Action Time (Epilogue)

Epilogue

Chloe breathed deep as Watchtower's elevator ascended, smoothing damp palms on the long skirt of her dress... or Lois' dress. Oliver had texted her to meet him here, to dress up. The problem was that her old clothes were in a storage locker that wasn't open past six. And what she'd brought with her on this mission hadn't included anything remotely like a dress. Hell, the clothes she still had back in Gotham were, none of them, romotely like a dress. 

She hadn't been back to Gotham since she found it unavoidable to take up with Flagg and the Squad. Hence, she had Lois' dress, which Lois had done her best with, belting it before adding jewelry and doing her makeup, declaring she looked boho chic. But she felt like a kid dressing up and playing pretend. Not just because of the dress, which probably looked sexy as hell on Lois, but was baggy in all the wrong places on Chloe, but she wasn't sure whether she was just playing pretend now. She wasn't sure if she was truly present.

And that wasn't some leftover sense of unreality from her multiple leaps into a bad Matrix sequel. She wasn't sure if she was here, really here, or if this was some stolen leap into some other life, quickly over. That was just how she felt right now. And she let herself feel it. That was something she'd learned in her time away. She learned to shoot with dead accuracy, to fight with strength and stamina. But, more importantly, she learned to feel, to let herself feel things that weren't always clear or acceptable, to stop worrying about burying those feelings to make it easier to put on the face others expected. So many events and people had been a part of that. 

She'd found someone even more concerned than she about masking her feelings in getting to know Rachel, but with a selflessness and self-possession that made her feel like the younger party. She found someone who rivaled her in paranoia and obsessive work ethic in Bruce, but with a determination and single-mindedness in his work that made her feel like a distracted dabbler. She found someone as uber-focused with being rational and always stepping back to look at that greater good in Diana, but with a wisdom that seemed to span centuries. And there were others, always reflecting her strengths and failings back to her. Being part of that even wider world had shown her reflections of herself and she began to think, really think, of who she was. Not in the eyes of the people she'd known all her life. Not that girl who tried to be whatever it was anyone else needed. But who she was in this wider world with no history or identity to speak of, who she was underneath the many people she'd been.

Of course, answering that question had her exploring that history in her travels. It had her reconnecting with Lana, then Pete, though not the two together. She supposed that part of Nabu's visions was still down the line somehow. She'd tracked down her father and yelled and raged and cried in his arms. She'd spent the better part of a week in Oliver's home town, disguised in medical scrubs and cradling her mother's limp hand. 

And she wrote, pages and pages, filling two journals for every week once she got over that fear and she began to wonder what she'd been so afraid of. She supposed she hadn't stopped out of fear of Lex or even subsequent Luthor-like adversaries. It was that she worked so damned hard only for it to be taken away so easily. And that went into more than writing. That was her damned life. She was afraid to want things, to give voice to what she wanted, to go after it because... it could always be taken away.

And that fed into what she was afraid of now as the elevator opened on the intricate glass and wood doors she knew so well. Oliver was waiting behind them. And he was something she wanted. And desperately. And she was so afraid to walk through those doors and find she couldn't have him, one reason being that she still had no idea if she fit into that happy ever after she'd seen through Fate's helmet. But the other was she didn't know where she stood with him. 

Once out of that virtual world, they spoke, but it was the barest sentences, mostly consisting of words unsaid and feelings masked with the more pressing task at hand. She still got a read on some of his. And they were hot anger and barely-masked bitterness. Sure, they kissed. But she'd kissed him, really. And they barely got started before Flagg and Deadshot came in and followed her orders, causing Oliver to turn to her with betrayal in his eyes.

But he understood how it was now, didn't he? He wanted to see her, didn't he? Wanted to dress up? Couldn't that mean something... better?

She wasn't sure if it was longing or fear that was on top as she pushed open Watchtower's doors. So she let herself feel both as he turned to her, in a dark suit... and what looked like a dozen red roses.

She let out a breath as she thought back a year, to that Valentine's Day when he sent her three such bouquets and she'd deflected them and their significance, joked about all his gifts, chided him soon after for trying to give her a nicely wrapped spoon, to all the ways he reached to her and all the ways she pushed him away. Well, not anymore. She'd pushed him away. She'd put up walls. She'd run away. Enough.

"Oliver, they're beautiful," she said softly.

He shrugged just a little as he moved to her, his eyes mostly on the roses and off her, she noticed. "Yeah. I thought so. I think you might want to, uh," he held them to his face and gave a long sniff, "put these in water. I'm pretty sure they're real."

She smiled widely. Because she'd been waiting for a joke, even a horrible one. The clipped sentences and hurt looks of this night did nothing to tell her where she stood with him. But a silly joke... it spoke of hope. "I haven't been given flowers like this in a long time," she said, taking them and wondering if she'd find a vase here now, packed up and covered in plastic, but mostly wondering if he'd think of that last Valentines day, of all the potential in them then. And that was nothing to now. Maybe they didn't have to go over all the damage she'd done by leaving. Maybe they could...

"I just stopped looking for you."

Her smile dropped and she stilled, cradling the flowers.

"Figured that's what you wanted. Right?"

It wasn't right. Not really. She'd still been thinking about what was needed and, with that in mind, it would have been better if he'd just accepted that email and not even started to look for her. But what she wanted... she was only just starting to really consider that. She placed the bouquet down gently and slowly turned to him. "You have no idea how much it means that you trusted me," she said, trying to work herself up to more, to saying what she wanted, what she really wanted.

"You could have called me," he cut in before she could formulate another sentence. "You could have called me," he repeated. "You could have said...uh..." He shrugged and trailed off and she supposed the both of them were wondering what she might have said.

But she couldn't have said a thing, not even in code. "Yeah. I wanted to." She stepped toward him. "But the Fate helmet warned me to stay away."

He didn't move to her. "Did the helmet, um, say anything about how I'd be sitting alone, listening to old voicemails just to hear your voice? Anything like that or, uh... Or that I'd be scanning ery single stranger's face on the subway just... in hopes that I'd come across your smile..." He stared at her and she still felt the waves of bitterness, of loss, coming off him. "...never to find it," he finished. 

"No. It didn't tell me that." She took another step toward him, realizing she had to. Looking back, he'd done most of the work here. It was her turn. As for what she saw, she'd seen him, but not like that. She'd seen him alone or with Clark or Tess or Lois or any of the others. Just flashes. Sometimes he smiled and sometimes he glowered. She supposed the helmet wouldn't allow to see things that concerned her. But she's seen enough to know he was safe. "I figured that out on my own." 

She'd seen it in other ways, saw the news footage when Oliver unveiled himself, saw the barely leashed angerness in him and knew, just knew, that most of that was about her. She'd wanted to go to him then, but she'd stayed away because she felt that was what was needed of her. Right now, she didn't much care what was needed of her. She knew what she felt. She knew what she wanted. And she'd say it now. No more hiding. 

"Oliver, I didn't reach out to you because I didn't trust myself," she said, "l knew that if I looked into your eyes or felt your breath on my cheek there was no way I would have walked out that front door." She moved a little closer, taking another step to him, to what she wanted. "And there hasn't been a day that's gone by that I haven't dreamed about the time when I would walk through it again," she said breathlessly, hoping he'd give her some sign that he wanted the same.

He glanced everywhere but at her before his eyes finally landed on hers. "You stickin' around... for a while?"

She didn't want to hesitate, but she did, still tortured by the idea of that future she didn't see herself in. But she wouldn't, would she? The very nature of Nabu concealed the wearer from knowing their own fate. Who was to say she wasn't there? Couldn't she be? Somewhere that might have been unseen? 

And she'd come back now with no repercussions. She'd stepped in and saved them and there had been no bolt of lightening to strike her down. 

"Yeah," she said, making the decision then and there. Why shouldn't she have a shot at what she wanted?

She smiled hopefully as Oliver seemed to take that in... for too long. Maybe she'd pushed too hard this time, running away for half a year. Her smile dropped as he remained silent. Maybe he truly had moved on and all his talk about listening to her voicemails was just a process, something he used to finally push her out of his mind. Of course, there was an edge of anger in her as she'd replayed his press conference, no matter how she disagreed with his coming out, over and over. That hadn't brought her any nearer to forgetting him and all they'd been or might be. And was she seriously that easy to get over for him? That faithless...

"Good." He smiled, just that small half-quirk of his lips, but it might as well have been a thousand roses raining on her.

She smiled as he leaned in, met her lips, leaving no doubt. She kissed him back, pulling him down and diving into this. Her mind wandered back to the first time they kissed, to the idea that it had been the first kiss of her life that had her feeling definitively kissed. It was still that way, every time, as if to tell her that she had to hold onto this one. She did. And with both hands. 

She might not know what her future held now. But who the hell did?

He loved her. He still loved her. And she loved him.

And that made anything possible.


THE END


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