Chapter 3

Queen Manor, Star City, 2019

Chloe was toeing that fine line between sleep and wakefulness when she felt the bed shift under her. However, at that moment, she was still too lost in sleep-induced apathy to care. However, her brain abruptly kicked into gear when an arm snaked around her waist before she was pulled back against a hard, male chest.

"Not that I won't enjoy unwrapping you." Her eyes flew open as the man behind finally spoke up. "But since when did you start wearing so many layers to bed?"

Even feeling wildly disconcerted, she still recognized the voice - but that begged the question: what was Oliver Queen doing in her bed?

She was scant milliseconds from leaping out of the bed when his hand stilled on her stomach. There was no warning at all and Chloe let out a small shriek as she suddenly found herself on her back with Oliver towering over her.

Oliver pulled at his hair, his eyes closing in pain. It had taken a hour for Watchtower to figure out the switcheroo he'd pulled. Not to blame Mari but she wasn't as proficient at running Watchtowers systems as say Chloe or J'onn or even Bruce, but he didn't count since it was mostly his programming to begin with. Crisis over, and the Mordru's threat still weighing on his mind, he'd tried to call his wife. He'd been trying the phone since they'd left the warehouse.

At first he thought she may have gone to visit Lois and tried calling her cellphone instead. All he got was voice-mail. He tried one last time before he'd beamed straight back home. Considering it was pretty close to midnight, he knew that the house phone was set to the answering machine but it didn't explain why Chloe wasn't answering her were both light sleepers and she kept it on her bedside table. The only reason she wouldn't answer was if she couldn't and he refused to think about what that might mean.

Tired, scared out of his mind, he'd been so overwhelmed with relief to find her peacefully asleep in their bed, that he'd stripped off down to his briefs and pulled her close without another thought.

It was almost pitch black in their room, save for the slivers of moonlight and occasional streak of lightening that filtered through the blinds. He could just make out her features in the darkness but he didn't need to see to understand what his touch told him. Slowly, he sat back and took her wrist. He pulled her up and held her against his chest in a crushing embrace.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered brokenly, rocking her slightly. He kept his eyes firmly shut, he couldn't bear it if he had to see the pain in her eyes.

Suddenly, why he couldn't reach her made a little bit of sense. Losing the baby would have been devastating. She must have cried herself to sleep, but why wasn't she still in hospital? Why hadn't anyone called him. "What did Emil say? Are you okay?"

Chloe couldn't speak. She'd never seen Oliver like this. Firstly, his appearance didn't match how he'd left her just last month on his regular jaunt to Star City. Even in the low light, she could see the scruff of a beard and his hair was longer. He was shaking and his eyes were firmly closed. He looked like he was in agony.

She wished she knew what he was so upset about, so she could help ease the hurt somehow but she wasn't sure if his intense emotion was somehow directed at her. And as such, she held her tongue and kept still. Hoping he'd ignore the fact that she was there, and perhaps let her escape his grasp, which was currently bordering on constricting her ability to breathe.

"He said I'd pay and I... I'm such an idiot. I goaded him. Chloe, I'm so sorry."

Oliver pulled back and reached over to the lamp on his side of the bed. He needed to see her. He needed to be able to read her face.

The warm light cut through the darkness and he blinked at her. Chloe watched his eyes widen suddenly and then narrow, his eyebrows pinching together.

His arm fell away from her and Chloe got a good look at his chest. With better light, her brain had started cataloging other physical changes well before her gaze drifted downwards; the fine lines around his eyes, a bit of furrowing on his brow but the biggest tell was his whole torso. Her mouth dropped open and she stared in shock. "Your chest! What happened? Ollie, if that's what I think it is..."

"Who are you?" he asked coolly.

Chloe flinched as if he'd struck her. Now she was on the defensive. At first she'd been surprised, a little unnerved, out of her element, but throwing out an accusation like that had her quickly erecting her emotional armor and her verbal arsenal flicking online in a heartbeat. "You crawl into my bed in the middle off the night, practically-naked, sporting a Kandorian tattoo and you're asking me who I am? Newsflash, I'm the one entitled to the questions here."

She scrambled backward off the bed putting distance between them. Casting an eye around the room, the odd shapes and location of furniture didn't match her apartment, in fact she got the distinct impression she wasn't in her tower bedroom anymore. She folded her arms across her chest and eyed him warily. "Okay, not to sound cliched but I'm getting the feeling I'm not in Kansas anymore."

He watched her with a trained eye, cataloging everything from her posture, her appearance, to her speech. She looked like Chloe, she moved like Chloe and she definitely had his mate's snark. His lips pulled into a wary smile. He had to be sure, it's why he'd asked the question. They'd run into shape-shifters before. Heck it could even be J'onn messing with him. He'd learned that under that carefully schooled exterior, J'onn had a quirky sense of humor and was wickedly sarcastic if the situation didn't require seriousness.

He rubbed a hand through his hair and then scrubbed it over his face. It looked like he was taking a trip back to Metropolis sooner than he'd planned.

"What the hell happened to your arm?" Chloe promptly forgot her apprehension again once she caught sight of the other new ugly scar marring his skin.

Her small hands encircled his left bicep and his muscle twitched involuntarily at her touch. She even had the same cool hands as his Chloe. "Just humor me a second and tell me honestly, okay. What's the date?"

Her brow furrowed. "April 12th."

Oliver raised an eyebrow, a small twitch of a smirk gracing his lips. "No, I meant what year is it?"

"2010," she gave him a shrewd look and took her hands from his arm "...except it's not, am I right?"

Oliver wasn't surprised she'd figured it out already - she'd always been quick on the ball. "It's 2019."

Her eyes widened. It was one thing to suspect it but an entirely new story to have it confirmed. "But...how?"

"I got the wrong side of this week's villain."

"And whoever it was decided to yank me nine years into the future? For what?" Chloe threw out her arms and turned to pace in agitation.

"I'm not sure if that was what he intended," muttered Oliver.

Chloe was biting on her bottom lip now, she glanced at him, his lack of clothing was beginning to wear on her. He wasn't even looking at her. She might as well have been invisible. He was silent, his face a perfect mask and if she hadn't taken the time to get to know him better, she wouldn't have been able to read that expression on his face. He might not be concerned about his state of undress but he was definitely extremely unhappy about something. "Do we not get along in this time? Is that it?"

"Wait, what?" He finally looked at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Obviously, whoever you pissed off this time wanted to punish you and since I'm here and you don't seem too happy about it, which is really an understatement in itself, I guess they sent me here to make your life miserable. That just means that we don't get along in this time and I really don't know what I did wrong to cause it and I never thought that I'd hate thunderstorms this much, but now I do!"

Personally, Oliver was a bit relieved that Chloe's tendency to babble when she got nervous hadn't changed.

"Whoa there," he grabbed her arm and tugged until she took a seat back on the bed. "I never said I wasn't happy to see you. I was just...surprised."

"Surprised?" she slanted a look at him. "No, from what I saw you were way beyond surprised and well into murderous rage."

"I don't like surprises," he said defensively.

Her lips twitched. "Yeah, you never do." And neither did she.

Oliver breathed deeply. His freak out wasn't over. So Chloe from his past was now in his future. He could assume that his Chloe probably switched out. He wouldn't rest easy until she was safe back in his arms. What had Mordru planned by switching them anyway? Unless sending her past self to the future when he remembered all too well how skittish she'd been to any kind of commitment or declarations of affection was supposed to undo his future. His heart ached at the thought.

He knew how dangerous it was to time-travel. There were servers full of documented altered histories, some caused by magic, some caused by the Legion from the 31st Century, some even by the Justice League. He would have to limit her contact with anyone she might recognize from the past, and he would have to keep her knowledge of the future, their future, under wraps.

With Chloe being the master sleuth that she was, her uncanny ability to sniff out and uncover even the best kept secrets, he knew he was going to have a hell of a time keeping their life from her but he knew he had too. Their lives depended on it.

"It's late. You're in my house in Star City. You can have the bed. There's plenty of other rooms I can crash in," he said before she could argue. He reached over and took Chloe's cell phone and wallet, not that she'd recognize them as hers, from the night stand and left the room.

As he closed the door behind him, he let out a deep breath.

Oliver knew he wouldn't be sleeping the rest of the night. But at least one of them could. He had a lot of work to do. A sorcerer to strangle into reversing the damage, and vaulting to do.

The next door down was Connor's room and he quietly opened the door to discover the second devastating blow of the night. His son was also missing.

Flicking on the lights, he saw that the covers of the bed were rumpled, with one of the pillows precariously close to falling onto the floor.

It was the steady sound of the rain outside the window that gave him an idea of where Connor might have gone. After all, he'd been woken up more than a few times during a storm by Connor crawling over him to get to the center of the bed.

So if Connor had been with Chloe with the spell hit, it could explain why they were both missing. Mordru had warned him that his wife and son would suffer. He dipped his head and looked down, realizing for the first time that he was wandering around the house in his underwear. Cursing, he knew he'd have to go back into his bedroom before morning to get clothes. Not to mention, put away his Green Arrow gear he'd left all over the floor. Pulling the door to his son's room closed, he took the name plate off the door and headed for the guest room. At least there was a bathrobe in there he could use.

He had calls to make. At the top of his list was the Enchantress. He'd like strong words with her prisoner and he wasn't above plying him with pain to get him to undo whatever it was he'd done with Chloe and Connor.

..

Watchtower, Metropolis, 2010

Chloe looked at the clock, it was 1.30 a.m. which would put the time close to 3 a.m. in Gotham, but that's only where Zatanna's house stood. The traveling magician moved around a lot, it could be the same ungodly hour where she was or it could be midday. She only hoped that Zee wouldn't be in a hexing mood when she called, there wasn't really anyone she trusted to help her in this time.

"Hello," came the cheery greeting.

Chloe let out a small sigh of relief. "Zee, I'm in a bit of a pickle here."

"Oh?" Chloe could hear the grin in her voice. Zatanna had a very keen sense of humor. Chloe often wondered if she enjoying watching people squirm.

"You see, when I went to sleep last night, it was 2019. Then I woke up and it wasn't! What is going on here?"

"You know why I believe you?" Zatanna answered with a chuckle. "Because the last time we saw each other, you told me you hoped I won't be offended when you said I really never want to see you again, and please lose my address and my number."

Chloe let out an uncomfortable laugh. Zatanna's reference had the effect of bringing up the disconcerting memory of being romanced and pushed off a building by a magically powered-up teen. It seemed as if bad magic liked to follow her around.

Did she break a mirror or cross a black cat in her youth? Or did it have to do with the fact that she had been possessed by a 19th century witch for a short spell? Either way, it was beginning to feel like a reoccurring nightmare.

"Considering you're calling me, and you actually dialed the mystical hot phone, I know you're not my Chloe. I did feel a spike in the magics earlier. I'm looking into it but what I can tell you is that there has been an alteration in the four dimensional continuum of the universe."

Chloe remembered vaguely, Emil saying something similar to her once. When Lois had returned from the future, she and Alia had caused rips in time. "Do you know if the alteration showed two glitches?"

"Actually there were three and they happened almost simultaneously."

Chloe nodded to herself. The third would account for this time period's Chloe. "Can you reverse whatever caused the shift?"

"I don't know enough about the what magic was used yet. Can I call you on this number?"

Chloe looked at the handset she was holding. She preferred not to stay in one place to be found. She didn't have money but she knew how she could withdraw some. She'd make a few investments for this time's Chloe to make up for anything she needed to spend. "Call me on my cell. I'll text you the number."

"Give me an hour or two. In the meantime get some sleep. There's no use wearing yourself out when there's nothing more you can do right now."

..

The Clocktower Penthouse, Metropolis, 2010

Oliver rolled onto his back and put his arm over his eyes. He couldn't get back to sleep. Ever since Chloe had hung up on him he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something wrong. That she'd been keeping something from him. His mind fully alert now he knew he wasn't going to go back to sleep. He might as well go out patrolling. Hopefully he'd wear himself out a bit and crash for a few hours before sunrise.

He headed downstairs and opened the Arrow room. He clicked on his system that monitored the police band and huffed that it was quiet for the moment. He was in the middle of gearing up when a call came through.

"GA, you there?"

Putting in his comm. Oliver smiled. "Cyborg, do you sleep at all?"

"Don't need too much," Victor answered. "I can recharge for a couple hours during the afternoon. Crime doesn't sleep, why should I?"

"Good point. You got something for me?"

"Yeah, satellite picked up energy spikes right over Metropolis. I've pinpointed the time and location. It's Watchtower, GA. The last time something like this happened, it caused a monorail to derail. Lucky no one died, thanks to a Blur save but there's no telling what it might do to a building. Have you heard anything? Where's Tower?"

Oliver paused thinking through the phone call from Chloe earlier. She had seemed a little off, anxious and a bit confused. He would feel better once he saw her safe and sound with his own eyes. "Thanks for the update, buddy. I'll check it out."

"Sure thing. I'll keep an eye on things my end."

Dressing quickly, he grabbed his bow and filled his quiver. Closing the sliding doors to the hidden room, he ran to the balcony. Thankfully, it seemed as though the storm had decreased to a fine sprinkle by now. Outside, he shot out a line to the building opposite his. In no time he was on the street outside her building. It was completely intact. No sign of an explosion or fire. He dropped down into the sewers to take the sub-entrance that led to the service elevator.