Hey guys! First of all, I'm terribly sorry about this late chapter! The last portion of this chapter was extremely annoying to write and was the sole reason for why it took so long to update. Seriously, I think I spent more time writing that last piece than it took for the majority of the chapter. I went through way too many rewrites of the last piece and it was beyond frustrating. Although I will admit that I didn't spend as much time as I should have over winter break to write; I spent a good chunk of my time simply spending time with my sisters for some good ol' fashion sibling bonding.

I also saw Star Wars a few times and am completely in love with the newest movie. I even wrote up a quick story that I actually posted a couple days ago, so if you liked the film you should go check it out (*shameless self-advertisement*).


The car ride, while not unpleasant, seemed rather uncomfortable to Sara. Although that might be because she was riding in the back of a police cruiser, her father and sister seated up front. Even though she knew that she was only sitting in the back was because that was the only available space, Sara still felt extremely uncomfortable.

I feel like I've been caught already, and I haven't even done anything yet. Well, she had snuck away from her hospital room to sneak into Oliver's, but that wasn't technically illegal, more like frowned upon. What a great run I had; I didn't even last a single night. Great job, Sara.

Okay, granted that she wasn't actually under arrest and was merely hitching a ride in a cop car that belonged to her father, but it was still weird.

"You know," Laurel said, noticing how uncomfortable her sister was acting through the rearview mirror, "you're not under arrest." Besides her, Quentin snorted in amusement.

Sara shot a smirk at her elder sister and gestured at the metal bars separating them. "Can you blame me? Not really the welcoming parade I was expecting. At least you had the decency to not slap the cuffs on me."

Her father laughed at that, while Laurel allowed herself a small, barely noticeable smile that she tried to hide behind her hand.

Oh God, this is so weird. Sara thought to herself.

Amused despite herself, Sara relaxed in the back of the car. It wasn't necessarily the most luxurious of car rides, she was sure that Oliver was enjoying himself in a far better and more comfortable car, but being in such close proximity with her family managed to wear down her iron walls just enough for the young woman to enjoy herself.

Feeling oddly content, though lonely without Oliver at her side, Sara stared out the window of the police cruiser. She tried to familiarize herself with the winding streets of Starling City, already planning ahead of how to best utilize them.

For several minutes, the car was engulfed in a comfortable silence. Everyone present simply content to be silent and enjoy the ride.

At least until Sara began to notice something. She hadn't been paying much attention earlier, being too caught up with her family and being in the back of a locked police cruiser, but, now that everything had begun to quiet down, she realized that the route they were taking towards home was not the normal route. In fact, she didn't recognize the streets at all.

"Aren't we going home?" Sara asked, breaking the comfortable silence. She stared out the window, looking at the unfamiliar streets and apartment complexes. Suddenly the once comfortable atmosphere seemed to drop several degrees until it became uncomfortably cold. She noticed that her father suddenly gripped the steering wheel tightly, while Laurel seemed to tense ever so slightly.

"We are." Quentin grunted out, looking rather nervous from the rearview mirror.

"But…" Sara leaned closer to the window, trying to remember if she had simply forgotten this area after being away so long. It didn't look familiar, and didn't resemble anything that would pinpoint how far away they were from their house. She glanced behind her, looking over her shoulder to see her mother driving behind them in a car she did not have five years ago. Why wasn't mom driving with them? There was enough room, and her mother had never needed her own car back before the Gambit for her job at the university. She had always taken the public transportation or dad would drop her off on the way to the precinct. When and why had she gotten a car?

"Home isn't this way," Sara mumbled, staring at her father and sister with unblinking eyes, searching for anything in the behavior of her father or older sister to confirm her growing suspicions.

There.

A ripple of unease on her father's face that was hidden by a clenched jaw. The tightening of Quentin's fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, his knuckles white from the strain. Laurel shifting in her seat, hand rising up to nervously brush away a strand of stray hair. All the subtle signs that spoke volumes to Sara that something just wasn't right.

"Dad?" Sara asked softly, leaning forward from the backseat. Her father looked straight ahead, eyes fixated on the road, his jaw clenched tightly. She turned her attention to her sister, who, like their father, refused to meet Sara's gaze, and instead stubbornly faced the road.

"Laurel?"

Her older sister bit her lower lip nervously, Laurel refused to look at her. It hurt her to see her family ignore her and to determinedly withhold information that was clearly something that Sara did not know but should.

Anger flared within her at the refusal to answer Sara's simple question, indignation burning within her heart at her silent family members that refused to speak. She had always hated it when people actively tried to withhold information, especially when she was going to find out sooner or later. "Why aren't we going home?"

Laurel suddenly turned around in the front seat to look at her, and Sara saw the burning resentment that was smoldering within her eyes. Her sister was furious at her, and Sara knew the only reason they had yet to have their long awaited, and inevitable, confrontation about Oliver and the Queen's Gambit was simply because neither sister wanted that to be the first thing to occur when they saw each other for the first time in so long.

How long will that last? Sara thought hopelessly, knowing fully well that her sister had every right to be furious with her –to hate her- and that she had no excuse for what she had done. She had gone behind her sister's back and made such a huge mess of things. She had betrayed Laurel's trust.

And Laurel knew it.

The sisters stared at one another. Sara looked into Laurel's eyes and saw the anger, the resentment, the fury, contempt, betrayal and maybe even hatred within her sister's eyes. Did Laurel hate her?

Sara understood if her sister did indeed hate her for everything that she had done. But it still hurt to see such anger and hurt in Laurel's eyes and know that Sara deserved it.

"This isn't the way home." Sara repeated again, sounding almost like a broken record, but nobody seemed to want to speak up. Her father and sister simply kept their heads forward, tension apparent in their tense shoulders.

By now, a feeling of dread had begun to creep up her spine at a snail's pace, slowly raising the girl's heartbeat and nerves with each passing second. She felt antsy in her seat, suddenly desperate to twitch and fidget as the uncomfortable tension continued to slowly drape itself around her, slowly driving her mad. She felt an odd sense of foreboding.

It was Laurel who spoke, voice tainted with faint hints of venom that came from five years of anger and betrayal.

"Home's not there anymore, Sara."


Queen's Manor hadn't changed in the last five years. It still smelled of aged mahogany and the faint smell of flowers. Magnolias still sat in the ornate vases at the entryway, his mother's favorite. Oliver remembered how his father would bring home a bouquet of them on every birthday and anniversary. The home still looked the same, with the same carpeting and paintings lining the hallways; it appeared as though nothing had changed since he had left it to board the Queen's Gambit five years ago. He didn't really count the last time he wandered the halls, back when he snuck away from Maseo and Waller to come home.

It didn't feel the same though.

Oh, everything seemed familiar. It was just as his memory served, Queen Manor hadn't changed in the five years he had been gone, his childhood home had remained the same, it was just Oliver who had changed. Queen Manor had served as a sanctuary in his mind, when trouble arose and Oliver found himself in constant danger, Queen Manor remained a bright spot in his mind, as the entire building had always been a safe haven for him; it was his home, after all.

But he didn't feel safe in it anymore.

This wasn't his home anymore. It had been Ollie's; the narcissist playboy that hadn't cared for anything, or anyone, but himself; the boy that had stumbled upon the shores of Lian Yu with his father's corpse draped across his shoulder. Ollie had died a long time ago.

And now the home felt foreign and strange. The memory of it tickled the back of his mind, phantom memories of safety and security taunting him. It was honestly driving him mad. The feeling of security felt so odd after so many years spent thinking that the next day might spell the end of both himself and his friends.

He felt like a stranger in his own home. When he walked through the hallways, he felt like an outsider, an unwelcome interloper. When his mother escorted him to his room, softly telling him that everything had remained the same, he felt as though he had entered the room of a dead man.

Bothered by his feelings towards a place he had always deemed as a safe haven, even after Ollie had died and Oliver was reborn, he had escaped from the prying eyes of his family, unable to deal with them. He couldn't look at them without feeling a strange sense of shame. He had fled to his old room and closed the door, heart thundering in his chest as a feeling of claustrophobia became apparent. He felt trapped. He hurried to the bathroom.

The shower proved to be capable of distracting Oliver from his bothersome thoughts. Turning the valve all the way, the water went from lukewarm to blistering within several seconds, slowly engulfing the bathroom in a warm mist. The glass fogged, separating him from reality. His skin reddened under the unrelenting pressure and heat of the water, but Oliver paid no mind.

The shower is large, big enough to hold more than one person. Good, Oliver thinks to himself. There is room to fight if the need arises.

The tiles were slick from water, the air slightly diluted from mist. Oliver thinks that will suit him well if someone were to sneak up on him. There was enough room to turn around, enough space to throw brutal punches or devastating kicks. I can throw them against the wall, crush their head against the marble, Oliver thinks as he begins to wash his body with soap and continues to idly plot. No one can grab me, they'll lose their grip and that's when I'll strike.

His bedroom is the bigger problem. It's wide and spacious, with wooden floors that creaked in certain places when stepped on. He could hear anyone trying to sneak up on him as he slept, but the windows unnerved him. Too many windows, too many openings. Someone could easily shoot at him from a high vantage point; there are too many windows, too many places that couldn't be defended. Despite being nearly indestructible, Oliver didn't particularly enjoy being shot at, especially with sniper rounds. Not to mention how difficult it would be trying to explain anything to his family.

Hanging his head down low, Oliver let the steaming water cascade down his broad shoulders, dripping down from his hair. His skin felt raw from the constant heat, but the warmth and pressure of the water made the tension in his muscles loosen ever so slightly. It was almost relaxing.

Idly, he wondered how Sara was doing.

Probably better than himself; he had fled to the confines of his room as soon as possible when things began to get uncomfortable at dinner. After so many years of wishing to see his family again, he had run from it. He didn't want his family to see how much he had changed. They expected him to still be the same after all these years, Thea was expecting to see her big brother again and his mother was expecting to see her son, Ollie.

Oliver was no coward by any means, but a part of him wondered if he was acting differently because of his reunion with his family. Was he being too emotional? Too careless? His thoughts were scattered and erratic, years of careful planning thrown aside by his rampant emotions. He wondered if he truly could act as someone he truly was not simply to reassure the people he had left behind that he hadn't changed, to let them think that he was still the same person.

He wished he could be the Ollie they knew.

But Ollie had died a long time ago.

Oliver was simply was all that remained of that broken boy, now forged into something strong and different.

Head hung low, the man just stood in the shower, trying to comprehend everything. His head ached.

Turning the valve, Oliver turned off the shower as he stepped outside into the cool air. Quickly wrapping a towel around his waist, he slowly walked over to the mirror, wiping away the condensation that fogged it.

Seeing his body look so normal, so devoid of any burns or scars, was still something that took him aback, even after all these years. He still remembered his injuries, of being shot at, of being stabbed and kicked, of broken bones and torn muscles. And yet, there was no evidence of such events occurring. It bothered him.

All Oliver really had were tattoos.

Idly scratching at the runes emblazed upon the side of his abdomen, Oliver thought back to the pain of receiving them. Whatever John did had done the trick, as his 'gift' remained present on the man's skin despite his accelerated healing. He still didn't understand it though. Just the mere thought of John Constantine and the mystic world of the occult made Oliver's head spin.

With a sigh, the archer left his bathroom to change into new clothes. The thought of new clothes that weren't stained by sweat, grime or blood made Oliver positively giddy. It had been a long time since he had had clean clothes.

The clothes that he had worn to dinner were discarded to the side. Oliver had thought them too tight and starchy against his skin, and thus had quickly taken them off in his hurry to the bathroom. The dinner with his family still plagued his mind, however.

He had expected the questions. And there had been a lot of them. Too many questions and he had given few answers. Subtle questions, yes, as his family tried to probe deeper into the mystery that now surrounded him; they never asked him outright –as though asking so bluntly would shatter him like glass. They walked around him on eggshells, as though a simple prod would break him. They knew about his emotional outburst at the hospital; they thought he was still recovering.

The lies came easy. He barely even noticed everything he told his family was a lie, or some misguided half-truth. He hadn't been lying to Thea when she asked him, shyly picking at her food with a fork, what Lian Yu had been like. It had been cold.

It had also been painful, terrifying and full of so many hidden dangers. It had been the place that he had died, both metaphorically and physically, before he had been reborn into what he was now. It had been his hell and his salvation.

Thea and Tommy still seemed ignorant, too happy to have him back to second guess anything. They didn't see anything wrong with him. Tommy had even jokingly mentioned something about a t-shirt and Thea had chuckled at the notion. Everything was still normal for them.

His mother seemed to be the only one to pick up that something was different about him. It seemed as though she knew that the child she had lost hadn't truly come back home, but had been replaced with a stranger wearing her son's face. He was a different person now, someone much colder. He could see it in her eyes, eyes so much like his own but without such coldness, as she stared at him through half-lidded eyes, trying to be subtle in her search. Her eyes would roam his face, his unfamiliar face and new frown, and something would tighten around her eyes, and Oliver could see the pain in them.

Questions lingered behind those eyes. In everyone's eyes.

He could see it in their eyes. In Thea's and his mother's, in Tommy's eyes, in Raisa's eyes and even in Walter's. They all wondered the same thing; all of them thinking the same questions that none of them dared voice aloud.

Are you okay? Why are you so different? What happened after the Gambit? What happened to Robert? How does Sara play i all of this? How'd you survive? What was it like being away for so long? Did anything bad happen?

What happened on that island?

God, how he feared that last question. Too much had happened on Lian Yu; too much pain and too much hardship, too many deaths and too many failures. He couldn't answer with that, however.

So Oliver had deflected. He had talked about the weather, as pathetic as that was. Because it had been cold on Lian Yu, so much that there had been nights that he had thought he would die from the icy bitterness that night brought. But the cold had not been the worse, it had been tame in comparison to what had really happened. But Thea and his mother didn't need to know that, they should never have to know that.

They can never know. Never. Oliver thought to himself as he finished pulling on clothes that felt too starchy and clean and wrong against his sensitive skin.

He turned his attention to the windows, noticing the darkness growing outside. Curious, he opened the window and breathed in the fresh air slowly. It tasted damp, tinged with electricity and dirt. A storm was coming. He could feel it in the stillness of the air. It hung around him like a wet blanket, dead and stagnant.

A storm was brewing; a big one. He could sense it.

He slammed the window shut and hurried over to the door that led out into the hall, turning the lock until he heard a click. He strode over to the bed and grabbed a blanket, bundling it up in his fist, before heading back towards the bathroom door. As he entered the bathroom, Oliver closed the door and locked it. Separated from the rest of the home's occupants by two locked doors, Oliver allowed himself to breathe slowly.

Everything was fine. He was locked in. Nobody could find him, and he couldn't get to them. The doors might be fragile to Oliver and his strength, but they served more as mental barriers than physical. To open those doors could mean endangering his family; the storm coming would only serve to unnerve him, make him emotional and weak to the Mirakuru.

After all these years, the serum still cursed him. While he had caged the dark creature running through his veins, it still fought him and wrested for control. It wasn't tamed, it could never be tamed; it could only be held at bay. It lingered in the corners of his mind, its conscience tickling at his thoughts. He was no longer inexperienced and prone to falling under its control, but Oliver had come to respect and fear the power it harnessed.

Oliver wouldn't sleep tonight.

He didn't trust himself.


Her entire world shook.

With a start, Sara awoke, dazed and confused on where she was. There was no light, nothing but darkness.

There was a blinding flash of light followed quickly by an earth-shaking boom that made her shriek, throwing up her hands to shield herself. Her confusion left her, replaced with dread as she recognized the sounds.

Artillery.

She recognized the thunderous booms of missiles hitting the ground, recognized the blinding white heat of the flames. She had experienced it before.

Panic overtook her, sending her heart rate up so fast that it threatened to beat out of her chest.

The shaking occurred again, brief for only a moment, and Sara threw herself to the ground, instinctively cowering as she wrapped her arms around her head. Her body twitched and shook, blankets once snuggly wrapped around her seemed to strangle her, ensnaring her like a net.

There was another flash of light, bright and sharp against her vulnerable eyes. It burned within her, its afterimage immortalized behind her eyelids.

Cr-ack!

A terrible cracking sound split the sky in half. It was worse than the sound of snapped bone or of broken bodies. It was the sound of the world breaking.

She was falling, plummeting into nothingness. Light flashed around her, violent strikes of harsh warmth pressing against her. Something collided with her, making her head spin as looming metal walls closed in around her, seawater and brine dripping from loose cracks. She felt phantom fingers tightening around her throat, she heard gunshots echo and crack from far away. She saw bodies scattered like broken dolls, necks bent awkwardly and the terrifying feeling of something watching her. Its presence tickled the back of her neck, making the hairs raise and her body to shake, as she felt its gaze burn into her, a predator stalking its prey.

No. No. No.

Sara was trapped. Stuck within the never-ending metal halls that stunk of blood and decay. She tried to run, to hide away from the terrible lurker that hid behind the shadows, but with each corner she turned, with each hallway she passed, it kept up with her effortlessly. Sara felt the world shake and shudder, felt herself fall to the floor, and heard the sound of her world being torn apart as she was blinded by light and consumed in flames. And then suddenly she was falling into a dark void, yelling out into the nothingness.

She tried to breathe once her yells died down, but she could only cough and hack. Sara tried again, growing desperate, but her throat was clenched shut. The air was out of her grasp, too far gone to have. Her chest began to burn and her throat choked on nothing.

She couldn't breathe.

She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe!

Water suddenly enveloped her, dousing her body from head to toe and keeping her submerged, its coldness sending needles of pain and ice into her vulnerable body. She was still falling, slowly.

She was drowning.

Sinking.

Dying.

She was dying, and she was alone.

Was she in the ocean? Back when the Gambit sank or when the Amazo was bombarded? Flashes of memory sprang to the forefront of her mind, nothing more than brief snippets of images of raging waves, bitter cold and overall helplessness. The phantom flashes of memories threatened to consume her, replacing reality with nightmares.

Someone was screaming. But it sounded so low and muffled, as though someone had sealed her ears with wax.

Who is screaming? Sara thought, even as her chest continued to burn for air and her body continued to grow colder and colder with each passing second. Oliver? Slade? Shado? She called out to them with what little breath she still had, wasting precious air in an attempt to find her friends, but no one answered.

No one was near her. Were they gone? Dead? Lost like so many others? Where were they?

I don't want to die alone….

A bright light suddenly flickered to life, washing away the darkness as fast as the flip of a switch. Sara jolted at the sudden brightness, smacking her head against something hard. Her head spun and ached. The cold murky water of the ocean was replaced with wooden planks, metal springs and fuzz. The underside of a bed.

When had she hidden under the bed?

When had she even been in a bed?

Rushing feet came near her view from under the bed, and suddenly someone was crouching down besides her, hand outstretched as though to grab her. Instinctively, she backed away, her back pressed up against the wall.

Head still aching, Sara blinked up at the shadowy figure. It was hard to comprehend who was in front of her, even in such close proximity. Her mind screamed at her to kill the mysterious stranger, to snap its neck or beat it down until it never moved again, but her body was too frazzled, too confused to do anything but shake.

She saw dark eyes.

"… Slade?" Sara murmured softly, slowly reaching out towards the figure with dark eyes, her vision still blurry.

The blurriness faded away, revealing the figure's facial features. Sara let her hand fall limp when she realized that it was not Slade Wilson before her.

Dad?

Hands suddenly grabbed her, trying to gently pull her away from the wall. Sara slapped them away, throwing herself back against the wall like a cornered animal. The world was still flashing before her eyes; memories mixing in with reality until Sara's vision seemed nothing more than a murky mix of memory and present.

"Sara?"

Her father's voice was shaky and soft; it sounded as though he was crying. Cracking one of her eyes open, Sara saw her father kneeling at the edge of the bed, peering at her with wide eyes.

"Sara, baby, what's going on? You, you were screaming and crying." Her father's eyes were bloodshot and his voice was watery. "Did you have a nightmare?" He sounded so concerned, as though she was five again and scared of the dark. But his eyes betrayed him; he knew something was terribly wrong, that something had caused his youngest daughter to wake up in the middle of the night screaming herself hoarse while cowering under the bed as though the sky was raining down missiles and believed herself to be drowning.

She choked on a humorless laugh. Nothing seemed really funny to her at the moment.

The world shook again. Only now did Sara realize that it had been thunder, rather than the sound of artillery. Shame crept up, tinting her cheeks red with embarrassment.

"I'm sorry…" She must have terrified her father. He wouldn't forget this. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay, Sara." Her father was whispering to her softly as though she was a little girl again. He was trying to comfort her, even when his eyes betrayed his terror and confusion. "I'm right here. You're safe, sweetie. You're home."

"Stay away from me, daddy." She curled herself into a ball, tucking her knees against her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "I don't want to hurt you…"

I'm dangerous.

Quentin didn't answer. His jaw was clenched tight and his hands seemed to shake. Sara wondered how long he had been in the room. How long had he heard her screams?

"I can't leave." Quentin said with a tight smile, "My daughter needs me." He reached out to her, slowly, as though the mere action might scare her.

She shrunk away.

Quentin pulled his hand away; a look of pure agony wretched across his grizzled face.

"I'll just stay right here with you." Quentin shifted until he was in a comfortable position, politely keeping his distance from Sara's curled form. "No one is going to hurt you, sweetie. I won't let them." Something dark flashed between his eyes, and Sara wondered what he was thinking.

The storm had slowed down by now. Its once torrential rains now nothing more than soft drizzles. The lightning was gone; the thunder was silenced. The danger had passed.

A chill had come in the room, brought in by the open door. Sara shivered slightly, bundling herself up in the tangle of blankets as though to shield her from the outside. "Daddy?" Sara whispered, still hidden under the bed.

There was the sound of creaking wood as her father shifted from his silent vigil. "Yeah?"

Her mouth felt dry and her throat felt raw, as though someone had taken sandpaper to it. "I don't wanna be left alone…" the words sounded pathetic, too emotional for Sara to truly understand. But it wasn't Sara that was speaking, it wasn't the Canary cowering under a bed from phantom explosions; it was Sara Lance, the daughter who had her father back, that was speaking.

A sound reminiscent was a sharp intake of breath came from her father, sounding almost like a choked gasp. "You aren't alone, Sara. I'm right here. I ain't leaving. Not now, not ever."

His words comforted her. They made her feel safe; something she rarely felt when she wasn't with Oliver.

Slowly, Sara reached her hand out to grasp onto Quentin's own. Her father made a sound that sounded almost like a sob, and his fingers wrapped themselves around her smaller hand, fingers stroking at old scars and rough callouses. His touch was soft and gentle. Calming.

Her heartbeat seemed to slow down, her nerves became less frazzled, her fear slowly replaced by exhaustion. The phantom flashes of memories were gone, the feeling of drowning no longer present, the sensation of dying all but forgotten. Tomorrow would bring hardship and unwanted questions that Sara didn't want to answer, but for now Sara simply allowed herself the small privilege of enjoying her father's comforting presence.

I hate storms…