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Chapter One

"Emil," Chloe exclaimed as the man she'd desperately wanted to see walked through the door. It wasn't that she doubted the information that the other doctors had given her; it was just that they didn't understand the larger picture. They didn't know the myriad of facets that made up Oliver Queen.

"Chloe, let's discuss this in my office," he said soothingly as he led her to the office he used when he was needed at Star City General Hospital. Closing the door behind them, he waited for the outburst he knew was coming.

"He doesn't remember!" Chloe was stating what at that point was the obvious, but it seemed to bear repeating. "He doesn't remember me or the League. Emil, he doesn't even know that he's the Green Arrow – that a Green Arrow even exists!"

"He's suffering from a form of retrograde amnesia," he agreed. "There is a significant amount of time loss, but the fall that he took was serious and, frankly, he's lucky he didn't break anything."

"Except his stupid head," Chloe muttered, once again cursing the zip lines he used to move through the city. "I don't understand what went wrong. Every time that I've healed someone they've been completely fine. What if something happened? What if I–"

"We can't know that," Emil cut in to what was fast becoming a panic. "Head injuries are impossible to predict."

She shook her head, reminding him, "Lex had a head wound and I healed him. He was just fine afterward."

Familiar with the case from his time studying the reappearance of Chloe's ability, he disagreed with her conclusion. "And tell me, did he remember the fact that Clark had gone wandering through his mind?"

"Well, no," she admitted.

Glad to see her calming some, he continued, "We know as little about meteor induced mutations as we do about the workings of the brain. There's no way that we can say with even the smallest of certainty that things should be progressing in a vastly different manner. We simply know too little."

Running a weary hand through her hair she gave him a weak smile of thanks before asking, "Do we maybe have some idea of how long this will last?"

Emil wished he had an answer for her. Chloe Sullivan was a strong woman, but he'd known her long enough to see the fear in her eyes.

"As I've said, there's so much unknown about the human mind," he admitted. "And amnesia on more than a very limited scale that is generally confined to the events occurring very close to the time of injury is an extremely rare phenomenon. We're hoping that his memories will begin to surface over the next few days, but Chloe," he cautioned, "we aren't even certain what's causing it at this point, so we have no way of predicting a resolution with any accuracy."

Her shoulders slumped at the confirmation of the other doctors' prognosis.

"So you're saying that we can hope that he'll be better soon, but we need to prepare for this to last indefinitely."

"I' m sorry, Chloe, but that's the best advice I can give you right now."

Laying a comforting hand on his shoulder she smiled into eyes just as tired as her own. "I know. I just…why?'

"As I said, we can't really determine why–"

With a weary chuckle she cut him off. "No, not why doesn't he remember. I just wonder why, of all of the places his memory could have decided to pick back up it had to be right where it apparently has."

Emil had been friends with both Oliver and Chloe for years; but no one was closer to them than they were to each other. If there was a significance in Oliver's new time frame, he had no doubt that it would be Chloe who would know about it.

"And the importance of his recollection would be," he asked curiously.

"Oliver's had his ups and downs in life. There have been times where he's felt like he's failing and he gives up for a while. But he rallies or, sometimes I…gently nudge him back into the fold. And he rises above it because he knows who he can be and the good he can do."

He waited, knowing the "but" was coming.

"But there was one period that was particularly difficult for him. He returned from the island he'd been stranded on, he pretty much imploded his relationship with Tess, and while there was a vague idea in him of wanting to do something better – be someone better, he hadn't gotten there yet, so he didn't have his past successes to hold on to."

Chloe's eyes closed briefly at the thought of all the pain Oliver had been though in his life, but forced herself to shake it off and continued.

"There was a small period between intention and action where Oliver dedicated himself to running fast and hard in the opposite direction of everything that he's become."

"So you're saying…" Emil asked with little hope for good news.

"I'm saying," she said with no small amount of frustration, "that according to the information I've gotten of Oliver's current memories, we've ended up with the shallowest, most reckless, womanizing, king of avoidance version of Oliver Queen that we could have gotten without actually beaming him directly from the past in the midst of a one night stand."

Tempted to smile at her obvious exasperation despite the gravity of the situation, he asked, "What are you planning to do?"

Because he knew, with unquestionable certainty, that the woman known as Watchtower had already formulated fifty plans, discarded forty five, and finally settled on one, keeping the other four in case of emergency.

"I'm going to do what I always do – take care of Ollie until he remembers the hero in his heart."

"Hello, Oliver," Chloe called out as she walked back into the room she'd fled earlier.

"Couldn't stay away? It's the hospital gown, isn't it? Women always go for the birds with the broken wing."

When his only response was the rise of a shapely brow, he looked at her more closely. "Interesting. Immune to my charm?"

"I was vaccinated when I entered your employ."

And that definitely intrigued Oliver. Not because he'd hired a beautiful woman. And not because she wasn't swooning at his uninspired attempts at flirting – which, in his defense, was usually all the effort that was required. No, what surprised him was that she'd shown up at the hospital. More than that, she'd seemed very concerned for him earlier.

"And just what is it that I've employed you to do?"

"Certainly not to listen to bad pickup lines," she told him as she set her purse and the papers she'd been carrying onto the table next to his bed.

"They're not that bad," he defended.

Giving him a considering look, she nodded and said, "I guess it's just that I've enjoyed the lack of them ever since you went ahead and came out of the closet."

"What?!" Oliver was fairly certain that wasn't something that would have changed with time, and was desperately searching the blank that was his memories when he heard a small snort of laughter.

"Giving an amnesiac fake memories" he asked. "Do you trip blind people, too?"

"If they're heading for the last cup of coffee I'd consider it," she admitted.

Oliver looked her up and down again, but with less lechery and more curiosity. "I must be a glutton for punishment for hiring you then."

"If that's the lead in to a bad spanking joke then the doctors here will be treating you for more than just amnesia," she promised.

The words were said with no animosity, and yet Oliver had the feeling that the small blonde standing next to his bed, rifling through papers, wasn't making an empty threat. Suddenly a sheaf of those papers was shoved into his hands.

"I'm Chloe Sullivan, your private personal assistant." She gestured to the papers he was holding. "That is your life. I run that."

"And I'm okay with that," he questioned.

Sparing him a glance before returning to her organizing she said, "You head a billion dollar company that has increased its profits every fiscal year that I've worked for you. Also, in that time you've faced no paternity suits, incurred no criminal charges, and the press no longer views you as a degenerate with poor impulse control, but as a society favorite and a 'connoisseur of women'."

He could see her distaste for the last description which she'd marked with air quotes. "And you're taking the credit for that?"

"Is the life that you remember running as smoothly," she asked, knowing the answer.

"Good point," he conceded with a shrug. And it was. If what she said was true then hiring her might have been the smartest move he'd ever made.

"So," he mused, "you put an appropriate public face on the secret life off Oliver Queen."

Chloe almost dropped the planner that she'd been holding at the unintentional accuracy of his statement. It was true, but not in any way that he could even begin to speculate.

Of course, the irony of the situation didn't escape her, nor did the difficulty. That a job involving her keeping his secret from the public had now become one of her keeping his secret from himself had increased the complexity of the situation exponentially. Because, while Oliver was in the midst of bout of heavy duty, self- destructive denial, he wasn't even remotely stupid.

"I'm your eyes and ears in the world. I pinpoint potential problems, smooth the way for you, and then watch your back so that you're free to pursue your goals," she told him, reasoning that it was a fairly apt description of her job.

And, again, Oliver heard that intriguing thread of steel that ran through her tone.

"Sounds full service. Do you bump off the people who get in my way," he teased. However his small faltered when her head tilted to the side and her serious eyes met his.

"If I don't ask you to dig the graves then I see little need for the question."

And then he finally saw it – the hint of mischief in her eyes, the ever so slight twitch of her lips, and he felt a sense of relief. He had to admit he believed her when she said she held an important place in his life. It wasn't just her words; it was all of it – her body language, the looks she gave him, her complete ease in his presence that screamed that she belonged there. And since she was clearly someone significant to him, he was glad that she probably wasn't a psychotic serial killer.

His fanciful musings of murder and mayhem were interrupted as she placed her small hand on his arm.

"Oliver, I know that you don't remember me, and I know that this probably seems very different from the life that you can remember," she said. "But please believe me when I say that I want to help you. Not just because you're my employer, but also because you're my friend."

There was no doubting the sincerity in her warm, green gaze, and he found himself wondering what had changed in the years he had lost. The last thing that he remembered about his life was the drive to gorge himself on the shallow pursuits that his money, fame, and looks afforded. He'd tried being more; thought that after his island stay, that maybe with Tess he could be someone better than he'd been. But he'd ruined that magnificently and he'd finally accepted that just wasn't who Oliver Queen was meant to be.

And if he was honest with himself – and the lack of alcohol made that painful easier – he loathed that feeling of failure. He hated that he was never going to be a man that would make his parents proud. And if he couldn't be that man, then he didn't see the point of denying himself whatever it took to make that sense of utter defeat recede, no matter how briefly. And so he filled his life with parties and drinking and meaningless encounters with people as cold and indifferent as he wanted to be.

Which was what made Chloe Sullivan such a startling addition to his life. While she was undeniably attractive in many ways that tugged at both his mind and his body, there was no doubting that she was a woman of substance. Her mere presence radiated purpose and determination before a single word left her mouth. She was everything he could remember avoiding and, frankly, she scared the hell out of him. But beyond that; beyond the fears and insecurities he rarely acknowledged, he knew one thing so deeply that it seemed to defy the bulk of his remaining memories.

He'd trust this woman with his life.