Set in between GA/BC #4 & 5. Ollie's thoughts during one of his vigils over Connor.

Scars

My hand passes over the scar on Connor's chest. It amazes me how something so deadly, something that can leave my boy like this, can be so small…but it does leave evidence. Always a reminder of a battle you've won…or lost.

We all have scars.

I feel my own as Dinah stands behind me. I breathe in her perfume as she rubs her fingers over my shoulders and down to my heart. She tries not to show it, but she always lingers there a little too long.

That's when my body feels awkward, wrong, off by just a few millimeters. I remember another scar there from different arrow, and how naked I felt the first time I looked in a mirror after I came back from the grave and saw it gone. My new body was flawless, younger. But my scars made me who I am. So there's a strange comfort from still having one over my heart, but for the right reason this time. I took those two arrows defending my city – both right and left, Dinah's fingers remind me. I know she prefers these scars to the one there before.

It's seems like I'm into matching sets these days. I no longer look at Connor but my own hands. The damage healed over a year ago and my shots aren't impaired, but sometimes when the weather changes, my tendons still ache.

And the scars remain.

I used to feel it in my wrist that Dinah once snapped or the sensitive skin from chemical burns on my back. But that discomfort, like the body that it happened to is again, gone.

The pain remains.

It's the scars inside…the memories…the violation…the helplessness over what's been done to you…

I've felt my granddaughter's scars. I discovered them babysitting one night while getting her to take her bath. Just like Grace, Lian bore the mark of slave traders! I wanted to puke. I wanted to cry. Roy told me she had been kidnapped. He told me she had nightmares. He didn't tell me about her scars. Maybe it was too soon after his own to bear mentioning.

Five to the chest. Pointblank. Through body armor. I told Lian I have nightmares too about scars. But our nightmares aren't always about our own.

It was Roy then. It's Connor now.

We're a family of scarred hearts.

But we never give up hope. Not when we have those that love us…in spite of our scars…those that touch them and ease our pain.

I kiss an unblemished hand of my pretty bird, taking hers in my own. She amazes me with her flawless beauty. Every night in bed, all I feel is the smooth perfection of her body against my battle-beaten own. I know it's not a fair comparison. She possesses wounds on her heart too, only from the inside, with some of the biggest ones dealt by me.

But scars can fade in time, too. A reminder that we have survived and have grown stronger, wiser.

A shot though the heart can bring us together as much as tear us apart.

I don't know what the future holds with Connor…with anything…and I'm scared half to death. But right now with my family, my priority – I want the healing to begin.

Notes: Just a culmination of a bunch of ideas that came together out of the wounds Team Arrow has sustained over the years. I probably missed some and could have made it longer if I wanted, but didn't feel the need. But I liked doing more than a drabble this time. I tend to alternate between happy and sad fics, so my next one will probably be about the wedding – the real one!