Title: Give and Take
Category: Smallville
Song: Wonderwall – Ryan Adams (or the original, by Oasis)
Rating: T
Genre: Romance
Ship: Chloe/Oliver
Challenge: Music/Fic
Word Count: 1,119
Summary: In this life of splendor and tragedy, she was his redemption.

Give and Take

I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do
About you now

And all the roads that lead to you were winding
And all the lights that light the way are blinding
There are many things that I would like to say to you
I don't know how

I said maybe
You're gonna be the one who saves me
And after all
You're my wonderwall…

Wonderwall – Ryan Adams (or Oasis)

Oliver Queen lived a life of splendor and tragedy, intermixed until he could hardly tell them apart. Where there was good, bad would intervene, and so the opposite too was true. Childhood, an innocent beginning, was overshadowed by the death of his parents. High school, where his bullying and overindulgent behavior resulted in the death of a classmate, brought clarity. His disappearance after graduation and subsequent two years spent on an island built his character and archery skills. The return of the people who had left him there brought Tess Mercer into his life but eventually his self-destruction would ruin his first love. And then his Green Arrow persona grew and with it, the secrets and lies and his swan dive into the deepest and darkest of worlds. To answer his calling, he left his second love in Lois Lane, and to save the world he would kill a nemesis.

Give and take; that was his world. And it never failed to take when he gave, to drag him down when he thought he was reaching the top.

So when she stepped into his life, like a torch in a dark cavern, he waited for the floor to fall out beneath him. But it didn't. Self-destruction came calling and he drank it with vigor, until she put him in the center of his own living hell. Fight and survive, or give in and die. Instincts got him through it and as much as he ignored the hero calling out, it was still strong, still fighting inside him. And she knew that, she knew the second he laid down arms that he was only meant to pick them back up. So the world attacked and she fended it off, reminding him of his place.

She brought him back, held up redemption on a silver platter and he took it. There were issues and problems, always, but she stood next to him, holding his hand through it all. At each crossroads, she offered her insight but she trusted his judgment. And the world kept spinning, they lived another day, he enjoyed another of her confident grins.

A match; in a world of puzzling mismatched people, he found the one that fit him.

She knew him, from the green leather to the Armani suit. She saw him when his face lay in the gutter, cradled the hero in his heart, and when he was ready to be helped up, her hand was there for him to take. She'd been hurt herself, looked over, forgotten, betrayed and abandoned. She was careful, she didn't trust easy, but when she was there next to him, she leaned on him and he leaned back. Support; a net he'd often thought was full of holes. At least in his life, it had been. But there she stood and she never let him fall.

He didn't cross the line, refused to step over the boundaries between friendship and lovers. And wasn't it just her way that she was the one who took the first leap.

She stood across from him, all-knowing, smiling as if she had the answer to all his questions. "If you're afraid of breaking my heart, don't…" she told him simply. "You'd have to win it first."

"A challenge?" he asked, his lips curling with a smirk. Reaching for her, he threaded his fingers in her soft hair. "And if I win?"

She cocked a brow, stared up at him. "Hold on tight; this isn't a ride for just anyone." Her hands slid up his chest, wrapped around his neck. "Coward?"

He grinned, lowered his head until they were eye to eye. "Never."

She kissed him, met his passion with equal veracity. He stripped her bare, from her clothes to her very soul, and when he laid down next to her, he felt the same. Atop green sheets, with their legs tangled and their hearts heavy on the line, he let go and he hoped for the best. He got it. When he gave, she gave. She accepted, she loved, but she never took. She welcomed him into her arms, her body, her heart and he walked forward, just as open, just as ready. The lives they lived were made of intensity and that showed as much in their love-making. A thirst, a desire for her as he'd never felt for another woman had taken hold of him. He could easily spend a lifetime in her arms, hearing her call his name, seeing her arch her sleek body to meet his. Sweaty, exhausted, he cradled him to her like a long-lost piece of himself, unwilling to let her go for anything.

Days, weeks, months, and there was no fallout. Their friends looked at them as if this was expected; while hesitant even Clark accepted it. And hand-in-hand, they met the world, all of its ups and down, its twists and turns. The road wasn't easy; it threw curveballs and reveled in each moment they tripped. But they learned and they continued on, they fought with all of themselves; for each other and the world at large. The heroes sought justice and they would find it.

It didn't take him long to figure it out; that this was his place. Where before he'd made his mistakes, he'd put his heart in the wrong hands, now he wouldn't.

He married her before the end could near; before somebody could protest their rightness. And he vowed before God, their friends, and anybody who would listen that nobody felt the way he did about her. There was love, he'd seen it, in Lois and Clark. But what he had with her was so beyond that; it was a connection, a physical and spiritual bond. She was the only one, in a world of billions, that could save him. The tragedy was for the outside world, remiss between them. She was his splendor, his family, his very heart. And as long as she moved, she breathed, she smiled, he could go on.

Twirling her around, watching as the sun glittered in her hair, he felt true happiness.

Stumbling in dizzy laughter, she wrapped her arms around his neck.

Grinning, he kissed her forehead. "I think you'll be the one who saves me… from whatever's coming."

Sighing reverently, she kissed him tenderly. "We save each other… Always."

Chloe Queen danced with her husband, forgetting what chaos the world might put before them next. For now, it was them. In a world that so easily took and stole, he would be the one to give. His safe embrace, his loving heart, and a future built for just the two of them. After all, she was his and he was hers; their wonderwall.