--3--

Well that was...surprisingly and pleasantly not awkward, Oliver thought on the way back from dinner. He'd taken Chloe to her favorite place in the hope that it would be familiar to her, but she hadn't noticed. He even told her what to order because he knew what her favorite dish was, and while she'd thoroughly enjoyed it, it hadn't returned any memories...at least none that she let on about.

All through the meal, Oliver became more and more conscious of the fact that Chloe didn't trust him, which was odd, really, because otherwise she seemed ten times more carefree and lighthearted than he'd ever known her to be. It had never occurred to Oliver to wonder what Chloe was like before the world of heroes entered her life. It had been so long before he'd met her that somehow he had just assumed that she'd always been that way. But the Chloe he'd spent the evening with was different. There was still a faint trace of tragedy behind her eyes, but not the weighty one that had been there until the car wreck. He assumed that look had been there since her mother vanished. Still, it just didn't seem to burden her the way the loss of Jimmy and the Doomsday incident did. Even before that she'd seemed weigh down, practically buried, under secrets and lies and knowledge of things that the average person simply should not have.

He couldn't help it. He liked Chloe with her younger mentality. She was...charming. Not that she wasn't charming before...she's just more...cheerful? he searched for the correct word in his mind.

Yet with all that, it bothered him that this new Chloe--or perhaps this old Chloe--didn't trust him. It was evident by the tone she took when asking him questions, the suspicious looks she shot him when he did his best to answer but had to form half-truths. On some level, he understood that it was only natural. After all, he was currently hiding a lot from her. It didn't matter how old she was, from what Clark had told him about growing up with Chloe, Chloe could sense a secret from ten miles away. Oliver vaguely wondered how long it would be before she put two and two together about the members of the JL. It was bound to happen. She'd figured it all out once before hadn't she? For now, he knew he had to keep it all from her, but he was sincerely looking forward to her figuring it out once again, or, better still, remembering it all. Much as he liked to see her so unburdened, he needed Watchtower back.

He missed her.

Chloe had thanked Oliver for a nice dinner and then eagerly headed for the room he was letting her sleep in, shutting the door carefully behind her. As soon as she was sure he wouldn't come in after her, she rummaged for pajamas and found a nightgown she was mildly shocked she even owned. Once upon a time she'd been a sweatpants and over-sized T-shirts kind of girl. She tried to remind herself she was definitely not fifteen anymore. And really, it wasn't racy or anything, just a bit shorter and a bit more clinging than she ever would have had in high school.

She wondered what her romantic life had been like since high school. More importantly, she wondered if she had ever gotten over Clark Kent. All those years ago, it hadn't seemed likely that she ever would. Seeing him in the hospital, she'd felt the same fluster of butterflies in her stomach as she knew she had once upon a time, but all at once it felt unnatural, too. It was almost as if her body were wondering what was wrong with her brain.

She shook away the thought and moved on to more important matters. Oliver's right about one thing, she smirked to herself as she found a laptop that was evidently hers, I can't resist doing a web search on everyone I meet.

She sat down on the edge of the bed. She researched Bart first, as she had remembered him first and was hoping she could learn more about him, but that search was virtually fruitless. The name Bart Allen brought up virtually no results and she resigned herself to talking to him later to find out more.

Next she went for Lois, and then Clark. She didn't go too far back, thinking that most of the articles were probably about people of similar names, and instead she only checked the recent results. She was pleased and incredibly surprised to realize they were both not only working at the Daily Planet but frequently sharing front page bylines. At fifteen she never would have expected that in a million years, let alone the fact that Clark and Lois had eventually ended up together. She had to struggle not to think too much about them. She was having difficulties not paying attention to the fact that her cousin was living the life she had once envisioned for herself. She pushed the matter aside with great effort, not willing to dwell on it at the moment when there were more important things to research.

She decided to google herself next. Pages and pages of results popped up and Chloe was surprised to discover that almost all of them were in fact about her. She couldn't possibly get through all of them in one night, so she skimmed over most of them, only reading the ones that interested her most. She had, indeed worked for the Daily Planet, with Lois, in fact. She read a few of her articles, amazed at how much her own writing had apparently improved over the years.

She felt a bubbling of hatred for Lex Luthor for firing her. Images of him and Clark flashed before her in succession. Nothing was coherent enough to separate, but she got the gist. The two of them had been friends, but it clearly hadn't lasted.

Clark. The thought of him puzzled her. She couldn't put her finger on it, but she had the strangest feeling there was something very important...something dramatic that she had forgotten about him. She brushed it off eventually when nothing came to her. After all these years, considering they appeared to still be very close, surely at some point one of them had confided something in the other that had been weighty.

Chloe heard a sound from down the hall and it served to turn her attention to a more pressing enigma: the man she was staying with. She recalled his words from earlier in the car, that googling him would produce nothing very flattering, but that only intrigued her more.

Chloe punched in Oliver Queen's name and the first thing she learned was that he was the owner of Queen Industries--a multi-billion operation--and he was worth multi-billion dollars.

She stared at the page in surprise. "I'm very well off?" she repeated his words to her aloud. Well that's the understatement of a century. She skimmed article after article, trying to find out how in the world she had gotten involved with someone like him. Yes, he'd apparently dated her cousin for a period of time, but since when did she get to know all of Lois's boyfriends? She allowed for the fact that she and Lois apparently spent way more time together now, but it was still odd...as though a large puzzle piece were missing. Friends with her cousin's boyfriend? Sure, why not? But working for him? That was just...weird.

She also thought it was unusual that the first two or three pages of results on him were extremely flattering. They talked about him as an extremely philanthropic man who gave a lot to charities, and they recognized him as a business man to be reckoned with. Then she got a few pages deeper, starting to reach items that dated months and slowly years prior, and she saw what Oliver had meant. There were tabloid articles everywhere. He was depicted as a playboy who frequently got too drunk for his own good. She found photos of him collapsing from too much liquor, of him with three women practically hanging on him, of him walking out of a shady nightclub...it went on and on.

Finally she stopped, recognizing that as with herself, there was simply no way she could get through all of the articles on Oliver Queen. She found herself wondering what had made the change in his life. He'd clearly been determined to throw his life away little over a year ago. What was it that had straightened him out?

She shook her head, frustrated with yet another unsolved puzzle to add to her list.

At that moment, something else caught her attention, however. Two male voices were speaking down the hall. When had someone else shown up? Listening more closely, she realized that the second voice belonged to Clark.

But that's impossible. He and Lois left for Mexico this morning! she thought wildly. An unknown instinct told her to hang back, so she cracked her door a bit and listened quietly.

"Oliver, I'm telling you, I think this is for the best! She's happier like this!"

"How can you possibly dismiss her like that? I know she might seem a bit more carefree, but we both know she doesn't want to be kept in the dark! And for the love of God, she's Watchtower! Maybe you can blow her off on a regular basis, but the rest of the JL can barely tie their shoes without her!"

"Do you have any idea how selfish that is?"

"I"m selfish? Me? You're kidding yourself, right? You just want her to forget everything because of your own stupid guilt! Every time something bad happens you're convinced it's your fault--and most of the time it is, don't get me wrong--but that's your problem, not hers!"

"You don't get it, do you? She's miserable they way her life is! She's better off not being involved in any of this."

"I didn't drag her into this world. She chose it and she can leave any time she wants. Chloe may not be a naive teenager anymore, but she likes what she does. She wants this life. You know that if she knew you were contemplating messing with her memories she'd likely murder you. If there's one thing she will always hate, it's being lied to. Now I recommend you get going before Lois misses you. In the meantime, I'm going to be doing everything I can to help Chloe remember things on her own."

"We'll talk about this again later."

"Yeah, sure, Boy Scout."

And suddenly the voices stopped. Chloe walked out of the room and down the hall to find Oliver alone. She looked around, confused. "I heard Clark's voice," she said and Oliver jumped, not having seen her.

Oliver nearly swallowed his tongue at the sight of Chloe. He'd never seen her in sleepwear--although he couldn't say he'd never pictured it--and right now she looked, well, too tempting for her own good. He shook himself. "What?"

"Clark," she repeated. "I heard his voice."

"Clark's in Mexico," Oliver said truthfully.

She glared at him. "I'm aware of that. That's why I thought it was so bizarre that I heard his voice in your living room."

Oliver thought quickly. "I had him on speaker phone."

Chloe wasn't sure she believed him, but really, it was the only thing that made sense, so she accepted it. Besides, she'd more or less just overheard a conversation that proved him to be more concerned about the return of her memory than her own best friend. She tried not to let the concept overwhelm her. "Oh." Then she looked him in the eyes, daring him to lie to her. "What did he have to say?"

Oliver shifted nervously, glancing away from her. "He wanted to know how you were doing. I told him you were sleeping," he said honestly, "which I thought you were. I hope we didn't wake you. We were a little loud," he added sheepishly.

There it was again, that 'I don't trust you at all, you arrogant rich boy' look she'd been shooting him all day. He groaned inwardly. "I wasn't sleeping. I was on the internet."

Oliver's mood lightened. "Oh? Find out anything interesting?"

Chloe wondered whether it would be inappropriate to ask him about the sever change in lifestyle he seemed to have undergone.

He raised an eyebrow at her silence before finally offering her something to drink.

She nodded. "Water would be nice."

He brought her a glass and sat down on the couch. After a while, she sat down on the chair beside it, looking at him thoughtfully.

"I know that look," he told her. "What are you thinking?"

"That you are the strangest person I've ever met," she said truthfully.

Oliver laughed outright. "Seriously? That's the conclusion you came to? I've got news for you, Sidekick: Compared to some of your friends, I'm boring."

Chloe looked startled. "Why do you keep calling me that?" she asked, deciding to dismiss the rest of his remark for the moment.

"Calling you what?"

"Sidekick."

He looked startled. "Huh. I guess I didn't realize I do it. I don't know," he shrugged. "It's a term of endearment, kind of. I think I originally started calling you that because you were threatening and it was a way of putting you in your place, but eventually it just got to be a cute nickname for you." He grinned at her but found that she looked even more confused than before.

"You found me threatening? Me?" she asked incredulously.

"Hey," he teased. "You'd be surprised." He winked at her and Chloe felt her stomach flip. She would say one thing for Oliver Queen: he was by far the most attractive man she'd ever met. She couldn't pretend that Clark hadn't grown up to be handsome, but Oliver Queen was like...like another species.

Oliver watched her intently, wondering what she was thinking. He hated that she thought he was untrustworthy, and he really hated all the secrets he was keeping from her at the moment. Having secrets from Chloe was just plain unnatural.

"Chloe?"

She lifted her eyes to meet his and was startled by the sudden sincerity and uncertainty there. "Hmm?"

He rubbed his temple. "Look, I need you to understand something about the situation we're in right now."

She frowned.

"I know you think that I'm hiding some things from you." He paused as though waiting for confirmation, but Chloe didn't react. "And you're right. Unsurprisingly. But here's the thing: I've got good reason for it, I swear. You have to remember certain things by yourself. My just telling them to you outright might seriously upset you. You have to take my word for it."

Chloe took it all in, combining it in her mind with the two conversations she'd overheard that day, first with Bart and then just a moment before with Clark. Finally she nodded, accepting that he was telling the truth. It was hard to look at him and not believe he was being honest. But she had to ask something important. "Do you want me to remember everything?"

"Absolutely," he said without missing a beat.

"But--but Clark doesn't, does he?"

Oliver looked surprised at first and then dismayed. "How much of that conversation did you overhear?"

"About--" she hesitated, "about half of it."

He shook his head. "I really should have expected that. You've got a talent for finding things out and 'overhearing' things that no one wants you to." She would have expected him to look irritated, but he looked amused.

"You didn't answer the question," Chloe pointed out.

He glanced at her warily. "Clark is your friend."

"That's not an answer, either."

"Clark is also a jerk."

"That's a bit closer."

He sighed. "No, he doesn't want you to remember everything. There are certain things he'd like to stay forgotten, and if I'm being honest, there are certain things I wouldn't mind you forgetting completely either, but I know you, and I know that you need to know everything. You've been through a lot, Chloe, but you wouldn't be the person you are now if you hadn't. Clark just doesn't seem to realize that this is not a get out of jail free card for him. Bad things happen to everyone, and we need those bad things to define us."

Chloe studied him silently for a long time, until at last she said, "Clark and I aren't what we used to be, are we?"

"No," he said bluntly. "Clark has gotten really idiotic when it comes to you."

"How?"

"He doesn't realize how much you can help him, so instead he shoves you to the side a lot under the pretense of protecting you. Unfortunately, though, shoving you to the side just ends up meaning he does stupid things more often than not."

Chloe frowned, feeling almost dizzy with confusion. "How exactly is it that I would help him?"

Oliver looked down. "I can't tell you, but at least give me credit for not making anything up," he added, hoping it would be sufficient. He raised his eyes to her, and Chloe's heart missed a beat. She had recognized the fact that Oliver wanted her to trust him, but for a moment, she realized how much he apparently cared about her. It was a little difficult to wrap her mind around, having a man like him look at her like that.

She managed a small smile for his sake. "Thanks, Oliver."

"You should go to bed, Sidekick. You've had a really long couple of days," he told her, standing up and going to pull her off the chair. "Let me know if you need anything, all right?"

She nodded vaguely, distracted by how large his hand was compared to hers.

She was about to go to bed when she paused for a moment at the edge of the room. "Oliver?" she glanced at him nervously.

He had turned his attentions to some folder, a serious expression on his face, but when he looked up at her he didn't look annoyed, just raised his eyebrows curiously.

She opened her mouth, not even sure what it was she wanted to ask him. When nothing came out, she shook her head. "Never mind."