What You Don't Know...

A/N: If there are typos, it's not my fault – this weeks Smallville actually decreased my IQ. And I didn't have points to spare to begin with!

Chapter Five


“Your father is waiting in your office, Mr. Luthor.”

It was only by sheer force of will that Lex internalized his cringe at the unwelcome news. Forcing himself not to deviate from the path to his office, he consoled himself with the fact that a few years ago he wouldn’t have even received the warning. That he now did was a sign of just how well he’d managed to marginalize his father at LuthorCorp.

There had been a time, when Lex had first gained control of the company after his father’s brief stay in Belle Reve, that Lionel had nearly recouped his losses and recaptured his former glory. But he’d taught his son too well, and Lex’s time in exile had only expounded on those lessons; and, in the end, Lionel had been relegated to a symbolic position with little to no chance of advancing his true objectives.

Which, of course, didn’t preclude him from arriving unannounced in his increasingly desperate attempts to detect some kind of exploitable weakness in his heir.

“Hello, son.”

Lex momentarily ignored the greeting as he made his way to the large desk across the room. Settling behind the sleek, glass surface, he at last allowed his gaze to rest on his father. It was the one thing that he enjoyed about these visits – finally having the position of power; his father seated like a supplicant before him .

“Dad.”

Each was silent, waiting for the other to break and speak first. It was a fairly common gambit in the Luthor family playbook, but Lex had grown increasingly tired of it in recent years. And, frankly, now that the majority of control rested in his hands, he didn’t see the point in wasting his time with such childish games. He had realized what his father had never learned – needing to exude strength at all times was as detrimental as always seeming weak. There was power in humanity, even if it was merely assumed, and true control was rarely measured accurately by outward appearances. A man who never resembled the disadvantaged automatically strengthened the guard of those around him. It made managing people needlessly troublesome which ultimately lessened one’s command as opposed to enhancing it.

“Some of us have a schedule to keep,” while the subtle dig was certainly present, it emerged with surprisingly little acrimony, “so could we perhaps dispense what, for the sake of expediency, I’ll term “the pleasantries” and cut to the chase?”

“A question asked and answered, Lex.”

Lex’s eyebrow arched in a silent prompt for explanation.

“We’ve been in this office for over five minutes now, and I have yet to hear one accusation, one venom ladened aspersion, a single paranoia induced diatribe. I’d heard murmurings, of course, but I felt compelled to judge the truth of them for myself.”

Lex resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his father’s melodramatic speech, wishing that, for once, they could have a conversation that was light on innuendo and heavy on clarity. He generally had a higher tolerance for games of this nature, but at that moment it was fast wearing down his nerves and he had a feeling that he knew why.

It had been slightly more than two weeks since he’d brought Chloe to their new “home” and he was growing accustomed to her guileless nature and lack of artifice. He was actually rather surprised how easy it had been to shake of years of deep-seated suspicion and doubt in the face of such open acceptance. And while he never lost sight of his ultimate purpose, the warmth that had been lacking in his life for well over a decade was just too tempting to resist a moderate amount of indulgence.

The downside, of course, was that standing even briefly in the sun made the shadows that much colder.

“And what is your verdict?” Although Lex’s tone made clear his disinterest in any insight to which the older man laid claim.

“You. You seem almost…” Lionel hesitated, his voice taking on a tone of wonder as if he’d discovered the resting place of the ark, “happy.”

Lex forced himself to maintain his impassive expression despite the shock running through him. He knew that he had been more relaxed recently. Both the prospect of finally learning Clark’s secret and the time with Chloe had helped to ease years of building frustrations; but the thought that it had enough of a visible effect for his father to have heard of it disturbed him. Although he truly believed that it was necessary, at times, to show some emotion, he didn’t like the idea that it was unintentional. Not only did it leave him vulnerable to openly display his feelings, but it was also a waste of an opportunity to affect the sentiment necessary to maximize the rewards for him in a given situation.

“You came all this way,” Lex questioned, alluding to the fact that his father’s primary residence of late had been the mansion in Smallville, “and disrupted LuthorCorp business to play mood ring?”

“It’s amazing how far one will trek to witness a miracle. In fact,” Lionel smirked, “if you smile I might request a laying on of hands.”

“It’s a tempting thought as I tend to leave hand laying to security.”

“Ah, there’s the Lex we all know and tolerate.”

“Dad, did it ever occur to you that the majority of happiness in my life is generated by your absence and that is why you’re so unfamiliar with it?”

Lionel paused as if considering the answer before scoffingly disregarding it.

“That might actually be believable if your behavior hadn’t been uncharacteristic enough to make it back to my ears.”

“Let’s not delude ourselves,” Lex replied, “that whatever information you think you’ve discovered had to make its way down a vast and circuitous grapevine; I’m sure you have more people watching me than the stock exchange.”

“Well, Lex, you do tend to have more crashes.”

Quickly growing tired of his father’s feeble attempts to goad him, and genuinely having business that needed tending, Lex resisted the futility of a rejoinder and began leafing through the phone messages his secretary had left on his desk so that he could make clear, both in actions and words, that their interlude was at an end.

“Well, as fascinating as this has been, this company isn’t going to run itself; so if you’ll excuse me. I’m sure that you can see yourself out.”

Lionel looked at his son, taking in the practiced calm of his form, the dismissively bent head before making his way to the door. Hand on the knob he momentarily stilled, not bothering to turn back.

“Enjoy the source of your newfound happiness, whatever it may be. Just remember Lex, something loved is merely something waiting to be lost.”

And with that he was gone.

Chapter Six


Lex nearly groaned with relief as he felt the Scotch burn its way down his throat. It had been a horrible day and he would be more than happy to see the end of it. What had started with the extremely unwelcome arrival of his father had culminated with a labor crisis at a plant in South Carolina that had taken him well into the early hours of the morning to resolve.

He’d called Chloe when it was clear that he wouldn’t be able to make it home in time for dinner. She’d been supportive and concerned, making him promise that he would find time to grab a quick bite to eat if his meeting went past 10:00. Still, Lex had found himself growing more and more frustrated as the negotiations progressed and he realized that by the time he returned Chloe would have been asleep for hours.

He was becoming habituated to spending his evenings with her. She was a surprisingly engaging dinner companion, given that she had less than a month of memories. Even more pleasing were the hours after when they’d retire to the study – he to finish work brought home from the office and she to read, curled up on the leather couch. Her quiet presence was soothing and sometimes he would find his attention drifting from the files before him to silently observe her.

In nearly all of Lex’s previous interactions with Chloe she had been a deeply driven force of nature. He'd never really given any thought to what she might be like in the moments where there was no epic catastrophe to ward off, no vital story to chase. It hadn’t really entered his mind that there might be another side to the young woman he’d always classified as “the brash, blonde reporter”. In the end he wondered who he’d done the greater disservice – Chloe for treating her as a one dimensional stereotype, or himself by missing his chance to win the loyalty and friendship that Clark enjoyed when it could have been his for the asking.

Setting his empty glass onto the nightstand, Lex shed his clothes with a tired yet graceful economy of movement and pulled on a burgundy pair of silk pajama pants. It was more than he was used to wearing, but with Chloe residing in the next room he thought that a measure of modesty was the most prudent policy.

And Lex was honest enough to admit that his actions weren’t solely to protect what could questionably be referred to as Chloe’s delicate sensibilities - Lord knew that he’d never seen any evidence of their fragile nature. No, it was more than that. He had always been aware that Chloe was a beautiful woman. That awareness hadn’t been a sign of interest, merely a basic and unavoidable observation. But these weeks with her, watching years of distrustful glances replaced by gracious smiles, hearing affectionate exchanges where accusations had formerly lingered, basking in his temporary place as the center of her world, had only served to infinitely increase her appeal. An appeal that could very easily produce extremely noticeable physical effects were he to bump into her, naked, in the middle of the night.

Of course, as they seemed to have little reason to be encountering the other in the wee hours of the morning, it was all simply theoretical. But, as procuring positive results in this endeavor was far more important than some random burst of hormones, he’d wear the damn pajamas as it was most certainly a theory he had no desire to test.

Fate was apparently never fond of Lex Luthor, for no sooner had he dismissed the likelihood of interacting with Chloe after normal waking hours than he heard a piercing scream emanating from the next room. Turning so quickly that he knocked the nightstand, sending his empty glass to the floor to rest in shattered pieces, he sprinted to the connecting door between their suites and threw it open, eyes scanning the darkness for danger.

There was none. Was instead Chloe, curled into a tight ball, rocking back and forth as trails of moonlit tears made their way down her cheeks. Without a thought to devious machinations or buried truths, Lex reached the bed in record time, settling next to the huddled figure before pulling her gently into his arms.

Feeling Chloe’s body stiffen, Lex thought, for one terrible moment, that despite what the doctors had told him she had remembered everything in one great burst and that her fear and horror were simply a befitting response to finding oneself abducted and deceived. But before that worry had time to take hold, he felt her body relax into his embrace as her arms snuck around his waist and she burrowed into the safety that he could see she still believed he represented.

“Sshhh,” he murmured as he smoothed her hair with one hand while making comforting circles on her back with the other. While Lex lacked many of the typical male limitations on dealing with crying women, possibly due to the early influence of his mother but more likely owing to his well honed ability to quickly and accurately discern what those around him wanted to hear and then use that information to his best advantage, this situation was far more complex than the typical feminine tearfest.

First was the fact that, because Lex had been so careful to screen out disturbing stimuli from their environment, it was almost guaranteed that her current upset had to do with her previous life. That meant the need for deft maneuvering as he tried to avoid the innumerable land mines concealed in each remembrance.

Then, of course, were the intricacies involved in taking the information that she had dredged from her subconscious, and given her reaction it seemed most likely to Lex that it involved one of her many brushes with Smallville’s myriad of meteor freaks, and redirecting it towards his ultimate goal of eliciting information about Clark.

And lastly, and by far the most disquieting for Lex, was the fact that something about the fear in Chloe’s muffled whimpers, the warmth of her tears burning into his chest, and the press of her body against his as she innocently sought comfort from the only person she truly trusted, all combined to form an uneasy sensation in the pit of his stomach.

But as Chloe’s sobs began to subside he pushed the niggling sense of apprehension into the background. After all, he considered, caring about her distress was only natural under the circumstances. He had never actively disliked Chloe; indeed, he admired many things about her – her ill advised love of farmboys excepted. So it was to be expected that, considering the complete and utter cessation of hostilities between them, he would come to be concerned about her well being. Especially when he took absolute responsibility for his part in compromising that very well being in the first place. So, in that light, Lex found his actions to be acceptable, even reasonable…as long as he didn’t allow them to compromise his objectives. And he honestly didn’t, for one moment, believe that would be a problem. He was a Luthor; he’d spent a lifetime learning to disregard his emotions in the same way that most people sought to embrace them. Any loss he might feel for Chloe’s friendship when all was said and done was sure to be offset by the overwhelming satisfaction of finally solving the mysteries that had been plaguing him for so long.

“Chloe,” Lex spoke softly as she finally fell silent, “do you want to talk about it?”

He felt her head tilt until a pair of watery green eyes peered up at him.

“Oh, Lex…”

He hears the catch in her words, knew that the tears weren’t forgotten, and was about to stop her and allow her time to truly regain her composure, but all good intentions were halted by her next words.

“It was him.”

Clark.

Lex knew that had to be who she meant. The only thing that Chloe was even remotely aware of from her past besides himself was the description he’d given her of his former and her current best friend.

His skin prickled in anticipation. This is what he’d been waiting for. The doctor’s had told him that memories often began surfacing in the REM sleep, so the night’s events hadn’t been a complete surprise; although her obvious suffering threw him. True, he had expected that some of her slumberous visions might be slightly bizarre to someone who had no accessible knowledge of Smallville, but he never would have predicted that any of her recollections of Clark would send her into hysterics.

“Its okay, Chloe. You’re safe now.” He pulled her tighter to him knowing that she’d interpret his actions as an attempt at comfort and not an extension of his voracious need for knowledge that she had, until now, so jealously guarded.

“He looked just like you said – tall, dark hair, but his eyes…Oh God, Lex; he looked crazy.”

Her brow furrowed and he could see that she was replaying the images in her mind as if something deeper than the obvious trauma was bothering her.

“What is it?”

Lex’s question startled Chloe out of her contemplations, and she struggled to pin down exactly what was troubling her.

“It could just be a dream; it doesn’t have to have been a memory, right?”

Chloe grew quiet once more. This was really the first chance that she’d had to learn anything about her life other than what Lex had shared, and she had a feeling that even if her past had looked like a Rockwell painting she still would have been disconcerted. Unfortunately for her, her dream had seemed more like a Salvador Dali canvas. But, something had seemed off and a part of her simply wouldn’t let the inconsistency lie until she’d uncovered the exact nature of the discrepancy.

“He was young.”

As he took in the meaning of Chloe’s statement, Lex realized that she had already begun applying her agile mind to solving whatever problem her dream had presented her. It was yet another attribute he was coming to learn was a built in, factory issued component of the Chloe Sullivan model. She could experience pain and, unlike him, she could openly express it; but she didn’t wallow in it, didn’t build a shrine to it and worship at the altar of tragedy for the rest of her life. If it was a choice for her of living, cosseted and protected by those around her, in her problems or throwing herself in the path of untold danger to find a solution, Chloe would always take the latter. Although she was an endless source of comfort to those around her, she clearly fell into the “walk it off” camp when it came to her own life as was evidenced by the way that, even now, she was pushing through her anguish of just moments before to bring some order to her mental chaos. Knowing that process would benefit them both, Lex patiently waited for her to continue.

“He couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen. That’s what I don’t understand.”

Lex examined the window of time implied given her estimation of Clark’s age. It did seem more likely that if something unpleasant had happened between the two of them that it would be in the more distant past, relatively speaking. For even though they were now practically inseparable, there was a time in their friendship – a time that corresponded with that very period – that they seemed destined to be adversaries rather than confidantes.

“Without getting into specifics, there was a time, when you were both in high school, that you’d had a falling out of sorts. Your dream may correspond to those events.”

Her eyes refocused and met Lex’s as she forced herself back into the present.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong; I don’t doubt that…Clark,” she stumbled slightly over the name, “and I had problems. After all, from what you said he seemed like a jerk way before tonight’s revelation that he’s apparently borderline psychotic.”

Suddenly a wry smile brushed away the lingering unease.

“And I’ll admit that, despite the absence of concrete proof, I have a sneaking suspicion that I might, possibly, by some vast stretch of the imagination be considered moderately stubborn.”

Chloe’s smile widened as she felt Lex’s chest rumble beneath her cheek with the vibrations of his laughter. She’d adored the sound ever since she first remembered hearing it and often devoted random moments to orchestrating its return.

And, frankly, she was happy to see him amused by something that, amnesia or no, she knew to be entirely too true. Even if it hadn’t shown itself in a million little ways over the past few weeks, her obstinate nature would have been made perfectly obvious to her by the notebook she kept carefully tucked under the cushion of the large reading chair in the seating area of her room. Contained in its pages was everything that she had learned about Chloe Sullivan-Luthor in the past two weeks. From the miniscule catalog of facts to the enormous list of conjectures, no scrap of information was too minor to escape her attention.

She knew that neither the doctors nor her husband would be pleased with her trying to hurry nature along in that manner, but hey, that’s why God created hiding places. It was also why ‘impatient’ was in the fact column and not the speculation.

“Well,” Lex offered in a diplomatic tone, “you have been known to follow your own heart…mostly like a lemming off a cliff, but who am I to judge. After all, if it weren’t for you abundance of willfulness, we wouldn’t be here now.”

Which, Lex thought, was technically true. But as glad as he was that Chloe’s resilience hadn’t been damaged by either her accident of her dream, he had a feeling that at least part of this exchange was an attempt to distract them from their original topic. So, running his hands comfortingly over her back, he gently brought them back on track.

“What exactly did you see, Chloe?”

Pressing just a tiny bit closer, Chloe took a deep breath as she went back over the images that kept replaying in her mind.

“There was an apartment. It was nice. I was waiting there; I guess for Clark. He wasn’t happy to see me.” Chloe almost snorted at the understatement. “The words weren’t really clear. In fact, all I really remember is my heart pounding. God, it was so loud. I was so scared Lex.”

His arms tightened around her automatically and Lex frowned. By now he’d worked out that the altercation she was speaking of had most likely taken place during the summer of his not so welcomed island vacation. While he had never learned precisely what Clark had done during that summer, he knew that it hadn’t been anything good. The thought of Chloe having to deal with the darkness that he’d seen haunt Clark’s eyes for months after his return from the dead caused a small tremor of alarm to shiver through him and confirmed, yet again, his belief that the younger man had never been deserving of someone like Chloe in his life.

“I just knew that I had to get him to come home. Although where he was living seemed pretty upscale. In fact, now that I think about it, it seems a little too nice for some teenage runaway.” Once again concentration and curiosity shaped her face into the most fundamental of Chloe expressions; but before he had a chance to enjoy the endearing countenance her face scrunched up in a grimace of distaste. “You don’t think he was like…someone’s boy toy, do you?”

The disgust at the picture of teen-hooker Clark warred with absolute hilarity at the thought of the son of someone as pious as Jonathon Kent running off to the big city to be kept by a bevy of society matrons. Lex clamped down on both runaway trains of thought before he lost sight of the reason for this increasingly disconcerting conversation.

“Given his continuing propensity to blush in mixed company, I have faith that whatever Clark was up to, it didn’t involve frequent booty calls.”

So her friend was a big stuttering wuss who could apparently threaten women but not woo his way into their panties. Damn, she wanted her notebook.

“You know, this whole thing – the accident, the amnesia, the nightmare – all of it has been worth it just to hear you use the word “booty”.”

Lex watched Chloe’s bright smile dim a little as if the mere mention of her dream brought the images rushing back.

“He pushed me.”

“What?!”

“He grabbed me and pushed me to the door. He was so mad he was wild with it.”

Chloe was trembling beneath his hands and he could feel the fury in him swell. Clark, the terrorizer of women; just another facet of the man he’d once been fool enough to think he knew; another mystery to add to countless others.

But, if he were honest, Lex knew that wasn’t the only source of his anger. Clark had laid his hands on Chloe and hurt her, if not physically than mentally. Certainly he’d traumatized her enough to make this the first memory to free itself from the prison of her mind. It infuriated him that the boy would hurt a woman for whom, despite being a near rival, Lex was developing quite an appreciation, and it enraged him that Clark would treat with such contempt the very things that he himself had struggled for so long. And worse, that he could do so and yet still retain the friendships, loyalties, and love of those around him.

“What I can’t understand, is why on earth we’re still friends.” Chloe said in an eerie echo of Lex’s thoughts. “I mean, I don’t want to be a wimp, and I know it doesn’t sound so bad; but it was really scary.

He was so big and so angry, and he just kept yelling at me to leave, but I couldn’t seem to. I wanted to. God, I wanted to so badly, but my stupid feet kept taking me in the wrong direction. And then I was the one acting angry; and I guess I was mad. But inside, Lex; inside I was really afraid that he might hurt me.”

She was quiet for a moment and Lex wished he knew what she was thinking…until she told him.

“Was there something about me; something wrong with me? Did I have so much trouble making friends that I couldn’t do better than a guy that scared the crap out of me when we were kids and then, years later, was still apparently driving me into hysterics?”

Chloe’s self-esteem issues had never been a secret; loving your best friend who only had eyes for your roommate would be a massive blow to even the most robust of egos. Generally Lex found that type of weakness in others beneficial as it tended to make his interactions with them infinitely more fruitful; but at that moment, Chloe’s self-doubt struck him as faintly tragic.

Still, he had seen no signs of a deficit of self-worth over the last few weeks, so he had to believe that her question was simply an appropriate and insightful conclusion based on the evidence available to her as opposed to some intrinsic sense of insignificance.

With long, graceful fingers he caught her chin, lifting her face until their eyes met.

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. You are, and have been in all the years that I’ve been fortunate enough to know you, smart, witty, and compassionate. But beyond all of those things,” his eyes seared her with their aching sincerity making it impossible to ignore his words, “I have found you to be loyal beyond all reasonable expectations. And believe me; I’m in a position to know.”

He could see by the near blinding smile that lit her face that Chloe not only took his words to heart, but believed that his assertions of her unfailing loyalty stemmed from experiences where she had kept his secrets, not kept another’s from him.

He was glad to see that, for now, the ordeal seemed to be over. Although gleaning information about Clark was going to require a certain amount of psychological discomfort on her part, he was hoping that he could keep the detriment to her sanity at a minimum. And although some of that was due to a genuine lack of desire to see Chloe suffer, the majority was motivated by the simple fact that if her memories of Clark were too painful or alarming, her mind might begin to repress anything to do with him. And although his preparations allowed him, at the very least, another month to see this plan through, he clearly didn’t have the kind of time that would be needed to maneuver around hastily constructed mental walls.

Returning her smile with one of his own, he tenderly swept the hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear.

“Was that everything?”

Chloe’s gaze dropped for a moment before slowly rising to meet his almost shyly.

“About the dream? Yes,” she nodded.

“But?” Lex asked, curious about her fleeting hesitation.

“I know that you’ve been concerned about me. Well,” she rolled her eyes at her nervous stating of the obvious, “of course you’ve been worried; I’ve sprained my brain. I just meant that I really appreciate how wonderful you’ve been.”

“But?” He asked again trying not to smile at how adorable she looked, flustered and exasperated with herself in equal measures.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Lex couldn’t be sure which troubled him more – Chloe’s request or the fact that it had caught him completely off guard. He would have loved to have time to weigh the pros and cons, ponder the ramification of this decision, but one look at her anxious face settled the issue.

“You won’t be.”


~*~*~*~*~


Fifteen minutes later Lex was damning every impulsive, non-Luthor like decision he’d ever made, the current one in particular.

Although when he’d first slid under the covers of her bed Chloe had nervously scooted back, allowing him room and maintaining a modest amount of space between them, after the first five minutes any apprehension she had was apparently relieved and she returned to her more natural, bolder Chloe state.

And so he found himself, arms full of a warm, soft blonde, spending half of his time desperately wishing himself to sleep or, barring that, wishing Chloe to sleep so that he could use the carafe on the bedside table to render himself unconscious, and the other half consigning himself to the depths of hell for allowing her closet to be filled with cascades of silk masquerading as proper nightclothes instead of the large, flannel, grandmother-inspired gowns that would have been far more conducive to a good night’s rest.

Not that Chloe seemed to be having any difficulty settling in for the night, he thought with childish envy. With every passing minute he could feel her body relax, sinking further into his embrace. And just as he thought she had finally succumbed for the night and he could commence with his hastily concocted but, he was certain, ingenious plan of rolling her over and depositing her on the far side of what was actually a very large bed, he felt soft words whisper across his skin.

“How did I get so lucky?”

The words were sleepy, but the affection was behind them was undeniably genuine; and it was a moment before he could reply, caught up in a sentiment that had, in his lifetime, been so rarely directed at him.

“You didn’t. Believe me; you’ve known better men than me.”

The seriousness of Lex’s tone pierced Chloe’s drowsy haze and she raised her head to look at him.

“Hey,” she nudged him gently with her elbow, “stop picking on my husband. Besides, who says there are men better than you?”

Turning her face into him, Lex felt her brush a kiss against his chest and settle herself against him once more. Only this time, instead of plans and strategies to push her away, he pulled her even closer.

He had been both surprised and warmed by her faith in him. Even though he knew that it was predicated on the worst of lies, he couldn’t help but revel, even briefly, in the unfamiliar sensation.

Slowly Lex found himself relaxing; calming to the sounds of Chloe’s deep, even breaths, the silky feel of her skin as he absently ran his fingers down the length of her arm. And in the end it was that wholly unfamiliar feeling of contentment that jarred him back to wakefulness.

As each successive day with Chloe had past, Lex had allowed himself to slip deeper in the fantasy world he had created for Chloe, choosing to indulge temporarily in a life that he knew would never really be his. It had been an uncharacteristic decision, based on emotion as opposed to logic, and only now was he seeing the hidden danger as he was all too quickly growing accustomed to the illusions he had designed and Chloe had given life.

But his awareness, belated as it was, had still arrived in a timely enough manner to allow Lex to put things to rights. As soon as they awoke, he resolved, he would arrange for Dr. Heideman to see Chloe. Now that her memories appeared ready to resurface, and given the encouraging sign that the first had centered on Clark, it was time to move to the next stage and begin identifying ways to coax more of the targeted information to the forefront. And beyond the necessity to his stratagem, the clinical setting would go far in reminding him that this was, although elaborate in the extreme, nothing more than an experiment in his continuing quest for the truth.

Forcing down a moment of regret, Lex instead chose to focus on the comforting familiarity of having his feet once more planted securely on the path of illumination. And in the anticipation of victory so close at hand he barely hesitated in following through with his original intention and easing Chloe out of his arms, settling her onto her own side of the bed.

He shivered slightly as cold air rushed into to fill the void left by Chloe’s warmth, and produced a sudden and sharp awareness of his body. And, in a night filled with discoveries, Lex was graced with one, final burst of insight – He was thankful that he had chosen the judicious course of donning nightwear; because a half an hour pressed against the lush form of his pseudo-wife had conclusively proven his earlier theory.

Chapter Seven


Lex listened with half an ear as Dr. Heideman droned on about the results of Chloe’s tests. Most of his attention was directed towards the medical charts in his hands that provided the same information in a far more concise and less tedious manner.

They’d already covered the majority of Lex’s concerns; Chloe’s nightmare, the reliability of dream-state memories, and the most effective method of further extraction. The interrogation had been intricate and exacting, and a little over an hour later, Lex felt that he had gathered as much information as the medical staff could, at that time, provide. Once duty had been attended, curiosity was left; and Lex had never been one to leave a mystery unsolved.

“There’s one more issue I’d like to discuss, Doctor.”

“Of course, Mr. Luthor.”

“When Miss Sullivan’s diagnosis was first explained to me, I was told that, while she retained a seemingly undamaged understanding of general knowledge such as basic laws and social customs, she lacked any personal knowledge.”

“Yes,” the older man confirmed, “that is the general consensus of the doctor’s treating her.”

“Matrimony, as an institution, is fairly straightforward; a man and a woman, united in a monogamous relationship by the laws of the land. Beliefs expounding on that basic concept, expectations of unending wedded bliss or anticipations of inevitable betrayal, would seem, being generally derived through experience, to be an extension of self-identifying memories.”

Lex’s intensity leapt across the small space separating the two men as he laid out the pieces of the puzzle to be assembled.

“Which makes me wonder why our patient has expressed what would appear to be highly subjective views on marriage.”

Dr. Heideman fought to suppress a sigh of relief. Everyone working on this case had been struggling with skyrocketing tension. Preston's blood pressure was on the rise, Jackson was having marital problems, and he was fairly certain he was developing an ulcer. The pervasive anxiety was quickly spreading to the rest of the staff and Rolaids had become a form of currency in the facility.

It wasn’t the fact that they had skipped ethical uncertainties and went straight for unquestionable immorality with this particular case that was bothering them. No; it was the very real, very personal involvement of Lex Luthor that was engendering the near constant trepidation.

And so, while it didn’t pay to ever entirely relax one’s guard around either of the Luthors, it was, with a sense of reprieve that he realized that not only was his employer not displeased, but that his inquiries would be easy enough to answer.

“Well, yes; I can see where that would seem quite contradictory, but I assure you, Mr. Luthor, that Miss Sullivan’s views all well within the parameters of the original diagnosis.”

He took a moment to gather his thoughts and plan out how best to explain the subtle intricacies involved in a disorder such as this. Not that he doubted the man’s obvious brilliance; it was simply that experience had taught him that when Lex Luthor asked a question the answers were expected to be thorough and to the point. Disappointing the man before him was not an option that Lawrence Heideman wanted to contemplate – ever.

“You see, consensus or societal memories, in simplistic terms, are like a page from a coloring book. Everyone has the same basic image, but it is colored by our experiences and so each is unique. These memories serve to both unite and individuate us. They're an understanding of widely held social norms, but those concepts will always be shaped by the model from which they were learned. They are the product of what we like to term ‘society major’ and ‘society minor’.”

He paused for a moment; not to let his words sink in, but simply to regroup from the strain being the center of such unrelenting focus.

“Take your example of marriage. The most general consensus memory will be of the prevailing custom – two people, legally bound, in an exclusive relationship. But you have to understand that that belief is an indication of this particular society. Were you to examine a member of a culture that supports polygamy, their base consensus memory would reflect the acceptance of multiple partners. This is the influence of society major.

But a person’s expectations of matrimony are also guided by society minor. Meaning that they have been shaped by the predominant paradigm, good or bad, of marriage in their immediate sphere of existence. Generally, that tends to be the relationship between a person's parents. A happy, healthy marriage will engender a similar outlook, while divorce can often leave one with the forgone conclusion that romantic endeavors always end in abandonment and sorrow.

So, Miss Sullivan’s impressions of marriage are not actual memories of her life, but merely the result of a form of social conditioning. Predicting what she will expect from you as a “husband” or, alternately what she will provide to you as a “wife”, should be a simple matter of ascertaining the identity of the principal couple in this regard. If she is acting in a hostile or even passive aggressive manner as if waiting to be discarded, look for the most prominent divorce in her past. However, if she’s approaching you as an equal, interested in a partnership of openness and sharing, then she’s playing out ideals gleaned from her most positive experience with marriage.”

Dr. Heideman had been pleased with his performance. He’d kept his remarks clear and succinct, and hadn’t been sidetracked once by the sheer fascination he’d developed for this particular disorder during his crash course over the past weeks. And yet the man across form him didn’t appear at all pleased. In fact, he seemed pale and slightly sick.

“Jesus Christ,” Lex all but spat out, “she thinks we’re the Kents.”


TBC