Tonight I'll dream while I'm in bed I can tell that we are gonna be friends

Notes:

This just sort of happened... I had an idea and ran with it. I did make some small changes in Chapter Four but nothing significant and these are just one shots but still, they sort of all play in the same Universe so I wanted to make sure that it fits.

Oliver

It was only the second time that Oliver was at Laurel's house. She and her mom had told him to go ahead into the house and to the kitchen while they took care of something in the garage. He quietly, and a little unsure, did what they told him to. He walked down the short corridor after taking off his shoes and stopped before walking inside, watching the scene he encountered. Laurel's little sister, Sara, was sitting on the kitchen counter, her little legs dangling over the side, and she was swinging them wildly, munching on a piece of carrot while looking out the window into the backyard. There were different vegetables, and pasta and pots and all kinds of things all over the surfaces of the kitchen, laid out to be used for whatever meal they were preparing.

"Hi Ollie" Oliver looked confused for a moment until he realized that the little blonde meant him. She was no longer looking out the window but right at him, waving with the hand that was not holding the carrot.

"It's Oliver." He corrected Laurel's baby sister.

"No, it's Ollie, Oliver's a silly name and too long." Sara was grinning at him mischievously, wrinkling her nose in amusement, and there was an impish sparkle in her sky-blue eyes.

"Oliver is not a long name." Disagreeing and defending his name was a natural reaction to the little imp's claim.

"Yeaha, it is. Sa-Ra, that's not long. And Lau-Lau, that's not long too. But Oh-lih-iv-her. That is so long." She exaggerated by drawing out each syllable of his name and stretching her arms all the way apart to show him how long his name supposedly was.

"But Ol-lie, that's short too. Do you want one?" She declared before taking another bite of her carrot and picking another piece up from the bowl next to her, holding it towards him.

"But my name is Oliver. How would you like it if I called you something that's not Sara? Isn't that going to spoil your dinner?" He wanted to know, sure that she wouldn't like it either if he would call her something else but Sara, and wondered at the last part, he wasn't allowed to have anything to eat this close to dinner at home.

"Good. My mommy, and daddy, and Laulau call me Sar-Bear sometimes. It means they love me so much that they gave me a special name only they call me. Don't your mommy and daddy have a special name for you?" the four-year-old was smiling at him, looking a little confused, while she explained to him, what she seemed to consider a fact of life, given the sound of her voice.

"My mom calls me sweetheart sometimes, or 'my beautiful boy'…" he shared with her not sure why he had told her about the second one, he didn't like it when his mom called him that, boys weren't beautiful, girls were according to Thomas.

"Well, sweetheart is not a special name, all mommies and daddies call their children sweetheart. And I'm not calling you beautiful boy, that's longer than Oliver and more silly too! Your mommy's silly, Ollie!" She laughed at him, shaking her head in exaggeration. It took her a moment to calm down and catch her breath before she answered his question concerning the food.

"No, silly Ollie, veggies and fruit and berries is something that you're always allowed to eat if you're hungry, even before lunch or dinner. Everybody knows that." She was looking at him again as if what she was saying was the most obvious thing in the world and she couldn't understand why he didn't know that.

"No, I'm not allowed to eat anything before lunch or dinner, because it'll spoil my appetite and I won't be hungry anymore. And it wouldn't look good if I didn't eat anything at the dinner table. And make people wonder." He explained what his parents had told him to the younger girl.

"Mommy says, better I spoil my dinner with veggies, than ruin their night with a low blood sugar tantrum… I get in a lot of timeouts when the sugar in my blood is low. I don't know what that means, it's what my mommy says and why I get to eat whenever I'm hungry." Sara shrugged her shoulders while repeating what her mother had told her with a thoughtful look on her freckled face. And Oliver remembered the last time he had been at Laurel's and Sara had had to spend time in her room all by herself in what he now knew was a timeout. He also remembered how Laurel's mom had talked about Sara needing a snack and saying something about blood sugar and Sara being easier to handle after she had eaten. He stepped closer to the counter and the blonde and slowly and carefully took the offered piece of carrot from her, looking around to see if anyone had come in and would see them. He felt unsure about this. He looked from the carrot in his hand back to Sara, who was happily munching away, looking out the window again. He took a small bite from the carrot and waited for a moment to see what would happen before starting to chew when nothing happened.

"Daddy, can Ollie help us make the sauce?" Oliver flinched at the excited voice that ripped him from his thoughts. And he saw Mr. Detective Laurel's dad walk into the kitchen from the door to the backyard. His eyes got wide when he realized that he'd get caught eating before dinner, and he tried to hide the small piece of carrot in his hand.

"If he wants to, baby. But I think Oliver is here to play with your sister, and that is okay and something we will have to accept. Baby, did you eat almost all the carrots I cut? Have you at least shared some with Oliver?" Oliver's eyes got even bigger when Laurel's dad started talking, afraid that they'd get in trouble. Until he registered the last question that the older man asked his daughter. That just confused him.

"Yeah, daddy I shared with Ollie." Sara sounded a little annoyed and he saw her roll her eyes.

"You better be telling the truth, Sara." Her dad sounded very stern when he said that, and Oliver wondered why. And why he didn't believe Sara when she told him she had shared with him.

"I did! Right, Ollie? I shared with you." The little girl turned towards him asking for his confirmation, looking at him expectantly.

"Yeah, Mr. Detective, Sara offered and shared the carrots with me." He straightened his back and held his head up high, the way his parents always told him to. And he made sure to speak clearly and properly. And to sound sure and certain, leaving no room to question his statement. Just like his dad taught him.

"Well, I'll be damned, she must like you, Oliver. Sara never shares her food without anyone making her." That surprised Oliver. She didn't know him. This was only the second time they've met.

"I'm calling silly name Ollie now daddy." Sara just told her father matter of fact, out of the blue and kept Oliver from replying to her dad.

"Well, baby, have you asked him if that's alright with him? Maybe he doesn't want to be called Ollie." Her father looked at the little girl sternly and Oliver wasn't sure how to feel about them talking about him as if he weren't there.

"Why? He doesn't have a special name yet, daddy. So I gave him one. Everybody needs to have a special name to make them feel happy and put a great big smile on that face of yours. Like Sar-bear makes me." Sara's answer surprised the seven-year-old. Sara wanted to make him smile and feel happy? She wanted him to have a special name that only people that loved him called him? The girl on the counter in front of him was so different to the one he first met a couple of weeks ago.

"So, Ollie, you want to help daddy and me make the sauce?" Her question ripped him from his thoughts and she was once again looking at him expectantly with those big blue eyes of hers.

"Ah, I don't know... I never made sauce before... and I don't know what Laurel wants to do." He was really unsure, and he felt insecure about this and the situation he was in. And he knew it was showing, and he was not behaving the way his parents had taught him to.

"That's alright Oliver, we can show you how to make sauce if you want to and Laurel can help too, there's plenty to do." Mr. Detective Laurel's dad reassured him.

In the end Oliver and Laurel's entire family made dinner together, and it was a lot of fun. And the food was fantastic. Afterwards they played games together, Laurel and Sara and their mom and dad too! That was one of the best evenings and most fun he's ever had. He couldn't wait to tell his mom and Raisa and Thomas the next time he saw him.

And when Laurel's mom told them to say goodbye because it was time for her to drive him home and agreed that Laurel could come with them but told Sara she needed to stay home and get ready for bed, which led to another fight between the sisters and a lot of protest that ended up in a full-blown tantrum from the four-year-old when her parents still didn't budge and insisted she stay back home. He was surprised when Sara interrupted her tantrum long enough to run towards, and barrel right into him, with surprising strengths, giving him a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek, telling him to come back soon and to not forget that he had a special name now too, just like she did.

Oliver recalled little Sara's words that night when he was lying in his bed. 'Ollie' she had called him 'Ollie' and he could feel himself smile and there was a warm feeling in his chest. He snuggled into his comforter and closed his eyes. Falling asleep with a smile on his face, feeling happy.

Notes

I was cooking dinner when I had the idea that Sara was the first person to call Oliver 'Ollie'. I can't picture either Robert or Moira coming up with the nickname and in Arrow Sara is the only one who almost always calls him Ollie. Everyone else sort of calls him both Oliver and Ollie, but Sara consistently calls him Ollie through all Seasons of Arrow... and given how little consistency the show has, it's huge. So I rolled with it and it is now my canon that Sara gave Oliver his nickname.

Let me know what you think.