Chloe glowered at the black stick in the palm of her hand, unsure if she wanted to laugh or slug Oliver in the back of his melodramatic head. Of course, she wasn't supposed to know he was Star City vigilante. But he knew who she was. What harebrained scheme had he come up with to go from "I worry" to shoot arrows into her bedpost?

"Only one way to find out, I presume. But I swear to you, Oliver Queen, if there's a virus in there, I will ruin you, hero billionaire or not."

Chloe stood to gather her laptop, refreshing her coffee at the same time before she settled on the couch with both. It was close to 2 a.m. Oliver would scold her if he knew, but it was his fault she wasn't curled in her bed anyway.

She uncapped the dongle, and plugged. "Here goes noth—Wow!"

A blue screen appeared next. "Oh, shit! No you don't!" but before she could tear the dongle off to stop her system from crashing, an icon shaped as an arrow appeared on her task bar. Then the computer shut down completely. Chloe growled. "I am going to kill you Oliver."

'Watchtower, online'.

The mechanical voice screeched out of the speakers as the system rebooted. Eyes wide, Chloe stared at her new wallpaper. The gold and green spiraled on the black background to form a broken fractal, as if it'd been cleaved by a sword. Or an arrow. Like the one nestled next to the close-all button which kept winking at her.

She clicked on the icon with an annoyed huff. "Show off."

As if on cue, a new window opened by itself.

EmeraldArcher : Late night?

Chloe was half-tempted to slam the laptop shut.

Watchtower : what do you want

She could just "ear" the smirk in that question mark, and no matter how hard she wished she could smack him right now, she didn't want him to know he'd got to her if he'd highjacked her camera and microphone as well. She opened a separate window to run a quick diagnostic to make sure both were still disable, just in case.

EmeraldArcher : Just thought I'd offered a token of my appreciation.

EmeraldArcher : you did put a lot of efforts in those articles after all.

Watchtower : And the best you could come up with was crashing my system?

EmeraldArcher: Not crashed. Improved.

Watchtower : say you. I liked my original wallpaper.

EmeraldArcher : They say Green is the color of Hope.

Chloe growled at the screen. She'd dealt with the outrageous bordering jackass side of his personality a couple of times. Oliver tampered it to teasing and flirting. The Green Arrow went full out. No wonder he collected so many broken bones and scratches. Probably half of them came as retributions. She resisted pointing out Green also meant jealousy and inexperience. Barely.

Watchtower : what do you hope for, then.

EmeraldArcher : your articles involved thorough research and data analysis. I appreciate the tribute, but I need someone with decent hacking skills more than I need publicity.

"Decent? I'll show you decent, you egotiscal jer—" Chloe moved her mouse to access what she believed what some sort of database. Her heart beat too hard in her chest, and the pounding on her temples bordered painful.

EmeraldArcher : Before you unleash the seventh rings of Hell on me, check the files labeled "Dia". I'll be in touch.

The chat emptied. The only thing left was a clean black window, and the green fractal on the background. Her pulse ran so frantic she had trouble focusing on the delicate geometry.

Her fingers trembled over the mousepad when she moved the cursor to her diagnostic. His stupid stunt hadn't done too much damage, there was always that. She opened another window to access the core of her system to program new firewalls then closed it.

Chloe pulled her hand away from the laptop. A tight rope banded around her lungs, squeezed. She inhaled, but her lungs refused to fill. Panic trickled up the back of her throat. She tried again, palms pressed to her stomach to rhythm her breathing. Air crackled around her, not enough to feed her starving lungs. Her head swam. The sharp sting behind her eyeballs was new and unwelcome. Chloe forced herself to concentrate on the delicate green spiral on the screen. She took in air through her nose count up to three, held, released in measured huffs. She did it again, counting to four this time, then five. Slowly, the vice-like grip around her heart eased. She ruefully laughed to herself. So much for controlling my anxiety.

She sipped some coffee, and found it cold. Chloe emptied the mug anyway, before she turned her stare back to the opened laptop. Her stomach heaved. The back of her throat felt clogged. The world spun north and south. She started to cough, air once more a luxury. The bout of nausea came so fast she barely made it above the sink in the kitchen. Hot tears ran down her face as she emptied her stomach. A minute later, she slumped on the ground, the world revolving in the right direction once more.

For the first time in years, Chloe longed for her foolish teenage adventures, when she hid in the woods with Clark to get something new to pin on her Wall of Weirds and handled emotions like others ride a rollercoaster. She wiped her face with the back of her hand. If all he wanted was to demonstrate there would be no nocturnal stakeouts in her next future, Oliver could rest easy. She wanted to hate him for making her feel so low. Some hero he was.

She gathered her strength and stood to regain the couch on wobbly legs. There was more to the job than trampling around in dark alleys and shoddy neighborhoods, or Kansas cornfields. Research and details, details and research. She might not be fit for field work—yet— but ironing details was something she was extremely decent at.

"Hello there!"

Chloe lifted her eyes from the screen and blinked. "It's open!"

When a dark-haired silhouette appeared on the threshold, haloed by sunlight, she rubbed her eyes to ease their itching. "Hal?"

"The one and only. Wow, blondie, did you get to bed at all last night?"

I tried but then I discovered that your best friend planted an arrow in my bedpost.

She groaned when she unfolded herself from the couch to go and give him a hug. "Why does Oliver think I need someone to check on me any other day?"

"Maybe because he worries since you don't call him back to assure him you aren't trying to survive solely on coffee rather than sleep like normal people do?"

Chloe had stopped poring over files at some point to take a shower and make another pot of coffee. It was still dark, or barely dawn at the time, she knew. She was so engrossed in her research she didn't remember clearly. "What time is it?"

"Little after 9 a.m. What got you so busy?"

She dismissed the question, putting the laptop away. "Side project for Oliver. Big hush hush. What are you doing here? Don't you have work?"

"Flexible hours are one of the perks of being Ferris Aviation best test-pilot."

Chloe answered his wriggling brows with a grimace. Her yawn ruined the effect or maybe it emphasized it. Chloe stretched her arms backward until she heard a satisfactory pop as she rolled her shoulders.

"Whatever our favorite billionaire dropped on your lap is going to wait. I am kidnapping you. You're spending the rest of the day with me."

"I'm not going shopping," Chloe pouted.

"No shopping. Pancakes and the Marine Land."

Chloe pushed hair out of her eyes. She blinked. "You're serious."

"Woman, I never joke about pancakes. Chop, chop. Grab your stuff. Pancakes await for no one."

She followed him out the apartment in a semi-daze. Hal chatted about this and that, the argument he'd gotten into about the "lack of fun" in the flight simulator, the four-billion-dollars plane he'd almost crashed, the Star City Comets chances to make the play-offs, Adam Lambert, and did she know he was almost as good as Freddie Mercury as Queen leading singer…

"How did you and Oliver meet?"

Hal switched lanes in such a tight spot she could have touched the other car if she'd stretched her arm out of the Spider.

"Ah! The 45$ dollar question. He tried to hustle a pool game. Lost a couple of games on purpose to just clean the table next."

"Seriously?"

"I didn't like it. So I proceeded to kick his ass. But then, one of the morons who came with him made a pass at my sister Ana who was waitressing, which Oliver didn't like, because apparently he'd heard her shot the asshole down and "no" means "no". And so before we knew it, instead of beating the crap out of each other, we ganged up against the rest of them." Hal guffawed. "My mom was so pissed… She grounded us for a week. I think Oliver is still scared when she raises her voice."

"You mom grounded Oliver?"

"Hey, we were seventeen, I was not going to let him get arrested, cheater or not! Plus, he defended my sister, that had to count for something."

Chloe lowered her sunglasses down the ridge of her nose to observe his profile. From that angle, the curl around his mouth and chin looked similar to Oliver's. Figures. She pushed her shades back into place. "Hal, for that story alone, the pancakes are on me. Tell me more…"