Hail, Faust

"I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good."

Prologue

The world exploded in technicolor.

Sounds, sights, smells, they all came rushing back to him. But it wasn't right. The colors were too bright, the smells too vivid, the sounds painful: a deep, steady, ear-piercing gonging noise kept beating at his head. He tried to move, but he couldn't feel his limbs, and try as he might, he remained lying, rooted. He only seemed to have control of his wandering eyes.

They weren't much help, either. Everything was so vivid they blurred into a kaleidoscopic mess of whites and light greens. It was all much too beautiful to bear, so he closed his eyes, and sank back into the welcoming darkness.

Until he heard a click, and then the soft melody of some long, nearly-forgotten tune broadcasted out, humming into one ear and out of the other, and accompanied by footsteps. Two pairs, he was able to tell. A hunter never forgot these things, no matter how dulled their senses. Soon, voices confirmed his instincts were right:

"How do you know he likes...?" one of them began, a woman's, vaguely familiar, and quiet next to the music and that infernal beeping noise.

Another voice responded, soprano, and male. "Felicity told..." A spark of recognition: blonde hair, glasses, cheery. But then it slipped away; he couldn't place a face to it. "...got better taste than Barry."

Barry. A name so familiar, so close but so distant.

Suddenly, the world righted itself, and though still a little blurred, he felt as if human again. The sounds were crisp, no longer dull or pounding, and the beeping turned from terrifying to mundane, medical. His head flopped over to the side and found a monitor staring back at him where the beeping came from, but his view of exactly what was on the monitor was blocked, as a slim figure stepped in the way and reached out over him. She was adjusting something behind him, and he just wanted her out of the way, so he grunted.

Or, at least, he tried. His grunt came out more like a weak moan that hadn't been said so much as slid out of his mouth.

But it was enough to surprise the figure in front of him. She jumped and gasped, and yelled for someone before crouching down to his level and shining a light in his eyes. Too bright, he flinched away, and that seemed to please her.

"Hello?" she asked. "Hello? Can you tell me your name?"

He tried to speak, but felt as though his throat was closing upon itself. "Water," he mumbled incoherently.

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that?"

"Water," he enunciated more clearly this time; still a mumble, but now coherent. Jumping up, the woman rushed away, and in moments, was back with and tall glass that she tipped toward his mouth, and he gulped the life-giving water inside down greedily. When he had enough, he pulled away and took a long, hard look at the woman. She had chestnut brown hair, and nearly equally brown eyes, pale skin, and wore pink lipstick. He recognized the face and thought of the cold. What was her name again? Frost? Along with the water, she had brought another familiar face, with bronze skin and easygoing smile on his lips, though he couldn't place the face to a name.

"Now, can you tell me your name?" the woman asked soberly.

That was easy. He was a hunter, one with the land, one with the animals, one with the bow, one with the arrow. "Queen," he croaked. "Oliver Queen."

"Good, Mr. Queen," she replied, and her face broke out into a tentatively relieved smile. "Do you remember me?"

It was Frost, but it wasn't. Something cold. Dr. Ice? No, that was stupid. Doctor... "Snow."

"Good, you remember," she nodded. "Now, Mr. Queen, do you know where you are, why you're here?"

He tried to think back, but all he could remember was fire, pain, and blood. Too much blood.

"I—I can't remember," he whispered, shaking his head.

Doctor Snow nodded, as if she had expected the possibility. "Don't worry, it's nothing to be ashamed of. You... you were in an accident. A bombing in Star City. It put... you've been in a coma."

"For how long?" he breathed out, alarmed, and the beeping became quicker and more furious.

Doctor Snow raised out a hand and placed it on his shoulder. "I need you to calm down, Mr. Queen, before I can tell you," she said with a pointed look. He stared back at her and, swallowing, nodded as he attempted to regain control of himself. With some effort, he eventually did, and turned back to face her.

"How long?" he repeated, this time calmer, more assured of himself.

The brunette paused and looked upon him pityingly: "Mr. Queen, it's been a very long time..."

"How long?" he repeated, a little more forcefully. The doctor, in turn, looked very uncomfortable and swallowed before she spoke:

"Twenty-one months."

When they started rehabilitation, Oliver fell out of bed, and couldn't even muster the strength to crawl. It served as a reminder to everyone around him that he wasn't Barry; when The Flash had awoken from his coma, he sped out of his room in a matter of minutes. It would take Oliver months before he could walk to the door. He had wasted away in his silent slumber, and became disturbingly thin; his legs could no longer support his weight, and his arms... his arms were another story entirely.

"You were in an explosion," Doctor Snow had said upon awakening, when he couldn't move anything but his head. Around them stood two others: Barry, having dropped everything and sped to S.T.A.R. Labs the moment he heard Oliver had come to; and his physicist sidekick, Cisco Ramon. Both looked on with pensive expressions:

"You took 63 pieces of metallic shrapnel from a C4 detonation in Star City," Doctor Snow continued, "and suffered numerous second and third-degree burns on your torso and arms... We found you half-dead..." she trailed off, as a troubled look clouded over her eyes. But as quick as it came, it went, and she was back to the normal, expressionless, Doctor Snow: "Fortunately, I was able to get most of the shrapnel out and you've been administered skingrafts for your burns. You're in no danger of the long-term damage from the shrapnel and I'd say you've taken very well to the grafts."

She paused. Oliver didn't like that pause.

"What's wrong?" he croaked out, even while knowing he wouldn't like the answer.

"Now comes the bad part," she replied softly.

Oliver wheezed out a laugh that nearly shattered his rib cage. "That was the good part?" somewhere behind the brunette doctor, he could hear Barry let out a short, bitter chuckle. Doctor Snow, however, gave him a wry smile and a nod:

"Unfortunately, yes."

Oliver breathed out. He loved bad news. "Well... don't keep us waiting."

"It's your arm..."

"My arm?" Oliver said; he couldn't feel anything in his extremeties, much less his arms, so he hadn't thought much of them.

The Doctor seemed to the steel herself. "Your left arm, to be specific," she said clinically. "The detonation happened in an old building, and they're not exactly known for being... sanitary. Um, one of the burns on your left arm became infected long before we could see you."

Panic. Fear. The medical beeping sound to his right once again rose in tempo.

"By the time you came to us," she said, trying to sound detached, but failing miserably with that guilty expression, "the only choice to keep the infection from spreading... was to amputate."

The beeping noise rose to a crescendo, and seemingly alongside it, Oliver lost the ability to breathe. Air came in, but he couldn't choke it down, and began gagging and heaving, as his limbs suddenly came alive and thrashed out at random. In a rush, all three came over to him and held him down:

"Calm down, Oliver!" someone shouted, but Oliver couldn't tell who anymore; all that mattered was that his arm, his life, was now gone.

"How the hell is a coma patient so strong!?" yelled someone else, holding down his thrashing right arm, galvanized into action, perhaps, by the thought of losing its opposite.

But Doctor Snow's voice cut through all the noise. "Calm down, Mr. Queen, and focus on me. You're okay. You're alive, and you're okay."

Yes, he was alive. But was he okay? Somehow, Oliver doubted it, though it was enough to calm him. The world returned to normal, and Oliver made out Barry on his left and Cisco on his right, having helped Doctor Snow hold him down during his little episode. Barry, of course, was grinning:

"There's the Oliver Queen I know," he said merrily, "all he ever needs is a pretty woman to tell him everything's alright."

Cisco laughed while Doctor Snow shot him an only half-reproachful glare.

"But, Oliver," the doctor said, deigning to use his given name for the first time that day, "you know what this means, right?"

Oliver nodded, steeling himself as he always did for the worst case scenario. "I'll never hold a bow properly again," he said, watching each of their faces. Barry had a look of understanding, as he always did; Cisco of pity; and Doctor Snow, her expression was, unsurprisingly, unreadable:

"Yes," she agreed grimly, "you can't be The Arrow, anymore."

General Housekeeping: I was challenged by a friend to write a dead serious story with a super crack pairing, particularly in a fandom like the Arrowverse, which seems laden mostly with tepid and mostly tedious romance fics. So, no you didn't read the character portion of the summary wrong, this is an Ollie/Caitlin fic, and it will include elements from Batman, Green Lantern, Hellblazer, and The Sandman. You don't particularly need to know any of these comics/graphic novels in detail to read this, however.

Things to know going forward:

- This fic follows a bit of a wonky timeline. Technically, it takes place after S3 of Arrow and prior to S2 of The Flash, but with a much longer layover between the two. I think it's about six months after the Reverse Flash stuff that S2 starts, but obviously, it's closer to two years in this fic, to account for Ollie's coma. There will also be an explanation for why he's in Central City instead of Star City, but it'll be laid out in the coming chapters.

- John Constantine fans rejoice, you'll get to see a lot of him in this fic. Maybe even a cheeky Hal Jordan here and there.

- Most of Season 3 of Arrow is canon to this fic, except for the last few episodes, which will be explained in the coming chapters. This will not follow Season 4 at all, though it will follow Season 2 of The Flash (except, for the beginning with Barry working alone, Cisco with the police department, Caitlin working at Mercury Labs; and, of course, the Arrow/Flash crossover stuff).

- Oliver losing his arm is a reference to Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, in which it's implied Superman rips off Ollie's arm when he continues to engage in vigilante activities as the Green Arrow, after the government outlaws it, and the members of the Justice League agree to stop their vigilantism. Doesn't stop him and Batman, despite both being old and crippled, from kicking the shit out of a practically ageless Superman near the end of TDKR.

- This is rated M more for violent content than sexual content. Given all the Vertigo characters that will appear in this fic, it's necessary for it to have a much darker tone than either Arrow or The Flash.

That should be it with the notes. Thanks for reading!