Chloe could hear the laughter from the living room but she couldn't see anything from where she was. She assumed the guys were back from their trip to another 33.1 lab. As much as Chloe was becoming a more involved part of the team, she still had a lot of messes to clean up at the office from her little trip so she was forced to sit this one out. "A little help would be nice." She called out into the apartment. There was the familiar breeze that signaled Bart's arrival and he grabbed the groceries bags from her and she was able to see. "Thanks." She led him to the kitchen and he set all the bags on the counter. "What's going on?" She asked as another round of laughter came from the living room.
"Becca's just telling AC that story about Madagascar." Bart started to unload the groceries.
"Becca?" Chloe said confused as she pulled out the steaks. "Madagascar?" She looked at Bart and he smiled.
"You know the one with the elephants." Bart opened the fridge laughing as he remembered something Chloe wasn't sure about. She looked above his head on the fridge and there was a letter. It was from the homeowner's association about the monthly meeting. But written over the body of the letter, in pink marker were bubbly letters.
"Chlo, don't forget, it's your turn, I went last month. Love Becca." She pulled the paper down from the fridge with a frown on her face. There was the name Becca again. She turned to Bart. "Who the hell …"
"Hey Chlo." A tall girl bound in the room and slung an arm over Chloe's shoulder. Chloe turned to her and her vision went blurry for a second and then she smiled. "Hey Becca." She passed her the paper with a raised eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure what I went to every meeting last year so you owe me big time."
"I was hoping you forgot that." Rebecca smiled.
"Yeah in your dreams." Chloe scoffed.
"Who the hell what?" Bart asked as he munched on a carrot.
"Huh?" Chloe asked.
"You said Who the hell…and then you just stopped."
Chloe looked at Becca who shrugged and then she smiled. "Yeah." Chloe walked closer to Bart. "Who the hell keeps leaving the orange juice out?"
"My bad." Bart blushed and lowered his head as Chloe put the carton back into the fridge.
"What's going on with diner?" Oliver asked from the doorway.
"If people would stop coming in here and interrupting me I could get started." Chloe joked then looked down. She had five steaks. She looked around confused. Why would she have gotten five steaks when she had to feed six people. She sighed and closed here eyes she could feel a headache coming on. "Bart, could you run down to the butchers and get me another steak, I just counted wrong."
"Sure." Bart smiled.
"And some aspirin." Chloe said and Bart nodded.
Chloe cooked diner and they all ate but she couldn't seem to enjoy it because of the headache. The aspirin hadn't helped and the headache just got worse. Victor helped her do the dishes and the second time she dropped a glass into the sink he told her to go get some sleep. She nodded and walked out of the kitchen only to stop as she heard whispers at the door. "I'm not coming over tonight, Chloe's been a little off every since I told her I was moving out to live with you. I think we just need to spend some quality time together." Rebecca said quietly.
"Ok." Oliver smiled. "I understand." He leaned down and kissed her and Chloe shook her head. That seemed wrong but she wasn't sure why. Becca and Oliver had been dating for two years now. She shook her head as they said their goodnights and walked to her bedroom. She passed the table in the hall with all the pictures on it and stumbled a bit. She caught herself on the edge to keep from falling and looked down at a picture of Rebecca and Oliver at Bruce's birthday party. Chloe looked down at it more confused and suddenly Rebecca seemed to flicker in and out and Chloe took her place in the picture. She shook her head as her headache seemed to flare. She lost her grip and found herself on the floor as she heard glass breaking.
"Chloe!" Becca ran up with Oliver and Victor behind her. "Are you ok?"
Chloe looked around, she'd knocked a few of the pictures on to the floor when she fell and their frames broke. In every single one of them, Rebecca flickered in and out and was replaced with Chloe. She screwed her eyes shut tight. "I'll get a broom, be careful." Oliver said.
Victor helped Chloe up and brushed the glass off. "It's just this headache." Chloe said. "I must have lost my footing."
"How about you just go to bed?" Victor offered.
Chloe nodded and allowed Victor to lead her to her bedroom. She changed her clothes and laid down as she heard the mess being cleaned up. She looked on her bedside table and saw a picture of the whole group, and just as with the other pictures, Rebecca flickered and then disappeared. Chloe took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
Her dreams were fitful. She was in her room, in her apartment only everything was blurry. She blinked but it didn't help. "Chloe, something's wrong." A voice that sounded a lot like her own reverberated around the room.
"Becca." Chloe called out and ran down the hallway to Rebecca's room. She threw the door open and sighed in relief. Rebecca was asleep in her bed, but as Chloe watched the bed with Becca in it, flickered just the like pictures and vanished. It was replaced with a row of filing cabinets. Her dresser vanished and a desk took it's place.
"She doesn't belong here." The voice said. "This isn't right."
Chloe shook her head and soon everything that had been in Becca's room was gone, as if she'd never been there.
Chloe shot up in bed and reached beside her to pick up the baseball bat she kept there. She picked it up and walked down the hall to the spare room. She opened it up and gasped, just like in her dream, it was wrong. Instead of her office, it was now a bedroom. There was a dresser, a vanity, and a bed, that was holding a girl that Chloe had never met before in her life. "Becca." She whispered wondering who the hell this girl was and what she was doing in Chloe's house, in Chloe's pictures.
Becca's eyes flew open and she shot up in bed frightened. "Chloe?" She asked.
"Who the hell are you?" Chloe asked.
"What?" Becca got out of the bed slowly.
"How did you get here, how did you do this?" Chloe motioned to the furniture in the bedroom.
"How do you remember?" The girl asked. "You aren't supposed to remember."
"Remember what?" Chloe screamed.
"I'll just have to…" Rebecca lunged forward and grabbed Chloe's arm. Her vision suddenly went blurry and she shook her head as Rebecca walked back into her bedroom. "It was just Bart, raiding the fridge."
"What?" Chloe asked confused.
Rebecca laughed. "You can put down the bat."
Chloe looked and sure enough she had a bat in her hands. "What happened?"
"I don't know. You came in here with the bat saying you heard someone in the kitchen. I went to check." Becca laughed grabbing her robe. "It was just Bart."
"Oh." Chloe smiled. "He should be more careful, next time I might hit him in the head just for the fun of it."
"Well, I have to be up in twenty minutes, might as well get an early start on the day." Becca sighed. "I'll go start the coffee."
"I'll go put up the bat." Chloe blushed sheepishly.
Chloe wasn't really able to concentrate at work, the headache from the day before had come back with a vengeance and she was spending most of the day with the lights off in her office and her head on the table. "That's it." Elizabeth said. "I'm calling Rebecca to come get you."
"Who?" Chloe asked.
"Come on, I know you're upset about her moving in with Oliver but that's just mean."
"What are you talking about?" Chloe lifted her head. "Who's Rebecca and why is she moving in with Oliver?"
Elizabeth looked at Chloe and dropped the phone. "You sound like your being serious."
"I am serious." Chloe said.
"Maybe I should call Oliver instead then." Elizabeth said.
"This whole thing stopped being funny an hour ago Oliver." Chloe said as he led her into her living room. "I don't know any Rebecca, I've told you a hundred times."
"What about this?" He grabbed a picture and handed it to her.
Chloe looked at the picture confused. "Who the hell is that?"
"That's Becca." Oliver seemed worried now. "She's lived with you for three years now."
"Three years, I haven't even been here for three years. I was with Bruce until six months ago."
"Bruce Wayne?" Oliver laughed. "Why on earth would you have been with Bruce Wayne?"
"Oliver, you're really starting to scare me." Chloe said. "I don't know how you changed my pictures, or who this girl is but I do not have a roommate."
"Ok." Oliver walked to the hall. "How do you explain this?"
"My office storage?" Chloe asked when he got to the door to the guest room.
"Rebecca's bedroom." Oliver corrected her and opened the door. Sure enough it was a bedroom.
"Where are my files?" Chloe walked in the room.
"At my place, where we've always kept them." Oliver said.
"Oliver." Chloe looked up at him frightened and confused. "What's going on?" She picked up a pillow from Rebecca's bed.
"I don't know." Oliver said. "But trust me, we're going to find out."
Chloe just nodded. "Do you think…" She cut herself off. "Never mind." She walked past him and into the living room to look at the pictures. Oliver called Bart, Victor, and AC over to her apartment and they all tried to help her, reminding her of things, telling her stories. "I remember all those things, but I don't remember her." Chloe said. "She's just not there." There were unshed tears in her eyes, partly from frustration and partly from her headache that still hadn't gone away.
"I know it's my turn to do dinner but I just can't, I'm exhausted." Rebecca said walking in the room. Chloe turned around and looked at her, confusion all over her face. "Hey." She smiled. "Has that headache gone away?" Rebecca walked up and put her hand against Chloe's forehead. "You don't have a fever." Rebecca said as Chloe's vision blurred a little.
"It's probably just stress." Chloe shrugged smiling. "And you're always exhausted when it's your turn to cook diner. Don't worry I think I can whip something up quickly."
"Wait." Oliver grabbed Chloe's arm. "You remember her?"
Chloe looked between Rebecca and Oliver and laughed. "Of course I remember her, we've only lived together for three years." Oliver looked at the guys who were confused. "What's going on?"
"Chloe, you just spent the last few hours explaining to us that you'd never met anyone named Rebecca, that you didn't have a roommate."
"That's ridiculous." Chloe laughed. "She's right here."
"Yeah." Victor said. "We know. But you didn't."
"I…" She looked confused for a second. "I don't understand."
"Neither do we." Oliver said. "Maybe you should go lay down. I'm going to make an appointment for you to see Doctor Jacobs tomorrow."
"The brain guy?" Chloe said slowly. "You think something…"
"Chloe, you've probably been hit in the head more than anyone I've ever met in my life." Oliver said. "I'm saying, it's better safe than sorry when it comes to your brain."
"Right." Chloe nodded. "Maybe I should get some sleep."
Chloe walked to her bedroom, completely lost. She didn't really remember the last couple of hours, but what she remembered was not what they told her. She remembered just hanging out with her friends, talking about old times, she didn't remember denying the existence of her best friend. She looked in the mirror in her room and tried to make sense of the whole thing.
"She said she didn't remember me?" Rebecca's hurt voice carried all the way down the hall.
"Look, we're gonna figure this out. Dr. Jacobs can figure this out." Oliver said.
"What if he can't?" Rebecca asked. "What if there's nothing wrong with her brain, what if she's…" Rebecca trailed off but Chloe could finish the sentence.
What if she was going crazy, like her mom, like all the other meteor infected people she'd ever met. If she was forgetting people, things, it was possible. Chloe must have been the only person in the world who was hoping for a negative diagnosis from her a brain surgeon. Rebecca knocked on the door. "It's gonna be ok." She told Chloe as she climbed in her bed.
"How?" Chloe asked.
"We'll figure out what's wrong and we'll fix it." Rebecca said. "That's what we do."
"I'm scared." Chloe admitted. "How could I forget you?"
"I don't know." Rebecca said quietly. "But how about this. I'll be right here, all night to make sure it doesn't happen again." She grabbed Chloe's hand and Chloe smiled and closed her eyes. Rebecca sighed and closed her eyes, she'd have a long night a head of her.
Chloe woke up and Rebecca was sitting there smiling. "Do you remember me?"
"Of course I do." Chloe said rolling her eyes.
"Good then, let's have breakfast." Rebecca stood up and Chloe got up to get dressed. She pulled her clothes on then walked to the door and paused. She didn't know where to go. She looked down the hall either way and was frozen in place by the knowledge that she had no clue which way the kitchen was.
"Crap." Rebecca's voice floated down the hallway and Chloe turned to the right in relief. She followed the noises of banging pots and Rebecca's cursing until she came to a room that was completely foreign to her. This was her apartment, she knew that, but nothing looked familiar. Her kitchen cabinets were dark wood instead of white. Her countertop was a red color instead of the light blue Chloe had painstakingly picked out.
She turned around, the living room was all different. The couch was not only in the wrong place it was the wrong couch. The really comfortable, oversized cream sofa had been replaced by a sleek black leather one. Her wooden side and coffee tables that she had spent two weeks looking for were now metal and glass. "Did you buy new furniture?" Chloe asked. "Remodel?"
Rebecca turned around. "No." She said. "This is the way it's always been. You picked this stuff out."
"I did?" Chloe looked back and it really wasn't her style. "I don't think so. The kitchen…"
"God that took forever. After the three months it took to pick out the cabinets I don't even want to think of how long countertops took. And then the appliances." Chloe didn't know what to say.
"I've burned the bacon again." Rebecca said. "Could you do it?"
"Sure." Chloe grabbed the pot from Rebecca and turned to the stove and was suddenly struck with the absolute knowledge that all though she loved to cook, that she cooked all the time, she had absolutely no idea how to work the stove. She dropped the pot with a clang and turned around. "I don't really feel like bacon today. Maybe just something light."
"Right, you're doctor's appointment." Rebecca said. "Toast and cereal then. That I can definitely make."
Chloe just nodded and walked to a dining room table, that like all the other furniture was wrong. It wasn't her wooden, hand carved table, it was like the living room tables, all metal and glass. She ran her hands along the surface and tried to remember picking it out, but she couldn't. She hated it, she hated all the furniture here, this wasn't her apartment, these weren't her things. "Breakfast." Rebecca set a bowl in front of Chloe who smiled slightly. She looked down at the Rice Crispies in front of her and had to stop herself crying, she couldn't even remember if she liked this cereal.
Oliver came to pick her up an hour later and take her to Queen Industries. Her stomach was tied in knots the whole time they did the MRI and the CAT scan. They gave her short term memory tests and took blood and as she shook her leg nervously in Dr. Jacobs office Oliver placed a hand on her knee and smiled at her. "It's fine."
"You don't know that Oliver." She said. "I forgot other things today."
He looked concerned for a minute. "Rebecca?"
"No." Chloe said with relief in her voice. "I don't remember my furniture Oliver, my kitchen seems wrong, I didn't remember how to work the stove this morning."
He took his hand of her knee and tried hard not to show his worry on his face but failed. "We'll figure this out. I promise." He grabbed her hand and squeezed as Dr. Jacobs walked in.
"Well, I've got great news." He smiled. "You're all clear." He sat down. "MRI, CAT scan, everything seems perfectly normal, nothing out of the ordinary, perfectly healthy." Oliver and Chloe both frowned. "Wow that's the worst reaction I've ever had to this news."
"If it's not my head, then what is it?" Chloe asked. "Why can't I remember picking out my couch? Why can't I remember how to cook? What's going on with me?"
"That I don't know." Dr. Jacobs said. "Physically, you're perfectly healthy."
"Physically." Chloe repeated. "So that means…"
"We don't know that." Oliver said. "So don't even think about it. We'll get you home and see if maybe things have changed."
Chloe just nodded, thanked Dr. Jacobs and let Oliver lead her out of the office. They walked down to the street and her headache flared again. She stopped walking for a second and Oliver looked at her concerned. "Chloe?"
"Huh?" She looked up. "Where are we going?"
"Back to your place." Oliver said.
"Right." Chloe sighed looking around. "Where is that?"
Oliver's face seemed to pale as he just steered her down the street. "This way." He said quietly.
"I live here?" Chloe asked as they got off the elevator. "Yes, I do." She said. "I remember now." She looked around and found that her furniture was back the way it was supposed to be. Her kitchen looked right, everything was different from this morning. "I don't understand." She looked around. "This wasn't here earlier."
"What's the verdict?" Victor asked standing up and Oliver just shook his head.
"I'm a little hungry." Chloe said. "I think I'll just make some lunch." She looked around at the worried faces and then walked into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and just stared.
"Chloe?" Bart asked cautiously. "Are you ok?"
"I don't…" She turned around. "I don't' know what to eat." She picked up a carton of orange juice confused.
"You don't like orange juice." Bart said quietly. "You like apple juice."
"Right." She said putting the orange juice back and grabbing the other juice. "I knew that." She said looking around confused. Bart walked over to a cabinet and grabbed a cup down for her.
"What's happening to me?" She asked him as she took the glass from him.
"I don't know." Bart said.
"I'm not so hungry anymore." She set the glass and the juice on the counter and walked out of the room. "I think I'm going to lie down."
"I think that's a good idea." Bart said putting the juice back in the fridge.
Chloe went to her room and slept for a while. Her dreams strange, telling her that Rebecca was wrong, that she didn't exist. Chloe woke up and walked to her dresser. She picked up the picture of her and her friends and stared at it. Something was still wrong. Then just like the day before, Rebecca faded in and out then vanished. That was right now. Chloe's headache seemed to fade a little and she thought about Rebecca and couldn't find her in her memories. She remembered her from the past few days but before that she wasn't there; her headache seemed to fade more and more as she realized some things. Rebecca existed, that much was true, but not in the way everyone thought. She was here, and she was real, but Chloe didn't know her, hadn't met her until two days before when she'd walked into the kitchen. Even then, Chloe had no clue who she was until Rebecca threw her arm around Chloe.
Other things started to fall into place. She remembered now, going into Rebecca's room with the baseball bat and the girl seeming surprised that Chloe didn't know who she was, and then she remembered Rebecca grabbing her arm. "She's doing something to me." Chloe said, remembering how everything seemed ok when Rebecca felt her forehead the other day and how she held Chloe's hand while she slept. When she touched Chloe, she did something to her. She did something to all of them.
Chloe heard the elevator ding and walked out of her room. Rebecca walked in cautiously. "Does she remember me?" Rebecca asked.
"Yes, but she's forgetting other things." Oliver said.
"What did the Doctor say?" Rebecca asked.
"Nothing, she's fine, physically." Oliver told them.
"So what does that mean?" Victor asked.
"I'm not sure yet." Oliver said truthfully.
"Hey." Chloe stepped out.
"Hey." Rebecca said cautiously. "You feeling ok?"
"Great." Chloe lied. "I think I want to try my hand at diner." She looked around. "I like to cook diner right?"
"Yeah." AC smiled. "You love to cook."
"Good." Chloe said. "Rebecca, could you help, I'm still a little fuzzy on where things are."
"Sure sweetie." Rebecca smiled and Chloe made sure that she didn't let Rebecca touch her on the way to the kitchen. When they were in there, away from the others Chloe turned around.
"Who are you?" She asked.
"Chloe, not this again." Rebecca said. "I'm your roommate."
"No." Chloe said. "Let's just cut all the bullshit, and don't touch me." She said backing away from Rebecca's outstretched hand. "You didn't exist in my life until a few days ago, when they came back from the 33.1 lab in South Africa. "So what? You're a meta?"
Rebecca sighed. "Fine, have it your way." She leaned against the counter. "I hate that word, I prefer to think of myself as gifted."
"Right." Chloe said. "And what's your gift?"
"A little reality manipulation, memory modification." Rebecca said.
"So that's what happened. You changed their memories? Put yourself in them."
"Score one for the Watchtower." Rebecca laughed.
"Why?" Chloe asked.
"Why not?" Rebecca said. "I was going to go from Lex's lab straight to Oliver's, didn't seem like something I really wanted to do so I just fixed it. Made myself a part of the team made myself a part of their life."
"Why didn't it work on me?" Chloe asked confused. "What did it do to me?"
"Ah now, it took me a while to figure that out." Rebecca said. "You're power, healing. It sees my little memory changes as wounds and it fixes them, but the brain is a sensitive thing and every time I change something, it takes more effort and time for your brain to heal it, sort of messes you up a bit."
"You can't keep doing it." Chloe said. "I know now, you have to touch me and I won't let that happen. I'll tell them, I'll fix this and then what will you do?"
"Oh, I can't let that happen." Rebecca sighed. "I like it here, I like this apartment, I like my boyfriend." She wiggled her eyebrows. "And I like this life. You should be careful with the knife."
Chloe looked confused then felt something heavy in her hand. She turned and saw that she was holding a butcher's knife that wasn't there before. "This isn't real."
"It's real." Rebecca said and moved forward quickly grabbed Chloe's other wrist.
"It won't last." Chloe said. "I'll remember."
"Yeah but this one should scramble your brain long enough to buy me time." Rebecca smiled.
"Buy you time for what?" Chloe asked struggling to keep hold of her senses as her vision tried to blur.
"Time to get you out of the way."
"You can't just kill me." Chloe said. "They'll figure you out then."
"Oh I'm not going to kill you." Rebecca smiled. "See I've been in your head quite a lot in the past few days. I know just the thing to get you out of our way. The very thing that you've been afraid of for almost ten years now."
She couldn't hold it any longer and her vision blurred. When she could see again it was chaos. AC and Victor were in front of her, trying to calm her it seemed. "Put the knife down." Victor said. Chloe looked at her hand and there was the butcher's knife from before, only now it had blood on it.
"It's all right, it's not deep." Oliver was saying and behind AC she could see Rebecca holding onto her arm, there was a long gash from her shoulder to her elbow.
"Come on Chloe." AC said. "You don't want to hurt anyone else."
"No, I didn't do that." Chloe said confused. "I didn't."
"Ok." Victor said. "It's ok, just put the knife down."
She looked at the knife and set it on the counter and AC ran forward and grabbed her, pulling her arms behind her back. Victor sat her down at the kitchen table. "I didn't do that." She said looking at Rebecca. "She made me think that I…she told me something, what was it." Chloe asked frantically. "I figured it all out."
"Figured what out?" Victor asked.
"She's doing something to me, to us, but I can't remember what." Chloe said. She looked at Rebecca. "What did you do to me?"
"Me?" Rebecca pulled herself off the ground. "You stabbed me."
"No." Chloe said. "The knife wasn't there, you put it there. You did this."
"I stabbed myself?" Rebecca asked.
"Well I didn't….you told me, you did all this." Chloe said screaming. "Tell them what you did." She lunged forward and Rebecca shrunk back as AC and Victor grabbed her and pulled her back down in the chair.
"Oliver." Rebecca said. "I know we talked about this."
"I just don't think it's the right move." Oliver said.
"Yesterday maybe it wasn't the right move, but now." Rebecca indicated her bleeding arm.
"What are you talking about?" Bart asked.
"I'm talking about getting her help. The help she needs."
"What does that mean?" Bart asked cautiously. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about Serenity Farms."
"No way." Victor said.
"The Nut House?" Bart screamed.
"Rebecca, I can't do that." Oliver said. "I promised her I wouldn't let that happen."
"You know about her mom, she told you herself, all of the people with meteor powers go crazy." Rebecca said.
"She's not crazy." AC interrupted. "I don't know what's going on but she's not crazy."
"AC's right." Oliver said. "Maybe something happened; maybe it was something from the last 33.1 lab."
"Why are you taking her side?" Rebecca almost screamed.
"I'm not taking a side." Oliver said. "She's my best friend, I just want to make sure…"
"I'm your girlfriend." Rebecca said. "And she stabbed me."
"I didn't." Chloe said, everything having come back to her. "She just made me thing I did it. But I didn't." Chloe insisted. "She's not who you think she is. She's a Meta, she can manipulate reality, manufacture memories."
Chloe saw it this time because she knew she saw Oliver's eyes cloud over for a second and then he smiled. "She is a meta Chloe but that's not her powers. Rebecca moved forward, pretending to need support and grabbing onto each of the guys on her way to Chloe, she saw all of their eyes cloud then clear.
"I can move things with my mind Chloe." Rebecca said slowly as she pointed at the vase on the kitchen table and it rose in the air.
"No." Chloe said desperately. "She's not really doing that, she's just making you think she's doing it."
Rebecca turned to Oliver. "They can help her at Serenity Farms."
"I'm not crazy." Chloe pleaded with them. "Don't do this Oliver."
Rebecca made her way back to Oliver, again, leaning on each guy for support, again watching their eyes cloud over then clear. "We already decided yesterday." She said to Oliver grabbing his arm. "It was a hard decision but you made it Oliver, you said it was the best thing for her."
"It is." Oliver said. "The best thing for her."
"Oliver no." Chloe cried. "You can't do this, you have to listen to me, you have to believe me."
Oliver walked forward. "They can help you there Chloe." Oliver said.
"No." Chloe cried.
"They'll make you better." He assured her.
"Please." Chloe said sobbing now.
"Get the car Victor." Rebecca said. "The sooner we get here settled in the sooner they can start to help her."
"Victor, don't, you have to believe me. Say you believe me."
Victor just turned his head and walked away. "Bart, don't let them do this, you know deep down something's not right about this, you know it." Bart looked between Chloe and Oliver and then at Rebecca. "No." Chloe said. "Don't look at her, don't let her touch you. You know this is wrong Bart."
"Bart." Rebecca said placing a hand on his back. "You tried to help her and it didn't work, this is the only way and you know it." Bart's eyes clouded again and Chloe sobbed harder.
"It's the only way Chloe." Bart said. "To make you better."
She tried and failed the whole way to Serenity Farms to convince them they were making a mistake. She tried to get Rebecca to stop whatever she'd done, but all that got her was a shot of sedative by the staff. The last thing she remembered before she fell asleep was Rebecca giving her a hug. "Don't touch me." Chloe was mumbling.
"The medicine will help." Rebecca said. "Not you, me, you see it messes with your powers a bit, keeps them from working right, if my luck holds by tomorrow, you might even have yourself convinced you're crazy."
"No." Chloe pleaded, turning her gaze from Rebecca to Oliver. "Please don't leave me here."
He couldn't say anything as he turned away from her, ashamed. "We'll take good care of her." Dr. Richmond, Chloe's admitting Doctor told them.
"Just a forty eight hour observation right?" Oliver asked.
"That's all." Dr. Richmond said as he walked them out.
Two days later they were all seated in Dr. Richmond's office waiting for him to show up. "You think she'll be up to eating?" Bart asked. "I can go to New York and get take out from that place she likes."
"She might not be up to that yet." Oliver said. "Let's just take it slow, try not to overwhelm her at first ok."
"Fine." Bart sulked.
"Did you guys make sure the apartment was clean?" Rebecca asked.
"Everything's just how she left it." Victor said and the Doctor walked in the room smiling but not very brightly.
"So is there some paperwork I needed to sign?" Oliver asked. "Because we'd really like to get her out of her as soon as possible."
"The reason why I asked to see you guys…" The Doctor sighed and sat down. "I don't have good news."
"What?" AC asked concerned.
"I can't release her today."
"You said a 48 hour observation period that was it." Oliver reminded him.
"Well we did observe her for 48 hours and we can not in good conscious release her."
"I don't understand." Victor said.
"This is a tape our first interview." The Doctor moved his computer screen so they could all see it. It was security footage of a patient's room, Chloe's room. The first thing they noticed was that she was strapped to her bed.
"Are those necessary?" Oliver asked upset.
"When her sedative wore off, she attacked four of our orderlies." Dr. Richmond said.
Bart smiled and Oliver just nodded. Dr. Richmond pushed play.
"Chloe." Dr. Richmond said. "Are you with me now?" Chloe turned her head slowly to face the Doctor and nodded. "Good, I want to start off by talking about what happened. Do you know why you're here?"
"She put me here." Chloe said.
"She who?" Dr. Richmond asked.
"Rebecca." Chloe said.
"Let's talk about Rebecca. They said you attacked her."
Chloe scoffed. "I didn't attack her. She just made everyone think that. She can do that you know."
"She was here when they brought you in." Dr. Richmond pointed out. "I saw the bandage on her arm."
"I didn't do that." Chloe said more forcefully.
"Who did?"
"Maybe she did it to herself. Maybe it wasn't even real." Chloe said. "You don't know with her. You don't know what's real."
"Is that a problem you have?" Dr. Richmond asked. "Not knowing what's real?"
"No." Chloe said forcefully. "I know what's real, it's everyone else, she's messed everything up."
"How?"
"She changed their memories, she added herself." Chloe said. "She doesn't belong with them; she doesn't belong in their memories."
"She changed their memories, with the powers you said she had." Dr. Richmond flipped through pages in his pad. "You told us last night that she had magical powers that could mess with people's minds."
"Not magical." Chloe said. "It's not about magic." She sighed. "She's a metahuman."
"Right, that's what you called them." Dr. Richmond said. "And her powers can change memories?"
"But it didn't work on me, they didn't stick. She said it was because of my powers."
"You have powers to?" Dr. Richmond asked.
"I can heal people." Chloe said. "That was the problem." Chloe sighed. "My healing powers thought her fake memories were wounds, it tried to heal them so she couldn't fool me."
"But she fooled your friends?"
"They can't remember the truth, she's twisted it." Chloe said.
"How?"
"Their memories of her, it's not how it happened." Chloe said. "It wasn't her who did those things it was me." Chloe said. "She put herself in my spot, made them think it was her. Just like the pictures, they aren't real, she changed them."
"The pictures?" Dr. Richmond asked.
"The one of her and Oliver at the hospital benefit. She didn't go with him, that was me." Chloe said. "And the one of her and Victor at the carnival. She's holding the bear he won at the ring toss booth. But it wasn't her, I went with him to the carnival, he won me the bear."
"I see." Dr. Richmond said. "So she's substituted herself in your place in their memories."
"Yes." Chloe smiled. "The necklace she wears. The apple, Oliver gave that to me, not to her. It's my necklace. He gave it to me for my birthday."
"I saw that necklace." Dr. Richmond told Chloe. "How did she get it."
"I don't know." Chloe said. "But it's mine. His dad made it special for his mom. I didn't want to take it, but he said she'd want me to have it. He said she would have liked me." Chloe smiled at the memory. "That she was spunky just like me. There's a chip, in the stem, at the top. It was an accident. I closed it in the car door, I've been working up the courage to tell him."
Oliver tore his gaze from the screen and looked at the apple around Rebecca's neck. There was a chip in the stem of the apple. Rebecca looked at him and he turned his gaze back to the screen. "I can't be here Doctor, I have to help them, I have to stop her before…"
"Before what?" Dr. Richmond asked.
"Before she makes them forget me." Chloe whispered sadly.
"How are you going to do that?"
"I don't know." Chloe said. "But I'll do whatever it takes."
The Doctor turned the footage off and looked at all of them. "Aside from the paranoid delusions we can't be sure that she won't attack Rebecca again, she's determined to stop her from doing this memory thing."
"I don't understand though." Oliver said. "Where did all this come from? Rebecca is her best friend."
"She told me that you and Rebecca were moving in together." Dr. Richmond said. "Chloe's past has been volatile at best. She lost her mother when she was younger, then her father, and more recently her Uncle. I think that the move just hit her hard. It's like she's loosing the both of you and she doesn't know how to deal with it so she focuses the blame on Rebecca, inventing these powers as a reason to hide from the truth."
"Thank you Doctor." Rebecca said. "How much longer do you think she'll be here?"
"I can't say for sure."
"No." Bart said. "That's not Chloe." He pointed to the screen. "Not my Chloe. I want to take her home."
"Bart." Oliver said.
"You said she'd be ok." Bart screamed. "She looks worse and now they're saying she has to stay indefinitely."
"Bart has a point." Victor said.
"You think I want this?" Oliver asked. "You think I like what's happening to her."
"What do you care?" Bart said. "You were so worried how'd she take the news, you and Rebecca moving in together. Well now you're free to do that aren't you? Chloe's out of the way, makes your life easier doesn't it?"
Oliver didn't know why he did it, he didn't even realize what he'd done until it was over and Bart was on the floor wiping blood off his lip. He looked at his hand, his knuckles were throbbing and he'd realized that he'd hit him. Bart stood up and walked to the door.
"Where are you going?" Oliver asked him.
"To see Chloe." Bart said. "I can do that right Doc?" The Doctor nodded his head.
Victor and AC looked at Oliver then followed Bart out of the office. "It's ok." Rebecca said. "This isn't your fault."
"It really feels like it is." Oliver said and walked out after the guys.
Chloe was sitting at a table staring out of the window onto the garden below. "Chloe." Bart said walking slowly over to her. She turned her head and saw him and smiled. "Hey." He put his hands in his pockets.
"48 hours." Chloe said. "I've been counting." Bart frowned and so did Chloe. "What happened to you?" She stood up and touched his lip.
"Nothing." He turned away from her. "Don't worry about it."
"Did someone hit you?" Bart cut his eyes to Oliver then back to Chloe. "Why?"
"We had a little disagreement." Bart said. "About you. Look, Chloe." He grabbed her hands and led her to sit back down. "We can't take you home today."
Her smiled faded and she looked at Bart blankly. "They want to keep you here a little longer." Victor told her.
"Because I'm crazy." She said. "That's what they told me."
"You aren't crazy Chloe." AC said. "I don't know what's going on but you aren't crazy."
"Do I have powers?" Chloe asked in a whisper. "Because I think I have powers but I can't use them."
"You can heal people." Victor said. "You have such a great power."
"But they say I'm lying." Chloe said confused. "And I can't prove it, they don't work here."
"Maybe you shouldn't talk about your powers." Bart said. "People won't really understand. They'll just think…." He cut himself off.
"That I'm crazy."
"But you aren't." Victor said. "We'll come visit all the time, as much as they let us, until they come to your senses and let you out of here."
"Ok." Chloe said. "Ok." She nodded sadly at them.
Rebecca walked up. "Can I have a minute?" She asked and they all walked away. "This is better than I expected." She said.
"You did do this to me." Chloe said. "I remember that."
"Oh you know you can't trust your memory Chloe." Rebecca smiled. "But yes, I did do this, but it's working out so much better than I planned."
"I'm not crazy." Chloe breathed a sigh of relief.
"No, Chloe you aren't crazy." Rebecca said. "And that's the best part of this whole thing. You are perfectly sane, and they'll never believe it and you'll be stuck here." She grabbed Chloe's hand before she could pull away. "The medicine should keep your brain scrambled just enough to make it believable."
"I'll get out of here and I'll stop you." Chloe said.
"I really don't see that happening. We could have been friends, I wanted us to be friends. Oh well." Rebecca smiled. "Have fun won't you?"
"You can't do this." Chloe pleaded with her.
"I really can." Rebecca smiled and walked back to the guys and they all started to leave the room.
"Give me just a second." Oliver said finally and turned and walked to Chloe.
"Oliver." She smiled at him.
"I know you hate it here, I know I promised I would never let this happen, and I'm sorry."
"I don't blame you." Chloe assured him as tears formed in her eyes.
"You will get out of here." Oliver said. "You'll come home and we'll have a huge party with all your favorites."
"Will there be cake?" Chloe asked crying.
"There will always be cake." Oliver said, his own eyes tearing up. Chloe looked at him and slowly started to smile. "We'll see you later."
"There will always be cake." Chloe said quietly as they walked away and Rebecca paused looking at Chloe confused as she made sure to show Rebecca the smile she had on her face.
"Chloe, it's your turn." Dr. Richmond said and Chloe looked around. Group therapy was one of the more interesting things about Serenity Farms. At least here you got to learn about other people's problems, not just talk about your own. "I want to talk about Rebecca today."
"I'd rather not." Chloe said.
"It's been two weeks since you were admitted Chloe and you haven't talked about Rebecca since that first night." Dr. Richmond said. "When you told me that she had magical powers, powers to mess with people's memories, to change reality."
Chloe wanted to remind him that the powers weren't magical but she just smiled. "That's sounds like crazy talk Dr. R."
He smiled ruefully at her. "We don't like that word." He reminded her.
"Right." Chloe said. "Wouldn't want the crazy people to know they were crazy." Tina, Chloe's roommate laughed. Of all the people in this place, Tina was the only other person that Chloe could truly say wasn't crazy. She'd gone through a hard time, her best friend and her fiancé ran off together and eloped a few days before Tina was supposed to get married and she had a little breakdown, but she wasn't crazy, just pissed.
"Ok, so you won't talk about Rebecca." Dr. Richmond said. "What exactly does cake mean to you?"
"A yummy treat often served at parties?" Chloe smiled ruefully.
"That's a very literal definition." Dr. Richmond smiled. "But it must mean something more. For two days straight the only thing you would say over and over was cake, and then you started to improve drastically."
"Yeah well, in case the accommodations didn't clue you in…Crazy remember." Chloe said.
"You aren't crazy." Dr. Richmond told her.
"Yeah?" Chloe raised an eyebrow. "Then how come someone watches me pee?"
Tina chuckled again and Chloe smiled. "Chloe, I really don't think you're crazy."
"Well you're the only one Doc." Chloe said and turned her head to look back out the window which was generally her cue to the good Doctor that she was one talking.
"You aren't going to get out these accommodations any time soon if you don't participate in group." He reminded her.
"Really?" Chloe said. "Don't be so sure about that."
"Ok. Tina, let's move onto you." Dr. Richmond said.
He wasn't wrong Chloe thought. Cake meant a lot more to her than she could explain. Cake was a running thing for Oliver and Chloe. Cake being one of her favorite things was always used as an incentive to get Chloe to do something or a reward when she'd done something good. But it wasn't the cake itself that meant so much to her, but it was what Oliver had said. There will always be cake. They also used cake to represent things, to represent their friendship, the way they felt about each other.
After she mulled it over for a few days she finally figured it out, cleared her head, and realized what she had to do. Rebecca had basically just taken most of Oliver's memories of Chloe and substituted herself in them. But if that was the case, then cake would be Rebecca and Oliver's thing, not Chloe and Oliver's thing. It would mean that Rebecca was the one who told Oliver that there would always be cake, and Oliver would have no reason to say it to Chloe, no reason to think Chloe would understand what he was talking about. But somewhere deep down he did. Somewhere inside he knew that it was really Chloe who had said that to him.
After thinking it through Chloe realized something. Rebecca's powers were limited. She could rewrite memories but she couldn't completely change them. The basis of the memories were there, the feelings behind the memories couldn't be changed. So when Oliver thought about it, the memory might have been changed so that Rebecca was the one in the hotel room telling him that, but underneath it, he knew that it was Chloe, it was Chloe who had that bond with, that inside joke.
Chloe then realized another thing when they visited her the week before.
Rebecca and Bart were icy at best with each other and AC and Victor seemed to just tolerate her and she and Oliver looked much more strained than the week before. Rebecca seemed to be a little upset that she had to be there, that they'd wanted to come at all and the look that she was shooting Chloe was obvious that she wanted nothing more than for Chloe to be dead. "Look, Dr. Richmond wants me to try something new in therapy." Chloe told them. Pretending to be nervous about the whole thing. "He thinks that a session with my friends, one at a time might help. Have a little one on one with each of you. It might help me to sort out what's real and what's not up here." She tapped her head. "So I was hoping…"
"Of course." Victor assured her, and the rest of them nodded, all except Rebecca.
"Thanks." Chloe smiled. "Do you think, Victor, could you go first? Maybe next Tuesday?"
"I'll be here." He assured her. Chloe set up times for everyone else and then smiled at them all.
"Could I have a moment with Rebecca, I really need to apologize to her."
"Sure." Oliver smiled and kissed her on the forehead. "You look good, you sound like you're doing great." He told her.
"I think I'm getting there." Chloe said. They guys all said their goodbyes and left the table. Rebecca reached forward and Chloe turned and glared at her. "Don't even think about touching me." Chloe said. "Don't think for a second that I wouldn't risk two days in the solitary room just to knock you on your ass."
Rebecca pulled her hand back and glared. "So things don't look like their following your plan are they?" Chloe smiled.
"I don't know what you mean." Rebecca said.
"Really?" Chloe said. "I think you do. You're little plan, you never wanted to be my friend, you wanted to be me. You wanted to slowly take over my life, edge me out until you were in there. But you got rid of me Becca. You drove me crazy and got me looked up in the loony bin and still, it didn't work. They still like me better don't they?" Chloe smiled. "Even Oliver, that must put such a strain on your relationship. I heard that he postponed the big move in. Thought it would be better, for my sake, if you guys just cooled off a bit."
"He's worried it will push you further over the edge." Rebecca growled out.
"Oh." Chloe said. "Well I'm not sorry." She smiled. "You can make someone remember you, but once they get to know you Becca, it doesn't mean they're going to like you." Rebecca glared at Chloe as she smiled.
"I was wondering something though. If you wanted me gone, why did you go to so much trouble to put me in here when you could have just taken me out of their memories? Made them forget I even existed? Then you could have just simply taken over my life." Chloe said and Rebecca looked away. "You can't do that can you? That's what I thought. You can change memories and you can create fake ones, but you can't erase them can you?"
"So you figured that out, so what." Rebecca spat at her. "It doesn't mean anything."
"Well, that actually means a lot." Chloe said. "It means that the real memories are still in there, they've just been changed. I just need to figure out how to change them back."
"You won't." Rebecca said. "And even if you did, it's not like you'll be getting out any time soon."
"Right." Chloe said. "You've got me there."
"Chloe. Victor's here. It's time for your solo session." Dr. Richmond interrupted her thoughts. She noticed that group was over and followed him to his office.
Victor was pacing when they walked in and he gave her a hug. "Please, sit." Dr. Richmond said. "Are you nervous?"
"A little." Victor said.
"Don't be." Dr. Richmond said.
Chloe smiled. This wasn't actually Dr. Richmond's idea, Chloe was the one who suggested it and he thought it might help her. "So what now?" Victor asked after he sat down.
"May I?" Chloe asked and Dr. Richmond nodded. "I want to apologize, first off."
"Chloe you haven't done anything to apologize for." Victor assured her.
"Oh no, not yet." Chloe said. "But I'm about to."
"What do you mean?" Victor asked.
"Conquistador." Chloe said to him and his body went limp and his head leaned forward.
"Oh no." Dr. Richmond got up and went over to Victor. "What happened? Is he sick?" He felt for a pulse.
"He's fine." Chloe said standing up and locking the door to the room. "He's just…sleeping, sort of."
"Did you…" Dr. Richmond saw her turn the lock on the door and stood up. "What are you doing?"
"I'm really sorry about this Dr. Richmond." Chloe said. "But there isn't another way." She reared back and hit him the face, sending him sprawling to the ground.
When he woke back up he was tied to his chair and Chloe was at his desk typing on his computer. "What's going on? What did you do to him?"
"He's fine, well he will be, once I fix him." Chloe said typing rapidly.
"How did you…put him to sleep? That word."
"It was a trigger, to shut down his system."
"Like hypnosis?" The Doctor asked.
"No, more like a reboot." Chloe looked up. "He's half computer."
"Half computer?" Dr. Richmond said.
"Yeah, there was an accident, they rebuilt him with machine parts, it's all very "Six Million Dollar Man"." Chloe said plugging something in the computer and then carrying the wire over to Victor. She pulled up his sleeve and plugged the cord into his arm.
"Oh God." Dr. Richmond watched everything with interest. Chloe walked to the computer and hit enter. Victor's head snapped up and his left eye glowed red for a second. "What…"
"Emergency Reboot activated." Victor said. "Awaiting instructions."
"Recover from last back up date." Chloe said.
"Recovery in progress." Victor said almost mechanically. "Recovery complete."
"Query subject Sullivan, Chloe." Chloe asked.
"Sullivan, Chloe." Victor said. "Restricted file, security clearance level five required, access code requested."
Chloe seemed to sigh in relief. "Query subject Sanders, Rebecca." Chloe said.
Victor's eye glowed again. "Subject Sanders, Rebecca not found."
Chloe seemed to take a deep breath. "Restart systems."
Victor suddenly blinked and looked around confused. "Chloe." He asked. "Where are we?"
Chloe smiled and ran to hug him. "Thank God."
"What just happened here? Why is that man tied up?" Victor asked and then looked at his arm. "What's going on? Did you…"
"I'm sorry but I had to." Chloe said. She explained everything that had happened to her, that happened to them, about Rebecca.
"I don't know any Rebecca." Victor said. "I swear."
"I know." Chloe said. "But yesterday you did." Chloe reminded him. "I had to do something and I figured out if I reset your system to a time before you met her, before you guys found her at the 33.1 lab, it would erase what she did to you."
"It worked." Victor said pulling the plug out of his arm.
"I'm sorry." Dr. Richmond said. "But are you saying that what you told me is true?" He looked between the two of them. "She really does have powers; she can alter your memories, your reality?"
"Yes." Chloe sighed.
"Dear God." He sat back in his seat.
"Was it really a good idea to have him in on all this?" Victor asked.
"I had to." Chloe shrugged. "I needed his computer and I needed him to realize that I wasn't crazy."
"No." Dr. Richmond said. "I suppose you aren't."
"Can you fix the others?" Victor asked.
"I think so." Chloe said. "Rebecca said that it didn't work on me because my power was healing her memories, treating them like a wound. So if I just heal the others."
"Let's go then."
"No." Chloe said. "I don't want Rebecca to know that you know." Chloe said. "I can't leave just yet or she'll suspect something."
"You're going to stay here?" Victor asked.
"I can do anything now anyway. The medication he had me on, it interfered with my powers. I need to get it out of my system before I do anything." Chloe turned to him. "Will you help me?"
Dr. Richmond just nodded, trying to take everything in. Chloe walked over and untied him. "I'm really sorry about this, but you had to see."
"Yes, I did." Dr. Richmond said. "I guess I should apologize to you."
"It's cool." Chloe said. "If I didn't know what I knew and someone showed up talking about powers and altering memories I would think they were crazy too."
"Yes." Dr. Richmond smiled and stood up.
"I need you to go back." Chloe said to Victo. "Pretend like nothing's changed, like you've known Rebecca for years."
"I'm just supposed to…"
"Yes." Chloe said. "Until I get the meds out of my system and I can fix the others."
"You'll be ok here?" Victor asked. "I know you hate this place."
"Well, if I can get Dr. Richmond to put me on sugar pills, my mind should stay clear, and then we can take care of Rebecca." Victor said.
A week later Chloe was in the arts and crafts room. She still had to go to group, she still had to go to craft time but at least now Dr. Richmond believed her, he didn't treat her like a crazy person. He immediately took her off the meds and they spent their allotted solo therapy sessions with him asking her questions and her telling him about Metas.
"Crap." Tina said and Chloe walked over to her.
"What?" She asked concerned.
"Just a paper cut." Tina held out her hand. Dr. Richmond walked over and held a rag to it to stop the bleeding.
"Let me see." Chloe grabbed Tina's hand and there was a small light as the paper cut disappeared. Chloe smiled. "Must not have been as bad as you thought."
"There's nothing there." Tina said confused. "But there's blood on the rag."
"It must just be too small for you to see." Chloe said but she was smiling at Dr. Richmond. "A lot of blood for such a little cut."
Tina shrugged and went back to work. "You're really telling the truth." Dr. Richmond said.
"You still weren't sure?" Chloe smiled and grabbed the rag from him, putting it on her hand to cover a cut in the same place that Tina's was.
"I guess, not completely." He smiled sheepishly at her. "But it looks like you got your powers back."
"I guess it's time then." Chloe said.
"I'll make the phone call." Dr. Richmond nodded.
"Thank you." Chloe said. "For everything."
"Don't thank me yet." Dr. Richmond said. "Not until it's done."
Chloe just nodded.
The next day everyone was once again sitting in Dr. Richmond's office. "You think this is a good thing?" Bart asked. "You said she was doing much better when you came last week."
Victor just smiled. "I don't know."
"Maybe they're letting her come home." AC offered.
"That would be great." Oliver said and looked at Rebecca. "Don't you think?"
"Fantastic." She said through clenched teeth.
"Hello." Dr. Richmond smiled walking in the room. "Thank you all for coming."
"What's going on Doc? Is she cured, can she come home?"
"Chloe's fine." Dr. Richmond said. "But she's not cured." He told them.
"What do you mean?" AC asked.
"I couldn't cure her, because there was nothing wrong with her." Dr. Richmond sat down.
"Nothing wrong with her?" Oliver said confused. "What about all that stuff she said when she got here?"
"That was the truth." Chloe said and they all turned to see her at the door. "Every last word of it."
Victor smiled and stood up. "Grab her, so she can't touch anyone." Chloe said.
Victor nodded and pulled Rebecca's arms behind her back and Oliver jumped up. "What's going on?" He asked.
"Oliver." Chloe said and he turned to Chloe. "I need you to trust me ok, can you do that?"
Oliver looked at Rebecca who was struggling against Victor and Chloe who was pleading with him. "Yes." He said. Chloe smiled and Victor shoved Rebecca into the same chair that Chloe had tied Dr. Richmond up in.
"Don't move, and don't even think about touching me." Victor said.
Chloe walked up to the guys and smiled. "Trust me." She said to Oliver and he smiled and nodded and Chloe reached out and grabbed either side of his head, closing her eyes. Her hands started to glow and when they were done she pulled away. Oliver looked at Chloe confused for a second.
"Oliver, don't believe what she says." Rebecca told him.
"I remember now." Oliver said slowly. "You were in one of the labs." He turned to the others. "We saved her from the lab and carried her outside and then it becomes a blur."
"She used her power on you." Chloe said. "She didn't want to get put in another lab so she put herself in your memories instead."
"What is she talking about?" AC asked.
Chloe looked at Oliver. "Go ahead." Chloe walked over and healed him too. Then she moved onto Bart.
"Victor." Chloe said. "I don't have a lot of time, it's gonna hit me soon."
"What is?" Dr. Richmond asked.
"When she heals people, she takes their wounds from them."
"Like the paper cut." Dr. Richmond said.
"Yes." Chloe smiled. "Like the paper cut." She squeezed her eyes shut as the headache started. "So I'm going to take all the memories I took from you guys and that might make me a little…crazy." She said.
"Right." Oliver nodded.
"What do we do with her?" AC asked as Rebecca just glared at them.
"Well, Dr. Richmond." Chloe said. "If you keep her on medication, she can't use her powers. I think it would be best for everyone if she got the help she needed."
"I don't need any help." Rebecca said.
"You don't?" Chloe smiled. "You tried to take over my life. That doesn't really sound like the work of a sane person. What do you think Doctor?"
"No." Doctor Richmond said. "It doesn't."
"Don't." She said. "Oliver, help." She pleaded with him. "You can't let them do this."
"I really can." Chloe smiled before frowning as the headache got worse. "I believe this is mine." She reached out and pulled the necklace from Rebecca's neck. "Don't go near here until you've given her the meds Doc." Chloe reminded him.
"I'm on it." He pulled a syringe out of his desk drawer and walked to Rebecca.
They took Chloe home and after a good nights sleep all the memories were purged from her system. She walked to her spare room and opened the door. Her file cabinets were they were supposed to be, Rebecca's room was gone, the pictures all back to normal, the medication must have kept her from keeping up her illusions as well as stopping her from altering memories.
She was sitting on her balcony drinking coffee when there was a cough from behind her. She turned to see Oliver and smiled. "Hey."
"Hey." Oliver said a little sheepishly.
"Come join me." She nodded to the seat next to her.
Oliver walked over slowly and sat down. "Can you ever forgive me?" He asked her, his eyes full of sorrow.
"For what?" Chloe asked confused.
"I promised you, I swore that I wouldn't let that happen to you. And then I put you in that place." He said.
"It wasn't your fault." Chloe said to him smiling. "You had no control over it."
"I could have fought it, fought the memories." Oliver said. "I knew something was wrong. It just didn't feel right, me and Rebecca."
"You couldn't have fought them, no one could." Chloe said.
"You did." Oliver reminded her.
"Yeah well I'm a little extraordinary." She joked. "Plus you know, the whole healing power thing."
"I still feel horrible about it." Oliver said.
"There's no reason for you to feel like that. I don't blame you for anything." She told him.
"Yeah well it's not gonna stop me from blaming myself." He told her.
"Well, you want to make it up to me?" Chloe asked.
"Yes." Oliver said. "If there's anything I can do…"
"Well I remember you telling me something about a coming home party." Chloe smiled. "With cake."
"Cake I can do." Oliver said. "I can give you cake for a lifetime if that's what it'll take."
Chloe smiled and hugged him. "I missed you." She told him.
"God." He hugged her back. "I missed you too."
"Well we're back to normal now." Chloe said pulling away. "I suggest we put the whole thing behind us huh?"
"That sounds great."
"There's just one thing I have to do." Chloe said. "I want to go visit her."
"Do you think that's a good idea?" Oliver asked.
"I need to." She told him.
"I'll go with you." Oliver grabbed her hand and squeezed.
Doctor Richmond led them to the common room where Rebecca was sitting in the same chair that Chloe had sat in two weeks before, looking out the same window, with the same vacant expression on her face. Chloe sat down while Oliver stood protectively behind her. "Hello Rebecca." Chloe smiled.
"What do you want?" Rebecca spat at her. "Come to gloat?"
"No." Chloe shook her head. "I really hope they can help you here."
"I don't need help." Rebecca said. "I'm going to get out of here. And when I do, I'll do much worse than before."
"Chloe, this isn't doing any good." Oliver told her.
"You were right about one thing Rebecca." Chloe said as she stood up. "If you had been straight with us from the start, we probably could have been friends."
Rebecca just glared at her as she walked to Doctor Richmond. "I want to thank you for doing this." Chloe said as he walked them to her car.
"It's my job." He told her. "If I can ever help you again…this is still very new to me but…just don't hesitate to ask."
"I won't." Chloe smiled. "We come across a lot of people like her in our line of work and we're never quite sure what to do with them." Chloe said. "We can't just hand them over to the authorities."
"I'll help you however I can." He assured her.
"Thanks." Chloe said.
"Thanks for everything." Oliver added as they got in the car. "So where to now?"
"Oh I believe you owe me a cake." Chloe smiled. "Chocolate, with chocolate icing." She said. "And maybe even chocolate sprinkles."
"Really?" Oliver asked.
"Hey I deserve it."
"Yes you do." He said to her.