Chapter Three:
Once Oliver and Slade had returned to the rest of the group with grins on their faces, Walter asked if they were ready to leave.
Sara and Shado offered to go back to the camp to grab their gear that they had put aside to bring with them. Slade's weapons and mask, Shado's bow, Oliver's hood and several pouches of Yao Fei's herbs and seeds to grow their own.
Oliver contemplated silently with himself for a few moments and then decided to ask.
"I buried Dad up this hill, if you wanted to say goodbye before we left." He offered, Slade putting a hand on his shoulder to show his support to Oliver.
Thea and Walter both looked shocked, but with tears streaming down Thea's face she agreed. The four of them made their way up the hill towards the graves of Robert Queen and Yao Fei. When they reached the graves Thea knelt next to her father's grave and cried gently touching the crude headstone that Oliver had managed to carve with Slade's help. Walter stood near but with his head bowed and lips moving silently in prayer. Slade and Oliver bowed their heads too and silently said their goodbyes to their fallen family. Shado and Sara joined them after a while and said their goodbyes, and as one big group they made their way down the hill, onto the boat and left Lian Yu, watching as their purgatory get smaller as they sped towards the large boat Thea and Walter had come on.
As they stopped and the ladder was lowered, Walter made a gesturing motion and Shado began climbing up onto the boat first. It was when she was halfway up, Slade noticed how stiff and tense Oliver had gotten. He silently cursed himself. Sara had been on Ivo's boat and had obviously managed to get over her fears there, but this was the first larger boat Oliver had been on since the Gambit. Sara then began climbing up, and if anything Oliver got stiffer and Slade contemplated how to get Oliver on the boat. A small smirk formed as he got an idea.
"Kid, I'll make you a deal. I will give you a 15 second head start but if I catch up to you on the ladder you're going to be doing an extra 100 push ups a day for a week." Oliver turned to look at Slade with his jaw gaping. Slade merely cocked one eyebrow and gave him his best 'this is not up for discussion' look.
He gently guided Oliver to the ladder with Thea and Walter watching silently. He placed Oliver's stiff hands on the ladder and gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
"Ready?" He asked. Oliver gave a stiff nod, steeling himself.
"One," Slade began, and Oliver immediately pushed himself up one rung, took a deep breath and then another, and another.
"Two," Oliver managed another 4 rungs before Slade said "three."
By the count of four, Oliver was almost halfway but then a small gust of wind knocked the ladder to the side slightly and Oliver froze. Slade began shouting his counts calmly hoping that Oliver would respond. At fifteen Slade began climbing the ladder and made his way to where Oliver was after reassuring Walter and Thea he would help Oliver.
He got as close as he could and then gently began coaxing Oliver to take another step upwards. Oliver merely shook his head, clearly terrified as he relived memories of that night. Slade gently started rubbing circles on Oliver's back as he had seen Shado do after the kid had woken from a really bad nightmare. It slowly began to work and Oliver slightly relaxed. Slade tried to coax him again and this time Oliver took a step, followed by another and the two of them slowly made their way to the top of the ladder and onto the boat. Walter and Thea quickly followed and a crew member went down to hook the boat up and have it and the contents rose back onto the boat.
Oliver stayed pretty quiet until they sat down to eat. There was one long table and benches around the edges as seats. He had taken one bite of the stir-fry they were given only to stand up and run to the edge of the boat and vomit. His stomach could not take the sauce the stir-fry was covered in. Slade, Sara and Shado noticed this and gently pushed their plates away, though Slade gave his a long glare to Thea and Walter's confusion. Oliver slowly walked back and noticed their confused glances towards Slade and he laughed.
"He glares at anything that doesn't do what he wants, including logs, tents, rocks, trees, and apparently food." Oliver explained.
"Why would you glare at a tree?" Thea asked confused.
Oliver sat down, "Well it was just Slade and me then, we were running from the mercenaries and I twisted my ankle. As they were catching up, Slade decided the best thing we could do was climb a tree and hope they were idiots and run right past us. So we slowly got up this tree to find that instead of what looked like two healthy big branches below, one was almost completely rotted on the upside. So I had to sit on his lap. We spent 3 hours in that tree, and Slade glared at it the whole time. It was so hard not to laugh after a while, and that just made him glare harder." Oliver said with a grin that was shared by everyone.
"He got his revenge too," Oliver continued and Slade looked at him shocked. "Yep, I noticed that the random tree you choose to chop down for firewood the other week was the same tree. You looked really happy cutting up the rotten branch too." Slade chuckled and as Oliver sat down next to him he quickly grabbed the kid in a headlock and ruffled his hair causing Oliver to squeak and make halfhearted attempts to push him away. Thea laughed at that.
"Ollie hates people playing with his hair, he used to spend hours using gel to make it look perfect and most of the time it ended up looking just like that. You should get Slade to do your hair for you now Ollie, it will be quicker." Thea said wisely.
This caused Slade to start laughing heavily along with Shado and Sara. Oliver decided the best thing to do after he poked his tongue at Thea was to hide in Slade's scarf or whatever he liked calling it. This caused them to laugh harder and Thea and Walter to join in. He smiled though, he had his new family and some of his old family here and they were going home together.
