People Make Mistakes Chapter (3/13)

Banner By: Andrea

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Chapter 3
August 15th 2010



Oliver sat in front of the middle aged woman, hands gently tapping the arms on the chair he was sitting in as he waited for her to finish looking over the paperwork. He took in the office around him, leg lightly shaking as he started to whistle.

Rebecca Chase glanced at the man in front of her and sighed. It was obvious that Oliver Queen was not used to waiting for things. Between his constant tapping and noise making she assumed his patients was running rather thin.

“Mr. Queen,”

He snapped to attention, eyes finding her face yet again.

“Yes?”

“I know you’ve gone over all of our policies and you’ve had your lawyer draw up a rather lengthy folder of paperwork in addition to the forms we require you to fill out, which I suppose is diligent of you, but can I be frank with you?”

He grinned crossing his legs as he spoke humor in his voice.

“Well I thought your name was Rebecca, but I suppose you could be Frank. Does that mean I can pick a name too?”

Her brows furrowed.

“It’s Mrs. Chase, and this isn’t a joke Mr. Queen. You want me to let you adopt a ward of the state and though I’m sure you’re used to getting what you want this is a different matter. Adopting Nathan Bingham is a lifetime commitment, one that I’m not 100 convinced you’re ready to take on.”

He swallowed hard, the humor on his face dissipating as he nodded.

“I’m sorry. I understand that this is a big responsibility, but I am more than qualified to provide for Nathan. There isn’t anything he wouldn’t have under my care.”

“It isn’t just about money Mr. Queen. Nathan just lost his mother about a month ago. He isn’t in a good place right now and it’s going to take time and a lot of monitoring and care to get him back to where he was before the tragedy. You’re a busy man. You run a large company and the tabloids are not kind to you. You seem to have a very fast paced life and I’m not sure you’re the proper guardian that he needs.”

Oliver frowned, tensing slightly when she brought up his less than stellar personal life. A persona that he’d basically created to keep people away from his real secret could very well end up ruining his chances at getting custody of Nathan.

“I assure you Mrs. Chase I am 100 percent committed to making this happen. What you’ve read in magazines does not define the person I am.”

“I understand that. It isn’t just that though. As I said before you’re busy and my biggest concern is that our organization does not make a habit of placing children into single parent households. Nathan needs a stable environment where he can flourish and grow. We feel he needs a mother and a father.”

Oliver nodded as if this was not news to him and Rebecca raised an eyebrow as he spoke calmly.

“That’s completely understandable and as a matter of fact I am in a committed relationship and have been for over a year now. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”

“I don’t remember reading that in your file. Are the two of you considering adopting Nathan together? Because that could definitely help your cause when this goes to our board for consideration.”

He hesitated briefly. Oliver knew Chloe wasn’t convinced that this was the best move for him to make. She felt that instead of helping the situation having Nathan around all the time would be a constant reminder of what he considered a failure on his part.

But he’d argued that having Nathan around, giving him a better life and making sure he was okay would set his mind at ease and at least ensure that he was doing all he could to make it up to him since he was responsible for the boys current position.

“Yes, we’re adopting him together.”

“She’s going to have to fill out her own set of paperwork then. We’ll need to run a background check as well. Also if you’re serious about this we’ll need to schedule a time for the two of you to meet with Nathan and for us to do a home check.”

Confusion settled on his face as he leaned forward slightly.

“Home check?”

Rebecca nodded as she shuffled the papers together and placed them back into the folder, closing it and setting it aside.

“Yes. We’ll send someone out to your home to make sure it’s suitable for Nathan to reside in. And before the adoption can be finalized there will be a foster care trial period of six months. If all goes well, after the six months are up the final paperwork will be processed giving you full rights and custody over Nathan.”

Oliver pursed his lips together. He had hoped that because he was Oliver Queen things would move a little quicker than usual, but it looked like Rebecca Chase wasn’t going to let that happen. He gave her an easy smile, stood and held out his hand.

She shook it as he spoke, determination clear in his voice.

“Not to worry Mrs. Chase if you’ll just give me another set of papers I’ll have my girlfriend fill them out tonight and I’ll fax them over to you in the morning. As soon as that’s taken care of just let me know when the best time to set up the meeting with Nathan is and we’ll clear our schedules.”

“Alright.”

“Have a good day.”

“You do the same.”

She watched him gather his things and head out of her office before furrowing her brows. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something seemed off about Oliver Queen. Lucky for her though, it looked like she was going to have time to investigate it since he doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.




_____

Mia sat on the couch at Watchtower, feet underneath her, coffee in hand as she stared at Chloe eyes wide. She couldn’t believe Oliver had been suffering all this time and had never once called to let her in on what was going on.

Sure she wasn’t sure what she would have said, but at least she could have been there for him, like he was for her when things had gotten bad in her life. She sighed and shook her head.

“That’s horrible. I can’t believe no one told me. I saw Bart like a week ago and he never even mentioned that Oliver had stopped patrolling.”

Chloe gave her a sympathetic look.

“I think everyone is just trying to ignore it, hoping that he’ll be back on top of things soon. They tried to get him to open up…but well, it didn’t exactly go as planned. They’ve kind of been steering clear of mentioning it since then.”

Mia frowned, fingers playing with the edge of her cup.

“And he thinks adopting this kid will help?”

“You know Oliver. He feels responsible for what happened and in his mind this will make him feel like he’s doing something to help.”

Mia bit her lip worry clearly written on her face.

“What do you think?”

Chloe sighed.

“I think that once Oliver sets his mind to something it’s extremely difficult to get him to back down. I gave him my opinion on the matter, but that’s it. He doesn’t need my judgment he needs my support right now. I don’t agree with him, but I’m not walking away.”

Mia titled her head to the side and gave Chloe a small smile.

“You know…I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but you’re good for him…Oliver I mean. He’s really lucky to have someone who understands him the way you do.”

Chloe grinned and opened her mouth to say something when her cell phone buzzed and then rang. She glanced over at her desk, standing and moving toward her chirping phone. The screen lit up showing Lois’s name. She pressed the button, voice light.

“Hey Lo’”

“Hey cuz, you busy?”

“Never too busy for my favorite cousin, what’s up?”

“I need a favor. You know the story Clark and I were working on a few weeks ago? The corpse that disappeared from Metropolis General?”

Chloe moved over to the main frame checking over her email as she chuckled lightly.

“Ah the disappearing corpse, I seem to recall something about it.”

“Well the body just turned up this morning and get this…it was in perfect condition…well aside from being dead obviously.”

Chloe frowned.

“What do you mean it was in perfect condition?”

“I mean for a woman whose been dead close to a month, her body is well preserved. The coroner said it was definitely the same woman and if that isn’t strange enough it looks like all the wounds she received when she was killed a month ago are gone.”

Chloe’s brows furrowed as she took in Lois’s words. Was that even possible? She spoke, concern filling her voice.

“What exactly do you need me to do Lo’?”

“I need more information on the woman. Anything you can dig up about her past that might be able to tell me what the hell happened. I’ve tapped out my sources and hit a brick wall. Those magical snooping powers of yours would really come in handy about now.”

“You owe me…what’s her name?”

“Karen Bingham.”

Chloe froze, had poised against the keyboard as the color drained from her face. Mia caught the look and stood, concern etched on her face as she made her way over to Chloe.

“Are you sure that’s her name?”

Chloe could hear the frown in her cousin’s voice when she spoke.

“Yeah, why is everything okay?

Chloe swallowed hard. There was no way this was a coincidence, her life just didn’t work that way. Why in the world would someone steal Karen Bingham’s body? And how can a person who’s already dead be healed?

“Yeah everything’s fine. I’ve got a lot of work though so let me get going and I’ll try to get you the information by tomorrow.”

“Thanks Chlo’ and don’t forget we’re doing lunch at some point this week.”

“Sounds good. Talk to you later Lo’”

Before Lois could respond the Chloe hung up and Mia spoke.

“What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

She turned toward the teenager, body tense, anxious expression crossed her face as she let out a heavy breath.

“I’m not sure…but I think things just got a whole lot more complicated…”

Chapter 4