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babydee1
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peachmacaroons
Runner by go_clo
Title: Disintegration
Author: BabyDee1
Pairing: Chlollie
Rating: NC-17 (this chapter PG-13)
Warnings: Expanding scenes from 8.08 (Bloodline)
Timeline: Season 8 episodes, from Odyssey - Doomsday
Disclaimer: All characters belong to the CW & DC comics.
Summary: Chloe and Ollie’s relationship gets fractured through a series of miscommunications and interferences. Fourth Book in the Chlollie series, sequel to Slingshot, Trajectory and Misdirection.
Feedback: …in spades. :-)
Read previous chapter here.
Read story from the beginning here.
Chapter 25
She was jealous of Tess.
Oliver grinned as he let himself into the Isis Foundation later that evening, the frequency generator in his hand. A part of him was secretly pleased that she was upset that he had slept with his ex, but the more logical side of him reminded him that it changed nothing in the grand scheme of things. She was still marrying Jimmy Olsen in a matter of weeks, and he still had a string of dates with tall, leggy, dark-haired Slovakian supermodels lined up in his planner.
With a sigh, he walked into Isis to find Chloe clearing a space on one of the tables. She glanced up as he entered, and he held the device out to her.
“Oh, thank goodness,” she breathed as she took it out of his hands and set it down on the table.
So how exactly are you going to hack into this Alien Alcatraz, huh?” he asked sceptically as she pulled the big blue crystal out of her purse. “I don’t see any computers around here. Wouldn’t this work better in the command centre?”
She turned the crystal around in her hand for a few seconds, her eyes looking strangely blue from the reflected light therefrom.
“The frequency generator powers the crystal,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “It’ll allow me to hack the crystal’s database, which contains a hidden portal to the Phantom Zone.”
“You’re kidding, right?” he said, staring at her highly un-amused face. “How do you know all this?”
She shrugged and slotted the crystal into the frequency generator. “Just a hunch.”
“That’s some hunch,” he replied, frowning. “A hunch that even Clark couldn’t come up with, as I recall. What aren’t you telling me, Chloe?”
She took a deep breath. “Nothing, I…Oliver, this is the only way to get Clark back, and the longer we wait, the slimmer our chances are gonna get.”
“If this crystal is responsible for him going missing in the first place, then I really don’t think you should be messing with it,” he advised.
“Do I tell you how to shoot your arrows?” she asked irritably.
He grinned. “Is that a euphemism?”
She gave him a steely glare before focusing her attention once more on the alien devices before her.
“Just stand back,” she said, and held her hand over the blue stone.
Oliver shrugged as he idly regarded the crystal, and his eyes widened as it began to pulsate and glow.
“Uh…Chloe, what’s happening?” he asked, his eyes getting even larger as the metal rings bracketing the stone started spinning in tandem, very rapidly. He glanced up at her; her eyes were tightly shut and her teeth clenched as she channelled her energy towards the humming, whirling contraptions. She clenched her teeth tighter, and to his horror, he saw blood beginning to trickle down her nose.
“Chloe, you’re bleeding!” he exclaimed.
No reply. Sparks and flashes of light swirled out of the crystal, and a stiff breeze whipped around their faces and practically bit into his cheeks. More blood dripped from her nose; her eyelids flipped open, and his blood ran cold as he saw that they were completely sightless. Her irises and pupils had disappeared, and her hand was shaking uncontrollably.
“Chloe, that’s enough,” he shouted sternly, and reached out to clasp her hand, intending to wrench her away from the machine.
The next thing he felt was a shove in the chest that sent him flying through the air into the next room. His head whacked against the filing cabinet, and he immediately lost consciousness, falling to the floor in a crumpled heap.
***
A hand was gently shaking his shoulder.
“Oliver?” he heard Chloe say as if from far away. “Ollie, wake up.”
There was a throbbing in his temple that worsened the closer he got to consciousness. Gingerly he opened his eyes, and the world slowly swam into focus. Chloe was kneeling over him with a concerned expression on her face, and a damp washcloth in her hand.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she wiped blood from a gash on his swelling temple. “I just wanted to stop you from breaking the connection, I had no idea—”
“Did it work?” he asked abruptly.
She nodded. “Clark’s back, alive and well.”
“Good job.”
“Thank you.” She rinsed the washcloth in a bowl of water and was returning it to his brow when he popped the question.
“What’s happening to you, Chloe?” he asked quietly, stilling her hand by placing his over it.
She gulped and averted her eyes, but he wasn’t going to take silence for an answer.
“You’re not Kryptonian,” he continued softly. “You shouldn’t be able to open alien portals and activate their crystals with your bare hands, not unless something’s horribly wrong with you.”
A tear slid down her cheek, and she slowly shook her head.
“Chloe, talk to me,” he said as he squeezed her hand gently. “Please.”
“It’s hard to explain,” she sniffed. “But Clark knows about it, and he’s working on how to fix it.”
Oliver frowned. That sounded familiar…
“Does it have anything to do with what happened to Victor?” he asked.
She nodded. “Victor was trying to help me, but I ended up infecting him,” she replied miserably. “I guess it worked differently in him because he’s part-machine.”
Oliver clenched his jaw and frowned. Once again, Clark’s business was messing up the lives of people he cared about. If Chloe wasn’t going to give him a kick up his Kryptonian ass, then he damn well was going to.
“I should get back,” she said, rising to her feet. “Jimmy will be wondering where I am.”
“Does he know about any of this?”
“No. And I’d like to keep it that way.”
Oliver shook his head. “You’ve got your head in the clouds if you think you can marry that man and continue to run with the hero crowd, Chloe,” he said thickly. “Either you trust him with the truth, or you walk away.”
“The secrets are not mine to tell,” she said, her eyes tearing up again. “And I can’t walk away from him now; we’re just weeks away from our wedding. Speaking of which, I…um…” She swallowed. “I have an invitation for you if you wanted to come…?”
Oliver snorted. “And watch you leg-shackle yourself to the wrong man?” He tut-tutted and shook his head. “No thanks. Consider this my RSVP.”
He got to his feet and walked towards the door.
“Oliver!” she called. He stopped and turned to give her one last look.
“I really am sorry…for everything,” she said brokenly.
“Me too,” he replied curtly. “All the best with your wedding.”
And with that, he walked out of the office and down the stairs, only wiping his tears when he got to the safety of his car.
He composed himself and fired up the engine. It was time he paid Clark a long overdue visit.
***
Clark wasn’t there when he arrived, but in typical fashion the front door was wide open. He made himself comfortable in the living room and thumbed idly through an old photo album that he found on the mantelpiece.
His eyes narrowed as he scanned the images that traversed a number of years. All of Clark’s closest friends began disappearing one by one over the course of what looked like a decade; a short, African-American in a Crows football uniform was the first to fade, followed by Lana who, having discovered Clark’s secret a little over a year ago, had skipped town rather abruptly a few months back after a Brainiac-related illness.
Brainiac…
The timing of Lana’s disappearance coincided with Chloe’s capture. He remembered now that Clark had mentioned something about Chloe being infected with something; he had been half-drunk at the time, so he hadn’t paid much attention. But now that he thought about it, it all made sense. Brainiac was responsible for Chloe’s condition.
Was it her healing ability that was protecting her from the damage that had been done to Victor? And if so, how long would it be before she would fall to whatever fate it was that Lana suffered before she disappeared?
He was still mulling these facts over when the door opened and a dusty-looking Clark entered. He took his jacket off and mumbled to himself as he hung it up, completely unaware of his visitor until he stepped into the den and saw Oliver sitting in the corner.
Oliver smiled broadly and gave him a merry little wave. “Hallmark didn’t have any Welcome Back to Earth! Cards, so I thought I’d offer my greetings in person,” he said brightly.
“Oliver,” Clark greeted stiffly. “Good to see that everyone has a key to this place.”
“Actually, we don’t, but that’s a discussion for another day,” Oliver replied as he got to his feet. He gave him a quick heat-to-toe glance. “How are you feeling?”
“Very lucky,” Clark replied. “I spoke to Chloe; she said if it wasn’t for you, I probably wouldn’t be here right now. Thanks.”
Oliver regarded him with a raised brow. “Actually, if it wasn’t for Chloe personally hacking into a supercomputer, you wouldn’t be here right now,” he said dryly. “Her eyes went white, and she…with one hand, mind you…pushed me into the other room.” He got to his feet and stared at the other man with a challenging stare. “What happened to her?”
Clark swallowed. “Brainiac, he infected her somehow.”
Oliver’s heart filled with dread. He and Chloe weren’t the closest of friends right now, but he still cared a great deal about her, and seeing her eyes go lifeless as the blood drained out of her nose had shaken him to the core.
Now the worst had been confirmed. He’d always been wary of Clark’s alien nature and tended to steer clear of the finer points of the other man’s heritage, but even he knew that anything to do with Brainiac was the worst of the worst.
“What are you doing about this?” he demanded.
Clark shrugged. “Everything I can. I’ve tried to talk to her, but I can’t control her life,” he replied lamely.
“Her life?” Oliver echoed. “It’s not her life anymore, Clark – she’s living yours. Chloe’s knee-deep in these situations that – pardon the expression – that humans just don’t understand.”
Clark flinched, but stood his ground. “Chloe understands me better than anyone,” Clark shot back.
“And maybe that’s the problem here.” Oliver pointed to Clark’s photo album. “There’s a recurring pattern amongst your friends, Clark; first they discover your secret, then they skip town,” he said tightly. “Chloe’s the only one left who’s stood by you through thick and thin, and if I thought for one moment that you really appreciated everything she did for you, I wouldn’t be saying all this. But you’re ignoring a very volatile situation here which, if unchecked, has the potential to escalate into a very real ticking time bomb.”
“You think I’m happy about this?” Clark argued, his voice rising. “I’ve tried and tried, but she won’t let me help her!”
“You can start by rebuilding your ice castle,” Oliver replied smartly. “I recall you saying something about doing that last month, correct?”
Clark shuffled restlessly. “I’ve been meaning to, I just…haven’t had the time.”
“You have superspeed. You don’t even need to make time.” He lowered his voice to a dangerous whisper and stared Clark down.
“I’m putting this all on you, Clark,” he said lowly. “If you really value Chloe’s friendship, and her life, then fix this. Before she either hurts herself, or someone else.”
***
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Date: 2012-12-17 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-18 12:22 am (UTC)