Couple(s): Chloe/Lex
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: Everything but the plot belongs to someone other than me
Spoilers for: the rest of the series
Author's Note: Hopefully this is the last chapter, though I'm not making any promises. The title comes from the John Mayer song of the same name.
Back to You
The heavy tension in the car was mixed with hope. No one spoke; the passengers only held each other's hands and prayed. Prayed for Lena and a small miracle. Kyle was driving almost as fast as Lex usually did, but Chloe didn't yell at him. She could think about nothing but her daughter.
Next to her, Lex's mouth was set in a grim line, his eyes framed with worry. He was too familiar with criminals and their schemes to be the slightest bit optimistic. There was a small, infinitesimal part of him, however, that was open to the thought that their 'surprise ambush' would be successful. He tried as intensely as he could to hold onto that.
Martha was on Chloe's other side, and she was rubbing the latter's back gently. Clark's mother was no stranger to the kind of fear that the Luthors felt; for years she woke up and was certain that someone had captured Clark and dragged him to a remote lab for tests. Sometimes that thought still petrified her.
It was Kyle who first broke the thirty minute silence. His old, non-descript undercover vehicle suddenly rolled to a stop and he quietly cut the engine. "It's just up the road. When we get there, I'll get out and investigate. If I give you guys an 'okay' signal, it means that you can join me. If I don't--if they're there--I want Lex to prepare to back me up." He tossed something heavy and thick into the backseat.
The billionaire held the bulletproof vest in his hands, a renewed sense of purpose in his blazing eyes. After a beat, he slipped on the garment over his shirt. He then removed his gun from the pocket of his dress pants and began to load it.
"In the *car*?" Chloe asked, incredulous.
Her husband faced her for a moment, his face hardening. "Shut up, Chloe," he whispered.
Recalling that she'd ordered him to do the same an hour or so earlier, Chloe simply nodded.
The car bumped along the back road again, and the three people in the back instinctively hunched down. As they were turning toward the apparently abandoned garage, a red Ferrari screeched by them, leaving tread marks in its path.
"That's them," Kyle hissed, shoving the steering wheel abruptly to the left.
"*Wait*," Lex shouted, fumbling with his seat belt and reaching for the door handle.
"What the *hell*?" Martha asked firmly; hearing her swear would have shocked the rest, if they hadn't been distracted by other things.
"*Lex, get back in here*!" Kyle shouted over his shoulder as he continued to chase the speeding car.
It was too late; the bald man was miraculously out of the racing vehicle and already rushing toward the garage.
* * *
He didn't know how he managed to not kill himself when he rolled onto the road, but Lex really didn't care about pointless details just then. When Kyle had whipped the car around, a flash of movement had caught the other man's eye. Granted he acted impulsively, but he had a hunch. Chloe had taught him to never go against his gut feeling.
His expensive leather dress shoes were barely made for extensive walking, let alone a half mile run. He knew, though, that they'd have to do; he didn't have time to worry about stupid things like footwear. Hell, stupid things like footwear would never concern him ever again if his daughter got out of the fiasco alive.
A compact black car was hidden behind an empty dumpster, he noticed when he reached the garage. There was no sign that anyone had used it for years, but, again, he had a hunch.
Using all of his strength, he pushed up the door that covered the main room. "You better be in here, bastards," he mumbled to himself, gun at the ready. Wincing at the burning pain in his hands--the door was heavier than he'd originally thought--he stealth fully glided inside.
* * *
*If Lex dies, I'll be a single mother. I'll have to raise two children on my own. My God.* That thought--as selfish as it was--continually raced through Chloe's petrified brain. Occasionally it alternated with, *why didn't I chase after him?*
Kyle was gaining on the renegade Ferrari; his teeth were grinding together, and he kept mumbling obscenities under his breath. "I should've called for bloody backup," she heard him mutter more than once, followed by a swear word that, as a mother, made her cringe.
"It'll be okay," Martha whispered, exuding an air of calmness that she prayed would rub off on her distraught friend; every muscle in Chloe's small body was tense, and it showed on her face. "Lex and Lena will be fine. He knows what he's doing."
"Like Hell he does. He thinks being a hero is easy, but he has no--" Chloe's whispered rant was cut off when the driver they were tailing slammed on his brakes.
"Holy..." Kyle yelped, unable to finish the curse as he struggled to keep the car on the road.
* * *
His shoes tapping against the concrete floor made the only sound. After a second, he bent down and yanked them off. He threw the first one directly in front of him, hoping it would give him some idea as to what lurked in the darkness.
Despite himself, Lex started when it crashed into a pile of metal tools. "I know you're here somewhere," he called, projecting self-assurance that he certainly didn't feel.
Scurrying feet somewhere behind him. Whirling around, he readied the gun with one hand, and grasped his shoe with the other. "Show yourself, bastard."
A dim, dirty light bulb flickered on, adding a strange illumination to the room. "Gladly."
* * *
As a journalist, Chloe knew that the first thing to do in an unusual situation is to examine the facts. Closing her eyes against the pain in her right leg, she centered herself. *What do you know, Chloe?* They were upside down in a ditch, that much she could deduce. What she didn't know was the state her fellow passengers were in.
"Martha, Kyle," she called, wincing when she heard how quiet and scratchy her voice had become. If she rotated a few inches to the right, she could see Martha--
The older women's face was ashen, but she was visibly breathing. Her eyes were closed, but she sensed that she was being watched. "Chloe," she gasped. Chloe's shaking hand reached out and clasped Martha's cold, clammy one.
"Kyle, are you okay?" No answer.
Coughing harshly, Chloe tried again. "Kyle!"
Nothing.
The women faced each other as best they could and began to tremble.
* * *
The man was tall, lanky, and the kind of person Chloe would have considered handsome--his firm face was softened by dark, wavy hair and grayish eyes that glittered in the weak light. Judging from his wardrobe, he was fairly well-off. "Hello, Luthor." The gravelly voice was so familiar and evil that Lex felt a chill run up his spine.
"Where the hell is my daughter?" he asked evenly, his tone telling the man to cut the bullshit.
Lex braced himself as the man took a step forward. Instead of charging the billionaire, he yanked the lid off of a dusty wooden crate that had been hiding under a tarp.
"Oh, my--you *bastard!*" Lena was curled up on the bottom of the crate, her skin almost transparent, her ribs visible through her naked body. Lex didn't know whether to start firing or be sick. Apparently his body decided for him, for he heaved.
When he straightened up, his daughter's captor was grinning. "Oh, please. Shoot me. You'll go down as, 'Lex Luthor--the multi-billionaire who was trying to kill Superman then went on a murderous rampage.'"
The gun clicked as he cocked it. "You forgot the bit about me rescuing my daughter." He was calm now, made so by the thought of the bastard's blood all over the ground.
"Oh, don't worry about that; the press with make you a child abuser too. This'll be fantastic!" He rubbed his palms together gleefully.
Then Lex fired.
* * *
The whereabouts of the car that they were chasing in the first place were unknown. Chloe decided that, if the driver had wanted to see them die, he would've checked on them. She told herself that he had most likely been distracting them while his partner did whatever he had to do.
Her leg had gone numb, and a bizarre pinching filled her stomach. She began to feel woozy, and she intuitively knew she was losing the baby. "I'm sorry, Lex," was all she could mumble before she passed out.
* * *
He was too stunned to move. He, Lex Luthor, had killed someone, all for the sake of his daughter. It didn't bother him as much as it would have, had he not gone through the trauma of losing his child. In fact, it felt pretty empty.
Ignoring the limp body, he marched toward the grate and gingerly lifted Lena. Settling her in the crook of his arm, he groped for a pulse on the side of her neck. It was faint, but there. He slipped out of the vest and his shirt, wrapping the latter around her, letting the former drop to the floor.
"Let's get you home, sweetie," he whispered hoarsely, tears threatening to fall. So he let them.
* * *
Strong arms were pulling her, a gentle hand was stroking her forehead, a voice was whispering sweet nothings to her. With great effort, Chloe pried her eyes open. She was startled to discover that she was lying on a gurney in the back of a speeding ambulance. Lex was smiling down at her, his face damp. He'd been crying.
"Hi, beautiful," he whispered, bending down to brush a kiss across her forehead.
She was hooked up to an oxygen mask, she realized upon trying to speak. Taking deep, grateful breaths, Chloe stared at her husband, forcing herself to remember everything that had just happened.
"She's going to be okay," he continued, speaking of their daughter. "She's malnourished and beaten, but the doctors said that we can bring her home after a few days. We'll see her when we get to the hospital. Martha has a mild concussion and a broken rib, but she'll be up and running in no time. Kyle-" he paused, "-Kyle didn't make it."
The fog was lifting from her mind slowly, and Chloe finally processed what he was telling her: their daughter was alive. Their Lena had returned to them.
An ambulance attendant, who had been politely sitting in the corner, spoke up. "Missus Luthor, you're going to be fine. We need to run a few tests and bandage your ankle--you sprained it pretty badly, by the way--but you can go home tonight." He removed the mask from her mouth after checking her vital signs, and helped her to sit.
"The baby," was the first thing she could coherently say, noticing that the pains in her abdomen had stopped. "Did we...lose it?"
Lex pressed her face to his chest and massaged the back of her neck. She braced herself, fearing the worst. "No, no; he's fine."
"We're having a boy?" she replied. They hadn't want to find out the gender beforehand but--
"Yes," he whispered, tilting her chin so he could see her eyes, "we are."
Then doors were opening and she was being wheeled inside the building. After a few examinations and a tearful visit with her baby, she fell asleep on a hospital bed, wrapped in Lex's arms.
* * *
Lex bolted up the manor's front steps a few days later, telling his wife to be careful.
"Yeah, yeah," Chloe shot back, hobbling into the kitchen, clutching Lena to her chest.
"You could hurt yourself, damnit," he insisted, reaching her side.
When she rolled her eyes, he found himself grinning. "I could hurt myself working, too, Lex; my laptop could spontaneously combust. Are you going to follow me around the office all day and watch over me?"
"Point taken." He kissed her lips quickly then gladly accepted their daughter while Chloe fixed her a bottle using the special formula the hospital had given them. "Everything okay in there?" he yelled into the living room, where Clark was helping his mother get settled.
"Delightful," Superman's alter ego shot back.
Lena cooed, and he focused on her. A goofy smile spread on his face as he looked at her. "I missed you more than anything, pumpkin," he whispered in his 'baby talk' voice. "Who's daddy's little angel, hmm?" He lifted her over his head and chuckled when she made happy noises.
"'Daddy's little angel' needs to eat," Chloe said sternly, resting their daughter against her arm and tilting the bottle toward the girl's open mouth.
"Yes'm," Lex said obediently. "I have something to take care of anyway. I'll be in my office."
Concern visible on her now-relaxed face, Chloe faced him for a second. "What are you going to be doing?"
"You're welcome to come see," he replied cryptically.
Glancing into the living room--Clark was sitting on the floor, chatting animatedly with Martha, who was lying on the couch--Lex crept into his office.
Chloe continued to feed Lena as she watched her husband. He purposefully yanked open the top drawer of his desk and removed a tiny key from his secret hiding place. The private compartment in his desk popped open, and he pulled out the computer disk that was inside it.
He tossed that into his metal garbage can, then pulled a half dozen file folders, crammed with loose papers and printouts, from another drawer. Those joined the disk. Lex raised his head and met his wife's eyes. He held her gaze while he pulled a cigarette lighter from his shirt pocket and flicked it on.
"You're not..." she began in an awed whisper.
Lex allowed the contents of the can to burn for a good five minutes before he pulled a small fire extinguisher off the wall. He squirted the garbage until the flames stopped. "Look," he said quietly.
Baby in arms, Chloe approached his side. The disk and papers had been reduced to an unrecognizable pile of ashes. "I can't believe you did that. I'm so happy I can't even begin to tell you!"
He wound his arm around her waist and smiled. "I promise that all my research stops immediately." His voice and eyes were firm and sincere.
Chloe was too overcome by a flood of emotions to speak. She could only nod as he led her into the living room.
Things were going to be okay after all.
******
FINIS