Hello everyone! Jeez, it's been a long time since I posted anything here but I'm back! This is based off the new episode and may or may not be a one-shot.
Completely unbeta'd so any mistakes are mine, and given that I typed this quickly and it is late, there may be quite a few...Enjoy :)
"Dig, please…" Oliver mumbles as he watches his former bodyguard and friend walk toward the stairs.
"The only you are stopping me is with an arrow." Diggle says as he starts up the stairs, passing Felicity on the way. Oliver barely hears her as his mind reals in shock. He had already lost Tommy, his best friend since childhood, and now he was going to lose his partner in crime too. Unable to process both the emotional turmoil and the physical toll the fight had taken on his body, Oliver feels his body start to drop as he blacks out.
"Oliver, Oliver!" Felicity yells watching the normally indestructible man go down, drawing Diggle's attention back to the Arrowcave. When she gets no response, even after shaking him, Felicity starts to panic. "Diggle, I need your help!" Diggle weighs his options for a second and finally decides that even if he was no longer going to help Oliver, it wasn't fair to put Felicity through all this stress on her own.
"What happened Felicity?" He asks as he quickly walks back down to find Oliver on the floor with Felicity crouched next to him.
"I-I don't know…one second you two were talking and the next second he's on the ground!" She exclaims and Diggle takes a deep breath before letting his medical training kick in. He checks Oliver's pulse and is confused when he finds a strong, but slow, one. Checking Oliver's pupils for dilation and finding none, only confuses the bodyguard further.
"I don't understand, his pulse is a bit slow but not life threatening and there is no sign of a stroke or a concussion." Diggle says and Felicity's eyebrows furrow in confusion.
"You mean he just shut down for no reason?" She asks and Diggle sighs.
"No, I'm sure there is a reason, but I have no idea what that reason might be." He says before he hears Oliver mumble something. It is too faint for him to hear so he leans closer, trying to make out the words.
"Yao Fei…Shado…Slade…sorry, I'm so…" The words are so soft they are more like a breath of air than actual spoken words. Unfortunately for Diggle the names mean nothing to him and Oliver falls silent again. The bodyguard is about to pull back when Oliver starts mumbling again and this time he recognizes the names. "Sara, Sara! Laurel…Tommy…Dig…please…"
"What's he saying?" Felicity asks as Diggle straightens and leans back on the heels of his feet.
"He…I think he's apologizing to everyone he knows…" Diggle says but even he can't be sure because he didn't know all the names that had been spoken.
"Well what names did he say? Maybe I can find something on them." Felicity suggests as she moves back over to her computer and Diggle sighs before standing up.
"Yao Fei, Shado, Slade, Sara, Laurel, Tommy, and me, those are the names he said and I know the first one is connected to the island." Diggle says and Felicity nods before typing the first three names in, knowing there was no need to search for the last four because they all knew who he was talking about and why he was apologizing. At first she finds hundreds of results but nothing seems helpful.
"I can't find them without a last name…" Felicity grumbles as she tries to think of a way around this roadblock.
"Did you try searching their names in relationship to Lian Yu?" Diggle suggests and Felicity's eyes widen before she quickly narrows her search parameters. How come she didn't think of that? Maybe Oliver's sudden collapse was getting to her more than she thought. Felicity is shocked when the hundreds of names narrow down to three.
"It worked, I found three results…" Felicity mumbles as she pulls up the names and quickly scans the information. By the time she is done her eyes are impossibly widen and she is right on the edge of crying. "Oh god…"
"What is it Felicity?" Diggle asks softly as he walks over to the IT girl and looks at the screen seeing photos of two men a little older than him and a young woman around Oliver's age.
"Yao Fei, Shado, and Slade Wilson were all on the island with Oliver…" She trails off and Diggle frowns. Just what had she found that was so bad?
"And what happened?" He asks, trying to get Felicity to spill.
"Yao Fei was a general who was wrongly imprisoned on Lian Yu. It says here that 2 years ago the people who framed him confessed, but it was too late because he died on the island. Shado is his daughter and she mysteriously disappeared 5 years ago. According to one witness some men took her to a boat. I would imagine she was used as leverage against Yao Fei by the bad people on the island. Shado isn't listed as dead, but she hasn't returned to civilization and Oliver was found alone on the island so I would say she's probably dead. Finally Slade Wilson was part of the Australian government sent to Lian Yu with his partner for unknown reasons. Both he and his partner are listed as deceased, Slade leaving behind a wife and young son." Felicity says and suddenly everything clicks for Diggle.
"Oliver blames himself for their deaths, just like he does with Sara…" Diggle trails off and Felicity looks up at him with a frown.
"Okay so that explains why he wants to apologize to them and Laurel, but Oliver hasn't killed you or Tommy or anyone you are close to." She points out and Diggle sighs.
"That may be, but he did lose our trust and we chose to leave him." He says as he looks down at Oliver, who is no longer mumbling but looks far from restful.
"Wait, you're leaving?" Felicity asks in shock but Diggle shoots her a look that makes her shrink back a bit. "Did your departure trigger a flashback?"
"That would be my guess…I don't think Oliver is emotionally capable of dealing with the loss of so many people he cares for, he must have went into shock…" Diggle trails off again as he continues to stare down at the unconscious billionaire. Sometimes Diggle had to remind himself that Oliver wasn't a robot, that he had feelings too. Tonight Oliver may have chosen Laurel over him, but he was beginning to understand why. Diggle wanted to take down Deadshot because the man had murdered his younger brother. Oliver wanted to help Laurel anyway he could because he felt that he had murdered her younger sister.
"If all his friends are abandoning him, does Oliver have a reason to wake back up?" Felicity wonders out loud as she turns in her chair to look at her boss. He hadn't even twitched since he went down and Felicity was beginning to worry. Should unconscious people be this still?
"I…I really don't know Felicity…" Diggle admits as he ponders her words. He knew that Oliver was dedicated to his mission of cleaning up Starling City with or without help, but in the beginning he still had Tommy to fall back on as a friend. Even though Diggle had only seen the two men together a few times he could the two had a brother-like relationship and Oliver didn't always have to be completely fake around the other man. Now he didn't have Tommy to hang out with because he knew the truth and he didn't have Diggle to help keep him grounded. If Oliver did continue on this path with no one to keep him human, how long would he survive?
"You two may have just created a monster." Felicity whispers and Diggle is pretty sure that she is thinking out loud again, but he can't help but agree. The happy-go-lucky mask Oliver wore for the world might have just broken beyond repair and he knew he was partially responsible.
Well, what do you think? Am I rusty after almost 2 years of not posting anything? Seriously though, was I the only one who felt bad for Ollie after the episode? Diggle is mad at Oliver for picking Laurel, but isn't Diggle the one who ditched Oliver during the Veritgo deal to meet with his friend? Shame on Diggle and Tommy for abandoning our favorite vigilante! Let me know if I should continue this or not, please?