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jesterladyficTitle: And Be My Frowning Friend
by Jesterlady
Rating:PG-13
Pairing: Pre Chloe/Oliver
Summary: Chloe knows they all need saving, but she finds that in showing Oliver the hero he really is, she finds where she's supposed to be
Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville. Some lines are from the show. The title is by Robert Miller. Centered on the episode 9x5 Roulette.
And Be My Frowning Friend
Chloe felt guilty. It wasn’t that strange a feeling to her, she’d felt it often enough over the years, but never with so much shame eating away at her.
It was her fault. Others had made their choices, yes, but it had been her choice that made everything fall apart.
She was alone. She’d never been so alone. Her carefully fabricated life was a lie, washed in a façade of virtual connections and so-called noble aspirations. All of her family had disappeared, slipped from her grasping hands. Her friends, her comrades, were disbanded and disillusioned.
People had died for her, because of her, their life’s blood literally dripping from her hands as they lay dying. Not just people…Jimmy.
She was a strong woman and she didn’t fall. Not when he died, not when Clark left, not when Lois disappeared, not when Oliver started slipping, but she felt guilty. Her choice to try and save Davis, to feed his supposed connection to her instead of walking away, to separate him from the monster within, not even knowing who the true monster was, that was what had destroyed them all.
It made Clark abandon his human upbringing, it made Oliver fall into a pit of self-loathing and self-destruction, and it made Jimmy give up his life for her.
Even when things changed, when Lois was found, when Clark slowly started to come back into Chloe's life, it didn’t change the guilt she felt. Maybe the reason was because Lois and Clark were family. They were the beating heart Chloe lived for, but they weren’t her life, not anymore. Her life had become the team, the merry, ragged band of misfits Oliver had clobbered together over months and tattered lives sewn back together with purpose. She was not just Chloe Sullivan, she was Watchtower.
Yet Watchtower had no one to watch over anymore. After the events with Doomsday the team had scattered to the far ends of the earth, not wanting anything to do with Smallville or Metropolis. Their leader had sunk into such darkness Chloe wasn’t sure he could ever climb back out. Chloe kept her eye out still, but she watched over shadows; it was a mission with no substance to it. She wasn’t the one who could bring it all back together, not without help. She hadn’t been the one to see the hero in these people, to rescue them from the isolation their powers brought. That had been Oliver and she couldn’t do it without him.
So she watched and waited and, gradually, a plan started to form. Her extreme worry over the lack of value Oliver placed on his life started to ferment until she couldn’t stand it anymore. When he burned his gear, when he voluntarily attempted to trigger a bomb waiting for his death; that was when she knew she had to act. Not just for herself, not just for the team or the world, but for him. Because she drove everyone apart, now she had to make it right.
Once she was sure she knew what she wanted she tried Bart first. The first three calls went to voicemail but the fourth was answered with a lackluster she wouldn’t normally associate with him.
“Hey, beautiful.”
“Bart, how’s everything?”
He laughed derisively.
“Oh, you know me, saving the world with every mile.”
“Care to help me save it again?” she asked, more tentatively than was her own normal.
“No offense, but your record isn’t so hot right now.”
Her throat closed over with the memory, but she wasn’t going to back down.
“I’m not asking for me, I’m asking for Oliver,” she said.
“Our leader, right? The big man, head honcho? The murderer?” Bart said, sadness dripping through his scorn.
“You know his reasons for that. I can’t absolve him,” Chloe said, “but the guilt of it is killing him. He’s going to do something terrible if we don’t stop him.”
Bart didn’t say anything for a long minute and she could hear him running. Maybe he had his own methods for coping with the guilt.
“What do you need?” he finally asked.
“I’m trying to get everyone together. I have a plan. Will you come?”
He paused again and she bit her lip. If Bart wouldn’t come then she had no hope for anyone else.
“Knock, knock,” he finally said.
There was a whooshing sound from behind her and she turned to see Bart skidding to a stop, then he smiled a pale echo of his normal grin at her.
“Thank you,” she said softly, smiling at him and hanging up.
He looked away from her and folded his arms across his chest in a defensive gesture.
“I was already in Mexico. I owe our Big Kahuna something anyway.”
“We all do,” she said, briskly crossing over to her computer and tapping in the information to find Victor’s cell phone. “I’m gonna try Victor now. You wanna be my wingman?”
“Sure,” he said.
It was sad that his usual flirtatious comment didn’t get said and she knew both of them knew it. It was a sign of how bad things really were.
Chloe dialed Victor’s number and waited.
“Victor,” he answered after about ten rings.
“It’s Chloe,” she said.
“And the amazing Impulse,” Bart chimed in, obviously trying his best to sound like his regular self.
“What do you want?” Victor asked cautiously.
Chloe laid it out, for both of them, really. It was a horrible situation, but she didn’t spare either herself or Oliver in her telling of it. Her only hope was to make the two of them understand. Only they could convince Dinah and AC.
“What do you want me to do?” Victor asked after a long pause.
Chloe’s eyes met Bart’s over the monitor.
“I want you to come here and help me save him from himself.”
“Give me a day,” Victor said and hung up the phone.
Chloe sighed and tapped her keyboards, avoiding Bart’s stare from behind her.
“I can make up a bed for you,” she said softly. “There’s plenty of food in the kitchen. I’d just lay low if I were you. I don’t think it would be a good idea if Clark or Oliver knew you were speeding the streets of Metropolis.”
“I’ll just come back tomorrow,” Bart said, sounding tired.
She turned and looked at him and he let her look for a few seconds before disappearing in a whirl of red.
Chloe sat down and put her hands to her head. She didn’t know why she was surprised. This was going to be harder than anything she’d ever done, but she had to keep on. It was worth it. She just had to keep that in her mind, maybe make the anticipatory fear quell a little in her stomach through the attempt.
She spent the entire night going over her plan, trying to make it as airtight and justifiable as possible so that the others couldn’t find fault with it. She knew it was desperate, she knew it was crazy, but she knew it was necessary. She cried while she planned because she wondered what her own psyche looked like these days, bruised and battered, slices of red crazy peeking through the holes of her shattered mind and guilt-battered soul. Her one consolation, the one thing that kept her driving through that night wasn’t the coffee she consumed but the need to keep Oliver alive and to save him. She wasn’t analyzing the need, she just knew it was there, and she was determined to see it through.
When the sun finally turned the stained glass of the Watchtower into a colorful frenzy of beauty and made her think of Jimmy again with a pang, she finally felt ready. Not at peace, not absolved of her guilt, but ready.
She slept, but not for very long. Clark arrived with some Kryptonian worries she needed to help him with and Lois wanted to have coffee and then Chloe had to finish her preparations. She took a shower, bracing her hands against the stream of water flowing over her face, taking deep breaths into the steam. Then she methodically got dressed, did her hair and makeup, and went back to Watchtower, awaiting Victor and Bart.
When Victor arrived Bart came five minutes later. Both of them wore closed expressions as they greeted each other, but decidedly frosty expressions when they looked at her. She smiled grimly on the inside.
She explained some of what she wanted to do and waited to hear what they would say.
“This sounds like exactly the kind of thing that we should be avoiding,” Victor said finally.
“It’s majorly dark,” was Bart’s answer.
Chloe sucked in some air and faced them.
“I know that. And I worry about that. But I’ve gone over this so many times, guys. I’ve studied everything and I’ve studied Oliver. No offense, but neither of you guys have spoken to him since…awhile. This is bad. He’s so close to rock bottom that if he hits it on his own he’s not coming back. The only thing I think we can do is drive him over that edge in a…controlled environment. Support and buddy-buddy isn’t gonna cut it. It’s the tough love treatment or nothing at all.”
“More like the sadistic love treatment,” Bart mumbled but he was listening.
Victor didn’t say anything and Chloe let them think. She could almost picture Victor’s processors working through everything and Bart’s super mental processes. These two definitely could see the big picture if just given enough time.
“I will help you,” Victor said, “to a point. If I sense it is getting out of hand or if it will do more damage than good, I will shut it down.”
“I’m all in,” Bart said, sounding more like himself.
“Now for the even harder part,” Chloe said, patching them through to AC’s number. She was definitely saving Dinah for last. “Getting the others to agree.”
AC didn’t pick up. Chloe left several messages on all of his numbers. She wasn’t sure if he was just refusing to pick up or was somewhere on the bottom of the ocean. He hadn’t been as involved in the Doomsday debacle as Bart and Dinah, but everyone on the team had been affected by the outcome. That was the problem with teams.
They had dinner. It was extremely awkward. Chloe had gotten lots of food in preparation for them all being there, but in the end Bart still whipped out for some Mexican, keeping a low-profile. Chloe tried some small talk, asking them what they’d been up to. She knew the details, of course, having kept tabs on them, but that was different from actually knowing.
Victor answered in monosyllabic answers, seeming reluctant to expand on anything. It got better as the meal went on, but this still wasn’t the Victor Chloe knew. Bart barely said anything, just stuffed his face. Perhaps being full loosened his reserve because by the end of the meal he was almost back to normal, flirting and bragging like usual. He lacked his usual flare though and Chloe was painfully reminded of the loss.
She’d never really thought about it before but their pain was almost equal to her own, perhaps because of her own. All she knew was if they could save Oliver, maybe she would be saving more than one life and maybe they could all find a little peace.
AC finally called late that night. When she answered the phone he sounded breathless and there were odd dripping sounds in the background like he’d just climbed out of some lagoon.
She explained the situation with Bart chiming in more than was strictly necessary.
“What do you want me to do?” AC asked. “It’s not like Oliver will listen to me, not like Dinah will. Sounds like you got all the help you need to pull it off.”
“Don’t you see there’s more to this than saving Oliver?” Chloe asked, pressing her fingers onto her keyboard so hard they turned white. “This is about fixing what’s broken, but he’s not the only one who got hurt. We were a team, AC; that has to count for something.”
“Never counted for that much,” AC said bitterly.
“But he saved you,” Chloe said. “He saved me,” she said quietly, closing her eyes.
“I’ll come and hear you out,” AC said finally. “But understand that I’m doing it out of gratitude and because I’ve been saying for years you guys don’t understand the extremes needed to do this job. It sounds like you’ve finally understood that.”
“Thank you,” Chloe said, not really knowing how to respond. “This is an extreme situation and I think we could use your expertise.”
“Do you want me to come and get you?” Bart asked.
“When do you want me?” AC asked, weariness in his voice.
“Are you injured?” Victor asked, his ears picking up something Chloe couldn’t hear.
“…A little,” AC admitted.
“Give me your coordinates,” Chloe said, switching into Watchtower mode. “I’ll have Bart run there and assess the situation, see if you can make it back here, otherwise I’ll make sure there’s local help. Victor, can you switch on with me?”
“Watchtower with a mission,” AC said and laughed raggedly. “I kinda missed it.”
Bart sped off and Chloe’s fingers flew over the keys, her native habitat, and she felt more in control of her life than she had in months.
Within a short space of time AC was back, a gashed leg propped up on the couch and Emil was looking at him. He was pronounced fit and action ready in a couple of days and Emil was promised to secrecy.
With each new addition to the Watchtower, Chloe’s levels of anxiety rose and she felt better at the same time. It was harder to keep this little conspiracy quiet the more of them there were. Her life had become wrapped up in secrets, threaded through with the need to keep her own counsel and protect herself from the upcoming fallout. She also felt strangely like a burden was being slightly lifted, because she had something shared between her and other human beings, a common goal, a connection of more than just virtual commands.
The team had usually stayed at Oliver’s whenever they were in town so she booked them a space carefully hiding her tracks, using Oliver’s accounts - she still had access to the funds he’d created solely for them - and kept Clark in the dark about everything.
It was slow going. AC needed healing and the other guys needed time. Chloe worked on her projects, arranging for the club, the drugs, the accessories in her little game. She wanted to have this done right in time for Oliver’s birthday. She felt sick inside at the thought, but it was the perfect timing for such a project and everything needed to be perfect or it would never work.
Perhaps she didn’t want to admit, and neither did anyone else on the team, that they were all putting off calling Dinah. Chloe just couldn’t bear it if this fell through when it was so close to being all of them but there was finally no other option than to get a hold of the last member of their team.
Dinah didn’t call them back for three days.
When she did there was a tight, closed-off quality to her voice that made Chloe cringe inside. She knew how close Oliver and Dinah were, how very much Dinah had depended on him, how much she owed him for breaking her out from Lex’s spell and giving her a purpose and a home, and how hurt she’d been by his actions.
So Chloe didn’t leave anything out. She told her everything. She let the guys speak, let them work their own magic.
“The guy made his own choice,” Dinah said. “After everything that happened he walked away. Why should I care?”
Chloe didn’t really have an answer. She could say a lot of things, but she didn’t want her words to become meaningless, she didn’t want to become empty, to be reciting rote for no reason. She didn’t have a lot of clout with Dinah anyway.
“You’re one of the good guys,” Bart said simply and Chloe wanted to kiss him. “Kinda in the job description.”
“Your plan is a little on the bad guy side,” Dinah said, but there was a lighter note in her voice.
“I worry about that,” Chloe said softly, “but I know this is the right way. You know him, Dinah, you know he can’t be reached any other way. He has to re-discover himself, re-discover his confidence, his desire to enact justice.”
“Don’t make any speeches on my account,” Dinah said dryly. “Look, I get your point, but Ollie turned his back on me. I can’t forgive that.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Chloe said.
“It sounds like that’s exactly what you’re asking me to do.”
“We’re saving his life,” AC said, “and we’re gonna put him through hell. I’m thinking that might be exactly the kind of catharsis you need. And if it doesn’t work out, well, you were the bigger person and you tried. If it does, you got your revenge and you can still walk away knowing you were the bigger person and never talk to any of us again.”
“What a shame that would be,” Dinah said, but now she sounded thoughtful. Chloe waited for several minutes with bated breath, her entire purpose hanging on Dinah’s answer. “What the hell, I’ll come. Bart still do pick-ups?”
“Lead me to you, gorgeous,” Bart said.
“One second of copping a feel and you’re missing a limb,” Dinah said and hung up after rattling off some coordinates.
Bart sped off after mumbling something about catching him first.
Chloe started to laugh and Victor and AC looked at her a little funny, but then Victor cracked a smile and AC’s lips twitched and there was a little laughter.
“It’s better this way,” Victor said.
“I really missed you guys,” Chloe said seriously and she stepped back to her monitor, embarrassed.
AC stopped her with his hand on her arm.
“Thanks, Chloe, for whatever it’s worth. Even this much is better than before.”
Her lips curved up and she glanced back at them over her shoulder.
“You guys are my friends. All for one if you go in for that sort of thing.”
“Sorry we didn’t stick around,” Victor said.
“It’s okay,” Chloe said. “There really wasn’t that much to stick around for. And this wasn’t your home base anyway.”
“We still suck,” AC said, smiling.
Chloe felt alive again. This wasn’t everything, but she wasn’t alone anymore.
Bart zoomed back into the room, Dinah in his arms. She vaulted out of them, and managed to lean nonchalantly on the wall with a grace Chloe envied.
“Having fun without us?” Dinah asked.
“No fair, man,” Bart agreed.
“It’s party hearty now that you guys are here,” Chloe said.
Dinah laughed and Chloe felt like it was going to be okay. One more piece to saving Oliver, to putting the team back together, to getting her ability to live back.
“So now that we’re all chummy again, can we get this over with?” Dinah asked sardonically.
Chloe had a plan and she had a part for them all to play. Part of this depended on Oliver, but part of it depended on all of them.
She laid it out all over for them without holding anything back and for the first time everyone knew everything.
“There’s a sick little mind under that blonde head,” Dinah said, but she almost sounded admiring.
Chloe didn’t have an answer for that so she just sat back and waited.
“When we doing this?” Victor asked.
“I’m thinking Oliver will go out for his birthday. He has a bit of a tradition with Lois but I’m betting he’s not gonna do that this year. I’m gonna give him an incentive to show up at Roulette. Victoria will take it from there and then we’ll get him to the warehouse.”
“What’s the protocol for if something goes wrong?” AC asked.
“The same it always is,” Chloe answered, “we watch each other’s backs, keep out of sight. Victoria and her people are wild cards and we’ve gotta watch out for Clark, but I honestly can’t predict anything else. I’ve prepared as much as I can, but there’s only one run for this. Dress rehearsal isn’t really an option.”
“We should go over the truck and dog stunts,” Victor said. “To be on the safe side.”
“Already set up,” Chloe said. “We’re gonna test out the fire, too. I wanna make sure AC can handle it.”
“What’s that mean?” AC said.
“It means I don’t want anyone to get hurt and I don’t want to throw you in a blazing inferno since that’s pretty much not your favorite place to be.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but I need to do something. Besides it’ll be fun.”
“Victor’s right though, we should still practice ahead of time as much as we can,” Chloe said. “This is pretty much a crazy thing we’re doing here.”
“Your crazy thing,” Dinah amended.
They had dinner together and it was much better than the first night with just Victor and Bart. Bart seemed to have recovered his composure and was the life of the party. Victor and AC were back to their old camaraderie and even Dinah was unbending enough to tell some pretty exciting stories about her exploits of the last few months. Chloe didn’t know whether everyone else could feel it or not but she knew there was an Oliver-shaped hole at their table. All she could do was tell herself it would be filled.
The next day they ran their tests and it went a lot better than she’d hoped. The dog Victoria had provided worked just fine, Dinah’s glass shattering was par for the course, and Bart was much faster than a truck. Victor ran some really good tests on the computers and AC proved more than capable with the pyrotechnics.
Chloe was satisfied. The next day was Oliver’s birthday and everything would go into place. She even had something she’d discovered for Clark in case he discovered something he wasn’t supposed to.
She should have factored in Lois, but, as usual, her cousin had really bad timing.
It all went perfectly up to a point. Oliver went to the right club and Victoria did her job very well. It was but the work of moments to get him in the coffin and time the speakers for when he got out.
His mind went right to where Chloe knew it would go.
“Oh, you got to be kidding me. It's a hell of a game you're playing, Winslow! If the Toyman wants to play, you're gonna have to come out here and face me like a man.”
“Winslow isn't responsible, Mr. Queen. Care to guess again?” she said into the voice disguiser.
“Enough. This ends now!”
“If that's what you want, just say the safe word and the game will stop.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I didn't get a safe word.”
“Because you didn't ask. If you don't care enough to learn the rules, you can't complain about the game continuing.”
“Who is this?” he demanded.
“I'll give you a hint. Tell me, Mr. Queen, who did you destroy?”
"Destroy? I-I've ruined a lot of lives.”
Her heart pinched at the despair in his voice but she had to admire his fighting spirit. That’s what she was fighting for anyway.
Right on cue Dinah shattered the glass and the dog went into play.
Oliver went straight for the car and Bart executed his job effortlessly, rendering Oliver unconscious right before he would know he was being rescued.
Chloe sagged down to the couch. Now they needed to wait for him to wake up. Victoria was in place back at the club, her men waiting for her mark.
Bart zipped up next to her bearing a fresh cup of coffee.
“Liquid energy, gorgeous.”
“Thanks, Bart,” Chloe said, accepting and gulping it down gratefully.
This was a lot more tiring than it looked, but it was necessary, so necessary.
Victor had control over the phone booth and turned it over to her. Oliver went to it first thing and Chloe didn’t know whether to be happy or guilty that the first person he tried to contact was her.
What she really felt was hope. Hope that maybe he wasn’t that far gone, that this was working, that he knew he could count on her to help him no matter what.
So she watched him head back toward the club and let Victoria know he was on his way.
“Bossman is stupid to trust her,” Bart said, watching the monitors.
“No, he’s just too heroic to turn his back on someone in need,” Chloe said softly. “I told Victoria to play up the damsel in distress at this point. Not that Oliver is too chivalrous for his own good, but he needs someone to rescue. He needs to remember how good that feels.”
She turned her attention back to the screen where Oliver was just starting to speak again.
“Pick a name. My personal wars have left a serious casualty list cause I-I kind of always figured it was easier for me to hurt the people I cared about than to stick around long enough knowing eventually I'd end up disappointing them anyway.”
Chloe looked up and caught Dinah’s expression. The two women stared hard at each other for a minute before Chloe looked back at the screen, fighting to keep her composure.
“What? Does he think he’s Atlas or something?” Victor asked.
“We all carry a bit of the world around with us,” Chloe said, fingers on the keys.
Victoria died on schedule and then Oliver was arrested. Everything continued perfectly until Chloe spotted a blur she knew was not Bart on the Roulette cameras.
She hastily ordered everyone to get out of the faux lockup and leave Oliver locked in. She knew there was no way Clark wouldn’t hear Oliver shouting.
“This is why you should always plan for Clark,” Chloe muttered. “He’s going to bring Ollie here. You all need to clear out and leave no trace of having been here. Wait for my cues, but we may need to change the dance steps a bit.”
The team all nodded and dispersed, professional and a unit. Chloe couldn’t hide a smile at that.
She turned herself back to the monitor and waited for Clark and Oliver to come to her, expressing surprise and horror as appropriately as she knew how.
“Someone's been using Oliver as a pawn in their game. We need to figure out who,” said Clark.
“Just tell me where to start,” she said, the model picture of helpfulness.
“The name of the club is Roulette. He met a woman there named Victoria.”
“At the risk of taking a belly flop into an awkward pool, what kind of game puts people through hell?”
“The kind that starts with being buried alive and ends with bankruptcy,” Oliver said in a hard tone.
She stared at him for a minute, examining his face. He looked horrible, but she was amazed at the display of insolence he was displaying and she knew it was for Clark. She inwardly cursed her best friend’s involvement, but she knew he was only trying to help, trying to put his own life back on track.
She turned back to the monitor when it beeped.
“That was quick. It looks like the two clues are one and the same. Meet Victoria Sinclair, A.K.A. Roulette. Seems as though she's made a career out of betting for high stakes, ie., everything you have.”
“Chloe, get my gear,” Oliver said sharply.
She didn’t like the look in his eyes. This wasn’t the time. He wasn’t ready yet.
“Oliver, when you turned your back on us, I locked up your arsenal, hoping that one day you would want it back, but not like this.”
“This is my fight, Chloe. I'll handle it how I see fit.”
Not if she had anything to say about it.
“Where'd that line lead you last night?” Clark asked.
“Look, I got into this mess on my own. I'll get out the same way. With my lawyers. Okay, scout?”
Oliver moved off toward the weapons locker and Chloe wondered exactly who he thought he was fooling, but she knew that she’d already altered his equipment and Victor had done as instructed and switched out all the guns with blanks. She couldn’t afford any mistakes and while she would once have trusted Oliver with everything, she couldn’t do that now.
Besides, she had some Kryptonian blindsiding to do.
“Clark, he just needs to cool off a little bit, okay? Clark, right now, you have bigger problems. Trust me.”
When Clark left to speak to Jor-El, Chloe gathered the team back in for the grand finale, but that’s when Lois showed up and Victoria had to work on the fly and Chloe got very worried.
“This isn’t going to work anymore,” Chloe said, watching Oliver closely.
“It might actually be the edge you need,” Dinah said, watching almost as closely. “Ollie will flip over his dear Lois.”
“We won’t be able to do AC’s bit,” Chloe said.
“Lois can do it for me,” AC said. “She always did have to have the spotlight.”
“This isn’t funny,” Victor snapped and Chloe agreed with him.
She was extremely tense, about to throw up or call the whole thing off. She steeled herself and thought of everything Oliver had ever done for her and how she couldn’t lose him now.
She had to admit Victoria was very talented. She’d managed to subdue Lois, get the drop on Oliver, and operate within very tense parameters. Chloe wasn’t sure she would ever trust the woman, but she admired her.
When the fire started, Chloe heaved a sigh of relief as Oliver did exactly what she thought he would.
“Why did you come? You could have left me here. After everything I put you through, no one would blame you,” said Victoria.
“I'd blame myself,” Oliver said, straining. “Listen, I don't care what you did or who you are, I'm gonna get you the hell out of here, all right? I'm not gonna let you die. Now, come on.”
Victoria pivoted smoothly away from her trap and delivered the punch line.
“You kept asking me who did this to you. My question was always the answer. ‘Who did you destroy?’ ” The mirrors whirred into place and the flames died down and Chloe was glad she’d had another plan rather than just relying on AC. “I hear you're some sort of hero - one that tried to bury that part of himself. Well, you've just proven that that hero is still alive, Oliver. Now it's time to resurrect him.”
Chloe couldn’t give Oliver time to process this. Not very long anyway. She had to give Victoria time to get away and she wanted to give Oliver space from Lois and her many questions. Chloe dialed 911 and sent the real police to the scene.
She left the team, wondering if it had worked. She knew it had, she could feel it, the hope working its way through her bones and threatening elation in her heart.
First, she met Victoria and paid her the rest of her fee, successfully quelling any questions about the team and Oliver’s Green Arrow identity.
Then she went about her life. She met with Lois and listened to her rant about the whole thing, silently apologizing to her cousin for getting her mixed up in this.
After she went for coffee. She needed it, a moment to herself, a place where she wasn’t plotting horrible things.
The chess piece landed in front of her and it was all over. Now was the moment of truth.
“I just started asking myself who knew about Lex, about Toyman...the things I'd given up, what I tried to do. Then it all occurred to me. Dinah shattered the glass in the warehouse, Bart rescued me from the car, Victor faked the computers, and Watchtower kept an eye on the whole thing. Right?”
She looked up at Oliver, the man she had nearly destroyed to save.
How could she justify this? Her terrible actions? She couldn’t apologize, she couldn’t have done anything but this. He hadn’t left her any other choices.
“You were living like you had a death wish, Oliver. You had to face your demons if you were ever gonna make it out alive, and I had to push you over the ledge in order to pull you back.”
“Did you have to push with a three ton truck?” he asked wryly.
She smiled inside and leaned forward.
“I didn't think a tricycle would be a strong enough point. You're a fighter, Oliver. You fought for yourself and for a second chance.”
He smiled slightly.
“Chloe, I'm not the only one you put at risk.”
“If you're worried about our little club and Lex, don't be. I played my cards close to my chest.”
“And Lois was what? She was, uh, just another ace up your sleeve?”
The one thing she couldn’t control in life, her cousin, the formidable Lois Lane.
“No, I never meant for her to get involved. She was chasing after you when she accidentally ended up storming the field. That's when Victoria went off script.”
“I could have killed her.”
He sounded broken again and she couldn’t have that.
“No offense to your manhood, but I made sure that your gun was loaded with blanks just in case. I trust you, Oliver, just...not that much.”
She took a sip of her coffee and prayed he could understand everything she’d meant to do, the things she’d had to do for him.
“Did Clark know about this?”
“You can't be serious. Clark would never in a million years risk what needed to be done.”
Oliver shifted back in his seat and he was suddenly the Oliver Queen she knew, she admired, she needed.
“Well, he's led a different life than we have, hasn't he? I can't expect him to know me like you do...the places that I had sunk to, the depths you must have had to go to bring me back… Thank you.”
So he did understand. She felt something hard inside her break off and melt away and a wild, celebratory dance would not be out of place, but she didn’t show it. She wouldn’t crack now. Besides, his almost inaudible ‘thank you,’ and the look on his face made her want to cry more than dance. All the doubt she’d felt over the last few months faded away and whatever resentment she’d been holding over her own head was absolved by the one she’d wronged.
“You proved it to yourself. Even with your face in the gutter, you still had the hero in your heart.”
He leaned forward and put his hand over hers, cupping them. She couldn’t ignore the warmth that started to flood through her. She was immune to the usual charms of Oliver Queen, bachelor playboy, but this was Oliver Queen, Ollie, her friend and boss and hero, and he was different.
“You saved my life, Chloe. Both the myth...and the man.”
Those words pretty much made everything okay. She could see it all coalescing back into the whole it had been, hopefully stronger.
The two of them stayed there for awhile. He let go of her hands pretty shortly after his last words but the warmth from his hands lingered and she could swear it was still there when they got up to leave.
“So are you going to come back to Watchtower? I’ve got some friends who are pretty anxious to play with you again.”
“So I was right about the team. How’d you manage that?” he asked.
“You don’t wanna know,” Chloe teased, then looked straight at him. “I told them you were in danger and they came.”
“Not AC though,” Oliver said, pouting.
“He’s here. His part got a bit upstaged by Lois and her cowboy routine, but he’s here.”
“I really don’t want to know how you got Dinah here,” he said, shifting his shoulders around and not looking at her.
“It took a little while, but, Ollie, these people are your friends. I’m your friend. We all made some pretty stupid decisions, but we’re here for you.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Chloe,” he said, stopping and putting his hands on her shoulders. “I know I was hard on you last year and there was some…”
“Incredibly bad decision making on my part,” she filled in.
He shrugged.
“I never should’ve let them go or abandoned you after the funeral like that.”
“We’re here now,” she said, smiling.
“Arrow and Watchtower, just like it ought to be,” he said, squeezing her shoulders and starting to walk again.
They walked back to Watchtower where the team was waiting for news on the success of their plan.
When he saw them all, Chloe could swear she saw tears in his eyes and she felt them in her own. This is what it felt like to be whole, to have her life back, to know she was on the right track.
There was a tense moment or two when Dinah didn’t look Oliver in the eye, but then she just snorted, shook her head, and hugged him.
“Don’t be so stupid anymore,” she told him.
“Stay close, pretty birdie,” he told her.
Victor and AC were their usual stolid selves and Bart was practically blurring at the edges in his excitement.
They sat down and had a meal together; it was all of them for the first time in so long. Oliver laughed and joked and only the occasional dark shadow in his eyes and the cuts on his face gave any indicator of the man who’d tried to commit suicide only a short time before.
“So, what’s the plan then?” Bart asked at the end when even he was finally full. “What’s the next step?”
“We go back to doing what we do best,” Oliver said, catching Chloe’s eye.
“Real impressive speech,” Dinah said, obviously unimpressed.
Oliver winked at her and went back to joking with AC.
Chloe slipped out and went back to the monitors. She still had other duties after all and this moment of quiet victory was very sweet. She spoke to Clark and they discovered some very disturbing things, but she was mostly dwelling on Oliver and everything that had happened with that situation.
When she turned around again he was there, only he was Green Arrow. He had all the gear and the outfit and he had never looked better to her.
“Looking good,” she said. “Watch out, criminals of Metropolis.”
“No, you watch out. That’s your job,” he said, adjusting his bow. “I just wanted to try it on, make sure it still fit. I got some work I have to do at the office, but I’ll be out patrolling tonight.”
“You better take it easy, you haven’t exactly been doing Eye of the Tiger montages lately,” she warned.
“I’ll follow your lead, as always,” he said.
“If only that were true,” she joked and turned back to her monitors.
He left as silently as he’d come and that was okay because he’d be back later. He was back now. He was broken and made whole again and so was she.
Later that night she slipped the comm in her ear and it was the best thing she’d ever heard when he spoke.
“Arrow, online.”
“Watchtower, online.”
by Jesterlady
Rating:PG-13
Pairing: Pre Chloe/Oliver
Summary: Chloe knows they all need saving, but she finds that in showing Oliver the hero he really is, she finds where she's supposed to be
Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville. Some lines are from the show. The title is by Robert Miller. Centered on the episode 9x5 Roulette.
And Be My Frowning Friend
Chloe felt guilty. It wasn’t that strange a feeling to her, she’d felt it often enough over the years, but never with so much shame eating away at her.
It was her fault. Others had made their choices, yes, but it had been her choice that made everything fall apart.
She was alone. She’d never been so alone. Her carefully fabricated life was a lie, washed in a façade of virtual connections and so-called noble aspirations. All of her family had disappeared, slipped from her grasping hands. Her friends, her comrades, were disbanded and disillusioned.
People had died for her, because of her, their life’s blood literally dripping from her hands as they lay dying. Not just people…Jimmy.
She was a strong woman and she didn’t fall. Not when he died, not when Clark left, not when Lois disappeared, not when Oliver started slipping, but she felt guilty. Her choice to try and save Davis, to feed his supposed connection to her instead of walking away, to separate him from the monster within, not even knowing who the true monster was, that was what had destroyed them all.
It made Clark abandon his human upbringing, it made Oliver fall into a pit of self-loathing and self-destruction, and it made Jimmy give up his life for her.
Even when things changed, when Lois was found, when Clark slowly started to come back into Chloe's life, it didn’t change the guilt she felt. Maybe the reason was because Lois and Clark were family. They were the beating heart Chloe lived for, but they weren’t her life, not anymore. Her life had become the team, the merry, ragged band of misfits Oliver had clobbered together over months and tattered lives sewn back together with purpose. She was not just Chloe Sullivan, she was Watchtower.
Yet Watchtower had no one to watch over anymore. After the events with Doomsday the team had scattered to the far ends of the earth, not wanting anything to do with Smallville or Metropolis. Their leader had sunk into such darkness Chloe wasn’t sure he could ever climb back out. Chloe kept her eye out still, but she watched over shadows; it was a mission with no substance to it. She wasn’t the one who could bring it all back together, not without help. She hadn’t been the one to see the hero in these people, to rescue them from the isolation their powers brought. That had been Oliver and she couldn’t do it without him.
So she watched and waited and, gradually, a plan started to form. Her extreme worry over the lack of value Oliver placed on his life started to ferment until she couldn’t stand it anymore. When he burned his gear, when he voluntarily attempted to trigger a bomb waiting for his death; that was when she knew she had to act. Not just for herself, not just for the team or the world, but for him. Because she drove everyone apart, now she had to make it right.
Once she was sure she knew what she wanted she tried Bart first. The first three calls went to voicemail but the fourth was answered with a lackluster she wouldn’t normally associate with him.
“Hey, beautiful.”
“Bart, how’s everything?”
He laughed derisively.
“Oh, you know me, saving the world with every mile.”
“Care to help me save it again?” she asked, more tentatively than was her own normal.
“No offense, but your record isn’t so hot right now.”
Her throat closed over with the memory, but she wasn’t going to back down.
“I’m not asking for me, I’m asking for Oliver,” she said.
“Our leader, right? The big man, head honcho? The murderer?” Bart said, sadness dripping through his scorn.
“You know his reasons for that. I can’t absolve him,” Chloe said, “but the guilt of it is killing him. He’s going to do something terrible if we don’t stop him.”
Bart didn’t say anything for a long minute and she could hear him running. Maybe he had his own methods for coping with the guilt.
“What do you need?” he finally asked.
“I’m trying to get everyone together. I have a plan. Will you come?”
He paused again and she bit her lip. If Bart wouldn’t come then she had no hope for anyone else.
“Knock, knock,” he finally said.
There was a whooshing sound from behind her and she turned to see Bart skidding to a stop, then he smiled a pale echo of his normal grin at her.
“Thank you,” she said softly, smiling at him and hanging up.
He looked away from her and folded his arms across his chest in a defensive gesture.
“I was already in Mexico. I owe our Big Kahuna something anyway.”
“We all do,” she said, briskly crossing over to her computer and tapping in the information to find Victor’s cell phone. “I’m gonna try Victor now. You wanna be my wingman?”
“Sure,” he said.
It was sad that his usual flirtatious comment didn’t get said and she knew both of them knew it. It was a sign of how bad things really were.
Chloe dialed Victor’s number and waited.
“Victor,” he answered after about ten rings.
“It’s Chloe,” she said.
“And the amazing Impulse,” Bart chimed in, obviously trying his best to sound like his regular self.
“What do you want?” Victor asked cautiously.
Chloe laid it out, for both of them, really. It was a horrible situation, but she didn’t spare either herself or Oliver in her telling of it. Her only hope was to make the two of them understand. Only they could convince Dinah and AC.
“What do you want me to do?” Victor asked after a long pause.
Chloe’s eyes met Bart’s over the monitor.
“I want you to come here and help me save him from himself.”
“Give me a day,” Victor said and hung up the phone.
Chloe sighed and tapped her keyboards, avoiding Bart’s stare from behind her.
“I can make up a bed for you,” she said softly. “There’s plenty of food in the kitchen. I’d just lay low if I were you. I don’t think it would be a good idea if Clark or Oliver knew you were speeding the streets of Metropolis.”
“I’ll just come back tomorrow,” Bart said, sounding tired.
She turned and looked at him and he let her look for a few seconds before disappearing in a whirl of red.
Chloe sat down and put her hands to her head. She didn’t know why she was surprised. This was going to be harder than anything she’d ever done, but she had to keep on. It was worth it. She just had to keep that in her mind, maybe make the anticipatory fear quell a little in her stomach through the attempt.
She spent the entire night going over her plan, trying to make it as airtight and justifiable as possible so that the others couldn’t find fault with it. She knew it was desperate, she knew it was crazy, but she knew it was necessary. She cried while she planned because she wondered what her own psyche looked like these days, bruised and battered, slices of red crazy peeking through the holes of her shattered mind and guilt-battered soul. Her one consolation, the one thing that kept her driving through that night wasn’t the coffee she consumed but the need to keep Oliver alive and to save him. She wasn’t analyzing the need, she just knew it was there, and she was determined to see it through.
When the sun finally turned the stained glass of the Watchtower into a colorful frenzy of beauty and made her think of Jimmy again with a pang, she finally felt ready. Not at peace, not absolved of her guilt, but ready.
She slept, but not for very long. Clark arrived with some Kryptonian worries she needed to help him with and Lois wanted to have coffee and then Chloe had to finish her preparations. She took a shower, bracing her hands against the stream of water flowing over her face, taking deep breaths into the steam. Then she methodically got dressed, did her hair and makeup, and went back to Watchtower, awaiting Victor and Bart.
When Victor arrived Bart came five minutes later. Both of them wore closed expressions as they greeted each other, but decidedly frosty expressions when they looked at her. She smiled grimly on the inside.
She explained some of what she wanted to do and waited to hear what they would say.
“This sounds like exactly the kind of thing that we should be avoiding,” Victor said finally.
“It’s majorly dark,” was Bart’s answer.
Chloe sucked in some air and faced them.
“I know that. And I worry about that. But I’ve gone over this so many times, guys. I’ve studied everything and I’ve studied Oliver. No offense, but neither of you guys have spoken to him since…awhile. This is bad. He’s so close to rock bottom that if he hits it on his own he’s not coming back. The only thing I think we can do is drive him over that edge in a…controlled environment. Support and buddy-buddy isn’t gonna cut it. It’s the tough love treatment or nothing at all.”
“More like the sadistic love treatment,” Bart mumbled but he was listening.
Victor didn’t say anything and Chloe let them think. She could almost picture Victor’s processors working through everything and Bart’s super mental processes. These two definitely could see the big picture if just given enough time.
“I will help you,” Victor said, “to a point. If I sense it is getting out of hand or if it will do more damage than good, I will shut it down.”
“I’m all in,” Bart said, sounding more like himself.
“Now for the even harder part,” Chloe said, patching them through to AC’s number. She was definitely saving Dinah for last. “Getting the others to agree.”
AC didn’t pick up. Chloe left several messages on all of his numbers. She wasn’t sure if he was just refusing to pick up or was somewhere on the bottom of the ocean. He hadn’t been as involved in the Doomsday debacle as Bart and Dinah, but everyone on the team had been affected by the outcome. That was the problem with teams.
They had dinner. It was extremely awkward. Chloe had gotten lots of food in preparation for them all being there, but in the end Bart still whipped out for some Mexican, keeping a low-profile. Chloe tried some small talk, asking them what they’d been up to. She knew the details, of course, having kept tabs on them, but that was different from actually knowing.
Victor answered in monosyllabic answers, seeming reluctant to expand on anything. It got better as the meal went on, but this still wasn’t the Victor Chloe knew. Bart barely said anything, just stuffed his face. Perhaps being full loosened his reserve because by the end of the meal he was almost back to normal, flirting and bragging like usual. He lacked his usual flare though and Chloe was painfully reminded of the loss.
She’d never really thought about it before but their pain was almost equal to her own, perhaps because of her own. All she knew was if they could save Oliver, maybe she would be saving more than one life and maybe they could all find a little peace.
AC finally called late that night. When she answered the phone he sounded breathless and there were odd dripping sounds in the background like he’d just climbed out of some lagoon.
She explained the situation with Bart chiming in more than was strictly necessary.
“What do you want me to do?” AC asked. “It’s not like Oliver will listen to me, not like Dinah will. Sounds like you got all the help you need to pull it off.”
“Don’t you see there’s more to this than saving Oliver?” Chloe asked, pressing her fingers onto her keyboard so hard they turned white. “This is about fixing what’s broken, but he’s not the only one who got hurt. We were a team, AC; that has to count for something.”
“Never counted for that much,” AC said bitterly.
“But he saved you,” Chloe said. “He saved me,” she said quietly, closing her eyes.
“I’ll come and hear you out,” AC said finally. “But understand that I’m doing it out of gratitude and because I’ve been saying for years you guys don’t understand the extremes needed to do this job. It sounds like you’ve finally understood that.”
“Thank you,” Chloe said, not really knowing how to respond. “This is an extreme situation and I think we could use your expertise.”
“Do you want me to come and get you?” Bart asked.
“When do you want me?” AC asked, weariness in his voice.
“Are you injured?” Victor asked, his ears picking up something Chloe couldn’t hear.
“…A little,” AC admitted.
“Give me your coordinates,” Chloe said, switching into Watchtower mode. “I’ll have Bart run there and assess the situation, see if you can make it back here, otherwise I’ll make sure there’s local help. Victor, can you switch on with me?”
“Watchtower with a mission,” AC said and laughed raggedly. “I kinda missed it.”
Bart sped off and Chloe’s fingers flew over the keys, her native habitat, and she felt more in control of her life than she had in months.
Within a short space of time AC was back, a gashed leg propped up on the couch and Emil was looking at him. He was pronounced fit and action ready in a couple of days and Emil was promised to secrecy.
With each new addition to the Watchtower, Chloe’s levels of anxiety rose and she felt better at the same time. It was harder to keep this little conspiracy quiet the more of them there were. Her life had become wrapped up in secrets, threaded through with the need to keep her own counsel and protect herself from the upcoming fallout. She also felt strangely like a burden was being slightly lifted, because she had something shared between her and other human beings, a common goal, a connection of more than just virtual commands.
The team had usually stayed at Oliver’s whenever they were in town so she booked them a space carefully hiding her tracks, using Oliver’s accounts - she still had access to the funds he’d created solely for them - and kept Clark in the dark about everything.
It was slow going. AC needed healing and the other guys needed time. Chloe worked on her projects, arranging for the club, the drugs, the accessories in her little game. She wanted to have this done right in time for Oliver’s birthday. She felt sick inside at the thought, but it was the perfect timing for such a project and everything needed to be perfect or it would never work.
Perhaps she didn’t want to admit, and neither did anyone else on the team, that they were all putting off calling Dinah. Chloe just couldn’t bear it if this fell through when it was so close to being all of them but there was finally no other option than to get a hold of the last member of their team.
Dinah didn’t call them back for three days.
When she did there was a tight, closed-off quality to her voice that made Chloe cringe inside. She knew how close Oliver and Dinah were, how very much Dinah had depended on him, how much she owed him for breaking her out from Lex’s spell and giving her a purpose and a home, and how hurt she’d been by his actions.
So Chloe didn’t leave anything out. She told her everything. She let the guys speak, let them work their own magic.
“The guy made his own choice,” Dinah said. “After everything that happened he walked away. Why should I care?”
Chloe didn’t really have an answer. She could say a lot of things, but she didn’t want her words to become meaningless, she didn’t want to become empty, to be reciting rote for no reason. She didn’t have a lot of clout with Dinah anyway.
“You’re one of the good guys,” Bart said simply and Chloe wanted to kiss him. “Kinda in the job description.”
“Your plan is a little on the bad guy side,” Dinah said, but there was a lighter note in her voice.
“I worry about that,” Chloe said softly, “but I know this is the right way. You know him, Dinah, you know he can’t be reached any other way. He has to re-discover himself, re-discover his confidence, his desire to enact justice.”
“Don’t make any speeches on my account,” Dinah said dryly. “Look, I get your point, but Ollie turned his back on me. I can’t forgive that.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Chloe said.
“It sounds like that’s exactly what you’re asking me to do.”
“We’re saving his life,” AC said, “and we’re gonna put him through hell. I’m thinking that might be exactly the kind of catharsis you need. And if it doesn’t work out, well, you were the bigger person and you tried. If it does, you got your revenge and you can still walk away knowing you were the bigger person and never talk to any of us again.”
“What a shame that would be,” Dinah said, but now she sounded thoughtful. Chloe waited for several minutes with bated breath, her entire purpose hanging on Dinah’s answer. “What the hell, I’ll come. Bart still do pick-ups?”
“Lead me to you, gorgeous,” Bart said.
“One second of copping a feel and you’re missing a limb,” Dinah said and hung up after rattling off some coordinates.
Bart sped off after mumbling something about catching him first.
Chloe started to laugh and Victor and AC looked at her a little funny, but then Victor cracked a smile and AC’s lips twitched and there was a little laughter.
“It’s better this way,” Victor said.
“I really missed you guys,” Chloe said seriously and she stepped back to her monitor, embarrassed.
AC stopped her with his hand on her arm.
“Thanks, Chloe, for whatever it’s worth. Even this much is better than before.”
Her lips curved up and she glanced back at them over her shoulder.
“You guys are my friends. All for one if you go in for that sort of thing.”
“Sorry we didn’t stick around,” Victor said.
“It’s okay,” Chloe said. “There really wasn’t that much to stick around for. And this wasn’t your home base anyway.”
“We still suck,” AC said, smiling.
Chloe felt alive again. This wasn’t everything, but she wasn’t alone anymore.
Bart zoomed back into the room, Dinah in his arms. She vaulted out of them, and managed to lean nonchalantly on the wall with a grace Chloe envied.
“Having fun without us?” Dinah asked.
“No fair, man,” Bart agreed.
“It’s party hearty now that you guys are here,” Chloe said.
Dinah laughed and Chloe felt like it was going to be okay. One more piece to saving Oliver, to putting the team back together, to getting her ability to live back.
“So now that we’re all chummy again, can we get this over with?” Dinah asked sardonically.
Chloe had a plan and she had a part for them all to play. Part of this depended on Oliver, but part of it depended on all of them.
She laid it out all over for them without holding anything back and for the first time everyone knew everything.
“There’s a sick little mind under that blonde head,” Dinah said, but she almost sounded admiring.
Chloe didn’t have an answer for that so she just sat back and waited.
“When we doing this?” Victor asked.
“I’m thinking Oliver will go out for his birthday. He has a bit of a tradition with Lois but I’m betting he’s not gonna do that this year. I’m gonna give him an incentive to show up at Roulette. Victoria will take it from there and then we’ll get him to the warehouse.”
“What’s the protocol for if something goes wrong?” AC asked.
“The same it always is,” Chloe answered, “we watch each other’s backs, keep out of sight. Victoria and her people are wild cards and we’ve gotta watch out for Clark, but I honestly can’t predict anything else. I’ve prepared as much as I can, but there’s only one run for this. Dress rehearsal isn’t really an option.”
“We should go over the truck and dog stunts,” Victor said. “To be on the safe side.”
“Already set up,” Chloe said. “We’re gonna test out the fire, too. I wanna make sure AC can handle it.”
“What’s that mean?” AC said.
“It means I don’t want anyone to get hurt and I don’t want to throw you in a blazing inferno since that’s pretty much not your favorite place to be.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but I need to do something. Besides it’ll be fun.”
“Victor’s right though, we should still practice ahead of time as much as we can,” Chloe said. “This is pretty much a crazy thing we’re doing here.”
“Your crazy thing,” Dinah amended.
They had dinner together and it was much better than the first night with just Victor and Bart. Bart seemed to have recovered his composure and was the life of the party. Victor and AC were back to their old camaraderie and even Dinah was unbending enough to tell some pretty exciting stories about her exploits of the last few months. Chloe didn’t know whether everyone else could feel it or not but she knew there was an Oliver-shaped hole at their table. All she could do was tell herself it would be filled.
The next day they ran their tests and it went a lot better than she’d hoped. The dog Victoria had provided worked just fine, Dinah’s glass shattering was par for the course, and Bart was much faster than a truck. Victor ran some really good tests on the computers and AC proved more than capable with the pyrotechnics.
Chloe was satisfied. The next day was Oliver’s birthday and everything would go into place. She even had something she’d discovered for Clark in case he discovered something he wasn’t supposed to.
She should have factored in Lois, but, as usual, her cousin had really bad timing.
It all went perfectly up to a point. Oliver went to the right club and Victoria did her job very well. It was but the work of moments to get him in the coffin and time the speakers for when he got out.
His mind went right to where Chloe knew it would go.
“Oh, you got to be kidding me. It's a hell of a game you're playing, Winslow! If the Toyman wants to play, you're gonna have to come out here and face me like a man.”
“Winslow isn't responsible, Mr. Queen. Care to guess again?” she said into the voice disguiser.
“Enough. This ends now!”
“If that's what you want, just say the safe word and the game will stop.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I didn't get a safe word.”
“Because you didn't ask. If you don't care enough to learn the rules, you can't complain about the game continuing.”
“Who is this?” he demanded.
“I'll give you a hint. Tell me, Mr. Queen, who did you destroy?”
"Destroy? I-I've ruined a lot of lives.”
Her heart pinched at the despair in his voice but she had to admire his fighting spirit. That’s what she was fighting for anyway.
Right on cue Dinah shattered the glass and the dog went into play.
Oliver went straight for the car and Bart executed his job effortlessly, rendering Oliver unconscious right before he would know he was being rescued.
Chloe sagged down to the couch. Now they needed to wait for him to wake up. Victoria was in place back at the club, her men waiting for her mark.
Bart zipped up next to her bearing a fresh cup of coffee.
“Liquid energy, gorgeous.”
“Thanks, Bart,” Chloe said, accepting and gulping it down gratefully.
This was a lot more tiring than it looked, but it was necessary, so necessary.
Victor had control over the phone booth and turned it over to her. Oliver went to it first thing and Chloe didn’t know whether to be happy or guilty that the first person he tried to contact was her.
What she really felt was hope. Hope that maybe he wasn’t that far gone, that this was working, that he knew he could count on her to help him no matter what.
So she watched him head back toward the club and let Victoria know he was on his way.
“Bossman is stupid to trust her,” Bart said, watching the monitors.
“No, he’s just too heroic to turn his back on someone in need,” Chloe said softly. “I told Victoria to play up the damsel in distress at this point. Not that Oliver is too chivalrous for his own good, but he needs someone to rescue. He needs to remember how good that feels.”
She turned her attention back to the screen where Oliver was just starting to speak again.
“Pick a name. My personal wars have left a serious casualty list cause I-I kind of always figured it was easier for me to hurt the people I cared about than to stick around long enough knowing eventually I'd end up disappointing them anyway.”
Chloe looked up and caught Dinah’s expression. The two women stared hard at each other for a minute before Chloe looked back at the screen, fighting to keep her composure.
“What? Does he think he’s Atlas or something?” Victor asked.
“We all carry a bit of the world around with us,” Chloe said, fingers on the keys.
Victoria died on schedule and then Oliver was arrested. Everything continued perfectly until Chloe spotted a blur she knew was not Bart on the Roulette cameras.
She hastily ordered everyone to get out of the faux lockup and leave Oliver locked in. She knew there was no way Clark wouldn’t hear Oliver shouting.
“This is why you should always plan for Clark,” Chloe muttered. “He’s going to bring Ollie here. You all need to clear out and leave no trace of having been here. Wait for my cues, but we may need to change the dance steps a bit.”
The team all nodded and dispersed, professional and a unit. Chloe couldn’t hide a smile at that.
She turned herself back to the monitor and waited for Clark and Oliver to come to her, expressing surprise and horror as appropriately as she knew how.
“Someone's been using Oliver as a pawn in their game. We need to figure out who,” said Clark.
“Just tell me where to start,” she said, the model picture of helpfulness.
“The name of the club is Roulette. He met a woman there named Victoria.”
“At the risk of taking a belly flop into an awkward pool, what kind of game puts people through hell?”
“The kind that starts with being buried alive and ends with bankruptcy,” Oliver said in a hard tone.
She stared at him for a minute, examining his face. He looked horrible, but she was amazed at the display of insolence he was displaying and she knew it was for Clark. She inwardly cursed her best friend’s involvement, but she knew he was only trying to help, trying to put his own life back on track.
She turned back to the monitor when it beeped.
“That was quick. It looks like the two clues are one and the same. Meet Victoria Sinclair, A.K.A. Roulette. Seems as though she's made a career out of betting for high stakes, ie., everything you have.”
“Chloe, get my gear,” Oliver said sharply.
She didn’t like the look in his eyes. This wasn’t the time. He wasn’t ready yet.
“Oliver, when you turned your back on us, I locked up your arsenal, hoping that one day you would want it back, but not like this.”
“This is my fight, Chloe. I'll handle it how I see fit.”
Not if she had anything to say about it.
“Where'd that line lead you last night?” Clark asked.
“Look, I got into this mess on my own. I'll get out the same way. With my lawyers. Okay, scout?”
Oliver moved off toward the weapons locker and Chloe wondered exactly who he thought he was fooling, but she knew that she’d already altered his equipment and Victor had done as instructed and switched out all the guns with blanks. She couldn’t afford any mistakes and while she would once have trusted Oliver with everything, she couldn’t do that now.
Besides, she had some Kryptonian blindsiding to do.
“Clark, he just needs to cool off a little bit, okay? Clark, right now, you have bigger problems. Trust me.”
When Clark left to speak to Jor-El, Chloe gathered the team back in for the grand finale, but that’s when Lois showed up and Victoria had to work on the fly and Chloe got very worried.
“This isn’t going to work anymore,” Chloe said, watching Oliver closely.
“It might actually be the edge you need,” Dinah said, watching almost as closely. “Ollie will flip over his dear Lois.”
“We won’t be able to do AC’s bit,” Chloe said.
“Lois can do it for me,” AC said. “She always did have to have the spotlight.”
“This isn’t funny,” Victor snapped and Chloe agreed with him.
She was extremely tense, about to throw up or call the whole thing off. She steeled herself and thought of everything Oliver had ever done for her and how she couldn’t lose him now.
She had to admit Victoria was very talented. She’d managed to subdue Lois, get the drop on Oliver, and operate within very tense parameters. Chloe wasn’t sure she would ever trust the woman, but she admired her.
When the fire started, Chloe heaved a sigh of relief as Oliver did exactly what she thought he would.
“Why did you come? You could have left me here. After everything I put you through, no one would blame you,” said Victoria.
“I'd blame myself,” Oliver said, straining. “Listen, I don't care what you did or who you are, I'm gonna get you the hell out of here, all right? I'm not gonna let you die. Now, come on.”
Victoria pivoted smoothly away from her trap and delivered the punch line.
“You kept asking me who did this to you. My question was always the answer. ‘Who did you destroy?’ ” The mirrors whirred into place and the flames died down and Chloe was glad she’d had another plan rather than just relying on AC. “I hear you're some sort of hero - one that tried to bury that part of himself. Well, you've just proven that that hero is still alive, Oliver. Now it's time to resurrect him.”
Chloe couldn’t give Oliver time to process this. Not very long anyway. She had to give Victoria time to get away and she wanted to give Oliver space from Lois and her many questions. Chloe dialed 911 and sent the real police to the scene.
She left the team, wondering if it had worked. She knew it had, she could feel it, the hope working its way through her bones and threatening elation in her heart.
First, she met Victoria and paid her the rest of her fee, successfully quelling any questions about the team and Oliver’s Green Arrow identity.
Then she went about her life. She met with Lois and listened to her rant about the whole thing, silently apologizing to her cousin for getting her mixed up in this.
After she went for coffee. She needed it, a moment to herself, a place where she wasn’t plotting horrible things.
The chess piece landed in front of her and it was all over. Now was the moment of truth.
“I just started asking myself who knew about Lex, about Toyman...the things I'd given up, what I tried to do. Then it all occurred to me. Dinah shattered the glass in the warehouse, Bart rescued me from the car, Victor faked the computers, and Watchtower kept an eye on the whole thing. Right?”
She looked up at Oliver, the man she had nearly destroyed to save.
How could she justify this? Her terrible actions? She couldn’t apologize, she couldn’t have done anything but this. He hadn’t left her any other choices.
“You were living like you had a death wish, Oliver. You had to face your demons if you were ever gonna make it out alive, and I had to push you over the ledge in order to pull you back.”
“Did you have to push with a three ton truck?” he asked wryly.
She smiled inside and leaned forward.
“I didn't think a tricycle would be a strong enough point. You're a fighter, Oliver. You fought for yourself and for a second chance.”
He smiled slightly.
“Chloe, I'm not the only one you put at risk.”
“If you're worried about our little club and Lex, don't be. I played my cards close to my chest.”
“And Lois was what? She was, uh, just another ace up your sleeve?”
The one thing she couldn’t control in life, her cousin, the formidable Lois Lane.
“No, I never meant for her to get involved. She was chasing after you when she accidentally ended up storming the field. That's when Victoria went off script.”
“I could have killed her.”
He sounded broken again and she couldn’t have that.
“No offense to your manhood, but I made sure that your gun was loaded with blanks just in case. I trust you, Oliver, just...not that much.”
She took a sip of her coffee and prayed he could understand everything she’d meant to do, the things she’d had to do for him.
“Did Clark know about this?”
“You can't be serious. Clark would never in a million years risk what needed to be done.”
Oliver shifted back in his seat and he was suddenly the Oliver Queen she knew, she admired, she needed.
“Well, he's led a different life than we have, hasn't he? I can't expect him to know me like you do...the places that I had sunk to, the depths you must have had to go to bring me back… Thank you.”
So he did understand. She felt something hard inside her break off and melt away and a wild, celebratory dance would not be out of place, but she didn’t show it. She wouldn’t crack now. Besides, his almost inaudible ‘thank you,’ and the look on his face made her want to cry more than dance. All the doubt she’d felt over the last few months faded away and whatever resentment she’d been holding over her own head was absolved by the one she’d wronged.
“You proved it to yourself. Even with your face in the gutter, you still had the hero in your heart.”
He leaned forward and put his hand over hers, cupping them. She couldn’t ignore the warmth that started to flood through her. She was immune to the usual charms of Oliver Queen, bachelor playboy, but this was Oliver Queen, Ollie, her friend and boss and hero, and he was different.
“You saved my life, Chloe. Both the myth...and the man.”
Those words pretty much made everything okay. She could see it all coalescing back into the whole it had been, hopefully stronger.
The two of them stayed there for awhile. He let go of her hands pretty shortly after his last words but the warmth from his hands lingered and she could swear it was still there when they got up to leave.
“So are you going to come back to Watchtower? I’ve got some friends who are pretty anxious to play with you again.”
“So I was right about the team. How’d you manage that?” he asked.
“You don’t wanna know,” Chloe teased, then looked straight at him. “I told them you were in danger and they came.”
“Not AC though,” Oliver said, pouting.
“He’s here. His part got a bit upstaged by Lois and her cowboy routine, but he’s here.”
“I really don’t want to know how you got Dinah here,” he said, shifting his shoulders around and not looking at her.
“It took a little while, but, Ollie, these people are your friends. I’m your friend. We all made some pretty stupid decisions, but we’re here for you.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Chloe,” he said, stopping and putting his hands on her shoulders. “I know I was hard on you last year and there was some…”
“Incredibly bad decision making on my part,” she filled in.
He shrugged.
“I never should’ve let them go or abandoned you after the funeral like that.”
“We’re here now,” she said, smiling.
“Arrow and Watchtower, just like it ought to be,” he said, squeezing her shoulders and starting to walk again.
They walked back to Watchtower where the team was waiting for news on the success of their plan.
When he saw them all, Chloe could swear she saw tears in his eyes and she felt them in her own. This is what it felt like to be whole, to have her life back, to know she was on the right track.
There was a tense moment or two when Dinah didn’t look Oliver in the eye, but then she just snorted, shook her head, and hugged him.
“Don’t be so stupid anymore,” she told him.
“Stay close, pretty birdie,” he told her.
Victor and AC were their usual stolid selves and Bart was practically blurring at the edges in his excitement.
They sat down and had a meal together; it was all of them for the first time in so long. Oliver laughed and joked and only the occasional dark shadow in his eyes and the cuts on his face gave any indicator of the man who’d tried to commit suicide only a short time before.
“So, what’s the plan then?” Bart asked at the end when even he was finally full. “What’s the next step?”
“We go back to doing what we do best,” Oliver said, catching Chloe’s eye.
“Real impressive speech,” Dinah said, obviously unimpressed.
Oliver winked at her and went back to joking with AC.
Chloe slipped out and went back to the monitors. She still had other duties after all and this moment of quiet victory was very sweet. She spoke to Clark and they discovered some very disturbing things, but she was mostly dwelling on Oliver and everything that had happened with that situation.
When she turned around again he was there, only he was Green Arrow. He had all the gear and the outfit and he had never looked better to her.
“Looking good,” she said. “Watch out, criminals of Metropolis.”
“No, you watch out. That’s your job,” he said, adjusting his bow. “I just wanted to try it on, make sure it still fit. I got some work I have to do at the office, but I’ll be out patrolling tonight.”
“You better take it easy, you haven’t exactly been doing Eye of the Tiger montages lately,” she warned.
“I’ll follow your lead, as always,” he said.
“If only that were true,” she joked and turned back to her monitors.
He left as silently as he’d come and that was okay because he’d be back later. He was back now. He was broken and made whole again and so was she.
Later that night she slipped the comm in her ear and it was the best thing she’d ever heard when he spoke.
“Arrow, online.”
“Watchtower, online.”
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Date: 2015-04-02 05:12 pm (UTC)I loved it!!!!
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Date: 2015-04-03 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-03 04:53 am (UTC)I love how Chloe saved Olli from himself and I loved reading how she got the team to help her :)
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Date: 2015-04-03 05:44 am (UTC)Thanks for reading and commenting.