Hi guys, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update, but I try to keep up with all my Arrow fanfictions. I am literally writing this while watching Wonder Woman, lol. I hope you enjoy how this story is going. I love to read your reviews! They make me want to update more. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Have a great week - Scruffy Palace!

Neither one of them wanted to, but once Sara started to stumble and almost dropped Laurel, they both agreed that sleep was a necessary evil. Oliver leaned against a rock and let an already asleep Mei lay on his stomach while Sara rested her head on Oliver's chest. She thought it would take her a while to fall asleep because of her nerves, but once her head hit the comfort of his shirtless chest, she immediately passed out.

Oliver spent the time while both his girls were sleeping trying to wrap his head around the past forty-eight hours. Two days ago he was worried he would never get out of the prison he'd been locked in, and thought he wouldn't get to meet his child. Now his child is born and laying in his arms, but he was more terrified. The mere thought of being a father was still so surreal. The thought of being a father never once crossed his mind. Well, there was that one time in college and of course Laurel had brought up their future once or twice, but other than that he never considered one day having a child. Now he does and it's definitely not how he pictured it; having his one day old daughter asleep on his chest while his ex-girlfriend's younger sister slash mother of his child sleeping curled against him. They had already had a couple of diaper changes which were challenging because there weren't any diapers, so they had to be creative with leaves and washing his shirt in the ocean.

The weirdest thing for Oliver though, was the way he felt about Sara. A year ago, she was just Laurel's younger sister who he always thought was cute, but he never thought his feelings would be anything more than that. When Laurel started asking about moving in together and he freaked and left on the boat with Sara, he didn't think of her as anything more than a hook-up to take his mind off things. Now though, now he was feeling something much different than he'd ever felt for her. Much different than he'd ever felt for any girl, including Laurel. This young woman laying on his chest, the mother of his child, gave birth to their daughter on an island with no pain medication, and was still being strong when all Oliver wanted to do was drown himself in the ocean to rid himself of the tension that was building in his head; the pain that was driving him to the brink of insanity. Somehow though, the girl he always viewed as small and weak, was much stronger than he was. Suddenly, a weak voice came from the walkie-talkie.

"Sara?" Ivo spoke commandingly. "Sara, I know you're listening. Answer me." Sara shot up from where she was laying, and her eyes darted around till she noticed where the sound was coming from. "This is very simple, Sara. I know you and your friends have the Mirukuru. You know I will lay waste to this entire island to get it." Sara shuddered as she grabbed for the walkie-talkie, but Oliver took it before she got her hands on it.

"Get Slade," he whispered. She nodded, before running off to find him.

"But it doesn't have to be this way," Ivo said, continuing to speak through the transceiver, each word sounding more tense. "All I want is the serum. In exchange I'll promise you and your friends safe passage off the island. Within ten days, you and your new friends could be making port in Shanghai." Oliver stilled. He knew he couldn't trust Ivo, but the thought of getting Sara and baby Laurel off the island before she was two weeks old sounded like too good an opportunity to pass up. "The alternative is I send my men into the jungle to take the serum from you. They'll be under orders not to kill any of you. Instead you'll remain alive enough for me to indulge my… scientific curiosity."

Sara stood still when she heard that. They both knew what would happen to their daughter if they were to get caught. Sure, maybe Oliver and her would survive, but their daughter would die and they couldn't let that happen. She ran around where they had been standing, looking for Slade, but he was nowhere to be found. Then she noticed something else was missing as well.

"OLIVER," she shouted, "He's gone."

"What?" Oliver whispered, making sure not to wake their daughter who had only gently stirred at Sara's scream.

"He's missing and so it the Mirakuru."

Present Day…

After a lot of destruction, Oliver finally had enough room to start what he came there to do. He set his wooden case on the floor, swept the dust off the top, then unlocked and opened the wooden trunk that hadn't left his sight since he got off the island. He lifted the quiver full of arrows and placed it over his shoulder, before gently picking up his bow and the container of tennis balls he had purchased on Amazon, then began target practice. Unsurprisingly, he hit all six tennis balls with the six arrows he had brought, then stared at his success before starting again.

Two hours later his phone beeped, telling him it was time to pick up Mei from Laurel's house, so he packed his stuff back into his trunk, but he had one more thing to do before he left. He walked over to the computer he had sent up and typed in the name 'Adam Hunt'. A video popped up about the multiple acts of fraud that Adam hunt was being sued over. Laurel had taken to the task of getting the man arrested, but her evidence wasn't sound enough for a sentencing. Especially not when he had so many men and women on the inside who "owed him favors" or worse, were being blackmailed. Luckily for Laurel, Adam Hunt was under his surveillance, too.

Adam Hunt was on the list.

4 Years Ago…

Oliver and Sara had been walking for hours, only taking breaks to feed or "change" Laurel. They were worried when the infant spent the first twenty-four hours in mostly silence, but that had drastically changed since they took off. She didn't seem to want screaming, which scared her parents because if she gave away their location, they were dead. Sara had taken the top shirt she was wearing and turned it into a sling for her to lay in, but since she had been crying Sara had taken to holding her against her chest to comfort her and also muffle her cries. When they finally reached the airplane they used to live in, Sara had to sit or she would have passed out, while Oliver looked around.

"Slade?" he yelled. "Slade!" Once his eyes scanned every inch of the room, he sighed and said,"I thought he might come here."

She leaned her head against the wall of the plane, and with closed eyes said, "He has the Mirakuru in his bloodstream. He's not thinking clearly."

Oliver walked over to her and sat beside her, taking Laurel from the young woman to give her arms a much needed rest. Within a few minutes of shushing and gentle hums from her father, Laurel had fallen asleep.

Sara leaned her head against Oliver's shoulder. "Now what?"

He brushed the top of Laurel's head. "I don't know, Sara." Suddenly, a beeping sound was heard in the corner. Oliver jumped up and ran over to it, then sighed in relief when he noticed what it was. "Oh, the sensor grid is still active. So, at least we're gonna know if Ivo and his men come back to the island."

"So what? We just sit here and wait?" Sara asked incredulously.

Oliver looked at her with disbelief. "Well, what else do you think we should do? We have an infant, so one of us would have to stay back with her and that person would have obviously have to be you."

Sara looked offended. "Why? Cause I'm a girl? Cause I'm not as strong or as fast as you are? I'll have you know, Ivo taught me a lot of fighting techniques and-"

Oliver held his hand up. "No, if something happened to you, I couldn't exactly run to a Walmart

for food for our daughter. She needs you more than she needs me."

"Oh," Sara said, "Yeah." It was depressing if you really thought about it. The fact that if Sara were to die so would their daughter. That if he lost the only person he had to lean on right now, he would also lose the child who had not been alive a week. "Then Ollie, maybe...maybe we should consider Ivo's offer."

Oliver's couldn't believe his ears. "What? You trust him? After what he did to Shado?"

"We have to think about Mei. We can't provide for her on this island. She needs diapers, clothing, a place to sleep that's not our arms. What if she gets sick? We don't have any medication. She could die, because we were to scared that he may trick us."

"Are you crazy? He will kill us the first chance he gets. You're the one who said he was going to do experiments on our daughter."

"No, you don't understand. Ivo was scared. He's tired. He's been looking for this cure for much longer than I've know him. If we do what he says, we can get off this island and start a good life for Mei. You don't get it. I carried her inside of me for nine months, and I have spent every day in constant fear that I would lose her, and now that I've met her, I am even more terrified. I can't live if he hurts her."

Oliver grew furious while she spoke. "Don't you dare," he whispered defensively, "Don't you dare say I don't understand, just because I haven't know about her as long. I am sorry that you had to live through that alone, but now you have me. You both do, and I am going to make the best decision for us that keeps us all alive, because we are family now. You, me, and Mei are a family, so we are going to make decisions together, okay?"

Sara sat quietly for a minute as she looked at Oliver and the way he was gently rocking their daughter as he spoke. The way he kept her face close to his and he seemed to be listening to her every breath. The way he would lower his voice every time he saw her stir, as to make sure she didn't wake up.

"Okay."

Present Day…

After Oliver stopped by and gave Adam a quick...warning, he realized he was pretty close to Laurel's apartment. So, he decided to walk there instead of calling Diggle and having to make up an excuse for ditching him, so that he could get a ride. Once he reached her door, he lifted his hand to knock, but was surprised by Laurel opening the door before he had the chance.

"Oliver, good to see you," she told him before dragging him into the apartment.

"Yeah, you too. I hope that Mei wasn't too much trouble. She can be pretty rough if she wants to be."

Laurel pushed him down on the couch, then walked over to her counter and grabbed two cups of piping hot coffee and sat one down in front of Oliver before sitting next to him with the other.

"Uh, thanks," Oliver said before taking a sip of the coffee awkwardly. "So, where's Mei?"

"Oh, she went to sleep in my room a little after we got back. The park seemed to tire her out."

Oliver nodded before diverting his eyes to a random part of the room. Their relationship was complicated at best, and at worst...well, they weren't back to their friendly chats yet, so this was quite uncomfortable for him. He figured he deserved the unpleasantness.

"Well, while we wait for her to wake up, I have something I wanted to ask you. Mei said something earlier while we're talking at the park. I was talking about dresses and how Sara used to love to make dresses and she brought up something about how when she was a baby Sara made her a dress out of one of your shirts," Oliver thought back and smiled at the memory. One of the few good memories he had of the last five years. "Yeah, she said Sara made it into a dress, because you and her got married." Oliver's smile fell. "And I didn't know if she was telling a story or not, because she's four and all, but based on your expression when I told you, I'm guessing she wasn't."

Oliver looked down at his hands as he rubbed at his thumb. He wasn't ashamed of his marriage. He would never be ashamed of promising his life to the woman he loved, but it was much more complicated than that. Their marriage wasn't legal, and even though that didn't matter to Oliver, it did to others. Also, since Sara was Laurel's sister, it would be weird to explain to her how they fell in love.

"We were alone on the island, before Mei came. As time went on, we just kinda...fell for each other. I loved her, and we decided that even though it wasn't legal, we would have our own little ceremony and get married." He pulled the necklace out from under his shirt and showed her the rings like he was a showing a piece of his soul. Her eyes widened when she saw them, as though confirming her suspicions. "I know this must be weird for you and I know I've already caused you so much pain and I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable, but Sara was the love of my life and it took us getting stranded on an island for me to realize it."