FIC: the Devil Moon

[kitmerlot_1213]

Title: The Devil Moon
Author: Kathy
Rating: PG 13 to R
Pairings: Chlex
Spoilers: None this short story is totally AU
Category: Horror/Romance
Summary: Lex, Chloe and a grave-robbing killer--do you need to know any more then that? :):)
Disclaimer: This story is purely for fun and no profit. I don't own Smallville or any of its characters.
A/N: Originally posted at Naughty-Seduction the Chlex fan site.
This is my entry for the December/January Challenge "Endings and Beginnings" at NS.  All fics have to pertain to the given theme, and be between 800 to 1500 words, and Chlex has to be at the center of the story.  Please tell me what you think



The Devil Moon

The beginning of the romance between the intrepid reporter Chloe Sullivan and billionaire tycoon Lex Luthor began in a manner typical for Smallville.

He helped save her from a murdering grave-robber.

Lex was not the type of man to be overly sentimental, and he did not believe in signs, or omens or that something was "meant to be."

Rather, he believed that a person made their own destiny by the choices that they made each and every day.

So when he began to dream of the gruesome death of Chloe Sullivan, he thought it was just his overactive imagination playing havoc with his emotions.

There had been a rash of grave robberies in the greater Metropolis area, and Lex knew, from reading The Daily Planet, that Chloe was covering the story for the paper.

In his waking hours, he refused to admit to himself that he was worried about Chloe's covering such a macabre story, so his sleeping mind had made Chloe a victim of the grave robber, thereby increasing his anxiety for the blonde reporter.

It was an odd Catch 22, but it was a clear and concise explanation and Lex clung to it, liking its simplicity.

After all, why would he be dreaming of Chloe, a young woman he had barely spoken to since she was a junior in high-school?

He'd only known about her attending Metropolis University on a journalism scholarship through his association with Lana Lang, her friend and roommate.

He hadn't actually spoken to Chloe face to face for an entire year.

Therefore, there was absolutely no way he could be remotely concerned for her well being.

Even though he knew from past experiences that she routinely took chances with her safety if a news story was involved.

Lex was determined to put the dream out his mind, but it didn't take him long to realize that this wasn't his subconscious, but an honest to God prophetic dream.

He had never spoke about it to anyone, not even when he was still friends with Clark, but twice in his life, he'd had dreams of people he knew, people he loved, dying.

And he had been helpless to save them.

The first had been Julian's death. In his dream he'd watched his mother suffocate the baby, but Lex had convinced himself it had just been a nightmare, so he'd ignored the warning.

The second dream had been of his mother dying from cancer. That dream had been filled with images of his mother's emaciated body turning into a skeleton.

It still tortured him to this day that he'd been unable to stop their deaths.

And even if he tried, he wouldn't have been able to ignore the recurring nature of the dream.

For an entire week he dreamt of Chloe's bloodied and mutilated corpse being found in a graveyard.

She was stabbed over a dozen times and was virtually covered in her own blood.

The first couple of nights, Lex barely made it to his bathroom before losing the contents of his stomach.

But he vowed to himself that the next time he had the dream, he would look more closely for details.

He shook his head, not even questioning that he knew with a strange certainty that Chloe's dying was going to happen.

Supernatural phenomena was an unfortunate by-product of life in Smallville, but unlike in his previous dreams, he was going to stop Chloe's murder.

***

For the next several days, he feverishly read anything written about the grave-robber, and there was nothing to point to the person being a violent or even a murderer but maybe that was because no one had yet to catch him in the act.

Through sheer willpower, he'd made good on his promise to himself and he now knew that the graveyard in the dream was in a wooded area, that the graves were rather old, and that there was going to be a full moon.

And as fate would have it, there was going to be a full moon for the next three nights.

Through subtle questioning, Lex had found out from Lana that Chloe was going to be visiting her father in Smallville for the weekend, and he'd felt partially relieved.

He would have an easier time following her movements and keeping her safe if they were both in Smallville.

One of his security staff had managed to plant a tracking device on Chloe's car but that wouldn't help much if she ditched her car, so he decided to have his various security personnel stake out the cemeteries within the Smallville area.

Chances were good that his people would catch the grave robber in the act, and no one would get hurt.

He smiled ruefully to himself that approaching Chloe with a dire warning of her impending death had never even occurred to him to be an option.

Knowing Chloe, she would have insisted on being part of the stakeout so she could get the exclusive on the robber's arrest.

He turned his attention to the list of Smallville cemeteries that would need guarding, narrowing it down to those that dated back to before the Civil War.

From reading Chloe's articles, he knew that she made a link from the dates of the robberies to Metropolis' auction houses suddenly being inundated with 18th and 19th century coins, silver candle sticks, china, and antique guns.

Lex just hoped that his calculations matched Chloe's.

He was driving by Tyler Park, when he saw Chloe's car partially hidden under a tree.

Lex barely paused to stop his car before he pulled out his satellite phone and dialed the police.

After giving the precise location of where they were parked, he closed his phone and set off on foot to find Chloe.

He knew that the security people tracking Chloe's car would see that she'd stopped and they'd investigate so he knew that additional back up was on the way.

He just had no intention of waiting for them.

Lex had barely taken two steps when he'd heard Chloe start to scream.

He took off running in the direction, thankful for the moon's lighting his path, but heedless of the branches smacking him in the face.

He could hear the sounds of a struggle coming from his one side, and he veered to the left, following the cries of pain, when he was suddenly in a clearing.

The moon was shining brightly over what had to be one of the surrealist moments in Lex's adult life.

He was in the middle of an obviously forgotten cemetery, with graves crumbling all around him.

There was one grave that was open, the smell of the decaying coffin permeating the air.

But what drew Lex's attention, and made him gasp in fear was the man crouched next to it.

He was a rather large man trying to subdue a much smaller person, and he was doing it while holding a very scary and very large knife.

The person he was fighting with was a very much alive Chloe Sullivan, her blonde hair covered in dirt, a bloody gash across her forehead.

She was gamefully grappling with the man for his knife, but she was starting to tire.

All of this passed through his mind in seconds before he was able to act.

Lex didn't even hesitate; he picked up a rock from the ground and knocked the man unconscious.

Chloe looked up at her rescuer, astonished to see Lex Luthor standing there.

He held out his hand to help her up, and she gratefully accepted it.

But before either one of them could speak, a helicopter was flying overhead, with a search light and police sirens could be heard in the distance.

It was right then that Chloe realized that things were never going to be the same again.

***

This truly was how Chloe and Lex’s relationship began, but luckily for the both of them, they didn’t dodge mad killers on a weekly basis.

The grave robber was arrested, Chloe got her front page exclusive, and Lex was finally able to get some rest.

He had a difficult time telling Chloe about the dream that lead him to the cometary, and she surprised him by not pressing him for details, trusting that he would tell her when he was ready.

Lex proposed to Chloe four years to the day that he helped save her, and she accepted with tears in her eyes.

But the reporter in her couldn’t resist one question. "But why did you choose this place?"

Lex looked around at The Talon, smiling when everyone in the coffeeshop started to cheer.

He leaned in to whisper in her ear, "Did you really want me to propose in a graveyard?"

She shivered theatrically before answering, "No, that would be a little bizarre, even for us."

But she couldn’t resist one more gibe. "But maybe we could get married there."

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