A/N: Too many crossed wires! I like everyone's reviews, that was all I was trying to say in my last update. I'm kinda stuck though direction wise, I've got the next few chapters in my head but I don't know where I'm going with all this. Any suggestions? Oh and this one has some Chloe and Oliver!

Chapter Ten

"I've got him!" Oliver declared with the ferocity and obsession that would rival Lex Luthor. His boyish good looks were marred by dark circles under his eyes and a gauntness in his face that he didn't notice or care about. He'd been spending all his free time monitoring Lex in the hopes he would make a mistake, go back to his old ways. If that meant Oliver had to skip a few meals and lose some sleep, then he had no problem obliging. And now all his hard work had paid off, Lex had opened a factory in Dublin under the guise of a shipping construction site but Oliver knew better.

Lex had tried to hide the large shipments he had delivered to the factory by bouncing them from place to place to create a maze of travel lines that seemed impossible to untangle, except to Oliver. Several hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribery later and he knew that Lex was shipping the contents of his freaky Clark mausoleum. He was diving back into his obsession with Clark Kent.

Oliver reached a shaky hand for the phone, excited to have a reason to talk to Chloe again and nervous that even after telling her this, she still wouldn't let him back in her life. There had been a time in his life when he had been so sure of his life and his actions and definitely sure of his effect on women. Since Chloe, he had turned into a quivering mass of uncertainty. Losing his grace, charm, temper and turning into an inexperienced boy that even surpassed Clark at his most bumbling. But he supposed it was because he wasn't experienced when it came to her. He had exactly two kisses from her, one tormented night of holding her in his arms and tons of frustratingly platonic work interactions; but he didn't really know her. Instead of getting to know her better over time, she just seemed to move farther away, always shrouded in mystery. So there he was, the billionaire tycoon, hovering uncertainly over a phone call to one girl formerly known as Chloe Sullivan.

"Brrrrinnngg!" Oliver stared stupidly at the startling ring of his private line. He managed to shake the deja vu feeling after a few rings and delivered a crisp greeting to whoever was calling him.

"Oliver, its Lois. You were right about Lex. I couldn't save him, but I need help to stop him." Chloe's voice came through the line clear, confident and slightly desperate. Oliver's lips quirked into a small smile and his eyes sparked into life; the girl who he couldn't get a grasp of had just landed in his lap.

Chloe hung up with Oliver after making plans to meet for lunch to discuss Lex. She wasn't sure Oliver was the best person to call for help, but she was sure that Lex would identify her if she went after him as Seraphina. Plus destroying buildings is Oliver's forte and Chloe very desperately wanted to destroy the building Lex just opened up that would serve as a base to further investigate Clark. Part of her knew this was her fault for sleeping with Clark, but part of her knew Lex would go back down his dark path. She was not the girl for him and as much as she cared about him, he wasn't in her heart. She just hadn't wanted to give up on him when he had changed so much, or at least had appeared to change.

Her phone rang and Clark's name popped up on the caller i.d. It had been a long couple of weeks since she had broken the news to Lex about her sexcapade with Clark and she hadn't had time to figure out her feelings for her high school crush. Between her job at the Planet, her alter ego night time activities and tracking what Lex has been up to; there had hardly been enough time for her to catch a breath let alone think about her love life. So she ignored the call, hoping Clark would give her some more time to figure things out. He was actually respecting her space, though it was in the form of stalking from the sky; it was a definite step up from coming to the Planet every day and calling every hour like he used to do. She had a feeling his serious Superman alter ego was making Clark grow up.

Oliver's Metropolis Apartment

Chloe went to grasp the door knob when it occurred to her that she hadn't been here in quite some time. She moved her hand from the knob and knocked on the door, three gentle but firm raps from her knuckles. Oliver answered almost immediately, in fact he had been watching her hesitation over just walking right in on his security cameras and had been disappointed when she chose to knock. His senses greedily ate her up, he had been starved of Chloe and was enjoying every second of her presence.

"Ummm...are we going out for lunch?" Chloe asked, confused as to why he hadn't invited her in.

"Hmmm...what? Oh! Sorry, yes please come in. I ordered some sushi, it should be here soon." Oliver practically fumbled over himself to get her coat and purse. He hung them up in the coat closet and took a moment to collect himself. Taking a deep centering breath, he turned around and gave Chloe a brilliant smile.

"It's great to see you again,' Oliver exclaimed and then mentally kicked himself for sounding so mundane.

"You too." Awkward silence descended.

"So you wanna get started comparing notes on what we have about Lex?" Chloe suggested feeling like coming to Oliver had been an all around bad idea but determined to make the best of it. Oliver nodded stiffly in response. He didn't realize how comical he looked with his body stiff and rigid while he smiled his painfully forced smile.

"Great idea, I have what I collected set up in the dinning room, let's...Oh screw this!" Oliver stopped suddenly in mid-sentence and grabbed Chloe by her arms. He pulled her tight against him and kissed her. The kiss was over powering, overwhelming, it conveyed exactly how much he wanted to be kissing her, his hunger frightened Chloe, more so than the first time with Lex; maybe because she had never expected this from Oliver. She expertly grabbed his arm, twisted it up while turning her back to him and flipped him, hard, on the floor.

"Gee Oliver, aren't you at least supposed to buy a girl a drink before you maul her?" She suggested sarcastically to him while putting some distance between them. She wasn't afraid he would hurt her, she just didn't want to have to hurt him anymore if he decided to continue where she threw him off.

"What is it Lois?"

"I'm lost, what is what?"

"What is it about Lex that you can give it up to that evil son-of-a-bitch and not me." His eyes burned unnaturally bright, feverish almost and his mouth stretched in an unnatural sarcastic grin. Chloe turned around and headed for the door, not caring if he came near her again. With what he just said, she had no qualms about throwing him through a wall if he touched her.

"Shit Chloe, wait!" She paused when he used her old name, it was nice to hear it from his voice again.

"I don't know why I say these things to you. Every time I think about you and Lex I just get this sick feeling and this acidic rage boils up inside me and...I don't mean what I say, not really. What I meant to say is I miss you and what I meant to do was hug you." He cautiously approached her, when she didn't move, he risked sliding his arms around her. She still din't move or respong to his embrace so he tightened his grip a little and gently put his nose in her hair to breath her in. After a moment, she broke off the hug and moved away.

"Listen this thing with Lex is too important for me to walk away from you. I need your help to destroy his investigation on Clark. You and me and the weirdness and cruelty needs to go on the back burner. So let's just try to get through this and then we can go back to ignoring each other's existence."

"I'm sorry, I don't want to go back to that. It won't happen again, I was hoping this would be an opportunity for us to rebuild our relationship."

"We don't have a relationship Oliver, I'm a different person and apparently so are you. Let's just try to be civil with each other and get rid of this facility."

"Please Chloe, I'm just a man, I do and say stupid and wrong things. I've been in love with you for so long, since before you and Clark even got together, since before Jimmy, probably since the day I met you. Holding it in for so long makes me petty and cruel and I'm sorry. I just miss you and I want you back in my life any way that I can have you. You are right, we are like strangers but I don't want it to stay that way." And just like that, Oliver was back. Not the old Oliver that she knew, and not the new Oliver that attacked her; he was somewhere in between the two. His eloquent words a throwback from his former self and his raw bluntness a development from his darker side.

"I can't make you promises, but I believe that you're sorry for the things you said and did. I'm not one to hold a grudge but it will take awhile to forgive your words. Let's just get to work and see how that goes." She gave him a tentative smile, hoping he would be agreeable because he wasn't getting any better of a deal from her than that.

"It'll be fun, it has been awhile since I destroyed Lex Luthor properties." Olliver gave a mischievous grin, resigned to putting Lex as the number one priority and determined to make the best of it. Chloe let out a silent breath of relief and dug into the paper trail Oliver had uncovered.