A/N: Hello m'dears… I hope the week has been a good one to you!

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Just because Slade had told her he'd talk with her about Shado at some point "soon" did not mean that the dead woman was not on Sienna's mind. Shado was very much upon her mind at that moment. Since the day Slade had asked her to marry him, Sienna found she could do nothing but think about the woman he'd fallen in love with while he'd been on some remote island in the North China Sea. Everything between Slade and Oliver Queen tied back to this woman. She just didn't know why, or how. Obtaining that answer was more than an obsession at this point, it was a necessity. It was also why she'd decided to request a meeting with the very man who Slade was systematically dismantling the world of: Oliver Queen.

She'd told herself she needed answers. And the only way I am going to get them, she thought now, is if I can get them from Oliver Queen. The price for this meeting had been a steep one, though. Sienna's throat tightened as she recalled the fury which had turned Slade's face into a grotesque mask. For a moment, just a moment, she'd almost believed that he was going to strike her. Then the storm clouds passed and he'd told her simply, "Go."

So here she now stood, pacing back and forth in front of a park bench, unable to stop and awaiting her... Slade, she thought quickly. She wasn't quite ready to use the term "fiancée," even in her thoughts. Oh, she knew it was not that she didn't want to marry Slade, because she did. And she didn't doubt that he wanted to marry her. She knew he never did anything he didn't want or intend to do. She just had to figure out this mess before she'd agree to stand in front of anybody who had the power to legally bind her in holy matrimony to her cantankerous pirate. To achieve her goal, she needed to finally understand how two men who'd called each other "brother" could now be such embittered enemies.

It just did not (nor did she think it ever would) make sense how two men who'd managed to face insurmountable odds and survive for as long as they had upon an island (appropriately) named Purgatory, should now be at the point of wanting to destroy each other. Sienna had long suspected that there was something, or someone, she mentally corrected, who was behind their feud. And she wanted to know what the something was and who (and didn't care in what particular order that that information was given to her) they were. She turned to pace back, twisting the cap on her water bottle and jolted when she saw Oliver standing there, watching her. The bottle slipped out of her nerveless fingers and bounced on the ground, rolled beneath the bench.

"Mr. Queen!" she yelped.

"I'm sorry," Oliver murmured in a low, soothing tone. He gave her what he hoped passed for a smile, or, at the very least, something intended to be reassuring. When she didn't flinch, or turn tail and run, he figured he'd accomplished his goal. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Oh, it wasn't your fault." She gave him a smile that edged towards sheepish. "I didn't hear you walk up. Millions of miles away, I'm afraid."

She moved quickly, and jerkily for a woman who possessed such a quiet elegance. She bent to retrieve her water bottle, using that time to gather together her wits before she rose and faced him. Oliver was watching her with eyes that were red rimmed from lack of sleep and grief. It had only been a week since his mother's death. Seven days or a thousand years and she knew that pain would still be carved into every line of his face. It was the sort of pain that would never go away. It wasn't the kind that was meant to go away. She reached out, laid a hand on his in a kind of comfort he sensed was innate in her. He didn't speak a word, nor did he move so much as a muscle, something Sienna sensed was more out of surprise for her having touched him than it was because of anything else.

"Mr. Queen," she drew in a shaky breath, released it slowly before twittering, "I am so sorry for your loss."

"Thank you," he replied stiffly.

It was understandable that he wouldn't want words of condolences from her. She was compelled to offer them anyway. Oliver Queen wasn't her enemy; there was no reason for him to be her enemy. Plus, the social niceties had been drummed into her since she'd been a child. Her grandmother would turn over in her grave if she was anything less than gracious and conciliatory.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me," she said softly. "I know how hard this must be for you. I honestly didn't think you would agree to meet with me. Not after everything that has happened between you and Slade. I thought..." she clenched his fingers. "Oh God, please say something."

"Why did you ask me to meet with you, Miss James?"

"I'm afraid I need your help."

His lips curved into a small, tight smile. "My help?" he asked her. "You have the..."

"Please, Mr. Queen," she interjected in a soft, pleading voice. "I know I don't have any right..."

"After what he did..."

"...to ask you for your help," Sienna continued, ignoring his emotionally charged statement. He had every right to be angry for what Slade had done to his mother. He had every right to want to see Slade brought to justice for that cruel act. But there were more pressing things at stake at that moment. Innocent lives are at stake, she thought sadly. "But you are the only one who can explain to me the events that have led to this entire situation that is between you and Slade."

Oliver's eyebrows shot up. "You want me to tell you about how your boss went insane? Or why?"

"You gave him the Mirakuru," she responded matter-of-factly. "And it obviously affected the parts of his brain which regulates his emotions, amplifying them to dangerous proportions. That's why he is mentally unbalanced."

"How do you know about the Mirakuru?"

It was not something that Oliver had imagined Slade would discuss with her.

"Telling me about Mirakuru, sharing with me the serum's properties and what it does is about all that Slade Wilson will talk to me about in any great detail." Sienna was perched on uneven ground now, and she knew it. The things she was here to ask him to explain were all things that had left him as traumatized as they'd left Slade. Someone needed to get to the bottom of this mess, though. Someone needed to finally ask the one question that neither man seemed capable of asking: why. Sienna drew in a breath and released it slowly. "His time on Lian Yu, his relationship with you, Shado, these are all things he only speaks about in small doses. And even then, he only speaks of those things in the vaguest of details."

"So you came to me." Hurt, as well as resentment shimmered in the depths of those tortured eyes. "You want me to tell you about those events."

"I came to you for one very specific reason, Mr. Queen." She may have spoken in a hushed tone, but Oliver could hear the steel below her words. "You are the only one who can tell me about those events."

"Why?" he demanded. "Why should I tell you about what happened on the island?"

"Because," again she spoke softly, reasonably. "You are the only one who can answer the one question that has been plaguing me since the night of your mother's death."

"And what question is that?" Oliver asked in a hard whisper.

"What happened the night Shado died?"

Of all the questions that he expected her to ask him, that was the fifth one on the list. "I chose a woman," he replied in a monotone. "A friend of mine, over her."

It was the truth, insomuch as he was willing to tell her of it. "You chose Sara Lance."

"Yes."

Sienna made a small sound, like the low buzz of a worker bee. Oliver knew the sound was one part speculation and another deep introspection. "Didn't Dr. Ivo and Miss Lance know each other before you were reunited with her?"

"Yes," Oliver bit out. For someone who didn't know a lot, Sienna James sure knew enough. "What does any of this have to do with Slade, his army of Mirakuru soldiers, and what he did to my mother? What he plans to still do to the rest of my family and friends, in fact?"

Sienna heard the pain that was crackling in his voice and while she wished she could ease his pain, and lift his suffering away for him; she was wise enough to know that she couldn't. She was only barely coping with the dark things in her own head. She was in no position to take someone else's misery for them.

"Everything," she told him somberly. "It has everything to do with what has happened."

He looked down at her, stepped closer, a few inches taller than her, but still managing to be intimidating nonetheless. "Slade Wilson is a monster and it's time that you accept that, Miss James."

"And it is time that you accept that Slade Wilson became a monster because of the poison that you injected into him."

"I didn't have any other choice!" Oliver said in a furious whisper. "I was trying to save his life!"

Sienna angled her head to stare -glare- would be more appropriate, at him. "Stephen Covey would say while we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions." Her statement was made in one long, moist hiss. Oliver found himself impressed, despite his irritation with the woman. Not for the first time, and he was certain it was not going to be the last, did he find himself wondering about this woman who found herself entangled with a man as dangerous as Slade Wilson. Still…

"I accepted that my choice to not kill Slade Wilson when I had the chance has led to a lot of people getting hurt," he shot back at her.

She sniffed. Loudly. "There is a difference between accepting what your choices have wrought and dealing with the consequences of those choices, Mr. Queen."

"I have been dealing with the consequences of my choices for the last year, Miss James."

"Don't you get it?" there was a ripple of sadness in her voice now that washed over him like a cold winter rain, stinging his heart and burning his soul. Her fingers again closed around his, warm and comforting. "You've been dealing with the consequences of someone else's choices, as much as you've been dealing with your own, for the last year."

"What are you..." he began but her verbal explosion stopped him.

"Oh, you and Slade!" she snapped. "Neither of you have ever once stopped to ask the one question that you should have been asking all along!"

"And what question is that?"

"Why!" She shouted at him then. The venom in her outburst caught Oliver completely by surprise. He could nothing more than stand there and gape at her as she continued her tirade. "Why were you were kept on that island? Why were you allowed to live? Why did Ivo pick Shado? Why, damn it!" She stabbed one well-manicured fingernail against his chest. "Neither of you have ever stopped to ask why! It's the most important question that you should have been asking yourselves." She paused. "And each other."

The other two times he'd been face to face with her, Sienna had been nearly crippled by an overwhelming amount of fear. However, there'd been a moment at the Masquerade Ball that he'd crashed that he'd seen the woman who lurked beneath the fear. That woman was a strong willed, stubborn and prideful woman. He watched that woman now, fascinated, as she spun away and began to pace in small, tight circles. She was nervous; there was no doubt about it. She was agitated, annoyed and anxious enough that she was moving in order to expel the energy coursing through her.

"Ivo shot Shado because I made a move to protect Sara," he said quietly. "She died because I wasn't able to stop him before he could pull the trigger."

"I don't believe that it would have mattered," she said over her shoulder. "I don't believe that your choice played any factor in Shado's death. I think she was going to die no matter what choice you made."

"What?" he breathed. "How can you..."

"Oliver," she cut in. "Think! You know I'm right! You do! You know Ivo was never going to pick Sara because of their past connection." Her eyes met his. Brimmed with tears. "Nor was he going to pick you."

"Why?" The question was asked in a voice Oliver only dimly recognized as being his own. "Why wouldn't he choose me?"

"Haven't you figured it out, yet?" she spoke gently now. "You were already dead. You died in a boating accident. So it made you the perfect test subject for the Mirakuru. If you survived the injection... hooray, it was a miracle. They had their first super soldier. However," she continued as she resumed her pacing, "if you succumbed to the serum's fatalistic properties..." her voice trailed off.

"Who would know the difference," Oliver whispered as realization slowly dawned on him. "I was already dead."

She glanced over her shoulder at him. "Precisely."

Slade was waiting when she returned to the apartment. "Did you learn what you needed, love?" he asked as soon as she stepped from the elevator.

"Yes," Sienna replied a second before sliding her arms around him and pressing close. She let out a tiny sigh when his arm curled, much like a cat's tail about her waist.

"And what is it that you learned?"

"That you and Oliver Queen are both exceptionally trying men who have a singular talent for giving me a splitting headache."

Slade made a sound that might have been a laugh. "I could have told you that the kid has quite a knack for giving someone a headache."

"I said you both have a singular talent for giving me a headache, Slade."

His fingers slid, warm and soothing to the back of her neck, pressing into the tight balls of tension that were shooting sparks of pain into her head before slowly beginning to work those coils out. Sienna let out a soft moan when the steady pounding behind her temples resided into a dull throbbing that while still terrible, was at least tolerable.

"Feeling better now, love?"

"Some, yes."

She was hollow-eyed and pale, and far from fine in Slade's opinion. He didn't step back and leave her to suffer in her misery as she wanted him to do, though. No, Slade knew he could no more leave Sienna to experience this pain than he could have left her to endure the fate awaiting her in that auction house.

Fingers trailed over the back of his neck, prickling his flesh, and he heard Shado whispering by his left ear, "She is making you weak. Spineless. Pathetic. Already you have lost sight about your objective. And it is all because of her. Did I mean so little to you that you could forget me so easily? That you could replace me with one who is nowhere near my equal?"

"No," he growled. "And you leave her alone. She's got nothing to do with this!"

"She has everything to do with this," Shado replied. "She's keeping you from fulfilling your promise."

"She is not!"

Sienna angled her head to look at him. "She is talking to you right now, isn't she, Slade?"

He saw no reason to lie to her. "Yes."

Sienna merely sighed and tightened her arms around him. Battling against a memory was hard enough. When that memory was a full-bodied hallucination? It was even more difficult. Sienna knew she had to tread lightly, cautiously, measuring her every word to avoid angering or hurting him. The occurrences of the outbursts were coming more frequently as of late. Sienna suspected that the closer he got to ending things between him and Oliver Queen, the more erratic his behavior was likely to become. She didn't completely understand how the Mirakuru worked in regards to his cognitive function, just that it affected the parts of his brain which regulated his emotions. The only thing she did know was that there were two ways in which to snap him out of this present state: let him vent the aggression upon someone, or distract him. She chose the second option (since the first added another body on top of an already large pile). She laid her hands on his shoulders, let her fingers trip lightly over the back of his neck.

"Kiss me."

There might have been amusement, just a speckle of it in his voice. "Have you done something to deserve a kiss?"

"I put up with you," she teased. "Isn't that enough to earn me a kiss?"

Slade chuckled. "Fair enough, love."

He bent his head, about to take her parted lips with his own when the elevator dinged, signifying that they were about to have company. Slade released a slew of curses and angled his head towards the doors to see which of his idiot brigade he was going to pull apart. The doors whisked open to reveal Isabel Rochev standing there. Slade glowered at her.

"What are you doing here?" His voice cracked like a whip. "I thought I told you to remain at the labs and oversee the last minute details."

"I was at the labs," Isabel said as she stepped from the conveyance. She never once acknowledged Sienna's presence. Her dark eyes remained fixed upon Slade. "There is a situation that requires your immediate attention."

Slade swallowed the curse that leapt to his tongue and looked down at Sienna. "Love..."

"Go," Sienna told him simply. "It's okay."

"I will make it up to you," he vowed before he joined Isabel in the elevator.

"Just come home," she said simply.

"I will," he said as the doors began to close. "I promise."

Marta paused in the midst of dusting the Ming vase on its display stand near her employer's office door and folded her arms over her ample chest. It was, Sienna knew, her way of trying to look stern. As Marta barely inched up to five feet, weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, and had the face of a woeful pixie, it took some work for her to look like anything that appeared stern.

"You should not have let Misser Slade go with that woman," she announced with a small sniff. "Trouble that one is."

"And you think that I could somehow stop Slade from going with Miss Rochev?" Sienna glanced up from the computer with an amused smile curving her lips. "I barely reach his chin, Marta."

"You have ways that would have kept Misser Slade home." She sniffed again before adding, "Where he belongs."

"Those ways are sneaky, manipulative and deceitful."

Marta curled her lip, angled her head to the side. "And what is your point?"

"That is my point."

"Misser Slade seduced you."

Sienna felt heat creeping up into her cheeks. How exactly this conversation had come about, she couldn't say.

"I allowed him to seduce me," she pointed out. "That is much different from using feminine wiles in order to incur his favor or make him do something I want him to do."

"A rose is a rose even if you call it by another name."

"And you can put any name that you want upon it, sex is still sex."

"Right. He likes it; you like it... use it."

Sienna prayed for the phone to ring, for a staff member to show up and require her to sign something, or hell, anything so long as it would get her out of this particular conversation she found herself having.

"Marta... I'm rather shocked you are encouraging this sort of thing."

The housekeeper sniffed, loudly. Then she waggled a finger at Sienna. "Misser Slade is heading down a very dark road, Missy," she scolded. "One there may be no return from if he is not stopped."

"I know," Sienna replied on a sigh. "But..."

Marta scowled, an expression that on her face that resembled a mew of distaste. "No! No buts! You are his light. His heart! He listen to you! Go to him and tell him that what he plans is foolish! And if you find that he will not listen to reason?" She fixed her with a stern glare. "Then you use other means to make him listen!"

"Slade made me promise to never interfere in his business with Mr. Queen." Sienna printed out the end reports once the information was updated on her computer. "And I made that promise because it is not my war."

"You are marrying Misser Slade, si?"

"Of course..."

"Then his war is your war." She folded her arms across her chest and tapped a foot impatiently. "You are his esposa. That makes his battles, your battles. His hurts are your hurts. Marriage is a partnership between two people, Missy Sienna."

"I know that marriage is a partnership between two people, Marta. But Slade and I are not yet..."

Marta cut her off with a firm, "No! You are his esposa in all ways but for the eyes of the law."

Sienna found herself fighting to remain patient. "Marta, I don't even know what really happened to turn Slade and Oliver Queen against each other." With the printouts in hand, Sienna walked to the filing cabinet in order to put them in the appropriate folder. Marta was hot on her heels. If only for the fact that Marta Sandoval had practically become like a mother to her, she'd tell her to mind her business. "Mr. Queen wasn't any more forthcoming about what happened on that island than Slade has been. So I'm not exactly in a position where I can get between the two and mediate the situation. I don't know what the situation is."

"Misser Queen told you nothing?"

Sienna shook her head. "Only what I already know, really."

"That is?"

"That he chose Sara Lance over Shado."

Marta frowned. "That is not enough to make a feud burn as hot as this one burns."

"I told him that. I told him I knew that more had happened than what he was telling me. I even begged him," she added as she started filing the paperwork. "To please talk to me, to help me to understand what happened so that I could maybe figure out a way to end this before anybody else got hurt. He couldn't."

"Then ask for the answers from Misser Slade. He will give them to you."

"Don't you think I have been asking him for those answers, Marta?" Frustration snapped in her voice. She heard it even as Marta did, but did not apologize for it. "He refuses to give the answers to me. That's why I tried to get them from Mr. Queen."

Marta made a small ttk sound. "You are not asking for those answers at the right moments then, Missy."

Sienna lifted a brow as she closed the cabinet. She glanced at the housekeeper.

"Are you suggesting that I should ask Slade for the answers to my questions after I seduce him?"

"You catch on quick."

Sienna's lips curved as she weighed out the merits of what Marta was suggesting. She'd never set out to seduce a man before, and had no idea of how to even go about it. Still, she had to admit, the idea that she might have that kind of power was intriguing. It was almost worth investigating. She shook her head.

"Marta, I can't seduce Slade..."

"Men think through two things, Missy Sienna," Marta stated matter-of-factly. "Their stomach and their..."

"Yes," Sienna quickly interjected. Could her face get any hotter? "I know what other appendage they tend to think through."

"That's the one you need Misser Slade thinking through if you want answers to those questions."

Could she be right? Sienna found herself wondering now. Was luring Slade into bed the way to get the answers she needed from him? He was more approachable and communicative, less shuttered and closed off when they were in bed. Still, it was sneaky, manipulative and deceitful. It was wrong on every level. And yet it was so tempting...

"No, I can't... " she said, shaking her head. "It's just wrong..."

Marta reached up to give her cheek a motherly little pat. "You trust Marta on this," she said calm as you please. "You lure Misser Slade into bed and he will sing like a canary."

"I don't think he would appreciate that particular analogy," Sienna said dryly.

Marta merely waved a hand. "Is not important. Getting Misser Slade on his..."

"I can figure the rest out for myself, Marta. Thank you."

Marta's lips curved. "Maybe you not so stupid after all, Missy Sienna."

The sound of a commotion in the streets saved Sienna from making a reply. Frowning, she walked over to the window.

"Oh, God," she breathed when she saw the pandemonium and panic engulfing the city stretched out in front of her. Sienna lifted a trembling hand to her mouth when flames shot into the air from the direction of the bridge.

"Oh, God," she said again. "It's too late. Whatever Slade has been planning he's already unleashed upon the city."

"Go, Missy," Marta urged. Stamped upon her homely face was the same shock and fear that Sienna knew was on her own. "Go to Misser Slade and ask him to stop this!"

Go to him and ask him to stop this, Marta said. Didn't she realize that that was like going to God and asking him to stop the Apocalypse? "Marta..."

"Go!" the housekeeper cried. "Misser Slade will listen to you because he loves you! Now go! Convince him that this is not right!"

"Yes, yes, okay, I'll go," Sienna said numbly as she turned and made her way from the office. She stepped into the elevator and punched in the code. "You're right. He'll listen to me. I can convince him that this isn't right."

Inside her heart, Sienna knew she was right. She could get to Slade and she could get him to see reason.

But her head?

Her head was warning her that she was in for a very bad fall.