Part 4

"Tell me again," Oliver asked, "why couldn't Courtney have waited around to take me back to Watchtower?" He held his head hanging over the edge of the parapet surrounding the walkway just outside of Watchtower. He was waiting for the waves nausea to fade. At least this time he'd managed not to throw up until after they landed.

"I didn't tell you the first time around." Hawkman growled from the other side of the ledge.

Oliver retched over the building's wall one final time before querying, "Yeah, um, refresh my memory, why was that?"

Carter Hall crossed his arms and evaded the question. "You should just be grateful we came for your sorry green rear when we did."

Oliver was grateful. Hanging by his feet upside down was never his favorite position, at least not for long periods of time. Stargirl and Hawkman swooped in and chased off his kidnapper and then, before they cut him down from in front of the giant bullseye, their communicator's buzzed.

They left him hanging…literally…for a few minutes while they took their private conference call and when it was over, Courtney waved her magic wand and vanished leaving Hawkman to leisurely free him and then take the scenic route back to base. If he could get the world to stop spinning for five minutes, Oliver was certain he would be able to put his finger on what was off about his rescue.

"Hey, I was doing just fine on my own," Oliver claimed with more bravado than he felt. Then, since he figured there was nothing left in his insides to come back up, he stopped assisting gravity and turned to sit down on the roof with his back against the short wall. He groaned and closed his eyes.

God, he hated flying, he thought, grateful the world was no longer spinning even if it did still kind of sway back and forth. Jets, flying in jets was fine. Jets were great, especially the kind that came with leather seats, fully loaded bars and pilots who paid attention to who paid their salaries and didn't find it hilarious to do loop de loops just to see if they could make their passenger's face match his outfit.

"Please," Hawkman scoffed, "that furious fem was about to Swiss cheese you with her long bow. After target practice she probably was going to feed your scraps to her cybernetic pack of hounds."

"For the record, I don't think her metallic mutts cared much for meat." Oliver mumbled with his eyes still closed. "They dragged me out of the earth station with only a mild case of rug burn."

"If you show me your boo boos I'm dropping you off the building." Carter promised matter of a fact.

Oliver felt a different kind of queasiness. "Yeah, like I'd want you to kiss it and make it better." He shuddered. "Anyway, I'm just saying that those robo dogs could have torn me to shreds and didn't, so I think I could have convinced her to aim for the bull's eye without my manly form in the way. She mentioned a connection to Waller and Checkmate. Through them, she had heard of my special arrows and curiosity sent her calling. We had a love of archery in common."

"You wish she was after your 'special arrow' and as for things in common, it's a good thing her ego was the same size as yours. She etched her name, the names of what we figure belong to her precious pack and the Latin translation for 'Place of Stars' all over the passages where they nabbed you."

Oliver opened a single eye. "You don't find it at all suspicious that Artemiz the Huntress pretty much told you to look for her at the Observatory? Or that when you and Stargirl showed up, she lobbed one of my smoke bomb arrows at your feet for cover and simply left? She didn't even release the hounds a second time."

"I'll save my suspicions for later." Hawkman glanced at his communicator once and then walked over to Oliver, roughly pulling him to his feet. "Recovery time is over. Are you fit for duty?"

Oliver straightened his tunic, but didn't react to Hawkman's manhandling. "I'm ready. Are you ready to tell me what you're keeping from me? I know stalling when I see it. Why did you send Courtney ahead? What's going on?"

If possible, the expression of Hawkman's face became grimmer. "We've got a security breach in Watchtower. Goes by the name of Lois Lane."

"Lois?" Oliver frowned, surprised, but not alarmed. "Chloe can handle Lois." Carter's mouth went flat and suddenly Oliver was done asking questions. He pushed past Hall to reach the outside access hatch. He entered on the upper tier overlooking the heart of Watchtower.

Lois was in the middle of a melt down and nothing J'onn J'onzz or Courtney said or did was helping her calm down. Cyborg kept his head down, hunched over the keyboard Chloe normally manned and Canary was seated casually at the far end of the room looking bored. There was no sign of AC, who Oliver remembered should still be down in Australia, or Bart who should have been back at base, and just as he feared, no Chloe. Carter joined him after leaving his wings and helmet outside.

Lois was giving Canary competition in the 'voice as a deadly weapon' category. Watchtower's acoustics amplified a special shrill quality that made him want to cover his ears. She pushed away the glass of water Courtney urged on her.

"Unless it is a shot of whiskey, don't bother and don't bother telling me again to calm down!" She advanced on their resident Martian Manhunter. "I recognize you from the precinct. You're a detective, you work for the city and I pay my taxes so you work for me. Enough is enough, I demand you call the, the…urrrggg!" She tossed her hands up in the air. "I don't know who you should call, but she disappeared. How long was it supposed to take? I waited five minutes and she didn't come back and I was supposed to come here so dammit, do something!" She shouted and stamped her feet.

Oliver swore under his breath. So much for the hope Chloe was hiding out with the boys. "Lois!" He said her name sharply as he descended the stairs.

"Oliver!" She cried his name and met him at the bottom of the steps. "Thank god you are here. No one will do anything. You have to do something." Lois grabbed him by the collar.

Ollie grasped her shoulders. "Where's Chloe?"

"How the hell should I know?" Lois yelled back at him and smacked him on the shoulder. "That's what I've been trying to tell everyone. She vanished, but she never came back."

"What do you mean she vanished?"

"What do I mean vanished? Hello? Poof! Gone! Vanished! I told her not to go but of course, she got all serious and weepy and all 'it's Clark' and off she went. I told her not to go." Her face crumpled and tears leaked out the corner of her eyes.

"What happened with Clark? Lois, I need to understand what's happening." If Clark was involved with a missing Chloe, then it was much worse than he could have guessed. He led Lois toward the lounge in Watchtower. He needed answers but he needed Lois to calm down so they made sense. As she walked with him, the impending waterworks dried up, her emotions swinging from tears to rage. She followed him hurling accusations and random questions.

"And you, where were you? Huh? How could you let her go off like that? What were you thinking? Why did Chloe send me here? What more is she hiding. Is this all Clark's fault too? He lied to me! And dated me! He lied to me while he dated me! Well, that's over one way or another," she grumbled and then switched topics. "Just what is this place anyway?"

Oliver didn't try to give her any answers yet. He knew Lois well enough to know she wasn't really in a listening state of mind. As they approached the couch, Dinah rose to give them privacy or maybe she was just trying to get away from Lane at her obnoxious best. She didn't escape fast enough. Lois gasped in recognition and stepped to her right to block Canary's exit. She held out her hand and wagged her finger.

"Why is Dinah Lance, the bad girl of conservative talk radio," she paused while her judgmental eye slid over Canary's tight leather outfit and fishnet stockings, "dressed like a circus tramp and relaxing next to a throw that Martha Kent knitted!" Lois demanded outraged.

Dinah rolled her eyes, "Oh, this is ridiculous," she said and tried to walk around them, only for Lois to block her path again.

Lois let loose. "I'll tell you what's ridiculous, it's you with the puffy hair and the crazy make up, and the slutty," Canary leaned over and whispered something in her ear, "stockings and the…," Lois fell silent. Oliver caught her before she fell to the floor.

He glared at Black Canary. "What did you do that for? I needed to know what's happened to Chloe!"

"Don't worry," Canary placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, "by now J'onn has had time to glean from her mind anything pertinent. I went easy on her. She should awake without so much as a headache."

From the other side of the room Courtney winced and rubbed at her temples. "Too bad she wasn't as thoughtful. I know she's just awfully worried, but could somebody tell me where Watchtower keeps the aspirin?"

"And could somebody tell me what's going on?" Oliver demanded testily as he laid Lois out on the couch. "Where's Chloe? Why were you trying to keep me from finding out?"

Carter Hall answered as he came down the steps. "As if we needed two people going into hysterics."

Oliver swung around. "I'd have kept my head. It's the Boy Scout that does the melt down when Sullivan gets into trouble. You shouldn't have kept this from me. I could have dealt with Lois."

Carter crossed his arms over his chest. "Yeah, you were doing such a fine job of dealing with her just now," he observed dryly.

Oliver took an aggressive step in his direction, but Dinah grabbed his wrist. "That's enough, both of you. She sent Carter an admonishing look before turning back to Oliver. "We think Chloe went to the ice fortress to try and revive Kent."

"Yes," J'onn nodded. "Her cousin's memories confirm that Chloe took Kal-El's body to the portal in the Kawatche caves and vanished. She went in the hopes that Jor-El could revive him."

Oliver felt his stomach drop. "His body?" He shook his head. "I thought they were all gone." He turned to Carter. "On the trip back you told me the Kandorian problem was over."

"The Kandorian problem is over. I saw them leave, Zod included, but not before he stabbed Clark." He frowned, remembering. "I got Kent to Watchtower alive, but his wounds were too grave. He died, bled out right in front of us. She tried, but we couldn't save him."

Oliver swore long and viciously. He had worried over Chloe, about how she'd handle it after Clark left with the Kandorians and she no longer had saving the world to distract her. He knew Clark leaving was going to hit her hard and hoped she would continue turning to him for comfort, but he had no clue how she'd carry on if Kent was dead. A blow like that would have Chloe locking away all her feelings. It's what she did to cope. Push everything away and get the job done. Oliver was afraid it would be years before she'd risk opening her heart again.

In the tunnels, when he'd been surrounded, he'd blurted out his feelings, afraid he'd never get another chance. Thinking there was no tomorrow, he had ignored the pause that preceded Chloe's reply, but now he couldn't stop thinking of it. Had she just given him what he wanted to hear? He feared he was moving too fast, pushing for what she wasn't ready to give him.

He wasn't blind. Scars or no scars, if Clark ever opened his eyes to what he had with Chloe, Oliver didn't fool himself on his chances in keeping what he'd found. Lucky for him, Clark in the past year had worked hard to stick his head as deep in the sand as possible. But that meant nothing if Chloe ended up freezing to death in a broken vestige of a dead civilization somewhere above the artic circle.

"Dammit, how could you have let her go?"

Carter's mouth flattened. "Maybe I shouldn't have left her alone, but dead usually means dead. I knew she was upset, I mean, she was…," he shook his head, unable to express her mental state, "she was lost, floundering. But you were still missing. Chloe had already sent Courtney out to search for you and we had a lead. I thought concentrating on someone she could save would help."

Courtney finished swallowing her pills and rejoined the group. "Right and I needed help with the translations so he left Watchtower to meet me at the earth station. How could anyone have known Chloe would do something so reckless as try to get Clark's body to the arctic?"

Oliver raked his hand through his hair and smirked sarcastically. "Right, 'cause when it comes to Clark Kent, Chloe Sullivan is so damm sensible and cautious." He tried to think logically. "Why would she have gone off on her own? Why didn't she wait and contact J'onn?" He looked at the detective. "Your trip to the sun pulled Clark through last time."

Dinah frowned. "Costing him all his own abilities."

Carter scowled, "So he should give up what Kent Nelson gave his life to restore? You think Dr. Fate's sacrifice meant so little?"

"No one is saying that." Courtney quickly assured him, looking alarmed.

J'onn spoke softly, first to Oliver. "If I understand the nature of Kal-El's injuries, it is perhaps best that no one waited for me. By the time I arrived back at Watchtower, the window of opportunity to help Clark would have closed." He then approached Carter Hall and placed his hands on the man's shoulders. "As for Dr. Fate, your friend's contributions to the world will never be forgotten."

"I'm sorry," Carter scrunched his eyes shut and rubbed at his forehead. "I don't know why I said that."

"You are feeling guilty, responsible for Chloe Sullivan's absence, but you could not have known what she would do. You are not at fault."

He scrubbed his face with his hands. "I don't know. Maybe I should have known. I was there. I saw how it was. She told me but I didn't understand. I'm the reason she's lost in the arctic. I should have stopped her."

A sudden gust blew in Bart Allen. "Yeah, right. There's not much that can stop the Chloester when she's made up her mind."

Oliver zeroed in on what his fast friend was saying. "Bart, you know about this?"

J'onn inclined his head. "Shortly after Ms. Lane arrived, I sent him to the caves to see if the portal remained open."

"And?" Oliver leaned forward expectantly, hoping Impulse brought some answers.

Bart shook his head. "No good. She must have taken the key thing along for the trip." He zipped upstairs to the pantry and grabbed something out of the fridge and then back to the group of heroes. "Best way to keep Chatty Cathy from following I suppose." Bart wandered over to the couch and glanced down at the unconscious Lois. "I guess that works too," he said before flopping down next to her and taking a huge bite out of his apple.

"There has to be a way to find her." Oliver turned to Victor. "She kept a dedicated satellite feed on the Fortress; that should be able to tell us the coordinates."

Cyborg shook his head. "If I had enough time, but the security protocols in place are unlike anything else in Watchtower, just layer after layer. This was one secret she wasn't risking exposure. I've got a program trying to detangle it, but it's going to take hours."

"Same thing goes for a grid search." Bart offered almost casually. "We can run a search, but it's going to take too long."

"So you're just suggesting we do nothing?" Oliver stared at him incredulously.

Bart shrugged, "Chloe usually knows what she's doing. If she thinks Jor-El can save Clark, she's probably right. Comp-u-Dad does his wohoo and Chloelicious takes the Clark express home. No big."

"Are you out of your mind? Do you really think Chloe is thinking straight? After Zod's redecorating, we don't even know if Jor-El is even still in the Fortress. She might be up there in nothing more than a giant ice tomb. Even if it is still active, there's no knowing if Jor-El will listen to her, put her in the deep freeze, or swap out their life forces."

"I know." Bart dropped his unconcerned act. "But what's more, Chloe would know all of this and you know what? She'd still go. I know it and I only popped in and out of the picture a couple dozen times." He shook his head and scoffed. "Boss man, you've spent way more time around Kent and Sullivan than me, and no matter how weird their vibe was this year, you can't tell me Chloe risking everything for Clark is a surprise."

Oliver went still. Bart was hitting a little too close to the truth.

"I'm not saying I'm not worried, I am, but I'm saying this was her choice. One she would always make no matter the circumstances." He took a final bite of his apple, blurred over to the garbage and returned to the couch. "We might as well trust Chloe's judgment and hope for the best."

J'onn nodded solemnly. "He is right. In reality there is little that we can do to affect the outcome. We keep trying all avenues, we continue searching, but at this point, all we can really do is wait."

Oliver felt panic tighten his gut. He couldn't compete with the kind of bone deep devotion Chloe offered to Clark. How could Clark not wake up to what he had? He hoped with everything in him that Chloe's gamble paid off, but an aching hunch told him no matter how this turned out, he was going to lose. She might be coming back, but he felt it deep down, she wasn't coming back his.