A/N- A special thanks to Okoriwadsworth for pre-reading this chapter.

The rain mirrored his mood. It should have been blue clouds and warm sun, for the day that Laurel was going to be farewelled from this earth. On either side of him were two burly cops, both with shotguns.

Oliver gritted his teeth and moved his wrists slightly, feeling the handcuffs chafing against his skin. Laurel didn't deserve this. He looked up from her gravestone that Thea had paid for, and looked on the opposite of his wife's casket, was Thea wrapping her arms around his daughter. His sister was doing everything he couldn't.

Not far from Mia and Thea was Samantha and William, he didn't expect them to come to Laurel's funeral considering the media would latch on to them like a dog with a bone.

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…"

Oliver kept looking around, this was his fault, it all led back to one thing. Oliver Queen was the Green Arrow. Without him donning Yao Fei's hood, Laurel would never have become Black Canary.

He allowed his armed escorts to start to pull him from Laurel's grave. He didn't deserve to say goodbye to her. He should have done something, tried to break down the doors. Snap Brickwell's neck before he could have targeted Laurel.

And now his eldest is more or less an orphan. He couldn't guide her or protect her from behind iron bars. William no longer had an available father. For all of his Dad's faults, he was never a failure at fatherhood like Oliver was now. Quintin, Slade, Maseo all loved their kids, the latter often had to spend a long time away from their children, and yet they could still support them. Oliver couldn't. Not from behind bars.

It would be so easy, just taking his daughter and running, take her to France or Russia. But what would that teach her? Besides, he couldn't let someone like Daniel Brickwell target his family without him receiving justice.

"Ollie…" Barry called out to him.

But his friend was intercepted by one of his guards. "Step back, Sir."

Barry was careful not to use his speed. "I'm offering my condolences. He needs to know that this wasn't his fault." He then looked at him. "Ollie, this isn't your fault, she would want you to know that."

While Barry was dealing with the guards, Sara had managed to sneak around. He smiled at her, he was glad that she could have made it to her sister's funeral. "Sara.."

"Don't Sara me! You got her killed, she was brought back and you allowed her to be killed again!" Sara got up closer to him, "I wish that you stayed dead after Ra's slew you."

One of his guards cocked his weapon. "Step back, Ma'am.

It looked like Nyssa had carefully moved Sara from the confrontation. He looked over at Thea, who was no longer with his daughter, as he looked around to see her done up blonde hair, near Samantha. Mia was giving her brother a tight hug.

Oliver let out a shaky breath as he was hauled into the back of the van. He saw Thea and called out to her. "Look after my kids, Speedy. You are all they have now. Please, promise me?"

His sister nodded and looked like she wanted to tell him something, instead she said, "I made a promise, Ollie. I love my family, they will be safe."

::-:-:-::-:-:-::

He didn't even notice that he was put back in solitary confinement. Everything was a blur after he had been assured by his sister that she would look after Mia and William. But now that he was here, he would never be alone. Not really. He now had something to think about while he was here

He could still hear Laurel's screams. And he did nothing. Why didn't he try to break the door down?

He punched the cement wall, relishing the pain that he deserved.

He could hear his daughter's shrieks. And he did nothing.

Another punch, into the wall, his knuckles were now bleeding and raw.

It was a common theme with him and Laurel, him doing nothing, or running away. He may never be able to make it up to his wife, but he could ensure that the man who targeted her would never harm his family again. He would get justice for Laurel.

Barry said that in a previous timeline he had stabbed an arrow into Damien Darhk because he had done the same to Laurel. He was going to drive a shiv into Brick's belly as his men did to her in this timeline.

Laurel was always the person that made him strive to be a better man, to become Green Arrow. The Emerald Archer and Black Canary kept the darkness within him and diminished it.

But now these criminals were going to learn just what it was like to be trapped in the dark. He wasn't stuck in with them. They were trapped in the darkness with him. They were about to meet the real Oliver Queen. They were going to meet The Arrow.

"This is not the way." A familiar, comforting voice said to him.

And yet, Oliver didn't want to hear him. "You're not real," Oliver said, taking another punch to the wall. It was only a slither of what his wife and daughter felt.

"Does it matter?" Yao Fei's ghost asked. "Are you going to throw away your life on revenge? You still have a family. A daughter, a son. Your children are more precious than revenge."

"This is who I am. What the island and five years in hell made me." He was a killer. Fyers saw it in his eyes. Waller used him for it. So did Anatoly and Talia.

"No. You did what you did to survive. You listened. Shengcún. You survived to get back to her. Have family, and now you must be patient and return to them."

His hand was bloody, and sore from every punch that collided with the wall. He deserved the pain he told himself. It was a slither of what Laurel had endured as she protected their daughter and took a shiv to the stomach.

"I've been keeping it bottled up, to make my family proud of the man that I have become. My Dad, Mom, Laurel. And now they are all gone. Thea is going to look after Mia and the last time that Laurel had come before… She told me that my sister had hired Ted Grant to keep an eye on William and his mother." Officially, Laurel's friend was just William's mentor and boxing instructor. His son had shown some interest in the sport. "No one was supposed to get anywhere near his family. "Everyone is gone, and there is just me."

He looked around his tiny cell to see that his friend and mentor had disappeared. He would never know if Yao Fei had come to give him guidance, or if his subconscious was trying to talk himself out of what he had to do.

His cell opened, and Oliver instinctively knew that it wasn't the guards. A smaller man walked in. The smaller man had a strange look in his eyes. Stanley Dover. The man that had killed people with his kitchen knife at some of the scenes of the crimes that the Green Arrow had been involved in.

"Did my eyes mistake me? Or did our Mayor of Star City lose his mind after he lost his wife?" When Oliver didn't respond, nor move a muscle, Dover continued. "Or is Mr. Queen practicing his testimony, trying to emulate any piece of morsel of legal information your late wife provided you over the years?"

Oliver didn't even move a muscle, which seemed to irk his new guest . "I give you respect, you should return it. Two-way street Queen."

"What do you want?" Oliver gritted out slowly, his bloody hand curled into a fist.

"I can help you find out who shanked your lovely wife. And the guard who allowed it to happen under his watch."

"And in exchange, you want me to work for you?"

"Yes."

"I'll pass, see that you and your men waiting outside have left in thirty seconds."

"Pass? And if I send my men to teach you a lesson?"

Oliver looked up with a dark look on his face. "I just buried the love of my life. The mother of my daughter—"

"Adopted daughter." Dover tried to correct him. "She's not worth your time and energy, she was just a stray that your soft-hearted wife picked up off the streets, you have no obligation to her."

Oliver clenched his jaw. "She may not be of my blood. But she's my child no less than my son." She was Laurel's angel. Their daughter. His eldest child.

He then took a step forward towards the cell door. "If you and your men want to see what I'm capable of, then, by all means, take another step inside my cell."

"Another time, Queen."

::-:-:-::-:-:-::

As Stanley and his men locked Oliver's cell back up and walked down a few corridors, he spoke to a man in a cell. "Get all that Darhk? Queen is going to paint the town red when he heads down to gen-pop. It will be interesting when you come down to live with us mortal men."

::-:-:-::-:-:-::

Oliver sat at his defense table alone. His daughter had desperately pleaded with him to be the one to represent him if he didn't want Jean Lorring. She had been watching and helping her mother for the last few years with legal casework when she could.

It was his hope that she would become a corporate lawyer, working for Queen Industries, along with her brother, and potentially any child that Thea would bring into the world. Have his family safe and secure while working for the family company. She could do a lot of good from Queen Industries, just as much as her mother did, albeit with more safety measures.

Instead, he had Mia sit next to her paternal aunt, and John as he sat alone, next to the seat that should have been Laurel's. He was still half-expecting Laurel to march in as she did all those years ago to save his ass.

Instead, he nodded when the judge asked him if he was sure that he wanted to defend himself. And he listened and didn't rebuke when the prosecutor said that he didn't deserve any preferential treatment. That it didn't matter if he had worked alongside the police in the past, he was a killer, a thief. A criminal, the taxpayers didn't deserve to pay more for his security.

He could hear Diggle muttering something unintelligently to his daughter or Thea. He could only hope they were assurances that he would look out for his family. Digg knew better than anyone that you had to protect your family.

He then stood up when called upon. "I...Your honor. People may be looking for a way to stop me from having a trial. Gen-pop will be a death sentence."He had to make the appearance that he was fighting the decision, even if he welcomed it. Whoever has Laurel's blood on their hands, will soon be on his.

"Mr. Queen, this is a case regarding you being sent to gen-pop, not about your right to a speedy trial."

Oliver swallowed. Even if he wanted out, the judge's statement didn't bode well. It meant that she was not impartial, that she was already bought. Laurel had told him that she was going to do whatever it took to get him out of prison because the cards were stacked against him, she had only narrowly got the death penalty off the table.

His heart ached when he thought of her. That Mia was never going to see her mother again.

His lips, upturned slightly when the judge made her decision known. He was headed to gen-pop. He noticed out of the corner of his eye, Barry shook his head. as if silently trying to tell him not to go through with vengeance.

But Oliver was never the sort of man to let an injustice go. He was going to fight for those that couldn't defend themselves. Just like he did for Akio, Yao Fei, and Thea. Now he was going to do the same for the love of his life and to give Mia closure.

::-:-:-::-:-:-::

Oliver was in his new cell, a more spacious accommodation than Solitary, but too open for his liking. From here he could see so many criminals, and they were all stuck in here with him. If he wasn't looking for blood, he may have been more concerned.

He looked at the photo of his family, before placing it on the shelf, as he did, Werner Zylte walked into his cell. "Look who has joined us? Did you get irked by the people up in PC where they surround you in cotton wool? Or are you now man enough—"

Oliver looked up from Mia's copy of Hamlet, that she had given him when she visited before she said that Thea was taking her to Seattle to get away from the public eye of Star for a little while. He couldn't blame Thea for taking his daughter away from their home. It wasn't that much of a home now that Laurel was gone. She was his home. Star City didn't seem as bright without Laurel.

"You walked into my cell, Vertigo. Not a smart plan."

"Like I care about some spoilt—" The next thing Zytle knew was that he was slammed against the steel bars of Oliver's cell, before being thrown onto the ground, and his head meeting Oliver's foot. The drug dealer's head meeting the concrete floor with a small thud.

"Why do you think I'm here? Just to be fucked around by low-lives like yourself?"

Oliver smiled darkly as he snapped the man's wrist and held it in place, as he knelt beside the drug dealer. "You will tell me all you know, Vertigo." Oliver sent another punch, this time a liver punch, to cause maximum pain. "Tell me who killed my wife, and who ordered it!"

"I swear, I don't know anything!"

"Your lying."

"No, I swear, I just heard that something was going to go down. I just know that someone wanted to send you a message." The drug dealer wheezed, before Oliver kicked the man in the head again, knocking him out.

::-:-:-::-:-:-::

Barry was tinkering with his equipment in his laboratory when he heard his little television start to discuss the new Green Arrow protecting Star City.

"According to The SCPD, a witness to the murder of Dinah Laurel Lance was found murdered in The Glades. According to Captain Morgan, the information was given to them by someone claiming to be The Green Arrow."

"In other news, Wener Zytle, known by his street name; Vertigo, was found in the middle of Slabside Maximum security Prison, knocked out, several limbs broken and dislocated and broken teeth."

Barry exhaled, he had tried to tell Ollie with the look he gave him not to do something stupid. Barry knew better than anyone what it was like to have a dead mother and a father imprisoned. He just hoped that the plan would come to fruition before Oliver became the thing that he fought.