A/N: This is the post 3x09 fic I've been trying to not write because I knew it would be harsh and brutal and I managed to hold off for weeks until the muse finally told me to shut up and sit down and write the damn thing.

Warning: This gets pretty dark

I'm really sorry for the feels.

Of course it had been raining the day she left work and headed for the former Queen mansion instead of the foundry. Digg and Roy were expecting her, but somehow on that day, at that hour she found herself taking the winding backroads that led to the massive stone house.

The gate was locked tight, no for sale sign because properties worth that much didn't get listed the same way the typical single family home would. She drove right past the main entrance to take a side road that led to the back.

With her car tucked out of the way she made quick work of the electronic lock and slipped in, keys dropping heavily into the pocket of her coat as she pulled it tighter around her.

She'd seen this part of the property only once before, the day of Moira Queen's funeral. Oliver had been missing then and she'd found herself looking out a side window to see two stones rising from the bright green grass. Digg had told her they were the headstones placed after the Gambit had gone down and everyone thought both Oliver and Robert had been lost. A cold thread worked its way down her spine and she shivered at the idea of it still standing when Oliver was most definitely alive even if he hadn't been present.

But now as she slowly made her way across the overgrown lawn, that headstone represented so much more.

It had been six weeks since he'd kissed her on the forehead, told her he loved her, and left without looking back.

It had been five weeks and four days since Malcolm Merlyn had left her hyperventilating on the foundry floor for Digg to find after calmly telling her Oliver was dead, the sword used to kill him clutched so tightly in her hands Digg couldn't get her to let go until he'd injected her with a sedative.

She'd been in denial since then. Even though every blood analysis she'd run had come back with the match as Oliver. Even though she could find no trace of him. Even though days and weeks passed without him returning. She couldn't bring herself to accept it.

And now she found herself paused before an empty grave, with the wrong dates, so much like Sara's that it made her heart catch.

Her eyes moved over Robert's quickly to focus on the matching one next to it. The one with Oliver's name on it. The letters swam, tears finally coming so swift and fierce she was unprepared.

Since she'd woken up on the bed in the foundry that day Merlyn had brought the news she hadn't cried another tear. She sometimes thought Roy and Digg wished she would. She knew she worried them with how stoic she'd become and how little emotion she showed, but she'd known that it was the only way, because once she started she didn't think she'd be able to stop.

Her knees hit the soft, spongy grass, water seeping into the side of her skirt as she sat on her left hip, leaning against the stone, finger running back and forth along the dash between the two dates.

The sobs wracked her as all the pain she'd ignored and denied seeped from her, too much to contain any longer.

She loved him. She loved him so much she hadn't been able to tell him because admitting it would have made it too real and she couldn't risk losing it. She'd been terrified at having it all.

As it turned out she still lost him.

She cried until she couldn't breathe. Until she had to turn to the side and retch. Until her stomach hurt and she couldn't fill her lungs. Until she felt so light headed she was no longer leaning against the cold marble in some disillusioned belief she could be closer to him but because she had to in order to stay upright.

It hurt. The spot behind her ribs where her heart used to reside. There was an ache now. Raw and sharp that rubbed the wrong way when she tried to take too deep a breath.

She knew how to function before. She knew how to grasp desperately to hope. But now that she'd let it go she didn't know how to continue.

Time had ceased to be something she recognized, so later she'd wonder how long it was until Digg and Roy found her.

She remembered being lifted into Digg's strong arms. She remembered trying to fight him off when he pulled her away from the grave.

She'd remember the scared look on Roy's face at the screams that tore from her throat.

She remembered being held and soft words. She remembered the long, slow walk back and how she didn't understand why there were three police units with swirling lights parked around her car.

She remembered Captain Lance telling someone to leave and that there wouldn't be any trespassing charges. She remembered his gloved hand stroking over her hair once before telling Digg to take care of her.

She remembered staring, unblinking, curled into the passenger's seat, facing Digg while he drove back to the foundry with a locked jaw.

She remembered not putting up a fight when he carried her out of the car and down the stairs of the foundry. She remembered not shutting her eyes when they passed by Oliver's empty suit like she had been since he'd left.

Digg methodically changed her clothes while she sat on the edge of the bed like a damp, limp rag doll, but he didn't try and talk to her and she was grateful.

She fell asleep on a pillow that she refused to wash because one side still smelled like Oliver and if she closed her eyes and wished very hard, the soft thwick of arrows releasing from a bow were from him, and not Roy practicing as if the whole of the city didn't rest on his shoulders now.

And when she woke hours later from another nightmare she didn't sit up. She just lay there and tried to remember how to exist.