babydee1 | Chlollie Fanfic: Misdirection, Chapter 10

New chapter in the house, people!

I'm almost done with this story, and will start researching for Book 4 soon.

Enjoy!

Banner by the lovely

kc_2009 . Thanks for letting me use your work Claudia!

Title: Misdirection

Author: BabyDee
Pairing: Chlollie

Rating: R (this chapter PG13)

Warnings: None

Timeline: Season 7 (Siren) with references to Season 6’s Justice

Disclaimer: All characters belong to the CW & DC comics.

Summary: Sparks begin to fly between our high-achieving couple. Sequel to Trajectory.

Feedback: …floats ma boat. :-)

Read previous chapter here.

Read story from the beginning here.

Chapter 10

“Lois!” Chloe exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“Hey, cuz!” Lois said airily. “Oh, I’m just sitting here in the middle of broken glass, tied to a chair, that sort of thing. What are you doing here?”

“I, uh…came to look for you,” she lied smoothly.

“What happened here?” Clark asked, stepping over shards of broken glass to untie Lois’s bonds.

“This crazy bitch attacked us,” she replied, rubbing her wrists as soon as her arms were free. “Don’t ask me how she did all this, because I was eating carpet when everything went down.”

Chloe crouched down and untied the ropes at Lois’s ankles, her eyes narrowing as she spotted Oliver’s cell not far from Lois’s feet. Stealthily she snagged it and glanced at the screen, noticing that he had a number of missed calls, and guessed the attack had happened before he’d had a chance to check her message. Carefully she slipped the phone into her purse and stood.

“Why would some woman attack you and Oliver?” she asked evenly, although she already suspected who the woman might be and why.

“One of Oliver’s blonde, bunny-boiling cast-offs, I’d imagine, with extremely questionable fashion sense, to boot,” she mumbled. Suddenly she gasped and her eyes widened, and she grabbed both Chloe and Clark by the shoulders and spun them round.

“Look!” she said brightly. “The view - isn’t it spectacular?”

Chloe blinked and glanced at Clark, who also looked puzzled. “The view?” they both echoed.

“Yeah, I never really noticed it with, uh…all the, uh…glass in the way,” she stammered.

Once again she and Clark exchanged a look, and then glanced back towards the exposed weapons room.

“I know, can you believe this guy?” Lois babbled, gesturing towards the artillery. “A hydraulic walk-in closet! I bet he has more fun in there than he does the rest of the place…”

Chloe blushed wildly. Lois wasn’t too far off the mark, considering the shenanigans she and Oliver had gotten up to in there the previous night.

Fortunately for her, neither Clark nor Lois noticed her discomfiture, and since all the bulbs were shattered, it was too dark in the room for them to see her red face.

“Well, you’re definitely not gonna find this lot in a Sharper Image catalogue,” Lois chatted on, waving at the hi-tech bows and arrows. “Must be laundry day. I mean, who picks archery as a hobby? That’s embarrassing; I’d keep my quiver in the closet, too...”

Lois’s lame-brained attempt to protect Oliver’s identity as the Green Arrow would be hilarious if it wasn’t so endearing.

“Lois – where’s Oliver?” Clark asked.

Lois swallowed hard and looked worried. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice shaking. “That crazy woman knocked me out, and when I came to, they were both gone.”

“I’ll see what I can do to find him,” Clark promised. “You two wait here in case he comes back.”

Lois nodded. “Okay. Oh, and Smallville?”

He turned to face her.

“No police,” she said, her eyes pleading. “Ollie wouldn’t like the cops or the media knowing his business.”

Chloe’s heart plummeted like a lump of granite. If she’d needed proof that Lois still had feelings for Oliver, she’d just gotten it. That she could automatically go into protect mode on discovering Ollie’s secret despite the fact that he hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her in the first place…

She swallowed glumly. Lois might as well be wearing a flashing neon sign saying I LOVE THIS MAN.

“I’ll be discreet,” Clark promised as he stepped back into the elevator grate and pushed the down button. “I’ll let you know if I find him.”

***

“Where do we begin?” Chloe said, looking around at the sheets upon sheets of glass surrounding them.

“How about I start by thanking you for coming after me?” Lois said, stepping over the debris to give her a warm hug. “You knew I was going to come over here, didn’t you?”

Guilt tightened painfully in her chest, and she hugged her cousin back. “Yeah, I, er…had a feeling everything I said to you earlier went in through one ear and out the other.”

“You know me too well,” Lois joked, releasing her and picking her way towards the kitchen as Chloe followed. “I just couldn’t help myself, Chlo. As soon as I heard Ollie was in town, I just had to see him, see if the connection between us was still alive and kicking.”

“And how did it go?” Chloe asked lightly as she pulled on some kitchen gloves, her tone belying her inner turmoil.

“Until the screaming banshee showed up, it was all going perfectly,” Lois grumbled and sighed as she picked up a dustpan and broom. “He knows me so well, Chloe, he knew I’d be turning up here. He’d cooked a romantic dinner and was waiting here for me – shirtless, no less. And when he kissed me -”

“He kissed you?” she interrupted, a hard edge creeping into her voice.

Lois grinned. “Oh, yeah. And it would have gone a lot further if we hadn’t gotten interrupted.”

Chloe took a deep breath, and spoke. “Lois there’s something I need to tell you…” she began carefully.

Lois swept up some large fragments of glass and replied casually. “Sure. Shoot.”

“Um…It’s about Oliver and me,” she said hesitantly.

On hearing that, Lois’s hands slowed on the broom and her eyes narrowed. “Yeah?”

“The thing is…” she began. “We’re kind of, um…”

“Kind of what?” Lois urged, her voice deceptively steady.

“We’re…kind of working together,” she lied, completely changing her tune. “Yeah, he, er…let me use some of his satellite images for my article on Dark Thursday, and in return I occasionally feed him titbits of Lex’s activities at the Planet.”

Lois sagged visibly and placed a hand on her chest. “Oh, what a relief!” she breathed. “You scared me there, for a sec, cuz. I thought you were gonna say you two were sleeping together, or something!”

“Of course not!” she said, feeling like she was twisting a knife in her own gut.

“It makes sense, though,” Lois said, looking thoughtful. “Ollie and Lex go back a long way, and there’s definitely a lot of bad blood between them. And since Ollie’s the Gree…the philanthropic type, he probably likes doing his bit to keep things on an even keel.”

Lois’s flub didn’t go unnoticed by her. “I know he’s the Green Arrow, Lois,” she said quietly.

Lois sighed and slumped again. “I guessed you did, when you didn’t flinch at the sight of the weapons in the armoury.” She looked up at her younger cousin with a bleak expression. “You’ve known for a while now, haven’t you?”

“Ever since you came to me with the ring that bore his family crest,” she admitted. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you -”

“You did the right thing, Chloe,” she interrupted. “He was right to trust you with the truth. You’re wonderful at keeping secrets, and it wasn’t your place to tell me about his secret identity; it was Oliver’s.”

She stopped talking, and her sweeping task was forgotten as she linked her fingers and rested her hands on the broomstick.

“Penny for them?” Chloe asked with a smile.

Lois sighed deeply. “He’s a great man, Chloe, with a great destiny,” she finally answered softly.

“And that doesn’t seem to make you very happy, for some reason,” Chloe said softly. “What’s the problem, Lo?”

“Great men with great destinies and I…” she shook her head sadly. “We don’t go well together.”

“Lois, I’m sure you can keep his secret if you try hard enough,” she argued, but Lois shook her head.

“It’s more complicated than that,” she said quietly, and realisation dawned.

“Lois, Oliver isn’t The General,” she said, well aware of her cousin’s daddy issues.

Lois sighed. “You don’t understand, Chloe. This isn’t about Oliver. He’s gorgeous, and perfect, and I…I love him,” she said, sounding heartbroken. “There, I said it. But I’m the problem here; I can’t ignore all my emotional baggage. I never forgave The General for putting his work before his family, and I can’t ask Ollie to change who he his just for me.”

“Lois, I…I don’t know what to say,” she finally said, feeling hollow.

Lois gave her a sad smile. “You don’t have to say anything, cuz. Just…come give me a hug.”

She held out her arms, and Chloe walked into them and embraced her, feeling distinctly like Judas about to betray Christ with a kiss. “You’re gonna be okay, Lois,” she said brokenly.

“Thanks for being here, Chloe,” she mumbled, sniffling. “I’m so glad I can talk to you.”

Chloe felt as though a dull, rusty knife was being twisted in her gut. Squeezing her eyes shut against her own tears, she held her cousin close, offering her comfort even as her own world came crashing down.

***

Chapter 11…