A/N: I do not own Smallville.

This story will primarily be Chloe centric but will POVs occasionally as the story needs to. Basically it's an exploration of what-ifs. Like what-if Chloe was a main character and had her own unique story to tell? Please give it a read and let me know what you think.

Chapter One

Before that moment, it seemed like everything around me had slowed down One moment I was struggling to get a masked thief's arm from around my windpipe, and the next I was suddenly being flung through the air. I could feel the glass as it buckled under my weight, could feel as it cut through my blouse and dug deep into the skin of my back.

I barely had time to register the pain before in an instant I realized where I was. I was on the third floor of the mansion. The third floor!

I barely managed to grab onto the ledge under the window with both hands. How exactly? I couldn't tell you, but I choked up my miraculous reflexes to the fact my life was in eminent danger.

Panic and fear gripped my entire being as I contemplated that this was how I was going to die. Of all the other stupidly dangerous things I'd done as an investigative journalist; snooping, spying, breaking and entering, even a little stalking. Here I was about to land a gem of an interview with the infamous Luthor heir—an interview he'd granted of his own free will no less! Only to find myself caught in the middle of a robbery and getting thrown out of a window to my death simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time not of my own choosing. It sucked, big time.

Yet, for some strange reason as I dangled precariously from the ledge, I held out hope that Clark would save me. Irrational as it was to think he could take down three grown men who probably had guns in enough time to rescue me from falling to my death. Even Clark Kent wasn't that invincible.

I could feel my fingers slipping as I called for help, Clark, ANYONE really, to save me. I was waiting for my life to flash before my eyes like the media and people say happens but really all I could think about was how much it was going to hurt if I was unfortunate enough not to die right away, or remain conscious after the fall.

Before I had time to think of any regrets, my death grip ran out and I felt gravity finally take hold. Briefly, I mused that I was falling head first, the route which gave me the least chance for survival. Just perfect. It seems like what little luck I possessed had been used up landing this ill-fated interview.

I don't recall hitting the ground or feeling the pain that would accompany it. All I could remember was a surprisingly short free fall then complete darkness. A darkness that I fully believed would swallow me whole, erasing me from existence. My last conscious thought was how devastated Dad would be when he learned about my death.

The first thing she registered was pain. Sharp, searing and throbbing pain which seemed to radiate all along her body. Particularly along her head, back, and left arm. She tried to move her right arm, the part of her body that hurt least, but soon found it to be a futile effort. It felt impossible to muster up the energy to even wiggle one of her toes.

Well, she thought, at least I'm alive. Though I really hope I just can't move my legs because my limbs are sore and not because I'm paralyzed. She really didn't want to contemplate that possibility any further. Though if the ache she was feeling in her legs was any indication then she likely was alright.

Instead she concentrated on opening her eyes. A task which proved difficult since they felt crusted over. Gross.

It took more effort than she would have liked to pry them open but was pleased when she finally managed it. Pleasure turned to instant regret as she was blinded by sunlight filtering into the room. Quickly closing her eyes Chloe winced as the pain shot straight to her head, making her mentally curse up a storm since her mouth was too dry for the task.

After a minute Chloe slowly opened her eyes a little at a time letting them adjust to the sunlight until she could see the room more clearly. With the amount of pain she was in Chloe knew she could be nowhere else but the hospital. She was proven right as her eyes observed the various machines positioned around the room, several of which she was attached to.

She tried to turn her head to get a better look around but moving only made her head swim, temporarily obscuring her vision. Closing her eyes to try and stop the sensation Chloe finally registered the noises coming from outside her room, the sounds of voices, scuffling feet, and gurneys.

Opening her eyes again when she was sure everything had settled Chloe finally noticed all the flowers surrounding the room. They were all colorful and consisted of different varieties though she couldn't help but inwardly grin as she spotted the large wreath of flowers she was more than sure were from Lex Luthor. The arrangement was large in the shape of a 'U' and the flowers were a light purple color.

He really doesn't do anything by half does he?

A cough suddenly bubbled up in her throat that she tried to suppress but couldn't as it rocked through her whole body making the pain she was already in heighten significantly. She let out a small groan, feeling a metallic taste on her tongue and the back of her throat.

Chloe spotted a pitcher of water on a tray beside her and tried to reach for it, only to realize it was on her left. The side where her broken and useless arm resided. Wonderful. Just as she was wondering how she could summon someone to get it for her, a nurse entered the room.

The woman walked in with a smile opening her mouth no doubt to ask how she was feeling only to pause as Chloe let out a hacking cough.

"Ma'am, do you need some water?" she asked with concern.

Chloe unable to speak nodded her head as much as she could hoping the woman saw it. Apparently she did because next thing she knew her head was being supported as a cup of water was brought to her lips with a straw in it.

"Please drink slowly and only take small sips. Any more than that and you'll choke," the woman instructed.

She diligently followed the nurse's instructions until she felt she had enough and was able to rasp out a, "Thank you."

The woman smiled. "You're welcome. I'll go get the doctor since your awake now." She gently set down the cup. After briefly checking her vitals the woman left.

Idly, she wondered where her father was but figured he probably stayed during the night with her then went to work during the day. He was the plant manager after all, and was in charge when Lex wasn't around and had to make sure things ran smoothly. While he could have taken time off he probably realized as she did that sitting around all day wouldn't make her wake up any faster. All it would do is drive him crazy with worry.

Plus her father was where she got her own sense of restlessness from. Sitting around doing nothing but waiting was torture for them. They had to be busy doing something. However, she was sure once they told him she was awake he would be right over.

Chloe hoped he wasn't going to give her a lecture because this totally wasn't a disaster of her own making. She for once really just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Go figure that the one time she wasn't meddling was when she actually got seriously hurt instead of a little banged up and shaken.

A couple of doctors, courtesy of Lex, soon came in explaining the injuries she'd suffered and that she'd been out of it for three days. She'd suffered some pretty bad brain trauma, and while she hadn't fractured her skull her brain had been rattled around quite a bit. Fortunately, they were able to stop the swelling with a quick surgery where they drilled a hole in her skull to release some of the pressure. They were actually surprised she was awake already.

Her spine luckily hadn't suffered any damage so she wasn't paralyzed but her back would be sore for quite some time. Apparently she had landed in soft grass which had helped cushion her fall somewhat. Aside from the brain surgery and a broken arm, the rest of her body was simply extremely sore.

After running a series of tests they declared that she was healing nicely, but wouldn't know for sure about her brain until they did a CAT scan. They had already contacted her father letting him know she was awake; he would be here soon.

With a swirl of their white coats they were soon gone along with the nurse who promised to bring her something to eat after she administered some pain medicine into her IV drip.

Sighing Chloe looked around the room trying to find something interesting to do as she felt the pain start to lessen. Thank God for those nifty fast-acting drugs.

Chloe nearly groaned when she realized there was no TV in her room. Of all the rooms, especially one as nice and spacious as this one she had to get the one without a television. There weren't even any books or magazines around to read. She was on the third floor so she couldn't even people watch except for seeing what was outside her room in the corridor but that was hardly interesting.

Luckily, she didn't have long to contemplate her boredom before the nurse came in and served Chloe her choice of jello. She choose the green one and was assisted in eating since it took some difficulty for her to even lift her arms let alone hold a spoon.

Once finished she politely asked the nurse if she could bring her some reading material of any kind. The woman agreed and left to see if she could find some books or a magazine or two.

Minutes later Chloe found herself dozing off into a light sleep.

When she next woke it was to her father standing over her.

"Chloe, sweetheart, how are you feeling?" Gabe asked with concern. Gabriel "Gabe" Sullivan was a man in his early forties with short brown hair, green eyes and a kind face.

Though Chloe didn't get any of his physical looks, aside from his eye color, she was all him in the personality department. At least that's how it's always felt to her. He understood her best. No one else ever came close or tried to.

"Like I fell from a three story mansion," she replied cheekily.

Gabe tried for a stern look but a small grin broke across face as he chuckled. "Well, considering that your wits intact. I can conclude that your mind's fine and you're well on your way to recovery."

"Of course, we Sullivan's are survivors after all," Chloe grinned up at her father. Her expression soon sobered as she continued to gaze at him, prompting his own expression to become somber. "I hope I didn't cause you to worry too much Dad. It certainly wasn't my intention to find myself in the middle of a robbery and get thrown out a window."

"I know it wasn't you intention sweetheart," Gabe assured while patting her hand. "Even you couldn't have predicted how things would turn out. Life has a funny way of working like that."

"Yes, like you dodging my question about you worrying too much," quipped Chloe.

Gabe rolled his eyes affectionately. "Ever the reporter, even while laid up in the hospital." He sighed, "What am I going to do with you?"

Chloe smiled deciding to let it go for now. "Oh I don't know, but I'm sure you'll figure something out."

Gabe grinned while leaning forward to place a kiss on Chloe's forehead. "I'm glad you're okay, kiddo."

Chloe felt tears prickle her eyes as she looked at him. "Me too Dad, me too."

Over the next several hours Chloe was entertained first by her father until he had to return to work then a steady stream of visitors who had come to wish her well.

While normally she would have been bothered by so many people accosting her endlessly, she welcomed it today since there was little else for her to do while confined to bed.

Did she mention how much she hated catheters?

The nurse from earlier had returned with plenty of reading material but she hadn't gotten a chance to pick up even one book or magazine with all her visitors. She was pleasantly surprised at the amount of people who came to see that she was alright.

Sometime later when things had slowed down she was about to start reading a book called Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card when one of the people she wanted to see most finally stepped inside her doorway bearing her favorite flowers.

She almost thought it romantic until Clark entered into 'everything is my fault mode' which she had to quickly quip him out of. Seriously, she never could understand why he thought he was responsible for every bad thing that happened in Smallville.

Still the visit was pretty nice. She told him what little she could remember of the asshole who almost killed her.. He promised to do some digging to find out what happened, making her wonder if her being a reporter had finally rubbed off on him. While flattered, it was the kiss placed on her forehead that made her internally do a happy dance.

Maybe he was finally noticing her?

Or, whispered a knowing voice, he's simply being a concerned friend and your reading too much into it. He's firmly into Lana Lang, not you.

She studiously choose to ignore it.

The two weeks she stayed in the hospital passed by torturously slow. She had blown through all the reading material the nurse had given her by the third day and the number of visitors she had had significantly lowered. The people she saw regularly now were her Dad, Pete, Clark and occasionally Lana.

Though Lex did make an appearance the second day of the first week in the afternoon.

Chloe could admit to being a little surprised when he showed up. She didn't know why. After all he had paid for specialists to come in and see her, not to mention the Kentucky Derby like wreath of flowers.

She supposed that might have been the minimum of what she expected. As far as she knew, Lex Luthor didn't make a habit of visiting people who were barely acquaintances in the hospital unless it had to do with business.

Still, it was a much welcome visit. He strolled into the room dressed in his standard outfit of an expensive black suit with a purple shirt sans tie. He struck a handsome profile as usual.

"Chloe. I'm glad to see you're awake and well."

"Well, we Sullivan's are made of tough stuff. It takes a lot more than that to get rid of us," she teasingly boasted.

Lex gave an amused smile. "I'll keep that in mind." He paused in his steps for a second before moving to occupy the chair by her bedside. A solemn expression came over his face as he looked her in the eye.

"Chloe, I'm truly sorry about what happened. You never should have been in any danger. I promise you that I'll find and bring to justice the people who did this to you," he said with steely determined look.

Oddly enough, somehow his visiting her at the hospital surprised her but not him apologizing for what happened at the mansion personally. Honestly her head must still be screwed up. However, she believed Lex meant what he said, especially the part about bringing those criminals to justice. He wasn't the type of person to let people invade his domain and take what they wanted. Those guys would definitely regret the day they crossed Lex Luthor.

She gave him as bright a smile as she could muster. "Thank you. I appreciate that. However," and here her smile turned mischievous, "there are two things you could do for me that I would really appreciate more."

Lex raised an eyebrow with a small smirk moving to cross his arms. "Oh, and what would those two things be?"

"First, you need to seriously overhaul the security at the mansion. Those guys may have walked through walls, but it's more than a few feet before someone even reaches the mansion walls. I'd hate to hear about a dashing young billionaire being murdered in his home," she said half-serious, and half playfully.

Lex nodded. "Duly noted. The other thing?"

Here she gave a teasing smirk. "I distinctly seem to recall that we didn't get to finish our interview/verbal judo. I would very much like to continue where we left off. That is if you're not scared."

"Oh, I'm not afraid, and I definitely look forward to our rematch, Ms. Sullivan," Lex responded with the patented Luthor smirk. "Just email me whenever you're ready to bring your 'A' game. Though I'll warn you in advance, I always bring my best."

"So do I Mr. Luthor."

They shared challenging grins and spent the next hour practicing their 'verbal judo' on a wide range of meaningless topics until the nurse came and brought her meds. She never knew Lex Luthor could be so interesting, aside from his money and permanent baldness.

The only other bright spots were when her dad brought her laptop and Pete, through her instructions, hooked her up to the Internet through the phone line, and helped Clark with finding out how those thieves could go through walls.

Normally research of that caliber would have taken her some time but it was barely two hours before she had worked things out. It was actually kind of weird though she chalked it up to just becoming a better reporter/researcher.

She felt relief when Clark told her those thugs had been arrested and immediately felt joy when a few days later she was finally allowed to leave the hospital, albeit in a wheelchair with instructions to stay home abed for a couple more days to allow her bruised back and head to heal before attempting school. Her arm oddly enough had already healed along with her other injuries, just her back and head still needed time.

Chloe didn't protest the extended bed rest since as long as she got out of the hospital she was good. After all, they couldn't follow her home and make sure she was actually resting in a bed. Plus she had no qualms about missing school since she could do her homework and the Torch's work from home on her laptop anyway.

However, convincing her dad that she would be fine without him all day was another matter. She was fifteen years old for God's sake! She did not need a baby sitter! After much arguing she finally convinced him she would be fine by agreeing to his every two hour phone checks.

Chloe thought that when she finally started school again in a couple of days that everything would be back to normal. Her running the Torch, hanging out with Clark and Pete, bemoaning school, studying about the effects of the meteor rocks and hopelessly fawning after Clark.

She didn't realize how wrong she was.

A/N: So this is a new story I've been working on for months. It's only recently that I've felt good enough about it to finally post the first chapter. I won't make any promises about when I'll update (I've learned my lesson about that) but they'll happen in due time. Anyway hope you enjoy this.