No More Wishing 2/12
banner by: jennyspring
Title: No More Wishing
Chapter: 2/12
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Chloe Sullivan and Oliver Queen
Rating: NC-17 (eventually)
Word Count: 4,227
Summary: After escaping from the VRA, Oliver decides to cash in his wish with Zatanna to undo his mistake. But things don't exactly work out the way he planned.
Previous Chapters: One
banner by: geek_or_unique
Chapter Two: When It All Goes Wrong Again
Chloe groaned softly, a terrible pain shooting through her neck spurring her toward consciousness. Without opening her eyes, she gingerly shifted her head, hoping to ease the kink, but the slight movement only made it worse. Groaning louder, she moved her hand to the back of her neck and tried to massage it as she burrowed her face deeper into the pillow. Except it wasn’t a pillow that she felt against her cheek, it was something hard and quite uncomfortable.
Still holding her neck, Chloe opened her eyes and saw that her face was plastered against the keyboard of her laptop. She realized she must have fallen asleep at her table again and that explained the ache in her neck. She sat up straighter in the chair, her free hand rubbing her cheek where she imagined there was an imprint from the plastic keys. The creak in her neck continued to throb and she tilted her head from side to side to try and find some relief.
“I’ve got to stop doing that,” Chloe muttered to herself. She ran her finger across the mouse pad to clear the screensaver and make sure that she hadn’t accidentally typed in any random commands when she had face planted for the night.
The screen came to life, displaying various database searches running simultaneously. “Lois Lane” flashed in the middle of her screen with a picture of her cousin as the computer scanned several websites, the facial recognition software repeatedly coming back with “no match found.”
“Lois?” Chloe’s eyes widened as she stared at the screen. The last thing she remembered working on was a large military file that she’d been trying to break the encryption on to find more members of the VRA. The scan had been taking longer than usual and that was probably how she’d ended up falling asleep. But that didn’t explain why the computer was running a search on her cousin.
A knot was already forming in her stomach, her shoulders tense as Chloe scanned the various searches. It looked like Lois had gone missing, but that didn’t make any sense. She’d been keeping an eye on everyone while she’d been gone and even though things had gotten tense with the VRA, Lois had never been in any danger. Oliver, Clark and AC had all made it back from Alaska and she knew they were all safe for the time being until the VRA moved in again, but that was the moment she was waiting for and it wasn’t time yet.
So what had made her run a search on Lois?
Chloe shifted back in her chair, still uncomfortable from the awkward sleeping position and suddenly her brain picked up another detail that wasn’t right. Blinking, she stared at the computer in front of her, realizing it was the orange laptop that she’d had for years, the same orange laptop that she’d left behind when she’d put her plan in motion. She’d been using a non-descript black computer ever since she’d been in hiding. How did her laptop get there?
The knot in her stomach grew as she realized that she was not sitting at the kitchen table in her tiny apartment, but at a desk. Feeling like she was moving in slow motion, Chloe took her eyes off the computer and looked around at her all too familiar surroundings.
“Watchtower,” she whispered. Chloe stood from the chair, eyes wide as she stared at the place where she had once spent so much of her time. She briefly wondered if she was dreaming, but dismissed the thought immediately. From the moment she had left, all her dreams had been various versions of the same scenario where she was back in Oliver’s arms and everyone was safe. She clung to those dreams like a lifeline and she always felt the same disappointment when she realized her mind was pulling out of its sleep state.
But if she was awake, how had she ended up at Watchtower? It didn’t make any sense. Chloe tried concentrating on what she’d been doing before she’d fallen asleep. She had spent most of her day researching the VRA from her apartment or communicating with Flag to make sure everything was going according to plan and he wasn’t trying to go against her orders. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Her memory seemed fuzzy after that and she had no recollection of leaving her apartment, let alone returning to Watchtower.
Chloe decided she was going to have to worry about it later. She knew she needed to get out of Watchtower before someone saw her. She couldn’t risk everything she’d been doing. Oliver, Clark and the rest of the team needed her to follow through with the plan she had laid out. It was the only way they would all be safe.
Determined to leave as fast as possible, she hurried for the stairs only to stop in her tracks when she saw the first floor was completely empty. There was no equipment, no furniture, only a few paint cans and what looked like an old tarp.
“What the hell?” she muttered.
Fear tightened in her chest as Chloe wondered if there had been some kind of attack. Maybe the VRA had moved in sooner, not wanting to wait until all the heroes were in one place. All she had to go on was what the helmet had shown her and she knew it was possible to change the future. Maybe she was already too late.
She swallowed hard, forcing herself to stay calm. That theory didn’t make sense either. Even if the VRA had shown up and somehow captured the team, ransacked Watchtower and took all of the computer equipment and supplies, why would they take the furniture? It wasn’t like the couches and tables held secret clues to the inner workings of the Justice League.
No matter how hard she tried, nothing her mind could come up with made any sense. Chloe was confident the VRA had not found their way into the Watchtower. She doubted they would have left her sleeping at her desk if they had. But someone or something had brought her there and it was likely that same someone had removed all of the equipment which meant there was a whole new problem at hand that needed to be dealt with and chances were she wasn’t going to be able to do it on her own, especially with only her laptop at her disposal.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Chloe hurried back to the desk, shifting through the mess until she found her cell phone. She scrolled to the call log, her heart pounding frantically as her finger hovered over the button that would dial Oliver’s number. It had been months since she’d heard his voice on the other end of the line. She’d taken some comfort in watching videos of his press conferences, but it wasn’t the same.
Chloe took a deep breath and pushed the button. Her heart started to beat even faster as she listened to the phone ringing on the other end and waited for Oliver to answer. She counted five rings before she began to get nervous for an entirely different reason. He wasn’t picking up and she was scared that meant he was hurt or worse. Footsteps in the hallway caught her attention and Chloe sucked in a breath when the sound of a ringing phone filled the empty tower.
“Ollie?” Fresh hope replaced the fear in her chest and she practically ran for the stairs, nearly falling when she came to an abrupt halt at the sight of Emil standing in the entryway. “Emil.” She couldn’t hide her disappointment, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. She’d been so sure it would be Oliver walking through the door. “What happened?” she asked quietly.
Emil gave her a tight smile and held up the ringing phone in his hand. “I don’t think Oliver wants to be found.”
She hurried down the stairs, eyes narrowed as she snatched the phone away from him. “Where is he, Emil? Where’s everyone else? What happened here?” She gestured to the empty room, desperate for answers.
Emil raised an eyebrow, glancing around uncertainly. “I’m not sure what you mean, Chloe. But the team is gone. They’ve all gone off the grid.”
“Why?” Chloe demanded. That didn’t make any sense. It was too soon for the team to be hiding underground. She knew the VRA was still trying to find a way to convince the public that Oliver had been behind the explosion at the Alaskan facility. “When was the last time you saw Ollie? Was it the VRA?”
“The VRA?” Emil repeated. His eyebrows were nearly to his hairline as looked at Chloe like she was speaking a different language. “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the name. As for Oliver, I haven’t seen him for a few weeks, not since everything happened.” His voice trailed off slightly and he shifted uncomfortably.
She frowned at his expression, irritated that he was acting like he had no idea what was going on. Even if he’d been out of communication with the team for some reason, Chloe knew Emil was an educated man who read the papers and watched the news. The VRA had been dominating the airwaves with their propaganda for months and he had to know that. She opened her mouth to point that out when something else struck her.
Emil didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see her there. He wasn’t asking her questions about where she’d been or why she was suddenly back. Chloe knew he was well trained in going with the flow and expecting the unexpected considering the things he dealt with on a regular basis, but he was acting like it was normal for her to be there. In fact, it seemed like he had come to Watchtower to see her.
A sense of déjà vu struck her and Chloe slowly looked around the empty room again. It looked exactly as it had when she had first started using Watchtower as a home base after everything had gone wrong with Doomsday and the team had cut all ties with her and each other. She shifted her attention to the phone she held in her hand and scrolled through Oliver’s call log. There were nearly twenty missed calls and they were all from her phone.
She felt the color draining from her face as she lifted her eyes from Oliver’s phone to meet Emil’s concerned gaze. The team was nowhere to be found. Lois was missing. Oliver wasn’t answering his phone and Emil was offering to help her. Chloe swallowed hard to moisten her dry throat and willed her voice not to shake as she addressed the doctor.
“What year is it?” she asked quietly.
“2009,” Emil replied. He took a cautious step toward her like he was afraid she was going to shatter into pieces right before his eyes. “Chloe, I know this is a difficult time for you, but if there is anything I can do to help, please don’t hesitate to ask,” he said.
“Thank you,” Chloe replied. Her mind was racing as she tried to figure out how the hell she had ended up in the past. She wondered if it was possible that the VRA had discovered her and was somehow messing with her mind like she had seen them doing with the rest of the team in the future. But if that were the case, she doubted they would use this particular moment to manipulate her.
She realized Emil was still looking at her like she was crazy and Chloe knew she was going to have to get rid of him so she could try and find answers. “I really appreciate your offer and I’ll let you know if I need anything.” She held up Oliver’s phone and gave him a small smile. “Thanks for bringing this to me.”
“You’re welcome,” Emil replied. The look on his face plainly said he didn’t think she was okay and Chloe couldn’t blame him since she was anything but. “I need to get to the hospital, but you have my number if you need me.”
“I do,” Chloe replied. She kept her forced smile in place and waited for him to make his way to the elevator. As soon as he was out of sight, she ran back up the stairs as fast as her legs would carry her and sat down in front of the computer.
Ignoring the searches that were already running, Chloe pulled up the Daily Planet website. Instead of the articles she had come to expect about Green Arrow, the VRA and the upcoming election, she found herself staring at headlines talking about the sudden crime increase in Metropolis and the surrounding areas and a small blurb about missing reporter Lois Lane. She glanced at the date in the top corner, no longer surprised to see 2009 there instead of 2010.
Chloe took another deep breath and tried to assess the few facts that she had. It was 2009 again, but she had no idea how that had happened or why she knew it was the wrong year but Emil did not. She had obviously fallen into some kind of time warp, but things were already different than she remembered them. If the date on the paper was correct, Lois should have been back already which meant Clark would have returned as well and the headlines would not be talking about a rise in crime.
She rose to her feet again, sliding Oliver’s phone and her own into the pocket of her jeans. Chloe knew she wasn’t going to be able to come up with any answers until she knew that Oliver was all right. She needed to find him and then they could work on figuring everything out together.
As Chloe made her way down the stairs, she heard the sound of heels clicking loudly down the hallway. She had just reached the bottom step when Tess hurried through the doorway. Her hair was a mess, her clothes were wrinkled and there was a large bruise on one side of her face. The two women eyed each other silently for a moment.
“Tess,” Chloe muttered. She should have known this was somehow her fault. The woman might be on their side now, but that hadn’t been the case a year earlier. She was the reason Lois had gotten sent to the future in the first place and she was also responsible for bringing the Kandorians to Earth. She had obviously done something else to mess with the time and space continuum.
“Chloe,” Tess replied coolly. She narrowed her eyes at the other woman. She wasn’t sure who she was going to find at Watchtower, but she should have known it would be Chloe. The woman had always been full of secrets. “What did you do?” she demanded.
“Me?” Chloe cried in disbelief. She stepped off the stairs and crossed the room to Tess. “I’m sure this whole thing is just one of your experiments gone wrong. What exactly were you trying to do this time, Tess?”
Tess scowled. Of course Chloe would blame her. She had always assumed Tess was behind all the evil in the world because of the mistakes she had made in her past. She wasn’t about to let Chloe intimidate her. “I was doing my job and the next thing I know, I’ve got a house full of angry aliens,” she snapped. She gestured to the bruise on her face. “Which part of this looks like I’m having fun, Chloe?” she asked.
“Well maybe one of these days, you’ll learn not to play with things you don’t understand,” Chloe retorted. She continued to glare at Tess even as her heart sank. It wasn’t a good sign that the Kandorians were back, even if it was in a time warp, assuming that’s what this was. She needed to find a way to undo whatever it was Tess had done before they rediscovered their powers and everything went to hell all over again. “Just tell me what you did, Tess,” she said.
“I didn’t do anything,” Tess repeated. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared right back at Chloe. She obviously had no clue what was going on or she wouldn’t be wasting time accusing her. “Are you really going to stand there and tell me it’s a coincidence that you’re here right now?”
“Why wouldn’t I be here?” Chloe replied defensively. She didn’t know where Tess got off coming into Watchtower and accusing her of anything. “You’re the one who shouldn’t be here.” Her eyes widened, realization sinking in the second the words left her mouth. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said again.
Tess rolled her eyes. “You said that already. If you’re going to insult me, the least you can do is try and come up with something original. You used to be better at this, Chloe,” she pointed out.
Chloe bit back the automatic retort that wanted to roll off her tongue. They weren’t going to get any answers by having a pointless argument. “Tess, you shouldn’t be here because you shouldn’t know about Watchtower yet,” she stressed. Her heart started beating faster in her chest again as she waited for Tess to respond.
Tess opened her mouth and immediately closed it, her own eyes widening at the word “yet.” If Chloe knew that she found out about Watchtower eventually that meant she knew that something was off. “What do you know?” she asked carefully.
“I know that it was 2010 and now somehow it has gone back to being 2009, but some things are already different,” Chloe said slowly. “Like this,” she added, gesturing between them.
“Unfortunately some things are the same,” Tess replied. She let out the breath she’d been holding and ran her hand over her hair, trying to smooth it down. “I went to bed alone last night and when I woke up this morning, my house was filled with Kandorians.” She willed herself not to visibly shudder as she remembered how scared she had been when she’d seen Zod staring back at her when she’d opened her eyes.
“Emil was here earlier and as far as he’s concerned, it’s 2009,” Chloe replied. She ran her hands over her face and once again tried to make sense of what was happening. How was it possible that Emil had no idea what was happening but Tess did? That had to mean something, but she had no idea what.
“Have you talked to anyone else?” Tess asked. She moved past Chloe, her eyes darting around the empty Watchtower. She had just assumed the headquarters would be fully functioning when she got there and the fact that it wasn’t just made everything all the more unsettling.
“I was on my way to find Oliver when you showed up,” Chloe replied. She bit the corner of her lip wondering where Oliver was and if he knew what year it was supposed to be or if he was in the dark like Emil.
“What about Clark?” Tess asked. She had considered calling him, but she’d wanted to get out of Smallville as fast as possible once the Kandorians had disappeared from the mansion. She wasn’t sure where they went and as far as she was concerned, she didn’t want to know. She just wanted to figure out how to get back to the future.
Chloe shook her head. “That’s one of the things that have changed. Clark was still around back then, at least the Blur was, but the Planet had a front page story about increased crime rates and Lois is still missing. She should have been back by now. I didn’t see anything in the paper about the train crash or the Blur,” she said.
Tess sighed. She doubted the answer was in the past. They needed to figure out how they had ended up there. “All right, what do you remember before you woke up here? Where have you been?” she asked. Even though Chloe seemed as confused as she was, there was a chance whatever she’d been doing had led to them ending up in the past.
“Not far,” Chloe admitted. She hesitated, not sure how much she should tell Tess. The last thing she wanted to do was compromise the plan she’d been cultivating. But the helmet hadn’t told her anything about this and if the future had somehow changed again, everything she was doing would be useless anyway. “When I put on Fate’s helmet, I saw the VRA and what they were planning. I came up with a way to stop them, but I have to wait for the right moment,” she said.
“That sounds vague,” Tess replied dryly. She waited expectantly, but if the look on Chloe’s face was anything to go by, she didn’t think she was going to give her any more information.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to take any chances,” Chloe replied. She owed Tess for helping her erase her identity and for stepping up to help the team, but she didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks until they had more information. “What about you? What were you doing yesterday?” she asked.
“I put in a full day at the Planet and then I was here for a few hours while Clark and AC were out on patrol,” Tess said. She didn’t recall anything out of the ordinary happening before she’d decided to sign off for the night and made her way back to Smallville. If anything, things had been quieter than usual.
“What about Oliver? Do you have any idea where he is?” Chloe asked. She wasn’t surprised he hadn’t been patrolling after everything that had happened with the VRA. She had seen footage on the news of how difficult it was for him to go anywhere either as Oliver Queen or the Green Arrow since he had had revealed his identity. She assumed he would be trying to keep a low profile until they figured out the VRA’s next move.
“It depends,” Tess replied. She met Chloe’s eyes, her expression grim. “Present day Oliver left town to try and keep the VRA from discovering the rest of the team. But if we’re looking for 2009 Oliver, he’s probably lying face down in a gutter somewhere.”
Chloe felt the knot tightening in her stomach again. As much as she hated to admit it, she knew Tess was right. Oliver had been a mess back then. She nodded sharply, ignored the pain in her chest. No matter which version of Oliver was out there, she needed to find him. “I’m going to check the clock tower and see if he’s there. My laptop is upstairs. Maybe you can work on locating the rest of the team,” she suggested.
“Maybe you should do that and I’ll go find Oliver,” Tess replied quickly. She saw the look of surprise flash on Chloe’s face and rushed on. “You’re the computer genius after all,” she said.
Chloe frowned at the compliment. It wasn’t like Tess to offer praise for no reason and it felt like she was trying to distract her. “I need to find Ollie,” she replied firmly.
Tess hesitated, trying to find the right words. “Chloe, I just think it might be better if I went to look for him and you stayed here.”
“Why?” Chloe demanded. She hadn’t seen Oliver for months and even if he didn’t know what was happening, she wanted to be close to him again. She didn’t understand why Tess was trying to stop her.
Sighing, Tess realized she was going to have to spell it out for her. “Chloe, if Oliver hasn’t fallen through this wormhole with us, there’s a chance he might not be alone when you get to the penthouse,” she said.
Chloe stilled. That particular thought hadn’t even crossed her mind, but she knew Tess was right and it was a very real possibility. Her stomach clenched, a wave of nausea overwhelming her. “Oh,” she said quietly.
“We don’t know anything for sure,” Tess reminded her. She felt guilty for the obvious pain on Chloe’s face, but she figured it was better than being blindsided later. “I’ll go,” she told her again.
“No,” Chloe replied firmly. As much as the idea of finding Oliver with someone else made her want to curl up and cry, the idea of not seeing him was even harder to deal with. “I need to go, Tess,” she said.
“All right,” Tess agreed. It wasn’t her place to fight with her. She just hoped for both their sakes that Oliver wasn’t on one of his benders when Chloe found him. “I’ll see what I can find out here.”
“Thank you,” Chloe replied. She offered Tess a tight smile and quickly made her way to the elevator, her heart pounding in her chest. She had no idea what condition Oliver was going to be in when she got to the clock tower or if he would even be there, but all she could think about was how much she wanted to feel his arms wrapped around her again.
Three.