--4--
Dean knew he shouldn't be letting it happen, but every minute that passed found him more and more attracted to this Chloe girl. He knew it was a bad idea, and there was part of him that was still convinced she wasn't real. He knew that "wishes" of any variety always ended with bad news when they were granted, regardless of whether they were granted by jinn or crazy girls in fishnets.
And yet, there he sat, on the couch of her apartment, listening to her tell him two years worth of stories about all of his screw-ups...and a few of the things he'd done right.
"But why did you say yes the third time I asked?" he insisted yet again, still unclear on that part.
Chloe shook her head. "I don't know. To get you off my back?" she teased.
He frowned.
"Fine," she sighed. "I thought you were attractive from the get-go, and I just figured the fact that we kept randomly bumping into each other might be a sign or something, so why not let you have a shot? Besides the second and third time you asked me out were much more polite and sincere than the first time when you were in a bar, slightly tipsy, and I was on a mission and had no time for you."
He shook his head, still not believing his own luck...if that was what it was. He felt like the rest of the world had been implanted with memories that didn't really exist.
"And taking you to a horror movie actually worked?" he asked incredulously.
She laughed, sitting down with two sandwiches on plates. She handed one to him and started eating her own.
He stared at her.
She looked up mid bite. "What?"
"You just made me a sandwich."
"You do eat, you know. I assume that hasn't changed. And you've been so freaked out we missed breakfast and lunch. Probably for the first time in your entire life," she added humorously.
He nodded and took a bite. "Oh dear God," he said, mouth full.
She laughed. "Good?"
He nodded, eyes closed.
"This is weird," she sighed.
He opened his eyes to look at her.
"Well, I'm wondering how much the Zatanna stuff is affecting me. Like, maybe nothing I remember really happened. Or if you un-wish this whole thing, does that mean my life goes back to normal with a parallel universe version of you, or do I forget everything involving you completely?"
He felt a pang of guilt. He had no idea. He was still wondering whether or not she existed in his old life and he just hadn't met her, or if she was completely the conjuring of some hex-thing courtesy of Ms. Fishnets.
"You said she turned you into your cousin, right?" he asked.
She nodded.
"What happened to your cousin?"
"Nothing," she recalled. "She was out of town. I just ended up looking exactly like her until I didn't want it anymore. I went to her job and her boyfriend, my best friend, couldn't even tell the difference."
"So technically, it didn't affect anyone but you..." he said slowly.
She nodded hopefully. "True."
He shrugged. Then he got curious. "So...what are the expectations with this whole thing?"
She looked confused.
"I mean, apparently we've been together for two years. Am I supposed to―I don't know―propose soon or something?"
She turned bright red. "We haven't actually talked about that yet."
"Oh," he said, embarrassed. "Right."
Pause.
"Would you say yes?"
She coughed. "What?"
"I mean, if I actually were behaving normally and tomorrow I proposed to you, would you say yes?"
She studied him. "If you were acting normally and you remembered me?" she clarified.
He nodded.
"Probably. I don't know. Like I said, we haven't really talked about it."
"But you want me to," he persisted.
She gave him a sharp look. "Maybe."
"Do you think I'm going to?"
"I haven't got the slightest idea."
He rolled his eyes at her. "Don't sport with my intelligence."
"I think you've been thinking about it but you're scared, and even after two years, you're still not convinced that someone can handle being with someone with a life like yours."
"How do you do that?" Dean voiced the question he'd most wanted to know all day.
She smiled. "I guess there's no harm explaining it to you again. You're just going to get all confused like you did the first time, though," she warned.
He shrugged. "Try me."
"I told you I head up a team for a living?"
"Uh huh," he took a bite of his sandwich.
"It's a team of superheroes. Most of which have superhuman powers of some variety."
He choked, looking at her to make sure she was serious.
She grinned. "And long before I took on that job, I dealt with so many inexplicable things: aliens, humans morphed by radioactive meteorites, meta-humans, homicidal maniacs...the list goes on. The thing is, I'd seen my fair share of weird things, so by the time we made it to month three and you dropped the demon bomb on me, I'd already worked out my fair share of what you do on my own, and I was completely unsurprised."
"It doesn't bother you at all?" he asked disbelievingly.
"Well, I mean, to some extent, of course it does. Just like the mutants and homicidal maniacs bother me. But the thing is, I've gotten used to knowing about things the average human just has nightmares about, so this didn't really change my life much...except that I pay more attention to superstitions and old wives' tales than I used to."
"You are not real," he said after a long pause, shaking his head and putting down the sandwich. "No way is any of this real."
She sighed, getting up from the couch. "Why? Because you think it's impossible that you could find anyone in this world who could relate to you as much as I do?"
He stared at her, feeling like she'd just read his mind.
Chloe folded her arms. "That's what you said on our six month anniversary."
Dean threw his head back to rest on the back of the couch. "This is bizarre."
"You're telling me," she said sarcastically.
The phone rang and she answered it. "Oh, hi, Ollie."