On Hold


Summary: Prompt response to "deadline". Oliver has a date with Chloe.

Disclaimer: If you honest to god think I own anything, go see a doctor. Now. I own nothing.


Oliver looked down at his watch for the upteenth time impatiently. He'd never been able to wait well, but he still wasn't quite able to bring himself to get up and leave.

No, instead he put saving the world on hold to give Chloe Sullivan another-somehow one of many-opportunity to stand him up.

"Another drink, sir?"

Oliver glanced up at the deep voiced waiter and wondered how pathetic he looked. More relevantly, he wondered if his waiter realized he could make more than his month's pay to sell this story to the Inquisitor-Oliver Queen, Metropolis' Most Eligible Bachelor-Stood Up!

"Please." Oliver pushed his empty glass to the edge of the table and caught the unmistakable swish of coral and turquoise around the corner that was Chloe.

Better than never?

"Make that two." He amended, "Scotch and soda and an apple martini."

"Of course, ." The waiter exited swiftly with a smile.

Oliver never had the opportunity to be too perplexed or amused by the lack of anonymity before Chloe started.

"I'm late," she blurted out quickly, apologetically, sitting down across from him.

"I know." Oliver smiled against his better intentions. He could never get too angry with Chloe. "What was tonight's crisis? The red-blue blur couldn't decide between plaid and plaid?"

"I don't know what it is about you and Lois and plaid-which for the record, Ollie, he hardly ever wears, and if I was the one running around in green pleather I wouldn't be so fast to talk. And, it's all Lois' fault anyways. I was going to be on time and then Lois was freaking out because her computer crashed and she has a deadline and Clark was picking her up in ten minutes because Mrs. Kent is in Metropolis and they were meeting her for dinner, so she couldn't be late, and-"

Oliver reached across the table and kissed her, effectively cutting off the hurried rambling.

"I'm just glad you made it this time." He told her.

As he expected, Chloe was quiet. He took her hand in his, and kissed it. None of the rest even mattered now. Saving the world sort of paled in comparison to being with the woman he loved.

"And for the record," Oliver said, grabbing the opportunity to speak and be listened to, "Its leather."