Bringing Her Home 1/?
Title: Bringing Her Home
Summary: Chloe runs to protect her own heart and Oliver chases her to protect his.
Rating: NC-17
“Chloe.”
Spinning around to a voice was a natural reaction. She hadn’t even had time to register that it was Oliver until she was facing him. He was so close that she had to wonder how he had gotten so close without her hearing him. Just as she opened her mouth to ask him what the hell he was doing in her hotel room when she had spoken to him only six hours ago and he was in Star City she closed it. The look on his face is what stopped her. He was angry. She had been pretty sure he would be upset with her. People don’t just pick up and leave on other people. It wasn’t right. But it had been self preservation, really.
It took her a few moments to build up the courage to speak to him. His glaring slanted eyes and firm jaw conveyed exactly how he felt. She knew why he was here. He flew all the way out here as soon as she called him and said she was leaving. Why in the world he would do that she had no clue. She was only a phone call away. But whatever it was obviously he wanted to do it in person. “What are you doing here?”
“I’d come with the intention of making you come back.” She cocked an eyebrow at him and he knew she was wondering how he had planned on doing that. After speaking with Lois he understood now why Chloe left but it didn’t stop his anger.
“So that is no longer your intention?” She had noted that he hadn’t said that he was going to ask her to come back; he was going to make her.
He decided not to answer that question since he wasn’t quite if he had given up on that yet. “Lois says that I take you for granted and you need more than what Star City has to offer you.”
The fact that Lois had spoken to him was a shock. It didn’t seem from what he said that Lois had told him everything but it was enough. Chloe hadn’t said Oliver took her for granted, that was Lois’ assumption after Chloe told her the real story behind her leaving. It was a silly when she said it out loud. Oliver Queen had a date, his first date in months. Or at least the first one she knew of. Chloe had become so accustomed to him being alone she didn’t worry about other woman. But when the realization came to her that he wasn’t alone she bolted. He wasn’t for her, and she hadn’t been able to take it, so she ran. Lois said she should have fought for him, Chloe thought it would have been a useless embarrassing battle. “I guess kind of. I mean I never said you take me for granted. Lois said that. But yea, I thought Star City would be the answer to my problems a year ago and I was wrong. It wasn’t any different then Smallville or Metropolis.”
“You didn’t even give it a chance. I mean….” Oliver shook his head angrily. “One year Chloe, you gave it one year.”
“It was enough.” She found the courage to turn away or else he would have seen the tears brimming in her eyes. She couldn’t let him know that she hadn’t really wanted to leave but she had to. Unfortunately, as she walked away she realized there was nothing she could do to ignore his presence. It wasn’t like she could start cooking or folding clothes. She was in a hotel room. Nothing there belonged to her. So instead she headed in the bedroom and tried to finish unpacking.
“Enough?” Oliver was close behind her. “Chloe what could I have done. You never said anything to me. I had no clue. If you would have told me something…..”
“You would have what?” Chloe stopped and spun on him, finally feeling her pain give way to anger. When he said nothing she frowned. “Right.” When she turned away again and continued on to the bedroom he still followed her. “I can still work for you from here but I need a life. I didn’t have one in Star City. I’d gone to Star City to do some good, but in the mean time I didn’t do anything for myself.” The problem was she had been fine with that. She had been okay having no life, until she realized he had found one.
“You can’t just leave Chloe. We need you.” He was grasping for words to say what he felt but he couldn’t find them.
“You never needed me. I was helpful but you all never needed me.”
Her back was still facing him as she idly refolded the folded clothes in her suitcase. She was avoiding him. “Okay fine, I need you there then.” The snort that he received wasn’t reassuring.
“Please, you don’t need me Oliver. You got by just fine before.”
He had gotten by fine before, but that was before he really got to know Chloe. Now that he knew her he did need her. “Things change.”
“Look,” Chloe put down the shirt she was folding and turned to him. “This is hard enough on me as it is. But I made this decision. Please, if you care about me at all, don’t make it any harder.”
If he didn’t make it harder he’d lose her forever. “You’ve spent your whole life doing what you were doing in Star City. It took you days to decide to leave for Star City. .So worried about Lois and if Clark would need you. But you decided in a minute to leave me.”
“I didn’t decide to leave you. I just wanted to come back home.”
“Why?! I mean why couldn’t your home just be in Star City.” His anger boiled over at her insistence.
“Because it wasn’t home! It was work! That’s all. There were no friends, no where to go. To you all I’m one of the guys, one of your co-workers. But that’s not me. I need friends to hang out with. I want to meet people maybe even someone special. I don’t want to be fighting crime the rest of my life Oliver! I want to have a job I love, be around people I care about, and maybe one day meet someone that will love me. You can’t give me any of that!” Perhaps she had revealed too much. He couldn’t know what caused her to leave though, at least she hoped.
“You didn’t even give me a chance to do anything.”
“What difference does it make?” She said softly and turned back to her suitcase. “I mean, when I left all my friends here for Star City it wasn’t to big of a deal. They’re my friends, they understood. You’re my friend, why can’t you just understand this?” The word friend formed a lump in her throat that made it almost impossible for her to speak it.
“Because I’m not your friend like Lois and Clark.” Her hands stilled and he knew her words sounded a little hurtful but that wasn’t where he was going with it. “I don’t want to just be your friend.”
Her hands tensed and she swore they started to shake. It sounded like what she thought but it couldn’t be. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” His words sounded so perfect that it made her eyes again fill with tears. If what he said hadn’t sounded so wonderful it wouldn’t have hurt so much, because she knew that couldn’t be what he meant. He had never given any inclination. “Or maybe I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Chloe.” She continued folding clothes and ignored him. “Chloe.” Still she ignored him, but he wasn’t going to let her keep running away from him. “Son of a bitch Chloe look at me!” Her hands stilled but she didn’t turn to him. Oliver was through with waiting for her. He grabbed her elbow and turned her around ready to yell at her for running away and leaving him with a hurt he hadn’t been prepared for. It was the tears running down her cheeks that stopped him. For the first time he began to wonder if part of the reason she left was him. Everything she had said led him to believe she didn’t even care, but now he wasn’t so sure. “I’m trying to tell you that I need you to come back to Star City. Not for the team but for me. Why won’t you believe me?”
“You, you never-.” She wiped the tears away angrily. She was more upset with herself than anything for allowing him to see her like that. “Nothing you ever did led me to believe that.”
“Every time I would come close to you, you would move away. Every time I touched you you’d freeze.” With reactions like those he hadn’t been about to put his heart on the line. The only reason he was doing it now was because it was his last chance.
“I was scared.” His hand finally dropped from arm and for a moment she missed the feel of it and feared it meant something more, but his face was no longer angry, only pained.
“You don’t have to stay here. Come back with me. I can give you everything you’re missing. Everyone on the team is your friend, and if you want more I have hundreds of them. I’ll introduce you till every single one, I’m sure you’ll find one you’ll like. If you want a new job fine, I’m sure I can find you one of those too. And if you want somebody to love you then come back with me.”
Love. Had he really said that he would love her? “No, you don’t-.”
“Love you? For months Chloe.” He took the piece of clothing she still clung in her hand and tossed it in her suitcase. “I can give you everything you want. But I need you to pack up your suitcase, go strait to the airport with me, and come back to Star City.” She looked away from him and her eyes began darting around the room and he could see the panic in her eyes. He wasn’t sure if she believed him or if perhaps she suddenly realized what it was he wanted from here. Oliver brought his hands up to her face, cradling her cheeks, and forced her to look at him. “I’m not leaving here without you.”
She was too scarred to even respond. His words sounded so wonderful that for a moment it seemed too good to be true. “I don’t know if-.”
“I’m not asking you to come back and just give it a try. I want you to come back and be there when I go to sleep and be there when I wake up. I want to have the right to know where you are twenty-four hours a day so that I don’t have to fear you’ve been kidnapped again. When I come home from a mission I want to know that you’re going to be there waiting for me.” Her eyes began to shine with unshed tears making him wonder if he’d been right in everything he told her or perhaps it had been too much. It was too late to take it back though so he dove further in. “And I want to be able to give you everything you want.” She blinked and he saw the tears began to travel down her cheeks. He had done it. Whether it had been over months or just one moment he had been the one that had made her leave. He didn’t know exactly why but she’d needed more and he hadn’t been there. “I’m sorry I didn’t do it right before. But I promise if you come back with me right now you’re never going to miss anything ever again.”
He was ridiculously charming, hot, and knew the right words to say that would melt her heart. “Okay.”
She’d said nearly nothing for the past few minutes but that one word almost left him breathless. Just to be sure he wanted to make her clarify her answer. “You’ll come home with me? Right now?” When she nodded he breathed easy. Without another thought he leaned down and pressed his lips against her. She was soft and warm and he wanted to stay there forever but he quickly pulled away.
He was there, like she always wanted him to be and then gone, leaving her bewildered. “What?”
“Later, I promise.” He released her and went to her bed and started throwing her neatly folded clothes in her bag. “But we’re leaving.”
“But I just go here. Lois and Clark…” She couldn’t even find it in her to lift a hand to help and just stood their in shock.
“Will understand. We’ll call them on out way.” Oliver snapped the bag shut and looked around at the other with a frown. “Come on.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the bedroom.
“My stuff!” Chloe yelled and looked back at her suitcases.
“We’ll have them send someone up to collect them and have them sent to the airport. In the mean time we’re leaving.”
“Wait!” He stopped and she took that moment to take a deep breath and looked around frantically. When she spotted her bag on the sofa her eyes lit up. “My purse.” His hand released hers and after collecting it she went back to the door. “Are you sure about the bags?”
“Yes.” With that he opened the door and pulled her out behind him, not looking back once.
Summary: Chloe runs to protect her own heart and Oliver chases her to protect his.
Rating: NC-17
“Chloe.”
Spinning around to a voice was a natural reaction. She hadn’t even had time to register that it was Oliver until she was facing him. He was so close that she had to wonder how he had gotten so close without her hearing him. Just as she opened her mouth to ask him what the hell he was doing in her hotel room when she had spoken to him only six hours ago and he was in Star City she closed it. The look on his face is what stopped her. He was angry. She had been pretty sure he would be upset with her. People don’t just pick up and leave on other people. It wasn’t right. But it had been self preservation, really.
It took her a few moments to build up the courage to speak to him. His glaring slanted eyes and firm jaw conveyed exactly how he felt. She knew why he was here. He flew all the way out here as soon as she called him and said she was leaving. Why in the world he would do that she had no clue. She was only a phone call away. But whatever it was obviously he wanted to do it in person. “What are you doing here?”
“I’d come with the intention of making you come back.” She cocked an eyebrow at him and he knew she was wondering how he had planned on doing that. After speaking with Lois he understood now why Chloe left but it didn’t stop his anger.
“So that is no longer your intention?” She had noted that he hadn’t said that he was going to ask her to come back; he was going to make her.
He decided not to answer that question since he wasn’t quite if he had given up on that yet. “Lois says that I take you for granted and you need more than what Star City has to offer you.”
The fact that Lois had spoken to him was a shock. It didn’t seem from what he said that Lois had told him everything but it was enough. Chloe hadn’t said Oliver took her for granted, that was Lois’ assumption after Chloe told her the real story behind her leaving. It was a silly when she said it out loud. Oliver Queen had a date, his first date in months. Or at least the first one she knew of. Chloe had become so accustomed to him being alone she didn’t worry about other woman. But when the realization came to her that he wasn’t alone she bolted. He wasn’t for her, and she hadn’t been able to take it, so she ran. Lois said she should have fought for him, Chloe thought it would have been a useless embarrassing battle. “I guess kind of. I mean I never said you take me for granted. Lois said that. But yea, I thought Star City would be the answer to my problems a year ago and I was wrong. It wasn’t any different then Smallville or Metropolis.”
“You didn’t even give it a chance. I mean….” Oliver shook his head angrily. “One year Chloe, you gave it one year.”
“It was enough.” She found the courage to turn away or else he would have seen the tears brimming in her eyes. She couldn’t let him know that she hadn’t really wanted to leave but she had to. Unfortunately, as she walked away she realized there was nothing she could do to ignore his presence. It wasn’t like she could start cooking or folding clothes. She was in a hotel room. Nothing there belonged to her. So instead she headed in the bedroom and tried to finish unpacking.
“Enough?” Oliver was close behind her. “Chloe what could I have done. You never said anything to me. I had no clue. If you would have told me something…..”
“You would have what?” Chloe stopped and spun on him, finally feeling her pain give way to anger. When he said nothing she frowned. “Right.” When she turned away again and continued on to the bedroom he still followed her. “I can still work for you from here but I need a life. I didn’t have one in Star City. I’d gone to Star City to do some good, but in the mean time I didn’t do anything for myself.” The problem was she had been fine with that. She had been okay having no life, until she realized he had found one.
“You can’t just leave Chloe. We need you.” He was grasping for words to say what he felt but he couldn’t find them.
“You never needed me. I was helpful but you all never needed me.”
Her back was still facing him as she idly refolded the folded clothes in her suitcase. She was avoiding him. “Okay fine, I need you there then.” The snort that he received wasn’t reassuring.
“Please, you don’t need me Oliver. You got by just fine before.”
He had gotten by fine before, but that was before he really got to know Chloe. Now that he knew her he did need her. “Things change.”
“Look,” Chloe put down the shirt she was folding and turned to him. “This is hard enough on me as it is. But I made this decision. Please, if you care about me at all, don’t make it any harder.”
If he didn’t make it harder he’d lose her forever. “You’ve spent your whole life doing what you were doing in Star City. It took you days to decide to leave for Star City. .So worried about Lois and if Clark would need you. But you decided in a minute to leave me.”
“I didn’t decide to leave you. I just wanted to come back home.”
“Why?! I mean why couldn’t your home just be in Star City.” His anger boiled over at her insistence.
“Because it wasn’t home! It was work! That’s all. There were no friends, no where to go. To you all I’m one of the guys, one of your co-workers. But that’s not me. I need friends to hang out with. I want to meet people maybe even someone special. I don’t want to be fighting crime the rest of my life Oliver! I want to have a job I love, be around people I care about, and maybe one day meet someone that will love me. You can’t give me any of that!” Perhaps she had revealed too much. He couldn’t know what caused her to leave though, at least she hoped.
“You didn’t even give me a chance to do anything.”
“What difference does it make?” She said softly and turned back to her suitcase. “I mean, when I left all my friends here for Star City it wasn’t to big of a deal. They’re my friends, they understood. You’re my friend, why can’t you just understand this?” The word friend formed a lump in her throat that made it almost impossible for her to speak it.
“Because I’m not your friend like Lois and Clark.” Her hands stilled and he knew her words sounded a little hurtful but that wasn’t where he was going with it. “I don’t want to just be your friend.”
Her hands tensed and she swore they started to shake. It sounded like what she thought but it couldn’t be. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” His words sounded so perfect that it made her eyes again fill with tears. If what he said hadn’t sounded so wonderful it wouldn’t have hurt so much, because she knew that couldn’t be what he meant. He had never given any inclination. “Or maybe I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Chloe.” She continued folding clothes and ignored him. “Chloe.” Still she ignored him, but he wasn’t going to let her keep running away from him. “Son of a bitch Chloe look at me!” Her hands stilled but she didn’t turn to him. Oliver was through with waiting for her. He grabbed her elbow and turned her around ready to yell at her for running away and leaving him with a hurt he hadn’t been prepared for. It was the tears running down her cheeks that stopped him. For the first time he began to wonder if part of the reason she left was him. Everything she had said led him to believe she didn’t even care, but now he wasn’t so sure. “I’m trying to tell you that I need you to come back to Star City. Not for the team but for me. Why won’t you believe me?”
“You, you never-.” She wiped the tears away angrily. She was more upset with herself than anything for allowing him to see her like that. “Nothing you ever did led me to believe that.”
“Every time I would come close to you, you would move away. Every time I touched you you’d freeze.” With reactions like those he hadn’t been about to put his heart on the line. The only reason he was doing it now was because it was his last chance.
“I was scared.” His hand finally dropped from arm and for a moment she missed the feel of it and feared it meant something more, but his face was no longer angry, only pained.
“You don’t have to stay here. Come back with me. I can give you everything you’re missing. Everyone on the team is your friend, and if you want more I have hundreds of them. I’ll introduce you till every single one, I’m sure you’ll find one you’ll like. If you want a new job fine, I’m sure I can find you one of those too. And if you want somebody to love you then come back with me.”
Love. Had he really said that he would love her? “No, you don’t-.”
“Love you? For months Chloe.” He took the piece of clothing she still clung in her hand and tossed it in her suitcase. “I can give you everything you want. But I need you to pack up your suitcase, go strait to the airport with me, and come back to Star City.” She looked away from him and her eyes began darting around the room and he could see the panic in her eyes. He wasn’t sure if she believed him or if perhaps she suddenly realized what it was he wanted from here. Oliver brought his hands up to her face, cradling her cheeks, and forced her to look at him. “I’m not leaving here without you.”
She was too scarred to even respond. His words sounded so wonderful that for a moment it seemed too good to be true. “I don’t know if-.”
“I’m not asking you to come back and just give it a try. I want you to come back and be there when I go to sleep and be there when I wake up. I want to have the right to know where you are twenty-four hours a day so that I don’t have to fear you’ve been kidnapped again. When I come home from a mission I want to know that you’re going to be there waiting for me.” Her eyes began to shine with unshed tears making him wonder if he’d been right in everything he told her or perhaps it had been too much. It was too late to take it back though so he dove further in. “And I want to be able to give you everything you want.” She blinked and he saw the tears began to travel down her cheeks. He had done it. Whether it had been over months or just one moment he had been the one that had made her leave. He didn’t know exactly why but she’d needed more and he hadn’t been there. “I’m sorry I didn’t do it right before. But I promise if you come back with me right now you’re never going to miss anything ever again.”
He was ridiculously charming, hot, and knew the right words to say that would melt her heart. “Okay.”
She’d said nearly nothing for the past few minutes but that one word almost left him breathless. Just to be sure he wanted to make her clarify her answer. “You’ll come home with me? Right now?” When she nodded he breathed easy. Without another thought he leaned down and pressed his lips against her. She was soft and warm and he wanted to stay there forever but he quickly pulled away.
He was there, like she always wanted him to be and then gone, leaving her bewildered. “What?”
“Later, I promise.” He released her and went to her bed and started throwing her neatly folded clothes in her bag. “But we’re leaving.”
“But I just go here. Lois and Clark…” She couldn’t even find it in her to lift a hand to help and just stood their in shock.
“Will understand. We’ll call them on out way.” Oliver snapped the bag shut and looked around at the other with a frown. “Come on.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the bedroom.
“My stuff!” Chloe yelled and looked back at her suitcases.
“We’ll have them send someone up to collect them and have them sent to the airport. In the mean time we’re leaving.”
“Wait!” He stopped and she took that moment to take a deep breath and looked around frantically. When she spotted her bag on the sofa her eyes lit up. “My purse.” His hand released hers and after collecting it she went back to the door. “Are you sure about the bags?”
“Yes.” With that he opened the door and pulled her out behind him, not looking back once.