A/N: I don't think I can apologize enough for the complete lack of updates. Yeah, it's been 3 months. Sorry. After I started Winter quarter, my weird schedule mixed in with crazy amounts of homework took my attention away from my writing. For the past month, I've wanted nothing more than to write, but so much came up, I got sick and then had projects in basically all of my classes along with midterms, and then there was finals.

But being on spring break has finally given me the time to work on this. I had actually tried writing this chapter differently, but the way I was doing it, it was way too hard to get from point A to point B. I think the way it is now works better, and still delivers some amount of angst. There will be more in the upcoming chapters, but ever story needs some angst at some point.

Chapter 5

6x10 - Hydro

Chloe turned the ring over and over on her finger as she soaked in the happiness she thought she would never feel. It made her feel like dancing on the inside at the mere thought of Clark being her boyfriend!

She had been trying to get some work done on her story about Linda Lake who had tried to reveal Clark's secret to the world and kill her. Luckily, thanks to Lana, Chloe, and Clark's secret, were safe. The events of the day served to make her even happier and more relieved at their new relationship status whenever the ring caught her eye.

Since Clark had popped the question, so to speak, their relationship had sped up quite a bit. Before, Clark had been acting unsure about every move, every touch. It had been annoying and frustrating as he treated their relationship like a fragile china doll. But now things were different. Clark seemed completely comfortable when he slipped his hand into hers or brushed a stray hair from her face, or even when he stole a kiss here and there. One particular night, as the passion between them arose and their kisses heated up, Lois, being Chloe's roommate, ended up walking in on them. Clark blushed a little, which was completely understandable, but more notably he didn't react further than that. The old Clark probably would've run out of the room in shame, or whatever it was that was keeping him from acting on his feelings for her, but since Christmas, it was like something clicked inside of him.

It was like a light bulb had gone off and his head and he finally realized that she, in a sense, belonged to him. The truth was ever since their freshman year of high school, Chloe would have always done anything Clark wanted. In a way, even when he belonged to Alicia or Lana, she had always belonged to him. There'd never been anyone else, with the exception of a tiny fling one summer, but considering the lack of feelings they shared, that didn't really count.

It wasn't even a minute after she had finally decided to return her attention to the story she was working on, when a very chipper Lois opened the door to their apartment. Chloe wondered if it was Oliver making her feel the way Clark was making Chloe feel. She smiled at the thought.

"You'd never believe the day I've just had," Lois said, excited about whatever had happened.

"And it sounds like nothing is going to stop you from telling me about it," Chloe said, still smiling herself. Ever since Lois had decided she wanted to be a reporter, too, she never could let a good story go to waste. And because Chloe was Lois's cousin, roommate, and best friend, along with the fact that Chloe was also a reporter, she was the perfect candidate to listen to all of Lois's insane musings. Sometimes they were amusing, and others they sounded like they fit the newspaper she worked for perfectly.

"Ok," Lois jumped straight into her story without pause. This made Chloe laugh. "Well, I've been scouring the internet for any hints on the mysterious Green Arrow, and I actually found a source that showed some potential. So I meet this guy, Jimmy. He's a photographer at the Planet, and it turns out he was able to snap a couple of shots of our favorite Robin Hood."

Chloe wondered where this story was going. If she had really found out who the man behind the Green Arrow was, would she be sitting here telling Chloe about it? Then again, everybody else turned to Chloe as secret-keeper extraordinaire, why not Lois?

"Well, later, Oliver was trying to teach me yoga," Lois continued, but Chloe didn't let her get any farther than that.

"Wait," she interrupted. "What on earth does Oliver and yoga have to do with your investigation of the Green Arrow?"

"Just wait," Lois sounded annoyed that Chloe wouldn't just let Lois tell the complete story uninterrupted. "So, things kind of got a little hot, and we started to make out. But then I noticed this gash on his arm. It was the same gash from the pictures of Green Arrow that Jimmy gave me."

Was she really about to tell Chloe that her boyfriend had a secret identity? The only reason she could think Lois would do that would be if Lois were mad at him for hiding this secret from her. But then why would Lois be in such a singsong mood as she told the story? There was no way Chloe could just skip in and let Lois in on Clark's complete history. She decided the best thing to do would just keep quiet and let Lois finish the story, hoping all these questions would be answered before she had to ask. Yes, that would definitely be better.

"Well, I was trying to think of who to ask for help trying to figure out," Lois continued. "I could use Jimmy, but he didn't seem like he would be capable of helping on his own, and I needed another body to help me. And, when I thought about it, it appeared so clearly to me: Clark!"

"Clark?" Chloe's mind nearly exploded. It was a bit soon for Chloe to be feeling jealous, but why had Clark seemed like a good idea?

"Think about it," she said. "Clark and Oliver are friends. If anyone could get close enough to Oliver to find out if he had any dirty secrets, it would be me and Clark… I mean, Clark and me."

Initially proud that Lois had finally come to a point in her career where she was correcting her own grammar, Chloe eventually turned to a bigger problem. She could see the logic in Lois's thought process, but it contained an error Lois had not seen; Clark knew whom the Green Arrow was and was determined to keep it a secret. If the mystery man were Oliver, Clark would've helped him keep his secret from a prying Lois.

"It took some convincing, but Clark agreed to help me and we came up with a plan. The three of us would have a movie night and I would conveniently forget the ice. While walking home in a dark, scary alley, Jimmy would pretend to be a thug and I would call Oliver for 'help.'

"But then, everything went horribly wrong. It wasn't just Jimmy approaching me in the alley. There were more men who were actually scary and intimidating."

Lois sighed and then smiled a little more than she already was. "That was when he came. I've seen him in person before, but there was just something about the way he filled his costume that was just unf!"

Chloe raised an eyebrow. She was almost certain at this point it was not Oliver in the costume.

"Get this, Chloe," she said. "Our Green Arrow's been seriously holding back on us. He threw the thugs across the alley like it was nothing!"

A wave of realization washed over Chloe. It had to be Oliver that Clark was protecting, and he must've agreed to wear the costume to thoroughly convince Lois she wasn't dating a superhero. As much as Chloe admired Clark's loyalty, a part of her wished she had known about what was going on. What if Lois had pulled off his glasses and found out about Clark's powers? Chloe froze. What if that was what Lois going to tell her? No. Clark would have called her. She was sure about that.

"So, thinking it was my boyfriend throwing these men like balls of paper, I kissed him," Chloe felt all the blood leave her face. She knew she shouldn't be jealous. Lois thought it was Oliver. Clark probably wanted nothing to do with it. "But then Oliver walked up behind me. Not knowing what else to do, I slapped the Green Arrow to try and make it look like he came onto me."

Chloe scoffed a little at this, but she tried to play it off as a laugh as her nerves threatened to take over completely. But at least that was it. She had kissed Chloe's boyfriend briefly by mistake and then she stopped when she realized it wasn't Ollie. Chloe could deal with that, that was, until Lois continued.

"And I'm not saying that anything's going to happen between Oliver and me because of it, but Chloe, that was the most amazing kiss of my entire life. Ollie's a great kisser, but damn, they must have some great kissing classes at superhero school."

Chloe couldn't think of anything to say. She felt her mouth open a little, and for a moment, that Lois picked up on, she was powerless to regain her composure.

"Are you okay?" It was Lois's turn to raise her eyebrow as she noticed Chloe's change in attitude.

"Yeah, um, I'm fine," she said, trying to keep her body from trembling with the million emotions she was pretty sure she couldn't even name. "But do you think I could talk with Clark about this alone?"

"Yeah," Lois said, even more confused. "Are you mad at him for not telling you about helping me? Because I told him not to…"

"No, it's not that," Chloe said simply. She wasn't about to elaborate.

"Oh," Lois said deciding to leave it alone. "It's not like Clark was of much use anyway he totally vanished in the middle of the night."

With that, Lois was off to the bathroom to take a shower, like she always did when she needed some time to think.

Chloe picked up her cell phone from the coffee table and dialed speed dial number 2. "Clark, we need to talk," Chloe said, keeping a single tear from escaping her eye by sheer force. No. She would talk to Clark before she let her emotions get the better of her.

Clark waited in his barn. Chloe had sounded kind of weird on the phone, and she had told him that she would come to him instead of the other way around. Clark felt like he was about to get into trouble and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. He inhaled sharply as he heard the sound of her car pull into the driveway.

He waited as patiently as he could as his super-hearing picked up on the closing of her door and then her footsteps coming towards the barn. When she entered the barn, he noticed that she was breathing the way she did when she was stressed.

He sped down the stairs and stopped at the bottom, looking into her eyes. Seeing the stress apparent on her face that he had heard in her breathing, Clark took her hand and planted a small, gentle kiss on her cheek. Chloe offered him a small smile and Clark noticed that this was probably the most she could give him. This worried Clark, and he hated seeing Chloe unhappy.

"Let's go upstairs," she said, obviously making an effort to not let her voice betray her. Clark wondered if Chloe knew how well Clark actually knew Chloe and that he could always tell when she was upset about something. Chloe was definitely upset right now.

He didn't let go of her hand as he led her up the stairs of the barn. Somehow just being upstairs gave more of an illusion of privacy than the open downstairs where they could easily be eavesdropped on.

"First of all," Chloe started. "I know about Oliver."

Clark laughed nervously. "W-what do you mean?"

"Clark," she looked into his eyes. "You know exactly what I mean. And you also know I can keep a secret."

Clark nodded. If he trusted anyone with the important secrets, it was Chloe. She had never let him down, even when they hadn't been a couple. But this was not what she had come to talk about, and they both knew it.

Chloe looked down at the wooden floor of the loft and then back up into Clark's eyes. "Lois told me about the kiss."

Clark closed his eyes. So that's what this about. He guessed he couldn't blame Chloe for having these feelings he should've told her himself. But he couldn't figure out what to say. The truth was, a small part of him couldn't stop thinking about the kiss.

"Chloe," he said, trying to sound reassuring. "That kiss was nothing. It was all Lois, and she thought I was Ollie."

Chloe sighed. "Yeah, but the way she said it… it seemed like it was a little more two-sided than it should've been."

Clark could see why she was stressing now and he wanted nothing more than to calm Chloe's nerves and see her gorgeous smile again.

"Damn," he said, letting himself uncharacteristically slip. He ran his fingers through his hair. "Chloe, the kiss was nice, I guess, but you're the one I'm with-the one I want to be with. That hasn't changed."

It was the truth, so why did he feel so guilty?

After a couple of seconds of quiet pondering, Chloe finally smiled. She reached up on her tiptoes and planted a deep, emotional kiss on Clark's lips that made him forget all about Lois.