Title: Mind vs. Heart

Author: Malana

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: I have no rights to either Angel or Smallville

Spoilers: Around season 2 for Angel and going AU rather quickly.  I'm not doing the Darla  storyline.  A few years in the future for Smallville.  Chloe has just graduated college.  But as far as showcannon goes, assume to the beginning of season three.

Pairings: Chloe/Lindsey, Chloe/Angel, Cordelia/Angel

Author's note: Parts of this will be similar to my story "Upside Down" This story is an extended, alternate version of this.

 

 

 

    Chloe Sullivan loved three people in her lifetime.  One she betrayed, one betrayed her, and the other almost killed her.

 

    The first guy Chloe fell in love with was Clark Kent.  Mostly it just caused her heart break.  He only ever noticed her as a romantic possibility when Lana Lang wasn't around.  Even though she was young,what she felt for Clark was more than just a crush.  She really did love him.

 

    Which is why she was so hurt when he wasn't honest with her over his relationship with Lana.  When Chloe saw them kissing in Clark's barn, a part of her shut down.  She was angry and sad, and left herself open to Lionel Luthor's manipulations.  She never should have agreed to spy on Clark.  It was terrible and stupid, but she was heart broken, and wanted some sort of revenge.

 

    She tried to get out of it later, when she came to her senses.  But it was too late.  Lionel wasn't going to get her go back on their deal easily.  The threats on her own life, on her future as a reporter, those she could deal with.  But when Lionel threatened her father, she knew there was nothing she could do.  She just kept getting herself deeper and deeper into trouble.  She didn't know what to do.  She had no one to turn to.  Lionel Luthor was just too dangerous.

 

    And then Clark found out.  Well, actually, Lex found out first. When he learned of her deal with his father, Lex confronted Chloe.  He offered her a way out.  He'd protect her from his father if she would start working for him.  He wanted everything she had found on Clark, but also wanted her to dig up dirt on Lionel.  Lex told her she could stop researching Clark, if she put all of her efforts on researching Lionel. It was a complicated mess, but Chloe decided she would rather be under Lex's thumb than Lionel's.

 

    Clark found Lex's file on him, and it was quickly traced back to Chloe.  The confrontation that followed was one of the most painfully experiences of Chloe's life.  The anger she could deal with.  It was the hurt that really got to her.  The look of deep betrayal in Clark's eyes was something Chloe had never seen before.  There was nothing she could do to make it better.  No matter how much she apologized, no matter what her reasoning behind it had been, there was nothing she could do to fix

it.

 

    Life was hard after that.  Those last few years of high school, Chloe was basically friendless.  Clark, Pete, and Lana all turned their backs on her.  She found herself confiding in Lex.  He accepted her despite what she had done, and in turn she accepted the darkness inside of him.  During those years, Lex was the only person she could turn to.

 

    Chloe had always planned on going to college in Metropolis.  But that's were all of her old friends were going.  She couldn't deal with them for another four years.  So, when she got a scholarship for UCLA, she decided to take it.  She thought it would do her good to get far away from Smallville.

 

    Her four years there were rather uneventful.  She made a few friends, but not many.  She loved her journalism classes, and spent most of her free time working on  the school paper.  She graduated with honors, and was offered a job at an L.A. paper.  It wasn't the Daily Planet, but it was a start.

 

    One day Chloe was assigned an article on a local law firm, Wolfram and Hart.  She lined up an interview with Lilah Morgan, one of the firm's vice-presidents.  Chloe wasn't all that excited about the assignment.  She longed to do something that would require some serious investigative journalism, but she understood that she have to put in a few years of work before she could go after the stories she really wanted to do.  She was just expected a boring cut and dry interview, nothing even remotely special.

 

 

    Little did she know it would propel her into a life beyond her

wildest dreams, and more horrible than her worst nightmares.