"All right, we'll stop for today."
Emmeline put her fists down, breathing heavily and covered in a light sheen of sweat. It felt good to train with Oliver without the assistance of her abilities. When they worked together like this, she knew that all of her progress and success was the result of her own power, not her father's which now gave her a bit of a leg up on everyone else on the few occasions that they actually worked.
"I'll be heading back to Smallville next week to take care of some business."
Emmeline raised her eyebrows. "Is this Oliver-Queen-business or Green-Arrow-business?"
"Oliver Queen. Which means that the newspapers will know about it in about ten minutes and you'll probably be seeing me on the front page before my plane even lands."
"Do you need to stay in the Queen Tower loft?"
"No, I told you that I can just grab a hotel room."
"And what will that look like to the papers? I really don't mind if you'd rather stay there while you're in town. Technically, you are still the owner."
"You've only been there for a couple weeks. I'm not going to force you out already."
"You're not forcing me out, I'm offering. It's fine, I can just stay with my dad for a few days."
"If you insist. I promise to keep the place exactly as I found it."
"Oh, one more thing. Chloe is the only one who knows about our training sessions, so make sure you don't mention them to anyone."
"Anyone as in Clark?"
Emmeline laughed. "He would completely freak out."
The Daily Planet had been rocked by the sudden death of their editor-in-chief, Grant Gabriel, who had been shot in a botched mugging.
The moment Emmeline had seen the news on the front pages of the paper, she knew that it had been no accident. After what she'd accidentally overheard in the office right before Christmas, she'd come to understand that Grant Gabriel was a successful clone of Lex's brother, Julian, who had died in infancy. And after hearing Lex fire a gun in the heat of the moment, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lex had secretly orchestrated Grant's death. But she was the only one outside of that office who knew that, since Lois had been knocked unconscious before she could hear any of it. And without any solid proof, there was nothing she could do about it. Lex had created an entire life only to brutally take it away when it didn't go the way he wanted, and he'd gotten away with it.
The ability to overhear things was truly not what it was all cracked up to be.
Emmeline also desperately wanted to ask about Chloe's kiss with Jimmy and what that meant for their relationship, especially since it seemed like Jimmy and Kara were now a thing which was kind of weird, but Chloe couldn't know that she was the one who'd gotten rid of the bomb and not Clark…or at least Phantom-Clark. And since Chloe hadn't told her about it, she had to pretend that she didn't know about it.
How had Clark lived like this? Knowing information she wasn't supposed to know and being unable to talk about it was torture.
Emmeline went over to Chloe's desk at the Daily Planet to find her looking at profiles of women from the police department's criminal records. "Hey, you ready?"
"Yeah, just a second…" Chloe answered distractedly.
Clark suddenly appeared next to the blonde, and Emmeline couldn't help tensing up for a moment. She hated how nervous she had felt at the sight of him for the last few days. But every time he was near, her neck throbbed and all she could think about was how something that had looked exactly like him had almost killed her.
"Looking for a new hairdo?" Clark asked, looking over Chloe's shoulder as he presented her with a takeout bag.
Chloe chuckled. "Let me guess…ham and Swiss?"
"Your favorite."
"No, actually. Not at all. Which I think I've mentioned three times this week, but thanks anyway."
Clark followed her as she went over to pick up some files from across the room. "I just can't hang around that house anymore. Knowing that phantom was living my life with Lana for over a month? While I was trapped in the Fortress? I know we looked alike, but she really couldn't tell the difference? And then she tells him that they belong together. Does that mean she doesn't feel that way about me?"
"This probably has been pretty hard on her too," Emmeline told him. "I mean, living with one person for a month and then finding out that they're not who you thought they were? That's a scenario straight from a horror movie."
Her experience with Phantom-Clark had certainly felt like one.
"Yeah, Lana isn't exactly the same girl you used to trip all over in high school, either," Chloe said.
Clark frowned and turned away from them. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."
Chloe laughed. "Right. I'm sorry we brought it up."
"Any luck locating the Brain InterActive Construct?"
"Not since you asked me yesterday."
Clark froze when he finally got a good look at the side of her face and noticed a pretty deep set of scratches. "What happened to your face?"
Chloe sat back down at her desk and looked up at him in disbelief. "First of all, did you seriously not notice this until just now?"
Clark looked at her guiltily.
"Your hair was mostly covering it," Emmeline mumbled, feeling like a seriously crappy friend for not noticing so quickly either. At least she had a bit of an excuse that Clark's sudden appearance threw her back into one of the worst moments of her life for a few minutes.
"Don't worry, I'm fine."
"Chloe." Clark looked at her like he knew that she wasn't being entirely truthful and begging for the full story.
Chloe sighed and stood up again. "All right, I've sort of been doing this sidekick side-job for Oliver."
"What?"
That surprised Emmeline too. Why hadn't Chloe or Oliver told her about something like that? She'd thought that after she'd confessed to Chloe what was going on with her and Oliver that she'd be privy to this kind of information whether she heard about it from either one of them. But then, it had taken quite a bit of time for her to even share her side of things with Chloe, and Oliver wasn't one to share about working with other people which she was glad about when it was her working with him. Well, she couldn't really get on someone for hiding something from her when there was still something pretty big that she was hiding from everyone. When had her life become so full of secrets and lies?
"Look, Clark, a girl has got to pay her bills. And, I mean, let's face it. You kind of fill my pro-bono quota."
"His missions are dangerous. And the fact he's taking you with him—"
"No, no, no, it was just internet interception…that ended up having a vicious ninja lady attached to it who chased me onto the roof and then almost beheaded me and went rappelling over the side of the building, which I've got to admit was really smoking cool."
"This woman almost beheaded you and you didn't think to mention that sooner?!" Emmeline whisper-yelled.
"I was fine, I promise."
Chloe met eyes with Emmeline, and in just that one look, she knew that Chloe was silently telling her if she could trust Oliver to train her for the last several months, then she could trust that Oliver would keep her best friend safe while helping him with their missions.
"Who was she?" Clark asked.
"I don't know. But she somehow shattered his arrows before they could get to her."
"I'm going to go talk to him."
Clark stormed off, no doubt heading to the loft to give Oliver a piece of his mind about all of this.
Emmeline watched him go. "I hadn't planned on telling him about my training sessions, but I definitely can't now, because judging from that reaction, he would probably go ballistic."
"Chloe, I need a girls' night so bad."
Chloe smiled as she looked over at her brunette friend from her position in front of the copier. "Life kicking you that much?"
"Between my training sessions, my job, and school, not to mention dealing with everything that happened with the phantom, I feel like I'm about to explode."
"I never did get to ask you about Oliver being in town and what that meant for you two."
"We're supposed to be strangers, so that's how we're acting. Only a few people know that I moved into his loft while he's gone, and it's going to stay that way."
"Okay, but I should probably let you know that Lois is having a lot of feelings about his return. I convinced her to wait for him to make the first move, but knowing her, I doubt she will."
"I don't really know what I'm allowed to feel about that."
"You like Oliver, don't you?"
"I guess so."
"You guess so?"
"Nothing's really happened in the last few weeks when we've met. I don't really know where we stand."
Clark came into the copier room which effectively ended their conversation, and to her annoyance, made Emmeline tense up for just a couple seconds.
"In case you can't see it, the white flag is flying, so don't even think about going off on me again," Chloe told him firmly.
"I'm sorry for being so hard on you…about the Oliver thing," Clark apologized. "I just don't want to see you getting hurt."
"Well, we could all breathe easier if we could find a lead on Blonde Ambition, but right now, I've got zero."
"Lana might."
"Twist. Okay."
"She doesn't have any footage linking Lex to the attacker, but she was able to keep track of his projects by piggybacking on the server from Luthor mansion."
Chloe rolled her eyes and headed back to her computer. "Of course. Right in front of my face. Our silent siren knew I was making the interception because she was on the Daily Planet server."
"Can you access who logged on last night?"
"Yeah. I can't believe I didn't see that. The negligent go-to girl strikes again. Chalk another one up for the new-and-improved model."
"Lana did come through, but I'm not about to let Oliver poach the best sidekick in town."
Emmeline smiled to herself, reminded at the pure friendship between the two which helped begin to erase the terrible image of Phantom-Clark from her memory.
When Chloe ran a search through her computer, two names came up: 'Sullivan, Chloe' and 'Lance, Dinah'.
"Dinah Lance was the only woman logged on last night," Clark said. "That doesn't help us much."
"Why, because she's not blonde? Please, Clark. The new bad girl could be as blonde as I really am."
Clark and Emmeline looked at Chloe's hair in confusion, trying to picture a different color but Chloe not being blonde felt really wrong.
Chloe pulled Dinah's picture up. "There you go. Raven black." With the clack of a few buttons, she removed her long black hair and replaced it with short blonde hair. "Canary yellow. Maybe we should call her 'The Yellow Raven'."
"'Black Canary' has a better ring to it."
"This makes so much sense. I mean, Dinah's slogan is 'The Word of Justice'. Family of cops, hardline view of crime and corruption."
"What are you doing?"
"Earning back my stripes." With an eager smile, Chloe quickly entered a few more commands. "I just hacked into Dinah's computer, and it looks like there is a transfer in occurrence to her bank account right now."
"Oliver said the file you intercepted the other night was from Lex. Can you block this transfer?"
Chloe chuckled knowingly. "Cut off the air supply so she'll have to surface. Got it."
"While you guys take care of that, I should head home," Emmeline put in. "Dad and I are supposed to go out for dinner."
"I'll keep you updated."
"Thanks."
Just as Emmeline left the Planet, she heard her name being called and felt a hand on her arm and she instinctively jumped.
"Sorry," Clark apologized. "But that kind of is what I want to talk about. Having Lana uncomfortable around me is bad enough, I can't handle having both of you nervous whenever I'm here."
"Clark…your face was what I was looking at as I got the life choked out of me. I know to my core that you would never even consider doing something like that to me, but my brain is just having trouble separating you and the phantom. Lana's probably having the same issue. I know being patient isn't your strong suit, but in this instance…you have to be. Just give the both of us time to recover."
When Clark confronted Dinah as she was about to burst into Lex's office to demand her payment, Dinah had explained, rather curtly, that she was working for Lex and stealing back the 'trade secrets' that the Green Arrow and his team had stolen from Lex first. While she had revealed that she knew the Green Arrow's true identity, Clark's intense line of questions also showed that Dinah had no idea what Lex was really doing at his plants.
Dinah's attacks did nothing to his armor-like body, so to escape from him, she issued an intense sonic scream that made his ears bleed thanks to his enhanced hearing.
He, Chloe, and Emmeline quickly made their way to Oliver's loft to make sure that Dinah hadn't hurt him.
When they exited the elevator, they found all of the glass in the apartment shattered and Lois tied to a chair.
"Lois, what happened?" Clark asked quickly as he came over to untie her.
"This crazy woman attacked us," Lois answered shortly.
Chloe looked over at the green display of archery equipment usually hidden by tinted glass doors. "Why did some woman attack you and Oliver?"
"Hey!" Lois quickly grabbed her cousin's arm and tried to direct her attention away from the bows and arrows by facing her towards the balcony. "Isn't the view spectacular? I never really noticed it before without the…all the glass in the way."
"The view?" Chloe looked back at the equipment.
"I know, can you believe this guy? A hydraulic walk-in closet? You're not gonna find that in a Sharper Image catalog. Must be laundry day. I mean, who picks archery as a hobby? That's embarrassing. I'd keep my quiver in the closet, too."
All three of them were pretty amused at Lois's attempt to cover up Oliver's secret identity, who didn't realize that in this room, she was the last to find out.
"Lois, where is Oliver?" Clark asked.
"I don't know. She knocked me out, and when I came to, they were both gone."
Emmeline looked around at all of the glass covering the floor. "So much for leaving the place as he found it," she muttered under her breath. Over in the corner she saw an overturned table with the remains of a meal, flowers, and candles. She turned to look at Lois. "Was Oliver having a date?"
Lois looked at her awkwardly. "Yeah, it was…for me. Not that we really got to that part."
Emmeline turned around again to make sure that Lois couldn't read her expression. She'd thought that she wasn't jealous about the idea of Lois and Oliver, but when staring the fact that he'd been expecting her and set up a date for her in the face, she felt hurt. Even if they hadn't really talked about their kiss, it had been such a good feeling to know that she was desirable to someone, especially after pining after Clark for the better part of two years. But now she realized that his affection for Lois was much stronger than anything he felt for her. She supposed a part of her had known that before, but it had been so easy to ignore in all of their training sessions when it was just the two of them. That he had done all of this in the apartment he'd leant her made it even worse.
The next day, Emmeline exited the elevator in the loft and found Oliver sweeping up some of the glass.
When he saw who'd arrived, he gave her an awkward smile. "I'll, uh, clean all this up and pay for the repairs. Uh…sorry."
Emmeline gave him a small smile. "It's all right. I guess my stay with my dad will just be extended."
"I'll get it fast-tracked."
"Thanks. So your visit back was pretty eventful. What's the deal with Dinah Lance? Has she realized the error of her ways when it came to helping Lex?"
"She has. And wouldn't you know it, she's joining our team. As Clark called it, she'll be our 'den mother'."
"A woman on your team who doesn't like to take orders? I'm curious to hear how that works out."
"Stay tuned."
"So…Lois knows about you now."
"…Yeah."
"How are you feeling about that?"
"Um…I don't know."
"Oliver, I know she was over here. And that you were going to have dinner with her."
"Emmeline—"
"Dinah put an end to it before it could begin, I know, but now that she knows who you are, what does that mean for you guys going forward?"
Oliver sighed. "She can't deal with the double life. Not that I blame her really. So we cut ties. Look, Emmeline—"
"I should go. Can you just let me know when the apartment is back to normal? I'll see you later. Sorry things didn't go the way you hoped."
Emmeline knew that Oliver wanted to talk about what everything with Lois meant for the two of them, but she was sure that she wouldn't like anything he said.
If he tried to explain why he'd made dinner for him and Lois, she would wonder why he'd kissed her twice when he still had such strong feelings for his past girlfriend and assume that she had just been a distraction for him. If he told her that the dinner hadn't meant anything, she would think him cruel for getting Lois's hopes up. If he tried to tell her that he wanted to continue the strange dance they'd been doing after all that, she would realize how little he cared about Lois and her lingering feelings for him and would question if that went for her too.
No matter what he said, it would hurt.
Emmeline stared at the small device Hannah had given her that supposedly contained a message from her father. She'd been hesitant to open it ever since she'd gotten it. What if the message was about how he regretted having her or didn't love her or something equally terrible? Hannah had never opened it so she wouldn't know if the words were good or bad.
But after everything that had just happened with Oliver, she felt numbed and didn't care anymore about what it contained. She just wanted to be able to see and touch something that her father had.
As Hannah had instructed, Emmeline pressed the button on the device and took a couple steps back.
To her amazement, a holographic image popped up the exact size and height of an attractive young man who couldn't be more than five years older than her.
"Hi, Emmeline," the figure said, looking straight ahead.
"Dad?" she whispered.
Hannah hadn't said that the message was going to be delivered by her father himself. She'd assumed that it was going to be written out somehow or at the very least, recorded.
"If you're seeing this, then that means you've reunited with your mother and she's told you about me and who I really am. I can only imagine how that conversation must've gone, but if you still have your doubts about whether or not she was telling the truth, I hope this proves everything she has said.
"I don't have a lot of time, so I have to make this quick, but if I could, I would never stop talking to you. Emmeline, if you take away only one thing from this message, please know that I have loved you since the first second that I ever saw you. I didn't know it was possible for me to love something so much. If there was any way that I could've stayed on Earth, I would've done so in a heartbeat. The only thing I regret about my time there is that I won't be able to watch you grow up. I'm sure there have been times that you felt unwanted because we were unable to keep you. We had to do it, my love, in order to protect you, but not a moment has gone by for either of us where we haven't hoped that you were okay and looked forward to a day when we could all be together again.
"Emmeline, I love you and your mother more than my own life. I always will until I draw my last breath. Right now, Krypton's future does not look long nor does my own, but I hope and pray that I will one day see you again, however it may happen, so that I can see for myself the beautiful woman I know you must be. Stay strong, my darling. You are in my heart now and forever."
The image of the man disappeared.
Tears had been rolling down Emmeline's cheeks for the entirety of the message, but now that it was over, she collapsed onto the floor into aching and gut-wrenching sobs.