Fic: Next Time
Title: Next Time
Characters/Pairing: Chlollie
Spoilers: Pretty much everything up till Salvation (9.22)
When Chloe Sullivan met Oliver Queen, she thought him a flashy billionaire. Hot, charming and entirely too caught up in Clark Kent. Just like another billionaire. And like the other, not so flashy and decidedly darker billionaire, he too had a penchant for brunettes with the initials LL.
It figured. Rich men who found themselves in Smallville (as if that wasn’t odd enough already) were always intrigued by Clark Kent and fascinated by the Lana Langs and the Lois Lanes of this world.
Chloe Sullivan? Well she was the secret keeper, the best friend and the cousin. She also had a nose for the strange and unexplained and an investigative method honed over years and perfected by practice. And somehow, some way, she always found herself caught up in whatever mess was unfolding. She liked to think she could handle it and pushed away the thought that she couldn’t.
Digging a little deeper, tripping up on secrets that for once, weren’t Clark’s and sidestepping the minefield that was Lois Lane, she discovered that Oliver Queen and Lex Luthor shared more then she initially thought.
They both wanted to save the world. Of course Lex wouldn’t dream of wearing leather, green or otherwise and he much preferred to pay others to get their hands dirty.
Oliver didn’t mind getting his hands dirty. He didn’t mind dirty tricks either. And his team didn’t work behind closed doors on a level between floors thirty-three and thirty-four. No, they were as bright and as colourful and determined as he was. And, she was quite sure of this, they would follow him to the ends of the Earth.
Working with the team. Being a part of his team…it had all been an accident. A coincidence. At times, she had considered it a gift. She never for one moment imagined, that years down the line, after deaths and amid destruction, she would be struggling to bring the shattered remains of the once optimistic group of heroes together again.
***
Chloe Sullivan didn’t gamble. Or at least the old Chloe didn’t. Not with stakes as high as this. Not with lives. And despite his validation and his gratitude, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was standing on a ledge, teetering dangerously and she didn’t want to fall. She just didn’t know how to step back. She was scared to try, scared to stumble and fall unwittingly into the abyss she was trying so hard to avoid.
He told her that she had saved him, both the myth and the man, and maybe that was a start. She left her secrets untold. She didn’t tell him that her heart had been in her mouth at the possibility of failure, at the thought of wanting to save him and damning him instead.
The truth was she didn’t want to fight alone anymore. She never had. Years of working with Clark had taken their toll, she suspected. She was a team player with no team.
This was a start. Oliver was a start. And without him, they weren’t a team, Victor, Bart, Dinah, AC, they had all answered her call to save the man who had been their leader, had trusted her to save him. Yes, this was a start.
She ignored the voice that whispered that she could withdraw from the fight. Leave it all behind. Because if she wasn’t fighting, wasn’t battling, wasn’t righting the wrongs of the past year then what was the point of it all?
She had saved him, kept her cool, her mask safely in place and now maybe, just maybe, they could move forward, bring together their team and move on. She didn’t let herself think that this would save her too, didn’t let herself believe that bringing back the old team would bring back the old times. They were gone forever. Along with Davis and Doomsday and…Jimmy.
His hand was warm around hers and his smile, blinding. And just for a second, a brief moment, it stopped the dark whirlpool of thoughts in her mind. She smiled back at him. It was a start, she repeated. It just had to be.
And she had no idea just what she had started.
***
The first time she felt his eyes on her in that way, she was irritated. There was a mixture of puzzlement, admiration and something else, something she couldn’t define, in his eyes. Something that made them flicker gold instead of brown. It made her uncomfortable and she didn’t want to find out why.
She kept her eyes trained on Jonn instead, ignored the way his eyes flickered over her face, ignored the warmth of his leg against hers under the table, ignored it all.
It was a celebration of sorts. They had saved the day, formed new alliances and patched up old bonds. They were still patchy of course but a band-aid was better then nothing.
It was Jonn who had talked of pulling her back, in his gentle way, hand over hers and a smile that broke her heart and it was Oliver who had come calling and whisked them away for dinner. Her team, she thought with a smile.
She didn’t want saving. She really didn’t but they seemed determined to save her anyway.
It was at the end of the night, they had all consumed more food the she had thought was humanely possible, paid the bill and were readying themselves to leave when it happened. It was nothing really. Oliver’s hand brushed hers as he handed her her coat and she felt a little fission, a spark, something that made her heart beat faster.
His startled glance, the way he held her eyes and stilled for a moment made her think she wasn’t the only one to feel it. Whatever ‘it’ was.
It was ridiculous of course. This was Oliver Queen, her cousins ex-boyfriend. The guy still hung up on the girl he had given up long ago and a man she had worked with for years.
She’d drank more then she thought. That and the events of the past twenty-four hours were catching up with her. With him. With them. It was absurd to think it could be anything else. Was anything else.
***
The morning after the night before.
It was her first in the true sense of the phrase. Jimmy was the only other man she had slept with and the morning after the night before with him had been very different. It had been a start of something. Not a series of somethings.
She shifted against the makeshift bed. There had been talk between mumbled kisses and shared hot breath of going to his apartment but they hadn’t made it that far. Hadn’t made it out of the Watchtower. Actually they hadn’t made it much further then the spot where they had dropped the bow and arrow.
Her breath hitched at the memories and she curled her toes and buried her face into her jacket. It didn’t make for a comfortable pillow but last night had nothing to do with comfort. Nothing at all.
It had been about need and desperation and feeling wanted and wanting, just wanting something that would make everything bearable. Real. She fingered the marks on her neck, felt the ache of muscles she hadn’t known existed and felt a smile tug at her lips. This was definitely real. As real as it could get.
If someone had told her three years ago that she would have fallen victim to the Queen seduction offensive, she would have laughed herself silly. But this was three years later and if she was honest, she had felt the charge, the atmosphere as soon as she walked into the Watchtower.
She had stopped kidding herself that it was only an impromptu archery lesson when his fingers had trailed over her arms, his hand closing over her much smaller one, his breath hot on her neck and her body enveloped in his heat.
She still wasn’t sure who had moved first. She wasn’t sure it was important anymore.
He had breathed hot words into her ear, broken sentences as he moved above her, “it was worth the wait”, “God, you’re beautiful,” and on and on.
She had called him a liar, breathed it against the damp skin of his shoulder and forced him to flip them over so she was straddling him, making it impossible for him to talk. She had covered his mouth with her own and lost herself in the business of feeling. Words were her currency. They always had been and she knew better then anyone that sometimes, they came cheap.
She didn’t want words. She wanted to lose herself. She dared him to make her forget everything. And he did. Actions, she told him with a flippancy she didn’t feel, were louder then words.
***
She was used to puppy dog eyes. Just not his.
He was hurt she realized, her heart thumping uncomfortably loud in her ears. Why did she think he wouldn’t be?
“A lot of woman have used me for my money, I never expected it from you.”
The barb stung. She hadn’t expected it to. Hadn’t wanted it to. The money wasn’t for herself, she wanted to respond. She hadn’t taken it to fritter it away, hadn’t slept with him as a means to his bank account. She didn’t want another Doomsday, wanted to do everything in her power to avoid it. Surely he, of all people, would understand.
In the end, it didn’t surprise her that he didn’t trust her. She didn’t trust him either. Not really. Not in the way she used to trust people. It was hard to trust someone, anyone, when you couldn’t trust your own instincts.
Being on the same side wasn’t the same as fighting the same way. Who had changed, she wondered. It was Oliver who used to have a contingency plan for the contingency plan and it was her blind faith in Clark that had defined them for so long.
The had both changed and a wry smile curled her lips at the realization. He wanted to believe in Clark. And she couldn’t. He wanted to believe that Clark was the insurance policy and she wanted her very own. People left you. People let you down. Weapons insured that you didn’t fight alone, that you fought longer, harder and that you survived.
Oh, he knew enough to know that the weapons might be needed. He hadn’t changed that much. Wanting to believe wasn’t the same as believing . He also knew enough to only trust himself. Well, trust had never been part of their…arrangement.
After everything that had happened, she didn’t think he would come that night, was startled to hear the click of the lock as he turned her bedroom key, locking it from the inside and slipped into bed beside her.
She didn’t move, let him pull her into his arms, her back fitting snugly against his chest and she held her breath as he trailed kisses along her jaw, down the curve of her neck and along her collarbone.
“Rough night?” her words caught on a gasp as he nipped the skin behind her ear causing her body to hum.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” the words were mumbled against her shoulder and she gave in, turned so that she was facing him and raised an eyebrow.
He grinned his crooked grin, and leaned in, just brushing his lips against hers and amended, “well, almost. There‘s some things that require careful handling.”
He leaned forward again and her smile was lost in their kisses.
***
The ride back to Smallville was unusually quiet for them. He made excuses about his car making funny noises and hitched a ride back with her. He didn’t tell her he wanted to be with her and she didn’t tell him that she was craving (even the word made her wince) his company. It had been a weekend of revelations already, if you could call them that.
Oliver had bought her a spoon and everything had almost gone to hell in a hand basket. All because of a spoon. A pretty spoon she had to give him that. And it had been nicely wrapped but still, a spoon.
It wasn’t quiet the weekend she had anticipated. Or planned. Not enough indoor bedrooms games and too much time spent traipsing through greenery battling a banshee that looked as if she’s escaped from a bad Hollywood horror movie. A bad B list horror movie at that.
And then there was the talking. It wasn’t that they didn’t talk. The steady stream of chatter, the bantering and the sarcasm with someone witty enough to challenge her, make her laugh, was one of her favourite parts of this undefined, unlabeled ‘thing’ with Oliver but there was talking and then there was talking.
And it was the latter that worried her.
Clearing up the past, boxing it away and thrashing out misunderstandings, it all smacked too much of what she had denied to Lois about her and Oliver and a lot less like the dirty weekend she had wanted and looked forward to for weeks on end.
The secret stash of kryptonite weapons had almost ceased to be an issue. It was understood, lines were drawn, issues simplified and the talking done with and yet a spoon (and everything it represented) she thought incredulously had thrown them for a loop.
It wasn’t the only thing that had thrown them, her, for a loop.
“His loss.”
The words wouldn’t stop rattling around in her mind, tugging at strings that weren’t supposed to exist.
There was no glossing over the fact that their past with each other, with Clark, with Lois was a mess and in her darker moments she wondered if he ever thought of her cousin when he was with her.
He had swept those worries away with words she never expected to hear. She wondered if she had done the same for him. There was no denying that the spark in his eyes when he spoke of Clark alone with her in the shower had been jealousy. Did he seem the same spark in her eyes when she had brought up Lois?
She pushed the thought away. It didn’t matter. Or it shouldn’t.
She glanced at him from the corner of her eyes. He had the passenger seat tilted back, long legs spread out and eyes closed. Even in sleep and despite the seat belt, his body was twisted slightly towards her.
She looked away quickly focusing her gaze on the road ahead. This was the last time she planned a weekend getaway she thought darkly, tightening her grip on the steering wheel. Let him plan it next time. And she would make sure that neither Clark or Lois were anywhere near the vicinity.
***
He didn’t let her out of his sight. He matched her smaller strides easily, falling into step with her as she grabbed her overnight bag from the Talon apartment, following her into the small bathroom, watching her pack with an intensity that made her skin tingle.
She could still feel the imprint of his hand in hers, hear the fear in his voice as he told her that she “had scared the life out of him and see the bright smile that had been his response to her flip remark about him falling for her.
She looked up and their eyes met and held.
“What are you thinking about Mr. Queen?” she teased, throwing the last of her toiletries into the bag haphazardly.
He shrugged nonchalantly, “I’m thinking it takes something pretty special for us both to go missing at different times within 48 hours, return, shrug off near death and put it down to another day in Smallville.”
She laughed, “if you want normal then Smallville isn’t for you,” she screwed up her nose, “neither is Metropolis. In fact you should give Kansas a miss altogether.”
He shook his head slowly and leaned against the door jamb, and his voice dropped a little, “but I don’t want normal. I don‘t want mundane. Normality,” he drawled huskily, “is highly overrated.”
She didn’t say anything, didn’t move. Neither did he. For a long time, the only sound in the room was of her breathing and his. She had once told him that actions spoke louder then words. It was before she had fully realized the effect his words could have on her, would have on her.
The silence stretched, tautened and then he smiled, made a light quip about escaping before Lois came home and the tension eased. Just slightly.
She took his hand automatically as they walked out and she wondered, half in a daze, when reaching out to him had become a reflex.
***
She saved his text messages. Every single one.
It was embarrassing and corny and everything she thought she had grown out of. Everything she had promised herself she would never be again. And she was pretty sure, it was a step up from what Lois had talked about two days ago.
No. This? This, she would never admit to Lois. Or to Oliver. Or to anyone.
It was embarrassing enough that she felt the urge to re-read the old messages when he was out of town on JLA business. It was embarrassing enough that she gave into the urge. Often.
***
“With you he has a purpose.”
She watched Oliver, imagined she could trace the scar Zod had left on his chest with her eyes and blinked away the angry tears that threatened to fall. Falling back into the chair beside the bed, she tried to make herself comfortable for the night.
It was late. Clark had left hours ago and she couldn’t sleep. When it wasn’t the image of Oliver’s burned chest haunting her, it was Tess’ words. It was strange that she should fixate so much on those six words when so much had happened. Stupid not strange, she amended, it was stupid to fixate on those words when so much had happened.
Tess knew. She knew everything and she was a wild canon. She could derail everything. And Zod. Well Zod had declared open war. The world needed saving. Again. And somehow, even though she had readied herself for this eventuality, the reality still stunned her.
And the Watchtower. The Watchtower was gone. Everything she had worked for was gone. Everything that had kept her sane when insanity had clawed at her and her nightmares had spiralled out of control, was gone. It was all gone.
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
She sighed and gave up on the idea of sleeping. It just wasn’t going to happen. She stared blankly at the white ceiling. She wondered what exactly it was that Tess had seen. Whatever it was, it had been enough to convince Tess that she had something of worth with Oliver. That it was simply hers for the taking.
She shifted, dragged her chair closer to the hospital bed and took her hand in his. She had almost stopped breathing when Clark had called her from the hospital. Fear had weakened her knees and she could barely remember the journey to the hospital.
Whatever walls she had built, whatever convictions she had fortified them with had all but crumbled at Clark’s words. This was the fear that she had promised to leave behind. This was the fear she had wanted to sop feeling. But was easier said then done.
All but impossible really.
***
She didn’t cry. Not in the days immediately afterwards. Not even when his last words echoed in her dreams and woke her from her restless sleep like a vicious kick of déjà vu.
She would find him. It wasn’t a promise or a hope or even a vow. She simply knew she would find him. Had to find him. She would bring him home and the next time they readied themselves for battle, the next time they went their own way to save the world, she would say the words to his face.
Next time would be different.
***
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