I don't own Arrow. All rights go to their respective owners.
Chapter Eleven
"Hey." Oliver says casually as Diggle stares at him, then Sara, then Slade.
"Oliver? Sara?" He whispers as he moves to sit up.
"You three are those vigilantes!" He gasps as he takes in Oliver, Sara and Slade's uniform. He continues to stare at them before staggering forward to land a punch.
"Don't you dare!" Slade growls, twisting his hand behind his back to stop him from attacking Oliver.
"Easy, Digg." Sara says gently as he continues to glare at them both.
"You were poisoned." Oliver adds.
Explains a lot, Diggle thinks to himself as if he were not poisoned he is certain he could have taken out the man who holds him back.
"Son of a bitch!" He almost breaks free from Slade's hold, turning around to punch him instead, Slade deflects him easily, slamming his face into the wall.
"Slade, easy, easy!" Oliver begs, trying to remind him that Diggle is still wounded as he knows that, due to the mood Slade's in he will probably actually end up killing Diggle!
"We could have taken you anywhere. We could've taken you home…"
"That's exactly what you bloody should have done!" Slade snarls angrily at Oliver, who sighs and attempts to ignore him.
"What he means to say is that we chose to bring you here." Sara says carefully.
"You three really did lose your minds on that island!" Diggle whispers before adding bravely.
"Or he turned you both into this, I always knew he was a psychopath!" Diggle snarls at Slade, who in response turns Diggle to face him and punches him hard in the face!
"Slade!" Oliver sighs.
"I saved them. I protected them, don't ever try to comprehend what went down on that island because you'll never know the pain and suffering we went through! I am no psychopath and I turned them into warriors to keep them alive." Slade snarls before releasing Diggle, storming upstairs.
"Slade." Oliver calls.
"Slade! Where are you going?" He adds worriedly.
"Anywhere but here." He snarls as they all hear the door slam shut.
Oliver groans and buries his head in his hands, this is not what he needed right now!
"You're crazy. You're all crazy!" Diggle whispers after few minutes of silence after Slade's departure.
"Found a couple of things along the way." Oliver tries to continue as nothing happened, as he wasn't now panicking about Slade storming off in a furious mood!
"What? Archery lessons!" Diggle snarls.
"Clarity." Sara answers for them both.
"Starling City is dying." Oliver says before looking down.
"It is being poisoned by a criminal elite who don't care who they hurt as long as they maintain their wealth and power." Oliver explains.
"And what are you going to do?" Diggle snaps.
"Take them all down in this little threesome you've got going hu?" He adds.
"No." Sara folds her arms.
"No, we want you to join us." Oliver reveals as Diggle looks around in amazement at Oliver's words.
"Special Forces out of Kandar. It's perfect. You're a fellow solider…"
"Oliver, you and Sara and that man. You are not soldiers. You're criminals and murderers." Is the last thing he says to them before turning to run, run away from Sara and Oliver and away from all the secrets he has learnt.
Meanwhile, Oliver and Sara stand facing each other as Oliver collapses against the desk in misery and Sara just stands there, processing all that has just happened.
"Well that could have gone better." She says after a moments thought.
"You think!"
"We should have gone after him." Sara warns Oliver as they approach Queen Mansion.
"Which one of them?" Oliver mutters in defeat.
"Both of them!" Sara cries tiredly.
"Slade just needs space to cool off, he'll be fine in a few hours…"
"Oliver the last thing he needs is space. You pair need to talk and resolve what's happened between you." Sara says firmly as she pushes the door open.
"Talking to Slade! Yeah that's gonna work!" Oliver mutters.
"Despite what you think Ollie, Slade does actually listen to you!" Sara replies as they run into Laurel.
"Where the hell were you?" She turns on them both the minute they shut the door.
"What are you doing here?" Sara asks.
"I heard about the shooting and I wanted to make sure you were both ok. Especially my sister, do you know what you did to me and dad going missing like that? He has been freaking out for hours whisker you and Oliver have been god knows where!" She yells furiously at them both.
"I knocked on the door and I found a family terrified for you Oliver Queen! They had no idea where you were! And dad and I have been ringing you Sara and you couldn't even be bothered to leave us a message to say you were safe?"
"Laurel…" Sara starts.
"No! No Sara, don't apologize! This is just who you are, you didn't change one bit from being on that island. Always disappearing! You pair, again disappearing! You did it five years ago, I shouldn't be surprised that you would do this now! You are both so self centered that I don't think you care about the people who you leave behind! You couldn't even be bothered to contact us to let us know you were both okay after you all got shot at! Moira, Thea, Walter, dad and me. We don't deserve this, we deserve better, some people who don't only care about themselves!" Laurel yells as she heads for the door.
"Laurel." Oliver calls her back for a moment, both he and Sara in silence after her harsh words.
"Thank you for coming." He finishes.
"That's because I care about the lives of other people! You both should try it sometime!" She adds angrily before storming out, leaving Oliver and Sara in silence.
They knew that this would come out eventually, Laurel's anger, it was only a matter of time, but what worries both Oliver and Sara is that it only looks to be the beginning of her anger…
"That was harsh." Thea makes herself know from behind both Oliver and Sara as she enters the room, not looking in Sara's direction.
"You ok?" She asks Oliver.
"Sure." He replies in a bored like tone, turning to look at his sister.
"Good night." He a says briefly as she pats his arm in comfort.
Sara tries to hide her look of pure disbelief.
Perhaps she and Slade got through to her after all.
Slade has a habit of getting through to people.
Taking his hand in hers Sara follows Oliver up the stairs, hoping to get a few hours of sleep in before they have to deal with Slade!
Back once more in the cave that held them prisoner, Oliver removes his soaking wet wallet from his shorts pocket.
"Sara." He nudges her arm to get her attention as he removes a picture from his wallet.
It is old and battered and has been folded into an assortment of shapes before being straightened out again yet it is a picture.
A picture of Laurel.
Without thinking Oliver hands it to Sara so she can hold it, to see if it will provide her with some comfort due to their awful situation as of present.
The man who shot them both disturbs them as he enters the cave, a caged bird in hand.
He sets it down by their feet before muttering something in Chinese.
"What are we supposed to do with that?" Oliver questions as the man walks to the other side of the cave.
He replies in Chinese.
"Does that mean bird?" Sara asks in confusion.
Again, he replies in Chinese.
"We don't speak Chinese!" Oliver yells in frustration.
The man does not say anything but just looks at Oliver and Sara before grabbing a knife and moving from the place where he had sat.
Ignoring him, Oliver and Sara continue to look at the picture of Laurel.
Oliver closes his eyes in guilt.
He cheated on Laurel with her sister and now she probably thinks that they are both dead and that he never loved her as he ran away with her sister, her sister who is with him now.
"I'm sorry, Laurel." He whispers as Sara grabs his hand.
"I'm so sorry."
"Ollie! Ollie!" Sara's cries pull Oliver out of his nightmare of the island.
"Sara…" He turns to face her, worried for a moment that he had attacked her.
Satisfied that he hasn't, he wraps her in his arms.
They stay like that for no one knows how long, Sara soothing him gently as he tries to break free of the memories, the tears in her own eyes due to her own memories that had also awoken her.
There's only two people in the world who can help when the memories get too powerful. However, one of the said to people is who knows where!
"I need to talk to Slade." Oliver says after a while.
"Ollie. You pair can sort out your differences in the morning, Slade's not going to do anything stupid." Sara says reassuringly.
Surprisingly, it does not reassure him!
"There were no signs of forced entry or any evidence of a struggle but hours later, the police found a blood stained kitchen knife in the trunk of Peter Declan's car." The news report on the tv Thea is currently watching reports.
"Couldn't sleep either?" Thea calls as she hears Oliver enter the room, luckily for once without either member of his entourage!
"No." He replies.
"Does she live here now?" Thea folds her arms, referring to Sara.
"She stays wherever I am." Oliver replies sternly.
"I'm surprised she hasn't joined us, oh and your friend! What is it with you three?" She looks at him with a smirk on her face.
"She's still asleep and Slade's at his place." Oliver lies about the Slade part.
"Lucky mom's in bed she wants a word with Sara and your friend." She comments.
"What did you say to her?" Oliver sighs.
"The truth. Last thing I heard mom say on the matter was that she was wondering if she could have your friend sent back to Australia!"
"What." Oliver growls.
"Ollie! Can we just not get into this now. We're both tired, let's just watch the tv like brother and sister." She sighs as she turns back to the tv.
"What are you watching?" Oliver questions.
"Peter Declan."
"Hm?" Oliver queries.
"A guy who killed his wife." She frowns when Oliver gives her a quizzical look before remembering Oliver's five year disappearance.
"Right, this guy killed his wife in their babies room. Psycho!" She shakes her head in disgust.
"Camille was everything to me. I couldn't kill her anymore than I could kill myself." Peter Declan says from the tv, from a report in 2008.
"Why can't you sleep?" Thea abruptly switches the tv off.
"Bad dreams." He replies simply.
"About?" She presses.
"Everything." Oliver mutters.
"Well you've basically been a jerk to everybody except your two friends since you got back, so perhaps you could start with not being a jerk. That could help?" Thea suggest with a smile.
"I know that It might not seem like it sometimes but I'm not the same person I used to be. I see things more clearly and I know that it was you who slapped Sara." Oliver reveals.
"She said that to you? Ollie she's talking crap! Your crazy friend probably told her to say that!" Thea shakes her head quickly.
"She didn't have to tell me Thea it just didn't take me very long to work it out. They talked to you because I couldn't get through to you myself and I hope, I'm really hoping that they got through to you." Oliver sighs in frustration.
Thea says nothing, just looks down and tries to think of something to say.
"Because whatever they said. They were right and due to the fact I know that what went down, if it included Slade you probably got the scolding of a life time. I am not going to spend my time now yelling at you for harming Sara! However if anything like that happens ever again Slade won't be the worst thing you have to deal with! What I am going to talk to you about is not your actions but whatever you told mom because now, because of whatever you said to her mom is now trying to punish them."
"Ollie, he's insane. So what if mom deals with him?" She groans.
"He's been my brother, he has been my family for the past five years, both Slade and Sara have and they talked to you as a favour to me. If mom wants to deal with them then she's got to go though me to do it." Oliver says firmly as he gets up, heading back to bed, to Sara.
"And if they have gotten through to you, hopefully, for me, you would have another conversation with our mother." Oliver requests to a silenced Thea as he leaves her alone with only her thoughts for company.
Authors Note: Thank you all for reading this and thank you to those who have reviewed, followed and favourited. It means the world! Next chapter hopefully will be soon. See you all next update x