Chapter 9; I get sick to my stomach every time I look at these things, I'm trapped here

Felicity;

Oliver was supposed to show up at the Arrow cave today, for the first time since he's been back.

Which means that it had taken Oliver more than a week to step into the Bunker for the first time since his return. She knew that Dig, Laurel and Thea had brought the subject of the Green Arrow up with him on several occasions. She couldn't understand why it took him this long to agree to come down here and put his suite back on.

Laurel had texted her to let her know that Oliver planned to stop by this afternoon and she had made sure to be here. She needed to talk to him.

Alone.

She knew that Laurel was stuck in court and Thea was busy with some college classes; she had decided to take after Oliver had left Star City. And Dig was taking baby Sara to her toddler class. So, she knew that they would be alone until everyone came down to suite up for the night and that wouldn't be until much later.

Felicity was understandably nervous. Sunday had not gone as expected. Not that she had expected Oliver to welcome her with open arms, but she had expected more of a reaction from him and a warmer hello. She had never thought he would just give her the cold shoulder. Not after the way he had tried to make things up to her just a few days before he had left. She had been sure he would at least be happy to see her again. Maybe he just… he just what? Was too distracted by Sara snuggling up to him all afternoon?

Felicity realized that she was being unfair to Sara the moment she thought it. It was very obvious that Sara was not okay. Not at all. And she wasn't actually snuggling up to Oliver. She wasn't sure what she had been doing honestly. Sara and Oliver had never been known for their PDA while they had been dating. So this was strange. Something was really wrong with her and of course she would turn to Oliver given their past and he would help her.

She had been surprised when Laurel and Thea had told them that Oliver had brought Sara home with him. Surprised, but happy. She had never gotten around to talk with her before she had left Star and she was looking forward to it. She had been a little taken aback by her two friends' explanation of Sara's behavior, but it made sense given what they knew about the blood lust. So, she had been ready to stay back and not give her a hug like she usually would and expected Sara to… well, not sulk in the corner but keep her distance from everyone. What had never even crossed her mind was Sara sticking to Oliver's side at all times. She did not expect for Oliver to hold his supposedly ex-girlfriend's hand, and she meant that literally, at all times.

That turn of events had completely taken her by surprise and she had to admit that she did not like it at all.

She was reminded of the time Sara first joined Team Arrow. She had been taken by surprise then, too. Not that Sara joined them, but that Oliver and Sara not only resumed their relationship but did it pretty much right away. She couldn't really grasp what was going on. Not after Oliver had spent more than a year chasing after Laurel. She had of course noticed the changes in Oliver when it came to Laurel after Tommy had died, and she and Dig had brought him back from Lian Yu. At least that's when she thought those had happened. Looking back now she realized that yes, things had sort of changed around that time, but he only stopped showing any kind of romantic interest in Laurel after he found out that Sara was still alive.

She had been jealous of Sara then, for more than one reason. She remembers telling Dig that it hadn't been about seeing Oliver and Sara together, but that hadn't been entirely true. Part of it had been because of it. She hadn't expected that. And neither had Dig. As far as they had been concerned the affair with Sara had been a stupid mistake Oliver had made. One he regretted. That didn't really mean anything to him. Because he was in love with Laurel. And the five years away just made him realize that. That was the story he had told them for more than a year. So how were they supposed to expect that?

What had hurt even more had been the fact that he had told her, after Russia and Isabel, that he shouldn't be with someone he really cared about because of what he did as the Arrow. And yet, he had turned around and forgotten all about it the moment Sara had decided to stay in Star City. It was obvious that she was someone he cared about deeply.

She had come to realize over the years that Sara had a pull and power over him that no one else seems to have. Not Laurel and, she begrudgingly had to admit, not even she herself. There were no lengths Oliver wasn't willing to go to, nothing he wasn't willing to do for the younger Lance sister.

So, it had been a natural reaction to wonder whether the two of them had gotten back together, given their cozy behavior at Laurel's. They hadn't according to Dig. That had been a relief.

She had spent the last week thinking about what she should tell him. She hadn't been sure if she should bring up the fact that she had spent a lot of time thinking about the way she had ended things with him five months ago and that she regretted it. Ending things, that is, not telling him what she did. She stood by her words and everything she had said to him. But she had reached the conclusion that they could work it out and get back together like he wanted, if he agreed to be completely honest with her, include her in all his decisions and agreed to not keep any secrets from her. She couldn't see how he wouldn't agree to her very reasonable demands. And now, after Dig had ensured her that no, Oliver was not back together with Sara, she was sure that she had to tell him. And that things would go her way. After all, Oliver always ended up seeing things her way and coming back to her in the end.

So, all she needed was for him to show up alone so she could talk to him.

‐-‐-

Oliver;

Oliver was on his way to the Bunker after a lengthy conversation with Sara and ensuring that she would be fine alone for an hour or two. He had no intention of putting his leathers on tonight. He just went to see what everyone had to say and what had been going on in his city during the months he'd been away. If Hive was still active and what Ruvé's been doing. He had been avoiding this for as long as he could but Thea, Dig and even Laurel were getting impatient. He wasn't sure if the Green Arrow was something he still wanted to be. Wasn't sure everything it cost him was worth the results. Sara had given him some valid inputs and significant points to think about and consider.

Not being sure whether he wanted to put his suite back on was one reason why he had stayed away from the Bunker this long. Felicity was the other.

He was not sure he was ready to face her again. Not with everything else that has been going on.

Sara and he had been looking at the different adoption agencies they'd been given. Comparing them to find the one they felt fit. Plus, they were still trying to figure out whether they wanted an open or closed adoption. Closed would be safer for the baby, but open gave them a chance to make sure it was doing okay…

He had also contacted Caitlin, and she had agreed to come to Star over the weekend, so Sara could get to meet her and would have time to get to know her and decide if Barry's personal physician was someone she could trust with her body.

Oliver wasn't blind or stupid. He knew that Felicity had tried to connect, and even flirt with him that afternoon at Laurel's. He just wasn't sure what it was about or what it meant and she was trying to do. Not after everything that had happened, and she had said before he had left all those months ago. But he knew that it wasn't something he was strong enough to deal with right now. Just thinking about her made him feel anxious, and the thought of her trying to talk to him alone and broach the subject of their breakup was pushing him towards a panic attack. So, he forced himself to think back to earlier this evening, to calm himself down.

Oliver stopped stroking Sara's hair and lifted his hand from her head to pick up his cell phone, after it vibrated to let him know about a new text message. He checked the display and saw that it was another text from Thea. She had been texting him a couple of times every day since Sunday. He had answered her texts and even called her once. He was grateful that she gave him time to settle in and told him the night after the gathering that she understood that he and Sara needed some time to 'arrive' and he should let her know if they needed help or company. It had been the only time she mentioned hanging out together. He was so very thankful for her understanding and the time and space she gave him. He opened the message and saw that she was once again asking if he was coming to the Bunker tonight, to suite up with them. He sighed, put the phone back on the coffee table and ran his hand over his face. Well, except for when it came to that.

"You don't have to if you don't want to. It's your choice. Don't let them force you into doing something you don't want to." He had to smile when he heard Sara's tired voice and moved his hand from his face to look at her, expecting her to be staring at him. Yet, she was still in the same position with her head resting on his tight and her eyes closed. She had fallen asleep shortly after the movie they were watching had started, and he was wondering now how long she's been awake. They've taken up watching TV together to try to distract themselves from their thoughts. It was sort of working, some of the time.

"I know. I just don't know what I want to do. This is our home and I want it to be saver, better, but I don't know if I can keep doing this. If I can still go out every night and fight for it. Being the Green Arrow means losing the parts that are Oliver Queen, I knew that when I started, I was okay with that but along the way I lost so much more than I could've ever imagined because of it. I had to give up so much because of it and I just don't think I have anything left to give the people of Star City. I don't know what I'm fighting for anymore." Oliver had stared at the wall while trying to put his feelings into words, sighed after he was done and turned his eyes back on Sara, and was graced with her concerned, yet understanding ocean blue hues reading him.

"You tried to leave the Arrow behind twice before already and let Felicity and Dig or Thea and Laurel drag you back into it, mostly against your will from what you told me. The Arrow is part of who you are Ollie, just like the Canary is part of who I am. I'm not saying you need to go back in the field, we both know I won't be going back anytime soon and it's not just because of the baby. Maybe you need to remember why you put on the hood in the first place, what it was YOU wanted to do and figure out what you want to do now if you were to put the hood back on. Not what everyone else wants you to do or be." Sara had taken her time gathering her thoughts and she was obviously choosing her words carefully, he cocked his head listening to her musings and had to admit not for the first time, that people underestimated her a lot. She was one of the smartest people he knew, and she understood humans in a way few did. And she knew him better than he knew himself. What she said made sense.

He spent some time reflecting on his friend's words; he had gone back to stroking her hair and Sara had taken the remote and was looking for something to watch.

He had a clear goal, a plan when he first came home, when he first put on Shado's hood. He had strayed from it years ago and things just kept on getting worse in the city he called his home.

Maybe going back to the list would help. The cancer that had infected his city was still spreading. Sometimes he felt even faster and worse than before. He no longer even felt like he was fighting the symptoms of the disease anymore, more like the side effects of the drug numbing the pain the disease brought with it. But going back to the list was not something Diggle or Felicity would react kindly to. And Laurel and Thea probably wouldn't agree with it either.

He would go, meet with them, listen to what they had to say and had been going on lately and then do some research on his own. Talk to Sara about it and think about everything before deciding.

Sara;

It wasn't just the knowledge that some of her memories seemed to be missing. It was also the fact that she had memories that no longer fit. She knew they happened, but the proof for them was missing.

Her body no longer represented her life. Her body was no longer a canvas of everything that had happened to her, that she remembered. And it wasn't just the scars from her time in the League. The scars she had gotten as a child were gone too, the one she got after falling off a small wall she had been balancing on when she was five. Or the one she got after she fell off a tree and broke some bones in her foot when she was eight. Or the ones she got after a dare from Ollie and Tommy gone wrong.

All gone.

Her body was a blank canvas, and her mind had trouble making the connection. Her mind, her memories told her that her body should be painted with scars, yet there were none. And it was as if her mind kept on sending error signals because it couldn't be her body if it didn't fit her mind. And her body kept on trying to tell her brain that it was hers, but the memories were wrong. And all of this had been confusing and draining enough even before adding the child growing inside of her. A child she was sure probably would never have been able to come into existence if her body had still fit her memories. She was sure that there had been too much damage done to her and her organs, for a life to grow inside of her and her mind knew that. Kept on trying to remind her of that and deny the implications, but her body told her differently. The person growing inside of her was proof her mind was wrong. She was providing life. She had the shape and memories of a warrior, but her body was that of the girl that she once was before she chose Ollie over Laurel. And paid the price, for the sins and the betrayal her choice brought with it, in blood.

And the more of her memories returned, the more confused her body and mind got. She was sure sometimes that she was going crazy. There had been moments when she had wondered if just replicating her former scars would ease her mind. Or would it make it worse? Twice the memories for one set of identical scars. Not that she would ever harm herself. Even less severely as she would have to if she truly wanted to replicate the missing scars, which she didn't.

Her mind seemed to intensify her memories, make them more vivid, make her feel like she was there again, as if trying to prove to her body that the marks of those atrocities done to it should be here. As if it were demanding they show up simply by making her relive the violent crimes inflicted on her over and over again.

She lost count of the amount of times she woke up screaming or to the need to vomit months ago. She always knew the reason she was woken up from her nap by her body's demand to empty her stomach. She could always tell whether it was the baby or the gruesome events from her past.

The other thing that was always the same was Ollie. He was her constant in all of this.

Her anchor to the present.

He would always show up at her side in record time. Letting her know that she was safe. That she was not back in the hell her life had been for five years. That she was simply remembering the past that could no longer hurt her, touch her. He always managed to pull her back into the present.

So, it was a surprise when he wasn't next to her within seconds after she started to vomit. She felt the tears rolling down her cheeks but couldn't taste the salt they left on her lips because of the bile passing through them. She knew her entire body was shaking, she could barely breathe. She tried to calm herself down, to regulate her breathing, tried to recall the exercises Ollie always made her do…but she couldn't recall them. Her mind was such a mess and the harder she tried to recall his calming voice telling her what to do, the more she drew a blank and the more agitated she got.

This was not good for the baby, she knew that.

She needed to calm down because this was not good for the baby.

But the need to empty her stomach of everything in it was greater than her need to breathe. Her lungs constricted painfully as a result of her heaving, desperate tries to calm her agitated breathing and her agonizing sobs. She tried to replace their faces and voices with Ollie's, but she just couldn't get them out of her head.

Their faces, the cruel looks on them, the sadistic gleam in their eyes, their strong, brutal hands all over her, pulling on her, reminding her so cruelly of the first time she had met Anthony.

"The more you struggle the more it'll hurt, little bouzin."

Except this time around, he wouldn't come and save her. His body was rotting away in a shallow grave on the other side of this godforsaken island.

And Ollie wouldn't come and save her either. His body was somewhere not too far from shore, in the Freighter's wreck at the bottom of the North China Sea.

Sara's hands turned white from the death grip she had on the toilet bowl. Trying to use the cold ceramic to ground her in the now and remind her that she was home.

She was fighting and losing a desperate battle against the part of her brain that was pushing one of the worst moments of her life to the forefront of her mind, from all the way back where she had buried it so deep, and the part of her brain and her body that reminded her of the little person growing inside of her and the need to take care of it. Which meant calm down and relax. And she tried, she desperately tried but she couldn't… she couldn't push the memories away, couldn't pull herself back to the now, the now that mattered, that she needed to be in to make sure Ollie's child was okay.

Ollie… where was Ollie? Why wasn't he here? Why wasn't he pulling her back and grounding her in the now?

She managed to loosen her hands from their desperate hold on the ceramic bowl long enough to pull her cell from the front pocket of her… Ollie's… old ‚Rocket's' sweater she was wearing and somehow managed to unlock it trying to press speed dial one… she dropped the phone before she could be sure she managed the task, in order to hold on to the bowl again and dry heave as another memory was pushed forward in demand of her undivided attention.

„How does it feel, little bouzin? Who's in control now? Not so tough anymore, without your knife or strong men to protect you, are you little bouzin?"

Ollie. Ollie couldn't be here. He couldn't save her, couldn't protect her this time because he was dead. He went down with the Freighter… he wasn't going to come. He was gone. And she was alone, all alone… he couldn't help her, couldn't stop them…

Sara desperately tried to hold on to reality but lost the battle being swallowed by a past she just wanted to forget and put behind her. Swallowed by memories that were once buried in the deepest, darkest corner of her mind, never to be revisited, never to be relived. But ever since her re-ensoulment, and intensified by her pregnancy and the hormonal imbalance that came with it and made her more emotional, her memories had started to resurface with a vengeance and she was powerless against them. The emotional overload the changes in her body brought with them made it impossible for her to keep or rebury the memories of the worst of what had been done to her. The intensity that came with her current incapability to numb her feelings and push them aside made her reactions to her nightmares so much worse. Ollie was usually the only reason she could push them far enough away to come back to the here and now. He would then stay with her, to make sure she wouldn't lose her grasp on reality again and hold her for as long as she needed him to until the memories no longer threatened to swallow her. Be it minutes, hours, sometimes even days.

Sara never got the chance to find out whether her call connected before she ended up lost in the hell her own mind created.