AN: Happy Holidays, readers! This whole idea of Slade reenacting the moment Oliver had to choose between Shado and Sara has been niggling at me. An impossible, weighty choice, and this is what I came up with. Sorry for the feels. The characters are all DC and the CW, of course.

Chapter 1: Choice

Slade raised his gun as Oliver came out onto the rooftop. He pulled up short at the sight before him, his blood running cold as the horror of the situation settled in. A light dusting of snow covered the rooftop and continued to fall. It was rare for snow to fall in Starling City, and rarer still for it to fall on Christmas Day. Felicity and Laurel were on their knees before Slade, arms bound behind their backs. Flakes of snow collected in their hair. They both looked terrified-Laurel had tears in her eyes, but Felicity met and held his gaze as Oliver came out on to the roof. There was something in her eyes that made a hollow form in the pit of his stomach. She didn't understand what was going on, but she believed in him to get them all out alive. He felt a sense of desperation, because he knew exactly what this was, and her trust in him could not be more misplaced. Unless, by some miracle, Diggle had located Sara and they made it here in the next five minutes, he could not see how this would end well. The sense of deja vu was nearly overwhelming, and for a moment the snow covered urban landscape before him was replaced by the cool forest in the dark of night.

"Put down your bow," Slade commanded. He stood maybe two feet behind Felicity and Laurel, equidistant between them.

Oliver swallowed, considering his options. His bow was fast, but his arrows would not be enough to stop Slade from pulling the trigger, thanks to the Mirakuru. It was a chance Oliver wasn't willing to take. His only hope was that he could reason with Slade, where he had failed to reason with Ivo. If he could convince Slade to kill him instead, then they both could live. Lowering his bow, he raised his hands. "This is between you and me, Slade," he said slowly. "They have nothing to do with this." Slade's lips raised in a snarl, but Oliver continued on. "Don't make either of them pay for my sins. That would dishonor her." He thought of Shado, or more specifically her ghost, in the hall of his house just a few weeks before. Everyone you love will die. He clenched his jaw and had to fight not to close his eyes against the fear of this situation.

"Don't you speak of her!" Slade screamed, clearly a man on edge. "You have no right. She chose you and you CHOSE to let her die."

Oliver inhaled against the vivid memory of Shado and Sara before him on the dark forest floor, just as Felicity and Laurel were before him down. It's time to choose Oliver. That was what Ivo had said to him. Who lives and who dies. But choose quickly because in thirty seconds, I will shoot them both. An impossible choice then, and an even more impossible one now.

"I wanted Ivo to take me instead!" He ground out, exhaling past the pain of the memory. "But he was going to kill them both. Don't do what he did. If he had listened to me then, she would still be alive."

Slade took a step toward the women and swung his gun in Laurel's direction. "So you chose HER SISTER over Shado? Over the woman who shared your bed for nearly a year, who taught you to fight and how to shoot that bow? You have no right to wear her hood!" Oliver could hear the rage that had been festering inside Slade for the last five years. He had been working toward this vendetta ever since Oliver thought he had killed him with an arrow through the eye, he could see that now.

Laurel was looking confused now, as well as terrified. She glanced and Felicity, and then back at him. The reference to her sister hadn't gone unnoticed, but she hadn't put the pieces together yet. Felicity on the other hand, suddenly had tears in her eyes. He knew that she finally understood what was happening here. He wondered if she would ever look at him the same way again, if they made it out of this alive.

xxx

Felicity let out a quiet cry as everything Slade was saying clicked in to place. No wonder the man before her, who she trusted implicitly, was so scarred emotionally from his time on that island. He had been forced to make more impossible decisions in those five years than most people had to make in a lifetime. She remembered his words from months before. These were five years where nothing good happened. She hadn't understood then. And she suspected she was only understanding the tip of the iceburg now. Oh, Oliver. This nut-job with the eyepatch an a vendetta had clearly been on Lian Yu with Oliver. She also understood that he was attempting to recreate the situation they were talking about-apparently someone had made Oliver choose between Sara and the mysterious Shado, just as Slade was trying to make Oliver choose now between Laurel and herself. It was a choice he shouldn't have to make. No matter what he chose, she knew the guilt would be another layer of pain on his already over-weighted shoulders. There had to be another way.

Apparently Oliver's idea of another way was trading his own life for theirs. She listened as he pleaded with nutso eyepatch guy. "Don't do this Slade. They are innocent in this. Before, we were all involved. But this isn't about either of them. It's YOU and ME."

Slade snarled again, and Felicity suddenly felt the barrel of the gun pressed against the back of her head. Oliver's eyes went feral as he took a step closer. She could see that he was dangerously close to losing control. "They are NOT innocent," Slade snarled. "This one helps you day and night." The gun pressed harder in to her head. "She keeps your secrets." Then the gun was gone, and Felicity knew from Laurel's sharp inhale that it was no pressed her head. "And this one . . . you have such guilt over your past that you chose her sister over Shado."

Felicity knew the exact second that everything clicked in to place for Laurel. She sucked in her breath and looked wildly between Felicity and Oliver with wide, disbelieving eyes. "Ol-ollie?" She finally stammered. Felicity watched as Oliver's jaw clenched.

"Take off her hood!" Slade demanded. Oliver reached up and slowly lowered the hood. The green mask Barry had made for him still covered his face, but it was enough to confirm Laurel's suspicion. Felicity listened as the woman next to her began to hyperventilate. She, on the other hand, couldn't bring herself to look away from Oliver. There was so much pain and regret etched all over his beautiful face in that moment, and she realized that this was going to happen. There would be no miraculous rescue. Oliver was going to have to choose, unless she could come up with a way to keep him from having to make that choice. And he shouldn't have to make a choice like that again. He would never recover. He hadn't even recovered from the first time he had to make it. She would be damned if she would let it happen again.

xxx

As Oliver lowered his hood, he took in Laurel's look of disbelief, then he locked on to Felicity's gaze, trying hard to convey everything he had never said to her. He didn't know how this was going to end, but it wasn't going to be good. Laurel sounded like she was hyperventilating, and he found it odd that he felt nothing at her realization of his true identity. Back when he first came home, he used to dream about what her reaction would be. But now it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. He was in an impossible place again, and he had no idea what he was going to do. Help was not coming. He wasn't sure that there was a choice that he could live with.

"Time's up, Oliver," Slade said menacingly. He swung the gun toward Felicity as he began counting down, and Oliver wondered if he knew that Ivo had done the same exact thing. "Ten."

He remembered Shado's ghost in the hall of his house again. Stop fighting. And LIVE. Or everyone you love will die.

"Nine." The gun was on Laurel now. Laurel, who kept him alive on that island. Who he had already let down more times than he could count.

"Eight." Felicity again. Who believed in him. Who stayed with him, even though it was dangerous and terrible and dark to do so.

"Please Slade!" He cried desperately. "Take me and let them go!"

"Death is too easy of a release for you!" Slade spat out. "You should suffer for your sins. Seven." Back to Laurel.

"Ollie!" Laurel cried out his name, closing her eyes as the gun pressed back into her head.

He yelled in frustration, unable to find the solution to this problem. Last time he had put himself between Ivo's gun and Sara because Ivo's gun was pointing at Sara at the time. Ivo had then shot Shado. He could not fail either of these women-could not live with himself if let either of them die.

"Six." Back on Felicity.

"Oliver." Felicity's clear voice broke through his frustration, and she met his gaze with tears in her eyes. She was shaking now, much as she had when the Count had taken her.

"Five." Laurel.

"You deserve to be happy Oliver," Felicity said. His breath whooshed out, and he realized she thought he was still in love with Laurel.

"Four." Back on Felicity. Who closed her eyes as the gun pressed back into her head. Then she opened them again and met his gaze.

"This isn't your fault," she said, and her eyes told him so much more than her words. His stomach dropped out, and time seemed to slow down.

"Three." Back to Laurel.

Felicity closed her eyes again, and Oliver knew she was up to something the moment before it happened. Slade was swinging the gun back toward her again, "two" on his lips, when Felicity gathered herself and climbed to her feet and spun around, throwing her entire weight against Slade. His tiny, untrained assistant, with her hands tied behind her, threw herself at an armed, well-trained supersoldier. He lunged for her, screaming her name, but he knew even as he moved that it was too late. He was too late.

He heard the gunshot, saw the spray of blood come from her. He was fairly certain that his world was ending when he saw the blood. A look of surprise came across Slade's face, and he wrapped his other arm around Felicity, keeping her from falling to the ground. Laurel fell to the ground, screaming.

Oliver reached them, punching Slade's face with his right hand while wrapping his left around Felicity, pulling her away from Slade. He let her go, and then Oliver was laying her down in the snow, oblivious to anything but the blood gushing from gaping hole in her shoulder. There was too much blood. A part of him whispered that he should turn to defend them against Slade, but that voice was tamped down by the panic for Felicity, who looked pale and lifeless laying against the snow-covered roof as a pool of red spread around her. Oliver could hear his own blood wooshing in his ears.

Suddenly there was another figure on the roof. Black clad leather placing herself between Slade and the rest of them. Sara. He pulled his glove off one hand and felt for a pulse as he tried to slow the flow of blood from her wound. Her pulse was there, but barely. She needed a hospital or she was going to die. She had taken the choice out of his hands, because . . . why? Because she wanted him to be happy. She wanted him to live, just as Shado had said to him. But she seemed to think he could both live and fight. As her blood covered his hands, he realized with ridiculous clarity that he couldn't live without her in his life. "Stay with me, Felicity. Stay with me."