A/N: In case you hadn't noticed, you are sort of learning this story backwards, so people and things are going to be mentioned that you are unfamiliar with, but you didn't miss something, you just haven't got there yet. Please just bare with me and all will be clear in the end.
Mia leaned against the wall behind the station and exhaled the smoke loudly. The rough edges of the cinderblocks dug into the thin material of her shirt and she thought about moving but she was too exhausted. "Smoking's bad for you." Lois walked out the back door startling Mia who dropped the cigarette to the ground as she jumped away from the wall. "Sorry." Lois smiled sheepishly.
"Don't worry about it." Mia shook her head. "Like you said, it's bad for you." Mia stretched her neck and sighed. "I've talked to the Chief, until we can be sure about what exactly is going on here, we're going to keep the story out of the press. The last thing we need is a picture of your cousin in a bloody wedding gown splashed all over the TV and newspapers."
"Thanks." Lois nodded.
"How's it going in there?" Mia bent over, stretching her back muscles out.
"No luck." Lois shook her head and sighed.
After telling the story about how she proposed, Chloe sipped the coffee, made a face and said, "This is disgusting." Then she set the cup on the coffee table and just tuned out again. She still hadn't recognized Lois or acknowledged the fact that she was even there.
"Maybe we should call in some reinforcements." Mia sighed. "Is there anyone else in town you could get over here?"
"Yeah, I can have them here in twenty minutes." Lois nodded pulling out her phone. "I just wish…"
"Look, even if she doesn't show it." Mia laid a hand on Lois' shoulder. "She knows you're here."
"For all she knows, I'm the coffee lady." Lois scoffed she'd been experimenting with the coffee in the lounge, trying different ratios of water to grounds, trying to get something resembling actual coffee for Chloe to drink, hoping it would help her. She must have brought her six different cups in the past hour alone. Chloe sipped each one, made a face then set the cup on the table. Something clicked in Lois head and she smiled slightly. "I just got an idea." She hung up the call she was about to make and dialed a new number.
******************
"Who is this guy?" Wise asked a half hour later, confused as he watched a young man pull a small yet packed coffee cart, a miniature version of the kind you would find on the streets, down the hallway of the police station.
"Mason." Mia said as Lois and Mason talked. He nodded and then started to measure out and grind coffee beans.
"And Mason is?" Wise asked sniffing something wonderful as the coffee started to percolate.
"The coffee guy." Mia shrugged.
"The coffee guy?" Wise turned to her. "He win some contest or something."
"I'm a little fuzzy on the details myself." Mia admitted.
"Is this like a rich person thing?" Wise furrowed his brow. "Is he like the barista to the stars?"
Mia snorted at the thought then shrugged. "I have no idea, but Lois is convinced it'll help and at this point I'll try anything." Mia knew that the first forty eight hours of an investigation were the most important. The last time Lois reported seeing Chloe was around eight p.m. the night before. Based on the fact that Chloe was still in her wedding dress they were assuming whatever happened, happened last night after the reception, before they got home.
Chloe had stumbled into the station around seven a.m. and it was getting on noon and they hadn't gotten anything out of her. They still didn't know where Oliver was, they didn't know what happened, they didn't even know where to start looking. They'd discreetly dispatched officers to Oliver's family home where Lois said they were spending their wedding night before taking Oliver's jet to Morocco. The jet was still on the tarmac, the pilot never received any change in plans. They house looked as if no one had been there in a while, the car not in the driveway. The route they would have taken from the reception hall at the Marquee Hotel to the house had been driven multiple times with nothing out of the ordinary reported. There was a "lookout" bulletin for Oliver's car but nothing had come of it yet.
Frankly they needed all the help they could get and if Lois thought that some guy named Mason could help them, then Mia was willing to try it. Mason nervously put the finishing touches on the cup of coffee in his hands and then followed Mia and Lois down the hall to the notification room.
"Miss Sullivan." Mason stood in the doorway in shock; Lois must not have warned him. He looked over at Lois who motioned for him to go further in the room. "I'm sorry. Ms. Queen?"
Chloe turned her head and looked at Mason, actually looked at him, not just through him. "Mason?" Chloe asked confused.
"Him she remembers." Lois whispered under her breath but Mia was smiling, this was progress.
Mason nodded encouragingly at Chloe. "I brought you some coffee." He held out a mug and Chloe took it, bringing it up to her nose and inhaling deeply.
Her shoulders seemed to sag, her whole body relaxing, curling around the aroma drifting from the top of the mug. "Peppermint?" Chloe smiled and closed her eyes. Trying to remember the last time she'd smelled peppermint coffee.
Chloe opened her eyes slowly, sure that she was still dreaming, she had to still be dreaming. She was either dreaming or she was dead because the smell coming out of her kitchen was heavenly. She sat up in bed and smiled to see Oliver in the bedroom doorway. "What did you do?" Chloe asked cautiously.
"Nothing." Oliver walked further in the small room and held out the mug in his hands.
Chloe took it hesitantly and inhaled deeply, to make sure her imagination hadn't run away with her. "Oliver. It's not nothing, this is peppermint coffee. Peppermint coffee from that little French café downtown."
"How do you know where it's from?" Oliver asked.
"Come on, this is me your talking to." Chloe took a small hesitant sip and then slid back down into the bed in ecstasy. Oliver quickly grabbed the mug from her hands. "Not to mention the fact I've been dreaming of this coffee for a year."
"I know." Oliver said. "Since November you've made me walk past that café, every single day."
"And it's twenty dollars a pound. We can't afford this." Chloe reminded him. "We can't afford any of this." She nodded out the bedroom door where she could smell bacon and sausage, hash browns, eggs and pancakes.
"But it's your Christmas tradition." Oliver sat on the bed and smiled at her. For as long as she could remember her father had made her a huge Christmas morning feast with a tall glass of peppermint milk, made from his own secret recipe. When she got older, peppermint milk turned to peppermint coffee but the breakfast was always the same.
"That sweet really." Chloe kissed him softly. "But you were the one who insisted on the Christmas tree, which means that our electric bill next month is going to be bigger. Which means that we can't afford to splurge on groceries we don't need, tradition or not."
"I didn't." Oliver stood up and held out his hand. Chloe slid her fingers in his palm and allowed him to pull her out of the bed and into the kitchen. She stood and stared at the chaos that filled her apartment and couldn't help but smile.
Bart was manning the stove, showing off as usual. He was flipping eggs in one skillet, bacon in another, and pancakes on an electric griddle, that Chloe knew she didn't own so he must have brought with him. She watched, entranced as he tossed a cooked pancake in the air behind him, sped off, caught it on the other side of the room with a plate, and was back at the stove to flip the bacon before it burned. AC was buttering the finished pancakes while Victor set the table. Dinah walked in, dropped an armload of presents under the tree and then walked back out, for what Chloe assumed was another load, as Lois stood in the middle orchestrating the whole thing.
"Where's…" Chloe trailed off as Clark opened the door and tried to drag a Christmas tree the size of a Buick into her apartment. "Lois?" Chloe stepped forward. "What's going on?"
"Bart's making breakfast. Oh and I got you a Christmas tree." Lois smiled. "I picked it out this morning. 75% off, Christmas morning special."
"Ok." Chloe smiled. "But I have a tree."
"You mean, Charlie Brown's little friend over there?" Lois motioned the scrawny tree that was sitting by Chloe's window.
"Hey!" Chloe walked over and smiled at her tree. "I like my tree, I picked out this tree, I decorated this tree, and it was all I could afford."
Lois turned around to the door where Clark was still struggling ignoring Chloe's protests. "Hey, I don't understand what the holdup is." Lois glared at him. "I mean you've got super strength, you can't carry one measly little tree into the room?"
"Hardly little." Clark glared at her. "And I can get it into the apartment but I'll take half the wall will me."
"Well that ruins everything." Lois pouted. "My fiancé can stop trains going hundreds of miles an hour and yet he can't get a tree in an apartment."
"Because the tree you picked out is too big." Clark snapped at her.
"Did you just say fiancé?" Chloe walked over to Lois who smiled and held out her left hand, wiggling her fingers. "Oh my God." Chloe grabbed it and stared at the ring. It was simple and understated; a single teardrop cut diamond on a platinum band. So opposite of everything Lois was but at the same time perfect for her.
"It's no stainless steel bolt nut but…"
"It's beautiful." Chloe smiled at her.
"Oh for heaven's sake." Lois threw up her hands as Victor, AC and Clark huddled around the door trying to figure out how to get the tree in. "I'd better go deal with this, they aren't exactly the brain trust."
Chloe laughed and walked over to the kitchen where Bart was still busy cooking. She kissed him on the cheek, startling him so badly that he dropped an entire pan of biscuits on the ground. "What was that for?" Bart stuttered as he picked up the now ruined biscuits and threw them in the trash.
"It's Christmas." Chloe shrugged. "And I'm willing to bet that this whole thing was your idea."
"Well, any excuse to eat right?" Bart blushed and went back to the stove. Chloe leaned over and kissed him again. This time all he dropped was a spatula. "What was that for?"
"Being modest." She smiled and walked over to the couch to watch Lois try to explain how they were going to bend the tree in half to get it in the apartment.
She looked down to the coffee table to reach for her cup, only it wasn't where she sat it down. In its place was a small round black leather box.
"Merry Christmas." Oliver said from over her shoulder.
"Oliver." Chloe whispered, her hands shaking as she reached for the box. "Please tell me you didn't…I said I didn't need an engagement ring."
"Would you just open it?" Oliver walked over to couch and sat down next to her.
"I'm scared." Chloe admitted to him.
"You're scared?" Oliver laughed. "Chloe Sullivan, the woman who has faced down a multitude of Meta's, Lionel Luther, and Lois Lane on occasion is afraid of a ring box?"
Chloe slapped his arm. "I'm afraid that I'm going to love it but I'm not going to be able to keep it."
"Why wouldn't you be able to keep it?" Oliver frowned at her.
"Because if we couldn't afford the groceries for breakfast I know we can't afford whatever is in that box." Chloe looked over at him sadly.
Oliver took the box away from her and opened it while she protested, turning the box to face her and her smile fell. "You hate it?" Oliver asked concerned.
"I love it." Chloe reached out slowly and pulled the ring out of the box. There was a large round diamond in the middle of the ring with five smaller diamonds on either side that looked like leaves and the whole thing was surrounded on the top and the bottom by a row of even smaller diamonds. She pulled her hand back at the last second. "Tell me the truth, did you rob a bank?" Chloe asked him. "Do we need to run to Mexico?"
"No." Oliver rolled his eyes at her and took the ring out of the box, slipping it on her finger. "It was my mothers."
Chloe frowned. "Your mom's?"
"Actually it was my grandmothers." Oliver explained.
"But all of her stuff was sold at the auction." Chloe couldn't take her eyes off the ring.
"I know." Oliver said. "I tracked down the buyer and convinced him to sell it back to me, for only a little bit more than what he paid for it."
"But where did you get the money?" Chloe asked.
"A friend." Oliver said. "He's letting me pay him back in installments."
"Tell me you didn't go to Bruce for the money?" She bit her lip and Oliver actually laughed shaking his head. "Wait a minute." She stood up and walked over to the window. Everyone was already here when she woke up but that was impossible because she would have heard Bart before he even got to her block. Chloe turned away from the window and walked purposefully to the kitchen. She stopped right next to the stove and just stared at him for a minute.
"Chloe?" Bart asked confused. "Everything ok?"
"Where's your bike?" Chloe asked.
"I uh…decided not to drive it today." He shrugged.
"Bart." Chloe took another step forward. "Where's your bike?"
"I sold it." Bart shrugged.
Chloe frowned at him. "You loved that bike."
"I can run faster than the bike can drive." He said. "Besides, it went to a good cause."
"Put down the bowl." She said motioning to the glass bowl he was holding with the hash browns in it.
"What?" Bart asked.
"Put down the bowl." She laughed and he set the bowl on the counter. Chloe reached up slowly and grabbed either side of his face gently before leaning forward and placing a soft, chaste, kiss on his lips. She pulled away and smiled. He was standing there frozen, which was a big deal for Bart, his eyes closed with a sort of ethereal look on his face. "You're my favorite you know." She whispered in his ear.
"Ok, we got it." Lois called out from the building's hallway.
Chloe turned to go see and Victor walked in the kitchen past Bart, grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and then walked away. He stopped, turned around, and poked Bart in the shoulder. "Dude, I think Chloe broke Bart." He called out before walking away.
Chloe laughed and walked back to the kitchen. She grabbed Bart's arm and pulled him to the doorway. They stood in the hallway of the building and stared at Christmas tree which really was too large. "Couldn't get it in the apartment?" Chloe sipped her coffee with a smile.
"I think it looks better in the hallway." Lois shrugged. "Livens this place up a bit."
"Yeah." Chloe nodded. "And it'll be a good winter home for all the rats." She turned and walked back into the apartment.
"Rats?" Lois screamed after her.
"We don't have rats." Oliver said to Chloe then stopped. "Do we?"
"No." Chloe shook her head. "But maybe it'll stop her from showing up unannounced in the future."
Chloe smiled at the memory then frowned because it was wrong. Not the memory itself, no that was fine. She had this nagging feeling however that Christmas was not the last time she'd had peppermint coffee. She thought about it harder and remembered sitting on the balcony of her apartment, watching the sun rise. That was before the noise, before the pain. The mug slipped from her grip, slamming into the ground and shattering in a shower of coffee and glass. She let out a choked sob and then shook her head, she didn't want to think about it, couldn't think about it. She screwed her eyes shut tightly and in a second Wise was by her side, rocking her gently, whispering words of comfort in her ears.
Mia sagged against the doorframe. It had been going so good, Chloe seemed as if she was actually warming up, ready to open up and then she remembered something, something she didn't like and Mia could actually see as right before her very eyes Chloe shut down again.
"Chloe?" The voice was sharp and confused and coming from behind her. Mia turned and saw Lois' eyes fill with what looked like relief at the arrival of the newcomers. There were five of them, one woman with long dark hair, and four guys. Mia pushed herself off the doorframe as Lois walked over and embraced the tallest guy there, that strong façade falling once more.
The one who had called Chloe's name, the one that sounded so despondent at seeing her in that condition, the kid really, ran to sit in front of her, balancing on the edge of the coffee table. He reached out and slowly, hesitantly, and pushed some hair out of her face, holding her cheek in his palm. She stared at him but she didn't see him, she didn't see any of them. He rubbed a thumb over the small sharp cuts on her face and she winced at the pain but did nothing else. "Chloe, what happened?"
Her eyes focused softly on his face but still she didn't see him. "Something…something happened. I lost…" She turned her head to the left and found Mason. "Could I have more coffee please?"
"Peppermint?" He asked.
"No!" She screamed, so forcefully that the kid jumped up as if burned. "No peppermint."
"Ok." Mason nodded.
"Bart." Lois said softly to the kid and he followed her out of the room, Mason right behind him. Mia closed the door and led them all into the small kitchenette, waiting for Lois to compose herself enough for introductions.
"These are Chloe's friends." Lois finally said as the man she'd hugged, grabbed her hand and squeezed. "No, that's not right." She frowned. "There more like her family." She finished the introductions. The taller man's name was Clark, Lois' fiancé, and of course the kid was Bart. The woman, who looked slightly familiar, was apparently Dinah Lance. Mia vaguely remembered she used to have a conservative talk show. The other guys were introduced as Victor and AC. Mason, for lack of anything to do, set about making a pot of non-peppermint coffee.
"You didn't say much on the phone." Clark said quietly. "Just that Oliver was missing and Chloe was hurt. What happened?"
"We don't know." Lois shook her head. "Chloe can't remember or won't remember, we're not sure."
"She's obviously suffered some traumatic event and until she feels safe again, I'm afraid we may never know." Mia told them.
"But that person in there…" Bart said defiantly. "That's not Chloe."
"Bart." Victor looked over at him.
"Did you see her? It's like there wasn't anyone there." Bart jumped up angrily. "What have you been doing?" Mia was surprised by the venom in his voice. "I mean besides sitting here with your thumbs up your asses? Have you been looking for him? Is he even alive? And what have you been doing for her? She's sitting in that room, in that dress and-"
"Bart." Clark snapped at him and he was instantly quiet. Mia realized there seemed to be some sort of power struggle going on here and though Clark had a good two feet and a hundred pounds on the kid, she'd bet her life savings that Bart would come out on top. Bart glared at Clark for a good minute before turning and walking to the door, painfully slowly. "Where are you going?" Clark asked him.
"To do what they obviously can't do." Bart snorted. "I'm going to find Oliver, I'm going to fix Chloe."
He slammed the door behind him and Mia got up and walked to the door to protest, to try and stop him, to tell him he would just get in the way of the real police work. When she looked out into the hallway though, a mere seconds after he'd stormed out, he was nowhere to be seen, gone, disappeared into thin air.
"He's slightly protective." Lois said to Mia as if that explained everything. Mason set mugs down in front of everyone and Mia smiled. She paused for a moment, savoring her first sip of coffee in what felt like years, that didn't taste like old tires.
"He has a point though." AC spoke for the first time. "Chloe doesn't seem like Chloe."
"I know." Victor shook his head. "I can't believe that's the same girl that just yesterday was blackmailing me."
"Blackmailing you?" Dinah asked confused.
"Oh yeah, wanted to make sure my wedding toast wasn't too embarrassing." Victor smiled and sipped his own coffee.
"What on earth could she have to blackmail you with?" AC scoffed. "You're like a monk."
"You remember when Oliver was trying to convince Chloe to move to Star City?" Victor asked.
"Yeah." Dinah and AC said cautiously.
"Apparently there's video." Victor said.
"No." Dinah's face blanched.
"Oh yes." Lois smiled for the first time in a while. "I've got multiple copies."
"How much…" Dinah asked her.
"Not enough money in the world." She shook her head.
"What are you guys talking about?" Clark asked confused. They all looked at Lois, figuring that she could tell the story best and she sighed.
Five Years Ago
"Have you thought about it?" Oliver asked.
"I have thought about thinking about it." Chloe moved the phone to the other ear and she heard Oliver sigh. "Look I've been really busy."
"You've been really busy not thinking about it." Oliver pointed out.
"In my defense…" Chloe started but had no way to finish the sentence because she really had no defense.
"That's what I thought." Oliver said annoyed. "I asked you two weeks ago."
"And it's a big decision." Chloe told him.
"Do you miss me?" Oliver asked before she could launch into another round of excuses.
"Of course I miss you." Chloe assured him.
"Do you like that we only we get to see each other every other weekend?" Oliver asked.
"No." Chloe said slightly annoyed. "But you know as well as I do that those aren't the only considerations in this whole thing. I've got a job here, clients…"
"That you could easily turn over to one of your more than qualified assistants. You could start an Isis Foundation in Star City. It's not like we're running low on Meta's over here."
"That's not the point Oliver." Chloe scolded him.
"I have a job here, a company." Oliver said. "I have a business and employees that depend on me."
"So your job is more important than my job?" Chloe asked.
"That's not what I said and you know it." Oliver snapped at her.
"But that's what you think." Chloe said. "Did you ever once consider moving to Metropolis?"
"No." Oliver admitted truthfully. "That's just not feasible. I can't drop my whole life and move out there."
"But you expect me to drop mine and move to California?" Chloe asked. "You know I love you, you know I want to live with you but…"
"What I know is that two weeks ago I asked you to move in with me and you've all but avoided me ever since." Oliver said hurt.
"Oliver." Chloe sighed.
"I've got to go." Oliver hung up and Chloe stared at the phone for a minute before hanging up herself.
***************
He didn't call that night. He didn't call the next day either and Chloe was too stubborn and truth be told to scared to call him. That didn't stop her from staring at her phone for hours on end wishing he would call, or dialing his number only to stop before pressing send. "Trouble in paradise?" Bart asked standing in front of her desk on the third morning as she stared at her office phone.
"What are you doing here?" Chloe pushed past him to pour a cup coffee. "Aren't you in Star City this week?"
"I was." Bart shrugged. "But Oliver really hasn't been in the best mood and you know his tolerance of me is short when he's in a good mood so I thought I'd make myself scarce. You're doing I take it?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Please don't." Chloe shook her head.
"Look, we're not stupid." Bart said. "We know what's going on and if we get a say in the matter…"
"You don't." Chloe told him.
"We all say you should move to Star City." Bart sat down.
"You all should keep your opinions to yourself." Chloe told him.
"Look, this is just as hard on us as it is on you." Bart explained to her. "We're like kids stuck in a crappy custody situation. One week we're in Star City with Oliver and the next we're in Metropolis with you. We're like nomads, we have no real homes. We just want everyone to be together."
Chloe sighed at him and then smiled. "So why exactly should we all live in Star City? Why not Metropolis? What's so great about California?"
"Well for one thing." Bart said. "Metropolis is Superman's territory and as awesome as Clark is with a lot of things he's been getting pretty annoyed with us sticking our noses in his business. Also you live in Metropolis, you used to live in Smallville, but Star City is Oliver's home. It's where his parent's house is, the last place they all lived together before they died, the place he grew up, the place he wants his kids to grow up and he wanted to share that with you." Bart sat down. "The place hadn't been lived in for years, it was practically uninhabitable but he's been working his crew day and night to get it ready, for you."
"I didn't know." Chloe said suddenly choked up.
"Plus, Star City has got a beach." Bart smirked at her trying to ease the tension and it worked if her small smile was anything to go by. "So I know you've been a bit busy lately but have you had time to think about…"
"You aren't getting a motorcycle." Chloe actually laughed this time and Bart groaned. "Why do you need one anyway? You can run faster than any bike can drive."
"It's not about the speed." Bart said and Chloe shot him an unconvinced look. "Ok, it's a little about the speed, but it's more about the power."
"Doesn't matter what it's about, there's no way Oliver's going go for it." Chloe said.
"Why not?"
"You wrecked his bike, his baby. You totaled it." Chloe reminded him. "He let you drive it once, once, and you brought it back in twenty five pieces."
"That was two years ago." Bart argued. "I'm so much more mature now."
"So much more mature?" Chloe snorted at him. "You put a whoppie cushion under Victor's chair like three days ago." Bart laughed at the memory and Chloe rolled her eyes. "Case in point."
Bart was about to protest again when he looked over Chloe's head and saw the clock on the wall. "Oh lunch time. I'm off to Chile, there's this little stand in plaza in Santiago that makes the best tamales I've ever eaten. You want?"
"No thanks." Chloe shook her head, pulled out her phone and dialed Oliver's number, this time hitting send.
****************
"He still hasn't called back?" Lois asked as Chloe and her phone were once again locked in an epic battle of staring.
"No." Chloe shook her head. Oliver didn't answer his phone when she called two days ago and since then she'd left him multiple messages but so far he hadn't felt the need to return any of them. She hadn't heard from him in almost a week, no phone calls, no text messages, no e-mails, nothing. Lois' phone went off and Chloe turned to her raising an eyebrow. "You're still not answering Clark's calls?"
Lois was having the opposite problem of Chloe. She had a boyfriend who wouldn't stop calling. "He lied to me for five years." Lois said pointedly. "Which you also did and the only reason I forgave you was because technically it wasn't your secret to tell."
"Lois, it's not really something that comes up in everyday conversation." Chloe pointed out.
"Ok, but you think that at some point before allowing me to become invested in this relationship he might have mentioned the fact that he was an alien from outer space with super powers." Lois said.
"Yeah but he's always been an alien from outer space with super powers." Chloe reminded him. "He hasn't suddenly become a different person."
"Yes he has." Lois said. "He's become a liar." And that was it, discussion over. Chloe knew that eventually Lois would be worn down, that Clark would do something completely and totally Clark like and win her heart all over again and they'd be ok. She just wished she was as sure about her and Oliver. "Come on." Lois grabbed Chloe's arm. "We aren't going to sit in here and mope all night long."
"What if Oliver calls back?" Chloe asked.
"Then he can leave a message." Lois said. "Yes what he did was sweet and maybe you could have been a bit more sensitive about the whole situation but the fact of the matter is he could have mentioned the whole moving into his parent's home thing."
"But…" Chloe protested.
"No buts." Lois said then sighed. "You can take your cell phone but you're getting out of this apartment."
"Where are we going?" Chloe allowed herself to be dragged down the hall of her apartment building not really caring. She looked around the stark industrial walls, saw the doors of the neighbors that she never bothered to meet and felt another pang of loss. Bart was right. She lived in Metropolis but it wasn't her home. She was a city girl at heart but she didn't want her kids growing up there. She wanted a house, she wanted memories, she wanted Oliver and if she had to move to Star City to get him then that's what she would do. She'd tell him that too, if only he would call her.
****************
Chloe frowned as the opening strains to California Girls by the Beach Boys started up. "Lois, have you noticed anything strange about tonight?" Lois had dragged her to karaoke night at their favorite bar, an experience that never failed to raise Chloe's spirit and put her in a good mood.
"Besides all of the really bad vocals? Nothing out of the ordinary." Lois shook her head.
"You haven't noticed a theme or anything?" Chloe leaned back in her chair thinking about all of the people that had gotten up and sung that night. "It's weird but since I've been here, I've heard, California by Phantom Planet, California by Lenny Kravitz, Hotel California, Meet me in California, It Never Rains in Southern California, and now California Girls."
"Really?" Lois smirked as the song ended.
"Yeah." Chloe laughed.
"That is weird." Lois said as the MC called her name. "Oh, I'm up."
She walked up to stage, gave the DJ her song choice then Lois smiled and turned to Chloe. "This song goes out to my cousin." She raised her eyebrows and California Dreaming by the Mama's and the Papa's started to play.
"Hey Sidekick." Oliver slipped into the seat next to her and smiled, grabbing her beer bottle and taking a sip.
"What are you doing here?" Chloe turned suddenly, her whole world thrown off kilter at his sudden arrival. "I've been calling you."
"I know." He smirked. "Good song, not so good a voice, wow has she always been that bad?"
"Oliver. We had a fight and we haven't spoken in almost a week and now you're here? Why are you here?" She asked.
"Because I realized I've gone about this whole thing in the wrong way." Oliver said.
"Is that so?" Chloe asked him then looked around the room at all the people who had sung. "This whole California song theme, your idea?" Oliver nodded. "And Lois was in on it?"
"Lois helped come up with it." Oliver took another sip of Chloe's beer.
"I'm gonna kill her." Chloe shook her head as Lois finished the song.
"Now calm down. I know that uprooting your life and your business and moving across the country is a really big decision and I shouldn't have expected you to just jump in no questions asked."
"So what's with all the songs about California?" Chloe smiled.
"You asked Bart what was so great about California." Oliver smiled. "We just wanted to show you how awesome California is. Just look at how many songs there are about it. Any songs written about Metropolis?"
"No." Chloe said.
"Huh." Oliver shook his head. "How about Smallville?"
"Oliver, this was really cute, I get it…" Chloe trailed off as she saw a few familiar faces climb up to the stage. "What…" She turned to Oliver who simply smiled at her.
"I just wanted to say that, for the record, this was not my idea." Victor said as the music started up.
"It was mine." Bart bragged and it took a moment for Chloe to realize what song was playing. Then AC started to sing, not really sing so much as…rap, to California Love by 2pac and Dr. Dre.
"You've got to be kidding me." Chloe hid her face in her hands and Oliver pulled her fingers away.
"They've been working on this all week." Oliver said. "You can at least do them the courtesy of watching it."
"Don't worry I've got my video camera." Lois said from beside her. "Pete's taping the whole thing for us." She nodded back at the bartender who was holding a camera up in the back of the crowd.
"Great." Chloe said as Victor took over for the first verse. She laughed and cheered along with the rest of the bar as he did his part. As much as he protested at the beginning that it wasn't his idea, he really threw himself into the song and the crowd went wild. It didn't hurt either when Dinah got up on stage and started "shaking it" for them. Then Bart slid to the front of the stage to take over for the second verse, and dominated the song, making the bar go absolutely crazy.
By the end of the song, the entire place was on their feet dancing and singing along. Bart, Victor, AC, and Dinah all took their bows and Chloe whistled louder than everyone else in appreciation. "Ok, I give up." Chloe turned to Oliver. "California is pretty cool."
"It is." Oliver agreed with her. "But that's not the point. I want you by my side, in life, in business and if I have to I'll pack up Queen Industries and Star Labs and move it all out here just to be with you."
"No." Chloe shook her head. "I can do what I do from anywhere. My life is in Metropolis but your home is in Star City." Oliver smiled at her. "I want to be a part of that home. I want to share those memories with you. I want to make new memories with you there. I want our kids to grow up where you grew up."
"I did turn out pretty good huh?" He asked. Chloe shook her head at him as another song started up, one that she didn't recognize. She paused and turned to find, not another karaoke singer, but a guy with a guitar. "I myself am not musically inclined so I asked a friend to write this for me." Oliver shrugged and Chloe turned paying more attention to the song.
Nothing here is right
Guess I'll shut my eyes
Come to California 'cause I've been lonely for you
We can stay up all night just to watch the sunrise
Come to California
Nothing's right without you and even in the daylight
Well I can't see the sky
Chloe looked over at Oliver and suddenly wondered why she hadn't simply just jumped at the chance and shown up on his doorstep with her bags packed the second he asked her to move. He'd gone through all the trouble of fixing up his parents house, orchestrated this whole evening and even commissioned a song to be written just for her. He really was amazing and she almost kicked herself for taking so long to realize it.
"You know Bart forgot one thing." Chloe told him.
"What's that?" Oliver asked.
"California has you." She smiled. "You really are better at this whole relationship thing than I am aren't you?" Chloe reached up and kissed him as passionately as she could hoping to convey to him as much emotion as possible. Without saying a word she grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the bar and into the street. She stopped a cab and he watched her in confusion as she pulled him into it. "Metropolis International." Chloe told the driver.
"The airport?" Oliver asked confused.
"Let's go home." She said leaning her head against his shoulder. "Unfortunately now you're going to have to buy Bart that bike." Oliver groaned. "Hey, he had a really big part to play in this whole thing here."
"So you think Honda, Yamaha, Ducati?" Oliver asked.
"Possibly all three." Chloe joked.
Present Day
Mia smiled at this small insight into Chloe's life, another part of her, a piece of the puzzle that would hopefully allow Mia to figure out how to, as Bart put it, fix her. Speak of the Devil and he will appear Mia thought as not five minutes after he'd left, Bart walked back into the room and tossed something on the table in front of them.
Mia heard the clank and craned her neck forward to watch the object spin and spin until it finally settled and fell still. It took her a minute to process what she was looking at and then she realized, she found herself staring at a large stainless steel bolt nut, threaded through a very thin, broken silver chain. She turned immediately to Bart, as did everyone else who recognized it as Oliver's necklace, the one he never took off. "How did you…" She reached forward then stopped herself, knowing she should glove up, knowing she should call in a CSU team to log it properly into evidence, instead she grabbed it up and clutched it in her hands as if it held all the answers.
"You might want to send some black and whites out to Highway 34, about ten miles past the city limits." Bart said annoyed and slightly superior. "I found his car. You'll probably need a wrecker."
"An accident?" Clark asked confused.
"The car was completely totaled." Bart told him. "Looks like it may have flipped a few times."
"Oliver?" Lois stood up shakily, her knees felt like Jello.
"He wasn't there." Bart's features softened slightly and Lois collapsed in relief. "But, there was a lot of blood." He turned and was gone again.
Mia swallowed and walked out of the room. She wasn't sure how, in five minutes, he'd managed to do what an entire police force had been unable to do in five hours. But she didn't care. She dispatched a few units to where Bart told her and then took a second by herself to collect her thoughts, to sort through what she knew.
She knew now that there had been an accident, a pretty horrific one by Bart's description, one that Chloe had been lucky to walk away from. She knew that there was more to this than just the car accident too. Based on the bolt nut Bart had found, and what she knew about Oliver, that he'd never willingly leave Chloe, she also knew that it was entirely likely that some else had been at that accident site. That someone had likely caused that accident, taken Oliver from the scene and left Chloe to die.
"What now?" Lois asked from behind her and Mia jumped slightly in surprise. She turned to find everyone staring at her, looking to her for answers. Even Mason, the barista. Their sad, lost eyes, boring into her, needing her to tell them what to do.
Mia didn't want to tell Lois that she was flying just as blind here as Lois was. She didn't want to admit that her brain would probably be able to work out a plan of action faster if she could just get a few hours sleep, a few minutes even. She didn't want to say that at this very moment she felt like she was way in over her head, that she didn't know what she was doing, and she was scared that she was drowning and taking Chloe with her.
She didn't say any of that though. Instead she set her jaw, took a deep breath and stared right back. "We're running out of time, so we're going to go in there and we're going to figure this out."
"But she's not talking, she not doing anything." Lois pointed out. "Do we say anything about the accident?"
"No." Mia shook her head. "We need her to remember the accident on her own."
"And how do we do that?" Clark asked.
She'd run out of being strong, she'd run out of answers, and she was just too damn tired for the false bravado. "I have no idea." She slipped the bolt nut into her pocket and opened the door hoping the answer would come to her before it was too late.
********
Note: The song that Oliver had written for Chloe is actually a very lovely song called: "Come to California" by Ron Pope. Check it out.