Chapter Five: New Exposure

"Waste of my stinking time!" the woman shrieked. It was Tuesday morning. Somehow Laurel had kept the guys from murdering each other on Monday (a task that was likely easier with her father unarmed and at less than his full strength). She had left perhaps an hour before, heading into CNRI (City Necessary Resources Initiative), which left the other two alone in the house with—

"I'm sorry for the mix-up, Mila," Oliver said solemnly. "Let me compensate you for your trouble," he reached for his wallet.

"Is that the nurse?" Quentin asked, coming into the room. "What's going on?"

"That jerk fired me!" Mila pointed an accusing finger at the billionaire.

"If you'd let me explain—" Oliver began.

"He can't fire you. He's not the patient," Quentin declared.

"That's right; you are. Didn't you say at dinner last night that you didn't need a nurse?" Queen asked.

"I," Quentin paused. He had said something like that, hadn't he? He'd been thinking that nurses were for the old and the crippled and that as he was neither, a nurse would be degrading. But that was last night. This morning he'd very much like to have a buffer—any buffer—between him and Queen.

Evidently Queen didn't feel the same way.

But of course he didn't. Another person there meant another person to hide his secret from—another person Lance might blab to. He hadn't managed to tell his daughter, yet, but Queen knew that ultimatum was still hanging over him. And Lance had only said that Oliver should be the one to tell Laurel the truth. The detective might have no compunction about being the one to tell others.

"There you see," the blonde spoke up, pulling out a couple of bills and offering them to the redhead. "It's not that we're firing you, it's just that we don't need your help, after all. No hard feelings, okay?"

"Now wait a minute!" Lance objected. "We do need her help."

"I can take care of you just as well as she can," the archer said.

"Even if you could, I think you'd be a little too busy running around the city," Quentin hissed. Distracted, he didn't notice as Mila, her eyes wide after examining just how much she'd been tipped for showing up (or rather, for leaving quickly), headed out the door.

"No, I called Tommy. He's going to be looking after Verdant by himself for the time being. Tell you the truth, he's pretty much running it single-handedly as it is—"

"I'm not talking about your damn nightclub!"

"Back to your allegations that I'm the Hood then," Oliver shoved his hands in his pockets. The older man instinctively scanned the room and then noticed that the nurse was long gone. "Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you're right. You're the head of the task force to bring in the vigilante. I know; Hilton's covering for you. But it's still your project.

"If you can take time off, then I can, too."

"It's not a competition! I'm not doing this to prove a point," Quentin retorted. "Just because I may be out of commission doesn't mean the great Hood is going to sit on his ass and play nurse."

"Oh, admit it; you like my ass, don't you?" Oliver winked. "I could maybe send out for a nurse uniform, if that's what you're into—Hey, take it easy! You look like you're going to have another coronary."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Quentin grumbled.

"Let me get you some water," the younger man said, heading off towards the kitchen.

"I can get it myself!" the detective called, following him. After accepting a glass from the blonde, he sat down to drink. Feeling better, he spoke. "I haven't nailed down your pattern yet, but you've got one and I'll crack it eventually. I do know that in that crazy head of yours, you think you're helping, that you're somehow protecting the city with what you do.

"You care about Starling as much as I do; you just have a very warped way of showing it. So, caring the way you do and believing that you're this boon to society, I repeat: There's no way you're going to sit on—at home to look after an old man."

"You're not old," Oliver jumped in.

"You're right, I'm not," Quentin conceded, though he'd been feeling older since the heart attack. "The rest of the argument still applies."

"Unless I think the city can manage without the Hood for a while," Oliver suggested. "There's still the S.C.P.D. And I would imagine that the Hood has…friends…that he could contact if there were an emergency. Oh, and there's one more thing you didn't take into consideration."

"What's that?"

"Maybe I want to take care of you."

Quentin snorted and muttered something that sounded to Oliver like "full of crap."

~PB~

"Don't worry about the List," Oliver said to Diggle over the phone that night. "It can hold for a few days."

"Days? If you're waiting for Lance to fully recover, that can take weeks!"

"Okay; it can hold for a few weeks, then. It held for the five years I was trapped on that island."

"But what if—"

"If an emergency comes up, you mean? Well, you've filled in for me before…"

"Only because you let yourself get slapped with a fucking ankle bracelet! I can't hit a target with one of your arrows to save my life. Sooner or later someone's going to figure out I'm not the Hood. For instance, the guy you're playing Nightingale for."

"Yeah, about that… Detective Lance knows—"

"Knows what?"

"That I'm the one that gave him that phone around Christmas."

"Are you kidding me?!"

"Don't worry about it. It's not like I've been arrested again or anything… Uh, Diggle, I'm going to have to call you back. I heard something. I'm going to go check it out," Oliver ended the call and dropped the cell phone. Silently, he crept out of his room and down the hallway to investigate the noise. There were footsteps ahead of him; he was gaining on the person. He rounded a corner and—

"FUCK! WHAT THE HELL?" Lance screamed.

Not another intruder in the beach house, then. It was just Lance, having gotten up in the middle of the night, presumably to get something from the kitchen. And apparently Lance slept in the nude. Who knew?

"Er, sorry," Oliver belatedly turned away from the other man.

"What're you doing, sneaking up on me?"

"It is my house. And there was an intruder a few nights ago, as you might recall. Just making sure there wasn't another one," Oliver chanced a look back in Quentin's direction, but turned his head again before the detective could resume yelling.

"If it makes you feel better, I didn't see much," Oliver offered. "Just…your ass…and your balls…and…"

Face scarlet, Quentin stormed back to the guest room and slammed the door. Muffled screaming followed.

After several minutes of this, but before his voice could give out, Quentin dialed Laurel's number and got her voicemail. Well, it was—he checked the clock—about a quarter to three in the morning. Not everyone was an insomniac.

"Please leave a message."

Right, well, he was not going to say what had just happened. Nobody needed to know that. He didn't need to know that. He could stick to vague complaints then.

"Your boyfriend is driving me up the freaking wall here! I don't know how much more of this I can take! Do me a favor and come drive me home. Heck, drive me back to the hospital for all I care, just get me away from him!" Or, as an alternative, the very least she could do…

"Remember when you asked if there was anything else I'd need? See if I still have any old pajamas at the apartment, will ya? Thanks."

Author's Note: Chapter title is from Queen's "My Melancholy Blues."

Thanks, as always, to those who have reviewed and/or added the story to your alert list!