Greetings! So, I've been struggling to write anything for the best part of six months now, but after watching the episode last week (Warrior), suddenly I felt an itching in my fingers to set them free on my laptop as my muses attacked me in full force. It's my first time in this fandom, and although I've been shipping Chloe and Oliver for the longest time I'm really not sure that I can do them justice - we'll see.

Oh, and there's also the fact that I'm way out of my comfort zone not using OCs… I'm trying to stick to the comic book world so all the major characters will have appeared in the comics at one point.

Disclaimer: The only thing that belongs to me are the mistakes!

A Place to Belong

©Axellia, February 2010

Chapter One.

The snow was falling gently in soft swirls to the ground, covering Metropolis with a sheet of innocence. And yet, as Chloe Sullivan meandered along the sidewalk, it appeared that the frozen stuff was just putting a temporary patch over the darkness in the city.

She sighed, her heart heavy, glancing up into the falling snow. After hearing too many people tell her that she needed to get out more, she'd decided that the only way to get them to quit going on and on about it was to do as they said. Only, apparently, going to see a bunch of people in costumes didn't constitute as getting out, especially when, according to Lois, they weren't exactly living in reality themselves.

Not that Lois was an expert, but when Chloe stepped back and watched her and Clark together, a little part that she was trying desperately to hide away, kept trying to rear its ugly head. There was a reason she had been keeping herself within feet of her computers – they couldn't hurt her.

Chloe sighed again, hitching her bag back up onto her shoulder, and bowed her head to the snow, stepping up her pace. She found herself in the deserted clock tower. Not ready to settle down in her flat, unable to face Lois, Chloe had often found herself seeking refuge in the deserted base recently. She waited for the elevator to crawl down, rubbing her chilled hands together. Finally, it arrived and she stepped in, slumping against the wall.

The real world was a cold place. Physically and emotionally. And she was tired of pretending that everything was normal. Tired of lying to the world. She arrived at the top floor, and stepped out. The watchtower was just as cold. Chloe shrugged her bag off her shoulder and allowed it to fall to the floor with a soft thunk as she shivered. Pulling her coat even tighter around herself, she headed over to the computer and quickly accessed the heating schematics for the building.

It wasn't a technical fault, she realized as she did some investigating. It was a payment fault. Someone had cancelled the payments and cut off the gas supply to the penthouse. Muttering about the ineptitude of the gas companies and deciding to resolve the issue (with a few choice words) the following morning, she hacked into the site and informed the company that it had been paid, whilst reconfirming her payments. Once done, she headed into the kitchen. Kitchen was a loose term. It was a few cupboards, a cooker that didn't work, and most importantly, a coffee pot. She busied herself making a strong cup and hurried back to her computer.

By the time she had sat back down, she could feel the heating kicking in already. She shrugged her jacket off, leaving her scarf wrapped tightly around her neck, and pulled her keyboard to her, opening a new document.

For the best part of four hours, she sat there, her fingers flying over the keyboard, as she wrote the best story of her life: the story of Smallville and its alien superhero, Clark Kent. How he had saved her and others on countless occasions, how he'd had help from others like him – Green Arrow, Black Canary, Impulse, Aquaman and Cyborg, all leading double lives to protect the world. How she was proud of them and what they had done, and how she tried to help them.

How things had suddenly been travelling at a nice pace – marriage of all things – but then another alien had appeared, and despite her best intentions she had lost everything in a day. The man she had been trying to save: gone. Her husband: gone. Clark: busy trying to save the world, one metropolis at a time. Her friends: unable to look her in the eye had gone their separate ways. The only one she had left was Oliver, and although he had stuck around and nearly drunk himself in a downward spiral had come back to be the hero she knew he could be, but how he and Clark only kept her around out of pity – and yet how she was extremely grateful because it gave her some meaning in her life.

How she knew all of this, and how she was sitting on the story of a life time, and how she kept this quiet, protecting their secret, hiding the truth, despite the fact that a story like this would make her the most famous reporter on the planet. And how, more than anything, that made her feel alone. How, she thought she'd had a chance at finding something more, but her crush on the latest superhero was a misplaced crush on a kid a third her age. And that had made her feel even more alone.

Finally, feeling weary, Chloe Sullivan sat back, exhausted. The best story of her life poured into a few megabytes of data. And then she hit the close box. The mouse cursor hovered over the "yes" option to the "do you want to save the changes to document1"? box. Chloe sighed. And then hit "no", the document disappearing from the screen.

---

Oliver was reaching for his bow when he heard the elevator grind into action. He settled the bow back down and was about to make his way out of the specially designed cupboard when he heard Chloe muttering under her breath. Figuring it might be better to wait for her to calm down before approaching her, he held back, waiting until she finally stormed across the kitchen to the kettle.

He smiled to himself. Although vast quantities of the liquid gold Chloe often referred to the coffee as (and indeed, she did seem to have it as thick and black as oil some days), could sometimes make her twitchy, most of the time it calmed and focused her. So he wasn't surprised to see her settle down in front of her various monitors with a sigh.

Only, the sigh sounded sad. He took a step towards her, expecting to stop her from trying to track down a Kryptonian or something like that. Only she didn't. She opened a Word document and started typing. If he had known that what she was writing was something akin to a diary, he probably wouldn't have stayed. But it took a couple of pages before he realized it was autobiographical, and by then he was hooked. So for God knows how long, he stood there, completely transfixed.

By the time she had finished, he was looking at Chloe in a whole new light. She had sacrificed and given so much, and she kept on doing it, even after he had helped tear her apart with losing Jimmy (and even though she had, even in private, been gracious enough to not blame him). And that was playing with his gut like he didn't know what.

Finally, long after his legs had gone to sleep, she sat back and gave a satisfied sigh. She scrolled up and down the lengthy document before heading for the X in the corner of the screen. As she did, Oliver's eyes flickered to the line at the top of the page. "No," he muttered.

Chloe, still oblivious to the other person in the room, closed the document.

"We don't keep you around out of pity, you know."

Chloe leapt up, the keyboard crashing to the ground as she whirled around, finding herself face to face with Oliver. "Jesus Christ, Oliver!" she yelled. "What are you doing here?"

Oliver gave her a sad smile and shrugged. "I wanted some quiet and I knew this was a place I could get it.

Chloe returned his smile with a nervous one of her own and leant over to pick up the keyboard. As soon as it was on the table, she swiped up her empty coffee mug and hurried over to the kettle. "You want one?" she asked, aware that Oliver had followed her over.

Oliver shook his head as he watched her busy herself with making her coffee, refusing to turn and meet his eyes. "Or I don't keep you around out of pity."

Chloe looked over at him then, her expression reminiscent to a rabbit caught in headlights. "What?" she asked.

"I don't keep you around out of pity," he repeated. "You seem to have this crazy idea that I keep you in my life out of pity," he explained.

Chloe dropped her head onto her chest as her knuckles clutching at the side turned white. "Oh," she muttered, biting her lip as she closed her eyes. "How much of that did you read?"

"I tuned in about the time golden boy Clark Kent ran off to Metropolis," he told her. "I must say, I didn't think he had it in him," he added as an afterthought.

Chloe leant forward as she rubbed at her temples. "You weren't supposed to read that," she muttered. "No one was."

"The fact you deleted it kinda gave me that impression," Oliver agreed softly as he walked over, leaning back against the worktop as he glanced down at her. "But why?"

Chloe looked up at him in amazement. "Do you really need to ask that?"

Oliver smiled. "I mean, why did you write it?"

"How long had you been standing there?" she asked again, amazed that she hadn't heard anything.

"I may as well have read it all, Clo," he admitted, although somehow without looking and sounding the slightest bit guilty.

"No one was supposed to read that," she repeated.

Oliver nodded, smiling. "You said that already."

Chloe stared at Oliver. Feeling her cheeks heating up, she quickly looked away. "I'm sorry," she quickly apologized.

"You don't have to apologize," Oliver told her. "You have nothing to be sorry for." He leant forward, placing a hand on her shoulder. "And more importantly, you have nothing to feel worthless about. You're an important part of my team, even if the numbers have dropped a little, and I'm proud to have you as my sidekick."

Chloe glanced at the hand on her shoulder, her eyes following the outstretched arm, his naked muscles glinting in the dim light, to the sincere look in his brown eyes. "Really?" she asked, the statement making her feel better than she had in a while.

Oliver nodded. "Yeah. And Boy Wonder had better watch out or I'll be trying to make you my own sidekick – there will be no sharing."

Chloe blushed, ducking her head. "Thanks," she mumbled, suddenly feeling very shy.

"I mean it, Chloe," he told her, releasing her shoulder. "And for the record it's Stephen, or Alex's loss."

Chloe's mouth again dropped open.

"I read it all," he said as his smile turned to a smirk. "Right down to the description about my chiseled features and movie star looks."

Chloe cringed, praying that the counter would suddenly develop teeth and swallow her whole. And then her defensive mode switched on as her temper flared. "You had no right to read that," she snapped at him.

"Chloe," Oliver sighed at her. "It was there for the world to see across six of your forty inch monitors. It was a little hard to miss."

Chloe glared up at him. "And are you telling me that had I left my diary out you would have read that?"

Oliver thought about it and was about to tell her that of course he wouldn't, when he caught her glare. He sighed. "I probably would have read it," he admitted. "But in my defense, I didn't realize what it was you were writing when I started reading."

"Well," Chloe spluttered as she grabbed her coat and thrust her arms into the sleeves. "You should have stopped reading when you realized what it was."

"Ah, come on Chloe," Oliver pleaded with her as he followed her to the lift. "I'm sorry."

"Whatever, Oliver," she muttered, stepping into the lift. "I'm going home."

---

By the time she had made it back to her flat, she had not only calmed down, but she had also come to another conclusion. It was time to get out of the watchtower. She was horrified that Oliver had read everything. There was almost nothing left to hide.

Almost.

She had nearly written about what had happened after Alex had gone home. About the thing that had happened right there in the watchtower. How, for a moment, she thought Oliver was trying to tell her that he liked her and it was alright for her to like him too. How, despite the fact she frequently stood close to him, in that instant, for reasons she couldn't explain, her stomach was doing back flips. And how she had walked away because, if she had somehow managed to interrupt the situation correctly, she didn't want to get hurt, and if she hadn't, she didn't want to look like a fool.

No, she was exceeding grateful that thought pattern had been omitted from the story.

Which was why she knew the healthy option was to get out and to get a new job. It wasn't like Oliver and Clark had being a hero as their full time job – both had other careers, so why couldn't she? At least then, maybe people would stop telling her to get out more.

Despite the fact it was the small hours of the morning, she sat and poured over the Planet's job section, found a couple of jobs she could handle, and emailed off her resumé. She had just settle back down on to her couch with a fresh mug of coffee and pulled her laptop over to continue with mission, when there was a knock at the door. A quick glance at the clock told her it was nearly two am.

She pushed the laptop to the other side of the couch and headed over to the door, peering out through the peephole. "Oliver?" she cried, pulling the door open.

He stood there, looking immaculate in his cream polo jumper, half hidden under his leather jacket, and his designer jeans, giving her a sheepish smile.

"What's the matter?" she asked him, her mind automatically wishing she had stayed in the watchtower so that she could jump on her supercomputer, ready to solve whatever problem he was about to throw at her.

"Why do you automatically assume something's wrong?" Oliver asked her with a frown.

"Well why else would you be knocking on my door at this time in the morning?" she asked him, confused.

A brief look of uncertainty flashed across Oliver's face, and then it was replaced with his cocky grin so quickly, it was impossible to say if it had been there at all. "Dinner."

"Dinner?" Chloe repeated. "At two in the morning? What time zone are you currently inhabiting?"

Oliver rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm taking you out for dinner. Think of it as an apology," he offered.

"I don't think that-" Chloe started, but she was cut off.

"Chloe, will you shut up and let me take you out on a date?"

Chloe's mouth fell open.

"I'll take that as a yes," Oliver told her, leading her out of the flat and closing the door behind her.

"Oliver, I'm not dressed for a date," she told him, staring down at her outfit. She'd gotten changed into a comfortable pair of yoga pants and a vest top. "I don't even have my jacket."

Oliver pulled his jacket off and draped it over her shoulders. "There," he nodded. "And for the record, you look good in anything."

"Oh, hardly," she scoffed as he led her outside into the snow. "Oliver, I'm still in my slippers," she told him, pulling his jacket around her. And where's going to be serving food at this time?"

"You need to learn to take a compliment," he informed her, scooping her up in his arms and carrying her over to his car. Managing to keep hold her with one hand, he opened the door and settled her into the passenger seat. "And you also need to trust me."

Chloe stared up at him, the snow dancing around him, and for a moment, where a street light shone just behind him, he looked like an angel. "I do trust you," she told him.

Oliver smiled at her and shut the door.

Chloe watched him hurry around the front. "I just don't understand why you want to take me out on a date," she muttered under her breath before he got in the car next to her.

---

"Oliver, how many surprises do you have left?" Chloe asked, laughing.

"I'm full of surprises, Chloe," he told her, holding his hands over her eyes as he led her through the watchtower.

To Chloe's surprise, the 'date' had been a picnic on the floor of the watchtower. He'd ordered Chinese which had arrived moments after they had stepped in the building and he had brought her upstairs to the second surprise of the evening. Two couches in the corner of the main room. "'Cause every once in a while, you need to step away from that computer screen," he had told her.

The third surprise Chloe had discovered when she had taken their dirty containers into the kitchen. A proper coffee maker, complete with sever bags of coffee machines Oliver had clearly obtained from various places across the world. "Because I know you hate to be away from the computer too long when you're in the middle of something," he had explained to her, practically contridicting his previous reason for the first gift.

All in all, despite the fact Oliver had called it a date, it had felt far from one. It seemed more like two friends hanging out.

That was until Oliver dropped his hands.

"Surprise," he told her.

Chloe's mouth dropped open. In front of her was an enormous bed with beautiful plum colored bed sheets. She whirled around, not realizing how close behind her Oliver had been standing, and stared up at him.

"Now, before you go jumping to assumptions, I bought the bed for you. If it was mine, you know the sheets would be green," he grinned.

"Oliver," Chloe started.

Oliver quickly cut in. "Seriously. I just wanted you to have somewhere you could lie down when you're busy working. And I realize it will probably never get used because somehow you can go a week without sleep," he told her, exaggerating. "But I figure you're more likely to get a nap when you know you don't have to go home." He stopped and looked down at her. She was staring up at him with her head cocked. "What?"

Chloe was about to ask him how he managed to pull it all off, in a matter of hours, when all the stores would be closed, but she figured that when you had as much money as Oliver Queen did, it didn't really matter.

What really stopped her from asking the question wasn't because she knew the answer. It was the look of vulnerability he was showing her without even realizing he was doing it.

She reached her hand up to cup his cheek, gently rubbing her thumb over his five o'clock shadow. "Thank you," she told him, sincerely. She dropped her hand but didn't step back.

Oliver stared back at her. And the next thing he knew, he was leaning over, kissing her. Sensing it was more than a little one sided, he pulled away. "Sorry," he muttered, stepping back as he looked at the confused expression on Chloe's face.

Chloe blinked, took a second to process what had happened, and then all but leapt at him.

---

Oliver awoke the following morning with a smile on his face in the middle of the now very disheveled bed, half covered with the new sheets. The smile quickly turned into a frown as he discovered he was alone in the bed. Still frowned, he slipped out of the bed, pulled his boxers on and made his way through the base. "Chloe?" he called.

He sat down on the couch, running his hand through his hair. For the first time, he finally knew how all the girls he'd bedded felt when they discovered that he wasn't there in the morning. She'd gone. And it bugged him more than he was willing to admit. Not because he wanted to be the one that left.

But because he wanted them both to still be in that bed when they awoke.

TBC...