Show: Smallville
Pairing: Chloe/Lex
Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters, the concept or the setting, nor do I have any money. Understand?
Chloe Sullivan was tired of crying. She had been having crying jags for weeks now, her doctor’s words echoing in her head. Abnormal pap smear. Not just abnormal in fact but VERY ABNORMAL. She was finally holding the results of her biopsy; and at this point, she didn’t want to know. She had been waiting for the other shoe to drop ever since she had been first taken to a gynecologist at age 12. She had a high risk for cervical abnormalities and cancer, since her mother had taken a drug called diethylstilbestrol when she was pregnant with her.
She had known for a couple of years now that something else was wrong down there. Something about ovaries and eggs and heredity. Having to think about her ‘down there’ as a girl and being checked out every six months didn’t change much about her life, but it made her much more uptight and self conscious about her budding sexuality than she might have been.
After her biopsy, she had cornered her doctor and had demanded to know all the gory details; what every possible scenario could mean for her. She had also made him explain in ‘big girl’ terms what it really meant for her to have so few eggs. Her heart shattered into a million pieces when she heard: she may not be able to have children. Her uterus was weak, and now possibly infected, her eggs were few in number and she was told to look out for symptoms of endometriosis as she was at risk for that too…
Before this year’s pap smear some weeks ago, she had felt under control. She was graduating high school; she was feeling confident and even quite pretty. She was looking forward to a life as a reporter. Now, all she felt like was… less than a woman. She had hardly even looked at Clark for the last month. She just couldn’t lust after him any more, and when she caught herself daydreaming, or eying his backside, she would just think about how he was utterly unattainable, and she was pussy challenged. YEP, that’s what she called her conditions in her head. Pussy challenged.
She had never felt so undesirable. She had been feeling better and more comfortable and ready for… something. Like a normal hormonal teenager. Except no one had noticed, and he hadn’t noticed, and… why is it she had to spell everything out to him? Did she have to tattoo ‘jump my bones Clark’ on her forehead? I mean, she wanted his friendship forever, and she wanted to consummate that friendship, many times over. She knew he was different. She knew they couldn’t be, that there was a good reason Clark only let himself want Lana. Because he would never, ever have her. Because she could be manipulated into pseudo dates and into liking him enough, but she would always be Whitney’s.
She hadn’t talked to Clark or Pete about her medical problems, and she didn’t want to either. She wished she had a friend that was a girl, right about now, or someone who she wasn’t emotionally involved with, like she was with Clark and Pete.
She turned off the Torch computer and closed her burning eyes. She wanted to scream. She wanted to vomit. She wanted to curse.
“Fuck!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, clearing her desk of all her paperwork.
She looked at the envelope lying on the floor with the rest of her things and couldn’t bear to pick it up. She squeezed her eyes shut and let the few remaining tears out. She took a deep breath and when she opened her eyes, Lex Luthor was standing in front of her with a curious look on his face.
He took her hand.
“Chloe” he kissed her hand. “You look nice today”.
“Wow, lying already. That was what, 4 seconds?”
“What can I do for you?”
“You could slap a certain farm boy upside the head, for one thing.”
“Excuse me?”
“Forget it.”
“So, where do you want to do this?”
“Do what?”
“The interview… Clark set it up a few weeks ago. You asked me to come by.”
“I thought that wasn’t until next week.”
“I thought you were organized,” he smiled, eyeing her mess.
“I thought it would be better not to rub it in. I’ve been there, and the last thing I needed was people pointing it out.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“No.”
“Am I missing something?”
“No. But I am.”
“What?”
“My womanhood.”
“I seriously doubt that.” He leered slightly, eying her tight body. She was wearing fitted clothing, today, and he couldn’t help his remark.
His smug expression unleashed a tirade:
“I am. I’m barren and I might be cancerous, and I wasn’t ready for it anymore. I had been waiting for so long I had surmised I was off the hook.”
“Is that all?” He asked, digesting what she had told him.
“No. I think men are allergic to me because no one except me and my OB GYN have ever been close to this area,” she motioned vaguely to between her legs. “I mean, how is a girl supposed to get any action is this god forsaken town?”
“Beats me. I’ve been here almost two years and the only action I got is when Victoria came to screw me out of a company. You should have seen me. I knew exactly why she was here and I was elated to see her.”
“So why haven’t you…”
“Looked for someone here?”
“Yeah.”
“If you can’t keep a secret...”
She heard the implied threat.
“Go ahead, off the record.”
“We have the same problem.”
“What?”
“Tall, dark, handsome...”
“Clark?”
“Yeah,”
“I didn’t know you… I mean I had heard, when I lived in Metropolis but I never…”
“It’s okay. I dealt with my bisexuality a long time ago.”
“Why are you being so…”
“Candid?”
“I was going to say… nice to me, but, yeah”
“It’s just one of those days I guess.” He said, taking a step towards her, invading her personal space.
“I’ve got an unopened envelope here that could change my life,” she stated, heat coming over her entire body.
“I take it it’s not good news?”
“I don’t think so.”
Lex picks up the envelope.
“I don’t know how I am going to survive the rest of the day knowing that at the end of it, I’ll be alone with these results-”
“I’ll tell you what miss Sullivan. I’m going to take this home. I want you to come to my house tonight at 7. I’ll have a nice dinner and we’ll talk. If you want, we’ll do the interview there, and when you’re ready you can rip this open.”
“Don’t you have better things to do?”
“I gave everyone the night off and I was planning on getting drunk and passing out.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. It’s just one of THOSE days… Tonight.”
“Bye,” Chloe said, clearly affected by the physical closeness they had shared.
She couldn’t get a bead on what had just happened. Had Lex Luthor been flirting with her? Granted, the words out of both their mouths were far from sexy, but when he got that close to her, she wanted to kiss him more than anything in the world. She was on fire. She wondered if he had felt it too, if the reason he was inviting her to the house was more than because he wanted an excuse NOT to self-destruct. He had been alone for a long time. And she felt like a ball of flying hormones.
But why would he want her? She thought. He liked Clark, and she had told him about her problems down there.
How in the world had she gone from shattered to horny? She didn’t hate Lex anymore. She didn’t even dislike him really. He had actually done good things with the plant and it was finally turning a profit.
He was intriguing. A paradigm of contradictions.
She could read people. What she read in him was fascinating. She wondered why she hadn’t paid real attention to the man before.
This is a man who could defiantly go both ways, and she didn’t mean sexually. If he one day gave his heart to someone only to have it stomped on, he might just make the entire world pay. There was great darkness lurking beneath the surface, but there was also light and the potential for love and a scared little boy who was never allowed to deal with his issues.
Plus, if she would admit it to herself, he was incredibly sexual and he made her feel things she never imagined she could feel… by doing absolutely nothing. How had she missed all this? How had Clark missed it? If he looked at Clark the way he had looked at her during their brief conversation… I guess if Clark hadn’t noticed hers or anyone else’s looks, then there’s no reason why he should notice, or interpret Lex’s.
She started picking up her things and stopped. She walked out of her office, out of the school and kept walking. She took deep breaths to ground herself. Whatever that letter said, she would deal with it when she read it. The walk to the castle was going to be long, but she couldn’t wait till 7.
