"No." Chloe walked out of the elevator screaming. "No, no, no, no, no. We went over this last week, and the week before that, and the week before that." Chloe said. "I don't want the orchids, I don't want the roses, I don't want the daisies or the stupid freaking carnations. I want white tulips."
"Flower emergency." Bart said.
"Again?" Victor groaned.
"Oh no." Oliver put his coffee cup down.
"What do you mean you can't have tulips in time?" Chloe asked. "I ordered the flowers almost a year ago, is it my problem that you have a brain the size of a peanut? Yeah well I don't want your stupid flowers anyway." She hung up the phone and threw it against the wall. "That's it, the wedding is off." She stormed down the hall in the bedroom and slammed the door.
Oliver groaned and rubbed his forehead. He turned to Victor. "No man, I did it last week."
"I did it yesterday." Bart raised a hand.
"No, I did it yesterday." AC told Bart confused.
"Wrong color table clothes?" Bart said.
"No, Band director got married and moved to Boston." AC turned to Oliver. "She's your fiancée."
Oliver groaned and got off the bar stool. He walked cautiously into the bedroom. "Chloe, sweetie."
"Come in." She cried from underneath the pillow on the bed. Oliver closed the door and walked slowly to the bed. He laid down and picked up a pillow and found another pillow. He picked that one up and found another one. "Are you in here somewhere?" A mountain of pillows fell off the bed and Chloe's head emerged.
"We need to call the caterers." Chloe said.
"You haven't picked a caterer yet." Oliver reminded her.
"Good that's one less person we have to call." She sat up straighter. "We have to cancel the decorations and the band and the priest. Well first I have to get a new phone probably, again."
"Chloe." Oliver brushed the hair out of her face. "I'm not calling anyone, I'm not canceling anything."
"This wedding is cursed." Chloe said. "Everything, everything has gone wrong."
"Not everything." Oliver said.
"My dress." She told him. "My dress was messed up three times, and it's still not ready."
"It will be." Oliver told her.
"And the venue, for the reception?" Chloe pointed out. "The first one was condemned by the city."
"Termites." Oliver said. "It happens."
"And the second one?" Chloe asked. "It burned to the ground."
"Bad wiring." Oliver said.
"But the flowers…"
"We can find more flowers, what ever flowers you want." Oliver said. "We are getting married in two weeks. This whole calling the wedding off thing was cute the first…" Oliver sighed. "Well actually it was never cute. I have been waiting two years for this wedding and it's going to happen."
"But…" Chloe complained.
"No buts, no more canceling the wedding, no more yelling at the venue manager, and no more firing the wedding planner." Chloe bit her lip. "You didn't."
"This morning." Chloe sighed. "She kept talking about pink gauze and crystal something or others and she won't listen to me. I don't need a wedding planner."
"Ok, we'll make a deal." Oliver said grabbing her arms and pulling her closer to him. "If I let you do this on your own with no wedding planner, you have to promise me that you won't have a complete meltdown when something goes wrong." She opened her mouth to protest and Oliver put a finger to her lips, silencing her. "You trained with Buddhist Monks for a year and a half. Just try and pull on some of that Buddhist Zen stuff."
Chloe sighed but nodded. "Fine."
"Now will you please make an appointment with some caterers?" Chloe groaned. "Please. If you wait any longer it's going to be impossible to find someone to do it in time."
"Do I have to?" She whined and tried to bury herself in the covers again.
"No." Oliver said. "You don't have to do any of this. I told you I could have a simple wedding, just family and friends, I'll wear jeans and you can wear that flowy blue sun dress I like."
"That would be great. But…." Chloe sighed. "Oliver Queen and Chloe Sullivan can not have a quiet backyard wedding." She grabbed a pillow and put it in her lap. "I'll call some caterers tomorrow."
"That's my girl." Oliver kissed her forehead.
"You know if I didn't know better." Chloe played with the strings on the pillowcase. "I'd say Lex had something to do with this."
"Oh god." Oliver grabbed pillows and covered his head.
"No, listen." Chloe dug through the pillows to find him. "I mean with everything that's happened, either this wedding is cursed or Lex Luther is trying to stop us from getting married."
"The only reason Lex would try and stop us from getting married was if he knew who we really were and we know that he doesn't." Oliver smiled at her. "You are just trying to find anything, anything at all to pin on Lex. He's been quiet for two years. Maybe he changed, maybe you got through to him."
"And maybe the Queen of England will get up on the desert table and dance a jig at our wedding." Chloe said.
"The Queen RSVP'd?" Oliver smiled and Chloe nudged him in the stomach. "You'll be Zen?"
"I'll be Zen." She said.
"Good, I'm going to start calling around to find some white tulips for you." He kissed her forehead. "You start thinking about food. That always puts you in a good mood."
He ducked as a pillow flew at his head and closed the door behind him. The guys were sitting in the living room anxiously awaiting his return. "I think we're good, we had a good talk, I think she's gonna be much calmer from now on."
"Stupid, son of a bitch." Chloe screamed from the bedroom and the guys all raised an eyebrow at Oliver. The bedroom door slammed and she came outside and grabbed the phone. She violently dialed a number, clutching a piece of mail in her hands.
"Chloe." Oliver warned her. "Zen."
"Zen starts tomorrow." She said clutching the phone. "We just lost the third reception hall." She shoved a piece of paper in Oliver's hands and paced as she waited for someone to answer the phone.
"What happened to this place?" Victor asked.
"Asbestos." Oliver said, starting to wonder himself if maybe this wedding wasn't cursed after all.
Chloe rolled over and slammed her hand around the bedside table until she finally made contact with the alarm. She glared at the time that seemed to be laughing at her in big red digital numbers. 5:45 was far too early to get up but she had so much to do that she should have been awake thirty minutes ago, damn snooze button. She pulled herself out of bed and walked to the kitchen, already in a bad mood because she set the coffee pot for 5:00 so it would be brewed when she got up at 5:15, now it would be cold and she'd have to start over and that would take even more time. Only when she got to the coffee machine, the coffee was still brewing, steam was coming off of it and there was a mug on the counter holding down a slip of paper. "Figured you'd sleep in so I reset your timer." Chloe smiled and slipped the note in her bag, that way whenever she was about to have a breakdown she could pull it out and remind herself why she was putting up with all this wedding stuff.
She didn't want to say it, she really didn't because as soon as she said it, or even thought it, tragedy would strike but things had been going pretty smooth on the wedding front for the past few weeks. Oliver insisted it was because of her new Zen like attitude, but truthfully, there hadn't been that many screw ups that she had to apply her new Zen like attitude to. They finally decided, after losing their third reception hall to asbestos, to just have the wedding and the reception at the same place. St. Michaels had a beautiful garden that was big enough for all the people invited and they had no problem allowing Chloe and Oliver the use of it. Of course that meant renting tents for the dining area and changing most of the decorations so they would now work outside but it wasn't as bad as Chloe thought it would be. She did have a nagging little voice in the back of her head constantly pointing out to her that if something happened to this reception site, that mean the place where they were supposed to have their ceremony would be lost as well, but so far so good, fingers crossed, salt over the shoulder, sign of the cross, all that superstitious stuff that Chloe didn't put much stock in before but was becoming part of her daily routine.
It took one and a half cups of coffee to wake her up and she showered and dressed as quick as she could. She was filling up her travel coffee cup when Oliver stumbled into the kitchen. "Morning." He smiled.
"Thanks for the coffee." She kissed his cheek. "I've got to go."
"So early?" He asked checking the clock.
"I'm probably already late." Chloe grabbed her bag. "I've got to pick up Lois from your place. Abby's plane gets here and 6:30 and Lily and Rose are coming in at 7:00. Then we have to go to the final dress fitting, swing by the church and make sure the tents have been put up, fix a problem with the menu at the caterers, and then check on the cake."
"What problem at the caterers?" Oliver asked.
"He says the scallops he got in aren't as good a quality as he likes so he's got a few dishes for me to try and we'll swap them out." Chloe said.
Oliver looked at her for a second. "But that scallop dish was your favorite." He pointed out. "It was the reason you picked this caterer."
Chloe took a deep breath and smiled. "I know but maybe one of the other dishes will be just as good. Zen Chloe."
"Zen Chloe." Oliver said a little unenthusiastically.
"I'll call you later." She blew him a kiss and then got in the elevator. If Oliver was being perfectly honest, he didn't really like Zen Chloe. Their life had become a lot more stable and a lot less hectic since Zen Chloe took over, but he missed real Chloe. Real Chloe would have yelled at the gardeners at the church for deciding the week before the wedding was the perfect time to clean out the flower beds, completely leaving the front of the church looking like a barren wasteland. Zen Chloe politely asked the brain dead landscaping crew to try their hardest to have some flowers put up by Saturday. Real Chloe would have pitched a fit to rival a two year old when her dress came in for the "final" fitting only to be three sizes too big. Zen Chloe just laughed and said it was no problem as long as it was ready for the wedding day. Real Chloe would be on the phone right now with every seafood vendor in the country trying to get enough scallops to have her favorite dish at the wedding. Zen Chloe would probably pick one of the other dishes, not liking it as much but knowing that it could be ready in time for the wedding.
Zen Chloe was boring, Zen Chloe was too nice, Zen Chloe was unhappy. Oliver knew this, he could tell, every time something had to be changed, Chloe got this look on her face and then nothing, she wiped it clean, there was no anger, no annoyance, but no joy either. He'd been doing everything he could to counteract it, seeing as how it was basically his fault. He returned to the church and informed the groundskeeper that if the place wasn't filled with flowers by Sunday St. Michael could no longer count on his generous donations every year. He called the dress shop and made sure that they understood the dress be completely perfect the next time she came in or he would personally buy the company and close them down out of spite. Now he had to find the number for the caterer and let him know that his fiancée wanted scallops and his fiancée would get scallops or the closest the chef would ever come to running a kitchen again would be general manager in a McDonalds.
Lois was ready and waiting when Chloe came to pick her up, both planes were on time and traffic was running smoothly enough that Chloe had time to get a refill on her coffee and still made her fitting appointment on time. Lois was the only other one who needed a final fitting. Lily, Abby, and Rose had all had theirs done in London and assured Chloe that everything was perfect. Lois stood in the mirror in the main room, trying to decide if she looked more like a grape or an eggplant as the seamstress pinned up the bottom hem. Purple was not her color. "Ow." Chloe called from her private room.
"You move." Ms. Ling scolded Chloe and Lois had to stop herself from laughing.
"Are you almost done?" Rose called out. "I still haven't seen the dress you know."
"Almost." Chloe said. "Ow."
"Stop moving." Ms. Ling told Chloe and this time they all laughed.
"I remember my last fitting." Rose said. "I loved my dress. You know I used to try it on, just a few times, after we were married, to remember the wedding." She looked down. "I haven't been able to do that in a while." She laid her hand on her very pregnant stomach and sighed, but happily.
"Seven months?" Lois asked and Rose nodded.
"That's it, you crazy lady." Chloe screamed. "I'm going to pass out from blood loss if you stick me with one more pin."
"I thought she was being Zen." Abby asked.
"It comes and goes, it mainly goes when Oliver's not around, but she does a pretty good job of keeping her temper." Lois' seamstress moved back and told Lois to walk, make sure the length was ok. She got off the stand and walked around, the length was fine, it was the color she wasn't sure about.
"Oh Chloe, that's…" Rose trailed off. "Not at all how you described it." She sounded confused and Lois turned around to see Chloe standing in the middle of the room, typing something into her phone.
"Huh?" Chloe asked without looking up as Ms. Ling raced behind her with a box full of pins.
"You move." She scolded Chloe and pushed her up onto the stand Lois had just vacated.
"Uh Chloe?" Lois called out to her and Chloe finally looked up from her phone and froze.
"What the hell is that?" They both said at the same time, pointing at each other. "That's not your dress." They said again simultaneously, then both looked confused. "What do you mean?" They asked each other.
"Stop." Chloe held up a hand to keep this echo from going on forever. She looked down at her dress and then turned quickly to the bank of mirrors behind her. "This isn't my dress."
"That's what I said." Lois walked over to her.
"Where is my lace, where is my bodice, where is my dress." She picked up the extremely poufy skirt and gasped.
"You've had that on for thirty minutes, how are you just now noticing this?" Lois asked.
"I've been busy." Chloe waved the phone at her. "Ms. Ling, this isn't my dress."
"Is your dress." She waved Chloe off. "Name on bag."
"I don't care if my name is on bag." Chloe stalked over to her bag and pulled out a very large, overstuffed folder and started flipping through pages. For once her anal retentiveness worked in her favor. She had a picture of her dress, a dress that looked very different from the one she had on, somewhere. "Here." She brought the folder to Ms. Ling. "This is my dress. I worked with the designer for five months; I took different pieces from seven dresses to create this."
"Oh, I remember that dress, that dress very pretty." Ms. Ling smiled.
"I know." Chloe said. "That's why I want it." She took a deep breath. "Where is this dress?"
"The pretty dress?"
"Yes, the pretty dress." Chloe said calmly.
"I go check." Ms. Ling smiled and walked to the front room.
"What's going on?" Abby asked concerned.
"I'll deal with that in a minute." She turned to Lois. "This is not your dress."
"It's the same dress I had on in the last fitting." Lois said.
"Ok, you've seen their dresses right?" Chloe asked pointing to the other girls. "This doesn't look anything like their dresses, for one thing it's a different color."
"I just thought I was special, being the maid of honor, sometimes people do that, make her dress different." Lois protested.
"And purple and green do go well together." Lily said encouragingly.
"They do, yes, but I don't want a purple dress, I don't want your dress to be different, I want your dress to be the same." Chloe stomped her foot on the ground.
"I find pretty dress." Ms. Ling said in a sing song voice. "In New York."
"What?" Chloe groaned. "How the hell…"
"Ms. Ling fix for you. Alterations all done, I make them give dress to delivery guy on phone with me, super fast overnight delivery, be here tomorrow." She smiled.
"Ok." Chloe took a deep breath. "Ok, now, how about this dress?" She shoved Lois in front of Ms. Ling.
"Dress very pretty, you have good taste."
"No." Chloe said. "I don't…I mean I do…I mean, I didn't pick this dress out."
"For that one, I have order form." Ms. Ling told them to follow her and she pulled out Chloe's order form and the sample book and sure enough she'd ordered the purple dress, which was right next to the green dress. "Is on order form, not Ms. Ling fault."
"No, it's not." Chloe sighed. "How do I get this dress?" She pointed to the green one.
"Five weeks." Ms. Ling closed the book.
"Chloe. " Lois grabbed her shoulders as Chloe's breath started coming faster and shorter. "Breathe, we can fix this. Zen." Lois said.
"Zen." Chloe took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
"Well I wish I knew about this yesterday." Rose said. "I still have the one I ordered before I got pregnant, it'll probably fit Lois."
Chloe's eyes got huge. "Really?"
"Yeah, but it's at home, in London."
"That's fine." Lois said. "See, everything's going to work out. We have a friend in London, he's not leaving until tonight, he can swing by your place and pick it up. I'll call Bart and let him know he has to make a stop." Chloe relaxed and nodded.
"Right, call Bart." She looked down. "I have to get out of this dress."
The car came to a stop in front of the church and everyone climbed out. "Is this the church?" Lily smiled. "The stained glass is beautiful and the front…" She stopped, there was dirt all over the place, wheelbarrows, garden tools, bags of soil, but no workers.
"They're going to have it ready by Saturday." Chloe was trying to convince herself more than the others. She plastered a smile on her face. "Come on, tents are around back. They've been sitting there since last week and the workers promised me they'd be up today."
They walked around the church and stopped. "Oh Chloe." Abby smiled. "It's beautiful."
Chloe smiled her first real smile that day, it was beautiful. Three enormous tents had been erected behind the church. There were yards and yards of white flowing fabric and each tent was strung with tons and tons of twinkling lights and chandeliers. They walked into the largest one and Chloe held out her hands and spun around. Then she stopped. She looked around confused. She noticed Lois was doing the same thing. "Do you…" Lois asked.
"Yeah." Chloe frowned. "You guys?"
"Oh yeah." Rose said.
"Excuse me." Chloe grabbed one of the guys who was stringing the lights. "Do you smell something?"
"Yes ma'am." He nodded and started to walk off again.
"Hold on." Chloe grabbed his arm. "What exactly is that?"
"Oh, the tents were out here for a while and it rained so there's a little mildew." The guy said.
"Mildew, that's exactly what I smell." Lois said then shut up at the look on Chloe's face.
"What are we doing about that?" Chloe asked.
"They should air out by Saturday." The guy nodded. "Or we could always just put some nice scented candles on the tables, my girlfriend loves all those scented candles.
"You can't have scented candles around food." Chloe groaned. "It messes with your taste buds."
"Oh." The guy nodded. "Well, it should air out."
Chloe took another deep breath and then another, and then another for good measure. "It'll air out." She said to herself. "It'll air out." She told Lois.
"Uh huh." Lois eyed her cautiously.
"Ok, this is tasting, you love tastings." Lois tried to cheer her up as they made it to the caterer's.
"Chloe!" A man stepped away from the industrial stove and came to give her a hug. "I'm really sorry about the scallops."
"No problem Jonas." Chloe said as he sat her and her friends at the table. "What do you have for me?"
"A little lobster, a little Foie Gras, and a little shrimp." He turned around to get the plates and Chloe braced herself.
After the tasting was done she looked up, none too excited and smiled. "The Foie Gras." She said.
"Excellent." Jonas rubbed his hands together. "We'll make the change."
"You hate Foie Gras." Abby told Chloe.
"Yes I do but the soup course is a lobster bisque and the shrimp dish had peanuts in it, and it won't work without them so instead of making him come up with something else, I'm just gonna go with the Foie Gras."
Chloe pushed open the doors to the bakery. "I am in some serious need of chocolate." Chloe smiled. "If she has some to let us taste, I'm warning you right now, you guys probably aren't going to get any, except Rose, cause she's pregnant, and it would be cruel to take food from a pregnant woman." Chloe smiled at the woman behind the counter. "Hey Isabel, just came to check up on the cake."
"Stephanie's in the back now putting the final touches on it, you want to come see?" Isabel whipped her hands clean from the dough she was working on.
"Of course." Chloe said. "And I'm having a really bad day so if you happened to have any that we could sample…"
"We had an extra cake made, just in case, let me get some icing on it and I'll have it for you in a second." Isabel smiled.
"I love you." Chloe sighed and Isabel laughed as she brought them into the back room. The cake looked perfect, it was exactly like the picture that Isabel and Chloe worked on for weeks and Chloe finally felt like something was going her way. That is until Isabel brought the tray of plates to them.
"Uh, Chloe, just close your eyes, don't look ok." Lois said trying to cover Chloe's eyes with her hands.
"What?" Chloe turned around and sunk into her chair, she had no more energy left at this point.
"Wrong cake?" Abby asked, hoping she was wrong.
"Wrong cake." Lois nodded.
"What do you mean?" Isabel set the tray down.
"It's supposed to be chocolate." Chloe sighed.
"No, it was chocolate." Isabel pointed out. "But you sent me an e-mail, three days ago, you changed the order to carrot cake with cream cheese icing."
"No, I really didn't." Chloe said.
"I have it, I have the e-mail somewhere." Isabel turned to the office.
"I believe you." Chloe assure the woman. "Is there anything we can do?"
Isabel looked pained. "It's an eight layer cake, it took three days just to cover it in fondant, not to mention the decorations…"
"It's ok." Chloe shook her head.
"No, this isn't ok." Lois cried. "This is not ok, Chloe." She turned to Isabel. "Look, I don't pretend to understand it, or even know where the hell it came from but for some reason, some completely illogical reason, Chocolate cake has a seriously significant meaning to Chloe and Oliver's whole relationship. Chocolate cake is more sacred at their house than the Pope."
"Please don't say stuff like that in front of Father James." Chloe begged.
"So she wants Chocolate cake, the week she's had she needs chocolate cake, and frankly after everything she's been through to get to this point, she deserves chocolate cake." Lois screamed.
"Lois." Chloe grabbed her arm. "Just let it go." Chloe said shaking her head. "Let it go." Chloe grabbed her bag and stood up, walking to the door. "I need to go home." She paused with her hand on the doorknob. "No, you know what? I need a drink."
"Hold on." Lois said grabbing Chloe's elbow. "We're going in the elevator. Like this, come on." She dragged a very drunk Chloe in and the doors closed.
"Going up?" Chloe said as she stumbled around in the elevator. She pushed seven buttons before Lois could swat her hand away. "Are we going to my house?"
"Yes?" Lois sighed. "Oliver's there. You'll be fine."
"Oliver." Chloe smiled. "He loves me – me! Chloe Sullivan." She leaned against the back of the elevator and sighed. "He wants to marry me."
"I know." Lois smiled.
"No I mean he really wants to marry me. He asked me thirty two times." Chloe pointed out. "I mean that's serious."
"You want to marry him too right?"
Chloe made a face. "Don't get me wrong, I love him. I want to be married to him. I want to be his wife, I want to be Ms. Oliver Queen, but I don't want to marry him." She shook her head. "I don't want a wedding."
"Well it's a little late for that now." Lois pointed out to her.
"Can't we just say we're married and poof?" Chloe clapped her hands together. "That's it?"
"Uh, no." Lois shook her head. "It doesn't work that way."
"Oh." Chloe sighed.
"Why don't you want to wedding?" Lois asked.
"It's awful." Chloe told her. "Everything is just wrong, it sucks." She crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. "He's gonna hate it. He wanted a small wedding in the backyard, just you and the guys and a few other friends. Casual dress. I wouldn't mind that." Chloe said. "I made him have the big wedding and he went along with it because he loves me but I don't want that."
"So don't have it." Lois offered.
Chloe snorted. "Right. The invitations are out, everything is ordered. It may be ordered wrong, but it's ordered. I can't turn back now." She sighed. "It'll be ok. I'll say I Do and that's all I have to worry about right?"
"Right." Lois sighed.
Chloe fell straight to the ground as the doors slid open into her apartment. "Whoa there." Oliver said running over to help her up. "You al right?"
"I'm fine." Chloe smiled at him. "I love you."
"I love you too." He said confused.
"I'm hungry." Chloe pushed away from him and walked to the kitchen.
"What's going on?" Oliver asked Lois.
"It was a long, bad day." Lois said.
"Do we have any popcorn?" Chloe screamed.
"And Zen Chloe is a drinker."
"I could smell." Oliver sighed.
"I'm exhausted, I'm going to sleep, make her do the same." Lois got back in the elevator and left.
Oliver walked over to the kitchen. "Chloe?" He asked cautiously.
"I couldn't find the popcorn, but I found the scotch." She held up a bottle and a glass.
"Oh, good." Oliver said. "Come sit with me for a minute. I haven't seen you all day." Chloe let Oliver pull her to the couch and then down to sit beside him. "What happened?" He took the scotch from her and set it on the other side of the couch.
"Where to start." Chloe yawned. "My dress is in New York, I ordered the wrong one completely for Lois, the flower beds are still empty at the church, the tents smell like mildew, and our wedding cake has somehow gone from eight layers of chocolate to eight layers of carrot cake with cream cheese icing."
Oliver froze. He was expecting something more along the lines of, "the florist was twenty minutes late", not "the wedding's going to hell in a hand basket". He looked down at Chloe. "Well, what did you do?"
"The dress was shipped from New York it'll be here tomorrow. Lois is going to use the one Rose ordered before she got pregnant, the gardeners are going to try their hardest to have everything ready by the wedding and the tents should air out." Chloe said.
"What about the cake?"
"There's nothing to do about it." Chloe shrugged. "It was already pretty much decorated."
"And you're ok with that?" Oliver asked cautiously.
"Oh yeah." She yawned again. "I'm totally cool. I'm Zen." She said before falling asleep.
Chloe woke up with a start, the sun was shining so brightly through the windows, that the heat and the light kept her from sleeping. Something wasn't right so she turned to the clock on the bedside table and jumped out of bed. "10:30?" She screamed at Oliver as he worked at the kitchen table. "You let me sleep until 10:30?" She was running around the kitchen, starting a pot of coffee and grabbing her phone to check her messages.
"You were exhausted, and a little drunk." He informed her.
"Yes, ok, that was my fault but it's the day before the wedding Oliver, I can't sleep until 10:30, I've lost almost four hours." She listened to the messages, nothing pressing, mostly Lois and Abby making sure she was ok. The day before came crashing down around her like broken glass and she slumped against the counter. She remembered it all now, the dresses, the tent, the foie gras, the cake. "I have so much to do before the rehearsal." She practically downed the coffee, scorching her throat but she didn't care. "I have to take a quick shower so I can make sure everything's ready at the church, god I hope the tents aired out, and then I have to go check that the dress made it here ok and that the alterations really are done. Oh, the rehearsal is at five o'clock ok, don't be late please, also could you call and confirm our reservation for the rehearsal dinner?"
"Sure." Oliver smiled at her.
"Ok." Chloe took a deep breath and thought "Zen" and then showered and changed before leaving. She wasn't out the door two minutes when Oliver's phone rang.
"Bruce is coming in a three, make sure you pick up the tuxes and make the boys try them on before you leave the store, I don't want to have to go back the day of the wedding because someone's sleeves are too short." She racked her brain. "Oh, you have to pick the rings up before five from the jewelers. He also has my wedding jewelry and he says it's ready so if you could grab that, I'd be really grateful. Oh and…no thats it…oh…no."
"Chloe, everything is fine." Oliver told her. "I'll pick up Bruce, the rings, the tuxes, your jewelry and we'll be at the church by five."
"Thank you." She sighed.
Oliver walked into the church with Bruce, Bart, AC, and Victor. "Where's Clark?" Lois asked.
"He had an emergency in China." Victor said. "He promised he'd be here."
"He'd better." Lois nodded.
"How's it going?" Oliver nodded to Chloe who was pacing back and forth at the front of the church.
"I don't know if you noticed but the flower beds are still a mess, the tents smell worse if that's even possible and her dress wasn't there for first thing delivery. She's on the phone with Ms. Ling right now.
"Give me the tracking number that the lady in New York gave you." Chloe said. "Because I want to know where my dress is." Chloe wrote something down, hung up the phone and dialed another number. "Yes, I need to track a package please." She sighed and smiled and waved at Oliver and the guys. Oliver walked over and kissed her on the cheek. "Hey how was your day?"
"Fine." Oliver said to her.
"Hey Bruce." Chloe gave him a hug. "I'm on hold." She motioned to the phone in her ear. "Flight ok?"
"Yeah, it was great." He said to her.
"Good." She nodded. "AC, didn't you have a rally today? Animal testing?"
"Cosmetics company." AC nodded. "We did pretty good."
"That's great." She was about to say something else when she held up her hand. "Yes, thank you…I'm sorry could you just repeat that for me please…no that's what I thought you said. No I have to go now and throw up." She dropped the phone to the ground and sat down wearily in the front pew. She put her head between her legs and tried to take deep breaths.
"Chloe?" Oliver asked concerned.
"Paris." She said through clenched teeth.
"What?" Lois asked.
"My dress is in Paris. They shipped my dress to Paris." She repeated, laughing a little at the absurdity of the situation.
"Paris, France?" AC asked stupidly and Victor hit him in the head.
"Just breathe Chloe, remember Zen." Lois put a hand on Chloe's back to calm her down and Chloe shoved it off and lifted her head when the door opened.
"We've got the cake." Isabel said from the back of the church. "Where would you like us to put it?"
Chloe looked from Isabel to Lois and then smiled. "Screw Zen." She stood up and Lois took a step back at the look on her face. "I'm not Zen, that's not me, it's not how I work it's not how I live and I just can't do it anymore. You wait there." She pointed to Isabel who sat down and nodded.
"Chloe…" Lois said cautiously. "Don't do anything you're going to regret."
Chloe just smiled and stormed to the back of the church. The workers were out there setting up all the tables and chairs. Chloe wove her way through them as Oliver and the guys made it to the tents. "Holy Mother of God." Bruce put his hand over his mouth.
"Mildew." Lois said.
"Hey." Chloe glanced around at all the people who were working and zeroed in on the guy with the clipboard. "Hi." She said stopping in front of him. "I don't think we've met, I'm Chloe Sullivan, I'm the bride." He smiled politely and shook her hand. "I would really love for you to explain to me, how exactly you expect my guests to sit out here and eat the very expensive five course meal that I spent 18 hours working on with the caterer when all they are going to be able to do is try and politely control their gag reflexes after they get one whiff of the stench that seems to permeate every inch of this putrid cesspool you'd like to call my dinning tent?"
"Ma'am, as we've explained the tents were left out, and they got a little mildew, they should air out by…"
Chloe held up her hand. "Let me stop you right there. I am the bride, you do not explain things to me, you apologize profusely for your mistake and then you do whatever I tell you to do to try and make it up to me, as feeble as the effort may be." He opened his mouth and she glared. "It should air out, just isn't going to cut it anymore. The smell has tripled in intensity since yesterday, it's literally just baking in the sun, and I really don't see it going away by tomorrow afternoon. So here's what we're going to do. What's your name?"
"Richard." He stammered.
"Richard." Chloe smiled at him. "You are going to get me new tents. You are going to take these down, find new ones, better ones, ones that don't smell, you are going to put the new tents up and when I get here tomorrow at eleven they are going to look as beautiful as these tents do and that's all there is to it."
"I'm sorry but that's just not possible." Richard told her.
"You are going to make it possible." Chloe explained to him. "You want to know why?" She took a deep breath. "Do you realize who is coming to this wedding tomorrow? Basically the top ten percent of the accumulated wealth of the entire world, not to mention a fair amount of royalty. And when they come in here in their designer gowns and thousand dollar suits and start puking on each other because of the smell, you know how they're going to blame? They aren't going to blame me, no, they're going to blame you Richard, they're going to blame your company, and I can guarantee you that you will be bankrupt by Monday, are we understanding each other here?"
"Yes ma'am." Richard nodded.
"Get to work." Chloe said turning around. Richard immediately called his workers around him and started explaining that the tents would have to come down.
"She's back." Oliver smiled in relief.
"Way to go Chloe." Lois clapped.
"I'm nowhere near done." She said storming back into the church. The priest was at the altar and he smiled when he saw them.
"Are we ready to get started?" He asked.
"Not yet." Chloe said. "Father James. I have been so very patient with you and I really don't want to stand here in a church of God and yell at a man of the cloth so I'm going to make this easy for you. I don't know who decided it was a good idea to rip up the lawn of the Church five days before my wedding; I really don't want to know either. What I want more than anything in this world is for you to make sure you have those flower beds taken care of by noon tomorrow. I don't care if it means that you spend the entire night on your hands and knees planting the things by yourself. There will be no bags of soil, no wheel barrels or gardening tools littering the lawn when guests start arriving tomorrow. It will be as close to perfection as you can achieve and for your sake I hope that's pretty damn close."
Father James could only nod. "Ok, Chloe, maybe you should…" Victor tried to step in.
Chloe turned on Lois who jumped back in surprise. "I don't care if a volcano is about it erupt in Hawaii, or an earthquake is about suck and entire country into oblivion or a plane is about to plummet into the Atlantic Ocean, I want you to get on the phone with your boyfriend and tell him that my dress is in Paris and if it isn't here in twenty minutes, in pristine condition, I know about ten different places that I can go to find some very sizeable chunks of kryptonite." Lois nodded and pulled out her phone.
"I can go get your dress Chlo." Bart offered.
"No you can't because you'll be busy." She told him. "I want you to find every, single available scallop that exists on the face of this earth and I want you to deliver them to Jonas and tell him that if he wants to retain the ability to cook with both of his hands, I will get my scallop dish, and it will be wonderful." Bart nodded. "Now." Chloe snapped at him. She turned to Isabel and smiled sweetly.
Isabel stood up, a little unsure, a little frightened. "Chloe?" She asked.
"I want Chocolate cake." Chloe said. "To be perfectly honest, none of those other things, not a single one of them is more important to me than having chocolate cake." She slowly walked toward Isabel who had to force herself not to walk backward. "I'm going to get chocolate cake ok?"
"Ok." Isabel said.
"You're going to go back to the bakery. You're going to start working, and you're going to keep working until you can no longer stand and you're going to deliver to me the most beautiful chocolate cake that anyone has ever seen. Is that clear?"
"Yes ma'am." Isabel said. "I'll go, now."
"Thank you." Chloe sighed in relief as Isabel hurried out the door. She turned around and clapped her hands. "So, we ready to get this show on the road?"
Father James looked confused for a second then nodded. "Right, yes, if you'll just stand here." He told Oliver.
"I can't believe you yelled at the priest." Clark said astonished as Bart filled him in on Chloe's minor meltdown at the Wedding Rehearsal. They were all sitting around a large table having the rehearsal dinner and Chloe felt better than she had in a month.
"I didn't yell at him." Chloe said blushing. "I talked firmly to him. I yelled at everyone else."
"Boy did she." Bart said. It had only taken him a little over an hour to get enough scallops for the wedding and Chloe was so grateful he'd gotten a kiss, on the mouth, he hadn't stopped smiling since.
"I'm just glad I was spared." Oliver said putting his arm around her shoulder.
"Yeah well you're just lucky." Chloe pointed out to him.
"I did everything I was supposed to do." Oliver said. "I picked up Bruce, got the tuxes, and confirmed the reservation for dinner." He held up his glass in a toast to himself.
Chloe turned to him sharply. "Did you get the rings?"
"What rings?" He asked picking a piece of steak off her plate and popping it in his mouth.
"What rings?" Her voice rose and entire octave and all conversation stopped at the table, everyone turned to look at her. "You didn't get the rings? Our wedding rings? The rings that symbolize our eternal unwavering commitment to each other?"
"You mean these rings?" Bruce asked pulling two black boxes out of his pocket and tossing them to Chloe. "Are those the rings you mean?"
"Yes." Chloe sighed in relief. "Those are the rings." She nodded at Bruce and tossed the boxes back to him and turned to glare at Oliver.
"I thought it was funny." He said sheepishly. "Come on." He looked around the table. You guys thought it was funny." No one wanted to even risk eye contact with him.
"Not cool." Victor shook his head.
"Oh I see, just hang me out to dry." Oliver said. He turned to Chloe and put on his full watt, Oliver Queen, get's me out of trouble every time smile and Chloe just shook her head before she started laughing. An almost audible sigh of relief could be heard around the table as Chloe leaned her head on his shoulder.
"You pull something like that tomorrow." She whispered to him softly. "Green Arrow isn't going to need a voice distorter." Oliver swallowed hard but kissed her forehead none the less.
"Ok." Bruce stood up and tapped his champagne glass. "I think it's time for toasts." Chloe snuggled closer to Oliver's side and smiled up at Bruce Wayne. "I can safely say that the only reason that I'm here tonight, on many levels, is because of that beautiful woman sitting right over there." Chloe smiled as Bruce tilted his glass in her direction. "Among other things, I never would have reconnected with Ollie if it weren't for her. We did grow up together, were best friends all through school and then lost touch. There were about six years where we didn't talk, we didn't visit, we didn't write."
"But then one day, this feisty little blonde storms into my office and demands that I buy her paper from her. Not being one to deny a beautiful woman, and not wanting to buy her paper, I deftly diverted her attention away from business and took her out to lunch. I had no clue at the time that the reason that this angel had come into my life was owed completely to my old friend Oliver, but now that I do, I need to thank him." He raised his glass at Oliver who reciprocated. "And complain." Everyone chuckled. "You don't understand she tears into your life like a hurricane and she brings all this danger and excitement with her and then, after you get to know her, it's like that moment after the storm, where the birds are still hiding and the sun is just coming out and the world looks empty and clean and completely and utterly yours for the taking." Chloe could feel tears start to sting her eyes. "And this is the most anyone has probably ever heard me talk so I'm going to wrap this up. Even though we were friends growing up we still had rivalries, contests, to see who was the smarter one, who was the better one. Well I think it's safe to say, seeing as how I was the one that got her first," He pointed out to Oliver, "that I was obviously the smarter one."
"Hey!" Oliver protested.
"It took me two weeks, it took you ten years." Bruce pointed out and Oliver just nodded in agreement. "But I couldn't hold onto her, not many people could, but you did, so, I have to admit, you are obviously the better one." He coughed. "To Chloe and Oliver."
"To Chloe and Oliver." Everyone echoed as they sipped their drinks. Chloe jumped up and gave Bruce a big hug and kiss on the cheek and whispered something in his ear. He smiled slightly and then kissed her on the cheek before reluctantly letting her go back to Oliver's side.
"Ok." Lois stood up. "I guess that means it's my turn." She coughed nervously. "I have to make another one of these at the ceremony tomorrow, so I don't even know why I have to do it now." Clark nudged her in the side and she glared. "Ok, fine." She looked down the table and smiled. "First off, I think that everyone at this table would agree when I make the claim that it's really all because of me that we're all here today." Everyone laughed. "Hold on, hold on. As Bruce pointed out. It took Oliver ten years to work up the balls even tell her how he felt, and that was only because I told him how he felt." There were polite chuckles. "Don't think you're immune, you didn't know either until I pointed it out to you." Lois pointed her glass at Chloe. "On top of all that, they never would have gotten past the proposal if it weren't me either. So you're welcome."
"Thank You." Chloe mouthed to her.
"Enough about me." Lois took a shaky breath. "Chloe is the sister I never had." She turned to Clark. "Don't even think about pointing out the fact that I do have a sister, let me do my speech." He held up his hands in surrender and she turned back to the table. "We're closer than sisters, more than friends. She would give up her life for mine, and she has before, and I would do the same for her. The only thing I ever wanted was for her to be happy and as amazing as it sounds, Oliver makes her happy. He is probably the only man on the face of the earth that could actually handle her and the only person I trust in this world to keep her safe."
"He doesn't know this, I'm sure Chloe's never told him, in fact she may not even remember herself. But when we were younger, I'm talking eight or nine. We'd just finished watching Snow White. I announced that I was going to be Snow White when I grew up and Chloe declared that Snow White was an idiot." They all chuckled. "I asked her, didn't she want to be awoken with a kiss by a handsome prince? She said no. She said she'd never be stupid enough to eat an apple from some creepy old woman when they had their own fruit trees right outside the house, so she wouldn't need to be woken up by some stupid prince. Then she went on to point out that the Prince was going to bring Snow White back to his castle and then she'd have to be a Princess and do stupid Princess stuff and she wouldn't be able to climb trees anymore or go exploring in the woods, two very important aspects of Chloe's eight year old life." Oliver smiled and kissed Chloe's forehead. "She did admit that it would probably be cool to hang out with dwarfs all the time, but if she was Snow White, not only would she have told the creepy woman to go peddle her apples elsewhere, she would have organized the dwarfs better and in two years time she'd be owning the mine and all the jewels that came out of it and then what would she even need a prince for?"
Chloe was blushing by now and Oliver chuckled. "Well she may not have wanted one, she may not have thought she needed one but she got her prince. And if I know Oliver, he won't mind if she wants to go climb a tree, or go exploring in the woods." Oliver shook his head. "As long as she always came back, and I know Chloe, she'll always come back." Lois coughed and cleared her throat. "So to Oliver and Chloe, and of course to Me." She smiled and sat back down.
Everyone drank to Lois' toast and then turned on Chloe and Oliver and started chanting. "Speech, speech, speech."
"Ok, ok." Chloe stood up and tried to keep herself from blushing. "Ok, well, I don't actually remember that story Lois, so thank you for telling everyone." She smiled. "But it's all true." Chloe said. "If I were Snow White, I never would have been dumb enough to eat the apple, and I never would have gotten my Prince if it weren't for Lois. But I will tell you one thing; I would have owned that mine in one year, not two." Everyone just nodded. "So." She turned to Oliver. "I've been a little neurotic, a little high strung, and a lot hard to handle these past few months, but you stuck in there, because you know I love you, and because I think you're a tiny bit Masochistic." Oliver laughed. "I think everyone here knows that I wasn't always on board with this whole wedding thing. I mean it took him 32 proposals just to get me to say yes, and I've probably cancelled the wedding even more times than that. And I'm not sure if he knows, so I need to tell him this. It wasn't because I didn't love you, because I do, more than I ever thought it would be possible to love another person, and it wasn't because I didn't want to marry you because I want to be your wife more than I ever wanted anything else in this whole world. I may have had myself convinced that it was just because I didn't want the wedding, the hassle, the bother, the pretention of it all, but today when everything was going to crap I suddenly realized I did want the perfect wedding, I did want the flowers and the cake and decorations and party and you knew that even when I didn't so you must be doing something right. I think I was scared." Chloe said.
"I haven't had that much luck with people sticking around in my life." She coughed. "And I was afraid to be too happy; afraid it would all get taken away, that you'd get taken away. I was sure someone was just going to show up and say, I'm sorry there's been a mistake, this isn't your life, and we're going to have to ask you to leave." Oliver grabbed her hand. "But that doesn't matter to me anymore." She sniffed and tried to hold back her tears. "Because whatever time I can have with you I'll take. Lois asked me what did it matter if forever and ever started tomorrow or a year from now, it was still forever. Before I would have said a year wasn't long enough, but now I don't think tomorrow is soon enough. So if it's all right with you, even though we aren't technically married yet, I'd like to start forever and ever now please." Oliver nodded at her and stood up so forcefully to give her a hug, Chloe was sure she wasn't going to be able to breathe. He pulled back just far enough to rest his forehead against her and give her the lightest kiss as he wiped her tears away. They probably stood like that for ten minutes and it wasn't until Bart coughed that Oliver even realized it. Oliver smiled and pulled back and let Chloe sit down. He watched as she grabbed the napkin from the table and wiped her eyes.
"Don't put that down yet." He told her. "I haven't gotten my say." She smiled up at him as he took a deep breath. "Well, like Bruce, I'm not usually one for speeches. But I can't let her show me up now can I?" He smiled. "First things first. You'd own that mine in six months and in a year you'd be renting out space to potential prospectors. Second of all if for some reason you're right, somehow there's been a mistake and someone tried to take you away from me, come on, you really think they'd get very far?" Chloe smiled. "If they did manage to get past me, and that's a big if, there are several other people at this table who might have something to say about that. So you're stuck with me, you're stuck with us, forever and ever as you put it, and I couldn't be happier. It took me ten years to kiss you , 32 proposals to get that ring on your finger, and two years of cancellations to get to this point and I'd do it all over again if I knew it was the only way to be sure I'd wake up every morning to your beautiful face." He cleared his throat. "As much as it pains me to say it, because we all know she doesn't need a bigger head, Lois was right about another thing. I don't care if you want to go climb a tree or explore the woods, cause I'll be right there with you the whole time, either helping you out, or just cheering you on and if for some reason, you have a temporary lapse in sanity and eat the poisoned apple, I'll kiss you until my lips go numb trying to wake you up, whether it takes a day or a week or a month, because there's no way I'd ever let you go."
It was Chloe's turn to jump up and hug him. She pulled away and they sat back down and Victor made fun of Oliver for being a girl and Lois was complaining that Clark never said stuff to her like that, and Bart and AC were doing what Bart and AC do best, fighting and she grabbed onto Oliver's hand and held on tight. She was scared of losing this, of losing the moment.
He squeezed her hand and leaned over to whisper in her ear. "It's ok." He smiled. "I won't let go." And suddenly nothing in the world mattered anymore because he understood how she was feeling, and she was more ready than she'd been in two years to marry him and try to do everything in her power to give him his happily ever after.
Then, of course he had to ruin the moment. "So what did you say to Bruce?" Chloe glared and turned away from him. "No seriously." He said to her. "Was it about me?" She rolled her eyes. "It was about me wasn't it?" Everyone was gathering their things and getting up from the table. Chloe was staying the night at the hotel with all the girls and the guys were going to go back to Oliver's place.
"You just had to ruin a nice moment didn't you?" Chloe teased him as he grabbed her bag and walked with her out to the car.
"I'm sorry." Oliver said when they got to her car. "I really am." He kissed her. "So what did you say to him?"
Chloe threw her hands up in frustration and climbed in her car. Oliver knocked on the window and she rolled it down, trying to convey annoyance with the force she used to push the button. "What?"
"Bruce will tell me you know." Oliver said. "If anything just to rub it in my face, so just tell me." He was practically whining now, he sounded like Bart when he didn't get his way.
"Fine." Chloe smiled at him. "I told him that you weren't better at everything." She rolled up the window as Oliver stared at her in shock. She waved and pulled out of the parking space as he seemed to snap out of his trance.
"What does that mean?" He followed her car. "What is he better at?" Chloe just blew him a kiss and put the car in drive before pulling out of the parking lot. "Chloe!" Oliver cried after her hopelessly.
"That was quite possibly, the cruelest thing you could ever do to him you know." Lois said from the passenger seat before they both started laughing.