Chapter Eleven
They weren't holding each other, weren't touching each other in the slightest. Chloe and Oliver were just lying down next to each other on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.
The sweat on their bodies had dried, and he was starting to shiver from the cold. He knew that he should probably move to clean up the mess on the floor or grab his clothes to cover one of them up. But then he remembered that she wasn't moving either, and he preferred this kind of mess on the floor than the blood that had covered it when he had stitched himself back up.
The idea that he had taken another human being into this room and had sex with her in it was surreal to him. He wondered if she would realize what had happened, who he was, if he got up. If she would dart unexpectedly and delete his number.
He didn't think that he needed to worry about the papers anymore, and that wasn't just because Metropolis didn't know the identity of the Red-Blue Blur.
"I should probably get to work", she said finally, without moving.
"You don't need to", he answered.
He saw her move her head to the side to look at him and raise an eyebrow, but he kept staring at the ceiling. At the monitor that could descend from it so that he could run a search if he wanted to. He wondered if this was a dream just like the last, if something would crack and break, causing the monitor to fall on top of them.
"You going to explain that one?" She asked
"I used your phone and texted your editor that you weren't feeling well while you were…out."
"He bought it?"
Oliver nodded, still looking up at the ceiling.
"You shouldn't have done that, Ollie", she said in a low voice.
"You didn't give me a choice."
"It wasn't your choice to make."
"You were dead", he said bluntly. "So if you want to fix the situation for any future resurrections, then maybe you should give me an instruction manual."
"Don't go off getting yourself killed and you won't need one."
He kept staring at the ceiling. "I'm not going to apologize for that."
"So then you understand that I won't apologize either."
And then he felt the afterglow disappear. "No, I don't."
He got up from the floor and pulled on his boxers. He reached for the remote that had been tossed aside before and pressed a button, opening the door and stepping out.
"Oliver, what are you doing?"
He walked over to the kitchen and pulled his cell phone out of the charger. "I have some messages to return", he said.
"You're the boss and it's early in the morning. Can't it wait?"
He scrolled through his email and saw message after message of emergencies that had popped up and were half-heartedly resolved. There were angry employees and international clients who were waiting to hear back from him. And an assistant who was probably terrified that he had gone and died, terminating any need for employment.
"No, it can't."
"So is it a regular occurrence for you to suddenly need to know what's happening in your inbox? You're shutting me out on purpose."
He let out a laugh and kept scrolling. "Why, is it weird that you're not the one doing it?"
"That's not fair."
She's got to be kidding.
He stopped scrolling and looked up at her. "No, you know what's not fair? The fact that you were dead for three days and I just kept a dead body in my apartment because I didn't know if you were going to come back to life, and you're not telling me what to do so that if it happens again, I have no choice but to do it all over again just because you're scared."
"It's complicated, Oliver."
If she was trying to block him out now, then it was oddly timed. Shouldn't she have run screaming once she found him in his gear up on that roof? And if not then, shouldn't she have done it when he took her into the Arrow room?
"I told you that I was the Green Arrow and it didn't look complicated then."
"Yeah, well, it wasn't exactly my first time taking care of someone who saves the world." She told him.
"Next time, make sure that your little boy scout knows who's the good guy and bad guy before throwing someone across a room."
"That was business."
He remembered Emil mentioning a trigger. Was business her trigger? Was making sure that she didn't just have a mess on her hands a trigger?
"What do you call healing me, Chloe? Was that business too?"
"I can't control it!" She screamed, silencing him. "The first time it happened, my cousin Lois was dead, and the next thing I know, I'm waking up in a morgue and screaming for help. Do you think that I wanted that for myself? That I planned it?"
He was silent as she took a couple of deep breaths before looking back up at him. "There is no rulebook, Oliver. I'm sorry that I put you in that position, but there's nothing else that I could do. I wasn't going to let you die."
"Do you know how long it takes?"
She shook her head. "I think it changes based on the severity of the injury."
"How many times?"
"Three so far."
He bent down and put his arms around her. "I'm sorry that there had to be a third", he murmured.
"I'm not good at this", she whispered.
"I'll let you in on a secret. I'm not good at this either. Trust me, you're not going to get a grade."
"Is it okay if I give you a crash-course?"
He pulled away from her. "We're two people who are supposed to be dead. I get the feeling that the world won't end if you do. But I'm going to need to get you a change of clothes first, otherwise I'm going to be distracted."
She walked over to his closet, pulled out a random black button down shirt and put it on.
"I'm still distracted", he told her, sitting down on the couch.
"I don't have any clothes here other than the ruined beyond repair ones that I came here in. Deal."
"I'm just warning you now, if you suddenly end up naked and I end up inside of you, it's not my fault."
She sat on his lap and pushed him back on the sofa. "You do that and you'll never hear the story. I don't really like to repeat myself."
She brought herself closer to him before pausing millimeters before reaching his lips. He would have barely had to move in order to seal the deal, but that was what she wanted.
"I'm listening", he said against her lips.