It'll Give Us Something To Talk About The Next Time We Meet, Part 11
Title: It'll Give Us Something To Talk About The Next Time We Meet
Author: Flying High / latetothpartyhp
Pairing: Chloe/Oliver, Clark/Tess, ex-Lois/Oliver
Rating: Teen / PG-13
Warnings: Coarse language, violence, brief nudity
Spoilers: For Luthor and Hex
Summary: Oliver has problems. Lois wants out, Tess wants Clark and Clark wants his powers back. If only Oliver could have what he wants... Set in the Luthor-verse about a month after the Finale.
Sequel to Of All The Towns In All The Worlds In All The Parallel Universes, You Had To Walk Into Mine and I Don't Mind A Little Trouble.
Author's Note (and some additional warnings): Many, many thanks to
iluvaqt for beta'ing this and giving me the confidence to keep writing it. This is a JLA-centered story with a Chlollie twist that ya'll should see coming from a mile away (which I write to persuade anyone put off by the lack of Chloe in the first few chapters). Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think!
Table of Contents
An hour after Oliver arrived at the helipad, the helicopter landed in a field of what, he was told, the locals were still calling “the Hubbard place”. When he'd first bought the place, the land had been riddled with meteor rocks. It'd been one of many acquisitions he'd forced through after Patty's death, the sum of which had made him persona non grata in Lowell County but, as he reminded himself, you didn't save the world by making friends.
Some days he had to repeat that to himself more frequently than others.
Kasich drove him into town in the RAV-4 they kept on the property. There had been a few incidents when he'd come here before on his own; nothing he couldn't handle, but today every second counted and as former member of the few and the proud, Max had a way of making even the drunkest redneck think twice about the wisdom of starting anything. When they arrived at the high school, however, Oliver shook his head when Kasich climbed out of the cab.
“You sure?” Max asked.
“It might create the wrong impression. Besides, the biggest security threat in this place was committed to Belle Reeve a month ago, after announcing to the school the friendly neighborhood ravens had told him the Beast Fenrir had been released and Ragnorak was upon us.”
“Hate when that happens.”
“Don't we all. I should be about twenty minutes.”
“Take all the time you need,” Kasich said. “I got me some Waylon Jennings listening I gotta catch up on.”
Oliver had been hoping to get to the school before classes began, but found instead he'd missed his mark by about ten minutes. The halls were flooded with hormone-and-sugar fueled young bodies, some of which nudged each other as he passed. By midday the entire town would know he'd been here and who he'd talked to, and by this afternoon his lawyers would be badgering Gina, wanting to know what the hell he'd been thinking. In this case at least he could be honest and tell them he'd been visiting an old friend.
Because of the stares and the nudges he was obliged to make his way to the principal's office, where an old adversary awaited him. He had no idea how Terrance Reynolds had fallen from his tower as the headmaster of Excelsior Academy to the administration of a small-town public school, but he was sure it was a sordid, Luthor-entangled mess of a story. Of course the man appeared not to have aged a day from when he'd towered over Oliver in the headmaster's office, and of course Oliver was showing up to this rumble already wounded, a fact Reynolds lost no time in noting when he took off his sunglasses.
“It's good to know some things in this world never change, Mr. Queen. What are you doing here?” the older man asked.
“A family matter involving one of your teachers. Something's come up that I've been warned may make an appearance in the media, and I thought he'd rather hear it from me first.”
“And why would that be?”
“Because it involves my family as well.”
“I see.” As Reynolds stared at him it was very difficult to avoid the impression he was once again in danger of being ratted out to Nanny Lizzie. Oliver breathed deeply and gripped the arrowhead left in his pocket from the night before. “Zoe?” Reynolds asked the pixie-like girl who'd been eying them from a desk faced with a video-camera on a tri-pod.
She darted across the room. “Yes, Principal Reynolds?”
“Would you be so good as to escort Mr. Queen to his desired location?” He handed the girl a bright orange square of paper marked “Hall Pass”.
The girl's wide eyes darted anxiously from him to Reynolds and back again. “Who's doing the announcements?”
“I will,” Reynolds said. “I do have some experience in that arena.”
“I suppose that would be alright,” she said.
Reynolds stared at her. “Definitely alright,” she repeated. “Mr. Queen, if you'll follow me?”
He supposed he didn't really have a choice. “Lead the way,” he said.
The girl, Zoe, set a good pace down the main hall and up the first flight of stairs to a wide landing, where she slowed and gave him an appraising look. “Is it true that you're selling back most of the land you've purchased in Lowell County for less than it cost you to buy it?”
Oliver stumbled as he took the next stair. Where had she heard that? “No.”
“But you are selling back the land?”
“Look, I don't know where you're getting your information,” he began.
“It's called 'Smallville' for a reason,” she said, cutting him off. “This re-sale is forcing a lot of last-minute adjustments to a lot of college financing plans.”
For a second Oliver wondered if Reynolds had sicced her on him on purpose. “I can neither confirm nor deny any rumors about any land sales. Or anything else,” he added when she looked as if she was about to ask another question.
She sighed. “Well, I had to give it a shot.”
Oliver found himself suppressing a laugh. “Yeah, I guess you did.”
She gave him another appraising look. “You know, the school has a weekly newscast that we upload to our YouTube station. It's usually a bunch of boring sports stuff, but a lot of people in the community watch it, and I bet a lot more of them would tune in to hear Oliver Queen's side of the story.”
“You really think anyone in this community cares about my side of the story?”
“'Cares' might be a strong word,” she answered. “But trust me, they'll still want to be able to bitch about it at The Beanery the next day.”
Oliver laughed outright at that. “Yeah, they would. Tell you what, I'll think about it.”
The girl stopped and rolled her eyes. “I'm not five. If you're not gonna do it, just say 'no'.”
“It's not up to me. It's up to my lawyers.”
The girl rolled her eyes again. “You'd think being the CEO of a global corporation you'd be the one handing out the orders.”
“You'd think,” he agreed. This girl was cracking him up. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a business card. It was pretty tatty from being stored there the last few years. He hardly ever passed them out, but she could pin it up in her locker next to her magazine photo of Edward or Jacob or whichever vampire team she was on. “Here's my card. The phone number's for my assistant. Call in a couple of days. She can let you know if it's a go.”
“There's no email address on here.”
“Nope,” he said. “Not to get off topic or anything, but aren't you supposed to be taking me somewhere?”
“Oh, yeah. Hang on sec,” she told him, and poked her head in the door beside which they had stopped. A male voice told her to come in and she disappeared behind the door. Oliver studied the bulletin board on the other side of the hallway, on which red and yellow flyers were pinned announcing the Official Senior Skip Day, ticket sales for the Senior Party, enrollment deadlines for summer school and schedules for Crow's baseball and softball teams. Behind him the door opened and closed and when he turned, the girl was darting more curious looks between him and a polo-shirted Jason Teague.
“Thanks, Zoe,” Jason said. “You'd better get to class.”
“Um, could you sign my pass?”
“Yeah.” Jason took the neon orange scrap she handed him and made a few scrawls.
“I hope everything's okay, Mr. Teague.”
Jason lifted a brow at Oliver. “I hope it is too.”
After a few more glances from him to the teacher, Zoe took off down the hall. Jason watched her leave, making sure she was down the stairs and the hall was empty before turning back to Oliver with a glare.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he said.
“It's good to see you too. It's been a long time.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Is there some place we can go to talk?”
“Not really. I've got oral reports I'm supposed to be listening to right now, and seriously, you are the last person I want people to know I've had a private conversation with. I have to live in this town.”
“Okay.” Oliver nodded. “I'm here because of Veritas.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“The sins of our fathers are catching up to us.”
“No, they're not. I am done with that. Finished with it years ago, and if the CEO of Queen Industries doesn't mind a little friendly advice from a small-town football coach, you'll be finished with it too.”
“It'll never be finished. You know Lionel found the Traveler. You know what he's become.”
“Yeah, I know. I also know my limits. I have the boxer's break to remind me of them every day,” he said, lifting up his stiff right hand.
“How did that happen?”
“How do you think?”
“So you've had your own encounter with him.”
Jason pulled his hand down and and shoved it in his pocket.
“Jason, I'm trying to find a way to stop him. Lionel thinks he has control of him but he doesn't, and it's only a matter of time before it really starts to hit the fan. Now, I've been doing some research and I learned that Lionel and your mother got involved in some scheme out here before she died, something to do with a book they were both interested in.”
His back was shoved against the bulletin board so quickly he thought Jason might have developed super-speed out among the meteor rocks. “You don't know anything,” Jason hissed. “You come out here and tell me you're trying to stop him? Because you're some magnanimous prick who's sticking up for the little guy on this?”
“Absolutely. Look, I didn't buy up half the town because I'm in love with E85. I bought it because the meteor rocks in this area are the only thing I've found to which he's vulnerable, and I need the mineral rights to that land. And it's not as if you didn't have a trust fund the size of most Third World GDP's, Mr. Small-Town Football Coach. At least I'm doing something besides pretending I'm Vince Lombardi.”
Jason stepped back and flexed his fingers. “If the rocks stop him why not use those?”
“Because the effect only lasts if he's within a certain distance of them, and there aren't enough for me to pave the world.”
“Can they kill him?”
Oliver frowned. He'd had the meteor rock bullets cast on the assumption that they would work the way ordinary bullets did for humans, but Chloe's database seemed to suggest that as long as Clark had access to the sun, he could heal. “I don't know,” he answered.
“So you want to try magic against him?”
“I … yeah,” Oliver said, a little taken aback by the other man's sudden bluntness. Among other things. “Yeah, I am.”
Jason nodded slowly, as if making a decision. “Okay. About seven years ago I was hanging out in Paris. I met this girl. She was from here, from Smallville. Her parents had died in the first meteor shower and she was in France studying her family history. Trying to create some sense of connection to her past or something. She was beautiful, and we just … we clicked, you know? As it happened it was all a set-up.”
“What do you mean? Who set you up?”
“Three guesses. Lana'd come across this book that had belonged to one of her ancestors. I have no idea how she was able to afford it; it was like something you'd find in a museum.”
“Your mother wanted you to steal it for her.”
“Among other things. She and Lionel were after some rocks. They called them 'Elements'. It had something to do with their little game but I was never able to figure out what. Lana had one. Again, I don't know how she'd gotten it,” he added firmly.
A little too firmly, Oliver thought. “Was Lana able to perform magic?”
Jason stepped back and stared down the hallway for a moment. “I don't know,” he said finally. “I don't know what was going on. She was under a lot of stress. Especially after Clark got involved.”
“When was that?”
“Right at the end. Well, the end of Lionel and my mother harassing her. The weird thing was, whatever Lionel was doing, I don't think he told Clark about it. I mean, if he did, why not start with the end in mind and just have him take the stuff in the beginning?”
“Is that what happened?”
Jason's jaw clenched. “Yeah. He took the stone. Burned the book - with his eyes, if you can believe it, which, since we're having this conversation...” Jason shrugged. “He thought it was funny.”
There was something else that had happened, Oliver was sure, but he was also sure Jason wasn't going to tell him what it was. Besides, he'd already told him what he'd come here to find out. The book was gone.
He'd flown all the way out here though. He needed to be sure. Pulling a print-out of the photo from the database, he handed it to Jason. “Was this the book?”
Jason squinted at the admittedly poor desk-top laser printing. “No. Lana's book was written in Latin. I'm not sure what this is. The characters are Roman, but the language isn't anything Romantic or Germanic.”
“I'll have to defer to the French teacher on that one,” Oliver said with a smile, his heart beating a little faster. Lana's book hadn't been Zatanna's book. That meant Zatanna's book might still be out there.
Jason handed back the photo. “Don't you have guys on retainer who can analyze this stuff?”
“Not anyone I trust.” Bart's delusions aside, the only other member of the team besides him who spoke another language was Andrea. It was another weakness they needed to remedy. “If you ever get tired of grading papers, let me know.”
Jason shook his head. “This'll come as a shock, I know, but I like it here. The economy stinks,” he said, quirking a brow at Oliver, “but for the most part they're good people. Good kids, even the ...” he trailed off. “And Lana's here.”
“She wouldn't want to leave?”
“She's in law school at Met U right now, but no. She wouldn't. Not long-term. She's invested in this town. Her, uh, bio-dad's Henry Small.”
“Ah.” What were the chances? Sins of the fathers, indeed.
“So you see the conflict of interest I'd be having,” said Jason, smirking.
“She's must be a helluva woman.”
“She is. She … I'd appreciate it if you could keep what we discussed to yourself.”
“Of course.”
“Okay.” Jason glanced back at the door to his classroom. “I should be getting back to class. Every single one of them's probably Tweeted I met with you.”
“Sure.” He hadn't thought about that. He guessed the first question Zoe would have for them in their imaginary future interview would be 'So how do you know Mr. Teague?' 'Well, Zoe, our parents were involved in a secret society to welcome aliens to earth.' “Just, one quick question. I know Lionel's got a shelf of crap like this,” he said, waving the print-out. “Did your parents ever, you know, collect stuff like this.”
Jason grimaced. “Shelves of it. My dad took most of it with him when he left.”
“Do you know what happened to it when he died?”
“No. Like I said, I'm done with that crap.”
“Yeah. Like you said,” Oliver answered. He shoved the print-out in his pocket with the arrowhead. No leads there, then.
“Sorry I can't be more help.”
“I appreciate you taking the time.” Oliver offered the other man his hand.
“You're welcome. Hey, you never know, you may stumble across something in my mother's old penthouse. I heard you bought the building.”
Oliver frowned. “Where - you mean the Teague Tower?”
Jason rolled his eyes. “Yeah, she got in the divorce. Lived there for a few years after my dad left, before she moved to France. I remember she had a secret compartment in the bathroom, like something out of Mission Impossible. I used to sneak in there and try to break in.”
Suddenly Oliver felt as if his heart-rate had tripled. “Where in the bathroom was it?”
Author: Flying High / latetothpartyhp
Pairing: Chloe/Oliver, Clark/Tess, ex-Lois/Oliver
Rating: Teen / PG-13
Warnings: Coarse language, violence, brief nudity
Spoilers: For Luthor and Hex
Summary: Oliver has problems. Lois wants out, Tess wants Clark and Clark wants his powers back. If only Oliver could have what he wants... Set in the Luthor-verse about a month after the Finale.
Sequel to Of All The Towns In All The Worlds In All The Parallel Universes, You Had To Walk Into Mine and I Don't Mind A Little Trouble.
Author's Note (and some additional warnings): Many, many thanks to
iluvaqt for beta'ing this and giving me the confidence to keep writing it. This is a JLA-centered story with a Chlollie twist that ya'll should see coming from a mile away (which I write to persuade anyone put off by the lack of Chloe in the first few chapters). Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think!
Table of Contents
An hour after Oliver arrived at the helipad, the helicopter landed in a field of what, he was told, the locals were still calling “the Hubbard place”. When he'd first bought the place, the land had been riddled with meteor rocks. It'd been one of many acquisitions he'd forced through after Patty's death, the sum of which had made him persona non grata in Lowell County but, as he reminded himself, you didn't save the world by making friends.
Some days he had to repeat that to himself more frequently than others.
Kasich drove him into town in the RAV-4 they kept on the property. There had been a few incidents when he'd come here before on his own; nothing he couldn't handle, but today every second counted and as former member of the few and the proud, Max had a way of making even the drunkest redneck think twice about the wisdom of starting anything. When they arrived at the high school, however, Oliver shook his head when Kasich climbed out of the cab.
“You sure?” Max asked.
“It might create the wrong impression. Besides, the biggest security threat in this place was committed to Belle Reeve a month ago, after announcing to the school the friendly neighborhood ravens had told him the Beast Fenrir had been released and Ragnorak was upon us.”
“Hate when that happens.”
“Don't we all. I should be about twenty minutes.”
“Take all the time you need,” Kasich said. “I got me some Waylon Jennings listening I gotta catch up on.”
Oliver had been hoping to get to the school before classes began, but found instead he'd missed his mark by about ten minutes. The halls were flooded with hormone-and-sugar fueled young bodies, some of which nudged each other as he passed. By midday the entire town would know he'd been here and who he'd talked to, and by this afternoon his lawyers would be badgering Gina, wanting to know what the hell he'd been thinking. In this case at least he could be honest and tell them he'd been visiting an old friend.
Because of the stares and the nudges he was obliged to make his way to the principal's office, where an old adversary awaited him. He had no idea how Terrance Reynolds had fallen from his tower as the headmaster of Excelsior Academy to the administration of a small-town public school, but he was sure it was a sordid, Luthor-entangled mess of a story. Of course the man appeared not to have aged a day from when he'd towered over Oliver in the headmaster's office, and of course Oliver was showing up to this rumble already wounded, a fact Reynolds lost no time in noting when he took off his sunglasses.
“It's good to know some things in this world never change, Mr. Queen. What are you doing here?” the older man asked.
“A family matter involving one of your teachers. Something's come up that I've been warned may make an appearance in the media, and I thought he'd rather hear it from me first.”
“And why would that be?”
“Because it involves my family as well.”
“I see.” As Reynolds stared at him it was very difficult to avoid the impression he was once again in danger of being ratted out to Nanny Lizzie. Oliver breathed deeply and gripped the arrowhead left in his pocket from the night before. “Zoe?” Reynolds asked the pixie-like girl who'd been eying them from a desk faced with a video-camera on a tri-pod.
She darted across the room. “Yes, Principal Reynolds?”
“Would you be so good as to escort Mr. Queen to his desired location?” He handed the girl a bright orange square of paper marked “Hall Pass”.
The girl's wide eyes darted anxiously from him to Reynolds and back again. “Who's doing the announcements?”
“I will,” Reynolds said. “I do have some experience in that arena.”
“I suppose that would be alright,” she said.
Reynolds stared at her. “Definitely alright,” she repeated. “Mr. Queen, if you'll follow me?”
He supposed he didn't really have a choice. “Lead the way,” he said.
The girl, Zoe, set a good pace down the main hall and up the first flight of stairs to a wide landing, where she slowed and gave him an appraising look. “Is it true that you're selling back most of the land you've purchased in Lowell County for less than it cost you to buy it?”
Oliver stumbled as he took the next stair. Where had she heard that? “No.”
“But you are selling back the land?”
“Look, I don't know where you're getting your information,” he began.
“It's called 'Smallville' for a reason,” she said, cutting him off. “This re-sale is forcing a lot of last-minute adjustments to a lot of college financing plans.”
For a second Oliver wondered if Reynolds had sicced her on him on purpose. “I can neither confirm nor deny any rumors about any land sales. Or anything else,” he added when she looked as if she was about to ask another question.
She sighed. “Well, I had to give it a shot.”
Oliver found himself suppressing a laugh. “Yeah, I guess you did.”
She gave him another appraising look. “You know, the school has a weekly newscast that we upload to our YouTube station. It's usually a bunch of boring sports stuff, but a lot of people in the community watch it, and I bet a lot more of them would tune in to hear Oliver Queen's side of the story.”
“You really think anyone in this community cares about my side of the story?”
“'Cares' might be a strong word,” she answered. “But trust me, they'll still want to be able to bitch about it at The Beanery the next day.”
Oliver laughed outright at that. “Yeah, they would. Tell you what, I'll think about it.”
The girl stopped and rolled her eyes. “I'm not five. If you're not gonna do it, just say 'no'.”
“It's not up to me. It's up to my lawyers.”
The girl rolled her eyes again. “You'd think being the CEO of a global corporation you'd be the one handing out the orders.”
“You'd think,” he agreed. This girl was cracking him up. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a business card. It was pretty tatty from being stored there the last few years. He hardly ever passed them out, but she could pin it up in her locker next to her magazine photo of Edward or Jacob or whichever vampire team she was on. “Here's my card. The phone number's for my assistant. Call in a couple of days. She can let you know if it's a go.”
“There's no email address on here.”
“Nope,” he said. “Not to get off topic or anything, but aren't you supposed to be taking me somewhere?”
“Oh, yeah. Hang on sec,” she told him, and poked her head in the door beside which they had stopped. A male voice told her to come in and she disappeared behind the door. Oliver studied the bulletin board on the other side of the hallway, on which red and yellow flyers were pinned announcing the Official Senior Skip Day, ticket sales for the Senior Party, enrollment deadlines for summer school and schedules for Crow's baseball and softball teams. Behind him the door opened and closed and when he turned, the girl was darting more curious looks between him and a polo-shirted Jason Teague.
“Thanks, Zoe,” Jason said. “You'd better get to class.”
“Um, could you sign my pass?”
“Yeah.” Jason took the neon orange scrap she handed him and made a few scrawls.
“I hope everything's okay, Mr. Teague.”
Jason lifted a brow at Oliver. “I hope it is too.”
After a few more glances from him to the teacher, Zoe took off down the hall. Jason watched her leave, making sure she was down the stairs and the hall was empty before turning back to Oliver with a glare.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he said.
“It's good to see you too. It's been a long time.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Is there some place we can go to talk?”
“Not really. I've got oral reports I'm supposed to be listening to right now, and seriously, you are the last person I want people to know I've had a private conversation with. I have to live in this town.”
“Okay.” Oliver nodded. “I'm here because of Veritas.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“The sins of our fathers are catching up to us.”
“No, they're not. I am done with that. Finished with it years ago, and if the CEO of Queen Industries doesn't mind a little friendly advice from a small-town football coach, you'll be finished with it too.”
“It'll never be finished. You know Lionel found the Traveler. You know what he's become.”
“Yeah, I know. I also know my limits. I have the boxer's break to remind me of them every day,” he said, lifting up his stiff right hand.
“How did that happen?”
“How do you think?”
“So you've had your own encounter with him.”
Jason pulled his hand down and and shoved it in his pocket.
“Jason, I'm trying to find a way to stop him. Lionel thinks he has control of him but he doesn't, and it's only a matter of time before it really starts to hit the fan. Now, I've been doing some research and I learned that Lionel and your mother got involved in some scheme out here before she died, something to do with a book they were both interested in.”
His back was shoved against the bulletin board so quickly he thought Jason might have developed super-speed out among the meteor rocks. “You don't know anything,” Jason hissed. “You come out here and tell me you're trying to stop him? Because you're some magnanimous prick who's sticking up for the little guy on this?”
“Absolutely. Look, I didn't buy up half the town because I'm in love with E85. I bought it because the meteor rocks in this area are the only thing I've found to which he's vulnerable, and I need the mineral rights to that land. And it's not as if you didn't have a trust fund the size of most Third World GDP's, Mr. Small-Town Football Coach. At least I'm doing something besides pretending I'm Vince Lombardi.”
Jason stepped back and flexed his fingers. “If the rocks stop him why not use those?”
“Because the effect only lasts if he's within a certain distance of them, and there aren't enough for me to pave the world.”
“Can they kill him?”
Oliver frowned. He'd had the meteor rock bullets cast on the assumption that they would work the way ordinary bullets did for humans, but Chloe's database seemed to suggest that as long as Clark had access to the sun, he could heal. “I don't know,” he answered.
“So you want to try magic against him?”
“I … yeah,” Oliver said, a little taken aback by the other man's sudden bluntness. Among other things. “Yeah, I am.”
Jason nodded slowly, as if making a decision. “Okay. About seven years ago I was hanging out in Paris. I met this girl. She was from here, from Smallville. Her parents had died in the first meteor shower and she was in France studying her family history. Trying to create some sense of connection to her past or something. She was beautiful, and we just … we clicked, you know? As it happened it was all a set-up.”
“What do you mean? Who set you up?”
“Three guesses. Lana'd come across this book that had belonged to one of her ancestors. I have no idea how she was able to afford it; it was like something you'd find in a museum.”
“Your mother wanted you to steal it for her.”
“Among other things. She and Lionel were after some rocks. They called them 'Elements'. It had something to do with their little game but I was never able to figure out what. Lana had one. Again, I don't know how she'd gotten it,” he added firmly.
A little too firmly, Oliver thought. “Was Lana able to perform magic?”
Jason stepped back and stared down the hallway for a moment. “I don't know,” he said finally. “I don't know what was going on. She was under a lot of stress. Especially after Clark got involved.”
“When was that?”
“Right at the end. Well, the end of Lionel and my mother harassing her. The weird thing was, whatever Lionel was doing, I don't think he told Clark about it. I mean, if he did, why not start with the end in mind and just have him take the stuff in the beginning?”
“Is that what happened?”
Jason's jaw clenched. “Yeah. He took the stone. Burned the book - with his eyes, if you can believe it, which, since we're having this conversation...” Jason shrugged. “He thought it was funny.”
There was something else that had happened, Oliver was sure, but he was also sure Jason wasn't going to tell him what it was. Besides, he'd already told him what he'd come here to find out. The book was gone.
He'd flown all the way out here though. He needed to be sure. Pulling a print-out of the photo from the database, he handed it to Jason. “Was this the book?”
Jason squinted at the admittedly poor desk-top laser printing. “No. Lana's book was written in Latin. I'm not sure what this is. The characters are Roman, but the language isn't anything Romantic or Germanic.”
“I'll have to defer to the French teacher on that one,” Oliver said with a smile, his heart beating a little faster. Lana's book hadn't been Zatanna's book. That meant Zatanna's book might still be out there.
Jason handed back the photo. “Don't you have guys on retainer who can analyze this stuff?”
“Not anyone I trust.” Bart's delusions aside, the only other member of the team besides him who spoke another language was Andrea. It was another weakness they needed to remedy. “If you ever get tired of grading papers, let me know.”
Jason shook his head. “This'll come as a shock, I know, but I like it here. The economy stinks,” he said, quirking a brow at Oliver, “but for the most part they're good people. Good kids, even the ...” he trailed off. “And Lana's here.”
“She wouldn't want to leave?”
“She's in law school at Met U right now, but no. She wouldn't. Not long-term. She's invested in this town. Her, uh, bio-dad's Henry Small.”
“Ah.” What were the chances? Sins of the fathers, indeed.
“So you see the conflict of interest I'd be having,” said Jason, smirking.
“She's must be a helluva woman.”
“She is. She … I'd appreciate it if you could keep what we discussed to yourself.”
“Of course.”
“Okay.” Jason glanced back at the door to his classroom. “I should be getting back to class. Every single one of them's probably Tweeted I met with you.”
“Sure.” He hadn't thought about that. He guessed the first question Zoe would have for them in their imaginary future interview would be 'So how do you know Mr. Teague?' 'Well, Zoe, our parents were involved in a secret society to welcome aliens to earth.' “Just, one quick question. I know Lionel's got a shelf of crap like this,” he said, waving the print-out. “Did your parents ever, you know, collect stuff like this.”
Jason grimaced. “Shelves of it. My dad took most of it with him when he left.”
“Do you know what happened to it when he died?”
“No. Like I said, I'm done with that crap.”
“Yeah. Like you said,” Oliver answered. He shoved the print-out in his pocket with the arrowhead. No leads there, then.
“Sorry I can't be more help.”
“I appreciate you taking the time.” Oliver offered the other man his hand.
“You're welcome. Hey, you never know, you may stumble across something in my mother's old penthouse. I heard you bought the building.”
Oliver frowned. “Where - you mean the Teague Tower?”
Jason rolled his eyes. “Yeah, she got in the divorce. Lived there for a few years after my dad left, before she moved to France. I remember she had a secret compartment in the bathroom, like something out of Mission Impossible. I used to sneak in there and try to break in.”
Suddenly Oliver felt as if his heart-rate had tripled. “Where in the bathroom was it?”