Of All the Towns in All the Worlds in All the Parallel Universes, You Had to Walk Into Mine
Title: Of All the Towns in All the Worlds in All the Parallel Universes, You Had to Walk Into Mine
Author: FlyingHigh / latetothpartyhp
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama / Adventure
Pairings: Chloe/Oliver, back-ground Lollie
Spoilers: for Luthor
Warnings: For language, since all these characters have potty-mouths when I write them. Also, this is un-beta'd.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, and I am receiving no money for this story.
Summary: Some scenes missing from Luthor, in which we learn where Chloe has gone, and what she has been doing.
Sequel may be read here: I Don't Mind A Little Trouble
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He grabbed the battered cardboard cup holder -- the one Lois teased him about; she’d bought him nearly a dozen, all of which he’d lost -- from his pocket and popped it open while stirring in the half-and-half.
From behind him a short figure leaned across the condiment station and, reaching for the sugar packets, bumped him just enough to tip the drink over and flood the counter.
“Shit,” he breathed.
“Sorry,” she answered, grabbing for napkins and patting everything in sight. Patting him. “I can get that cleaned,” she told him.
“Look, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” he answered. He took a step back, away from her octopus arms, and felt the weight in his pocket. He pulled it out: a folded cocktail napkin from the counter and inside, an arrow-head. He looked up. She was gone -- no, she was still leaving, skirting her way around a couple with stroller. He followed, stumbling over the stroller, murmuring apologies, bursting out the door, looking left, looking right, watching her vanish around the corner. He ran then, pushing his way past a kid in a red hoodie and another in a back-pack.
She was gone when he turned the corner but re-appeared when he caught sight of her in through a shop window. More strollers to stumble over in here; of course she would pick a place that specialized in monkey-faced bento boxes and BPA-free sippy cups. She was making her way quietly to the back, where the baby slings and alley door were located. He moved less quietly, catching her at the cloth diaper rack.
“What is this?” he hissed.
“Let go of me and do what it says.”
“It didn’t say anything -- “
“You don’t follow directions or play well with others in any universe, do you?” she muttered. “Get to the Watchtower. He’ll be there soon.”
“How do you -- “
“Just go! This is what you’ve been preparing for.” Her eyes were green and adamant and for a second he was too stunned to disbelieve her. Then reality re-aligned his head with his body.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s go.” He grabbed her upper arm and propelled her past the cribs and the train sets back into the street. Watchtower was two blocks from here; they could be there in five minutes.
“I can’t go with you.”
“You’ve got two perfectly fine legs, don’t you?”
“You don’t understand, he can’t see me when he gets there.”
“Because you double-crossed him, or because when he sees you then he’ll know your plan didn’t work?”
“Neither; let’s just say I’ve been out of his life now for awhile and I need to keep it that way.”
“That’s funny, I never thought of Ultraman as the obsessive-boyfriend type.”
“Comparatively speaking, no, he’s not, but why take chances?”
“Because if you’re working for the Luthors and I go down then you are definitely going down with me.”
“I’m not and you won’t; you have to trust me.”
“Yeah, let me know think about that and … nope. Not going to happen.”
“Please!” she cried. He stopped. They were at street entrance to the Watchtower and her yell had attracted numerous nervous glances both at them and the roof-tops. She pulled her arm loose of his grip and he grabbed her wrist instead.
“You realize it’s all the same to me if he gets me out here or if he gets me in there,” he said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she hissed. “You need to get inside, you need to be ready to activate the window. Please,” she repeated. This time her eyes were green and pleading. He didn’t think concern like that could be faked. He just wished he knew the cause.
“Only if you come with me.”
She sighed, her eyes closing for a moment. “Fine.” She opened her eyes. They were determined now. “You know you’re a jack-ass, right?”
He smiled. “It’s just another aspect of my considerable charm.” He slid his hand down to her small one and clasped it. “So, in we go.” He held the door for her -- another aspect of his considerable charm. Of course, it wasn’t every would-be assassin who got that level of service from him.
“Ok, I get that you need to do what you need to do,” she said as they crossed the lobby to the elevators. “Can you just do it without me in his eye-line? Tie me up or -- “
“Hey, now that sounds intriguing.”
She actually had the self-righteousness to stare at him indignantly. “You are engaged. To -- “ Her mouth snapped shut as the elevator door opened.
“Oh, Lois won’t mind if I leave you there for the cops to find.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” she muttered. “It would be … an incredible favor,” she continued, “a … boon, if you could let me stay out of sight while this happens. Preferably in the armory.”
He laughed. “I’m gonna ignore the fact that you seem to know all about the layout of this place for the moment and just say: Hell. No.”
“It’s the only space you have in there that is completely lined with lead, and I have something I need to do after this is done. I can’t do it if he knows where I am. Anywhere else and there’s a chance he’ll hear me.” The elevator doors opened. She turned to him, clutching his shoulders. “Please.” She smelled like something familiar, an old memory, lilacs washed in the rain or maybe it was sunshine on the sand. Whatever it was, it had happened too long ago for him to remember.
“Ok. This is how it’s gonna work. Hands behind your back. I’m gonna cuff you, I’m gonna gag you. I’m gonna take you upstairs. You keep saying you don’t want him to know you’re there, and I can guarantee you won’t want me to know, either. So don’t try attract any attention and it’ll all be rainbows and butterflies. Capiche?”
She nodded, and tucked the hands into the small of her back.
--------------------------------------------------
As soon as the silver light erupted from the box he hit the power button on his remote. He had no idea how long it would take to make the transition and he definitely did not want to be caught off-guard when his reality’s version returned.
The light apexed before him and the lead slats whorled behind him, and by the time the tense form of Clark Luthor emerged, it was just in time to collapse, nauseous, onto the concrete ground. It was also just in time to receive a green meteor-tipped dart to his calf and one to his upper back. Luthor roared, and Oliver swung his head up to see the blonde woman, un-bound but still gagged, re-loading the bow.
So much for not being seen or heard.
He bent to stand, fairly sure he had only soft-tissue bruises, then jumped as he heard her yell: “Caugh!” Looking up he saw another cross-bow sail over the railing toward him and land with a clatter on the floor.
“You were supposed to catch it!” she yelled.
Luthor was pulling the dart out of his back so he dove for it instead. Thank God she’d thrown him one with armed with the meteor-laced tranq darts; he shot as soon as it was in his hands and Luthor fell again. He heard her begin to clatter down the steps.
“Get back up there!”
“We’ve only got a few minutes; once that stuff gets into his system, he’ll die and once he dies his body will neutralize it.”
“Yeah, so in the meantime I tie him up and grab my gun from over there.”
“No, in the meantime, we finish what this world’s Lex started.” She held up a small brick of what looked like gold bullion, stamped with an “L” instead of the weight.
“What is that?”
“Super-heated blue meteor rock.”
“It looks gold.”
“Don’t ask me to make sense of it; I nearly flunked geology,” she said, kneeling at Luthor’s side. She took his hand and wrapped it around the mineral. Almost immediately he heard the hiss and smell of burning flesh. He looked up from her hands, gripped tightly around his, to her wide-eyed face. Whether it was him or what she was doing to him, he didn’t know, but something was frightening her.
“How do I know this will work?” he asked.
“You don’t. You have to trust me.”
“And I’m gonna do that because you helped me get rid of the good one so the bad one could come back to our universe or dimension or whatever?”
“So the bad one couldn’t do anything to my universe. At least, not anything that can’t be fixed.”
She opened her hands and unwrapped Luthor’s. The brick fell from it, taking several chunks of bloody skin with it.
“Scratch him,” she said. “See what happens.”
Taking the arrow-head out of his pocket, he ran the point down the back of Luthor’s other hand. A line of tiny red drop-lets followed in it’s wake.
“It worked,” he said.
“It’s not definitive. There’s still the Green K in his system -- “
“K? What’s that?”
She shook her head in impatience, more for herself, he thought, than for him, and said, “I’m going to call someone. She can be here in a few minutes, she’ll be able to help you get the rest of this sorted out.”
“No way - you’re not going anywhere until I get some answers.”
“I can’t give you any answers. At least, not any that would be helpful.” She pulled the brick from the floor and, grimacing, stowed it into her purse after fishing out her phone.
For some reason this made him feel just a little desperate. “You’re from that other universe, aren’t you. The one the other guy was from?”
She hesitated a moment, then nodded.
“So you and he, you’re not...”
She frowned at him in confusion, which was to the good, he decided. It’d been a pretty lame line of inquiry.
“What I mean,” he said quickly, “Is how come you know so much about this one? Me and the Watchtower and what would be in the armory? Is your universe a future version of this one?”
“No. Same time. Very different places.”
“But there’s one of each of us in both? Another me?”
She laughed. “Oh yes. But he has brown eyes.”
Seeing her laugh made him want to laugh. “Seriously? And … who are you in my world?”
Her face ducked a little. “I’m … not. In this world, I died as a little girl. We were going to visit my grandmother in Granville on the day the first meteor shower hit Smallville, and our car was hit.”
“Oh.” A light he didn’t know had turned on suddenly went out.
“Yeah. It seems to be the same for a lot of people. I should call Dinah,” she said. “And you should maybe tie him up.”
He nodded. That made sense. He should tie him up. He should....
He hopped over Luthor’s hulking not-quite-corpse and caught her hands again.
“You should stay,” he said.
She gaped at him. “I can’t. I told you, I’ve got something I need to do.”
“Is it more important than fixing the mess this town is going to be? I hated Ultraman as much as the next person, but he served a purpose. Without him -- “
“They’ll have you.”
“I can’t do it by myself. Believe me, I’ve been trying.”
She smiled, a little too brightly, and said, “You won’t be. Dinah’s coming. I just texted her.” She held up her phone like a prize.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You’ll like Dinah. You do in my world. And there will be others. She has all my files. I put together dossiers on certain persons I thought you would find of interest. I’ve been following your efforts for awhile.”
“Well, that’s not creepy at all,” he tried to joke. Behind him, he heard a groan.
“Sounds like you’ve got to take care of the thug formerly known as Ultraman.”
He turned back, saw Luthor trying to lift his head.
“Yeah, I guess I do.” He stepped back over the body and fished around until he found his gun under the staircase. Behind him, the groans escalated. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re in pain, we heard it the first time.”
He turned to see her staring at him, her eyes green and regretful. “You should go,” he said. “Take care of your business. I’ve got this covered.”
“Dinah should be here any minute.”
“I look forward to meeting her.”
She nodded, and turned, and walked out the door. He patted his pocket for the arrow-head. It was still there.
Author: FlyingHigh / latetothpartyhp
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama / Adventure
Pairings: Chloe/Oliver, back-ground Lollie
Spoilers: for Luthor
Warnings: For language, since all these characters have potty-mouths when I write them. Also, this is un-beta'd.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, and I am receiving no money for this story.
Summary: Some scenes missing from Luthor, in which we learn where Chloe has gone, and what she has been doing.
Sequel may be read here: I Don't Mind A Little Trouble
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He grabbed the battered cardboard cup holder -- the one Lois teased him about; she’d bought him nearly a dozen, all of which he’d lost -- from his pocket and popped it open while stirring in the half-and-half.
From behind him a short figure leaned across the condiment station and, reaching for the sugar packets, bumped him just enough to tip the drink over and flood the counter.
“Shit,” he breathed.
“Sorry,” she answered, grabbing for napkins and patting everything in sight. Patting him. “I can get that cleaned,” she told him.
“Look, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” he answered. He took a step back, away from her octopus arms, and felt the weight in his pocket. He pulled it out: a folded cocktail napkin from the counter and inside, an arrow-head. He looked up. She was gone -- no, she was still leaving, skirting her way around a couple with stroller. He followed, stumbling over the stroller, murmuring apologies, bursting out the door, looking left, looking right, watching her vanish around the corner. He ran then, pushing his way past a kid in a red hoodie and another in a back-pack.
She was gone when he turned the corner but re-appeared when he caught sight of her in through a shop window. More strollers to stumble over in here; of course she would pick a place that specialized in monkey-faced bento boxes and BPA-free sippy cups. She was making her way quietly to the back, where the baby slings and alley door were located. He moved less quietly, catching her at the cloth diaper rack.
“What is this?” he hissed.
“Let go of me and do what it says.”
“It didn’t say anything -- “
“You don’t follow directions or play well with others in any universe, do you?” she muttered. “Get to the Watchtower. He’ll be there soon.”
“How do you -- “
“Just go! This is what you’ve been preparing for.” Her eyes were green and adamant and for a second he was too stunned to disbelieve her. Then reality re-aligned his head with his body.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s go.” He grabbed her upper arm and propelled her past the cribs and the train sets back into the street. Watchtower was two blocks from here; they could be there in five minutes.
“I can’t go with you.”
“You’ve got two perfectly fine legs, don’t you?”
“You don’t understand, he can’t see me when he gets there.”
“Because you double-crossed him, or because when he sees you then he’ll know your plan didn’t work?”
“Neither; let’s just say I’ve been out of his life now for awhile and I need to keep it that way.”
“That’s funny, I never thought of Ultraman as the obsessive-boyfriend type.”
“Comparatively speaking, no, he’s not, but why take chances?”
“Because if you’re working for the Luthors and I go down then you are definitely going down with me.”
“I’m not and you won’t; you have to trust me.”
“Yeah, let me know think about that and … nope. Not going to happen.”
“Please!” she cried. He stopped. They were at street entrance to the Watchtower and her yell had attracted numerous nervous glances both at them and the roof-tops. She pulled her arm loose of his grip and he grabbed her wrist instead.
“You realize it’s all the same to me if he gets me out here or if he gets me in there,” he said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she hissed. “You need to get inside, you need to be ready to activate the window. Please,” she repeated. This time her eyes were green and pleading. He didn’t think concern like that could be faked. He just wished he knew the cause.
“Only if you come with me.”
She sighed, her eyes closing for a moment. “Fine.” She opened her eyes. They were determined now. “You know you’re a jack-ass, right?”
He smiled. “It’s just another aspect of my considerable charm.” He slid his hand down to her small one and clasped it. “So, in we go.” He held the door for her -- another aspect of his considerable charm. Of course, it wasn’t every would-be assassin who got that level of service from him.
“Ok, I get that you need to do what you need to do,” she said as they crossed the lobby to the elevators. “Can you just do it without me in his eye-line? Tie me up or -- “
“Hey, now that sounds intriguing.”
She actually had the self-righteousness to stare at him indignantly. “You are engaged. To -- “ Her mouth snapped shut as the elevator door opened.
“Oh, Lois won’t mind if I leave you there for the cops to find.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” she muttered. “It would be … an incredible favor,” she continued, “a … boon, if you could let me stay out of sight while this happens. Preferably in the armory.”
He laughed. “I’m gonna ignore the fact that you seem to know all about the layout of this place for the moment and just say: Hell. No.”
“It’s the only space you have in there that is completely lined with lead, and I have something I need to do after this is done. I can’t do it if he knows where I am. Anywhere else and there’s a chance he’ll hear me.” The elevator doors opened. She turned to him, clutching his shoulders. “Please.” She smelled like something familiar, an old memory, lilacs washed in the rain or maybe it was sunshine on the sand. Whatever it was, it had happened too long ago for him to remember.
“Ok. This is how it’s gonna work. Hands behind your back. I’m gonna cuff you, I’m gonna gag you. I’m gonna take you upstairs. You keep saying you don’t want him to know you’re there, and I can guarantee you won’t want me to know, either. So don’t try attract any attention and it’ll all be rainbows and butterflies. Capiche?”
She nodded, and tucked the hands into the small of her back.
--------------------------------------------------
As soon as the silver light erupted from the box he hit the power button on his remote. He had no idea how long it would take to make the transition and he definitely did not want to be caught off-guard when his reality’s version returned.
The light apexed before him and the lead slats whorled behind him, and by the time the tense form of Clark Luthor emerged, it was just in time to collapse, nauseous, onto the concrete ground. It was also just in time to receive a green meteor-tipped dart to his calf and one to his upper back. Luthor roared, and Oliver swung his head up to see the blonde woman, un-bound but still gagged, re-loading the bow.
So much for not being seen or heard.
He bent to stand, fairly sure he had only soft-tissue bruises, then jumped as he heard her yell: “Caugh!” Looking up he saw another cross-bow sail over the railing toward him and land with a clatter on the floor.
“You were supposed to catch it!” she yelled.
Luthor was pulling the dart out of his back so he dove for it instead. Thank God she’d thrown him one with armed with the meteor-laced tranq darts; he shot as soon as it was in his hands and Luthor fell again. He heard her begin to clatter down the steps.
“Get back up there!”
“We’ve only got a few minutes; once that stuff gets into his system, he’ll die and once he dies his body will neutralize it.”
“Yeah, so in the meantime I tie him up and grab my gun from over there.”
“No, in the meantime, we finish what this world’s Lex started.” She held up a small brick of what looked like gold bullion, stamped with an “L” instead of the weight.
“What is that?”
“Super-heated blue meteor rock.”
“It looks gold.”
“Don’t ask me to make sense of it; I nearly flunked geology,” she said, kneeling at Luthor’s side. She took his hand and wrapped it around the mineral. Almost immediately he heard the hiss and smell of burning flesh. He looked up from her hands, gripped tightly around his, to her wide-eyed face. Whether it was him or what she was doing to him, he didn’t know, but something was frightening her.
“How do I know this will work?” he asked.
“You don’t. You have to trust me.”
“And I’m gonna do that because you helped me get rid of the good one so the bad one could come back to our universe or dimension or whatever?”
“So the bad one couldn’t do anything to my universe. At least, not anything that can’t be fixed.”
She opened her hands and unwrapped Luthor’s. The brick fell from it, taking several chunks of bloody skin with it.
“Scratch him,” she said. “See what happens.”
Taking the arrow-head out of his pocket, he ran the point down the back of Luthor’s other hand. A line of tiny red drop-lets followed in it’s wake.
“It worked,” he said.
“It’s not definitive. There’s still the Green K in his system -- “
“K? What’s that?”
She shook her head in impatience, more for herself, he thought, than for him, and said, “I’m going to call someone. She can be here in a few minutes, she’ll be able to help you get the rest of this sorted out.”
“No way - you’re not going anywhere until I get some answers.”
“I can’t give you any answers. At least, not any that would be helpful.” She pulled the brick from the floor and, grimacing, stowed it into her purse after fishing out her phone.
For some reason this made him feel just a little desperate. “You’re from that other universe, aren’t you. The one the other guy was from?”
She hesitated a moment, then nodded.
“So you and he, you’re not...”
She frowned at him in confusion, which was to the good, he decided. It’d been a pretty lame line of inquiry.
“What I mean,” he said quickly, “Is how come you know so much about this one? Me and the Watchtower and what would be in the armory? Is your universe a future version of this one?”
“No. Same time. Very different places.”
“But there’s one of each of us in both? Another me?”
She laughed. “Oh yes. But he has brown eyes.”
Seeing her laugh made him want to laugh. “Seriously? And … who are you in my world?”
Her face ducked a little. “I’m … not. In this world, I died as a little girl. We were going to visit my grandmother in Granville on the day the first meteor shower hit Smallville, and our car was hit.”
“Oh.” A light he didn’t know had turned on suddenly went out.
“Yeah. It seems to be the same for a lot of people. I should call Dinah,” she said. “And you should maybe tie him up.”
He nodded. That made sense. He should tie him up. He should....
He hopped over Luthor’s hulking not-quite-corpse and caught her hands again.
“You should stay,” he said.
She gaped at him. “I can’t. I told you, I’ve got something I need to do.”
“Is it more important than fixing the mess this town is going to be? I hated Ultraman as much as the next person, but he served a purpose. Without him -- “
“They’ll have you.”
“I can’t do it by myself. Believe me, I’ve been trying.”
She smiled, a little too brightly, and said, “You won’t be. Dinah’s coming. I just texted her.” She held up her phone like a prize.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You’ll like Dinah. You do in my world. And there will be others. She has all my files. I put together dossiers on certain persons I thought you would find of interest. I’ve been following your efforts for awhile.”
“Well, that’s not creepy at all,” he tried to joke. Behind him, he heard a groan.
“Sounds like you’ve got to take care of the thug formerly known as Ultraman.”
He turned back, saw Luthor trying to lift his head.
“Yeah, I guess I do.” He stepped back over the body and fished around until he found his gun under the staircase. Behind him, the groans escalated. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re in pain, we heard it the first time.”
He turned to see her staring at him, her eyes green and regretful. “You should go,” he said. “Take care of your business. I’ve got this covered.”
“Dinah should be here any minute.”
“I look forward to meeting her.”
She nodded, and turned, and walked out the door. He patted his pocket for the arrow-head. It was still there.