Thanks so much for your reviews, and favorites and follows. I really appreciate it.
A/N: You really need to have watched Season 1 recently to follow this chapter - I go though certain events fast and leave others out altogether as I don't see the point of rewriting a scene from the show unless I'm adding something.
"Get out. Get out!"
As Diggle moved towards Felicity, and Helena looked her up and down with a speculative expression on her face, Oliver couldn't believe how badly the situation had deteriorated. He tried to get himself under control, but the hurt look on Felicity's face made him want to console her. Bad move.
"This is a private thing, Felicity, please."
Oliver couldn't believe the words coming out of his own mouth – now Helena knew her goddam name, for fuck's sake! What was wrong with him?
Ever since he'd had to tell Tommy the truth, his whole life had gone off kilter. They'd made plans, all three of them, to investigate the notebooks and his mother's possible involvement. But then someone, or several someones, decided to kill Malcolm Merlyn at the same time, and all their plans went down the toilet.
Fine, so he learned that Floyd Lawton was still alive, on the plus side. Except his best friend's father was grazed by a curare laced bullet, and it wasn't like he kept his herbs on him at all times. So he had to tell Tommy the truth. He wouldn't soon forget the look of contempt on Tommy's face – and betrayal, too. And then his entire operation went to hell, just like that.
Hearing his oldest friend call him a murderer had been bad enough. Coming down into the foundry to find Helena brutalizing him was worse. And now Helena also knew about Felicity, and the whole thing was officially a clusterfuck of epic proportions. Helena had laughed at his expression when he'd found her down there, twisting Tommy's arm so far behind his back that Oliver knew his friend must be in agony.
"I followed you for a few days, Oliver. You spend too much time at your club, even when it's closed."
He'd managed to talk her into letting Tommy go, and formulating a plan to find where the FBI had her father was child's play in comparison. Or it would have been if Felicity hadn't chosen that moment to walk in. But he talked, and talked, until he was sure he'd persuaded her. And it all went south, of course, because that was what his life was all about nowadays. So, new plan. Find Helena again, and stop her, somehow. He'd been open to suggestions, except he'd thrown Felicity out of the foundry, and Diggle's suggestion hadn't changed from the first time Helena had come into their lives. But Oliver didn't think he was there yet.
So he went to the police station, carefully avoiding Lance, and trying to reconnect with Mckenna (because of course the police officer in charge of arresting the vigilante and the Huntress would be someone he knew from the old days) – or rather, trying to find out how her Huntress investigation was going, under the guise of reconnecting. And when his phone started buzzing in his pocket, he let it go to voicemail, thinking that it could wait. When he finally resigned himself to not getting much out of Mckenna, and listened to the message, and heard Helena's voice interrupting Felicity's, he realized how badly he'd fucked up this time.
Trying to get to the IT department at Queen Consolidated was like moving through treacle, even when he didn't have to nod and smile to all the security guards and janitorial staff there at that late hour. When he burst in, he only saw her feet behind one of the desks, and his heart stopped.
"Oliver?"
She sounded weak and scared, and he rushed over, untying her, trying to reassure her as she babbled something about Helena making her find out her father's location. It didn't matter, nothing mattered, except making sure Felicity was ok. And making Helena pay for every single bruise she'd left on Felicity, for the terrified look in her eyes. Enough was enough. Once Felicity gave him the location she'd handed on to Helena, it was simple enough to find, except he arrived too late to save the U.S. Marshals and other officers Helena'd murdered. Looking at the carnage she'd left behind, his determination only hardened. He'd made up his mind as soon as found Felicity: Helena had to die. So he tried. No one could say he hadn't tried. How the hell was he supposed to know she'd been practising catching arrows? He didn't even try to listen to her rambling explanations and attempt at self-justification for her vendetta. She'd already killed the man who'd murdered her fiancé, and it was time to stop, to end this. Most people didn't get the luxury of revenge, and here she was trying to justify going on a killing spree, thinking it would finally give her peace of mind. He could tell her that wasn't what killing did to you, but he doubted she'd listen, caught in the echo chamber of her vengeful thoughts as she was.
A sound behind him caused him to turn around: Mckenna was standing there, her service revolver, aimed at him. Or was it aimed at Helena? Suddenly her eyes widened, and when he whipped back around, Helena was pointing a huge black shotgun at Mckenna. The shotgun blast drowned out the single gunshot that snapped back Helena's head, and both women collapsed to the ground. Oliver felt completely helpless, and wasted a few precious seconds trying to decide who needed his help most. But Helena was clearly beyond help – the shot to the head had killed her instantly.
He ran to Mckenna, and winced. The blast had caught her in the leg, and it looked pretty bad. He grabbed her radio and called it in, calling for an ambulance, making sure to switch the voice modulator on first. She was unconscious, but breathing, and he put pressure on the wound until he heard sirens. Then he tightened the belt he'd loosely wrapped around her upper thigh and vanished into the night.
"But Oliver, you don't put tourniquets on wounds anymore . . . I mean, I'm sure I read somewhere that it's bad," Felicity mused, looking puzzled.
They were all at the foundry, and he'd just finished telling them about the monumental fuck up that he blamed himself for, even though none of them had seen it that way.
"It's battlefield medicine, Felicity," Diggle interrupted. "You can still use a tourniquet, as long as it's for a short time only."
He was holding a bottle of vodka and three glasses. Oliver was just about to say he didn't feel very much like celebrating, but Diggle shook his head.
"It's not a celebration, Oliver. I just think all three of us need a drink right now, and this is the only alcohol you have down here. And I don't feel like going upstairs, before you remind me that you own a stocked bar. So, drink up, people," he said, as he filled the three glasses and put them in their hands.
Oliver nodded, agreeing.
"So, I'm pretty sure no-one here wants to toast in Russian," Diggle mused.
Both Oliver and Felicity shook their heads. She yawned, sleepily.
"I never met my grandma. But my mom says she always toasted the same way, even though it's pretty ironic to toast to life, what with Helena . . . "
She looked at Oliver under her lashes, and he shrugged.
"It's sad that she couldn't find another way, Felicity. But that's what she chose."
Privately he thought that Helena had lost any consideration from him when she hurt Felicity. He'd tried to kill her himself, without hesitation. And he'd do it again, for Felicity.
"So, to life," Oliver said, and Diggle echoed him.
"L'Chaim," Felicity added.
She raised her glass, and knocked back the vodka, making an adorable scrunched up face as it went down.
He had to suppress a smile as he saw her swallow another yawn. She swivelled her chair around to look at the monitors, which were covering the club's security cameras. Even though Felicity had offered to start the monitoring programs and the police scanner, Oliver had said no. They'd had enough action to last them a week, and he just wanted to watch people dancing and having fun, with no inclination to actually join them. He squinted at one group of people near the bar. He'd seen that outfit before. In fact, he was pretty sure he'd been roped in to choose it. What the hell?
"Oh look," Felicity chorused happily, already slightly affected by the alcohol (and Oliver fully intended to tease her about being a lightweight at the earliest opportunity) "it's Thea and her new boyfriend!"
Silence fell in the foundry. Oliver's fingers tightened around his glass.
"It's who and her new what?"
"Oh shit!"
Felicity looked sheepish.
Oliver glared at Diggle, who put his hands out in an 'I know nothing' gesture, before pouring more vodka in their glasses.
"Felicity?"
"No need to bellow," Felicity said mulishly.
"I wasn't . . . just tell me? Please? Who is this guy, and why is he at my club with my underage sister- underage for drinking, I mean," he added, before anyone could point out that Thea was eighteen.
Felicity sighed.
"So last week, I was here pretty early because we had a half day off – I don't know, some office pot-luck, and I left early. Tommy was already here, and Thea was asking him if he had a job for Roy, and I asked who he was, bla bla. The story is kind of cute, really."
She threw down the second glass of vodka.
He raised his eyebrows and she continued, muttering 'ok, ok'.
"A few weeks ago she had a flat tire in the Glades, and this guy just turned up and changed her tire for her – just like that! Wasn't that nice? And they started talking, and one thing led to another, and now they're going out."
Diggle snorted with laughter, and Oliver put his head in his hands.
"What?" Felicity stared at the both of them like they'd lost their minds. "What's wrong with that?"
"By any chance, did Thea put gas in her car before the flat tire?" Diggle asked gently.
"I think so, she might have mentioned it . . . you think someone let down her tire there? So it was a con? But wait a minute, Roy didn't jack her car!"
"No," Oliver said grimly. "Maybe he has something else in mind. Have you even done a background check on him?"
"No, I didn't want to invade Thea's privacy," Felicity said primly, though once she saw the look on Oliver's face, she hurriedly started tapping on the keyboard.
When his arrest record came up, they all stared at the screen for a few seconds. Roy Harper sure had been up to a lot in a very short time – petty theft, carjacking, some street crime. Nothing that violent though. Felicity latched on to that immediately.
"He hasn't hurt anyone," she said, slurring slightly.
Oh, Felicity, he thought. Always ready to see the best in people. And she was practically falling asleep in that chair.
"And that's a good thing, Felicity . . . hey, Digg-"
Diggle just nodded, not even letting him finish.
"I'll take her home, don't worry. What about you?"
Oliver shook his head.
"It's ok, I'll use the Ducati. You get some sleep."
Diggle nodded and half-helped, half-carried Felicity out through the alley way.
Oliver yawned, and tried to will himself out of the chair. He needed to decompress after the night's fiasco, that is, get some sleep, and he couldn't do it in the foundry. He needed to think about what he was going to say to Mckenna in the morning, or afternoon, depending if she could see visitors or not. He needed to train himself to respond to enquiries about Helena's death, and to act surprised when it came up. Socialite Oliver Queen wouldn't be following the police blotter, would he? Now he knew that he also had to find about this Roy Harper, and what he wanted with his baby sister. Though looking at the guy on the monitors, and going through his arrest record, Oliver had to go back on his first kneejerk reaction. Yes, this was a troubled kid, but he wasn't violent. He studied the monitors again. Thea had been talking earnestly to Tommy, while Roy waited, and finally Tommy smiled, and shook Roy's hand. Tommy seemed to like him. Maybe there wasn't an ulterior motive after all.
Leaning back in his chair, his eyes fell on the identical notebooks on the desk. They needed to get going with this investigation, though he had no idea where to start. And every time he wanted to, something else cropped up which needed his immediate attention. Enough. He got up, stretching his back and arms, feeling joints pop. He was going home, to get some sleep. All this crap would keep till the morning, and possibly even the afternoon.
And once again, the moment he tried to get to the bottom of the mystery of the notebooks, Starling City madness set in. Except this time, he was responsible.
"No, Oliver, you're not!"
Felicity's eyes were flashing, and Diggle was shaking his head too. Oliver waved at the screen, where all of Starling City had just watched the Assistant D.A. die screaming, after his own useless parkour jaunt through the city.
"Don't you see what he's doing? He's identifying people he thinks have 'failed this city', and he's killing them! Hell, I was going after Nickel! He just got there first! I was the one who showed him how it's done, and he's following my example."
Oliver leaned on his hands and desperately wanted to sweep everything off the table, make a grand gesture of some kind. Only the knowledge that Felicity would kill him if he touched her computers stopped him. Besides, what good would it do? Two men were dead, and this guy showed no sign of stopping. He noticed that Felicity was looking really dejected, and swallowed all his ranting.
"I'm sorry, guys."
Diggle just waved him off. Felicity's eyes were shiny. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. He tried to come up with something to erase the effect of what he'd just said, and couldn't, deciding that what he really needed was a time machine. And that was when the new video feed was released. And Roy Harper's terrified face appeared on their monitor.
Much, much later that evening (or was it night?), the three of them sat in the foundry once more, too exhausted to even think of moving. Oliver was trying to ignore the sight of his kid sister making out with her boyfriend – they had the club's security cameras on their monitors again. Felicity was looking really beat, he thought, and came to a decision. What was the point of owning a club if he and his friends never got to unwind in it?
"Ok, this is what we're going to do-"
Felicity interrupted him.
"If you're going to say, 'drag Roy Harper away from my sister,' I can't help you there, buddy."
"No, actually, I was gonna say that we deserve some R&R, what d'you say, Digg . . .?"
But Diggle was staring at the cover of his father's notebook, at the strange grid which they hadn't been able to identify.
"I've seen this somewhere before . . . it's so familiar, but-"
The map they'd been using all day to trace the abandoned subway route was visible from the corner of Oliver's eye, and he turned to look at it fully. He couldn't believe it – it was staring them in the face, all along.
"Felicity, can you enlarge that subway grid?"
And as soon as she did that, it was clear. It matched the image on the notebook exactly. They all stared at it.
"So," Oliver mused, stretching out the word. "The Undertaking is somewhere in the old subway tunnels? Has something to do with the subway tunnels?"
He stifled a huge yawn, but Felicity had a new spark in her eyes, and pulled the keyboard towards her. He put his hand over hers, and she looked at him, startled.
"Hey. What I was going to say, before we found this out, is that I think we should take a break. From all this," he gestured around him at the foundry.
He looked at Diggle, who was surveying them with a look of faint amusement on his face.
"You too, Digg. Come on. Let's go upstairs, have a few drinks – I own a club," he said, trying to convey his disbelief. "We had a win today."
He met their eyes and winced.
"Fine, a partial win. But I got to save my sister's boyfriend, and now I have to watch them making out until I'll either have to kick his ass or blind myself, and I need some alcohol for that. What d'you say?"
Diggle nodded, but Felicity looked doubtful.
"I'm not really dressed for clubbing," she said, looking down at herself.
He thought she looked, well, amazing, but he didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable. Diggle had a smirk on his face. Oliver must have looked at her . . . uh . . . her chest a little too long.
"You look great, Felicity. And you're my guests – you can wear what you like. Come on, guys . . . ?"
He used to be good at this, he remembered, getting people to go out and get plastered. Felicity smiled reluctantly, and just excused herself to freshen her makeup before they went up. Oliver had already changed into his street clothes, and Diggle was ok too, so they were fine. Diggle was still looking at him quizzically.
"What?"
"Oliver, it's not right to make a move on a girl if you're still hung up on another."
"Why does everyone think I'm still hung up on Laurel? And who says I'm making a move on anyone?"
Diggle frowned.
"It's not that I don't have . . . " he lowered his voice, "feelings for Felicity, because I do. It's just that . . . "
He sighed.
"Because of the life that I lead, I can't be with anyone I really care about. And . . . and this is fucking weird," he hissed, practically whispering at this point, "and if you tell anyone I'll deny it, but I don't want to be with anyone else."
It was true. He really didn't. He could hardly believe it of himself, but there it was. Diggle shrugged.
"I think that's bullshit. Not your feelings for Felicity," he added, hurriedly. "The whole pushing her away crap. I tried that, with Lyla. It didn't take. But you're still young. You'll learn."
Oliver rolled his eyes and considered a snotty 'thanks, dad' in reply, but Diggle would just give him that stern disapproving look he knew so well.
Felicity came out of the bathroom with her hair down and her lipstick brightened – she looked happier than she'd been all day, and he was annoyed at himself for keeping her in their dark cave for so long. Maybe pushing her away for her own good was bullshit, maybe it wasn't. But it sure as hell was hard.
So they came up out of the basement (a foundry, Oliver insisted; not a basement) into the bright flashing lights of Verdant, and for one night, everything seemed fine. Oliver opened up the VIP lounge, and told the bar staff to send a couple of bottles of water and as many cocktails as Felicity knew the names of. After trying to talk Diggle into sharing a bottle of whiskey with him, Oliver just sent for the best whiskey they had, and three glasses. He managed to persuade Tommy to come and join them for a drink, and dragged Thea to join them, killing two birds with one stone – stopping the incessant smooching which was starting to give him heartburn, and making sure that Thea was only drinking virgin cocktails.
Later, looking back at that night, Oliver realised it was the last fun time before everything went to hell.
After Diggle's breakthrough, Oliver decided they really had to get to grips with the notebooks. Listening to his mother's phone calls, he still couldn't believe they'd talked him into this. Though he had to admit that they'd been right, eventually. Among many phone calls to friends, her accountant, lawyers, and so on, one stood out – a call to Malcolm Merlyn, which yielded some very guarded phrases, another mention of the Undertaking and Moira not having to 'make the usual threats'.
"Well, that doesn't sound ominous at all," Felicity quipped.
Diggle snorted.
"How are we going to find out more, Oliver? It's taken us listening to days of phone calls to just get this. Can't you just ask your mother about it?"
Oliver shook his head even before Diggle finished speaking.
"Bad idea, Digg. When those guys kidnapped me and Tommy, they kept asking me about my dad, if he'd told me anything before he died. I thought I'd ask mom if dad was involved with anything, you know, play it like I was in the dark."
"She shut you down?"
"She absolutely did. She talked to me like I was a teenager – wouldn't even discuss it."
Felicity was smirking, but stopped when he caught her eye.
"Sorry. I'm just imagining the scene."
Oliver mock-glared at her and she pouted.
"How about the vigilante tries to get some answers from her – there's a meeting in her office tonight, I could burst in . . . and you're shaking your head, Felicity."
She was in fact shaking it so vigorously her ponytail was flying around.
"Oliver. Did you ever wonder how I managed to smuggle a gun into Queen Consolidated, with all the security you guys have?"
"Actually, I –"
"Shh. That was a rhetorical question. I made friends with the custodians, of course. When they need I.T. work done, I do it for them, and they close one eye when I ask them to bring a bag in that hasn't been checked by security. They know what's in it, of course – I told them I had an ex-boyfriend who was stalking me. Anyway, they also share all the gossip with me – specifically, that there's a drawer in Mrs Queen's office that is off limits. And Rosa caught a glimpse of it one day, and she saw Mrs Queen's gun."
They all sat and thought about this for a few seconds.
"My mom wouldn't shoot me," Oliver started tentatively.
"No, Oliver," Diggle answered. "But she'd shoot the Hood. And you wouldn't defend yourself against your mother. It's a bad idea."
Fine, so they would think of something else. But at least they had a lead to pursue regarding the Undertaking, the first solid lead since hearing that word. Which was good, because success in that area did not translate into successful relationships, especially his relationship with Tommy, which had really started to collapse with his revelation of being the Vigilante. And Tommy just didn't want to believe that Oliver was no competition in his relationship with Laurel. Oliver wasn't sure why he didn't just tell Tommy about Felicity, though deep down, he was. He couldn't lie to Tommy anymore. And if he had to explain where they'd first met . . . well. Anything which made Tommy look at him with even more contempt was not something Oliver could stomach. So Oliver just kept insisting there was nothing between him and Laurel, and Tommy kept on not believing it, and it didn't help when Tommy made Oliver offer Laurel a place to stay with an orphaned kid in danger. It was as if Tommy wanted to be proven right. And even when nothing happened, except a battle with a hit man which Oliver could have done without, because it meant that Quentin Lance had an excuse to come over and yell at him, Tommy still looked at him like he'd spent the night sweet-talking Laurel into bed. And the end result was still Tommy quitting the club and going to work with his father.
Which was the worst result of all, because it had become increasingly clear that Malcolm Merlyn was the main instigator behind the Dark Archer and the Undertaking. They'd been picking up clues since the tapped phone call, which sounded more ominous the more they listened to it. It was Oliver's idea to stage a kidnapping by the Hood, so that his mother would finally admit the truth, or watch him being beaten to a pulp. He was glad that she'd come out with it before Diggle broke his jaw. But even being at the wrong end of Digg's fists wasn't as painful as listening to his mother admit that she knew what the Undertaking was, who kidnapped Walter, and where he'd been for the last six months.
"Why didn't you ever tell someone, so they could stage a rescue?" Diggle roared, infuriated, it sounded like.
Oliver couldn't blame him. But his mother sounded terrified.
"Malcolm said he'd kill him! And then he'd take Oliver, or Thea, or both, and keep them until the Undertaking was over! I couldn't risk it!"
Still, he couldn't help pushing her away when she came to help him up. And was glad he had, when he found the horrible hole poor Walter had been in for six months. As he looked around him, he was glad he'd mowed through all those guys, and wished he could do it again, hitting harder this time. It was always satisfying to find a problem that could be solved by hitting people, a lot. This time it was more so than most.
The other thing his mother had told them, which was even harder to believe, was that Malcolm Merlyn had plans to level the Glades using an earthquake machine developed by Unidac industries. Hearing that name was a shock. It had all started with the Unidac auction, all those months ago, and now they were there – having found the real reason for his father's notebook, for his father's demands. He couldn't help wishing his father's instructions had been clearer, maybe with a little added post-it note about the Undertaking. It was pointless moaning about it now, though. They just had to find the device, which meant Felicity had to break into Merlyn's network, which apparently wasn't easy. At all.
The plan went off without a hitch, though, and had an added bonus – that he got to put his arms around Felicity, albeit while swinging over an elevator shaft, but hey. It wasn't like he got a lot of full body contact nowadays. And then there was the strange thing she'd said, when he'd asked her to hold on to him. It still rang in his mind, mostly at inopportune times. He couldn't help smiling when her face changed as she realised she'd said 'I imagined you saying that to me in different circumstances,' and then trying to rescue it with 'very platonic circumstances'.
And he could write all of that off as typical Felicity babble, except he didn't want to. Was there something there? Did she have feelings for him, too? It was so much on his mind that he almost forgot what he'd planned to say to Tommy. He managed to get it together, and listen to what Tommy was telling him, and groaned. Tommy had broken up with Laurel? What the hell? He tuned in again to hear Tommy ranting about him, and his supposed deep love for Laurel, and came to a decision. Enough.
"Tommy, stop. Just stop."
Tommy stared at him, mouth open.
"I'm going to say this once, Tommy, and then I'm done with the subject. I can't keep going over the same thing with you. I don't love Laurel anymore. Maybe one day she can be a friend, but right now she doesn't give a damn whether I live or die. You're the man she loves, and if you can't get off your ass and deal with that, then you don't deserve her."
Tommy was still incredulous.
"That's the longest speech I've heard you give since you came back."
Oliver shrugged and left, hoping it would have the effect he wanted, because he'd been honest – he was tired of arguing the same point over and over. Being caught in some kind of love triangle with Tommy and Laurel was not why he'd come back to Starling City, why he'd chosen to be rescued when he had. There had been a couple of opportunities before that fishing boat, but he hadn't been ready yet. When that time came, it was because he'd been starting to feel a sense of urgency, like he'd missed something – and nowhere had there been the thought of getting involved with Laurel again. Hadn't he done enough to her, and her family? He listened to Diggle extricate Felicity from the building and smiled, even as he felt a twinge of jealousy when she loudly proclaimed that Tommy was 'her man'. And then he groaned at himself. Get it together, man. You're as bad as Tommy.
Meeting back at the foundry, they planned their next move, as they waited for Felicity's decryption program to process the data. It took longer than they thought, so they hung around, and after Felicity used her loud voice to tell them to stop hovering, they tried to work off their tension instead of bottling it up, with Diggle punishing the heavy bag and Oliver doing one of his indoor parkour runs. And Felicity watched him, and he pretended he couldn't see her watching. He thought about what Diggle'd said, that it was stupid to push her away, that he was just making them both unhappy. He lost himself in a dream world in which he spent all his days (and nights) with her – was it only a dream? Could he have that, once the Undertaking was dealt with, once he'd done what his father had asked? He was still musing about it when Felicity called them to the monitor. So now they had an address, and Diggle would go there, while Oliver would confront Malcolm Merlyn. What could possibly go wrong?
Oliver knelt in the creaking rubble, staring into space. Occasionally, a beam snapped, or some overstressed furniture gave way with a cracking sound, and he jumped, but he soon zoned out again. What was he doing here? It came back to him, bit by bit. The confrontation with Malcolm, which he'd lost (because Malcolm was the Dark Archer, which was par for the course, nowadays), the second confrontation, which he'd won (barely), and the city collapsing, because of course Malcolm had a second machine. Of course he did. And it wasn't the whole city, just a small part, which happened to contain, at the moment, his best friend. Who was dead. Tommy was dead. He started as the thought came to him, and tried to push it away, but it kept nudging at him, not letting him zone out. It couldn't be. This was one of his nightmares, and he was going to wake up. Right now. It occurred to him after a few seconds that dreams didn't work like that. He looked at Tommy's body again. This was no nightmare. He was awake. And Tommy was dead.
How had this happened? He looked at Tommy again, begging him to open his eyes, to wake up, make a joke, tell him it was all a prank – got you good, Oliver! Tommy's voice was so clear in his head, he thought he'd heard it out loud. But Tommy hadn't moved. He went back over the day's events, but when he tried to sort it all out, it was like watching a movie out of order. Scenes appeared in his head, and he tried to pinpoint one which would explain it all. But nothing helped, and one ran into the other. His arguments with Tommy, with his mother, Lance being roped in to find the device, Diggle coming with him to fight Malcolm, Felicity in the foundry co-ordinating. He could still feel the twinge in his shoulder where he'd stabbed himself with his last arrow, to kill Merlyn. And still, he couldn't understand how he'd arrived here, in this building, with Tommy.
Everything he'd done since his return to Starling City had led to this, sobbing like a lost child over the body of his dead friend. He begged Tommy to wake up, but it was over, he knew that. He'd seen enough death to know when it was over. He took off his gloves and touched Tommy's neck, wanting to feel a pulse so badly it hurt, but there was nothing. His skin was still warm, which was perhaps the greatest insult of all.
Oliver heard voices approaching, and the sound of shifting rubble, and toyed with the idea of staying there, of letting them arrest him. What was the point of all this? It had always been a fool's crusade, he knew that now. But if he was arrested, they'd investigate the club, and they'd find the foundry. And they wouldn't stop at him – he deserved prison, but neither Felicity nor Diggle did.
So he slipped out quietly, and headed for another safe-house he'd set up – not even Diggle knew about this one. He had a spare set of clothes there, and a bag. He took a certain amount of satisfaction in balling up the suit and throwing it in a corner. He'd never wear it again. He got on the Ducati again, and headed for the docks. The sooner he got out of Starling City, the better.
He walked along the main dock until he found a ship with Mandarin lettering and memorized the name. He'd spotted a run-down bar while driving up, which was close enough to the water that he was sure he'd find all the sailors there. He'd stick out like a sore thumb, but that was the point – he could sit there, and wait for them to come along and fleece the laowai. He had money on him, and he'd need it, if he wanted them to divert to Lian Yu and drop him off there. He squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds, trying to get himself under control. Lian Yu. Tommy would still be alive if he'd stayed there. He should never have left.
An hour later, he was drinking with his new friends, three thousand dollars lighter. He still had cash on him, sewn into his clothes, in case they decided the price had gone up during the trip. He'd still have to work his passage, and he didn't mind – it would distract him from the image of Tommy bleeding out in front of him, pathetically happy that Oliver hadn't killed his father. As he threw back another shot, he wished Malcolm back to life, so that he could kill him again.
The bar wasn't especially noisy, so when the car screeched to a halt outside, everyone heard it. Oliver knew that engine, and confirmed it when he went outside. It was the BMW, and Diggle was driving. But he wasn't alone.
Felicity burst out of the passenger seat, looking infuriated. Her hair was a mess, half escaped from her ponytail, she was covered in dust, and she exuded rage from every pore. She looked beautiful. He immediately forgot all his plans and walked towards her, though the anger in her look brought him to a halt before he got too close.
"What the hell is this, Oliver?"
"I . . ."
He couldn't say it. His throat tightened, and he just couldn't get the words out. Her expression, and Diggle's, changed.
"Oliver?"
He swallowed. How was he supposed to tell them? He couldn't even keep his best friend safe.
"What happened?"
Felicity put a hand on his arm, and the compassion in her face made it even more painful to try and get the words out.
"Tommy . . . Tommy's dead. He went in after Laurel, and got her out, but then . . . the building collapsed . . . he died."
Diggle looked away, blinking, and Felicity covered her mouth. He knuckled at his eyes savagely. Hadn't he cried enough today?
"I'm so sorry, Oliver. I really am."
Oliver nodded, trying to keep it together. Just a little longer. Until they left. Though they weren't. Leaving, that is. They were expecting him to talk to them, that was clear enough. Conversation, right. Could he still do that?
"How did you find me?"
Felicity folded her arms and gave him one of her sceptical looks – specifically the one which suggested that she wondered how he managed to dress himself in the mornings.
"You think you're so clever, with the GPS tracker in your boot. I've been working on a super-powerful, double-encrypted signal, and I've put my experimental trackers everywhere. Everywhere."
She looked around her, seemingly for the first time.
"Why here, though? What's so special about . . . oh."
Felicity had spotted the fishing boat he'd just bought a passage on.
"Are you leaving? Just like that? Without telling anyone?"
"This . . . what I've been doing . . . it's pointless. Tommy's death is my fault. It's on my head. I should never have come back here."
Felicity's lips thinned and her eyes flashed.
"I won't even touch that, Oliver. You know that's not true. But what about your family? What about Thea? And your mother? They need you."
"Thea's eighteen now. She can take care of herself. And my mother . . . "
He tried to keep the anger out of his voice, the bitterness, but he wasn't successful.
"My mother is responsible for this. She's going to jail. And she can stay there. I don't care if she ever gets out-"
The slap registered as a loud whip crack in his ear first, and he felt the sting after. Felicity glared at him, and tried to surreptitiously flex her fingers.
"How dare you say that to me. When you know my mother is gone. When you know I'd give anything, anything, to have my mother back, even for a day."
Oliver wasn't sure what was worse, the pain in her voice, or the contempt on her face.
"You still have a family, a mother, a sister, and you choose to throw it all away. And look at you, judging a woman who's been coping on her own, surrounded by sharks, for five years, dealing with, among other things, a murderous sociopath and a bratty teenager. Look," she said, waving him off, "I like Thea, ok? But let's not fool ourselves. She's a handful. And your mom couldn't confide in anyone, or at least she felt she couldn't and . . . "
Felicity ran out of steam and put her hand on her forehead, trying to collect her thoughts.
It came to him like a bolt of lightning. He loved her. More than that, he was in love. She was the only woman he'd ever love. And that meant he had to leave, more than ever. Didn't it? Didn't he bring death and destruction wherever he went? He went to put his hand on her shoulder, and she stopped him with a gesture.
"No. Just let me finish."
Felicity took a deep breath, and he could see how hard this was for her. And he suddenly knew what she was going to say, and he didn't know if he could bear it.
"When I was sitting in that warehouse, waiting to die, I didn't know what was happening, or why. It was like some nightmare I couldn't wake up from. But once I realised it was real, that I wasn't going to wake up, ever again, I knew one thing. I was completely alone in this world. No one would ever know or care that I'd died. It would be like I'd never existed."
He shook his head, the tears stinging his eyes again. She was crying too, but she managed to speak clearly in spite of that.
"But you're not alone, Oliver. You have your mother, and your sister, no matter what you say. They need you, and you need them. And what about us, huh?" she asked, wiping her eyes and trying to sound more normal.
"Aren't we your friends? Don't we count? And you were just going to sail away and leave us . . . wait, where were you headed, anyway? Tahiti? I hear it's great this time of year."
"Um. I was actually going back to the island," he mumbled, ashamed of the impulse that had led him there.
Diggle looked at him incredulously.
"Man, Oliver, you're dumber than I thought."
Felicity was shaking her head.
"Unbelievable. Just no, Oliver. Stop talking. You're not going anywhere, except home. And your poor mom, who had twenty-two years of your douchery to put up with – though I guess you only became a douchebag once you learned to walk – so twenty-odd years? Yeah. I think she's entitled to some consideration from you. So. Deal?"
She held out her hand for him to shake, and he stared at her in disbelief. How could she want him to stay? After the mess he'd made, how could anyone? He looked at Diggle, but he'd apparently been infected by whatever was driving Felicity right now, because he nodded, and mouthed a single word, 'stay'.
Felicity was still holding her hand out, but he ignored it, and surged towards her, enveloping her in his arms. He'd been stupid. They were his family too. How could he have even considered abandoning them?
"I have it on good authority that I was an adorable child," he mumbled into her hair.
And if he took the opportunity to squeeze her a little harder than he needed to, who was to know (except Diggle, who was giving him a knowing look).
"Ha! Love is blind," she retorted.
He noticed that she was waving an arm towards Diggle.
"I don't think we hug, Felicity."
"Tonight you do. Right this minute, mister."
He felt her smile when Diggle obeyed her and wrapped them up in a bear hug. Then he noticed she was looking over his shoulder at something.
"Uh, Oliver? Why is the entire crew of that fishing trawler waving and smiling at us while they sail out to sea?"
"Are they Chinese?"
"Is it racist if I say yes?"
"I paid them three thousand dollars for a passage to Lian Yu."
Diggle couldn't hold back a snort of laughter, and disengaged, clapping Oliver on the back.
"You are one dumbass white boy, you know that, right?"
Oliver nodded. He felt lighter than he had all day, and allowed himself a smile. Then he thought of Tommy, and the city, and the smile slid off his face.
"Guys."
They'd been walking back to the car, and they turned around, waiting.
"I can't be that man anymore. Tommy . . . he called me a murderer . . . I can't . . ."
"But you don't have to, Oliver!"
Felicity was so earnest, she was practically glowing. It was almost painful to look at her.
"Right now, the city needs everyone to pitch in. And you can do so much more as Oliver Queen than as the Hood. Don't you get that?"
Oliver nodded. She was right. And Diggle was right, too. What had he been thinking? Running away was never the answer. And neither was putting arrows in people, right now. He'd find another way.
Notes:
Finished season one, phew! Now I promise that things will be more interesting and definitely different, because a changed season two was where I was always headed.
E.T.A. I am going to put in a note which I don't usually like reading, but there it is. I do all my writing in time taken away from my job, which in winter is pretty stressful. So I really don't have time to engage in feedback discussion.
I will probably be going back to this chapter to clean it up a little once I have finished the whole story, but right now I barely have the time to start the next one.