Taboo

Summary: One shot. Oliver starts asking questions where the answers may not be what he is ready for. How a talk about the past can push things forward into the future.

Author's Notes: Unbeta-ed. All mistakes are mine. Sorry about that and I haven't had much sleep so there may be quite a few. Wanted to keep this in character but realized that Oliver is really OOC. But I couldn't rest until this plot bunny is pinned down which was interestingly enough inspired by an episode of "Everybody loves Raymond" where Raymond egged Deborah to show him the box of her mementos. I know right? It's a comedy but strangely enough this fic has a mind of its own and persisted in coming out as angsty.

Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville.

He should've known to leave the past well enough alone. Much later after the incident, Victor had almost shorted his circuits laughing at the biggest gaffe one could ever ask for the minute he strung together the words that made up the stupidest question ever known to man. Granted that it was a rookie mistake but how was he to know that? Apparently, dying at such a young age never occurred to his parents, thus they did not think of leaving cliff notes or pointers about the important things in life such as the finer points of being in a relationship. Or whatever it is he and Chloe had. Obviously, his mother would have been disappointed if he knew that his relationship consisted of being a friend with benefits but he had to navigate the rough waters of adulthood on his own and so he did as best as he could. But when apparently, even Clark knew enough to know that to preserve his sanity he should never ever ask Lois anything about THAT topic, he knew without a reason of a doubt that he was irrevocably in way over his head and as a consequence screwed the minute he agreed to carry on with Chloe as he had.

It all started one morning on the rare times that Chloe stayed over until the breakfast. Normally, she would just tiptoe her way out of his bedroom, leaning to leave a ghost of a kiss on his forehead as a way of saying goodbye while he hovered between sleeping and waking up. As Oliver sat at the breakfast nook pretending to be absorbed by the business section of the paper, Chloe sat opposite him, in her worn out cotton pjs with faded prints of what used to look like googly-eyed sheep. She takes the headlines from him and snorts as she reads the editorial page of the Daily Planet, scrunching her nose in the process that made her look like a little girl rather than a grown woman. Nothing extraordinary really but for the fact that Chloe was there having breakfast with him on a not-too-often lazy Saturday morning.

Oliver did not know how it happened but he could not remember a time when he did not know for a fact that Chloe, when she deigned to have breakfast would always take strawberry-flavored milk with chocolate cereals. Or that she would always put in hot milk rather than creamer in her coffee, stir it three times in a clockwise motion and then tap the teaspoon ever so gently before inhaling the aroma and gulping it down, whether it was scalding or not. Or that she normally would wear her worn out cotton pjs with faded googly-eyed sheep when she's had a particularly horrendous day. Or that she has a habit of snorting and scrunching her nose at things she thinks are absolute bollocks, which he found for want of a better word adorable and endearing. All of a sudden, Oliver was inexplicably elated to know that he knew this side of Chloe that he believes no one has ever seen. Well it would be safe to surmise, except perhaps for Jimmy who after all was her husband and probably knew all that and more about Chloe.

This irked him to a degree and he was determined though to rectify this matter by getting to know Chloe more than that. Never mind that it is silly, pathetic and downright stupid to be having a pissing contest with someone who was dead. And so without much preamble or thought, Oliver Queen blurted out just as she was raising the mug to her lips for a drink, "So Chloe, how come we never talk about your exes?"

Chloe nearly chokes on her coffee and raises an eyebrow at Oliver, wondering where he's going with this question and what prompted it in the first place, "Uh, is this your way of asking me whether there is anything you should be worried about? Because prior to you, I've never been led into such debauchery before and have not had any such arrangements with anyone else."

"Uh no, it's not that. It's just that we don't talk like we used to. You leave before I get a chance to wake up and then the next time we see each other, we tear each other's clothes off that we hardly get to exchange two words. I mean, don't you think that we are too pre-occupied with...err," not knowing how to say or end that sentence without sounding like he's complaining about having too much sex. What sane guy would ever complain about that? That should have been the first signal that he is in for a world of trouble by chasing this down a rabbit-hole. He was the Alice in this story and if he recalls the literature correctly, Alice was none too happy at the end of it. If the whole of mankind could hear him now, he would certifiably be the biggest idiot there is and an intervention of some kind was needed.

Thoroughly amused by a clearly flustered Oliver, Chloe sets the newspaper aside and lean toward him, "You mean jumping each other? Well that's a first. Most guys I know wouldn't mind."

Oliver crosses his arms across his chest and scowls in displeasure, "I will not suffer to be laughed at Chloe. I'm not most guys and for the record I'm not complaining. But don't you think it would be better if we did get to know each other more? After all we are friends or at least I thought we were."

"We do know enough of each other and yes we are friends."

"Oh really? Normal friends who freely disclose and share stories and thoughts or the relative minutiae of their lives? Just like that right? Friends who just hang out without having to jump each other? Or do you mean friends who keep tabs of each other by stalking their virtual footprint? You know everything about me but unlike you my dear old friend, I'd rather find out about my friends from actually being a part of their lives rather than reading cryptic or obscure status updates on Facebook which granted is the least invasive way you have kept tabs on me and the rest of the justice league."

His tirade ending, Chloe rolls her eyes in exasperation. "Okay. Okay. Fine. What do you want to know?"

"So your exes, who are they?" Smiling like the Cheshire cat, Oliver persists.

Huffing out in frustration, "Couldn't you have started asking me something else. Perhaps start with something as innocuous like how was your day? What are you allergic to? Heck even what did you want to be when you grew up?"

"I know you had a crappy day yesterday because the system was down and you're wearing your sheep pjs. You are allergic to pineapples and as for the last one, at first you wanted to be a doctor but eventually revised it to being a reporter when you're Mom left."

"So much for not keeping tabs. You had me investigated?! How did you-?" Incredulity lacing her voice.

"Of course not! I may be a guy but I am observant plus you talk in your sleep and so that's how I know the last one." Seeing the distrust etched on Chloe's face, Oliver puts up his hands, "Okay. Fine I get it. Fair is fair. I cannot expect disclosure when I don't share myself. So I'm going to talk first."

Chloe blanches at this, hastily butting in, "Really Ollie. I'd rather not know. I'm fine not knowing."

"No. No. I want to. I don't want to have secrets from you. Tell you what why don't I clear my schedule and I can swing by the watch tower later tonight. I'll bring over some stuff from my exes that I've kept and share them with you and then you could do the same."

"Why?"

"I think the question is 'Why not?' We have been friends Chlo and shared so much with each other as Arrow and Watchtower. I think it's time that we know more about us as people outside of all these crazy things. Just Chloe and Oliver. "

Victor walked into Oliver's penthouse which was in serious disarray. Suspecting the worst, he walks gingerly across things and mementos strewn around with a gun half-cocked as he called out, "Ollie, you there?"

"In here."

Following Ollie's voice into his room, which looked like it had been ransacked, Victor spies their leader bent down, peering under the bed. He puts his gun back in his holster and looks around, "Geez, what happened here?"

"Aha! Got it!" Standing up with a triumphant grin on his face, Oliver turns to Victor with a box roughly larger than a shoebox in his hand. "I was looking for this."

"And you felt like you needed to thrash your place? What's in it anyway?"

"Old keepsakes from my exes."

"Not that I don't understand how some days everyone wakes up sentimental like teenaged girls but whatever do you need it for?"

"Uh, I was going to show it to Chl...err to a girl I'm dating." Or should Oliver say doing but then that would not be entirely true.

"Seriously? Either you want to scare her off or it is some misguided attempt because you really like her. If the former, then that's fine but if it's the latter, dude it's a bad idea."

"You think? I mean, I really like Chl..I meant her and I think that being honest about these things would be a good start to our relationship."

"Fine suite yourself. So care to enlighten us on who she is?"

"Wouldn't you want to know."

"Tsk. Seriously, it's a bad idea. You think any girl would want to hear about your exes? Especially Chloe. Because it IS Chloe isn't it?"

"What?! Pfft. No. It's not." Scoffing unconvincingly at Victor, who pins him with a stare. "Okay. It is Chloe but we're both adults about this. Part of the quid pro quo. She tells me all about her exes and I tell her mine."

"Are you out of your mind?! Why on earth would you agree to do that? Look man, you have to lay the ground rules of your relationship at the start. I know Chloe has this innate need to know everything, full disclosure and all but no good will ever come out of this."

"It wasn't HER idea. I actually suggested it. I just want to figure out whether she could ever think of me the same way."

"By finding out about her exes?!" Victor shakes his head at this. "That is so screwed up. Why don't you just tell her how you feel? That's how adults do it. I know you haven't had much experience in serious relationships Ollie but this has stupid written all over it."

"I...I can't. Weren't you the one who always said that it would be better to plot a way forward by revisiting empirical data?"

"Yes but I was talking about taking down 33.1 laboratories and not about relationships! Just tell her how you feel."

"That's just it. I don't think I could define or articulate what I'm feeling yet. I'm happy when she's around. I don't want her going anywhere but I'm not sure how she feels."

"Sounds to me like love."

"May be it is but I can't ruin what we have. I'd take whatever she's willing to give and bide my time but I have to know whether in the end she could ever love me back."

"Because if she doesn't then what?"

"I haven't thought through that far."

"I think you haven't thought about this period. You have it bad man! Don't go asking questions you don't want answered. That's all I'm saying." And with those ominous words, Victor shakes his head at Oliver and leaves him to his thoughts.

At exactly seven o' clock that night, Oliver enters the Watchtower armed with a boxful of memory of his past in his right hand and a box of pizza in his left. Chloe meets him in the foyer and takes the box of pizza while staring at a rather antique looking container that Ollie brought in with naked trepidation in her eyes.

"So you're really serious about this?" Chloe sighing in resignation.

"Serious like a heart attack."

Earning him a stony glare, "Not funny." As she disappears into her makeshift bedroom and comes back out again with a box of her own that was just as big as Oliver's. "We are doing this but just so you know we are doing this as friends, right? This box represents not just memories from my ex-boyfriends but of some stuff from the guys that I have fallen in love with. I started it because I would often visit my Mom and I want to show her some stuff from that current boy in my life. Pretend like we're having a normal mother-daughter conversation about men who broke my heart and boys who were at the receiving end which was not that often but hey I've had my moments. You ready?"

Settling down on the sofa, Oliver feels something clench in his stomach and his throat constrict. He nods his response, unable to say the words out loud and wondering whether Victor was right but not wanting to back out.

Chloe takes out a bunch of letters tied neatly together and deposits it on the table in front of Oliver. "This was from Whitney Fordham. He was the star quarterback in our school and used to bully Clark and me. During his senior year, he volunteered to go to Iraq and we started corresponding after Lana broke up with him in a letter. I think I may have started it because I felt sorry for him. He wrote back and apologized profusely for basically making our lives a living hell. The war changed him. He was never a cruel boy. Just a misguided one and that's how our correspondence started until he went MIA."

As she dips into her memories, Chloe takes out a photo of Whitney and traces the outline of his face with her finger. Her eyes take on that faraway look. Her voice sad and soft, like a quiet breeze on a summer day, "Do you want to see him?"

Oliver was tempted to say no but his heart had no control over the rest of his body as he reached out and took the picture from Chloe. He wasn't sure what to expect. He saw a boy trying hard to be a man. He could say that Whitney Fordham was not bad to look at. In fact, if he were alive today, he seriously doubts whether Chloe would have even ended up with Jimmy. In fact, not to be unkind, Whitney looked more like the guy that Chloe should end up with. He was glorious in all his youthful exuberance – forever captured at a time when the boy has finally found the conviction of becoming the man that Chloe believes him to be. A heavy feeling settles in his chest. Like he couldn't breathe and not for the first time nor the last time that night, he thought back to Victor's warning about this. Written at the back of the picture in Chloe's youthful cursive the words in French came, "Je veux vous aimer mais vous aimer est de lutter avec douleur".

"Do you still want to go on?" Her voice reaches him and plucks him out of his reverie. Oliver wonders whether he should say no. He was tempted to ask whether he could read some of Whitney's letters but that was never part of their agreement. Instead, he asks pointing to the writing at the back of Whitney Fordham's picture, "What does this mean?"

Chloe raises her eyes to his and says, "I want to love you but to love you is to struggle with pain." And at that time he did not know whether she was just translating it for him or if she was giving him the answer to his question. He sincerely wished it was the former.

Suddenly feeling stupid, he lets out a breath and says, "What?"

"The writing at the back. That's what it meant. What did you think I was talking about?" And just like that, the grief in her eyes were erased and was replaced by something that he could not name. It disconcerted him to know that he does not know all of her looks yet. She picks up a leather bound book from the box with an exasperated sigh but this time hands it to Oliver who leafs through it. It was a book of poems. One page was dog-eared and creased more than the others where the poem of Invictus was printed. He reads this out loud. His voice resonating deep within his chest. Chloe closes her eyes as he reads the entire poem remembering another deep baritone that used to read her the same words. Closing the book almost reverently, Oliver wondered why the book seemed familiar somehow. It looked like one of the literature books they had in Excelsior. He turns the book over willing it to divulge the secrets of its master but finding no other clue except for a crest that he has seen somewhere before but couldn't for the life of him place. Turning to the first leaf he reads, "To Chloe. I am the master of my fate but you are the captain of my soul." It was not signed and so he raises his brows to Chloe in silent question.

"It's from Lex."

It took all of his will power not to chuck the book out of the window. Through gritted teeth, he managed to get out, "Since when were you friends? Or were you more than that? "

"It was a long time ago. I was barely out of high school and I helped Lex put Lionel away. That summer my father and I briefly had to go into hiding and Lex was the only friend I had."

"The kind of friends we are now?" Lips curling in disdain. Not bothering to even hide the jealousy seeping through his voice, he mutters an expletive under his breath.

"Don't you dare judge us Oliver!" She hissed quietly but for the most part it was almost like she had shouted at him which he would have preferred. After all he was the one who asked for this and he shouldn't have asked for what he couldn't handle. But how was he to know?

Unable to stop himself from prodding at the wound just created by this newest disclosure, his jaws clenching and unclenching, "So were you?"

"No. He had the decency not to take advantage of me at my most vulnerable." She looks at him with cold steel in her eyes and what she said was more like a knife plunging through his heart and the next ones felt like hot iron rods squeezing the breath out of his lungs it seemed like he was going to pass out from the pain. "Sometimes, I think that I helped create the evil man that we knew him to be. Evil is not something that was born but nurtured from an absence of love. He tried and in the end I could not give him what he sought so hard to earn because I love Clark far too much. Before we parted ways, we talked about choices that we make. Lex could be quite a poet and he said that if I had only but a few crumbs of my heart to spare him, that he would make it enough for him to live on. I did love him for the man that he could be. I believe that he was capable of as much goodness as it is evil but that no one taught him how and his life was filled with tragedy."

"So is mine." His unspoken words that being of a silent plea. Love me. Choose me.

She smiles at him, "So it is but you're stronger than him. You never needed anyone well at least except perhaps for Lois."

He stops her. "I don't."

"We are friends. You don't have to lie to me Queen. Booze, a bevy of women, gambling and just basically trying to commit suicide is not exactly a convincing argument for what you claim."

"I'm past that."

Chloe smirks at him for his denial. "I'm glad. But I see the way you look at my cousin and I'm neither blind nor stupid. Do you want me to continue or would you rather we go to your box?"

"I thought you didn't want to know."

"Quid pro quo Queen. Pay up or leave."

"Fine but your box is not empty yet."

Chloe then unloads the box of pictures that Jimmy took. Most of them black and white editorial photographs of her in various places and poses. Mostly taken when she was unaware. The phone rings in the distance and she gets up to take it. Oliver sifts through some of the better ones and pockets one where Chloe looked like she was running in total abandonment, her hair whipping about her face as Jimmy manages to snap a picture of her as she turns back to give him one of her amazing smiles. It knocked the wind out of him and made him ache longingly for when she would smile at him like that. Sure she smiled and laughed but never with the same kind of openness and innocence. He felt that he was responsible for stealing that away from her and would be the guilt that he would take with him to his grave. He listens for her as her muted conversation wafts from the kitchen where the phone is. Her laughter tinkling in the background like those chimes that have been plucked gently by the wind. And suddenly he misses her. He wonders how he would ever survive if after all this time, she would only want to be friends.

Chloe returns from the kitchen with the box of pizza open and a half eaten slice in her hands. "Hey! Brought this. I figured you might be hungry."

"No I'm good."

Chloe snorts in disbelief at him and he chuckles ruefully as he reaches for a slice while picking out a candy wrapper from Chloe's box. "So what's this?"

"Davis gave me a heart shaped sweet when we ran away together and I saved the wrapper to remind me of him. "

Resenting her partiality for the beast that he slayed, he intones darkly, "He was a monster. Why keep that Chloe?"

"Because we all have monsters inside. Davis made me believe in true love again. What I've come to realize is that when I married Jimmy, I was only paying lip service to that faith. Not that I didn't love Jimmy. I was in love with him but I didn't love him in that way. If I had my head screwed on straight, I don't think I would have married him because he struggled with all the other aspects of me that couldn't be classified or tagged as normal. To me Davis and Jimmy represented two halves of a whole. Davis was the passion and Jimmy was a constant. Two things that I was missing for so long I couldn't let go of them. Even though, individually they represented two different halves and I'd forever be incomplete."

He shouldn't have had that pizza which was threatening to come up as he asked her, "Did you love Davis?"

Waiting with bated breath and finally releasing it at her evasive response.

"He asked me to kill him you know. I couldn't. I could still hear the pain in his voice when he asked whether I could ever love him at all and when he begged me to pull the lever. He wasn't that difficult to love but it wasn't right."

"If he weren't a monster. Or you were not married. Could you have loved him back? Would you choose him?"

"Yes."

"What about Clark?"

"He will always be the promise that I have always dreamed of and could never have. But I'm glad that he's found what he was looking for with Lois. They both deserve that. The two people I love in the world. I realize that I would give up anything for them. Strange but you'd think I should be jealous or angry and some parts I am but on the whole, I've made my peace and now I could only be happy for them."

Oliver Queen has never known what it felt like to be in hell but he is guessing that it felt a lot like this. Like a slow death. Like that bitter metallic taste of blood and defeat. He was Oliver Queen and he doesn't know why he persists down this destructive path. He may not survive the night and so he asks, just another nail to his coffin eyeing the box that is now empty, "How come I don't have anything in that box?"

"Because Ollie, you and I both know that this could never last. We fell into whatever this is because we were sad, cold and lonely. I should have never let this carry on as far as we have. It is at best a wonderful distraction but a distraction nevertheless." Tears streaming down her eyes. Unbeknownst to her Chloe was grieving for something she claims to be of not consequence.

"Then why are you crying? What if I say, I don't want to be a distraction? You said that you would want to love Whitney but to love him was to struggle with pain. Choose me. I'll take on both your pain and mine. I don't mind. Lex said that if you were to give him crumbs of your heart that he would make it fit. Choose me. I would be happy with just a sliver of a promise to be loved back by you. Jimmy saw you and Davis swore to keep his demons at bay for you. I see all of you Chloe and I don't mind not having to tag and classify everything you are. I see my life in your hands. I cannot promise that we won't have glorious fights that would coax the monsters out of each of us but in the end you should know that you are the reason I am a better man. Please. Give me a chance. I guess it all got crazy with me trying to dig into your romantic past because I wanted to find out if I could be in your future. What I'm trying to say is that I love you." His voice breaking as he struggles to breathe and keep his tears in check. His heart, his life all laid out on the line.

"Oh Ollie, we've been known to only want things that we could never have. I love you but I don't think I could take that leap and believe and know how badly this would hurt me when it ends."

Oliver kneels in front of her, taking her hands in his and raw emotion making him choke back a sob. "Please Chloe. Not like this. I'm not Clark and so I may be the farthest thing from your wildest dreams but look at me. Don't you think it is too much to make me pay for all of the broken memories and promises? I have no argument left to say. I love you. I can't... I can't..." The emotion being too much, he sobs brokenly, his forehead resting against her knees.

Threading her fingers through his hair, she whispers, "Ollie, I tried so hard to not love you but I do. Please don't break me and next time, leave the past well enough alone." Smiling through her tears, his head shoots up and they kiss as if it were their first time.