Metro: C&C Foods

 This C&C Food store is part of a chain of America's largest retail food
 stores, with over 1,100 supermarkets across the country. The aisles are wide
 and brightly lit, and there are several different departments. The service
 is cheerful and corporately friendly as the clerks scan the groceries
 through the checkout lanes with speed and accuracy. Soft inoffensive Muzak
 is piped in over the speakers for the listening enjoyment of the customers
 who wander up and down the aisles with their steel shopping carts full of
 goods.

Places:
Checkout  Deli  Bakery  Pharmacy 
Obvious exits:
Out <O> 

Harold enters the supermarket.

Harold appears in the doorway. He looks tired, but pleased at something. 
His tie is pulled down and his collar unbuttoned.

Dinah is standing in the health and beauty aisle, her head bowed as she
gazes numbly at a row of hair dye. In her shopping basket is a pair of
scissors.

Oliver steps in after Harold, casting an uncarring shadow, then drifts on
with out looking at anyone.

Harold takes one of the carrying baskets and drifts towards the dairy
freezer.

The late night Muzak switches to an ungodly cheery version of an Elvis
tune. 

Oliver methodically marchs down the end of each isle then stops on the HBA
isle.

Dinah wipes her face with the back of her hand and sniffs, then resolutely
grabs a bottle of permanent hair dye in a particularly ugly shade of
blue-black. Her face crumples as she looks at it, and dumps it in her
basket. On impulse she grabs another.

Oliver's brow comes sweeping across as quickly as he goes to Dinah. He
reachs out to grab Dinah's hand, not at the wrist, but near the bottle. 

Harold appears at the end of the HBA almost simultaneously with Oliver's
arrival. (He doesn't notice him.) He does notice Dinah, and he does a
slight doubletake. To his credit, he merely takes off his glasses and
gives them a quick polish with his handkerchief before smiling almost
shyly and approaching her. He pauses when Oliver approaches and just turns
and walks back the way he came, as if he had decided not to buy anything
on that aisle. 

Dinah gasps and drops the bottle, "What the hell?! Oh--!" She whirls to
see Oliver, and she turns pale...her eyes widening as she gazes at him
warily.

Oliver releases the woman's hand and points to the bottles as if they were
condemned people. "And what are you doing with that?" he hisses, his eyes
seeming to flare with anger.

Dinah takes a step back, bumping the basket on the floor as she moves. 
"I-I...Oliver?" Her self-pity is replaced by genuine fear of this man. 

Oliver draws his head back, frowning then something else washs over his
face, only to be drain into his eyes. "What are you doing here?" he says
with a rather controlled tone. 

Dinah just shakes her head and backs away more, not even wincing as her
slinged shoulder bumps into a rack of beauty magazines. She says in a low
voice, "That's none of your damned business!"

Dinah thinks . o O (I've got to get out of here....with as little trouble
as possible.)

Oliver's adam's apple bobs down then up violently. He closes his eyes then
wets his dry chapped lips. 

Dinah thinks . o O (He tried to kill Connor.) 

Dinah looks around the immediate vicinity for a door or a quick exit, and
finds none. 

Oliver tries to speak... "How... is Connor..." he seems to strain as he
asks this fighting his own body to utter the words.

Dinah's voice cracks as she says, "How can you ask that?! After what you
did to your own son? And you think I'd TELL you where he is or how he's
doing?" Her eyes blaze with fury, and she backs to the edge of the aisle,
"Stay away from that boy or I swear to god I'll kill you myself."

Something burns with in eyes and with a blink it dims. "Don't you think if
I wanted him dead I would have made him so? When... when Have I ever
missed?" His head snaps to the side and seems to focus on something.

Dinah loses it and steps forward, marching right up to Oliver and
snarling, "I don't know who the hell you are anymore--and right now I'm
not in the mood to care. All I know is that you left the person I consider
to be my son for dead in some alley somewhere...and when you consider
that, 'missing' his heart is a pretty damned small consolation mister!"

Harold tries, near the back of the store, picking out some French bread,
not to hear the argument going on. But he's not _that_ old and decrepit,
and his hearing is just fine, much to his dismay.

Oliver's eyes widen as bones seem to be cracked by an unseen hand. "Be
thankful, mortal female." the alien voice eases out. "that this flesh
cares so much for you... But once I break him... you shall be mine and
your screams will sing me to sleep for eter nity."

Dinah freezes, then pulls back her left hand and arcs her open palm
towards Oliver's cheek for a stinging slap... "Snap out of it!"

Harold thinks . o O (He...thinks he's Tex Colson? Weird.) 

Oliver unwavers as he takes the slap. The grin across his lips grows till
it's a chasm large enought to swallow you. "I like a fight... I like that
a lot..."

Dinah stumbles back as she looks in horror at the leer on Oliver's face,
and she says sharply, "You stay away from me!"

Harold can't see what's happening over there, but he hears the slap and
winces involuntarily. . o O ( I guess that makes her Martha Mitchell. 
Guess I'm not going to get to thank her tonight. )

Oliver tries to take a step forward but seems halted slightly. "Be
thankful flesh doll. I've not full control over this mortal. But till I
do... I want you to remember. I'll be waiting for you and building your
bridal bed out of the bones of those I kill ."

Dinah clenches her left hand, torn between smacking that disgusting grin
off his his face and not hurting her lover. She suddenly relaxes, and
switches tactics, "You don't really expect to get away with this do you? 
Do you honestly think I'm scared of some cowardly two-bit Eclipso
knock-off, when I've lived through the real deal? And are you that stupid
that you're not expecting us to do everything in our power to defeat you? 
You must be new in town." 

Oliver's eyes flash with power. "Don't think I've survived some three
thousand years just to be stopped by the likes of Batman or you. And as
far as Eclipso goes...." his unfocused laugh seems to shakes the shelves.
"His name was scrubbed from the scrolls as an under achiever eons ago."

Dinah smirks, "Batman won't stop you...and I won't either. You want to
know why?" She says almost conversationally, "Because you screwed up when
you decided to go body-surfing in Oliver Queen. You picked the one man who
is more stubborn than Guy Gardner..  .more opinionated than the entire
Justice League put together...and he's got nerves of steel to rival
Superman's. If you've been around for 3000 years, then surely to god you
should have known better than to go after the Arrow. Anybody could have
told you that." She pauses, "You're going to fail. Miserably. I almost
pity you." 

Harold rubs his arm through his coat, as if he were getting goosebumps
despite himself. He glances back at the aisle, half-expecting to see some
strange demonic glow from it, or at least a sale on bagels.

Oliver points down to the basket and then towards the hair dye. "If Oliver
Queen is so strong then why did he find comfort in such a weak and usless
thing as you. I'm not only gaining a body, but I am saving this fool from
a pathetic thing like you."

Dinah laughs genuinely, "Damn--you're pretty shrewd. I may be pathetic,
and I may even be weak at times...but I'm one up on you. At least I have a
body." She smiles thinly. "Just out of curiosity, what the hell do you
expect to accomplish? I mean--is this going to end up a night club act in
Vegas or something?" Her eyes sparkle with mixture of fury and sarcasm. 

Dinah thinks . o O (Keep him talking, learn his plans--don't let him get
you angry Dinah.)

Oliver laughs slightly, "Only thing that belongs in a night club act is
you. Then again... " His hand jests out, smashing through glass bottles of
alcohol. Clear liquid runs tainted with blood as he looks to you. "they
don't allow freak shows."

Harold thinks . o O (That's Oliver Queen? I didn't recognize him. Guess
our files are out of date since the JL broke up. Ooh, good price on those
kiwi fruit. Wonder if he really is po...nah, couldn't be. Demons don't go
to grocery stores.)

Dinah restrains herself from rushing forward, her gaze resting on his cut
hand. She forces herself to lift a brow and say, "Well that's too
bad...that means neither of us can get in, because they don't allow
animals either." 

Dinah nods to the blood, "Can he feel that?" 

Harold hears the breaking glass and winces again. "Hell." he mutters. 

Oliver extracts his hand with shards of glass jetting from it. "He's
screaming, Dinah. It's such a sweet scream and it's all for you...." a
blood drips from his hand like unshed tears.

Harold is now finished shopping, but is just hanging around out of a
macabre sort of rubbernecking attitude most people get when public scenes
are made.

Dinah takes a few steps forward and grabs a package of cotton balls,
tearing it open. She says with a flat emotionless voice, "Hold out your
hand."

Oliver motions for you to come close with his hand, glass grates against
bone. "Yes... come to me nurse maid... tend my wounds as you are not fit
to bear children." 

Dinah intakes her breath quickly as she unfastens her sling, giving her
arm mobility again. She walks up to you, her spine straight and her gaze
unwavering. With a slight inclination of her head she acknowledges the
remark with another wintery smile. "Ohhh ...you're batting a good average
tonight. But Deja Moo. I've heard all this bullshit before." She holds out
her own hand (which is trembling slightly), and asks in a cold voice,
"Will you let me take care of that? Nothing would make me happier than to
see you bleed to death from your own preening stupidity, but I have an
emotional attachment to the man you're so casually and smashingly
invading." 

Dinah thinks . o O (I wish my shoulder would stop hurting...and my hand
would stop trembling. I can't let him know how terrified I am.) 

Dinah thinks . o O (So stupid to run out like that...I should have asked
Ted or Connor to come with me. But then I wouldn't be here...)

Oliver's face twists into tormented pain... "Please... help me... 
Dinah...." the fire seems to be gone from his eyes and the tone, weak and
frightened as if it comes from a bottomless pit.

Dinah drops the cotton and whispers, "I'm right here, Ollie. You can fight
it. I know you can." She reaches out to place her hand on his shoulder,
leaning up on her tip-toes to say in his ear, "I love you...Please come
back."

Oliver laughs out like a howling wind in your ear before his tongue jets
out to lick the side of your face. "I LOVE YOU TOO BABY!"

Dinah recoils in disgust, and she reflexively shoves him away! "Ugh! You
bastard!"

Oliver's laugh continues to echo out as he walks out, leaving a trail of
blood. 

Oliver has left. 

Dinah wipes her face with the back of her hand, her features twisted into
a bitter grimace.

Harold walks slowly to the checkout aisle. He sees the blood on the floor
and looks pale.

Dinah stares at the blood and shudders involuntarily. Woodenly, she bends
down and picks up a shard of glass, scraping it against a pool of blood,
murmuring, "I know what this will be. Normal human blood. Rh-. Why then,
am I doing this?"

Dinah bites down on her lower lip as she stares at the piece of glass,
almost losing the ability to detach herself from the events that have just
occurred. With a deep breath she reminds herself out loud, "Because it's
part of the job. Ah well."

Harold looks wanly up the aisle at Dinah. He sees her start to scrape it
up, murmuring to herself, and this sight is somehow so disheartening to
him that he thinks . o O (Oh, hell.) and moves towards her. "Ms. Lance." 
he says calmingly. "Come on. There's nothing else you can do here." 

Harold moves with her, a half-step behind, as if that's where he
habitually walks. 

Dinah pauses in mid-step, and she looks confusedly at Harold. "You think I
don't know that? You think that's not eating me up?" She frowns, "You look
familiar. Very familiar."

Harold nods. "I was your lawyer for a while. I might be again, soon. But
we never met before. I just wanted to help. Do you want me to, or would
you rather me just pull another fade?"

Harold is perfectly frank, but his voice is quite reassuring. 

Dinah lowers her gaze to the floor and murmurs, "How can you possibly
help?"  Dinah thinks . o O (Was he a friend of Max's?) 

Harold adjusts his glasses uncomfortably. "I don't know, to be honest. But
you helped me at Mr. Luthor's press conference when that woman attacked,
and you didn't know me from Adam. I'd be a fairly low creature if I didn't
try to help you when I knew who you were and saw you needed it." 

Dinah tilts her head as she regards you, and a genuine smile forms slowly
across her features. "That's where I remember you from. But you don't need
to feel obligated...helping those people into the subway and out of danger
was something anyone could have done." She swallows and looks at the shard
of glass in her hand, then back at the mess behind her. She grimaces. 
"They're going to ask a lot of questions I can't answer. You said you're a
lawyer?" 

Harold nods slightly. "I'm way ahead of you. But you have to leave now. 
Did you drive or take a cab?"

You say "My cycle's parked a block away. I'm grateful for this Mr...I'm
sorry. I can't even think right now. I know that I should know your
name...I've seen you around Lex."


Harold says "Dayton. Harold Dayton. Yes, I do some work for Mr. Luthor,
too." 

Dinah gives you a rueful look as she holds the glass in her hand. "If
you'll forgive me for not shaking your hand...I'll be off. Lex has my
number if you need to contact me. I appreciate this more than you could
ever know."

Harold looks up at a security guard and a pale pimply man who could be a
clone of every other late-night grocery store manager you've ever seen. 
"Ms. Lance needs to be out the back way. You'll need a copy of the
security tape for your insurance claim, but the police will need one, too,
get it offline now." They nod to him dumbly and move to comply. 

Harold shrugs. "Like I say, not helping would be absolutely vile, even for
a lawyer." He gestures towards the back of the store. "I will see you
later."

Dinah thinks . o O (The last thing we need on our hands is another
anti-hero propaganda attack as a result of a few smashed bottles in a
store. This man seems so efficient...I think I can trust him. I'd better,
since there's no time!)

Dinah nods and walks out as quickly and as furtively as possible.