Author's Comment: The second 'fix-it' piece I'm writing for Conspiracy. (Someone called it that in a comment on Playing Doctor, and I liked the term. Thank you, reviewer!)

This is much more angsty than the other one, just as a warning. It also (obviously) contains

SPOILERS!!!!!!!!

So don't read it if you don't want to know what idiots Oliver and Chloe were in the last episode.

Much Love

BlueSuedeShoes

Chloe couldn't believe it.

Now, she knew she had messed up, and she'd already apologized for it. It wouldn't happen again. Story closed. Oliver, apparently, had not learned his lesson. In fact, she wasn't even sure he'd realized he'd screwed up.

He'd insulted her, hurt her deeply, claiming that she was using him for his money, implying that she was some sort of gold-digger. And he'd called her a booty-call.

Chloe Sullivan was no man's booty call.

Yet here he was, showing up at her apartment late into the evening, expecting to get some, expecting her to just roll over for him.

Not going to happen, she told herself firmly.

Of course, the instant she found her resolve, it became more difficult to do. She'd been ignoring him when he walked in, pretending to be absorbed in what she was doing on the computer, so he'd walked up behind her, sliding his hands around her stomach and kissing her neck. His hands lowered dangerously, grazing her thighs and awakening a pool of fire in her stomach. She bit back a groan forcefully, trying to ignore how hard he was, a fact he was shamelessly exhibiting, pressing his body flush against her back.

She wanted to give in, to just lean into him for a moment, forget that she was angry at him, and let him have his way with her. It would be only too easy.

"What are you doing?" he asked finally, when she was still refusing to respond to him. He rested his chin on her shoulder to look at the computer screen. His hands never stopped their work on her thighs, though, she noted irritably. It felt so good.

"Nothing that concerns you," she said a little bitingly. She could actually feel his entire body stiffen at her remark.

"Problem, Sidekick?" he asked in her ear.

"Problem?" she asked, sarcasm boiling underneath her words. "Of course not."

"You seem tense," he said, believing her much too easily.

"Do I?" she asked through clenched teeth.

His hands rose to her shoulders and started massaging them expertly. It took all her will power not to melt.

With a surge of determination she closed her laptop and broke away from him. "Really, Oliver?" she demanded, hands going to her hips.

His eyebrows went up, clearly unsure as to why her anger was directed at him. " 'Really' what?" he asked.

"My God," she shook her head, rubbing her forehead. "You know what? Just get out!" she said, motioning to the door.

He didn't move.

"I said to leave, Oliver. Get out of my apartment."

"Not without an explanation," he said, obviously trying to regulate his own temper.

"No!" she said. "I don't think you deserve an explanation!" she turned on her heel and stormed into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

The next thing she knew Oliver had broken the doorknob off and let himself in, clearly livid.

"All right, what the hell?" he demanded.

She glared at him. "The fact that you don't know sickens me."

"You know, considering how forgiving I was just the other day, I think you ought to be a little more considerate here."

"Oh yes!" she rolled her eyes dramatically. "You're the king of magnanimity! I guess I should let everything you do slide, considering how horrible I am!" she said. "I guess I don't deserve your forgiveness, do I?"

"Chloe, why don't you just tell me what the hell has you flying off the handle like this?" he asked angrily.

"You want to know what has me flying off the handle? Really? Well, you know what? Maybe it's nothing. Maybe I'm just not interested in a booty call tonight! Maybe I'm bored with seeing you. After all, I'm only using you for your money!"

Several emotions flickered across Oliver's face in response, and Chloe wasn't sure which one was going to stick, but he landed back on anger, the least vulnerable one, naturally. "Unbelievable. May I remind you that you were the one stealing money from me?"

"And I already admitted I screwed up, Oliver!" she yelled. "I already apologized to you profusely, told you everything there was to know about the situation, and promised that nothing like it would ever happen again! I'm so sorry I have trust issues and that I went off the deep end, Oliver. Truly, truly sorry! We can't all be perfect like you, I guess!" her voice oozed sarcasm, attempting to make every word sting.

"Then what the hell are we arguing about?" he fumed, completely confused at this point.

"Unbelievable!" she said. "You are unbelievable!"

"God, Chloe! Just spit it out! What on earth are you so ticked off at me for!"

"You burst in here," she said, her voice taking on an eerie sense of controlled rage, "assumed it was me from the get go, sent accusations at me without even bothering to come out and ask me if I'd done it. You jumped to the conclusion that I was using you for your money and blatantly stated that you were using me for sex.

Oliver stared at her, as though trying to remember how he'd managed to do all of that.

"Go away, Oliver," she said finally in a weary voice, not really caring what he had to say in his own defense. She sat down on her bed and rubbed her temples in exhaustion.

"Right. I'm going to just let you throw all of that at me, officially the world's largest guilt bomb I've ever seen, and then I'm going to leave you like this. Wow, your faith in me is touching," he said sarcastically, sitting down beside her and putting an arm around her. Chloe shrugged away from him, not caring if it hurt his feelings.

"I'm serious," she said. "I don't want to talk to you right now."

"Too bad," he said seriously. "After that little display I don't think we have any choice but to talk."

She scoffed, but he ignored her.

"Which part would you like me to start with first?" he asked wearily. When she didn't respond, he just trudged ahead anyway. "Well then, we'll take it from the top: Shooting out accusations. You're right, I probably should have asked you instead of just assuming, but in my defense one look at that paper told me that you were the only one who could pull it off. There really wasn't any question."

She didn't acknowledge him.

"Of course," he conceded, "I should have considered asking you why you'd done it, leading us to the second issue: I should never in my wildest dreams even contemplated the possibility that you would use me for my money. That's not you. I know that. You have to see it from my perspective. In my life, I haven't really met many women of substance. You and Lois are probably the only decent girls I know. Even Dinah has her issues. Tess clearly doesn't count, seeing as the substance she's made of is potentially arsenic. So for me, finding out that you were stealing from me led me to one conclusion and one conclusion only. I was angry and hurt and I didn't see a door number two."

He looked at her expectantly, hoping to see some sign that the tension was easing, but there was none visible. He sighed. Then, to his surprise she raised a hand and motioned impatiently for him to continue. He took that as some form of encouragement. "I don't really have an excuse for the last thing. I mean, it isn't even remotely true, but I had no right to say it. Like I said before, I was angry and hurt. I wanted to hurt you back. It was wrong. I'm sorry."

She didn't say anything, but he saw a tear roll down her cheek.

"Chloe," he touched her shoulder but she pulled it away. "Chloe you are so much more than sex to me. Really. I would never use you like that."

Chloe started crying in earnest, listening to him. She wasn't sure why. She couldn't tell if she was relieved he was contradicting what he'd said or if she was just worked up or if it was because she didn't believe him. She wiped her hand over her eyes somewhat ungracefully, wishing again that he'd leave.

"Please go away, Oliver," she whispered.

He stared at her, a knife wrenching his gut. He started to get up, but then he stopped himself. "No."

She turned her head to him slightly, still not looking at him.

"No," he said, almost as though he were telling himself. "If I leave right now, you and I are never going to fix this and I'm going to despise myself for the rest of my life. What do you want from me, Chloe? What do I have to do?"

She just cried in response.

"I'm serious. What do I have to do to prove it to you?"

She shook her head tearfully. "I don't know, okay? I don't know what you have to do because I don't know what's going to make me believe you!"

He grabbed hold of her and dragged her into his lap, cradling her to his chest, scared out of his mind and not sure what to do. He was relieved that she at least didn't push away this time. "Chloe," he whispered, burying his face in her hair. "I'm so sorry."

Her only reply was a sob.

"Chloe," he said again, trying to soothe her.

There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of her crying. His arms suddenly constricted around her even tighter. "I hate myself," he said. "I really do. Once again I've managed to ruin my life and it took me only, what? One whole sentence to do it? Chloe, I'm so sorry." He felt almost like crying himself. He'd actually managed to do it. He'd broken her. Fantastic.

She still hadn't said anything. He wished he could read her mind and formulate exactly what the perfect thing to say to her would be, whatever would relieve the pain, ease her doubts, make her forgive him. Something!

"Chloe," he said softly. "Please talk to me. Tell me what you're thinking." He prayed she wouldn't say she hated him.

She buried her face in his chest, fisting her hands in his shirt. He rubbed her back. "I really want to throw you out," she said, "and I really want to tell you that I hate you and that I want you to leave me alone, but I don't. The truth of the matter is I screwed up, too. You just screwed up on a much more personal level."

He kissed the top of her head, not sure what to say.

"Why is it that every time a guy comes into my life, one of us finds a way to make us both miserable?" she asked, a note of desperation in her voice as she thought of all the jerks she'd dealt with in high school, of the way she'd failed to trust Jimmy, of the fact that Davis had gone so far off the deep end he'd been willing to murder all of her loved ones and eventually her, and finally of how Clark had abandoned her in her greatest time of need. Everyone had run off and left her alone after she'd lost Jimmy and she'd thought for a while that she'd never manage to pull the pieces back together. Things had been starting to get a little better and then she'd screwed up and it led to this. She felt like taking a gun to her head.

"Chloe, it's not your fault," Oliver said finally. "It's like you said, I screwed up, too. I shouldn't have said those things to you. You weren't actually trying to hurt me. I was trying to hurt you and that was probably the worst thing I've ever done in my life, and you know me, Chloe. I've done some horrible things."

"Why are we so dysfunctional?" she asked bitterly, laughing a little hysterically as she finally lifted her head away from his chest.

He squeezed her again before reaching up to wipe the tears off her face with his thumbs. "Because life never gave us an opportunity to be normal?" he suggested lightly, giving her a weak smile.

She returned it in kind.

"What do you want, Chloe?" he asked her for the second time that night. "What do we do from here?"

She looked away uncertainly. She didn't know what she wanted. She'd never known that. It had been too easy to just let things happen to her. She'd never really made a lot of dramatic decisions about her life, particularly regarding her romantic life, unless the world was about to end.

"I have the solution," she said abruptly. "I'm going to need someone to threaten to destroy the world--or at least kill both of us--and then I'll either feel the mad desire to make out with you and throw caution to the wind, or I won't. And then we'll know."

He raised an eyebrow at her, relieved to see she was at least up to joking around. "One planet destruction coming up. No problem," he said.

Chloe laughed, the sound almost strange to her, however feeble. "I just want it all to go away," she whined, leaning against him again. "I don't want to deal with anything, or make decisions, least of all figure out what on earth you and I are going to do. You figure it out!" she said childishly.

He was quiet for a moment and then, without even really thinking about it, he heard the words fall out of his mouth, "Be my girlfriend."

There was dead stillness in the room.

"What?" Chloe asked, not sure she'd heard correctly.

No going back now, Oliver figured. "That's kind of where we screwed up in the first place, isn't it?" he asked hopefully. "We didn't label it and we kept it secret and that set us both up to get hurt because neither of us really knew what was going on. So be my girlfriend," he repeated, officially throwing his cards on the table. To hell with it, he thought. He was probably even in love with her by now, just too screwed up to be sure. So why not?

Chloe looked up at him. She opened her mouth to respond but couldn't figure out what to say, so she closed it again. Instead she slid a hand around his neck and pulled him downward so she could kiss him.

She released him. Oliver frowned, having no earthly idea what that meant. "Is that a yes?" he asked warily.

She smirked at him. "That means 'yes and you're an idiot,' " she said, kissing him a second time.

He pulled away. "But I'm your idiot, right?" he asked, feeling the weight of ten worlds lift slowly.

She just rolled her eyes and kissed him again, pushing him back on the bed. He realized she was unbuttoning his shirt and he tore his lips away. "Are you--"

"Oliver, ask me if I'm sure I want to do this right now, and I will be forced to castrate you," Chloe said forcefully.

"Shutting up," he said, hands moving to her back with pleasure.

"And if you ever say anything that hurtful to me again," she added threateningly.

"I'll let you have free target practice at me with the bow and arrow," he finished, lifting her shirt over her head.

She nodded approval, kissing her way down his chest. He groaned when she paused at the hem of his jeans, teasing his stomach. Then, before she could do anything more to torture him, he dragged her up and flipped her over, centering them better on the bed as he pressed down on her. He kissed her passionately, consumed with relief and happiness and disbelief at his own idiocy and how close he had come to losing everything.

This time she wrenched her lips from his. "Oliver?"

"Yes?" he asked, working his way toward her breasts.

"One more thing."

"Anything."

"Replace the doorknob you broke coming in here," she told him.

He looked at her with an amused expression, resting his chin on her chest. "Sidekick, tomorrow I will buy you an entire door made of solid platinum if it will make you happy."

Her smile was lost to a gasp as her bra was pushed aside.