I'll Be Home For Christmas
"If they don't have any red and sliver you can get plain red or plain silver." Chloe took a deep breath then shook her head. "No, wait, I really want the red and silver." She bit her lip and turned to Lois. "What do you think?"
"What are we talking about again?" Lois groaned annoyed.
"Ribbon." Chloe reminded her. "For the banister." She turned her attention back to the phone. "Ok, so get the red and silver, you know the one that looks like a candy cane stripe, but a traditional candy cane stripe not that new one, you know with a big stripe, big stripe, then little stripe, not like that."
"Oh you are kidding me." Lois pushed herself up off the couch where she'd been sitting for the past two hours.
Lois had come to Star City for Thanksgiving and was staying a few days to keep Chloe from going crazy. Oliver had been out of town since the end of October working on a big merger and he had no idea when he was going to be able to come home.
For the most part all she'd really done was help Chloe put up a ridiculous amount of Christmas decorations but she was under the misguided impression that they were going to have lunch sometime that century. "I was really hungry when you said, 'let's go to the diner for lunch'." Chloe winced as Lois made the actual air quotes. "But then when you asked, I was fine waiting 'just five minutes' so that you could finish draping garland around the doors, even when that turned into forty five minutes." Chloe tried to protest but Lois stopped her. "I was slightly ok when you asked for 'another ten minutes' so you could hang the stockings, and how that took you an hour I still don't understand. But the only reason that I'm not eating your purse right now is because I ate one of the candy canes off the Christmas tree twenty minutes ago."
Chloe's eyes bugged out and she hung up the phone, not bothering to say goodbye. "Lois, those candy canes weren't real."
"I know." Lois whispered embarrassed. "But there's nothing in your fridge and I'm starving."
"Ok." Chloe laughed and grabbed her jacket. "We can get something to eat if food is really that important to you."
"I only need it to live but whatever." Lois rolled her eyes.
"Why didn't you just eat the power bar in your purse?" Chloe grabbed her keys and walked to the door.
"The power bar in my purse…I don't have a-" Lois dug through her bag and pulled out a power bar. "How did you know that was in there?"
"I put one in there every day." Chloe laughed. "Well I have Bart run by and put one in there every day because I know sometimes you work straight through lunch."
"You are such a mom." Lois nudged her shoulder.
"Didn't you ever wonder where they came from?" Chloe asked. "You eat it every day. Did you think your purse was magical or something?" When Lois didn't say anything Chloe laughed harder. "Oh my god you did?"
"Only for like a second, a fraction of a second. In my defense, with the lives that we lead is that so unbelievable?" Lois protested as they climbed in the car. "Actually I just assumed that my assistant did it."
Chloe shook her head then turned to Lois confused. "Wait, you don't have an assistant."
"Sure I do. Bobby, you remember Bobby." Lois reminded Chloe.
"Bobby's not your assistant Lois." Chloe told her. "He's just an intern."
"He doesn't know that." Lois glared at Chloe. "And he doesn't need to know that, I'm just getting him trained the way I want him."
"You're horrible." Chloe laughed.
"So what's up with Christmas Palooza back at the ranch?" Lois changed the subject.
"It's not so bad." Chloe said as they headed toward her favorite diner.
"No, it just looks like all the Whos in Whoville had a raging party, got drunk then threw up over every square inch of the place." Lois snorted.
"Thank you for that visual." Chloe sighed. "It's just, Oliver's been gone for two months on that stupid business trip. He missed Thanksgiving and it's our first Christmas living together and Christmas is sort of our holiday." Chloe took a deep breath. "He told me about how his mom always went all out when he was a kid, decorated the house to the nines, no room was spared, not even the bathrooms and...I just want to make sure everything's perfect for him."
"You know he'd love it even if all you had was a sad little Charlie brown Christmas tree." Chloe looked over at Lois confused. "You know the one that Charlie Brown picks, the half dead one. It's all hunched over with like three pine needles and that one, small, sad red ornament." Lois sniffed.
"Are you crying?" Chloe leaned forward and Lois turned away from her. "You are, you're crying."
"Oh come on." Lois turned around and sure enough her eyes were slightly watery. She sniffed again and wiped her nose. "When Linus wraps the tree with his blanket and they all say…" Her voice waved slightly. "Merry Christmas Charlie Brown…how can you not cry?" Chloe just laughed as she pulled into a parking spot. "You're a cold, cold person you know that?" Lois snapped, throwing her door open and storming into the diner.
"Lois, I'm sorry for laughing." Chloe ran after her. "Come on."
***********
"I passed Lois in the hall and she wanted me to tell you that she's really mad at you." Bart walked into the living room two hours later.
"Right, like I didn't figure that out when she completely ignored me through lunch, all the way home, and has been sulking in the study for the past two hours." Chloe screamed over her shoulders.
"I'm not sulking." Lois screamed as she walked into the living room. "I'd just rather not waste my time decorating for Christmas with someone who has no actual Christmas spirit. You know what you are? You're the Grinch."
"The Grinch?" Chloe asked motioning around the fully decorated living room.
"This was all done under false pretenses and I for one refuse to participate." Lois turned and stormed off.
"What did you do?" Bart laughed.
"Nothing." Chloe rolled her eyes. "What's in the bag?" Bart passed over three bags full of silver and red ribbon with a satisfied smirk. "Oh, thank you." Chloe practically ripped the bags out of his hands. "It's the right stripe too." She hugged him.
"I had to go all the way to Chicago to find that you know." Bart sat down on the couch and got his first proper look at the living room. There was a fire in the fireplace, the tree was up and completely decorated, garland and ribbon decorated every available surface and Bing Crosby was crooning about a White Christmas over the surround sound. "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas." He smiled over at her. "What do I smell?"
"Gingerbread cookies." Chloe smirked and Bart started to speed off toward the kitchen but Chloe stopped him. "Hey, those are for later."
"But…" Bart pouted.
"No, no but, everyone will be here in thirty minutes, we'll decorate them and then you can eat them." Chloe said firmly but relented a bit at the pout affixed to his face. "Ok, in the cookie jar are some damaged ones, broken arms and legs and things."
"You're the best." Bart called from the kitchen, his mouth already full of cookies.
"There's Egg Nog in the fridge." Chloe called out to him.
Just as Chloe said, thirty minutes later everyone was there. Lois was speaking to her again and they were making a huge mess in her kitchen as they decorated the cookies. Chloe just sat in her chair at the table and smiled as Lois tried to draw a mustache on AC's gingerbread man and Bart kept breaking pieces off of the finished ones and popping them in his mouth when he thought she wasn't looking. Chloe really liked this new tradition, they'd only been doing it for two years but she could see them all twenty years from now sitting around her kitchen table with their kids decorating Gingerbread men. "You ok?" Lois nudged her shoulder.
"I'm good, I just wish Oliver were here." She reached across the table for the gum drops to make candy buttons when the doorbell rang.
"Ask and you shall receive?" Lois raised her eyebrows.
"I don't think he'd ring the bell at his own house." Chloe stood up and took off her apron. "And right about now he should be in Mumbai." She headed for the door as the doorbell rang again and called over her shoulder. "Bart, I saw that, give Dinah back her Gingerbread man."
"Hey!" Dinah turned away from where she was trying to roll out a scarf using marzipan and grabbed her cookie back from Bart.
Chloe opened the door to see Eric, Oliver's attorney standing on the stoop. "Hey." She covered her surprise with a smile and backed away to let him in. "Come on in, we're just decorating Gingerbread men, we've got enough if you want to join in."
"No thank you." Eric smiled at her but Chloe could tell his smile was forced.
"Well let me get you some coffee then." She motioned for him to follow her to the kitchen and he did. "So to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?" She handed him a cup of coffee. "Two sugars no cream right?"
"Thanks." Eric took the coffee mug and sighed. "I actually came to see how you were doing."
"I'm fine." Chloe poured her own mug. "Is there a reason that I shouldn't be?"
"You haven't been watching the news?" Eric asked her.
"No, I've had the Christmas music on all day." Chloe set her mug on the countertop heavily and AC walked over and turned off the stereo. "What's going on?" She asked and suddenly it was like she couldn't breathe, she just got this intense feeling that something as very very wrong. "Someone please tell me what's going on."
"Chloe, Oliver's plane went missing." Eric took a step forward. "Somewhere over the Himalayas."
"I don't…" Chloe closed her eyes and shook her head. "No that doesn't make any sense, he wasn't anywhere near the Himalayas, he wasn't even flying today."
"He was." Eric shook his head. "He was coming home early. He called everything off until after the holidays. He didn't want to miss your first Christmas together."
"But he didn't call and tell me." Chloe shook her head more forcefully, not wanting to believe.
"He wanted to surprise you." Eric said.
"What did you mean exactly when you said his plane went missing?" Lois asked when Chloe went silent.
"The plane got turned around in a snow storm and called in a distress signal to a relay tower in Bangalore requesting permission to land." Eric explained. "It dropped off the radar twenty minutes later and based on trajectory and speed, they've got a general idea of where it could be."
"And where is that?" Clark asked him.
"They think it inadvertently crossed the border."
"Into…" Victor asked.
"Afghanistan." Eric said and that's when Chloe's knees gave out.
"But they don't know for sure right?" Chloe asked him hopefully as Clark and Victor rushed forward to support her. They carried her into the living room and sat her down on the couch. "I mean they're not saying there was a crash…it could just be an equipment problem right, a radio failure?" She could feel the tears in her eyes and her throat was tightening. "Oliver didn't crash, he's not…" She trailed off, staring at something to the left of Victor. Everyone turned to follow her gaze and saw what she was looking at. Bart was staring at her, slightly in shock, a half eaten Gingerbread man in his hands; a headless, legless gingerbread man.
"Dude." AC nudged his shoulder and Bart seemed to realize what was capturing her attention.
"Oh shit." Bart turned quickly and tossed the gingerbread man into the fireplace. Chloe let out a pained gasp.
"That didn't help." AC sighed.
"Sorry." Bart stepped forward.
"No one said crash, not yet." Eric said. They were all silent for a while, trying to process everything.
"But it doesn't matter does it?" Chloe said finally what Eric wouldn't, not to her face anyway. "If he did crash, he crashed in hostile territory, a place they can't even hope to search for him. If he didn't crash and he just wandered into Afghani air space…well let's face it, they're not exactly running low on surface to air missiles are they and they're kind of shoot first and ask questions later."
"You can't think like that." Lois sat down next to her as Chloe started to hyperventilate. "Ok, not now, you've got to think positive ok."
"Ok." She took a few deep breaths and nodded.
"We don't know anything yet. Nothing is definite." Lois rubbed her back. "And it's Christmas time right, it's the time for miracles."
"Have you ever seen a Christmas miracle?" Chloe looked up at Lois, willing herself not to cry and failing.
"Yes." Lois nodded. "Two years ago when you and Oliver finally got drunk enough to forget about all the reasons why you shouldn't get together and just did it."
"That was pretty miraculous." Victor chimed in. "You know we had a pool going and no one won because we thought it would take another ten years before you guys finally figured it out."
"Miracles huh?" Chloe asked and nodded calming herself. "Ok then."
**********
"Honey, you shouldn't watch this." Lois grabbed the remote to turn the news off and Chloe grabbed her wrist to stop her. It was a week later and Chloe had yet to see hide nor hair of a miracle. She'd been watching CNN nonstop, and they'd been showing coverage nonstop. Since there wasn't much news to show they'd just been using the time talking about Oliver, about his life, about his business. Two days ago the reporters showed up and camped out on the lawn and every now and then they would report from her front porch and Chloe honestly couldn't describe how surreal that was.
"I know." She admitted not taking her eyes off the screen lest they suddenly sneak something relevant into the ticker.
"How about we do the Gingerbread house?" Lois offered. "I've been baking the pieces all morning."
Chloe could hear the desperation in Lois' voice. She should have gone home a week ago but she didn't want to leave Chloe alone in this state. So she stayed, she'd cooked, she took care of Chloe and she worried, basically every minute of every day that wasn't spent worrying about Oliver was spent worrying about Chloe. Chloe knew that and she knew that this hadn't been easy on her cousin. Making a gingerbread house was something they'd done every year since they were kids and she felt like she needed some normalcy so she nodded. "Can we do it out here?"
Lois offered her the first real smile in what felt like forever. "I'll go get everything."
Chloe nodded but kept watching the television even as Lois stumbled into the room trying to carry the pieces of the house, the icing and the decorations, all precariously balanced on one tiny little cookie sheet. "I'm not as good at this yet as you are. It's your recipe so it should still taste good, but the pieces may be a little crooked."
"So we'll have a gingerbread house that leans slightly to the left but it'll taste good?" Chloe smiled and for a minute it seemed like just another ordinary Saturday at Christmas, making the gingerbread house, just like they always used to. Then just like that, in the blink of an eye it wasn't anymore. The door opened almost ominously and Bart and Clark walked in slower than they'd ever walked in before.
Relations between Afghanistan and America were tense and in an attempt at a show of faith in the budding democracy, the American government had decided not to storm across the border to search for Oliver's plane. Instead they were choosing to trust the Afghani government who said they had every available resource they could spare out searching. Considering they couldn't even find Bin Laden Chloe didn't really have high hopes of them finding Oliver, granted, the fact that he was worth more than a few billion dollars made him slightly more valuable to them than Bin Laden if only for a ransom as Victor so helpfully pointed out.
Chloe however wasn't subject to the whims of the American government and had sent her own search party out. Clark and Bart had been looking for the past five days. They'd obviously just come back from another round because the snow in their hair hadn't even melted yet. "No." Lois dropped the tray to the ground, her breath catching in her throat at the look on Bart's face.
"We didn't want to find anything." Bart took a few more steps into the room. "Chloe trust me when I say how much I didn't want to find anything."
"A plane?" Chloe asked standing up slowly. "You found a plane?" Clark nodded and Chloe's mouth was suddenly very very dry. "But it doesn't mean it's his plane." She was grasping at straws now. "It could be any plane. How many planes have gone down in Afghanistan in the last three years alone. Maybe it's not his plane, maybe…" But there were no more maybes, not when Bart held out his hand and showed her a piece of fabric, a pattern that Chloe knew well, the bright orange nylon that covered Oliver's chairs. "Maybe…" She was really reaching now and Bart straightened out the fabric so that she could see it. The elaborately embroidered Q that Oliver had in all of his vehicles, his plane, his cars, even on the seat of his bike.
Chloe felt tears roll down her face, the first time that she'd really allowed herself to cry. She reached for the fabric and Bart gave it to her. She clutched it in her hands like a lifeline as Clark and Bart explained to Lois where they'd found the plane. "Did you find…" Lois swallowed hard and looked at Chloe who was barely there enough to pay attention. "Were there any survivors?" She practically whispered the question but Chloe's head spun around regardless.
"Yes." Bart nodded. "The pilot, not dead but close enough, lots of broken bones, possibly some internal bleeding. The whole time we were there he was in and out of consciousness, but he'll live. I think."
"Ollie?" Chloe asked.
"Not that I saw." Bart turned to Clark who shook his head no.
"So then he could have been alright?" Lois asked, now she was the one grasping at straws. "He could be alright?"
"Yeah, maybe." Bart nodded trying to give them hope. "It looked like it was just a hard landing, not necessarily a crash. The cabin was mainly intact; the cockpit got the brunt of the damage."
"So he could have walked away." Lois said more for Chloe than anything. "I mean the cabin was fine and Oliver wasn't there so he could be fine?" No one said anything and Lois was gearing up to scream when Chloe put a hand on her arm.
"No." Chloe shook her head. "Because if he did walk away, you have to remember what he walked into, it's not like he crashed in Disney Land."
"If he's still in country I will find him and you know that." Bart said. "If he's anywhere on this planet I will find him." Bart said then sat down next to Chloe and offered her a smile. "And if he's somewhere not on this planet then Clark here can take care of that."
Chloe nodded and hugged him tightly. "So what do we do next?" Lois wrapped her arms around herself and looked over at the television. "I mean we have tell someone where it is, but who and how?"
"They won't find it on their own." Clark sighed. "It's in a very remote area. It would take them months."
"The pilot, Jim." Chloe pulled away from Bart, her voice cracking. "He's got a wife and a kid, they need him."
"I could go back and get him." Clark offered. "Bring him to a hospital?"
"And how will we explain that?" Chloe shook her head. "Bart I want you to go back, look after him, try and do whatever you can to keep him alive until we can get a rescue party to him." Bart nodded and was gone.
"How do we do that?" Lois asked her.
"I'll call Eric." Chloe stood up. "He knows…enough not to ask any questions. He'll figure out a way." She turned the corner and something crunched under her feet. "Oh the house." She stared down at the remains of the gingerbread walls that Lois had spent all day baking. "It's ruined."
"No." Lois looked at her determined. "We can fix it." She bent down to pick up the pieces. "We can fix this."
Chloe wanted to tell her "You can't" but she bit her tongue and dialed Eric's number instead.
***************
Chloe didn't know how Eric did it or who he talked to but the next day they found the plane, they found the pilot and airlifted him to the nearest military hospital. The amount of reporters camping out on Chloe's lawn seemed to triple over night and Lois had to throw her phone in the pond out back because her editor wouldn't stop calling demanding that she take her unique position as Chloe cousin and spin it into an exclusive.
In the days leading up to Christmas, Chloe had only left the house once. She'd braved the reporters shouting questions at her so that she could go to the hospital. So that she could stand on the roof and hold the hand of Sarah, Jim's wife as they airlifted him into Star City General.
Chloe had pulled every string she could think of to get him from Afghanistan to Germany, Germany to Seattle, and then Seattle to Star City. She'd be damned if, hospital bed or not, Jim was going to spend Christmas without his family. Sarah stood next to Chloe tearful but happy as the helicopter landed. The picture on every paper the next day was that of Sarah grasping her husband's hands as they wheeled him into the hospital, Chloe stoically watching in the background, sunglasses on to cover her own red, puffy, tearstained eyes.
The whole time she'd stood there as Sarah cried, as they unloaded Jim from the plane, as the doctors explained to Sarah that there was a twenty percent chance that the trauma he'd suffered would likely leave him paralyzed, Chloe had been jealous. She knew it wasn't logical, that she should be jealous of a woman whose husband was coming back broken. She knew it was the most ridiculous thing in the world but at least Sarah knew, she knew where her husband was, she knew exactly where her husband was, knew exactly how broken her husband was.
Chloe couldn't imagine the pain that she'd be in right now if it was Oliver they were unloading on a gurney or god forbid even in a casket, but she had to think, she had to hope that maybe it would hurt a little less than what she was feeling right now, the not knowing. As if Sarah could sense it she turned and ran to Chloe, hugging her tightly and squeezing her hand, offering her a sad smile and a hurried "Thank You."
She'd gone straight home after that, crawled into her bed, nuzzled deep into Oliver's pillow, and hadn't left it since. All of her energy had been spent trying to get Jim home, as if by doing that maybe it would bring Oliver home but it hadn't worked. And while she was happy for Sarah and happy for Jim, it didn't dull her own pain any. "It's Christmas Eve." Lois said from the doorway.
"I don't care." Chloe mumbled. The most she'd spoken in days.
"Everyone's here Chloe, they were thinking we could open presents and then have diner and maybe go to Mass." Lois said from the edge of Chloe's bed, Chloe and Oliver's bed. "You love midnight Mass."
"I have no reason to go to Midnight Mass." Chloe said and Lois tried a different approach.
"Bart decided to try and make some homemade egg nog this year. It's truly atrocious but all the booze makes it slightly bearable." Chloe snorted and lifted her head. "You have to get out of this bed at some time."
"He said he'd be home for Christmas." Chloe looked over at her cousin. "He promised me."
"When?" Lois frowned.
Chloe reached under the pillow and pulled out her phone, tapping the screen a few times until suddenly Oliver's voice was ringing out from the speakers. It was an old message he'd obviously left her and the fact that she mouthed along to it word for word let Lois know she'd been listening to it a lot. "So right now it's Thanksgiving. You're probably trying to force down Lois' really dry stuffing as Bart eats everything that's not bolted to the floor while I'm stuck in a hotel room with fifty Indian guys who are arguing over half a line in a contract that I really don't even care about at this point. I'm sorry I'm not there, I'm sorry I'm not going to be there. I don't know how much longer this is going to take but I want you to know, that right now, I'm making you a promise. I'll be home for Christmas. You can plan on me ok." He sighed and Lois watched Chloe's eyes tear up again. "So here's what I'm gonna need you to do for me. You should definitely have snow, a maybe some mistletoe, and there should certainly be presents under the tree. I'm sorry, I've got to go, but I'll be home for Christmas."
"Only in my dreams." Chloe mumbled as she pressed the button to save the message. She dropped the phone and then looked up at Lois. "So I'm not going to open presents, I'm not going to Midnight Mass, I'm still waiting for my miracle." She said.
"You can wait just as good downstairs getting drunk on homemade egg nog as you can up here." Lois grabbed her arm and pulled her down the stairs, the comforter wrapped around her like a sort of armor and Chloe almost laughed, until she saw Eric standing in her entryway.
"Eric?" Chloe walked over to him.
"Chloe, how are you?" Eric leaned forward and kissed her cheek.
"I'm holding up, barely." Chloe pulled the blanket tighter around her. "They haven't…did they find him?"
"No." Eric shook his head.
Chloe didn't understand how that one word brought her both an untold amount of relief and an untold amount of pain. "Oh, well can I get you something or did you just…what are you doing here?"
"I came to talk to Lois." Eric looked over at Lois and then back at Chloe who was waiting for more of an explanation than that. "There's a situation but I'm taking care of it. I just wanted to fill Lois in."
Chloe frowned. "Well why don't you fill me in?"
Eric was completely silent for a minute. "It's about the house."
"My house?" Chloe looked around the front hall.
"That's just it, unfortunately it's not your house." Eric winced.
"Why don't we sit down?" Lois asked looking between the two of them. She led her cousin to the couch and sat her down. She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it to Chloe. "The other day you got this letter and I assumed it was a mistake and didn't want to bother you with it, so I called Eric."
"It's a notice of eviction?" Chloe looked down at the paper as if were written in Chinese.
"The board has been discussing what to do with Oliver's assets." Eric explained.
"They don't even know for sure if he's dead." Lois said annoyed.
"They're nothing if not efficient." Eric said and the tone in his voice let Chloe and Lois know at least he was as disgusted by their behavior as Lois was. "There's been a dispute about the Will."
"Ok." Chloe frowned still not understanding.
"When you moved in last year Oliver came into my office and changed his Will leaving the house to you."
"He gave me the house?" Chloe whispered.
"His intention was to give you the house." Eric said. "And there-in lies the problem."
"How exactly?" Lois asked.
"The house was left to Oliver by his parents as part of his Trust." Eric pointed out.
"Which he got when he turned twenty one." Chloe said.
"Yes he did." Eric said. "But for tax reasons, he left the house in the Trust. As per the rest of Oliver's Will, the Trust itself is to be absorbed into the company."
"But he left her the house." Lois said.
"But it's a part of the Trust and they're meeting with a team of outside lawyers right now to determine if Oliver's intentions stand or whether being a part of the Trust makes the house thiers." Eric said.
"So they can just kick me out?" Chloe asked looking down at the paper.
"If it turns out that it's a part of the Trust, that they own the house, they can just kick you out." Eric nodded sadly.
"But doesn't Chloe control the company too?" Lois asked and Chloe glared at her. "I'm just saying, he left her the house but not the company?"
"I don't…"
"He wanted to." Eric assured her. "Eventually I do believe that was the plan but he wanted to talk to Chloe first, make sure that's what she wanted before he did anything so drastic. The house though, he wanted to make sure she was taken care of."
"Well he screwed that up didn't he?" Lois snorted.
"I don't care." Chloe said. "They can have the house I don't want the house I just want…" She broke off. She didn't have to say it. She just wanted Oliver back.
"No. You're not moving out, you're not going anywhere." Lois stood up angrily. "Is she?"
Eric looked at Chloe's devastated face and then at Lois' indignant one and nodded, determined. "No she's not. Mr. Queen wanted you to have this house if anything happened to him. He wanted to make sure that you had a home, that you were taken care of and it's my job to make sure that Mr. Queen gets what Mr. Queen wants." He knelt down in front of Chloe and grabbed her hand. "They will not take this house from you do you understand? I won't let them."
"I don't care." Chloe said suddenly.
"Chloe." Lois turned to her.
"No." Chloe dropped the blanket. "I really don't care Lois. They can have the house, in fact they can have it now, they can have it all." She looked around. "They can have the tree." She walked up to it, yanking the cord from the wall and knocking the tree over into the mantle and then to the ground and she stepped over the broken ornaments. "They can have the garland." She walked over to the doorway and yanked it all down. "They can have the lights." She ripped those down too then pulled the stockings from the mantle, the ribbons from the banister and whatever she could get her hands on. "They can have to stupid Nativity set." She walked over to the hall table and brushed everything off, the Nativity set and everything else with it, even the Gingerbread house that Lois had spent hours gluing together with icing almost like it was a puzzle, shattering it all over again. "They can have it all."
"Chloe." Bart stepped forward cautiously. At some point everyone had made their way into the living room. "Chloe, stop."
"No." Chloe shook her head. "I've been waiting for my miracle and its Christmas Eve. It's not coming, so you know what?" She looked around the room and grabbed her blanket. "Christmas is cancelled."
She stormed up the stairs with every intention of packing up all her things and finding a motel or something to stay in for the night. She managed to pull a bag down from the closet and even tossed a few things in there before she broke down on the floor. That's where Clark found her a few minutes later. He picked her up and carried her to the bed. "He promised me." Chloe sobbed.
"I don't know Oliver as well as you do but what I do know is this, if he made you a promise, he'll do everything in his power to keep it." Clark said, smoothing her hair from her forehead as she cried herself to sleep.
**************
Chloe woke up a few hours later. Clark was gone and the house was deathly quiet. She briefly wondered why it was so quiet and remembered her breakdown. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment and she assumed that they'd all finally left, been pushed away by her and she was saddened by that thought. She made her way down the stairs, only to stop, her foot hovering over the bottom step.
The living room had been put back together. The tree had been righted, the broken ornaments swept up. The garland and lights were re hung, the stockings all dangling from the mantle. The Nativity set had been glued back together with super glue and the gingerbread house had been glued back together with icing. Chloe cracked a smile at it, breaking off a piece of the chimney and popping it in her mouth.
She was suddenly starving and realized she couldn't remember the last time she ate anything. She heard a loud snoring and turned to see that no one had actually left, they'd just fallen asleep. All of them were camped out in her living room, sprawled on couches, curled up on the rug, hanging over the side of the chair.
She took a deep breath for the first time. She may not know where Oliver was, if he was dead or alive, but it was Christmas Eve and her family was here and that was all that mattered.
She was on her way to the kitchen to fix something to eat when she heard a crash outside the back door that sounded like her recycling bin being knocked over and she froze. She walked slowly to the kitchen, stopping in the hall closet to grab something from the top shelf. She heard the door knob rattle and made her way to in the room just as the door slid open. "You're going to want to stop right there." Chloe said quietly yet sternly. "I have a crossbow currently aimed at your heart and you'd be extremely surprised at how good a shot I am."
"I wouldn't actually." The figure said, the voice so familiar that Chloe dropped the crossbow to the ground with a clatter and shakily reached for the light switch. She blinked a few times as her eyes adjusted and then decided she had to be dreaming when she saw Oliver standing there. "Seeing as how I'm the one who taught you to shoot it."
"Oliver?" Chloe whispered and took two steps forward, bringing a hand to his cheek, laughing almost hysterically when she felt cold skin under her fingers. He looked rather worse for the wear, badly healed scratches covered parts of his face, he was walking with a slight limp and a rather scruffy beard had attached itself to his chin, but none of that mattered. "Oliver." She flung her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, holding him tight, vowing not to let go.
"I missed you too Sidekick." Oliver seemed to relax into her embrace as if he'd been waiting for this very moment for the past month and he very much so had.
"I thought you were dead." Chloe sobbed into his shoulder, half crying, half laughing. "I thought I'd never see you again." She babbled. "They found the plane and Jim, oh God Jim, but they couldn't find you and there was no trace and Bart and Clark have been looking."
"It's ok, I'm ok." Oliver assured her over and over again until she'd stopped crying.
"Oliver?" Lois asked from the doorway sleepily. "Oh God, Oliver." She ran across the kitchen floor, sliding a little in her socks until she slammed into Chloe's back, wrapping her arms around the both of them before pulling away and slapping him across the face. "Where the hell have you been?"
Chloe pulled away and smiled at the shocked look on his face. "What she said."
"Could we maybe not do this now?" Oliver winced and rubbed his cheek. "You're gonna wake up the whole house."
"Too late." Victor smirked from the doorway, Dinah, Bart, Clark, and AC all in varying stages of waking up next to him.
"Dude, I've been looking everywhere for you." Bart said, almost annoyed with him.
"And you didn't think to try the kitchen?" AC joked.
"Where have you been?" Dinah asked.
"I want to tell you all, I do but I'm starving and I'm tired and I really, really want some coffee." Oliver said dropping his bag to the ground.
"I'm actually pretty hungry myself." Chloe said.
"The fridge is full of food." Lois actually looked sheepish and Chloe looked at her confused. "You were practically comatose for a week and I had nothing better to do so I cooked, a lot."
"You know what?" Oliver looked at Chloe scared. "I'm not that hungry." His stomach betrayed his story as it growled loudly.
"Sit down." Lois practically shoved him into a chair at the table.
Oliver swallowed. "Do you know if my life insurance policy is up to date?"
**************
An hour later when they had gorged themselves on everything from lasagna to tuna noodle casserole, (and gingerbread men for desert), and none of them were dead or bowled over in pain from food poisoning, Oliver told them his story. He told them about how he'd hated missing Thanksgiving and was upset about all the Christmas things he would miss, the gingerbread men, the gingerbread house, decorating the tree, going caroling. So he decided to suspend all business until the first of the year, to surprise Chloe. He then told them about the freak storm, about the hard landing. He told them about waking up to find Jim hurt and himself in hostile territory.
He explained how he did what he could for Jim, then left for help. He came across a group of embedded marines, it took eight days to traverse the country but they managed to smuggle him across the border into Iran. He had no papers, no identification, no way to get home. If he'd gone through the proper channels to get them it would take weeks, even maybe months and he didn't have that time, he didn't want to wait. He'd promised that he was going to be home for Christmas, so they hooked him up with another guy who was smuggling Iranian Saffron (a surprisingly lucrative industry at $500 an ounce) into America.
Oliver gave the guy his Rolex as payment for passage and spent three days traveling across eastern Europe in the back of a truck that was most of the time filled with goats. They made it to Brussels where they flew to New York and from there he'd stowed away on cargo trains and hitch hiked until he finally made it home. He told her how he wanted to call her, to let her know he was ok but had no cell phone and no money so he couldn't, how the Marines had promised they would do everything they could to get a message to her, to get to Jim, but his only thought was of getting home to spend Christmas with her.
Then Chloe told her story, about how they found the plane before the Marines could get someone out there. She told him how she did everything she could do to get Jim home, get him the help he needed. Then she told him how much Eric had done, suggesting Oliver give him a substantial raise. She told him about receiving the eviction notice from his board which sent him into such a rage they had to practically hold him back from calling a meeting at half past eleven and firing the lot of them.
Seeing the time Chloe smiled. "If we leave now, we can make it to Midnight Mass." Chloe offered and Lois smiled at her.
"You sure?" Lois asked her hopefully.
"I got my miracle." Chloe said. "I think maybe I should go say thanks and maybe celebrate the miracle that's the reason for this holiday."
"Sounds like a plan to me." Oliver said. "Do I have time to shower, maybe shave?"
"I don't know, I kind of like the beard you know." Chloe reached up and brushed it softly. "It's kinda sexy."
"It's itchy." Oliver scratched it.
She let him shave it but she didn't let him out of her sight. She sat on the counter in the bathroom while he showered and shaved, helped him dress in fresh clothes and stared at him the whole ride to the church. "Ok, what's going on? Did I cut myself shaving or something?" Oliver stopped her before they went inside.
"I just still can't believe you're here." Chloe blushed.
"I promised you." Oliver kissed Chloe's temple as the church bells chimed midnight. "I told you I'd be home for Christmas, you can count on me."
"Yeah, I can." Chloe smiled up at him.
At some point they were going to have to explain how Oliver was in Star City when he was supposed to be in Afghanistan. Oliver was definitely going to have to make some changes in his Board of Directors, and Chloe was going to have to figure out some way that could possibly come close to thanking Lois for everything she'd done. But now they were going to go into the church, they were going to light a candle and celebrate the birth of Christ. Then they would go back home, open presents and probably eat Lois' Gingerbread house, which while vastly crooked was still pretty delicious. And while she hoped in the future they could skip the plane crashes and last minute miracles, Chloe realized that they'd just started a new tradition.
*********
Author's Note: I promise that part three will be a lot happier. Hope you enjoyed it. Merry Christmas all. The song used in this Chapter was I'll Be Home For Christmas. Full lyrics here:
I'll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents 'neath the tree
Christmas eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
And you'll be in my dreams