Even at five years old, you ask Oliver Queen what he wants to be when he's older and his undoubtable answer will be married to Laurel Lance. Even at five, she will take his hand and kiss his cheek and grin toothily at him, happy just to be by his side. Happy that he wants that too.

By the time they're ten he's proposed at least a dozen times and will have proposed many more times by the time they hit seventeen and he plans a serious proposal, one that includes a ring and everything.

They are eighteen when her father walks her down the aisle. They are eighteen when she wears white and they exchange vows to be together forever.

They are not yet nineteen when the Gambit sinks and takes him with it. Not yet nineteen and stranded on an unknown island on the other side of the world. Not yet nineteen and a widow, and she can't stand the pitying looks she gets when she wears black so soon after her wedding. She cries and screams at until her voice is gone, and she can't scream anymore. The pain rips her heart to shreds, but she doesn't forget. No, she'll never forget. Never forget the sweet smiles and childhood promises of love and forever, the day they finally were bound together through marriage, the laughs and stolen kisses, and everything in between. It is Thea and her best friend Zatanna who help her survive this loss.

He endures five years of purgatory, five years of hell before he comes home to her. His ring and her picture feel like they burn from the safety of the pocket he keeps them in. He doesn't need enemies to see them and he definitely doesn't want to remind Waller that he has a wife. She's already threatened Thea's life, she doesn't need to be reminded that Laurel would be just as an effective tool in her pocket.

Immediately they crash back together when he arrives, as if he never left her side. They have to relearn each other, those five years having affected and changed the both of them. He had to become something else to survive, and to endure being one of Waller's puppets. She had to become something else to help the people in her city survive, just being a lawyer wasn't enough, especially so once the particle accelerator went off and activated her meta-gene. Together they tackled his father's list and helped protect the people of the city from dangerous criminals. Everyone could see the great partnership that was the Black Canary and the Green Arrow.

Then came Slade Wilson and his siege on the city and she lost her husband once more. This time for good. He was dead and there was no coming back from that. She screamed and cried and overpowered Slade, throwing him down in a deep dark hole that even he couldn't crawl out of.

Then she begged Zatanna to find her a way, something to bring him back to her once more. Her heart shattered even further as she advised against using magic to revive him. If they'd gotten to him before he passed she could have healed him, but they didn't, and he was gone, and black magic could have adverse effects and often required sacrifice. It would be years until she could harness light magic to bring back the dead and they knew it would be wrong to revive him after so much time had passed, it would be cruel even.

Then she's getting sick and tired and can't seem to shake it.

It takes a month before she finds out the truth. She's pregnant. She's pregnant and her Ollie's gone. She's going to be a single mother because she's been widowed for the second time in her life. Again she cries, but she stands tall and when she gives birth she looks at her new son and even though all she can see is Oliver, she writes the name Connor on his birth certificate.

Connor grows up hearing stories of his father, his father Oliver Queen, The Green Arrow. He hears all about Oliver's childhood and the love he always had for Connor's mother, for Laurel Lance. Connor Lance Queen wants for nothing, and Thea is more than happy to be an aunt. Aunty Speedy is his best friend, aside from him momma of course. He grows up in the arms of the League, with superheroes as babysitters and friends and their protégés as siblings, and Zatanna is the godmother of course. It is Speedy who teaches him how to shoot a bow, just like Ollie taught her and Roy. She teaches him all her favorite trick-shots while Roy watches with a smirk and shake of the head.

Laurel makes sure her son can not only defend himself, but also knows how and when to stick up for others.

She smiles as she watches him make his own path and fight for what he believes in. Someday she knows he'll take up the mantle of his father, the mantle of the Green Arrow. She knows he'll come to her when he's ready. It's what he's been preparing for his whole life, after all, with Thea and Roy and Zatanna and her and all of the Justice League behind him and having a hand in his training. She knows, that if Oliver were here, he'd be proud to see what has become of them all. What has become of his Pretty Bird and the son he didn't get a chance to know. He'd be proud of them all, so proud.