Title: The Secret
Series: Finding Home. First in series.
Author: Christie
Email: tinamishi@yahoo.com
Archive: http://number14.org/precious
Genre: Smallville (Lex/Lana); established relationship, drama, angst
Rating: R (sexual situations, strong language)
Spoilers: General S1 & S2 (nothing overt)
Summary: Is Smallville ready for Lex and Lana? Are Lex and Lana ready
for each other?  Series sequel to Close Quarters.   
Disclaimer: Smallville was created by Millar & Gough.  This story is
non-profit.
Distribution: If you've got Close Quarters, by all means take this.

A/N: This is the series sequel to CLOSE QUARTERS!  If you haven't read
that, you'll be lost.  Find it here:
http://number14.org/precious/smallville/cq_1.html

*

Six times.  She'd touched him six times.  Lana couldn't stop glancing
toward the back of the Talon where Lex was sitting with a very
beautiful, very flirty reporter.  She was trying to stop obsessing;
trying to do her job and not turn into a compulsive girlfriend. 
Compulsive girlfriends on their own weren't the problem, except that
they led to jealous girlfriends and Lana was sure that wouldn't go over
well with Lex.

The reporter was smiling, flipping her hair behind her shoulder and
crossing her legs the other way when Chloe slid onto the stool directly
in Lana's line of vision.

"Caffeinate me."

Lana tried not to be too obvious as she stepped several paces to the
left to continue her vigil.  She reached distractedly for the coffee
pot but was unable to actually execute the task of pouring the liquid
into a mug because too-loud and *very* obvious female laughter tinkled
through the nearly empty Talon. 

Chloe turned on her stool, her gaze following Lana's to the table in
the back.

"Who is Lex's new...*friend*?"

Lana's grip tightened on the pot handle until her knuckles were white. 
She counted to ten, backwards, and forced herself to look away from the
woman's shameless display.

"She's a reporter," Lana said, trying desperately to keep the
bitterness out of her voice.  When Chloe turned back and narrowed her
eyes, Lana bit her lip, fearing her tone had betrayed her jealousy.

"I thought Lex didn't give interviews?"  Chloe asked suspiciously.

A heavy breath escaped Lana's lips and relief calmed her nerves enough
to pour the cup of coffee and slide the mug over to Chloe.  She hated
keeping so much from her friend and always feeling like she was walking
on eggshells whenever the subject of Lex came up in conversation.  But
the alternative would be too much to handle.

Sometimes, Lana thought Chloe might be a good confidant.  Sometimes she
just wanted one person to tell; one person she could look in the eye
and say, "I'm dating Lex Luthor!"  But telling Chloe was too close to
telling Clark or Pete, or both.  And three people in town knowing was
as good as *all* the people in town knowing.

All the people in town knowing meant Nell finding out, and that was
what Lana was trying to avoid in the first place.  Being forced to move
to Metropolis would not be the ideal situation in which she and Lex
could foster an already strange relationship.

Lana sighed and poured herself a cup of coffee, eyes drawn back to Lex.

"He's trying to boost publicity for LexCorp," she said, stirring sugar
and cream into her mug.  "Ever since he saved the Smallville plant,
Lionel's been saturating the media with LuthorCorp and Lex is just
trying to stay ahead of the game."

When Lana drew her eyes away from the woman who was laying her hand on
Lex's arm for the seventh time, she met Chloe's amused grin.

"Spending your free time at the mansion listening in on LexCorp
conference calls?"

There was no suspicion in her voice, only dry humor, but Lana felt her
cheeks heat with a blush anyway.  She turned her back to Chloe and the
rest of the Talon, busying herself with rinsing and washing the coffee
pot.  It was little slip ups like that that Lana knew would be her
undoing.  She was convinced Chloe would have figured it out by now if
the idea of Lana Lang and Lex Luthor weren't so...absolutely insane.

Lana closed her eyes and drew a breath.  Six weeks.  A month and a half
building this amazing relationship with Lex and things should be
perfect.  In some ways, they were.  But mostly, they weren't.  Lana
wondered, as she often did, if maybe things never would be.

The scrape of Chloe's stool against the tile floor cut into Lana's
reverie.  She replaced the pot on the coffee maker and set it to brew. 
When she turned around, the table in the back was empty.  Her eyes
followed the gradual closing of the Talon door as Lex and the reporter
walked into the bitter cold outside.

Chloe's eyes sparkled above the rim of her mug.  She took a long sip,
and Lana could tell there would be a smile on her face when she put the
cup down.

"Maybe Lex said something he shouldn't have," she intoned, watching
with Lana as the black Ferrari sped down the street.  "He's probably
taking her back to the mansion to do a little...media relations."

Lana couldn't even pretend to laugh at Chloe's insinuation.  Though she
rationally knew that was not the case, her heart thumped a little
harder in her chest.  There was no reason to think Lex wasn't simply
driving the reporter back to the helipad, where she'd take the
LuthorCorp helicopter back to Metropolis.  She'd publish a glowing and
insightful article that would make Lex smile, and they'd never have to
think about her -- much less *see* her and those long, tanned legs (in
the dead of winter) -- again.

Chloe's chuckle died on her lips, and Lana knew she should at the very
least smile; it was rude not to laugh at a friend's joke.  Chloe sipped
her coffee again, now a strange glint settling into her eyes.  Lana
knew the look -- it was what she called the Investigative Reporter Look
-- and nothing good could come of having a secret when Chloe decided
there was something to discover.

"Something wrong?"  Chloe dipped her head to look into Lana's
downturned face.  "I was kidding about the media relations thing."

That was bad, Lana decided.  If Chloe thought comments like that might
offend her, she'd be only two or three steps away from the inevitable
deduction that something might be going on.  And --  please, no -- if
Chloe ever voiced her concerns to Clark, who had already asked Lana
point blank if something was going on between her and Lex, those two or
three steps would slide quickly into one big fat conclusion.

Lana shook her head quickly and forced a smile onto her face.  "No,
nothing.  I -- I think Lex is dating someone."

She said it without thinking; one of those split-second decisions that
only one part of your brain has a say in; the rational part being too
slow and lazy to chime in that it might be a bad idea.  Above the
evasion, Lana hated lying outright to her friends.  

Chloe's eyebrows raised and she set her mug on the counter, folding her
hands in front of her and leaning slightly in.  *Great*.  Lana realized
that Lex Luthor dating someone was interesting to people, but didn't
actually count on it being interesting to anyone that she had to
interact with.  Or, at least, she didn't count on having to be party to
any of the discussions about Lex's love life.

Especially since, at the moment, she *was* Lex's love life.

"Really?" Chloe asked.  "Do tell."

Lana shrugged, regretting her little outburst, wishing she'd just said
she didn't feel well and left it at that.  "I dunno," she responded,
trying to sound not only nonchalant, but completely unaware.  "I just
get the impression...that's all."

Chloe shook her head.  Details were key in dealing with a reporter. 
Lana knew vague insinuations and big pictures weren't going to get her
off the hook.  She really, *really* didn't want to have to pile lie on
top of lie on top of lie, but she didn't see any way out of it.

"Impression, how?" Chloe prompted.  "You've got to use your digs at the
Luthor Estate for something.  Spying on Lex might as well be it."

Lana wrinkled her nose.  "I didn't know you were so interested in Lex,"
she said dryly, hoping to volley a little into Chloe's court, take some
of the red-hot spotlight off of her.

Chloe only snorted, again taking a long, slow sip of coffee.  "Come on,
who *isn't* interested in Lex?  I mean, he's nice enough and
everything, but he's a mystery, don't you think?  Aren't you at least a
little bit interested to learn what winds his clock?"

Very interested, Lana wanted to scream.  Extremely interested!  So
interested that I can hardly think of anything else!

Instead, she just shrugged.  "I guess, a little."

Good.  Not a lie.  Not even a fib.  Technically, an understatement.

Chloe leaned forward again.  "So tell.  This person you think he's
dating.  Someone from town?  Metropolis?  A wealthy pond-hopper?"  She
paused, then added thoughtfully, "I'm assuming a woman."

At this, Lana had to laugh.  She shook her head.  "I don't know, Chloe.
 I've just...walked in on the endings of a few phone conversations,
that's all."

Again, not a lie.  She had walked in on many endings of many of Lex's
phone conversations.  They just hadn't been with a mystery girlfriend. 
At least, not that she knew of.

Chloe leaned back, seemingly satisfied with the information. Of course,
the investigative reporter in Chloe would have investigated more
thoroughly, but Lana knew that her friend fully understood her
limitations.

"How much time do you spend traipsing around the mansion anyway?" Chloe
asked. 

The conversation was *not* turning away from Lex, the mansion and
Lana's time there, and Lana couldn't quite figure out how to get it to
go in the complete opposite direction.

"Not much," she said evasively.  "We've gone over some figures from the
Talon, that's about it."

A total lie.  Lana hated herself.  She again questioned how damaging it
would be to tell Chloe.  Just a little conversation between
girlfriends.  Right?  But Lana knew better.  It would only take one
tiny mistake on Chloe's part and the can was open.  Worms would be
everywhere.

Chloe nodded and said nothing more.  She nudged her mug across the
counter and Lana smiled as she refilled it.  Chloe drank her coffee
black; nothing to hinder the maximum effect of the caffeine, she'd once
said.

"So, how do you think you did in Biology today?"  Lana asked, grateful
for the lull in conversation and convenient segue.  

Chloe groaned and dropped her forehead to the counter.  "The two most
fear-inspiring words in a high schooler's vocabulary have got to be
'pop quiz'.  I left most of the page blank."

Lana felt the tension uncoil in her back and refilled her own coffee
cup.  Lex and the reporter were momentarily forgotten.

*

Frogs were gross.  There were just no two ways about it.  Lana was
grateful they didn't have to dissect a real one, but drawing its
insides in full color wasn't exactly fun-filled homework either. 
Although, she supposed, tapping her colored pencil against her chin,
fun-filled homework was an oxymoron anyway.

Her eyes traveled away from her biology workbook and to the clock radio
on her nightstand.  The numbers glowed bright and red at her,
trumpeting how late it was and how Lex was still not home.

Lana really didn't want to be one of *those* girls.  One of the first
hard lessons she'd learned as Lex Luthor's Girlfriend was that he was
not the most available guy, and that business, in most instances,
really was the most important thing.  It was how he'd become (and would
stay) successful, he'd explained.  It was a philosophy she'd probably
adopted toward the Talon, he'd told her, she just didn't realize it
yet.

But tonight, it was hard not worrying just a little.  The last she'd
seen of Lex, he was speeding away in his car with a very beautiful
woman who was obviously and shamelessly into him.  Lana had finished
out her shift, closed the Talon, and was home by 9:45.  His car was not
in the main drive, nor the garage, nor the little service drive that
led by the guest house.  

Now it was almost midnight and still, no Lex.  It was really a struggle
not to be just a little angry.

Her frog complete, Lana slipped her pencils back into their case and
threw the entire pile of papers, books and drawing utensils into her
backpack.  She set about methodically getting ready for bed; alarm set,
face washed, teeth brushed, pajamas on.  She'd pulled back the covers
and slipped between them and was just reaching to turn off her lamp
when a spray of gravel announced Lex's arrival.

Part of her wanted to hurry and switch out the light, lay down and
pretend she was already asleep.  But most of her wanted to know where
the heck he had been and her bare feet hit the floor before she even
had time to think about it.  She stood there, counting the beats as
Lex's car door closed with a thud and the gravel crunched under his
footsteps until he reached the cobblestone walk that led to her door.

He knocked three short times, as he always did.  Lana felt a familiar
warmth start in her belly and begin to spread.  If this were a normal
day -- had a leggy blonde *not* had her hands all over him in plain
sight of God and everyone -- Lana would be practically skipping to let
him in and she'd be in his arms before the door was even closed.  It
had become a nice routine for them.  If Lana was home first, Lex always
came to the guest house, and if Lex was home first, Lana always found
him in his study.

Now, her feet felt cold against the usually warm, thick carpet and she
trudged toward the door as if her legs were weighted with stones.  She
didn't want to feel this way; she wanted to give him the benefit of the
doubt and jump into his arms, pretending nothing was wrong.  But Lana
knew she couldn't hide things from Lex.  He had once told her that
wearing her heart on her sleeve was one of her most endearing
attributes, and at the same time would become her Achilles' heel if she
didn't learn to control her emotions.

The bitter cold air snaked into the house as Lana opened the door and
let Lex inside.  She shivered, instantly chilled straight to the bone.

"It's cold out there," Lex said needlessly.

Lana only nodded and slammed the door with more force than she'd
intended.  Lex raised his eyebrows, the closest he ever got to looking
surprised, and slipped his hands into his pockets as she turned back to
face him.

"It's colder in here," he intoned.  "Something the matter?"

Only then did Lana realize what she really thought Lex was doing in the
hours since he'd left the Talon with the reporter.  It dawned on her
with a ferocity she didn't expect, and made her tingle with jealousy. 
She wanted to scream at him to tell her where he was, what exactly he
thought he was doing leaving the Talon without saying anything, and why
the hell he'd decided to stay out until midnight without calling to let
her know where he was.  

The sudden fury scared her.  She was supposed to trust Lex, wasn't she?
 He'd done nothing to deserve otherwise.  But she was jealous.  She was
indignant.  She assumed he was with another woman when he should have
been with her.  In that moment, looking at him and feeling so angry, so
defeated, so betrayed, Lana realized she was in totally over her head. 
She wasn't ready for a relationship like this, for a man like Lex. 
She'd been with boys who had football practice and homework, not
interviews and helicopters.

She could only shrug.  "The woman at the Talon," she said simply.  It
was a true test of willpower not to yell and scream and act like a
raving lunatic.  Inside, her stomach was flip-flopping and her heart
had dropped to her feet.  

Lex was gazing at her with concern, confusion and possibly amusement. 
Of course he'd be amused, Lana thought.  He was in complete control. 
He knew where he was all day.  He knew where *she* was all day.  It
wasn't fair.

"The reporter from the Planet," he supplied, moving several paces
closer to her and shrugging off his coat.  "What about her?"

He didn't *sound* guilty.  He sounded bored.  If he had dropped her off
at the helipad the way Lana rationally knew he probably had, that had
been hours ago and he'd had an entire day's worth of other events to
think about.  Suddenly, she felt very young and very stupid.

By the heat that rose to her cheeks, Lana knew they were at least pink,
if not quickly approaching red.  She sat on the edge of her small couch
and folded her hands into each other.

"She was audaciously flirting," Lana finally said, managing to look up
and catch his gaze.

Lex smiled, tilting his head as he walked toward the couch and sat next
to her.  "Audaciously flirting," he said, rolling the words off his
tongue as though he were testing them.  "Very nice choice of verbage. 
And yes," he put his hand on her knee, "I did notice it."

Lana looked at his hand where it rested on her knee.  She loved his
hands.  They were unmarred and perfectly smooth, fingers long and
elegant like she imagined a pianist's would be. She took his palm into
hers and curled her fingers around it.

"I didn't like it," she admitted softly.  "I didn't like that you left
without saying anything."

Lex laughed again, this time a low, deep chuckle in his throat.  He
used his other hand to tip her chin toward him, leaning in for a soft,
slow kiss on the mouth.  Lana felt herself melting until he pulled away
and touched her cheek with his thumb.

"Would you rather I stepped behind the counter and did that?"  he asked
pointedly.  "Because you're the one who has requested that we remain
completely incognito.  I thought saying goodbye would seem
inappropriate if we are indeed just business partners, as I led
Darlene, and you've led Chloe to believe."

Lana scrunched her nose and leaned away from him to look into his eyes.
 "Her name is Darlene?"

"Leave it alone," Lex said, smiling.  His eyes danced with clear
amusement.  "I gave the interview, I drove her to the helipad, she
left.  I spent the rest of the day at the plant."  He untangled his
hand from hers and slipped both arms around her waist, pulling her into
his lap.

Lana shivered as he placed several small, soft kisses on her ear, then
brushed her hair back to nuzzle at her neck.

"I had no idea," he said, voice muted as he spoke against her skin,
"that you would be jealous."

"I'm not jealous!" Lana protested, pulling back from him just slightly.

Lex raised his head, eyes twinkling.  "Whatever you say," he muttered.

Lana felt a frown tug at her lips.  "You're enjoying this," she
complained, wishing that in every single situation she didn't always
come out looking like a complete baby.  

He tugged her body closer to his.  "I kind of like it," he admitted. 
"But what I'm really enjoying is *this*," he murmured, drawing her into
a deep and intoxicating kiss.

The kiss drew longer of its own accord, and Lana began to feel a
familiar tingling in the pit of her stomach.  Her senses went on full
alert and she was acutely aware of every place Lex touched her, every
path his fingers made leaving trails of heat in their wake.

Her fingers worked open the buttons on his shirt, and she scraped her
fingernails lightly down his chest, then up his back, enjoying the way
he alternately tensed and relaxed.  It was as if he couldn't figure out
whether to protest or yield to the sensation.  His hands moved
underneath her own shirt, warm fingers splaying against the bare skin
of her back, using the pressure to bring her closer to him as he moved
his lips off of hers and down her neck.  He nuzzled the spot just
behind her ear that made her shiver and kissed the hollow of her throat
until she had to stop him for fear he'd leave a mark.

When he sighed a little and said her name, just under his breath...just
barely, Lana wanted to close down her brain and completely surrender. 
She wanted the reporter and helicopters and her friends and Smallville
as far away as possible.  She wanted everything to be only about Lex
and the way he could make her feel.

But it seemed impossible to turn her brain to the off position.  She
loved kissing Lex, and touching Lex, and God...feeling Lex, but
something always jump-started the panic button as soon as his hands
reached right about...there.

Lana felt herself tense as he touched below her belly, deft fingers
working the elastic waistband of her pajama bottoms down and exploring
the skin there.  It felt good -- very good -- but Lana couldn't shut
out the voice, the one screaming in her head to stop him, she wasn't
ready, not now.

It was the same voice she always heard with Whitney, and now -- with
Lex -- wanting so badly to go further, she hated it.

But she couldn't ignore it.  She was scared, and when she closed her
eyes and tried to disregard it, she only saw flashes of red.  Stop.  Do
not proceed.

So, as she had every time before, Lana put her hand gently against his
wrist and Lex stopped, immediately, but she heard the groan escape his
lips anyway and his body tense just slightly as he pulled away.  She
knew the groan was of frustration and not annoyance, but the guilt
still shot through her like a lead bullet and she wondered if she'd
ever feel like a grown-up, just once in her life.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, and Lex only looked at her, brushing
hair back from her forehead over and over until it was just a movement
that served no purpose whatsoever.  He hated when she apologized, told
her not to do it, but it felt so wrong, somehow, leaving him
so...unsatisfied.

He'd told her once, I'm *very* satisfied, Lana.  She'd wanted to
believe him so badly, and maybe she did until the next time he blinked
lazily up at her like he was now and struggled to regain some of the
elegant composure he was so renowned for.

"You should get some sleep," he said, his voice still thick but
definitely more coherent than it had been a minute earlier. 

Lana knew by the way it felt like her eyes would fall out of her head
at any moment that it must be well after midnight.  Lex was right,
sleep was essential because 6:30 a.m. would come pretty quickly and
biology would seem like slow, medieval torture if she didn't get some
rest.  But she felt so warm and safe curled into Lex's arms on her
little couch that she couldn't bring herself to ask him to leave just
yet.

For what seemed like the hundredth, maybe the thousandth time in the
course of their relationship, Lana's fingers traced the outline of
Lex's mouth, specifically the scar that split the top lip almost
dead-center.

"How'd you get this?"

Lex didn't answer for such a long while she feared he was asleep.  But
he finally shifted just slightly and cleared his throat.

"You sure you want to know?"  His voice adopted a dire tone.

Lana's hand absentmindedly traveled under the open flaps of his shirt
and traced the scar on his left side, just above the rib cage.  She'd
heard the Club Zero story and remembered feeling horrified that Lex had
gone through something so awful.  She remembered his reaction upon
telling her -- he said to remind him to reveal indescretions of his
youth more sparingly because she looked like she was going to bolt.  Or
cry.  Or both.

It wasn't that Lana couldn't handle the stories or even believe they
had happened to Lex.  She knew he'd had more experiences in his years
of boarding school than she'd had in her whole life.  It was just that
her whole life was in Smallville, and bar fights, much less bar fights
where someone gets shot, happen exclusively on tv.

No, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

As if reading her mind, Lex chuckled.  "I'm kidding," he said  "I fell
off my horse during a polo match.  I was in the medical tent getting
stitches, my entire uniform covered in blood, while my dad yelled at me
for losing the match and embarrassing the family name."

Lana was quiet but her heart hurt for him.  She tightened her hold and
squeezed just a little harder, smiling when he squeezed back.  He
dropped a kiss on the top of her head and chuckled mirthlessly.

"At least he was there," he said as an afterthought.  "One of the few
events Dad made it to."

Silence enveloped the little guest house again. Lana let her eyes drift
shut, feeling cozy and happy and in absolutely no mood to get up and go
to bed as she knew she should.

"Stay here tonight," she heard herself say.  It was the second time
that day that her mouth had moved while her brain was on some sort of
vacation.  The silence was so deep around them that for a while, Lana
wondered if she'd really spoken at all or just imagined saying it.  She
realized she was holding her breath when her chest constricted and she
was forced to gulp for air.  

Finally, Lex's fingers began to move against her neck, tracing small
circles at its nape with the pads of his fingers.  "Are you sure?"

'No way' and 'God yes' kind of popped into her head at the same time,
and Lana had to force herself to pause, to make rational sense of the
situation.  

She pulled back from him enough to look up into his face.  "Yeah, I'm
sure," she said softly, and kissed him again.  

-end-
TBC in Finding Home II: The Revelation.  

=====
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