Chapter 25 – Questions

AN: Continued Plea – No Spoilers Please! The finale does not air in the UK until Thursday 22 May so I do Not want to read or hear anything about it until then. Thank you so much! (To those of you who've kindly suggest an online site, those don't work in the UK unless you have Felicity level skills to access them, I don't. Very kind of you to suggest though, thank you!) Thank you all loads for not leaving any spoilers so far, hugely appreciated!

This fast update again is only possible because of the amazing beta work of Rennie75 - 3 cheers for Rennie!

Disclaimer: Arrow is still owned by The CW, big sigh!

"Thank you Felicity." Oliver said, accepting her offer before putting his bow and quiver down at the edge of the clearing. "You guys ready?" He queried to Sara and Diggle.

"Oliver, you're not seriously thinking of training in the state that you and Diggle are still in, are you?" Walter questioned, concerned for them.

Mixed POV

Oliver looked around and to his surprise he realized that the same looks of concern were mirrored on the faces of the other non-Team Members. "Slade Wilson will not wait for us to recover or heal, you don't get time out in the middle of a fight because you're injured. If you want to survive then you have to train. Besides Walter, I've been injured far worse than this before – we both have." Oliver said bluntly, understanding that they still weren't comprehending just how life and death this whole Island was. It had been dangerous enough with Fyers in control, it was worse with Slade!

He turned to face the center of the clearing where Sara and Diggle were now standing ready and they began to train. As always, they trained hard and fast with no-one giving any leeway or making any allowances for injuries. Nothing was off limits and Thea was ignored when she gasped on behalf of her brother when Diggle caught his wounded arm with the bamboo baton. Apart from a small hiss however Oliver didn't react and he didn't even hesitate to respond in kind as he sped up and spun round catching Diggle across the cheek in turn.

"Thought you would have remembered that one Digg." Oliver said without stopping.

"I did. Just still didn't manage to dodge it." Diggle replied dryly, making Sara bark out a laugh which was then cut off as Oliver and Diggle both caught her at almost the same time in return.

Thea was still stunned by seeing them train, she was worried for her brother and Diggle even though she could see that they clearly weren't worried. She knew they must be in pain, yet somehow they were not only ignoring that pain but were actively conquering it and fighting regardless. She couldn't understand how they could do that, let alone how they could manage to banter at the same time.

"Yeah, they're always like that." Felicity said as Roy nodded in agreement, both had seen the look on Thea's face and wanted to reassure her. "Despite appearances they do know their own limits though Thea so you don't need to worry about them okay." Well, Sara and Diggle know their limits anyway, not so sure about Oliver some of the time.

The training continued, the three of them only stopping once dinner was cooked. Everyone sat down together in the clearing to eat by unspoken agreement. Whilst it was daylight they didn't want to have to spend any more time in the cave than they had to. The conversation was general and light to start with but Oliver could tell that several of them were holding back on questions that they wanted to ask. He decided that as much as much as he didn't like talking about his past, it was better to do it in daylight when everyone was fairly relaxed, rather than in the dark when they were all on edge after a nightmare. The only thing he preferred about talking in the dark was that they couldn't all see his face properly. He looked around observing the body language and tension in each of them, trying to work out what they wanted to ask before deciding who was best to start with.

"What did you want to ask Walter?" Oliver said, having made his choice.

Walter looked at him hesitating for a second before asking anyway. "How do you do that, fight despite the pain? How do you train as hard as you do without worrying about any pain you cause each other?"

"You mean Diggle hitting my arm." Oliver replied.

"Yes, amongst other things." Walter nodded.

"Train hard, fight easy. That's what it all boils down to. The idea is to incapacitate your opponent with the minimal amount of effort possible. So we don't aim to find the hits that will hurt the most, but we don't avoid them either. If there is any real damage then we do stop straight away and deal with them, do whatever stitches are medically necessary. But apart from that we keep going regardless. Whilst there is no malice you do need to get used to keeping going when you are hurt." Oliver tried to explain it.

"It's not as if the other guys are going to stop if they hurt you after all." Sara said.

"Besides, you only get hurt if you don't react fast enough, if you're distracted, or if those you're fighting are better than you. Sometimes you can't help being distracted, it happens. But you can help your reaction speed, you can help how skilled you are. So we work as hard as we can to try to make sure that we're the more skilled ones." Diggle spoke in turn.

"Like remembering what moves someone's made before." Roy couldn't help adding – knowing full well that Thea was curious about Oliver's comment to Diggle.

Oliver and Sara laughed in response while Diggle tried and failed to look offended. "I didn't say we always succeed – just that we try."

Oliver smothered his laughter a bit as he explained, having also seen the query on Thea's face. "I did that move over a year ago when we were sparring in the lair, caught him pretty hard that time too."

"Yeah, with a steel baton that time." Diggle added pretending to be peeved, but at the same time wanting to let them know that they took it seriously enough to train with steel bars.

Oliver just shrugged in reply. "Not as if I didn't let you get your own back later Digg!" He said thinking of when Diggle-Vigilante had 'captured' him and his Mom.

Felicity had been following the whole conversation closely too and knew instantly what Oliver was referring to. She also had sensed several times over the past couple of days that Moira had still been upset and confused about that, but that she hadn't dared to bring it up. Felicity decided that as Moira had now made the effort to apologize she would make it easier on her.

"Yeah, the one time you were meant to pull your punches!" She said pointedly to Diggle.

"I did!" Diggle responded quick as anything.

"Okay, would you guys mind not talking in code here? You might be able to have entire conversations in a couple of words, but the rest of us can't." Lance said just as pointedly, having given up all attempts to keep up and knowing full well they were talking about something else now.

Oliver looked at Diggle who raised an eyebrow and Oliver knew that he was saying Might as well tell them, you know your Mom's still upset about that even though Diggle never actually said a word. He glanced at Felicity who nodded too, so he took a calming breath and began to explain.

"Back before the Undertaking we knew that something was going on but we didn't have enough information to stop it. We'd tried everything we could think of and had run out of options. As the Vigilante I'd already had one conversation with my Mom as you know."

"When I shot you." Moira cut in bitterly.

"I told you it's fine Mom, you were scared and didn't think you had any choice." Oliver tried to reassure her before continuing. He knew this was going to be hard on her but he owed her the explanation and the others deserved to know how far they were willing to go to do what was needed. "So anyway, we decided that as Mom had used me and Thea to beg for her life, she would be willing to tell us what was going on if she thought I was going to be hurt." Oliver looked around evaluating their faces and the various looks before he continued, knowing that they probably weren't going to be very impressed with what they'd done but still feeling it had been justified.

"Diggle wore the costume to 'capture' my Mom and I. He used the voice changer so she had no idea who he was, that he wasn't really the Vigilante. He questioned her but she wouldn't answer to start with." Oliver paused slightly.

"I was too scared of Malcolm Merlyn." Moira supplied, remembering that night and the fear she had felt all too well.

"So I nodded very slightly at Diggle to tell him to go to the next stage, that it was time to not just threaten me." Again Oliver hesitated seeing the pain in his Mom's face and the accusation in the faces of Thea and Laurel.

Diggle saw their faces too, along with Oliver's and decided to cut in. "So I followed our plan and hit Oliver a few times to make her think he was in real danger."

"A few times? You knocked him over. You scared the wits out of me, I thought you were going to kill him!" Moira couldn't hold back any longer.

"So that's what you meant by pulling punches." Lance said to Felicity seeing that they were in danger of going too far into the memories and pain of the past.

Felicity nodded her agreement as Oliver spoke up again.

"He really did pull his punches Mom." Oliver ignored Felicity's snort as he continued. "I let that chair fall over with me in it. If I'd wanted to I could have stopped it. Diggle was following my orders and he waited for me to make the call Mom. I'm sorry we scared you but we needed that information – and we used it to figure out enough to direct Lance to find the first device and for Felicity to be able to lead him through deactivating it to save the other half of the Glades. I am sorry you were so scared, but it was the right choice to make at the time." Oliver could see they were taking in his words and he had been careful to emphasize that it had been his orders so that nobody would blame Diggle.

"Besides, it's not as if a few punches would hurt me Mom and I didn't want you to be hurt either. Anyway, like I said, I was letting Diggle get his own back for that blow with the steel baton amongst other things." Oliver finished with a small laugh, trying to lighten the mood again.

Thea was pretty upset by what she had just heard and had been shocked to discover the lengths they had gone to in order to try to save the Glades. Despite how hard it was to hear this stuff, she was proud of her brother and wanted to help him. She could see that he was trying – and failing – to lighten the mood, so decided it was time to change the subject.

"So what did you mean by a bowl of water being in my future?" She asked, again bemused when her question was met with laughter from Team Arrow.

AN2: What did you think peeps? Please let me know, thank you!