Segment Summary: They both realized what they meant to each other, but what they didn't anticipate was the sacrifice necessary to save him.
Segment Timeline: Lazarus/Shield
Warning: Coarse language

Gone

There's a couple of things to say that should be said
Number one, loving you was fun
I'm sorry if I hurt you...

After living in denial for so long, it was hard to admit the truth, even harder to follow through with what she was about to do. But it was the only way.

Well, I got to enjoy it for a little while.

That simple feeling of someone being on the same page as her, someone who viewed her as an equal, took her seriously both as a person and as a hero. Oliver wanted his sacrifice to be the last, but Chloe refused to let that become reality.

It almost felt like a cruel joke. The few moments she was accepting of the way he made her feel were the moments right before she lost him. Even telling him the truth felt like a cheat, a last hint of desperation that saying it would be enough to bring him back.

But this wasn't a fairytale or some romance movie where those three words solved the world's problems. This was their lives, their messy, complicated lives. Lives where they had accepted their singledom before they started this stupid arrangement.

Slamming her hands down on the console, Chloe tried to keep the tears back, but it was no good. After holding her strong face for hours, she finally let herself break a little. It just didn't feel fair. Hadn't life thrown enough her way, between being distant from her family and her disastrous past relationships? Just once, couldn't this work out for the better?

But that was too easy, and Chloe knew that everything good in her life, she had to fight for. So she pushed her tears aside and looked back up at the screen. The email was the easy way out, but she couldn't leave a voicemail. Chloe didn't trust her voice and she wasn't sure she could listen to his.

As she put the final touches on it, she smirked at knight in shining leather. Oliver would appreciate the nickname under different circumstances. Maybe they'd laugh about it one day.

Maybe.

Swallowing hard, she added my hero and promptly wrapped it up. It wasn't much, but it would have to do. Nowhere on this email was there an apology because she didn't feel overly sorry. This is what she had to do.

Backing away from the console, Chloe felt strange, as she wasn't sure if she was ever going to be back here. As she continued to walk backwards, she looked around, taking in the details, trying to remember the good times.

At the doorway, Chloe leaned against it and stared across the room, the sound of an arrow flying in her ears. Soon, that sound would return, and she found satisfaction in that as she shut the lights off.

~0~

Number two goes like this. If you listen close, you can feel my kiss
Cause I'm gone, I'm gone
You know it, you know by now that I'm gone..

It wasn't supposed to be like this, but deep down, he knew the moment that he bumped shoulders with someone, that it was her. That didn't meant that it was easy for Oliver to believe. Even as Tess read Chloe's email, he still didn't want to believe it.

The closing was a nice touch, it almost made him want to smile, but he couldn't have that satisfaction. He looked at his ex, wanting to ask her to undo what she helped Chloe with, but based on her expression, he could tell that Tess couldn't do that even if she wanted.

As she left Watchtower, Oliver sighed as he looked around him, hating that everywhere he looked, he saw her. This place was Watchtower after all. But standing here, dwelling in the growing pit he felt in his chest wouldn't bring her back, so he quit his pity party and continued his search, desperate to find anything Chloe may have overlooked.

~0~

Opening his eyes, Oliver looked up at the screen that provided no more answers than it did before. He had called Victor, hoping that he'd be able to figure out how Chloe had erased her existence, but it was no better than anything else Oliver had tried.

That led to him walking down the stairs to the main area of Watchtower, standing over the specs that she had left rolled up on the table, the place she was likely standing when he was taken.

"I love you, damnit," he whispered, the words feeling empty when Chloe couldn't hear them.

Before telling her that, it had been so long since he had said those words. In fact, Oliver couldn't remember the last time he said them, but he knew that he meant it then. At the time, it didn't matter that he didn't see her reaction, or hold her as she reciprocated the words. Initially, those words had helped Oliver fight through the worst of his torture, but now, they were an unwelcome echo in his ears.

They had spent so long teetering around the words, pretending that this relationship had no strings. All that time they had wasted words explaining that this was just physical, only to not enjoy a single second of them accepting the reality. He couldn't jokingly call her his girlfriend and they couldn't roll their eyes through double dates with Lois and Clark.

Instead, he stood in Watchtower, wanting nothing more than to know what had happened to Chloe. As Oliver leaned harder against the console, he realized that he would give up everything for a sign, any indication that she was going to be okay.

~0~

After walking past Clark, Oliver went to the elevator, waiting to bang his head against one of the walls once it started descending. Part of him wanted to smash the vial in the elevator, but his hand curled around it harder instead. It was the one piece that he had of her, the so-called sign that he had asked for.

It wasn't much comfort to know that her plan consisted of a cyanide antidote, but at least he could confirm that Chloe had a plan. He couldn't piece together what it was, but this was more than what he had yesterday. As the elevator stopped, he sighed before pocketing the vial. Maybe there was a chance that he hadn't failed her yet.

He knew what Flagg told him, that she was dead, but this little piece of lab equipment kept his hope alive. If she was alive, she'd come back someday. He just had to wait, and after waiting months to hear her say that she loved him, that was a risk that Oliver could take.

~End~