Sara slapped her hand down on the counter of the bar at Verdant, turning to face Stiles, "I haven't told you the news yet, have I?"
"What news?" Stiles asked in confusion, a turning to face one of his oldest friends.
"Your dad got married."
"I...I already know," Stiles nodded, "Jackson told me last night. He said that he married Melissa McCall."
"Back in February 2012," Sara confirmed.
"Scott and I used to try and push them together," Stiles admitted, "before everything went to hell. We wanted to be brothers for real..."
Felicity felt pity wash over her at the young man looked up at Sara with saddened eyes. She might have only just met Stiles, and she hadn't lived in Starling City yet when the Queen's Gambit had sunk, but it had been big news when it had first happened. Felicity had always felt empathy for the youngest person to have lost his life on the boat, even before she'd met Oliver. His age at the time of the yacht's sinking, the fact that his life had been so drastically cut short, had been saddening. It had been the main reason for Felicity putting a little more effort into her own relationship with her mother.
At the time of the yacht's sinking she'd often thought about Stiles' family and friends. In the news articles and reports it was made public knowledge that Stiles' mother had passed away, and that he lived with his father. It was also widely known that shortly after the sinking Moira Queen herself went to Beacon Hills to see Stiles' father. It was speculated in the media that she had paid him money to compensate for the loss of his son...for how Oliver and Sara had led Stiles to his death, even if it had been just an accident. Even at the time the claims had seemed far fetched to Felicity, and she'd never seen any evidence of it, even when she'd been investigating the Queen's Gambit for Walter Steele.
Although he wasn't much younger than her, Felicity was struck by how young Stiles looked sitting at the bar, the shock of learning that his father had married during his absence still lingering on his face. Felicity could see, painfully clearly, how much Stiles missed his father at that precise moment.
"I'm sorry, that you weren't there for it. My dad and Laurel were there." Sara offered apologetically, obviously having read Stiles' expression, just as Felicity had.
"Is he happy, with Melissa?' he asked. Sara reached out and rested her hand on Stiles' shoulder, while Felicity could only smile reassuringly, not knowing Stiles well enough to offer any other comfort, nor having the knowledge he sought.
Sara, however, could do both, "He misses you," she told him, "Laurel said that it was probably the saddest wedding she'd ever been to. He loves Melissa…but he's never stopped missing you."
"I know I should go back there," Stiles sighed, resting his chin on his arm, "but at the same time I'm scared that Ra's will send someone after me, and that will just put them all at risk. I know he knows where they live, where I came from, but…but for such a long time I've tried to tell myself that if I stayed away they would be safe…safe from all this crap anyway. I miss them…every day. My dad, and Scott, and Lydia, and Melissa, and Derek, and the rest of the pack. The thought of them was one of the things that kept me sane when I was training."
"You should go to them," Sara offered, "Ra's won't betray you…he wants you to like him, remember, he thinks you're the one in the prophesy."
"Do we even know what this prophesy states?' Diggle asked curiously. Sara and Stiles both shrugged.
"Probably nothing good," grumbled Stiles, his mood dark.
"It could be nothing," Felicity, "Maybe…maybe it's already happened or something like that."
"Nothing you can do about it at the moment anyway," Diggle agreed helpfully. Stiles sighed and nodded, sitting back upright and resting his hands on the table in front of him.
"You're right. I…I just miss them."
"I can't imagine how hard I would be to have gone through what you have," Felicity commented.
Stiles couldn't help but snort, "Trust me, sometimes the league…the island…it felt like a holiday compared to back home."
"Werewolves making life difficult?" Diggle queried curiously.
"Werewolves actually weren't the ones that gave me the most trouble," Stiles admitted, his gaze becoming distant as he remembered the times when he was the most scared…when he was certain that he wasn't going to get home to his dad…being abducted by Gerard, the alpha pack, Ms. Blake, Peter Hale, Jackson as a kanima…the Nogitsune. Stiles visibly shuddered at that particular set of memories.
"There are worse things out there than werewolves," he told the others, sounding far older than his years, "a lot of them are humans. You should have met the asshole who was my Chemistry teacher in high school. I would rather take on a pack of werewolves than sit through another of his classes."
Sara laughed, "Only you would say something like that," she smiled, and Stiles felt his own mood improving. Over the years he'd found ways to manage the memories leftover from Beacon Hills, as well as the crap that had happened to him since then. The passing of time had helped sooth and heal the wounds leftover from everything that had happened to him, but by no means was he completely healed, and his exposure to Jackson after so many years was making it obvious.
From the way Sara was looking at him, Stiles knew that she knew in part what he was thinking about. He'd never told her the truth about anything that had happened in Starling City, but Sara knew him well enough to know that being back in the same country as his father, and being reunited with someone with whom he shared so much history, would be bringing back a lot of memories, not all of them good ones
"It's your choice, Stiles,, whether or not you go back to Beacon Hills or not," Sara told him as Diggle and Felicity headed back towards the basement, no trace of humor in her voice, "And whatever you choose I'll support you as much as you want me to…and I know Oliver will as well."
"Thanks, Sara," Stiles nodded in thanks, "I appreciate it."
TW/A
"Do you mind if I ask you a question?" Felicity asked as Stiles wiped his sweat dampened hair back from his face, a plain towel wrapped around his bare shoulders as the pair watched Oliver and Roy training.
"You just did," Stiles replied with a smirk. Felicity sighed and narrowed her eyes slightly at him, giving him a look that worked very well at getting Oliver to do what she wanted.
Stiles chuckled, wiping his face with the towel, "Sorry, I couldn't resist. Nobody at the league has a sense of humor, and if I'd tried that on one of them I would get my arse kicked. What's up?"
"Do your tattoos represent anything? You don't have to answer if you don't want to…I was just curious."
"They all do," Stiles nodded, "yeah, some of them have more…depth to them, but yeah, they all mean something. These ones," Stiles lifted his right hand to indicate the two dark rings encircling his left bicep, "Are to represent that I once was a member of the McCall pack of Beacon Hills. The triskellion on my right shoulder blade represents my belonging, at one point, the Hale pack of Beacon Hills…that's the same pack that Roy was in, back in the day."
"How come you don't have a tattoo?" Felicity asked Roy, who shuddered.
"I don't particularly want to be held down while being blowtorched," Roy replied. The comment made Oliver miss time a step, and Roy managed to get the older male down on his back.
"A blow torch…are you serious?"
"I'm a werewolf," Roy reminded, his breath coming in short pants, "super healing, remember. Normal tattoos just heal straight over."
"One reason I am very glad I am human," Stiles noted from where he sat.
Felicity swallowed, "what about the one at the bottom of your back."
"Ah…that one represents my name within the league…the fox who runs with wolves…although it also represents a few of my personal…demons," Stiles offered, his tone more subdued and serious, "It's on my back because they belong in the past…although they never stay there in real life. There's always something bringing things back up."
"Depressingly enough, he's right," Roy nodded from the mats, where he and Oliver had commenced sparring once again. Felicity couldn't help but notice that, despite the fact that Oliver and Roy had been quite comfortable when they'd all come back to the basement, Roy seemed to be fighting with a bit more intensity than he did normally. She wasn't sure if it was because he no longer had to hide his full strength, or if it was because of some unresolved issue between the two that was causing tension. She hoped it was the former, for the sake of the team.
"What about that one", she asked; pointing to a tattoo she could see on Stiles' right hip, ignoring the way that Oliver and Roy were trying to hide the fact they were eavesdropping on their conversation.
A smile spread across Stiles' face as he looked fondly down at the dark mark on his otherwise pale skin, moving so it was more visible to Felicity, "that's for my dad."
"His Sherriff's badge?' Felicity asked, taking in the seven pointed star. Stiles simply nodded in reply.
"When I was a kid," he began, "I always wanted to work with him…maybe one day become Sherriff myself," he let out a huff of laughter, "Never thought that I'd be more on the other side of the law, or a vigilante."
"What about when you were older. Did you have plans about which college you were going to try and get into?"
Stiles shrugged, "UC Berkley would have been good. Up until…up until things got really hard I was kind of thinking doing a mythology criminology double major. I would have been useful, regardless of what happened then. Things didn't quite work out that way though."
Felicity gently reached out and placed a gentle, reassuring hand on Stiles' shoulder, and he gave her a grateful smile, before he dropped his gaze back towards his lap. Felicity took her chance, and looked across to where Oliver and Roy were, both of them having given up pretending that they weren't eavesdropping on the conversation.
"I'm sure your dad would still be proud of you," Felicity reassured gently, "Regardless of what happens."
"Yeah," Stiles sighed, "I hope you're right."