MAY 15, 2008

She awoke on a hardwood floor in a home she didn't know. She remembered all of it: the actions she didn't want to take and the words she didn't want to say but actions and words that the thing made her do and say. For a whole year, such was her life. Did she really remember all of it, or was that just what her shell-shocked consciousness wanted her to believe? She feared the unknown and having chunks of her memory gone most definitely constituted the unknown. She recalled her name easily enough: Laurel. Dinah Laurel Lance, born April 10th, 1985 to Quentin and Dinah Drake Lance. She has a sister. Sara. But where was she, Laurel, now? What town, what city, what state or commonwealth? What year was it, what day, what hour, what minute? Finally sitting up, Laurel stood and walked over to the window. It was night and the moon was high in the sky. She guessed it to be around 10 pm.

"Hello?" She squeaked. No answer. The house was deathly quiet.

How was she going to figure out how to get back home to Starling? Was she even in Seattle anymore?

"Freemont." Laurel vaguely recalled something about "Freemont". Was that a name? Yes! Yes, it's a name! The name of the family that lives in this house. "Hello," she tried again and still received no answer. With no other recourse, Laurel found the nearest exit and walked out of the house.

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Quentin didn't know how to feel. His youngest daughter had been lost at sea the year before and his eldest took off after behaving unnervingly out-of-character. His wife and the mother of his daughters packed her bags and just left without much of an argument occurring between them. Not for Quentin's lack of trying, but primarily due to her not leaving much room for argument. For the past near-400 days, he had been alone in this house with only himself for company. The bottle and the dusty old television were his only friends when he wasn't off the job. He had thrown himself into his detective work for the past year-and-change, he drank himself to sleep, and he watched mind-numbing television all morning and afternoon on his rare days off but nothing helped. He had begun to think nothing ever would help, that he could never be okay again. Of course, he wasn't mad at himself for the dissolution of his marriage. Sure, part of him blamed himself for it (he wasn't around much in the months leading up to the event), but playboy extraordinaire Oliver Jonas Queen was the true impetus of his current lack of a satisfying existence. Sara had been seduced by his charms, her own sister's boyfriend for crying out loud, and shipped off with him on a boat. When Laurel found out, she was… well, devastated was an understatement. And worst of all the young girl stopped acting like herself not long after. Laurel stopped attending classes at SCU. She was on track for a slightly delayed graduation and she had planned on attending grad school with an emphasis in law. She wanted to be a lawyer, to help people from the other side of the justice coin. A noble ambition, and she just threw it all away? He couldn't grasp it. She started acting out, getting in fights over stupid things and having arguments over the pettiest of differences. She also started swearing a bit more than he was comfortable with. She started calling herself "Ruby" about a month before… before she just up and vanished, like her mother.

He was just about to chug the rest of his Coors Light when there was a harried knock, more like a hard rapping, on the door. "Who is it?" He called out.

"Daddy," came a tiny voice that he remembered all too well. Bursting up from the couch, he flung open the door. Whatever the thing was that had made Laurel act the way she had before she left, it wasn't his baby girl. Maybe it was still there and it was just playing with him? His posture told Laurel all of these reservations and more. Her eyes were puffy from crying and her clothes were dirty and torn.

"Daddy, please. It's me. It's Laurel," she croaked before passing out. He caught her before she hit the floor and carried her inside.

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When Laurel came to, she was finally in familiar surroundings. Quentin sat next to her on the couch, but not too close as to scare her upon her awakening. He asked her a volley of questions: Where was she? She couldn't remember where she had been for most of the last year. How did she get home? She hitchhiked all the way from New Harmony, Indiana. Laurel appeared dazed, confused, and it concerned Quentin to no end.

"Are you gonna finish that?" She mumbled in the general direction of his beer. Laurel grabbed his beer anyway, chugged the remainder, and trudged off to her bedroom. Quentin quietly trailed behind, and watched as she plopped down onto her bed, curled into a fetal position. She didn't sleep, though. No, no. Any hopes of sleep were dashed by the nightmares, the flashbacks. The horrible things Ruby made her do, but the bright spots were with the tall man with green eyes and a kind smile. That and his brother. Who were they? Did she know them? It didn't matter to her. All she cared about was that she was finally home. Quentin was glad of it as well, and immediately called Dinah. His ex-wife, however, was concerned. She said she would be on her way as soon as possible, but her tone told Quentin that she most likely would not be coming at all. What the hell kind of parent just abandons their family like that? Quentin could not understand it in the slightest, but his focus was on the family that he did have now. His baby girl, Laurel, had arrived home safely. Not sound, but safe. They could figure out the sound part later. At least they hoped they could. That would be ideal. Perhaps not realistic, but ideal.

Laurel was numb for days, going through the motions of life. Quentin tried to get her to talk about her experiences, but the little pieces here and there that she could recall were hellish. No pun intended. She didn't want to burden him with her horror stories, for him to worry.

"Daddy," she asked one evening at dinner, "where's Sara? Where's my sister? I need to see her."

"Baby…" his voice trailed off. It hit her. She remembered now, and it was like hearing it for the very first time all over again. She was angry, first of all. She cleared her side of the table with one fell swoop of her arms, a horrendous, heart-wrenching cry of "No! No! No, no, NOOO!" tearing itself from her body, and Laurel fell to the dining room floor, a shivering blubbering mess. Quentin fell, too, and they sobbed together.

All they had was each other now, and they would have to do their best with it. Was Laurel as bulletproof as her dad always thought she was? Maybe not. Could she ever be the same person she used to be? She highly doubted it.