Notes:

This is something I've been working on for a while because it just wouldn't leave me alone. It was originally supposed to be something else but yeah, whatever... this happens to me a lot, lol.


Yes, this is all I have left in me the way love goes is not the way that it came come fly, un-die, be born again

Tommy

Tommy looked at his best friend, sitting on the roof of the stables, like they used to as kids, his head bent, and eyes trained on a piece of paper in his hands. Honestly, he was surprised Ollie hadn't noticed his presence yet; he seemed to be hyperaware of everything around him since he got back, so this was a little worrisome. He took another step closer when he saw his best friend lift one of his hands and brush it across his cheek. It was at that moment that Tommy realized Oliver was crying. The position he was in now allowed him to see just what his friend was looking at, and the moment his eyes connected with the piece of paper in his hand, his heart constricted painfully.

Looking back at him was the beaming face of no other than Sara Lance.

Of course, Oliver would come here to remember her, to let himself grieve her. Something Tommy was pretty sure he hadn't been able to do since coming home. He knew how the Lances blamed him for what had happened to her. Knew Moira wouldn't bring it up, never being too fond of their friendship, feeling Sara was a bad influence on Oliver and pushing him to rebel against their life plans for him. Her free-spirited attitude and look on life not fitting in with the way things were done in the Queen household.

Sara had been the first one who had discovered a way up on the roof of the stables and how you could watch everything that was going on around while no one on the ground would know you were there. This had been one of her favorite places and not just on the Queens estate but in all of Starling. They had joked about it, and Ollie and he had actually had someone create a sort of bastardized version of a treehouse, looking like a bird's nest. Originally, they had intended for it to be a joke to mess with her, but she had loved it. Which, of course, an eleven-year-old Sara would've. Fuck, a twenty-four-year-old Sara probably still would've if… if she were still alive.

"Hey." Tommy slowly sat down next to his best friend, keeping some distance between them. Having noticed the other man preferred that ever since coming back, not appreciating physical contact, it was a complete contrast to who he was before. Oliver looked up from the picture for a moment and caught his eyes, before lowering them back down to the photo of a carefree, happy Sara. They sat in silence for a long time until Oliver suddenly broke it.

"I miss her." The admission wasn't much more than a broken whisper. God, this hurt. It was like losing her all over again. He had wished Ollie had been there to grieve Sara with him. He had wished Sara had been there to grieve Ollie with him. But all he had had was Laurel who hadn't known what she was supposed to feel given the circumstances of their deaths and her grief had turned to anger and her anger to self-loathing and there had been a time she had pushed it all on him, a time she had used her mixed feelings and complicated emotions and turned them on him. Wanting to know if he had known, if he had known that her boyfriend had been screwing her sister, and when he denied it, she had accused him of lying. Had pointed out that she didn't believe him, that he must have known and why he hadn't stopped it, stopped them. That he could've stopped this from happening.

She had showed up at his doorstep at a later date, apologizing profusely. Telling him she hadn't meant what she had said, that she was just so furious at them and that she felt so guilty for being angry because they were dead, and she just needed to get it out and that it hadn't been fair of her to let it all out on him. She'd broken down crying in his arms at the end of her admission.

And it wasn't like she had been wrong with her accusation that he had been lying to her because he had, sort of, anyway. But it hadn't been his place to tell her. It still wasn't, and it wasn't like they had let him know. It wasn't like either of them had confided in him or told him what exactly was going on between them; he had just known that something was going on and that it was probably more serious than any of the three of them wanted to admit, even if only to themselves. So, he kept his mouth shut, just like he had for months. Still staying out of it. He wasn't sure why; it didn't really matter anymore. They were dead, but it had felt wrong. It felt like a betrayal. So, Tommy stayed quiet, never once giving just the slightest indication that he had known about their affair. He hadn't been sure why, still wasn't. It had probably been out of a sense of loyalty. Had they wanted people to know, they would've let people know. They hadn't even told him. So, their secret stayed his secret. Even though the entire world knew, at least they knew a bastardized version of it.

The first time he had read a headline addressing his two dead best friends' involvement had made him sick, and he had emptied an entire bottle of Scotch after reading the article. The way they had made Ollie and Sara sound had just been so fucking disgusting. They didn't know shit. No one fucking knew what they were talking about, and it was so fucking tasteless to drag two dead people through the mud. There was hardly any media outlet that actually mentioned just how long they've known each other, just how much they mattered to each other, how close they'd been even before. No, they sensationalized a fucking tragedy to make money and vilified the victims because they had information but lacked the context to truly understand the situation. They had made Sara sound like some cold, calculated slut that purposely went after her sister's boyfriend. And Oliver like some selfish asshole who slept with both sisters for kicks. Fuck them all. He had wanted to sue every single outlet for defamation. But his dad had stopped him. Told him he would only make the scandal bigger that way. Besmirch their memories even more. So, he had done nothing, except reading every single article that was written about them and getting wasted while doing that.

"Yeah, me too." There was really nothing else to say. It was strange, being up here without her, this had been her place. They had never been up here without her before. He was sure she had been up here without them, but it had never been the other way around, he and Ollie had their own places around the Estate that they'd gone to, to be alone, just the two of them when Sara hadn't been around or when she'd been babysitting Speedy and they didn't feel like hanging with the girls. Places they've never taken Sara.

This made him suddenly wonder if Oliver and Sara had had those spots, too, places they'd never take him around here. But if they had, why would Ollie be up here to remember her and not in one of those places? Maybe this had become one of those places?

Having lost both of them at the same time had been brutal, their absence leaving such an enormous hole in his life. But having Oliver back now just made Sara's absence so much more apparent. It had been the three of them for most of their lives. Sure, there had been times Sara had been more or less involved in their lives, given their age difference and her being a girl, even if not your typical one. But Sara had always been there, even if only just on the edge of their lives. She had been an integral part. They had hung out with Laurel at her place, and Sara had been there. They had had brunches at the Queens with Laurel and her family and Sara had been there. They'd hung out at Ollie's while his parents had been at some event and Sara had been there babysitting Thea. There had even been periods in their lives when Sara had been more present than Laurel.

And now she wasn't here anymore, and she never would be again, and Tommy wasn't sure how to handle that. Wanted to ask Oliver if he was sure there was no chance that she could still be alive, because they had thought Ollie was dead too and here he was alive. Different, but alive, so maybe there was a chance that Sara was too. But he just couldn't bring himself to ask Ollie because, as much as Sara's absence hurt him, he was sure Oliver was hurting even more.

Because Oliver had loved her.

It had taken him years to figure it out. To come to this conclusion. But once he had reached it, everything had clicked and become so clear and he knew it was the truth. Oliver had loved Sara, desperately. And Sara had loved Oliver the same way. And maybe, just maybe, if everyone around them would've figured it all out sooner, they would've never gone on that godforsaken yacht together. Maybe they wouldn't have felt the need to run off to China together. Maybe they would both still be here.

The first time he had noticed that something strange was going on between his two best friends had been after he'd gotten back home from a trip to Europe with his dad and he had learnt that Ollie had gotten arrested for DUI in his absence. What had confused him had been Ollie's reaction to his question of how epic the evening must have been and how it was too bad he hadn't been there with him. His best friend's face had gone dark, and he had pressed his lips together and then changed the subject. To this day, he still didn't know what exactly had led to Ollie's DUI. He had learnt through Laurel that they'd been hanging out when he had suddenly gotten a phone call and left, with little to no explanation. It was right around that time that Oliver and Sara had suddenly completely avoided each other

Assuming Sara having gotten into trouble and Oliver helping her out wasn't a stretch. That had been a pretty regular occurrence, so that was a possibility. He didn't get why they wouldn't just have told him that though, and the avoiding each other part had not been regular at all. They usually hadn't even really stayed out of each other's paths when they were in a serious fight. So, this was very unsettling and made him wonder what the hell had happened between them.

It had been several weeks into their strange behavior that he had been fed up with it, feeling like the child of a very messy divorce and forced them to fucking go party with him, like they used to. What had been really weird then was once again their behavior. They had avoided each other like the plague for weeks, only to then share the backseat of his car and goof around on it, well, Ollie had mostly initiated that and also been the one who had seemed to always be touching Sara in one way or another. That had made little sense to him. He had sort of dumped them pretty early on at the club to have some fun with a hottie. His intention had been that those two got a chance to fix whatever the hell had been broken between them. They didn't need him for that.

It had been the next day, when he decided to check in with Ollie and hang out to figure out whether his two best friends had made up or not. And damn, if Oliver hadn't been in one hell of a mood, which had made little sense to him, he should've been in a good mood, given the fact that he had obviously gotten laid the night before, given the very clear marks on his body, it looked like it had been a wild one. But Ollie had just barked at him and told him to fucking drop it and mind his own business when he had asked, what the fuck? That wasn't like his best friend at all. They usually shared everything and talked about their conquests. He had shared the events of his night with his pretty absent-minded friend, after all. But he had done as Ollie had wanted and dropped the subject, just as he had the one of Sara when he had gotten a similar reaction which led him to believe that they had not cleared the air and taken care of whatever issue they had. And he'd been right. They had kept their behavior up for several months, even though they had left several parties together, while not having contact with each other at all other than that. And they only started to interact on those occasions when they ended up at the same place at the same time without intent well into the night and once they were pretty wasted already, never while being sober.

He had to begrudgingly admit that he hadn't made the connection for years, not even after Spring Break. It had never occurred to him that the woman Oliver had screwed that night had been Sara. Looking back now, it had all been so fucking obvious and he felt like the biggest idiot on the planet and could kick himself.

Sure, he had suspected that something was going on between them later on. They weren't very subtle, but not at this point in time, and not for a very long time after.

He could give countless excuses why he hadn't realized his two best friends were involved with each other, some of them even made sense, like they were both shameless flirts, they were both very physical and tactile people and touch was something they used a lot. He could point out how they've been friends for ages and not much in their behavior had changed, which on the one hand was true but on the other was complete bullshit. Because there had been a point when suddenly things had been drastically different, even though nothing had obviously changed. But their dynamic had shifted somehow and suddenly it was no longer Sara who was missing things but him, and that had been strange.

Like Oliver's newest frat buddies actually having known Sara before they've known him, sure that could've easily been explained away by Sara not missing out on an opportunity of partying with a house full of hot guys. Except that according to them, Ollie had made it very clear to them to keep their hands off of his female friend. So, it made no sense. Especially given the fact that she seemed to have been there rather regularly, she would've told Ollie to butt out and take that back and let her have fun with his frat brothers or she'd go have fun somewhere else. Sara didn't appreciate it when they got involved in her sex life, especially when it meant they were getting in the way of it.

Or the way they had sought each other's physical presence out whenever they were in the same orbit and Laurel and the parental units weren't around. Of course, he had just brushed it off as Ollie and Sara just being Ollie and Sara. There had obviously come a point when he could no longer do that, not while they were cuddling on the couch together, Ollie's arm around Sara's shoulder, her hand on his thigh. Or the way Sara played with his fingers, or how Ollie would caress her arm and side. Never mind the handful of times he had actually witnessed the two of them in rather compromising positions. Yes, eventually he had known that there was something going on between them. He just hadn't known what exactly it was, and he had never asked them or let on that he knew. Not sure if he wanted to know and scared what it would mean for the three of them, if they had chosen to lie to him, or if they had actually told him the truth. So, he kept quiet, just silently watching them. Pretending he didn't see, he didn't know, acting as if he were oblivious to it all, while they were being less than subtle around him.

"Everyone keeps telling me I need to talk to someone, and no one understands that the one person I could talk to, the one person who'd understand, was Sara." Oliver's admission surprised him, and ripped him from his thoughts. He looked at his best friend again, wondering if he'd say more or not. Afraid to reply and break the mood and stop Ollie from sharing his feelings with him for the first time since he was back. This was the most honest and open he had been ever since coming home and Tommy was desperate to keep this going for as long as possible because he had missed this part of his friendship with Oliver. He had missed their conversations, their heart to hearts.

"She used to… Sara… it was so easy to talk to her about anything really, because I knew she'd understand and if not, she wouldn't judge, she'd just be here, she'd just try to make things better. And now… I can't. I can't talk about what happened to me because I don't know how." Tommy knew his best friend's words should hurt him, but they didn't because he understood what Ollie meant, Sara had been easy to talk to, to confide in exactly for the reasons his best friend had pointed out. Yes, he had talked to Ollie, and they'd shared almost everything, but there had been instances and things he had only shared with Sara, because it had been easier to try and explain them to her than Ollie.

He didn't know what he should reply to that. Wasn't sure if there was a right thing to reply with. So, he stayed quiet, just sitting next to him, providing him with silent comfort. At least he hoped he was. It was something Sara used to do. She'd just sit next to you quietly when she knew something was wrong, but you didn't want to talk about it. She'd just sit by your side quietly. Making sure you knew you weren't alone.

"It hurts, it hurts so fucking much. And I wish… If I'd known that she'd… I would've never asked her to… I just… I loved her, Tommy." Oliver's last words were barely a whisper and had he not put his entire focus on his best friend he might have missed it. But he hadn't, and he felt the tears gather in his eyes hearing Ollie confess and with that confirm the conclusion he had come to himself.

"I know, Ollie. I know." He swallowed hard before replying, carefully placing his hand on Ollie's shoulder as a show of comfort and understanding.

"I never told her. I should've told her." The anguished tone in his voice and the way it broke at the end nearly did him in. Fuck, this hurt. Seeing Ollie like this, being witness to just how much pain he was in, was tearing him apart, especially because he knew there was nothing he could do. There was only one person who could make him feel better, who'd know just what to do or say, and her absence was the reason they were here to begin with. And Sara wasn't going to come back. Because she was dead.

"She knew, Ollie, I'm sure Sara knew." It was the only thing he could do, the only thing he could say. And it was the truth, if he had known that Ollie loved Sara and that Sara loved Ollie, then he was certain Sara had known too, because no one knew Ollie better than Sara, it was something he had to admit grudgingly and he'd only ever admit to himself. But it was the truth. His best friend turned his head towards him, seeking his eyes as if he was searching for something, keeping that up for long minutes until it looked like he was about to say something, but Tommy beat him to it.

"And Ollie, Sara loved you too. I'm sure of it." They were still staring into each other's eyes. This was why he noticed the sheen of moister that had gathered in Ollie's eyes at his words. Tommy wasn't sure what happened next or how, it had happened so fast, but the next thing he knew was Ollie had wrapped his arms around him, and was holding on to him tightly while sobbing on his shoulder. His own arms had gone around his best friend instinctually, and it didn't take long for him to join his brother in his grief.

This was what he had needed, what he had so desperately needed when he had learnt about Ollie and Sara's deaths. He had needed to hold his best friend, to take comfort in him while he was doing the same.

Tommy wasn't sure how long they had stayed on the roof, grieving the loss of the young woman they had both loved so dearly, even if it was in two entirely different ways. Sara had been such an important person in his life, in their lives, she had been their little sunshine, always optimistic, always smiling… well that wasn't true, she's had her fair share of issues, but she always had a smile and a hug ready for everyone who needed it. She'd always been willing to put her pain and issues aside to focus on theirs. God, he missed her, missed her so much. And it felt good finally being able to admit this out loud, to share this fact with his best friend, his brother.


Notes:

As always, let me know what you think.

Yes, this is another one of those stories, and I know I have several stories addressing the same thing. But just really feel Arrow did all three of them a disservice not having Tommy mention Sara to Oliver once, and just pretending he didn't know her.

There is almost no way Tommy hadn't been aware of the affair, he and Ollie appeared to have done almost everything together, he would've noticed for sure.

Chapter title is from the song "Pretty Bird" by Jhené Aiko.

Plus, I just love Oliver and Tommy's friendship and wished we would've gotten more of them on the show.