Oliver holds it together until William cries himself to sleep. He feels like his whole world is shaking apart and his body trembled as he rubbed circles in his son's back for hours saying, "I'm sorry" because he couldn't bring himself to be so cruel as to promise it would be okay.
They hadn't moved yet, but after William's sobs become ragged breaths of sleep, Oliver is overcome with the need to be anywhere but here. Anywhere but this place where he lost so much. This place that, even in death, is destroying him.
He guns the boat's engine and forces it as far away as the gas will take them. Somehow, even though he was running blind, they make it to shore. He can't even remember what language he books the hotel room in.
The second worst part of all this is feeling William's weight in his arms and knowing the boy is not asleep – he just doesn't have the strength to move. The worst part is knowing that this is going to break him like Lian Yu first broke his father, like the Glades broke Malcolm, like Malcolm broke Thea, like Eobard Thawne broke Barry.
William's eyes don't close again until daylight peeks over the horizon with the audacity to be pink and beautiful when all that was beautiful in Oliver's life has died.
He can't do this.
He can't be a father, he can't save William. He couldn't save Roy or Thea or anyone else he tried to keep innocent. Felicity – her name hurts so much to think – was right when she left him because of his darkness. His darkness corrupts the light in others, it always has. The only person who ever seemed immune to it…
Oliver doesn't remember where he put his phone and he's too exhausted to look. He grabs the room's old phone and his fingers freeze above the buttons. He can't remember Barry's number. It comes to him after he's already dialed Star Labs, but he doesn't hang up. The kid's almost always there, anyway, what with Savitar threatening to kill Iris.
Please don't let Savitar have killed Iris. Oliver prays more fervently than he's prayed in years. He can't stand the thought of Barry suffering like he is.
"Hello?" It's Cisco, voice thick with tears, and Oliver knows Iris is dead.
His words are stuck in his throat. He just wanted someone to listen to him, someone he didn't have to worry about burdening. He can't dump this on Barry, not now.
"Hello?" Cisco is a little more impatient.
Still, maybe they could mourn together. Sometimes sharing your pain with someone who understands can make you feel justified. (He knows it won't make either of them feel better.) Oliver knows it's selfish to want Barry to alleviate his loneliness, but he's at the edge of his rope and he can't resist anymore.
"Who is this?" Cisco snaps.
"It's Oliver." There's no going back now. If he hangs up, they'll just track him down, thinking he's in danger. "I need to talk to Barry."
In the heavy air where Cisco is silent Oliver is too preoccupied with how horrible his own voice sounds to be suspicious, so he's completely unprepared.
"Barry's dead, Oliver." Cisco says in a measured, resigned tone.
Oliver hears a roaring in his ears and crashes to the floor. He doesn't feel the pain that should be ricocheting from his kneecaps, and for a moment he allows himself the impossible hope that this is all a terrible nightmare. Reality isn't so easily convinced.
"W-what? What do you m – uh." Oliver can't talk, can't breathe. He feels like there's a fever raging through his body, white hot with horror and loss. "What happened?" His voice is ragged and broken. He doesn't want to know what happened. He wants to pretend he never called, never heard what Cisco said. He'd even settle for this all being a distasteful joke.
It's not. Cisco launches into a long story Oliver's not interested in about some kind of time travel thing and an evil Barry – an evil Barry, like that's even possible – and Savitar actually being a robot thing and the Speed Force – Oliver hates the Speed Force now with a certainty that's even more powerful than his conviction that it chose Barry for a reason – and Barry sacrificing himself to this other worldly prison.
Oliver doesn't even say goodbye. He just hangs up and dials Barry's number in the temporary insanity some people call denial. He waits, every ring plunging his heart into even greater hopelessness.
"Hello?"
Hope crashes through Oliver's mind in a flash. "Barry?!" He grips the phone so hard he's surprised the casing doesn't crack. "Cisco said you were dead!"
"Not exactly. Not yet." Barry sounds strangely unaffected. "I'm in the Speed Force prison – honestly, I'm surprised my phone even works here. It's not going to last, though. The Speed Force has a tendency to break down physical objects."
"Like people." Oliver says. He remembers Joe telling him about watching Barry disintegrate right in front of him in a rare moment of trust or maybe just a primal need for catharsis. "Barry, how are you alive?"
"Like I said, I'm not exactly—"
"That's not what I meant. I mean before, when you blew up, how are you alive? How did you survive that?" Oliver isn't talking about his team, his family when he starts, but he is when he finishes.
"I'm not entirely sure. I think the Speed Force reconstructed my body or something." There's a crackling sound and Barry sighs. "Look, Oliver, I don't have a lot of time." He pauses. "I'm glad you called. I wanted to say goodbye but there was no time."
"Please, Barry, don't. Not now." Oliver can't help himself from begging.
"Why? What's going on, Oliver?"
Oliver wants to tell Barry that there doesn't have to be something going on for him to want his little scarlet brother to live. He wants to tell Barry that he's important, that he's needed and valued and not just because he can run really fast or time travel or fight aliens.
Oliver knows he will regret not saying any of that, but all he can do now is pour out everything that happened in a flood of pain. He's never been Catholic, never believed in saints or praying to angels, but he suddenly understands the value of Confession. He suddenly knows what it's like to want to bare every dirty little sin to someone and have them grant you absolution. Every church he's gone to has preached forgiveness of sins, but there's something different about having someone refer directly to you.
"Oh, Oliver." Barry's voice is heavy with grief. "I'm so sorry."
"It's not your fault." Oliver is proud of himself for at least saying that much.
"It's not yours either."
Oliver has no more words. He wants so badly to believe Barry, but something inside him is absolutely certain he is to blame. He leans against the wall, mentally and emotionally exhausted, clinging to the phone and waiting for Barry to flatline like everyone else.
"Listen to me, Oliver," Another crackle mutilates Barry's pronunciation of his brother's name. "I wish I could help you with this. I want so badly to be able to be there for you and help you heal from this pain – but I can't. I'm here and I can't leave, so I'm going to have to make the most of this right now."
Barry takes a deep breath. "You have to believe that this isn't your fault. I know that you will always find a way to blame yourself, but you can't this time. Not just because the guilt will kill you, but because it will kill William. If you never get over this, you'll never be able to help him get over it.
"Focus on the good memories, Oliver. Focus on what you loved about them. Celebrate their lives instead of mourning their deaths. Please don't let this drive you back to who you were five years ago – that's the last thing any of them would want.
"Don't be afraid to love, okay? I know it seems like this now, but not everyone you care about is going to die. You can't save everyone – not even Kara can save everyone. Still, there's going to be someone, someday, who will outlive you. Maybe that someone is William.
"Also, you need to remember that no one you've lost has left you on purpose. They all loved you – we all loved you, Oliver, and wherever we are, we still do. So please hold on, okay? We need you to hold on. We want you to be happy, to be okay…"
The static is almost obscuring Barry's voice, but Oliver can still hear the desperation overwhelming the younger man. He clutches the phone tighter as if he's holding onto the Flash himself.
"Oliver, can you still hear me?"
"I'm here, Barry." Oliver's voice breaks.
"Thank you for teaching me how to be a hero. You were always my hero, Oliver, don't forget that, okay? You stood by me no matter what and I can't thank you enough…Oliver?"
"I'm here!"
"Oliver? Can you hear me?"
"I can hear you!"
"Oliver, if you can hear this, I want you to know you've been the best big brother I could've ever wanted. I'm going to miss you so much – Oliver? Are you still there?" Barry's voice is barely a whisper over the static now.
"Barry, I'm here. Can you hear me?"
"Oliver?"
"Barry!"
"Oliver?"
Oliver closes his eyes. The phone must have lost the ability to transmit his voice. It won't be long now. "I'm here, Barry," He says anyway.
Barry must think that the call has completely cut off, because his voice shakes as he whimpers, "Ollie, I'm scared."
Tears fill Oliver's eyes as the dial tone fills his ears. He didn't think he had any more tears to shed, but somehow he does. Still, when William wakes up in the morning, his father is sitting right next to him on the bed, smiling.
Oliver's eyes are still sad, but he brushes back his son's hair and says, "Good morning, kid."
"Dad?" William's voice is hoarse from crying and his eyes are still puffy and red. Even he doesn't know what he's asking for.
"Let's get some breakfast." Oliver says. "Then we can decide what to do next."
"I don't know if I can do this." William confesses.
"I don't know if I can be a vigilante like you."
"You can be better."
"We're going to do it together." Oliver tells him. "Because we're a family. And because it's what your mother would want us to do."
William thinks this over for a moment. "And Felicity." He says.
Oliver barely stops himself from losing it right then and there. "Yes." He agrees. "And everyone else. We'll do it for them."
William nods solemnly in a way a kid should never have to. "Okay." He says, and it's the first time in a long time that Oliver knows he's doing the right thing.