title: Hail Dorothy
author: m
rating: pg13
word count: 1000
disclaimer: don't own the DC universe as evidenced by the fact it's the DC Universe
pairing: Chloe/Ollie
summary: Chloe names the new laptop Toto; all things being equal, it's scarily appropriate.
author's note: written for picfor1000 on livejournal.
-
Chloe names the new laptop Toto; all things being equal, it's scarily appropriate. She's a long way from Kansas now and she hasn't even left the state yet.
-
Sometimes, she can't help laughing when the thought slips into her head. Victor as the Tin Man is patently obvious, as is A.C.'s Scarecrow…
She would have said, before this started, that Ollie would make a bad Cowardly Lion but now she knows better. He can't even get up the nerve to ask her to coffee much less a real date.
Poor Clark, she's not sure how to tell him that makes him the leader of the flying monkeys.
It's that thought, occurring to her when she's sitting cross-legged in a Queen Industries pent-house in Kuala Lumpur, Toto balanced on her knees as she hacks into a local bank's records. Somewhere in this financial mess are links to the local 33.1 laboratory and she's going to find them.
It's a process which, she thinks, would go easier if it weren't for Victor and Oliver pacing in front of her. At least A.C. went out for a swim.
Habit has her glancing at the clock. If he's gone much longer she's going to start checking reports. God, she thought Lana had a knack for attracting trouble; A.C. seems to be going for a world's best in self-endangerment.
She hums softly as her fingers tap keys and a grin plays over her lips. Sooner or later one of them is going to notice she keeps humming songs from the Wizard of Oz when she's working. They may be guys but they're not even that clueless.
Mostly.
"Somebody get me a coffee," she demands, looking up. "The other one sit down and shut up." She tempers her command with a beguiling smile. "You don't want me getting a complex and ending up in Belle Reve do you? No way can I track 33.1 for you from there."
Oliver smirks. "You'd find a way."
She wrinkles her nose at him. "Just for that I want a Danish too."
-
"You know this flying me about the world in private jets? I may be getting spoiled." Chloe wiggles her fingers in goodbye at the steward as she steps onto the tarmac in Johannesburg.
Oliver steers her to a waiting car, a grin on his face. "Well, someone needs to and, besides, I can't let you fly coach."
She snickers, slides into the air-conditioned car and starts pulling out her laptop. "Of course you can't, if you did then my name would be on a passenger list somewhere. One flight may go unnoticed, a lot turns up a pattern and you're already on Lionel's radar."
He gets in, the driver closing the door, and frowns. "You think he's noticed?"
"Not yet," she assures. "But, he and Lex are closer than they make themselves out to be. Believe me, when those two are at each other's throats for real? It's hard to miss." She's not sure exactly what's going on with the Luthors at the moment and she wishes she did. It used to be so much easier…but then she used to think of Lex as a friend (or someone who could be).
She swallows around the sudden lump in her throat and feels Oliver's fingers brush a sweat-dampened lock away from her face.
"You okay?" He asks softly, watching her with concern.
Chloe musters up a smile but she's not fooling anyone. "Just wish things were different." She wants to tell him that Lex tried, that things were almost different, but she's not sure Oliver will let himself believe it.
She doesn't want to either.
If she accepts it then she has to face the fact they failed a friend.
They failed and now innocent people are going to face the consequences of that failure.
Oliver nods, "Don't we all."
She kisses him. She always did have the worst timing in history.
-
She headlines the morning edition with a story about a mudslide in Columbia. It makes only a vague mention of an anonymous research facility destroyed in the process.
There will be a day for that story but not today.
-
She tells Ollie about her 'Wizard theory' in a hotel room in Dublin. He laughs, kisses her bare shoulder, and buys her Irish coffee.
It's hard to remember what life lived out of something other than a suitcase feels like. The scary part is she's not sure she wants to.
-
"Everything's going to change," she says in Toronto, looking out at the skyline as Oliver reads her latest report. "I can feel it."
He joins her and she traces their reflection in the glass, fingers sliding over the cold surface and raising gooseflesh on her arms. They look good like this. "Change how?"
"It's like the feeling you get when you're about to sneeze," she explains. "Everything tenses up like it's going to explode and then..."
"Boom," he finishes.
"Boom," Chloe nods. She thinks of Clark's promise and smiles. "But, I think, good boom."
"Good?" Oliver presses a kiss into her hair, sliding his arms around her waist.
She turns in his arms. "You guys have it covered."
He chuckles. "More like you do, we've just gotten really good at doing what you tell us."
"Well, yes," Chloe smirks, "Didn't I just say that?"
-
Bruce Wayne disappeared from Gotham City six years ago; Clark spots him in the Himalayas.
Chloe writes up the report for Oliver and flags Gotham.
It needs watching.
-
Chloe dreams about a bridge and sees herself, Ollie, Clark and the others standing on the one side while Lex and his father stand on the other.
She avoids Lana as much as possible after that.
-
Oliver buys her ruby slippers in Paris and takes her dancing, a reward for a mission hard on them both.
She laughs when he makes her promise not to click her heels together three times.
This Dorothy's not interested in leaving Oz.