A/N: Oliver POV.

When It Rains

Malcolm fucking Merlyn.

Thunder claps so loudly I feel the rumble in my spine, and I close my eyes just in time to avoid being blinded again by a lightening flash. The ocean churns and sprays, and I try to pretend that because I'm seeing it through the green haze of night vision, it doesn't remind me of the night the Gambit went down.

I pull back from the scope long enough to tighten my jacket's hood, hoping to minimize the rain soaking through to my skin, but it's already a lost cause. Rocks dig into my belly and my thighs from my perch overlooking the stretch of angry waves that separates these tiny islands in the China Sea, and I give up trying to get even remotely comfortable. Instead, I do what Slade taught me years ago on Lian Yu: I accept my discomfort. I embrace my misery, even. I detach from the feelings and catalog all the different degrees of cold. I focus on the damp that's settled into my bones and makes my joints stiff and achy. I observe all the various pains and discomforts rather than failing to ignore them, and somehow, in the acknowledgment, it's like they belong to someone other than me.

Malcolm Merlyn is alive.

"Are you sure?" I'd asked Sarah in disbelief in Shanghai.

"No, Oli," she'd snapped. "I risked Ra's al Ghul's wrath over a rumor."

"If the League knows where he is, why haven't they gone after him?"

"I don't know," Sarah had said, looking worried. "But you have to move on this."

"Yeah," I'd sighed. "You think Thea's there with him?"

Sarah had shrugged. "Nyssa seems to think so."

"Why?" I'd murmured.

"Well, when you figure out your sister, you can help me figure out mine."

I feel badly that I didn't tell her about her father being injured when she'd gone out of her way to help me with Thea. But she chose to walk away from Laurel and Detective Lance, and she didn't ask. That, and I know she can't leave again so soon after she's returned to Nanda Parbat because the League won't care that her father was only just moved to a rehab facility. I don't know how she got away to warn me.

I honestly don't care how or why Sarah got involved. I'm just glad that I know now Thea is with Malcolm Merlyn. She left Starling City with a mass murderer and former assassin who's on the run.

She left me to go with her father, who is not dead.

Of all the many ways my mother and I harmed each other, her not telling me about Malcolm being alive has to be the worst. Maybe, if she'd lived longer, she would have warned me. Maybe we could have found a way to trust each other.

Maybe, but probably not.

I shake my head and refocus on my surveillance because lying to myself isn't going to help Thea, and it isn't going to make me feel better for all the ways I've fucked this up.

But I didn't lie to Tommy the last time we spoke. I really hadn't killed his father.

I shouldn't feel relief knowing this. Like Slade, Malcolm is dangerous. A remorseless killer who needs to be taken care of because he'll never stop. As long as he is alive, he will be a threat. I failed when I didn't kill him. I failed my city. My family. My best friend who was my sister's brother.

Except Tommy didn't want me to be a killer. Not of his father. Not of anyone. And I looked into his eyes and lied in the rubble of the earthquake his father caused. Thea's father and our mother killed Tommy, and I thought I'd killed Malcolm, and I told Tommy his father was alive because I knew he was dying and I didn't want his last thoughts of me to be anger and fear.

I couldn't let him die hating me.

Goddammit, why couldn't Tommy be the one to miraculously survive instead of Malcolm?

Another lightening flash lights up the night sky, only this time I'm not ready for it. The scope flares with too-bright green, and I curse and pull my face back, spots swimming through my vision in one eye.

This is a lost cause. I can't see shit, and if I could see, there'd be nothing to see. Malcolm is many things, but unfortunately for me and this mission, he's not stupid. If Sarah's information is correct and there's a compound on the island, it's on the far side. All I can see from here, when there isn't a raging storm, is tire tracks that disappear into the trees. I need more information that I can't get from here.

I need Felicity.

"Jesus. Oliver," Felicity breaths into the phone. "I was." She sniffs, and I close my eyes and pound my fist into my thigh because I know she's trying not to cry, and I hate that I've worried her. I should have called sooner. I should probably call every day, even if all I'm doing is telling her I'm not dead.

"I hadn't heard from you since Tuesday, and I thought maybe..."

"I'm okay," I assure her even though I'm stiff and wet and shivering. I twisted my ankle on the slippery descent down the cliff where I'm spying, and I desperately need an ice pack. I'm starving and exhausted and miss her and very much not okay.

"What's that noise?" she asks.

"What noise?" I tease.

"Tell me those aren't bullets I hear," she snaps. "This isn't funny."

"Felicity, it's rain. I'm sorry. It's raining really hard, and I'm sitting in the truck."

She lets out a sigh that sounds both relieved and angry. "You aren't being fired upon?"

"No," I say. "No one has even pointed a gun at me since I left."

I cross my fingers and decide not to mention the incident in London. Or the one in Mumbai. Or the idiot kid who tried to steal my wallet in Shanghai. That was not his lucky day.

"You've been gone 17 days," she says. "Why do I get the feeling you're lying?"

"You think I can't go two weeks without someone threatening to kill me?"

"I think that would be out of character for you."

"Felicity," I begin, only then I don't know what else to say, so I don't say anything. I turn up the volume on my phone as high as it will go and listen to her breathing and wish I was home in our bed, breathing her breaths instead of my own.

"We're all okay," she finally says.

I left her with lips swollen from kisses and a bite mark on her shoulder and such a mess to deal with. Digg bristling and glowering when I told him he wasn't to go out into the field now that he's going to be a father. His angry retort that I can't do my work without him. We both know it's true, but he can't risk himself like he has been, not with Lyla and a child depending on him. Roy hurt and pissed off that I was leaving him behind. Sulking away after putting his fist through the wall.

"Walter's doing a great job," she continues. "He keeps me hopping at the office, but it's going well."

"I don't care about the company."

"Oliver," she gently scolds. "Yes you do."

"I care about bringing my sister home."

"Thought of any brilliant ideas on how to make that happen?"

I shake my head even though she can't see me.

"Oliver," she soothes.

"She doesn't know what she's getting herself into," I say.

"Oliver, she left with him willingly."

"She was probably in shock. He was supposed to be dead. I killed him, remember? What if he forced her to write that letter to Roy? What if she's being held against her will?"

"I think we both know that's most likely not the case," she gently tells me.

"Why?" I whisper, finally voicing the question that's been plaguing me since Sarah told me. "Why would she choose him over..."

"Over you?" she finishes for me. I sigh and wait for her to tell me the answer because I honestly don't know. "Oliver, he's her father."

"He's a murderer," I snap.

"Yes, but maybe he's a murderer who's never lied to her about it."

I stare into the darkness and consider her words. The rain is slowing down, and it's been several minutes since I've seen lightening. The storm must be passing.

"I pulled up some satellite images from the coordinates you sent," Felicity finally says.

"Are you going to get into trouble with the NSA?" I ask. "Because while I'm not opposed to visiting people in prison, I don't think life behind bars would suit you."

"Don't worry, I save the big hacks for when everything else has failed, which didn't happen this time. Lyla got the intel for us."

"How are they?" I begin. But I don't feel like I can ask, not when I know Digg is furious with me.

"She's been staying over at the mansion," Felicity confides.

"Really?"

"Yep. It's cute. He's makes her ginger tea and cuts her toast into little triangles in the morning and everything. She has an appointment tomorrow. The first ultrasound, where there make sure it's not twins and get a better idea of the due date and all that. Apparently, they'll be able to see the heart beating, which is just insane because the thing is like the size of a bean."

"You'll let me know?"

"Of course. But listen, I don't know how you plan on getting onto that island. There's some kind of power station on the side closest to you. I suspect it's wired. And from the pictures, there's no way you could sneak up onto the other side, where the compound is. Maybe at night, in the dark, if you swam to shore or something, but I'm sure there's some kind of security over there too. Plus, how would you get out?"

"Has there been any movement?" I ask.

"None that I can see. But the thermal imaging makes me think most of the building is underground. I put together some of the best images. I'll send them to you so you can see for yourself."

"When did you learn so much about ultrasounds?" I ask.

"What?"

"I didn't think you knew that much about baby stuff."

"Oh. Well," Felicity hedges. "Okay fine: I got a book, Mr. Nosy-Newt. It's actually really interesting stuff. I mean, it's all terrifying. But I thought, in case Digg needed to talk to someone, it would be helpful if I actually knew something."

"You're a good friend," I tell her. "I don't know what any of us would do without you."

"Oliver," she breaths.

"I don't know what I would do without you."

"Well." She clears her throat. "Likewise."

"Do you really think Thea did this because of me?" I ask. "Because I lied to her?"

"I don't know," she says. "I don't really know your sister all that well. But I can see the logic to that. I can understand, after everything she's been through, her wanting to be strong, to be able to protect herself."

"Do you think I'm wasting my time?"

She sighs but doesn't answer.

"Right," I say to let her off the hook. "Yes, I'll be safe and careful. I'll change into dry clothes and eat something and get some sleep. I won't do anything overly stupid. I'll call you more often."

"I wasn't going to say any of that."

"I know," I tell her. "That's why I wanted to say it for you. So you know that I know that you're worried about me."

"Always," she whispers.