I wasn't going to lose you again
His eyes were trained on the body lying on the cold metal table before him. Still, unmoving, cold. So unlike her. Sara had always been in motion while alive. From the moment he's first seen her to that very last time just a little over a day ago. Sara had never been still. Never stopped moving. Until now. She's been lying still for hours. Unmoving. He'd been alone with her for a while now. Felicity and Dig went to get some food and Laurel, Laurel, had been angry at him for not catching Lacroix. He understood, he was angry at himself.
This was how he ended up in the Foundry, his temporary home with Sara's unmoving body. Still lying on the table. The worst part of this situation was his mind playing tricks on him. Messing with him. And now whenever he looked at her he wasn't sure what he was going to see… the harsh reality of Sara's still body or the memory of her from another time, another moment, when she'd been lying on that table, but the context had been so very different, only a short few months ago. She had started on the table, throwing her shirt playfully at him, and they had eventually ended up on the bed in the back, exhausted but blissfully happy. And his mind kept on showing him that Sara, the mischievous glint in her eyes, the naughty smirk on her face and the teasing of her voice. And he couldn't take it. Couldn't take the reality, but the memory was almost worse. Yet he was craving it. Craving that image to the one presented to him in the here and now. Knowing that she was never going to look at him like that again, that he would never hear the sound of her voice again. Never hear her laugh again or the way she sounded and felt while shattering around him. Never feel the comforting warmth of her hugs again. He was never… fuck.
Oliver could feel the tears fall as his throat dried up. His eyes were still trained on the unmoving body of the woman he had loved for longer than he had been aware of. His vision became blurry, and it wasn't long after that the first sob tore from his dry lips.
"Sara…" her name was an anguished cry, a desperate attempt to maybe, just maybe, have her gentle touch and quiet voice wake him from this terrible nightmare. Maybe he'd wake up, and she'd draw him into her loving arms, comforting him and assuring him she was home and that she wasn't going to leave again, not now, not when they finally had a chance to be together. But the harsh reality was that she had left him, broken the promise she had made him. Together, she had sworn, only to break it just a few short weeks later… to provide him with an army. He wanted to be angry at her, he had been angry at her after she had left, when his mom had been murdered right in front of him and he'd been helpless to stop it, when all he had wanted was to go home and fall apart in her arms and she hadn't been there. She'd left him all alone to deal with the loss of his mother all by himself. She was supposed to be there. She had promised him they'd do life together. They'd face whatever together… but how could he have stayed angry at her once he had learnt the reason she had left? That she had sacrificed her freedom, her life, their dream, for him, so that he could have an army to fight Slade? How could he be angry when her reasons had been so selfless?
He should've begged her to stay. Should've told her he loved her, that he couldn't picture his life without her in it. That he needed her, that he would do whatever she wanted him to just as long as she wasn't going to leave him again. Instead, all he had done was nothing. He had just stood there and let her walk out of his life. Twice.
He was a fucking idiot.
Maybe he could've prevented this if he had asked her to stay. To come home with him. If only he hadn't been so focused on Felicity. He would've known that something was going on, that there was more to her being here than she had let on, that she might need help. That she was in danger. Why hadn't he stayed with her? Why hadn't he been more insistent on getting an answer from her? He should've known. He knew Sara better than he knew himself. Why had he left her alone that night? She had been gone for months, and they had spent only a few minutes together before he had chosen to leave her. Why hadn't he taken more time to spend with her? Why hadn't he offered to take her and Laurel out for coffee? He hadn't seen her in such a long time, hadn't known when the next time would be, and he'd just left. And for what?
No matter where he looked in the Foundry there was a memory of Sara, of better times, of the two of them together. Training, eating dinner or breakfast, researching, sharing details of the time they had spent apart, just enjoying each other's company, having sex or cuddling on the bed. She was everywhere, surrounding him, and at the same time, she wasn't here. Not really, and would never be again. He had lost her again, and this time for good. There was no more coming back. He was all out of miracles.
Oliver softly picked her up, trying to ignore how still, and quiet and cold she was while carrying her upstairs. He walked to the back, where they stored all of their freezers. He opened the one up they had plugged in hours ago to make sure it would be cold enough by the time Felicity was done gathering evidence. Oliver looked inside the empty trunk for a while, being acutely aware of the freezing air coming from it, holding on to Sara tightly. Unwilling to put her into the freezing cold. She hated the cold. The winter on Lian Yu had been torture for her. He could easily recall how she used to snuggle up to him tightly during the night, almost lying completely on top of him to keep warm thanks to his body heat. He would wrap his arms around her, rub her back and arms to chase the cold away. Sometimes she'd stick her ice-cold feet between his thighs to warm them up. Other times he'd also wrap his legs around her, pulling her into himself and as close as was humanly possible.
He closed his eyes, pressed a lingering kiss on her cold forehead and mumbling an apology before lowering her body and carefully placing her inside the freezer. Oliver closed the lit tightly and felt the bile rise up his throat. He barely made it to the sink on the other side of the room before he was throwing up violently, tears streaming down his face. He felt completely disgusted with himself for the action he had just executed.
He had put Sara's body in a freezer.
He was desperately holding on to the sink when he suddenly felt his legs give. His hands were shaking, and he was still emptying the meager contents of his stomach into it, feeling lightheaded while his body was covered in a sheen of sweat and he had trouble breathing.
"Oliver?" It took him a moment to register the voice calling his name. Oliver could barely hear it through the rushing in his ears. He slowly turned his head towards the door and saw Roy standing just barely inside. He wanted to say something but was stopped by another bout of by now dry heaving. There was nothing left in his stomach anymore. He turned back towards the sink and let the bile pass through his trembling lips.
He suddenly felt a comforting hand on his back. Roy must have come closer.
"Breathe, Oliver, you need to breathe. In and out… in and out." He tried to concentrate on Roy's calm voice, tried to follow his instruction but it took him longer than it should've to be able to stop dry heaving and to focus on his breathing. Once he had managed to calm his hyperventilating, he felt Roy gently stir him away from the sink and out of the backroom, he followed him not really registering anything until the younger man guided him to the stairs in the middle of the club and made him sit down on them. He still felt in a daze, and his hands were still shaking, but breathing had become a little easier and the light-headedness began to pass. It was only when Roy returned with a glass of water, handing it to him, that he noticed his friend had left to get it.
Oliver took a sip of the cold water. It felt soothing to his dry mouth and sore throat. His empty stomach churned for a moment because of the liquid, but he was able to keep it down.
"Thank you." He didn't know what else he could say. It wasn't enough. It didn't even come close to what he wanted to express, but it was the only thing that sprang to mind.
"Of course. I'm here… whatever you need, Oliver. I'm here." Roy placed his hand on his arm for a moment, looking him straight in the eye, and it was in this moment that he knew Roy understood what Sara's loss was doing to him. Just how much it had shattered him.
He wanted to say something, wanted to show him how grateful he was, but the moment was interrupted when Dig and Felicity returned. And he pushed his feelings, his anguish and despair back behind the wall he had built, so he could keep on functioning no matter what he was dealing with, so he could survive. There was a small voice inside of his chest, though that wondered if he was sure he was going to survive this because his heart had just been ripped out of his chest, and there was no surviving without a heart.
He squashed that voice and focused back on his friends and his mission to find whoever had done this to his ray of sunshine and make them pay for taking the light from his life and shrouding his world into darkness.
Notes:
I am so, so sorry for this, I have no idea where that came from and I'm in a really weird mood right now and I guess this is what it led to.
As always let me know what you think.
Both Oliver and Sara deserved better and Oliver deserved to get a chance to grieve the loss of the woman he loved. Felicity's words about how they'd stored Sara's body in the freezer always bugged me... especially the we part, since it was obvious that she hadn't been the one who had carried Sara's body upstairs and placed her inside... so yeah... this is my version of that...