Chapter 47.

Hindsight.

Oliver tried to sound appropriately apprehensive in his message. He knew the number from the past, the future, but had no explanation for knowing it now. It wouldn't matter at the end of the day. His mind was made up.

He spoke calmly, quietly.

"I found a flash drive on our last target. We need to meet. I think I know what our next move should be."

He left it at that. Short, simple. Waller would wonder what he knew, wonder if he was suddenly cooperative or playing toward his own ends. She was predictable, though. She would assume she still had the upper hand, regardless of what he found on that drive. Waller thought that Oliver had one card, and she had the rest of the deck.

She was wrong.

A black car rolled up to the Yamashiro residence in the middle of the night. He was already up, waiting, locked into the cold, calculating side of himself.

"What happens after?" Sara whispered with a steel grip on his arm.

It was too dark to see her face, but he knew what she was feeling. A mix of scared and angry. She was pissed off that his plans excluded her, afraid that he would never come back.

He said, "We go home. I know what I'm doing. You have to trust me."

"I wish I could. You're not thinking straight."

Oliver was blinded by hatred, stricken by grief. He had not slept, but waking visions showed him the parts of his life that Waller had stolen. She was not the worst of his past, not the most powerful, but the helplessness of this situation had driven him to rash action. He needed to make waves, to force change. Sara was right. He had made little difference. Even his reason for coming back – finding the source of his unstoppable foe – was clouded.

It all brought his conflict with Waller into a harsh light.

"I am," Oliver said, pulling his arm from her grip, taking her shoulders in his hands. "I have a plan. I know how this will play out."

She hesitated.

"Stay here." Oliver released her.

He had told her what was coming, laid out the situation with the virus, with Shrieve, with Chien Na Wei. If something happened to him, it fell on her to stop it. He never wanted it to come to that. It was another of his motivations, another thing to drive him to win the fight. His and Sara's were not the only lives on the line. It was that reality that kept Sara from following him, from stopping him. It was the only thing he could do to convince her to stay behind.

"I'll be fine," he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead, hoping it was not the last time he would see her. "I should be back before dawn. If I'm not, you know what to do."

"Oli…"

He was already out the door, creeping through the house, making his way down the front walk. He didn't look into the driver's side of the black car, only slid into the back seat, staying quiet as it pulled away. An ARGUS agent was there with him. Oliver slid a bag over his own head.

XxXxX

Oliver was placed in an abandoned building, several stories up, overlooking the bustling city center of Hong Kong. When the bag came off, he was met with a dangerous situation – Waller was out of sorts, pacing, a gun on her hip, blood smeared on her chest. Oliver quickly assessed the days, the timeline, unbelieving. It was too early for this, too early for the virus.

She stopped to stare at him, "The Chimaera was attacked."

Unexpected.

His surprise was genuine. "What? Why?"

Waller came closer, deadly focused. "What do you know about Anthony Ivo?"

Oliver was briefly derailed. A novel situation. Ivo was dead last time, but in this timeline, Oliver had not killed him, and Waller took him prisoner. He said, "Uh, not much. I know he parked a boat near the island and we tried to take it."

Waller narrowed his eyes. What had Ivo told her? Oliver said a few things to him that he should not have known, maybe indicating that he was not just a party boy lost at sea. Oliver had not expected him to live. It was dangerous information for Waller to have.

She said, "He was taken in the attack."

Why?

"I want you to think hard about it," Waller said, coming even closer, close enough for him to take her down. "I'll ask you again. What do you know about him?"

Oliver spared a few more details, "He said he was a scientist or something and his wife was sick. He wanted something on the island. I didn't ask for his life story."

Waller stepped away, paced again. "We lost track of the vessel that attacked us, but it was heading in the direction of Lian Yu."

His heart was suddenly racing. He had hidden a vial of Mirakuru on the island. One last vial. If they looked hard enough, they could track it down. But that begged the question – who would have the resources to find Ivo, break him out of an ARGUS prison, and go on an expedition for the serum?

Waller paused by the window, thoughtful, "I know you wanted to meet so you could kill me. I have a proposition for you, instead."

He stiffened. How did she know?

"Your friend," Waller said, anticipating his curiosity. "Sara sent me a message."

Sara. He felt the sharp sting of betrayal, a flash of anger. Sara knew she was no match for him, unable to stop him by herself. In her mind, this was the only way to keep them all alive.

"I told her I would spare you if she and Maseo continued pursuing my ambitions in Hong Kong." Waller turned, gave one of her sweet, vicious smiles. "I'm sending you to Lian Yu to recover Anthony Ivo – and find out what they were after." She paused, added, "It might interest you to know that the freighter we found you on was discovered abandoned in international waters – no passengers, no crew."

He thought about his friends, the people he had to leave behind. His dad. Slade. Shado. Luke. It stung, too. He suddenly felt very alone, cast out. He could not bring himself to face the thought that they might all be dead.

He had roughly two months before the virus made its way into the city and, currently, Ivo getting his hands on the serum was a bigger threat.

He nodded, though Waller did not need his consent. She smiled again, satisfied, but she had a little vein of curiosity in her. He usually fought back, at least a little. She had to wonder why he was rolling over now.

She said, "I have a helicopter waiting on the roof."

XxXxX

[Oliver sneaks into the cave, a little bummed out to see reminders of his missing friends, and he has no time to take the syringe. A squad arrives and holds him at gunpoint. Luke arrives to save him, and they fight together. Luke says there are more on the way. Oliver takes the syringe out and Luke is curious about it. Oliver is not sure why he wants to save it. He puts it in Luke's pack and they head out together, to a designated meeting place, to wait for Waller to pick them up. Oliver tells Luke what the vial is, and that it has to be incinerated, that not even one drop of it can remain. Luke tells him what happened on the freighter and how he was separated from the others. They are attacked again, Oliver is shot in the stomach. Luke gets him to relative safety but the bad guys are upon them. Luke wants to give Oliver the Mirakuru to heal him. Oliver refuses weakly and passes out.]

Oliver dragged his raft onto the shore, wedging it against a tree in the dense jungle of the north side of the island. He had been dropped on a boat miles away and given a raft with a small engine to avoid drawing attention. It had been a rough trip. He was thrown against some rocks and dumped out a hundred feet from shore. The water was icy, the waves unforgiving. Waller probably enjoyed the thought of him slinking onto the island like a drowned rat.

He hiked up the north ridge, intending to go straight for the cove to destroy the last vial of the serum, but the area was blanketed with smoke. Little fires ate through the jungle, swaths of trees already cleared.

He worked past his alarm – they were very close to the cove and the serum – and approached the situation tactically.

Four teams, moving systematically through grids, slashing and burning the forest. One of them was heading toward the cove, soon to discover the signs of their camp. Clearly the priority.

Oliver slid down the ridge and ran, cutting between groups and relying on the smoke and trees to hide him. His footsteps were dimmed by the crackling fire. He was fatally outnumbered, and discovery was almost surely going to mean death.

He was thinking through his tactics, briefly hesitating, when a crack in the brush behind him alerted him to a mercenary at his heels.

Oliver whipped around, caught a hand as it drove a knife toward his chest, twisted it away from himself. He saw black battle gear, a swinging rifle, and acted on instinct. Oliver pulled the guy toward him, spun him, got him in a headlock, and broke his neck.

As the merc sunk to the ground, a timer started ticking.

His absence would be noticed.

Oliver had no idea which group the guy had splintered off of. He kept running toward the cove, determined to intercept the mercs that were closest to the serum.

He found another opportunity, though, and made it past them. Just to the west, he heard them trampling the undergrowth, far enough from the cave to miss Oliver rolling off the overhang, grabbing a vine, and swinging inside.

He hit the sand running, but stopped in his tracks when he got a good look around.

His temporary home had been eaten up by the elements of Lian Yu. Remnants of his friends, his family, had fallen into disarray. Beds. Blankets. Notes. Weapons. He was trapped by the thought that those people could all be dead by now – and Sara, too, if he failed.

The clicking of a gun made his stomach drop.

Oliver turned, found three mercs pointing rifles at him. He put his hands up.

"Who are you?" one said, his voice muffled through a black balaclava.

Oliver thought rapidly, trying to come up with an escape. It seemed like an impossible situation.

"Who are you?" the guy repeated.

And then the guy was on the ground with a knife sticking out of his throat.

Oliver sprung into action, rolling, dodging a spray of bullets and taking one of the mercs out by the legs. The bullets stopped abruptly as the third guy went down – with Luke on top of him.

Luke was, thankfully, physically stronger than most, as a former merc himself. He pinned the guy and broke his neck, just as Oliver was putting down his own. He had no time to think of lives lost, of the promises he made to Sara and killing. He had no time to think of anything.

"Miss me?" Luke said, jumping to his feet and hauling Oliver upright. He embraced him. "Jesus. I thought you were dead. Where is everyone?"

"Not here?" Oliver said, hopeful, and then grieving all over again.

"I'm the only one here, as far as I know." Luke took a rifle off a merc, handed it to Oliver. "We gotta go. There are more of them out there. Lots more."

"I saw." Oliver went straight to his hiding place, yanking the stone out of the wall to retrieve the last vial of Mirakuru. It felt heavy in his hands.

Luke tipped his head at it, "What is that?"

Oliver hesitated, but decided on honesty, in case the worst happened. "Mirakuru. It's what Ivo was here for – what he came back for. It's a serum that heals people and makes them super soldiers, but it drives them crazy. We have to incinerate this. No trace of it can be left on this island. If I go down, you have to do it."

Luke frowned, staring at the vial, "Uh… okay."

"Promise me."

"I promise." He grew more serious, holding a hand out, "I'll put it in my backpack. But you're not going down, Ol. We're both making it off this island, together this time."

Oliver handed the vial to Luke, feeling a strange sense of trust with him. A deep bond. Maybe it was the similar experiences they had on this awful island – and similar goals.

Outside was a warzone.

When they got to the beach, bullets sprayed the sand. Oliver ran for cover, felt an impact in his gut, staggered. Luke got an arm around him and dragged him onward.

"We have to get here," Oliver said, producing a map from his pocket, startled to find it covered in blood. He tapped his abdomen, staggered as pain blossomed through his torso.

Luke took the map, scanned it, and shoved it into his bag, "Okay, just get your feet under you. Come on. You gotta keep moving, man."

Oliver did his best. Adrenaline made it easier. He kept up with Luke, who turned every now and then to return fire and send the enemy into hiding. After a time, it seemed they had been forgotten, or they had outpaced their attackers – or the mercs knew they could only get so far. Must have seen the blood trail.

On the eastern side of the island, Luke found them a safe hole in the rocks, which would be drowned out once the tide finished coming in.

Luke helped him sit against a rock, but Oliver ended up lying on his back, groaning, the pain beginning to take over as the adrenaline faded. He was fading in and out of reality.

"You said this heals people, right?" Luke said, holding the vial.

Oliver knew what he was thinking, shoved the vial away, "No."

"I can heal you," Luke insisted. "You're bleeding out."

"Let me," Oliver said. "I'd rather die than use that. You have to destroy it."

"Oliver…" His voice echoed a thousand times.

Oliver closed his eyes, let the world slip away.

XxXxX

He woke in a sterile white room.

He shifted, and then froze as pain rocketed up his spine. His abdomen was swathed in bandages and he had fluffy handcuffs on both hands, holding his arms out. A doctor stood at a computer nearby, and when he saw Oliver moving, he went to push a button on the wall.

"Where am I?" Oliver croaked, gasping, finding his throat as dry as a desert.

A door opened and Luke came into the room, looking rough. He lit up when he saw Oliver, but there was a shade of darkness to his face. "Welcome back to the land of the living."

Oliver flexed, felt nothing out of the ordinary about his body, but he still asked, "Did you…?"

"No." Luke came to his bedside, giving the doctor a nervous glance.

Oliver relaxed, taking shallow breaths to avoid hurting his abdomen again.

"You took a bullet to the stomach," Luke said.

"Where are we?"

"The Chimaera, apparently. It's a ship. But you probably knew that. Is this where they took you?"

Oliver nodded, uncertain. "Who told you that?"

"Amanda Waller." Luke said the name with a certain amount of apprehension, which made Oliver proud. He knew she was bad news. "I figured you guys had met once or twice."

He was alluding to the past – the real past. Oliver said, "Yeah, once or twice. Never got along."

"Is that so?" Waller strode in through the door.

Oliver said, "Were you waiting for the perfect entrance?"

"Glad to see you awake, Oliver. We were worried." Waller came to stand beside Luke, looking better than the last time Oliver saw her. Free of injuries, free of fear. "You failed to capture Anthony Ivo."

"I got shot, sorry for the inconvenience."

"He and his mercenary friends fled the island after we extracted you. We lost track of them." Waller strolled over to the computer. "Did you at least find out what they were after?"

"No."

She met his eyes, challenging the truth in that. She knew he was lying. How?

"We should stop lying to each other," Waller said. "It really hurts our relationship. How about we start over? You failed to catch Anthony Ivo, and you did find out what he wanted. You found what he wanted."

Oliver stiffened, his heart constricting. "No."

"Yes." Waller pulled the vial from her pocket, examined it. "And my next question is, what is it?"

Oliver looked at Luke, shocked, horrified, and Luke was looking back with pleading eyes. "I'm sorry. She threatened to let you die."

"She wasn't going to let me die!" Oliver said, straining his abdomen again. He groaned, pressed his hand delicately to the bandages, his next words coming out as gasps. "She needs me."

"I can find out what this is on my own, or you can tell me now," Waller said.

Oliver said nothing.

"Okay. Have it your way. I think we're settled for now, Mr. Queen. I'm impressed that you survived that wound. You'll spend three weeks here recovering and then return to pursuing my interests. I want to know where Chien Na Wei is."

"What about me?" Luke asked.

Waller turned her steel gaze to him. "I want to have a private conversation with you about your involvement with Fyers on Lian Yu."

"He was just a foot soldier," Oliver said. "He doesn't know anything."

"I'll determine that. Rest up and prepare yourself to do something useful for once."