I disclaim. Things are getting complicated.

She was nervous. Horribly, horribly nervous.

But she was going to do this, even though it was incredibly impulsive, and definitely something more like what Lois would have done.

Chloe Sullivan was getting a timer.

She hadn't told anyone. She'd gone through her day at the Daily Planet-finishing up everything as early as she could, then she'd left around noon-saying that she wouldn't be back until the next day.

It had been a long, lonely drive. And surprisingly, she didn't manage to talk herself out of the idea. In fact, she was as sure as she'd ever be that this was she wanted-and needed- to do.

Chloe had been through a lot, possibly too much, but she had finally realized where she had gone wrong. And today, she was going to right it, and she was going to take back control of her destiny.

At first she'd believed that the timers were the antithesis of taking control of one's destiny, but then she'd realized that most of her reasons for not wanting one came from fear. Sure, there had been a few morally uptight reasons too, but those were rather irrelevant now. She needed to do this, because she was tired of men walking all over her, or just plain ignoring her.

She was sick and tired of being that girl. Today, she would become a new Chloe Sullivan. No matter what the timer said, she knew-she believed with everything that she was-that this was what she needed to do. She needed to stop thinking about Oliver. She needed to stop resenting Clark and Jimmy . . . and every other man who had ever looked at her and found her lacking.

Because today, today was the day everything would change. Symbolically, she'd chosen to take back control of her destiny, and this was merely the first step.

And she was damned proud of herself.

"Hello, my name is Chloe Sullivan, I called ahead to make an appointment."

The woman at the counter smiled, "Ah, yes. We'll have someone available in just a minute."

"Don't worry, I've got this. No need to worry," perky little red-headed Anabelle-from Chloe's visit with Lois-suddenly appeared. "I see you've had a change of heart."

"I see you've had a haircut. Good for you." Chloe realized the moment after the words came out of her mouth that they could have been construed to be insulting. Considering that this was the woman who was going to cause her pain in the very near future . . . well, it probably wasn't a good idea.

"Aren't you just a sweet thing? Actually, I do like it. So much thanks, dear." Anabelle smiled so brightly that Chloe briefly wondered whether or not her face would break.

Hmm.

Anabelle led her to an implantation room. "Would you like our spiel? I know you've heard all of it before, so I'm sure you'd rather just get to the implantation."

"I think I'd like to just get to the point." Chloe hoped that hadn't sounded too rude.

"Of course. Are you ready?"

"Absolutely." Chloe held out her arm for implantation.

"I'll count to three, and then I'll implant it, okay?"

Chloe nodded. "One . . . Two . . . " And a loud clicking sound rang out.

"Ouch," Chloe hissed in pain. They both looked at the timer.

"Your family seems to have pretty bad luck when it comes to this kind of thing." Anabelle said, smirking slightly.

"Lovely. Anyway, whatever happened to three?"

"People tense up," she said simply.

Personally, Chloe rather thought that Anabelle got some intense pleasure out of causing others pain. Crazy wench.

Man, she really needed to stop watching pirate movies late at night. Wench. Humph.

Chloe planned on wearing long sleeve shirts, and her jacket, for the foreseeable future.

She rubbed her wrist. It still hurt-it was eight o'clock at night, and it still freaking hurt. It was such an insane invention, and there was absolutely no way to discern how it worked.

As she was getting ready to call Clark and talk about the latest information she'd gotten hold of-she'd found an address for the building in which the mind control woman and the technology that Lex had developed were located-she put her phone up to her ear when she realized that her timer wasn't blank.

Great timing, really.

It had about four hours on it. Which meant . . . that she'd meet her One the next day. Apparently the timer counted down to the day you met your One, and then within the next 24 hours, you'd meet your soulmate.

Wow.

That was quick, amazing timing, and scary.

Terrifying.

She definitely didn't want to talk to Lois about her timer now . . . except, Lois seemed blissfully happy with Clark. Chloe certainly hoped that Lois wouldn't decide to attempt to make Clark get a timer-because he couldn't. And that wouldn't end well.

Chloe felt a pressure in her chest. Wow.

This was it.

"Clark's missing." Bart sped in and burst it out.

"That's not good." Especially since it was probably her fault. She'd told him about Lex's plan, and where to find the building.

She'd asked him, of course, to take back up. But in typical Clark fashion, he probably hadn't listened to her.

"Where are Victor and AC?"

Bart hesitated.

Great.

"They're with Oliver, aren't they?"

"How did you know that?" Bart shouldn't have been amazed. After all, this was Chloe. She was really good at finding out secrets.

"Doesn't matter. Anyway, tell me where they all are."

"I can do better than that." Chloe didn't have time to ask him what he meant, because he sped her away.

To Oliver's. Damn.

"What's going on?"

"We've been working together, Oliver's kind of made us into a team. Dude, it's like he looked at us and just . . . saw everything we could be together." Bart remembered meeting Oliver, and laughed. "Oliver wants you to be our eyes and ears on the mission to save Clark and finally finish off the whole timer fiasco."

"Why me?"

"Because we'd rather not risk your life, and I know that if we don't let you do something, you'll storm the field anyway. Plus, we could use your skills. That is, if you want to help." She heard Oliver's voice from behind her.

"I'm in," she didn't turn around. She couldn't face him right now. She didn't really want to face him ever. In the first place, she was supposed to meet her One soon, and in the second . . . she had strange, warped feelings for him that she was trying to suppress.

"Okay, so here's what we're going to do . . . "

This was just business. No big deal.

Before he and the rest of the 'team' had left, Oliver had walked over to her, stood behind her and waited.

"What do you want, Oliver?"

"I'm sorry. I don't want you to feel as if you're just a replacement for Lois. Lois could never do this. You're Chloe. And you're absolutely amazingly brilliant, beautiful and loyal. And I promise you, I want you because you're Chloe. Not because I can't have Lois." Then he'd left.

Right before he'd left the room Chloe had called out, "Be careful."

"I'll try to be."

But-back to the present. Focus.

"Watchtower to Arrow, there are three guards ahead on your left."

She heard some noises-grunts and the release of arrows-probably those funky ones he had that knocked people out.

"Got it."

"Cyborg, there's room up ahead, two on the left."

Man, this place was just crawling with guards.

"Impulse, take a left, and then your next right. That's the room with the girl, get her out of there, and head back."

"Gotcha, 'Tower."

Chloe smiled, she was really enjoying this.

"Cyborg, take a sharp right, then the second door on the left. It has much of the altered timer technology-see if you can delete it, or plant some sort of computer virus."

"On it, Watchtower."

Bart sped in with the woman-who was passed out, and looked completely drained. "Leave her on the couch, I'll take care of her."

Bart just nodded, grabbed something-food-off the counter, and went to grab AC-and then Victor- for some help taking care of the woman. She was in bad shape.

"Arrow? The room Clark's being held in is encased with lead shielding. Which means-"

"Which means I need to get him out of there."

"Exactly."

Oliver broke open the door where Clark was being held. He noticed the intense bright green kryptonite. He easily undid the shackles holding Clark. Then he sighed.

He grabbed his arms, pulled him to the floor-oomph-Sorry Clark. He pulled him out of the room-man, this guy was heavy.

"You can let go now." Clark said it weakly, but he was obviously regaining his strength.

"Good." He dropped Clark's arms. "You're not exactly the easiest thing to carry around."

They stood in the empty warehouse hallway. "Arrow to Watchtower, status report?"

"Cyborg's on his way out, Flash went to speed him out of there. Aquaman is taking care of our little guest, all that's left is you two."

Oliver smiled. "Great. I'm going radio silent, we'll be fine."

Seconds later, a shot rang out. Clark blocked it, but not before another one hit Oliver.

"Arrow-" Chloe was terrified. "Are you okay? What's going on?"

She heard nothing. Except the beeping of a timer. It was midnight.

Clark carried him in. "Why didn't you take him to the hospital?"

"He's fine, Chloe. He just got grazed, and on the way down he hit his head."

"Which means he could have a concussion. What the hell is wrong with you Clark? Think. Please."

She headed to his side, "When is his physician supposed to get here?"

"As soon as he can, Chlo."

Chloe reached out her hand-"Don't do it Chloe, he'll be fine."-because she had to heal him.

She passed out. And Oliver woke up. "What just happened?"

"I think she just healed you. Dude, I didn't know 'liscious could do that."

"Well, now you do. She should wake up soon." He didn't really know when she'd wake up, but all of these guys seemed really worried about her.

"She'll be okay."

"She better be."

"Chloe, you really need to wake up soon. I meant what I said, you're not a replacement for Lois. I started falling for you the moment I met you. And everything you are, everything you do, it makes me love you more. It was never Lois, it's you." He sighed-he realized he was still wearing his sunglasses and his outfit, minus his voice distorter. "I want to make things up to you. I love you."

"If you don't mean that I'm going to slap you again," she said weakly.

He had been taking down his hood, and taking off his sunglasses-he dropped them.

Chloe's eyes were still closed, but she was struggling to open them. Oliver looked down at her arms, and noticed a timer. It had clocked out.

Oh.

"I don't know what to say-I mean, you're still Lois' ex-boyfriend. And I just broke up with Jimmy. Maybe we should . . . wait before we say things like that. I just need . . . time." She needed to meet her One. See what he was like. Oh dear. Complicated.

I need you.

Oliver decided to somewhat change the subject-because his heart was damn near close to exploding. "You got a timer."

"Yeah." She looked at her wrist. "I did."

"Interesting choice."

"It was something I needed to do."

"I know. It was something I needed to do too."

He took off his gloves and showed her his wrist.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

She looked up-and finally met his eyes, something she hadn't been able to do since their kiss-and a loud beeping rang out.

Beep-beep-a-leep.

Next chapter has sad Chlollie and sad Clois. Just warning you.