SUMMARY:  Chloe/Lex, future-fic, violence.  Chloe's Ethics class presents
her with a dilemma.

NOTE:  This came to me in a dream, after reading entirely too much
Chloe/Lex on fanfiction.net.  After conscious reflection, I think
perhaps my subconscious is a sick place to be.  Er, never mind.  I
knew that already.

ARCHIVE:  Please.  As often as possible, and wherever you like.


Ethical Dilemma, by Mercutio (mercutio@europa.com)


*New rule,* Chloe thought to herself.  *If someone has the initials
L.L., run for it.*

Leilani Lunalilo was a native Hawaiian girl whose only physical
resemblance to Lana Lang was that they were both brunettes. 
Beautiful brunettes.  Leilani's hair was much darker, more black
than brown.  However, personality-wise, they were nearly identical. 
A cheerleader for Harvard, she dated a football player, and, as an
added bonus, she was as annoying as hell.

"Oh, are you going to see Todd, too?" Leilani asked, a step behind
Chloe as she walked down the deserted hall toward the office where
Todd, the graduate student who was Professor Berwick's teaching
assistant, was supposed to be according to the rather erratic
office hours she'd gotten over the phone.

"I really wanted to talk to Todd *alone*," Chloe said.

Granted, that was a lie.  She didn't want to talk to Todd at all. 
The graduate student was a toad.  He was defensive, difficult to
deal with, and possessed of the belief that all undergraduate
students were a waste of his valuable time.  He only made one
exception to that rule, being perfectly willing to flirt with
attractive female undergraduates.  Chloe no longer fell into that
category, having refused his advances with enough snark to get him
to leave her alone.  So if Leilani came with her, Todd would
exhibit the other side of his personality, and spend the entire
time hitting on her, ignore Chloe altogether, and she would never
get the information she needed on this mysterious final project
that Professor Berwick had hinted would make up sixty percent of
their Ethics grade.

Leilani smiled sweetly at her, and pushed open the door.  "It makes
more sense to share the time, since there's only fifteen minutes
free--"

Todd-the-toad was sitting at the desk with a gun barrel in his
mouth.

A squeak came from Leilani as she froze in place.  Chloe held her
hands up, away from her sides.

"Todd," Chloe said carefully, "put the gun down.  You don't want to
do this."

He pulled the barrel out of his mouth, which was an improvement. 
"Yes, I do.  My life isn't worth living anymore."

Chloe shook her head.  "No, you don't.  Nothing's that bad.  C'mon,
you can talk to us."

"No!  And you can't tell anyone else about this either.  Please,
say you won't tell anyone."

The important thing was to calm him down.  Get him focused on
something other than that damn gun.  "No, of course, I won't tell
anyone, Todd.  Now--"

"You what?" Leilani screeched.

Chloe winced.  "Leilani--"

"Of course, I'm going to tell someone!  You need help!  How could
you possibly think of doing something like this to the people you
care about?  Did you even think about them?  About how upset they'd
be if they heard you'd been trying to do something like this?"

"Leilani--"

"Ms. Lunalilo."

*That* voice came from the inner office.  Both Chloe and Leilani
turned to find Professor Berwick looking at them from inside the
office.  "If I might have a word with you."

Leilani went in.  Chloe looked between the professor and Todd. 
Todd, whose hands were now nowhere near the gun that was still on
his desk.  He still looked upset, yes, but now his piggish eyes
almost gleamed with a certain sort of smug *triumph*?

She heard Professor Berwick say, "Congratulations, Ms. Lunalilo, on
an A on your final project," before Leilani came back out and went
immediately to chat with Todd.  "Ms. Sullivan?"

Chloe entered the office, feeling a little numb.  She shut the door
behind her, and asked, "That was a set-up?"

"Yes, it was.  I find that students often react very differently to
real-life situations as opposed to theoretical problems.  One which
you failed, by the way."

"But Professor..."

The grey-haired woman marked down a somewhat lopsided but otherwise
very visible F next to Chloe's name in her grade-book, then looked
up with a smile that was all tooth, much like that of a shark. 
"Yes, Ms. Sullivan?"

"It wasn't a fair test.  You -- I... it doesn't matter whether the
right answer is to tell the authorities if someone is going to
commit suicide--" because obviously, that *was* the answer Berwick
had wanted, "--what matters is talking to them, getting them to
want to stop."

"The issue is closed, Ms. Sullivan.  You failed.  Deal with it, as
they say."

Chloe stood there for a second.

"Well, get out.  I don't have all day to waste on you."

She turned to go, feeling rather numb, when she heard a gun shot. 
Loud and close.  Then a high-pitched female scream.

Chloe flung the door open.  Todd -- what remained of Todd's head --
was splattered on the bookcases behind him.  And, she noted, on
Leilani, who looked at her, face white.  "Oh my God!  I was asking
him about the final, and he was showing me how easy it was, and the
gun just went off!"

"He was showing off by sticking a loaded gun in his mouth?" Chloe
asked in disbelief.

There was a thud from behind her, and Leilani screamed again. 
Chloe turned and saw that the professor had slid off her chair and
onto the floor.  She went to her side -- growing up in Smallville
was good at least for inuring you against shock -- and took her
pulse.  There wasn't one.

"She's dead."

Leilani fainted.  Very gracefully.  Lana Lang couldn't have done it
better.

Chloe sat down in Berwick's chair, picked up the phone, and dialed
911.  Grabbed a pencil to have something to hold onto, and -- after
a glance across from the desk left her looking straight at what was
left of Todd -- looked down at the desk.

At the grade-book.

She got an operator, and gave the details in a flat voice.  The
grade-book had her scores for the year listed neatly across the
page.  Chloe Sullivan.  Nearly straight As on every assignment,
including midterms, up until this last one.  Just a single pencil
line to convert the final F into an A, and no one would be the
wiser.

Wondered why no one else was in the office yet, and flipped the
pages on the grade-book absently.  Kept talking to the 911
operator, even though she was pretty sure the operator was
deliberately trying to keep her on the line rather than get any
useful information.  Saw a name she recognized.

Lex Luthor.  Surreal to see a name from her past amid all the
familiar names and entries in the book.  Surreal like dead bodies
were surreal -- something more real than everything normal in the
office when everything normal was rapidly bleeding out color and
becoming grey around her.

Looked at Lex's grades, focusing on that bit of extra reality.  Ds
and Cs for him up until his midterm grade of C, then a steady
stream of blank spaces until the final grade.  An F, the same as
hers.  Easy enough to fill in those blanks with Bs and As, and
change that same lopsided F into an A.

People in the outer office now.  Chloe dropped the pencil.  Stared
at them, and wondered if maybe she wasn't going into shock after
all.

Didn't remember much after that.

****

Chloe shouldered her bag and went to sit on the steps to wait for
her ride.  She'd been a bit surprised when her father had said he'd
gotten someone to pick her up for the trip home for summer break,
but then, single parents did occasionally go through protective
phases, even when their daughters were college juniors and
presumably old enough to take care of themselves.  Best to humor
them and hope it wore off quickly.  It'd been two and a half weeks
since the tragedy with her ethics professor and her assistant;
maybe he'd stop mother-henning her when Chloe was closer to home.

She was expecting a cab, or maybe somebody holding a sign with her
name on it.

*Wasn't* expecting a familiar bald head to push off from where he
was leaning against a silver Porsche, and come sauntering up to her
holding three white roses wrapped in paper.

"Lex?" she asked, surprised, standing up.

He stopped in front of the steps and made a half-bow, then
presented her with the flowers.  "Your chariot awaits, madam."

"You're the ride my dad was talking about?"

"Actually," he said, gazing saturninely at her, "I called your
father and asked him if it would be all right with him if I picked
you up."

"And asked him not to tell me it was you, I presume."

"You presume correctly."  He held his hand out for her bag, and she
gave it to him.  This was kinda weird, but she *did* know him.  "Is
this everything?"

"Mailed everything else home yesterday."

He nodded.  "I wanted to talk to you."

She followed him to his car.  He opened the passenger door, folded
her bag inside, then held the door while she got in.  He closed it
behind her, then came around the front, tossing his keys in the
air.

When he slid inside, she asked, "So, I guess you must have really
wanted to catch up on the Smallville gossip or something, huh?"

He gave her a small smile.  "Not exactly.  It is amusing, though,
isn't it?"

"Which?  The part where Lana Fordman is pregnant *again*, or the
part where Clark is falling in love with yet another girl with the
initials L.L.?"

"*And* she's a reporter.  The irony is amazing."

"Thoroughly.  If I'd known in high school that all I needed to do
to get Clark's attention was to change my name, I would have done
it in a second."

He gave her a searching look.  "Does it bother you that much?"

"Honestly?"

"Yes."

"No, not really.  I got over Clark a while ago.  He'll always be my
friend -- but, well, it's sort of like why I ended up going into
pre-med instead of journalism, while he's the one interning at the
Daily Planet."

"Funny how life works out."

"Yep."  She fingered the head of one of the roses, feeling the
softness.  "Why the flowers?"

"Do you know anything about the language of flowers?"

"Just the usual stuff.  Red roses for love, that kind of thing. 
White roses are a new one on me."

"Let me tell you a story then.  My father made me a deal two years
ago.  If I acquired an M.B.A. from a reputable institution, he
would sign over control of LuthorCorp's fertilizer plants to me."

"All of them?  That's... impressive."

"I thought so.  Enough that I ended up here at Harvard to get a
degree I don't really need in a subject I already understand more
than most of the professors."

"Wow.  I bet that attitude really endeared you to them."

He flashed a smile at her.  "It depends.  Some of them understand
that real-world knowledge is as or more important than what Harvard
teaches, and some of them think that having me in their classes is
an excuse to teach me humility.  Or the ethics they think I lack."

Oh, yeah.  He definitely knew something about Berwick.  "Is that
bad for you?  For your grades, I mean?"

"Most of the time?  No.  I can take what they deal out.  I've had
a lot of practice at shoveling shit, after all."  Again that tight,
quick smile.  "With one notable exception, as I said.  My ethics
professor seemed to think that my personal value system should be
assigned a grade letter rather than my classwork.  When it was made
clear to me after midterms that my grade was only going to go down,
I stopped attending.  Imagine my surprise then, when my father
congratulated me on receiving an A in the class."

Chloe didn't look at him.  "Imagine."

"I did a little investigating.  It wasn't hard to find out that
Berwick died right before the end of term, or who was there when
she died."

"Not exactly how I'd planned to get my name in the headlines, no."

"Are you all right, Chloe?"

*That* wasn't at all what she was expecting him to ask.  "After
seeing two people die in front of me like that, you mean?  Not
really."  She considered what to say, then decided, what the hell,
this was Lex Luthor.  Nothing she could say could possibly shock
him.  "I didn't like either of them -- I liked Professor Berwick
even less after she flunked me -- if two people *had* to die, I'm
glad it was them and not someone else.  But what a stupid and
senseless way for anyone to die."

"Accidental discharge of a firearm and a heart attack."

Chloe snorted.  "I still don't know what that idiot was doing
putting a loaded gun in his mouth over and over again all day
long."

"All day long?"

"Oh, yeah.  That part didn't make it into the paper."  She stared
forward, out the window.  They were approaching the airport, she
noted.  "It was the end-of-term class project.  A final real-life
ethical problem.  Todd was pretending to kill himself, and asking
each of us not to tell anyone.  If you said yes, you failed."

She felt him look over at her.  "Jesus, Chloe.  You walked in on
that?"

"Yeah.  Like the big fat idiot I am, I tried to talk him out of it. 
I didn't even like the guy, and I tried to get on his good side --
told him I wouldn't tell anyone, just talk to me right now and
we'll get this worked out.  I think I felt more for him right then
than I ever did before or after."

His hand left the gearshift and reached for hers, fingers running
along her wrist, and turning her hand over so he could take it and
clasp it.  She held onto it.  It was a nice hand, strong and
callused.

"I'm sorry, Chloe.  That was a very cruel thing for her to do to
her students."

"I keep wondering whether it really was an accident or if he just
decided that enough was enough and did it on purpose.  If maybe he
was suicidal all along and having students brush him off over and
over again pushed him over the edge.  Some of the things Leilani
said..."

"Leilani?"  Lex let go of her hand to use the gearshift, then took
it again, thumb rubbing reassuringly over her knuckles.

"Leilani Lunalilo.  She was there, too.  You had to have read about
her in the paper.  Clark would have loved her.  She got an A."

"What did she say?"

Chloe shrugged.  "It wasn't that important, I guess.  I mean, *I*
thought she was being heartless when he told us he wanted to kill
himself, but she was the one who actually watched Todd blow his
brains out, and that's got to be worse than just hearing it
happen."

"Christ.  No wonder none of the details got into the news. 
Traumatized co-eds, questionable teaching practices.  They would
have wanted to bury that one deep."

"Very deep.  They offered to give me a 4.0 for the semester if I
forgot about the whole thing."

"Did you take it?"

"Yeah.  I'm not a reporter anymore; I don't really care about the
truth getting out, not when I can't see who it would help.  Leilani
got the same deal, so that's cool.  It's kind of ironic, though."

"How's that?"

"That day, in the office, I had her grade-book in front of me.  I
could've changed my grade to an A, but I left it.  And I ended up
getting an A anyway."

"So you changed mine instead."

"It didn't seem right for me to benefit from her death.  No matter
how awful she was, or how upset I was about it."

"But it was okay for me to benefit?"  He dropped her hand.

She watched his hand clench into a fist around the gearshift, then
looked up at him.  "It was an impulse.  I saw your name there, and
I figured I could get away with it.  It wasn't selfish because it
wasn't for me, and you... you're a friend.  I wanted someone to not
be hurt by her."

Lex nodded just a bit stiffly.  "That makes sense.  But Chloe, you
shouldn't have taken a risk like that.  I could've gotten the grade
overturned at the end of the semester -- I was planning to do it
anyway, and it would have been even easier under the
circumstances."

"I wanted to," she said, trying to put as much of her real feelings
into the words as she could.  She wanted to do it; she was glad she
had done it, and she didn't take it back.

"Thank you, then," he said with better grace.  "I appreciate it."

They pulled into the central parking area at the airport.  Lex
found them a spot, then turned off the engine.

He took a deep breath, and let his hands hang over the top of the
steering wheel.  Not looking at Chloe, he said, "You have a choice
to make."

She gave him her full attention, and he darted a quick glance at
her before looking forward again.

"I can put you on a plane to Metropolis, first class, and have you
back to your father tonight, thus discharging my obligation to get
you safely home.  Or you could come with me, on a LuthorCorp
company jet, and join me for the two week vacation in Hawaii that
I've been given as my reward for being a good boy and finishing out
the semester with all As."

Chloe studied him for a long moment, and was about to tell him what
she'd decided when he suddenly turned in his seat and held up his
hand.

"No expectations.  You can abandon me as soon as we reach the
islands if you want, and I promise I'll supply you with whatever
you need for your vacation and the means to get home when you're
done.  Or you can keep me company -- again, with no expectations of
any kind."

She looked him over again.  Lex was sitting sideways in his seat
now, leaning back against the door, his formidable charisma mostly
leashed.  *He's lonely,* she thought, and wondered when the last
time was that someone had taken a risk for him for no reason other
than it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Chloe raised her eyebrows.  "Or?"

His eyes darkened, and his mouth quirked into a real smile.  "Or I
could tell you what white roses stand for."

"Sounds interesting.  C'mon, we'd better call my father before he
freaks out."

He was leaning forward now.  "Chloe... does that mean I think it
means?"

She smiled impishly at him, then leaned forward as well, and
reached out to run her fingertips along his cheek.  "Depends on
what you think I meant.  Now, c'mon, time's a wastin', and I want
to hear about these roses."

He blinked and smiled back, before releasing his seatbelt.  "Chloe
Sullivan, you are a dangerous woman."

"And don't you forget it."


-the end-


Among their other meanings, white roses stand for secrets, and the
statement "I am worthy of you."  In this context, Lex is trying to
say the exact opposite -- "I know about your secret; you are worthy
of me." -- i.e., Chloe has done something he himself would have
done, if he were her.