Broken Things...with chloeas

[olliequeen]

Oliver climbed the stairs toward Chloe's apartment, glancing at his watch. He was a couple of minutes late and he cursed the phone conference that had kept him busy longer than he'd intended. When he finally made it to the apartment, he found the door open a little and immediately grew tense.

He could just sense something wasn't right. "Chloe?" he ventured, reaching out and gently pushing the door open, stunned to find the apartment wrecked. Broken glass was everywhere, tables were tipped over, papers scattered.

And Chloe was nowhere to be seen.

"Chloe!" His voice was urgent.

Comments

[chloeas.livejournal.com]

"In here" she called quietly from the bedroom, she was kneeling on the floor, all over her research folders that she kept under her bed were scattered around.

[dl-greenarrow.livejournal.com]

He quickly made his way farther into the apartment and found her in her bedroom. "God. Are you all right? What happened?"

[chloeas.livejournal.com]

Chloe sat back on her heels and sighed, shaking her head, "I don't know, I just walked in and yeah, I'm okay." As okay as you can be right after you find out your apartment was broken into.

[dl-greenarrow.livejournal.com]

He knelt down beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Chloe, I hate to ask this but...code phrase?"

[chloeas.livejournal.com]

She nodded, looking up at him and smiling slightly, "Five five..." she nodded in his direction for him to continue.

[dl-greenarrow.livejournal.com]

"Seven ten," he finished, relaxing a little. "Do you think this was Tina?" He rose to his feet slowly, looking around. Whoever it was had definitely been looking for something.

[chloeas.livejournal.com]

"I can't think of anyone else," picking up a pile of papers, she got up, "they found my files, I need to figure out if anything is missing and that should give us answers."

[dl-greenarrow.livejournal.com]

Nodding, he turned to face her, watching her as she worked. "I'll stand guard."

[chloeas.livejournal.com]

Chloe nodded, looking at him, "thanks" before turning back to the files.

[dl-greenarrow.livejournal.com]

He drew in a breath and looked around the wrecked bedroom once more. He was pretty sure there wasn't anything Tina--or whoever--hadn't turned upside down or torn up. He grimaced a little, then slowly moved over to the dresser, picking a picture frame off the floor and gazing at it for a moment. It was of a very young Chloe, and her mother. The glass was broken, cracked right down the center.

[chloeas.livejournal.com]

She glanced in his direction as she set another pile neatly over her bad and nodded slightly, "I'll need to get a couple new frames, I guess."

This hadn't been the first or the second time that Chloe had someone go through her stuff, the first one, at the Torch had been the hardest, she had learned that if she is going to have information on someone, especially the kind of people she looked into, this was always a possibility, which was why she kept her laptop on her as often as possible, without it, whatever got stolen would be only pieces of the puzzle.

[dl-greenarrow.livejournal.com]

Holding onto the frame, he glanced at her over his shoulder, sighing softly. "I'm having a security system installed in here as soon as this place is cleaned up," he informed her, voice firm.

[chloeas.livejournal.com]

Another pile of files and she finally stood up, a thought suddenly occurring to her, "do you think it could have been Lex?" She stood up straight, turning to face him.

[dl-greenarrow.livejournal.com]

His fingers tightened around the frame a little more, his mouth setting in a hard line. "Nothing would surprise me when it comes to Lex," he responded tensely. God help him if he found out that's who was behind this mess. On a good day, Oliver could barely tolerate the man's existance. And this was not turning out to be a good day.

"You can't stay here, Chloe."

[chloeas.livejournal.com]

She frowned at that and shook her head a little, "whoever was in here already got what they were looking for, Oliver, I doubt they are coming back." Sure, if they broke in once, they could break in again, but if she could figure out what was missing then why would they come back?

[dl-greenarrow.livejournal.com]

He looked at her skeptically. "Chloe, why take the risk? Especially if Lex may be involved." He frowned deeply, shaking his head. "It's not safe."

[chloeas.livejournal.com]

"What do you want me to do? Just leave all my things?" She frowned back at him, besides she was sure he would tell her to go over and stay with him, which, based on the previous night, could turn out to be highly uncomfortable.

[dl-greenarrow.livejournal.com]

"They're things, Chloe. We're talking about your life." He set the frame down on her dresser and turned to face her fully. "Look, if you don't want to use my guest room, fine. We can call Clark or Lois--"

[chloeas.livejournal.com]

It took a lot of effort for her not to wince but she managed to cut him off with a shake of her head, "I don't mind staying with you, Oliver," as long as I remember my pants while I'm there, "but I... don't want to have to bother you like that."

[dl-greenarrow.livejournal.com]

"It's not a bother, Chloe. I'd rather know you were safe than have you stay here alone after this." He motioned around. "Besides, if you insist on staying here, I'll have to spend the entire night lurking on the rooftop across the street to make sure no one breaks in here again." There wasn't a hint of kidding in his voice.

[chloeas.livejournal.com]

Oh she knew he wasn't joking, in fact, she fully expected to find Clark refusing to move from her couch for at least a month or however long it took for them to find and arrest Tina. Although she figured it was probably a better idea not to mention Clark right now.

"Fine," she sighed in defeat, "I don't wanna be the reason you get even less sleep." She said as she turned back towards the files, sorting them.

[dl-greenarrow.livejournal.com]

A faint smile tugged at his lips as he turned away, as well, moving over toward the window, noting it was also broken. He wondered if whoever had trashed her place had left anything untouched. Sighing softly, he looked out the window, scanning the area for any potential suspects. Seeing no one and nothing out of the ordinary outside, he turned back to the room, looking it over more carefully.

[chloeas.livejournal.com]

It took her a few minutes but Chloe finally sighed and shook her head as she plopped down on her bed, "it was Tina." She told him, rolling her eyes.

[dl-greenarrow.livejournal.com]

"How do you know?" He turned to look at her curiously.

[chloeas.livejournal.com]

"The only file missing is hers. If it was Lex, he wouldn't have taken any, he would have used a hand held scanner and copied the file." She told him matter-of-factly.