A/N Hi guys. I know that not too many were happy with the way things turned out in the last chapter, but what's a happy ending without a little angst. I know I said this would be the last chapter, but I wanted desperately to write this out and it wouldn't fit too well in the next one. Sorry also that it's not very long.
Thanks again to olicityalways for taking the time to check for errors
What may have been, what could have been Ch 11
It was through no small effort of Detective Lance that they were able to remove Oliver's body from the chaotic streets where the battle had taken place. He was fresh of an arrest when he heard that the Arrow was in a life and death struggle in the Glades. Without an explanation to his fellow officers, Lance raced off towards the scene of the battle. Despite the standing order to arrest the Starling City vigilante, Quentin was eager to offer whatever assistance he could to the man who had so much the city. It was strange to think that not so long ago he would have given up almost anything to discover the Arrow's identity. Now it seemed that the two had come to an unspoken agreement to do what was necessary in their mutual quest to bring justice to those that preyed on the weak. As hard as it was for the detective to admit, he had come to respect the Arrow and everything that he stood for. For Detective Quentin Lance, the Arrow had become a symbol that he and those like him could rally behind.
Imagine then his shock when he discovered that symbol lying broken and beaten on the pavement. Even when they had stood on opposite sides of the law, the Arrow had seemed so strong and foreboding. The way he always stood half hidden in the shadows made it seem like death itself had risen to stand guard for the city. To see him in this way, motionless with a weeping Felicity begging him not to go, broke something in him. The moisture he was forced to blink away spoke volumes of how much Quentin's opinion of him had changed.
Despite the loss that they were all experiencing, the Detective knew that they were all in a precarious situation. Any minute now the paramedics and authorities would realize that the threat had passed. When they did, the Arrow's body would be taken to be examined. He could not allow that. They needed to get the body away from there as soon as the could.
Detective Lance would never forget the screaming Felicity as he forcibly separated her from the corpse. It was only with some help that he was able to pry her fingers from the leather. He had always suspected that there was more going on between the arrow and Ms. Smoak. She was always too willing to follow him, too willing to believe in him. But to see it confirmed in this way would scar him for the rest of his days.
You have failed this city.
Barry could not get those five words out of his head. Even amidst all the tests Caitlin and Cisco put him through, all Barry could think of was how he had failed. When he first woke up from his coma, Barry had been ecstatic. He spent all his life looking for the impossible, and now he had become the very definition of impossible. As soon as he discovered what he could do, he had assumed all his awkward days would be behind him. He was tired of always being late or left behind. This was his chance. It was his opportunity to show the world that he was more to him than what the rest of the world saw.
He didn't know his limit, not yet anyway. He would work and train hard. He would surpass those limits and be something he so desperately wanted to be since his mother's murder all those years ago. A hero.
Barry shook his in frustration. He shouldn't even be allowed to say that word. Not when he had failed so utterly. Even before Barry had known that Oliver was the Arrow, Barry had been following his exploits. They called Oliver a murder. The called him a vigilante. Despite all the media propaganda, everything Barry had discovered that the Arrow had gone to great lengths to help the people of the city. He did what he thought was necessary regardless of what the law dictated.
Sure, Oliver had his faults but who didn't. Barry had learned early that Oliver was quick to distrust people and quicker even to anger. Those faults did not make make Barry think angles of the man he had come to admire.
Barry had suspected that at least some of that was due to his attraction to Oliver's executive assistant. He had never met anyone like Felicity. She was as smart as she was beautiful. She had an infectious smile and an aura that to threatened to light up even the darkest of alleys. He wasn't surprised when he learned that her relationship with Oliver had sped past the realm of friendship. Their attraction and chemistry with one another was apparent to everyone that met them. The only ones who didn't seem to notice it was Oliver and Felicity. If they did notice it, then they did an extremely good job at ignoring it. He understood their reservations, he truly did. He just didn't free with it. If anyone in the world deserved to find love it was those two.
It was hard for him to admit at first especially since he was also attracted to Felicity, but Barry knew that Oliver and his partner were a perfect match for one another. To those who did look closely enough, the two were completely different. She was bathed in light and bright colors. She was always animated and willing to trust. Oliver, on the other hand, was silent and brooding. He had spent so long in the shadows that he now took comfort from it. She tempered the darkness that welled inside Oliver Queen and through her Oliver discovered that he had a much higher purpose than simply crossing names of a dusty old list. They were the true heroes and their greatest power was that they stood up and fought when all others would have fallen.
And that was what made Barry's failure even greater. He had his speed, but even that was not enough. How could he be expected to protect the citizens of his own city when he could not even save the greatest man he had ever met. He could see Felicity's grief stricken face even as he ran, passing by the world in a streaking blur of red. He could still the pain in her eyes as she looked at him with pleading eyes, begging him to save the man she loved.
He couldn't, but he swore even as the wind tore the tears that poured from his eyes that he would never again fail. He knew that if he ever saw that anguish on someone else's face, it would be the end of him. He decided right then and there that he would take every test Star Labs threw at him. He would break any limits that they had set for him. In a cruel world, he would become the flash of light that burned away the darkness. Yet, even as he made that oath to himself, Barry knew that even if he became the fastest man alive, he would never be able to out run the image of Felicity pounding on Oliver's chest as she begged her hero to keep his promise to her.
It wasn't only Barry that had a difficult time coping. Valerie, the young nurse he had brought with him to Starling City was also having a difficult time grasping all that she had witnessed. She stayed in Starling City for several days after. At first, she spent her days lost in a haze of emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. Then she tried hitting the clubs, determined to have a good time in an effort to drown out the horrific images that still snaked their way into her mind. The pretty and smiling selfies that lined her phone was proof that the distraction worked. At least for a while. Then one night she stepped out of a cab to head to one of the few clubs she had yet to visit. She had a pretty pink top that had caught her eye earlier in the day. Her make up was perfectly done and her hair flowed down freely to touch the smooth and olive skin of her back and shoulders. Valerie looked up at the large sign of the club and realized she had been there once before. Verdant.
Images of what happened flooded back into her mind despite her efforts to push them away. She realized then that no matter how much she attempted to drown it out, she would never succeed. How then was she supposed to return to her life after seeing something that traumatic. The real world had shattered her reality. She understood now that there was true evil in the world and that things did not always have a happy ending no matter how hard people fought for it. Then it dawned on her. She learned something else that day. The tragedy she had seen had also made her never again want to be a helpless bystander while things unfolded in front of her. She would return to Central City and Star Labs. She would finish her studies no matter how much subjects like pharmacology vexed her. She may not be a hero like the people she had met, but she was determined to help in her own way. Then years in the future when people asked her what it was that made her so good at her job, Valerie would smile wistfully. She would tell them that she had met her heroes long ago and they had taught her the value of life, of sacrifice.
John Diggle was a strong man who had been through a lot in his life. He was no stranger to loss and death. He had lost friends and comrades during the war. He had lost his brother to the assassin, Dead Shot. He had thought when Moira Queen hired to be her son's personal bodyguard, his life would at least calm down. After all, how much trouble could a party boy billionaire get into? Dig expected his days to be filled babysitting a spoiled brat, scaring off the paparazzi and the occasional one night stand. He expected to spend his nights driving a over the top luxury car with a passed out Oliver Queen in the back.
As it turns out, Oliver Queen was not the man Diggle thought he was. When Diggle first discovered Oliver was the vigilante, he had been mortified. Good intentions aside, Oliver was a murderer. But as they spent more and more time together, Dig realized that Oliver was right. There was a war to be fought on the streets of Starling City and it was a war for its soul.
Oliver had once asked him if he could remember when the people of the city still helped one another. In truth, he could not. Starling City had become a breeding round for criminals. There was no balance, no order. There was hate and chaos and because of it, the people suffered. Oliver was simply doing what no one else could. He would deliver justice wherever and whenever the law failed. Instead of getting a client in Oliver, Dig had discovered a person who was more than a friend. He discovered a man he could call brother.
What Diggle got when he took the job was a sense of fulfillment that had long since left him. He stood by his words when he told Felicity that doing what he did with Oliver made him feel good again for the first time in a long time.
What Diggle did not expect was to see his friend lying lifeless on the cold table. Oliver had survived so much that Dig half expected Oliver to suddenly sit up and announce that he had some mysterious island herb that had brought him back from the dead. Yet no matter how much Dig wished it so, Oliver never got up.
This was not the way things were supposed to end up. With he and Felicity's help, Oliver was supposed to overcome any challenge, any obstacle. They would always triumph. They would always win because Oliver Queen was a hero and that is what heroes did. Then eventually, when the city no longer needed them and the time for fire fights and life threatening battles was behind them, they would retire together. They started this thing together and that was how Diggle expected them to finish all of them, especially Oliver, would finally know peace.
Instead, the man who was supposed to be his child's godfather, was gone. It had hurt Dig beyond measure that he never even got to tell Oliver. He had already imagined the priceless look on Oliver's face when Dig delivered the news that he would be a godfather. Then in a moment of clarity, Oliver would realize that he was no longer lost and alone, a stranded prisoner on Lian Yu and the island he had island he had built for himself in his head. Oliver would have a family, including a brother who trusted him enough that he would entrust the care of his only child to Oliver.
For all his pain though, Diggle knew that it would never equal the absolute torment that Felicity felt. Dig had refused to leave her side in the aftermath of Oliver's death. She was in complete shock and the only thing that stopped him from taking the young blonde to the hospital was her complete refusal to leave Oliver. Together, they carefully cleaned Oliver's body and replaced his clothes. It just seemed right that they not leave him in his torn and bloodied leather. He was about to toss the tattered leather away when Felicity's piercing scream stopped. She grabbed the green clothes away from him and held on to it in a way that was usually reserved for the most delicate of technologies.
Eventually though, her grief gave way to exhaustion. It was only when she had fallen into restless slumber was Diggle able to lift her up and carry her over to the very same cot that Oliver used when he spent the night in their lair. It was short lived though, for nat ten minutes later he checked on her to find her sobbing into green leather. When he went over to comfort her, what she told him broke his heart.
"The bed smells like him," she whispered in a weak and broken voice. "I-I woke up and I thought it was all a bad dream. I thought he was right next to me."
With those words, John Diggle broke down as well. Unable to keep the tears back, he closed his eyes and gathered Felicity up to hold her close. Together the two remaining members of Team Arrow mourned their friend.
Sara Lance gripped Nyssa Al Ghul's arm and whipped her around to prevent her from walking away. Sara had more to say and their argument was far from over.
Nyssa seethed at the blonde girl before her. In all the cities, in all the world Sara was the probably the only person who could do such a thing and live without fearing any repercussions. She loved Sara, of that much she was certain. But what Sara was asking of her was impossible. Nyssa had vows and obligations to uphold and as heir to the demon, those had to come before anything else. There was also the fact that the favor Sara was asking for was to help an ex-boyfriend and Nyssa did not take kindly to the possibly of competition for Sara's affections.
"Please, Nyssa." The desperation that lined Sara's voice gave Nyssa pause.
"You know my father," Nyssa warned her. "There will be a price to pay."
"Anything," Sara whispered.
With a sigh of defeat, Nyssa turned and beckoned Sara to follow her.
"It may not only be you who has to pay it," Nyssa said under her breath. Nyssa was a willed assassin,
A/N Please review. They keep me going.