Title: New Friends, Old Friends
Words: 2166
Genre: Friendship
Pairing: Laurel/Helena
Status: Done.
Request: laureloliver
Summary: Helena gets released from prison and the first person she goes to see is Laurel on Laurel's cozy night in.
Laurel settled in for the night on her couch with her movie butter buttered popcorn and rearranged the blanket one last time, before she pointed the remote at her television. She checked this movie out from the library last week and tonight was the last night she had to watch it. Otherwise, she'd never get the chance to.
She smiled happily as the intro music swelled and the movie started.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Laurel paused the movie, the rapping came again. She threw the blanket to the side and sighed as she got up off the couch and padded her way to the door.
When she opened the door, the person she found on the other side of the door was Helena Bertinelli.
"Hello, Laurel." Helena smirked.
Laurel looked back into her apartment and then back to Helena. "Hi...Helena," Laurel started.
Helena in her brilliance waltzed right in and smiled. "You could use a better place, you know, this one is surprisingly easy to find."
Laurel pushed the door closed, slack jawed at Helena. "I thought you were in prison. For at least another four months before your parole hearing."
"Nah, Noah Kirpatrick, my lawyer took care of that. I was a good little convict and so they let my parole hearing come early for good behavior at his urging because the system was crowded." Helena said as she snacked on Laurel's popcorn.
That made sense. Noah Kirpatrick was known to be ruthless in his ways of getting people out of jail. He wasn't great about not letting them go to jail in the first place, but he was great the dealing around getting them out of jail. He was a savant in that area. "So...why are you here?" Laurel asked trying to get to the bottom of everything.
"I remembered you. I remembered you telling me about you. And Tommy. And I wanted to know how you got over it. How you get over losing someone like that." She said as she put a couple more pieces of popcorn in her mouth.
Laurel softened and sat back on the couch. "It's hard. You just have to realize that it's not about you. You're not to blame. You have to give yourself time for grief and let the process happen." Laurel said. It probably wasn't the best advice she'd ever given to someone, but it felt honest. It felt like the best she could give.
"Right," Helena said. Things felt a little too honest for her. "So what's playing tonight?" She asked.
Laurel snuggled up in her blanket again and pushed unpause on the movie as she smiled, "Bride Wars,"
"That's a little tame for you, isn't it?" Helena said with an eyebrow raised.
Laurel shushed her. "Just watch the damn movie, okay?"
They watched the movie together and Laurel looked over occasionally and the light coming from Helena's face, she was into it, it made her happy. Laurel liked Helena. Helena had come out of jail a stronger person who needed someone to help her.
"Your wedding will be huge, just like your ass at prom."
Helena looked over to Laurel, "Do women really fight like this about weddings?" She asked as she paused the movie with the remote laying casually on the couch.
Laurel nodded. "Oh, boy, you have never been around waspy and near waspy women. They are vicious. There was a set of best friends like this where Ollie and I went to college," Laurel said and sighed, "Well, where I went to college and Oliver tried to go to college and they both wanted this gala space and they both wanted to be married within the year, there were two openings and you would have figured that would have been great. Wrong."
"Oh god, what happened?" Helena asked, eyes wide wanting to know all the details of the story.
Laurel nodded. "So the two slots were so close together, they wouldn't be able to go to each other's weddings and they had made this insane promise to be there ate each other's wedding and they took it as a personal affront that the other wanted to get married within the year and so they wanted to take the slots but they were also mad at each other for taking the slots."
"Oh god, they sound like crazy people," Helena said as she covered her mouth.
Laurel laughed and nodded again. "Oh, after that we realized they were crazy people."
"My wedding was supposed to be big," Helena said as she fiddled with her hands and stared off in the distance.
Laurel's eyes softened to Helena. "And it still will be. There is someone out there for you. Someone who will understand."
"You think so?" Helena asked as she looked back.
Laurel smiled as she brushed Helena's cheek with her thumb. "Yeah, I do. I think there is someone out there for you. I think that Michael would say the exact same thing."
"Did you want to marry Tommy?" Helena asked as she looked up from the floor.
It took Laurel a little bit aback that Helena asked that question. Helena never exactly had any boundaries. She thought about it. "You know, to be honest, we weren't really at that point this time."
"This time?" Helena asked, eyebrow quirked. "But you were before? When? I thought it was all about you and Oliver."
Laurel laughed. Their biggest secret. "Tommy, Oliver, and I were known as the three musketeers. There was some truth to that."
"Yeah, you guys were the friendly neighborhood trio, everyone knows that."
"Think about it a little longer," Laurel said as she unpaused the movie and turned it down, because it was getting late and the movie was louder than she intended it to be.
Helena paused it once again. "You mean...?" She asked with this sparkle in her eyes.
Laurel nodded. "Yeah, and I thought about them both as husbands a lot back then."
"They could see how brave you are," Helena whispered to her.
Laurel unpaused the movie, "Yeah well, okay,"
"I never said thank you, for your help. For helping me find my way out of the darkness." Helena said as her eyes tilted up to Laurel.
Laurel shook her head. "I didn't do anything. You did it all. You came out of the darkness all on your own. All I did was believe that you could."
"You were a friend when I didn't have any. You were a friend when I didn't deserve your kindness." Helena nodded to her.
Laurel smiled a little, "Just because someone has lost there way, doesn't mean they are lost forever. I know that from living it." She told Helena as she threw the blanket over and patted the couch beside her.
Helena sat on the couch, tense and unsure of what was happening. Laurel turned up the movie and hugged her friend. It was amazing to call the woman who kidnapped her a friend, but there she was.
They finished the movie in relative ease and Helena even laughed at a couple of the gags that the girls pulled on each other. It was so easy to see why Oliver had been attracted to her with that beautiful smile. She was so much more guarded than the first time they sat across a table from each other.
"That one was good," Helena said, "even if it was kind of tame for you, birdie."
Laurel narrowed her eyes at Helena. "Birdie? What's up with that?" Laurel said, trying to shrug it off like it was no big deal.
"You know exactly what I mean, Lance," Helena said with a grin. "Come on. All of the prisoners know about the vigilantes and your sister's jacket, well it was iconic." She shook her head. "You didn't think anyone would notice?" She asked.
Laurel shook her head. "I have no idea what you mean by that."
"Yeah, sure you don't," Helena said as she got up from the couch and kicked the dust around with her feet. Not that there was a lot f dust, there really wasn't, but Helena didn't know what to do with herself. "It's getting pretty late, I should probably go." As she made her way to the door, trying to make it easy.
"Hey," Laurel said and Helena looked back to her. "Do you have a place to stay tonight?"
"I was gonna stay at my family home. It's mine now. I mean it's big and no one's been there in forever, but at least it's a little piece of normal right?" Helena asked. She thought about all the good memories that were in that house and a tear silently fell.
Laurel for her part could not allow that. She shook her head obstinately. "How would you like to stay here, Hel?" She asked with a smile.
"Really?"
Laurel nodded. "We're friends. That's what friends do." She told her.
Helena hugged Laurel. First, she didn't know how to respond, but then she just went with it, this was Helena and she was having a rough time. "I don't know what I did to deserve you."
"Well, you know, it's kind of nice to have someone who can watch and rag on shitty movies with." Laurel smiled to Helena who smiled back.
They broke out of the hug and Laurel went straight to work making sure that Helena felt like she was at home. She found some blankets from her linen closet and laid them at the foot of the bed along with a pillow or two and then went to go find a shirt that Helena could sleep in.
Her phone buzzed on the bed and she picked it up, "Hello," She said as she opened the doors to her closet.
"Hey, are we still on for hand to hand tomorrow with Ted?" Oliver asked.
She thought about it, tomorrow was Saturday. They always had hand to hand on Saturday and Ted would have both of their asses for skipping it. "Yep , we should. You thinking about skipping?" She asked as she flipped through her shirts.
"No," Oliver sighed. Yes, is what that meant, but she called him on it and he knew that it would be a bad idea. "I just was making sure."
"Even if we don't, I still need to talk to Ted. I think I have someone who could help him." She said as she found a big black shirt, next to all of her upcycled shirts. That reminded her, she needed to make therapy a priority again. Meetings were good, but it was nice to have one person to talk to about everything and how could make sure that they were going on the right path for her.
Oliver's interest piqued though, "You have someone for ted? Who?"
"Helena," She said as she didn't quite move out of the room. "I think it would be good for her. She could put the many talents she's acquired into helping people."
"Are you nuts? You're giving Helena another chance? She kidnapped people. She kidnapped you." He said, not believing the whole affair.
She rolled her eyes. "People who live in glass houses shouldn't cast stones, you know,"
"I've never kidnapped anyone."
It was Laurel's turn to scoff. "Oh boy. Yes you have, buddy. You did so with my father's urging remember. You kidnapped me. So yes, I'm giving her a second chance. Because people aren't lost forever. I believed in you. I'm gonna believe in her too."
"You are gonna save us all one day," Oliver said and she could hear the smile.
She smiled back. "That's the plan. Anyways, I have to go. I'm getting ready to lay down and I need to give Helena something to sleep in."
"Don't have too much fun without me," He said with mischief and she hung up on him.
She went into the guest room where Helena was sitting on the bed. "Sorry, Ollie wanted to know if we had a class tomorrow."
"A class?" She asked. "Are we still gonna go down this road where your totally not the pretty bird vigilante by his side?" She asked.
"It's a self defense class." Laurel said as she stuck her tongue out and gave the shirt to Helena. "It should fit."
Helena took the dodge, "thank you for this,"
Laurel shook he head. "You really don't have to thank me for anything. You helped me get my life on track. I wouldn't be doing as I am without that day."
"Your apartment is still hella easy to find. We should work on that." Helena said as she blushed.
Laurel nodded. "Well, right now it's our apartment. If you need anything to eat or drink, the kitchen's open, don't wake me." She said with the biggest smile on her face.
"Thank you for everything."
Laurel shooke her head. "Don't need to thank me," Laurel said as she rounded the corner.
"Laurel?" Helena's voice.
Laurel stopped. "Yep?"
"Thank you."