Disclaimer: I do not own the right to Arrow or any DC comics. I would not be writing fanfiction if I did.

A/N: Constructive reviews are appreciated.


Smolder

The doctors declared it a miracle that she didn't die of hypothermia and pure luck to have no concussion from the crash or frostbite after spending six hours in the bitter cold. They said nothing about the wounds trying to kill her on the inside.

Laurel told the detectives assigned the case everything she remembered about the three men. She remembered more than most witnesses; she was a detective's daughter after all. Her testimony meant nothing without someone to charge and even with her descriptions, the police had trouble locating the men that killed her father and sister. As the months passed with no results, Laurel's trust in the justice system began to waver.

The nightmares began almost right away. Laurel would wake screaming of blonde little angels dancing in blood or blackened dragons spewing fire from their mouths. Dinah sent her daughter to a psychologist, but Laurel refused to talk. Her father had scorned head shrinks, saying they only messed people up more and Laurel had believed him.

Laurel withdrew into herself. She applied herself to her school work with only half the heart she used to. The kids at school shied away from her as if murdered family members might be contagious. Laurel told herself she didn't care, that they were are all a bunch of babies anyway.

A year passed in sullen silences and ears aching for sounds that couldn't be made anymore. The nightmares refused to stop. The trail to find the killers went cold. Dinah Lance continued to disappear at odd hours of the night and come home with bruises and cuts she couldn't explain. Laurel's grades began to slip. And then finally, on what should've been Sara's ninth birthday, Laurel screamed out the truth that had been stewing in her heart.

When the detectives had questioned her, Laurel had kept one secret back. She shared it with no one. Not the psychologist or her former friends at school and certainly not to her adoptive Uncle Ted, who'd begun checking in the Lance women more regularly following the murders. Her classmates may not have talked to her more than necessary anymore, but they still talked around her and Laurel listened very well.

She heard the expanding rumors about Starling City's Black Canary, a former vigilante from Gotham, and she heard about the brutal fights the Canary was getting in with the drug cartel that killed Laurel's family. Laurel could put two and two together and when at last she realized why her father and sister had died, she finally had a target for her rage that she could vent on.

She started with small acts of defiance that soon morphed into open disobedience. When punishments failed to curb her attitude, Dinah learned to stop asking her daughter to do anything. Laurel turned to barbed comments and hurtful digs next, drawing gleeful vengeance when her mother's eyes turned misty at her words. Uncle Ted tried to step in, to stop Laurel's constant barrage, but Laurel refused to listen. She wanted someone to pay and if it couldn't be the killers, the reason they killed would do. The fact that Dinah remained oblivious to the cause of Laurel's rage only fueled her fury further until that birthday rolled around.

Laurel spent most of Sara's birthday in silence as refusing to acknowledge her mother's presence seemed to hurt her as much as the insults did. Laurel tried her best to not think about the happier birthdays Sara had known while also trying to remember the sound of her sister's laughter. She did better at the first objective then the second; there were a lot of things she couldn't remember as clearly as she wanted to and often that made her want to cry. Whenever she felt like crying she focused on her anger instead and that resulted in a very combustible mood come the afternoon.

"I was thinking of visiting Sara before it gets dark," Dinah commented at last, already dressed in her coat. She knew better than to ask Laurel a direct question at this point. She'd learned it was safer to present an idea, then see how Laurel responded before acting. Then she either strong-armed her daughter into playing along or followed her only living child in resigned silence.

"You have no right visiting her," Laurel snapped back.

"Why not?" Dinah sighed. She waited patiently for Laurel to respond, but Laurel had retreated into ignoring Dinah's existence. Dinah sighed again, a sure sign that she was giving up, but then she squared her shoulders and marched directly into Laurel's line of sight on the couch in their living room; "If you don't want me visiting your sister, give me one good reason why. Don't just say I have no right, talk to me!"

"Because you're the reason SHE'S DEAD. YOU'RE THE REASON THEY'RE BOTH DEAD!" Laurel exploded, jumping off the couch. She pushed her mother, who was so startled that she stumbled backwards and completely lost her balance, falling to the floor. Laurel stood over her, heaving, and then dashed up the stairs to her room. She slammed the door shut and buried her head into her pillow. She hadn't meant to do that, not the pushing part, but the justifying her actions. Dinah Lance didn't deserve to have the answer handed to her; she needed to figure it out on her own.

"Dinah Laurel Lance, explain," Dinah let herself into her daughter's room and stood at the edge of Laurel's bed. Her voice was calm and resolved. Laurel counted to one hundred, waiting for her mother to get the message and leave, but she stayed. Laurel took a deep breath, trying to lasso in her churning emotions, before flipping over on her bed and glaring at her mother.

"I heard them tell Daddy that they attacked, they killed him, as a message for you," the truth burned across her traitorous tongue before Laurel could stop herself. But as soon as the words were out, she saw her mother pale and a pain far deeper than any Laurel had caused before filled Dinah's eyes. This prompted Laurel to viciously keep going:

"I thought I heard wrong at first, that they had to be lying, because why would drug dealers kill a detective as message for a nobody professor. Then I heard some boys at school talking about seeing the Black Canary in action. They said they saw her fighting six of the cartel thugs and take a punch to the face, the left side of her face, and get cut on the arm, her left arm. And I realized, you had those same exact injuries around the time they saw the vigilante. You said a mugger attacked you, but that never made sense because you still had your wedding ring and wallet afterwards. Then I knew, Daddy and Sara didn't die because the cartel was angry at him, they were angry at the Black Canary and they'd figured out you were her. You got Daddy and Sara killed and I hate you for it."

Tears streaked down Dinah Lance's face as she dropped onto the edge of Laurel's bed; "I didn't know. I didn't realize. Oh, sweetie I didn't . . . I wore the mask to protect you and the ones I love, if I had known the cartel had discovered my identity, I wouldn't have continued to target them. I never wanted to put you or Sara at risk."

"Then why do you do it? Why dress up and fight criminals? Daddy always said you never have to go outside the law to get justice, but you do all the time. What would he think of you if he knew the truth about what you are?"

"He knew Laurel, he knew I was the Black Canary, and he understood the world isn't black and white," Dinah revealed, much to Laurel's shock; "Your dad swore to uphold the law and worked in service of it, but he knew there were times you have to bend the law a little to see justice done and at the end of the day, justice is more important than the letter of the law."

"He knew, and he never arrested you?" Laurel couldn't wrap her head around that contradiction of the father she knew.

"He understood that there were places I could go, things I could do for the good of others that he couldn't. Your dad didn't like what I did, hated it really, but he saw the difference my help made in cleaning up crime in the Glades. I work to help the police get justice, not play judge, jury, and executioner and I made it clear to him that there would be lines I would never cross. It helped him live with what I did, but he promised that if I ever did cross the line, he'd arrest me, and I would've expected nothing less from him."

"But what about me? What about Sara?" the anger pulsed through Laurel again as she asked this question, but now it shared space with an ache that came from the depths of her heart.

"I was the Black Canary long before you two were born and I did think about giving it up when I first found out I was pregnant with you, but then I realized I couldn't. Not because I needed to be the Canary, but because I wanted to make the world a safer place for you and later your sister. I couldn't just stand by and watch the crime rate skyrocket around our home when I knew I had the skills to stop it," Dinah explained with each parts passion and pain. "Every criminal I help put behind bars, makes this city a better place for you to grow up in. I do what I do because of how much I love you and want to do everything in my power to protect you."

"But you failed to protect Sara, to protect Dad," Laurel felt her anger slipping away, only for her pain to engulf her as deeply as it had that terrible night the year before.

"You're right, I did. I made mistakes, mistakes that cost us your father and sister. I must live with that truth for the rest of my life and I blame myself for their deaths more deeply than you will ever know. I will never forgive myself and I don't expect you to either," tentatively, Dinah reached to brush away a tear running down Laurel's face; "I understand why you blame me now and I'm grateful that you told me, Laurel. You can hate me and yell at me all you want sweetie, just please, don't bottle it up any more, don't shut the whole world out. You need to let yourself grieve, to feel more than just anger, or you'll never move on, never be happy."

Laurel nodded once. Then she fell into Dinah's arms, sobbing.

BC-BS-BC-BS

The anger never really went away, but Laurel learned to forgive her mother anyway. Uncle Ted started teaching Laurel how to box to channel that pent-up anger constructively. In the process Laurel learned her adoptive uncle had his own secret identity and that her mom had back up with her on more dangerous missions, which brought her a sense of relief. She hadn't realized how much she'd begun to worry about losing her mom to the dangers of a vigilante life until Uncle Ted promised he had her mom's back.

Before her thirteenth birthday, Laurel talked her mom and Ted into teaching her how to fight, really fight. Dinah was against the idea, fearing Laurel wanted to become a vigilante, but Laurel convinced her otherwise. Her father's and sister's killers were still out there, Laurel needed to be prepared if they tried to get to her mother again through her. Dinah eventually relented, but she set up a training regime so hard, Laurel had no doubt her mom was trying to convince her to stop through exhaustion alone.

Laurel met her mother's challenges head on and with the stubborn determination of both her parents. She received all A's in school, exceeding her mom's requirements, and took up dancing and choir for normal extracurricular activities. She practiced the new forms and techniques she learned every minute that she had free until she could do most of them in her sleep.

She had set backs of course. Some styles were harder to master than others, but Laurel refused to give up. She wanted her life to mean something and learning to fight gave her purpose. Maybe she might turn into a vigilante someday as her mom feared or maybe she'd use her skills for some other, equally important purpose. Laurel hadn't decided yet, but she knew she wasn't going to let herself be helpless again when her family needed her the most.

Shortly after her fourteenth birthday, Laurel was sparring with Dinah after finishing her homework. They were in Ted's gym, the only ones there beside him as he'd closed for the night, but he let them use the mats as often as Laurel asked. Laurel danced around Dinah, trying to land a blow, but they'd been at this for nearly an hour and despite being younger, Laurel was tiring. She feinted a left hook, intending to strike low with her right, only for Dinah to catch her arm and use Laurel's momentum against her to flip her over her shoulder and onto the mat.

"You're still telegraphing your intentions in your lower body, you have to let the motions flow naturally, without thought or emotion if you want to surprise your opponent. Why don't we take a break and go through some boxing moves for a little while?" Dinah offered Laurel a hand up, but Laurel waved her off. Dinah shook her head and moved to the corner where they stashed their water bottles.

Laurel took a moment to catch her breath, frustration and disappointment rolling through her. She slapped her hands down on the mat, angry at her inability to improve in this area. Then she let out a little shriek, it was a childish thing to do she knew, but she was feeling a little childish in the face of her resounding defeat – she hadn't really screamed in years, not since that night, but this day it slipped out. She was angry that day as well and feeling guilty, for another Father's Day was about to pass without him there to celebrate. She didn't expect her shriek to pierce so sharply that the glass in the lights above her shattered, because that wasn't humanly possible.

Dinah shouted, and Laurel had just enough wherewithal to cover her face with her arms before shards of broken glass rained down on her. When the last piece clinked to the mat near her ear, Laurel lowered her nicked and bleeding arms to share an astonished look with her mother. What had she just done?