#(( thea saw that ollie was active and had to join in ))

[raywritesthings]

Music and Memories

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters (with speaking parts): Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Cisco Ramon, Thea Queen, Barry Allen Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary:  At a joint team holiday party, Laurel coaxes some of the old Oliver she still knows and loves out for their friends to see. Songs used: 1967's "Someday at Christmas" (written by Ron Miller and Bryan Wells for Stevie Wonder) and 1977's "Keep Christmas With You (All Through the Year)" (music and lyrics by Sam Pottle and David Axelrod for Bob McGrath).

No one would call her a natural host. For one thing, Laurel usually kept herself too busy to host anything. But it had been a while since Oliver had been able to have a full Christmas party without something going wrong, and Laurel wanted it to be perfect for him this year.

She’d gotten the invitations out and received the various RSVPs back from their wide-spread group of friends. The Waverider had been the only non-response, and Laurel anticipated her sister’s crew arriving with presents and eggnog in tow sometime before March. But it was to be a full house at the mayoral residence tonight, a place Laurel was becoming more familiar with now that she spent a few nights a week here. Nevertheless, she ended up recruiting Thea’s keen eye for decorating.

“You know Ollie’s gonna like whatever you do, right?” Thea asked her as they wrapped tinsel around the banisters.

“I know, but I don’t want him to just like it. Something’s always seemed to go wrong around the holiday for him the last few years, and I want him to have the chance to kick back and enjoy himself. Open up a bit more with some friends.”

It had been strange when Laurel had first realized Oliver had a reputation amongst their larger circle of vigilantes and heroes for being intimidating. Certainly he was no wallflower, and there were few criminals who didn’t regret having met him, but it was Oliver. Even after he had returned from the island reserved and somber, she had never even entertained the thought of being nervous or afraid around him the way some from Central and even a few of the newer vigilantes who had become active in their own city were. They just didn’t know him the way she did, and Laurel hoped this party could go a ways to changing that.

Oliver came back with a tree before dark, and she was happy to see his face light up at the sight of the decorations. “This looks great, you two. Did you come across a box for ornaments?”

“Got you covered,” Thea said.

By the time they finished decorating the tree the sun had set and the catering had arrived. For how busy they were and the size of their group, Oliver had acknowledged that cooking just wasn’t going to be possible. Laurel was just glad he wouldn’t be stuck in the kitchen for half the party.

“We better get changed,” Thea said. “They should start coming any minute now.”

Laurel nodded and followed the siblings upstairs. Oliver lent her the en suite to change in since he was just trading his shirt and tie for a deep red sweater. Laurel emerged from the bathroom in the dark green velvet dress she had bought for the occasion. “Well, we’ve got the festive colors down,” she remarked.

“That we do.” Oliver took a couple steps to meet her, one hand smoothing up her back while she placed her own hand to his chest. This kind of closeness between them creates a kind of giddiness in her, still; it hadn’t been all that long ago that she thought they’d never be this way again.

The doorbell ringing interrupted the moment, and they had to make it back downstairs quickly to meet the first of their guests, Mari with a covered dish under her arm. Laurel gave her friend a side hug and directed her to the table to set it down with everything else.

For the food, they had set up a buffet of sorts with little standing tables here and there, their gathering too large to fit at a table, even if the one in the dining room nearly rivaled the old one that had been back at the Queen Manor.

More and more people filtered in; John and Lyla, minus the twins; her father; then the Flash team from Central City, which upped the noise level in the house dramatically.

Hugs were exchanged, conversations springing up in pockets here and there as people got food and found places to stand or sit and eat. Everyone was having a good time catching up with each other and about the various goings-on in their respective cities.

One thing Laurel noted with warmth in her chest was the lack of alcohol. They’d told their friends it was BYOB, but the fact that all of them had decided simply to go without for tonight was a quiet, yet deeply moving gesture to her, though she managed not to get too teary about it.

She did her best to play the part of hostess, flitting between groups here and there and checking in with each of her friends. Her dad was doing well talking shop with Detective Joe West, so she didn’t feel too badly about only stopping by him for a moment or so. She was glad the other cop had decided to come, even if he supposedly wasn’t too fond of Star City or its residents.

Laurel spotted Oliver once talking to Barry then again later standing alone by a table. She was in the middle of a conversation with Caitlin and Iris at the time, and once it had wrapped up he had moved somewhere else. She hoped it was to speak with one of their other friends.

She registered music coming from the sitting room. Apparently someone had found the piano that sat there, totally unused. It actually didn’t sound that badly out of tune. Laurel was only mildly surprised to find Cisco at the keys when she wandered into the room. Her friend had a lot of talents.

“Laurel, come over here!” Cisco’s summons accompanied by a charming grin was infectious, and Laurel made her way to the piano. “What are we singing? Good King Wenceslas?”

She shook her head with a laugh and he banged out a couple heavy-handed chords. “Maybe something a little more modern.”

“Mm-hm. Let’s do some Stevie.”

“Okay,” Laurel agreed. She knew the song; it had always been one of her favorites. And since the emergence of her powers had gifted her a good ear and a strong voice, she’d gotten more and more comfortable with using it for an audience.

Cisco started to play and took the first verse. “Someday at Christmas men won't be boys, playing with bombs like kids play with toys. One warm December our hearts will see a world where men are free.”

He nodded for her to take the next one. She placed a hand on the closed lid of the piano and drew a breath.

“Someday at Christmas there'll be no wars. When we have learned what Christmas is for. When we have found what life's really worth, there’ll be peace on earth.”

Cisco joined back in.

“Someday all our dreams will come to be. Someday in a world where men are free. Maybe not in time for you and me, but someday at Christmastime.”

She tossed her head shift her hair over her shoulder and happened to catch Oliver’s eyes across the room. Others were standing around, swaying to the music and smiling, but the sheer tenderness in his gaze as he watched her stole her breath for a second. Laurel almost missed coming back in.

“Whoa, someday at Christmas there'll be no tears. When all men are equal and no man has fears. One shining moment one prayer away from our world today.”

She couldn’t seem to look away from Oliver now. Maybe, in a way, she wanted to be sure he heard this. How many times had he struggled to keep going or felt like he was losing his way? He judged himself so harshly for not being able to save everyone or stop every disaster. What they did for their city, it wasn’t easy and it wasn’t for the short-term. They were fighting now in the hopes that they were making a better future for those who came next, and that didn’t have to mean it was hopeless even if they never saw it themselves.

“Someday all our dreams will come to be. Someday in a world where men are free. Maybe not in time for you and me, but someday at Christmastime. Someday at Christmastime.”

There was a good deal of clapping from their friends, almost all of whom had found their way to the sitting room at this point to listen. They stood or sat in clumps around the room, all except Ollie who was back against the wall on his own. Laurel thought for a moment, then came up with an idea, turning to Cisco.

“Can you look up a song really quick for me and wing it?” Laurel leaned in and whispered her plan quickly, causing Cisco’s eyes to light up as he nodded and grabbed the tablet for some research.

Laurel stood straight and crossed the room towards where Oliver stood. “That was beautiful,” he told her, and she ducked her head with a pleased smile.

“Hold the praise. I’m about to do something you might not like.”

“Oh?”

Laurel held out her hand, and she was gratified that he took it even if he was raising an eyebrow at her while doing so. She led him back over towards the piano.

“Okay, everyone,” she called out, waiting for the general chatter of voices to die down a little. “Thank you all so much for coming out and for making this truly a happy holiday for all of us.”

“We really appreciate it,” Oliver added, which she’d been hoping for.

“Christmas is Ollie’s favorite holiday, and I actually know what his favorite Christmas song was from back when we were growing up…”

Oliver turned his head sharply towards her, but Laurel wasn’t done.

“And I’m hoping that he will agree to sing it with me for you all tonight.”

A great whoop of excitement went around the room, accompanied by scattered laughs and giggles. Barry in particular looked like his Christmas had just arrived a few days early.

“Do it, Ollie!” Thea called from her perch on the arm of the couch. It seemed to kick off a scattered chant of “Do it, do it!” around the room.

Oliver looked down at her, attempting to appear stern. “Really?”

“Come on. It’s Christmas,” she reminded him.

He hung his head for a moment, then held out a hand to quiet the chanting that had only grown louder and more unified. “Cisco, do your worst.”

“You got it,” their friend replied with an ear to ear beam. 

“I’ll start it off for you,” Laurel promised softly as the opening chords were played. “When Christmas time is over and presents put away, don't be sad. There'll be so much to treasure about this Christmas day and the fun we've had.”

She nodded at him encouragingly, and with a sigh, he joined in, a little rough but mostly on pitch. “So many happy feelings to celebrate with you, and, oh, the good times hurry by so fast. But even when it's over there's something you can do to make Christmas last.”

“I love this so much,” Cisco remarked as he swiped to the next page for the chorus.

“Ollie, is this Sesame Street?” Barry asked, looking up from his phone which he’d clearly been using for a quick search.

Oliver nearly pulled away, but Laurel slipped her arm around his waist. “Keep Christmas with you all through the year. When Christmas is over, you can keep it near. Think of this Christmas day when Christmas is far away.”

To her relief and delight, Thea stood up and pressed herself to Oliver’s other side, joining in with her own voice. Apparently she could still remember this, too.

“Keep Christmas with you all through the year. When Christmas is over save some Christmas cheer. These precious moments—” with his sister’s support, Oliver had joined back in, and she felt him wind his own arm around her waist, drawing her into his side. “—hold them very dear. And keep Christmas with you all through the year.”

Cisco had started singing along as he played as well, and over by the tree she saw her dad grinning fondly at their group while Joe West looked on them with total bemusement, stunned, she supposed, at seeing the Green Arrow this way.

“Christmas means the spirit of giving

Peace and joy to you. The goodness of loving, the gladness of living; these are Christmas, too.”

Barry had his phone out still and was sharing it with Caitlin and Iris to read the words off the screen while Mari came up to the piano to read over Cisco’s shoulder. John and Lyla seemed to know the words on their own, and the whole room was ringing with their combined voices by the end.

“So, keep Christmas with you all through the year. When Christmas is over save some Christmas cheer. These precious moments, hold them very dear. And keep Christmas with you all through the year.”

Cisco ended his playing with a great flourish, and cheers and clapping went up around the room, “Merry Christmas!” shouted here and there.

“That didn’t hurt much, did it?” Laurel asked quietly.

“No,” Oliver said, and she felt his lips press against her temple. “Not at all. Thank you.”

There friends were all lining up to share their favorite carol or song with Cisco to look up, and though their voices would no doubt be hoarse by tomorrow, Laurel knew it was worth it seeing Oliver, alight with happiness in the center of the room the way she knew he still could be.

[coralstories]

DCTVxCora

DCTVxOC Cora Liu series

Chapter 1: Blast from the Past

Word count: 5091

Warnings: I haven’t actually watched the show in a while so if any characters are ooc I apologize. Other than that, uh, there’s mention of some sex traffickers in this one (cause I watched an episode of Criminal Minds before writing this haha).

A/N: italics mean thoughts

Team Flash and Team Arrow were about to embark on a dangerous mission. Meta-human activity had been low lately, so Team Flash joined a project Team Arrow had been working on. 

Felicity had gotten word that a sex trafficking ring would be coming through Star City. It was a group that the authorities had been after for a long time, so of course, they had a plan in place. Oliver found out the details of that plan and decided that his team would work around it. If the police managed to capture and subdue all the sex traffickers on their own, good. If a few happen to escape arrest, Team Arrow would be in place to capture them. If the whole plan went to hell, well, Team Arrow had a contingency for that as well. Team Flash paired up with one member of Team Arrow as a backup. Barry partnered with Oliver, of course. Cisco (aka Vibe) partnered up with Diggle and Killer Frost partnered up with Thea. Laurel went solo so that she could be free to help the police. Wally had been out of town for the week, but they felt they had the situation more than covered.

The inconspicuous convoy carrying the women would be traveling between the two cities. So, the police forces of Star City and Central City had also joined forces on this task. Their plan was to attack the convoy on an empty stretch of road to cut collateral damage. Several officers would remain outside the vehicles while others went in. This was partly to pressure the criminals into surrendering, which was unlikely. The other reason was so that they could release the prisoners and get them away from their captors. 

Finally, the plans were set, the players were in place, and night fell. Two long, armored trucks trundled across a vast stretch of flatland. There were three cells in each truck, each cell holding five girls. Any more and they would not fit. There was a man outside each unit, another at the entrance to the back of the trucks, and two in the cabin. The guards were not allowed to seriously harm the girls, so the ways to pester them were limited. They got bored with teasing the girls, so they amused themselves with cigarettes and card games. 

Cora Liu observed all this as she flew above the convoy. She had many powers that allowed her to do so without actually going into the trucks. Suddenly, she read in one of the driver’s minds that they expected a police attack soon. Cora raised her eyebrows. The expectation was a vague one. They didn't know how or where the police would strike. There was a high chance that the police were aware they were in the vicinity and would attempt to arrest them. Cora rolled her eyes, then expanded the circle she was flying in until she caught sight of the police. She was almost among the clouds, there was no danger that they would see her. She also caught sight of other figures, figures that didn’t move or dress like the police. There were two red figures, two black-clad blond women, two with weird headgear, and a green figure. She smiled as she caught sight of the green figure on his motorcycle.

Hello, Oliver. 

She sent the message to his mind, and when he faltered on his motorcycle and flinched, she knew he had heard her. 

Funny seeing you here.

Oliver tensed for a moment before he recognized the voice. Barry, running beside him, saw his momentary lapse in control of his bike.

“You okay, Olly?” he asked over the comms.

“Yeah, fine, Barry. Focus on the police,” Oliver said.

“Okay,” Barry said, used to Oliver’s gruff manner by now.

They both turned back to the task at hand. Oliver pushed back thoughts of the little Chinese girl he had met during his five-year exile. The police would strike at any minute. Cora also turned back to her task. She flew closer to the convoy as police cars erupted from the sides of the road. The team of vigilantes slowed down, but in the middle of the convoy, chaos erupted. The trucks were surrounded and the drivers slammed on their brakes. Inside each compartment, the girls screamed as they were thrown to the front of the trucks. The girls moved little and only pressed against each other more, while the men fell to the floor. They all grumbled and cursed, and the ones closest to the cabin banged on the wall. One of them pulled out a walkie-talkie to ask the drivers what was going on.

“It’s like we thought, the police know!”

Then, the police had the doors open and were in each of the trucks, but of course, they were met with resistance. The four men in the cabins pulled out pistols. Those that were in back held up automatic guns and fired without aiming. The heroes stepped in to protect the policemen. Some pulled them out of dangerous situations. Others, like Barry, deflected bullets so that the policemen could retaliate. They did not engage the sex traffickers in direct combat; they left that to the police. They assisted the few who, in the midst of the firefight, tried to rescue the girls. Cisco was particularly suited here. They started with the first cell in the second truck. He opened a portal that led far away from the battle. The policewoman he was working with freed the girls in the cells.  Diggle thwarted any who tried to stop them. The policewoman joined, firing with precision once she had ushered all the girls to Cisco. Cisco rushed them through, assuring them that they would be safe on the other side. He instructed them to stay where they were until someone came to fetch them. They continued to do this all the girls were extracted. Laurel left the convoy, carried by Barry, to protect the girls in case any of the men or anyone else got too close to them. It seemed, after that, that the plan was going to be successful.

Despite their best efforts, many were injured, including Barry. After he had dropped off Laurel with the girls, he came running back. He was right in time to witness a man creep up on Detective Quentin Lance.

That’s Laurel’s father, was all he thought before running right in front of the large gun aimed at Detective Lance.

It let out a sound like a clap of thunder. There was a horrible crack. Barry’s collar bone broke, his shoulder dislocated, and he started to bleed. It even blew back the thug who fired it. Quentin flinched, then turned around and shackled the man in an instant, with the help of Joe West. Oliver had not been able to keep up with Barry zipping back and forth between the two trucks. He had lost sight of the speedster, and then he heard Barry's shout of pain over the comms.

“What was that?” Oliver demanded.

He didn’t wait for an answer as he rushed over to the back of the first truck.

“Barry’s hit,” Diggle said. 

They all dealt with the last few criminals still standing before joining Caitlin at Barry’s side. 

“I need to get him back to the lab,” she said, the tips of her hair still white. “I have everything I need there to help him heal.”

Cisco got up and prepared to open a portal to Star Labs.

“No,” Barry said.

“What? Barry, we have to hurry--”

“You have to get the girls to the police station, then you can come back for me,” Barry said.

Thea was already leading the officers to where the girls and Laurel were still waiting. Oliver grimaced. 

Cora, if you’re still around, I need you to help me, Oliver thought, trying hard to project his thoughts.

“But, Barry, besides you Cisco is the only one who can get here fast enough,” Felicity said.

She, Harry, and Iris were in Star Labs, keeping an eye on things from there. 

“And he’ll get me there fine, as long as he gets the girls out of here,” Barry reasoned, gritting his teeth through the pain.

Most of the officers were loading the criminals into a prepared van. One ran over to where the superheroes were huddled over the crumpled body. He started to wrap a rag over Barry’s shoulder to stop the blood flow. Oliver looked at him with hope, thinking that it could have been Cora in disguise, but he was disappointed. He turned to Cisco.

“Come on, hurry!” he snapped. “Like he said, the faster you get those girls out of here the faster you can get him help.”

Cisco frowned but did as he was told.

“We can take him to the hospital if you want,” the young officer offered, his voice uncertain. “All our guys are going to Metro.”

“Thank you, but they won’t be able to help him,” Caitlin answered.

The officer nodded. “Figured as much, but I thought it’d be rude not to offer.”

He’s funny, Cora’s voice said in Oliver’s head.

He snapped his head around to search the sky, looking for her. Diggle noticed his movement and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. It was an unspoken question, but also comfort if Oliver needed it. Oliver shook his head in frustration.

Stop playing, Cora. My friend is hurt.

I can see that. I’m sort of wondering what this “Star Labs” is though, so I’ll follow you all there. After I heal the policemen, of course.

Oliver didn’t have any more time to argue with her as Cisco appeared and snatched up Barry and Caitlin. Team Arrow had to rush the rest of the way to Central City’s Star Labs on their motorcycles. When they got there, Caitlin had Barry sedated while she cleaned up his wounds. His body healed at an advanced pace, but that did not mean it healed correctly without the proper care. 

“I’ve extracted most of the shrapnel from his body,” she said as Iris led the others into the room. 

“And he’s doing okay?” Laurel asked. 

The others had told her what Barry had done. He had protected her father. Guilt mixed with fear as she looked at Barry. Oliver, like the rest of them, now had his mask off and hood down, and they could all see the tension on his face. Thea rubbed his back. 

“See, Olly, he’s going to be okay,” she said, her tone soft and comforting. They were all misunderstanding Oliver’s emotional state.

“That’s not the point,” Oliver muttered. Then, louder, “I’m sure Caitlin would appreciate some help.”

An image flashed in his mind of the high ceiling, so he looked up. 

“Had enough of an eyeful?” he almost yelled. 

Everyone looked at Oliver like he was going crazy. Then, a chuckle echoed throughout the room. Their gazes also turned to the ceiling, fearful this time. The air above one of the beams shimmered for a millisecond, and then a figure appeared. Her great brown wings and green eyes stood out in the shadows. She jumped from the beam and landed on one knee in the middle of the room, her wings dusting the ground. She looked up and stood slowly, cautiously. She was wearing cargo pants and a leather jacket, with a saddlebag slung across her body. No one said anything as she looked everyone in the eye, one by one. Then she looked at Oliver and her lips curved upwards. She walked closer to Barry, who was laying on the examination table. Caitlin stepped in front of him, blocking Cora's path. Cora smiled at her, but they all could see it was only a polite practice. 

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I was invited.”

Oliver finally stepped forward. He took her elbow with a firm grip and led her to Barry’s side. He pointed to Barry and turned to face Cora full-on, a stern look on his face.

“Heal him,” he said. 

He avoided meeting her eyes, and instead looked over her head. 

“She can heal people?” Cisco asked, excited.

“Yes, and now she’s going to heal Barry,” Oliver said, crossing his arms and staring at Cora.

Cora smiled sweetly at him.

“Why, dear brother, why would I start listening to you now? I will heal him, don’t worry, but not for you,” Cora said.

Everyone flinched in surprise at this statement. Thea looked at Oliver, her expression demanding answers.

“Not my real sister,” Oliver said quickly. 

“Of course not, would you abandon Thea as you did me?” Cora asked as she laid a gentle hand on Barry’s uninjured shoulder. She gasped, then said under her breath, “You are the fast one, aren’t you?”

She ran her hand down his arm, feeling all the energy trapped within him. The others watched her every movement like a hawk. Cora moved her hand across Barry’s chest to his other shoulder, feeling the wound and the extent of the damage. Iris fidgeted, uncomfortable.

“Can you hurry up and heal him?” Iris snapped.

Cora did not respond other than to shoot Iris a tight-lipped smile. 

“Are these stitches dissolvable?” she asked Caitlin.

Caitlin hesitated, then nodded.

“Good.”

Her palm glowed then, a bright, warm glow like a lantern. Oliver relaxed somewhat as Cora began to heal the speedster. No one seemed to notice her comment about him abandoning her. Thea, of course, had taken notice. Her gaze flicked between her brother and the strange girl. The light faded from Cora’s hand, and she took a step back. She kept her hand hovering over Barry’s shoulder for a moment, eyes locked on his face.

“So, who are you?” Cisco asked after a moment of silence.

He reminded Cora of a puppy. Barry began to stir as Oliver took Cora’s elbow again.

“It doesn’t matter, she’s leaving,” Oliver said. 

“Well, why don’t you introduce the pretty lady to the rest of us?” Cisco protested. “It seems like you two are already… cozy.”

“That’s not the word I would have used,” Felicity muttered.

Iris stepped forward, blocking Oliver and Cora’s path.

“Thank you... for helping Barry,” she said. 

She stepped aside. Cora nodded at her, and then Oliver continued leading her out. 

“Wait,” came Barry’s weak voice. 

Oliver stopped and sighed. Cora looked at him and smirked. 

“What’s your name?” Barry said. 

Cora turned around to find him sitting up, with Caitlin supporting him. She tugged her arm out of Oliver’s grip and smiled softly at Barry. 

“My name is Cora Liu.” She gazed at the rest of them, including them in the conversation. “Thank you for helping Oliver find his way. And thank you for convincing him to go after those men. I’ve been trying to convince him to go after this particular ring for years.”

Oliver sighed. She was going too far. 

“Okay, you can leave now,” he said gruffly. “Stop trying to turn everyone against me.”

Cora looked at him with wide eyes. 

“Turn them against you? Why would I do that?” She spoke with far too much innocence in her voice to be believable. “Besides, if I were actually trying to turn them against you, don’t you think I would tell them about that time you left me on my own at fourteen to fend for myself? Or before that, how you did nothing when—.”

In an instant, they were on the floor. At first, it looked like Oliver had her pinned, with one hand over her mouth, but then Cora was on top of Oliver. His right arm was twisted behind his back at a bone-breaking angle. Oliver stilled, knowing his predicament. Before anyone else could move though, Cora was on her feet again and Oliver was suspended in the air. Everyone including Barry froze in shock. 

“I’m not here to fight,” Cora said. “Truly. I swung by to make sure you didn’t fuck up with those sex traffickers. But I came now because unlike you, I actually still care. Maybe that’s my fault, but that’s how it is. So even if you don’t want to see my face, you’re always going to hear from me. And don’t forget: this time, you called me.”

Oliver dropped to the ground, and Cora turned and addressed the rest of the teams. 

“I’m sorry for ruining what was probably going to be a celebratory night for you all. You deserve to celebrate, you did well.”

Then she turned on her heel and walked out of the Cortex. 

“I’m gone,” she said, her voice echoing from down the hallway. 

“Wait!” Cisco exclaimed. 

He ran after her, while Harry and Caitlin exchanged significant glances. 

“That was brilliant!” Harry exclaimed. “She displayed not only an ability to heal at will but also telekinesis—”

“And teleportation, apparently,” Cisco interrupted, coming back into the room. “She’s actually gone.”

Oliver stood with his arms crossed and his head down. Thea went over to him in a gentle voice.

“Olly, what was she talking about?” 

“Yeah, I think we’re all wondering now,” Felicity said. “Seems like you two have… a history.”

The way Felicity laid stress on “history” made Oliver frown. 

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Oliver assured her. 

“I’m thinking you screwed her over,” Thea said bluntly. “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, but this meta-human is making you seem like some sort of an asshole.”

“I was an asshole when I was younger, remember,” Oliver said, sighing. “And that’s when I met Cora. Cora Liu is not a meta-human. She’s a demigod.”

Stunned silence followed this statement. Then everyone began talking at once. 

“Excuse me?”

“What?”

“Is that a real thing?”

“How does that even happen?”

“What the fuck, Oliver?”

“You always come out with the weirdest shit.”

“Alright, let’s hear it,” Diggle said, his voice rising above the rest. “It's obvious that there's some bad blood between you two. What happened? You met her when you were both younger, right?”

Oliver slumped into a chair and nodded. Everyone else also sat and got comfortable. They knew they were in for a long backstory/flashback type scene. 

“I met her on Lian Yu,” he said.  “She didn’t live there, she lived with her mother on another island a few miles away. She was only thirteen when I met her. I found out that she has all these powers, and I asked her to help get me home. She tried, but before we could do anything her mother and the gods found out—”

“Ahem, excuse me,” Iris interrupted. “The gods? What gods?”

“The Greek gods. They’re real. Same as Egyptian gods are. Remember Chay-Ara and Khufu? Anyway, the point is, she tried to help me but was not allowed to. Her parents and the gods were afraid that someone would discover her before she was fully grown.” Oliver sighed. “And that’s exactly what happened. I haven’t told you guys everything that happened on Lian Yu, but you know that it wasn’t as deserted as everyone thought. And with Cora and her family’s island being so close… people noticed. And so they went over, and… they killed her mom. The whole island was in flames, I could smell the smoke, I could see the fire, and I swear I could hear Cora’s screams. I knew what was going on, but I did nothing. The gods got her out alright, of course. But when she contacted me a year later, she said they had left her on a ship to San Francisco by herself. She asked me for help, asked me to find her when I came back to the States, but I never did. It’s not that I forgot about her, I just… I told myself she wasn’t my responsibility.”

“Why did she call you her brother?” Thea asked her eyes on the ground. 

She was probably thinking that her mother had another affair, or her father had a child from one of his. Oliver’s heart ached at imagining her thoughts. 

“When we first met, I was still completely messed up over Dad,” Oliver said. “I was lost, trying my best to survive in a world with more violence and malice than I’d ever known. She was only a kid, but she comforted me. She was used to the fighting, her mom and the gods had taught her to defend herself from the moment she could walk. I was the first man she had met born in the same century as her. She got me to play with her, and laugh with her. I cared for her like I was her big brother. I shouldn’t have let her think that.”

“So you did abandon her,” Barry spoke up. 

Oliver glared at him. 

“In the past,” Barry said. “Don’t abandon her now.”

Now Oliver wore a quizzical expression. 

“What do you mean?” he asked. “I’m supposed to go after her when she teleported away?”

“So she can teleport!” Cisco exclaimed. 

“Either that or she jumped out a window and flew away. Depends on how mad she was,” Oliver muttered. 

“She can fly too?” 

“Cisco, I think you’re too excited about this,” Caitlin commented. 

“Yeah, this is a story that makes 22-year-old Oliver look like an even bigger asshole,” Laurel said. 

“Hey,” Oliver whined. 

“I think that’s Barry’s point,” Felicity said. 

“Yeah, Oliver,” Iris said. “You were an asshole to her when you both were younger, but it doesn’t mean you have to keep being an asshole to her now.”

“Wouldn’t have said asshole,” Felicity said, thoughtful. 

“Okay, can we stop calling me an asshole, please?” Oliver said in an exasperated tone. 

“Then go after her!” Barry exploded. “Just go outside and yell her name or something. How did you get her here in the first place?”

Oliver sighed, knowing his next sentence would get another exaggerated reaction. 

“She has telepathy. We were communicating in our minds.”

“SHUT THE FRONT DOOR.”

“Again, how is this possible?”

“Can we please get her back here?”

“This is insane. I’m so done with these themed cities.”

“Alright, alright!” Oliver exclaimed. “I’ll see if she’s not too far away yet and if she’s still listening.”

Cora, come back. I think we need to talk about this a little more. Cora, you still there? Come on, answer me… Give me a sign, at least. 

A memory that was not his own flashed across his eyes: three policemen, badly injured. A tanned and calloused hand stretched out. A gentle voice shushed their whimpering and groaning. A soft light glowed in the interior of the ambulance. Then a fresher memory, of those same three policemen hugging children and women. 

Oliver sighed. 

“She healed the policemen. They’re all at home now,” he announced to the rest of them. 

“How do you know that?” Caitlin asked. 

“She told me. She sent me memories of her checking on them.”

“That’s… handy,” Cisco commented. “Is she coming back?”

“She’s here,” Cora said, leaning on the door frame. “What do you want, Oliver?”

“I would like to apologize,” Oliver said slowly, almost through his teeth. “My friends have made me realize that I’ve been an asshole to you when I didn’t need to be. I’m sorry.”

Cora blinked quickly, taken aback. 

“What?”

“This is me showing you that I’ve matured, and I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I never meant to hurt you, but after a while, I just couldn’t bring myself to face you. You were such a big part of the most horrible times in my life, and I know that you went through a lot too, but I didn’t want to be reminded—.”

“Olly, stop talking,” Thea demanded.

Oliver immediately shut up. Cora took a deep breath.

“That’s great,” she said. “I’ll see you around, then, I guess.”

And then she started to walk out of the cortex, but Barry was prepared for that. He was at her side in a flash and took hold of one of her arms.

“Please,” he said. “My friends and I want to learn more about you. Can’t you please stay? We’re curious about how you have more than one power.”

“I thought Oliver would have tried to explain that by now,” Cora said, stiffening.

“He explained about your history together, but not your personal history,” Barry said. 

“We’re not trying to keep you here against your will, but we’d like to get to know you,” Cisco said, surprisingly calm for once. “I, especially, am interested in you.”

Caitlin cleared her throat. 

“In a… completely… professional manner—way, of course,” Cisco said, backing away towards Caitlin. 

Cora sighed and began tapping her foot. She couldn’t deny she wanted to spend more time with Oliver. Despite her festering anger, she missed him. Observing the meta-humans couldn’t hurt either. They didn’t seem like they were bad people, even if the long-haired one, Cisco, was a horrible flirt and sort of clingy.

But they seemed too interested in her. Not in a malevolent way, but it was still annoying. She didn’t want her every move to be monitored. She felt like if she stayed, but Oliver didn’t want her there, he would keep an eye on her himself or have someone do it for him. As if she was a danger to them (which she could be, but that was beside the point). 

“I’ll stay, but I have a few conditions,” she finally said, looking straight into Barry’s eyes. 

Barry glanced back at his friends and family before answering. “What are they?”

“First, you all have to decide that you, at the very least, don’t mind me being here. I know you said you want me here, but if Oliver and his team don’t feel comfortable with me being here I’m not going to stay.”

“That’s nice of you,” Felicity said, genuinely touched. 

Cora’s next words ruined that feeling. 

“I don’t make this condition for you, it’s for me. I don’t want you all to be tense around me and watch me suspiciously because you don’t trust me. I wouldn’t blame you, but it would be annoying and I would quickly leave.”

“What’s your next condition?” Oliver asked, feeling that they should hear them all before deciding. 

“You said you want to learn more about my powers. I assume that means you’re going to use some of this equipment I see in here?”

Several nods confirmed her inference. 

“Then when I say to stop, you stop. You can’t give me orders and ask me to parade around my abilities like a trained lion. If I say I don’t want a particular test run, whether it be blood work or an MRI, it doesn’t happen. If I don’t feel like answering any more questions, I leave for the day. I’m not used to staying in one place for very long anymore, I’m bound to get antsy.”

Cora caught Caitlin’s eye, and the woman nodded. 

“The final condition,” Cora continued, “is that I don’t go and do any “superhero” stuff with any of you. I’m going to disappoint that expectation right now, it’s not me. If one of you is in mortal danger and I feel obligated to help, I will. But you will not force me to run in and out of burning buildings all day. If you want me to elaborate further on why, I can do that once you decide that you want me to stay. I’ll give you some time.”

And then she was gone. The two teams were quiet for a moment while they all pondered her words. 

“Her second condition is easy to fulfill,” Caitlin declared. 

“If she stays, we as doctors cannot force her to do any procedure she does not want to do in any case,” Harry added. 

“Her third one, though,” Barry mused. 

It was as if they had all silently agreed that they had to approve her latter two conditions before considering the first. 

“She sounds like she has a good reason though,” Cisco said. 

He was met with a lot of curious and shocked glances. 

“I agree,” Laurel said. “I mean, from what Oliver has told us, she probably used her powers as a survival tool. He wasn’t a very good example of a hero for her when she was younger, either. Maybe she feels that he’s being a bit hypocritical.”

Oliver frowned. 

“Sorry, Olly,” Laurel added. “I don’t mean to keep dragging you through the mud.”

“No, you’re right,” Oliver said. “I wouldn’t force her to team up with any of us either.”

“Do you want her here?” Diggle asked. “It seemed like she was mostly talking about you when she named her first condition.”

“Like you all have said, I can’t keep pushing her away. It’s not right, and I should fix things between us. I think this is a good opportunity to do that,” Oliver responded. 

Felicity took Oliver’s hand in hers and gave him an encouraging smile. 

“Maybe we can even eventually convince her to join us on missions,” Barry said. “She said as long as we don’t force her…,” he trailed off. 

“Yeah, if she chooses to help of her own free will, that becomes her decision,” Iris said. 

“Then let’s put it to a vote,” Thea said. “Is there anyone who does not want Cora to stay? Raise your hand.”

Ten pairs of eyes roamed around the room, searching for dissension or support. No one raised their hand. Cisco grinned and clapped his hands together. 

“Awesome. Looks like we’re all in agreement. Cora stays,” he said, excited. 

Cora reappeared in the doorway as soon as he said that. 

“Alright,” she said. “Do you guys have any food?”

[geneshaven]

Safe

PART 7

 Just before Oliver and John were about to engage Watson and the ten agents she brought with her, Felicity’s voice spoke over the comms.

“Guys…don’t move. I’ve got Thea and Roy coming to you.”

Agent Watson was staring intently at Oliver, wondering if he was stupid enough to try an attack. But the man and his vigilante partner only stood still in front of her. An uneasy feeling gripped her. In spite of all the evidence (and the confession from one of his team members) she had on Oliver Queen, Watson really did not know just how much he was capable of. Even with ten assault rifles trained on him, she was anticipating some sort of desperate act on his part. She was fully prepared to take him out if he did; never mind the certainty of her evidence and the life sentence his conviction would bring.

“Oliver,” Felicity’s voice came from his earpiece again. “I’m detecting a digital signal coming from one of the back rooms. It looks like some kind of countdown. I think maybe Anatoly left behind an explosive surprise. He must have activated it when you and John dropped in on him.”

Oliver continued to remain frozen and silent, but his instinct was to seek out the bomb Anatoly left. He had a thousand questions for Felicity, but if he started talking to her, Watson would figure their comms out pretty quickly and Oliver would lose his only tactical advantage. Even though Watson was about to take him and John into custody, Oliver still felt his priority was to save lives.  Anatoly was a different and more immediate case---he tried to assassinate his wife and son over a grudge born out of an insane Bratva code of honor and brotherhood thing.  The man would not quit his vendetta until his purpose (seeing Oliver and those he loved dead) was complete. With Watson, she appeared to have a similar agenda. But unlike Anatoly, she was still an authority Oliver recognized. The woman was not as covert as Lyla and Argus---in fact Oliver wasn’t sure if the FBI Agent even knew that Argus existed. But both women believed their principles and goals were the same---to protect the sanctity of the USA and its citizens.

“Mr. Queen,” Watson spoke to him again. “I really hope for your sake you’re not thinking of some sort of foolish action. As you can see, there is a lot of firepower surrounding you. I doubt someone with your…uh…skills, can avoid it.”

“Agent Watson,” Oliver finally said out loud. “Whether you believe it or not, we are both on the same side. Forget that you’ve been infiltrating my team with blackmail and intimidation; I have the same goal as you do---justice.”

“Mr. Queen, what you’re doing is not justice---it’s illegal.”

“You may think you’ve won here,” Oliver told her. “But if all of us don’t leave this house pretty soon, there won’t be any winners... just a lot of body parts.”

“What are you talking about,” Watson asked him?

“He’s talking about a bomb,” John answered her. “You know; the kind that goes BOOM. Anatoly left one behind and it’s counting down in one of the back rooms.”

A half smile of contempt and one of doubt surfaced on Watson’s otherwise dour face.  She looked like she had just figured out a secret and was not comfortable with it. “So I guess that Ms. Smoak has joined us.  Some sort of comm link? Mr. Diggle, are you and Mr. Queen trying to stall so she can find some kind of safe exit for you? You are not getting away this time.”

Oliver put his hands up in a placating gesture.  The FBI agents surrounding them tightened their grips on the weapons they were aiming. “This is not a trick, Agent Watson.” He touched his finger to his ear. “Ms. Smoak,” he said with a private smile. “Have you calculated the countdown yet?”

Felicity didn’t hesitate. “Yes…Mr. Queen.  You have 90 seconds before BOOM.  I don’t know how big the bomb is, but knowing Anatoly, I’m guessing it’s large enough to leave a hole in the world.”

“Agent Watson,” Oliver relayed to her. “You need to make a decision.  We have about 60 seconds before the bomb goes off.”

Watson was the one frozen this time. But she was not going to let Queen slip away again. Yet, if he was telling the truth…

Suddenly, two flash grenades flew into the room and went off, bringing temporary blindness to everybody.

Oliver and John finally moved, turning away from Watson and her agents. With no sight, they used total recall and envisioned the layout of the safe house. They got their bearings and headed towards the front door.

Random gunfire erupted from Watson’s agents as they blindly fired their weapons into the empty space where Oliver and John had been standing.

“Oliver,” Felicity frantically said to him. “Keep moving. Thea and Roy are waiting to help you out. They’re just a few more feet ahead. Go…”

“Ollie…” Thea’s voice called out. Oliver could not see her, but he turned his senses toward the sound of it. After a couple seconds of groping, Thea grabbed her brother’s arm while Roy took John’s.

Gunfire was still spraying behind them. “My god you guys…” Felicity cried out in their ears.  “Move…move…move. Time’s up.”  

And then the four of them were out the door and moving further away from Anatoly’s last hurrah. Ten seconds later, the safe house exploded and lifted them up, launching them out onto Adams Street. Debris rained down on them, hitting the street in a deadly downpour. They covered themselves as best they could, but burning fragments of the house still got through to them.

Then it was quiet, as if someone had turned off chaos. Oliver opened his eyes and saw a blurry image where the safe house used to be.

Thea suddenly screamed. “Roy,” she wailed.

Oliver turned to her and forgot to breathe. As his distorted vision from the flash grenade began to clear, he saw Roy sprawled out a couple feet away from Thea. Blood was trickling out of his mouth. Oliver took a closer look, now that he could fully see.

What he saw was two bullet holes in Roy’s chest.

@it-was-a-red-heeler @memcjo @dmichellewrites @hope-for-olicity @flowerandsunshine @louiseblue1 @inevermindyou @bandanab310 @cruzrogue @almondblossomme

[darklygophilia]

Do you think Oliver's reasons for not agreeing to train LL valid? He cites that Sara would never forgive him and asked about Lance and what would happen to him if anything happened to LL. Do you think oliver knew deep down that LL would find a way to be out on the streets because of the magical powers she felt she got from wearing Sara's jacket. Nyssa herself said that she wasn't fit to wear it. Granted these moments were the early episodes of s3.

Well, it should be noted that Oliver is NOT the only person who didn’t want Laurel to become a vigilante! It’s also interesting how all the characters that gave reasons for Laurel NOT not to be a vigilante: Oliver, Nyssa, Lance, even Sara mentioned in S2 she wanted Laurel & her family to be kept separate from what she did with the League & Team Arrow. All of these characters gave really logical arguments as to why Laurel should NOT join Team Arrow in an active capacity (as Black Canary or as a vigilante).

1) Nyssa argued that Laurel was unfit to wear Sara’s jacket. My interpretation is that it’s not just personal for Nyssa, b/c Sara was the woman she loved. It’s also about her League upbringing. Nyssa believes in things like legacies. She felt that Laurel couldn’t uphold Sara’s legacy (which, from what was shown to us viewers, was to fight for women; to bring justice to women). The ONE time we see Laurel fight for a woman is when she’s at an AA meeting & learns that one of her fellow AA members is in an abusive relationship. So, what does Laurel do - she does what she does best. She acts without any forethought to her actions!

Speaking as someone whose been in an abusive relationship & studied the psychology of abusers & has been an advocate for victims, the way that Laurel went about this was ALL wrong. First, let’s talk about how women should help other women in an abusive situation the RIGHT way…

As another woman’s defender NEVER let the abuser know you’re acting on behalf of the victim. Abusers are KNOWN for blaming their victims no matter what. If an abuser knows that you are defending their victims, the person who will suffer most in the end, are the victims themselves! B/c the abuser will blame them for what you as the defender did. When Sara, & now Dinah, go after abusers they don’t tell them why they go after them. You never saw Sara announce herself to rapists & tell them why she was beating the crap out of them. She just did it! It was people like Felicity who found out why Sara did what she did b/c Sara told her directly, ”No woman should suffer at the hands of men!” If Sara had told this to the abusers/rapists, those same guys would’ve likely gone home & abused their victims more, b/c the abusers would automatically believe that their victim had told someone about the abuse. B/c that’s what abusers do; that’s how they think! To them, it’s always the victims’ fault!

So, when Laurel puts a ski mask on & goes after her AA abuse-victim’s abuser, when Laurel acts as her defender, Laurel announces to the abuser, “I hear you like to hit women!” Well, how would Laurel know this? B/c she heard the victim talking about it. Which is exactly what the abuser would assume, that his victim told Laurel. So, when Laurel instead fails to take down the abuser, it’s very likely that THAT same abuser went home & did even worse to his girlfriend - the real victim. The abuser would’ve blamed the victim for what Laurel TRIED to do! The way that Laurel went about defending the victim, instead likely endangered the victim further! Now, in terms of Laurel’s actions: 1) this is classic Laurel - she doesn’t think about the consequences of her actions so in a way it is very in-character; 2) this is on the show writers for not thinking that scene through entirely as they should’ve!

But, also, in this regard, from Nyssa’s view on Sara’s Legacy - on her view that Laurel is trying to take Sara’s place as a defender of women - yes, her argument that Laurel is unfit to wear Sara’s jacket is very legit & valid! B/c what Laurel does doesn’t actually help the victim.

2) Lance has already lost one daughter to the crime-fighting life. While he’s proud Laurel wants to help other, he’d rather she do it in a less direct, less dangerous way. And the truth is, Laurel didn’t need to become the Black Canary to become a hero - not all heroes wear masks. Felicity is proof of that! Frankly, there’s so many masks on the show now, that it’s downright repetitious (the same could be said with the number of Black Canary arcs there have been). What would’ve brought some much needed development & uniqueness to the show is by showing many different kinds of women being different kinds of heroes. You don’t have to be physical to be a badass hero, sometimes the mind is the greatest weapon, not your fists. Again something that Felicity has proven! So, what would’ve brought more depth to the show & to Laurel was if they’d made her a hero in her own right by focusing more on what she does as a lawyer (& if she’d done it without Team Arrow’s help all the time). She could’ve been a lawyer vigilante - bend the will of the law in the courtroom not on the streets! Not only would this have changed things up on the show (instead of having Laurel force her way on Team Arrow; instead of making Team Arrow feel over-crowded) it would’ve also made Lance feel like his daughter was more safe & given Laurel her own purpose without making it feel like she was usurping Sara’s role on the show!

3) The one thing Sara wanted for Laurel was happiness. Sara always felt a lot of guilt over the pain that she caused Laurel when she ran off with Ollie. Sara wanted Laurel to be able to come back from that, to rise above what Sara was & be better. Sara wanted MORE for Laurel. The fact that Laurel cares so little for what Sara wanted for her, especially after Sara’s death, just makes Laurel’s desire to become Black Canary almost insulting to Sara’s memory. Especially when you compare it to Oliver’s vow to Tommy in S2. Tommy hated that Oliver killed. How does Oliver value & respect Tommy’s memory? He vows he will do his best not to kill! He remembers & listens to Tommy’s concern even after Tommy’s death! In comparison, Laurel disregard for Sara’s wishes after death just made Laurel that much more dislikable.

To top it off, Sara struggled a lot with killing (like Oliver). It’s the very reason she left the League & when Laurel desires to kill to avenge her sister - THAT’S the exact opposite of what Sara was working towards, an argument voiced by Oliver as well. Sara was trying to overcome being a killer. While Laurel was often seeking it out: 2x11 when Laurel killed the cop that wore the skull mask in cold blood (she acted poorly on her gut instead of legit proof), 3x02 when Laurel attempts to kill someone she assumes killed Sara, when Laurel briefly wanted to punish Roy when she thought he was Sara’s killer but he was proved innocent (yet she blames Oliver for not telling her it was Thea who killed Sara), throughout S3 when Laurel wanted vengeance for Sara’s death & often encouraged & pushed Oliver to kill. Not only does this go against what Sara herself wanted but it also goes against the vow Oliver made in memory of Tommy. Leading the assumption that Laurel was dishonoring both Sara AND Tommy.

Also, it really brings to light that Laurel’s arc was more about one-upping Sara than it was about living up to any legacy! The show itself has even drawn on this comparison many times during Laurel’s BC arc: when Laurel goes as far as pretending to be Sara in order to keep Sara’s death a secret from her father, & most especially in 3x18 “Canaries” ep.

Not only that, Laurel is none for acting on her own, lies to the Team & her father, doesn’t think before she acts, & doesn’t seem to like to listen to authority - all of this proves & shows she would NOT be good out in the field & her actions have often caused trouble for other members of Team Arrow. She’s not just a danger to herself but to others. And this is where we once AGAIN get the show vs. tell with Laurel. Arguments based on reason & logic made by other characters like the above SHOW & TELL why Laurel shouldn’t be a vigilante, but were also told she’s a fighter for the public, w/o really seeing it. We’re either told something that completely contradicts what Laurel actually does, or we’re shown something that contradicts what we’re told. In terms of Laurel’s character, what’s show & what’s told are almost always two completely different things! This is a problem that the writers are responsible for!

4) As for Oliver himself, to answer your question; he argues all of the above. “It’s not what Sara would’ve wanted, Laurel.” “Think of your father, Laurel.” “You’re desire to be the BC is all about your addiction, Laurel.” Oliver makes all of the arguments at one point or another. And he, like all the other characters - Nyssa, Sara’s memory, Lance - are right! The fact that Laurel does it all regardless also proves the arguments against her, IMO.

And like all things with Laurel, it all goes back to the writing/development of her character. From a writing standpoint, Laurel did deserve better! But, she is what we got & as I’ve said before, “I mourn what she could’ve been…” b/c Laurel had so much promise, so much potential. But…”I don’t miss what she was!” The Laurel that could’ve been & the Laurel we got are as different as the Laurel that was shown to us & the Laurel the writers/producers told us about. They are two completely different Laurel’s!

[wickedtheory]

The DC TV Report for 5/27/17

Welcome to the DC TV Report for the week ending Saturday May 27th, 2017. As submitted by Edward O'Hare, nickname To Be Determined. There were 6 new episodes this week, including 3 finales and one penultimate episode.

Gotham - Penguin and Riddler worked together to escape the Court of Owls prison and agreed not to kill each other for 6 hours. The Shaman finally trained Bruce to hide his mom’s pearls in a safe and become the perfect weapon. Selena attacked Evil Bruce, revealing the truth to Alfred. Evil Bruce whipped them both and ran. Selina refused to help Alfred find real Bruce. After a dangerous run-in with an ax-handed, bomb-dropping Barnes, Jim and Harvey finally brought in Kathryn, let Alfred beat her up, and watched her get decapitated by Barnes, after he turned the precinct into Fury Road. Barnes was finally taken down until he escaped. Lucius pieced together a crystal owl and discovered it was a map of the Court’s plan. Last Minute Reveal: In the middle of all this everyone failed to notice Lee being consumed with sorrow for Mario’s death and hatred for Jim (probably because all the boys kept her out of the loop). Before they could realize it, Lee stole the Tetch virus and injected herself with it!

  Lucifer Penultimate Episode - Charlotte gave money to a guy claiming to have the missing piece of the Flaming Sword of Eden. The guy took the money into a backroom and was murdered. Lucifer maneuvered Chloe to take the case. It was pretty obvious that the killer was Chet, the wannabe rockstar son of a Drug Queen. Lucifer and Charlotte were able to recover what they paid for: the key to a safe-deposit box that contained a Sumerian text. Chet tried killing Charlotte, but a cut caused light to shoot out of Charlotte and roast Chet’s face off. Maz tried to get Luci to help stop Dr. Linda from getting suspended for last episode’s antics. Luci only made it worse when he slipped that he slept with Linda. Last Minute Reveal: After reading the text Amenadiel and Lucifer learned the third piece of the sword was a key given to God’s favorite son. Amenadiel jealously thought it referred to Lucifer until his necklace began to be drawn to the sword! 

  Supergirl Season 2 Finale - Kara had to knock out Superman to snap him out of a silver Kryptonite trance. J’onn woke up from his coma. Kara challenged Rhea to a one-on-one fight for all the marbles. James defended Cat Grant, who immediately recognized him as the Guardian. Clark and J’onn defended the city with help from M’Gann who swung over from Mars. Kara was forced to activate a weapon that Lena converted to make Earth’s atmosphere toxic to all Daxamites. The fallout disintegrated Rhea and the Daxamites bounced but Mon-El was also forced to leave Earth. During the celebration, Alex proposed to Maggie. Kara felt down, got some encouragement from Cat, and we saw her fly straight into the air at full speed as Mon-El’s ship entered a wormhole. Last Minute Reveal: 35 years ago, on the day Krypton died, another baby was placed in a small spacecraft by a woman who touched the child with a drop of blood and declared that when the baby reached Earth, it would reign!

  The Flash Season 3 Finale - Iris was alive! HR used his transmogrifier to take her place. Savitar kidnapped Cisco, forcing him to modify the bazooka into a quantum splicer that would help Savitar avoid being erased from time. Barry tried offering Savitar an olive branch, but it didn’t work out. Instead of saving Savitar, Cisco’s splicer freed Jay Garrick from the speed force. In the final showdown, Barry vibrated Savitar out of his suit, leaving him to be swallowed by the Paradox. Julian offered Caitlin a cure but she decided instead to walk the Earth. Just when it seemed like Iris and Barry could start planning their wedding, the Speed Force reigned a storm that threatened to destroy Central City unless Barry served penance for his transgressions from this season. Last Minute Reveal: Barry said his goodbyes to the team, kissed Iris, and joined the vision of his Mom in the breach. After he disappeared the storm faded away!

  iZombie - Harley Johns posted his zombie attack video and received mixed reactions. A Fillmore Graves helicopter exploded and Vivian Stoll was killed. Liv pan-fried the brain of a daredevil who burned to death after riding a bike through a ring of fire wearing a hay costume. Turns out one of his producers sabotaged the suit’s flame retardant after the prankster knocked up his girlfriend. Liv shared the brain with Justin and they had their first kiss, but Justin got in trouble for stealing Super Max from work. Angus came up with a brilliant business strategy to take advantage of the Zombie outbreak. Blaine ruined that by leaving Angus to rot at the bottom of a well with cement shoes, and taking over his businesses. Last Minute Reveal: Liv put on some spray tan and hair dye and tried sneaking into a zombie haters meeting with Ravi, but she had to leave when she saw Harley Johns taking people’s blood pressure at the door!

  Arrow Season 5 Finale – 5 years ago, Oliver fought and killed Kovar, was rescued by fisherman, and called his mom. In the present, Oliver enlisted help from Merlyn, Nyssa al-Ghul, and Deathstroke to infiltrate Lian Yu. Felicity, Curtis, Thea, and Samantha were freed. Malcolm sacrificed himself to save Thea from a land mine. Oliver and Deathstroke rescued Diggle, Quentin, Rene, and Dinah. Final matchups included Nyssa vs. Talia and Quentin vs. Black Siren. Felicity and Curtis discovered that the getaway plane had been disabled and the whole island was rigged with C-4 set to blow once Adrian Chase died. Ollie tracked Chase to a fishing boat and once off the coast, Chase revealed William, making Oliver choose between saving his son or all his friends. Ollie shot Chase in the leg and saved William. Last Minute Reveal: Just when it looked as though Chase had finally been defeated, the bastard pulled out a revolver and shot himself, causing the whole island to explode. Is all of Team Arrow dead?!

HEAR IT HERE!

[given-the-hood]

Laurel

{ message from: Ollie }  Speedy, I need you. With such little information Thea was worried that something had happened to Laurel again and that Oliver needed some sort of support while he waited to find out more information about her health.  This thought was enough to provoke her to go back home without asking questions, but she was about to receive the shock of her life because she spotted Laurel sitting at the kitchen table with a brunet that seemed very familiar to her.

“ Laurel, thank god you’re alright! ”

The spare key that she never thought she’d use had come in handy today, but she wasn’t going to tell Oliver because that would mean that he was right.  “ Ollie texted me and I came here as soon as I could.  Is he okay? I don’t want to interrupt you and your fr---Felicity??? ” Thea involuntarily dropped her bag as she realized that her former friend and almost sister in law was sitting right in front of her.  Five years without a word and suddenly another ghost had returned?  This stuff was getting so old... “ Anyone want to fill me in on what’s been going on? ”  @onelastxtime​ 

[raywritesthings]

Bird in a Storm 1/17

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Quentin Lance, John Diggle, Tommy Merlyn, Lucas Hilton, Thea Queen Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary:  The confrontation between the Hood and SWAT on the roof of the Winick Building goes differently, altering the course of Laurel's career, relationships and efforts to save her city forever, the shockwaves of such an altered path making themselves felt throughout her family and friends. AU from 1x13 “Betrayal” on. *Can be read on my AO3, link is in bio*

On the island, split second decisions had been the difference between life and death, and there had never been time to worry about the moral implications. That had always come later. But Oliver already hated himself for what he was about to do.

There was only one way off this roof that would ensure his safety and his identity. One way to survive.

Oliver grabbed hold of Laurel with one arm, pulling her back against his chest. She was rigid, and he could feel the hammering of her heart. Fear. He had broken the precarious trust she’d placed in the Arrow once again.

Lance’s eyes burned with rage. “You so much as leave a bruise on her, and I swear I will drag you down to hell myself.”

“Laurel, I’m sorry.”

With a slight shove, he turned with one arm already pointing his bow to shoot a grapple hook arrow — but in the same instant the shot rang out.

Louder to his ears was the punch of air that left Laurel as she staggered back into him with the force of it. Oliver felt his heart stop as his arm came round her once more, this time to hold her up.

There had been the crack of a bone. He couldn’t tell if there was blood. What kind of bullet had Lance let his men use?

“Laurel,” he breathed, watching her eyelids flutter in response.

An anguished wail left Lance, and he teetered forward and back on his feet before whirling around and snarling at his own task force. “Guns down! Who fired?”

Another split second decision, this time with someone else’s life in the balance.

Oliver pushed the consequences to the back of his mind and spun Laurel around, encouraging her to get her good arm around his neck. She clung on as if by instinct. Then he jumped with her in his hold.

The shouting of Lance and the other officers was lost in the wind rushing past his ears. Once he regained his feet, Oliver scooped Laurel’s legs up with his other arm and broke into a run. The pained whimper that left her at the sudden movement tore at his heart. This was all his fault. He should’ve been more careful. What sort of monster was he that he’d been willing to gamble her life?

“I’m sorry,” he said again in the Hood’s voice, hardly a comfort. Oliver frowned and refocused on moving forward.

He could get her to a hospital faster than all of them, and he was loathe to trust any of them with her at the moment.

But they would never let him leave once he relinquished Laurel.

Only a split second to decide.

He changed course, activating his comm and praying that Diggle was listening.

“Get the medical supplies ready.”

“Oliver? What the hell happened to you?”

“It’s not for me.” Laurel’s breathing was growing shallower by the minute. It was possible she was entering shock. He couldn’t stop to treat her for that, not when every cop in the city was bound to be looking for them soon.

But he was unwilling to let it go without trying to reach her and keep her grounded. “You have to remain calm.”

Laurel’s breathing only seemed to pick up, and her face turned from him. Right, he terrified people like this. The Hood was the last person anyone would want at their figurative bedside.

He didn’t think Oliver Queen was much better. But he had to try.

With a soft beep he deactivated the voice modulator. “Stay with me, Laurel. Please.”

There was a hitch in her breath and then her head fell back, looking up at him.

“...Ollie?”

Without the modulator, he couldn’t hope to hide the tremble in his voice. “I’m so sorry.”

He wasn’t really sure if she was seeing him. Her eyes remained wide and shocked as he rounded the final corner into the alley behind the Verdant. Oliver took the last few steps at an even faster run.

“Just a bit farther. It’s gonna be alright.”

Digg was waiting at the exam table, but he looked up as soon as Oliver cleared the stairs.

“Oh, hell.”

“Not now, John. Please.” He laid Laurel on the table and pushed the hood back from his face. “Help me.”

Diggle held his gaze for a long moment. “Pass me the scissors. Need to get at her shoulder.”

---

John did exactly as he had always done in Afghanistan: work quietly and quickly. Oliver was much too tense for conversation as it was, and truthfully he wasn’t much better.

Laurel Lance’s gunshot wound wasn’t a penetration. From what he could feel, she had a clavicle fracture. Rubber bullet, most likely. It wouldn’t need surgery, though she was going to need some work to regain the full use of her left arm. Better that than a few inches to the left and a shot to the face that would have had much more potential to be lethal.

She’d lost consciousness, for which he was a little grateful. Oliver didn’t put much stock in painkillers, so they didn’t have much on hand. They’d want to save it for when she woke up.

But soon enough he was laying down the leftover supplies from the makeshift splint he’d crafted and stripping the gloves off his hands, the silence in the base growing heavier by the minute. He drew in a breath, then asked at last, “Oliver, what were you thinking? What happened?”

There was no immediate answer. Oliver seemed to be taking some time to gather his thoughts. He’d found a jacket to drape over Laurel in her sleep, the closest thing they had to a blanket down here, and John watched him take care not to touch her shoulder as he tucked it around her. Oliver brushed some of her hair back behind her ear, his expression utterly unreadable. Finally he took a step back and looked up.

“It was an ambush. Lance must have figured out how we were meeting, and he brought his whole task force.”

John wiped some of the sweat from his forehead. Sometimes he didn’t know how Oliver got himself into or out of these situations. “And how does that end up with an innocent woman shot? Lance’s daughter shot?”

Something crossed over Oliver’s face, darkening his expression. “The only way to get off the roof was to place her between me and them. But when I pushed her towards Lance someone must have had their finger resting on the trigger, and the sudden movement…” He trailed off, but John could gather the rest.

“So what made you bring her here?”

Oliver looked at him as though he’d just spouted pure insanity. “It was one of Lance’s men who shot her. I couldn’t leave her there. And I wouldn’t have been able to get out of the hospital without being arrested.”

It might not have been impossible, but he could see the difficulty. John looked down at Laurel Lance. They had very few options and very little time to act, but some things needed to be decided now.

“Are we letting her wake up here? Cause if we do, she knows everything,” he pointed out, no doubt needlessly. Oliver crossed his arms tight, as if trying to hold in the rising panic at what his actions had caused. “If you help me get her in the car, I can drive her to a hospital.”

But Oliver was already shaking his head. “There’s no way to explain how you or I would have found her. Lance saw the Hood take her, so that would put me right back in the station.”

“Right, and now he’s got kidnapping to add to his list of charges.”

“I’d like to add reckless endangerment to a list of his crimes,” Oliver growled. “What was he thinking, John? The only daughter he has left could have been killed tonight and all for his obsession.”

“Some people are willing to do whatever it takes when they’re on a mission,” he said, his voice carefully light.

Judging by the look Oliver sent him, the double meaning wasn’t missed.

He plowed ahead anyway. “But seeing as she is his daughter, what’s to stop her from telling him the truth whenever she wakes up? She’s gonna have the power to end this whole thing, Oliver. To end both of us.”

Oliver shook his head. “That’s not something Laurel would do.”

“Yeah, well I’d feel more confident about that if you hadn’t just got her shot.”

He watched Oliver frown and pace away, grabbing up his change of clothes to finally shed the Hood’s suit.

When he returned, he was scrolling through his phone with an even deeper frown.

“Missed calls?”

“Yeah, about twenty. Tommy, mom, Thea — hold on.”

The phone had started buzzing in Oliver’s hand, and he placed it up to his ear. “Hello?”

There was a pause where John thought he could hear the chatter of Oliver’s sister on the other end.

“Speedy, slow down. What?” He glanced down to Laurel and briefly touched her still hand. “That’s… horrible,” Oliver said, seemingly struggling for the right word for a moment. “Of course, I’ll head right down. I’ll be careful. Love you.”

“So what’s going on?” John asked once he’d hung up.

“There’s a search being organized for Laurel. And a manhunt for the Hood. Lance is on the warpath.” He gave Laurel’s hand another squeeze and looked up. “I have to go join the search.”

“Something tells me you’re not planning to be too helpful.”

Oliver gave him a dry look. “Considering I’m trying not to prove I’m the Hood, that would be the idea. Text me the minute she wakes up, please. Or if anything about her condition changes.”

“Right.”

Oliver turned to go, but stopped and looked back. “John, I — thank you.”

John nodded. There wasn’t anything that needed to be said. Whether or not he agreed with what had happened tonight didn’t matter; they were in this together regardless.

He sighed as the door shut behind Oliver, and he settled into the chair in front of the computer. From this position he could keep an eye on their patient without being uncomfortably close. No doubt she’d be disoriented enough upon waking already.

John considered their options going forward. Everything hinged on whether or not Laurel Lance considered the Hood an enemy or still her friend. Or perhaps it mattered how she considered Oliver more.

He had wondered from time to time if it might be better that some of the people in Oliver’s life knew the truth. It would lessen the constant demands on his time, anyway. And he knew the longer he isolated himself, the longer it’d take for him to come back from those years on the island. John himself had only just started feeling like a part of the world again after Afghanistan, and he had Carly in his life. A.J., too, even if his nephew wasn’t quite old enough to fully understand why Andy had never come home from the war.

But none of what John had done was technically illegal...

Laurel was a gamble but she was perhaps still the best option for who could find out first. She’d proved willing to work with the Hood multiple times, unlike the rest of Oliver’s circle who seemed convinced the vigilante was a dangerous lunatic. She was close to Oliver without being an actual family member John knew he couldn’t stand to lose. And with her in the know, perhaps she’d be less of a distraction that led to mistakes like tonight’s events.

Finding himself cautiously optimistic, John leaned back in his chair to wait. It was all they could do now.

---

Quentin was about ready to rip his hair out. How could the night he’d planned to catch that damn vigilante have gone any worse?

He’d had him. He’d had him in his sights. Then the bastard had grabbed Laurel, and he’d felt his heart stop. Only things hadn’t ended there.

One of his officers, one of his own, had shot his daughter. Starling’s supposed finest. He still couldn’t believe it.

It had all felt like some horrible nightmare where things had kept spiraling out of his control. He should’ve never taken his eyes off her. That had been a rookie mistake. As it was, that Hood had had Laurel off the roof and down onto the streets below before Quentin could do so much as turn and run to the edge. They’d disappeared in the shadows between two buildings as he’d screamed her name.

Pike had been about as furious as Lance had ever heard him when he’d called in the botched operation and requested more forces to begin canvassing the area. He’d deal with that later; right now, it was his own rage and fear he had to keep in check.

Pike’s new superior Captain Stein’s first and foremost demand had been to allow the reporters who had swarmed around the scene to believe that it was an arrow Laurel had been hit with and not a bullet. Damage control was always the first thing on the brass’s minds, none of them having learned from Nudocerdo’s mistakes, apparently. It didn’t sit well with Quentin; lying about the facts of a case never did. And he wanted justice for his daughter.

He’d see that officer thrown off the force whether the public knew why or not. As for the vigilante, he was starting to wonder if he should’ve put a bullet in him months ago. If he was willing to abduct Laurel, someone that for whatever reason believed he was some kind of force for good in this city, who knew what else he was capable of?

They’d found nothing in the immediate perimeter that had been set up. Now he stood over a map, outlining where the combined groups of police patrols and volunteers should look next. A couple of Laurel’s colleagues had come out, but nothing compared to the outpouring of aid from the Glades. Whole families had come up to him with stories from their time as Laurel’s clients. If he wasn’t so worried, he might have been proud.

But none were as much of a wreck —outwardly anyway — as Merlyn. He’d come screeching up to the edge of their perimeter and leapt out of his car before the engine was fully off.

“Detective Lance! I just saw the news. Have you found anything?”

He’d tossed his third cup of coffee and shook his head. “Not yet.”

“But why would he shoot her and then take her with him?” Merlyn had finally managed to get one of his gangly legs over the tape they had tied between two telephone poles and jogged the rest of the way to him. “I mean, I know he’s crazy, but that beats about anything yet.”

Quentin had looked him up and down, then stepped closer. “Look, uh, I’m gonna level with you. It was a misfire from an officer.”

Merlyn had reeled back. “The cops shot her?”

“Would you keep it down?” He’d growled. “It was a rubber bullet. Laurel wasn’t the target.”

“What was she even doing there?”

“She’s been talking to him. The Hood.”

Merlyn had frowned. “I told her he was dangerous.” Something had darkened in his expression. “When they catch him—”

“You’ll have to get in line. Now are you here to look or not?”

Merlyn had stuck by his elbow ever since, helping coordinate between the various groups. The organizational aspects seemed to keep him calmer, as calm as he could be given the circumstances.

“Is there a neighborhood he’s been spotted in more often than others? He’s gotta have some kind of home base, right?” Merlyn wondered aloud. “What if he ditched her out in the Glades somewhere? She’s totally defenseless.”

“We’ll comb the whole city if we have to—”

Anything else he’d been planning to say was drowned out by the motorcycle that came roaring down the street before stopping just beyond the police tape. Quentin scowled, though not as much as when he got a look at who the driver was. Oh Christ, and he’d been wondering if it could get worse.

“Queen, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Just saw the news and wanted to help join the search.”

“Yeah, you’re the last kind of help I need.”

Queen frowned, and his tone had a coldness Quentin hadn’t known he possessed as he replied, “Laurel is my friend, and the most important thing to me right now is that she is safe. I would have hoped that’s something we could agree on.”

“I know I can,” Merlyn said before Quentin could answer to that. He embraced his friend for a brief moment. “God, Ollie, you think she’s okay?”

“I have to believe that. But the longer we go without any news it seems less likely.

In this city, money talks.” He turned back towards Quentin. “I would like to pledge ten million dollars to anyone who comes forward with credible information about Laurel or the Hood.”

Quentin was glad he hadn’t been drinking his coffee. As it was, he was still left spluttering. “Ten million! For information?”

Queen’s serious expression never wavered. “Laurel is worth that and more.”

Merlyn gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah, but no one’s asking you to bankrupt yourself.”

“I lived without money for five years, Tommy. But I can’t go back to living without the people I care about.”

He and Merlyn exchanged a look, thrown by the blunt statement. Quentin cleared his throat and said, “Alright, well I can’t stop you. Are you actually gonna join this search or just throw money around?”

“I’d like to,” Queen said, his tone clipped.

“Go talk to Detective Hall, then. She could use another volunteer for her team.” As the younger man turned and left he thought he could feel the air grow less heavy. Quentin shook it off and turned back to his maps.

The hours continued to crawl by, and though calls increased as the news of Queen’s reward spread, none of it turned up anything useful. Slogging through each and every tip however legitimate was more likely to just slow them down.

Hilton approached him with another coffee and pursed lips. He knew his partner had something he wanted to say about everything that had gone down on that roof, but Quentin also knew he didn’t want to hear it.

“No word yet,” he muttered.

“Quentin, I think we gotta be honest with ourselves. He’s not gonna be wandering out on the streets for us to find.”

“I’m not giving up looking, Hilt—”

“I’m not saying you should,” his partner interrupted. “But we need to fix our strategy.”

“Alright. Well, what did you have in mind?”

“There’s been no ransom, no attempt at contact. Laurel has the only phone with a direct line to him,” Hilt said, looking to him for a nod to confirm. “We need to start a dialogue.”

“How do you wanna do that?”

“He’ll probably have an eye on the news to see what our next move is. I think it’d be best for you to address him directly.”

Quentin stood up straight. “You think I’m gonna negotiate with that nut job?”

Hilt’s gaze never wavered. “Your daughter was injured. She needs medical care, and the longer we wait the less likely that’s gonna happen.”

Quentin stared hard at the ground. He knew Hilt was right. No matter how badly he wanted to catch this vigilante, he needed Laurel back. Things had already gone badly enough once.

“The only thing we know for sure makes this guy tick is that he’s got ideas about justice. There’s no justice in taking Laurel. You gotta appeal to that.”

He tried not to scoff. “You think that’s really gonna work?”

“Well, we know he’s been willing to talk to you before. That means a part of him’s got to be willing to listen.”

Hilton got everything arranged. Before Quentin felt remotely ready Green from the nightly news was there with a cameraman, and some woman was pinning a mic to his lapel.

“We are on the scene live for the search both for Dinah Laurel Lance, a lawyer for the nonprofit CNRI, and the infamous Hood, who has — for the first time — taken a hostage,” Green stated to the camera a few paces away. “Detective Quentin Lance, who is leading the search as well as the SCPD’s anti-vigilante task force, has asked our network to broadcast this address to the vigilante himself.”

The woman who’d miced him cued him with the point of a finger.

Quentin squinted into the camera lens. “Alright, I’m gonna make this brief. You are and have always been a criminal since you showed your hood around here. I don’t want anyone thinking otherwise, especially after tonight. You’ve abducted an innocent woman. More than that, you’ve abducted my daughter. There’s not a lot of ways this can end for you.”

He drew in and let out a breath.

“But that’s not what the people of this city have come together for. The people who are out there right now searching and hoping for the safe return of one of our own. So I am asking you to turn Laurel Lance over to the nearest precinct. There will be no ambush. No armed officers. You bring her back and you have one night of immunity. I guarantee it. This is my daughter, and I just want her home.”

This felt all too familiar all of a sudden. Not that he’d ever done this, but he had watched years ago as a different father had pleaded on live television for Barton Mathis not to carry out his sick experiment on the latest woman he’d taken.

It hadn’t done any good. Quentin had found her one night later with Dollmaker’s usual adjustments. He’d broken the news to her family as gently as he knew how, but he remembered to this day the man’s sobs over her body in the morgue.

He could become one of those fathers. He could lose the only daughter he had left.

It felt very hard to breath, and whatever he’d meant to say next completely escaped him. “She’s my daughter,” he heard himself repeat. “I don’t know why you took her, what you want with her. If this is about me, then come after me. But not her.”

He could see it again, the way she’d fallen limply back into that lunatic’s arms.

“She needs a doctor. Please, just let her go. I don’t know if you’ve got a family or not. But she’s all I have. Please. I- I can’t—”

Quentin turned sharply away from the camera and the lights. He ripped the microphone off and shoved it at the assistant as he walked past. “I can’t,” he repeated hoarsely.

Behind him, he could hear Green speak again, but didn’t process the words. He was teetering somewhere on an edge, torn between his need to bury himself in the work and his desire for a stiff drink.

As he exited the ring of camera equipment he could feel a pair of eyes on him. Quentin looked up and somehow wasn’t surprised to see who it was waiting and watching.

“What is it, Queen?”

“I have to go home to arrange the reward with my mother and our bank.”

“Right. Fine.”

Queen hesitated, like he wanted to say something more. Quentin mustered up a glare to make it clear he better not. The billionaire finally gave a small shake of the head and headed back to his bike.

Good riddance. He’d be damned if the man who had gotten Sara killed somehow saved Laurel.

---

Laurel came to cold and stiff, with a dull, throbbing ache in her left shoulder that seemed to only grow worse the longer she lay there. She gave a small groan and could only seem to get one arm to cooperate as she pushed herself up from a metal table. A jacket she swore she’d seen before slipped off her onto her lap, and she stared at it dumbly.

“Try not to touch your left shoulder,” a familiar voice said, and Laurel gave a start as she looked up and met Mr. Diggle’s calm gaze. “The splint should be holding things in place, and the painkillers should be kicking in.”

“Painkillers…”

She noticed the sleeve of her shirt and jacket had been cut away to expose her shoulder, which had an angry red welt from what she could see of it under the splint. Laurel shrugged her way into the jacket for a bit of coverage, more for her own comfort than any mistrust of Mr. Diggle. 

It smelled mostly of sweat, but also something familiar that had a strange calming effect considering she was in an unknown place with a man she was only tertiarily familiar with and no idea how any of it had happened.

It was slowly coming back to her; the rooftop, her father’s men pointing their guns at her and the Hood both, the shot and the shock of pain that had followed. Then things got hazier. She remembered being carried somewhere, the Hood’s voice transforming into Oliver’s midway through, and his eyes staring back at her from under the hood.

Slowly her eyes were taking in their surroundings. The tables lined with green-tipped arrows, a computer, a training mat and one of those workout ladders.

The air whooshed out of her in one soft, “Oh.”

Mr. Diggle drew in a breath. “Yeah. You get used to it.”

“Uh-huh.”

Oliver was the Hood. Oliver Queen, former playboy and the man who had broken her heart five years ago, was the vigilante who had been giving people in the city hope. Who had been giving her hope. She… she’d believed in him.

“Do you remember what happened to you?”

She appreciated the question, because it gave her mind something to focus on besides the shock. “I was shot. One of the task force members my father…” Laurel trailed off and shook her head, not wanting to believe it. “How could he?”

“I don’t know,” Mr. Diggle answered softly. “That splint should be enough to put the bone back into place, but it’s gonna take a while to fully heal.”

It occurred to her that he was apologizing. Laurel shook her head.

“That’s okay. Um, do you have some water?”

He nodded and went to get her a cup. Laurel managed to swing her legs over the side of the table to sit up properly by the time he was back, though her left side was throbbing even more in protest. She accepted the drink with a quiet thanks and sipped at it, letting her eyes take in the whole space for a second time.

“Where’s Oliver?”

“Went to go join the search for you,” Mr. Diggle answered. “I let him know you’re awake, though, so he’ll find a reason to come back.”

“The search?”

“Police saw you get taken away by the Hood. They’re saying you’re his hostage.”

Something that didn’t quite sound like a laugh bubbled up and escaped her.

“Here,” Mr. Diggle said, passing her his phone. “You don’t have to take my word for it.”

He’d pulled up a news site running what they were calling a breaking news story. Hood Takes Hostage, the banner at the bottom read. Seeing her own photo displayed along with a hotline number for anyone to call who had information on her whereabouts was bizarre to say the least.

“Oh God.” Laurel set the phone aside and placed her hand on her forehead. “This is a mess.”

He didn’t disagree.

A door somewhere above them opened and Laurel looked around as Oliver entered whatever place they were in. He stopped at the bottom of the steps as he met her eyes.

There was a look in them, an intensity she until now had only been able to guess at. Now she could only wonder how she hadn’t seen it.

Except she had, hadn’t she?

“So… when you said you couldn’t be some vigilante, that was a lie.”

Oliver looked down, then slowly crossed the room to her table. “How are you feeling?”

“About as good as getting shot feels.”

A pained look flickered across his face. “I’m sorry. I never meant for this to happen to you.”

“It’s not your fault,” Laurel replied.

“The police were after me, not you,” he insisted.

She shook her head. “Ollie, the first rule of firearms is you never point at a target unless you’re prepared to take the shot. Even if just with rubber. They were ready and willing to shoot me.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Diggle nod in agreement.

“Anyway, I knew the risks.”

“I didn’t want to take those risks with you,” said Oliver.

Laurel felt the corner of her mouth lift in a wry smile. “Well, it’s a little late for that. So… what happens now?”

Oliver exchanged a look with Mr. Diggle, then drew in a breath. “You know my secret.”

“Yes.”

There was a long pause.

“I think he’s trying to ask how you’re feeling about it,” Mr. Diggle finally said. She couldn’t quite suppress a smirk while Ollie fidgeted.

“I guess a part of me knew. I would have preferred you just admitted it when I asked you, but here we are.”

“Here we are,” Oliver echoed.

“Ollie, I agreed with what the Hood has been doing. I wouldn’t have worked with you if I didn’t. Knowing it’s you doesn’t change that. If anything — well, it’s nice to know I can contact you as easily as you could me.”

He was staring at her like he couldn’t quite believe she was real. “You want to work with me.”

“Yes,” she said, dragging the word out slightly. “I’ve been working with you, if you haven’t noticed. And you’re my friend. If you needed help, all you had to do was ask.”

“But the Hood’s — I mean I — Laurel, I’ve killed people.” For whatever reason, he seemed frustrated with her. “I’m not a good person.”

“No, you’re a good person trying to do good things who has not always used good methods.” Laurel leaned a bit to the side, as much as her shoulder would allow, to try and catch his eyes which were determinedly stuck to the floor. “If you weren’t a good person, you wouldn’t have returned the money Adam Hunt stole to his victims. Or intervened in Peter Declan’s case. Or helped get justice for Joanna’s brother and the other firefighters. You are more than just a killer, Ollie.”

He finally lifted his gaze, and Laurel felt a pain somewhere in her chest at the doubt that she saw there. This was what he had meant when he’d told her of the damage he didn’t want his loved ones to see. It was not the physical scars from the island he carried, but the things he’d had to learn and to do there to make it back to them. Things he could have chosen to leave behind and live out a comfortable life, but instead was using to make their city a better place for everyone.

“No one can get it right all of the time — not even the cops do,” she remarked with chagrin. Laurel then slid off the table and took a step towards him. “But I believed in the Hood, and I believe in you, too.”

Slowly, she wrapped her good arm around his middle and tucked her head under his chin, the best approximation of a hug she could manage at the moment. Oliver didn’t move away, but he stood still for a long moment. So long it had her holding her breath wondering if she’d done the wrong thing. But then, his arms came around her, one hand cupping the back of her head, and she felt as well as heard the shuddering breath he released in time with her own.

She’d asked the Hood once if the life he’d chosen to lead made him lonely. It was clear to her now that Oliver was.

Laurel stood there as long as she dared, until the throbbing in her shoulder was too much to ignore. She pulled back and couldn’t stop herself from reaching a hand up to touch the spot. When she darted a guilty look in Mr. Diggle’s direction, however, she found him smiling.

Oliver had focused in on her injury. “We really do need to get you to a hospital. Digg’s work is good, but you should have a professional look at it.”

“I know. But can it wait? Just a little,” she added as he frowned. “I just know the minute I’m checked in somewhere my father will show up, and after what happened tonight I’m not sure I can face him right now.”

“Of course,” Oliver said, voice soft. “Laurel, I’m so sorry he did this to you.”

“It’s not your fault,” she repeated. “I just, um, I guess I wish I could be surprised.” Laurel looked up, the smile she attempted wobbly at best, and found Oliver’s eyes swimming with remorse.

“Well, while you’re here, why don’t we give you the tour?” Mr. Diggle suggested.

She turned to him, grateful for the distraction. “Sure. Where even is here?”

“We’re under the club,” said Oliver.

“Wait, really?” They both nodded and she gave a slight shake of the head, trying to reorient herself. “Is that why you’re opening it?”

“More or less.”

“Well, I hope you have somewhere to stash all of this when you get inspected.”

Oliver’s face scrunched up in confusion, and Laurel stared at him. He couldn’t really not realize — but then he asked, “What inspection?”

“The building inspection? Ollie, you have to get everything about your place of business approved by the zoning board before you open. Now I’m sure there’s an inspector or two on the payroll who would take a bribe, but that’ll come back to bite you if anybody bothers looking into your finances.”

She watched Oliver and Mr. Diggle exchange a look.

“We- we’re looking into some options.”

“Right,” she said, unconvinced.

She was shown the basic layout of the place, not that there was too much down here. Even still, it was the Hood’s base. Oliver’s base. His eyes kept going to her shoulder, and Laurel knew she couldn’t delay getting it looked at by a real doctor forever.

Mr. Diggle was the one to help her into the back of a plain black car with tinted windows. He dropped her off at the mouth of an alley just two blocks from the hospital. Laurel walked herself right into the waiting room of the ER and up to the desk.

“Hi, I was hoping someone could look at my shoulder.”

“Alright, if you could fill out this—” the rest of the receptionist’s words died on his lips as he looked up. “Oh my God, it’s you!”

“Um, yeah. I’m not missing anymore.” If she could’ve shrugged, she probably would have. “And I’m not sure I really ever was.”

---

Tommy cursed under his breath as he rounded yet another corner of the parking garage and found no open spaces. He nearly reached the roof before he was able to park and took the stairs rather than wait for the elevator.

There wasn’t a helpful flashing sign pointing out Laurel’s room, so he threw himself at the first help desk he could find.

“I’m here to see Laurel Lance.”

“Are you family?”

“I’m her boyfriend. Please? I haven’t slept all night. And I brought her pajamas and a change of clothes.”

The woman at the desk relented with a sigh. “Down to the left, third room.”

Tommy flashed her as winning of a smile as he could manage while exhausted. “Thank you.”

He should have realized which room was hers from the start judging by the officer stationed outside it. He was allowed past with little fuss and found Laurel sitting up in the bed in a hospital gown and a strange white sling that crossed over both shoulders, her father and a doctor and nurse all standing to the sides.

“Hey.”

Laurel turned to him and managed a brief smile. “Hey. I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Of course I was.” He walked forward and placed the bag in the currently vacant visitor’s chair, then leaned in to press a kiss to her lips. “I was worried sick about you.” Tommy looked back up to the doctor. “How’s she doing?”

“Better than we would have expected. Physical therapy is still highly recommended, of course, but her injury was very competently treated in a short amount of time.”

Tommy didn’t know how that was possible. “By who?”

“The Hood,” Lance said, practically a growl. “He made some sling out of scraps and put it on my daughter.”

“Your daughter who is awake and here and does not like being talked about as if she is not in the room,” Laurel added pointedly.

Lance grimaced. “We’ll, uh, we’ll leave you to get changed, honey.”

They all shuffled out and shut the door behind them. The nurse continued down the corridor, but Lance snagged the doctor’s arm before he could get away.

“Listen, is there anything you can tell me about her injuries or the job he did? I mean what kind of training would somebody have to do one of those splints?”

Tommy felt both his eyebrows raise. He hadn’t even realized there was something to be learned about the Hood from all this, but he guessed that’s why Lance had the badge.

The doctor hesitated. “Well, one thing I suppose you should know, Detective, is that the police report cannot be correct. Your daughter’s wound wasn’t inflicted by an arrow. I’d say it’s likely to have been from a rubber bullet.”

“Alright, alright, but what about him? The Hood? Is there anything we can use to narrow down just who this guy is?”

“Laurel didn’t have anything?” Tommy couldn’t help asking.

Lance scowled. “She’s not talking if she does.”

“She’s still sticking up for this guy? He got her shot,” Tommy said. He couldn’t believe how stubborn Laurel was about this lunatic in their city. He couldn’t believe she’d been meeting him in secret either.

“Yeah, well, that’s why we’ll have to make do with what we can find out on our own. So, doctor—”

The door to Laurel’s room flew open to reveal her standing there fully clothed and seething.

“I cannot believe you two. After what just happened last night?”

Tommy exchanged a panicked look with her father and decided to allow him to try first.

“Laurel—”

“My body is not a crime scene!” She glared at each of them in turn before rounding on the doctor. “I didn’t sign any sort of release of information waiver, and my status as a legal adult means my father is not entitled to it even if he is on the force. So I’d suggest you think real hard about whether you want a lawsuit or not.”

She retreated back into her room with the slam of a door, leaving a very uncomfortable silence in her wake.

“I guess visiting hours are over?” Tommy joked weakly.

“I would suggest that you gentlemen return home for the time being,” said the doctor. “Visitation will reopen later in the morning.”

Lance didn’t look to like that much more than Tommy did, but before either of them could say anything, Laurel’s door was opening again, and this time she had her coat and bag.

“Laurel, what are you doing?” Her father asked.

“I’m discharging myself.”

“That wouldn’t be a course of action I recommend,” the doctor began.

“Well, I don’t really give a damn what any of you think right now.” She strode past them all down the corridor, heading for the elevators.

“Laurel!” Tommy had to jog to catch up with her quick march. “Laurel, wait, please. I brought the car.”

She did have to wait for the elevator, so he was able to catch up. He could tell she wanted to cross her arms but couldn’t due to her bad shoulder.

“Look, I’m sorry. But do you get that we were worried? You were missing for hours. And that Hood, he- he took you.” Something churned unpleasantly in his gut at the thought. He’d never liked the vigilante’s interest in Laurel, and this had been a step way too far in his book.

Laurel relaxed somewhat as they got into the elevator. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, but it doesn’t change the fact that my father went over the line last night and still is. I have four weeks of physical therapy to look forward to because of him, not the Hood.”

Tommy thought he could argue the point that Laurel wouldn’t have even been on that roof without the Hood, but the doors opened out to the level he was parked on and they walked to the car in silence.

As they left the parking garage, Laurel sat up in surprise at all the news crews parked outside the front entrance.

“What are they doing here?”

“Probably hoping to get in for an interview,” he answered, tone clipped. “The whole thing was on TV.”

Laurel seemed to notice his mood and fell silent. They didn’t speak all the way back, not until they’d finally gotten into the apartment.

“So,” Tommy began as he hung up his coat. “Are we going to talk about it?”

“About what?”

He shook his head. “Laurel, you cancelled on me because you said you had work. Next thing I know, you’ve been kidnapped in a standoff with the Hood.”

She winced. “Tommy, I’m sorry. It was about a case. Cyrus Vanch—”

“No, Laurel, the Hood is not work, okay? Vigilantes are not your coworkers. You were hurt, and it could have been so much worse. And as much as you want to blame your dad, you were the one who went to that rooftop!”

He regretted the outburst almost immediately, and the stricken look on Laurel’s face only made matters worse.

“Look, just promise me you’re not gonna put yourself in a position where that lunatic can get to you again, okay?”

“Tommy—”

“Please, Laurel.”

She looked down. “Nothing like that is going to happen again. I promise.”

He felt himself relax and leaned in to kiss her forehead. “Okay, what do we need to do to get you ready for sleep?”

Laurel was able to do most of the work changing her clothes for pajamas. It was just the one sleeve she had trouble with, apparently, and he had a feeling it was only due to her exhaustion that she let him help. Because of the risk of further hurting her shoulder, he was going to be spending his nights the next few weeks in the guest room. A great feeling considering he’d only recently been allowed his own drawer in the bedroom.

The one thing Tommy could console himself with was that it was all over, and Laurel was safe. In time, her shoulder would heal. Maybe now their lives could get back to some kind of normal.

[raywritesthings]

Rebirth

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Thea Queen, Ra’s al Ghul, John Diggle, Felicity Smoak, Malcolm Merlyn, Maseo Tamashiro Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen (implied) Summary: When Ra's al Ghul's attack falls on another of Oliver's loved ones, it has unintended consequences. *Can also be read on my AO3 account*

Laurel went to the loft as soon as she heard the news. It seemed impossible for Roy to be gone so suddenly — that hadn’t been the plan at all — and she knew Thea would be taking it hardest of all.

Her younger friend’s eyes were red-rimmed but dry when she opened the door, and Laurel immediately came through and put her arms around her.

“I just got word. I’m so sorry, Thea.”

“This just keeps happening,” Thea murmured. “I mean not even a couple months ago, Ollie was gone. But Roy’s not coming back.”

Laurel rubbed at Thea’s back and remained there until her friend pulled away. She followed her over to the high table where a wine glass sat by a half-empty decanter.

“Sorry.” Thea put the lid on the decanter, eyes downcast. “I’m not really good company right now.”

“That’s okay.” She set her purse down on a chair as Thea walked around her to put the wine glass away. “I’m here for whatever you need. If you don’t want to talk, we don’t have to talk.”

“Yeah, that’s probably—” Thea dropped the glass with a gasp as she looked past Laurel, and Laurel spun around to see what had caused the reaction.

She’d only seen him briefly before as they had ran from the police helicopters, but Laurel would know him anywhere. Ra’s al Ghul stood in the sitting room of Thea and Oliver’s loft.

“Do you know who I am?”

Thea swallowed once. “You’re the Demon.”

“I am the Demon’s Head. As those were before me, and very soon, your brother.”

Laurel shook her head. “Oliver will never take your place.”

“He will. Once I’ve given him sufficient motivation.” His gaze never wavered from Thea. Laurel moved to place herself in front of her friend.

“Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not happening.” She’d already lost one sister to the power play of the League of Assassins, and she’d be damned if she lost another.

Thea darted to the side where Laurel had a feeling she’d stashed a weapon, but Ra’s moved swiftly to block her way. He grabbed her wrist when she tried to strike, but Laurel caught his own arm when he went for Thea’s undefended side. After that, it was a flurry of fists, jabs, and kicks, faster than could be kept up with. She and Thea were running purely on instinct and adrenaline, while Ra’s seemed to have the next several steps in this deadly dance already mapped out. He wasn’t even breathing harshly, and his face was a mask of calm.

She had thought Nyssa the best out of anyone, and yet her mentor’s father was in a class of his own, easily blocking both their hits and striking back. He knocked Laurel back into one of the brick support beams, and the wind rushed out of her, defenseless. But Ra’s instead turned towards Thea, his focus still on her. His intent was clear, and there was little either of them could do to stop him on their own.

They needed an edge.

Her eyes landed on her purse sitting on the chair. The device Cisco had made her was still in its casing inside. Laurel pushed up onto her feet, running and pulling it out. There was a crash as she fastened it around her neck, and Laurel wheeled around to see Thea falling through the shattered coffee table. Ra’s moved forward, unsheathing his sword, and Laurel prayed this would work.

She let out a scream, more glass exploding all around them as Ra’s reeled back, his hands over his ears. He glared in her direction, a fleeting break in his unaffected visage.

Laurel walked forward, standing between him and Thea once again.

“You’ve made some improvements to the Canary’s weaponry,” he stated. “It won’t save you.”

“Maybe not.” She tried to keep the tremor out of her voice. This was the man who had nearly killed Oliver. She’d be a fool to think she’d fare any better. “It just has to save her.”

Thea was rising back up gingerly. “Laurel...no.”

“Get out of here, Thea.” Her friend stood there, and Laurel hardened her voice. “Go!”

Ra’s lunged before she could be sure Thea had listened, and Laurel was immediately on the defensive. It was clear the game was over now, and Ra’s was no longer toying.

Laurel risked precious seconds to turn the choker back on, and only barely blocked another attack. She opened her mouth to activate the sonic device a second time and the cry resounded, but Ra’s arm twisted upwards with a flash of steel.

“No!”

It felt like nothing. She was aware of the cut, of the blood that spurted from her throat, of the breath that was suddenly a struggle to draw. But it felt like nothing.

Laurel staggered forward a step and was caught by the Demon.

“Your sacrifice was honorable. May your friend feel the same.” He murmured something, words Laurel couldn’t understand, as he bent to lay her on the floor.

Her friend. Ollie. Her heart sped up, though it hurt. Maybe she hadn’t had the training, but she’d protected his sister. He wouldn’t be joining the League.

In her blurring vision, she saw a smaller figure — Thea — lunge at Ra’s. He batted her away easily with one hand. Then he turned and walked away. Thea appeared again before her, but Laurel blinked and it was darker, harder to see.

Her body was limp and growing numb. All she could register were two arms around her and a voice crying her name. She wondered if Sara had known that last comfort, too.

—-

Oliver had just reached the lobby of his and Thea’s building when his phone began buzzing. It was his sister, and Oliver sighed. He felt guilty she hadn’t been there to see Roy off, but at the least he could assure her that his now former partner had not died in prison as the team were leading everyone to believe.

“Hey, Thea—”

“Ollie?!”

Thea’s voice was utterly shaken and echoey as though he were on speaker. Oliver frowned and changed course from waiting for the elevator.

“Thea, where are you? What’s going on?”

“I’m- we’re in the loft. But Ra’s — Oh God, Ollie, there’s so much — there’s so much blood. I don’t know what to do. Laurel!”

The wailed name pierced him like a shard of ice through the heart. He threw back the fire door and raced up the stairs.

Oliver burst through the door to the loft and found a wreck. Shattered glass littered the floor, and by the fireplace were Thea and Laurel. His little sister had removed her shirt and bunched it up to press to Laurel’s neck, and it was already deep red with blood.

“Please, Laurel, stay with me!” Thea was sobbing. “Don’t go, too! Not you too!”

He was frozen in the doorway for a moment, unable to accept what was happening in front of him. Laurel couldn’t be — she couldn’t.

The time was ticking on. Oliver forced himself into moving, dropping down to the rug beside Thea and taking Laurel’s hand. It was still warm. He dug around in his pocket for his phone.

“We need to get her help. We need…”

But his thumb hovered over the 9. Calling an ambulance meant Captain Lance finding out. And this would kill him.

Oliver went into his contacts instead, pressing the phone to his ear and gritting his teeth as he waited for it to be picked up.

“Oliver?”

“John, bring the medical kit to the loft. Now!”

Thea was shaking with her sobs, and he gently placed his hands over hers to take over holding the shirt to Laurel’s wound.

“Are you okay?”

His sister managed a nod.

“Where’s Ra’s?”

“He left. He- he just left me here. He only came here to kill me, and now Laurel — it’s my fault, God, it’s my fault!”

“No. No, Thea, it’s mine.” If he had just accepted Ra’s offer from the start, the Demon Head would not have continued to escalate things so far. The people killed by the imposter Arrows would be alive, Roy would still be here, and Laurel wouldn’t be hovering on the brink of death.

God, how could he have let this happen? His eyes were stinging as he looked at her. This whole year they had been at odds, all over his efforts to try and protect her. Yet she had been the one to place herself between his sister and certain death. Just as a hero would.

“Just a little longer, Laurel,” he said, his voice wavering badly. “Please.”

It couldn’t end this way. She was stronger than this; he knew she was.

“Laurel.”

Oliver turned his head at the sound of John’s voice. Their friend had come through the open door and now hurried to join them.

“What happened?”

“Ra’s.”

John worked quickly, carefully peeling back the cloth just slightly to get and look and retrieving the right set of tools for the patch job they had to pray would save her life. “Okay, on my count, you move, and I start stitching.”

Oliver nodded.

John was still watching him. “You’re going to have to let go, Oliver.”

“I know.” He was hardly able to choke out.

“One, two, three.”

He pulled the shirt and his hands away despite the panic at the thought of just letting Laurel’s life slip away, and John was immediately blocking his view as he started closing up the wound at her neck. He wasn’t sure if seeing or not was better, if it made the panic less.

Thea had her arms wrapped around herself, shaking still as she cried. Oliver reached toward her but stopped as he took in both of their appearances.

He stared down at his hands, red with Laurel’s blood. Thea had it on her hands, her arms, her clothes were stained with it. There was too much blood.

He couldn’t do anything for Laurel while John was working; that was in his hands. But he could take care of his sister. He could try.

Oliver got to his feet and pulled her up, half-leading and half-carrying her to the bathroom. He started the shower while Thea methodically stripped down and stepped inside, her sobs still occasionally breaking out. Oliver scrubbed at his hands in the sink. The skin felt raw by the time he finished, and he tossed the soap bar in the trash. He couldn’t look at the rusty color it had taken on.

He went back out to the main room. There was both calm and panic within him now. The world was either over or it wasn’t. Only John could answer as to which.

His friend was sitting back on his heels, his shoulders hunched and the gloves stripped off. He looked up at Oliver’s approach.

“Help me move her to the couch. She should be comfortable.”

The tone wasn’t promising. Oliver swallowed down a lump and moved to slide his arms as gently as possible under Laurel. He cradled her close as he and John walked the short distance and laid her back down. Without thinking, he reached to brush some of her hair out of her face.

“Had to take this off her first to put the bandages on.” John held out a black choker Oliver had never seen her wear before. It had something on the front, with a tiny light still glowing. His fingers traced over it for a brief moment. “You recognize it?”

“No.” He took it from his friend and placed it beside her. Then he drew in a breath. “Will she be okay?”

“She’s lost a lot of blood, Oliver. She could have swallowed some. We don’t even know if there’s been damage to her windpipe. There’s no telling if she wakes up from this.” John shook his head. “A hospital would put her on life support. From there, it’d be a question of how long to delay the inevitable.”

His heart was lead, sinking deep within him. Laurel’s smile, the pitch of her voice as she railed against an injustice, the warmth in her hugs, those had all been ripped from the world as she herself slowly slipped away from them all.

Oliver couldn’t remember the last thing he’d said to her. She had gotten him out of police custody. Had he thanked her? He’d been so worried about Roy…

John placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Oliver.”

Something dripped onto the floor in front of him. Then again. Belatedly, Oliver realized it was tears, and his own.

She didn’t deserve this, dying for his family. Even as much as she cared for Thea in her own right. But he could just picture the stubborn set to her shoulders, the fire in her eyes as she faced down Ra’s al Ghul himself. It was absolutely her, and Oliver had always known that.

And he’d dreaded this sort of end all the time.

He turned away from John and Laurel on the couch, his hands pressed over his mouth to hold in some sound. Losing Roy, even as he lived, had been bittersweet. Losing Sara, again, had been sudden and wrenching as always. But Laurel...it was too much. She had been with him too long. When he thought of Starling City, she was first in his mind. Because of him, they were all losing her.

As he stared out the high windows trying to wrest back control over his emotions, something caught his eye. Purple smoke was rising in the distance. Maseo.

John had followed his fixed gaze and was frowning at the smoke as he came up to his side. “What is that? The League?”

“He’s won,” said Oliver. Whatever the next stage of Ra’s plan was, Oliver knew it was over for him. He had already lost too much in trying to resist. He couldn’t withstand any more. One way or another, as Slade had said at their last meeting, there would be no more Oliver Queen.

“What do you mean?” John asked him.

But Oliver didn’t answer. Instead, he turned and left the loft. He had an assassin to meet.

—-

As soon as Oliver left the bathroom, Thea shut the cold water off completely. Steam rose all around her as her skin was scalded, but she didn’t care. It at least let her feel something. The water pooled at her feet was red, and then brown, and then clear as it disappeared down the drain, and part of her wanted to pretend that meant everything was fine. That there had been no fight, and no blood, and Laurel wasn’t- wasn’t—

Thea stood there until the water ran cold, and then stood there some more. She was shivering as she staggered out and wrapped herself in a towel. Then she wandered out to the sitting room again, only to stop as she took in the new circumstances.

Oliver was nowhere to be found, but Felicity had joined them. She stood by Diggle, speaking softly, though the two fell silent and looked around at her.

“Is Laurel…”

Diggle nodded to the couch where her friend was laid out. She looked far too pale, even as her mouth still hung slightly open like she’d just nodded off. Not been cut down right in front of Thea just like her mother.

She screwed her face up, trying to hold in an anguished scream. With the others here, she couldn’t break down. Instead, Thea tried to focus on something else, and caught sight of the choker sitting beside Laurel on the cushion. She wasn’t really sure what it was, but she knew that it — and Laurel’s intervention — had likely saved her own life.

Carefully, Thea took it and refastened it around the woman’s neck. She deserved to have it.

“Where’s Oliver?” She asked the room at large, her voice wavering but calm.

“He saw some signal from the League. Went to talk to them,” Diggle answered.

“Why?”

“We don’t know.”

“We need to find out,” Felicity insisted. “He can’t just leave us, John. We can’t let that happen.”

Thea didn’t know what to think. Oliver wouldn’t join the League after what Ra’s had done. He couldn’t. There had to be something else at work here.

She took the stairs up to her room, pulling on the first clothes she came across in her closet. Then she sat on her bed. It didn’t feel real. It was like time had stopped the moment that blade had connected with Laurel’s skin. She couldn’t be dying. What would they do?

Thea couldn’t say for how long she sat there staring at a wall and willing herself not to think anything. But abruptly, she registered raised voices, and one of them was her brother’s.

“The Pit’s real. I’ve seen it. It can save Laurel.”

“Right. But only if you become the new Ra's.”

“Okay. Well, even if a magic hot tub were not crazy talk, we're not going to let you go and join the League of psychotic murderers, even if it is to save Laurel.”

Her heart jumped and she hurried from her room to the top of the steps. They could bring Laurel back?

Oliver had a small travel bag and was wrapping a blanket over Laurel with the clear intent to transport her. Diggle stood a couple feet away, arms crossed, while Felicity was right at her brother’s side and trying to catch his eye.

“Oliver, if you accept the League’s deal, we’ll lose you. I’ll lose you.”

“If Lance finds out about this, Oliver’s through either way,” Diggle grudgingly pointed out.

Oliver straightened and turned to face the other two. “Felicity, John, I don’t care about what happens to me. A deal with Ra’s is the only option that is going to save Laurel, and it is the only option I am going to take.”

“Well, what- what about Thea?” Felicity asked, and Thea felt both her eyebrows raise. “You said you’d do anything to keep her safe, and you’re just going to leave her behind while you become an assassin?”

Oliver hesitated, and that was when Thea went for the stairs.

“Do I get a say in this?” They all turned to look at her as she cleared the last step and kept going until she was right in front of Oliver. “The League can save Laurel?”

He nodded. “I have to agree to be the heir if they do.”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. This was the furthest thing from an easy decision. Oliver was her brother, her only family — the only family she felt all that willing to acknowledge lately, anyway. The last thing she wanted was to lose him.

But Laurel...Thea opened her eyes and met his. “She’s always been there for us.”

“I know,” he agreed softly. His decision was made. And even if Thea’s word could stay him, she couldn’t give it. If she could take the punishment in either his or Laurel’s place — but the world didn’t work that way.

“Then let’s go.” For however long she could be, Thea was going to be right there with him.

Despite her clear objections, Felicity got them access to Ray Palmer’s private jet, and within hours they were cleared for takeoff. She stuck by her brother’s side as they crossed the tarmac to the plane.

Before they could board, a familiar voice called out. “Oliver.”

Thea turned with apprehension to watch as her father approached them.

“I would not do this if I were you.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.” Thea’s fists were clenched at her sides. She wasn’t even surprised he already knew the whole story. “You don’t care if other people die for you.”

“I care about you, Thea,” he insisted. “And your happiness. If Oliver goes to Nanda Parbat tonight, you will lose your brother forever.”

Oliver shifted to stand slightly in front of her, a barrier between her and her father. “Spare me the act, Malcolm. If you cared at all for your daughter, you wouldn’t have forced her to kill her own friend. You wouldn’t have set the League in motion to tear her life apart.” There was tension in every line of him, like he was only barely holding himself back. “Laurel was right about you. You brought this on me, on Thea, on Roy, on Sara, and on her. You are a poison,” he spat. “And I am through protecting you.”

Oliver turned and resumed his stride towards the steps of the plane.

“I’m going with you if you’re taking my daughter to Nanda Parbat.”

“Like hell you are,” Thea said, and it was a relief and a rush to watch his eyes widen in surprise. “You really think after everything, just because we’re related that makes us family? I’m going to Nanda Parbat to get my real family back, and you’re not welcome. You’re not welcome in my life ever again.”

The relief was only greater as she left him standing there. Whatever ties Malcolm might have been trying to build between the two of them, he had severed them all on his own, and it was past time for her to make that clear.

“She won’t be the woman you knew and cared for, Oliver,” he called after them. “The Pit changes people in their soul.”

Oliver’s frown deepened, but otherwise, he acted as though nothing had been said. Thea followed his example and entered the plane.

—-

The ride was mostly quiet. Thea sat beside him, a constant presence and comfort. In the next aisle were Felicity and John. Felicity in particular looked troubled, but there was nothing he could say to change that. He had to go forward with this. If he didn’t, he couldn’t live with himself.

Sometime during the flight, Thea nodded off on his shoulder, and Oliver nearly thought he had too when he just barely picked up Felicity’s voice. “Would Laurel even want this?”

“Hm?” He sat up straighter.

She was looking right at him. “You joining the League. She fought Ra’s to keep him from getting at Thea, who he was obviously planning to use to pressure you. Isn’t doing this, I don’t know, disrespecting her wishes?”

He frowned. “I’d rather have Laurel alive and angry with me than dead. She can yell at me all she wants after the Pit heals her.”

“But for how long, Oliver?” John asked. “You’re gonna be with the League.”

That was true, and, if he was being honest with himself, he wasn’t putting much thought into what being with the League would be like. He just knew he could endure it if she was safe along with the others. He’d survived hell for five years with that thought in mind; he could survive this.

When they landed, he woke Thea and then went to collect Laurel. She was totally limp in his hold, and a part of him had to wonder what would happen if the stories weren’t true and the Pit didn’t work. Oliver pushed those thoughts from his mind as quickly as they came.

They were greeted outside the fortress by countless members of the League and Ra’s al Ghul himself, and Laurel was taken from him by Maseo.

They next time they were all gathered was before the pit. Laurel had been placed in a white gown and was laid out on a board attached to four ropes. He was given one, John another, with Maseo and a fourth League member taking the remaining two as Thea and Felicity both looked on.

A priestess came forward to start a chant in Arabic that was then picked up by the rest of the League while they slowly lowered Laurel in. His heart was in his throat as she disappeared below the surface.

The chanting abruptly ceased, and it was totally still. Even the waters of the Pit.

Oliver held his breath, waiting. In his head ran a mantra of Come on, Laurel, come on. It had to work.

The waters began to bubble and roil again, and the ropes were suddenly ripped from their hands. Oliver stepped forward, peering into the waters trying to make out anything at all.

And then he was knocked flat onto his back as she leapt straight out of the waters and several feet in the air, landing in a crouch at the edge of the Pit with her hair hanging in her face.

He almost didn’t have the breath to ask, “...Laurel?” He was echoed by Thea.

Laurel looked up, but there was nothing but pure, animal rage in her eyes. Her lips were pulled back in a snarl, and her head snapped in one direction and the other before fixing on the Demon Head. She opened her mouth and let out a scream.

It was like nothing Oliver had ever heard or seen. Because it could be seen.

Waves of air, energy, something, left her mouth and hit Ra’s squarely. He flew back, slamming against the far wall and slumping to the ground. Several assassins rushed to his sides. Others ran to grab at Laurel.

She struggled, growling and kicking out. Oliver pushed back onto his feet and hurried to reach her.

“Laurel, Laurel! Don’t hurt her!”

The priestess snuck in under someone’s arm and injected Laurel with something. Her eyes rolled back and she slumped into his arms. Oliver held her close, unnerved and terrified to let any of the League members near her.

Especially when Maseo pronounced for all to hear, “Ra’s al Ghul is dead.”

Oliver turned to see the Demon Head lying in a crumpled heap, blood trickling from his ears. The scream that had come from Laurel had killed him. Oliver looked down at her, asleep in his arms. What had he done?”

Thea hurried to his side, and the others were not far behind her. “Ollie, what happens now?”

He had no answer. But Maseo did.

His former friend left Ra’s and walked to him. “Now the chosen heir becomes the next Ra’s al Ghul.” He knelt in front of Oliver, and the rest of the League followed suit.

This wasn’t at all what he had expected or wanted. He had hoped that in agreeing to become the heir, he could buy some time to think of a new strategy to end the League’s control over his and his loved ones’ lives. But without that window in between, where did that leave him?

His first priority was making sure that Laurel was actually alright. He lifted her fully into his arms again, heedless of the water that dampened his own clothes. “Where can she rest?”

Maseo stood back up and led them all to a bedchamber. As they walked, John came to his side.

“Oliver, what are we gonna do?”

“I don’t know yet. We figure out what’s happened to Laurel first.”

“Or if she’s even Laurel?”

He didn’t reply.

—-

This had been a terrible idea. She’d known it from the start. But had Oliver listened? Scratch that, did Oliver ever listen was the better question.

The men all stood outside as Felicity helped Thea to dry Laurel off and change her into some clothes Thea had packed for the trip. They were a little small on Laurel, but none of them had wanted to risk stopping by her apartment or otherwise running the risk of encountering Captain Lance. Though imagining what he would have to say now, Felicity wondered if it wouldn’t have been better for him to stop this whole thing from happening.

Laurel hadn’t come out of the Pit, that much was clear. She wasn’t sure what had, or how it had managed to kill Ra’s with a scream, but it had. So now some unknown entity was possessing their friend’s body and Oliver was the de facto Ra’s. Truly a brilliant plan.

They got not-Laurel into bed and let Oliver and John back in the room. Oliver went straight to Laurel’s bedside, his brow creased with worry. Watching him was causing a sinking sort of sensation in her gut, so Felicity went and sat on an ottoman, John coming to stand against the wall beside her.

No one seemed ready to really talk, and the silence stretched on for an uncomfortable while.

With a gasp and terrified cry — not accompanied by eardrum-shattering waves this time — not-Laurel sat up with no warning. Felicity jumped in her seat.

Oliver reached out to touch their panicked friend’s shoulder. “Laurel? Laurel, you’re okay. It’s okay.”

Her gasps for breath slowed as she took in the sight of him. “Ollie?”

Okay, so that did sound like Laurel’s voice, and she did clearly recognize Oliver. Maybe it wasn’t a full possession, then.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me.” A full smile broke out on Oliver’s face. He sat on the edge of the bed, facing Laurel. “How are you feeling?”

“I don’t know. Where are we?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Thea, standing on the other side of the bed. “We’re just so glad you’re okay.”

But Laurel shrank back towards Oliver. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

Thea froze, and everyone else in the room seemed to collectively hold their breath. “Laurel, it’s- it’s me. Thea.”

“Thea?” Laurel shook her head slowly. “That can’t be right. Thea’s only twelve.”

Felicity felt her eyes widen, and she looked down as Thea backed away seeming totally lost.

“Ollie, where’s my dad?”

“He, um, he had to work. So did your mom.”

“And Sara?”

There was another terrible pause at the innocent question. It was almost too much to stand.

“She’s not here right now, Laurel. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay.” It was clear by her tone that Laurel merely thought her sister was out somewhere else and not dead. “Did you cut your hair?”

“Uh—” Oliver sent a brief, panicked glance back at the rest of them. Felicity just sighed. This was his choice, his mess.

“I like it.” Laurel was smiling; warm, open, even a little flirty.

And Oliver’s voice sounded entirely too soft as he replied, “Thank you.” The sinking feeling in Felicity’s stomach was getting worse.

“What’s the matter?” A slight pout formed on Laurel’s lips. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” Oliver lied. “You’re fine. Why don’t you try and get some more rest?” He helped her to settle back against the pillows and pulled the blanket up over her chest. But Laurel pushed back up again slightly as he made to step away.

“Ollie? You won’t leave, will you?”

There was something absolutely shattered in his gaze. And Felicity knew without question, it was his heart. Her eyes fell shut.

She could still hear his response. “No. Never.”

And he really never would. Not fully. For some part of Oliver, Laurel was always going to be the dream. That goal he single-mindedly strove towards. Why else would he have used Felicity, and not Laurel, as the bait for Slade? Why else had it been Laurel who had gotten through to him last year when he’d been intent on committing suicide? Even whenever he said he gave up on her, that was never really the case. And it never would be.

She had wondered for some time if his hesitance to begin a relationship with her had only been because of the dangers of being a vigilante. It had felt like such a ridiculous excuse to use when only hours ago he had been ready to start a relationship while being a vigilante and when she had been in danger plenty of times before. Perhaps, on some level, he was aware that he wasn’t fully committed, not when he still harbored feelings for Laurel. No matter who Oliver was with, Laurel was always going to be the woman he loved. Even if he claimed to love Felicity, too.

Why should she have to settle for that? Why would she want to?

Ray had been willing to say he loved her. Full stop. And she’d been too conflicted at the time to know her answer, but she could say for certain now that that was what she wanted. Someone whose past was in the past and who could commit himself fully to her.

If she wanted to be happy, history showed that long-term that didn’t seem to be something Oliver was capable of. Especially with his new role as Ra’s al Ghul looming over them all. Felicity could only be glad she’d wised up to that now rather than later. She wished she could be glad they had Laurel back now, too, but how much good was it if she’d lost a sizeable chunk of her own memory in the process?

The first thing she was doing if and when they got home was calling Ray. Maybe it wasn’t too late to salvage things.

—-

Disoriented didn’t cover her experience waking up. Laurel groaned, one hand going to her head and the other reaching blindly for her bedside table — which wasn’t there. She sat up, pillows flopping off the sides of a bed she didn’t recognize, in a room with stone walls and medieval-style decoration. Where in the world was she? She’d been at Oliver and Thea’s loft—

The loft. Ra’s.

Her hand left her head and instead felt around her neck, but there was nothing. No wound. The skin was completely smooth. But she had been cut.

Then was this…?

Before she could become too panicked over metaphysics, a large and heavy looking door swung open, with Oliver coming through it wearing some sort of robes.

“Hey, I’m here.”

“Okay.” She blinked, but he was still in the robes. That wasn’t necessarily a good sign that any of this was real. “Where’s here? And where’s Thea?”

He paused. Laurel felt faint.

“Is she okay?” Had she failed to protect her? How could she be alive if Thea was dead?

“She’s- she’s fine. I just don’t know if you — do you remember waking up earlier?”

Laurel shook her head slowly. “The last thing I remember is fighting Ra’s...I thought I died.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing. You sort of did,” Oliver stated. “In a manner of speaking.”

Laurel stared at him. “What does that mean?”

“Ra’s mortally injured you in your fight. He sent Maseo to tell me that if I agreed to be his heir, he would use the Lazarus Pit here in Nanda Parbat to restore you to life.”

As crazy as that sounded, some of the details in their surroundings and the clothes he was dressed in were starting to make a horrible amount of sense. “Oliver, tell me you didn’t.”

“I had to.”

His tone wasn’t angry. He hadn’t even raised his voice. And yet, in this moment more than any other, she could tell just by the look in his eyes that there would be no room for argument.

There were running footsteps outside, and they both looked as Thea appeared in the doorway. She hung there a moment, something uncertain in her gaze.

“It’s okay,” Oliver told his sister. “She remembers.”

“Oh, thank God.” Thea ran up to her bedside and leaned over to hug her. “We were so worried about you!”

Laurel returned the embrace, grateful to see her unharmed, but looked over to Oliver for some sort of explanation as to Thea’s momentary hesitance.

“You woke up once and had some memory issues,” he said. “You’ve been asleep almost a whole day since then.”

A whole day. Thea released her and Laurel took a moment to rub at her temples with both hands while she processed just some of what she’d been told. Then it hit her.

“Nobody called off work for me, did they?”

Thea gave her an incredulous look which Oliver mirrored before letting out a short laugh.

“No. No, we forgot. Sorry.”

There was a light knock, and she looked to see John and Felicity in the open doorway. They walked further into the room, with John remarking, “Looks like you’re doing better.”

“You guys came, too?”

“Of course we did,” Felicity answered.

“We’re a team,” John agreed. “And the team needs to make some decisions right about now.”

Right, the League. Oliver.

“How long do you have before you officially become the heir?”

Most of the others exchanged a look, but Felicity spoke up. “Oh, no, they’re skipping over all of that entirely. He’s Ra’s al Ghul now.”

Laurel blinked. “Wait, what?”

Oliver’s eyes were more on the blankets than on her as he said, “When you came out of the Pit, you weren’t exactly yourself. And something happened. We’re not sure what.”

“Hopefully it doesn’t happen again,” John added.

“What do you guys mean?”

“Ra’s died,” Thea stated, and Laurel felt her mouth drop open. “Because, um, you attacked him. Not- not physically, just — it was like what you used in the loft, only more.”

What she’d used in the loft? The sonic choker Cisco had built her. She felt around her neck once more, but it wasn’t there. Yet they were saying Ra’s was dead. She had killed him.

She wondered dimly if this was how Thea had felt when she’d learned the truth about Sara. Try as she might, the memory just would not come. Why had she done it? And how?

“Thea, what are you talking about?” Oliver asked, breaking Laurel from her thoughts. “You’ve seen it before?”

“Not exactly. I didn’t think of it till just now. When we were fighting Ra’s, Laurel got out that choker and it could make this really loud noise.”

“It had one of Sara’s sonic devices attached to it,” she explained. “I asked Barry’s friend Cisco to rework them for me when he was in town a couple days ago. I hadn’t had the chance to use it in the field yet.”

“You weren’t wearing it when you went into the Pit,” John said. “And it wasn’t just noise that came out of your mouth. I mean, you could see it.”

“Sonic waves, visible to the eye,” Felicity stated. “At the close range you hit Ra’s with them, it was enough to kill him. Not that — no one’s blaming you for it, Laurel. I mean, we’re not even mourning him, really.”

“It just means that I’ve ascended the ranks of the League a little faster than I was expecting to,” Oliver said.

“Well, we can’t just leave you here to run the League,” she insisted.

Felicity nodded. “Yeah, that’s not happening. Worst case scenario, we find somebody for you to train up really fast to be the next heir.”

Oliver frowned. “I don’t think that’s gonna happen over a long weekend, guys.”

“Do we know if there’s other options for a Ra’s to step down?” John asked. “What if you abdicate?”

“To who?”

“I don’t know, you’re on pretty good terms with that Maseo guy,” Thea remarked. “Does it really matter?”

“Yes, it does,” Oliver replied. “If the last few years have been any indication, the League can have a serious impact on all our lives. To leave it in the wrong hands is only going to hurt us in the long run.”

That much was true. They were all quiet for some time.

“Nyssa,” Laurel blurted. “She’s trained for this role her entire life, and she’s a good person.”

Oliver thought that over. “It’s probably the best we can hope for. I’ll have to check if Maseo thinks the League will accept that. And Nyssa will have to come back to Nanda Parbat.”

“Let’s hope she wasn’t too attached to her dad,” John remarked, and Laurel felt her insides squirm unpleasantly. There was little excuse for it, but she kept forgetting that Ra’s was dead, and by her hand. It just sounded impossible. But he was dead, and there were consequences to deal with as a result.

One of those consequences might be losing yet another person in her life. Nyssa was her friend, and, horrible as he’d been, Laurel had killed her father. Would Nyssa even want to see her, let alone help them once she learned this?

“So, hypothetically, you could take the plane back with us to Starling since you would be on a mission to relocate Nyssa,” Thea said with a grin.

“I could probably swing that.” Oliver grew a little more serious as he addressed the whole group. “We need to be ready to move once I announce my decision to the League. I don’t want any complications. I’ll meet you four at the plane.” He paused and turned to her. “If you’re okay to move.”

“I think I am,” she answered. “I really don’t remember the Pit or- or anything you all have told me. But I feel fine.”

“Okay.” He helped her out of the bed, and as she left the warm blankets Laurel realized she must have been placed in one of Thea’s sweaters. A fair bit of her midriff was showing, and she couldn’t help wrapping her arms around herself as she stood in the cooler air of the room.

“Are you cold?”

“I’ll be fine.”

Oliver looked to John. “My jacket should be in the room with the rest of our stuff.”

John nodded. “Right.”

Laurel rolled her eyes. “I can make it to the plane.”

“Laurel, we didn’t know if you were going to live a day ago,” Oliver reminded her. “And considering we’re still not sure what exactly the Pit did, I don’t want to take any risks. Please?”

“Okay,” she agreed quietly. It was sweet of Oliver to be so concerned, though she’d have to be on guard for what qualified as risks. She wasn’t just giving up on being a part of the team, no matter how dangerous it was. What would be the point of getting her life back if she didn’t live it?

She followed Thea, John, and Felicity out of her room and down a corridor to the room they must have set up in to wait, where she was given back her shoes and handed Oliver’s jacket. It was a good deal warmer, and it provided a level of comfort hard to define. Mostly because she didn’t want to define it.

“If this all works out, we have gotten so lucky,” Felicity commented as she hefted a bag onto one shoulder. “I mean, again, I’m not saying I wanted you to have to kill Ra’s, but if he’d still been here to order Oliver around, I was going to have to do something drastic.”

“I just can’t believe he agreed to this at all.” Becoming Ra’s went against everything Oliver had been trying to accomplish since he’d left killing behind as the Arrow.

“Well, he didn’t feel he had any other choice.” Felicity had stopped moving around, and Laurel stopped as well. Her friend had an almost solemn look to her as she continued, “He really cares about you, you know?”

It took Laurel a moment to reply. “I know. He cares about everyone.”

Felicity smiled, but it wasn’t her usual bright one. “Yeah.”

“Everybody ready?” John asked from where he stood in the door. “Don’t want to get left behind in this labyrinth.”

“Definitely not,” Thea agreed. She reached out for Laurel’s hand, and Laurel took it while reaching back for Felicity as well, glad to see a reassured smile on her friend’s face at the touch.

John led the way out, and as they emerged she found herself blinking in unexpected sunlight. She hadn’t even known what time it was, and truthfully wasn’t entirely clear on what day it was, either. It was a rocky path down to the plane that they had to take, which Thea and Felicity seemed to feel she needed help navigating. As much as she could understand their worrying, Laurel knew it would only be a matter of time before she started to feel smothered.

They all stood around outside the plane, none of them wanting to board without Oliver, and after a while they spotted him jogging down the path back in his usual clothes. He looked far less weighed down in them than the League robes, she noted to herself.

“I’ve left Maseo in charge until Nyssa’s return. If she agrees,” he added. “I think she will.”

“We better hope she does, cause we don’t know too many other assassins.”

“Just Malcolm,” Laurel couldn’t help remarking with obvious distaste.

Oliver glanced down. “Actually, Malcolm’s not likely to be in the business of doing me any favors at the moment.”

Laurel crossed her arms. “No?”

“Ollie kind of let him have it before we left,” Thea revealed with smirk. “You should’ve seen it.”

She didn’t really know what to say. It had been such a blow when she’d realized he was willing to keep Malcolm around in spite of what they knew about his part in Sara’s death. Laurel hadn’t wanted to believe it of him; she’d felt as if her heart had broken with betrayal all over again.

Yet as he peeked up at her with his head still slightly ducked, she could see him again. The boy she’d once thought she’d spend the rest of her life with. The man she still, impossibly, loved.

“So...going home now?” Felicity asked, and it was hard not to jump a little as she came back to herself.

“Right,” Oliver agreed. “Let’s go.”

They all started to board. Laurel took one last look up the path towards Nanda Parbat, a place she had never really been to but defined such a huge portion of her life. And had consumed her sister’s.

“Oliver.” Laurel caught his sleeve, keeping her voice low as she said, “If this Lazarus Pit can bring people back from the dead…”

She didn’t even have to finish her thought. Oliver sighed. “I’m not sure using it again is a good idea until we know what the full effects of it on you are.”

The brief flare of hope she’d had for a moment cooled, but Laurel couldn’t necessarily argue with that. Emerging from the Pit had caused her to kill a man, and she wouldn’t want to subject Sara to something irreversible until they knew more. Yet still, in the event that there weren’t anymore side effects moving forward, there was possibly a way to fix things. To get her sister actual justice by undoing the injustice in the first place. That was enough to keep just the tiniest spark of hope alive for now.

She let Oliver show her up the steps and headed with him down an aisle. Laurel took the window seat and was only a little surprised when he placed himself next to her. As the plane started up and took off, she could spot him watching her out of the corner of his eye.

“Do I seem like a different person?”

He leaned back slightly. “You’re asking me?”

“You know me,” she replied.

Oliver sighed. “I don’t think so. When you first woke up, I thought maybe. But that seems to have cleared up since. We’ll just have to see.”

“What happened then?” Had she thought she was someone else? Had she still been violent like they said she was when she’d first come out of the Pit?

He shrugged. “You just thought it was about seven or eight years ago or something. Didn’t recognize Thea because you could only remember her from when she was younger.”

“Oh.” She tried to imagine what that would have been like, or what she would have been like, rather. “I didn’t say anything embarrassing, did I?”

Oliver gave a slow shake of the head. “Nothing comes to mind. Uh, but you did say you liked my hair.”

Laurel winced. “Did I?”

“Yeah.” They cleared some of the clouds, and Oliver allowed himself a smile. Across the aisle, she caught Thea watching them from her seat, a fond look on her face. Laurel turned her face towards the window instead.

“Laurel.” Oliver’s hand landed over hers on the armrest, and there was a slight hitch in her breath.

She kept her gaze on the clouds. “Yeah, Ollie?”

“I don’t know how to tell you how glad I am you’re still with us. And even if I had had to become the Heir, it was more than worth it.”

She glanced back at him. “I don’t know about that.”

“I do,” he insisted. His hand still rested over hers, and his fingers curled around it ever so slightly. “You are always worth it.”

Laurel felt a smile spread over her lips she had very little control over. “Well, so are you.”

Whatever else happened in their lives, that wasn’t going to change. She settled comfortably into her seat, happy to have just a few more quiet hours to spend with him and the others before seeing what awaited them next back home.

[raywritesthings]

Wrong Road to the Right Place 8/?

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Oliver Queen, Laurel Lance, Quentin Lance, John Diggle, Thea Queen, Moira Queen, Tommy Merlyn, Joanna de la Vega Pairings: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: Laurel finds herself curious about the marks Oliver showed her that night in his bedroom - and the tattoo on his left shoulder stands out in particular. When she discovers its meaning, she finds herself questioning everything she knows about the man she doesn’t want to admit she still loves. AO3 link

By her estimation, Oliver looked pretty cornered. There was no getting out of the truth with her this time, though, and all three of them knew it. Laurel watched his eyes flick once towards the warehouse the Bratva were using before looking back to Mr. Diggle.

“Not here.”

“Foundry?”

Oliver gave a short nod. “Fine. Laurel, I’ll drive with you over to the Verdant. Or Digg can go with you, if that would be better,” he added quietly, eyes dropping to the ground.

It was something to consider. Oliver’s actions and motivations still warranted an explanation and until she got it, was it really a good idea to be alone with him? At the same time, she was half-convinced as soon as she let him out of her sight he was going to bolt. Though she supposed he wanted her to go with either him or Mr. Diggle for the exact same reason.

Laurel knew it was crazy, but the more she looked at him...the less she was afraid.

“No, I’ll go with you.”

He glanced back up, a shadow of a smile flitting across his features for a brief moment. Then he turned to give Mr. Diggle some instructions on sending the unconscious man in the trunk away from the Bratva. Now that they were both aware Oliver hadn’t killed that man, Mr. Diggle seemed entirely relaxed. That was a good sign she wasn’t making a terrible mistake, right?

Laurel got into her car and Oliver climbed into the passenger seat. They backed out of the warehouse lot and began driving towards the Glades without a word spoken between them.

“So what’s at the Verdant that’s magically going to explain all this?” Laurel eventually asked just to break the silence. “Apart from alcohol.”

Oliver’s mouth twisted into something of a smile again. “We don’t have any right now. Tommy says the first shipment comes in next week once we get the main floor refinished.”

Laurel nodded. Then it hit her so suddenly she nearly slammed on the breaks. “Tommy!”

Oliver’s head whipped around sharply. “What about him?”

“What time is it? Has it been two hours?”

“Two hours since what?”

“I called him when I was following you two out and told him to call my dad if he didn’t hear from me in two hours.”

“You told him you were following me to the Russian mafia?” Oliver demanded.

“No! I made something up about a client in a bad neighborhood. Why would I have told him about you if I’ve been keeping quiet about all this for months?”

He released a breath and let his head fall back against the headrest. Then he looked at her again.

“Why have you been keeping quiet?”

Laurel didn’t say anything at first. “I guess I wanted to be sure I knew the truth first. Something like that, it would destroy your life.”

“Why wasn’t the tattoo proof enough?”

“Because you got it on the island.” She could see him raising his eyebrows at that, and Laurel rolled her eyes. “Well, you definitely didn’t have it before. I figured you must have been forced to join in order to survive out there, and I wasn’t going to throw you to the wolves for that.”

“There’s a lot of stuff I was forced to do,” Oliver said, voice low. “That doesn’t make me any better than the people who do it of their own free will.”

Laurel couldn’t think of anything to say to that. She pulled into the lot behind the club, and they walked inside. Tommy was standing near the bar and looked up when the door opened. “Laurel! What, uh, what brings you by?”

“I was down by Big Belly Burger and saw her leaving one of the apartments, so she gave me a lift,” Oliver lied.

Laurel took it from there. “And while I was here I agreed to look over the papers before you guys have your grand re-opening.”

“Well, didn’t that work out nice,” Tommy remarked.

A phone began buzzing, and Oliver took his out. “I have to take this.”

He stepped away, and the grin on Tommy’s face instantly dropped. “Laurel, if you ever do something like that to me again — you’re lucky I didn’t send your dad right after you!”

“I know. But it’s fine, I was overreacting. Shouldn’t have even called,” she muttered, unaccountably embarrassed now that the danger had passed. She’d really let all those months of fear get to her.

“Are you really okay?”

“Yes.” Laurel felt reasonably confident in that assertion. Oliver hadn’t been working for the mob, and she was finally getting her answers. Even if she had no idea what those answers could be or why they involved the Verdant. If he wasn’t a part of the mafia it wasn’t like he was using it as a front for something. Right?

Just as she was starting to wonder if there’d been a point to coming here at all, Oliver returned to the main room.

“Laurel, if you could step into my office?”

She followed him back behind the bar to a door with a keypad set to the side. Oliver put in the code and the door opened to reveal a very dark basement.

“Right. This isn’t foreboding at all,” Laurel said under her breath. But she squared her shoulders and accepted Oliver’s hand to navigate down the stairs. The point of no return was far behind them; she was in this to the end, for better or for worse.

The lights came up, and the first thing Laurel noticed were arrows. Green ones.

Oliver hadn’t been acting suspicious because he was an active member of the Bratva. Oliver had been acting suspicious because he was the Hood.

He was watching her as she took it all in, his expression unreadable. But it was clear he was waiting on her.

“I know I should be shocked or overwhelmed or something,” she said. “But…” Laurel shrugged. “I guess I’m relieved?”

“Re- relieved?” He echoed, like he couldn’t quite believe it. She couldn’t either.

“Well, of all the criminal enterprises, stopping bigger, worse criminals doesn’t seem like such a bad one.”

“Laurel, I’m a vigilante,” he stressed.

“Yeah, a vigilante I have worked with and trust.” She shook her head. “Most of the people in my life thought that was crazy, but...I was always drawn to you. Now I know why.”

Oliver didn’t look like he knew what to say.

“Have there been things I wish you hadn’t done? Of course. But I’ve also been there for Emily Nocenti and Peter Declan and his daughter. I’ve seen the real change you have brought to people in need. How can I condemn that?”

“I’m sorry I scared you. At Iron Heights,” he clarified when she didn’t speak.

She wrapped her arms around herself. “Well...you did stop.”

“I wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for you,” he stated. Just like in the car, he wasn’t giving himself an inch.

She thought she was seeing that damage he’d spoken of now.

The better she understood it all the better she could figure out how to help, so she moved on. “How did you pull it off the night of the party? You couldn’t have left the manor.”

“Diggle.”

“Ah.” Laurel nodded. “So he knows everything.”

“Yeah. He should be back soon, that was him on the phone earlier.”

“Does anyone else know? Your family?”

“No. Uh, Helena knew, but that was a mistake. No one else was supposed to find out.”

“Ever?”

He was quiet. Laurel tried not to let that sting. She was only here because she had forced this issue. She’d known that.

“I thought about it. About telling you,” Oliver said. He took a step towards her as well. “Almost every night. I just...”

“You didn’t want me to see you differently,” Laurel finished for him. “You shouldn’t have worried. I could already see how much that time on the island changed you.”

He shook his head. “No, but that’s the thing, Laurel. It didn’t.”

The same door they’d entered through opened just as he opened his mouth to continue, and they both looked up as Mr. Diggle came down the steps.

“So, things making a little more sense now?”

“Yeah.” Laurel turned to Oliver, trying to think of something to say to keep the mood lighter now that they were no longer alone. “For the record, I was onto you. And if you hadn’t lied, you could have saved me about three months worth of stress over nothing.”

“She’s right,” Mr. Diggle said, not even trying to hide his smirk. Laurel wondered just how long he might have been arguing her case behind the scenes.

Oliver nodded with his eyes on his toes. “I’m sorry.”

Laurel held in a sigh and instead walked up to him. She placed her hands on his shoulders and waited for him to meet her gaze. “Ollie, stop being sorry. Start being better.”

“Okay,” he agreed in a murmur. She wasn’t sure, knowing what she did about him, how he could still look so vulnerable. But then, Ollie had always had such a big heart hiding beneath all the layers of his facades.

Laurel drew him in closer in a hug. “Good.”

Oliver was the Hood, and that was going to change a lot of things, but for the time being all she could focus on was the feeling that she was finally back on the same page as her old friend and that Oliver was hugging her back just as tight. The rest could wait, if only for a few moments.

—-

Oliver was having trouble believing this wasn’t just some dream.

Laurel was here. In the base. She knew. And she was hugging him.

His own arms had gone around her automatically, yet he still wondered at how this was possible.

Eventually she stepped back. Oliver tried not to miss the feel of her too much.

“Okay. You. The Hood. That is going to take some getting used to.”

“Needing a minute’s pretty normal,” said Digg. Oliver shot him a look. He had a feeling his bodyguard was enjoying this.

Didn’t he see that this changed everything about the mission? Everything that he’d done to try and keep his loved ones safe and removed from all of it? Maybe he should have known Laurel would find her way into danger — she did a good enough job of that on her own with her work — but he wasn’t sure how to proceed, now that she knew him not just as Oliver Queen, but the Hood.

The separate parts of his life had suddenly collided, and he didn’t know where that left them.

“So you made a fool of yourself at the dedication of the science division not because you didn’t want to take a job at the company but because you were already too busy doing all this,” Laurel reasoned aloud. “And the Verdant is, what, an alibi?”

“Partly. It also gives me an excuse to be in the Glades and to come and go more easily without detection.”

She nodded. “And your plan is…?”

“To save the city,” he answered.

Laurel didn’t say anything to that. When she spoke again, it was to ask a different question entirely. “Why the Bratva today, though? If you haven’t been with them since you’ve been back.”

“I’m having them arrange a meeting with the Count. He’s the one that made Vertigo and the reason Thea is this close to jail.”

“And you want to, what, talk?”

Oliver glanced again at Digg, who made a gesture with his head that seemed to say go on. Right, being better.

“I want to draw him out, go through the motions of a fake drug deal, then follow him back to his base as the Hood and stop his whole operation.”

She frowned. “That sounds risky.”

He shrugged. “I’ve gone up against worse odds.” Maybe Laurel still hadn’t quite come to terms with believing him as a fighter. “I can bring him in.”

“And what happens if the Count takes a deal with the DA to turn over a list of all his distributors to lighten his sentence and your name comes up?”

Oliver froze. That was not a scenario that had entered his mind.

Diggle was giving him an expectant look now as well, and he knew why; the plan was for him to be at the deal as well.

“Then I’ll have to—”

Oliver stopped again.

“Have to what?” Laurel was watching him, but she didn’t look confused. She looked like she knew exactly how that sentence was going to end.

But he couldn’t say it. He couldn’t even think about doing something like that in front of her. Maybe Laurel was relieved for now he wasn’t some mob boss, but how long would that relief last the more people he killed? He didn’t know how he would be able to come back from that and face her, with her knowing now.

But there was more than that difference. Laurel knew. She was part of this. Which meant any investigation Lance or anyone else continued into the Hood’s identity could have consequences for her, too. Oliver wasn’t planning to come under suspicion again much less get caught, but who was to say what might happen outside of his control?

For every count of murder, it would add to her own sentence.

He searched around for something, any other way. “McKenna knows I’ve been asking around for information. If the cops ask why the Count has my name, I’ll say I was looking for something to help Thea.”

“McKenna Hall?”

“Yeah. I ran into her at the station. She said she’d just made detective.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Laurel frowned. “Well, it’s not airtight, but it’s at least something.”

“You’re not happy with it.” Oliver could see that from the thin line of her lips as she frowned, the way she held herself.

“It relies entirely on McKenna cutting you some slack, assuming my father even lets her be the one to make that call. So yeah, I’m not thrilled with those odds. Why not just let the cops handle this one? We’ve already got a plan to get Thea out of a prison sentence. It won’t be any good if you end up there in her place.”

“If I don’t do something, the Count will still be at large and Vertigo will still be on the streets.” She had to understand that.

But Laurel sighed. “Stopping one dealer, even if he’s the one who created the drug, is not gonna wipe out his inventory overnight, Ollie. You know that, right?”

He set his jaw, stubborn. “It’ll be a start.”

“Yes,” she acknowledged.

“What do we need to do to get ready?” Digg asked.

“Mostly we have to wait to hear back from the Bratva. They’re the ones setting things up. But we’ll need a tracker to tag the Count with.”

“And I need to talk to my dad about Thea,” Laurel added. “I’ll let you know as soon as I have an answer from him.”

Oliver reached out to touch her shoulder before she could go. “Laurel, thank you.”

He hoped she knew that gratitude was for far more than the favor he’d asked of her.

“It’s gonna be okay, Ollie.” The words seemed to have as much of a relieving effect on her as they were intended to on him. “It really is.”

She made for the steps, and at the top turned back to look at him once, something like the beginning of a smile on her face. Then she was gone.

Oliver let out a breath.

“So, not the end of the world, was it?” Digg asked.

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled.

It wasn’t the end of the world. But it was the beginning of something. A whole new way of being for him, now that Laurel knew his secret. He couldn’t hide in the dark anymore.

—-

“Thea, can you come down here?”

Thea rolled over on her bed and groaned. The last thing she really wanted was to come down for a little pow wow session with her brother, mother, and maybe even their lawyer. If she was going to jail she was going to jail, and why not? Not like she had anything better planned for herself.

But by the time she trudged down the steps, all she found were Oliver and Laurel. They were sitting on one of the couches side-by-side, talking quietly and angled in towards each other.

She cleared her throat and they both looked up. “So what is it?”

“My father was able to get Judge Brackett to back off his hard-line stance,” Laurel told her.

“Your father hates me,” she pointed out.

“No,” said Laurel while Oliver echoed her. She smirked as she added, “My father hates him.”

Oliver nodded as Laurel indicated him with the tilt of her head.

Her brother and Laurel explained how this meant she could avoid jail time by agreeing to community service at CNRI under Laurel’s supervision. They spoke in turns, practically finishing each other’s thoughts, and there was no missing how their knees were almost brushing.

Something was different about them.

It was Thea’s first impulse to refuse the offer. After all, if she really wanted to stick it to her mom, getting out of jail time wouldn’t do it. But she was even more curious about what was going on with her brother and Laurel, and the best way to find out more would be to stick close.

“Fine,” Thea agreed.

Oliver blinked, and she thought this might actually be worth it just for surprising him. He thought he knew everything about her, didn’t he?

“Okay, good. I’m glad you’re taking this opportunity to better yourself,” her brother said, and she didn’t bother stopping herself from rolling her eyes. He could be so sanctimonious sometimes. “It was really good of Laurel and Detective Lance to arrange this for you,” he added pointedly.

And yeah, maybe he had a point there. It wasn’t like Laurel owed her anything, but she’d gone out of her way anyway. “Thanks,” she muttered, staring at her socks.

“Don’t mention it. I’ll see you for your first shift soon, Speedy.” Laurel stood and Oliver did as well to show her out.

Thea sat there a few moments more, puzzling over whether she’d made the right call. With her life not totally over, her mom could go on pretending that nothing was wrong like she had been for years. Just like Oliver seemed to go back and forth between acting different and pretending like nothing had changed from the time he had left to now. Did they really think she couldn’t see past all the lies?

She stood up and made to leave the room, but stopped just before she cleared the archway, backing up and then peering out into the foyer.

Mr. Diggle had stopped both Oliver and Laurel and was speaking quietly to them. Too quiet for Thea to hear, to her frustration. But it had to be serious.

Her brother’s jaw was set in a stubborn line as he nodded, and the glimpse of Laurel’s face that she caught as she turned from Mr. Diggle to Oliver looked worried.

Thea watched as her brother placed a hand on Laurel’s arm and said something, to which she nodded. Then Laurel wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him tight.

She must have said something to him, because Thea just picked up Oliver’s reply of, “I will.” Then they both pulled back and stared at each other for a moment. Laurel looked to Mr. Diggle, then said goodbye to the both of them and left. Oliver and his bodyguard followed out the front door right after.

Thea left her hiding spot and continued up to her room, trying to work out what she’d just seen. Were Oliver and Laurel together now? And if so, why did Laurel seem so worried? Why were they even trying to hide it?

Just over a month ago things had seemed so strained between them. What had happened to now not being a good time for a relationship? Thea didn’t know how Laurel stood Oliver’s constant changes of heart, because it was driving her crazy just watching it from the sidelines.

Well, if she wasn’t going to prison to show her mother what she thought of her treatment of her dad and Walter, then she could stick around and keep an eye out to make sure Oliver didn’t do something similar to Laurel again. She owed the other woman her freedom now, after all, and Thea had always liked her a lot. Their whole family had.

She’d have to make sure she didn’t let slip to Ollie that she was eavesdropping or spying like last time. So no giving over to any outbursts, no matter what she heard. Thea felt her determination rising nonetheless, and there was a grim smirk on her face as she settled back down on her bed.

If her mom and brother wanted to have their secrets, then so could she.

—-

Maybe it shouldn’t have been surprising, but nothing about this Vertigo situation was going to plan. Though things had taken a far worse turn now than someone finding out Oliver’s identity.

John only barely got them out of there before the police closed off the whole perimeter. That was a feat all on its own what with Oliver practically being dead-weight. He had no idea how much Vertigo the Count had managed to get into his charge’s system, but the quicker they got it out of him the better.

John half-carried and half-dragged Oliver from the car and to the back door of the Verdant’s basement, shouldering it open. There was no need for him to try and fumble for the lights, though; they were already on, and Laurel was waiting in a chair. She stood as soon as she caught sight of them.

“What happened?”

“Your dad.” He accepted her help in getting Oliver’s limp form down the steps. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to know how things went as soon as possible. I couldn’t sit in my apartment.”

“Fair enough.”

They heaved Oliver up and onto the medical table.

“Oliver’s got some herbs from the island. In that box over there. They’re good for toxins.”

Laurel ran to the box and was back again in moments. In that time, John had begun to better assess Oliver’s condition. Pulse was elevated and his breath was coming quick, but no indication that anything was shutting down. It could have been a lot worse.

“How does a person take them?”

“In a minute.” He nodded to the restraints attached to the sides of the table. “Can you get that on his wrist?”

“Why?”

Oliver jerked violently, and Laurel had to dart back as John wrestled his arm back down.

“That’s why,” he grunted. She moved to do as he’d asked right after. Once that was done, John turned his attention to preparing the island herbs the way Oliver had shown him. It wasn’t a guarantee that it could reverse the effects of Vertigo, but it had to be better than simply leaving him to sweat it out.

Now that he was safely fastened down, Laurel stayed right by Oliver’s side, stroking his arm and talking softly. To John’s surprise, it seemed to be working; Oliver’s breathing had calmed and he lay still, only occasionally mumbling or groaning in discomfort.

“It’s okay, Ollie. It’s gonna be okay.”

Oliver’s head turned to the side, like he was seeking out her voice. “Krasivaya...moya krasivaya ptitsa.”

Laurel shot John a helpless look. He came over to the table with the herbal mixture.

“We got to get him to swallow this. Should help detoxify his system.”

She nodded and made room for him. There was a lot of bargaining involved in getting Oliver to raise his head and drink the foul-tasting herbs. Laurel ran her fingers through his hair, continuing her soothing mantra until John was finished.

Oliver coughed once or twice as the bowl was taken away from his lips, then rasped, “Laurel.”

“I’m here.”

“My Laurel. My pretty…ptitsa...”

After a time, Oliver fell totally silent and slipped off to sleep. John checked his vitals to make sure they weren’t losing him, then stepped back and wiped the sweat from his brow.

Laurel dropped into the chair by the computer and let her head hang low between her knees for a few moments. Then she looked back up. “You wouldn’t know any Russian, would you?”

“I know when I hear it or see it,” John replied. “No idea what it means.”

Laurel sighed. “It was a long shot anyway.”

She wheeled the chair over closer to Oliver’s table and stopped there, a frown on her lips.

“Something wrong?”

“No. I mean, it’s just — I was so relieved he wasn’t with the mob, I didn’t really think about how much danger he was putting himself in anyway.” She looked back at him. “I mean, why even do it?”

“Does he need a reason?”

She thought on that for a few moments. “I always thought Oliver cared about the city. It’s his home. But it’s one thing to want things to get better and another to put on a hood and try and make it happen all while risking arrest or death. Even if he learned how to do those things on the island, most people would have wanted to come home and just leave all that behind.”

“I think he does, too. But he can’t. Not yet.” John pushed off of the table he’d been leaning his weight on and walked over to the box Oliver kept for his suit and other items from the island. He removed the weathered copy of the list and walked back over to Laurel, placing it in her hands.

“Before he died, Oliver’s father gave him that. Said it was a list of everyone who’d ever done something bad to the city for their own gain. He asked Oliver to bring them all to justice in his place.”

“His father did that?”

He nodded. “It’s been driving everything he does ever since.”

She spent some time thumbing through the pages, stopping whenever she came across a crossed out name. John wondered if she was going back, doing a mental tally of the Hood’s various exploits.

“Not as altruistic as you were hoping?”

“Well, I doubt Count Vertigo is in here. The Royal Flush Gang doesn’t fit the profile, either.” She closed it and drummed her fingers on the book’s cover. “And he went after Garfield Lynns because I asked him to.”

“Yeah, but try convincing him that means he should leave all that list stuff behind and see how far you get,” said John.

“So what happens when he gets through this book? If that’s even possible,” she added. “What’s the plan then?”

“Think it’s to hang up the hood,” said John. “He’ll be done. City saved from those people.”

Laurel was frowning. “But the city won’t stay saved.”

“No,” he agreed.

“If he looks at it as something he can completely eliminate forever he’s gonna burn out. It’s the first thing they tell you at CNRI.”

He’d thought the lawyer an idealist like Oliver with all her efforts to take on more than was perhaps wise to chew. But there was a realist hiding underneath it all, if only because of the harsh realities life had already dealt her. Maybe he’d been relying too much on Oliver’s account of Laurel Lance; maybe he ought to have made his judgments for himself.

“Yeah. Well, that’s why he reached out, I think. He needs help. I try to do that the best I can.”

She looked at him a little more closely. “Shouldn’t you wear something to hide your face, then? Even if you’re not as instantly recognizable as Oliver Queen, that doesn’t matter much to a security camera.”

“Suppose it doesn’t.” He shook his head. “But I’m not out there in the field that much.”

“So he really is alone, most of the time,” she said, her eyes on the ground.

“He’s been alone for five years. Gonna be hard to break that habit.” He checked his watch. Usually the time waiting for Oliver to recover enough to go home dragged on, but with someone else’s company it was flying by. “I’ll stay with him till he’s up if you need to head home. Don’t feel like sticking around is a requirement.”

“I’m okay. But thank you, Mr. Diggle.”

John pursed his lips. “Something tells me we’ll be having a lot of these talks. And you’re part of this now. You can call me Digg, my friends do.”

“I’m glad I qualify,” she replied.

Oliver shifted and muttered something in his sleep again, and Laurel reached for his hand before he could grow too agitated. He settled back down.

“I didn’t even ask, but he’s still out there, isn’t he? The Count?”

“Yeah.”

Her eyes stayed on Oliver’s face. “Oliver’s not going to stop trying to catch him.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Would it matter if it did?” She wasn’t really asking. She already knew.

Any of his lingering doubts that this was a bad thing, that Laurel wouldn’t know how to cope, left him then. She’d been coping for years.

John drew in a breath. “Well, welcome to the team, Laurel.”

She raised her head and smiled back at him. “Thanks, Digg.”