How the Light Gets In

by Becks Rylynn

History repeats itself. This is a fact of life. It's the way of the world. Where you've been is where you'll be. Two hundred and eight days after fate rips Laurel Lance out of the world, leaving Dean Winchester in nearly the exact same position his father was in thirty three years ago, someone knocks on his door in the middle of the night. This is only the beginning of the story.

4. Since We've Become Translucent

AN: So sorry this one took me so long, guys! It's been...a rough summer. I hope the fact that this chapter is 46k words long makes up for it being so late. :)))

Additional spoilery trigger warnings for this chapter are at the bottom of the page.

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How the Light Gets In

Written by Becks Rylynn

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Part Four

Since We've Become Translucent

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November, 2016

Well, shit.

The Lance sisters are really doing a number on him today.

Dean is out for less than a minute after the noise burns out altogether. It's like being in the vicinity of an explosion. The force of it knocks the wind out of him and he blacks out, but he comes to quickly, dazed, disoriented, and irritated that he is dazed and disoriented. There is a distracting ringing in his ears that is slowly dying down to an alarming silence. Because he has been known to be a pigheaded individual, he immediately tries to shake it off and ignore the discomfort. He doesn't have time to be injured right now. He blinks to clear his blurred vision, pushing away the black spots and the fog of pain.

Reluctantly, still unsure if there's going to be another wave, he rolls off Sara to let her squirm away from him. Surprisingly, she doesn't instantly make a break for it. She does roughly shove him back to the ground when he makes a weak attempt to get up, though. She says something to him, but he can't hear a word of it. She raises herself up to look over the overturned table and he can see her lips move, can tell she's shouting at someone, but he can't hear what she's saying. He's honestly irked when she turns her attention back to him. She should be checking on Laurel. He needs a minute before he can move without puking and he has no idea how injured the others are. If they're down, that means Laurel is all alone. He needs her not to be alone right now.

Sara grabs his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. She's talking way too fast for him to read her lips. He blinks, trying to unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth to tell her that he can't hear what she's saying to him.

He has never realized how nerve-wracking total silence is. The ringing has stopped completely by now, leaving him with nothing. He can't hear Sara's voice, he doesn't know if anyone else is talking, if they're moving around, and he can't hear Laurel. The loss is startling. He feels so unnervingly defenseless and helpless like this. He wouldn't hear an attacker sneaking up on him. He can't listen for anything happening behind him. He's just stuck here in this noiseless limbo. It's an unexpected horror. You don't realize how loud silence is until it is all you have.

This is what it's going to be like for Mary.

The startling moment of sickening understanding that he has never had the chance to have before sends his heart plummeting. One day, his little girl will be here. There will be the possibility for hearing aids, maybe even a cochlear implant if it comes to that, but it's not the same. He's been told that before. Hearing aids and cochlear implants are amazing technology but they're not quite the same as natural hearing. It's not like Mary won't be able to be happy regardless of what happens. There has been a lot of therapy over the years to deal with Mary's diagnosis, a lot of research, and Eileen has been an amazing resource and great support over the years. We make the best out of what we're given, she says. Your daughter will live a happy, full life, with or without hearing. Trust me.

And he does. He does trust Eileen on that. He knows that her hearing - or lack thereof - doesn't define Mary as a person and he knows that he's going to do whatever it takes to give her a good life no matter what happens. It's just that - Mary's so young. She loves music, when her mother sings to her and when he reads her a story. She loves to hear. But one day, this might be the silence she will have to live in. How fucking unfair. He is a grown man and even this temporary deafness is terrifying to him. He can't imagine how scary it will be for a kid to suddenly be here with no way out.

He tries to tear himself out of it. He can panic about that later. He looks at Sara, still trying to talk to him, lips pulled down into a concerned frown. Finally, she seems to clue in to what's going on because she gives up on talking and sits back on her knees, looking at him closely before signing, Can you hear me?

Considering she's only ever had a rudimentary knowledge of sign language in the time he's known her, that's damn impressive. He and Laurel have worked with her, but she's never been fluent. She must be practicing regularly. For Mary. She's never done that before.

He swallows hard and shakes his head.

Her eyes widen in panic. Nothing?

''Not a damn thing,'' he says. Given the way she jumps at the sound of his voice, he's going to guess that he's talking too loudly. ''It's not a big deal. I just need a minute.''

A scowl twists onto her lips and she lurches into his personal space to punch him on the shoulder. She says, slowly so he can read her lips, ''Why. Didn't. You. Cover. Your. Ears?''

''Uh, I was protecting you? Don't be ungrateful, Sara.''

She says something else but all he manages to catch is ''fucking loser'' before she lunges into his personal space and kisses his cheek. He huffs. ''Okay, all right. Fuck.'' He shoves her away from him. ''Go check on Laurel.'' For someone who had been adamant that Laurel doesn't belong here, Sara sure takes off mighty quick. The girl crawls over broken glass to get to her sister.

Dean can't exactly move yet. He breathes through the dizziness, waiting impatiently for his hearing to return. He thinks he can feel it starting to come back. With every second that goes by, pieces of sound begin to reach him once more. It's not happening fast enough for his liking. Slowly, blinking away the double vision, he heaves himself to his feet. Feeling dangerously off balance, he has to stop, keeled over with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily and gritting his teeth against the waves of nausea. The ringing comes back with a vengeance the second he's on his feet, followed by muffled clattering noises.

When Dinah had unleashed her scream last summer, it wasn't nearly as bad as this. Ringing ears and a headache that lasted a couple days, sure, but he hadn't felt like passing out. Of course he had covered his ears. He hadn't been in the direct path of it, they hadn't been in an enclosed space, and she had been able to control it better. To contain it within a straight line ahead of her so it didn't deafen him. He hadn't realized how lucky he had gotten. Laurel doesn't have that much control over it yet.

Dean shakes his head, wincing as his ears pop painfully. The sound grows louder. Still nowhere near his normal hearing level but good enough for now. He can at least pick out specific noises. Crunching glass, Felicity shrieking Oliver's name, and crying. Sobbing, actually. Guttural, gulping cries of horror. He straightens to survey the damage. ''Holy...''

Scratch that earlier sentiment.

Laurel does not have any control over this thing.

It looks like a bomb went off in this place. There's no other way to describe it. This isn't just a few knocked over chairs and broken glass. This is obliteration. Frankly, they're all lucky they're not dead. But the place hasn't collapsed into itself and buried them underneath the rubble, so honestly who the hell cares? This is a place. It's not important.

He sends a glance in the direction of Team Arrow, just to make sure they are, in fact, still alive. Oliver looks the worst. He has rolled onto his stomach from his back, eyes out of focus, failing to push himself up onto his knees, clearly in pain, and his left ear is bleeding. That's probably bad. Dean almost hesitates. It's instinct. He doesn't like Oliver Queen, but the guy is still a person and, for whatever reason, he seems to have taken the brunt of the scream. Then he catches sight of John and Felicity. He's rubbing at his shoulder with a grimace, she's disheveled and wide eyed, glasses askew on her face, but they're both alive and conscious and she's already kicking off her heels to race over to Oliver so - meh. That weird threesome over there can probably take care of each other.

Laurel is the one Dean is worried about. Fuck everyone else. They're breathing. That's good enough. She is a mess right now. She's on all fours on the ground and he can't tell if the way her body is heaving is from sobbing or a panic attack. Sara is kneeling in front of her, trying to talk. When she reaches out to touch her knee, Laurel jerks away and scrambles away from her sister, screeching out a hysterical, ''Don't touch me!''

That's what propels Dean out of his shock. He shoves away the remnants of pain and staggers over broken glass and bits of Green Arrow's dismantled whatever the fuck this is to get to her. By the time he manages to get to her, she has already crawled away from Sara and is clearly trying to isolate herself. She's pushed herself up onto her knees and her horrified eyes are looking around at the damage she's done. She looks so scared. Out of everything that has ever happened to her, everything she's faced, her greatest fear has always been herself. He has witnessed that fear first hand. She gets so far into her own head that sometimes he's not sure she'll make it back out. Losing control has been her worst case scenario since she was a kid.

''Laurel - ''

''Get away from me.'' She turns her scared eyes to him. She's stopped sobbing now, too shocked by her surroundings, body coming down from the stress of whatever just happened, but there are still tears rolling down her cheeks. She looks pale and clammy and her breathing is too quick for his comfort. ''You have to stay away from me.''

He sets his jaw, stubborn. ''No,'' he says. ''I don't.''

She looks at him like he's lost his mind. ''Dean, please,'' she begs. There is this horrified, breathless urgency in her voice and every time he attempts to reach out to her, she scoots back. ''Please, just...'' She sniffles and wipes at her eyes with the sleeve of her hoodie. She looks away from him, squeezing her eyes shut. ''I need a minute, okay? I don't want to hurt you.''

He stops. He draws his hand back, away from her. ''Okay.'' He wants to tell her that she won't hurt him, that she could never, but that wouldn't exactly be the truth, would it?

''Look what I did,'' she gets out, opening her eyes. ''I could have killed you. I - oh my god.'' A stricken look crosses her face and she looks back at him, face pale with fear. ''Mary,'' she breathes. ''Mary - Mary...'' She grasps at his arms desperately. ''Dean, she's - She's so little. I - I could have - ''

''Laurel, she's not here,'' he rushes to assure her. ''Thea took her out of here. She's safe. They both are.''

Her whole body slumps in relief and she pulls back, yanking her hands away from him, slipping out of his grasp. She buries her face in her hands with this devastated, pained moan. He bites back a sigh, looking her over for any obvious injuries. She's not hurt, at least not physically, but he doesn't like the way her body is trembling. He's lived with her long enough to spot an incoming panic attack and he doesn't want her to have to deal with that on top of everything else. He just wants to take her home so she can sleep it off. It's irrational but there is this frantic part of him that is thinking if they can just go home and crawl into bed then maybe things will be back to the way they were when they wake up.

He risks a quick glance over at Sara. She has pulled herself to her feet, standing there absently picking glass out of her palms while she looks back and forth between Laurel and the other team. Dean glances over his shoulder quickly, spotting Oliver standing unsteadily on his feet. John and Felicity are standing on either side of him and John's hands are on his face, tilting his head to the side. They're both talking to him, but he's not responding to either of them. It's not that he's too out of it to respond either. He's not disoriented or confused. He's just focused on something else. His eyes are on Laurel and only Laurel. He doesn't even seem to give a shit that he is literally bleeding from the ear. The only thing keeping him from marching over to her is John's tight grip on him.

That's annoying.

''Okay,'' Felicity's voice is shaky and breathless, but loud enough to reach Dean. She gives up on trying to talk to Oliver, turning to look at Laurel. ''What was that? I mean...'' She fixes her glasses, frowning deeply. ''What the hell was that?''

Laurel shakes her head. ''I...'' It's all she can get out. She looks at Felicity, and then she looks at Oliver and John, eyes instantly clouding over with guilt when she spots the blood. She reaches up to clutch at the table with one hand, but doesn't move to pull herself up.

Dean looks over his shoulder at Felicity. To her credit, she doesn't look particularly angry or like she wants to chew Laurel out. The expression on her face keeps flickering between horror and fascination. She looks like she can't decide whether she should be saying ''that was the coolest thing ever'' or ''that was fucked up and terrible.''

''Personally,'' Sara chooses this moment to speak up, talking loudly, over the sound of various clatters and electrical sparks. ''I'd say that was a Canary Cry of some sort.''

''That was nothing like her Canary Cry!'' Felicity shrieks, and then turns her focus back to Laurel. ''How did you do that? Did you know you could do that?''

''Felicity,'' John says, grasping her elbow gently.

''Give her a minute to breathe here,'' Dean snaps out, perhaps too defensively. He doesn't think Felicity's curiosity is malicious or even misplaced, but the patience has been blown out of him. He turns back to his wife. ''Laurel,'' he says. ''Hey.'' He wants so badly to be able to touch her. That's the only way he knows how to deal with these situations. All he's ever been able to do to help her is hold her hands and rub her temples and he can't do either right now. ''Baby, look at me.''

She looks up at him, waiting for him to say something that helps her, but she doesn't say anything to him. She seems to mostly be focused on her breathing right now, struggling against the panic.

''You didn't mean to do this.'' It's not good enough, but it's all he manages to come up with. ''It was an accident. This is all new. You're not used to it yet.''

''I don't want to get used to this!'' She bursts out, sounding incredulous. ''I don't want it!'' She clenches her teeth. The look in her eyes takes on a desperate, pleading gleam. ''What's happening to me?''

He can't answer that question. He has...an idea. He wants to be wrong. He needs to be wrong. This power - it corrupted Dinah. He knows that her villain origin story can't solely be blamed on this power, that she was lost a long time before she got her cry, but it didn't help her. This thing gave her the means to destroy herself and the people around her. It gave her a reason to go from morally questionable to bad and from bad to worse. In her own words, it ''rotted her from the inside out.'' He knows that Laurel isn't the same person. She's never had the same kind of darkness inside of her. She is not Dinah. But, in another life, she could have been. That's the whole point. He can't let what happened to Dinah happen to Laurel. He can't watch her turn into someone who needs to be stopped rather than saved.

''I...'' He can't make the words come out. ''Laurel...'' He needs to tell her about Dinah. He has no right to keep that from her. It's just that Sara is right behind him and Team Arrow is licking their wounds close by and - okay. Maybe it wasn't the best decision he's ever made but he never actually told any of them about Dinah. Oliver might know, if Barry told him, but there's no telling exactly how much he knows. Even if he does know the full story, there's a good chance he hasn't told his team any of it. In any case, this isn't exactly how Dean wants to have the Dinah conversation, so he doesn't say a word.

His lack of an answer does nothing to help Laurel. She reaches out to grasp at his hand, holding onto him tightly, tighter than ever. ''I can't do this,'' she says, voice low. She says it like it should be obvious to him, like the idea of her having some sort of power is the most ridiculous thing in the world. ''This isn't me. This can't be me. You have to get this thing out of me.''

He's not sure how to tell her that he doesn't think it works that way. ''Let's get you up, okay?'' He stands and instead of invading her space and lifting her up the way he normally would, he slowly offers her his hand and gives her the choice to take it or not. She's clearly reluctant, but she takes his hand. He helps her to her feet and squashes down the instinct to pull her into a hug.

''I couldn't...'' She pauses. ''I couldn't control it. It just - ''

''I know,'' he nods. ''I know, Laur.''

''How do you know?'' They both turn to Sara. There is red blood oozing from her wounds sickeningly, dripping down her wrist and arm. It's a stark contrast to her pale skin. ''You knew she was going to scream,'' she accuses, ''and you knew what that scream was going to do. How?''

There are many ways to answer that question. Dean thinks of Dinah, of August, of Laurel's fear and uncertainty, and he says, simply, ''Lucky guess.''

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August, 2016

The first time he met his wife's evil doppelganger, Dinah ''call me Black Siren'' Lance, she pressed herself up against the far wall of her cell with legitimate terror in her eyes and whispered, ''How did you get out of Arkham?''

Which, among other things, does not exactly paint a flattering portrait of his Earth Two counterpart.

Disappointing, really.

Back when she had first told him about the Multiverse theory, Laurel said she was hoping for their counterparts to be ''a badass rock star couple - you know, like Beyoncé and Jay Z, but probably not as cool.''

He had laughed, winding his arms around her waist and leaning down for a kiss. ''You'd be a great rock star, babe,'' he mumbled against her lips. ''A Black Canary band would rock the charts.''

But nope. No badass rock star couple. Just one manipulative siren and some murderous psychopath locked away in a padded cell. That's just their luck. Even on another earth, their lives are both intertwined and depressing as fuck.

He still hasn't been able to get the way she looked at him out of his head. He likes to think they've moved past it. Forged some kind of bond. He's the only one who visits her. The only one who treats her like a person. He would like to think that means something. He's got so many other images of her in his head now, most of them of her smirk, but the one that still won't leave him is the way she looked at him when she first saw him, paralyzed and genuinely afraid for her life. Maybe that's the problem. That fear, that split second of vulnerability - it colored his view of her. He thought Dinah wasn't someone to be feared.

He was wrong.

You never trust a siren. He should have known that. He's not going to make that mistake again.

Dean props one shoulder up against a tree across from City Hall and huffs impatiently, checking his watch for the millionth time. He takes a sip of his cheap lukewarm coffee and thinks about all the things he should be doing with his day. He should be at work. He doesn't have an infinite number of sick days and vacation time. He's been trying to save them up so he can spend more time with Mary.

Working full time has been harder than expected. It's been a rough transition for the both of them. Mary has been acting out more: throwing tantrums, not wanting to sleep in her own bed, acting extra clingy with him, and potty training has gone totally out the window. He's still not sleeping enough - and Mary regressing back to not sleeping through the night is not helping - and he's been moody and irritable lately. Even more so than usual. Neither of them are at their best right now. They've never been apart for this long before.

It's hard to get the hang of this new life. The one where Laurel is just a memory and he can't spend all day every day with his daughter. He's tired, he is so damn tired all the time, and so is Mary. They miss each other, they miss Laurel, and nothing can be done about it. This is just their life now. It is what it is. He doesn't want to be away from her but what choice does he have? He needs to put a roof over her head and food in her belly, and he's the only one left to do it now.

It has been four months. Almost exactly. Four months trapped in some fucked up world without Laurel in it, and it still hurts just as much as it did in April. More, even. He no longer has shock and anger to cushion the blow. All that's left is the pain.

He still wakes up in the mornings, unnerved by the absence of her humming or calling out, ''Wake up, sleepyheads! The sun has to rise every morning, and so do you!'' He still expects her to walk through the front door, arms loaded with work, kicking her heels off and calling out greetings to him and the girls. He knows he's not the only one who feels that unevenness. Mary aches just as much as he does. Sometimes when he wakes her up in the mornings, she still asks him, half asleep and whining about having her sleep disturbed, ''Mommy home yet?''

Last Saturday, they were both in the kitchen, and he was making her breakfast while she played with her stuffed animals. She was quiet, unusually so, and when he sat down with her, placing her breakfast down in front of her, all he got was a quick sign of, Thank you. She munched on her strawberries, poked at her toast, and he watched her, absently stirring his coffee. Eventually, she pushed her food aside and grabbed her stuffed dog from the chair next to her. ''Daddy,'' she said, very seriously. ''This is Piper. Do you know Piper?''

''Yes, baby girl, I know Piper,'' he smiled. ''I knew her back when she was Sprinkles.''

''Piper doesn't have a mommy,'' she announced bluntly. ''Her mommy left her. Like mine. I don't have a mommy now too.''

That had been like a punch to the gut. ''Mary,'' he'd tried. ''Pumpkin, you do have a mom.''

She was having none of it. ''Nu-uh,'' she shook her head, adamant. ''No mom.''

''Mary - ''

''No, no, no, no!'' She put her hands over her ears and glared at him like he was the worst person in the world for daring disagree with her. ''I don't have a mommy! She left! She LEFT!''

She wouldn't accept any other answer. He had, admittedly, pushed harder than he should have, desperately trying to remind her that she did have a mother, an amazing one. He wanted her to know that Laurel hadn't left her on purpose. That her mother loved her and would have done anything to stay. She wound up screeching at him in rage and throwing Piper at his head before picking up a slice of toast, turning it over, and smashing it onto the table, making sure to drag sticky peanut butter and honey all over the table. It was such an oddly calculated, deliberate 'fuck you' that it took him a good five seconds to react to it beyond stunned blinking.

Death isn't something that's easily understandable for little kids but it's a lesson Mary has been forced to learn. Grief is a heavy burden to bear. Far too heavy for a child. He knows that better than most. But this is where they are now. There's no way out of it. Somehow, despite the tantrums and regressions, she has still managed to handle all of this with more grace and more dignity than most of the adults around her. You grow up fast when you lose a parent young. He knows that too.

He would give anything to be able to take it from her but he can't. He can help her manage it. He can teach her how to carry the weight of her mother's ghost without breaking her back until it becomes such a fundamental part of her that she won't know who she is without it. But he needs time to be able to do that and he needs to be able to spend it with her. He's not just the primary caregiver anymore. He's a single parent. He has to be there for her as much as possible. He doesn't have time for this fucking ridiculous bullshit.

Dean tosses his coffee in a nearby garbage can and scans the steps of City Hall again. All the things he should be doing right now and he's stuck stalking Oliver Queen. Fuck his life. This is so backwards. He should have let Allen and his Scooby Gang handle this. This is mostly their mess. Star Labs is housing an unsanctioned underground prison full of superpowered villains. They should have had safe guards in place. Better ones. He checks his watch one more time and decides he's giving it five more minutes. Five more minutes and then he's going home to Mary to salvage what's left of the day. This isn't even his job. He's retired from weird shit. He's a civilian.

...The murder of Damien Darhk notwithstanding.

Exactly two minutes later, he spots Oliver.

What a shame. He had been looking forward to giving up. Now he actually has to be productive and do things. He hates doing things. It really fucks with his goal of ordering pizza and hiding in bed for the rest of his miserable life.

The embattled new Mayor pushes through the doors of City Hall and hurries down the steps. He looks like crap. He is frantically tugging at his tie like it's choking him as he bolts down the stairs and Felicity is racing after him as fast as she can go in her sky-high heels. Dean rolls his eyes. Whatever ridiculous relationship drama those two are embroiled in this week better not get in his way.

He looks around, keeping his eyes peeled for a familiar face. He hasn't seen her yet but now that Oliver's on the move, he expects she'll be crawling out of whatever hidey-hole she's jammed herself into. It's mildly sickening to think about her trailing after that moron like a lovesick puppy dog but if her misguided love helps him find her, he'll take the help.

On the other side of the street, Oliver stops in his tracks, visibly heaves a sigh, and then jogs back up the steps to Felicity. He dutifully offers her his hand to hold onto as she struggles down the steep steps in her precarious shoes. Well, at least the guy's not a complete dick. At this moment. Neither of them look like they are in particularly amazing moods. Huh. Almost like being in positions they're both flagrantly unqualified for is hard or something.

Imagine that.

Dean sighs heavily and curses his life, but follows them, making sure to stay on the other side of the street, shrouded by the crowds of people. It's lunch hour in downtown Star City and there are people everywhere, bustling down the sidewalks, rushing to food trucks, coffee carts, and nearby restaurants for quick bites to eat. The crowd cover is doing a great job of concealing the fact that he's tailing Oliver. Unfortunately, it's doing an even better job of concealing the woman he's searching for. She could be anywhere. Impatiently, he picks up the pace, following after them for over a block. His eyes scan the crowds for that familiar face but he can't see her among the throngs of people.

Strangely, he thinks he has Felicity to thank for how he eventually spots her. She stops at a coffee cart in front of the local museum, pulling on Oliver's arm until he takes out his wallet to buy her a coffee. Dean is just starting to think his hunch may have been bogus when Oliver's entire body goes rigid. He hands over a few bills to the coffee guy, looking numb and stiff, and then whirls around. For a second, Dean worries he's been made. Except Oliver is not looking at Dean. His wild eyes are scanning the crowd as he staggers away from Felicity, rudely pushing past strangers to get to whatever he has spotted in the crowd. He looks like he's seen a ghost.

Dean straightens, pulse speeding up. He ducks out of sight and follows Oliver's gaze. Wannabe Robin Hood over there is spinning in a circle now, desperately searching. He gives up, shoulders sagging, turning to say something to Felicity. Dean looks at every person, every face, until he spots her. He barely manages to catch a glimpse of her uncharacteristically soft eyes and downturned mouth before she breaks away from the crowd and rushes away. She sprints up the steps towards the courtyard outside the museum.

He sends a cursory glance in Oliver's direction and then takes off after her, crossing the street and jogging up the steps. He doesn't exactly have what one would call a plan. He just knows he needs to get to her before she disappears. He sure as hell needs to keep her away from Team Arrow. She may be a vexing con woman but he is not letting those people put her down like she's a rabid dog.

She's proven herself to be incredibly slippery, which means he needs to keep his eyes on her. He does manage to do this. For about a minute. He's trailing after her, making sure to keep a few people in between them, and then it's just like - poof! A group of suits cuts in front of him and as soon as they're gone, so is she.

''Shit.'' He turns around, eyes moving from person to person. She is nowhere to be found. He cranes his neck to see if she's over by the entrance to the museum. Nothing. He turns back to the street in case she has somehow managed to back track and get past him without him noticing. Still nothing. It's like she's vanished into thin air. He groans, running a hand over his face. ''Son of a bitch.''

All right, so maybe it's possible he's off his game. He pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to breathe through the frustration making his jaw tick. Slippery might have been an understatement. He takes a deep breath. Tries to think of a new plan. Where else would she go? This isn't her world. She doesn't know anyone. Where would she -

''Are you looking for me?''

Dean goes still.

Oh, well, of course.

A slow chuckle rises up in his throat. Slowly, he turns around, and there she is. Dinah Laurel Lance 2.0 in all her glory. She is sitting on a bench, one leg crossed over the other, eyes sparkling deviously with a wide grin stretching across her lips. She seems to greatly enjoy the anger on his face. ''Hey there, sugar,'' she chirps. ''Miss me?''

Usually, he would respond to that with a quick-witted quip of his own, but he's got nothing. He can't help but falter at the sight of her. She looks so profoundly different out here in the real world. In the pipeline, her hair was greasy and unkempt. She was pale and makeup free, wearing Star Labs sweats, with deep, dark circles under her eyes and a permanent scowl on her lips. She paced around her cell like a caged animal, tossing out insults, throwing tantrums, and - apparently - plotting her escape. She was a prisoner.

Now she's sitting here, free as a bird, confident, at ease, glowing in the sunlight. He has never met this Dinah. Never known her in this kind of environment. She looks so comfortable in her skin, makeup done, hair styled and swept off to the side - a style Laurel used to wear all the time. It worries him. For a lot of reasons. He no longer has the upper hand here. There is no sonic scream proof glass between them. He has no way to protect himself or the civilians crawling all around them.

And it's harder now. To look at her and not see the woman he loves. He still maintains that she does not look nearly as Laurel-like as other people seem to think. She's not a clone. They're not identical twins. They just look similar enough to make him vastly uncomfortable.

When she was in the pipeline, she bore a striking resemblance to Laurel, but she was not her and that was so easy to tell. She would throw her fits, shrieking with rage over her incarceration, spewing incredibly personal and hurtful insults, threatening bodily harm, and she would get incredibly pissed off when no one was properly intimidated by her threats. She would pace, make her demands, throw whatever she could at the door, at the cameras, until everything had to be removed from her cell so that she didn't hurt herself. She would seduce and manipulate and use her words as weapons. He doesn't want to say she's psychotic but... He also doesn't want to say she's not psychotic. Dinah is full of this wild, animalistic rage and arrogance. She does not like to be caged.

None of that was Laurel. Laurel was never some beast full of rage. She had her righteous anger, her irrational annoyance, her stubbornness, but she was not this. Laurel and Dinah are like light and dark, night and day. Mirror images but not the same. Not at all. In the pipeline, he couldn't see Laurel in Dinah no matter how hard he tried. They are not in the pipeline now. Dinah is not pacing. She is not throwing a tantrum or spewing insults. She's not disheveled and desperate. She's comfortable. When she looks at him, her eyes are just soft enough, just Laurel enough, to hurt.

The wardrobe, however. No Laurel in that. She's sitting there wearing combat boots, criminally short denim shorts, an oversized Mudhoney t-shirt, and a black and red plaid flannel shirt like she's just escaped the 90's grunge era rather than an underground prison. Dean carefully considers his next move. He doesn't want to spook her by approaching her too aggressively, but if he's too soft, she'll see right through him. He eventually decides on an arched eyebrow, a judgmental frown, and a snarky, ''What's up with being all Kathleen Hanna?''

She cocks her head to the side. ''Excuse me?''

''This is your personal style?'' He gestures at her Riot Grrrl cosplay - complete with a septum piercing and everything. ''You look like you belong in Seattle circa 1992.''

She laughs at him. It's not the nicest laugh in the world. Very different from Laurel's light, sweet laughter. ''That's your opening line?''

He shrugs and hesitantly moves into her space to take a seat next to her on the bench. She seems disconcertingly at ease right now, completely unbothered by his presence. He doesn't worry her in the least. That's... Well, valid. She could take him down just by opening her mouth. Her confidence might be an issue. Dinah knows her power. She knows she can beat him.

''Should've known they would call you.'' Her voice is nothing but vaguely amused.

''I'm your emergency contact,'' he reminds her. ''They call me for a lot of things. Usually whenever they need me to talk you out of one of your dumbass hunger strikes or calm you down from one of your tantrums.''

She snaps her head over to him, eyes narrowed. ''They forget to turn off the lights, you know,'' she says, voice harsh and short.

He frowns. ''What?''

''The Flash and his sidekicks,'' she snarls. ''They called you because I escaped. You're here to bring me back because you arrogant, self-righteous white knights think of me as some big, bad wolf the world needs to be protected from. Well, let me tell you something, sweetheart,'' she bites out. ''Those white knights forget to turn those bright, fluorescent lights off in our cells at least half the time. Do you know what it's like to be under those lights 24 hours a day? You think we get any sleep? We get food once a day. Sometimes twice. If they remember. They don't always remember. We don't get fresh air. We don't get to bathe. We get a bed, a toilet, and a shitty meal once a day.'' She drops her gaze down to her lap and swallows visibly. ''They've forgotten we're people,'' she says, quietly. ''They treat us like objects shoved in storage.'' She shakes her head. ''They're not fit to be running a prison.''

Harsh. Although not entirely untrue. Dean looks up at the blue skies. He does have at least a modicum of respect for Central City's team of superpowered misfits. They seem to respect each other and themselves. They work as a team. Unlike this poor city's team of whatever the fuck they think they are. But, yeah. She's right. The pipeline prison is shit. He's told them that. Loudly and angrily. He's told them that people aren't pet rocks. He's brought up the Geneva Convention. He's made demands. It's not that they don't understand, is the thing. It's not that they don't care. It's that they don't have the manpower to properly run a prison, but they're too stubborn to give up control.

''No,'' he agrees. ''They're not. They weren't trained for this, Dee.''

''Then they shouldn't be doing it.''

He opens his mouth to argue, but can't actually come up with an argument. ''Maybe not.'' She doesn't say anything else, but the thin line of her mouth clearly shows that she's agitated. He doesn't say anything else to her, waiting for her to speak again, but she doesn't. After a minute of tense silence, he can't help himself any longer. ''So let me get this straight,'' he starts. ''You plan this elaborate prison break and instead of disappearing to some sunny island off the coast of nowhere with little cocktail umbrellas, big hats, and some itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini - ''

''Oddly specific.''

'' - You waste your time stalking your dead husband's doppelganger?''

She slides her gaze to him slowly, with a deadly glower. Briefly, just for a second, she looks shaken. She recovers at an alarming speed, relaxing back against the bench and running her fingers through her hair in an attempt to look nonchalant. ''How did you know?''

''You mentioned a husband who drowned nearly a decade ago,'' he says. ''I put two and two together.''

She nods, licking her lips. ''It happened here too?'' She questions. ''The Gambit?''

''Went down in the North China sea in 2007.''

She nods again, seemingly processing that information. ''He came back here,'' she says. It's the softest he's ever heard her voice sound. Dinah has been all smirks and sharp edges in the time he's known her. Wit and anger and manipulation but very little heart. It's jarring to see her so human. She's no longer this idea of a person trapped behind bulletproof glass like a sideshow attraction. She's an actual person. Someone who loved and lost just like he did. It's confusing. ''Ollie never came back to me on my earth,'' she admits, very quietly.

Dean clears his throat. ''Your Oliver,'' he says. ''Was he a good man?''

She looks at him curiously. ''He was.'' He gets the feeling it's the most honest answer she has ever given him. There are no riddles surrounding it. No smirks. Just a quiet admission with a lot of love behind it.

''Then don't go looking for him in this one,'' he warns. ''You won't find him there. It's not him.'' He doesn't say it to hurt her. It's just that he gets the feeling she would be sorely disappointed with this earth's piss poor version of her beloved Ollie.

''No,'' she agrees, turning to look at him. ''But does it really matter? You tell me, Dean. Come find me in ten years and tell me how much it matters that I'm not her.''

He doesn't have a response to that. He doesn't want to think about it. Imagining being here without her for ten years is hard enough. He doesn't want to add that complication to the mix. He brushes past it, commenting lightly, ''You don't seem surprised to see me.''

''Should I be?'' Her lips pull back into a toothy, wolfish smile. Now there's the bloodthirsty egomaniac he knows. ''You've been looking for me. And it's not like you're a threat to me,'' she adds on. She seems to find the idea of him being a threat to her to be a truly laughable thought. ''You could never hurt me. Not when I look like her.''

He doesn't bother to refute her claims. She's probably right. He watches as a group of kids file up the steps. They're all wearing purple shirts that exclaim, 'Treehouse Day Camp' and they're all chattering excitedly. The woman at the head of the group is going on and on about the buddy system in an obnoxiously perky voice and her assistants, two teenage girls following after the group, both look more interested in their phones rather than making sure no kids get left behind. Mary would hate that. She starts preschool in September and even that makes her hiss like a pissed off cat.

''See those kids?'' Dinah asks, still smiling, still perfectly comfortable with his presence. ''If you try anything, I'll bring that building down right on top of their tiny lice infested heads. That,'' she grins, ''is how I know you can never be a threat.''

Kind of a brazenly horrific threat. Kind of also bullshit. It's a hilariously blatant bluff. Dean is well aware that he needs to get her out of the public to avoid any potential civilian casualties. That's a given. Regardless of the amount of control she possesses, she still has what can only be described as a bomb inside of her. But she would never hurt children. He's sure of that. Dinah may not be particularly open about her life over on Earth Two but he has his suspicions. Something about her interactions with him changed considerably when she found out his Laurel was a mother. It's why he's never been able to understand why she's not desperate to get home.

''What's your plan here, Dinah?'' He asks, arching an eyebrow and blowing past her ridiculously over the top threat that's not even worth acknowledging.

''Why would I tell you that?''

He shrugs, sending her a lazy smirk. ''Hey, you said it yourself. I'm not a threat to you.'' It doesn't get him anywhere. Her expression remains impassive. ''You look like my wife,'' he reminds her. He makes sure to sound as agonized as possible. It's not that hard to do. ''You have her face. Her voice. Her body. I've been hard wired to protect that. Not hurt it.''

''And that means...?''

''What if I told you I'm not here to bring you in?'' The look she gives him in response to that is hard to stomach. It's so Laurel-like. He can't look at it and not see her there. It's like he's sitting next to a ghost. Or hallucinating again. ''What if I said I wanted to help you?'' He asks. ''Would you believe me?''

Dinah blinks at him, speechless, and then she smirks, looks away, and just like that, Laurel is gone again. ''No. Here's what I've learned about you, Dean,'' she leans in closer to him. ''You've gone soft.'' She looks like she's enjoying this way too much. ''Whoever, whatever you used to be - you're not that guy anymore. You're going to do whatever she would have done. And she would bring me in.''

''She would,'' he says. ''No doubt about it. It's the right thing to do. But I'm not Laurel, and I'm taking off my WWLD bracelet for this one.'' He follows her lead and leans in closer to her, too close, inches away from her lips. Admittedly, his body is very confused right now. ''I don't want you here,'' he murmurs. ''I don't want my daughter to see you. I don't want Thea to see you.''

She does seem thrown by that, drawing away from him.

''If that means helping you,'' he goes on, ''then that's what I'm going to do.'' For a second, as he says it, he doesn't know if it's a lie. ''So, what's the plan? Where do you think you're going to go?''

She smiles crookedly. ''My plan was always to retire to the sun and sand.''

''And how do you plan on getting to the sun and sand? You have no passport. You have no money. You have nothing. You're smart, Dinah. I know you are. Look at the escape you pulled off. You were a second generation con woman,'' he points out, ''right?''

''I was a fucking amazing con woman,'' she corrects.

''Then I'm sure you had it all on your earth,'' he says. ''Everything you needed to survive. Cash, multiple identities, travel documents, offshore accounts, safe houses, drop boxes. All of it. That's the problem. We're not on your earth. This is not your world.'' Calmly, he goes back to watching the people of Star City rush past.

Not a single person seems to have recognized the face of the very publicly deceased Black Canary. A relief, but it's only a matter of time until someone sees her. He needs to nip that in the bud before some blogger takes a picture and decides to make Siren social media famous. The buzz surrounding Laurel's life and death is just starting to die down. The investigation into him has officially ended, he's no longer getting daily phone calls from reporters and producers, asking for interviews or permission to make a Lifetime movie out of her life, and he doesn't want to stir that up again.

''You've got no contacts here,'' he reminds her. ''No safety net. You're alone.'' He can see her grit her teeth at the dig, but she doesn't say a word. ''You need help.''

She seems to take great offense to the mere idea of needing help from someone. ''I can survive on my own,'' she sneers. ''I always have.'' There is an interesting note of bitterness to that last statement. ''You can relax. I have no intention of staying in this city. I know you won't believe me,'' she lowers her voice, ''but I don't want to hurt your daughter.''

It doesn't sound like a lie. Then again, the best lies never do. ''Good to know. It would be a shit storm if someone saw you, and I just got Barbara Walters to quit riding my ass for an exclusive.''

She rolls her eyes at him. ''She's retired, Dean.''

''Whatever,'' he waves his hand dismissively. ''They're all the same. Wait, how do you know she retired?''

''Iris.''

He raises his eyebrows, surprised. ''Iris?''

''She talks to me,'' she admits. ''When it's her turn to bring me food. She's the only one who doesn't treat me like I'm less than human.''

That sounds like Iris. ''Well,'' he mutters gruffly. ''Congrats on fucking that up. Those kids you hurt when you escaped,'' he explains. ''One of them is Wally West. Her brother.''

Dinah scowls. ''First of all,'' she points a finger at him. ''I barely scratched those kids. They'll be fine. Second of all, that boy hit me with a car.''

''Now he's gearing up to hit you with another.''

''I admire his tenacity,'' she remarks, dryly. ''Anyway, it doesn't matter what Iris thinks of me. It doesn't matter what any of them think of me. I'm never going to see them again.''

''Riiiight,'' he drawls. ''Because you're leaving town. Somehow. With no resources.''

''I'll figure it out,'' she snaps, determinedly stubborn.

He leans back against the bench, stretching his arms out over the back of it. ''You're not going to let me help, are you?''

''Nope.'' She beams at him. ''I don't trust you as far as I can throw you.''

He lifts a shoulder in a half shrug. ''Your prerogative.'' He studies her face in the sunshine. If he's being honest, even with the makeover, she still doesn't look all that much like Laurel. She's pale. He's never noticed that about her before. In the pipeline, under all that harsh and artificial light, she didn't look her best. This is a different kind of pale. She's also really fucking skinny. He tilts his head to the side and frowns. Well, that could be an advantage. ''Are you hungry?''

She looks at him as if he has lost the last tiny, clinging part of his sanity. ''What?''

''Food,'' he says slowly. ''Do you want some? When's the last time you ate?''

She narrows her eyes at him, studying him closely like she's trying to figure out of this is some kind of weird assassination attempt. ''Why do you care?''

He rolls his eyes at her. ''Oh, come on.'' He bumps her shoulder with his. She stiffens, but mercifully doesn't kill him or even burst his eardrums. ''You look like shit,'' he states, bluntly. ''You're clearly starving. Let's go get a burger or something. My treat.''

''You...'' She blinks, dazed. ''...Want to buy me a burger?''

''It doesn't have to be a burger.'' He turns his back to the sun, stepping in front of her to blot it out. ''What are you into? Any weird dietary restrictions? Laurel had a hard time digesting red meat - ''

''I'm sure she would appreciate you telling me that.''

''People were always so surprised when they found out all those cheeseburgers she devoured and raved about were really veggie burgers.''

''Veggie burgers aren't burgers,'' Dinah says, lip curled in disgust. ''They're lies.''

''Yes, exactly. Thank you!'' He cocks his head at her. ''How does your body feel about red meat?''

She puckers her lips thoughtfully, drumming her fingers on her knee. ''It feels pretty good about it. I love a nice, juicy steak.'' She pulls her lips back into a grin. ''The bloodier the better.'' She says it in a strangely seductive voice. Seven years ago, that would have been enough for him. Now he just thinks she's a little too into her steaks.

''Great,'' he says. ''So you're not one of those hipster vegans?''

She looks offended at the mere suggestion. ''Fuck no.'' She pauses, considering. ''I do have an egg allergy,'' she admits.

''Noted.''

''Also, I don't drink coffee.''

''That's fucked up.'' And definitely not Laurel. She lived off coffee. She once seriously asked him if coffee IVs were possible. ''Oh, hey,'' he snaps his fingers. ''Have you ever had shawarma?''

''No.''

''It's delicious. Laurel was never a big fan. Whenever she wanted Indian food for dinner, she got what she wanted but whenever I suggested shawarma, she'd say something like 'I think I'm in the mood for Thai' or 'you don't order mine right' or 'you know I'm not a fan of tahini.' Shit, they have other sauces! And if she already knew she wanted Thai, why did she even ask for my opinion?!''

Dinah looks grudgingly amused by his impassioned rant. She's got her head lowered, teeth sunk into her lower lip to hide her smile, and she's peering up at him through her eyelashes. ''What a heartless wench.''

He can't tell if that was meant to be a joke or to get a rise out of him but either way, he ignores it. ''One time,'' he says, ''she actually burst into tears and said 'if you love stupid fucking shawarma so much, why don't you just go marry it?' In all fairness, she was pregnant, five days overdue, and she was already pissed at me for breathing too loudly, but,'' he shakes his head. ''Food. It was our biggest relationship problem. I mean,'' he frowns deeply and props his hands up on his hips. ''What kind of disaster pizza is mushroom and olive? There's not even any meat on it.''

Dinah looks like she hates herself for finding him amusing. But she does find him amusing. He can tell. She's softening. Letting her guard down. He needs to take advantage of that. ''I'm surprised you two weren't divorced already with problems like that.''

He lets himself laugh that the joke before carefully prodding, ''Come on, Courtney Love. I can tell you're hungry.''

She falters momentarily, but straightens quickly. She folds her arms over her chest and tosses him an easy scowl. ''I'm not eating with you.''

''Why? What do you think I'm going to do to you?''

''Poison me.''

He steps closer to her, spreading his arms out. ''Pat me down. Check for poison. You won't find any. I'm not armed.''

She doesn't budge. She does turn her nose up at him. ''I don't need your help.''

He shrugs his shoulders once more. ''Suit yourself. I'm starving, so I'm going to go get something to eat.'' He plucks his sunglasses from the collar of his shirt and fixes them over his eyes to block out the bright summer sun. ''If I'm such a non-threat, you should have no problem joining me. But that's up to you. No skin off my back.'' He gives her a sarcastic mock salute and then turns to leave. ''I'll see you, Dee,'' he calls over his shoulder. ''Enjoy dumpster diving for your next meal.''

He gets about five steps. Five sauntering steps and then he hears her cautious voice call out to him, ''Is shawarma really that good?''

He stops, a thrum of victory starting low in his gut. He gives it a second, smiling slowly, and then he turns around.

.

.

.

November, 2016

Dean shoves through the door into the brisk air and sunlight. All of his muscles feel sore and pulled tight and his head is throbbing. He's about 75% sure his hearing is fully functional once again, but he can't be entirely sure. His whole body hurts. He feels like he's been hit by a car. He doesn't think he's concussed but he does feel a little out of it. It's hard to tell if that's because he's injured or because he is severely out of his depth. He'd rather it was a concussion. He hates being out of his depth.

A sharp whistle from behind him catches his attention and he sighs heavily, tilting his head up to look at the blue sky. One minute. One goddamn minute to regroup. That's all he's asking for.

No such luck.

He pushes away the tension and the aches and pains and turns to the end of the alley where Sam and Cas are waiting for him. He doesn't hesitate, even though he wants to, striding towards them quickly.

Cas pulls his attention away from the trunk as Dean approaches, a look of genuine concern crossing his face.

Sam keeps his concern a little more lowkey, pushing off the Impala with a sigh. ''Oh, what the hell?''

''What?''

''You look...'' Cas pauses. He pauses long enough for Dean to raise his eyebrows and Sam to look over at him with that familiar are you having a stroke frown on his face. ''...Ruffled.''

That's one way to put it. Dean releases a breath and stuffs his hands in his pockets. ''Just for the record,'' he says. ''My wife has superpowers.''

Neither of them look especially surprised by that. Given that they've just come from the first blast zone, they really shouldn't be. They also don't look that awestruck by the revelation. Dean feels strangely offended by that. Obviously, there's a big element of fear with this brave new world but Laurel has superpowers. Do they not find that at least a little bit awesome? He knows he's biased but - come on!

''Okay,'' Sam says. ''Good to know.''

Dean nods and then says once more, putting more emphasis on the word, ''Superpowers.''

''We get it,'' says Sam. ''You secretly run a Black Canary tumblr page and you're excited to have new things to post about. Do you think you could fanboy later?''

''What the fuck is tum - ''

''This new power of hers,'' Cas cuts in smoothly. ''Is it - ''

''Almost exactly like Dinah's,'' Dean finishes for him. ''Except Laurel has way less control. Believe me when I say it packs a punch.'' He grimaces, moving a hand up to rub at the back of his neck awkwardly. ''Coincidentally,'' he begins, hesitantly, ''so does Sara.''

''Sara?'' Sam furrows his brows. ''Wait, what? She punched you?''

''She might have. A little bit.''

Cas squints at him disapprovingly. ''What did you do to her?''

Dean groans in annoyance, throwing his arms out in exasperation. ''What makes you think I did something?''

''Dude,'' Sam deadpans. ''What'd you do?''

Dean sighs. ''Doesn't matter,'' he mutters. ''What did you find at the graveyard?''

Sam seems to get the hint, spinning on his heel to stride over to the trunk. Cas doesn't. He remains where he is, feet planted firmly on the ground. He studies Dean carefully, head tilted to the side. It's as unnerving as it always is to have Cas look at him like that. It's never not going to be unsettling as fuck to have someone look at him like they know him better than he knows himself. What's even more unsettling is that it's true. ''Are you sure you're all right?''

''I'm fine,'' Dean lies, but he can't look him in the eye when he says it.

Sam is hauling a dirty black duffel bag out of the trunk, unzipping it to wince down at the contents. ''Found this crap behind a tree.'' He gestures inside the bag. ''At least two sets of footprints. Perfect view of Laurel's grave.''

Dean isn't sure he wants to look in the bag. He can guess what's in it. Remnants of a makeshift altar. Candles, a bloodstained spell book, and probably a rabbit's foot or whatever the fuck else those crackpots use when they disrupt lives and fuck with the natural order of things. He's grateful Laurel's home, he is, but this was not a miracle. She's in pain and that pain is on the shoulders of whoever did this to her. Still, he peeks in the bag.

Yep. Full of witchcraft crap. All of it haphazardly shoved into the duffel bag and apparently left behind. He can still smell the faint odor of burning sage clinging to the items in the bag. He plucks a bloodied rabbit's foot out of the bag with a grimace of disgust. See, that shit just cannot be hygienic. Poor rabbit gets screwed every time. He drops the foot back in the bag and rummages around, sifting through candles, a rag soaked through with now dried blood, and a bloody knife. He eyes the knife. These people used a damn chef's knife to carve themselves up. Not some ancient ceremonial dagger. Not a pocketknife. A chef's knife. One that looks like it was part of a set. That's amateur. He pushes the candles off to one side and immediately freezes. This bag is full of blood soaked items and the only thing to turn his stomach is the duct tape, zip ties, syringes, and a vial of clear liquid. He grabs it, turning it over to read the label.

Ketamine.

A friggin' horse tranquilizer.

''She wasn't supposed to leave that cemetery on her own,'' he says. ''Was she?''

Sam clears his throat awkwardly, gently tugging the Ketamine out of his brother's hand, dropping it back into the bag. ''It doesn't look like it,'' he says, reluctantly. ''They must have gotten spooked when she - ''

''Popped out of the ground like a whack-a-mole?''

''Not how I would have phrased it. But, yeah.''

Dean steps away from the gruesome party bag of fuckery over there. He's trying to make his brain work. He's trying to act like a competent hunter, but it's hard when all he can think about is how grisly this situation is. Everything in that bag is covered in blood because some unknown coven brought Laurel back to life with some screwed up spell. And it's not looking like they did it out of the kindness of their hearts. ''They just left this all behind?''

Cas gives a derisive snort at that. ''I suspect these people aren't the most experienced.'' There is so much judgment and ire in his tone. ''We're not dealing with some all powerful coven.''

Oh, well, that's fucking comforting. A group of random morons brought Laurel back to life.

''When she crawled out,'' Sam starts, treading carefully, ''they must have realized something was wrong, so they ran.''

''Wrong,'' Dean parrots. ''Wrong how?'' Again, Sam and Cas exchange a worried look. That's getting infuriating. ''Will you two quit doing that?'' He grinds out through his teeth. ''Tell me what's going on.''

Sam doesn't say a word, sagging back against the car. He's got that familiar pinched, concerned look on his face and he's rubbing at his forehead tiredly. Cas is the one who eventually says it, coming right out and saying, ''I don't believe they meant to bring Laurel back as Laurel.'' He produces a folded piece of paper from his pocket, handing it over. ''This is part of the spell that was used. I didn't recognize it but I contacted a witch I know to see if she could tell me anything about it.''

Dean unfolds the piece of paper, giving it a cursory onceover. The edges are torn, as if it's been ripped out of a book, the ink is smudged, and there are a few droplets of blood on the paper. The words, written in looping cursive, are Latin. His Latin has never been the best and he's rusty on top of that, so he can't understand most of it but the few words he can understand are words like rising and awaken and shit like that. Also, it's rambly. Whoever wrote it severely lacked the ability to edit themselves. He glances up at Cas briefly. ''Did she?''

''It's not a resurrection spell,'' Cas sounds apologetic. ''It's a reanimation spell.''

Fuck.

Reanimation. He was offered that. He did everything to bring Laurel back. That includes going to witches. Several of them. None of them had been able to give her back to him. One coven of millennials in Olympia had taken pity on him and shoved a reanimation spell at him. It was mostly just to get him out of their hair, but there was sympathy too. One of the girls had told him exactly where he needed to go to get the ingredients. He almost did it too. He took the spell home and kept it in his bedside drawer. It was like a safety net. He kept it so that if he ever got desperate enough, if there was ever a moment where he just couldn't do it anymore, he would have it. Laurel kept a bottle of Pinot Noir in the garage in a box labeled 'Halloween Decorations.' He hadn't known that tidbit of information until three weeks ago. That reanimation spell was his Pinot Noir. Every now and then, he would take the piece of paper out and hold it tightly, crinkling the paper, reading and re-reading the list of ingredients and the incantation. He came close. He came so close.

But he never used the spell. Just like Laurel never drank the wine. It wouldn't have been her anyway. Reanimation isn't life. What he would have gotten back had he used the spell - It would have been something that looked like her, talked like her, walked like her, but it would not have been her. It would have been this confused, helpless...thing. Wandering around not quite alive but not quite dead either. It wouldn't have been able to love the way she loved. Zombies don't live. That's their whole shtick. They just exist. That wouldn't have been fair to Laurel, it wouldn't have been fair to him, and it certainly wouldn't have been fair to Mary.

Dean swallows thickly and clenches his fist around the scrap of paper. ''Reanimation,'' he says, the word bitter on his tongue. ''As in zombies?''

''In a way,'' Cas says slowly. ''It's more complicated than that. With this spell,'' he points to the piece of paper, ''the body isn't dead but the soul is gone. It's about control. It's like creating a mindless, compliant soldier.''

''She's not - ''

''I know.''

''We think something went wrong with their spell,'' Sam says. ''It would explain why they just dropped everything and ran.''

''From the looks of it, they were just trying to reanimate her body so they could - ''

''Weaponize it,'' Dean cuts Cas off. When the other two share yet another concerned look as if they think he's not emotionally stable enough to know the details, he nearly decks the both of them. ''Are we saying they accidentally brought her back? How does that even happen?''

''That's the part we're lost on,'' Sam says.

''Maybe one of them had more power than the others and they didn't account for that while they were performing the spell,'' Cas suggests. ''Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe something bigger had a hand in this.''

''But why her? Why would they want to...?'' Dean trails off, stomach jolting sickeningly. Oh, fucking hell. ''Her powers,'' he utters, horrified. He turns wide eyes to Sam and Cas. ''Whoever did this wanted control of her powers.''

''That's the theory,'' Cas admits.

''Who the hell even knows about this?'' Dean bursts out. ''She didn't even know. No one else - ''

''There is one person who could have potentially known.'' Sam doesn't look at Dean as he says this. He's got his head tilted back so he can blink up at the sky. ''She does have the same powers after all. She would have to know how they're triggered.''

Dean stares blankly. It takes him a minute to feel incredulous and indignant about what Sam's implying. It's such a stupid suggestion that it literally takes his brain a minute to catch up and react because it is so damn ridiculous. ''No.'' That's all he says.

''Dean - ''

''No,'' he barks out shortly. ''That's - No.'' He shakes his head vehemently. ''There is no way she could have orchestrated this. Are you kidding me? You want to pin this on Dinah? She's locked away in the pipeline.''

''But she wasn't always,'' Sam insists, pushing off the car. ''She got out, right? How long was she free and all on her own before you caught up with her?''

''You did say she was a con woman long before she got her powers,'' Cas reminds him. ''Isn't it possible she could have set all this into motion back in August? It's a long con, is it not? If she has people working for her, she wouldn't need to lift a finger.''

''Yes, but she'd still have to be controlling the con,'' Dean says shortly. ''I know that. I've conned people before. It took me two months to convince them to let her have music in her cell,'' he says. ''There's no way she can pull this off from where she is and she couldn't have planned all this in twenty four hours. And why? What would her motive be? Why would she want to bring Laurel back?'' He crosses his arms over his chest. ''Dinah doesn't do a damn thing unless it helps her. How does this help her?''

''Dean, she knows what these powers do,'' Sam says. He's using that unintentionally condescending tone of voice that he's so fond of. It's not helping. Dean knows the kid is stressed out and tired but they're all stressed out and tired. That doesn't mean they all get to throw out bullshit scenarios that don't make a lick of sense. ''You said it yourself,'' Sam says, voice softer this time. ''Laurel's scream is exactly like Dinah's. Only less controlled. Which makes it more dangerous. If Dinah can get some human puppet with superpowers programmed to be loyal to her and only her then she can get that person to break her out. Who better to do that than someone with powers she knows how to use?''

''That's not - ''

''It also could have been a distraction tactic,'' Cas muses, eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully. ''Maybe she's hoping you'll be too distracted with Laurel's return to notice whatever she's planning.''

''It's sleight of hand,'' Sam tacks on. ''We've all got our eyes on our Laurel so we don't notice the other is sneaking off to Kuwait.''

Dean uncrosses his arms and puts his hands on his hips, narrowing his eyes at them. They're not entirely off base. He has to admit that. It's not like Dinah would be opposed to doing something cruel and unusual like this. He's figured that she'd be more likely to impersonate Laurel rather than actually bring her back as part of some twisted version of the fucking Parent Trap, but maybe there is a chance she would go this far. She would probably get a kick out of conning all of these various vigilantes - most notably the people responsible for her current predicament. It's not that she wouldn't do this. It's that she couldn't. ''The Maldives,'' he says, blurting it out before he can stop himself.

Sam blinks, looking thrown. ''...What?''

Dean shrugs. ''Dee,'' he elaborates. ''She wouldn't go to Kuwait. She would go to the Maldives.''

''Oh, I've been there,'' Cas pipes up, sounding weirdly cheerful about it.

''What?'' Dean throws him a bewildered look. ''You have? When?''

''Couple years ago. I went with Charlie. She called it a gaycation.''

''Cool,'' is Dean's deadpan response. ''I didn't even get a honeymoon.''

Cas does not look like he cares too much about that, offering him a shrug and a small smirk. ''I guess you should have married me when you had the chance then.''

It does manage to get a genuine smile and a tired sounding chuckle out of Dean but it's a fleeting moment of lightness that doesn't last long at all. ''Look,'' he says, sobering. ''This game of subterfuge that you think she's playing - I'm not saying she wouldn't do it,'' he admits. ''She would. But the whole thing hinges on her having people on the outside doing all the leg work for her, right?''

Sam pauses. ''I guess.''

''That's not happening,'' Dean says confidently. ''Dinah hates people. She's a paranoid loner. She's only ever trusted a handful of people in her life - and most of them are dead. No way would she trust anyone but herself with any part of a con.'' This is something he is 100% sure of. Sam's theory involves her having some team of witches doing her bidding. She would never go for that. Dinah is anything but a team player. ''And hey,'' he tacks on. ''Here's another flag on the play: Laurel isn't soulless.''

There is an extended silence between the three of them. It stretches out awkwardly until Sam says, reluctantly, ''Are you sure about that?''

''Are you serious right now?''

Sam gives him what looks like a full body eye roll. He rubs his left temple in exasperation. ''Don't you think we should at least consider it? How would we know?''

''I know.''

''No, you love her. You missed her. You want this to be real. There's a difference.''

''Sam,'' Cas gives him a sharp warning.

''Laurel has a soul,'' Dean bites out. ''I've seen soulless people before.''

Sam still doesn't let up. ''But how would we know for sure?''

''Because the spell was botched, Sam! It didn't work! You just fucking said that!''

''No, I said we think something went wrong. I didn't say we knew for sure.''

Dean throws his hands up and releases a long suffering sigh. He knows Sam isn't wrong. If the situation was reversed, he would be in Sam's shoes; trying to get some desperate man to at least acknowledge that this fucked up situation seems pretty damn precarious. If this were anyone else, he would be saying that as much as he doesn't want to believe it, there is still a chance that this is all wrong. But this is Laurel. It's Laurel. They just got her back. She hasn't even been home for a full twenty-four hours yet. He hasn't had time to take a minute with her to talk since she got her memories back. He hasn't even had a chance to breathe yet. And people are already trying to take her away from him.

''Listen to me.'' Sam sounds like he's trying to sound calm and patient but there's a clear edge of urgency to his voice. ''This isn't like when I was soulless or when Sara was soulless. This is something else. It's way more unstable. A major part of that spell is control. Someone else has it. What if it did work and someone is just controlling her? Making her manipulate us? She's different. She's off. You know that.''

''I know she's been traumatized,'' Dean snaps, hands clenching and unclenching at his side. ''I know she's exhausted, in shock, and has a history of dissociating when she's...'' He clenches his fist again, feeling jittery and uneasy with the direction this conversation is going in. ''When she's stressed.'' He never enjoys having to talk about Laurel's mental health with other people. It's not because he's ashamed or embarrassed because he's not. It's because she doesn't like talking about it with other people. She is an intensely private person, especially when it comes to her headspace.

''Even if she is herself,'' Sam starts, ''we still don't know the damage that's been done. We don't know what's going on inside of her. If she's Laurel, soul and all, then what's happening to her isn't what was supposed to happen. We have no idea how much of her was brought back, if she's in pieces, if she's dangerous. She's going to be around Mary, Dean. I don't want to take them away from each other. Not again. I'm just trying to be practical here. Don't you think we should find out if she's dangerous?''

Dean doesn't respond to Sam's question, avoiding his eyes. If he could just talk to her for a minute. He just wants to talk to her, to see her, to be with her in the quiet for just a second. He sighs and looks over at Cas. ''Do you have any divine contacts left?''

Cas raises a brow. ''You mean are there any angels left that don't hate me?''

''At the very least, are there any that hate you a little less? Maybe someone who owes you a favor?''

Cas squints at him curiously. ''You want an angel to verify her soul is intact and in place.''

''I don't need an angel to tell me that's my wife,'' Dean retorts. ''But other people do.''

''It would be an extremely painful process.''

''I know, but when she hears this she'll want the confirmation. She already doesn't trust herself. This sure as shit ain't gonna help.''

Cas doesn't respond for a long moment, seemingly pondering the request. ''I might know someone who would be willing to help,'' he says. ''I don't know where he is exactly but I know he's here on this earth. I can try to get in touch with him.''

''Good. That's - Thanks.'' Dean lets out a heavy breath and draws away from both of them, making his way over to a crate in the alley and sinking onto it tiredly. He scrubs a hand over his face and tries to wake himself up. Usually this is the part where he would make an I'm too old for this shit joke and then push through it to get the job done. This time is different. It's not that he's too old or too tired. It's that he's scared. He keeps running through everything that has just been piled onto him and it's a lot. This is not easy to wade through. None of this is. He's steadfast in his belief that Dinah had nothing to do with this. He does understand why they would think of her but this isn't her style. It's all the other crap that feels like a heavy weight on his shoulders.

He has been with Laurel for the better part of a decade now. They have a child together. A home. A marriage. A life. A good one - for the most part. They built all of this together. Where she goes, he will follow. It's not even a question.

He's watched her go through so much pain over the years. He's watched her suffer and struggle, both emotionally and physically. He has felt helpless more times than he can count. It's just never been like this before. He has never been able to fix her. He's tried but love can't cure mental illness or heal trauma. He couldn't duct tape her back together then and he can't do it now. But he could hold her steady. He could rub her temples, hold her hand, get her an icepack, and stitch up her wounds so neat and tidy that she was barely left with a scar. He got her into treatment the second she asked for help after her suicide attempt, went to couples counselling with her, wrangled Mary alone while she was detoxing and healing in the hospital, handled her family and his without a single complaint. He did the best he could. That's just what you do when your spouse needs help. Maybe he could never fix, but he could help.

It's easy to hold an icepack to bruised knuckles or give her a day in bed, free of all responsibilities other than cuddling their daughter and binge watching Netflix. It's something she's willing to do for him so it's easy to return the favor.

This is not easy.

He doesn't know how to help her now. A day of Netflix isn't going to help. He can't get her into treatment, he can't argue his way into an emergency therapy appointment, he can't encourage her to call her sponsor. There is nowhere she can go for help except to him and he doesn't know how to do this all alone. He can't help control these powers, he doesn't know how to help her navigate this level of trauma, and he has no idea how to tell her about any of this. It's going to hurt like hell. How could it not? How do you tell someone you love that their miracle is not a miracle? This wasn't divine intervention. It wasn't some dramatic act of God. It was never about love or mercy. It was about greed and selfishness. They meant to bring her body back to destroy, not to live. This isn't a miracle. It's just more suffering. Now he has to tell her that.

Love is a strange and terrifying thing. It's sharper than it looks. It's stranger than it seems. It wrestles your heart up into your throat, down to the pit of your stomach, until you can feel it everywhere. Love, for him, has always had teeth, and he has spent most of his life bleeding. He's known that for as long as he can remember but it wasn't until he met Laurel that he faced that fact head on. She was - is - as strange and beautiful and terrifying as those three words he's so bad at saying. She saved his life. He's never been able to repay her for that.

He doesn't want to have to tell her about all of this. He doesn't want to hurt her. He doesn't want her to be scared.

''Sam,'' Cas says, breaking the silence and startling Dean into looking up. ''Why don't you head inside? I'm sure Laurel could use a friendly face right about now.''

Sam looks doubtful. ''Pretty sure she's surrounded by her sister and her friends.''

''That's a good point,'' Cas allows. And then, ''Sam, why don't you head inside because your brother needs to calm down before he goes back in there and you're only riling him up.''

''I love how I'm the bad guy here,'' Sam complains bitterly.

''I didn't say you were the bad guy. I said you were riling him up. It's a thing you two do. Frequently. It's exhausting. My brothers tried to wear you both to destroy the world and even they were less exhausting.''

''Fine. I'll go in there. But,'' he holds up a warning finger, ''if Oliver starts with me - ''

''Oliver's not going to be starting with anyone,'' Dean cuts in. ''He got the brunt of the Laurel Grenade. Apparently when she - '' he makes an exploding gesture with his hands '' - he ran towards her instead of away from her.''

Sam heaves a sigh - an understandable reaction when confronted with Oliver Queen's unapologetic stupidity - but remains otherwise unsurprised. ''How is that guy still alive?''

''You mean specific to today or in general?''

''In general.''

''Dumb luck?''

''That's a lot of dumb luck,'' Sam comments lightly. ''Personally, I'm of the opinion that we're better than him and even we've died.''

''Several times,'' Cas adds on, bluntly.

Sam bobs his head up and down. ''You've died 119 times, Dean.''

Dean, absently nodding along with what they're saying, stops suddenly and looks up, frowning. ''What?''

''Tuesday,'' Sam says darkly.

''Oh,'' Dean nods again. ''Tuesday.'' He tosses a look at Cas. ''We don't talk about Tuesday.''

Sam seems incredibly reluctant to leave. Dean's not sure if his reluctance to leave is because he doesn't want to deal with Robin Hood and his Merry Men or because he feels bad about the way this conversation went. He sticks around long enough for Cas to send him one of those furrowed eyebrows look, and then he turns around and leaves.

Dean rests his elbows on his knees, hands steepled together. It's been a long day. This brand new thing that Laurel can do - If it's anything like what Dinah can do, and he knows that it is, then she now holds the power to kill people and to singlehandedly bring down buildings without breaking a sweat. Only she didn't. If she truly had no control over that scream, everyone in that bunker would be dead. They're not. Even terrified and confused, she did manage to hold back. That has to be a good sign.

''Dean.'' Cas sounds apologetic. He takes a seat on another crate next to him. ''He wasn't trying to upset you. He was just - ''

''I know,'' Dean interrupts, harsher than intended. ''I know what he was doing. He was right.'' He doesn't lift his head, keeping his eyes firmly on the ground. He looks at his wedding ring.

He and Laurel don't have matching wedding bands. They didn't even have rings at all until three months into their marriage when they managed to scrape the money together. Laurel's engagement ring didn't cost much. It was just a matter of getting it resized. A Drake family heirloom given to him by Richard and Beatrice about a year into his relationship with Laurel.

''Bea,'' he'd said, when he opened the box she had thrown at his head. ''You askin' me to marry you?''

''She's out of your league, kid,'' Richard had grumbled from his seat by the window, without even looking up from his book.

''Do not,'' Beatrice said, pointing an arthritis ridden but very intimidating finger at him, ''mess this up. We want our girl to be happy. You make her happier than she's ever been. And also,'' she wagged the finger again, ''I want great grandbabies. Preferably before I die.''

It's a nice ring. Antique. Rose gold with one modest sized diamond and then an intricate vine-like design with a bunch of little diamonds. He's not the best person to ask about it, but Laurel can give you the whole history. It means a lot to her. He kept it with him for months, too chicken shit to pull the trigger and propose.

Eventually, she beat him to the punch.

One night, after she had rolled off him, while he was still trying to catch his breath, she turned to him and asked, bluntly, ''So you gonna lock this shit down or what, bro?''

The natural response to that, after he had stopped laughing, was, ''Sure, why not?''

And then they high fived.

He gave her the ring the next morning over breakfast and she cried all over her avocado toast. There were better ways to propose, but it fit them.

Her wedding ring is where most of the money went. Her wedding ring is where all of the money went. It's platinum, which is pricey, and it's an eternity band, which is literally just a circle of fucking diamonds. They blew the budget on that one. Even with the deal they were given. She hadn't wanted to buy it. She insisted that it was too much and that she would be happy with a plain sterling silver or titanium ring but he had seen the look on her face when she tried it on. He couldn't give her much, but he wanted to be able to give her that damned eternity band. His ring was the cheapest. It's not like it's a piece of crap or anything like that. It's a 14k yellow gold plain band. It's classic.

Laurel used to tell him that they could upgrade his ring for their anniversary but he wasn't interested then and he's not interested now. He likes his ring. It's the one they picked out together. The one she put on his finger because ''tradition, Dean.'' It's weird how a hunk of metal can become so important. It's a piece of him now. It is something so intrinsically tied to who he is that he doesn't feel like himself when he's not wearing it.

When the six month mark came along and people started to gently nudge him in the direction of things like healing and moving on, he went through a brief period of thinking they were right. Sam carefully asked him about Laurel's rings, gently suggesting that maybe putting them away was the first step. Dee bluntly informed him that what he really needed was to get ''well and truly fucked.'' One of the mothers of one of Mary's classmates at preschool - a widow herself - asked him out for coffee.

He didn't know what he was supposed to do, he didn't know what felt right to him because nothing felt right, so he just...went along with it. He took the chain with Laurel's wedding rings off, placed it on his bedside table, and went out for coffee with Tina. He even kissed her at the end of the coffee date. But it was awkward and they were both still wearing their wedding rings and it was just... Not the right time. For either of them. Tina's great. She's a little caustic, which is probably why they get along, and she consistently encourages her twins to be nice to Mary. She's just not Laurel, and he's not her husband.

When he got home that night, he looked down at his wedding ring and made a split second decision to move it from his left hand to his right hand. He thought that would be easier than taking it off completely. It was not. The second that ring was off his finger, it was like he couldn't breathe. It felt cruel and disrespectful, like he was erasing her. It felt like losing her all over again. He felt off balance and unsteady without it. He doesn't want to feel off balance again. He doesn't want to have a reason to take off his ring again.

Maybe it's selfish to be thinking about that right now when Laurel is scared and hurt, but he has never pretended to be some patron saint of selflessness. He doesn't want to lose Laurel again. He doesn't want her to be in pieces. He wants her to be here, whole again, so they can have the life they were supposed to have. The life they would have had if April 6th had never happened.

He draws in a shaky breath and looks over at Cas. ''I know you didn't just send Sam away to give me a breather.''

Cas doesn't answer. He doesn't even look at him. Not for a long time. ''There are no guarantees to magic,'' he says finally, turning his gaze over to Dean. ''There's always a price to pay. We both know that.'' He looks at Dean with his piercing blue eyes, lips pinched, and this look of apology in his body language. ''This isn't an exception.''

''I didn't think it was,'' Dean admits.

''When a spell is mishandled and damaged to this extent,'' Cas goes on, ''it becomes unstable.''

''Unstable,'' Dean echoes.

''Spells are fragile things,'' says Cas. ''And this one was poorly done by someone with horrible and selfish intentions. It was done carelessly and cruelly. There are repercussions to that.'' ''What kind of repercussions?''

''Think of it like a tether. This spell is what's keeping Laurel tied to this world and it's battered and fragmented. The tether is fraying. If the spell breaks completely, everything it's done will be erased. Which means - ''

''Laurel dies.''

Cas' lips thin out. His silence is confirmation enough. He admits, softly, reluctantly, ''Yes.''

Dean can't even pretend to be surprised by that. It's not like the thought of losing her hasn't been in the back of his mind since he opened that door. He looks down at his wedding ring again and, this time, he thinks of Mary. Seven months ago, he had to tell her that her mom was gone, that she wasn't coming home. He remembers that moment. He remembers everything about it. It's stained into him. He remembers the way her room looked that morning, the pajamas she was wearing, the toys on the floor, how everything was still and quiet except for the sound of the birds outside. They were unusually loud that day and he remembers the soft sort of grief in that. Even the birds were crying.

No matter what happens here, happy ending or not, he will never forget the earth shattering pain of that moment. Everything else he's been through, every bit of pain and trauma pales in comparison to the day he had to look his little girl in the eye and destroy her. He's never going to be able to get away from the look on her face, confused and devastated, and the sound of her tiny heartbroken voice sobbing out, ''But I don't want her to be gone!''

That will not be happening again.

''Then we fix it,'' he declares boldly, rising to his feet. ''We stabilize the spell. We can do that, right? There has to be a way to do that.''

''It might be possible to find a witch who can strengthen the spell,'' Cas suggests, after a pause. He's still having a hard time looking at Dean. It's like he can't stand to see the hopeful and determined look on his friend's face. ''But that wouldn't be a permanent solution. It would just buy her some time. I...'' He stops talking, dragging his eyes up to Dean. ''I don't know how to fix this. Her life is tied to this spell. I'm sorry.''

Try as he might, Dean can't quite muster up enough strength and resolve to even haul off and hit something right now. ''How long? How long does she have?''

''There's no way to tell,'' says Cas, regretfully. ''It could be anywhere from weeks to months. A year or two if we're lucky.''

''Are there signs?'' Dean clears his throat. ''Symptoms? Things to watch for?''

''I don't know,'' Cas sighs. ''If her soul starts to separate from her body, there could be personality changes. Confusion, maybe. Anger. Fugue states. There could be physical symptoms but I... I can't be sure. I'm sorry. Magic is - It's paid for in blood. It's always got to be blood.''

''And if the spell breaks completely?'' Dean asks. ''What would happen then? Would she just...'' He swallows painfully. ''Would she just drop dead?''

Cas does not look like he wants to answer that. ''She might. She might just go to sleep and not wake up. This isn't something that I can... I don't have all the answers. This is a rare event.''

''This is a fuck up,'' Dean snaps. ''This is happening because someone botched a spell.''

''Yes.''

''Laurel is a walking time bomb because of incompetence,'' he snarls, disgusted. ''And you know what? I don't give a shit. I was with her when she died once. I'm not letting her die again. I don't care what I have to do. Witches, angels, demons, I'll do it all.''

''Okay.'' Cas practically leaps to his feet, moving to grasp onto Dean's arm. ''Okay, we'll fix this. We'll find a way. We won't let her go again.'' His voice is unusually soft and placating. He looks worried.

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger and tries to breathe through the ache in his throat. ''Have you told anyone else about this?''

Cas shakes his head. ''Just you.''

Dean straightens up, considering that. He looks in the direction of the entrance to the bunker, where Laurel is waiting for him; disoriented, exhausted, and terrified of the thing inside of her. He clenches his jaw, and he makes a terrible decision. ''Good,'' he says shortly, snapping his attention back to Cas. ''Don't. Everything you've just told me - Don't tell anyone else.''

Cas stares at him but quickly smoothes out the stunned expression on his face into an unreadable one. ''Do you think that's wise?''

Well, no. ''Look, Laurel's in rough shape right now,'' Dean tells him. ''We have to tell her about the witches and what they did to her. That'll scare her enough. I don't want to add to that by telling her she's dying.''

''I understand that you want to protect her,'' Cas says. ''But this is her body. Don't you think she has a right to know what's going on with it?''

''That's not - It doesn't - Listen - '' Dean sputters uselessly for a helpless minute, trying to scrounge up a response to that. He can't find one. Cas is right. There's no way around that. There is no defense to this. He's right. It's as simple as that. Dean is not in a place to care about right or wrong at the moment. All he can think about is protecting her from more hurt. ''We're going to find a way to fix this,'' he finally manages to get out, adamant but shaky. ''We'll find a witch to repair the spell and she'll never have to know.''

''And if we can't do that?''

''Not an option.''

''Dean - ''

''No!'' The harsh tone of his voice doesn't seem to faze Cas much, but Dean still regrets it instantly. ''I need time to figure this out without stressing her. I can fix this. Cas,'' he's begging now. ''Please. Just give me some time before we tell her. Let me try. We'll keep an eye on her. I'll watch for anything weird. We can clean this up discreetly.''

''Even if we do find a way to fix this,'' Cas sighs, ''do you really plan on never telling her?''

Dean doesn't have an answer to that.

Cas looks down at the ground and takes in a breath. He doesn't say no. He looks like he's regretting every choice he's ever made that has led him here to this particular moment in time. But he doesn't say no. ''All right,'' he acquiesces, though he sounds reluctant. ''We'll try it your way. But,'' he holds up a hand, ''if we can't find a way to fix this - ''

''Cas - ''

''If we can't find a way to fix this,'' Cas says again, sternly, ''before she starts showing symptoms then we have to tell her.''

Dean pauses, teeth sinking into his lower lip. ''Deal,'' he nods. He makes sure to make it sound like he's telling the truth.

Cas sighs again, sounding tired. He never used to sound tired. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and stares, searching and unblinking, at Dean.

Dean can't seem to move under the scrutiny. Finally, he manages to look away. ''What?'' He mutters, gruff. ''Why are you looking at me like that?''

Cas doesn't answer for a second before saying, somehow both blunt and careful at the same time, ''You need to get some rest.''

Dean huffs out a laugh. ''Yeah,'' he agrees, wry smirk twisting onto his lips. ''That would be nice, wouldn't it?''

.

.

.

Mary's birth was difficult.

The entire pregnancy had been an unexpectedly intense challenge both physically and emotionally, but the actual labor and delivery part of it had been complete and utter misery. Laurel went eight days overdue, suffered through two shitty weeks of torturous stop and start contractions, sixteen hours of active labor, and she wound up pushing for nearly three hours. It was unreal. She tried pushing in every position imaginable but that baby did not want to come out until she was good and ready. She had, at the last second, decided to roll over and come out face up. Just to hammer it into their heads that she had inherited both her mother's stubbornness and her father's flair for the dramatics. Four years later and it still remains, without a doubt, the most intensely painful experience she has ever been through.

The arrow to the lung had hurt less.

She had not handled the rough labor gracefully. That is putting it mildly. The baby handled it fine, Dean and Alex were both calm, steady, and supportive, but Laurel was a wreck. She spent the entire duration of labor scared out of her mind, crying, and telling them that she couldn't do it. Despite all the research she had done, all the books and articles she had devoured, all the mommy forums she had lurked, all those stupid pregnancy apps she had downloaded, she wound up being completely thrown off guard by the overwhelming intensity of childbirth.

It was bad. She was just this sweaty, exhausted mess, sobbing and roaring her way through contractions and literally physically clinging to Dean like a lifeline. It was horrible, it was embarrassing, and she doesn't like to think too much about it.

Really, the only good memory she has is Mary being placed on her chest. Feeling her warm weight and seeing her little face for the first time. That was the only thing that even got her through the horror that was labor: she wanted to see her daughter's face more than she wanted the pain to stop. When she first came out, Mary was this gooey, pissed off, wriggly, alien looking creature that Laurel had absolutely no idea what to do with. She had no idea how to hold her, she was so out of it from the birth, and there was still a part of her that was wondering what the hell she was thinking.

But then she looked at her. She looked at her stubborn alien potato, she saw her eyes, and it was like the whole world stopped. It was still terrifying and she was still in shock, but it was amazing. She remembers looking down at the baby's tiny eyes, her tiny scrunched up nose, her tiny hands balled up into tiny fists and thinking, This is my daughter. It was a surreal feeling. It was like there was an explosion of fireworks in her chest. It was one of those oh, so this is what it feels like moments where you suddenly understand devotion in a way you hadn't before. ''Oh,'' she had mumbled, tears running down her cheeks. ''Oh, little girl, it's you. I know you. I know you.''

She's okay with remembering that moment. She doesn't mind remembering the night she wept and blubbered out, ''There's your face. Baby, oh my god, there's your face. You're so beautiful. You're perfect.'' She loves that memory. She's kept it with her since the moment it happened. The night she met her girl. The night she kissed her baby's soft and sticky forehead and whispered, ''I love you, I love you, my girl'' because she wanted that to be one of the first things her daughter heard. It's a good memory.

Everything else about that experience can, frankly, go suck it.

With that said, there is one other moment that she's thought about a lot over the years. Not because it was a good moment but because she's never been able to make sense of it. It was about two hours into pushing. She was fading fast, whimpering pitifully and mumbling that she couldn't do it anymore, and Dean and Alex had both started coddling her more than ever. He kept calling her baby - which he only ever does when she's in rough shape - and Alex had upped her motivational speaker voice to, like, a ten. They were bringing her pillows and ice chips, assuring her that she was doing a great job, and reminding her to rest as much as she could in between contractions. She was so tired that she could barely hold her own head up, in so much pain that she couldn't see straight, her stubborn baby would not vacate the damn premises, and there were all these complicated emotions building up in her chest and throat. She was hot, drenched in sweat, scared, and she was seriously regretting her decision to decline her grandmother's offer to be there with her during the birth. It was misery. She was incoherent, wrung out, helpless, and then, quite suddenly, there was this strange and overwhelming feeling of Sara.

She's never been able to figure out why it happened. Maybe it was just how emotional it was. Maybe it was because she had been thinking about Sara a lot during her pregnancy, full of grief because she thought her sister and her daughter were never going to meet. Maybe it was something else. All she knows is that in that moment, she swore she felt her. It was as she was right there with her. Even back then, when Sara was five years gone and seemingly lost underwater, she still had her cold hands wrapped around Laurel's heart.

Sara was her number one ghost back then. She was this lingering ache in her chest that never went away. When she thought about her in that moment, already overwhelmed, she just completely broke apart. ''I want Sara,'' she had pleaded. ''I want my sister. Please, please, I want my sister.''

She doesn't know what had made her think about her, but there she was. This gorgeous memory in her head, laughing and twirling and dancing. Feeling her presence hadn't helped to quell the rising panic knotted up in her chest that would soon turn into a full blown panic attack, but she hadn't been able to stop thinking about her. She thought of Sara, her first girl, forever young and wild, so beautiful and so alive - all the things Laurel never was - slipping under the dark water forever and she just thought, She is not here anymore. She left me. She left me here all alone.

Then she thought of her daughter, tiny and innocent, struggling to make her way into the big scary world, and she lost it. It was terrifying to think about bringing her into a world that could take her away so easily like it did with Sara. She was no longer afraid her baby wouldn't come out. She was afraid she would.

''I don't want her to come out,'' she'd wailed. ''I don't want her to come out!''

''Uh, well, Laurel...'' Alex had said slowly, eyebrows furrowed, no doubt confused by the abrupt change in Laurel's demeanor. ''She has to come out.''

Laurel, hysterical and completely out of it, was having none of that. ''No.'' She shook her head, eyes wide. She reached out blindly for Dean's hand and got his shirt instead, curling her fingers around the fabric. ''No, please, no. She has to stay in. She's safe in there. I don't...'' She broke off in a breathless sob, looking up at Dean with pleading eyes. ''I don't want her to leave me. I don't want her to leave me like Sara did.''

Dean and Alex had exchanged this quick, worried glance. They both looked so pitying. Neither of them had known what to say to that.

Still, Dean tried. ''Okay.'' He untangled her hand from his shirt and threaded his fingers through hers. ''Listen to me,'' he leaned in close to her, brushing stringy hair out of her flushed, sweaty face. ''She's not going to leave you, Laurel. And we're not going to leave her. I swear. I swear to you, baby. But she needs to come out.''

''No. No, no, no...''

''Yes,'' he said firmly. ''She does.''

She shook her head adamantly, trying to figure out how to coherently inform him that they had made the wrong choice to bring a child into their messy lives in a half ruined world like a couple of naive idiots. ''We're so stupid,'' was all she managed to mumble out. ''Dean, we're so stupid.''

''Well,'' he seemed to mull that over for half a second. ''Probably, yeah. Is that relevant right now?''

''I don't want her to go.''

''Honey,'' he whispered, mopping her face with a cold cloth. ''Where would she go?''

It was way too scary out here. Everything hurt. She hurt. She hurt all the time and she had never been able to stop the pain or even make it better. She hadn't wanted her child to have to witness that. She didn't want her to feel it. ''I love her,'' she'd confessed tearfully, in a very small voice. ''I love her so much. I don't want her to go.''

It was the first time she had said that. She wasn't sure why. She had felt that love since the moment she saw that tiny bean looking thing on the ultrasound screen. She had just been afraid to say it out loud. She told Sara that she loved her all the time. Where did her love get Sara? What good came from it? All life had taught her, would continue to teach her, was that when she loved someone, they left her.

She hadn't wanted her daughter to leave her.

That's the thing about life. That's the thing about her life. It's all a big joke to the universe. Someone out there derives too much sick pleasure from her pain to allow her to live an uncomplicated life. Irony is a cruel thing and it's not something she's ever been able to get away from.

Mary was born in a flurry of screams - both hers and her mother's - and she has never once left. Sara came home to her, a little darker and a little broken, but still undeniably her. Even Thea wound up moving in with them. It felt like she was finally getting a taste of what it felt like to be at peace for the first time. She had all her girls with her. She had her husband. She had the Black Canary.

And then she ended up being the one who left.

It happened suddenly, without warning, stealing her goodbyes, stripping away her agency, her dignity, and her life. She thought she knew what cruelty was before, but she had no idea. Not until that night.

She knows it's ridiculous to blame herself for what happened. She was murdered. She is a murder victim. It's not like she had a choice. That doesn't make her feel less guilty. She knows what it feels like to be the one left behind. She knows the pain in having to stay when someone you love leaves you. She does have a certain amount of culpability, doesn't she? She's not completely free of blame. She is the one who put on that suit. She threw herself into dangerous situations every night, knowing that there were incredible risks to what she was doing. Whether her intentions were righteous or not, death was on the table the moment she picked up that mask and she knew that. She made her choices and those choices led her to that prison on April 6th and that arrow in her lung. Darhk killed her. That's not up for debate. But maybe she let him. Maybe she could have done more to prevent it. Maybe she...

Laurel sighs heavily and sinks further into the passenger seat of the Impala. She rakes a shaky hand through her hair. No. No, she was not asking for it. That is not how it works.

It's just that one of the complications of getting her memory back is that she now knows how to recognize that no one is the way they were back in April. No one looks the same. No one acts the same. No one is how she left them. They carry shadows now. There are ghosts weaving in and out, exhaustion gnawing away at them, and everyone looks so unsteady. She is not arrogant enough to blame all of that on her untimely demise but some of it is because of her. How can she not feel guilty about that? She put the people she loves through unimaginable pain. She left them all behind to wade through the agony of her absence. She forced them to clean up her mess.

And she is going to do it again.

Laurel licks her lips and looks down at her hands. They still hurt. Her whole body hurts. Her fingers, her arms, her legs, her back, her head, her stomach. Every part of her throbs and aches like one giant laceration or bruise; the leftovers from her fight with her casket. She can't blame it all on her grave escape. Her bones feel too heavy. Her muscles, her blood, her skin. Everything feels heavy, like she's sinking under the weight of it all. It's different here. This world rocks and tilts, and she can't regain her balance. It takes time to come back.

Her throat hurts too.

She's not sure she can blame that one solely on her resurrection.

Here is what she knows: They will come for her. The people who did this to her. The witches. They will come for their weapon. This bizarre thing that's been asleep inside of her for her entire life, nestled in her blood, her cells, every piece of her, waiting for the right moment to pounce. If these witches went to all this trouble to bring her back to gain control of a power they somehow knew she had then she doesn't see them letting a pesky soul get in the way of whatever plans they've concocted.

She looks out the window at the dark, cloudy sky. The wind has picked up, whipping at the hair and the jackets of the people exiting the Target. There is a familiar feeling in the air; an electric calm, a low rumbling somewhere in the distance. There's a storm coming. She looks in the direction of the store entrance, craning her neck in an attempt to spot her husband.

She should leave. She should run. That is the only thing that she's been able to think about since she was told about all of this. She should run and never stop. At least not until she's drawn this coven of devious morons far enough away from her family. It's a solid plan. It makes sense. She's dangerous. Even without trying to be, she is dangerous. She shouldn't be around Mary.

She should scoot over into the driver's seat and make a break for it. The only problem with that plan is Dean. First of all, it's never a good idea for anyone to steal his car. Second of all, he would never let her go. If she runs, he will follow. He will follow her to the end of the earth and back again if she makes him. He will do anything to protect her. Even if that means he has to die trying. She knows him too well to think differently.

She slouches further down in her seat and looks up at the roof of the car. She takes in a deep breath, inhaling through her nose, holding it, and then exhaling slowly through her mouth the way all those relaxation apps taught her. It doesn't help, it's never helped, but she needs something to concentrate on that isn't...everything else.

She feels like she's had all of her energy drained out of her. It's not just the seizure that took everything out of her, it's the memories. Her life was a rough ride and having to remember that is a lot. She thought remembering would make this easier. It hasn't. For everyone else, it's been seven months since her death. It hasn't been that long for her. To her, it has only been hours, a day at most, since the arrow. She can still feel it, the sharp point of it pushing into her, tearing through her suit, splitting apart her flesh, sinking into her lung. She can still feel the way her lungs filled with fluid, the way she choked on her own blood.

She still feels sedated. Her body feels heavy and like it's not all hers. It's a sudden sinking, slipping sensation. The way it feels to fall when the bottom drops out without warning. She remembers feeling this way in that hospital bed, dropping in and out. She remembers Dean. She remembers the doctor and nurses. She remembers wanting so desperately to see Mary.

She remembers Death. Not the event itself, but the man. Seven months ago but also just last night, she was standing in an eerily empty hospital hallway in her hospital gown. There was no pain, no blood, and no grogginess left over from the anesthesia. There was just her and a calm, frail old man who was neither frail nor a man. She kept trying to run from him, sprinting down darkened and abandoned hospital hallways, but there was nowhere to go. She kept trying to get back to Dean but every door she ran through only led her back to Death.

''You don't have to be afraid of me,'' he had said softly, sitting beside an empty hospital bed, waiting. ''I am not something to fear.''

''You want to take me away,'' she countered, desperately trying to find a way to fight back, to go home.

He shrugged, unbothered by the accusation. He remained impassive, even as an image of her lifeless body on the hospital bed flickered. ''We all go away in the end,'' he said. ''This is the way of the world. Did you think your story would end differently?'' He stood up and she stubbornly backed away from him. ''Sooner or later,'' he told her, ''we will all have to leave.''

The world had filtered back in then. She remembers that - the moment it all came rushing back. It wasn't an empty room anymore. There was life bustling outside of the room, sirens wailing in the distance, a body in the bed that used to belong to her, and Dean was slouched in the chair beside the bed, looking at it. None of it had been real to her until she saw his face. She could have convinced herself it was all a nightmare but she couldn't deny the look in his eyes. She remembers crying as soon as she saw him. Pleading with him to look at her, to see her, to please hear her. More than anything else, she remembers being afraid.

''I know you may not believe this now,'' Death had told her, ''but I am not a punishment. I am a result of being alive. And you, Ms. Lance, were alive. Look out the window. Look at all the light you've taken with you.''

She had looked out the window at her city, the lights, the skyscrapers, the stillness and the quiet of the night. She looked at her husband, by her side, holding her limp hand. Her left hand felt cold without her rings. ''But I - I was just starting to feel it,'' she'd protested weakly. ''I waited so long to feel alive and now I have to go?'' Her voice had trembled dangerously and she had to press her lips together to keep from sobbing. ''How is that fair?''

''This isn't about being fair,'' he said. ''You have lived a difficult life, Laurel. Don't you think it's time for you to rest now? Wouldn't peace be a welcome relief?''

She swallowed. ''I didn't ask for peace.''

''You were a hero,'' Death told her, plainly. ''You saved countless lives. You fought for justice, even when they told you not to. You did what you believed was right. You had a marriage. You had a daughter. Your life had meaning. Is that not enough?''

She looked back at Dean, sitting there with his mouth pressed to the back of her hand. He didn't look like himself. It was like he had aged fifteen years in the minute it took for her to die. He looked destroyed. She hadn't been able to process the fact that it was the last time she was going to see him. She loved him - loves him - so much. It had been unfathomable to think that she could exist without him by her side. It still is. He's her husband. Her partner. As strange as it might be for some people to grasp, given the vast differences in their personalities, Dean Winchester is her best friend. She hadn't wanted to leave him. She certainly hadn't wanted to leave Mary.

''I wanted it to be longer,'' she admitted.

''I've been told it's not how long you live that matters,'' said Death. ''It's how you live.''

''I don't want to go,'' she whispered, though it sounded more like I don't want to be alone.

Death nodded at her, as if he understood, as if he was truly sorry for her loss. ''Very few people do.''

If she could have stayed without the risk of turning into an angry poltergeist, she would have. She would have stayed to watch her daughter grow. Even from a distance, from the shadows, even if they couldn't see her and she had to watch Dean move on and Mary forget her, she would have stayed. It doesn't work that way. It's never worked that way.

''Laur,'' she heard Dean choke out, mumbling into her skin. ''Come on, baby,'' he pleaded. ''Don't do this. Please don't do this.''

It was the last thing she heard him say.

''I thought I wouldn't be afraid,'' she'd said, a humorless smile crossing her lips.

''My dear,'' Death said, voice soft. ''We're all afraid.''

Laurel closes her eyes. It's hard to get away from that moment. Her memories of the minutes before she died are somewhat foggy. She remembers being in that hospital bed, she remembers she was talking to Dean, and she remembers feeling weird. Everything else is gone. She remembers every second of standing in that room with Death. She would love to forget the moment she allowed herself to let go.

She nervously fiddles with her wedding rings on the chain around her neck. Normally, this is the part where she would call her sponsor. Except she doesn't have one anymore. She doesn't have a sponsor or a therapist. They all think she's dead. From what Dean told her on the way here, her death was more public than her life ever was. There was a funeral, a well-intentioned but cruel unmasking, even a statue apparently. She lost her life and then had the leftover pieces of everything she built for herself stripped from her corpse in front of an audience. There is nowhere left for her to go.

She is alone in this.

She gnaws on her bottom lip and tries to recall the words to that mantra her AA meetings started with.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

It's a halfhearted thing; repeating these words in her head. God won't help her. He never has before. She has to save herself. But the words, even just the repetition of mumbling them under her breath, helps. She gets through it three times and then the driver's side door opens.

''Sorry,'' Dean says as he slips into his seat. ''Didn't mean to scare you.''

She shakes her head. ''That's okay. Did you get the - ''

He produces a box from the red plastic bag. ''Contact lenses.''

''Yes,'' she breathes out, relieved. ''Finally.'' As trivial as it may sound, she completely lights up when she sees them. It's like a weight has been lifted off her chest. The contact lenses are a small thing, relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but she's hoping they'll help her feel more like herself. She's never hated her glasses. It's just that they get in the way. Putting in her contacts has been part of her normal daily routine for so long. She really needs something to feel normal right now. She curls a hand around Dean's neck, leaning in to kiss the side of his mouth as she snatches the box from him. ''Thank you.''

He accepts her glasses when she takes them off and basically tosses them at him. He doesn't say anything for the longest time, but he also can't take his eyes off of her. A lot of people have been unable to look away from her today. It's like they're worried she'll disappear if they look away. She can understand that. She's wondering the same thing. She can feel him watching her as she puts in the contact lenses. He doesn't even complain when she steals the rearview mirror for herself.

She glances over at him before she moves onto the right eye. ''What?''

''Nothing.'' His lips quirk up into a small smile. ''I remember this.''

She's not sure why that makes her feel so sad.

They had countless mornings together. She'd be rushing to put her contacts in at the last minute. He'd be calling the time out to her from the kitchen, reminding her that she had an early meeting and not to forget her coffee on the kitchen counter for the third day in a row. She was a perpetually late person. In the beginning, it was because she decided to risk being late for a morning of shower sex. More recently, it's been because her daughter demands that they all have breakfast together. They had such a good life. Despite everything, it was so normal. They're not going to have that again. Theoretically, they could work their way back to some semblance of a normal life but it's not ever going to be the same as it was.

She swallows hard and focuses on putting the last contact in. ''I remember a lot of things,'' she comments, trying to sound as light as possible. ''You, Mary, my parents, Sara and Thea, Tommy, Sam and Cas. I remember when we got married. I remember having Mary. Becoming Black Canary. Big Sur.'' A sly smirk crosses her lips and she nudges his shoulder playfully. ''Those four days in Seattle.''

He blushes at that. He actually blushes. Not that it surprises her. Those four days in Seattle have always had the power to do that. What a way to get to know each other. ''Seattle,'' he murmurs, eyes crinkling as his lips pull back into a grin. ''Now that was memorable.''

She smiles softly, leaning back in her seat. ''Remember when we tried to recreate it on our first anniversary? Or,'' she cocks her head to the side, ''the good parts anyway.''

''Couldn't quite manage to recreate that level of adrenaline, could we?''

''Probably the lack of near death experiences.''

He chuckles warmly, handing over her glasses. ''I know you're probably getting sick of people asking you this question,'' he starts. ''But how are you?''

She shrugs her shoulders. ''Tired, mostly. It feels like everything...'' She takes in a gulp of air. ''It feels like everything is rushing at me all at once, you know? My whole life. I remember all of it. Even the parts I...'' It's hard to explain. It feels like she's reliving it all in her head. The memories won't stop coming. It's hard to think coherently when everything is so jumbled, spinning around in her head like a dizzying mess. It's hard to pick out what's real.

Life is easy. It all happened. There's no question about it. It happened, it's happening, it will happen. She remembers her life. The afterlife, everything that happened after she took Death's hand, is harder. Nothing worked the way it works here. Time and memory are fluid in the after, neither one of them constricted by the heaviness of life, of gravity and air, of flesh, bone, and blood. It's hard to pin down those memories. To remember what happened and what didn't.

The clearest thing she can remember, the part she's going to need to tell Dean about, is that she was not alone.

She presses her lips together. She tries not to think too much about who she was with. Who she left behind when she was yanked back down here.

''When I was little,'' she says, ''I had this stuffed elephant named Gwendolyn. It was the one thing my grandfather - my dad's dad, not Richard - gave me before he died. I loved it. I took it with me everywhere for years. I didn't even care when the other kids made fun of me. I lost Gwendolyn when I was seven,'' she says. ''We searched everywhere for that elephant. Tore the house apart. The car. We looked at the park, the library, the school, everywhere we could think of but it was just like she'd disappeared into thin air. I was devastated.''

Dean doesn't say a word to that, probably because he doesn't understand the current significance of a stuffed elephant.

She fiddles with her glasses nervously. ''I know where she is,'' she says, lifting her eyes. ''I remember where I left her.''

He stares at her. ''You...'' He blinks. ''Are you serious?''

''1172 Sassafras Drive. My grandparents' old house. In the attic.'' No doubt about it. She remembers it like it was yesterday. She remembers how hot and stuffy the attic was. How nervous she was up there in the darkness, sticking close to the streaks of sunlight streaming in the one tiny grimy window and clutching Gwendolyn while Sara giggled, completely at home in the dark. ''Sara and I were playing up there. We weren't supposed to go into the attic but Sara liked to play dress up with all the old clothes. We snuck up while Mom and Dad were at work, Grandpa was asleep on the couch, and Grandma was making dinner. She thought we were playing in our room. That's where I left Gwendolyn. Up in the attic. I'm sure of it. I guess nobody thought to look up there because we weren't supposed to be there.'' She tilts her head to the side. ''I wonder if she's still up there.''

''Laurel - ''

''I also remember the night I died.'' She doesn't mean to blurt that out so abruptly but she can't take it back now. They can't just not talk about it forever. She thinks it's likely that her death might have overshadowed the other loss that happened on April 6th but it still happened and she doesn't want to pretend it didn't. ''I remember everything about that night. The prison, Darhk, the arrow, the ride to the hospital, waking up from surgery. I remember the doctor. She was nice. Quiet. The nurses were all very sympathetic,'' she says. ''You know.'' She looks right at him. ''Because of our loss.''

Judging by the way he pales and looks away from her, she's going to guess he knows exactly what she's talking about. ''We don't have to talk about that,'' he rasps out. It sounds more like he's pleading with her rather than trying to give her an out. She wonders if he even bothered to cope with it over the past seven months or if he just pushed it out of his mind and pretended it didn't hurt.

''If I hadn't remembered,'' she starts, ''would you have told me?''

His response is quick and even. ''No.''

She's not surprised by that answer. ''Why?''

''I know you,'' he says simply. ''I know you well enough to know when you're going to blame yourself for something. I was hoping you wouldn't remember.'' He looks nervous, swallowing thickly. ''You're angry, aren't you?''

Actually, no. She understands his thought process. The situation is more complicated than it seems. ''No,'' she responds. ''Truthfully, I would rather forget.'' Not that she will. She won't ever forget. She closes her eyes and thinks of the past seven months. She and Dean spent their summer vacations in very different places. He spent those seven months here, on earth, with their daughter. She spent them somewhere else, in the after, wherever that was.

With their son.

''I don't want to upset you,'' she says. ''But I need to tell you something.'' She sinks her teeth into her lower lip, taking in a deep breath before she says, quietly, ''I wasn't alone.'' She glances over at him to gauge his reaction to that. He mostly looks confused. ''Wherever I was,'' she elaborates. ''I wasn't alone there. There - There was a boy. A baby boy.'' She breathes in deeply. ''He was ours. Or he would have been anyway.''

She watches him take in a breath, and then another, and another. ''That...'' He clears his throat. ''Oh.'' He's trying way too hard not to have an emotional response to this. He's also failing spectacularly. She can see it in his eyes. ''Okay,'' his voice sounds shaky. ''What does that mean exactly?''

''I don't know,'' is her honest answer. ''I don't know if he was specifically tied to the miscarriage that night, I'm not sure it felt like he was, but he was ours. I don't know how I know that. I just do. He was made of us. He was the baby we would have had someday. Either that or he was a figment of my imagination created because I was lonely. That's also a possibility.'' She smiles wryly. ''Probably a big one. But, um,'' she swallows the lump in her throat. ''He looked,'' her voice cracks, ''so much like you. We lived a life together. I raised him. I watched him grow. I remember him. At least I think I do. I don't know if it was real. But I know he was ours and he was so amazing. I'm sorry.'' She lets out a breath, blinking furiously, looking over at him. She is trying to stay calm and not turn into a blubbering mess right now but it's so hard. ''I'm sorry we never got the chance. I'm sorry I took that away from us.''

''Laurel.'' He still sounds shaken, but he rushes to place a hand on her knee. ''You didn't take anything from us. It wasn't your fault. You know that, right? You heard the doctor. It was really early on. We had no idea about the pregnancy.''

Laurel looks down at her hands because she can't bear to look at him. Oh, she really wishes that was the truth. She picks at one of the band-aids on her hand with what's left of the fingernail on her left index finger. She doesn't tell him what she's thinking. He doesn't ask any questions about their little boy, which is surprising but also a relief. She wants to tell him everything about the time she spent with their son but her memories are so flickery right now. She's going to need some time to make sense of it.

The beast of a car roars to life and instead of asking any hard questions or talking about painful subjects, he just starts talking about stopping by Krispy Kreme for coffee and doughnuts because he knows she loves Krispy Kreme. He is so happy to have her back. Even with the looming uncertainty and the mess surrounding her return, his joy and relief is palpable. She can see it in his eyes every time he looks at her. She doesn't want to give him a reason to look at her any other way.

Which is exactly why she can't tell him the truth about the pregnancy.

That night, when the doctor broke the bad news to them, it was just assumed that she hadn't known. Because what kind of selfish bitch walks into a dangerous combat situation knowing they're pregnant, right?

She knew.

That's the truth. She hadn't gone to the doctor, but she had taken a test. She took it on April 6th, actually, while she was debating over whether or not to accept that job offer. She didn't tell Dean. She wanted to, but she was scared. She needed time to process. They had come to a tentative agreement around Christmas time last year to start trying for a second child when she turned thirty one and they had been pretty lazy with protection since his birthday, so it's not like it was something unwanted or even that unexpected. It's just that talking about something and having that something suddenly pop up are two different things. She blamed so much on stress in those last few weeks. She was sent home from work a few days before the 6th and she had just told Dean it was food poisoning. But there's really only so much fatigue and nausea one can blame on stress.

She was nervous when she saw that plus sign - scared to go through pregnancy again, anxious about having two little kids, worried about finances, kind of mopey about having to hang up her mask - but she was happy. She was excited about her life, about what was to come. She knew she was pregnant that last night. And she put that suit on anyway.

Her choice to walk into that prison, her need for one last fight, was a stupid, selfish, and disastrous decision that not only cost her their child, but her life. If she had made another choice that night, if she had just stayed home, they would be living an entirely different life.

She can't tell Dean that. She can't tell anyone that.

''You know,'' he says slowly, voice bringing her back to the present. His hands are gripping the steering wheel and he's looking straight ahead of him. ''Whether he was real or not, I'm glad you had him.'' He looks over at her with a small smile. ''I'm glad you weren't alone. Either of you. Maybe...'' He hesitates. ''Maybe, one day, you could tell me about him. When you're ready.''

She nods, throwing him a brief, watery smile. ''When I'm ready,'' she says softly, ''I'll tell you everything about him.''

They allow the conversation to drift away from the unpleasant topic to cautious small talk about whether or not she's sure she's up to seeing her dad right now and how Mary's doing in preschool. She doesn't bring it up again for a long time. They make it all the way to Krispy Kreme and then to her father's apartment building before she asks the question that's been on the tip of her tongue since bringing up the subject. It takes her a large coffee and two fresh glazed doughnuts to gather up the courage to ask.

''Dean.'' She stops him before he can knock on her father's door, stepping between him and the door. ''Does anyone else know?'' She asks. ''About the miscarriage, I mean.''

He shakes his head. ''No.''

She frowns, scrutinizing him. ''No one? You didn't tell anyone?''

He shrugs, like it's no big deal that he apparently had no one to help him through that loss. ''It wasn't anyone's business.'' He shifts the box of doughnuts to one arm, reaching out to place a steadying hand on her waist instinctively. ''Hey.'' He stops himself, removing his hand. ''I don't want you beating yourself up about what happened. When we get this shit straightened out and everything's back to normal, maybe there can be another conversation,'' he says, somewhat reluctantly. ''About kids. Or no kids. Whatever you want.''

She smiles weakly. She reaches up a hand to touch his face. She doesn't know what else she can say so she leans up and presses her lips to his softly. ''I'm still sorry,'' she whispers, resting her forehead against his. ''If I hadn't...'' She shakes her head. She wraps one arm around the back of his neck, fingers snaking up to run through his hair. ''We would be getting ready to have another baby in a few weeks. Do you know that?''

''I know.''

''I'm sor - ''

''No,'' he cuts off her apology and pulls away from her to meet her eyes. ''Stop it. This is not on you, Laurel. None of it is.''

She doesn't waste her time with objections because she knows he'll just keep pushing her to forgive herself. ''I just don't want you to be mad at me.''

''Laurel, stop.'' He wraps her up in a half hug, still holding the box of doughnuts in one hand. ''I was never mad,'' he tells her firmly. ''Not at you.''

She can tell that's a lie just from the way he says it, but she really needs this conversation to be over before she loses it completely. She can feel the tears clogging up her throat. She doesn't want to be a mess when she sees her dad. Knowing him, he'll be blubbering enough for the both of them. As soon as she pulls away from the hug, she does the exact same thing she had been worried he's been doing and pushes it away so she can pretend it doesn't hurt. She huffs out a tearful and probably unconvincing laugh. ''Gimme those doughnuts,'' she mutters, snatching the box from him. Burying negative emotions in sugar is something she's been good at since she was a kid.

He raises an eyebrow, watching with what looks like morbid fascination as she tears into her third doughnut. ''You have a problem.''

''Yes,'' she nods. ''Sorry not sorry.''

''Listen,'' he says, reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder. ''I know I've said this before but I'll say it as many times as you need me to: I'm not going anywhere.'' He says it like it's the easiest promise in the world to make. ''You can't get rid of me,'' he tells her with the utmost sincerity. He leans in closer to her, offering her a lopsided smirk and a solemn swear of, ''I'm your ride or die bitch.''

She almost chokes on her doughnut. She was not expecting that. In hindsight, she probably should have. She releases a startled but genuine burst of laughter and can't help but inch her way into his personal space once more. She grasps a fistful of his shirt and yanks him down so she can kiss him like she means it. He's the one who deepens it. He is also the one who slips two fingers into the waistband of the yoga pants she's wearing and tugs her impossibly close. It's really inappropriate to be doing this on her father's doorstep. Also, she has a half eaten doughnut in one hand and the poor Krispy Kreme box is getting totally squished between them. She cares about exactly none of that when he kisses her like this. All she can think about is that his hands are warm.

His fingers are hot against the skin of her stomach, he tastes like coffee and doughnuts, and even though, to her, it hasn't been seven months since he last touched her like this, she suddenly realizes that she's missed him. She's missed this. Terribly. This is something warm and real and alive. She hasn't had that in so long.

The afterlife is, for the most part, made up of your recycled greatest hits. All wonderful and full of joy, but none of them were new. She may have made new memories with her son while she was up there, but she was unable to make new memories with her husband. You never think about that when you're alive. How much you'll miss the ability to make new memories.

The long moment ends, unfortunately, with an abrupt knocking noise. They draw away from each other reluctantly and slowly turn their attention to the closed door. ''Are you two done yet?'' Sara calls out from inside the apartment. ''Or do you need five minutes for some heavy petting and dry humping?''

''Did you just knock on the door from inside the apartment?'' Laurel retorts.

The door swings open. ''I could see you two were having a moment,'' Sara says, gesturing towards the peephole.

''You can reach the peephole?'' Dean asks, mockingly incredulous. ''That's impressive. Do they even have peepholes at the North Pole?''

''Oh, that's good. Because I'm short,'' Sara sneers. ''How original.'' She sticks her nose up in the air and turns back to Laurel. ''I didn't want to interrupt you guys being gross but you were taking forever. And I think it would be awkward if your husband fingered you right there. I mean,'' she throws her arms out. ''I get it. You're horny. But you're standing right outside our dad's apartment. Also, you were holding the doughnuts hostage.'' Then she reaches out, plucks the box from Laurel's grasp, and spins on her heel to go back inside. ''You can be gross later,'' she calls over her shoulder.

''You...'' Dean trails off, wrinkling his nose. Laurel can practically see the gears turning in his head as he tries to come up with an appropriate comeback. ''Your face is gross,'' is what he winds up coming up with.

Sara stops in her tracks, turning around to send him a look of utter disappointment. Even Laurel can't help but tilt her head up to look at him with an arched eyebrow and a downturned mouth.

There is a long silence and then he sighs, looking truly ashamed of that weak insult, and runs a hand over his face. ''It's been a long day.''

Laurel shakes her head. ''That's no excuse.''

''Mary could do better than that,'' Sara adds.

Laurel sends him one last look and wags her finger at him in disappointment as she shuffles past him into the apartment. She pops the rest of her doughnut into her mouth and immediately moves to sink into that old lumpy armchair that Dad refuses to part with.

''Dad's not here, by the way,'' Sara says. ''I finally managed to get a hold of him.'' Despite her initial excitement over the doughnuts and her ire at having them withheld from her, she doesn't take one, instead opting to place the box on the coffee table. ''He was at lunch with Mom.''

Laurel looks up. ''Mom's in town?''

''She came to town for Mary's birthday,'' Dean says, which is...surprising. Mary's birthday has only ever mentioned to bring Professor Drake to town once before. And that's only because she thought Sara would be at the party.

''Dad was on his way to drop her off at the train station,'' Sara goes on. ''I convinced Mom to take a later train so they're both on their way.''

Laurel opens her mouth, fully intending to thank her sister for doing all this but the words die in her throat. She nods, clamping her mouth shut and forcing back a wave of nausea. There is this strange, almost child-like kind of anxiety stirring in her gut at the prospect of being face to face with her parents. She wants to see them. She wants them to know she's here. It's just that, you know, it's her parents. She loves them with every part of her and she would do anything for them, but her relationship with them is complicated.

When it comes to her mother, the relationship is sporadic at best and mostly consists of emails and phone tag. She's tried her best to facilitate a relationship between her mother and her daughter but neither party seems especially interested. Her mother has never been much of a kid person and Mary has never liked strangers. There are wounds that have never healed between Laurel and her mother. The abandonment after the Gambit, her open disapproval of Dean, the passive aggressive digs at her parenting, and the fact that Laurel never turned into the person she wanted her to be. There's an ocean between them now. It's too deep for either one of them to swim across.

Her relationship with her father, on the other hand, is something else entirely. She's been a daddy's girl her whole life; forever willing to forgive his actions in ways she might not forgive her mother's. She has swept a lot of things under the rug in order to cling to that relationship. She's pushed a lot of things away, ignored a lot of bad behavior, because she wants her father's arms to feel like home. To feel safe.

Then she died.

She died horribly, brutally, suddenly, and the last thing Darhk said to her before he killed her was, ''I want you to give your father a message from me.'' That message was her. Arrow in her lung. Unable to breathe. Choking on her own blood.

She doesn't know how to sweep that away. She doesn't know how to pretend that didn't happen.

She looks up at Sara. Her sister seems more excited for this Lance family reunion than she is. She supposes that makes sense. This is not a widely known fact but Laurel and Sara grew up with very different parents. No matter how hard she tried to pretend she couldn't feel it, the division of love never quite felt equal. That's one of the many reasons why the idea of a second child scared the shit out of her. She didn't want to make a poor kid feel the way she felt.

Dean, as usual, has no trouble sensing Laurel's discomfort. He leans down, one hand on her shoulder, to whisper in her ear, ''We don't have to do this today.''

It's a sweet gesture, albeit slightly overprotective, but - yes, this needs to be done today. In theory, her parents have lived with her loss for seven months. They can probably survive another day. Except that seems cruel somehow. To be here, home, alive, and still allow them to believe she's gone. ''I'm okay,'' she says, reaching up to squeeze his hand gently, offering him a smile.

Dean doesn't look like he believes her but he doesn't argue. He looks between her and Sara and then mutters, gruffly, ''I need coffee.'' As if he didn't just throw back an entire extra large dark roast in the time it took them to get the doughnuts and drive here. He ducks out of the room, escaping into the kitchen, leaving the two sisters alone for the first time in... God, how long has it been? Even before April, they hadn't been together like this in so long.

Sara's eyes follow Dean as he leaves the room, her posture stiffening, lips parting like she wants to call out for him to come back.

Laurel doesn't mention it. She waits patiently for Sara to make the first move. In the meantime, she studies her little sister. Sara looks older somehow. Tired. Her posture isn't as straight. And she's skinny. She still looks like she could take anyone on and win but there is no denying she has lost some weight. Her cheekbones are sharper, her clothes baggier. Laurel has the sudden urge to force feed her the rest of the doughnuts and get Dean to make her a sandwich.

Sara perches herself on the coffee table, eventually dragging her gaze back to Laurel. She doesn't look her in the eye but she looks at everything else. Her eyes eventually fixate on Laurel's hands, studying the band-aids and the visible damage. Her mouth pulls down into a frown and she pales when she realizes what she's looking at; the horrors of resurrection and the scars it leaves you with laid bare in front of her.

Laurel tucks her hands under her legs and out of Sara's view. She can't wait for her sister to make the first move any longer. ''Sara,'' she says, keeping her voice soft, like she's talking to Mary after a crying fit or maybe a wild animal in her path. Finally, Sara looks at her. ''Are you all right?''

''I should be the one asking you that.''

''I asked you first.''

Sara fidgets, looking uncomfortable. She can't seem to keep the eye contact up, glancing in the direction of the kitchen once more.

''The last time you were this awkward,'' Laurel begins, trying to keep her voice casual and light. ''You were screwing my boyfriend behind my back.''

The uncharacteristic bluntness seems to scare the crap out of Sara because she whips her head back around to face Laurel at lightning speed, gaping. ''You... You don't think Dean and I - ''

''Oh,'' Laurel bursts into laughter. It might not be the most appropriate reaction but it is such an absurd thought. ''No. God, no. Trust me,'' she says, sobering and offering Sara a smile. ''I don't think that at all. I'm just making an observation. You have something on your mind. I can tell.''

''I have a lot on my mind,'' Sara admits. ''I'm...'' She licks her lips, picking at her cuticles nervously. ''Still processing.''

''I get that,'' Laurel nods. ''Me too.'' She doesn't say anything else, opting not to push the issue. She knows her sister. She'll come to her when she's ready. Not a minute before.

''I don't know how to do this,'' is Sara's eventual confession.

''Talk to me?''

''Yes. I mean. No...'' Sara releases a breath, dropping her gaze and rubbing her hands together. ''I don't know.''

''You can always talk to me, Sar-Bear.''

Sara lifts her gaze. She cocks her head to the side and scrunches up her nose. ''That's the thing,'' she says. ''You don't seem like you right now.''

Laurel thinks about that for a minute. It's not incorrect. She is not herself right now. She doesn't know how to be. Remembering who she was doesn't necessarily help her figure out who she is now. Who she's going to be. It's strange to think about. How you can be one person for so long and then end up being someone else entirely. But it happens. It happened to Oliver, to Sara, to Dean. This is their life.

A few years ago, while she was struggling with all of the returns of people she once knew but people she no longer knew how to navigate, Dean told her something. He said, ''Well, I was someone else once. For twenty-nine years, I was someone else. You've never met him. It's just what happens sometimes, Laurel. People can't stay the same.''

The first time Sara came back, while they were still working on repairing their relationship and getting to know each other again, there were these...moments. It usually happened in the quiet, while the sisters were sitting curled up on the couch watching a movie or during a lull in their conversations. Laurel would look over at this strange creature next to her, the one wearing her sister's face, and she would think, You are not my sister. It would just slam into her, this intrusive thought in the back of her mind.

It was true. It still is. Sara is not who she was. Now, neither is Laurel. People who meet her as she is now will never know who she was before. It used to be so unsettling to think about that kind of thing. How the entire shape of you can change. She understands now. Humans are ever changing. We are adjusting, adapting, developing, unfinished. We are constantly under revision. We are like water: the shape of us changes every day, every moment, every second. It's less frightening to think about when you realize that everyone ends in a different place than they start.

That doesn't mean the journey there isn't scary.

''Who am I then?'' She asks quietly.

Sara responds, uncharacteristically quiet, ''I don't know.''

Same, Laurel thinks, brief smile fluttering over her lips. ''I didn't know how to do this either,'' she admits. ''When you came back. I had no idea what I was doing.''

Sara smirks. It's weak and fleeting but undeniably her. ''Which time?''

Laurel chuckles. ''Both times.'' She leans forward, elbows on her knees, like she's about to reveal some deep secret. ''Everyone thinks goodbyes are the hardest part of life,'' she says, ''but it's the returns that take us apart. There's no guidebook.'' She stands up, moving closer to her sister to crouch in front of her. ''You don't have to know what you're doing right now, Sara,'' she tells her, reflexively reaching up to tuck a strand of Sara's blond hair behind her ear. ''None of us do. We're all just trying our best.''

Sara huffs out a small, breathy sounding laugh. She blinks furiously and chokes out, voice thick, ''I really missed you.''

Laurel straightens up, trying for a smirk. ''I'm easy to miss,'' she winks. She pats Sara on the shoulder, a gesture meant to be as comforting, and then turns away. She can feel Sara's eyes follow her as she drifts aimlessly around the apartment, but no more words are spoken.

It doesn't take her long to find her way over to the table beside the couch that's cluttered with picture frames. Her father's apartment is small and the furnishings are sparse, but he never fails to find room for pictures of his girls. Most of the pictures on the table are of Laurel and Sara at various ages but one of them is, curiously, a picture of her mother. It's an old picture, from before her parents were married. Mom looks young and fresh faced, her lips painted bright red, hair lighter and full of those wild curls of hers. She's laughing, head thrown back, eyes closed, looking blissfully happy.

Laurel has never seen that look on her mother's face in real life.

Dad used to keep this picture on his desk at their house. She hasn't seen it since the divorce. Yet here it is; out in the open for everyone to see. That's interesting.

All of the other pictures on the table are of Laurel and Sara. One of them on Christmas morning, wearing matching pajamas and matching grins for the camera. One of them is from Laurel's high school graduation. It's Laurel and Sara with their arms wrapped around each other, blowing kisses to the camera. Laurel's still in her cap and gown, cap sliding off her head. Sara has these horrible bangs. They look so young and so happy. They have no idea what's going to happen.

Another picture on the table is from 2014. It is the first - and only - Lance family photo to exist since 2007. It was taken a few weeks after that disastrous dinner. It was after her suicide attempt, after the hospital, while she was in the early steps of recovery, shaky but getting better. Mom had a conference in Seattle and she stopped by for an afternoon on her way back to Central City, insisting on a family lunch. Laurel hadn't wanted to go through another shitty Lance family meal - especially not when her sobriety was still something new and fragile - but she was - is - not very good at saying no to her family, so she went.

It's a nice picture if you don't look at it too closely. In the picture, they are on the pier. Mom and Dad in the back, Laurel and Sara in front of them with Mary on Laurel's hip. Everyone is smiling, squinting against the sun while the coastal breeze whips at their hair. Laurel looks closer. Too close to see any of that. All she sees is her mother with her arms thrown around Sara's neck in a loving, maternal gesture, her father's arm around her mother's waist, and then her and Mary, untouched and off to the side. It's not a picture of one family. It's a picture of two.

In all fairness, that divide is mostly on her. She had been livid when that picture was taken, which is evident in her hollow, wooden smile because... Actually, no. It is on them. In the picture, she is not looking at the camera. She is looking at Dean, apology burning bright in her eyes. He took the picture. He wasn't invited to be a part of it. He sat through an awkward lunch, bit his tongue when her mother started talking to her about Carter Bowen's marital status, handled Mary while Laurel tried to soberly interact with her parents and her sister, and he didn't even get to be acknowledged as family for a stupid picture.

Dean has never once been considered part of the family by her parents. Especially her mother, for some reason. Neither one of them have ever given a valid reason for disliking him. Just controlling possessive overprotectiveness from her father and a classist attitude from her mother. It's infuriating and bizarre, even for them. She knows that what happened with Oliver didn't just affect her and Sara, but Dean is not Oliver. She has never been able to get them to understand that. To his credit, Dean tends to brush it off fairly easily. At this point, she doubts he even wants a relationship with her parents.

Laurel presses her lips together and looks down at the picture. She looks at her own face. She looks at Mary. She looks at her father. Out of all of them, he and Mary are the only ones who look blissfully and obliviously happy. Unaware of all the tension and just happy to be together. She sighs, lips quirking up slightly. That's pretty much who her dad is when he's with them: totally willing to ignore the tension as long as he's got his girls with him.

''You three,'' he used to say, ''are all I've ever needed.''

She looks up from the photo to the one of her and Sara on Christmas morning. The focus of the picture is the beaming little girls, but her father is in the background. Blurry and out of focus, sitting on the couch, drinking his coffee in his pajamas, hair mussed, peaceful smile on his young face. Laurel places the picture frame back on the table and brings a hand up to her chest, over her heart.

''Penny for your thoughts?'' Sara's voice comes from behind her. ''Isn't that what Grandpa used to say all the time?''

Laurel paints on a smile and turns. ''I'm okay,'' she says, folding her arms. ''Really.''

Sara nods, looking thoughtful. ''I don't believe you.''

Laurel looks over at the door, expecting it to burst open any second now. The thought fills her with dread. ''Maybe I am a little nervous,'' she admits. ''About seeing Dad. I don't want to be mad at him. I don't want to blame him.''

Sara doesn't look like she understands that particular worry. ''Why would you blame him?''

Laurel grimaces. She runs a hand over her face. Chugging down a large coffee was a mistake. She couldn't even stomach bacon and eggs this morning and she thought devouring three doughnuts was a good idea? Especially given that her body is still adjusting to being up and functioning once again. The heavy emotions and stress certainly isn't helping either. It's all sitting in her stomach like a rock now. She's probably going to end up throwing it all up. She deliberately moves away from the family pictures, putting herself on the other side of the room. ''I didn't die because I was the Black Canary, Sara. I died because I was Quentin Lance's daughter.''

I want you to give your father a message from me, she remembers, Darhk's slithering, mocking, smug voice clear as day in her head. I want you to tell him I'm a man of my word.

She clenches her fists and has to force herself to breathe. Her stomach flip-flops nauseatingly. There is a sharp, stabbing pain in her lung. Right where the arrow went in. ''I didn't want to die,'' she says. She doesn't bother to look at her sister. She lets out a breath. A heavy feeling of restlessness settles on her shoulders. She looks around the living room with the walls too close together, the windows too small, the look on Sara's face too sad and pitying. She needs to get out. Away from here.

''I'm going to go help Dean with the coffee,'' she says, and then she turns on her heel and runs.

.

.

.

In the kitchen, her father's ancient coffee maker that barely works is groaning and thumping away, filling the room with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. The strong smell does not help the sick feeling in her stomach. Dean is leaning back against the counter, eyes glued to his phone. He looks up when the door swings open and as soon as he sees her standing there, panting slightly, wide eyed, most likely pale, he straightens. ''Uh, babe?'' He abandons his phone on the counter and takes a step in her direction, oddly cautious. ''You good?''

She physically cannot answer that question. If she opens her mouth, she's going to throw up all over her dad's kitchen floor. Her heart is racing in her chest, continuously slamming into her chest way too quickly. She feels sick and hot. She feels like she's being pulled apart. When she looks at him, everything is moving, blurry and distorted.

This is normal, she tries to tell herself. In this fucked up situation, this is normal. It is all part of the recovery, and recovery is often the hardest part. She knows that well. She needs to give herself more time to get used to being here again. She will heal. Things will get better in time. She is trying really hard to believe that.

''I...'' It comes out in a halting squeak. Everything is swaying and rocking. She can't find her balance here in this world. ''I-I'm fine,'' she manages.

She must be comically unconvincing because Dean levels her with a flat, dry look like he thinks he's on The Office. ''Sure you are.'' He's at her side in less than a second, gently pressing the back of his hand to her forehead. ''You're warm.''

''I, um...'' She just needs to sit down. Or lie down. Preferably in a quiet, dark, cool room where she can just breathe. ''I need to - I need to - fuck.'' She squeezes her eyes shut in an effort to get the room to stop spinning. Is she actually swaying on her feet or does she just feel like she is?

''Whoa, hey, Laurel.'' He loops an arm around her waist to steady her, which pretty much proves that she is physically swaying. ''You're freaking me out here.'' He leads her over to the kitchen table and pushes her into a chair before crouching down in front of her. ''Is this a panic attack?'' He asks, rubbing her knee comfortingly. ''Need me to grab you a paper bag?''

She shakes her head, instantly regretting it. The world lurches in front of her eyes and it feels like her brain is sloshing around in her head. She grimaces, swallowing thickly. ''Not a panic attack.''

He doesn't look surprised by that because this is nothing like what her panic looks like. He does look worried. ''What's happening then?''

She doesn't answer.

''Laurel.'' He sounds disproportionately panicked about this. ''You need to tell me what's going on here. What do you need? What can I do for you?''

''Nothing,'' she says. ''Nothing. I just need to breathe for a minute.''

He doesn't move, still staring up at her like he's worried she's going to drop dead. His concern is touching - and understandable - but she needs him to back off. She doesn't know how long she's going to be dealing with this and she needs him not to panic every time she feels shaky. Honestly, it's strange he even is. He's usually incredibly calm during her bad days.

''Can you maybe get me some water?'' She asks. Reluctantly, he leaves her side to get her the water that she doesn't want. She works on breathing through the waves of nausea and dizziness that just keep coming, keep sweeping over her. It helps to calm her heart palpitations but doesn't completely quell the shakiness.

''Are you sure you don't need a paper bag?'' Dean sets a glass of water down on the table beside her. He pulls out a chair, dragging it closer to her and taking a seat.

She takes a few slow sips of the water. ''I'm sure.''

''What about a garbage can?''

''What?''

''You look flushed,'' he says, still frowning at her worriedly. ''Do you feel like you're going to throw up?''

''No.'' She squirms. ''Yes. But stop talking to me like I'm our four-year-old, okay? I'm an adult. I can - '' She has to stop. She presses her lips together as her stomach grows talons and claws its way up her throat. She gulps it down. She breathes out. ''Get me that trash can,'' she hisses out through clenched teeth.

He grabs the thankfully empty trashcan from under the sink and then dutifully moves her hair out of her face, rubbing circles on her back while she white knuckles the plastic. She does not throw up - thank god for small miracles - but it's close. She does let out an unattractive hiccupping noise, though. He doesn't even flinch. He gives her a few much needed moments of silence while she impatiently waits for it to pass. She closes her eyes and focuses on the feel of her husband's hand on her back, the sound of her sister rustling around in the living room, the stillness of the kitchen, and her own breathing. The nausea passes and the spinning sensation dulls.

''You gonna let me in on what's happening?'' He asks, once she's opened her eyes again.

She moves slowly, placing the trash can on the ground and grabbing her water. She takes a few slow sips, not to settle her stomach but to stall. She's trying to figure out a way to tell him what she needs to tell him. She doesn't want him to think that she doesn't want to be here. She puts the glass back on the table. ''Everything was different. Where I was.''

It doesn't take him long to figure out what she's referring to. He draws away from her, sitting back in his chair. His hand falls limply to his side. She can't read the look on his face. She's always been able to read him like a book. She's a little perturbed that she can't right now. ''Where you were.''

''Up there,'' she clarifies, even though she doesn't need to. ''Or - I don't know. Wherever it is. Heaven, I guess.'' Heaven. She was in Heaven. That part is harder to comprehend than the actual dying part. She has no idea what to do with the memories of what it was like up there. ''It was just...different.''

She thinks about the home she had while she was there. The cavernous Victorian era farmhouse with the wrap around porch. Exactly what she always wanted. The acres of land surrounding them - from the vast garden to the meadows and fields to the woods to the huge lake. She thinks about the winding pathway that went down to the dock. She thinks about the birds singing in the trees. About her son playing in the tall grass in the field. Taking him for walks in the forest and trying her best to teach him about nature, even though she herself wasn't that knowledgeable about nature. She used to be a city girl. It's how she was raised. Strange that her soul would choose the exact opposite of city life as her eternal resting place.

Although it was gorgeous. Her specific slice of Heaven could be, at times, lonely. Not a bad place to be, but it felt half empty and incomplete somehow. Like she was waiting for someone. But it sure was beautiful. She doesn't mention any of these things to Dean.

''I'm not talking about emotionally,'' she says. ''Physically, everything was...'' It's hard to explain all this. ''I felt lighter,'' she decides. ''It was like I was weightless. Everything was wide open and - and still. There was no chaos. No rush. I was there, I existed, but it wasn't like being human. I was floating. I was everywhere. It was peaceful.'' She stops to take another slow, procrastinating sip of her water. ''Then I come back here,'' she says, lowering her voice, ''and it's all so small. And fast.'' She swallows down her discomfort. She doesn't want to look at him when she says this. It's a struggle to explain this. To put how she's feeling into words without sounding ungrateful. ''This body feels tired,'' she tells him. ''And heavy. Bones are heavy.'' She gives him a fleeting, wry smile. ''Did you know that? I don't remember how to carry these things around. Everything's moving, Dean. It's all spinning. I feel like I'm getting motion sickness just from standing or walking around or the earth moving. It's like I'm claustrophobic just from being confined to my own body.''

She has scared him with this confession. That much is evident. His eyes are burning into her, not quite as blank as he wants them to be. The worry is easily recognizable. He looks away from her, dropping his gaze down to the table. She thinks maybe she shouldn't have said anything. There are some things we have to carry alone. Not all burdens are created equal. She should have kept this one to herself.

''It's just going to take some time, I think.'' She keeps her voice desperately nonchalant, putting a smile on her lips that feels fake and nervous. ''It's all going to take some time. I'm - I'm unsteady right now, but I won't be forever. I just need to get my sea legs back.''

At that, Dean looks up. There is a new look in his eyes, overriding the worry: determination. He covers it up with softness - a smile and a squeeze of the hand. ''I know,'' he says. It doesn't sound like he's lying to her. ''You will.'' He moves his hand to her wrist, holding onto her loosely. It's clear to her just from the way he positions his fingers that it's not just a comforting gesture but one meant to check her pulse. She's not sure if he's checking to see if her anxiety is up or just to make sure she's still alive. ''I can give you time,'' he promises. ''We've got all the time in the world right now. Just, uh,'' he clears his throat, pulling his hand back slowly. ''Tell me when you're feeling sick?''

She nods. ''I promise.''

Dean looks at her with this carefully constructed mask on his face. There is something underneath it that she can't quite get to. Something he's not telling her. She's not sure how to feel about that. Trust is a funny thing. She spent a lot of years believing it was something easily given. Then Oliver happened. When the Gambit went down, when she lost Ollie and Sara, it broke her. She was grieving, she was angry, she was publicly humiliated and torn apart, left wounded and bleeding for all to see. It was hard to trust after that. Then Dean came along and he stuck around to earn her trust, patiently staying with her even when she was distrustful and paranoid.

She trusts him completely now. She trusts him with all of her. She trusts him not to be like every other man in her life, not to keep secrets, to control the narrative, to gaslight her, and decide what she can and cannot handle. They do not lie to each other. But right now, there is something he's not telling her. She can see it in his eyes, hidden away. Whatever it is, it's in his whole body and it's rattled him. She hopes, one day, he'll be able to tell her what he's locked away.

''I'm going to fix this, Laurel.'' The way he says it makes it sound like he's making her some grand promise.

She's caught off guard by the intensity of his declaration. ''Fix what?''

For a flicker of a moment, there is this wild, trapped look in his eyes. Like he's said something he shouldn't have and she's caught him red handed. ''All of this,'' he says eventually, awkwardly vague. ''Everything that's going on with these witches. We'll figure it out and then we can focus on getting you better and getting back to our life.''

She smiles. She hopes it looks happy and confident. ''That sounds nice.''

He sits back in his chair, watching her closely but not actually saying anything. She wraps both hands around her glass of water. Neither of them speak for a long time. The silence is not as comfortable as it once was. They are no longer the same people they were in April. That is going to take some getting used to.

When he does eventually say something, his voice is quiet and subdued and his question is slow and hesitant. ''Were you happy?''

Laurel tries to think about her time in the afterlife. She tries to sift through the confusion in her head. It's like remembering a dream. Some parts are vivid. Some parts are out of focus. There are gaps in her memories. It feels impossibly far away, like it wasn't real, like it didn't happen, but she knows it did. Time is strange. It doesn't work the way it does here. It's fluid and moveable. It passes quickly but you don't notice. It doesn't mean as much. The passage of time is not something one needs to pay attention to in the afterlife. Time is a human construct. Only they assign such meaning to it. Heaven, for her, lasted a lifetime. Several, in fact. It wasn't just seven months. Perhaps that's why it's so jumbled. She has lifetimes in her head now. It's hard to wade through all that.

''I don't know what I was,'' she answers, truthfully. ''But it was good.''

There was a lake where she was. Sunshine, a cool breeze, an apple tree. She remembers floating, drifting out on the water, relaxed and calm. She was so close to being at peace. At rest. Then, one day, she was out on the lake, enjoying the breeze, the shape and the sound of the water, and then everything changed. The sky clouded over, taking the sun from her, leaving her in a colorless, faded, gray world for the first time in years. The wind picked up, the water rippled, thunder rumbled in the distance, and her entire body started to tingle and then hurt. It took her a moment to realize that what she was feeling was fear because she had gone so long without it.

There was a crack in the sky when she was pulled out. It was this dark, gaping tear in the fabric of what had become her reality. Something jolted up out of the water and wrapped around her ankle, curling itself around her, and then it tugged, pulled hard, and she was dragged under the black water.

And then she woke up in the ground.

She can still feel that vine-like whatever around her ankle. She is somewhere in the middle now. Most humans don't realize that. They don't understand that their short lives exist in the middle. The in between.

Laurel looks at Dean. She looks at his eyes. The fine lines around them. She looks at his hands. His lips. His shoulders. She thinks of Mary, grinning and giggling while she sticks band aids on her forehead. She thinks of Sara, of Thea, of Sam and Cas, of her parents. The middle is not such a bad place to be. Everything moves fast here. It spins and knocks her off balance, yes, but this is where her family is. In the end, that's all that matters. ''I'd rather be here,'' she says honestly. ''Heavy bones and all. I'd rather be with you.''

He looks relieved. ''I'm glad.'' He cups her cheek in his hand, rising to his feet and leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. He lingers for a second too long, just long enough for her eyes to flutter closed, entire body relaxing at the proximity, and then he pulls away.

She turns down his offer of a cup of coffee and settles for watching him make his. ''So what did I miss while I was away?''

He pours himself a cup of coffee, handling the sorry old coffee machine as if it's about to fall apart in his hands. ''New Ghostbusters movie.''

''Yeah? Did you see it?''

''I did. I got ambushed by a bunch of waywards. They kidnapped me.''

She laughs. ''Was it at least a good movie?''

''Yes, but I was sitting next to Claire. Did you know she talks through movies?''

''I did, yes.''

''Even Mary doesn't talk that much.''

''Well, she has a lot to say. Can't let any of those sarcastic quips go unsaid.''

He releases a soft and warm chuckle, eyes crinkling. ''Clearly.'' He stirs some sugar into his black coffee and then sits back down at the table with her. He takes a single sip of his coffee and then the second he places the mug on the table, she reaches out and steals it. She sips at the coffee and doesn't give it back. He arches an eyebrow at her and she grins at him over the rim of the mug. This is familiar territory. He doesn't bother to protest, undoubtedly used to this by now. Just shakes his head, visibly pushes back a smile, and gets up to make himself another cup of coffee. She grins and leans back, propping her feet up on his vacant chair. ''Oh, hey,'' he pipes up, helpfully pouring some cream into what is now her coffee. ''The summer Olympics.''

''Aww.'' She looks up from swirling her coffee around half-heartedly to mix in the cream. She forms her lips into a pout. ''I missed the Olympics?''

''Watching gymnastics wasn't the same without you critiquing their routines and yelling I coulda been a contender at the screen.''

''Well, I could've been,'' she insists.

He snorts around his mouthful of fresh coffee. Once he's dumped some more sugar into the mug, she reluctantly moves her legs from his chair, pulling them up onto hers, knees to her chest. For a second, the only sound is the sound of his spoon clinking around in his mug while he stirs his drink. Then, after he takes another gulp, he says, almost like he's confessing to a crime, ''I took Mary to Kansas over the summer.''

She sips at her coffee. ''You did?''

''In July,'' he nods. ''I needed to get out of here.'' He lifts his cup to his lips. ''We went and stayed at the bunker for a couple of weeks.''

''How did that go?''

He huffs out a bitter laugh. ''It was a shitty couple of weeks. Maybe not for her,'' he allows. ''She thought it was a special vacation. She must have had fun. She didn't want to leave.''

''No?''

''There's a pool there.''

''There's a pool in the Men of Letters bunker?''

''Guess the old librarians had to get their exercise somehow, right?'' His lips quirk up momentarily. ''Sam found the pool a few weeks before we went up there. He and Eileen cleaned it, fixed it up, and everything. All I had to do was fill it up. Figured we might as well work on her swimming while we were there.''

Laurel chews on her top lip. There are these pieces of memories in her head of being in the lake with their son. When he was two, five, ten, thirteen, seventeen, twenty-one. She taught him how to swim there. She watched him splash around. She tried to teach him how to fish. She heard him call out in morning before breakfast, ''Mom, I'm going for a swim!'' On his sixteenth birthday, she sat on the edge of the dock with him and they talked about the father and the sister he never met. She told him that he looked like his dad, that he had his sister's love of nature, and then she pushed him in the water and when he surfaced for breath, he was laughing.

Except he wasn't. There was no laughter. No lake. No boy. None of that actually happened. Or maybe it did. She's not clear on that part. If her son was a figment, created solely to keep her from being miserable, then the life she lived with him was fictional. If he was real, the echo of a lost child or one who was supposed to exist if she hadn't gotten herself skewered, then that means she left him up there without so much as a goodbye. Which is worse? A lie or a ghost?

She places her mug on the table and gnaws on her fingernail, watching Dean through her eyelashes. Everyone thinks that they know what life is. What choice means. Humans believe they understand what it means to exist. They don't. Not really. They can't. You only learn that after it's over.

Dean is still talking, telling her all about Mary learning to swim. How she still doesn't have it down but she's doing better. She doesn't know what to do with her hands, he tells her, and she doesn't like being fully submerged in the water with her eyes closed. It's too dark, apparently. Laurel almost wants to laugh at that. Yes, she understands that fear. The darkness of water is definitely something to be afraid of. Maybe Mary gets that from her.

''She went horseback riding while we were up there,'' Dean adds.

The words abruptly tear her out of her thoughts and send her crashing back to reality. ''What?'' Horseback riding. She swallows. Mary loves horses. They're her favourite animal. Always have been. Even if she's never seen one in real life. ''She did?''

''I was...'' Dean stops. ''Things were bad,'' he eventually says. ''I didn't want her to feel that. I wanted to make sure she had a good time, and you know how much she loves horses.''

She tilts her lips up into a half smile. ''I do.''

Her little girl adores horses. One of her first words was ''pony.'' She talks about them all the time. She spotted a coloring book full of horses at the store once and carted it around and when they got to the checkout, she just stood there, peering up at Laurel with her big innocent eyes, clutching the book to her chest, until Laurel sighed and bought it for her. Mary spent the rest of the evening naming every horse in the book.

Around Valentine's Day, with the idea of a second child weighing heavily on her shoulders and her 31st birthday looming just around the corner, Laurel had asked her daughter, ''How would you feel if Mommy and Daddy had another baby? Do you want a little brother or sister?''

They were outside in the backyard. It was wet and rainy, and Mary was looking for earthworms. At the mention of a sibling, she pushed up the hood of her bright yellow rain jacket, and looked up at her mom with a scrunched up nose. ''No, thank you'' she had said, simply. ''I want a horse please.'' At least she had been polite about it.

One of her most prized possessions is her footie pajamas with the horses on them. They don't fit her anymore. They haven't for awhile. Laurel vividly remembers cutting them up, making patches, and sewing the patches onto a blanket so that Mary didn't have to lose her favourite pajamas. It was the first time she had sewn anything since home economics in high school. She had almost failed that class. Dean had offered to do it but she had wanted to feel useful, had wanted to feel like she was more than just some crappy part time mom. It took her way longer than it would have taken him. She made him write down a play by play of what she was supposed to be doing. It took those instructions, several YouTube tutorials, and a call to her grandmother, but she made that blanket. Mary loved it. She giggled, jumping up and down on the couch and yelping out, ''Oh! Oh! Horsies! Daddy, look, it's my horsies!''

Laurel had spent years looking forward to the day when Mary finally got to see a horse in real life. And she missed it.

''She was so happy,'' Dean says. His voice is hushed. He sounds like he's unsure whether he should be telling her this. ''I didn't tell her where we were going. I wanted it to be a surprise. Then when she got out of the car and saw that horse...'' He trails off. It was months ago and he still sounds awed by the experience. It makes her throat ache. ''I thought she'd be shy. At least at first. Just because it's Mary,'' he goes on. ''But she wasn't. I think she would've been happy just to pet the thing but when she actually got to ride it,'' he chuckles lightly. ''You should've seen the look on her face when she was up there, Laur. She was thrilled.''

She can imagine. She used to do that a lot. She used to imagine taking Mary to meet a real live horse all the time. She and Dean even tried to make it happen for her third birthday at a farm just outside the city but the plans fell through. They were always so busy. They thought they had time.

There's a pricking behind her eyes that she tries fervently to ignore and blink away. ''She rode a horse,'' she whispers.

''She rode a horse,'' he confirms.

She wraps her arms around her legs and rests her chin on her knee, trying to swallow the sob rising in her throat. ''I wasn't there to see it.'' A few stubborn tears escape, dripping down her cheeks. Irritated, she squeezes her eyes shut to prevent more from leaking out.

''Shit,'' he sounds regretful. ''Honey, don't cry.'' She can feel his hand on her cheek, thumb brushing away tears. ''I'm sorry. I shouldn't have - ''

''No.'' She shakes her head adamantly, wiping at her eyes. ''No, I want to hear these things.'' She puts her legs down, feet on the floor, and scoots her chair closer to him. ''I want to hear everything I missed. Especially when it comes to Mary. Do you have pictures?''

''Oh, uh.'' He pulls back. ''Yeah, of course. You want to see them now?'' He is already fishing his phone out of his pocket before she even has the chance to nod. When he hands his phone over to her, the first thing she sees is Mary, mid laugh. She is sitting atop a horse, wearing a riding helmet and her little purple rain boots that she loves so much. Someone is leading the horse around the pen, hopefully slowly and carefully, and she looks so delighted. Laurel can practically hear her girl's overjoyed laughter in her head. She flicks through the pictures of Mary with the horse - and there are a lot of them - and watches a couple of videos, and she studies the look on her face in every picture.

One of the pictures near the end is of Mary with her arms around the horse's neck, nuzzling it. The horse is either very well trained or too old to give a shit because it doesn't seem to care that a tiny human has attached herself to it. It almost looks as in love with Mary as she clearly is with it. That look on Mary's face is incredible to see. There's nothing better.

There is also a deep and fragile kind of pain. It is sharp and right in her chest. She missed her daughter's first time riding a horse, something she had wanted to see so badly. She missed her daughter's first day of preschool. She missed firsts. She never anticipated missing any firsts. She probably should have, but she didn't. Even knowing the risks of what she did, she thought she would be there for these things. She thought she would get to stand in the mud with Dean and snap an obnoxious amount of pictures of Mary's first horseback ride.

''It's hard,'' she admits, quietly. ''I missed so much. Seven months is so long. It's practically a lifetime to a four-year-old.'' She blows out a breath, pushing a hand through her hair as she hands the phone back to him. ''A four-year-old,'' she murmurs, disbelieving. ''She's four now. She wasn't four when I last saw her.''

''Laurel.'' His voice sounds impossibly gentle as he leans across to grasp her hand. ''Listen to me. Seven months is a long time. It is. We can't go back and fill the empty space. But we're going to fill up the rest of our lives with brand new memories that we make with her.'' He genuinely sounds like he believes what he's saying. ''You missed the horses,'' he says, ''but you're not going to miss anything else. She's got a lot of firsts ahead of her. You're going to be here to see them.''

She manages a watery smile at that. She hopes he's right. She reaches out to touch his face, resting her palm against his cheek. She used to tell their son about his dad every night. What a brave, kind, wonderful man he was. She told him stories about Dean, about Mary, about how much they would love him if they met him. She told him those stories every night for years. ''Thank you,'' she says. ''For taking her to see the horses.''

He leans into her touch and brings a hand up to gently squeeze her hand. He moves back and her hand falls away. ''Might've been the one thing I did right.''

She raises her eyebrows. ''What does that mean?'' She doesn't get an answer. ''Honey,'' she prods.

''I made a lot of bad choices while you were gone,'' is what he says. ''A lot of shitty, selfish choices.''

''Well, nobody makes the right choices all the time.''

''Does that really justify it?''

She doesn't know what she's supposed to be justifying. ''It's not a justification. It's an explanation.'' She wraps both her hands around her cup of coffee but doesn't bring it up to her lips. ''Pain is brutal and demanding and - yeah.'' She lazily lifts a shoulder in some kind of aborted half shrug. ''It's selfish.'' That's an undeniable fact. She knows that selfishness well. ''The selfishness of pain is not unforgiveable, Dean.''

That's something her therapist used to tell her. When she was in recovery, fresh off a suicide attempt and still fragile, she carried around so much guilt over what she put her family through when she was at her lowest. Her therapist told her, in no uncertain terms, that her pain was not unforgivable and that she was not some horrible person for hurting. It makes sense now. It was harder to swallow back then. She imagines it will be similar for Dean. She still needs to say it. She has nothing else to offer him and she needs to give him something. ''Obviously it's not a one size fits all kind of situation and some things are worse than others,'' she goes on, ''but survival can be a twisted and ugly thing.''

''Is that what it was?'' He smiles coolly. As expected, he doesn't look like he believes her. ''Survival?''

''You're still here, aren't you?'' She moves her chair closer to him, bringing her hand to his wrist. ''Do you remember after I got sober when I kept trying to thank you for saving my life? Do you remember what you said to me?''

He sighs. ''I have a dim memory.''

''This survival is yours,'' she recites. ''That's what you said to me. I kept that with me every day.'' She moves her hand to his back. ''Sweetheart, this survival is yours.'' She doubts that is going to penetrate the wall of guilt that he has built around himself for whatever reason, but she needs to say it. ''I don't know what happened while I was gone. I don't know how bad it was, how much pain you were in, but you survived it. You made it through. This survival is yours. It belongs to you.'' She loops an arm through his and leans in close to him, offering him an encouraging smile. ''I'm proud of you,'' she tells him softly. ''You were still here when I came home to you. You have no idea how grateful I am for that.'' He still doesn't respond, which is not unexpected. He does this; laughs off praise, ignores compliments, makes some dumb joke because he's uncomfortable with kindness. She leans her chin on his shoulder, peering up at him. ''Do you forgive me for leaving?''

That gets a reaction out of him. ''You were murdered,'' he says firmly. ''There's nothing to forgive.''

''Okay. Well, if you can forgive me for leaving then you should be able to forgive yourself for staying. Even when you didn't want to. Especially when you didn't want to.''

He laughs then, an exhausted rumble. When he looks at her, his eyes are soft and warm, but she can see the bits of incredulity. ''How do you do that?''

She draws away from him slightly and reaches for her mug again. ''Do what?''

''Know what to say.''

''My brain sends a message to my mouth.''

''Smart ass.''

''You love my smart ass.'' She doesn't know. That's her secret. She doesn't know what to say. She never knows. The words find her. She says what her foolish heart believes they want to hear. What they need is usually something different. She's never been able to get those words out of her throat. For instance, right now. She will keep saying all these sweet words, she will hand him all of the kindness she has to give, and maybe it will comfort him but none of this will make him truly believe that he deserves to be forgiven for living while she died. Or for whatever atrocities he committed in her name. ''I don't know how I do it,'' she says. ''I just love you. I want you to feel better. I'll do what I can to get you there.''

He takes her hand, careful not to aggravate any of her injuries, and lifts it up so he can kiss the back of it. ''See,'' he says, very seriously. ''It's things like this that make me your ride or die bitch.''

She laughs again, quietly, and leans in to kiss him. He is still holding her hand. When she pulls away from the brief kiss, she looks down at his thumb rubbing circles on the back of her hand. She blinks as this flash of a memory hits her right between the eyes. She tugs her hand out of his grasp and lays her palms flat on the table. ''I didn't sing to him the way I do with Mary.''

It takes him a second to catch up to that. When he does, he visibly swallows. ''No?''

''He didn't like songs,'' she says, smile flickering on her lips. ''He liked stories. So I told him stories.'' This is very strange to talk about. This child she's remembering - this boy. She can't be sure he was real. If he was, that means she ''lived'' lifetimes without Dean but with their son. That's so unfair. Whoever thought Heaven would be unfair? ''Most of them were about you,'' she says, pulling her lips up into a smile. ''You were the one he asked about the most. I told him stories about everyone. All the people who would have loved him. None of them held a candle to you.'' She licks her lips. ''When he was little, it was every night. He asked what you looked like. All the time. He said it was so that if he ever saw you, he'd recognize you.''

It was a sweet thing and she answered the question, but it was naive. There were no other people where they were. It was just them. Always. ''He stopped asking as much as he got older. I think when he was a kid, he used to think that you were going to come and get us and take us home. Then when he got older, he realized that we were too far out of reach and you couldn't - you couldn't get to us.'' She takes a slow sip of her coffee to wash down the taste of ashes in her mouth. ''He'd still ask about you, though. Even when he was a teenager. He would ask over breakfast or he would be helping me in the garden and he would ask me to tell him all about the time his father saved the world.''

Dean looks like he's having a hard time grasping all this. Not because it's unbelievable because nothing is unbelievable now. They have seen enough to know that. It's the fact that there was a child he didn't know. One he never met. It's the fact that her timeline is different than his. She gets that. She's having a hard time understanding time right now too. ''It wasn't seven months for you,'' he breathes out. ''Was it?''

''No,'' she admits. ''It was longer.''

''I would have come for you. I tried.''

''I know.'' She places her hand over his. ''I know. I'm not telling you this to make you feel bad. You didn't fail us, Dean. There was nothing you could have done. I'm telling you this because I have two lives in my head now.'' She shrugs and tries to make herself sound calm. She is not calm. Not at all. She's sure he knows that, but she's trying.

Her memories of the afterlife are both tangible and intangible. They are there but they are still jumbled. They filter in and out, these flashes of a home, a child, some form of peace and rest. Some of them are disappearing like wisps of smoke. It's chaos in her head right now. She wants to say these things out loud, to tell Dean all about their son, to put her memories of him out there in the space between them. Real or false, she needs these words to be as close to tangible as possible. If these memories slip away from her permanently the longer she's here, if she loses their son completely, she wants him to exist somewhere, even if it is just in these words.

''I want you to know that he loved you,'' she says. ''Even though he never got a chance to meet you. All he ever wanted was to know his father, so I made sure to give him all the pieces of Winchester I could. Including his name.''

''You named him after me?'' He sounds weirdly blown away by that. Out of everything she's saying right now, that is the part that seems to floor him.

''I named him Henry.''

There is a faraway look in his eyes when she says that. She can't tell if it's pride or grief. It's hard not to think about the life they could be living if that day in April had ended differently. There's no guarantee that the baby would have been Henry, but she can't help but wonder. If one of the many different earths in the Multiverse is exactly like this one except with a different end to that night then she hopes that version of herself is grateful for the life she's living, the baby she's about to have, and her beating heart.

''Wow,'' Dean says suddenly. ''Our kids kind of have boring names, don't they?''

There is a beat of silence and then Laurel bursts into laughter. Hysterical laughter, to be precise. It's a good thing they're alone right now because she has a feeling anyone else would be reprimanding him for ruining the moment. It's like when she was pregnant and they would both affectionately refer to the baby as the parasite or the blob or, her personal favourite, alien invader. They freaked out so many people. People get really weird about fetuses.

One time, when she was a week overdue and contracting miserably through an awkward family dinner, she grumbled out something like, ''Somebody needs to draw this little shit a map.''

Dean reacted to that like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. Sam rolled his eyes. Her father looked like he was seriously considering preemptively calling CPS on them.

Another time, when she was craving sushi and soft cheeses that she couldn't have, she had jokingly grumbled, ''Man, she's not even here and she's already ruining my life'' and Joanna had looked horrified. She kept sending her worried looks for like a week straight.

She'd told Dean about it when she got home, just to see if she was really that out of line, and his only response was, ''Wait, what the fuck? You can't have cheese? Who wants to live a cheeseless life?''

She has learned over the years that she and Dean have a tendency to feed off each other when it comes to their unapologetically dark and self-deprecating sense of humor. ''It's a really good thing we found each other,'' she gets out, once she has managed to stop laughing. ''Because nobody else thinks we're funny.''

''Their loss,'' he retorts. ''We're hilarious.''

She chuckles again, leaning in to peck his cheek before rising to her feet. She snatches the water glass off the table and shuffles over to put it in the sink. She's mostly testing to see if she still feels wobbly but she needs something to do with her hands. She still feels mildly dizzy but things feel a bit better for the time being. It's strange to feel so out of place here. She's never felt that before. Even when she was at her worst, she never truly felt like she didn't belong. Not in this way. Laurel puts the glass in the sink, absently rinsing it out even though it only had water in it.

''Okay,'' Dean says from behind her. He sounds serious again. ''My turn. I need to tell you something.''

She turns around, leaning back against the counter, arms folded. ''The new Ghostbusters movie wasn't really that good?''

''You have an Earth Two counterpart.''

The barely there smile drops off her face. ''Oh. Well, I...'' She shifts on her feet nervously. ''I figured we all had counterparts there.''

''That might be true,'' he says cautiously. ''But yours is here.''

She doesn't say a word. All she can think, even if it is irrational, is Holy shit, they replaced me. I'm replaceable. She swallows thickly. She knows that's a huge leap, but she can't help it. It does sound like something that would happen. ''When you say she's here...''

''Not here here,'' he clarifies, rising to his feet. ''She's in Central City.''

She nods slowly, still working on processing. This is - well. Not the weirdest thing that's ever happened to her, but it's up there.

He takes his spot beside her, leaning back against the counter. ''It's a long story,'' he says. Judging by the way he says that, she's guessing it's a messy story. ''She's in the pipeline.''

She snaps her gaze to him, alarmed. ''The pipeline? You mean the unsanctioned prison where The Flash puts villainous metahumans?''

He grimaces. ''That'd be the one, yeah. She,'' he looks away, ''made different choices in her life.''

Oh.

Yikes.

Laurel sighs heavily.

''So,'' she clears her throat. ''I dug myself out of my grave and now I have an evil doppelganger.'' She turns to look at him, brow furrowed. ''Am I all the characters from Buffy?''

He snorts, eyes crinkling. ''Well,'' he allows, ''there is a lot of leather flying around in your story.''

She grins, but it's lukewarm at best. She's still stuck on the fact that she apparently has an evil twin. ''She's a meta?''

''She is.''

''What's her power?''

He sends her a sidelong glance. ''It's what you think it is.''

''This is real,'' she blurts out. ''This is really real.'' She lifts a hand to her throat. It's better than it was. There's still a lingering dull ache but it doesn't burn the way it did. There's no overwhelming pressure like there was before. ''I'm...'' She cannot bring herself to say it out loud. If she says it, that means it's real and if it's real that means they can never go back. Her entire life is something else now. Her body is something else.

''It looks that way,'' his voice is quiet.

''I don't understand.'' She pushes off the counter and walks away from him, putting herself on the other side of the tiny kitchen. ''I wasn't anywhere near the particle accelerator explosion.''

''I know.''

''How did this happen? Has this thing been inside of me since the beginning? Just waiting? If it's always been here, what does that mean for - What have I done to Mary? What could I have passed down to her?'' She's tripping all over her words, stumbling around uselessly, barely able to get the words out. It's a horrifying thought; that this could one day happen to Mary. That she could ever be made to feel that excruciating burning feeling in her chest and throat, like fire is crawling up her throat but instead of her organs melting inside of her, it's just this awful, uncontrollable, destructive wave. She doesn't want this thing, whatever it is. She certainly doesn't want Mary to have it.

None of the things she's saying seem to take Dean by surprise in any way, shape, or form. The look on his face tells her that these are all things he's thought about. ''That's why I think we should talk to her,'' he says, taking a step towards her.

''Her as in Dark Laurel?''

''Dinah,'' he corrects. ''And yes. Think about it. She's lived with this thing for years. She knows how to control it. I think she can help you.''

''Would she help me?''

That one he doesn't have an immediate answer for. He leans back against the counter. He bites down on his bottom lip thoughtfully. ''I think she can be convinced,'' he says. ''If I talk to her.''

She arches an eyebrow at him. She has several questions. She feels like she needs to ask him how he knows Dinah Doppelganger. How they met. What kind of relationship they have. These are the questions she should be asking. She's just not sure she wants the answers to them. She doesn't think it's something she wants to ponder right now. She looks down at the ground and thinks, instead, about this - this... Canary Cry. That's what it is. A Canary Cry. One she never asked for. Nevertheless, it is one she got.

She lifts her head to meet his eyes. ''Am I dangerous?''

His response is quick. ''You're Laurel.''

''Yes,'' she agrees. ''But am I dangerous?''

His silence is answer enough.

She attempts to open her mouth to ask him if he really thinks it's safe for her to be around Mary right now, but she's cut off by the sound of the front door opening and the muffled, faraway sound of her father's voice. She stands up straight, heart leaping up into her throat. She's trying her best to keep her nerves under wraps but Dean must be able to see right through that because he immediately says, ''Last chance to make a break for it down the fire escape.''

''Dean.''

''I'm just putting it out there. Say the word and we're out the window.''

She pats his cheek. ''You're sweet, hon, but you know I need to see them.'' She doesn't give herself long to get ready for what is inevitably going to be a whole lot of crying. If she takes too long, she will chicken out. She takes in a deep breath and then she spins on her heel and pushes through the door into the living room.

Her dad is standing there with his back to her and his attention on Sara. He's asking her what the emergency is, if she's all right, if she's hurt, if Mary's hurt. He sounds tired and frantic. Laurel's entire mouth goes dry when she hears his voice.

Her father is the first person she sees. Her mother is the first person who sees her.

She's standing over by the door, both hands clutching at her purse straps. There is a suitcase at her feet and she looks troubled, gaze focused intently on the back of Sara's head. And then she looks up. She looks up and there's her dead kid standing there staring at her. She has to do a double take. Her eyes widen, her jaw drops, and she goes through exactly three seconds of shock before her entire body crumples in relief. She doesn't look as surprised by this new development as one might expect. ''Laurel.'' She says her name so softly. Laurel has never heard her mother say her name like this.

At the sound of her name, her father stiffens, standing up straight, leaning away from Sara. He doesn't turn around.

Laurel is not sure what the protocol is here. What does she say? Does she just say, Hey, what's up? Should she add on an I'm not dead anymore? It feels redundant to say those words. She's standing here, trembling and sucking in oxygen. Seems like proof enough.

Dad turns around. He seems to do it reluctantly, as if he is afraid the universe is playing a cruel joke on him and she'll be gone by the time he gets to her. Given their luck, it's not an unfounded fear. She is still there when he turns around. He doesn't say anything right away. She's not sure he could if he tried. He just looks at her. This expression crosses his face, this crashing wave of shock and awe and love. She doesn't think she will ever be able to understand the way he must be feeling. She can't imagine losing Mary. She doesn't want to. Losing her daughter is something unfathomable and unspeakable. She would not survive it. She doesn't know how her parents have managed to live through that three times.

It must be horrific to lose a child. It must be utterly overwhelming to get them back.

''Hi, Daddy,'' she greets. They are the first words she has spoken to her father in seven months. She can't remember what the last ones were. She thinks it was a quick ''talk to you tomorrow'' accompanied by a distracted kiss on the cheek outside a restaurant. He was looking at his phone. She was cold, Dean and Mary were already in the car, waiting for her, and she just wanted to get home. They didn't know that would be it. How could they have known? What would they have said if they did?

He is still looking at her like she's a ghost. ''How is this...'' He takes a step back, looking worryingly shaky on his feet. ''Are you real?''

''I'm real,'' she assures him. ''I'm right here.''

''How?'' Now that he's looked at her, he can't seem to tear his eyes away from her. ''How are you here?''

''Would you believe me if I said it was magic?''

Abruptly, he swings his attention over her shoulder, eyes darkening. ''You.'' He points an accusing finger at someone and she turns her head, following his gaze straight to Dean. ''What did you do?''

Dean's reaction to that is to throw his hands up in the air, exasperated. ''Why does everyone keep asking me that?'' There's a pause in which every member of the Lance family stares at him incredulously. He rolls his eyes. ''All right, I can see why people keep asking me that.''

''He didn't,'' Sara steps in. ''He didn't do this. This is, um...'' She drifts off, looking at Laurel for help.

''A long story,'' Laurel supplies.

Her mother does not seem to be as apprehensive about this. ''I knew it,'' she declares. She drops her purse and rushes to close the distance between them, enveloping Laurel in a tight embrace. ''I knew it,'' she repeats, murmuring into Laurel's hair. The hug doesn't last long because she pulls back, bringing both hands to Laurel's cheeks to look her over. She smiles at her, a smile so close to the one in that picture. ''I told you, Quentin,'' she says. ''I told you our girls always come back to us.''

Laurel looks over at her father. He is still looking at her like she's about to disappear in a puff of smoke. ''I know that this is a shock,'' she says, looking back and forth between her parents. ''But I'm here. I'm me. I'm home. I - I'm sorry for the pain you must have - ''

She never gets to finish her sentence.

Her father cuts her off by stepping into her space and wrapping his arms around her. He holds onto her tightly, one hand on the back of her head, burying his face in her hair. It takes her a second to realize he's crying. It is not a perfect moment. She would love to say that the second his arms are around her all is forgiven and forgotten but it doesn't work that way. She can still hear Darhk's voice in her head. She can still feel the arrow. On her last night alive, she was turned into a pawn in a game. As devastating as it is to think about, the fact of the matter - as upsetting as it may be - is that things may have gone differently if her father had made different choices.

If he and Oliver had told her that her life was in danger, that Darhk was blackmailing him by threatening her and Mary, if they hadn't kept that a secret from her for months and justified it by telling themselves oh, well, Laurel can take care of herself, things might be different. That's just something they're both going to have to live with now.

But all of that matters less than she thought it would. He is still her dad. She still loves him completely. She always will. They went through so much together, just the two of them, in the wake of Sara's death and her mother's abandonment. There is comfort and safety in his arms. There always will be.

''Laurel,'' she hears him whisper, sounding awed. ''Baby,'' he mumbles, ''it's you.'' When she hears his ragged voice, thick with tears, she can't help the tears that spring to her own eyes. She pauses, just for one split second, then she relaxes into the warmth of his arms, and she closes her eyes, home again.

.

.

.

It's been a long day. It has been the world's longest day.

After spending some much needed time with her parents, Laurel wisely allows Dean to take her home so she can take it easy for the rest of the day. She does not intend to sleep. There is way too much going on. She has things she needs to do. If she's alive now, she can't waste time. But Dean talks her into lying down for a few minutes, just to rest her eyes, and she's too exhausted to protest. As soon as her head hits the pillow, she's out. She sleeps for nearly five hours.

She wakes up once because she can hear Mary, overtired and grumpy, crying somewhere in the distance but she is so out of it that she can't move, can't make herself get out of bed to go check on her daughter. All she can do is lie there and listen to Mary throw a fit because she's hungry but she doesn't want goldfish crackers because it makes her feel bad to eat something that's smiling at her and she doesn't want grapes because ''they're not frozen!''

She must doze off again because the next thing she knows, the bedroom door is banging open and she hears Dean's voice shout, ''Mary Beatrice Winchester!''

Laurel lifts her head weakly, instantly spotting her little girl standing in the doorway. Mary looks grouchy and unhappy, she's still wearing her pink puffy coat, and for some reason, she's dragging both her Little Mermaid pillowcase and her patchy horse blanket after her. ''Mom!'' She screeches. ''Mommy!'' She scampers farther into the room, narrowly avoids tripping and falling on her face, and climbs up onto the edge of the bed. The second Dean appears in the doorway and says her name in his stern Dad Voice, she shrieks again and crawls over to Laurel.

''Mary,'' Dean's voice is softer this time. ''You can't bug Mom right now. She's not feeling well.''

Mary looks greatly offended. ''Not buggin' her,'' she declares, defensive. Then she tacks on an aggressive sign of, Go away.

He does not look impressed. Laurel is half-asleep and too tired to laugh, but she does snort at the look on his face. ''It's fine,'' she mumbles. She shoves herself up into a half sitting position. ''It's fine. She can stay.''

Mary sticks her tongue out at Dean.

''Mary,'' Laurel warns. ''That's not nice. Here, come here. Let's get your coat off.''

''Uh, no,'' Dean starts. ''She's refusing to - ''

Mary unzips her pink coat and holds her arms out, waiting to her mother to take the jacket off. She doesn't protest or squirm, just smiles innocently and slightly adoringly up at Laurel. Laurel glances at Dean just in time to see him throw his hands up in surrender and most likely exasperation. She manages to push back a small smile, helping her daughter out of her coat and handing it off to him. He accepts the tiny jacket. When Mary reaches into her Little Mermaid pillowcase and randomly pulls out a pair of swimming goggles with a declaration of, ''Daddy, I don't need these,'' he accepts those as well, although he looks mystified as to why she had them in the first place.

''We're okay,'' Laurel tells him, making sure to send him a soft smile to convince him. ''We're just going to lie down for a bit. Right, honeybee?''

''I'm not tired,'' Mary says, but flops down onto the bed anyway.

''That's okay,'' Laurel murmurs. ''We can just talk.''

That seems to make Mary happy. It usually does. She loves their ''talks.'' People don't tend to want to have deep, meaningful conversations with small children. Laurel has tried really hard, from the day Mary was born, to talk with her as much as possible. Not just because she does speech therapy exercises with her, but because kids have thoughts and opinions too. Some of the best conversations she has ever had have been with her daughter. Children's minds are strange places, yes, but that's not a bad thing. She doesn't always have the answers to the questions Mary asks, but they're often very valid questions. She does her best to make sure Mary knows that.

''Okay,'' says Dean. He waits for Laurel to settled back into the bed, watching as their daughter burrows herself into her side, and then he leans down to kiss their foreheads. ''Shout if you need anything.''

Laurel wishes he would join them because he looks like he's running on empty, but she knows he'd never admit to that, so she just nods and lets him slip out of the room with the pink jacket and the sparkly purple goggles. She looks down at Mary, tilting her lips up into a smile when she sees Mary's big green eyes peering up at her. She looks oddly pensive for a four year old. ''Something on your mind?''

Mary yawns and rests her good ear against Laurel's chest, listening for her heartbeat. ''You're still here.''

She runs her fingers through Mary's dirty blonde hair. ''Of course I am.''

''I like that,'' Mary decides. ''I like when you're here.''

Laurel swallows. ''Me too.'' She drops a kiss to the top of Mary's head and then requests, softly, ''Tell me about your birthday party, little bird.''

Mary lasts ten minutes, voice growing softer and softer, and then she's out. Laurel manages to keep her heavy eyelids open for a few minutes, one hand stroking Mary's hair gently, watching her sleep, and then she closes her eyes and drifts off again.

When she wakes up again, a few hours later, with Mary still tucked into her side, drooling on her shirt, the whole house smells delicious and her stomach is rumbling. She expects to venture out of the bedroom and find Dean and a small group of family setting the table. She does not expect to stagger groggily out of the bedroom, disheveled and still a little out of it, with an equally sleepy Mary on her hip, and find a house full of people waiting for her. That is exactly what happens.

Turns out when you die and then mysteriously come back to life, people become reluctant to leave your side for too long.

Listen, she does understand that. When Sara came back, when she really came back, Laurel couldn't stop staring at her. The night Sara's soul was restored, the night she was finally her again, alive and breathing, she was so tired that she could barely talk. They managed to get her into a warm shower and get some food into her, but then she was out like a light, tucked into her big sister's bed. Laurel didn't sleep a wink the entire night. She managed to convince her father to lie down on the couch and get some rest and Dean wound up falling asleep on her shoulder at about three in the morning, but Laurel didn't dare close her eyes. She just sat on the ground with her back against the wall, watching her sister's chest rise and fall until the sun rose.

So she gets it. She understands that her family and friends have missed her and that they just want to be with her right now. It's flattering, but it's overwhelming. There are a lot of people hovering around her and everybody is talking to her all at once. Her parents want to talk to her about getting legally resurrected as soon as possible. Oliver wants her back in the DA's office and he's already talking about press conferences and what to tell the public. The team wants to know when she's going to be ready to suit up and get Black Canary back on the streets. The Winchesters want to talk about the witches.

It's a lot. She hasn't even been back for twenty-four hours yet. She knows that these are things that need to be dealt with sooner or later but she has other plans for tonight. She wants to spend time with her daughter, who does not like all these people invading her space at all and who seems to have attached herself to her mother's hip. She wants some alone time with her husband. She really wants to talk to Thea. She feels like she has talked to everyone but Thea. She wants to check on her, see how she's doing, if she's okay, apologize for leaving and for scaring her when she came back so wrong, and she needs to thank her for everything she's done for Mary over the past seven months.

This would be easier to do if Thea wasn't avoiding her.

In a group setting, Thea's fine, but whenever Laurel tries to catch her alone, she makes some excuse to leave the room. The flat out rejection stings, and it is not them. Communication is the cornerstone of their relationship. That was an agreement they made a long time ago. When people around you are keeping secrets from you and turning your life into a string of miscommunication, you realize how much honesty matters. It doesn't feel right to suddenly not have that.

Eventually, the impromptu welcome home party starts to wind down and Laurel is able to sneak away for a few minutes to help Dean get Mary into bed. When she comes back out, ducking into the kitchen to pick at leftovers, she manages to catch part of a conversation between Oliver and Thea. They're sitting in the dining room, with an open box of what must be cold pizza in front of them, talking in low tones. Laurel doesn't bother to announce her presence, hiding behind the kitchen door.

''It's not that I'm not happy she's back,'' she's saying. ''Of course I am. This is a miracle.''

''I sense a but coming,'' Oliver says. He doesn't even bother to look up from picking mushrooms off a slice of pizza.

''I don't know how to talk to her,'' Thea admits.

''What do you mean you don't know how to talk to her?'' He sounds confused. ''Speedy, it's just Laurel.''

''Except she's not,'' she insists. ''And we're not...'' There's a pause. Laurel presses herself up against the door, out of sight. ''She's not who we lost,'' says Thea, ''and we're not who she left. There's no way to go back to that.''

''...No,'' he agrees, after a minute. ''No, I guess there's not.''

Laurel risks another peek around the door just in time to see him slide the mushroom free slice of pizza over to her. He takes his own piece from the box in front of him, taking a bite of it, mushrooms and all. Thea doesn't even pick at the piece of pizza her big brother painstakingly de-mushroomed for her as if she's five years old.

''I mean, Ollie, I can't even listen to Landslide without breaking down in tears.''

''Well, that's weird.''

''The other day I was twenty minutes late to work because it came on the radio and I was crying in the parking garage.''

''That's why you were late?''

''I don't even know why,'' she says. ''It just reminded me of her.''

''Thea - ''

''We buried her,'' Thea points out. ''We mourned her. Are we just supposed to pretend that never happened?''

He sighs. ''I don't know.''

''I didn't think there would still be...'' She shakes her head. She tears off a tiny piece of the pizza crust and chews it slowly, most likely stalling. ''I used to think that if she would just come back home, everything would be okay. It's not okay. I don't understand. Where do we put the grief now?'' She sounds so helpless. ''I'm happy she's back,'' she says firmly. ''But she still left us here, Oliver. How do I look at her and not feel all that pain?''

''Well,'' Oliver tries. ''How do you look at me? I left you. For a lot longer than she ever did. How do you look at me without hurting?''

Thea doesn't answer the question.

Laurel steps back, away from the door. She has spent enough time comforting Thea over the years to know that it does still hurt to look at him. Maybe it always will. The truth, whether he ever acknowledges it or not, is that Thea's brother got on that boat and he never came back. Someone else did, wearing his face, talking in his voice, smiling his smile, but he is not him. It's an impossibility. The same thing happened to Sara. It makes sense that Thea would be worried about it happening to Laurel. Everything she's saying makes sense.

Sometimes people leave and they don't come back. Even when they're sitting right in front of you, they're not really there. All you're left with is the mess. Laurel would like to come back. She would like to be more than a mess.

She would like for Thea to be able to look at her.

Later that night, after an embarrassing attempt at a shower that ends in a panic attack and a bath instead, the house is quiet and Laurel is finally alone. Thea and Mary are both in bed, Dean is helping Sara get the couch ready because she refuses to leave, and Laurel is in the bedroom, in the quiet. She's doing her best not to think. She doesn't want to think about anything. She sits at her vanity and goes through her nightly ritual with numb fingers. She towel dries her wet hair, she combs it out, working on the tangles slowly and carefully, and then she piles it all on top of her head in a messy bun. She takes out her contacts. Puts on moisturizer. Looks down at her hands, free of bandages once again. She doesn't think she's going to bother bandaging them tonight.

She presses her lips together and stares at her reflection in the mirror. She looks like Laurel. She's not sure what she was expecting. It's not like there isn't tangible evidence of what she's gone through written all over her body. She is littered with cuts, scrapes, and bruises. Her whole body is a reminder of what happened to her. Why does she need more than that?

She folds her damaged hands in her lap and stares at the image of her pale face. ''You've made an awful mess of things,'' she tells the woman in the mirror.

She looks away from her reflection and rises to her feet, padding over to the closet and the full length mirror hanging on the back of the door. She pauses for just a second, and then she pulls the tie on her robe. She takes in the sight of her naked body with a sharp inhale, eyeing the bruises distastefully, raking her gaze over the cuts. Reluctantly, she settles her focus on the scars right above her right lung. From the arrow. The surgery. They look fresher than they should after seven months. The mottled flesh is still angry and pink. If she runs her hand over it, pokes at the wound, it still feels tender. She pinches her lips together and tilts her head to the side, eyes fixated on her scarred body.

Generally, she does not give much thought to scars. They exist, she has them, people she loves have them, but that's about it. She's not traumatized by them and she's not turned on by them. They are just there. Scars exist to remind you that you lived through whatever experience left them behind. These ones are different. She didn't live through it. She is alive again, but she did not survive that arrow.

Everything else on her body belongs to her.

The tattoos - hers. She picked them out. They mean something to her. She chose to have them put on her body, to keep them with her every day of her life, because of what they mean to her. She wanted them. Her beating heart is drawn in ink on her skin. These tattoos are a part of her. Manifestations of important times of her life scrawled on her skin for the rest of her life.

The stretchmarks, those silvery strips of flesh on her abdomen, hips, and breasts - a result of carrying her daughter. Pregnancy was the hardest thing she's ever done and she hated every minute of it, but it also gave her the most amazing gift she has ever been given. Mary is her entire life, her entire world, so she will wear those stretchmarks with pride.

All of her other scars, whether they're from saving her city or some kitchen mishap when she was sixteen, are all representations of choices she made. They are things she survived, mistakes she learned from. Her body is a map of where she has been. How far she has come. It is a map of her heart. Everything here is hers.

Everything, that is, except for these new scars.

Gently, she brushes her fingers over the raised skin and gulps down the bile rising in her throat. This is Darhk's. This part of her belongs to him. Just the thought makes her skin crawl. He is deader than a doornail now, torn to pieces by an enraged Winchester, body salted, and burned, the ashes separated and buried in so many different corners of the country that no one will ever be able to piece him back together again no matter how dark the magic. He's dead, but he still won. She shivers. It's not because she's cold. She has to look away from the scar, swallowing hard.

''You know,'' a voice says from behind her. ''You could cover that up.''

Laurel startles, pulling her robe shut and whirling around. Dean is just stepping into the room, closing the door behind him. She relaxes when she sees the small smile on his face. ''You mean with makeup?'' She closes the closet, hiding the mirror away.

''You could use makeup,'' he says. ''I was thinking something more permanent.''

That is tempting. It does sound like something she would do. She tends to commemorate the big events in her life with tattoos, and what's bigger than dying and being resurrected? ''I don't know what I would put there,'' she says. ''Maybe you could draw me something.''

He laughs. ''I don't think you want something I've drawn on your body forever.''

''Don't be so modest,'' she scoffs. ''I've seen the bestiary.'' She wanders back over to the vanity, poking at his lower back with a grin as she passes by. She plops down on her chair, glancing at her reflection once more. She rests her elbows on the table, propping her chin up in her hands and watching in the mirror as he turns his back to her and peels his Henley over his head. A slow, sly grin spreads across her lips.

It's nice to know that even after seven months and literal death, the sight of him shirtless still gets her motor revving. High five for their marriage. She straightens up, absently playing with a tube of lipstick as she ogles her husband. He tugs on a gray t-shirt and a pair of black sweatpants and doesn't even notice her staring at him. He looks distracted. She bets she could get him to focus on her.

''Is it weird that I'm not tired?'' She asks, swiveling in her chair.

''Kind of. You did have a nap,'' he says, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

''I can't seem to shut my brain off,'' she tells him. She stands and makes her way over to him. She thinks about her options. It has been an awfully long day. They should get some rest. Or maybe they could just sleep in tomorrow. It's been such a long time, you see. Seven months for him. Years for her. It would be nice to just be with him. She's missed sex. She's not ashamed to admit that. It would help to get her mind off everything that's happening. He's always been good at getting her to the point of no return. ''Maybe,'' she proposes, stepping into his space, ''you could help me with that.''

He looks up at her. More specifically, he looks at her lips. ''Laurel,'' he says. That's all he says. He sounds uncharacteristically unsure.

She says, voice low, ''I missed you.''

He licks his lips. ''Are you sure?''

''Am I sure that I missed you?''

''You know that's not what I'm asking.''

''Am I sure about having sex with my husband? Hmm.'' She ghosts her fingers over the back of his neck and then runs them through his hair. She pretends to mull over the question. ''Pretty sure.''

He presses his forehead to her hip, chuckling warmly. When he pulls away, one of his hands moves to fiddle with the tie. For someone so apparently nervous about this, he sure seems impatient to get her naked. ''I just meant - We don't have to do this tonight. You just got back. If you need time - ''

''Dean.'' She lowers herself down onto his lap, winding an arm around his neck. ''Do you think I'm doing this as a favor to you? I know we don't have to do this. I want to.'' She leans down to catch his lips in hers. She knows she's been through a lot, but she is not some delicate flower. She is capable of having sex. Plus, orgasms are proven to help with stress. Usually, he's all for helping her de-stress. ''Unless you're not up to it,'' she mumbles against his lips, even though she doesn't think that's going to be a problem.

''Seven months,'' he groans out. ''Trust me. I'm up.''

''I noticed,'' she hums.

''We're going slow,'' he says, as he unties her robe. ''I'm serious. You tell me to stop, and I'll stop.''

''I know. I trust you. I've always trusted - '' Her sentence is drowned out by a shrieking giggle as he flips her over onto her back and covers her mouth with his. She kisses him back, fingernails scratching down the back of his neck. Dean is, not unexpectedly, a good kisser. He does this thing with his tongue, this incredibly pleasurable swirl thing, and it never fails to send electric shivers down her spine. When he kisses her, she feels it everywhere. Kissing is just the tip of the iceberg. For instance, that swirl thing he does with his tongue? It's even better when he does it when he's going down on her.

Just FYI.

The thing about being with someone for the better part of a decade is that, eventually, you know all their moves. You know where things are going to go. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Not at all. In fact, it can even make things better. It ups the anticipation. Especially when you know it's going to end somewhere amazing. And this is going to end somewhere amazing. He's going to make sure of that, she can tell.

Dean has moved his lips to her collarbone, seemingly intent on marking her and giving her a hickey like they're two kids in the back of his car. He's pushed her robe out of the way to splay his hand over her bare abdomen. When his hand starts moving south and he pulls away from her, she knows exactly what's about to happen. Laurel is so ready for this. It's been years. It hasn't really been years but it feels like it's been years and she really needs this. She suspects he does too. His mouth is hot on her skin and he's just reached her belly button, fully intending on moving lower, and then -

The door opens.

There's no time to react. She does hear the doorknob turn but there's no time to call out a warning or push him away before the door opens. There is a high-pitched shriek and then something hits Dean on the back.

''Oh my god,'' Thea's voice cries out, sounding startled and mortified.

Laurel doesn't say anything because she's laughing too hard, but she throws a hand over her face. Dean hurries to cover her up with her robe, pulling it around her body, and she then hears his voice, incredulous and offended as he questions, ''Did you just throw your phone at me?''

''I don't know!'' Thea yelps. ''I panicked!''

Finally, Laurel is able to pull herself together enough to look at the interloper.

Thea is standing in the doorway, red as a tomato, hands clapped over her eyes, and she looks positively horrified. ''I can't unsee that,'' she moans. ''My entire life flashed before my eyes.'' Dramatic, but okay. ''Why does this always happen to me?''

''Because you don't - '' Dean stops, abruptly. ''Wait, always? How many times have you walked in on people having sex?''

Thea doesn't answer, but she groans in humiliation.

''Maybe you need to learn how to knock,'' he suggests.

''Maybe you need to learn how to lock your damn door,'' Thea bits back, though there's no real heat or malice in her voice. She still has her eyes squeezed shut and her hands pressed against them.

Laurel calmly ties her robe shut and pats down her hair. She thinks, in all honesty, that it's a good thing Thea interrupted when she did. A few minutes later, Dean would've had his head buried between her legs, and then the poor kid really would've gotten an eyeful. ''You don't need to keep your hands over your eyes, you know,'' she points out kindly.

Dean gets to his feet, retrieving Thea's phone and slipping it into the pocket of the oversized red hoodie that undoubtedly used to belong to Roy.

''I'm choosing to err on the side of caution,'' Thea says.

''Hey,'' Sara's voice is a mask of forced cheer as she pokes her head into the bedroom. ''Did I hear screaming?'' She's wearing the white fluffy bathrobe that Dean stole, without regret, from the hotel in Big Sur and her hair is twisted up in a towel on the top of her head. Her right hand is noticeably hidden behind her back. She's undoubtedly holding her bo staff. Which is marginally better than the knife she keeps in her boot. She can be jumpy. She narrows her eyes when she catches sight of Thea. She looks at Dean and Laurel. She looks back at Thea, still with her hands over her eyes. ''Oh,'' she smirks. ''Okay, good.'' She steps into full view, twirling the staff lightly and then tucking it under her arm. ''That's a relief. I thought something terrible happened - ''

''Something terrible did happen,'' Thea protests.

'' - But you just walked in on your parents having sex.''

''They're not my - ''

''We weren't having sex,'' Dean cuts in.

''Don't worry about it,'' Sara pats Thea on the shoulder. ''We've all been there. When I was seven - ''

''Oh, please don't tell the hide and seek story again,'' Laurel blurts out. ''I want to have sex tonight. I don't want to think about my parents.''

''Eh, point taken,'' Sara says. ''Anyway,'' she looks back over at Thea. ''It's been like half a year, dude. Of course they're gonna fuck tonight. Probably more than once. In different positions and everything.''

''Oh, god,'' Thea moans. ''Please don't talk about them fucking in different positions.''

''Okay, they'll just stay in the one position.''

''Did you think we were sexless beings?'' Dean asks, eyebrow arched.

''Yes!''

''Oh.'' He blinks. Crosses his arms. ''Right. Well, okay then. You're right. We don't have sex. In fact, we're virgins. Mary was an immaculate conception. Better?''

Thea sighs heavily. ''No.''

''Thea,'' Laurel pipes up, sofly. ''Honey, did you need something?'' ''No,'' is her instant answer. ''I mean, well, yes. But - No. I don't - I was just going to ask you a question about work but it can - it can wait until morning.''

''Good to hear,'' Dean says, propping his hands up on his hips. He sounds remarkably calm. ''Because guess what? We're not sexless beings. So if there's nothing else, it would probably be best for you kids to give Mom and Dad some alone time because I would really like to eat my wife out until she can't form words anymore.''

In response to that, Thea sputters and chokes on air, looking like her entire life has just been ruined. Even Sara wrinkles her nose in disgust. Laurel buries her face in her hands to cover up her blush but can't bring herself to reprimand him because - well, that sounds fucking awesome, to be honest. She's going to hold him to that. If she opens her mouth and tries to speak right now, all that's going to come out is a sharp order of ''get out'' directed at the girls, and she doesn't want to be rude.

Dean does not seem to share that concern. ''This is going to happen,'' he informs them, blunt as ever. ''I don't care if you're in the room or not. So you two have some choices to make.''

There's a pause and then Thea, who still has her eyes stubbornly shut, turns to Sara - or at least to where she thinks Sara is - and pleads, ''Get me out of here.''

Sara nods shortly. ''Yep.'' She loops her arm through Thea's and helpfully leads her out of the room. ''Happy humping, you two,'' she singsongs over her shoulder. ''Don't forget how thin the walls in this house are!'' She shoots them a wicked grin, and then she and Thea drift away.

As soon as they're gone, Dean hurries to shut the door after them. ''Wow,'' Laurel murmurs, watching him somewhat frantically lock the door. ''That was quite the declaration you made.''

He turns to face her, sheepish. ''That didn't kill the mood, did it?''

She laughs, low in her throat. ''Honey, the only thing that would kill the mood is if you can't finish what you started,'' she says, and then drops the robe. ''I heartily suggest following through.''

He blinks, looking her up and down for a lingering moment. ''Anything you want, pretty bird.''

.

.

.

April, 2016

She tells Dean that she is going to take a bath.

She needs some time alone, is what she says. She needs to relax and weigh the pros and cons of the job offer that's on the table. She pins her hair up, she puts on her bathrobe, she tucks her lavender, honey, and vanilla aromatherapy candle under her arm along with the book she's in the middle of, and then she makes a big show of shuffling out into the living room and informing him, rather loudly, ''Okay, I'm going to have my bath now. So I'll - I'll be,'' she gestures awkwardly, ''in the bathroom.''

Dean and Mary both stop what they're doing to send her a near identical look of confusion. He says, after a beat of silence, ''...Okay?''

''Have fun,'' Mary adds.

''Mary and I are going to watch a movie before bed.''

She nods happily. She's sitting on the couch in her pajamas, bundled in blankets and surrounded by toys. Her stuffed shark is curled protectively under her arm and she's pressing random buttons on the remote control. ''The Good Dinosaur,'' she chirps. ''He's a good dinosaur. Nice and green.'' She tilts her head to peer up at her mother with her big eyes. ''Don't have a bath, Mommy. Baths are yucky. Come sit here.'' She drops the remote and pats the spot on the couch next to her. ''You can hold Agnes,'' she says, holding out a creepy looking doll with one eye.

''Oh,'' Laurel shifts from foot to foot. Honestly, she would love to. She would much rather curl up on the couch with her daughter and weird looking Agnes and watch The Good Dinosaur but she kind of has a thing that she needs to do. ''Um, well - ''

''Maybe later, honeybee,'' Dean cuts in gently. He flops down on the couch next to Mary and steals the remote before she can get to it again. ''Moms need baths too.''

Mary looks vaguely annoyed by this but concedes. ''Wash behind your ears,'' she advises seriously.

Dean nods, also looking gravely serious.

Laurel laughs, shifting everything into one hand so she ran run her fingers through Mary's soft honey blonde hair. ''Thanks for the advice, pumpkin,'' she says, leaning down to kiss her daughter's cheek. ''I'll remember that. I'll try to be quick so I can watch the end of the movie with you, okay?''

Mary nods. Okay, she signs. ''Agnes will be waiting for you,'' she says, which sounds slightly threatening given how terrifying Agnes is, but Laurel gives her two thumbs up anyway.

''Why don't I get to hold Agnes?'' Dean asks, offended.

Mary frowns at him. ''She doesn't like you.''

Again: Creepy and ominous.

Laurel coughs to cover a snort of laughter at the look on Dean's face.

''You can hold Basil,'' Mary says, shoving a stuffed giraffe at him. ''He likes you, and he likes to eat small oranges.''

''Oh,'' Dean nods, but can't quite manage to hold back his bewilderment. ''Just the small ones? He doesn't eat big oranges?''

Mary lowers her head so she can look at him through her eyelashes with a look on her face like she thinks he has lost his mind for suggesting such a thing. ''Dad,'' she sighs with the kind of exasperation more fitting for a thirteen year old rather than a three year old. ''That's silly.''

''Yeah, Dad,'' Laurel clicks her tongue. ''Don't be silly. Of course he doesn't eat the big oranges. They're too big.'' She shakes her head and rolls her eyes at him. ''Honestly, man. Keep up.''

The sound of his laughter follows her all the way down the hall.

Laurel does not have a bath.

She locks herself in the bathroom, she draws a bath, she uses her favourite bubble bath, puts a few drops of essential oil in the water so the bathroom smells like roses and lavender, and she lights the candle. She does not take a bath. Instead, she takes a small, squished box from the pocket of her robe and flips it over to read the directions on the back of the box. It's a whole big production, and she's honestly not sure why she's working so hard to keep what she's doing a secret. It shouldn't even be a secret. What she should do is march right back out there, grab Dean, and tell him everything so that they can do this together.

That's not what she does. She perches on the edge of the bathtub and turns the box over in her hands a few times. Eventually, she tears it open, sets everything out on the counter, and reads the instructions exactly four and a half times. She doesn't need to read the instructions. She's done this before. More than once. She's just stalling.

She can't stall forever. Hastily, she checks the lock on the bathroom door, reads the instructions one more time, and then follows them exactly. Once it's all ready, she's set the timer she snatched from the kitchen, and all that's left to do is wait, she sits down on the closed lid of the toilet and tries her best to not have a panic attack. She's not sure why she's so scared. This isn't like before.

She is not twenty-two, angry, grieving, and terrified that her unfaithful, sister-killing, dead boyfriend might have left her with more than bitterness and pain.

She is not twenty-four and worried that a nomadic monster hunter might have knocked her up after they had sloppy 'congratulations to us on not being dead' adrenaline sex for a weekend in Seattle.

She is not twenty-six, constantly stressed out, and waiting for a phone call informing her that her depressed alcoholic fiancé has wrapped his car around a tree or thrown himself in front of a Leviathan because he wants to die more than he wants to marry her.

She is thirty, almost thirty-one, married, financially okay, emotionally okay, and she is already a mom. She loves being a mom. It's the best thing she's ever done. Why wouldn't she want to do that again?

Laurel stands to pace the length of the bathroom a few times before busying herself with tidying up the permanently untidy space. It doesn't matter how many times they deep clean this bathroom, it always ends up a mess. Hazards of having four people live in a house with only one tiny - and outdated - bathroom.

It's not just the idea of having to go through another pregnancy that's freaking her out. She's worried about the pain, sure. She's worried about the sickness, the loss of control, the violating feeling of being invaded, and she's definitely worried about how the influx of hormones could affect her mental state. But none of that is the main source of her current anxiety. She will go through pregnancy for another baby. She's going to complain about it nonstop to Dean and she'll be grumpy as all hell, but she'll do it.

What's intimidating to her right now is the unknown. She knows that she going to hate being pregnant. She doesn't know anything else. She doesn't know if the baby will be born with Pendred, if they'll still want her for the DA's position if she's pregnant, how Mary will adjust to being a big sister, if Dean will be able to handle a baby and a preschooler on his own while she's at work, and she doesn't know how she can possibly love another child the way she loves Mary. She knows that's a common fear for many second time parents and she has heard that, most of the time, it is a ridiculous concern. Doesn't mean she's not still concerned. She loves Mary so much. More than anything. More than everything. It's hard to believe she could ever love another child that much.

She supposes, at the end of the day, big life changes are always scary. She licks her lips and sinks back onto the closed toilet seat lid. She rakes a hand through her hair and inhales the soothing scent of lavender. The timer beeps and she quickly silences it, but doesn't move to look at the test. She doesn't need to.

Her period is over two weeks late. Her boobs hurt. She's exhausted all the time. Coffee turns her stomach. She hasn't been able to keep her morning avocado toast down in four days. And yesterday found her at the bodega near her old apartment to pick up a bag of the ginger chews that used to get her through the work day when she was pregnant with Mary. It's not a question. She takes in a deep breath, rises to her feet, and picks up the pregnancy test. There is no dramatic moment where she takes a long pause and then flips it over, stunned beyond belief or instantly emotional and weepy at the results. She just grabs the test, looks at the results, and - yep. The results are exactly what she expected. This is not a surprise. She looks up at her reflection, catching sight of the tiny smile starting on her lips.

Okay, well. That's that then. She's pregnant.

Laurel wraps the test in toilet paper and buries it at the bottom of the trashcan, which feels overdramatic, but she wants to be the one to tell Dean and she's not sure how she's going to do that just yet. She'd like it to be better than how she told him she was pregnant the first time. For starters, she doesn't want to be crying, sick, and scared out of her mind. That would be a plus.

Maybe she'll get him a card. One of those super cheesy ones with a flowery, sugary poem inside. Charlie's in town right now. Maybe she'll help her plan some elaborate surprise. She loves elaborate surprises. Or she'll get him a onesie that says ''coming soon'' or something like that. She could get Mary to help out. Maybe put her in an obnoxious 'big sister' shirt that says something like ''no longer the only pumpkin in the patch'' and wait until he notices. The other day while she was at Target, she saw this shirt that said ''a little birdie told me a secret...'' on the front and on the back it said ''I'm going to be a big sister!'' That would be fitting. He makes so many bird jokes these days that she feels like he would really appreciate that one.

Laurel drains the bathtub, blows out the candle, and ducks out of the bathroom. She stops to dump her things in the bedroom and then she makes her way out into the living room again. Mary is still on the couch, clutching her shark, one hand playing with the hem of her blanket like she does when she's exhausted. Dean is slumped beside her, slouched down with his feet up on the coffee table, holding onto Basil the giraffe. They're both angled towards each other, heads together, and they both look half-asleep. She doesn't announce her presence right away, hanging back a minute to just look at them.

Dean spots her pretty fast, lifting his head to look over at her with a smile. ''That was quick.''

She shrugs her shoulders, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible. ''I didn't want to miss the movie.'' She takes her spot on Mary's other side, tucking her feet under her. When Mary, half asleep, hands her the unsettling Agnes doll, she takes it. She doesn't pay much attention to the movie. Her focus is reserved for her family; the warm weight of her daughter, the comforting presence of her husband, and a brand new alien growing inside of her.

She thinks they can do it. It's scary and it will change their lives forever, but it's a good kind of scary, a welcome kind of change.

Tomorrow, she's going to call her doctor. On Friday, she has an appointment with her psychiatrist and she's going make sure to discuss how this could impact her recovery and everything she's living with. She's also going to accept the job offer. She knows that Dean has been on the fence about it - and so has she, if she's being honest - but she thinks it's for the best. He made valid points when they discussed it earlier. He had reminded her that working in the DA's office was supposed to be temporary, that her plan had been to stay there for a few years to make enough money to rebuild CNRI with Joanna. He told her that the last time he had seen her truly happy and fulfilled in regards to her legitimate job was back at CNRI. And all of that was true.

When she first started at the DA's office, the objective had been to put food on the table and stay there for a few years, just long enough to build up her bank account so she could start CNRI back up; pull it from the ashes with her bare hands and make it something bigger, something stronger, something even better than it was. That was the plan. Plans change. Such is the way of life. Joanna is happy at her new firm, kicking ass, taking names, and making big bucks. Laurel has a new path in life with the Black Canary and Team Arrow. It's a different life now. Not one she ever expected to have but a good one nonetheless.

Becoming the District Attorney had never been something she was particularly interested in. It just wasn't at the top of her career to-do list. However, the position comes with a substantial pay raise and that paycheck would be utterly invaluable right now. If they are going to have two little kids, one with a medical condition, potentially a new house to fit everyone in, and only one income then they need that income to be significant. By accepting this job offer, she would be able to provide for her family, to give them the life they deserve to have. Dean loves being a stay at home dad so much. It suits him. Mary adores having him around. Laurel desperately doesn't want to take them away from each other. Taking this job is what makes the most sense for her family.

Above all else, they are her responsibility. She has to give them their best shot. She wants to give them a happy life.

She'll have to hang up her mask. It's unavoidable. Even if you erase the inevitable time constraints and the ethics violations of being a vigilante and the DA, she's pregnant now. At the very least, she's going to need to take an extended maternity leave. She can't very well run around jumping rooftops with a baby bump weighing her down. First of all, her suit is leather, tight, and very unforgiving. She won't even fit in it in a few weeks. Second of all, it's way too dangerous for both her and the baby. She has to give it up. If she is going to be the District Attorney, if she is going to have a new baby, a new life, then she has to let Black Canary go.

She chews on her lower lip thoughtfully and stubbornly ignores the pain of loss that starts in her chest at the mere thought of quitting. She looks over at Mary, seconds away from being fast asleep beside her. She looks at Dean, half watching the movie and half watching Mary. She exhales.

The loss will hurt, no doubt about it, but it will be worth it in the end. There will be others. Someone will fill up the space she took. Star City will always need heroes and as long as there are still good people here, there will always be someone to fight for it. Maybe that's not meant to be her. Maybe it's time for her to focus on her own wellbeing, her own happiness, her own life. Find some form of peace that doesn't come from violence. A bird cannot fly forever.

The quiet sound of her phone beeping with a text notification over on the dining room table yanks her out of her racing thoughts. It's a welcome distraction. She murmurs an apology and carefully disentangles herself from Mary. Reluctantly, she slips out of her daughter's grasp and moves away from her. She pads into the dining room and digs around in the depths of her giant mom purse until she manages to fish out her crappy phone with the cracked screen, held together by duct tape and sheer dumb luck. The text is from Oliver. She has to swallow down a sigh when she sees it. Partially because it's hard to read through the cracked screen and partially because of the text itself. It's short, curt, and not all that informative. All it says is that there's an all hands on deck situation and is she coming tonight or not?

Reflexively, she starts to reply that she'll be there as soon as possible but she gets halfway through typing the text and then she stops. Oh, wait. She's pregnant. She probably shouldn't, right? Technically, Blob #2 is pretty well protected by her uterus and pelvic bone right now. And the suit, while not made of Kevlar, does offer at least some additional protection. She doesn't want to make this a regular thing but chances are, everything will be fine if she goes this one time. Then again, best not to risk it.

She starts to type out a response, picking through excuses - sprained ankle, food poisoning, cramps, lost a toe in a freak lawnmower accident, Dean's handcuffed to the bed and she lost the keys again so she has to stay home and pick the lock - and finally decides on a vague text of, Sorry. Can't tonight. Too sick to leave bed. Would just be a liability.

She feels like that's convincing enough. She doesn't send the text. She just can't bring herself to hit send. It feels wrong to leave them high and dry like this. Especially since she already left them in the lurch less than a week ago under the guise of food poisoning. Plus, if she plays hooky, it's just another thing for Oliver to hold over her head, to use against her, a justification for the way he treats her, a reason why she's not good enough, not strong enough, not committed enough, just not enough. He will never respect her. She presses her lips together.

On the other hand, if she's going to quit anyway...

One last fight. It does sound tempting. One last chance to do some good before she leaves that life behind her. A grand send off. A goodbye before the bird flies away for good, so to speak. She thinks she can handle that. She deletes the text excusing herself from Canary duty. On my way, she types instead, and hits send without a second thought.

''Who was that?'' Dean's voice is low and tired in her ear as he comes up behind her. One of his hands snakes around her waist, coming to rest atop her abdomen. He's nuzzling at her neck, and just the familiar feel of his body against hers is making her regret not telling Ollie to leave her alone for the night.

''Oliver,'' she says, apologetically. ''Something's going down tonight.''

He groans into her neck. ''Thought you were takin' the night off.''

She sighs and turns around in his grip, winding her arms around his neck. ''I know, I'm sorry,'' she winces. ''A Canary's work is never done.''

He doesn't dispute that. Doesn't start a fight or try to guilt her into staying. He just leans in to kiss the side of her mouth and she hears him say, softly, ''Always trying to save the world.''

The words, the familiar echo of Tommy, of Sara, never fail to make something inside of her flutter with determination. She pulls away from him with a smile. ''That's what they tell me.'' She pats his cheek softly, and slips out of his embrace. ''Probably best if I change first,'' she says. ''Can't save the world in my pajamas.''

''I would sincerely love to see you try,'' he says. ''Especially if the pajamas are those barely there plaid shorts you wear in the summer.''

''Perv,'' she snorts, offering him a wink and a smile before she turns away to stride down the hall to the bedroom.

Tonight. That's what she decides as she is regrettably peeling off her comfy pajamas and tugging her jeans back on. She's going to tell him about the baby tonight. As soon as she gets home. She thinks he'll be happy. She hopes he'll be happy. Why wouldn't he be? Their family is growing. This is good news.

When she hurries back out into the living room, he's dropping a granola bar, a small tupperware container of almonds, and her water bottle into her purse. Because he does things like that. ''Babe,'' he's saying, popping a few almonds into his mouth and frowning down at her phone. ''Your phone is shit. We need to get you a new one.''

''I know,'' she sighs, stuffing her feet into her worn out Converse. ''Add that to the list of things I need to do.'' She shrugs into her coat, pulling her hair out. ''I'm hoping this doesn't take too long.'' Wishful thinking, most likely. ''When I get home, I need to - We need to talk about something, okay?''

''Sounds ominous,'' he says, tucking her disaster of a phone into a side pocket on her purse and zipping it up. ''Is this a good talk or a bad talk?''

''It's good,'' she assures him. She can't help the grin that splits across her lips. ''It's really good. I promise.''

''Then I'll try really hard to be awake when you get home.''

She laughs lightly and quickly dashes over to Mary, now fast asleep, to give her a kiss goodbye. Normally, this would be the part where she tells her, ''No matter where I go, a piece of me will always be right here with you.'' That's their nightly ritual these days. Usually, she doesn't leave the house without it. Cheesy, yes, but it makes her feel better about having to leave every night. She's missed a lot of bedtimes over the past year and a half. It's hard to let go of the guilt over that. Suppose that's one good thing about giving up Black Canary. She won't have to miss anything anymore.

But Mary's sleeping tonight. A kiss will have to do. Laurel brushes her lips across Mary's forehead and shrugs off the inexplicable ache as a minor consequence of an unexpected change in her routine.

''Okay, pretty bird,'' Dean says, standing by the door with her purse. ''Have fun beating the shit out of criminals. Come home safe.''

She smirks at him, easy and self-assured. ''I always do,'' she chirps, before she pecks him on the lips and takes her purse from him. ''I'll be home as soon as I can,'' she says, hefting the purse over her shoulder. She can't help but add, as she's stepping out the door, ''I love you.''

It feels important to say that tonight.

She doesn't leave right away. Dean retreats back inside, shutting the door behind him, and she gets into her car, but she can't make herself leave right away. She watches the front window of the house, catching sight of him moving around through the open curtains. He doesn't see her, he isn't paying attention, but she can see him and something makes her stop and watch. She watches him lean out of sight to lift Mary into his arms. The little girl sleepily winds her arms around his neck and drops her head onto his shoulder. He doesn't know that Laurel is watching them, so he doesn't bother to stop, to look out at her. He takes Mary off to bed, and Laurel watches as her husband and daughter leave her line of sight, disappearing down the hall.

A strange, unsettling sense of overwhelming sadness takes hold. It washes over her when she is left alone in the dark without them. She can't explain it. It certainly doesn't make sense. It's just this uncomfortable, uneasy feeling of dread. For a brief moment, her throat closes up, the shadows of her safe neighborhood somehow seem menacing and hostile, sharper than usual in some way, and everything is eerily still, silent, and very dark.

There is a moment where she is sitting in the dark, looking at the warm light spilling from her home, and she feels this bizarre feeling of wrongness. She doesn't know how to explain it. It is not a feeling she has ever felt before. She's not sure there's a name for it. It's a little bit like fear, a little bit like grief, and a little bit like nausea.

She wants to get out of the car. She wants to walk back into that house and stay there. Tuck her daughter into bed. Sit in the comfort of her living room with her husband and tell him that they're going to have another baby. That she's taking an indefinite break from saving the world and he doesn't have to worry about her anymore. Suddenly, without warning, she just wants to go home.

She doesn't.

She ignores the feeling of alarm, the foreboding shadows, the shivers running up her spine, the unexpected urge to go back to her family and stay home tonight, and she starts the car. She decides it's not important. Maybe it's just hormones. It was a split second feeling anyway. It doesn't matter. She has things to do. It's her last night as Black Canary, and she wants to go out with a bang.

''You and me, kid,'' she murmurs, patting her stomach gently. ''Tonight, we're going to soar.''

.

.

.

end part four

---

Additional spoilery warnings for this chapter: It's revealed that Laurel suffered a miscarriage on April 6th and the event is talked about throughout the chapter. There is also a part where Laurel thinks back to Mary's birth, so blanket warnings for miscarriage and childbirth apply.