No More Wishing 6/12
banner by: jennyspring
Title: No More Wishing
Chapter: 6/12
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Chloe Sullivan and Oliver Queen
Rating: NC-17 (eventually)
Word Count: 5,227
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 Two Three Four Five
Chapter Six: In the Air Tonight
banner by: geek_or_unique
Tess frowned as she stood at the newly reinstalled main terminal and watched the activity on the various screens in front of her. The police scanner kept buzzing with incidents of people breaking into stores and cars in the center of the city but it was the staggering amount of people being admitted to the hospital that was worrying her. The stats were rising by the minute and the security camera at the entrance to the emergency room that she had hacked into showed her that most of the people were unconscious. She knew it was only a matter of time before they woke up as zombies.
The double doors beside her opened and Tess had her gun pointed at AC’s chest before he even crossed the threshold. He held up his hands warily. “Are you always this jumpy?” he asked.
“Sorry,” Tess replied as she set the gun down on the console. “I haven’t had a chance to activate the elevator security and a girl can’t be too careful,” she reminded him. Tess’s fingers flew over the keyboard and entered the codes to turn on the voice verification so they would be alerted next time someone was in the elevator. She glanced at the stats again and saw that five more people had just been brought in. “Did you get it?” she asked AC as she finally turned away from the screen.
He nodded and reached into the pocket of his hoodie. AC handed her the plastic box containing the syringe. “One of the drug dealers I took down had a bite mark on his arm so I managed to get this from him while he was unconscious or I thought he was unconscious but then he came to and tried to bite me.” AC pointed to the spot on his arm where his hoodie was torn.
Tess’s eyes widened. “Did he break the skin?” she asked worriedly. They had enough problems without having to worry about one of the few people who knew what was going on turning into a zombie.
AC shook his head. “I managed to get away with the vial intact. What’s the next step?” he asked.
Tess opened her mouth but before she could say anything, the computer beeped to alert her that Oliver and Chloe were in the elevator. “It’s about time,” she muttered. It had been almost two hours since Oliver had told Chloe about the zombies. Tess had immediately warned AC over the com and had him come to Watchtower so she could give him the vial and syringe to get the blood sample they would need. Oliver had insisted Chloe wait for him to bring her back to Watchtower so she wouldn’t have to go anywhere alone. Given the condition the city was in, Tess didn’t blame her for wanting to keep her safe but she didn’t understand what had taken so long.
“I was starting to think you forgot how to get here again,” Tess said as Chloe came through the doors with Oliver right behind her. She noted he had changed into his regular clothes again which was probably for the best since it would be daylight again soon.
“That’s very cute,” Oliver muttered. He gave her a tight smile and nodded in AC’s direction. “We ran into a crowd of zombies and had to take an alternate route. There’s a sentence you don’t say every day,” he said as he took a seat behind the desk. Between the rough patrol and trying not to get bit by rabid zombies, Oliver was exhausted. But he knew he wouldn’t be getting any sleep in the near future. “What’s the plan?” he asked.
Chloe moved to stand beside Tess and looked over the monitors. “There are already almost one hundred people who have been admitted to the hospital. That’s going to be ground zero once they start waking up. Has Emil gotten back to you yet?” she asked Tess as she switched to a different screen to check some of the security cameras around the city.
“No,” Tess replied. “I told him that I was calling for you and that it was urgent that he get here but I don’t know if that will be enough,” she admitted. She hadn’t actually met Emil at this point in 2009 so she wasn’t sure he would take her word for anything. “You might want to leave him another message.”
“I will if he doesn’t get here soon,” Chloe said. She switched the monitor back to the hospital feed and sighed when she saw the numbers were still rising. “It seems like most of the activity is in the center of town near the Daily Planet and Luthor Corp. which means it’s going to spread like wildfire once the sun rises and people start waking up. We have to get the cure in place before the sun goes down again.”
“What is the cure?” Oliver asked. Aside from confirming that this had happened before, Chloe hadn’t given him much of an explanation. By the time he’d changed and they’d left the penthouse, Oliver had been too busy trying to keep them both from being attacked to ask questions. But it seemed like Chloe knew exactly how to stop this.
“Kryptonian blood,” Chloe replied. She turned away from the monitor to face Oliver. “One of the Kandorians was a doctor and he started this epidemic because he thought he’d come up with a formula to give them their powers back. It backfired and people started turning into zombies. Emil was able to create a cure mixing a sample of the virus with Clark’s blood. We put it into the water supply and released it into the atmosphere. It stopped the spread of the virus and it cured the people who were already infected.” She glanced at Tess.
Oliver’s eyebrows shot up. “You were a zombie?” he asked.
Tess glared at him, irritated with the obvious amusement she heard in his voice. “Yes, I was bitten and I ended up in the hospital. Lois was bitten too and speaking of Lois, how are we supposed to recreate the cure when Clark isn’t around to give us a blood sample?” she asked as she turned to face Chloe.
“Clark isn’t the only one with Kryptonian blood,” Chloe pointed out. She gestured to one of the monitors that Tess had trained on the Kandorians’ hideout.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Tess muttered. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Chloe. “Do you really think Zod or one of the others is just going to willingly open a vein for us because we asked nicely?”
“Of course not,” Chloe replied. She bit the corner of her lip as she met Tess’s angry gaze. “I thought you could arrange a meeting with Zod and then AC could surprise him and get the blood sample. What other choice do we have, Tess? We don’t know where Clark is and we can’t spend all of our time fighting off zombies when we should be figuring out a way to get out of this time warp,” she said. Chloe knew it wasn’t the best plan but she didn’t see any other option.
Tess opened and closed her mouth several times before she let out an irritated sigh. “Fine,” she agreed. “AC and I will put ourselves at risk and go find Zod. What exactly will you and Oliver be doing? Playing house?” she asked snidely.
“That’s enough,” Oliver snapped before Chloe had a chance to say anything. He knew he was missing a lot of information but he didn’t like that Tess was clearly upsetting Chloe. He stood from the chair and walked over to stand between the two women. “Chloe came up with a plan which is more than you’ve done. You’re the one who keeps saying we’re all in this together now, Tess. Maybe it’s time you acted like it.”
“Guys, maybe we shouldn’t be turning on each other,” AC pointed out. He nodded toward the monitor. “We’ve already got our hands full.” He knew they were all tired but snapping at each other wasn’t going to help. “Tess and I will track down this Zod guy and get the blood sample. How hard can it be?” he joked.
Tess sighed again. “I guess I’ll come up with a reason I need to see him.” She reached for her purse and her gun and then moved around Oliver toward the doors. “Call us if you find anything,” she said.
“Be careful,” Chloe called as AC followed Tess out through the double doors. She hadn’t meant to make Tess mad but she really didn’t think they had any other options. But if she was being completely honest, Chloe had suggested that AC go because she didn’t want Oliver anywhere near Zod. She remembered all too well what it had felt like to sit beside his hospital bed after Zod had burned him and even though she knew he didn’t have that power at the moment, Chloe felt better knowing Oliver was with her.
“I’m sorry if I made things worse,” Oliver said. He motioned toward the door. “I know you said we can trust Tess and I believe you but my head isn’t quite up to speed just yet,” he admitted. The only thing he remembered about Tess from the year he didn’t recall living was her nearly exposing his secret and throwing a knife at his head. Neither of those things really made him want to believe in her.
“It’s okay, Ollie,” Chloe said. She gave him a reassuring smile before she turned her attention back to the monitors. She couldn’t blame Tess for being angry considering everything Zod had done to her but Chloe knew AC would keep her safe and there really was no other choice. “Tess will stop being mad eventually,” she said even though she wasn’t fully convinced of that fact.
Oliver nodded, slipping his hands into his pockets as he moved closer to Chloe to look at the monitors over her shoulder. His chest bumped her back and Oliver felt the shudder that went down her spine at the contact. He knew he should apologize and step away since he was invading her personal space but his body didn’t seem to be getting the message and he moved even closer so there was no space between them. Oliver caught the faint scent of vanilla on her skin and he inhaled sharply at how familiar all of this seemed.
Chloe was afraid to move. The second his chest had pressed against her back all rational thought had flown straight out of her head. His body was still touching hers but he wasn’t saying anything. She wanted to look back at him to see if he was remembering something else but she was scared if she turned around, she might snap him out of whatever was going on in his head. She bit down on her lip, her eyes drifting shut as arousal pooled low in her stomach. It had been so long since they’d been together. “Ollie.”
Her voice sounded different than normal; it was low, breathy. Oliver’s mind flashed back to when he’d pulled her into his bed and the way his body had instantly responded to hers. It didn’t make any sense but all Oliver could think about was how much he wanted to taste her skin. His eyes fell to her neck and he ignored the alarm bells in his mind that were telling him that he had no right to touch her. Oliver reached out and brushed her hair away from her neck. Chloe trembled against him but she didn’t say a word. Oliver lowered his head and his mouth was a breath away from her skin when the computer started beeping.
Chloe gasped and Oliver moved away from her so fast that she had to grab the console to keep herself from falling down. Chloe barely heard the robotic voice telling her that Emil was in the elevator as she clutched the console hard enough to make her knuckles turn white. She took a deep breath, trying desperately to calm her pounding heart as she finally glanced back at him. The mix of shock and guilt on his face broke her heart.
“I’m sorry,” Oliver said quickly. He had no idea what had come over him or why he felt like he should constantly be touching her. Chloe was his friend and he shouldn’t be thinking about kissing her or putting his hands on her skin. He couldn’t read the look on her face but he imagined she probably wasn’t very happy with him.
She wanted to tell him not that he had nothing to be sorry for except Chloe didn’t know how to do that without telling him everything. But she hated seeing that familiar guilt on his face almost as much as she hated the physical distance he had put between them. Maybe Tess was right. Maybe it was a mistake to hold the truth back from him. “Ollie,” she said.
The double doors opened and Emil walked into the room. His eyes widened when he saw the new equipment and he looked even more surprised when his gaze landed on Oliver. “It’s nice to see you back where you belong,” he said.
Oliver frowned. He was still trying to figure out what was going on in Chloe’s head but he pushed those thoughts aside to decipher what Emil was talking about. Chloe said he didn’t have any recollection of 2010 as far as she could tell so Oliver had to assume he was referring to the disappearing act he had pulled after Jimmy’s funeral. “Chloe needed my help,” he told him.
Emil nodded. “Apparently you both need my help as well according to a message I received from Tess Mercer of all people.” He raised a questioning eyebrow at Chloe. “I wondered if she was playing some sort of game when she said she was here with you but I thought I should check anyway, especially after our last conversation.”
“It’s not a game,” Chloe assured him. She decided to ignore the reference to their last conversation since she could only imagine what Emil had thought after the way she’d behaved and her rush to get rid of him. But if she wasn’t going to clarify things for Oliver, she wasn’t going to take the time to bring Emil up to speed on their time warp situation either. Instead, she pointed to the monitor.
“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the ER is overflowing with patients who have strange bite marks on their bodies.” Chloe switched to a different screen and showed Emil the footage of the zombies Oliver had taken with the camera in his glasses. “This is what is in store for them when they wake up. We need you to create the cure.” She handed him the case containing the vial of blood AC had taken from the drug dealer.
Emil’s brow furrowed as he studied the various screens before looking down at the case in his hands. He glanced at Oliver and then his eyes met Chloe’s once more. “How do you know this will work?” he asked.
“Research,” Chloe replied. She figured that was as close to the truth as she was willing to get. “There’s still one more thing you need. Tess and AC are in the process of getting it but I thought you could get started since we’re going to need a large batch.” She explained how they needed to release it into the water supply and the air.
Oliver could see that Emil had a lot of questions but he didn’t ask any of them. He simply nodded and slipped the case into his jacket. “Send Tess and AC to my lab once they have the rest,” he said. “I hope you both know what you’re doing,” he added as he turned and made his way toward the doors.
Chloe watched him leave and then turned to Oliver, trying to gage where his head was at. “I guess that went as well as can be expected,” she said with a shrug and a small smile.
“Emil is good at going with the flow and keeping his questions to himself,” Oliver replied. It was one of the things he paid him for. “I guess now we just have to wait.” He slipped his hands into his pockets and walked over to the stained glass window. The sun was starting to rise in the distance and he knew they had another long day ahead of them.
He glanced back at Chloe and saw her watching him and he couldn’t help thinking that she looked sad. Oliver knew it was his fault and he worried that he was just going to keep hurting her if his memory didn’t start filling in the blanks soon. “What if I never remember?” he asked. Oliver wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand seeing that look on her face every day.
“You will,” Chloe replied with more confidence than she actually felt. She could see that he was struggling and she didn’t want to make things worse for him especially now that there was awkwardness between them that she didn’t know how to fix. “Ollie, I…” The computer beeped again and Chloe sighed, knowing she couldn’t ignore it. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” Oliver said. He took a seat on the window ledge and stared out the window, wondering how many times he had done this in the past and what it was going to take to make him remember.
***
AC frowned as he followed Tess up the steps to the loft of Clark’s barn. She’d hardly said anything during the long drive to Smallville and he’d wanted to give her space since she was obviously upset but now he needed some answers. “Why here?” he asked.
“Zod knows who Clark is or at least he should at this point,” Tess said. She wasn’t sure if that was still the case since Clark wasn’t around to show off his powers but from what she remembered about Zod, he’d always known that Clark was out there somewhere. She had to hope that was still the case but even if it wasn’t, he had agreed to meet her there without much persuasion on her part so she was just hoping for the best.
“This will be quick and painless,” AC told her with a smile. He didn’t know Tess very well in either year but he could see that she wasn’t as fearless as she pretended to be especially when it came to Zod. “You can stay out of sight and just let me handle this,” he said. The one thing Tess had been willing to talk about on the ride over was the plan she had come up with. AC wasn’t crazy about it.
Tess shook her head. “It’s the only way this will work. I can’t give Zod any reason to think I’m working against him. We don’t know how long we’re going to be stuck here and I’d prefer not to piss him off,” she said. Tess understood why AC had issues with the plan and she appreciated his concern but she just wanted to get this over with. They needed to fix the zombie problem so they could get concentrate in figuring out why they’d gone back in time or whatever it was that had happened.
She moved to stand in front of the window as she glanced down at her watch. Zod should be there any moment. Tess ignored the way her heart was pounding against her chest as she looked out over the fields. Without Clark there to take care of everything, the crops were dying and the yard was covered in weeds and fallen leaves. “I hope Zod isn’t a nature enthusiast,” Tess commented as she turned back to face AC. “Everything looks rundown.”
AC was about to ask her again if she wanted to rethink the plan when he heard footsteps entering the barn. Tess motioned for him to hide and he slipped behind the couch as she turned to stare out the window once more. AC watched as the man he’d seen on the surveillance photos made his way up the stairs and stopped a few feet away from Tess.
“I was surprised to hear from you. I assumed you knew we would be doing things on my timetable.”
Tess forced herself to relax and not show any signs of weakness. She turned to face Zod and lifted her eyebrow, a bored expression on her face. “I thought you should know that I have my own timetables. Have you found anything yet?” she asked.
“What exactly should I be trying to find?” Zod retorted. He took another step closer to her as he held her gaze. “You haven’t been very forthcoming, Tess. I’d hate to think we were keeping secrets from each other after we agreed to be partners.”
Her skin was crawling but Tess managed to keep her expression neutral. “I doubt you’ve been one hundred percent honest with me.” She gave him a cool smile as she moved forward, barely suppressing her urge to run. “What do you know about the owner of this farm?” Tess felt bad for throwing Clark under the bus when he wasn’t even there to protect himself but he was the reason she’d aligned herself with Zod in the original 2009 so he was her best bet in this one. He was her only bet. If this didn’t work, she didn’t know what they were going to do.
Zod moved closer to her as well and didn’t say anything for a moment as his eyes drifted around the room. “I know that he’s someone I’d like to meet. Will he be joining us?” he asked.
“He hasn’t been around for awhile,” Tess said. She forced herself to keep her eyes on Zod’s so she wouldn’t accidentally give away AC’s position. “I wanted to know if you had anything to do with that. Are you keeping something from me?” she asked. Tess watched him carefully for any sign of a reaction. For all she knew, Zod did have Clark and Lois stashed somewhere.
“No,” Zod said after a long silence. “Perhaps if we work together we can…” His words were cut off by a gasp when a small dart embedded itself in Tess’s shoulder. Her body spasmed once and her eyes rolled back in her head as Zod instinctively stepped forward to catch her before she slumped to the ground. AC moved quickly and stabbed Zod in the back of the neck with another tranquilizer dart as he tried to turn around.
AC took Tess from his arms and let Zod fall to the floor. AC set her down gently and pulled out another green box containing a syringe and a small vial. He quickly filled the vial with Zod’s blood, put everything back into the box and lifted Tess into his arms. He glanced back at Zod as he pressed the tiny communicator in his ear.
“Aquaman to Watchtower, I have the sample,” he told Chloe as he made his way down the stairs and out of the barn. “Should we come back there?” he asked.
“Negative,” Chloe replied. “I need you to take it straight to Dr. Hamilton. He’s already got the blood sample you took from the drug dealer. Once Tess wakes up, you two need to get the cure into the water supply. Ollie and I will handle releasing it into the atmosphere. Be careful,” she added.
“You too,” AC said. He clicked off the communicator and carefully set Tess in the passenger seat of her car. He still didn’t like the idea of leaving Zod alone in Clark’s barn but he knew they didn’t have any time to waste. He just hoped Tess was right and Zod would believe that she’d been the target and not him. They really didn’t need to deal with pissed off aliens on top of everything else.
***
Oliver thanked the pilot and slipped back into the cabin of the plane where Chloe sat at the small desk with one of his laptops. He watched her for a moment as she bit the corner of her lip, concentrating on the screen in front of her as her fingers flew over the keys. She’d been in full-blown Watchtower mode since AC had checked in and let her know that they’d gotten the sample from Zod and were bringing it to Emil. She had been monitoring everything and staying in constant communication with everyone and Oliver had done his best to stay out of her way.
Things still felt tense between them after what had happened earlier. Oliver had no idea what had come over him in that moment or why he continued to feel an overwhelming disappointment that he couldn’t explain each time he thought about how close he’d come to kissing her. It didn’t make any sense and all he’d managed to do was put Chloe in an awkward position. Oliver felt like he owed her an apology but he didn’t know where to start. Somehow “sorry I was about to kiss you” just didn’t have the right ring to it.
He forced the thoughts aside and cleared his throat to get her attention. “Kevin said we’re almost at the right altitude and he’ll open the door as soon as we get there.” Oliver settled back into his seat across from Chloe and offered her a tense smile when she met his gaze. “How are things looking?”
“Better than last time,” Chloe said. “The number of people infected so far is much lower and we got the cure into the water and air faster so that will help too.” She gave Oliver a small smile wishing there was more she could do to help him relax. She could practically see him beating himself up about what had almost happened earlier even though she’d been a willing participant. Chloe knew that was her fault. She was doing everything she could to keep the way she felt about him off her face but all that had done was hurt both of them. She wished she knew what the right answer was.
Oliver nodded. He still didn’t have any recollection of facing off with zombies so he was going to take her word for it. “What about Zod?” he asked. “I know Tess gave me a brief history earlier but it seems like this alien thing is a big deal. What happened the first time?” Oliver wasn’t sure how many of his questions Chloe would answer but he had noticed she seemed more comfortable talking about general events than she did about anything personal that had happened.
He was still curious as to why she’d left town. The way AC had reacted to seeing her made it clear that she hadn’t just been visiting relatives or on vacation. But she’d told him that she couldn’t talk about that. Oliver wasn’t going to push, especially now that things were strained between them. At this point, he would take any conversation just to get rid of the tension. It felt completely unnatural for there to be distance between the two of them. Oliver didn’t really understand why.
Chloe hesitated. She didn’t want to overwhelm him with information but she couldn’t help hoping that if she filled in some of the blanks for him, he might remember more on his own. It had been awhile since he’d had any memory flashes and she wondered if that had something to do with the tension between them. Chloe knew she was over thinking things but Oliver meant everything to her and she didn’t want to screw things up more than she already had.
“You don’t have to tell me if it’s too much,” Oliver said after another long moment of silence. He could see that he was making her uncomfortable again and that was the last thing he wanted. He shifted in his seat to stare out the window at the clouds.
“No, I’m sorry,” Chloe said. She waited for him to look at her again and she could see how hard all of this was on him. She just wanted to crawl into his lap, throw her arms around him and tell him that it would be okay. But since she couldn’t do that, Chloe figured the least she could do was fill him in on the story of the Kandorians.
She repeated some of the information Tess had told him earlier about them being clones of the original people who had lived on Krypton with Clark’s biological parents. “Somehow they were reborn so to speak without any of their powers and Zod was obsessed with getting the power back.” Chloe told him the story of Lois getting trapped in the future and Clark seeing the solar towers Zod wanted to build to take away the sun. “Clark ended up destroying them but Zod found another way to get his powers back and to pass them to the rest of the Kandorians.”
Oliver’s mouth fell open as he listened to Chloe explaining the kryptonite weapons and how the two of them had worked with the team behind Clark’s back to come up with a contingency plan to get rid of Zod and the others if Clark’s method didn’t work. “Let me get this straight,” he interrupted after Chloe finished telling him about Clark destroying the Watchtower while he’d been on Red K. “Clark chose their side over ours?”
Chloe nodded. “He’d distanced himself from me after everything that happened with Davis and Doomsday and things were better between the two of you for awhile but he still didn’t like our methods. You and I had stashes of weapons all over the world. Once Zod got his powers back, Clark finally saw him for what he was but he still wanted to find a peaceful solution,” she said.
“That’s Boy Scout for you,” Oliver muttered. He ran a hand through his hair as he thought about everything she was saying. None of it sounded familiar but there was one recurring theme he couldn’t help noticing. “You and I worked together a lot,” he commented as his eyes locked with hers. “It seems like we had our own little us against the world thing going.”
Chloe couldn’t help smiling at that as she thought about all the times he had reminded her that they were a team and he was on her side. It had taken way too long to get through her stubborn head and she desperately regretted all the time she had wasted. She swallowed hard at the intense look in Oliver’s eyes as her heart began to beat faster in her chest. “We were a team,” she told him softly. “We’ve been through a lot together, Ollie.”
His chest tightened with frustration. Oliver could hear sadness in her voice again and he hated that he was hurting her by not being able to remember. He felt like he was getting closer to the answers but something in his head was stopping him from seeing them and he didn’t understand why.
Seven.