Sunday morning = two new chapters! I love Diggle. Seriously, where would the show be without his one-liners?

Homecoming, Again

"Is this…really necessary?"

Diggle turned at the sound of chains clinking. Oliver was awake and had fixed him with a glassy-dark stare, which was all he could manage, given the fact that they'd chained and strapped him securely to a bed, wrists and ankles. Diggle had frisked him for hidden weapons and swapped the black leather armor for harmless clothes meant for actual sleep. Now he adjusted the bed so Oliver was in a semi-reclined position, and returned to his seat at Felicity's desk.

"Even when Roy was on Mirakuru, he didn't have to be chained to a bed." Oliver's voice was pained, as though he was still fighting his way out of the nightmares. "You really went all out for me."

"I don't know, Oliver," he answered flatly, "but the last time I turned my back on you, you decided to make yourself a human sacrifice for the League of Assassins. This seems pretty appropriate for the situation."

Oliver rolled his eyes and let his head thump heavily onto the pillow. "It was the only way," he said quietly, and shut his eyes.

Diggle shook his head but said nothing. His role was Oliver's rationality, stepping in when he was close to rage. Roy was a reminder that Oliver was setting an example for his apprentice, the responsibility of that position. Felicity…Felicity was the only person Oliver might listen to now.

The rational mind. The responsibility. The emotions, and with that — the conscience.

Diggle checked his watch. Felicity was still at work, and would be for another two hours. Making up for the time on "vacation" — and for the fact that they'd used an unconventional method of return, courtesy of a CEO named Ray Palmer.

An unconscious hooded and masked vigilante-turned-assassin would not have gotten through UK Immigration, so Felicity had called in a favor with Palmer. Private jet, private tarmac, no questions asked. Oliver never even stirred during the flight, not lucidly, anyway.

The trouble started about…an hour in. Thrashing, like a blind man trying to reach for light, vicious as a cornered animal trying to claw its way free of a net. Diggle and Roy had been forced to handcuff his legs as well, while Felicity watched with mute horror. Nothing changed once they got him back to the Foundry, made sure he was comfortable. The struggling fits continued.

It had long since occurred to them that they'd never seen Oliver sleep before, not since they'd joined the team, not even since he'd moved into the Foundry. Unconscious and nearly dead on a makeshift operating table, yes, but never under so deeply asleep that they couldn't wake him from the nightmares.

Two days in, Diggle finally told Felicity to go home. She had work in the morning, and looking dead on her feet after a supposedly restful vacation would only bring them more unanswerable questions. Roy and Diggle took turns keeping an eye on Oliver, until night brought Felicity back to the Foundry and the criminals out on the streets.

"Laurel came by," Diggle said, staring up at the ceiling as he prepared himself for a long recap of the year Oliver had been gone. "She's out on patrol with Roy every night. She said to give you a punch when you woke up — or better yet, call her so she can do it herself."

Oliver's eyes stayed closed, but Diggle had been listening to his breathing for three days, and knew what it sounded like when Oliver was asleep. He wasn't. He was just waiting, like a cat with its eyes closed and the rest of its senses watchful.

"Your company's doing well — but you probably knew that already. Sara's already walking, but the speaking still needs a little work. We think she's trying to say 'sky' but it keeps coming out weird. She's busy chewing on things for the moment, so we're leaving the necklace you gave her in the safety deposit box until she learns what 'choking hazard' means."

The corner of Oliver's mouth may have twitched, but Diggle couldn't be sure.

"Big Belly rolled out garlic cheese fries," he said. "That's probably the only thing worth talking about from the last year."

Oliver finally cracked a grudging smile. With a sigh, he turned his head on the pillow so that he faced Diggle head-on. "And you?" he asked, his expression back to its usual opacity.

"What can I say? We kept the Foundry going for you. You're not done crafting your legacy, Oliver. We're sorry if we got in the way of your decision to sacrifice the humanity you've built up for yourself, but we thought it's what you would have wanted."

"I told you," Oliver said, his teeth gritted. "It's not. Mobago wasn't my humanity, my humanity is —"

"— Felicity." Diggle moved his chair closer. "Oliver, that girl has a way of reminding you what your conscience would say, if you weren't so busy drowning it out with your sacrificial tendencies."

"It's my conscience that's telling me to leave Starling. I made a deal with the Demon. To serve in the League, or he'd raze Starling to the ground. Then all the good that we'd done — gone, because of me. I swore an oath to Ra's al Ghul that I'd serve him in exchange for your lives."

"Oliver, if Ra's al Ghul is anything like the stories, he won't care about one city. You really think his plans don't include Starling? That he'd make an adjustment just for you? And if he did — how many innocent lives would you have to take – on his orders – to reach that distinction?"

"What was I supposed to think?" Oliver snapped. "What was I supposed to do? He gave me two choices, I picked the one that spared the people I care about."

Diggle was taken aback by the ice in Oliver's glare, the new shards of broken glass he thought they'd pieced together over two years. These were new edges, new fractures. From yet another year of mystery in Oliver Queen's past.

"But you didn't, Oliver," Diggle said, gently. "Both options would have killed us anyway. Now we have a fighting chance, just believe in us."

"The thing Ra's taught me first," Oliver said, his voice low and hoarse, "was to not trust in hope."

He turned his head again and shut his eyes, and Diggle couldn't get a word out of him after that.