Title: Walk Through the Storm (I would)
Words: 2644
Genre: Romance/Action
Pairing: Laurel/Oliver
Status: Done.

Summary: Oliver skips out on his mother's funeral and Laurel calls him out on the self destruction he seems so keen on. Through it all, Oliver realizes that Sara might have had a point whens he was talking about "someone who can harness the light"

"You know, you make a habit out of missing funerals," Her voice sounded in the cave and he looked up, Laurel.

He smiled a little. "Sorry, I just had a lot to do."

"Thea gave a beautiful eulogy. You should have been there. She loved you. She died for you." She said as she sat by him.

He felt bad for leaving Thea alone, but she wasn't really alone. She had Laurel who had known heartbreak more than any of them. "I just, I don't want her sacrifice to be in vain. It seems like more a slight to her memory to not do anything."

Laurel took his cheek in her hand and made him look into her eyes and. He held them for a moment before he broke down and wept on her shoulder. He lost both of his parents, and he witnessed both of their losses. It didn't feel right. It wasn't fair.

She held him and let him deal with his emotions. Tommy always said the three of them were gonna have each other's back and that they held so much in, until they couldn't and they needed each other. He needed her now. She stroked his hair and tears rolled down her cheeks.

He pushed away from her. "Why are you here?" He asked her. She knew this game way too well. She'd play it many times and mastered the art of pushing people away and she wasn't going to let him push her away. There was no way.

"Because you need me. And I need you." She said as she clasped his wrists in her hands and held his hands to her face so that he could feel blood beating beneath the skin. So he could know she was real.

He took his hands away from her face and leaned his head on her shoulder, exhausted. He dealt with grief in weird ways and she accepted that. "You shouldn't love me. All it does is provide people a trip to the morgue."

She snorted. "Funny joke, but you're not getting rid of me, Ollie. I know you and I love you through everything."

"I have fucked it up so long with you. I screwed other girls while we were together back then. I got one pregnant. I screwed your sister. I was scared of being in love with you. I wasn't a good boyfriend even when I wasn't screwing other girls." He said as he tried again to push her away. Didn't she see that he was bad for everyone? Why didn't she see that? Why wouldn't she just leave him? Didn't she see he was trying to save her?

Laurel looked him straight in the eye and slapped him across the cheek. "Oww!" He said. "Why the fuck did you do that?" He yelled.

"Because, Oliver Jonas Queen, you are my best friend. I love you. I love you without conditions and you are trying to push me away. I have been to your funeral. You are trying to make yourself feel worse about this whole situation and I've about had enough of it. I understand grieving, but I am not going to let you feel sorry for yourself and wreck your life because of it." She told him with a fierceness in her eyes that demanded his submission to her words. "We have always said we would look out for each other. I'm not letting you push me away, now do you want to say something?"

He hugged her. "My life would be less without you," He told her.

She nodded and smiled. "I know it would, Ollie. You need someone who can call you out on your bullshit."

"I still need to find Slade." He said as he looked back at the computers.

She took his hand and kissed the knuckles. "Then we'll find him. Together." She insisted and he didn't hate the idea.

Felicity found them like that, holding hands and working on the computer, trying to find any trace of Slade Wilson's weakness and she smiled a little. She almost went back up the stairs because it was clear that Oliver was in a good place and she didn't want to ruin that. But Slade. They needed to catch Slade, so despite the option that it might upset him, she coughed to announce her presence.

Laurel took her hand away from his and looked him in the eye to make sure he knew it wasn't forever. She walked over to Felicity and smiled. "How was the rest of the day?" Laurel asked as she brought Felicity over to the computers and set her down.

"Oh, you know, the usual. Mrs. Queen was a good boss when she was my boss and I actually liked her a lot. Even if I didn't trust her. People were sad, but mostly, they just thanked her for helping them keep their jobs. It's kinda sweet," She told Laurel as she blushed. "So how far are we in this?"

"Not very," Oliver said, frustrated by the lack of progress. "I mean we don't have long. The city is ripe for the taking." He said as he put his head on the desk and huffed.

Laurel combed her fingers through his hair and closed his eyes and nearly purred as she tapped a couple more things on the screen, trying to find something. There was nothing really of value she could see from what they knew about Slade Wilson.

Felicity looked through the files they were going through and noticed something subtle that seemed out of place. "You guys may have found a thing. It looks like we have an uptick with the amount that Slade is paying for gas in the past couple of weeks. We might have a location. Let me look at traffic cams and see if I can get anything."

Laurel nodded and Oliver's stomach grumbled. "How long has it been since you've eaten anything?" She asked him.

He shrugged. He never really felt like eating and when he did eat, it was only because he needed to and not because he wanted to. "About two days? I think? I don't know. I don't remember eating in the last couple of days."

"Yeah, no," She said as she stood up and took him by the hand. "We're getting you something to eat and we're getting it now while Felicity looks through the traffic cams, okay?" She asked him gently.

He took her hand and nodded. "You're gonna be okay? We're not like overburdening you by leaving?" Oliver asked Felicity.

"Please, you don't do overburdened. You sort of take that all on your own, it's like you're a girl under the weight of her boyfriend. Not that, it's sexual, just that it can be heavy and hard on you." Felicity said as she flinched at her brain, "I'm gonna stop now. Go. Seriously. Eat. You need food so that you can fight the bad guys which is a thing that you love to do."

Laurel giggled and she blushed. "Come on," She told Oliver as they headed for the door.

They headed up the stairs and out the emergency exit and got into her car. She drove them to big belly and ordered food for the both of them without so much as a word.

When they sat down with their food, he shoveled some of the food into his mouth and grinned to her and she turned her lips up at him back. Her lightness, he hadn't seen that in a long time, and it brought him back to the night everything happened. "You deserve someone who can harness the light inside you." Maybe Sara had something there.

"I'm sorry for how I acted earlier," He broke the silence.

Laurel put her index finger on his mouth. "I don't need an apology. We figured it out. Together." She told him.

That was certainly a way of thinking about it, but he still wanted to apologize to her. "No, Laurel, I treated you horribly and you didn't deserve it. I tried to push you away."

"You don't get it," Laurel said with a true smile on her face. He looked confused and just sat there. She gave him a comforting look and kept on. "I love you. I love the good parts and the bad parts. And I knew coming in that you would want to shove me away. You and Tommy were very predictable that way after tragedy. I would walk through hell and back for you. So one bad day? That's child's play." She told him.

He clutched her wrist in his hand and kissed the palm of hers. "You don't know how much you mean to me."

"I think I have a pretty good idea," She told him as she leaned across the table and gave him a peck on the lips.

Oliver felt the butterflies in his stomach and couldn't believe it. Her love. He didn't think he could find himself out of this funk. It had taken Felicity and Diggle dragging him back to get over Tommy. It took five years to get over his father. And it took, only one Laurel Lance to help him see that there was a light that he hadn't been seeing since the death of his mother. "How did you get so smart?"

"I went to law school," She joked and grinned widely, ear to ear as she put some more food in her mouth.

He laughed, out loud and in the face of everything, he laughed."You are something else," He told her. His phone rang and he saw that it was Diggle. He took it and looked to Laurel occasionally to make sure she was doing okay. "We have to go,"

She asked for some bags so they could take the rest with them and they provided her with them, gleefully. Oliver put the food in the bags and they left Big Belly and went back to the foundry. This time, Oliver drove because he felt better.

Felicity saw them and sighed a deep relief sigh. "So we have a major advantage but you two need to go like right now." She told them as she pushed them out the door again and went to her computer. "So now, you're in the car which is good, because you guys are going to go to the botanical gardens to get a thing. It's gonna look sort of phallic shaped to be honest. It's also going to look like one. It's like a pale pink. Sorry,"

"What does this have to do with Slade?" Oliver asked through gritted teeth.

Laurel put her hand over his and he looked to her and breathed out. He was okay. Felicity smiled. "Well, you know those hallucinations he was having thanks to the mirakuru. This plant which happens to be in the Starling City botanical gardens has been proven to force him out of psychosis. It's not gonna be for very long, but it might be long enough for you to give him the cure and to not kill."

"Felicity, how'd you figure this out?" Laurel asked her.

Felicity smiled into the phone. "So you know those pings I was talking about earlier? The subtle pattern? He's been foraging for this plant. Apparently he wants to destroy it and has been trying to pay people who have it to destroy it. Thankfully, I only just realized that it was at the botanical gardens. So go now,"

"We are," Laurel smirked and switched off the phone. "So how do you feel, doing arrow stuff with me?"

He looked over to her and smiled. "Ask me when we're done."

They parked the car in the botanical garden's parking lot and heard the locks click unlocked. "Thank you, Felicity." Laurel said.

"Just get in there," She worried. They could practically hear the pacing.

The place was quiet with an overly sweet smell of the flowers. They looked for the phallus flower that Felicity had told them was going to be here, but they didn't see it.

They were about to give up on the whole thing, when Oliver saw a tiny pink speck among a bunch of red roses. "Are you okay?" Laurel asked when she saw that he was looking at something.

"Yeah," He said, distracted, "I think they're over there."

He pushed the roses aside and saw these phallus shaped flowers. "Yeah, you did good, babe," Laurel cooed.

Glass shattered and Oliver picked some of the flowers and took her hand and ran to the front door. He pushed her through, "Felicity, lock the doors. Now."

"Did you get the flowers?" Felicity asked.

Oliver huffed. "Yes, now I need you to lock the guy in, so that we can bring them to you to synthesize down to their essential oils so that we can get him, okay?"

The doors locked and they went to the foundry as fast as they could. Laurel and Oliver stood close and Felicity had glee in her eyes. "You got my flowers?"

Oliver just handed them to her. "So are we done?" He asked.

"Yeah, you guys aren't gonna be able to have these for a couple of days." She told them as she went over to her side of the lab and put them on a table and started chopping them up and put one piece under a microscope so could study. "Seriously, you're not gonna get any more work done tonight. Go home." She told him.

He looked at Laurel, "We should take you home."

"I am home. I'm with you." She said as put an arm around his waist.

He sighed. "Well, then we should take you to your apartment to rest."

"Oh, no, I have something in mind for you," She told him. "Come with me."

He followed her out to the car and she got in the driver seat and started driving. He tried to ask many times where they were going, but she refused to answer that. Insisted on surprise.

When they stopped, he realized why. "We shouldn't be here."

"You're gonna have to get it done, sooner or later." She held his hand and didn't get out of the car till he sighed and stepped out of the car.

They walked up to the door and for a second she thought he might run the other way, but he put the key in the lock and found the place quiet, too quiet. "Laurel," He said. "I don't want to stay here. It's quiet."

"Well, then, why don't we go back to my apartment? Make you feel a little bit more at home." She asked him.

He nodded and they made their way to her apartment. She turned on the overhead and he sat on the couch as she made them some coffee. They sat in comfortable silence. "Laurel?" He asked.

"Hmmm?" She was sleepy.

He pressed a kiss to her head. "Thank you for today."

"It's not even an issue. I love you," She yawned.

He picked her up bridal style and took her down the hall and put her in the bed as he stripped down to his underwear and got into. "Is this okay? I don't want to wake up without you."

She nodded. "Of course, I don't really want to wake up with you either."

"You know Felicity thinks we're dating?"

Laurel shrugged. "So what if she does? Does it bother you?"

"Nope," He stated and he wrapped her up in his arms. "To be honest, I sort of want to do it again."

She shushed him and closed her eyes. "Let's talk about that in the morning."

"You know I love you too, right?" He asked.

She smiled and kept her eyes closed as she stroked her thumb across the edge of his hand. "I do,"