Disclaimer: I don't own it! Just wish I did!
Spoilers: 2x01
Characters: Oliver Queen, John Diggle, Felicity Smoak
A/N; I was always a bit curious about what else might have transpired on the Island after Diggle and Felicity reunited with Oliver. There wasn't a lot of interaction on Lian Yu before they cut back to Starling, so my muse wanted to fill in some blanks.
Back To The Island
Oliver lingered in the background as he watched his two friends casually converse ahead. After everything, he mused, they were perhaps his only friends left. The only two people who knew him, inside and out, and the only two who stayed with him despite knowing. In a world of turmoil, they had become his anchors, tethering him in place to weather any storm.
Because of this, he shouldn't be surprised that they had found him, that they had come to the island in search of him. But he had been, and a part of him still was. He had come to Lian Yu to get away from everything after the earthquake had levelled half the Glades. After Tommy had drawn his last rasping breaths and died in his arms, it had felt like the right decision to make. He had come to his own purgatory to shut the rest of the world out. He deserved this, he deserved to suffer in solitary confinement for all his sins and for failing the city.
Of course, Oliver knew, out of everyone, only two people could have found him: John Diggle and Felicity Smoak. His teammates, his friends, his confidantes, his family.
He hadn't particularly wanted to be found, and he'd been quite conflicted when he'd first seen them step ashore his purgatory. He'd gone into hiding for a reason, but was still more than a little touched by their relentless friendship. He was genuinely happy to see them, just as he'd reassured the blonde woman only minutes before. Still, he knew what this meant. They wanted him to return to reality and stop escaping the past. His family and QC needed him, and he'd turned his back on everyone for too long. On the condition that the Vigilante didn't have to return with him, Oliver was willing to accept. He had too much blood on his hands to move forward, despite what his friends obviously wanted from him.
With a sigh, he shook himself from his wandering thoughts and stepped towards his company at the other end of his hideout. John and Felicity had been with him long enough not to address the big, unspoken issue. "So, what's the plan now?"
The shorter woman turned her wide, azure eyes up to meet his. They sparkled vibrantly like the sea as they tried to hide what he already knew. Her voice filled the disheveled plane wreckage to the roof, "What plan? I don't-"
"Felicity."
She bit back a cute, impish grimace and launched into a long-winded explanation, "The guy we flew here with is returning at first light tomorrow morning. We're supposed to build a pyre on the beach if we're still alive and want to get off Lian Yu. He agreed to it only if you paid him a substantial amount of money. Sorry, Oliver, but I just don't have that kind of cash."
The man shook his head reassuringly and breathed, "It's fine."
The words continued to spill from her mouth, "He'll fly us out of here in his machine from hell. We'll do a stopover on mainland and fly incognito back into the States, where we need to match your return to your cover story."
Oliver hesitated and exhaled slowly. He grimaced as he tried to find the right words of his discomfort. He knew it was his own mess to begin with, but he just couldn't deal with that. "Can't I just fly straight back? I don't feel like any detours or more lies..."
Felicity's bright smile widened as she pushed her glasses up the ridge of her nose. She shone like the sun as she reassured him, "I thought you might say that so I took the liberty of staging a couple of flight records and I intend to rearrange a couple more records to… Ehm, you don't really need to know all that. Short version: You'll be flying straight home."
The man blinked. He watched the woman before him not knowing what to say. She had a tendency to surprise him and save him in ways he didn't know he could be saved. She was a lighthouse on the horizon, guiding him with her light away from the sharp rocks and deceptive depths. He recovered and inclined his head, "Thank you, Felicity."
She waved off his gratitude and her vibrant, azure eyes clouded with heavy anxiety instead. She wrung her hands as her gaze flew between her friends and she exhaled, "FIY: I'm not thrilled about flying in that death machine again. I'm not sure it's going to hold up for the flight back to mainland. I've already seen my life pass before my eyes twice. Third time's the charm, they say, and I'm not sure I want to try and disprove that saying."
Diggle chuckled from his seated position beside her. His voice was warm and gentle as he spoke up, "It'll be fine, Felicity."
The woman shook her head and her long, golden ponytail danced through the air as she faced him. She wouldn't be swayed that easily to believe and fixed the man with a glare. "You're not the one who sat up front with the pilot, watching him struggle to keep us upright."
The ex-military man simply shrugged and returned the glare with a pointed look of his own. "I told you, you didn't have to sit up front."
"And I told you: it was the only seat with a seat belt! …But fair enough: I won't be sitting up front on the flight back."
Oliver couldn't help but smile as he listened to his friends' gentle teasing fill his hideout and soothe him. They sounded so at ease around him that he could hardly believe they were still on the island. He saw them inside his mind - one dressed in a sharp suit, the other in a short, colourful dress standing opposite him in Starling City. As if all was back to normal, and their world hadn't crumbled to ash and dust only months before.
This was his purgatory, but John and Felicity were swiftly making this place more habitable than it had ever been in the past. He slowly withdrew to the shadows where he could listen and be content, but his escape didn't go unnoticed.
When their voices died down and the hollow existence of the island made itself apparent again, he chanced a glance over his shoulder. He was met with two pairs of worried eyes that looked at him quite apprehensively. Both seemed prepared to stop him in case he tried to run away. He didn't want them to worry about anything, so he hurriedly stopped and turned back around. He wasn't going anywhere, except with them. Today and tomorrow, he would be by their side.
Felicity correctly read the look in his eyes and exhaled in visible relief. She took a slow step towards him as she bit her lower lip.
"I'm sorry, Oliver, but… I think we need to address the elephant in the room," she began and paused a beat as she looked around at the steel walls. "Or… airplane wreckage, as it is."
Though he knew what was to come, he decided to play the ignorant card he'd perfected in the theatrical role of Oliver Queen, billionaire son and playboy. "Meaning?"
"Your curricular activities at night. That didn't sound right, did it?" the young woman cringed and turned to gauge Diggle's reaction. The man merely shrugged in response.
Oliver clenched his hands where they relaxed against his thighs and tried to calm his mind. His gaze rested an inch above the top of her head as he slowly replied, "The Vigilante isn't going home, Felicity."
"Are you sure about this, Oliver?" it was John who raised the question and stepped forward to complete their circle in the middle of the airplane. Worry flashed in his dark eyes as he exchanged a look with the woman. "The city is in chaos. The people need a hero."
The man with the short scruff shook his head and met his body guard's gaze head on. "I'm not a hero, Diggle. They can do without me."
"I disagree."
"It's not your choice," Oliver's kept his voice strong and even. It wasn't meant as a threat, but he was certainly asking for the topic to be dropped. This was not the time nor the place for this. He needed to do this one step at a time, and wearing the hood was not a possibility at the moment. He wasn't sure it ever would be.
Diggle raised his hands and mentally backed down. As the mentor and friend that he was, he humbly said, "… I'm not going to force your hands, Oliver. You're right. It's your choice. I'll respect it, whatever you choose. Doesn't mean I have to agree with it, though."
The bearded man chuckled gently. "I can respect that."
Felicity clapped her hands together and jerked a thumb towards the exit. "Alright. If that's settled for now, I hope you'll excuse me."
As she took a step to the left, Oliver rapidly took a firm, long stride in her direction. "Where are you going?"
The woman froze in surprise and her eyes danced with confusion. "Out."
Oliver purposely got in between the blonde and the exit as she made to take another step forward. He shook his head and looked down at her. "Not on your own, you're not."
"You're not coming with me," Felicity stubbornly disagreed and glared up at her friend. Despite the height difference, there was no denying the fact that she stood on equal ground and held the same amount of strength and power in their relationship. She looked both annoyed and amused at the same time for some reason. "I'll only be gone five minutes. Tops."
"Why?"
"… I need to use the restroom," she reluctantly admitted and seemed peeved he'd made her admit it aloud. She quietly fumed, "It's quite amusing considering that the amount I must have sweated out here is not exactly proportionate to the amount I've had to drink in the last 24 hours. There, satisfied with that answer? …I'd rather not have an audience."
The former vigilante hesitated, "Five minutes tops."
"Yeah, yeah, but I got to…" her voice trailed off and she ducked out of the plane without further ado. Oliver watched the slender woman as she walked across the small field and disappeared between a few trees. She was consumed by the thick green of the woods around them before long. The man held his gaze on the spot where he'd last seen her.
He heard the shuffling of feet and the rustle of fabric as Diggle moved to stand beside him in the open air. The dying sun had just begun to set behind the treeline and the dark shadows were growing longer by the minute. The two men stood side by side and listened to the sounds of nature calm them. Crickets chirped further away, a couple of birds sang from the treetops above and faintly they could hear the ocean smash against the rocks in the distance.
"She'll be alright," John spoke eventually and broke through his friend's reverie. When he got no response, he continued, "This was her idea, you know. She's the one who managed to track you down after all these months. She wouldn't let me go after you if she couldn't come, too."
Oliver's eyes never left the treeline ahead. "Why?"
"Because we care about you, Oliver," came the simple explanation.
The Queen heir sighed and turned to gaze up at his most loyal friend. The sentiment rang true in his ears and there was no point denying any of it, despite what he'd managed to tell himself during these past, solitary months. He could but take comfort from the reassurance and feel it slowly bring back the man he'd once been. The man he needed to be again. It would be an uphill battle, but Felicity and John would support him every step of the way. There were no words to describe how he felt about them in return, but he managed a heartfelt, "Thank you."
John offered him a crooked grin and inclined his head. "Anytime, man."
Oliver nodded sharply before his gaze turned back to the trees. His hand clenched anxiously once more beside his thigh and he shuffled restlessly from one foot to the other. He didn't particularly like the idea of Felicity wandering around alone in this purgatory. He knew she was clever and wouldn't have gone far from the plane wreckage, but he couldn't shake the feeling that if something were to happen to her it would be his fault. "… She's been gone for too long."
Diggle casually glanced down at his wrist watch. "Four minutes. At least give her another two before you barge out there. Didn't sound like she wanted any company."
Oliver turned on his heel and walked back inside to get his bow and quiver as he explained, "You don't know this island like I do. It's hell out there."
"And yet... you came back," Diggle pointed out as his friend returned to the entrance.
Oliver ignored the implication as he stepped into the evening air. There was no point explaining why he'd chosen to return here, and he preferred to stay focused on what lay ahead in the days to come anyway. Perhaps one day he would open up, but the thought felt remote and highly unlikely this evening.
He glanced back at the ex-military and said, "It's going to be dark soon. Difficult to find your way back unless you know this place."
John sighed. "Fine. But it's your funeral."
More to come (and this piece might be continued down the line, as well)!
