DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters you might recognize in this fic. DC Comics, Warner Brothers, the CW, and a lot more people than I can possibly name here do and I am making no gains from this. I'm just borrowing them and I'll put them back when I'm finished, maybe a little the worse for wear, but I'll give them back. Please don't sue me.

Author's Note: This bunny bit me while I was watching Season 8 when Oliver started his downward spiral. It's obviously set in an AU, since none of this happened in canon. If AU stories offend you, then give this one a pass, okay?

Author's Note #2: My beloved AJ was helping me to RP this out, and helped me a great deal before her passing in March 2010. She was the driving force behind the bunny and my sounding board, my research partner, and so much more. This fic is therefore dedicated to her memory. I will always love you and miss you. Rest in peace, my darling.

Beta thanks go to Rick Berko, River, and Ithil-Valon. You guys have been terrific, and believe me, if there are any mistakes left, they're all totally mine. I take full credit for them.

And Lastly: HUGE thanks go to Rick and company for helping me research the best kind of liquor to use for this story. It was fun, wasn't it? *gryns* Thujone is the ingredient found in European blends of absinthe. To my knowledge, it's still illegal to include thujone in American absinthe. The stuff is so powerful that "one shot of this stuff will have you seeing green faeries in seconds," according to Rick's BF (a bartender). Unless you're a hardened alcoholic, of course. Then it takes minutes. *LOL*

PART 5

"Mouse, come on. It couldn't have just stopped." Oliver was a bit frustrated but he'd never show it to her, at least not overtly. He was still trying to shield his emotions out of deference to her ability; but at least she seemed to have slowed down on the morphine. That was a priceless advance, in his mind. "You've been down here for months, swilling morphine by the bucketful trying to get relief. You told me that. So why would it just stop?"

"I don't know, but it's wonderful," Mouse replied evenly as she got up from her perch to pace. "I've felt those things almost my entire life. Whatever anyone was feeling, close or not, never what I felt. It hurt. And now it's gone. I can – I can feel what you're feeling, if I try hard. But I have to be trying awfully hard."

Okay, so the ability wasn't gone. Oliver relaxed slightly and took another pull at the bottle. "I've been shielding," he explained patiently. "I didn't want to make you any worse, once I realized what was happening to you." Another long pull. Now she'd ask him how he knew about gifts like hers, and he'd have to tell her. He wouldn't lie to her. She'd earned the truth from him with her steady, unconditional acceptance.

"Oh." One word with a wealth of feeling behind it. Mouse smiled slightly. "Must be why I could pick up on your nightmares last night. You were miserable while you were sleeping." She wanted to help, but she wouldn't ask. That just wasn't the way things were done in the Barrens. "Thanks for thinking of me, anyway. I'm not used to it." She gave him another tiny smile and moved to check the corkboard by the front of the little cubicle. Sometimes the other inhabitants would leave messages for her if they needed something.

Oliver raised an eyebrow in her direction but said nothing. She wasn't going to ask him any questions, and that just confused the hell out of him. She wasn't even going to ask about the dreams, and that – he wanted to talk about them, but if he did, he'd end up leaving the Barrens. He wouldn't be welcome here if they knew what he really was. Who he was. Oliver Queen had no business down here; but Blondie was more than welcome. It made his head spin.

Mouse frowned slightly and held out one of the notes to him. "Ratty Larry says he needs help moving some stuff in his hole," she said slowly as she let him read it. "But he doesn't have anything that big, really. Nothing I couldn't move, if I had to. So why does he want us both to go?" Suspicion had reared its ugly head and she cursed it. These people were her people, as much so as if they were a completely different race from normal. They had come here to escape, and bonded over the concept. So why should she distrust one of them? It made no sense.

Oliver shook his head. "You said you healed him, once. Maybe it's meant to be a surprise or something." Yeah, a big surprise. He wasn't as trusting as Mouse, that was for sure. Something didn't seem right about the note. "Let's just go find out." He was gathering his few makeshift weapons as he spoke.

Mouse nodded and led the way when he was ready. He still wasn't completely familiar with the warren of tunnels that comprised the Barrens, and she didn't want him lost. That could only end badly, as far as she was concerned. They rounded the curve into Larry's hole and stopped in shock.

Ratty Larry wasn't the kind of guy to have female friends, and Mouse knew it. Nonetheless, there was a woman on his bed. Mouse raised her eyes to regard the other man steadily, suddenly glad she had Blondie behind her. "What's going on, Ratty?" she demanded, though she kept her voice soft. "You couldn't tell me the truth about her? You had to lie to get me to come here?" She was already kneeling beside the bed, assessing the woman's condition.

Oliver moved a bit closer to Mouse, silently lending support and if necessary, protection. It wasn't like Larry to lie, and this situation reeked of setup. He just didn't know why it would be one; as far as he knew, he was the only one who knew about Mouse's healing talent. So how could Larry have known about it to summon her to help this girl?

"I didn't think you'd come if I told you it was for an outsider," Larry replied quickly as he hunkered down next to Mouse. "I found her near the border place. Can't wake her up. Brought her here to see if you'd help her like you helped me."

Mouse didn't hesitate. Once he'd spoken the word outsider, his motives were clear to her. The Barrens ran on a general distrust of outsiders, and it was only Blondie's condition of despair and drunkenness had swayed her into helping him. She placed one hand on the woman's head and the other on her wrist. A now-familiar energy built up in her fingertips and flowed from her to the girl on the bed, but nothing more happened. There was no awakening, no knitting of tissue that she could detect, and the girl didn't wake.

A freight train of emotion slammed into her head and she screeched as she tumbled backward, breaking the contact. The onslaught lessened somewhat, but it remained, and she mourned the loss of the peace she'd been feeling. Instinctively she reached out and found Blondie's hand there, silently offering support. She clung to it like a lifeline.

Oliver pulled her in tightly, one hand clutched in hers, the other finding her forehead and soothing the hair back a bit. He held his own emotions in check, trying to project calm toward Mouse, trying desperately to stop what he knew was happening to her. He didn't want her back on the morphine. "Easy, Mouse, easy," he crooned softly. "Focus. Focus on me. Push it back and focus. It'll help." Larry had known about the healing, apparently, which pushed his paranoia down into a manageable level and helped him to focus on helping her. "It's okay, Mouse."

Larry continued to sit by the woman, one hand holding hers. He felt wretched; Mouse was his friend and he didn't like that he'd caused her pain.

Mouse slowly roused from her pain-filled stupor and raised her eyes to Blondie's. "I'm – I'm okay," she said softly as she pushed back slightly. She wasn't, really. She was a long way from okay, and she knew there were lines of pain radiating from around her eyes. "But I can't help her. I don't know what's wrong with her. There's something – something really wrong, but I can't identify it. And I can't fix it."

Oliver scanned her face carefully and nodded slowly. "Let's see what else we can find out," he said slowly. He was no doctor but he'd had enough experience taking pulses and checking for concussions to at least rule those out. He lifted one of the woman's eyelids and then let it back down with a stifled hiss of consternation.

"What is it?" Mouse was right there beside him, watching. Yes, he was a good man, and suddenly that thought frightened her. He would insist on taking their patient to a hospital, and while it could be done, it would be difficult to do without giving themselves away. On the other hand – she knew it would be necessary. Decency demanded it. "Blondie? What'd you see?"

"Cat's eyes." Suddenly their escapade the night before began to make sense to him. If she had been the cat voice, then she had saved their lives. But what had happened to her? "She needs a doctor."

Mouse nodded. "Larry, help us. We'll drop her off at Metropolis General. Nobody has to know where she came from." She couldn't put Blondie in that position. He had money, she knew that; he never lacked for cash. Someone out there would be looking for him. But she wouldn't responsible for him getting found. That wasn't her call to make.

Larry rose, put on his shoes, then gathered the unconscious girl into his arms. "Okay. You stay close, nobody'll see us," he said softly.

"Wait." Oliver felt his self loathing rise up again and ruthlessly squashed it. "I know someone who'll come here, and he won't ask any questions." Emil. But he'd have to do it carefully; he didn't want anyone else knowing where he was. He was no hero. He'd proved that pretty conclusively. Still, he had to help this woman. "Mouse, where's the nearest pay phone?"

TBC...