Title: You Knelt Beside My Hope Torn Apart
THANKS TO: Warriora for beta-reading this for me even after all these years. You're concrit has been invaluable as ever, if not more so.
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Chapter 3: Washed Out in the Rain
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You saw my pain washed out in the rain
Broken glass, saw the blood run from my veins
But you saw no fault, no cracks in my heart
And you knelt beside my hope torn apart
- Mumford and Sons, 'Ghosts That We Knew'
…
Felicity's stomach twisted with anxiety as she led Walter, Laurel and Thea down the stairs to Oliver's top-secret facility. She knew that Oliver was going to be furious with her and Diggle for doing this. This was not something anyone was supposed to know about, but as with all Oliver's secrets, the more he tried to hide them, the more they slowly crept out of the woodwork.
And this time, the situation was too dire for them to sit back and do nothing. Oliver needed an intervention. It would take everyone left that he cared about to talk him out of doing this, and even then, she wasn't sure they'd be successful.
They reached the door to the warehouse and she glanced at Diggle, a little fortified to see in his eyes the same combination of dread and determination she was feeling. At least she wasn't the only one who was having misgivings about this. Taking a deep breath, she unlocked the door and stepped around the corner.
Oliver was sitting in exactly the same position they had found him in earlier, on the bare floor with his back to a wall. He looked irritated when he spotted Felicity and Diggle, who were a little ahead of the others. "I thought I told you guys I came here to be alone- what the hell?!" He was on his feet in an instant, his eyes blazing. "How could you bring them here?"
"We had to," said Diggle. "You are not committing suicide on our watch."
"Oliver, tell me you're not really thinking about surrendering yourself to that psychopath," said Walter.
Oliver inhaled sharply and turned betrayed eyes on Felicity and Diggle. "You told them?"
"No," said Laurel, stepping forward. "I did. You need help, Ollie. You've stood by me through everything; you've saved my life, and my relationship with my family- I refuse to let you go down like this."
"You don't understand," said Oliver, his expression stony, "This is the only way."
"No it's not," said Felicity. "Losing you would destroy your family. They just lost Moira; they can't afford to lose you, too!"
"At least they'll still be alive," said Oliver stubbornly. "That's enough."
"It's not," said Thea, and there was a strange note in her voice which made them all turn to look at her. "If you fucking die on me, I promise you, I won't survive it."
"Thea," Oliver said in a placating tone. "I know it'll suck at first, but you'll be fine eventually-"
"No,"she said. "I won't be fine. Not eventually, not ever. I've already been through losing you once. I won't survive it again."
"Thea," he said, a little shaken by her tone of absolute certainty.
"Oliver," she said forcefully, "I need you to understand. Last year, you thought that drunk driving thing was my rock bottom? It didn't even come close. My rock bottom was years before that, when I found myself at some stranger's party, in the bathroom, searching the medicine cabinet for a bottle of sleeping pills, while people snorted coke off the slab two feet away from me-" She cut herself off, looked away. "If you die on me," she said unevenly. "I will unravel. I will jump off the top of a high rise building, or slit my wrists, or swallow a bottle of sleeping pills-"
"Speedy," Oliver interrupted, his face leeching of all color.
"-and nothing anyone does or says is going to stop me," Thea finished.
"Thea," said Walter, sounding winded. "God. Did you ever talk to anyone about…? I mean, when did this even- how often did you feel like-?"
"It's not important," said Thea, refusing to meet his eyes. "I felt crappy for a few months, and then I pulled myself together for Mom's sake, and that was all."
Oliver's face was still white with horror. "Thea," he said. "You can't…I could die any day, I could be hit by a car tomorrow, or Slade could kill me even if I don't surrender. You have to survive that, or-"
"Or what?" she said fiercely. "How much more do you think I can take, Oliver?"
"You don't understand," he pleaded with her, his eyes wild. "He won't stop until he destroys everyone I love. Not even the Arrow can stop him. He's too strong and he's too far ahead of me and if I don't surrender, none of you will have a chance!"
"Oliver," said Diggle, "We can fight back. It'll take all of us, but we can do it. Just have a little faith, man."
Oliver wrapped his arms around himself. He was trembling minutely, and there was a raw fear in his eyes as he stared at his sister. "You have no idea what he's capable of, no idea how much he hates me."
"Then explain it to us," said Thea. "I deserve to know why my mother died like that."
"Speedy, please," he begged her. "Don't do this."
"I have to," she said. "What happened on that island?"
Oliver opened his mouth and then closed it again. He stared at her,a lost look in his eyes.
"Son," said Walter gently, "For your sister's sake, if not your own, please tell us the truth."
Oliver looked back at Thea. "You really meant it?" he asked fearfully. "You'd really do that?"
"I would," said Thea, a catch in her voice. "I'm not saying it to blackmail you into giving me answers."
Walter stared at her with a stricken expression, and Oliver turned away with an inarticulate noise of anguish.
"Hey," said Thea, putting a hand on his back. "I'm still here. No matter what you say right now, no matter what you went through on that island; I won't hate you, or think any less of you. I promise."
"You don't know that," he said, so softly that they had to strain to hear him. "Everything that's happened so far, everyone who's died, it's all because of a choice I made."
"What do you mean?" Laurel asked.
Oliver drew in a deep, shuddering breath. His back was still to them. "On the island, Slade was my friend. He and- and Shado. She was the daughter of the man who saved my life when I first got to the island. We- got really close. Shado and I were-" He stopped, cleared his throat. "And then she…"
His voice died again, and the room was enveloped in silence.
"What happened, Oliver?" Laurel asked, her stomach twisting with worry and foreboding. Oliver could barely string two sentences together. Whatever had happened, it was obviously unimaginably awful.
"There was this freighter," he said shakily. "At first, we thought we'd been rescued, but the people on it had another agenda. I got captured by them and thrown into this cell. That…that was where I met Sara."
"What?" Laurel cried out, "You knew she was alive?How could you keep that from us?"
"Because she told me not to," he said, turning to face her. His eyes were wet. "She said if anything happened to her, I should tell you that she died on The Gambit. A year after I found her, I saw her drown. The freighter blew up. I was sure there was no way she could have survived that. Not again."
Laurel's anger died when she took in the haunted expression on his face. She was stunned into silence as she was hit with the realization that Oliver had watched Sara die not once, but twice. Could she really blame him for trying to spare her that knowledge?
"N-none of that explains why Slade hates you," said Thea.
Oliver laughed mirthlessly, throwing his hands up into the air. "You're like a dog with a bone, aren't you? Why do you want to hear about all this shit? Isn't this enough?"
"I need to know, Oliver," said Thea stubbornly. "Please."
When Oliver spoke again, it was in choppy, almost inaudible sentences. "Ivo, the man who owned the freighter- Sara betrayed him. She escaped with me to the island. He found us- me, and Shado and Sara. He tied us up, made Sara and Shado kneel in front of me, and then…" His voice trailed off. He was trembling violently.
Walter grasped his shoulder reassuringly. "You can do this, Oliver," he said.
Oliver closed his eyes. "He held a gun to their heads, and told me to choose between them, or he would kill them both.I had thirty seconds. I…I chose Sara."
Laurel let out a small, pained noise, her eyes flooding with tears.
"Oh, God," said Thea, her voice wavering with dawning comprehension. "Slade- he did the same thing. He wanted you to choose between me and Mom. He loved Shado, didn't he? That's why he hates you; he blames you for not saving her. Oh God…"
Walter's hands had gone slack. "Son," he said, a catch in his voice, "Tell me you didn't have to-"
"No," said Oliver tightly. "Mom spared me that. She stood up, said both her children would live, and told Slade to kill her." He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and then turned pleading eyes on them. "Now do you understand? He won't stop. He's going to kill everyone I care about unless I turn myself over to him."
"No," said Thea. She cupped Oliver's face in her hands and looked him straight in the eye. "This isn't your fault, Ollie. You are not sacrificing yourself to that maniac. Mom gave up her life so we could live; you don't get to throw that away. You are the last living member of my family and I refuse to lose you again."
Oliver looked at her determined face, at Walter's pained expression and then at Laurel, who was watching him with fervent, pleading eyes. He looked at Diggle and Felicity who always fought so hard to save him, especially from himself. They were willing to do anything to stop him from turning himself over to Slade.
And his sister, who had apparently struggled with severe depression without anyone in her family ever knowing about it, was telling him that she would die if she lost him. Could he really let them down?
His eyes flooded with helpless tears and he turned away from them, burying his face in his hands. "Fine," he said in a choked voice, "I won't do it. You win."
Felicity let out a relieved breath and closed her eyes.
Thea circled around Oliver and pulled him into a hug. She was crying too. "Thank you," she whispered.
Walter's voice sounded near Oliver's ear, a little rougher than usual. "You are not the last living member of Thea's family. I still consider you both my children, and it would devastate me to lose either one of you."
The words made Thea pull away from Oliver and hug her stepfather tightly.
Laurel stepped forward and grasped Oliver's hands in hers. "Thank you," she said, "For choosing her. I can never thank you enough."
Oliver's face twisted in pain. "I almost didn't," he whispered. "I couldn't decide; I loved them both, but then Ivo pointed the gun at Sara, and all I could think of was how I would face you again if I let your baby sister die."
And then Sara had died only months later, as if it had all been a cruel joke, as if the choice he'd been forced to make had been for nothing. Oliver had come back from that, and Laurel had blamed him for Sara's death, just as he'd feared. Her heart aching for him she reached up to cup his cheek, thumbed away his tears. "I love you," she said, "We can fight this, I promise. With…the Arrow on our side, we'll beat Slade. I know we will."
"Just have a little faith," Diggle echoed his words from earlier.
"We're here for you," Felicity chimed in.
He stared at them all, awed by the love and determination in their eyes. He knew, in that moment, that he would have to beat Slade, because he couldn't afford to let these people down. He had lost so much, but they were still here, and they were still worth fighting for.
Oliver swallowed hard and looked at Diggle and Felicity, a renewed sense of purpose in his eyes. "Let's do this," he said.
…
END.
A/N: I wrestled with myself over whether to write this chapter from Walter's perspective but decided against it because I wanted to show that there were a lot of people who cared about him, and to give each of them a voice. I hope the transition wasn't jarring.
If anyone is interested, I have already started writing another Arrow fic set during and post Season 2. It's going to be at least two stories, maybe even a series depending on how inspired I'm feeling. Here's the (tentative) summary:
Tommy survived the earthquake, but the means by which he did so might just make him wish that he hadn't. Now he must fight for his soul as well as his life, and hope the Arrow can save him before its too late.
I know resurrected!Tommy has been done before in this fandom but I don't think it has been done the way I'm planning to do it . So please stay tuned!
And also, please review. :)
