, like he needs to move but doesn't know how. He swallows before he can speak.

"You love me?" he finally manages.

She blushes a bright, charming pink. Quickly, she presses her water bottle to her cheek, like a plastic shield between them.

"I know it's too fast. I know I probably don't know what I'm talking about, because this is my first serious relationship, so of course the naïve little girl thinks she's in love right away."

She's babbling, her cutest feature.

"But I'll have you know that it isn't all that fast, because I think I was in love with you before we even kissed. And it isn't like I don't know you. We've taken road trips together, and you've met my dad, and I went with you to your mother's grave, and you've told me about your brother. You know things about me that I've never told anyone else. I know we haven't been dating long, but we've been friends long enough, so I stand by my feelings. I'm allowed to be in love with you."

It's the most affectionate attack Lex has ever been on the receiving end of, and he can't help a laugh. Part of it is her, being her usual quirky-but-endearing self, and part of it is how she lights sparks in his soul, how she makes him feel alive in a way nothing and no one else does. In an entire world of people, he knows there's no one else like Chloe Sullivan.

I'm allowed to be in love with you.

Those words are more valuable than anything in Lex's bank account.

"Far be it from me to tell you otherwise," he says warmly.

When he first came to Smallville, he thought it was the worst punishment of his life. Now he thinks it was the best thing that could have happened. What he found here is worth more than all his riches, all his ambitions, everything he ever chased, thinking it would make him feel whole.

He feels whole right here, sitting next to her, listening to her unbridled honesty.

"Well, good. Glad we cleared that up." She lowers the water bottle, finally meeting his eyes. Hers are such a beautiful green, half-hidden by the strands of hair falling into her face. Softly, she whispers, "I love you, Lex. I won't let anyone scare me away from that—not your father, not myself, not even you."

He tucks her hair back, his fingertips tracing her eyebrow, then skimming the side of her face until they rest against her neck. He draws her forward and kisses her in a slow, lingering way, hoping that if he draws out the contact, she might feel it all, every tender emotion pulsing in his blood. All the things he can't find words for.

Maybe she does feel it, because even with one hundred thousand reasons to leave, she grasps the collar of his shirt and holds tight, like she intends to always stay.

Chloe worries about Lex. Lionel did fire her father, and at first, he couldn't get a job anywhere else, like he was being blockaded. When he finally lands a position, Lex gets a promotion the same day—no longer managing the Smallville plant, instead working at LuthorCorp headquarters in Metropolis.

She worries he made a trade, doing something his father wanted in order to help her father get a new job. When she asks Lex directly, he doesn't lie, but he does deflect. He says he has his own reasons for wanting to work in Metropolis. He says he wants to see her more regularly, which is flattering, and he wants to keep a closer eye on his father, which is concerning.

"I don't want you in danger," she tells him when he visits her dorm.

"As long as I'm my father's son, I'm in danger," he says. But he doesn't seem afraid. There's a new glint in his eyes. She's seen it before while watching him fence; it's the look he gets when he switches stances and goes on the offensive. It's his look when he's determined to fight and win.

"If you're going against your father," she says, "I can help. You know I can."

"This isn't something you can help with."

"Lex, don't lie to me." She gives him a glare. "Don't try to protect me by shutting me out."

She's learned by now that he hates the guilt of being cornered. And part of being a good reporter is knowing how to put the pressure on, even with people she loves.

The only person she can't ever get to crumble is Clark. If that guy wants to stay tight-lipped, he just freezes over like an ice fortress.

Lex winces. "I'm not trying to lie. I just . . . I need to do this on my own for now. He's my father."

"At least tell me what you're doing," she presses.

"Chloe." There's a plea in his voice.

She's pushing too hard. He's allowed to have boundaries, private matters. Family matters. With effort, Chloe catches her own reins, hauls herself back in check.

"I'm sorry. I . . ." She sighs. "I just don't want you to be alone. I want to help."

With a soft smile, he steps forward and kisses her forehead. "You help every day. Trust me."

Trust. The hardest test of love. But Chloe steels herself and nods. "How about this? I won't ask anything for two weeks. I won't pry; I won't poke. But can we talk about what you're doing in two weeks?"

After all, he's the one who said he needed to do this on his own for now. Not forever.

"Two months," he counters.

He gets another glare for that, with an extra dose of heat.

"Two months from today," he says. "I promise. Wherever I'm at, I'll fill you in."

Chloe chews on that. He could have balked at any timeline, but he's clearly trying to compromise. He's not trying to shut her out.

But why won't he tell her what he's doing now? Is he planning a corporate takeover? Is he just spying on his father? Why? Does he think Lionel Luthor is secretly part of the mob? Conducting illegal projects? Laundering money through LuthorCorp?

Her investigative instincts are thrumming like a live wire dangerously close to water.

But Lex keeps trusting her, even when it goes against his instincts. For the first time, she has a better idea what a battle that is.

Finally, she says, "Two months. I trust you, Lex. Just be safe."

However, her worry can't be easily silenced. A few days later, she visits Clark. She doesn't give him any details, just asks him to keep an eye on Lex, to protect him if it seems like he's in danger.

"Obviously," he says, as if it's a totally normal request to make of a sixteen-year-old farm boy instead of Lex's fully grown, fully trained security team. "I look out for my friends."

Ice fortress or not, that much is true. And it doesn't feel strange to ask him because Clark is always there. Whenever she's in danger, whenever Lex is in danger, whenever anyone needs saving, Clark seems to be there. She can't explain how.

The longer Chloe knows Clark, the less she seems to actually know about him, and sometimes she wonders if Lex's suspicions are true—that Clark has abilities he won't admit. Even Lex goes back and forth on that, although they can always agree Clark is hiding something, whatever that might be.

"Clark . . ." She hesitates, stalling by looking through his telescope, watching the evening sky darken. Then she leans against the wall of the barn, looking up at him. "I know you keep secrets. Don't look at me like that—I'm not here to ferret them out. This isn't an interrogation. I just . . . I think you're my friend. I've always thought that. Do you feel that way? Me, Lex, Lana, Pete—do you feel like we're really your friends, or do you feel like no one can be your friend since they don't know everything about you? Are you actually using the secrets to keep everyone at arm's length?"

"So much for not being an interrogation," Clark grumbles. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, and she's pretty sure he's gone ice fortress.

"I'm sorry." She groans. "I'm trying to . . . I'm sorry. That wasn't what I meant. I don't know what I meant. I've just been freaked out about secrets lately, that's all."

After a few minutes of awkward silence, he speaks quietly. "I hope you can be my friend, even if you don't know everything about me. Like . . . like who my birth parents are. Where I came from. Things like that."

As soon as he says it like that, she knows the obvious answer.

The answer is that even when it all matters, some things matter more than others.

"It's hard to feel untrustworthy," she admits. "It's hard to feel like someone I love might be in pain, and they won't let me help. But in the end . . . I know everything that really matters. I can wait a while for the rest."

She knows how Lex feels about her. It's been evident in every kiss, every moment together. She knows he's afraid of his father, that things between them are complicated and deep and difficult. She also knows he's kept every promise so far.

If he needs two months, she can give him two months.

"I don't mean to hurt anyone," Clark mumbles.

"Secrets do hurt," Chloe says, because she doesn't see a point to lying about that. "But I think they can also mean the person keeping them is hurting. If you're hurting, Clark, I'm sorry. I'd do anything to prevent that."

"I'm fine, Chloe." She's really embarrassed him now. He's shuffling like one of the Kent cows, eyeing the railing of the loft like a fence he intends to hurdle on his way to freedom. Chloe bites her lip to hide a smile.

Just then, his mother calls out an announcement for dinner. Mrs. Kent has already invited Chloe to stay, so as they head inside, Chloe focuses on relaxing conversation, asking about Clark's classes, giving him some extra tips for getting the Torch issues out on time, and filling him in on the latest story she was able to scrounge up at the Planet.

When she and Lex visited the White House together, Lex asked about her goals. Those don't have to be limited to a career. It's time to start thinking about what kind of person she wants to be. She's always been impulsive, impatient. Maybe she can take the next two months as a chance to start growing out of that. Lex makes her feel like she can be someone incredible—First Lady material, of all things. But she's the only person who can prove that true.

With a deep breath and determination, Chloe faces the future. She knows what matters. She'll wait for the rest. And she'll trust that when Lex is ready, he'll tell her.