"Come in, Hal."

The tall brunette entered the penthouse through the balcony, his trademark grin in place. "You have eyes behind your head, Blondie…"

"Sure. They're called cameras," Chloe answered, pointing at her laptop. She accepted the kiss to her cheek with a light blush.

"You look good, engagement suits you."

She felt anything but. She'd been sick after Oliver and Barbara left for the airport, and her nap had done little to shrink the worried lump in the back of her throat. Chloe shook her head and regretted it immediately. She quietened the disagreeable tickled in the back of her throat with a careful breath.

"Thanks for coming, Hal. I know you are spending time with your family for the Holidays."

The man winked. "That's where my ring is better than yours. It allows me to escape whenever my mom asks too many questions about my love life."

"How's Tess?" Chloe smirked.

"How's Oliver?" Hal shot back. He glanced around, no doubt looking for the man in question. "I mean, where is he? The two of you are more or less glued together these days."

Chloe sighed. "Oliver is in Metropolis."

"Metropolis? Why? What's wrong?"

Chloe sighed again. Suddenly, she wished Ollie was here with her instead of his best friend. She longed to step into his embrace so he could erase the lump blocking her pipe. She blinked the moist feeling away from her eyes.

"There was an incident at Metron Pharmaceutical plant. Ollie needed to be there in person for the press conference. It should begin soon."

She moved to the side to make room for Hal on the couch next to her and switched the TV on. The anchorman seemed to be relaying the same information as before, while the cameras on site showed several firetrucks on standby, an ambulance, and two vans stamped with the CDC blue logo on their flanks.

Hal flopped on the cushion. "You've got popcorn?"

"Not funny."

"Still made you smile, Gorgeous. Come on, let's watch your one and only charm the mass."

And charm he did. Chloe swore none of the female in the conference room heard of the Halldorf Hotel heard a word of his address after Oliver stepped on the podium and flashed a grin at the camera. He gave a brief statement in a confident tone meant to reassure and sympathize at the same time. At 7 am, the fire sprinkler system had automatically turned on, and a general lockdown had been activated. No one had been hurt, and Metron Pharmaceutical was investigating the incident with the help of local reinforcement.

"I will answer what I can of your questions. Yes?"

"Clark Kent, Daily Planet. Mr. Queen, why call the CDC if the incident occurred in one of the computer labs?"

"Metron Pharmaceutial follows a strict safety protocol. We have no reason to believe any of the research labs or conservation chambers were affected, but testing the air quality inside and outside the building is part of that protocol. The CDC and FEMA were kind enough to offer their support and expertise in coordinating the verification."

"Lois Lane, Daily Planet. Do you believe an employee started this to hinder Queen Industries take over? Rumors has it Lionel Luthor wants it back."

"Our security team and the police are looking into the incident. I know they will examine every avenue closely."

"Isn't it convenient that embarrassing paperwork was damaged, though?"

Chloe allowed herself to smirk. Lois was good. Oliver smirked, too. "In this digital era, I'm not too worried about that."

Hal snickered. Chloe elbowed him. "Hush, I'm listening."

As it happened, Oliver was not done answering Lois' irreverent question. "Now if you are referring to documentation about Metron Pharmaceutical former military contracts, you must know that all discussion regarding stem cell regeneration drugs were halted last month. I've personally made sure of that."

"You mean that Doctor Zucker took his RL-65 recipe when you fired him?"

"No, Miss Lane, I meant that we destroyed every single thing we put our hands on."

Chloe took a mental note to research Zucker. The name rang a bell, though she didn't remember Oliver discussing that with her. But then, the past month had been such a roller-coaster of emotions and Arrow-related danger that everything else was a blur.

Lois was still pressing her point, so Chloe returned her attention to the screen.

"What do you have to say to those who claim that RL-65 had the potential to save dozens of our soldiers hurt in the field, Mr. Queen."

"The H-bomb was supposed to end all wars too. We will find a way to help our troups, Miss Lane, but not at the cost of their sanity and their families well-being."

"Because sidelining years of research allow you to get one of Metropolis's flagships for peanuts?"

"No, Miss Lane, because I care."

Effectively shut down, Lois sat back down. Chloe caught a glimpse of Clark bending his head toward her discreetly while her cousin's ponytail bristled as she wrote that last quote down. No one dared asked more questions after that, and Oliver stepped back from the podium. The anchorman took the screen once more. Chloe switched off the TV.

"Your cousin is really something."

"She is just doing her job."

Her heart pounded too hard in her chest. She inhaled in and out to try and slow its frantic pace. Hal noticed but said nothing, instead changing the subject.

"If you say so… Still hard to believe you're related. Anyway, what did you need me for?"

"With Oliver visible in Metropolis, I thought it would be a good idea for the Green Arrow to make an appearance in Star City, since it's been a couple of days. I'll take a look at the security videos from Metron while I'll guide you through patrol. Let's go downstairs."

Hal didn't budge.

"Can you handle whatever is on those feeds?"

Chloe opened her mouth to dismiss his concern. Immediately, she felt a pull at the nape of her neck that forced her to keep her head up and her gaze on him.

"I don't know." She blinked at the admission. The pressure against her skull decreased a notch. "Right… Your ring…" She sighed. "Oliver needs whatever information I can find. And I have you if… If it's too hard."

She forced herself to smile at him. Hal nodded once.

"All right th—" A ringtone she had heard in a while interrupted him. "Yours?"

"Yes, that's my professional line."

Chloe walked quickly to her purse, Hal on her tail. She frowned when she noticed four missing calls, all from the same confidential number. The phone shrilled again in her hand.

"Dor— Hello?"

Her head throbbed. Hal's stupid ring wouldn't even let her use her alter-ego name. Chloe waved at him to step away. Hopefully some distance would help.

"Miss Gale, Dr. Cecile Adams speaking."

Chloe's eyes widened then narrowed.

"Dr. Adams. It's a… surprise."

Hal crooked an eyebrow and stepped forward. She shook her head at him and pointed at the panel leading downstairs, hoping he'd get the message and leave her alone. She needed to be able to speak without the ring's truth spell crippling effects.

"Is it really? I left four messages."

Yet you're calling again… Chloe bit back her inner cheek. The vice-like grip at the base of her skull was back. She lifted her head to find Hal three feet from her, with a questioning look on his face. Chloe pointed toward the panel again, putting as much distance as she could between them.

"I'm taking some personal time for the holidays, Doctor."

"Yes, you certainly seem busy."

The snide comment set her temper from simmer to boil. Only manners stopped her from hanging up. "Is there a specific reason you're calling me, Dr. Adams?"

"I have some information I know you will be interested in. Let's meet tomorrow."

Oh the nerve of that woman!

"I have my hands full at the moment," Chloe answered. Even from the other side of the room, the Green Lantern's ring forced her to tiptoe between the truth and a blatant lie.

"I suppose I can agree to the day after."

She gritted her teeth in frustration. "My fiancé is coming back from his business trip and I doubt either one of us will want to think about work for a while."

"You—"

"You have my email, Dr. Adams. Send me whatever you think I will be so interested in, and I'll take a look." She refused to promise to call. It was bad enough that she'd have to suffer through the good doctor's keynote speech at the Star Lab opening. Maybe she could convince Oliver to attend only the post-opening party. So they could watch pigs fly… "Happy Holidays, Dr. Adams."

Chloe hanged up before the other woman could antagonize her further—if that was enough possible. Hal pocked his head through the doorway. "Problem?"

"Remind me how to get rid of the wicked witch of the west again?"

"You're not seriously running with the Wizard of Oz allegory, are you, Dorothy?"

Her frowned must have looked murderous, because Hal backpedaled. "Huh… Bucket of water?"

"Water. Right." The sudden image of Adams pinned like a butterfly by a high-pressure blast of water made her smack her lips. "Well don't stand here grinning like a loon. We have work to do."

Hal's lopsided smile widened some more. Chloe glowered and marched past him toward the stairs. "You did make yourself useful and brought my laptop, didn't you?"

"Aye aye Captain."

Chloe bit her inner cheek to overcome the surge of annoyance. In the back of her mind, she knew she was misbehaving and that Hal was just an easy target. But the need to grouch and bitch was too strong to resist. It was like PMS multiplied tenfold. Chloe rubbed the pinch in her chest while two angry spots danced in front of her eyes.

Hal looped one arm around her waist to give her an affectioned squeeze. "Mood swings?"

Her cheeks heated. "Sorry. I'm horrible to you… I can't help it. That woman is so… grrrr."

Hal guffawed. "The kitten has claws, that's cute."

"Hey!" She tried to elbow him half scowling, half laughing while a tendril of simmering emerald deposited them on the floor below. Hal handed her her laptop. Chloe stroked a few keys to reactivate it from sleep mode before she connected it to its power bar. The various monitors blinked to life. The faint hum of Watchtower servers cooling system picked up.

She shut down some windows, expended others and shuffled information until it was organized the way she wanted. One screen showed the Metropolis CSI team still on site while another was a disarray of color charts, hue-saturation bars and chroma's options.

Hal pointed to it. "What's that?"

Chloe typed a command, then another. She gritted her teeth when the results refreshed to very little change.

"The gamma integrator program is still trying to calibrate the contrasts. I don't understand why it's taking so long. Their system only keeps a week worth of security feed so with the facility closed for the holidays, I reduced the baseline to 48h. It should be done comparing lux by now."

Hal blinked. Chloe sighed in exasperation. Why did the men always feel the need to make her repeat herself? She wasn't speaking some incomprehensible language! "A fire means more light than usual. If you compare the images at the time of the fire with what the light normally is like, you'll know when it started and how it evolved."

"I sense a but in here somewhere."

"But the program seems to be stuck in a loop."

"So… Either your program is flawed," Hal shot both hands in the air when she snarled, "or there's nothing to find. Let's watch that video without any filter."

Chloe hesitated. The dark-haired man squeezed her shoulder in reassurance.

"It'll be all right, Blondie."

The system crackled. "Keep your hands off my woman, Jordan."