Oliver stood as close as he dared which wasn't that close, Greta was at the front of the crowd, she wasn't very good at covert work, she kept staring back at him and he had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. He couldn't believe he agreed to let the two of them tag along but Rachel said that there was no way there were going to miss this and then pulled the caretaker card on him again. He relented in the end but now he was starting to regret that.
Chloe was getting closer and closer to Greta and Rachel and finally Greta's hand reached forward and Chloe embraced it. Oliver didn't know if she'd gotten the note, her face, her movements betrayed nothing. When she released Greta's hand he saw her palm drop very quickly to her side and then it was back again. She'd put the note in her pocket. She still had the magic hands, he smiled slightly. "I think she got it." Greta said when she was back at Oliver's side.
"She did." Oliver said.
"Do you think she'll come?" Rachel asked.
"She'll come, she can't help herself. She used to be a reporter. Anything for a story." Oliver said watching as she made her way down the line. Her eyes lighting up as the villagers passed her homemade gifts, worthless trinkets, but she acted as if they were diamonds or pearls. She was so different now, but yet still the same. Eight years had done nothing but good things to her and he smiled at the sophisticated woman she'd become. But at the same time she had that childlike wonder about her, that innate goodness and curiosity that had drawn him in so completely so long ago.
"Are you coming?" Greta asked tugging on his sleeve.
"Yeah." He said, sparing one last look at her as she yelped in surprise when a child ran up and attached himself to her leg. "Yeah." He turned away and sighed.
Greta checked her watch for the fifth time and sighed. "Will you relax, he says she'll come, she'll come." Rachel sighed leaning back in her seat as she kept an eye on the door.
"She's two hours late." Greta said.
"Maybe it takes a while to put on all that make up." Rachel scoffed.
"I don't wear a lot of make up." A voice said, sliding into the seat in front of the two girls. "I prefer the natural look."
"Where did you come from?" Greta looked confused.
"I've been at the bar the whole time. I don't know you, I don't know what you're trying to pull, I wanted to see how long you were willing to wait for me." She took a sip from her bottled water and looked at the two girls. "This is the part where you two say you've got some information for me and then we barter on price."
"No price." Greta shook her head.
"You don't know how to barter do you?" Chloe smiled. She slapped the slip of paper on the counter. "I don't find this the least bit amusing."
"It's not a joke." Rachel glared at her.
"Oliver Queen has been dead for eight years. I…I'm not amused." Chloe's eyes turned hard, unfeeling. When the girl had slipped her the paper while shaking her hand earlier that day, instinctively she hid it, slipped it in her pocket, didn't draw attention to it, but didn't think much of it either. She almost forgot about it until she was looking for change to give to the children. When she opened it, when she read it she was glad she'd spent the past eight years learning how to school her features, to give nothing away because inside she felt like someone had just grabbed a hold of her lungs and squeezed with all their might. "Watchtower, Oliver Queen sent us. Meet at bar on fourth street, midnight."
She debated with herself whether she even wanted to go. It had to be a trap, something set up by Lionel but…as much as he knew about Oliver, even about Oliver being the Green Arrow and that Chloe worked for him, he hadn't known about Watchtower. It could have been Bart, or Victor, or even AC but this seemed something to cruel for even them to do. Maybe it was Dinah, however it didn't feel like her either. In the end she'd talked herself into going, out of curiosity if nothing else, that old reporters instinct that she couldn't get rid of no matter how hard she tried.
"But he's not dead, he really isn't." Rachel said. "We can prove it to you." Rachel opened up her phone and showed Chloe pictures she'd taken earlier that day of Oliver with the day's paper.
"Are you…holding him hostage?" Chloe looked between the two girls.
"We aren't kidnappers." Greta rolled her eyes. "We're his nurses. He's been in a hospital, in a coma for eight years, he woke up about nine months ago."
"He's been awake for nine months?" Chloe asked a little confused, a lot hurt and at the same time ecstatic that he was even alive. "Why didn't he contact anyone?"
"He didn't know who he was at first." Greta explained about the amnesia. "All he could remember was you and then he thought you were dead." Chloe's eyebrows rose at this. "He said the last memory he had of you, you'd been shot and…he thought you were dead until he saw you on the news last week."
"Oh." Chloe said.
"He gave us this." Greta passed her the sealed envelope. Chloe opened it slowly, reading the letter, tears forming in her eyes, sometimes a laugh, sometimes a sad smile.
"He's alive." Chloe said taking one last look at the letter then sighing as she held it over the candle and it caught on fire.
"What are you doing?" Rachel gasped. "He spent hours on that."
"I know, and no one else can ever see this." She said apologetically. "Ever, delete the pictures from your phone." She ordered.
"He wants to see you." Greta said as Rachel deleted the pictures.
"He can't." Chloe sighed finishing her drink. "Tell him that, he can't see me, he can't talk to me, he just can't. Tell him to forget I exist."
"You're all he's talked about since he woke up. Even when he didn't remember who he was he remembered you." Rachel seemed to be getting angry.
"If he knows what's good for him, he'll forget about me." Chloe stood up. "Tell him I'm a happily married woman. Tell him not to contact me again." She turned around and walked away.
"God, what a bitch." Rachel said.
Chloe closed her eyes, Oliver was alive, he'd been alive for eight years, it was almost like, no matter what happened now, it was all worth it. "Wait…" She heard the other girl's voice and turned around slowly. "I don't think your being a bitch."
"Thanks." Chloe said sarcastically.
"When he came into the hospital, he'd been shot. He thought you were dead because the only thing he could remember was you getting shot too." Chloe unconsciously brought her hand to her hip, rubbing the scar from the bullet that Lionel had shot her with. "I'm thinking maybe you're trying to protect him, maybe you're trying to help him."
"Maybe I'm just a bitch." Chloe countered.
"No." Greta smiled. "He called you his Angel." Chloe could feel the lump forming in her throat. "Is there anything unofficially that you want me to tell him?"
There were so many things that Chloe wanted to tell him, but could she risk it? She wanted to tell him that she loved him, that not a day had gone by in the past eight years she didn't think about him, miss him that she still cried at night over the loss of him from her life. But she couldn't tell him all of that, it took everything she had to come here tonight and she couldn't risk that with sentimental nonsense that wouldn't make a difference anyway. "No." Chloe shook her head. "I can't…"
"Please." Greta grabbed her arm. "Something, anything."
Chloe sighed and took a deep breath, throwing caution to the wind. "Tell him that," She paused smiling at a distant memory. "Tell him, "All the world's a stage"."
The confusion was obvious on Greta's face as she watched Chloe walk away, she was hoping for a declaration of love, a tearful goodbye but definitely not that.
Greta and Rachel stood in front of Oliver nervously. "She said that?" Oliver said confused. "She said never to contact her again, to forget that she existed?"
"I know she's you're long lost whatever." Rachel said. "But she was kind of a bitch. Maybe she does love this guy. You were gone a long time."
Oliver smiled slightly at this comment but just nodded, letting the two girls know he'd like to be alone. Rachel left but Greta stood there. "There's something else." Greta said quietly.
"What?" Oliver looked up at her.
"She said to tell you, she said to tell you, "All the world's a stage"."
Oliver looked confused for a second and then the small smile he'd had before grew ten times in size. "She said that? Those were her exact words?"
"Yeah." Greta nodded, not sure how but that had made him feel better. "What does that mean?"
"It means she doesn't love him." Oliver said smiling. Greta wasn't sure how he got that from what she said but she smiled, happy for him as she walked out the door. "She doesn't love him."
"I can't believe she gets to go in undercover." Dinah pouted as she perched on the corner of the desk.
"You are somewhat of a public figure." AC pointed out. "I'm not sure that people would believe you were really Ms. Peterson."
"I'm not sure people would believe a girl like you would ever marry this guy." Bart smiled pointing at AC.
"Hey!" AC glared at him. "I could get a girl like Dinah." Dinah scoffed.
"I'm not sure that people are gonna believe Chloe would ever marry a guy like you." Victor said smiling.
"You know I'm not a leper." AC sighed exasperated.
"So you know what to do?" Oliver asked Chloe as he fitted her with the microphone.
"Pretend to be madly in love with my husband and desperate for a baby." Chloe smiled. They were investigating a fertility clinic they believed to have ties to Lex and 33.1.
"Don't take any drugs they give you and if they want a blood sample, make sure to switch yours out with the fake one." Oliver said and Chloe tapped her bag to indicate she had it and everything was fine. "But seriously." He smiled and looked over at AC. "You think you can do this? Really? Pretend to be in love with AC?"
"All the world's a stage." Chloe said smiling. "I can do this."
"All right then, move out." Oliver said.
"Yes sir." Chloe mock saluted him and turned to grab AC's arm.
"I could get a girl like you." He pouted.
"Of course you could." Chloe assured him smiling. "You're a great catch."
"Fish jokes, all I ever get are fish jokes." He mumbled.
Oliver smiled to himself. She was faking it, she was pretending to be the happily married wife of Lex Luther. Why? He didn't know that yet but he would find out and if she was doing it to protect him, he was going to fix that. He was going to make things right, he might have been away for a while but it was his turn to protect her, whether she wanted him to or not. He pulled himself up and made his way to the door of the hotel room. It was time to go back to the hospital, to get in shape, it was time to get out of there, and it was time to show the world that Oliver Queen was back.
"Thank you." Chloe said smiling to the waitress as she set the breakfast plate in front of her.
"You're welcome miss." The woman bowed slightly before walking out of the room.
Chloe hummed quietly to herself as she buttered her toast and Lex lowered the newspaper beside her, looking at her quizzically. "Someone's in a good mood today." He smiled at her.
"Someone is." She said taking a bite of her toast and smiling even bigger, she couldn't stop smiling now.
"Did you get lucky last night?" Lex joked with her.
"No." She said rolling her eyes. "Did you?" She raised an eyebrow at him and he brought the paper back up, covering his face. "Guess that's a no."
"Are you going to be in this mood all day?" He asked tiredly from behind the paper.
"You know." Chloe said thinking about it. "I might be in this mood forever."
"Lord help us all." Lex chuckled but Chloe ignored him. She broke ground yesterday on the first of 200 new schools in Africa and then she found out that Oliver was alive. Life couldn't get much better than that.
Chloe could hear the whispers; she could feel the stares, even though they weren't directed at her. "It's Oliver Queen." A lady said to her right. Chloe resisted the urge to turn and look. She was just as shocked as everyone else when three weeks ago every news agent in the world showed Oliver Queen, billionaire business man back from the dead, arriving in Star City. It was one thing to see pictures on someone's cell phone, read the note he'd written to her. It was another thing entirely to see him walk off of a plane, smiling and waving at the crowd that had gathered.
"I still can't believe he's alive." Another voice whispered.
"Back from the dead and still looks hot." Another said.
"He's coming this way."
"Lex." Oliver said.
Lex turned around and Chloe took a deep breath turning with him. "Oliver, wow, so the rumors of your death had been greatly exaggerated."
"Greatly." Oliver smiled. "Aren't you going to introduce me to…"
"Oh, Chloe this is Oliver Queen, Oliver this is my wife Chloe." Lex frowned. "I believe Oliver dated your cousin Lois once."
"Oh right." Chloe shook Oliver's hand. "A long time ago. I find it strange we've never met until now."
"Well I have been dead for eight years." Oliver reminded her.
"Right." Chloe smiled. "How did that work out for you?"
"Almost lost my company, my house, my inheritance and I'm so far behind on General Hospital that it's like watching a completely different soap opera." He joked.
Chloe smiled politely and wondered what the hell he was doing. She had hoped that she was very clear with her message, to leave her alone, and yet, his first party after coming back from the dead and he immediately makes a bee line for her group. He turned his attention to the other couples that were standing with her and Lex, regaling them with the story of where he'd been and what had happened. She'd heard the "official" story, it was everywhere, CNN, Larry King, FOX News. He'd been doing some sort of daredevil stunt, parachuting out of a low flying plane over some mountains and he'd lost control of his shute, crashed into the ocean and washed ashore on a small island off the coast of Madagascar where he spent eight years in a coma. She ignored him, listening to his fake version only made her remember the real one and she couldn't think about that now.
Instead she studied him. He looked good, he looked really good, healthy, fit, not like a man who'd been in a coma for eight years. He looked, just as she remembered him. "If you'll excuse me." Oliver said politely before bowing out of the group and making his way to another group at the party.
"It's amazing." Lex said in her ear. "The man just won't die."
"Excuse me?" Chloe said confused.
"All the things that he's been through. The plane crash that killed his parents, being stranded on a desert island, a coma…if I didn't know any better I'd say he was invincible." Lex sipped his champagne.
"Invincible?" Chloe said glancing over at him. "Nah, maybe just lucky."
"I wish I had his luck." Lex grumbled.
Oliver tried to pay attention to whatever inane story Sissy Laughlin was telling him but his eyes involuntarily kept drifting over to Chloe, where she stood with Lex, his arm around her waist. He watched as he leaned down and whispered something in her ear, he watched as she laughed, a real throaty, down in your stomach laugh. He watched as she leaned her head on Lex's shoulder, as he kissed the side of her temple, slowly rubbed his hand up and down her back. "Make's your stomach hurt just to look at them doesn't it?" A familiar voice said.
"Yeah." He answered without thinking.
"You feel like you're going to lose your lunch, like the world doesn't make sense, like it might start spinning backwards at any moment?" She asked again.
"How did you know?" He turned around and smiled to see Lois staring at Lex and Chloe.
"Cause I've been watching them for eight years and I still feel that way every time I see it." She sipped her champagne and tore her eyes away to smile sadly at Oliver. "Welcome back."
"Thanks." He said to her. "What are you doing here? Charity fundraiser, not really your scene, unless you married some big wig too?"
"No." She laughed. "I'm covering it for the Daily Planet."
"You're still a reporter?" He smiled.
"Of course." She nudged him a bit with her hip and she was quite for a minute. While Oliver tried to figure out what to say to an ex girlfriend after coming back from the dead, she turned to him. "I blamed you."
"What?" He asked confused.
"For the longest time I blamed you." Lois nodded her head at Chloe and Lex. "I mean I wasn't stupid, I knew she worked with you and I knew you guys had some strange special bond and I didn't think it was coincidence at all that three months after you die, she's married to Lex Luther."
"You blamed me?" Oliver asked.
"I didn't know how or why but I just knew that it was your fault. I could feel it in my gut, I wanted…I wanted to find you and bring you back to life so I could kill you again." Lois sighed.
"So am I safe, have your homicidal tendencies lessened over the years?" Oliver moved slightly further away from her.
"Relax Queen I'm not going to kill you." Lois rolled her eyes. "Eventually I just grew to accept it. I've even had Christmas dinner with the Luther's these past couple of years, one great big happy family that's us."
"And?" Oliver looked over at Chloe and Lex.
"I don't know." Lois shrugged. "I mean they seem like the perfect couple. They seem to love each other, they seem…but something's missing, something isn't right and I've been trying to figure out what for eight years with no success."
"If Lois can't figure it out what hope do the rest of us have?" Oliver joked.
"Hey!" She glared at him. "I'm a damn good reporter. I didn't believe the skydiving story for a moment but you covered your tracks pretty good, if it wasn't for an ace up my sleeve I never would have found out about the gunshot wound." Oliver turned to her a little concerned. "Relax, you're secret's safe with me but you seriously paid quite a bit for silence."
"Obviously not enough." He grumbled.
"No one told me, no one told me anything, you've got those people shut up tighter than Fort Knox. Unfortunately there was just no way to get rid of all of your medical files." She smiled.
Oliver sighed, he'd worked hard, spent quite a bit of money and made even more promises to keep the majority of his story hushed up.
"This is more than generous Mr. Queen." Dr. Beck said to him as Oliver signed the check and handed it over.
"You guys kept me alive for eight years, it's the least I could do." Oliver smiled at him. He'd returned to civilization rather quietly, got his company back, his money, but before he could come out the world, he had to make sure that no one found out what really happened to him.
"A new hospital?" Rachel scoffed. "With state of the art equipment, on an island the size of Washington DC? Can you say over kill?" Oliver looked over at her. "What? We kept Mr. Steven's alive for thirty five years and he took fifty bucks off me in last night's poker game."
"Look, I just really appreciate what you guys did for me here and I want to make sure everyone can get the same medical attention that I did."
"Of course." Dr. Beck smiled. "If there's anything else that we can do for you, don't hesitate to ask."
"Actually, there is just one small thing." Oliver said. "A lot of people are going to call here, come here, try and find out what happened to me, you can tell them whatever you want about my treatment and my coma and recovery I just ask that you don't mention anything about the gunshot wound."
"Sure thing." Dr. Beck nodded. "Not a peep."
"I really appreciate it Dr. Beck." Oliver shook his hand as the man walked away, staring in disbelief at the check.
"So you're really leaving?" Rachel jumped down of f her perch on the desk. "This is weird, I'm just so used to you being around." She shrugged. "Granted the first five years you were asleep but after you woke up, you sort of grew on me."
"Rachel." Greta chastised her.
"Here," Oliver handed both of them an envelope. "I owe you guys for…well for a lot of things actually but literally I owe you for the plane tickets and the hotel on Madagascar."
"You didn't have to." Greta smiled at him.
"Yes he did." Rachel tore open her envelope and pulled the check out only to drop it on the ground. "Holy shit." She said bending down to pick it up and look at it again. "Wait, you do know I just bought the plane tickets, not the plane?" She said staring at the zeros.
"Yeah, but you also said you were gonna charge me interest." Oliver pointed out.
"This is what you call interest?" She looked up at him. "I could by an Island with this interest. I could buy this Island with the interest."
"So buy and island." Oliver smiled. "The money's yours."
"What are you talking about?" Greta pulled the check from Rachel and then looked between Oliver and the check two or three times before tearing open her own envelope.
"I knew it." Rachel smiled. "When it comes to money she's just as greedy as the rest of us." Rachel smiled watching Greta's eyes get wider and wider as she took in all the zeros on her own check.
"Mon dieu." She looked up at Oliver and tried to shove the check back into his hands. "I can't take this."
"You have to." He shook his head and folded his arms over his chest. "I'm not taking it back."
"It's too much." She tried again to push the check on him and again he shook his head.
"You read to me." Oliver told her. "When I was in that coma, I remember some things and you read to me, practically every day, you just sat there and you read to me. It's not too much." He gently pushed the arm holding the check back toward her. "If anything it's not enough."
"I don't know what to say." Greta cried, the tears falling.
"Travel, see the world, take some time off from work, write that novel you're always talking about." Oliver shrugged. "Live a little."
"You heard the man." Rachel threw an arm over Greta's shoulder. "Live a little."
Greta laughed through her tears and Oliver said his goodbyes before leaving the hospital, then the island, probably forever.
"What happened out there?" Lois asked him. "That night? I know from AC that you guys were on a boat somewhere doing something for your little Justice League. But how does it go from mission on a boat to dead Oliver and married Chloe."
"If I knew that…" He trailed off glancing over at Chloe and Lex again as they smiled and talked. "It would make my job so much easier."
"I need you to save her." Lois said. "I never asked anything of you, ever you know that, even after I found out who you were and what you did, I never once asked, but I'm asking you now."
"What if she doesn't need to be saved?" Oliver voiced the question he hadn't wanted to hear the answer to. "It's been eight years. She could have saved herself ten times over by now. She's a resourceful girl."
"Chloe Sullivan is married to Lex Luther." Lois pointed out. "There isn't a single part of that sentence that isn't wrong and you know it. Maybe she didn't want to save herself. Maybe she didn't have a reason. Maybe she was waiting for someone to do it for her."
"Ok." Oliver nodded.
"Good." Lois said before finishing her champagne and walking away.
Oliver kept a close eye on the couple for the rest of the party. There was one thing he discovered after about two hours, he was never going to get Chloe alone. Lex had a pretty tight grip on her most of the time and when he wasn't glued to her hip, she threw herself into a large group of women, he'd rather not go over and put himself in the middle of. He did notice something though, toward the end of the party, Lex got a phone call, a phone call that Chloe over heard, a phone call that started a discussion. Oliver could tell, though he wasn't sure if anyone else could, that the phone call had upset Chloe. That throughout the discussion she was trying her hardest to keep her temper in check. He could also tell that the phone call wasn't what was really upsetting her.
Chloe and Lex drove back to the penthouse in silence; they walked in the lobby, to the elevator, in the elevator and to the door in silence. It wasn't until they both made their way into the study that either of them spoke. "You were late tonight." Chloe said reaching up to pull the pins out of her hair. "What's her name?"
"Careful dear." Lex said pouring two cups of scotch and walking over to Chloe. "One would think you actually cared."
"What I care about dear." Chloe smiled and took the glass from him. "Is that you at least have the decency this time not to fuck one of my friends." She took a sip and relished in the way it burned her throat. "I have to live in this town Lex, and in this marriage."
"Would you rather I fuck you instead?" He asked setting his glass down and moving toward her, placing one hand on either side of her waist, effectively trapping her against the table. "Is that what you really want?"
Chloe took another sip before pulling herself up to sit on the table top. "When has anything in this relationship been about what I want?" Chloe asked him.
"When it comes to this?" Lex asked sliding his hands under the slit of her dress and slowly bringing them up to her waist. "It's always been about what you want." He reminded her kneading the skin of her hips with his fingers. "When you want." He dipped his head and kissed her jaw line causing her to close her eyes involuntarily. He nudged her knees with his hips and they opened, just enough so he could slip through them stand in between them. "Is this what you want Chloe?" He pulled her forward, smashing her against his body as he made his way down the curve of her neck to her shoulders.
"I'm still mad at you." She managed to croak out.
"Never stopped you before." He smiled against her skin. "In fact, generally, when you're mad at me, it makes it more…interesting." He lifted his head up and kissed her, pulling her closer as she hands clawed at his jacket, not pulling him close, not pushing him away. "What do you want Chloe?" He asked her again and again as he pulled her underwear down, dropping them on the floor between them. "What do you want?" He asked again as her hands found their way to his waistband.
There was a cough at the door and they both turned to see Mary, Lex's assistant standing there. Lex didn't move, save for his head when he glared at her. "What?"
"That phone call you've been waiting on from Hong Kong." She said before stepping out of the room.
Lex sighed and turned to Chloe. "We'll finish this later?"
"I won't be in the mood later." Chloe smirked at him and raised her eyebrows. It was a challenge, stay now, get lucky, take your phone call, go to sleep unfulfilled.
Lex sighed and stepped away from Chloe and walked to the door. Work always trumped sex. She jumped off the table and walked over to the bar to pour herself another drink. At some point between getting to the penthouse and now it had started raining, bad. Lightning flashed in the sky and Chloe almost jumped ten feet in the air when she saw the figure outlined on the balcony. The silhouette was so familiar but it had been so many years since she'd seen it she almost didn't recognize him. Green Arrow. He was just standing there, staring into the room, an unreadable expression on his face, the glasses hiding his eyes.
Chloe sighed and realized, he'd seen what had just happened, he'd seen her exchange with Lex, she could play the lovey dovey married couple in front of Lois, in front of Clark even, in front of the world. She could kiss her husband on national television but she never wanted Oliver to see that. It wasn't even what he thought, it wasn't like she wanted him. It was a game they played now, a game that was so complicated at this point in their relationship that Chloe tried to avoid it at all costs, just to keep her head above water. She managed to win tonight but the next time she might not be so lucky.
She composed herself, calmly took a breath and walked over to the balcony, unlocking the doors and walking away. Oliver let himself in, bringing rain and leaves in with him and Chloe walked back to the bar. "Can I offer you a drink?"
"Chloe." He had the voice distorter on and that somehow made the shame worse.
"I'm sorry." She turned around. "I'm not sure what exactly the protocol is for uninvited peeping superheroes who just returned from the dead." She slammed her glass down on the counter and Oliver at least had the decency to flinch. His guilt was gone the next moment though and his anger was back.
"What's going on Chloe?" He asked. "What are you doing?" He walked over to the table where she was not moments ago and picked her underwear up off the floor. "What exactly is going on here? I got your message, I was pretty sure I interpreted it correctly but when I get here, I see the very opposite of a fake marriage."
She snatched the underwear out of his hands and glared at him. "If you got that message, then you go the other ones." She said. "Do you remember those? The ones where I said to stay away, not to contact me? The one where I told you to forget I exist?"
"Wasn't going to happen and you knew it." Oliver growled at her. "Did you think I was just going to let this go? Chloe Sullivan married to Lex Luther?"
"You need to." Chloe said to him. "Please Oliver, let it go."
"No." He said shaking his head. "I want to know what's going on, and I'm going to find out, you know I will."
"Oliver…" She was pleading with him now, no more anger, no more annoyance, she was simply begging.
He couldn't tell you what made him do it. He was furious with her, furious with the situation, and even more furious with the scene he was unfortunate enough to witness moments earlier, but he couldn't help it, almost as if his mind and his body had separated and he had no control. She was just standing there, looking up at him with those eyes, those eyes that were so much sadder up close, so much older, begging him and he grabbed her, pulled her up against him, their bodies melding together so closely it obvious to him that this was how it was supposed to be, how it should have been from the beginning. "You're going to tell me what's going on." He whispered to her. She reached up tentatively and pushed the glasses up on to his head.
"Ok." She whispered.
He smiled and leaned down, capturing her mouth in the most brutal and urgent kiss she'd ever felt in her entire life, eight years worth of emotion and desperation went into that kiss and when he pulled away, Chloe wasn't sure if she would be able to remember her name. "And you're not going to do that with him anymore."
"Ok." She whispered again, more than happy to oblige, even if Oliver never kissed her like that again. They stared at each other for a minute before she heard Lex's less than pleased voice coming down the hall.
"No, that's not what we agreed to." He screamed.
"Tomorrow, at the museum." Chloe said. "Four o'clock, the Hooper exhibit." Oliver nodded and released her. He opened the French doors again, letting in more rain and Chloe wondered just briefly how she was going to explain the water. As if reading her mind, Oliver reached down smoothly and broke the door latch, keeping the door from closing before disappearing off to wherever he came from in the first place.
She picked up the phone on the desk and called down to the lobby as she ran to the French doors and held them closed. "Yes we need someone from maintenance up to the Penthouse." She was saying when Lex walked into the room. "The balcony doors won't close, I think the latch is broken." She looked over at Lex and he sighed, walking to her to help her keep the doors shut. "I understand we're on the top floor, I'm not exactly worried about burglars here, I'm a little more concerned about the three feet of water that's being pumped into the room by the minute. Half an hour, great." She turned off the phone and sighed as Lex moved a chair in front of the doors, keeping them closed. "Thank You." Chloe said, looking at her gown which was now soaked almost up to her knees. "I'm going to change."
"Wait." Lex called out for her. "Are we going to finish what we started?"
"Not tonight dear." Chloe turned around smiling sweetly. "I have a headache." Lex glared at her for a second and she turned to walk away. "Besides, you have to wait up for the repair man." She walked back to their bedroom her nerves finally giving away once she was away from Lex, her legs shaking, her knees weak. What was she doing? She told Oliver that she'd see him tomorrow, that she'd tell him everything. She couldn't do that, he'd find out, he'd know she broke the deal, and she had no idea what he would do if that happened.
She fell asleep more easily than she thought she would, her dreams however weren't so easy. She went back to that night on the boat, that night that she'd tried eight years to forget unsuccessfully.
Chloe watched Oliver's body be thrashed around in the water below, she couldn't believe she'd just pushed him over. AC was a good swimmer, and he would get out of there and he would find Oliver, she had to believe that. "I don't have all day Miss Sullivan." Lionel told her and she defiantly pulled herself up, putting as little weight as possible on her leg and walking over to him.
"If anything happens to him…I'll kill you myself." Chloe said.
"I highly doubt that my dear." Lionel told her grabbing her arm and pulling her away.
At some point, out of pain, exhaustion and heart ache she fell asleep, or possibly passed out, she's not sure which. She just knew that when she woke up she was in a hospital, well what looked like a hospital, but knowing Lionel in all actuality she could have just been in a converted warehouse somewhere. "Good, you're up." Lionel snapped his paper shut and smiled at her. Chloe pulled herself up in the bed and glared at him.
"Where am I?" Chloe asked. "What do you want?"
"We'll get to that in a second." Lionel said. "But you're safe."
Chloe snorted. "Lana told me about what you did to Clark, how you betrayed him…but I didn't think…"
"Miss Sullivan, you should have known me well enough by now to realize that I've always been the villain of this story." He smiled at her. "You and I are going to make a deal."
"I don't make deals with you anymore." Chloe said.
"Oh I think you'll make this one." Lionel told her. "After all it would be a shame if the world learned that Oliver Queen was really the Green Arrow, if the world learned the true identity of all your little friends, if Lex learned about them all, even Clark."
"You wouldn't." Chloe glared at him.
"In all your experience with me, do you really think there's anything I wouldn't do?" Lionel asked.
"I thought you were changed." Chloe told him. "Saved by Jor-El."
"I was." Lionel said. "As you all refused to believe to the point where, the gift that saved me, condemned me."
"I don't understand." Chloe looked at him quizzically.
"It was taken away." Lionel explained. "My connection, my salvation."
"Jor-El cut you off?" Chloe whispered.
"At the instance of his son." Lionel nodded. "So really? What did I have left?"
"What everyone has left." Chloe told him. "A chance, to prove that without any outside influence, without anything in it for you, you really did change."
"No." Lionel said. "What I have left is my revenge."
"Spoken like a true Luther." Chloe snapped.
"I wouldn't sully that name about ." Lionel smiled. "Because soon you'll be carrying it yourself." Chloe looked at him confused as he laid down the plan to her, her punishment, her sentence. "You Miss Sullivan, are going to become my new daughter in law."
"Come again?" Chloe said stuttering. "You want me to marry Lex?"
"Precisely." Lionel said to her.
"Wow, ok, this just took a turn for the weird." Chloe laughed at him. "One, never, two doesn't Lex have some say in who he marries, and three, never ever."
"Alexander was allowed to pick his last three wives and we've all seen where that has gotten him." Lionel said. "He has his own reasons for agreeing to this, and you have yours." Chloe opened her mouth and Lionel held up a hand. "Clark, AC, Bart, Victor, Dinah." Chloe hung her head. "And Oliver will all stay hidden, stay in their safe lives, with their secret identities, Lex, and the world, will never know if you agree to this."
"And if I don't?" Chloe asked defiantly.
"You know what my son is capable of, and you know how long he's been after the secret of Clark Kent, what do you think would happen?" Lionel asked her. "You have twenty four hours to make a decision."
"Oliver?" Chloe asked as he walked to the door.
"Oh, right." He tossed her the newspaper and smiled. "My condolences."
Chloe picked up the paper and felt the tears come again. She had to read the headline at least five times before it made any sense. "Oliver Queen Missing, Presumed Dead." She cried all through the night, the nurses politely ignored her sobs, didn't bother to ask what was wrong, if there was anything they could do to help, they left her to her sorrow. She cried until the moment the knob turned on the door to her room, until she saw his figure outlined in the glass window. She wouldn't cry again, not for a long time, she wouldn't let herself.
"You're answer?" He asked simply, he didn't bother to come in, to sit down and enquire after her health, none of that mattered.
"I'll do it." Chloe said stiffly. "On one condition."
"Do you really think you're in a position to be bargaining here?"
"I think I'm in the perfect position to be bargaining here." Chloe responded.
"Very well." Lionel sighed.
"33.1, it's over, done with, never again, shut down all the facilities, return all the people." Chloe glared at him.
"33.1 is Lex's project."
"And apparently you've got Lex by the short hairs." Chloe pointed out. "Otherwise there's no way he'd agree to this marriage, so make him do it, or no deal."
"Fine." Lionel nodded. "No one but the three of us knows about this, not your cousin, not Clark, definitely not any of your little team, Victor, Bart, AC, or Dinah."
"Go to hell." Chloe said to him.
"Is that anyway to talk to your father-in-law?" He chuckled before closing the door again.
Chloe sat bolt upright in bed, those feelings, that intense hatred and anger she'd felt all those years ago washing over her, coming back again as if a floodgate had been opened. "Are you going to come down to breakfast?" Lex asked, not bothering to inquire why she had such an abrupt wake up.
"No." Chloe said pulling the covers around her waist. "I've got to get to the museum." Lex turned and looked at her confused. "I promised I'd help with the clean up and it's the last day for the Macon exhibit." She explained stepping out of bed and grabbing her robe.
"I won't be home until late." He grabbed his jacket and without a further glance walked out of the bedroom. He was mad at her. Mad for accusing him of sleeping with someone else. The times when he got like this always reminded her of the beginning of their marriage. He just had this ability to turn it off, forget about the years that they'd been together and act as if it were still that first month, when neither of them wanted to be there, when they didn't know each other so well. He'd be like this for another few days, cold and distant and right now she was glad for that, glad that at least while she was betraying him, he wouldn't be acting like the model husband.
She almost had to laugh at the irony. There were times in their marriage when Lex was sleeping with anyone and anything that wasn't his wife, while Chloe, the dutiful bride smiled nice and pretended that she didn't know, that it wasn't happening. He'd stopped years ago, Chloe didn't know, or didn't want to admit why suddenly Lex had become the model of a faithful partner, why he stopped chasing women, stayed true to her. She found it ironic that once her husband finally decided to stay devoted to her she had kissed another man. She had gone for eight years without touching another man, kissing another man until last night and she only felt a small pang of regret that she didn't regret it at all.
Next Chapter: Lex and Chloe the early years.