There are three things Roy Harper knows: red, falling, and dust.
Red—a hundred things, everything; from the way he feels when Her fingers brush his to the light that burns deep into his bones when he puts on the mask and follows the Arrow.
You can't go.
Both of them would have said it, so he doesn't let them.
He burns red—a dark, blood red when he says goodbye to Oliver.
He doesn't say goodbye to Her. Can't. She is a different kind of red—lips fierce on his, fingernails tracing his back. But if sound could have color, Her voice would—especially the way She says his name, red and red and red.
Falling is just a memory, but memories can destroy you. (Slash, slash, slash. Fall. Wife, child. Alone. The dreams don't stop).
He tried not to dwell. Tried to focus. Tried to become new; rebirth after the fall.
But Sara falls and Oliver falls and the grief begins to consume him because it is not enough.
She speaks to him one last time, and he would grind his own bones to dust or savage his worthless skin with the broken glass if it meant he could only see her happy again. He didn't want it to be this way—didn't want these last rites through a glass wall with Her eyes looking like that.
When it comes, he knows it before it happens.
And he knows: he volunteered for this; fought Felicity and John for this; asked that they fake his death this way. But when it comes down to it, he is just as damn terrified to die as he was on that moving train Oliver Queen rescued him from all those lifetimes ago.
Back then, he would have wondered: does it hurt? Am I strong enough? is it worth it?
Now he knows the answer—yes and yes and yes—and it doesn't make it any easier.
God, he forgets how goddamn red people bleed. He hasn't bled—like this—in a long time.
It doesn't matter, he tells himself.
For Oliver. For Felicity and John and everyone else who fought for this city. And for Her.
He bleeds and bleeds and bleeds and then he sleeps, for 33 minutes. Dead for 33 minutes. And for each terrifying minute, Her name fills his mouth, his mind, his heart.
Thea.
When he wakes, it is finished.
There's an old red hoodie—a little faded now—that fits comfortably again.
He can stand without shaking now. Face them without falling.
Oliver's face says enough—it is enough.
They'll tell Her. Maybe, somehow, She'll be happy; maybe someday they'll find their way home again to each other. Her eyes pierce his mind as he turns and drives away from everyone he has ever loved, but as the dust kicks up behind the red car, Roy Harper feels something else, too:
peace.
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