Day 243 [Action | Closed to Oliver Queen]
Chloe could barely wrap her head around the fact that Bart of all people was trapped in a prison. Everything he had told her, or not told her also didn’t make a whole lot of sense just yet. The fact that he seemed to be okay with her and willing to talk to her after everything she’d done alone was a lot for her to understand.
So she figured she’d try to clear her mind by going for a walk. A long walk. She had been through most of the sectors already and when she entered sector 5, she hadn’t really been expecting to run into a memorial garden of all things. But it felt right that she would end up there. Even as she looked around at the plaques, she couldn’t help but think about the people back home and wonder which of them might be gone because of her.
Bart hadn’t really given her too much information. From what he said, she could guess that Oliver was alive in the future where he was from but not much beyond that. She couldn’t stop herself from wondering about Clark, who she had been trying so hard to protect. Maybe it had all been for nothing and Davis had gone after him? Or maybe another kryptonian they hadn’t heard about…
And then there was Jimmy. Chloe sighed deeply and ran a hand over her face. Her stomach turned every time she considered the possibilities of what could have happened to him. Bart hadn’t been clear but the less information he gave her, the more she knew it was bad. Worse than bad. And whatever had happened to him had been once more her fault.
Oliver hadn’t ventured out except a couple of times to get something to eat, since he’d first arrived at Marina Nova. The part of his brain that was telling him that this whole situation was insane -- an underwater prison? Really? -- was drowned out by the part of his brain that was telling him of course he deserved to be in prison because he’d killed a man. Rubbing his hands over his face, he made his way out of his small apartment and found himself exploring the various sectors of the prison.
He made note of the horse stables, of the gym, of some of the various restaurants he hadn’t yet tried, and then found himself in a memorial garden. He noticed a petite blonde woman a few feet from him, faced away from him. His chest tightened painfully and he looked away. Even from behind, the woman reminded him of Chloe Sullivan. And she wasn’t someone he wanted to think about right then. Because if he did, then he’d start thinking about all the ways he’d failed her, failed all of them, and having Bart here was already hard enough. The younger man had obviously gotten past the knowledge that Oliver was a cold-blooded killer.
He started to turn and head away, back the same way he’d come when he stopped and looked at the woman again. Her face was still turned away, but he recognized her from her profile. She was Chloe. He simply stared, open-mouthed, not speaking.
She found herself being pulled from her own thoughts. Not by a noise or because of any kind of movement, but because she could feel eyes on her. There were a lot of inmates in the prison, even some who knew her aside from Bart, apparently, so she wasn’t surprised that someone else would show up there sooner or later. As she turned to take a look around, she had been half expecting to see one of the bots there, but when she saw a man instead - and recognized him almost instantly - she stilled.
Her first thought was that maybe she was seeing things. That since she had been thinking about everyone back home, she might just be imagining Oliver standing there. But the shock on his expression told her that he was definitely seeing her too. Which meant, she couldn’t just pretend she hadn’t noticed him and walk away like she wanted.
For a long moment, he simply stood completely still, staring at her even as she stared back at him, an equally shocked expression on her face. He didn’t even know what to say. If he should say anything at all. No, he had to say something.
“I had no idea you were here.”
Chloe hesitated then took a couple of steps toward him. “I didn’t know you were here, either.” She couldn’t help but wonder if he was from the future, too, like Bart. But he didn’t look any different than the last time she saw him, except for the cut on his cheek. “How long have you been here?” Even though she forced herself to ask the question, all she really wanted to do was walk away from him. If her stomach had been in knots before, it was turning now.
Oliver had been the last person to warn her to her face about Davis. He had been more than a little angry and disappointed at her the last time they spoke and while she knew he had every right to be, she didn’t think she could have that conversation again right now. Not until she knew exactly what had happened.
He studied her, taking note of the length of her hair, of how tired she looked. She looked just like she had the last time he’d seen her -- at her ex-husband’s funeral. “Just a couple of days,” he answered, looking down at the ground for a moment, and then back up. “You?” She couldn’t have been there for long, or Bart would have said something about her being there. At least, he thought the younger man would have let him in on that. Not let him find out like this, unprepared.
He didn’t know what he was supposed to say to her. What he was supposed to do. Oliver wasn’t even sure when she was from. Bart, after all, was from years in the future.
“A couple of days,” she echoed. Bart had been there for a while according to him, a month or so, if she remembered correctly. But if Oliver had also gotten there recently, could he be from around the same time as she was? Not that it made sense considering Bart was from the future, but thinking about this gave her something else to focus on. “Have you seen Bart yet?”
“Yeah.” And obviously she had too, since she was asking about him. He wanted to ask her what the last thing she remembered from home was, but he also wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. “So I guess we got here about the same time.”
“I guess we did.” While she had no intentions of sounding rude, she wasn’t sure what to say to him, not until she knew more about when he was from. He didn’t seem as angry or disgusted by her as he had at the Talon the other night, but Oliver had always had a good poker face, so that didn’t necessarily mean much. He could be trying to figure her out just as much as she was.
Her own expression was now a cool mask of neutrality and Oliver wasn’t sure what to make of it. “Are you doing okay?” It was the least he could ask. And maybe he could figure out more about what time she was from by whatever answer she gave. Though that was laughable. As well as they knew each other, he didn’t think he really knew her at all.
Chloe paused at that question as if she hadn’t been expecting it at all. Because she hadn’t. Was she doing okay? No. But that wasn’t the point. All she had been expecting from Oliver was some hint of the aggressive tone he used with her last, some resentment and anger. Not him asking her if she was okay. And the fact that she was caught unprepared was undoubtedly picked up by him, because she knew Oliver was observant. He had to be.
“Yeah. Getting used to this place.” She knew if she gave the simple ‘yeah’ answer that she wanted to, he would pick up on that, too. “You?”
“As much as I can get used to an underwater prison,” he said, a hint of wryness in his tone. He shrugged with one shoulder, drawing in a deep a breath. “Not exactly normal circumstances, even for us.” He paused, studying her, trying to read her reaction. He wasn’t the only one who was observant and had a good poker face. If he hadn’t known better, he’d think she’d been taking lessons. “They’re keeping kids here, too.”
Considering she’d spent the best part of the last few weeks lying to everyone she knew, she had picked up a few things. Clark had been particularly hard since not only did he know her very well, he could also hear her heartbeat. Lucky for her, he hadn’t been very observant. She was glad Oliver gave her the opportunity to focus on something else, though, so she did. “As young as fourteen from what I saw.” As far as she knew, Zatanna had been the youngest, but she didn’t know if Oliver had met this or even the grown up version of the magician back in their world.
“Yeah.” That was as young as he knew about, too. And as much as older Zatanna had made him wary and uncomfortable, the one that was here was just a kid and he couldn’t fathom she’d done anything severe enough to warrant a prison sentence. It was insane. And though he wasn’t really in the mood to try and play hero anymore, everything in him was screaming about the fact that the bots or whoever was messing up kids’ lives.
It wasn’t hard to tell that Oliver wanted to do something about it, but considering everything Chloe had found out about the prison in the past couple of days, she was pretty sure it would be impossible for anyone to break out of it without exploding under the water pressure. Even Bart. No matter how much she wished he could be out of there and living his life like he should. “Is there anyone else here that we know?” she asked carefully. She knew that Artemis girl seemed to know Oliver, or a version of him. But she had no idea how many people he had met so far.
“Not that I know of.” He pursed his lips, shrugging. He was pretty sure that if anyone else they knew had been there, they’d have made contact by now. Unless they didn’t want to be in contact, which wouldn’t be entirely surprising either. Granted, Bart was from pretty far in the future, but that didn’t mean anyone else there would be the same. His gut was telling him that he and Chloe weren’t far apart time-wise.
“Good.” At least she belonged there and honestly, so did Oliver. But even though he had done more than enough to belong there, she didn’t want him to be stuck anymore than she wanted Bart. Even if Davis had been taken care of, there was always something he could do to help, always someone he could save.
At least they were in agreement on something. The only thing in recent days from his time, anyway. He looked away for a moment, then back at her. “Yeah, well. If you need something while we’re trapped here, let me know.” He couldn’t just cut her loose to fend for herself. Not in a place like this. Even though part of him was still angry with her, the other part of him felt terrible and guilty. It wasn’t hard to figure out which part was going to win.
To say she was surprised by the offer was an understatement. With a slight frown, she nodded. “You too.” Maybe he wasn’t from her time, after all. Of course, Oliver knew exactly how to say the right things when he had to, but he had never really bothered doing that with her. Which was fine, she just didn’t understand why he would start now. She knew she should just ask him when he came from and get this ridiculous guessing game over with, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Mostly because she was afraid of what the answer would be.
Unless something catastrophic happened, he doubted either one of them would be calling on the other for help anytime soon. Or ever again, really. She had every reason to hate him, to want to stay away from him. He didn’t blame her for that. “I should be getting back,” he told her, meeting her eyes briefly. “I was just trying to figure out where everything was around this place. It’s huge.”
“It is,” Chloe agreed, looking away from him and around the memorial area. Her stomach clenched when her eyes fell on the plaques once more. She really should ask him how the others were. Especially considering the cut on his face, something must have happened. Oliver rarely got close enough to whoever he was fighting for them to hurt him.
“I have to admit, this isn’t at all how I pictured prison,” he said.
With a deep breath, she turned to look at him again. “Me neither. But I guess if they are going to keep innocent people here, this is a good thing.” She was surprised he was still talking to her at all and while part of her wanted to work with him to get Bart, Zatanna and some of the other younger ones home, she really rather not get involved. Especially not when Oliver seemed to want to do something about it already.
Oliver nodded his agreement, watching her for a few seconds longer before dropping his gaze to the ground. “Remember what I said,” he murmured before turning to go.
Chloe watched him go for a moment then sighed deeply and shook her head. “Oliver,” she called. If she didn’t at least ask him that now, she would have to find him again later and he obviously wanted to avoid that as much as she did.
He stilled, closing his eyes but not turning around this time. “Yeah?”
When he didn’t turn toward her, she relaxed slightly. That would make asking the question easier. “When you are from, are things okay?” It wasn’t exactly what she wanted to ask, but for now, it should be enough.
For a moment, he contemplated lying to her. To letting her believe that everything was fine when he was from. But he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. “No,” he said after a long moment. “No, they’re not.”
As much as she’d been trying to prepare herself for that answer, she’d been hoping to get a different one. Especially because now she had to ask him more about it. Worse than that, she had to put him through talking about whatever was happening. Chloe hesitated and took a step forward. “What is happening?”
He rubbed a hand over his face, sighing. “It doesn’t matter.” Especially if she didn’t know about it. There wasn’t anything she could do to change the way things happened back home.
Chloe hesitated for a second then shook her head. “I guess it doesn’t.” She knew she felt completely helpless as far as the Davis situation went and at least Bart could give her answers about that eventually. She didn’t need to get them from Oliver.
“It’s complicated,” he said quietly, turning to look at her. “I don’t even understand all of it myself.” And he’d been laying awake the last two nights thinking about all of it. Every moment. Every single thing he’d said and done that he could have said or done differently. If it would have even made any difference or if the outcome still would’ve been the same. “But it -- what happened there -- there’s nothing we can do to change it so all we can do is try to forget it.”
“You don’t have to justify anything, Oliver.” And he probably wouldn’t be if he knew everything she had done. He clearly felt guilty about something, but no matter what it was, even if he had just killed Lex, it couldn’t be as bad as her unleashing a monster with serial killer instincts all over Metropolis because she was trying to save the life of one man. Not even trying to protect Clark justified that. “I know that there is nothing we can do from here.”
Nodding, Oliver searched her eyes. “So uh, I don’t know how much you know about this place, but I’ve been hearing some things and -- you should probably be extra careful around here.”
She looked away from him as quickly as she could manage and kept her eyes down. “If you mean about sector 6, I heard it too.”
“That and the whole vampire thing.”
That made her look at him once again. “Vampires?”
“That’s what I’m hearing on the network, yeah.” He shrugged. “I haven’t actually seen one I don’t think but...figured you could use a head’s up.”
Chloe nodded slowly, still staring at him. “I’ll keep an eye out. Are they dangerous?” she asked.
“I don’t know. But I assume so,” he said quietly. “Maybe one of us should talk to Bart about them.”
Chloe nodded her agreement. “You can, you seem to know more about them.” That and she guessed Bart would be more comfortable talking to him.
“All right,” he agreed. Although truthfully he knew very little about them. But he’d learn what he could, if for no other reason but to help keep people safe.
“Thanks for the warning,” she said sincerely. Not that she was particularly worried about herself but if nothing else, she could make sure all those younger kids that were in there stayed out of harm’s way.
“You’re welcome.” He managed a small smile, even though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
“You too.” Although the words were sincere, Chloe didn’t really bother with a smile. It was good to know that both Oliver and Bart were safe but all she got from her conversations with the two of them was that at least some of the others weren’t. Jimmy among them. And while Oliver was right about them not being able to do anything, there was just no way she could just forget it and move on from whatever was happening.