Even though it had been dark, Chloe had been fairly sure that she’d seen Kara Zor-El in the Talon. However, when she learned of the break-in at Lemming’s Department Store, and discovered the stolen food, she was even less certain. Why would Kara steal clothes and food? Why wouldn’t she answer Chloe? Why would she run from a friend?
“Did you get a look at the girl?” Chloe asked Oliver, who shook his head.
“No, but I’ve got Victor looking at the CCTV footage of the area. If it was her we’ll know it soon enough. Don’t worry about Clark and Kara. They’re practically invincible, and they’re family. They’ll look out for each other.”
“But this has LuthorCorp all over it,” said Chloe, her reporter instincts kicking in. Now that she was back at the Planet, life wasn’t the same for her and Lois, not without Clark there. Besides, she missed the hell out of her best friend.
“We should go and interview the officers who responded to the department store theft.”
“Chloe—”
“If they say no one was there, that’ll be a pretty good indicator that it was Kara, and she just moved too fast for them to see.”
“Chloe—” Oliver tried again, but she turned away from him.
“There could be something wrong with her, Ollie—”
“Chloe.”
“What?”
“Are we going to do the ‘pretend it didn’t happen’ thing? Or are we going to talk about last night?”
“What’s there to talk about?”
Oliver Queen wasn’t rattled. He leaned back in his chair and studied her, arms crossed over his impressive chest. “The amazing, passionate sex we had last night, that’s what there is to talk about.”
“We had a good time,” Chloe said tentatively. “I wasn’t expecting anything to come of it. I didn’t even expect you to bring it up today.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Chloe smiled, but it was a somewhat hard look. “Come on, Oliver, I’ve heard about your reputation as a playboy.”
“It’s true, I have enjoyed casual sex in the past with women I don’t know very well, but when I go to bed with a woman like you it definitely means something to me.”
“Woman like me?”
“Someone I know and respect,” said Oliver, as though the answer should have been obvious to her. “Someone I call a friend. Obviously you don’t feel the same way.”
“Oliver, I respect you!”
“Yeah, but last night doesn’t seem to have meant as much to you as it did me. Or am I wrong about that?”
They stared one another in the eye while Chloe searched herself for the right answer. The truth was she really cared for Oliver Queen, but she was afraid he’d tire of her and dump her, leaving her devastated. She hadn’t had a lot of romantic relationships in her life. In fact, romance was an area in Chloe’s life that she could never seem to get a good grip on. Clark had never seemed to want her, and Jimmy had treated her like a doormat he could change out whenever he tired of her, going between her and Kara. Would Oliver sweep her off her feet, only to drop her on her ass when she least expected it?
She was about to respond since the silence had become awkward, when her phone rang. She almost sighed in relief when she answered, hearing a familiar voice on the phone, a source on the Smallville Police Department.
“Chloe?”
“Hi, Ken. Tell me something good.”
“I can tell you something weird.”
“This is Smallville. Weird is subjective.”
Oliver got up and threw a jacket on to ward off the autumn chill while Chloe pretended to be more absorbed in the call than she really was. There was probably nothing Ken could tell her that the Justice League couldn’t, but still she thought it prudent to keep up a good working relationship with the sources she’d spent practically her entire life cultivating, first in High School, and now as a reporter for the Daily Planet.
“Gladys Hudson, a homeless woman, said she saw a naked blond girl coming out of the Talon last night, carrying an armload of clothes and food.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Here’s where the weird part comes in. Gladys says the woman jumped into the air and flew away.”
It was Kara!
Chloe turned to tell Oliver but he’d left, and she was alone in the apartment. She hung up with Ken and looked around to the bed with its rumpled sheets and pillows in danger of falling to the floor, remembering every kiss, every caress, she’d shared with Oliver Queen the night before. The silence was like ice water that crept through her pores and filled her heart, making it heavy with its icy weight.
“It meant something to me too,” Chloe said sadly, but Oliver wasn’t there to hear her.
****
Chloe was familiar with Gladys Hudson. She’d once worked at the Luthorcorp facility in Smallville, but her husband and two daughters had died when her house had caught fire in a freak accident. She turned to the bottle, and never had a place to call home to lay her head down again. That had been six years ago.
Chloe caught up with Gladys, who was in an alley on third avenue
“Mrs. Hudson?”
Gladys didn’t turn around. Instead she continued digging. “If you’re here to sell me on God, fuck you. If you’re here to offer me a hot meal, leave it on the ground.”
“I’m not here for either, actually.”
Gladys was much younger than the lines on her face would lead someone to believe. At thirty-eight years of age she looked forty-five or fifty. Her hair had gone almost totally gray, and her eyes were filled with raw bitterness.
“What do you want, Miss Sullivan?”
“You know me?”
“I knew Gabe. Good man. He used to play golf with Arnie. My husband.”
Chloe nodded. “I’ve come to barter with you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” said Chloe, now standing a few feet away from Gladys, who smelled as though she hadn’t bathed in over a week. Perhaps she had, but her clothes hadn’t been washed in days, or more.
“So, what do you want in exchange for what?”
“I want some information about last night.”
“I already told Kenny everything I know, snot-nosed brat,” Gladys said angrily. “He wouldn’t even lend me a fiver!”
Chloe pulled out a single shot of Vodka from her pocket and held it up. At once Gladys’s mouth watered for it, so that the corners of her lips were thick with barely contained saliva. She reached for the bottle, but Chloe pulled it back.
“You know Clark Kent
“Yeah, so?”
“Was he here too?”
“If he was, I would have told Kenny, wouldn’t I?”
“The girl you saw, did she say anything to you?”
“No. She just gave me a bottle of White Shoulders and told me to bathe in it, potty-mouthed bitch.”
Chloe smiled. She wasn’t one of Kara’s biggest fans either.
“Anything happen that you didn’t tell Kenny? Did she say anything?”
“Not a word, outside of telling me to bathe in the perfume. Then she just flew away. Straight up.”
Gladys looked up into the sky, which was heavy with storm clouds, and then back to Chloe and the bottle of Vodka in her hand.
“Now, what about me?”
“Right. Here’s your reward,” Chloe said, putting a long-held theory of hers to the test.
She held the bottle of Vodka out and Gladys reached for it. As soon as their hands touched, there was a warm pink glow the enveloped them both. Gladys tried to pull away, but Chloe held on, feeling terrible pain flood her heart, as well as anger, bitterness, and a desire for the bottle of Vodka like nothing Chloe had ever felt before. The Vodka would bring peace from the pain. At least for a little while. Or so Gladys believed.
The glow faded, and Gladys stepped back, taking in several deep breaths, while Chloe struggled to hold back the tears that wanted to spill down her face.
It’s not my pain, she tried to tell herself, but that was a lie. It was her pain now, rather than Gladys’s.
“What did you just do to me?” Gladys asked, holding a bony hand to her frail chest. Chloe left the bottle of Vodka in Gladys’s hand.
“A really big favor,” said Chloe. “You can turn it around, Gladys. You don’t have any excuse not to anymore.”
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