How the Light Gets In

by Becks Rylynn

History repeats itself. This is a fact of life. It's the way of the world. Where you've been is where you'll be. Two hundred and eight days after fate rips Laurel Lance out of the world, leaving Dean Winchester in nearly the exact same position his father was in thirty three years ago, someone knocks on his door in the middle of the night. This is only the beginning of the story.

3. The Weight of Water

AN: Additional spoilery warnings for this chapter at the bottom.

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How the Light Gets In

Written by Becks Rylynn

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Part Three

The Weight of Water

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Here is a secret nobody knows:

She's always been drowning.

Before the boat went down, after the boat went down, through all of the loss and the heartache, through every fight, every victory, every setback, every joy, every sorrow. Every moment has been a struggle for her. It's hard to explain. She's tried, but people don't always understand. She doesn't even understand half the time. It's hard to explain that her occasional tight smiles and tired eyes aren't about her being cold. She has no problem with loving. She loves with every piece of her. That's not the problem. She's not a snob. She is not whiny. She's just sad. She doesn't know how to not be sad. She's never known.

Suffocation has been her way of life for as long as she's been here.

She remembers that now.

It's not something that has been done to her, she doesn't think. The things that have happened to her and the way she's been treated haven't helped, but they didn't cause the illness. They just exacerbated the symptoms. This is the way she was built. There is a flaw inside of her brain. She has too much of one thing and not enough of the other. Some crucial part of her is missing. She does not own the ability to be happy the way that others do. She's not incapable of being happy. She has known happiness. She has known pleasure, contentment, and warmth. Just not in the way that other people have. She simply lacks the emotional capacity needed for it. There isn't always enough room in her for it.

She is not allowed to say this out loud. She has never been allowed to say this out loud. Suffering is for other people. She's never had a right to it, according to some. She is supposed to be perfect and flawless, warm and kind and good. She is meant to be porcelain. She is meant to be holy. Anything less than that makes her weak and worthless. It makes her a burden. This is what she has been taught. It's really not so bad. The drowning. When all you've ever known is the choking and the breathlessness, you get used to it.

You learn to live with the water.

It's even easier to live with if you have something to numb your burning lungs. Laurel has been searching for a way to assuage the burning, the pain, the ache in her throat, for her entire life.

Contrary to what people choose to believe, her substance abuse did not begin with Tommy's death. It would be an easier story to tell. A woman loses someone she loves and copes with PTSD, depression, and survivor's guilt by self-medicating. She would hardly be the first tragedy like that. But that's not what happened. There is a wrong way to tell this story. Things got worse after Tommy died. There was an overflow, a brand new level of desperation and devastation, hurt piled on top of hurt, but it didn't start there. It didn't even start with Oliver and Sara.

The truth, the one that nobody wants to hear, is that she'd been drugged for years before any of that happened.

By the time she got pregnant with Mary, she was mostly clean. She had a legitimate prescription for Xanax that she honestly hadn't been using that much, she occasionally took an Ambien to help her sleep, and yes, she did drink too much sometimes. Still, she was better than she had been in years. When she got pregnant, she stopped drinking, she stopped taking any and all medications, and it was easy. It was easy to quit that time. To let it all go. When she had been struck down by completely draining morning sickness in her first trimester and her doctor had prescribed her some anti nausea medication, she hadn't even wanted to take that. For her entire pregnancy, she hesitated to even take a Tums for heartburn. After Mary was born, while she was breastfeeding, she'd have the occasional glass of champagne if she was at a party, drink a glass of wine with dinner and then pump and dump every now and then, and she was put on Paxil for postpartum depression, but other than that, she was sober. So was Dean. He had gone through hell and back to get sober while she was pregnant.

She was so good during her pregnancy and the first six months of Mary's life. She had been so proud of herself.

Then the Undertaking happened. Tommy died. CNRI was reduced to a pile of smoldering rubble. A few months after that, while she was still in the thick of her grief, a psychopath kidnapped her. She had been so close to death in those moments that she'd just sort of accepted it. There had even been a part of her that wanted it. It's hard to come back from that moment of acceptance, that single split second where you know you're going to die and your terror gives way to something else, something that can't be soothed with a hug from your father. Suffice to say, she slipped after that. She had thought, at the time, that she earned that slip. Life had beaten her down, it had taken from her, drained her of something she hasn't been able to get back since. The least she deserved was a few extra glasses of wine and something to help her sleep at night. Something to keep the panic at bay. So she fell back into old habits.

Her habits started when she was a kid.

She'd get these humiliating, debilitating, stress induced panic attacks. Her first panic attack happened when she was twelve years old. When her parents moved her and Sara out of their grandparents' house and into their brand new, proudly owned townhouse. The first night there, without her glow in the dark stars, without her grandfather opening her creaky bedroom door to check on her before he went to bed, all alone in her own room without Sara, she had wound up curled up in the fetal position, gasping for breath.

That vice-like panic hasn't left her since.

Every once and awhile, it'll taper off and give her a few weeks, a few months, of peace and quiet, but it never fails to come back. It is a constant and embarrassing display of fragility. The most dependable thing in her life. People leave, but the panic always comes back. As a sober adult, a wife and mother, the Black Canary, she has learned to manage them. I mean, what else can you do? You can't ignore the elephant in the room forever. You have to make space. You make the space and you learn to live around it. There is no other option. So she has. She has carved out a place for them in her life. She has a routine now. She has her coping mechanisms. She knows how to get through them, how to cope with the breathlessness, the racing heartbeat, the spike in her body temperature, the nausea, she knows her triggers, and how to sense one coming on.

There is a list of people she trusts with these moments, a list of people she trusts not only with her life but with her heart and her illness. The list is...well, frankly, the list is depressingly short. Certain names have been crossed out over the past couple of years - some due to their own actions, some because she just doesn't want to bother people. Mostly, the list is Dean. There are other people on the list, but she thinks he's the one who knows her panic the best. He's just been around it more. He knows how to help her, how to spot an incoming attack, how to stave one off, how to wait one out, and he has never made a big deal out of them. It's not like he's some incredibly patient saintly being who has somehow cured her with his love and never ever messes up. It's just that he's never panicked in response to her panic and he has never, not once, treated her like she is a lesser being for them. In her life, that's rare. She trusts him. After all these years, she trusts him with every part of her from her heart to her panic. That is also rare.

Panic attacks have been a part of her life, a part of her, for so long that she doesn't think she would be her without them. They're not as scary or as controlling as they once were. They're there and they are extremely unpleasant, but she feels like she's managed to lead a pretty good life even with the panic and the depression.

It wasn't like that when she was a kid. Especially not when she was a teenager. She was a basket case when she was a teen. She was always worried about something. Studying, gymnastics, Oliver, taking care of her parents, her grandparents, Sara; always under all this pressure to be the good girl, the responsible sister, the perfect daughter, the forgiving girlfriend. It got so bad that when she was seventeen, she was averaging about an attack a day. Her father blamed her, admittedly tumultuous, relationship with Oliver and wanted her to break it off so she could concentrate on ''getting better.'' Her mother worried about her lack of a social life. A ridiculous thing to worry about considering she actually had a fairly large circle of friends and went to parties all the time. She was even a cheerleader for a year. Her grandparents were of the opinion that she was overworking herself when it came to school and her extracurricular activities, which honestly may not have been completely incorrect. And Sara just thought she was being a ''drama queen attention whore.'' Because younger siblings are brats sometimes.

Eventually, when her father insisted on taking her to the family doctor, she broke down, told the doctor everything, and was promptly given a prescription for Xanax. That was the start of everything. Taking the pills wasn't as intimidating as she had thought it would be, so she started getting brave. As time went on, bravery became carelessness. It became recklessness. It became dependence.

She accidentally took more Xanax than she needed to and instead of telling someone, she decided to ride it out and when it didn't kill her and instead gave her a nice break, she did it again. If she couldn't sleep, she'd sneak into her parents' bathroom and steal an Ambien from her mother's stash. In law school, she started taking Adderall to help her focus because everyone else did it and because she needed to focus. In her early twenties, she threw her back out at one of her self-defense classes and was given Percocet. She even learned how to doctor shop. Medication just gradually became part of her daily life.

It's not like it had just been her doing these things. Teenagers and young adults make stupid mistakes all the time. Sara was the one who told her that their mother never noticed when an Ambien or two would go missing. Tommy was the one who first introduced her to Adderall because he swore by it before he dropped out of med school. Dean was a major abuser of both prescription and nonprescription drugs. He and Sam both used to stroll into urgent care centers and walk in clinics all over the Midwest to get pain meds for their various injuries. My job sucks, he always said with a careless shrug, as it he didn't have a boatload of drugs rattling around in his trunk. He was a big fan of Vicodin. He used to have a stash of stolen Fentanyl patches in a box in his car. She's not sure if he ever used those - if he did, it sure as hell wasn't around her - or if he was just a collector or even if they were his to begin with but either way, it was disturbing. Fentanyl is an incredibly potent drug. It's used for pain management in terminal cancer patients. And he had a bunch of it just casually tossed in his car.

If you were to ask her for a list of all the things she's been on, prescribed or not, she would be able to rattle off the entire list in a second. It's one of those things seared into her brain. A reminder of the hot mess she used to be. Xanax for her panic attacks, Lexapro after the boat went down, Paxil for postpartum depression, Cymbalta, Ativan, Zoloft, Adderall, Prozac, Ambien, Vicodin, Percocet, Valium, and, during a particularly low point right after the boat went down, cocaine. Wine and vodka have been her closest friends for years, also another thing that goes all the way back to her teen years. She never thought her drinking was that big of a deal. She never got as sloppy as her father did and it wasn't like she needed the alcohol. She could go months without drinking a drop. Clearly it wasn't an issue, right?

Drugs and alcohol have been a quiet part of her life for a long time, hidden beneath the surface, lurking underneath all of her morality and good girl image.

Laurel tried for years to find something, anything, that would make her feel better. Antidepressants, various forms of therapy, meditation, acupuncture, kale and other super foods, alcohol, various other substances, self-defense classes, yoga, sex, weird health cleanses, jogging. She tried everything to make herself feel real. To not be numb anymore. Nothing, not any of it, worked the way she wanted it to. She has been happy, but she has never been at peace. She's spent her whole life feeling like she's flickering. Like maybe she's not supposed to be here. This has never been something that's widely known. She kept her mask firmly in place, molded herself into a sweet, kind, humble, smiley, righteous woman who took care of everyone else and never let anyone see that she was in big trouble.

When she finally hit rock bottom, when that mask slipped and people started to notice that she was struggling, a lot of people seemed so surprised. Dean hadn't been all that surprised. She scared him, she knows she scared him, but he had known of her issues for years. He had a front row seat for a lot of terrible, crumbling moments. He knew she was a car crash waiting to happen. It was everyone else who had a problem with her emotions. They reacted with such hostility. How dare she fall from the pedestal they hoisted her unwilling body up onto? They blamed her for falling, for being a person instead of the perfect caretaker robot they wanted her to be, for being weak. They looked at her like she had suddenly become broken and hollow. She was no longer a friend or family, she was no longer a daughter or a sister. She was their burden to bear. They treated her like she didn't deserve to be saved. To even be offered genuine help.

People acted like her problems came out of nowhere. It doesn't work that way. Her spiral was a long time coming. Addiction doesn't come out of nowhere. People don't wake up in the morning and think to themselves, Today I'm going to hurt my family, lose my job, and ruin my life. That sounds like a fun thing to do. Addicts just get worse at hiding it as they approach the bottom. And that's what she is. An addict. One who is currently - and hopefully permanently - in recovery, but still an addict. Still diseased.

Laurel Lance is many things.

She is a house of worship for all these damaged, battle weary men who throw themselves at her feet. They tell her they love her, they tell her that she's the best part of them, and then they act like she owes them something in return. As if it is somehow her job to love them back, to keep them alive, to make them better men. She is the daughter that lived. Even when her own parents wished she hadn't. She's the one who, for years, swallowed apologies for her continued survival in dive bars while her drunken father called her names.

She is the moral backbone, the ego stroking, speech giving mother hen of her little group of misfits. She is the martyred murder victim. She is the Black Canary. She has power suits, high heels, flawless hair, a picture perfect family, a house in the suburbs, a job as a public servant. She is a devoted mother and wife. She is the responsible, righteous, moral, good girl. She is the one who cleans up everyone else's goddamn messes. But above all that, she is still a chronically depressed addict. Forgetting that would be a luxury. It would also take away the victory of her sobriety.

She understands that they want her to be their perfect angel. It must be nice to have someone to clean up your mess without shoving your face in it. She understands that she has been kind to them and that they see her through the rose colored lenses of that kindness. But their view of her is idealistic and false. People can look at her like she's the patron saint of everything good, but she has never been holy.

Other than her husband, her therapist, and her AA sponsor, this is not common knowledge.

It's not something people want to know.

Nobody wants to hear about how Lexapro made her feel so exhausted that she went out one night and did a line of coke just to wake herself up because she needed to study. Nobody wants to hear about how part of the reason for her dramatic weight loss after Tommy's death was because she was put on Zoloft, which not only made her too nauseous to eat but she was also throwing up what little she did eat. How Ativan made her a rage machine. How she couldn't orgasm while she was on Prozac. How she gave up breastfeeding so she could take stronger antidepressants and how she still grapples with feeling like a selfish failure for that decision. Nobody wants to hear about her panic attacks, her depressive episodes, how often she thinks about giving up sobriety just so she can have one Xanax or one glass of wine to help her calm down. Nobody wants to hear about her suffering and she has no interest in telling them. She knows what would happen if she did.

If she were to tell them that she's hurting, that she's always been hurting, that she's never known how to make it stop hurting, they would tell her that other people hurt too. They would remind her that she hasn't been through nearly as much as the people around her so what right does she have to want to die? Her pain irritates people. It makes them want to leave, and she doesn't want them to leave.

Bootstraps, kid, they would say. Happiness is a choice, remember? You should consider yourself lucky you don't have it as bad as your sister did.

And, yeah. That's true. She hasn't had it as bad as Sara. She hasn't been through half the horrific things that Dean and Sam have. She hasn't been on an island like Oliver has. So maybe she should just quit complaining, right? Maybe she's the lucky one.

Except.

February, 2014. The night of that horribly, poorly thought out Lance family dinner. After everyone else had been kicked out, while Dean was putting Mary to bed and Sam was cleaning up the kitchen, Laurel shut herself in the bedroom with a bottle of wine and the bottle of pills she had been hiding in her jewelry box.

She's always maintained that she's not sure what the trigger was, that she doesn't know which specific part of the night pushed her over the edge. That's a lie. What she did that night had been a long time coming, but there was a trigger. There's always a trigger. There is always that one second. For her, it was her parents. There was a moment, sitting at the dinner table, while everything was awkward and tense but before the night exploded, where she looked at her parents and they were looking at Sara with this look in their eyes. Laurel recognized the look because it was how she looked at Mary every day. Quietly, without any fanfare or theatrics, she sat there and she realized that they had never looked at her like that. Not once in almost twenty-nine years.

She stared down at her wine, with Dean's hand heavy on her knee, and she wondered what it would have felt like for them to look at her like that. She thought it would have felt really nice. Her parents loved her, love her, will love her forever, and she knows that - even sitting at that dinner table, drunk and bitter, she knew that - but they don't love her the same way they love Sara. It was a soft, silent kind of breaking that later turned into a chaotic splintering, helped along by a lot of wine, that she couldn't stop.

If you stand on a ledge for twenty-eight years, eventually your legs will get tired of holding you up. That night, she got tired. She clenched the bottle of sleeping pills in one hand and her wine glass in the other. She tried to think of what it was that she did to make them love her less. She ran through her whole life trying to figure out what was so wrong with her that made people so eager and willing to carelessly unlove her. She considered the outcome of what she was about to do. She was very tired. So she took two pills, washed them down with a glass of wine, and then she took another. And another. And a few more after that. She wanted to know what would happen. It was morbid curiosity, it was exhaustion, it was overwhelming sadness. It was her lowest moment.

And then she changed her mind.

That night was not the first night she had thought about leaving it all behind. It was not the first time she had considered her options. She had lived with major depressive disorder and panic disorder for her entire life. She had thought about a lot of ways out before. It was just the first time she had actually tried to leave. It wasn't what she thought it was going to be. She wanted to know what would happen and what happened is that she wound up getting unceremoniously hauled into a cold shower, fully clothed, while Sam held her tired body up and Dean stuck his fingers down her throat to get her to vomit up the pills.

That was, without a doubt, the worst moment. Not because of the physical discomfort or the humiliation or even because of her own emotional pain but because of the look in Dean's eyes, the way he was pleading with her, both angry and terrified, and the sound of Mary screaming for her parents from her crib. That's the thing about making a choice like that. It's not always the leaving that's the hard part. The hard part is when you stay. When you have to witness the horrific consequences of your actions. When you have to live with what you've done to the people you love. When you have to remember, every day for the rest of your life, the look on your husband's face the night you tried to die and the night he wouldn't let you.

She hadn't been able to properly explain her actions to him. Later, after she had thrown up all the pills and the wine, while she was sitting in the bathtub, soaking wet and shivering, she hadn't been able to make the words come out. She just couldn't do it. She wanted to be able to tell him that it had been a mistake, that she hadn't meant to, that she was just drunk and lost track of how many pills she was taking, but she couldn't. She couldn't look at him, this man who - for whatever misguided reason - actually did love her, and lie to him. It would have been cruel. She couldn't tell him the truth either. All she had been able to say was, ''I'm sorry.''

''You keep saying that,'' he'd said, standing at the sink, running a washcloth under the faucet. He couldn't even look at her. He hadn't been able to hide the fact that his hands were shaking either.

She remembers crying. It's one of the clearest memories from that foggy night. She was sitting in that bathtub, weeping, hurting, torn open and sick, and he was wiping her face with a warm washcloth. He hadn't seemed to realize that she didn't deserve the kindness and the gentleness he was giving her. ''I don't know what else to say,'' she admitted.

''You could say you didn't want to leave. You could say it was an accident. Laurel, please,'' he begged. ''Tell me that's all it was.''

She hadn't been able to tell him that.

She'd whimpered, head falling back against the wall as tears spilled down her ashen cheeks. She closed her eyes so she didn't have to see the look on his face. ''I'm sorry,'' she'd said again. It was the only thing she had to give him.

In February of 2014, after an exhausting twenty-eight years, a brutal nine months of grief and spiraling, and a particularly bad night, Laurel tried to kill herself because she was tired of being tired. She looked at the pills, she looked at the wine, and she had simply thought, I am not brave enough to be here anymore.

She'd spent her whole life being brave, and her bravery just wasn't cutting it anymore. It wasn't good enough. She wasn't good enough. She approached it with an odd sort of calm. Her parents loved her very much but mostly when it was convenient for them. Sara resented her stifling presence so much that she'd drowned herself to get away from her. They would probably all by fine. Maybe they would even be happier. They'd finally get to have the family life they always wanted without overly emotional, self righteous, whiny Laurel getting in the way.

She knew that Dean and Mary were better off together without her hanging around in the background, awkward and drunk and just not the kind of mom or wife anyone needs. He was the one who stayed home with their daughter every day. He was the primary caregiver, the one who always seemed to know just what their daughter needed, and Mary was a baby. She would grow up with pictures and fairytales about her dead mother. That was far better than the real thing. Dean would be angry at first and he'd grieve, but he'd get over it and move on. Find someone better. Someone worthy of being his wife and Mary's mom. It actually gave her a certain amount of comfort to know that he and Mary would have each other. That the one good thing she ever did was give them each other.

Laurel had been tired of being left behind. Just once, she wanted to be the one to leave first. So she took the sleeping pills and she drank the wine and she waited, this shred of hope in the back of her mind telling her that maybe this meant she would see Tommy again.

The only reason she had changed her mind was because she realized she hadn't left a note and because she got this horrifying image in her head of Dean walking into the room with Mary in his arms and finding her dead in their bed. She couldn't do that to them. Leaving was one thing but she couldn't give him another body to cradle in his arms, another body to burn, and she couldn't let Mary see that.

But she had wanted to leave. Saying she didn't would be a lie. She had wanted to die that night. There wasn't a doubt in her mind at the moment. Ironically, years later, at the time of her death, what she wanted most was to live. Because life's a bitch.

Depression is a liar that puts a bottle of pills in your hand, cups your cheek, and whispers, I'll stop if you make me. Anxiety is a loaded gun with your finger on the trigger asking, Don't you think it would be better for everyone if you did this? That was almost every day for her. When the greatest villain of your life is your own mind, every day is a struggle, a drowning, another sleepless night, a fight for your life. Sometimes it's not a fight you can win. That night, without hesitation, she had come to the realization that she was not going to win the fight, that she had tried and tried for all those years, but that there was only one way to make it stop. And she had wanted so badly for it to stop.

So, no, she's never been on an island, never looked Lucifer in the eye, never been crafted into a human weapon of mass destruction, but she has absolutely wanted to die. Is that what it feels like to be lucky?

If people want to believe that her addiction and her sadness started with Tommy, that's fine. She can't do anything about their willful ignorance. But make no mistake. She has been a breathless, depressed, junkie for as long as she has been old enough to know that nobody really wants her here.

This is what she remembers as she comes back to herself, bright lights hovering over her, voices in the distance. This is the first thing she remembers.

Talk about a harsh wake up call.

She welcomes these memories back into her life with a tired acceptance. This hurt is hers and no one else's. It belongs inside of her the same way every other aspect of her personality does. She wouldn't be who she is or where she is without it. That doesn't mean it's not jarring to wake up with all the times she wanted to die stuck in her head.

There are other memories too, of course. There was - is - happiness mixed in with the sorrow. It's not as if she's never known it. Her happiness may be different than other people's happiness, perhaps more fragile, perhaps quieter, but she does remember what it's like.

Happiness is in the first time Mary ever signed I love you to her. It was Mother's Day and Mary was sitting on the bed, hair mussed, giggling and so excited to show her mom what she had learned. Happiness is everything about that little girl from her eyelashes to her scraped knees to her amazing laugh. Laurel used to be so terrified of her daughter. While she was pregnant and for the first couple months of Mary's life all Mary represented was this major life change. She was so scared she was going to mess her child's life up. She was scared to be her mother, she was scared to be her father, she was scared she was too unstable to be a real parent, she was scared of everything. Being a first time parent was so intimidating. It still is.

But Mary, despite all of the hardships, despite her hearing impairment, is like this tiny ball of sunshine and unflinching goodness. Sure, she's shy to a fault, she's clingy, she's sheltered, probably a little too much, she's epically dramatic, and she is definitely way too spoiled. But she is also kind and sweet and loving. Just the sweetest little thing. She adores animals and flowers and cookies. She loves Disney movies and her band-aids and The Flash. She's been asking for a rabbit and a puppy since she was two years old. She's a terrible singer and an even worse dancer but she does it anyway because it's fun. She loves her family - especially her dad, who she looks at like he hung the moon just for her. She's a tiny caretaker, always worrying about whether or not someone is sad or hurt or needs a hug. She laughs all the time. Every day. Every day of her little life she has found something to be so overjoyed by that all that wonder just erupts inside of her and comes out in giggles. She has the single best laugh in the entire world.

Mary Bea is her parents' saving grace. She's a miracle. It's impossible not to be happy in her presence, and Laurel was so happy to be her mom.

It's not just Mary who has given Laurel happiness either. Happiness is that day when she sat down across from Dean in a cafe and offered him a piece of pie as a peace offering. It's the first time she ever saw him smile with his eyes. It's the night they decided to get married and that day in the courthouse.

It's the first time she held Sara in her arms after she came home - both times. Watching her father hold his granddaughter for the first time. Helping Oliver teach Thea how to ride a bike and the way she laughed so loudly when she was finally about to ride down the driveway all on her own. She remembers jumping up and down with Joanna when they were both accepted to law school. The full, content feeling in her chest when she'd come home and find Dean in the kitchen with Mary on his hip, bickering with Cas about dinner while Sam and Tommy try to arm wrestle for the remote control in the living room. It's in the words to Sea of Love, the song she sings to her baby girl. Happiness is the galaxy on her bedroom ceiling, the one her grandmother gave to her.

It's in her golden hair against the dark of the night sky with a voice in her ear saying, Ready, Black Canary?

It's in her sure, confident, steely reply of, Ready.

She is chipped around the edges and probably always will be but she is well acquainted with joy. A lot of that joy has been given to her by her family. Not the one she was born into, but the one she made with her own two hands. She found solace and purpose in Black Canary; a home she never knew she needed. She found comfort in the law. There will always be safety in her father's arms, and her bleeding heart will be resting in Sara's open palms forever, whether it is beating or not, but it's Dean and Mary, the family she chose, who have given her everything she has ever wanted.

And to think, it all started one warm summer night when she dropped her keys, he picked them up, and she hit him over the head with her purse because she thought he was a mugger.

Nobody other than Dean, Sam, and her therapist will ever know about that February night. She got help. She got better. She checked herself into the hospital that night, she started AA, and, eventually, she rediscovered her want to live. And no one will ever know. She was in the hospital for a week and during that week, nobody asked where she was. Her parents called, her father and Sara both dropped by a few times, but when Dean told them to leave, they left. They were still too angry with her to push the issue. They were angry with her. That's still hilarious to her. Laurel mended fences when she got back, offered up half-hearted apologies made to sound as genuine as possible, and didn't bother to wait for any from them. She made up with Sara, she made her father proud when she started attending meetings, she hesitantly allowed herself to be pulled back into Oliver's orbit, and none of them ever asked where she was for that week.

It was an odd sort of acceptance when she realized that. Instead of swallowing a handful of pills, she'd just sort of thought, oh, well, okay.

It's another part of her, another jagged piece, another inescapable truth. Laurel has infinite love for other people. She will love them, all of them, until it ruins her. Other people have a finite amount of love for her. There is a limit to what they will do for her. And that's okay. Their intent is not malicious. They're not bad people. They just don't need her as much as she needs them. If she were to stand here all alone and lonely, it would probably sting a lot more. That's just the thing: she's not alone. She is never going to be alone again.

Nobody asked where she was for the week she was in the hospital, but her husband visited her almost every day.

Dean Winchester is an unexpected exception to the rule; some grumpy stubborn jackass who loves her and won't leave, no matter what she does. She keeps fucking up and he just keeps patiently taking the gun out of her mouth, handing her all of this devotion, carelessly, lazily turning her into someone he would die for, without asking for anything in return, making her feel something other than the numbness she'd gotten used to. If she were to burn, he would hold her hand, and he would burn with her. She doesn't think he'd even hesitate.

She has never known what she is supposed to do with that. It is not the kind of love she is used to receiving; this selfless, unconditional, unwavering kind of love. It's so strange to be loved that way. They don't have a perfect marriage. No one does. There's no such thing. But he's stuck with her through thick and thin. He's the only one who ever has. Through everything, from her insecurities at the beginning of their relationship to an unplanned pregnancy to a suicide attempt, he's been here. He has remained by her side, supporting her in spite of everything that's broken inside of her. She figures it's probably because he's fairly broken himself. He is the only other person she's met who understands her specific brand of tired.

She worries, often, that she might take him for granted sometimes. That maybe she comes off as disinterested or unreceptive to the kind of love he gives her. But he gives it to her anyway. Everything she's ever asked for, he's given her. There's a word for that kind of love.

Agape.

She remembers that too.

It's tucked away, in between all of these things in her head, in between the good and the bad, the drowning and surfacing for breath, the living and the dying. Pressed in between the pages of depression and addiction, laughter and family, is the memory of love. When she opens her eyes to a spinning and lurching world, with that familiar craving taking its place in her bones and her blood, love is at the forefront of it all.

There is nothing, she knows now, that could ever be more Dinah Laurel Lance than that.

She blinks a few times but winces at the bright lights above her head and has to close her eyes again. She tries to lick her lips but her mouth is bone dry, it feels like it's been stuffed with cotton, and there is this terrible taste she can't get rid of. Her head is throbbing. She has absolutely no energy to wake up right now. She doesn't even want to move. She lies there for another minute or two, mind cycling through her memories as they all slot into place. It's only when she feels a hand on her arm that she forces herself to pry open her eyes.

The sight of her eyelids fluttering open seems to shake him because she watches the expression on his face jump from careful professionalism to astonishment. Instinctively, she tries her best to smile for him, plastering on her best sweet smile and greeting him with a quiet, ''Hi, Johnny.'' Her voice sounds like she has gravel in her throat and the unpleasant metallic taste of blood mixed with the acrid taste of vomit makes her grimace, but the sound of her voice still seems to send shockwaves through him.

He stares at her for a minute, unable to comprehend her presence. He does look happy to see her underneath all that shock. He just doesn't know what to do with her. Finally, he smiles at her and says, very softly, ''Hey, partner.''

Her chest aches and her lips split into a wobbly grin. It's really good to see him. ''Did...'' She squirms a little but her body is too sore to move, muscles stiff and pulled tight. She feels like she has been completely demolished by something. ''Did I pass out?''

He hesitates. ''I...wasn't here,'' he says slowly. ''I just got here a few minutes ago, but I was told you had a seizure.''

She tries to swallow. ''Oh,'' she gets out, weakly. ''That's not good.''

''No,'' he agrees. ''Not so much. Has that ever happened to you before?''

She croaks out a laugh. ''Just. In the hospital. That night. I don't, um...'' She trails off. She doesn't remember seizing that night in April, doesn't remember the exact moment she left, but she does remember that night. She remembers everything. She remembers what she said to them, what she said to Dean. She remembers the sterile, antiseptic smell of the hospital. She remembers the soft, gentle tone of the doctor's voice when she told her about the... About what happened. She remembers guilt and fear. She remembers knowing. Somewhere deep inside of her, she knew. There wasn't going to be an April 7th for her. She had felt it the moment she woke up in that hospital bed, but she had tried so hard to be calm, to not scare anyone. She exhales slowly, stubbornly ignoring the way her stomach churns at the memory of that night. She doesn't particularly want to think about it. ''April,'' she whispers. ''That was the only time I've ever had a seizure.''

He flinches and has to look away from her. She regrets bringing it up. Should have just told him no. ''Right,'' he nods. He still can't look at her.

Her sluggish brain works to come up with something to comfort him. ''None of this has ever happened to me before,'' is all she can say. ''This is new territory.''

He smiles, but it's strained. ''Good point.''

She turns her head slightly, trying to crane her neck to find Sara or Dean. She can't see them. She can't hear their voices. She knows they're here somewhere. They have to be. Dean wouldn't have left her. She feels like she needs to get up and find them because she knows them and she knows that they both have a tendency to turn on each other in times of stress but she can't move. Her bones are too weary, there's too much blood in her mouth, and her head hurts too much. She relaxes back against the cot and tries to breathe. ''I think,'' it comes out slurred. She has to clear her throat. ''I think I bit my tongue.''

John just nods. ''That happens,'' he soothes, brushing hair out of her eyes. ''Try not to worry,'' he says. ''It's not too bad. I knew a guy who bit clean through his tongue during a seizure. That'd be a bitch to take care.''

''Did I scare them?''

He doesn't answer for a long time, which is answer enough. ''It sounds like Dean had the situation handled. He made sure you didn't hit your head. Made sure you didn't choke.''

Yes, that sounds like Dean. He's been around someone having a seizure before. He's had a seizure before. He would have taken care of her. It's everyone else she's worried about. Sara, Thea - ''Mary,'' she breathes. ''I - oh, god. Mary. Did she see?''

''Laurel.'' When she unsuccessfully tries to bolt upright to get to her daughter, he gently guides her back down. ''Laurel, she's fine. I don't think she - When I got here, she was smiling. Thea's got her watching Paw Patrol.''

She tries to breathe through the panic. The last thing she needs to add to this incredibly fucked up situation is a panic attack. ''Okay.'' She closes her eyes. ''Okay, good.''

''She's a brave kid,'' he tells her.

She smiles softly, and has to blink. ''She is.'' She shifts slightly and attempts to bring a hand up to her aching head but she can't. When she opens her eyes again, that's when she sees the IV. ''Oh no,'' her eyes widen. ''John,'' she rasps. ''You can't give me... You have to get this out.'' Weakly, she tries to rip the needle out of her arm but he catches her wrists easily.

''Whoa, Laurel, hey.'' He holds onto her hands carefully. ''It's just fluids, okay? I haven't given you any narcotics.''

''Promise?''

''I promise.''

She draws in a breath. All right, well. Fluids are okay. Probably a good idea considering she hasn't been properly hydrated since, you know, April.

''You should rest awhile longer,'' John says gently.

Probably true. She is feeling awfully exhausted. Dehydration, coming back from the dead, a seizure, and having your memories hammered back into your skull really wipes you out. Good to know. ''Yeah.''

''How about I grab you some ice chips? Get that taste out of your mouth. Sound good?''

She nods. ''Wait,'' she reaches out to grasp at his hand, holding onto him so tightly it hurts her hands. ''Can you...'' She swallows. ''Can you get Dean for me?''

He smiles gently. ''I can do that.''

''Thank you. Oh, hey,'' she grabs his hand one last time, offering him a smile. ''It's really good to see you.''

He laughs shakily. ''You have no idea how good it is to see you.''

She beams at him. She pats his arm gently, like she's trying to comfort him, even though she's not sure why he needs to be comforted. She closes her eyes against the brand new wave of tears and lies back, trying to relax her body enough to fall back to sleep. He remains by her side, one hand on her arm, an incredibly solid and unwavering presence, until he thinks she's asleep, and then she feels him leave, wandering off to get Dean and her ice chips. She considers opening her eyes to look around, but she's too tired. She keeps her eyes closed and runs through her memories once more. This time, she tries to concentrate on the happy ones. Mary's first steps, her first official date with Dean, her grandmother giving her those glow in the dark stars.

Right before she falls into a somewhat listless sleep, she feels Dean's hand slip into her own and his lips against her forehead. She hears his voice murmuring in her ear, telling her that he's right here with her, and in her head, there is this twinkling, familiar laughter.

It sounds like her grandmother.

.

.

.

April, 2014

On her twenty-ninth birthday, her grandmother throws her a surprise party at the nursing home.

Laurel figures it out weeks in advance, of course, because she's Laurel and this is a thing that she does. No one has ever been able to throw her a successful surprise party before. She has an incessant - and sometimes insufferable - need to know everything that's going on around her. She's not one for surprises, even when it comes to something as harmless as a birthday party. It used to be a cute personality quirk. She'd be that person reading the back of the book first or she'd refuse to watch jump scare horror movies. It's become something more serious ever since her sister and boyfriend started screwing behind her back and then ''died'' together. It also doesn't help that a lot of people in her life tend to actively keep the truth about everything that's going on from her all the time, leaving her to fend for herself.

In the end, it's not hard to figure out the surprise birthday party. It's all the hushed late night phone calls between her grandmother and Dean that tip her off.

One night, after Mary has gone to sleep, while she's standing at the sink washing the dishes too fragile for the dishwasher and there's music filling the kitchen, she asks, ''Dean, are you having an affair with my grandmother?''

He doesn't even hesitate. ''Yes,'' he says, nodding seriously. ''I didn't mean for it to happen but I went to visit her a few weeks ago and I'd just finished reading The Graduate - ''

She cuts him off by bursting into laughter, still elbow deep in sudsy water. The sound of her happy, light laughter seems to shock him into silence briefly. When she looks at him, all she can see is his profile. He's making chocolate chip cookies because Mary asked for them and he's looking down at the batter, grinning at the sound of her laughter. Eye crinkles, sharp white teeth and all. It's one of those moments where she looks at him, her breath catches, and she can't believe this is her life. She is so glad that this is her life.

''I'm kidding,'' he says, needlessly. ''You know she's out of my league.''

''That's true,'' she agrees as he reaches past her for the sugar.

It doesn't take much to weasel the truth out of him after that. ''It's not a big party,'' he tells her, after he's admitted everything. ''Nobody else is invited. She just wants to give you something nice.''

She sits across from him and steals one of the unbaked cookies from the tray.

''She says she misses your smile,'' he says, somewhat reluctantly, like he's afraid to make her feel bad. ''She says she misses you.''

She picks at the cookie dough. Well, okay then. ''I guess a party couldn't hurt.'' She doesn't like surprise parties or, you know, most parties in general. She doesn't like being the center of attention. She had that life while she was with Oliver. It was fun for awhile, exhausting for longer, and now she's done with it. She's moved on. She likes the quiet these days. But she knows that she's worried her family during her spiral and she knows that she's walled herself off from them in ways she never has before. The least she can do is give her grandmother a party.

''That's the spirit.'' He drops a kiss to the crown of her head and then reaches around her to grab her iPod so he can change the song from Starman to Mrs. Robinson.

Because he's a nerd and thinks he's hilarious.

So, on the day of the party, when she shows up at the nursing home with Dean's arm around her shoulders and Mary on her hip, she pastes on her best surprised face and she goes with the flow. It's worth it, honestly. Not just because she's able to give her grandmother an afternoon of happiness but because as parties go, it's not all that terrible. It's actually really nice.

Beatrice Drake is, in the words of her late husband, ''a character.'' She has always been the most whimsical part of Laurel's life. Sometimes it's hard to believed that straight laced professor Dinah Drake-Lance came from this Debbie Reynolds-like, singing and dancing, fluttering creature made of iron and stardust. It's even harder to believe that a dumpster fire like Laurel could ever be related to someone as magical and good as Beatrice. She counts it as something of a miracle that she has been able to share her life with someone like her grandmother. The woman who has never stopped trying to give her the galaxy.

The party, like everything Bea Drake does, is over the top and almost a little absurd. There's even a musical number. Laurel can't help but love it, all of it. True to her word, her grandmother does not invite anyone else. Not Sara, not her parents, not Sam and Cas. Just Laurel, Dean, Mary, and a whole bunch of old folks.

''Contrary to what your mother believes,'' Grandma says, peering at Laurel over her glasses, ''it's not meant to be an insult to them. But you could use a break, darling.''

Laurel can't help but laugh at that. Boy, could she ever. She loves her family more than anything but she could use some alone time with her grandmother. Maybe that's the reason she has such a good time. It's not even just Grandma. It's the whole place. See, as it turns out, old people love her. Like, they seriously adore her.

They dote on Mary. Have been since before she was even born. When she was pregnant, she would come in to visit her grandmother and her ailing grandfather and all of these people would just flock toward her and her baby bump, dispensing weird, outdated advice and old wives' tales and rubbing her belly for ''luck.'' Even after Mary was born, that didn't change. Every time Laurel shows up here with Mary, she's got a bunch of people in her face, waving hard candy and cooing over her.

They also like Dean. This absolutely has something to do with the fact that not only is he charming and a shameless flirt but he will listen to all of the rambling stories they tell him and act like they're the greatest stories he's ever been told.

But they love Laurel. A lot of them seem to consider her their granddaughter too. It's very sweet. She's never been able to put her finger on why they love her so much. Maybe they miss their own children and grandchildren, maybe Grandma makes her sound more interesting than she is, maybe it's because she genuinely enjoys talking to them and never treats them like they're helpless, or maybe it's just because she is actually an eightysomething year old woman trapped in a twentysomething year old's body. Whatever the reason, they welcome her with open arms every time they see her and it's hard not to completely eat that up.

It is, in fact, very nice to be loved.

Overall, it's a wonderful birthday. Technically, her birthday isn't until Sunday but there's no way that whatever her father is planning could beat this. No offense, Dad.

Later, much later, while she's curled up under the sheets and half asleep with her head on his chest, her husband will look at her and say, ''You seem happy.''

She'll smile sleepily into the crook of his neck and say, ''Today, I was.''

And it won't be a lie.

For now, the sun has just set, visiting hours will be coming to a close in less than an hour, and Laurel is sitting on a couch in the common room with Mary curled into her side and Grandma sitting across from her. Across the room, Dean is patiently allowing Edith and Gloria to hustle him at Mahjong and he's listening intently to Terrence and Alvin's war stories, the same ones he hears every time he comes here. In a few minutes, when Alvin starts asking Dean ''where he served'' because he ''knows the look'' and because he's forgotten he's already asked that question several times, Laurel's going to have to go and save her poor guy.

Right now, however, she would like to remain here in this moment with her daughter and her grandmother in the blissful quiet. It feels like it's been such a long time since she had a moment of quiet.

She has spent the past few minutes trying to wipe bright pink cake frosting off her sleeping daughter's face and clothes and she still hasn't gotten it all. When she catches sight of a spot of frosting on Mary's cheek, she wipes it off with her thumb. In what seems like a direct response to that, Mary shifts in her sleep and turns her head so she can wipe her nose and mouth on Laurel's hip, smearing remnants of frosting all over her mother's shirt.

Meanwhile, Grandma is humming what sounds like that old Rosemary Clooney song she used to sing to her granddaughters. The familiar sound of it makes something ache not unpleasantly in Laurel's chest and throat. She watches her grandmother shuffle a deck of cards in her hand and thinks about when she was a kid and they were living with her grandparents. She'd walk into the house after school and Grandma would be sitting at the kitchen table, playing solitaire while a spice cake baked in the oven. She swallows hard and has to look away, frowning at the sudden pang of nostalgia and melancholy.

''So.'' She looks up at the sound of her grandmother's voice. Grandma isn't looking at her, busy placing the cards down on the table, focused on her game of solitaire. ''How did I do?''

''You mean with the party?'' Laurel grins. ''You did great.'' She thinks of the party, of laughing and smiling, of the relieved look on Dean's face because she'd finally been able to be carelessly joyful for at least one day. ''I had a great time,'' she says honestly. ''It was nice to be able to relax and laugh for a few hours. Thank you.''

Grandma smiles at her, with this undeniable Drake spark in her eyes. ''Of course, Star,'' she says, and Laurel can't help but feel a burst of warmth in her chest at the old childhood term of endearment. ''I'm glad I could give you laughter.''

''You always make me laugh.''

''It's a gift.''

Beside her, Mary squirms, tossing and turning, kicking her feet as she tries to get herself into a more comfortable position on the lumpy couch. Laurel pauses, worried about waking her, but ultimately lifts her daughter into her arms, relaxing back against the cushions so Mary can flop against her comfortably. She looks at her sleeping child, watching her breathe evenly and peacefully. Thanks to all of her honorary grandparents and great grandparents sneaking her bites of cake all day long, Mary has had way too much sugar today and Laurel is a little concerned about the fallout. What is it about grandparents and giving kids sugar? She doesn't think one single day of indulgence is going to ruin Mary forever, but the last time she had a day full of overexcitement, she wound up pulling an exorcist all over her crib and that was without sugar. Laurel is just not looking forward to cleaning that up if it happens again.

She rubs Mary's back gently, adamantly not thinking about the pink frosting currently being ground into her shirt. When she looks up, Grandma is looking at her with a very familiar expression on her face. ''Now, don't get mad at me,'' she starts, ''but I have to ask. When are you two going to give me more great grandbabies?'' She shoots her a dazzling smile. ''I've got all this hard candy and no one to give it to.''

Laurel tries to laugh silently, careful not to jostle Mary too much. ''Oh, I don't know, Grandma,'' she says, trying too hard to sound breezy. ''I think we've shelved that conversation for the time being.''

It's not an altogether unexpected question because people have been asking when they're going to have another since before Mary was even born but it's still not an easy question. She never knows how to answer it. She knows that he wouldn't mind having at least one more kid - hell, she knows he probably wouldn't mind having a whole football team. She's the one who doesn't really want to go there. In theory, she'd love a big family. Realistically, it doesn't seem likely. For every pro on the list, there's five cons.

Babies are expensive and given how rough this year has been income wise, they're barely scraping by as it is. Mary alone is already such a handful. Part of that is because of her Pendred and how much extra attention she needs with speech therapy, various doctor's appointments, and how bad her right ear is at the moment. Part of it is just her personality. She's a Winchester and a Lance and she thinks it's hilarious to run her parents ragged. And what if they have another baby and that baby ends up with Pendred syndrome too? They know they both have the gene now and - yeah, there's only a 25% chance but that's still a chance. It's not like they'd love their child any less, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be draining. Plus, honestly, this city isn't exactly safe. Raising one child here is scary enough.

Not to mention, she is not exactly keen on the idea of putting her mind and body through that again. Her mental state may be better than it was a couple of months ago but it's still fragile and she doesn't want to trigger anything with a sudden influx of hormones. Maybe if things were different, if her head wasn't so full of ghosts, if things weren't so precarious.

Also, hey, pregnancy is terrible. People don't seem to grasp just how miserable she was. She doesn't talk about her pregnancy unless asked about it, but when she is asked about it, she's honest. She didn't like it. She was sick and tired and sore every day. Her ability to function was compromised. She was scared out of her mind. It was deeply unnerving to feel a little alien squirming around in her body. She is just not one of those women who enjoys pregnancy. It doesn't agree with her. Simple as that. She loves being a mom. She just hates being pregnant. That should be okay.

If she is being completely honest, her issue is that it feels like a frightening and painful violation of her body. That is not something she's shared with a lot of people because it's one of those things she doesn't trust a lot of people with but that's it. That's her problem. Not having control of her body is, as it turns out, a huge trigger for her. She's never had control of her mind and that's something she is still working to come to terms with in a healthy way, but her body has always been hers. Losing that control was horrifying to her. If she were to tell people that, they'd just label her as overdramatic. She's sure there are women out there who have totally easy pregnancies and deliveries and have no problems but she didn't. Why is her experience less valid than theirs? And why is it that whenever she dares to express negative emotions about what she considers to be an awful experience, she's always considered whiny? She's getting real tired of being labeled unstable because she has human emotions about things.

Maybe they'll revisit the idea in a few years when her head is, hopefully, a little clearer, and they've talked about it some more. Maybe in awhile - months, years, who knows - she'll wake up, her biological clock will be ticking, and she'll decide that maybe just one more might not be the end of the world, but right now, she's good with just Mary. And so is Dean.

''We're happy with our Mary Bea,'' she tacks on with a smile, running a hand over Mary's baby soft, light hair.

Grandma doesn't say anything else. She doesn't push the issue like some people (read: her father) have been lately. She just says, ''She certainly is a pistol, isn't she?''

That would be an understatement.

''You've done a good job with her,'' Grandma adds. ''Both of you. She's a joy.''

Laurel smiles. ''She is.''

Nothing else is said for a few minutes. They sit in companionable silence while Grandma finishes up her game of solitaire and Laurel watches her, trying to memorize the moment. She wishes her grandfather could have been here to see this, to meet Mary, to reunite with Sara, to sit here with them. He would have been such an amazing great grandfather.

''How are you feeling lately?'' Grandma asks after a few moments. Her voice is uncharacteristically serious. She gathers up the cards. ''You mentioned you had a sore throat when we talked last week.''

''You remember that?'' Laurel huffs out a small laugh. ''It was nothing,'' she waves it off. ''Just a virus. We're pretty sure Mary must have picked it up at the park.''

Grandma nods, looking unusually relieved about something as innocuous as a sore throat. She puts the deck of cards on the table and leans back in her chair. ''And how are you feeling otherwise?'' She sounds cautious just asking the question, and Bea Drake never sounds cautious.

Laurel watches worry seep into her grandmother's grayish-blue eyes. It's the same look she gave her when she learned about her panic attacks. She glances back down at Mary, just so she can tear herself away from the concern burning bright in Grandma's eyes. She tried so hard to keep her pain a secret from her grandmother, to spare her the burden of watching her granddaughter unravel. She should have known that would never work. She has never been able to keep secrets from her grandmother. The unpleasant feeling in her gut, easily recognizable as guilt, gnaws away at her insides. ''I'm...'' She pauses. She tries to come up with something to say that will be enough. ''I'm getting better.''

She's not sure what else she can say. She could lie and say she's healed completely and that nothing like that will ever happen again. She could say that she'll never again splinter apart, that she will always be able to recover, to make it over the mountain, but there's no way of knowing if that's the truth. She could say that her mind is no longer a battlefield, except that it has been a place of wreckage for twenty-nine years. She's alive. That's all she can offer. She's here, and she's still breathing.

Is that not good enough?

She's thinking of taking up smoking again like she did after the boat went down. There's this ugly thing inside of her telling her that if she trades one addiction for another, if she dies slowly instead of all at once, maybe no one will try to stop her. Cigarettes make her sick but she could be a smoker, she thinks. Maybe a part of her would even welcome the sickness. Except that Dean used to smoke when he was younger, long before her, before any of it, back when there was just bars and back alleys and the open road. She could be a smoker but she doesn't want to remind him of those wide open spaces she's keeping him from. She doesn't want him to know that the world is waiting for him because she doesn't want him to leave. That is her selfishness. She is not a back alley he can walk away from.

These days, she's traded drinking, Xanax, and sleeping pills for a lot of intense counseling. It doesn't give her a high or numb her into oblivion and it's still hard to sleep without the pills but therapy fills some of the spaces. It kills the time. She goes to therapy. She attends AA meetings almost every day. If all she can hear is the roar and her hands are shaking and she can't remember why she quit, she goes twice a day. She's started working out again - she goes to the gym on Fridays, yoga on Saturdays, she jogs every morning. She's eating healthier. She's gained back some of the weight she lost. She's back at work, throwing herself into every case, more determined than ever to save the world. (Hey, if she doesn't, who will?)

She is rebuilding. She is coming home. She no longer stifles screams under the hot spray of the shower because everything hurts and she can't make it stop. She is able to smile now, and make it real. She kisses her husband, she sings her daughter to sleep, she has lunch with friends, and she is working on repairing things with Sara. She feels something other than the hurt now. The misery is quieter. It's still there, it has always been there, but it's quieter. The raging sea inside of her has calmed down now. She thinks she could be healing. She thinks this might be what recovery feels like.

She'd like to give credit where credit's due and thank Dean for saving her life that night but every time she tries, he just looks at her oddly and says, ''What did I do? This survival is yours. You're the one who did all the hard work. You decided to stay, Laur. I didn't make that choice for you.''

How is she?

Well, it's simple, really. She's got a restless, reckless heart and her bones still ache every day but she is learning to be grateful. She made it through February. She made it through March. Now she just has to make it through April and every month after that. She thinks she can find a reason to do that.

''It's been a long year,'' she says. It's been a long life. She smiles then, pulls her lips back into this wide grin, tests it out until it feels like it fits, and adds on, softly, genuinely, ''Today was a good day.''

Her grandmother smiles back. She leans across to bring her hand to Laurel's cheek. ''I'm glad.'' Abruptly, the smile drops off her face and she draws her hand away. ''I'm sorry,'' she says. ''I'm so sorry for everything you've been through.''

''Well, it...'' Laurel frowns. ''It's not your fault, Grandma.''

Grandma looks, for some reason, like she doesn't agree with that. ''No,'' she agrees finally. ''Maybe not. But you're my granddaughter. I wish there was a way I could make this better for you.''

Laurel has to press her lips together. She swallows hard and tries not to think too hard about how nice it would be to have all of her pain washed away. It would be nice to have the weight so effortlessly lifted off her shoulders by something as simple as a hug from her beloved grandmother. That's not how this works. She knows that. You can't wave your hands and magically fix everything or make the pain go away. It sure is a nice thought. It's just not realistic. ''Me too,'' she admits in a very small, quiet voice.

Grandma doesn't abruptly push past the subject. She doesn't seem burdened or bothered by Laurel emotions. She just places her hand over Laurel's once more and gives it a gentle squeeze. ''Never forget that you're a Drake as much as you are a Lance,'' she says. ''Drake women are strong. We are infinite galaxies of courage. You'll get through this.'' There is zero trace of doubt in her voice. ''It's in your blood to be lionhearted.''

Right, sure. Okay. Laurel does know that. She has spent her entire life having it drilled into her head that Drake women are strong, that Lances never give up, that she has to endure and try and keep trying. It's kind of an impossible standard to live up to. ''Do you ever get tired of being strong?'' She asks. Her voice sounds almost childlike. ''I mean, I try. I do. I try my best to be strong and bold and brave. I - I became a lawyer to help people. I do what I believe is right, even when people think I'm wrong or too weak. I'm a mother. I'm a wife. I get out of bed in the morning. I...'' She pauses, frowning thoughtfully. ''I am not weak.'' She says it firmly, with conviction. It doesn't feel like a lie the way it used to. ''But it's so hard sometimes.'' She ducks her head to avoid the inevitable pity or worry. She looks at Mary and wonders, not for the first time, how much she has hurt her over the past few months.

Mary may be young but she's smart. She felt that tension. She felt the fear and the anger and the overwhelming sadness that permeated her mother for so long. Laurel has made a lot of bad decisions in her life, has ruined a lot, but the one thing that still keeps her awake at night is what she did to Mary. She is her mother. Her arms are supposed to be a place of safety. Your parents are supposed to be your soft place to land. She can't help but worry that she may have damaged that trust. She knows how easy it is to be scarred by the actions of your parents.

''Don't you ever wonder why we have to be strong all the time?'' She asks quietly. ''You know what I mean? Why can't we ever just be happy?'' She attempts to keep her voice light and casual, like it's not that serious of a question, but Grandma sees right through her. She's always been one of the only people who can see through her posturing at any given moment.

She does not seem particularly perturbed by the question nor does she seem surprised. ''Dinah Laurel,'' she starts, with a shake of her head. ''Where do you think happiness comes from? Happiness is strength and a stroke of luck. We become who we're meant to be through our suffering.''

She makes suffering sound so valorous.

Laurel swallows a sigh. ''That seems overly simple.''

Her grandmother smiles again, settling back in her chair. ''Life is simple, my dear.''

Laurel doesn't answer. That's a bold statement, she thinks. It's not true either. It's a nice sentiment, but it's just not factual. There isn't always a lesson in agony, whether that agony is physical or emotional. There isn't always another side to the story. Sometimes suffering is just suffering. Perhaps part of the reason why she's been so stuck is because that's a hard truth to come to terms with. She looks at her life and the hurt that she has spent so long trying to fix to no avail. She looks at Dean, who still lives with the scars of his own grisly trauma, still wakes up, sometimes, and forgets - just for a second - that he is not still in Hell. And then she looks at Mary, their sweet, innocent girl, and she thinks: if they have been made to hurt, to break their backs under the weight of their pasts, then what does that mean for their daughter? Can they really give her a truly happy life?

She is not a superhero. She's not a hunter. She's not anything but what she is. She has her own ghosts and demons and scars that she has to live with, and it's not an easy thing to do. Mary deserves a peaceful life, but Laurel has never been at peace. She will never be at peace. Neither will Dean. Given their past trauma and their precarious mental states, it's a statistical improbability. There are moments where she looks at the horrific state of the world, thinks of her own inability for true happiness, and she wonders what on earth they've done by bringing a child into their mess. It's a devastating thought and it never fails to fill her with guilt but the scariest part is that it's a valid thought.

Grandma believes in fate. In meant to bes and destiny and everything happens for a reason. She believes that happy endings are a given and that there is no hurt that cannot be fixed. It's not necessarily a wrong mentality to have. Especially if it gives her comfort or some kind of peace. It's just not true for everyone. Laurel does not believe in fate. Obviously, neither does Dean. They believe in free will. In choice. The problem is that not everyone chooses wisely. How exactly is she supposed to protect her child from those people?

She does not regret her daughter. That's ridiculous. She will never regret their girl. She just regrets that she doesn't have the power, the control, the capability, the authority to build her a better world.

''The things you want find you, Star,'' Grandma says. She sounds so confident that Laurel almost believes her. ''You just have to let them. It's all a matter of patience and a little bit of faith. It's not rocket science.'' She shrugs, picking up the deck of cards from the table. ''You have to be ready first. And when the time comes to let it in, you let it in.'' She starts to shuffle the deck. ''Now,'' she says. ''How about a hand of gin rummy?''

Laurel pulls her lips back into a convincing smile. ''Grandma, you know you always beat me at that game.''

''Do I? I don't remember that. I'm very old, Laurel.'' Grandma tosses her a sly grin and a wink. ''Pick up your cards, dear.''

Laurel looks down at Mary, one last check to make sure she's still sleeping soundly. She cranes her neck slightly to look over at Dean, still sitting at the Mahjong table, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, grinning. She looks away, back to her grandmother.

She picks up the cards.

.

.

.

November, 2016

Dean would like to point out, for the record, that he is handling this just fine.

An unrelenting chaos has settled in his chest, sitting there like a rock weighing him down, but outwardly, he is working extremely hard to be cool as a cucumber. It's not like the seizure came out of nowhere. He, of all people, knows that if your body is under massive amounts of stress then a seizure is on the long list of possible consequences. At least when he'd had his, he was safe in a hospital surrounded by medical professionals who were calm and focused, albeit incredibly irritating with their ''now do you understand why it's best to detox in a hospital'' condescension.

Laurel's body hasn't been in working order since April. She's gotta be working with a severe electrolyte imbalance right now. She's barely keeping small amounts of food and water down. She hasn't slept properly. She's injured, she's lost blood, she's traumatized. Her mind and body are in tatters right now, trying too hard to resume normal activity when she really should be resting. This is not a normal thing she's been through. Human bodies and human souls are not meant to go through this fucked up push and pull. You get to be here and then you get to leave. You don't get to come back. You're not meant to come back.

And yet she came back.

He has no idea how she's even managed to keep herself going for this long. She should be in bed right now. He had no business bringing her to the cemetery, bringing her here. He should have kept her hydrated and off her feet for at least 24 hours.

But you try telling Laurel Lance to do something when she's already got it in her head that she needs to do something else.

You'd have to have a death wish to be that damn stupid.

If he had tried to keep her locked up in bed all day, she would have gone out the fucking window and done this on her own. At least this way he was with her when she needed someone. Which is good because he was the only one who didn't react to her seizure like a moron. It goes without question that nobody wants to see someone they care about convulse uncontrollably but guess what? It happens. Fear is no excuse for gross incompetence. A seizure is a serious medical event and it's unpleasant to watch but you can't just stand there with your thumbs up your ass like a big idiot.

There are some people who haven't gotten that memo.

He was the one who managed to grab onto her and get her down to the ground so she didn't hit her head. He was the one who turned her on her side to make sure she didn't choke on her own tongue or aspirate vomit. Everyone else just reacted like they were watching her die again. To be fair, given how she died, may not have been an unfounded reaction but it sure as shit wasn't helpful. He is the one who stood in that hospital room and watched her die and he still managed to snap out of his blinding terror so he could help her. What the hell would they have done if he hadn't been there? Let her do it all on her own? Shouldn't they be trained to deal with medical issues? Momentarily freezing up due to shock and terror is bad enough. Being completely useless is another.

Maybe that's too harsh but he's not exactly in the greatest mood right now. He figures this should be understandable. His dead wife crawled out of her grave with amnesia, obliterated the cemetery with an apparent sonic scream, staggered home torn open and bloody, and then had a seizure. All in the span of like twelve hours.

He still has no clue what the fuck is happening either. He hates that. It's maddening. He needs to know what's happening so he can fix it, fix her, make things better. And he is running on fumes here. He's been running on fumes for seven miserable months because life has been consistently painful, too painful to sleep properly. Laurel's absence was this physical ache inside of him, like phantom limb pain, and it kept him up at night. He'd lie there and stare at the ceiling and it would hurt. His chest, his head, his fingers and toes. Every part of him hurt without her. He hasn't had a decent night's sleep in seven months.

Obviously, his pain is not worse than Laurel's - it's not in the same ballpark, it's not even in the same hemisphere - but he thinks he deserves, at the very least, a minimal amount of mercy right now.

Team Arrow does not appear to think so.

After, when it's over and her body has stopped convulsing on the cold, hard floor, Oliver snaps out of his shock enough to tear into Dean for not taking Laurel to the hospital right away. Because - yes. The dead ADA Lance/Black Canary staggering into the ER in the middle of the night months after her extremely public death is definitely a solid plan. In the ensuing chaos, after Thea has whisked Mary over to the far side of the room to shield her from what's happening, while John and Felicity are standing by the elevator, wide eyed, and Oliver is standing behind Dean, berating him like a child for not ''dealing with this properly,'' Sara runs.

Sara flees.

Dean does not see this as atypical behavior. Oliver seems to be surprised, pausing in his ranting, frowning and calling after her, and Felicity tries to grasp onto her arm as she races past. Dean doesn't get that. It's Sara. This is what she does. Do they not know that? Or is it just Laurel who she runs from? He may not know his sister-in-law as well as he should but he recognizes a runner when he sees one. He is one. The night Laurel told him she was pregnant, he waited until she was sleep, packed a bag, and made it all the way to the elevator before his knees went weak. He's seen that same terror, that same fear of failure, in Sara's eyes since the day he first met her. The difference is that when those elevator doors opened and he was left looking at his way out, he realized that if he got in and didn't look back, he would be making the worst decision of his life. He's not sure Sara's reached that breaking point yet.

Reluctantly, grumbling under his breath, he barks out a few orders, leaves Laurel in John's capable - although shell shocked - hands and follows Sara up into the sunlight. It's not his problem if she feels the need to pull a fucking Houdini, let's get that straight. It is not his job to coddle her. She's a grown woman.

This shit is what she does, what she's always done, and it's not going to change. She leaves. Over and over and over again, she leaves. She blows back into Laurel's life, into Mary's life, promising movie nights and family time, asking for connections and bonds, and then she fucks off to assassin school or the other side of the globe or her stupid goddamned spaceship. She lets down Laurel, she lets down Mary, and he's the one left behind to fix the destruction she leaves in her wake. It's been that way since she came back the first time. Laurel has only ever wanted Sara. Sara has always wanted more. He's made sure to tell Laurel that it's not about her, that Sara is just looking for something she can't find here, that she is not running from her, but sometimes he can't help but feel like he's lying to her.

Laurel died, and when Sara found out, she told him that she wanted to help him, that she wanted to help Mary. She knelt in front of her dead sister's grave with a bouquet of flowers and told him that she was going to stay. She told him that she was going to find a way to bring Laurel home. And then she ran. That was May. He didn't see her again until a couple of weeks ago when she brought her tornado self back to Star City to help plan Mary's birthday party.

Whatever. She pulls this shit all the time. It's what she does. It's who she is. It's frustrating and he's pissed that she holds this much power over his wife and daughter and that she keeps disappointing them, but it is what it is. If she wants to run, that's her prerogative. But she's not doing it now. He is not letting Laurel wake up without her sister by her side. Sara can run scared later.

The early November air is unusually frigid when he steps outside, the sunny blue skies doing nothing to warm the icy breeze most likely coming off the water. It sinks into his bones uncomfortably, whipping right through his jacket and down to his bones. The first thing he notices when he sees her standing there, back to him, breathing heavily, is that she's not even wearing a jacket. Sometimes he's not sure how this girl's still alive. He feels like he should remind her that Laurel didn't give her life so she could wither away and catch pneumonia.

He doesn't say anything to her. He keeps a careful eye on her but avoids actual interaction for as long as possible. He's never entirely sure how to interact with Sara. They're not friends. They're family. She laughs at his dumb jokes - sometimes she's the only one who does - and he's the only one willing to watch movies with her because of her weird taste. If someone hurts her, he'll rip their throat right out. But they are not friends. They push each other's buttons too much. Some of it is just teasing. Some of it is more than that. He's not sure if the problem is that they're too different, too similar, or just too mutually overprotective of Laurel and suspicious of each other. Whatever the issue is, they're not people who can spent a lot of time together. It always ends in fighting.

Dean leans one shoulder up against the brick wall and crosses his arms, waiting patiently for her to get it together. He gives her another minute. When it becomes clear that she's not going to make the first move, he rolls his eyes and unenthusiastically takes the plunge. ''You gonna let me in on whatever's rollin' around in that head of yours?''

She whirls around to face him, anger washing over her face, seeping into her wide eyes. ''What did you do?'' Her voice is cold and hard.

He sets his jaw. Oh, he is so not in the mood for this right now. ''Nothing.''

She scoffs. ''I don't believe you.''

He doesn't move from his lazy, casual position and he doesn't bother to waste time raising his voice at her. ''That's not my problem,'' he tells her, keeping his voice as even as possible. ''Believe what you want.''

She takes a few steps in his direction, narrowing her eyes. ''You were the one who was so adamant you were going to bring her back.''

He drops his gaze to the ground. What is he supposed to say to that? Should he detail all of the things he did? All of the ways he tried to bring Laurel home? The crossroads, bargaining with Death, with Crowley, witchcraft, even a pathetic attempt to blackmail an angel. He did everything he could think of and more. He would have kept trying. There's not a doubt in his mind. If it weren't for the little girl who looked at him like he meant something, who smiled at him and signed a cheery I love you when she caught him looking at her while she was playing with her stuffed animals, he would have chased Laurel forever. He'd have done anything. He doesn't tell her this. What could she say?

''I seem to remember you saying the same thing,'' he reminds her. ''How do I know you didn't have something to do with this?''

She presses her lips into a thin line. ''I didn't.''

He shrugs. ''Then I guess we both failed her.''

Sara's carefully constructed mask of frustration crumbles, giving way to something else. She looks, for a brief second, ashamed. He pushes off the wall, uncrossing his arms and clenching his fists to keep from reaching for her. She looks away. ''You really didn't do this?''

''No. She...'' He trails off. The image of Laurel standing on the front steps, filthy and wild eyed is not one that's going to leave his head anytime soon. She bled on the floors last night; on the concrete steps, the bathroom tiles, smeared on the white porcelain of the sink, staining the sheets on the bed from a cut on her shoulder that must have opened up and oozed during the night while she was tossing and turning. He cleaned up the blood on the floor, he put the sheets in the washing machine, but it's hard to get blood out of concrete. It's hard to scrub it from your hands. ''I had nothing to do with this,'' he says tightly. ''She showed up in the middle of the night. All I did was open the door.''

She doesn't argue with him. She tilts her head to the side and eyes him critically, like she's searching for a sign of dishonesty in his body language. When she presumably finds none, she looks up at the skies above and exhales sharply. ''God.'' She brings both hands to her face to rub at her eyes. He can't help but notice that she seems disappointingly distressed by her sister's reappearance in their lives. Maybe that's too strong of a judgment, but other than her instinctive joy at seeing Laurel for the first time, there is little relief on her face. He wants her increasing unhappiness to be because she doesn't like seeing Laurel in pain or because resurrection is way too often a precarious thing or even because it's bringing back bad memories of her own comeback. He wants her concern to be for Laurel.

Generally speaking, that's not the way things tend to go around here.

''This is bad, Dean,'' she sighs.

In the daylight, pale under the brightness of the sun, she looks terrible. It's easier to see the bags under her eyes, the sharp lines of her cheekbones. He can't help but wonder, not for the first time, how much sleep she's been getting on that absurd time machine of hers. Do they have beds on that thing? Food? Does she look so rough because she's been running around playing Doctor Who or is it something else? Does she have people on that thing to watch her back, not just when they're in battle, but when they're not? He knows he can't lecture her about getting sleep without sounding like a hypocrite but he does worry about her.

''She'll heal,'' he offers.

''Right,'' she agrees hollowly. ''But that's not what I meant.'' She looks at him then, with this pitying look on her face and she admits, very softly, ''She's not supposed to be here.''

He tries to muster up the energy to be angry or surprised or...something. He can't. He's tired, he wants to get back to Laurel and Mary, he's impatient for Sam and Cas to get their asses back here, and this just isn't a conversation he wants to have. If he's being blunt, Sara has been trying to lose herself in self righteousness like she's trying to find Laurel in relentless morality for months now. It shouldn't be surprising that she'd adopt some black and white what's dead is dead mentality to try to give herself some kind of half assed cold comfort. He did the same thing once. And then he pulled his head out of his ass and grew up.

You kind of have to change your worldview when you climb out of your own grave.

He stares at her blankly, watching her fidget as she waits for him to react to what she's said. ''Neither are we,'' he deadpans, finally. ''But here we are, Sara. How is this any different?''

He can see her scrambling to come up with an explanation. ''Look,'' she chews on her bottom lip. ''I couldn't fix it. I couldn't save her. I wanted to. You have to believe me. You have no idea how much I,'' her voice cracks. She shakes her head, refusing to meet his eyes. ''It was out of my hands. Her death was a fixed point in time. I couldn't go back and rewrite history.''

He laughs at her. It is not a particularly kind laugh. ''Right, yeah, I'm sure you've never done that. Your entire job is to rewrite history but, sure, Sara, okay.''

''No,'' she snaps hotly. ''My job is to protect history.''

He nods. ''Okay.''

''You're being really condescending right now.''

''Okay.''

''Quit saying that,'' she glowers.

He looks at her pointedly, leans in a little closer to her, and says, slowly, ''Okay.''

She has to stop to take in what looks like a few deep, calming breaths. ''My job is to protect history,'' she repeats, and he bites back another bitter laugh. ''It's also to protect my family.''

Something in him snaps. ''Oh?'' He hums contemplatively. ''Well, your dead sister says thanks for your protection,'' he sneers.

She visibly falters at the tone of his voice, stepping away from him. The wounded look on her face crumbles away quicker than it appeared, leaving a storm of rage and indignation in place. It would hold more weight if it wasn't a constant weapon in her arsenal against him. ''Fine,'' she spits. ''Let's try it your way. Say I go back in time to save her. Say it works. Laurel's alive but so is Darhk and he still wants revenge against my father. He wants bloodshed and he wants my family to suffer. Tell me,'' she glares. ''Who do you think is the most innocent, defenseless member of this family?''

Something coils nauseatingly in his gut but he can't decide if it's horror or anger. He decides on anger. It's easier. He knows how to navigate it better. ''Don't,'' he points a warning finger at her. ''Don't you dare use my daughter as a justification.''

''Why don't you go fu - ''

''And why wouldn't you take Darhk out before he escapes? Why wouldn't you just go back to before the riot when he was defenseless and powerless behind bars and take him out then?'' He shakes his head, disappointed but unsurprised. ''Seven fucking months, Sara. Two hundred and eight days. That's how long she's been gone.''

''I know exactly how long she's been gone,'' she says brusquely. ''Thanks for the reminder.''

''I've spent every one of those days,'' he continues, barreling past her words with ease, ''thinking of all the ways she could have been saved. And there are a lot of ways, Sara. What happened to her was bullshit and you know it. It was senseless.''

''Death is always senseless.''

''It would have been easy. It would have been easy to - ''

''You think it would have been easy to just kill Darhk?''

He stiffens, body going cold. His hands clench into fists at his side. He cocks his head to the side and thinks of May. It's all still a blur in his head - this haze of sleep deprivation, uncontrollable rage, and a sick, desperate sort of grief - but he remembers blood. It was on his hands, his clothes, his face, underneath his fingernails. He hadn't minded so much that night. He wasn't really there anyway. He has these flashes of a scalpel glinting in the light, a gun heavy in his hands, and how disturbingly, disappointingly easy it was not only to kill the man who took Laurel away but to break him down first.

And he had broken him. He made sure of it.

He hadn't just killed Darhk. He had taken him apart. He had carved him up before anyone could stop him and it had, in fact, been easy. He had done what Oliver couldn't. Evidently, he had done what nobody else would. It hadn't helped. It hadn't given him anything. All it had given him was the knowledge that the man who managed to take Laurel out of the world was a pathetic weasel who would have been dead months ago if the team that was supposed to be watching her back hadn't been so wishy washy. If he had gotten off his ass to help her earlier. If someone, anyone, had just done something. ''I found it easy,'' he says, sounding deceptively calm.

Sara goes completely silent. Her lips part like she wants to say something but she can't figure out what to say. ''Dean,'' she says, and then stops. She bites down on her bottom lip, squeezing her eyes shut and rubbing at her forehead tiredly. ''You know what?'' She sounds exasperated. ''Say whatever you want about me. I don't care.'' She opens her eyes, giving him this openly judgmental onceover. ''I was protecting Mary. You really think you would have survived losing your child? Do you think Laurel would have?'' She huffs out a bitter laugh. ''No. No, there's no way. You would both be dead by now. Or worse.'' She sounds like she's been reciting these words to herself over and over for months.

He'd make an attempt to deprogram her, point out the gaping holes in her logic, or even just straight up tell her, kid, someone is lying to you, but he doesn't care that much right now. She brought his daughter into this. She's been using Mary like an object to justify her own inaction. She doesn't get to do that. Not with his child. Mary is not a pawn in whatever games she's playing with her own mind.

''I love my sister,'' she says. ''I would have saved her if it was possible. I would have done anything to bring her back or take her place but some things you can't fix. The timeline - ''

''Fuck the timeline,'' he intones. ''No, really. I mean it. Screw the timeline, Sara. That whole world saving business? It's not my problem anymore. I'm retired. Burn the damn thing down for all I care.''

''Liar.''

''The only job I have now is protecting my girls. Even if that means from you. Especially if that means from you.''

''You don't understand.''

''What I understand,'' he hisses at her, ''is that your sister dug your rotting corpse out of the ground and threw you in a magical hot tub to bring your sorry ass home and when she needed you the most, you couldn't even be bothered to lift a finger to help her.''

Silence.

Sara gapes at him for a long time. For a moment, the only emotion on her face is shock. The shock is easier to digest. It's the way her face falls that's hard to stomach. She swallows visibly, this sickening look of pain and mortification crossing her face. Her eyes well with tears and she lowers her gaze to the ground. He takes a step back, mildly stunned by his own words. He's willing to admit he might have taken things a hair too far with that one. He hadn't meant to. He hadn't come out here intending to act like an asshole. There are some bitter, unfair thoughts you keep to yourself. He's been trying. They have said a lot of nasty shit to each other over the years they've known each other. It was an easy relationship to fall into. He treats her like a pest; some annoying kid who hangs around, nipping at his heels. Her favourite nickname for him is ''fucking loser.'' Neither of them think the other is good enough for Laurel. It's just. The way they are.

He's never made her cry before.

When she eventually raises her head, eyes burning, all he manages to get out is, ''Sara, wait'' and that's it. He sees her curl her hand into a fist just seconds too late. The punch isn't surprising - or undeserved - but that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt like a motherfucker. She may be tiny but she's mighty. She smashes her small fist into his nose with the kind of violence that only comes from hurt, anger, and shame all bunched together inside of her to create a sickness she can only get out by making people hurt the same way she does. Her recognizes that violence. He's lived with it his entire life.

He stumbles at the force of the punch, eyes watering, instinctively holding both hands to his nose as the blood begins to flow.

''Go fuck yourself,'' he hears her snarl.

He doesn't see her leave because all he can see are the whirling stars and dancing black spots but he hears her footfalls as she walks away from him, getting quieter, quieter, quiet. He blinks to clear his vision. There's blood in his mouth.

In theory, if one of the Lance sisters were to kill him, it would most likely be Laurel. She knows his body, all the flaws and the faults, the weak spots and how to get under his skin and inside his head. It's one of those facts that makes him squirm when he thinks about it. He's let her so far inside of him that she could ruin him without breaking a sweat. She almost did just by dying. There are very few people who hold that kind of power over him. But - and sometimes he forgets this while he's watching her lie on the couch, watching Haunted Honeymoon, getting crumbs all over his couch - Sara is an assassin. Literally, the girl is a trained killer. He's lucky all she did was punch him in the nose.

''Wooow,'' a voice says from behind him. ''Anyone ever told you that you two have a massively unhealthy relationship?''

He grunts, annoyed, but doesn't respond or turn around. If he opens his mouth, more blood will run into it and he's getting real sick and tired of the taste of blood.

''That was quite the show,'' Thea goes on, boots clicking on the cobblestone as she makes her way over to him. She effortlessly pushes into his personal space without a second thought. Her hands are cold on his skin as she grabs his face, swatting his protesting hands away so she can inspect the damage. ''Tilt your head back,'' she orders.

He wants to tell her that he doesn't need her to take care of him, that he's been punched in the face plenty of times before and that he'll probably be punched in the face again, but he can't seem to find his voice. Her hands are soft on his skin, her mouth pulled tight with concern, her eyes frantically looking over his injury to see how bad it is, and he is still not the kind of person who knows what to do with gentleness.

''I don't think it's broken,'' she says, right before she presses a handkerchief to his noise to staunch the flow of blood. He doesn't even bother to wonder what the hell she's doing with a handkerchief. He stopped being surprised about what she pulls out of that giant bag of hers when she started pulling whole trays of muffins out of there a few weeks back. ''Gotta say, Dean,'' she sighs. ''You might've deserved this one. Like, not completely. But that was a shitty thing you said.''

''Yeah,'' he mutters gruffly. ''Well.'' That's all he says. He takes over for her, softly moving her hands from his face so he can get the rest of the blood off. She wrinkles her nose in disgust and wipes her hands on his shirt. He'd complain but he has literally wiped Mary's nose with his shirt before. In public. More than once. At least this is his own bodily fluids. ''She'll get over it,'' he lies. ''You and I have said worse to each other and we're cool, right?''

''That was different,'' Thea says stiffly. He arches an eyebrow at her and she sighs, rolling her eyes. ''Maybe it wasn't that different. But still, Dean. You really think you're going to be able to fix this one with froyo?''

''I'll splurge for extra sprinkles this time.''

She shakes her head at him. ''I'm telling you. Massively dysfunctional.''

He rolls his eyes. He turns to the side to spit out the blood that's dribbled into his mouth. ''We're not that bad.''

She gives him a look, propping her hands up on her hips. ''You keep a carton of her favourite ice cream in the freezer just so you can eat it in front of her.''

''Well, she dog eared all the pages of my books. She didn't even read them. She just damaged my property.''

''Are you being serious right now?''

''She wrote in the margins, Thea! What kind of an animal does that?!''

She laughs and for the first time in a long time, it doesn't sound phony and exhausted. ''Even after knowing you for a few years, I'm still kinda surprised by what a huge nerd you are.''

''Shut up,'' he mumbles under his breath. ''My wife thinks I'm adorable.'' He turns away from her so he can blow the remaining blood out of his nose. She was right when she said it wasn't broken and it's not even bruised as badly as it could have been but it still hurts. He gets the feeling Sara went easy on him, even despite her anger. Still, he did not expect to be punched in the face today. ...In hindsight, he maybe should have. He turns back to her, waving the bloodied handkerchief in her face. ''Did you want this back?''

''Um.'' She curls her lip back in disgust. Slowly, she reaches out to pat him on the shoulder. Rather patronizingly. ''You keep it.''

He shrugs, shoving the thing into his pocket. ''So, hey,'' he says, gesturing vaguely to where her little shadow would normally be. ''Quick question: Where's my kid?''

''She's watching Paw Patrol. She's got her headphones on. She's got Sharkie. She's lost to the world. I asked Felicity to keep an eye on her for a few minutes.''

That doesn't make him feel better. Mary barely knows Felicity. He barely knows Felicity. And she's part of a team of people he doesn't trust. He wouldn't leave her alone with a hamster let alone his four year old.

''Don't spiral,'' Thea says, holding a hand up. ''Because Sara's down there now. So it's fine. You trust my decision making skills when it comes to Mary, don't you?''

''Yes, but - ''

''Good. Then don't helicopter.''

''I'm not helicoptering.''

''You're helicoptering a little.''

He sighs, closing his eyes briefly.

''What do you need, Thea?''

The smile drops off her face. ''Right, um, well...'' She reaches up to rub at the back of her neck. ''I was thinking... I don't want to leave Laurel right now but I think maybe I should get Mary out of here.'' She sounds apologetic, like she's expecting him to disagree. Honestly, if it's a fight she's looking for, she's not going to find one with him.

''That's probably a good idea,'' he admits. ''There's - '' He cuts himself off, blinking back the memory of Laurel convulsing and choking on the floor. ''She shouldn't see her mother like this.''

''Agreed,'' Thea mumbles, dropping her eyes to the ground.

Huh.

Maybe Mary isn't the only one who shouldn't see Laurel like this.

He's not going to go around announcing that out loud because Thea would just get stubborn and dig her heels in, fervently denying that she needs to be protected like a child. She is not, for the record, a child. He's not so far gone that he can't see that. She's an adult. She ran her own business. She's the Chief of Staff for the freaking Mayor. She's his daughter's nanny. She's better at being an adult than he is. It's just that he's noticed the fear in her eyes when she looks at Laurel. He's noticed the hesitance, the way she's been afraid to touch her, to speak above a whisper, even to breathe too loudly. He's seen the determined cheerfulness and forced calm. She's freaking out.

Everyone mourned Laurel - some more than others - but Thea is the only one who kept a weekly appointment with her grief and never missed a day. Dean went off the rails completely. He stopped sleeping, he tried to find his dead wife in her evil doppelganger, and he made sure that when he pulled Damien Darhk's fingernails off, he did it slowly. Sara, by the looks of it, has spent the past seven months wading through history in some misguided attempt to outrun her own grief and guilt. Quentin seems damn determined to die. Even Oliver lost his shit and built an ugly statue to alleviate his own guilt. Or possibly to jerk off to. Maybe both. They've all gotten so lost and it's - There's not always a way out of that.

Thea has opted to handle her grief in a different way.

Every Wednesday, rain or shine, she gets a large latte and a blueberry muffin from the same place, she goes to the florist to pick up the order she called in the night before, and then she goes to the graveyard. She visits her parents first, then Tommy, and then Laurel. She clears away leaves and twigs and debris, she polishes the gravestones, and then she lays down bouquets of flowers. She spends a decent amount of time with each of them. Sits cross legged in front of the stones and updates them on everything that's happening while she sips her coffee and pretends that they can hear her. She tells each and every one of them how much she loves them and misses them and wishes they were here. Every Wednesday she follows this same exact routine from the flowers she orders to the kind of muffin she gets. Every week, she makes that trip and she stands in front of her almost entirely wiped out family, and then she goes home and plays house with him. He knows that because she showed him.

One warm day in August, she took him with her because she thought maybe it would help him. It hadn't. Visiting cemeteries has never helped him cope with anything. He stood in front of Laurel's grave and listened while Thea talked to a piece of rock like it was really her and all he could think about was the suffocating darkness of the earth. It was something he would never forget. Just that constant, choking darkness. Like being asphyxiated for eternity. That was what he had given to Laurel. That was the last thing he ever gave her. Could she feel it? Was she scared under all that dirt? Was she cold? Stupid things to think about, maybe. Of course she wasn't cold. She was dead. Whatever had been stuffed in that box and buried wasn't her. It was a body with nothing inside of it. But that had been what he'd thought about when Thea took him to the graveyard that day.

Why hadn't he fought harder to have her cremated? Why hadn't he protected her? Why did he let them get away with this? Why did he allow them to cage her when he could have stopped them? How could he have been so stupid and selfish and weak? He should have done a better job of honoring her. He owed her that much, didn't he? He owed her everything.

In general, he doesn't think he sees graves the way other people do. They look at them and see these tangible pieces of peace, the last real part of someone they loved and lost. They look at graves and see a safe place where they can put all of that love that no longer has anywhere else to go. He looks at them and his brain immediately calculates how long it would take to dig it up, how long it took him to get out when he was in one, how long the body has been dead for, and what it would look like if he opened the casket up.

Thea is not like him. She believes that what she does every Wednesday means something. She believes that it's helping her. He tends to disagree with that assessment, worries about her getting stuck in a depressing routine that won't allow her to move on and let go, but if it brings her a sense of purpose, he's not going to fuck with it.

The things he did with his grief - the things Oliver and Sara and Quentin did - were selfish and self serving. They made their choices because they were scared of the pain. They wanted to make themselves feel better. They wanted to stop hurting. Thea acknowledges her pain. She's made a place for it on Wednesdays. She is the only one who took her grief, an inherently selfish thing, and turned it into selflessness. She hung up her mask to raise Laurel's child. To be Oliver's unqualified but frighteningly capable Chief of Staff. She hands out all of these ego stroking pep talks to all of the men Laurel put it upon herself to coddle daily. She has been working her ass off to model herself after Laurel, to soften her voice, to choose her words the way Laurel would have, to make the same choices, to take up the space she used to reside in. Even her standing Wednesday appointment began because she wanted to take care of the people she loves.

''Someone has to take care of them,'' she had told him that day in August, while he was leaning against his car, impatient to leave, and she was looking back at the graveyard, at Laurel. ''We couldn't do that while they were alive but I can try my best now, right? This is all there is now, Dean. I know you think this is stupid but graves are built so people can remember the dead. I'm making sure I never forget.''

It's remarkable. She's remarkable.

It's also really fucking worrying. Dean has seen Thea break down and lose it exactly once since April 6th. She has looked exhausted every day for months now, but she has not lost it since the afternoon of the funeral. She's turned her sorrow into a routine. He's concerned about what will happen once it fully sinks in that her routine, the one thing keeping her from falling apart, has been broken and won't ever be repaired again. He's concerned about what she'll do when she realizes that there's nowhere to put this pain anymore. He knows he can't rightfully ask her to step away from this. She's an adult. He can't control her and he doesn't have any interest in trying to. What he can ask her to do is get Mary out of the mess and hope it works to shield them both from whatever is about to happen.

''You know,'' he says, trying to keep his voice casual. ''Story Time starts in an hour at the library.'' On any other day, Story Time would not be his first choice when it comes to places to take his daughter. It's not Mary's favourite place. She likes it better than she likes preschool, which is technically where she should be right now, but she doesn't like crowds and nobody likes the fact that she has to ask ''what?'' every three seconds because she's missing bits and pieces of the story due to her hearing. This is not any other day.

Thea sags against the wall. ''I know. I think I'm going to run out and get Laurel some essentials from the store and then Mary and I are going to head to the library. Maybe we'll stop by my office after that. I was supposed to be going over applications for interns today. She can help me.''

There's a joke in there but he can't decide if it's about nepotism or that a four year old working in the Mayor's office is pretty on par with what's going on there these days.

He frowns in concern, taking a few careful steps closer to her. ''Kiddo, are you okay?''

''Of course,'' she responds immediately. ''I'm - Laurel's back.'' She forces a smile. ''Why wouldn't I be okay? This is amazing, isn't it?''

Dean exhales slowly and doesn't answer the question. ''Just keep your phone on, okay?''

''Always,'' she nods. ''I expect you to text me updates about her condition.''

''Thea,'' he says. He places a hand on her arm, trying in vain to be soft and gentle with her the way he is with Mary. He's exhausted and quickly approaching the end of his rope, but he's trying. ''She's going to be fine.''

She rubs the back of her neck uncomfortably, looking anywhere but at him. She looks haggard in the daylight, worry lighting up every part of her from her tense limbs to her pinched expression. She doesn't look like she believes him. Just as she opens her mouth to respond, someone clears their throat from off to the side.

''Dean,'' John says, hands clenched at his fists. ''Laurel's asking for you.''

.

.

.

April, 2016

Laurel wanted to travel. It was something that was always in the back of her mind. Something to look forward to. She wanted to see the world. Visit art galleries and museums. Jump off of a waterfall. Start a postcard collection from every place she'd ever been. Immerse herself in the history and the culture of every place she stepped foot in. She wanted to sunbathe on every sunny beach in the world. She wanted to eat the food, hear the music, meet the people, take enough pictures to fill a bunch of scrapbooks. She wanted to do everything. She wanted to see everything.

She never got that chance.

Sure, she traveled.

He knows all the places she's been, even the trips before him. Seattle, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Hawaii for a friend's wedding, Vancouver, Disneyland when she was ten, several trips to Coast City and Gotham. He knows all about the miserable trip she and Oliver took to Paris after high school graduation where they fought the whole time and came back temporarily broken up. He knows that she scrimped and saved and worked over time at the cafe she had been waitressing at to be able to afford to go to Thailand with Sara for two weeks less than a year before Sara got on that boat. He knows that one of her favourite places on earth was the Merlyn house in Lake Tahoe. He knows these things. He's seen the pictures. He's heard all the stories.

It's not like she spent her entire life trapped in this city.

But she wanted more. She wanted Australia, Asia, Europe, the Caribbean. London, Belize, Mexico, India. She wanted Bali and Tokyo and Barbados and Melbourne. Beaches, history, living out of a suitcase, eating way too much food, and once in a lifetime experiences.

He never would have been able to give her that.

They had managed to go on a few short trips over the years, sneaking away for Thanksgiving and weekends in the summer. On their first anniversary, they went to Seattle for a weekend. Coast City was their regular place to go in the summer. Disneyland was one of those things that they were going to make happen for their kid no matter what. But he never would have been able to give her Paris or Lake Tahoe. Seeing the world is expensive and he has never been able to contribute much financially to this relationship.

Laurel used to have this idea in her head that after Mary was grown and off to college, she would retire and they would go off together to see the world. It was a dream. One that likely never would have happened, but it was a dream that made her happy. It was a goal she set for herself. Something that was important to her.

One of the things he had been able to give her was Big Sur, California. In the summer of 2014, after Slade Wilson's brainless siege, Laurel overworked herself literally to the point of collapse. She was taking care of her father in the hospital with zero help from her mother or sister, she was working full time both at the DA's office and with Oliver and his team as a legal consultant, and she was trying to be supermom to Mary, who was still struggling with being newly deaf in one ear. Dean tried to lighten her load the best he could. He took care of her dad while she was at work and he tried to take point with Mary but she refused to slow down. That was Laurel for you. By mid July, she was mentally and physically wrung out, halfway to a relapse, and no one else seemed to notice.

When she wound up passing out while she was visiting her grandmother because she hadn't had time to eat all day long, he decided enough was enough and he needed to get her the hell out of the city for at least a few days. So he brought up Big Sur. It was somewhere she had always wanted to go. Back when she was planning a big wedding, she wanted the wedding to be in Big Sur and the honeymoon to be in Venice. She was willing to scrimp on everything else if she got Big Sur and Venice. When she got pregnant and they decided to go for a quick courthouse wedding to save money, he'd promised her that she would still get to see those places. Over time, it became one of those things that they kept talking about but their conversations always ended with, ''Someday, maybe.''

He brought up the idea of finally taking that trip to Big Sur to her at the dinner table, while she was half asleep and unsuccessfully trying to feed Mary dinner without her throwing it across the room. She hadn't even protested. She hadn't complained about money. Hadn't mentioned her father or work. She'd just said, somewhat guiltily, while dodging a piece of pasta that Mary threw at her with a screeching giggle, ''A break would be nice.''

A couple of weeks after that, they left Mary with Charlie and Cas for a week and left town. She slept for almost the entire first day there while he spent his time twitching angrily every time Oliver sent her yet another text, complaining about her absence like some possessive, controlling stalker. She slept peacefully, finally able to get some real rest for the first time in months, and then she woke up and decided she wanted to go hiking. Because that was the kind of thing Laurel Lance did. Pass out for nearly 24 hours and then wake up and ask to go hiking.

She is a strange creature; this weird, unexpected, baffling phenomenon. Or, no, she was. She was. She is not here anymore. She is not here to baffle him now. She left him behind. How cruel. And right after she promised to let him go first. She probably did it just to spite him for making her promise that, too. It seems like the kind of stubborn, unreasonable thing she would do.

Dean tilts his head back to look up at the gray sky. It's been threatening rain all day, unseasonably cold and gloomy for April, and he's been stuck outside for most of it. Still, the cold weather is easier to deal with than the house full of people he's got. He releases a slow breath and flexes his right hand experimentally. He grimaces at the sharp, shooting pain and absently rubs at the bandage covering his bruised, split knuckles.

Should've known Oliver Queen would have an obnoxiously hard head.

He steps off the back porch and approaches Laurel's garden. Some of the flowers are starting to bloom. The daffodils are already in full bloom. She had been so excited to see those damn daffodils. What the hell is he supposed to do with this? What is he supposed to do with any of this shit? They're going to die. The flowers. All of them. They're going to wither and die without the proper care. He doesn't know the proper care. She never told him. Maybe it's fitting. It's probably just his incredibly sleep deprived brain being melodramatic and delusional, but maybe it's best they go back to the earth with her. He can even see it in his head right now.

Laurel, six feet under and covered in flowers.

Except, no. That's fucking idiotic. It's overly romantic bullshit. He's trying to make sense of something that doesn't make sense. He hasn't slept. That's all. He doesn't even know what day it is today. The last real moment, for him, was April 6th. It was a Wednesday. He remembers that. Laurel died on a Wednesday. Mary was born on a Wednesday.

He twists his wedding ring on his finger, staring down at the flowers. His wife is not some fairytale corpse in a glass coffin surrounded by flowers, waiting for him to wake her up. This is real life. She's locked all alone in the dark. They took her blood, drained it out of her and replaced it with something else. They slapped an obscene amount of makeup on her, did her hair, put her in a dress, and expected people to look at that dry stick in a basket and see her.

Laurel would have been horrified, humiliated, and pissed off by all of this. She would be so angry right now. She hadn't wanted this. She hadn't wanted any of this. Neither did he. He wanted to take her back to Big Sur. Laurel had loved it there. There was this one trail they went on that overlooked this cove with a waterfall in it. It was the same view that was on a blank, worn out postcard that she had been keeping on her fridge since long before he even met her. He still vividly remembers the look on her face when she finally got to see the view she had been waiting years to see. She had looked so happy and awed and alive. It was the first time he had seen her look so relaxed in a long time.

He remembers everything about the wonder in her eyes in that moment. She may have been looking at the magnificent view, but he was looking at her. He still maintains that he easily had the better view that day. That was where he had wanted to take her. He'd even had a plan. He was going to go back to that same park where the cove was and spread her ashes. He was looking at the cost of flights and rental cars, asking around to see who would be willing to look after Mary for a couple of days. That was what he wanted for her. It was what he should have fought for. He couldn't protect her from the arrow. The least he could do for her was make sure she ended up somewhere she had been at peace. She deserved to have the dignity that she was never granted in life.

Turns out, he can't even give her that.

He can blame her parents all he wants for that but the truth is, this is his fault. The blame lies nowhere but on his shoulders. Her parents were never going to give a crap about what she wanted. They just wanted to be done with it. It was his job to protect her. Which he could have. He easily could have fought them, given her what she explicitly asked for, but he didn't. He couldn't make himself do it. Cremation is final. It means she's really gone. It means she's not coming back. He's not ready for that.

Maybe that kind of pain and hesitance makes sense. Grief is selfish, after all, and it's nearly impossible to wade through. But maybe that doesn't matter. Regardless of whether or not his pain is understandable, he's still going to have to live with the fact that his grief failed her when she needed him.

The sound of the back gate opening forces his attention away from the flowers. It's Thea, stepping into the yard, head down, wiping at her eyes. He straightens when he sees her, turning away from the garden to face her. She hasn't noticed him yet, turning her back to him to shut the gate and pausing, visibly taking in a few breaths before moving away from the exit. When she turns back around, she stops short, eyes widening at the sight of him. He opens his mouth to say something to her but the words die in his throat. He wants so much to be able to say something comforting but he can't. There is no comfort here, and he's not sure what to say to someone whose brother he just pulverized.

He takes in the sight of her instead, attempting not to look too concerned. She's made it perfectly clear that she doesn't want anything from him right now. Not after what he did to Oliver. He can understand that. It's hard not to worry about her, though. She looks so small and sad right now, standing there, pale, hands trembling. Her eyes are puffy and bloodshot, her nose is red, and she looks so incredibly young. He can vaguely recall being that young, standing waist deep in blood and misery, chest aching with loss.

She doesn't move for a moment, rooted firmly to the spot. She looks like she's not sure what to do with him. Her eyes flicker, ever so briefly, to the bandage around his hand, and then her eyes darken. She glowers, every bit the angry protective sister, and rips her eyes away from him. He watches her stomp past him without a word. She makes it all the way to the back porch and then she stops, body noticeably tensing as she peers into the house and spots the people milling around. ''I - I thought there wasn't supposed to be a wake.''

''There wasn't.'' He has to clear his throat when he hears his raspy voice. ''Laurel's mother didn't get that memo. She invited everyone over here for coffee. Said something about being surrounded by people who loved her daughter.''

Bullshit.

Most of the people in there were colleagues or clients or old friends from school. Hardly Laurel's nearest and dearest. Not that Dinah would even know that. She knows nothing about the people Laurel loved or the people who loved her back. She didn't even know who Charlie was, and Dean knows for a fact that Laurel mentioned her on at least one occasion.

Thea sighs, shoulders sagging. She moves over to the table, tossing her purse onto the surface, sinking down onto one of the chairs, and leaning forward to rest her head in her hands. Dean does his best to give her space but he can't ignore the instinct to take care of her. He knows she didn't sleep last night and he doubts she's eaten much today, if anything. He approaches her slowly, stepping up onto the porch but carefully keeping his distance. ''Have you eaten anything today?''

She looks up at him, eyes blank. ''Yes.'' It's a short, sharp answer.

''You still mad at me?'' It's a pointless question to ask when he already knows the answer.

''You beat my brother to a bloody pulp,'' her unwavering voice is like steel. ''Yes, I'm still mad at you. I'm livid. You were so far past the line - ''

''Then why are you here with me and not with him?'' He does his best to keep his voice from sounding too harsh but it's become increasingly difficult to be soft over the past week. It's the lack of sleep. It's the grief, the confusion, the aimlessness, the way the world is spinning around him and won't slow down. He's angry. He's so angry he can't see straight. His chest feels tight with it every minute of every day. A week ago, he had a wife. Mary had a mother. The world had the Black Canary. More importantly, they had Laurel Lance. She was right here. What do they have now? What do any of them have but a tangled mess of grief and rage and slow dying flowers?

Thea stares down at the grimy table, picking at her cuticles. ''I can't.'' She sinks her teeth into her lower lip. ''I can't look at him right now.''

''I really worked him over that good, huh?''

She raises her eyes to him and he tries to determine whether the brief flicker of disgust is meant for him or Oliver. She frowns, staring at him intently until he sighs heavily and rolls his eyes.

''All right,'' he says, pulling out a chair and sitting on the other side of the table from her. ''Not in the mood for jokes right now. Got it.''

''Do you know how many pieces of garbage Laurel put away?'' She asks calmly. She doesn't wait for him to answer her unexpected question. ''Too many to count. There was this one serial rapist who was targeting drunk young girls who came out of this one nightclub downtown. She went after him hard because all of his victims fit my general description.''

''I remember that.''

''His conviction could be overturned,'' she tells him. ''On a technicality. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. My brother did that. He did that at her funeral.'' She shakes her head. She sounds so betrayed and hurt, like she never thought her precious brother could do something so irresponsible and cruel.

He's never going to understand that. Oliver's friends and family treat him like he's some kind of messiah. All these seemingly intelligent people look at him in his ridiculous get up with his hollow speeches and they fold. They willingly turn a blind eye to the damage he causes, the way he treats people, the attacks on this city that he has caused. It's completely insane. It's straight up cult like behavior. Even Laurel wasn't immune to it. He likes to think she was a little less submissive sometimes and he knows she was willing to go behind Oliver's back to do what was right, perfectly comfortable calling him out for being a dick, but all it got her was a label of ''the difficult, overemotional one.'' But even she got suckered into being one of Green Arrow's human action figures. Just some expendable, posable doll he could order around. That's the way it is here.

At the end of the day, this is Oliver Queen's world they're living in now, and he is going to get every single one of those people killed.

Dean should have realized that sooner. They should have run from this city after Tommy died like the discussed and never looked back.

''I know Ollie's made a lot of mistakes,'' Thea says cautiously. ''But I never thought he would do something like that. He didn't even ask permission. He just...'' She trails off and never finishes her sentence. She fidgets uncomfortably in her seat and picks at her nail polish. ''I can't look at him,'' she repeats. ''Not right now.''

He clenches his jaw. He tries not to unleash his bitterness on her. He fails. ''You didn't see that coming?'' It tears out of him viciously. ''This is all he's ever done, Thea. Destroying her was his number one hobby.''

''He was grieving,'' she states strongly. ''He was upset. He wasn't thinking clearly.''

Dean laughs at her. He doesn't mean to but this burst of cruel laughter just pours out of him. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. ''I'm sure,'' he mocks. ''He must be so pissed he's lost his best punching bag.''

''So, what, Dean? What's your plan here?'' She rises to her feet so she can tower over him, twisting her own sneer onto her lips. She puts her hands on her hips, staring down at him, daring him to challenge her. ''You want to believe he was her villain so you've decided you're going to be his? You think that's what she would have wanted?''

There's a fire in her eyes that reminds him so much of Laurel that his throat aches at the sight of it. On any other day, that would be enough to make him stand down. Today is not any other day. He has less than zero fucks to give about anything right now. ''She's dead,'' he says coldly. ''She doesn't get a say anymore.''

She recoils in shock, eyes widening.

''You get what you give in life, Thea,'' he says hollowly.

She scoffs, rolling her eyes. ''You've lost it,'' she says, and he gets the impression that they're both supposed to be pretending that her voice isn't shaking.

He shrugs. ''You're just getting that?''

''You could have killed him.''

''You think I want him dead?'' He looks up at her, tilting his head to the side. ''I don't want him dead. Death would be a mercy. I'm not willing to give him that.''

''Oh my god,'' she groans, exasperated. ''It wasn't his fault, Dean.''

''Of course it was his fault!'' His booming voice startles her and when he sees her flinch and back away from him, he softens.

''Look,'' she starts, after a tense and uncomfortable moment. ''You want someone to blame. I get it. So do I. But Oliver - ''

''Oliver,'' he hisses the name out through his teeth, ''should have been watching her back.''

''I should have been watching her back!'' She throws her arms out helplessly. ''I was her partner! Me! Not Oliver. Me. She saved my life all the time. She had my back and she expected me to have hers. She always looked after me,'' her voice breaks and she audibly draws in a rattling breath. ''In every part of my life, she took care of me. And when it really counted, when she needed me, I couldn't do the same. Be angry with me,'' she begs. ''Blame me.''

Doesn't she think he's tried? He can't. He has tried to be angry with her the way he's angry with the rest of them because she was there too. She was in that prison. She was on that team. But he can't. He looks at her, this suffering young kid who has lost everything the same way he has, and he can't. She and Mary are the only things he has left of Laurel. She loved her girls so much. She would have done anything for them. ''No,'' he says, and wants so desperately for that to be the end of it.

She looks disappointed. He doesn't think she even realizes there are tears slipping down her ashen cheeks. ''Why?'' She croaks out. When he stands slowly and tries to reach out for her, she swats him away from her angrily. ''No! No, I'm not your daughter! I'm not Mary! You can't coddle me or - or protect me from this. I... I should have - '' She stops, cutting herself off abruptly, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. ''Well, what about you, huh? You're her husband. You two were a team.''

He ignores the pang in his chest, the nausea swirling around in his gut, the throbbing headache forming behind his right eye. He squares his shoulders and doesn't bother to defend himself. There is no defense. ''I know.''

''You're supposed to be, like, this ultra badass action hero, aren't you?'' She sniffles, pointing a shaking but accusatory finger at him. ''You've got all these big guns and sharp knives and brass knuckles but what good are they sitting in the trunk of your stupid car collecting dust while your wife gets an arrow to the lung?'' She shakes her head. ''You saved the world. I know, I read those stupid books. You saved the world but you couldn't save her? So what was the point? What was the point of any of it?'' She wipes at her eyes again because the tears just keep coming and coming, running down her cheeks in rivulets.

He wants to be able to give her something. A hug or a tissue or some words that would comfort her, but he doesn't have any of those things. He has nothing to offer her.

''What good are you?'' She asks, finishing off her tirade with a wobbly question that he has never been able to answer.

He goes along with it, shaking his head apologetically and saying, patiently, ''No good.'' He takes a step closer to her and she backs away from him, nearly toppling off the porch. ''I failed her too,'' he agrees. ''I know that. I'm sorry.''

It doesn't help. It doesn't make her feel better. She avoids looking at him so he won't see the regret in her eyes. He keeps his mouth shut and doesn't patronize her by tossing her some platitude that won't mean anything. She doesn't apologize and neither does he, but the silence stretches out in the space between. The minutes tick by, putting a good distance between them and the nastiness. He watches her, worried but also selfishly grateful for the distraction from his own grief. He's better at dealing with other people's pain.

Her eyes look dull and sore when she eventually looks back at him. ''Were you at the funeral home this morning?'' She asks. ''I - I didn't see you there. Did you get a chance to see her?''

He's not sure how to answer that question. He was at the funeral home. He saw a body. He didn't see Laurel. ''I was there,'' he answers shortly. ''I saw. I left.'' He takes a single cautious step in her direction and when she doesn't move away, he gently guides her back over to the chairs.

She doesn't respond to anything he's said, collapsing tiredly back into her chair. He can tell by the look in her eyes that there's something else she wants to say. He pulls a chair over to her and sits down across from her. He doesn't rush her or pressure her to talk. He just sits there, waiting patiently for her to be ready. He's not sure if she's going to yell at him again or start crying but whatever it is, he waits. He figures it's what Laurel would do here and Thea really needs Laurel right now. He can't be Laurel, no one can, but he can try.

''I picked out her outfit,'' she says, finally.

He tightens his lips into a thin line. He knew that. Figured it out when he walked into the bedroom and found Thea sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching two dresses and staring blankly at the wall. He'd had to say her name twice just to get her attention. ''It was a nice dress,'' he says. ''Hey.'' He leans in to place a hand on her arm. ''You did good, Thea. You did really good.''

She doesn't look like she believes him. ''But it wasn't what she would have wanted, was it? Nothing that happened today was what she would have wanted.'' When he can't answer that, she ducks her head, sniffling again. ''There should have been more flowers. She loved flowers.'' She grabs her purse off the table and rummages around in it until she produces a tissue. She dabs at her eyes, smearing her mascara, but mostly she uses it to keep her hands busy. He watches her bunch it up in her fists and tear at it until it's nothing more than mulch. ''Why...'' She presses her lips together, brows furrowing. ''Why did she, um...'' She squeezes her eyes shut and releases a shaky breath. ''Never mind.''

''Thea.''

She reluctantly opens her eyes to look at him. ''Why did she look like that?''

He's not sure what question he had been expecting her to ask but it sure as hell wasn't that one. He's not sure why. It's a perfectly understandable question. ''Thea - ''

''I didn't see my mom,'' she says softly. ''I picked out her dress but I didn't - I couldn't...'' She reaches a hand up to rub at the back of her neck. ''I didn't see Tommy either. I don't know why I had to see Laurel.'' She licks her lips, looking lost. ''But the funeral director - He asked me if I wanted a minute with her so I - I went in there. I guess I just wanted an image of her in my head that wasn't her in the morgue. 'Cause she looked so wrong there, Dean. You know? It wasn't her face at all. And I thought she would look better. I thought they were supposed to make her look better. Or peaceful. Like she was sleeping. But I went in there...'' Her whole face scrunches up and then crumples in pain and grief. ''And it wasn't better. Her hands were so cold. She didn't look like her at all.''

He watches her make a half-hearted attempt to press her lips together to stifle the cries, but the sobs escape. He's never seen her like this before. She's always fought so hard to stay composed. Even today at the funeral. She cried but she did it quietly and calmly, keeping it to herself so no one would notice. He's never seen her collapse into herself like this, her entire body wracked with gulping, heaving sobs.

''I wanted her to look like her,'' she whimpers. She won't look at him, staring down at her hands. ''I just wanted...something. Why didn't she - Why did she look so wrong?''

He gives up on keeping his distance. She can be mad at him all she wants but he can't just not try to comfort her. He knows Thea isn't his child or his sister or his blood but she's family all the same. If this were Mary, he'd want someone to help her. He slips off his chair to kneel in front of her, reaching out to take her hands. ''Thea,'' he sighs. ''Kiddo, look at me.'' He squeezes her hands gently. Reluctantly, she lifts her eyes to him. ''It wasn't her,'' he says firmly. ''It was a shell. It wasn't her. Everything Laurel is gone. It's just - There's just a body now. It's not her. It's flesh and blood and embalming fluid. I'm sorry,'' he adds on when she blanches at the blunt description. ''I know that's blunt but I need you to understand me, okay? It wasn't Laurel. Laurel was never scary to look at. Do you remember that? Do you remember her?'' She nods, and he gives her the best encouraging smile he can muster up. ''Good. Then keep remembering that. Forget about today. Forget about the morgue. Forget about all of that bullshit. Remember her before that.''

''I'm trying,'' she says, defiant. ''I swear I am. But I don't want to remember her. I want her to be here. I don't care if that sounds childish - ''

''It doesn't sound childish.''

'' - I want her to be right here with us.''

''I know. So do I.''

''I don't know why I - '' She blinks, a few more tears falling down her cheeks. ''I've seen dead bodies before.''

So has he. Piles of them. Pale and gray, rotting and bloated, bleeding and full of gore, spread out and split open on morgue tables. It was his life for a long time. It was gruesome and disgusting and a frighteningly normal thing for him. But none of that compares to Sam's body on that mattress in Cold Oak. It doesn't compare to his dad or Bobby or Cas or any of the other people he has loved and lost.

A stranger on a table is something he can compartmentalize. He doesn't take it home with him. His wife lying broken and lifeless on a hospital bed is not something he can let go of. The image of her sightless and silenced and vacant has been tattooed on the insides of his eyelids. Her hospital gown was ripped and pushed aside so they could use the defibrillator on her, her eyes were open and unseeing, her mouth open from when they tried to give her oxygen, and she was so eerily still. And he watched it happen. He watched her go from his Laurel with that familiar unflinching sweetness in her eyes to some empty stranger on a bed, face slack and unrecognizable. He watched her leave.

That's not something you can get away from. There's nowhere to run. He knows Laurel in every way there is to know a person. Including the way she looks in death. He'll remember that for the rest of his life. He didn't sign up for that, but here he is. He's been here before. He had four years with his mom. Almost seven with Laurel. Eventually, over time, he'll get to the point where he remembers Laurel's death better than he remembers her life. Just like with his mother. How is he supposed to live with that? No one will answer that question for him.

How is he supposed to help Thea, to help Mary, to answer their questions, when he doesn't understand any of this himself? Yes, he understands death. He's just never been able to get the hang of life after it.

''It's different when it's someone you care about,'' is all he can say. It sounds like such a weak and feeble explanation. Beyond an understatement.

''I just never thought it would be her,'' Thea confesses. ''It's Laurel. She was always here. She was supposed to always be here.''

''That was the plan,'' he agrees.

''It was her birthday the other day,'' she says hesitantly. ''I should have been getting ready for a party. Instead I was planning her funeral. How messed up is that? ...I can't stop thinking about that.'' She looks down at his hands on her hands, but doesn't move to tug her hands away from him. ''It's not fair.''

''No,'' he says. ''No, it's not. None of this is fair.'' He looks at her closely. Notes the hopeless grief and endless confusion in her watery eyes. Her red nose and the way her lips wobble. Thea may not be a child but she is still too young for this. He thinks of Laurel and what she would do in this situation. How would she have made it better? How would she fix this? He doesn't know the answer to that question and she's not here to answer it for him.

That might be the saddest part of this whole mess. Mary and Thea no longer have Laurel to turn to. She's not there to answer their questions, to comfort them when they're sad, to make it all better. And what exactly does Dean have left to give them? Not a whole hell of a lot. ''Hey.'' He stands, pulling her to his feet along with him. ''Come here.'' He wraps his arms around her in a hug. He expects her to resist and remind him that she's still pissed at him but she doesn't.

She folds into the embrace and hugs him back tightly. ''I'm sorry,'' she mumbles into his shoulder, voice muffled and sheepish. ''I didn't mean to unload on you. I know it's the last thing you need to - ''

''I can handle it,'' he assures her. ''Unload on me all you want.''

She is the first one to pull away from the hug, albeit somewhat reluctantly. She offers him a shaky smile but doesn't say anything.

He glances over his shoulder, peering inside the house. ''Listen, maybe you should head inside. Hydrate. Eat something.''

''Uh, yeah, maybe in a few minutes,'' she says unconvincingly. ''There's a lot of people in there and I don't really want to - ''

The sliding glass door opens behind them, abruptly cutting her sentence off. He turns around, eyes finding Claire. She's standing in the doorway, tugging at her black dress. She clamps her mouth shut tight when she catches sight of Thea, eyes skittering to Dean in concern. She recovers, shooting them both an uncertain wave. ''Don't mean to interrupt,'' she says, looking back at him, ''but I thought I'd let you know that Mary's, like, pulling a Greta Garbo in the kitchen. As in she literally threw herself down on the floor and declared she wanted to be left alone.''

Yep, that's Mary.

''Sounds about right,'' he says. ''She can be a little dramatic sometimes. No idea where she got that from.''

''Yes,'' Claire says dryly, though her voice is lacking most of her trademark sarcasm. ''It's a true mystery.''

His lips tip up into a half smile but he elects not to say anything. He checks his watch, biting back an expletive when he sees the time. No shit she's being dramatic. It's way past her naptime.

''Anyway,'' Claire keeps going. ''Jody's with her but we're barreling towards a full on meltdown here and she...'' She stops suddenly, averting her gaze. ''She's asking questions about her mom that we're not sure how you want answered.''

He's not sure how he wants them answered either. He never thought he would need to know how. ''Right, uh,'' he clears his throat. ''Can you tell her I'll be right there?''

''Will do,'' Claire sends him a mock salute and hurriedly ducks back into the house.

He turns back to Thea, eyeing her carefully. ''All right, well, I've gotta go deal with tiny Garbo in there. Promise me you'll eat something.''

''Promise. Oh! Actually, wait. Before I forget.'' She grabs her purse off the table to dig through it, shuffling items around until she can pull something small out. She grabs his hand and carefully drops two familiar objects into his open pam. His heart stutters in his chest as he looks down at the two seemingly harmless accessories.

Laurel's wedding rings.

The entire reason he had gone to that funeral home in the first place was to get her rings because her parents kept forgetting to bring them to him. These little things have caused a lot of trouble. They've been passed from person to person since the hospital, always just a little bit out of his reach. He'd wanted the rings. More than anything else, he wants the rings he gave her. But he's been so busy trying to get her back, trying to pretend none of this is permanent, he's been so busy being angry that giving her what she wanted in death fell by the wayside. He went to the funeral home to get them, to do at least one thing right, and he had been so pathetically distracted by the way she looked in that casket, like some sort of disturbing wax figurine. The screaming match he'd gotten into with her mother hadn't helped either.

''I took them off her,'' Thea whispers shakily. ''I know you wanted them for Mary.'' Gently, she closes his fist around the rings.

Okay, so. He knows that whatever is left of him is not enough to make up for Laurel's absence. Nothing can make up for the fact that she's not here anymore, that she will never be here again. But he's going to give her girls all he's got anyway. If he doesn't, Laurel will come back and haunt his ass. There is no way to escape the hollow cavernous grief, the ache of the empty spot where she used to be. He can't fill the space. He can't take the pain or the anger away. He can't lift the crushing weight off. He can't even sleep. But Mary and Thea and even Sara, all the loves of Laurel's life, have been left behind here, and he knows how it feels to be left behind. It's fucking agonizing.

It's not a hard decision to offer himself up to them, hungry heart, hollow bones, fury and all. It's instinct at this point. It's what he does. It's what Laurel would have done. Maybe if he does it right, the rage will stop burning him alive from the inside. Maybe he'll be able to avoid completely losing his sanity.

He clings tightly to the rings in his hand. Somehow, he twists his lips into something partially resembling a smile. ''Thank you, Thea.''

She gives him a weak smile and pats his arm gently. ''Keep them safe, okay?''

''Always,'' he promises. Tentatively, he steps back into her space and leans down to press a kiss to her forehead.

It's a promise he intends to keep.

.

.

.

November, 2016

''This doesn't happen,'' says Felicity Smoak.

It's roughly the umpteenth time she's said that in the past twenty minutes and the sound of her panicked voice is starting to grate on him. He's not going to say that because he's not a total jerk but he's getting a headache. You'd think she would be handling this better given that technically she is standing in a room that is mostly full of reanimated corpses.

Dean shoves down a huff and leans back in his chair to roll his eyes at the ceiling of Green Arrow's arrogantly flashy lair. Being around these people is not good for his sobriety. Or his blood pressure. That might sound overly grouchy but it's also the truth. It's not like he hates them. That would be a waste. He just doesn't like or trust them. He did trust them at one point. He trusted them to watch Laurel's back and get her home to Mary every night. Look how well that turned out. It's not like they like or trust him either. He's been here for an hour and all he's done is help his wife through a seizure, have a private conversation with his sister-in-law, and sit by Laurel's side until she passed out again. Seems harmless, right? Wrong, apparently. So far, since he's been here, he's been treated like a naughty child, looked at like he's too stupid to understand anything they're saying to him, and now they seem to be pretending he's not here.

In all fairness, their dislike and distrust of him is not entirely unwarranted. He did, after all, manipulate them into leading him straight to Darhk so he could torture and kill the guy against their orders on what they've deemed their territory.

Also, he pummeled their leader.

It's possible those things might have crossed some lines. He wouldn't have had to do any of that if this team had actually managed to do their jobs but maybe that's asking too much. Either way, he's not allowed to bring that up anymore. Apparently constantly pointing out how useless they are makes him a ''recurring antagonist'' and gets his security clearance to this bunker revoked. Personally, he thinks that's way overdramatic but he's okay with being their villain if that's what they want him to be. That's fine. They just need to shove their condemnation for today. This isn't about him right now. This is about Laurel.

''Of course it happens, Felicity,'' Sara's voice says tightly, from off to the side. ''It keeps happening. Death is just an illusion at this point.''

Dean swallows down a few snide comments. Tell that to Tommy, he doesn't say. Death sure didn't feel like a fucking illusion while he was knee deep in it; dying over and over again for years on end, wading through grief for everyone he's ever touched, stuck in a perpetual state of losing and failing and burning. He scrubs a hand over his face and doesn't say a word. His goal is to keep his mouth shut until Sam and Cas get here. He's given them the condensed version of the events of last night but what's best for everyone is for him to not engage. They can talk amongst themselves and ignore his existence for all he cares. He'd rather be at Story Time. He would much rather be at a bar, to be honest.

''She should be at a hospital,'' Oliver says again. He keeps his voice quiet, palms flat against the table as he leans in to speak to his team. He also makes sure to throw a disapproving glance in Dean's direction, like he's checking to make sure that he's listening just so he can hear him tear him down. ''We don't know what's wrong with her,'' he insists. ''She needs medical attention. He should have taken her the minute she showed up. Look at her.''

''Right,'' Sara says tiredly. ''Except, Ollie, how is that an option? You are way smarter than this.''

''Okay,'' Felicity pipes up. She takes in a few breaths and then explodes. ''Is anyone else wondering what the hell?!'' She emphasizes her shriek by throwing her hands out. ''Yes, okay, this is a thing that happens to us. It's a disturbingly regular occurrence. I'll give you that. But usually there's an explanation. There's no explanation for this! None! And you!'' She turns to her left, pointing a slightly shaky finger at John. ''Why are you so calm about this?''

He raises an eyebrow. ''Who says I'm calm?'' He asks, calmly.

''Your general demeanor?'' She suggests. ''Your lack of an expression? Take your pick!''

''You have been oddly silent,'' Oliver agrees, sinking into a chair.

John pauses, turning in his seat to look over his shoulder at Laurel. He keeps his eyes on her, frown pulling down the corners of his mouth, and then he turns back. He stares down at the table and then slowly lifts his eyes, not to look at Oliver or Felicity or Sara but to look straight at Dean. ''The injuries to her hands,'' he starts. ''What are they from?''

Dean releases a bitter laugh, squashing down the nagging feeling of nausea that curls into him when he gets these flashes of Laurel, waking up scared and alone in the cold. ''What do you think they're from?''

''I don't know,'' is the level responds he gets. It's a lie. The look on John's face tells him he knows exactly how she got them. He just wants to be proven wrong. ''That's why I'm asking you.''

Dean weighs his options. Would she want them to know, is the biggest question. Laurel doesn't like pity. It's not something she ever wants directed at her. If they know, they'll pity her. That's unavoidable. But they need to know. ''Laurel came back to life,'' he tells them. ''Right where we left her.''

He does, admittedly, get a sick sort of satisfaction watching the horror and disgust slowly creep across their faces. Good. They should be horrified. They should be disgusted and sad and guilty. They need to feel that. He hopes they see it in their heads the way he does. Laurel, all alone in the dark, terrified and gasping for breath, clawing and fighting her way topside. They deserve to be haunted by that because this is what they did to her. This is what their cause did to her. This guilt is important for them to bear. Maybe if they have to carry this, they'll fix themselves. They'll be better. They'll learn from their mistakes. They'll start functioning like a team who can actually help this city instead of one that's just speeding up the rot. Then again, maybe that's wishful thinking. Maybe he just needs one good thing to come from this.

''She - She...'' Sara trails off, whipping her head around to stare at Laurel. She looks like she's going to start sobbing. ''You're saying she - In her grave? Her casket?''

''And she got out by herself?'' John questions, suspicious. ''...How?''

Dean says, as if it is simple, ''Adrenaline, most likely.''

''That doesn't make any - ''

''You might not want to pull on that thread, John. None of this makes sense,'' he says sharply. ''She was also fucking embalmed. In case any of you have forgotten. But here she is. She's breathing. She bled. She crawled out of her grave. That's what happened. This is the supernatural. It's not about logic. Not the logic you've been taught anyway. It's about magic.''

''People don't climb out of the ground, Dean,'' Oliver says hotly. ''They just don't.''

Ha! Right. Okay then.

Instead of getting snarky, Dean just lifts a shoulder in an absentminded half shrug. ''I did.''

Everyone stares at him. Sara is the only one who doesn't look surprised.

Felicity is the one who breaks the silence with a short, ''I'm sorry but - what now?''

John asks, ''Who are you exactly?''

Dean plasters on a perfectly pleasant smile. ''Laurel's husband.''

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he fishes it out, glancing at the screen quickly. He locks eyes with Sara briefly and she nods and waves him away. Oliver looks mildly irritated that Dean seems to be deferring to Sara like she's the leader of this team. That is definitely one of the reasons Dean is doing it. He rises to his feet, distancing himself from them without a word, letting them stew in their own shock and disbelief. He gives the text from Sam - Just finishing up here. Should be on our way to you in a few - a quick look before firing off a reply of, anything?

Behind him, he hears Felicity say, ''I'm going to say something and everybody's going to get mad at me but it needs to be said: How can we be sure this is really her? Are we honestly going to take Dean's word for it?''

Rude.

But valid.

''Last I checked,'' she goes on, ''he's not the most stable guy.''

She has a fair point there. He should probably let that one go. He does not. ''Thanks so much for keeping your voice down,'' he calls over his shoulder. ''You know, so that the crazy guy over here doesn't hear you.''

Felicity mutters an unapologetic, ''Oops.''

He thinks he deserves a medal for not rolling his eyes. His phone buzzes again and he drifts further away from the simmering tensions.

Sam
1:42
Damage is isolated to one half of the cemetery. About half a mile's worth maybe. Not sure.

Well, that's something at least. He replies, how bad is the damage

Sam takes way too long to answer for the answer to that question to be comforting.

1:45
Bad

1:46
Cas says Bea and Richard's graves are untouched.

Dean lets out a breath. He types out a reply. Then deletes it. Then types it out again. He pauses, and then hits send. what about tommy?

This time, the length of the pause before Sam answers is so long it's uncomfortable. Dean knows what's coming before he even reads the text.

1:49
His grave was in the blast radius. I'm sorry.

''Son of a bitch.'' He rubs at his tired eyes and looks over at Laurel, lying prone on the cot. She is not going to take this well. She felt bad enough for accidentally destroying the graves of strangers. If she knows she sent Tommy's monument crumbling, she will never forgive herself. He gnaws on his lower lip, and makes a decision. i'll tell thea, he texts. get her to replace the stone asap. laurel can never know.

1:52
Got it.

Dean
1:53
anything else?

Sam
1:55
Yes

Dean
1:57
?

Sam
2:00
I'll let you know when we get there. We should talk in person.

''Ugh,'' Dean groans. ''Great. That bodes well.'' This day is already giving him a migraine and it's not even half over. Adamantly avoiding going back to the others, he sends Thea a text asking how Mary's doing. Thea responds with an emoji of a stop sign and an emoji of a helicopter. He can't usually decipher her weird emoji codes but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to crack that one. He scrunches his nose up and replies, im not helicoptering.

Thea sends him a thumbs up. It's surprisingly snarky for an innocent little animated picture on a phone. She has a gift. She follows it up with a picture of Mary, sitting on the ground in the toy aisle of the department store, clutching a Flash action figure and giggling at the book open in her lap. She doesn't look at all traumatized by any of the things that have happened today. She looks like she's having a pretty good day, actually. At least one member of this family seems to be at peace with this whole thing. She also looks like she's going to be coming home with some new toys. There might be a possibility that she's spoiled. He and Laurel have both been stubborn about admitting that in the past but there is a chance that they've gone overboard with their ''we're going to give her everything we never had'' motto. That's been hard to ignore this past week. She was literally given every single thing she asked for. Including, as it would appear, her mother.

...Eh.

He's thinking that's behavior to correct after they deal with one of the Nine Lives Lances over there.

For today, he takes in the sight of her, happy and full of laughter. You can't get this kind of relaxation from alcohol. He needs to remember that more often. He saves the picture to his phone because he's come to terms with being a sentimental fool, reluctantly exits out of the picture, and pulls up Sam's name. He hesitates over the call button for half a second and then another text comes through before he has a chance to make the call.

2:08
How's it going there?

Right on cue, there's another uproar from the peanut gallery as Sara leaps to her feet, nearly knocking her chair over. ''What the fuck?!'' She screeches, and Dean whirls around just in time to fee Felicity physically recoil in shock. ''No!''

''Whoa, whoa, whoa. Sara, stop it,'' Oliver's voice is harsh and demanding. ''Calm down.'' When he tries to put a hand on her shoulder to physically pull her back, Sara turns one of her withering glares on him and nearly decks him.

''Of course you would defend that shitty idea,'' she snarls. ''You've always been an ableist prick to her.''

''Hey! That is not - ''

''It was just a suggestion,'' Felicity cuts in hotly. ''If we want to be sure it's really her - ''

''You are not offering my alcoholic sister a glass of wine to test her! What is wrong with you?! That's cruel. She punched her way out of her own grave and you want to slap her in the face with a relapse?!''

''Can't even pretend to be surprised by that one,'' Dean mutters.

''Sara,'' Oliver warns. ''Watch your tone.''

''Excuse me?''

''She's trying to help.''

''How in the hell is that helpful?''

Dean sighs and shakes his head, looking up at the ceiling briefly. im surrounded by idiots, he texts. He doesn't mention the seizure. He doesn't mention his fight with Sara or the fact that he got punched in the face. He just doesn't. how do u think its going?

Sam's response to that is immediate and quick: *You

Dean considers his response to that one and then, after about a minute of careful deliberation, sends Sam two lipstick kiss emojis.

2:11
What does that even mean

Dean
2:12
its what laurel sends when she wants to passive aggressively end a line of questioning.

No answer.

2:15
dude i can hear the judgment from here

There's a pause, and then Sam sends him two lipstick kiss emojis.

Dean actually manages a quiet but genuine chuckle. ''Walked right into that one.'' He sends one last look over at the bickering team and then decides - fuck that. He bites his tongue at the sound of an insult thrown vaguely in his direction and walks away, leaving them to their mess as he makes his way over to Laurel. The only reason he's down here putting up with the superfriends over there is because of her. She loves these people. She believes they love her back. He's not going to take that away from her. His loyalty lies with her. Not with them. They've made it perfectly clear that they don't want his loyalty anyway.

Even before Darhk, before April 6th, none of them had a favorable opinion of him. He was just their colleague's husband. The guy they pretended they didn't think they were above. They thought of him as some hapless, harried stay at home dad. Someone they'd trust if they were looking for opinions on juice boxes or diapers but not someone they'd ever think to go to in case of an emergency. Being viewed as a helpless civilian is one thing. Being viewed as a dangerously unstable psychopath is another.

For the record, he still maintains that everyone completely overreacted when he did what he did to Darhk. Yes, okay, maybe it was overkill. Maybe he didn't need to carve him up like a pumpkin. Maybe doing it on Mother's Day was too theatrical. Maybe letting Hell back into his head for that night was something he should have avoided. But what was the other option? Lock him up? They tried that. They had the bastard. They had him behind bars. Look what happened. Laurel was slaughtered because they refused to take the damn shot when they had the chance. These so called heroes think they can get away with just bringing their villains in and locking them up. Well, it doesn't always work that way. Nothing stays locked away forever. No, Darhk needed to be taken out. He needed to be cut down the way he cut Laurel down.

If that makes him a psychopath then so be it.

He'll be their villain, their enforcer, their wild card, their crazed killer. Sometimes bad guys just need killing. He made peace with that a long time ago. You have to know what world you're living in. He knows exactly what world he's in. Maybe they don't.

He takes a seat next to Laurel, looks at her pale and drawn face, and tries not to make comparisons to that night in April. It's not the same. It's not. She was a mess that night, so out of it and sick with guilt, hurting and scared, so doped up that she could barely remember her own name. This isn't the same thing. There's color in her cheeks right now. She's lying there, one hand thrown over her abdomen, head turned to the left slightly. It's jarring to see her so still and the odd lighting of this absurd cave is giving her a sickly glow but he's trying to take comfort in the fact that at least she's finally getting some real rest. She needs it. Her poor body must be so worn out.

He sends Sam one last quick text - did you do what i asked - and then leans forward and looks at her. For the first time since all of this started, he takes a minute to just look at her.

Laurel Lance: alive and well.

Okay, so he doesn't know what's happening.

It's frustrating to be so far in the dark. It stings to know that his wife is basically a case at this point. And he knows this isn't a miracle. Except it kind of is. She's alive. She's here with him, with Mary, with Thea and Sara. She's here. She's home. Whatever is happening, she is still here right now. It's impossible not to be over the moon about that. He's missed her. He has missed her every hour of every day.

And it is her. It has to be. Regardless of what Felicity Smoak says, this is Laurel. She's not a spirit, she's not possessed, not a Leviathan, or a zombie. There's no handprint on her skin, no new marks on her skin, no runes or mysterious tattoos or symbols. She's not feral so he knows it's not some Lazarus Pit crap. He hasn't completely ruled out the possibility that she's a doppelganger from another earth trying to play an incredibly convincing long con, but he seriously doubts that's the case. He's willing to admit that there's a chance someone has made a crossroads deal but nobody's come forward yet. That's just a guess. It's not the answer.

Felicity was right about one thing. This has happened before but there is always an explanation. There is no clear cut explanation for this. Just questions, questions, and more questions. There are too many what ifs. What if she's not really her? What if she can't recover from this? What if this brand new collar-less, powerful Canary Cry corrupts her and turns her into Siren? What if she can't stay? What if this is some cruel trick someone is playing on them and it's not permanent? He can't watch her die again. Mary cannot lose her mother again.

His phone buzzes in his pocket once more and he reluctantly takes his eyes off of her, sitting back to read the text from Sam.

2:25
Casket's been destroyed. No body inside. It's her.

Dean relaxes back against his chair, shoulders slumping in relief as he clutches his phone numbly. It's a strange thing to be relieved about. He's aware of that. This means she really did have to go through the horror of digging herself out. He hates that. He hates that she's hurting, that she had to struggle and bleed the way he did, that he couldn't protect her from that. It's just good to have the confirmation that nobody's trying to pull a fast one on him.

Because, well, let's face it: this is exactly the kind of ridiculously elaborate and cruel stunt that Dinah would pull to get back at him for what happened over the summer. Not even that. This is the kind of thing she would do for fun. She was a con woman before she was a leather clad villainess. They've been on relatively good terms since then but there's no doubt that she's the type to hold a grudge and he is not going to trust that she's still in lock up until he can see for himself.

Even so, the absence of a body in the casket does support the theory - and his gut feeling - that this is her. This may be something Dinah would do but it's hard to say if he would legitimately fall for it. She can soften her voice, her eyes, injure herself to make it look like she's pulled a grave escape, play the wide eyed amnesiac trauma victim to avoid any questions. She can do her research, copy Laurel's tattoos, her hair and makeup, change her body language to fit Laurel's, but she can never really be her. He's learned that. It's a surface value resemblance at best. Even then, Dinah doesn't look that much like Laurel if you're looking hard enough. She's just some funhouse mirror. Her body isn't the home he knows. He tried to make it one, and she tried to lie, but it didn't work. There is no part of her that is Laurel. He thinks he could scour every earth, find every version of Dinah Laurel Lance there is, and none of them would fit right. None of them would be home. None of them would truly be her. There's one. There's only one.

He doesn't answer the text, slipping the phone away and bringing his eyes back to her sleeping form. He has to believe that if this was some screwed up trick, he would know. Of all people, he would know.

John, shoulders tense, eyes dark, looking frustrated with having to deal with other people's arguments, comes thundering into the space on Laurel's other side. ''I'm just going to take the IV out,'' he says, without even sparing a glance at Dean.

Dean doesn't bother to respond. He sends a sidelong glance back at the glaringly fragmented Team Arrow. You know... Even from a biased perspective like his, he has to admit this team has been stranger than usual lately. He watches the news, he reads the paper. They've been off. They've been getting less results than ever. He thinks about keeping his mouth shut. Ultimately, he doesn't. ''Have you noticed your island of misfit toys seems to be sinking?''

Unexpectedly, John doesn't argue. Doesn't even give Dean a dirty look. ''Trust me,'' he says, ''I'm aware. We used to be better than this.''

''Is it sympathy you're looking for?'' That earns him a glare. He's run out of fucks to give so he just shrugs and responds easily, ''Glory days come and go. We have to learn to live in the in betweens.''

''It's not about glory,'' John says, leaning down to remove the IV from Laurel's hand with skilled precision.

She stirs at the pinch, clenching her fist. Her head turns to the side and Dean watches her face scrunch up in discomfort. A small noise of discontent pushes through her lips and both men hold their breaths, going silent. She doesn't wake, relaxing back almost as quickly as she tensed. Dean moves his hand to her wrist, rubbing his thumb over the pulse point instead of trying to hold her damaged hand.

''Maybe we're losing steam,'' John murmurs.

''Maybe you should suck it up,'' Dean says, without remorse, and earns himself another unimpressed look. ''I'm just saying. Life is tough. Deal with it.''

''You think it's that easy?''

''What other choice is there? You made the decision to fight for this city. It was a choice, John. You don't have the right to give up halfway through because you've all realized you can't stand each other.''

John laughs at that. Seems like a weird reaction to that comment. ''That's not what's happening,'' he says. ''There's been a breakdown of communication. And Oliver isn't - He's not all here.''

''Uh, has he ever been all here?''

''I'm not sure I know how to answer that question anymore.'' He looks down at Laurel. ''All I know is that when Laurel...'' He trails off, eyeing Dean like he doesn't want to say this next part in front of him. ''She always seemed to be able to pull him back. He's been - ''

''What?'' Dean cuts in rudely. ''Lost without her? Boo fucking hoo. He can join the damn club.'' Is that all she was to them? Just some doe eyed chick meant to prop up Oliver's fragile ego? ''It wasn't her job to pull him back.''

''No,'' John agrees. ''It wasn't.''

He doesn't say anything else. Dean hopes that's the end of it. He brought Laurel here because it's a safe place. He brought her here so she could see her sister and her friends and so they could be informed of the ongoing situation. That's all. This was a courtesy call. He's not interested in hearing about whatever bullshit problems this team is having. He's really not interested in hearing about how Oliver is still in love with her and can't function without her. Why would he, Laurel's husband, want to hear about that? Is everything about Oliver and his feelings and whoever he wants to view as the love of his pathetic little life this week? Must be exhausting to work down here. How the hell did Laurel do this and not snap?

''You said you've been through this before,'' John says suddenly. He's staring at Dean with guarded, suspicious eyes, body tense.

Dean doesn't even flinch. ''I did say that, didn't I?''

''You were...'' John folds his arms over his chest, tilting his head to the side. ''That was the truth?''

''It was,'' is the even reply. John exhales. He looks floored. Frankly, Dean doesn't understand how anything surprises anyone anymore. John covers up his shock swiftly, hardening his gaze. ''How?''

''Shit happens.''

''That's all you're giving me?''

''Yep.''

''But you recovered.''

''I guess.''

John looks at Laurel. He looks at her for a long time. ''Do you think she can recover from this?''

Not a doubt in his mind. ''Yes.''

''You sound confident.''

''It's Laurel.'' That should be answer enough. Sometimes he forgets not everyone sees her the way he does.

''Dean.''

Ugh, great. Dean bites back a long suffering sigh at the sound of Oliver's voice approaching from behind him. He rises to his feet and turns around, reflexively positioning himself in between Laurel and Oliver. He works hard to keep his expression tightly controlled in a show of false relaxation but the half patronizing, half hurt look on Oliver's face tells him that Bargain Bin Hawkeye over there has noticed the subtle, protective shift in Dean's body language. He looks deeply offended that anyone would dare to think that Laurel would ever need protection from him. He shouldn't be so surprised. A lot of people need protection from him. He stops short, nearly causing Felicity to ram right into him. She comes to a sudden stop with a small gasp, deliberately taking two steps back when she notices how close she's gotten to Oliver.

Dean refuses to react to any of it, arching a single impatient eyebrow while he waits for Oliver to use his words like a big boy. ''Can I help you?''

Oliver wisely decides to push past it and not make a fuss. ''Are you, at any point, going to tell us your plan?''

''My plan,'' is the monotone echo.

''Dean.'' Oliver does not bite back his long suffering sigh. ''Come on.''

''Depends on what plan you're talking about,'' Dean says with a smile. ''Do you mean my life plan in general? My plans for the holidays? Well, see, Frozen on ice is coming to Central City in December and I was planning on taking Mary. What do you think of that plan?''

Oliver closes his eyes and releases a breath like he thinks Dean is the most unreasonable person on the face of this earth. ''I meant about - ''

''I know what you meant.''

''You have a plan,'' Oliver insists. ''I know you do. You're a moron,'' he states bluntly and unapologetically.

''Watch it,'' Sara mutters under her breath.

Oliver pretends not to hear her. ''But even you're not that stupid.''

''Uh, one idea,'' Felicity says, moving to stand next to Oliver, tilting her head back to glare at him. ''Would be to not insult the man with the answers.''

''You mean like calling me unstable?'' Dean asks dryly.

To her credit, she does cringe and shift guiltily on her feet. ''I - ''

''I don't have the answers,'' he interrupts, softer.

''But,'' Oliver presses, ''you do have your suspicions.''

''I need more to work with.''

John moves away from Laurel, drifting back to his team. ''How do we get you more?''

''You don't,'' is the flat response he gets.

''So we're supposed to do what exactly?'' Oliver asks. ''Nothing? Look, I've seen the supernatural before.''

''And from what I've heard,'' Sara finally pipes up, casually strolling past them to stand in front of Oliver, angling her body like she's trying to protect Dean. ''It kicked your ass. And killed my sister.'' Her voice is sharp and she pulls herself up onto her tip toes as she says it, locking eyes with him and determinedly refusing to let him look away from her, even when he flinches. ''Listen to me, Ollie. I know Dean can be an insufferable bastard - ''

''Well,'' the insufferable bastard in question mumbles, ''that seems harsh.''

'' - But he's right. I know you mean well and I know you care about her, but this isn't your world.''

For five seconds, Oliver looks like he might be at least considering backing down. The five seconds passes by quickly. ''I don't care. It's Laurel.'' He says her name like she means something to him. Like she was more than some expendable half member of his team who he never treated like an equal. ''She is a part of this team,'' he says firmly. ''We're going to have her back when she needs us. He doesn't get to control who cares about her.''

''You think that's what I'm doing?'' Dean snorts and then says, flatly, ''Get bent, Robin Hood.''

''Oh!'' Felicity takes that as her cue to physically butt into the conversation, sneaking in between Oliver and Sara to push at his chest. ''Okay, okay, Oliver.'' She throws a look over her shoulder at Dean. He offers her a condescending, mocking, shit eating grin, which is unnecessary but - hey. If they want him to be an asshole, he can do that. She barely reacts, turning back to Oliver quickly. ''I - I don't want to get yelled at again.'' At that, she sends a pointed look in Sara's direction. ''But maybe Dean's right. Maybe we should stay out of this one. I'm not saying we shouldn't support her,'' she adds in quickly when both Oliver and John look like they're about to argue. ''I don't want to, like, wash my hands of her. That's not what I'm saying. It's just, you know, maybe this,'' she ducks her head down, cringing. ''Maybe this is a family matter.''

''And we're not family?'' Oliver asks.

Felicity turns to look at Dean once more, lips sinking into her lower lip. She looks at Laurel's body behind him. There is lipstick on her teeth, bright pink against white when she raises her eyes from Laurel to Dean ever so briefly. She turns back to Oliver and says, regretfully, ''No, we're not.''

She's not wrong. They're not her family. Sara is, will always be, but the others? Not so much. Laurel isn't their blood and she didn't start this team with them. It's not the same kind of bond. Thing is, she still considers them her family. Despite everything. Despite every party, every family dinner, every meeting she wasn't invited to. Every time she was told to sit a mission out, every time she was put on desk duty, given different orders, she shrugged it off. Every time she was treated as an afterthought, she let it go. She loved these people. She'll love them again. She would have done anything for them. That's never been a mutual feeling. At least not in the same way. Laurel spent hours in the hospital after Felicity was shot. She visited at least once a day. She lost sleep. She called in sick to work. They wouldn't have done the same.

Dean knows this. He always suspected she gave more than she got but they made her so happy, gave her a place where she felt like she belonged, so he tried not to protest too much. Told himself he was just being paranoid and overprotective. It's hard to muster up any real anger at Felicity's admission. Mostly, he just feels disappointed. Completely unsurprised but disappointed nonetheless.

When this situation has settled and they have answers and everything is back to normal, maybe they should just move.

''We have no idea what kind of screwy crap is going on here,'' Felicity continues. ''And we have our own,'' she frowns helplessly, ''screwy crap to deal with. You're the Mayor now. You said you wanted our priority to be recruiting new people to the team and cleaning up the city from the inside. You said that, Oliver,'' she pokes at his chest. ''I don't want my team - ''

''Your team,'' Oliver echoes dimly.

'' - Losing sight of what's important because another one of your dead ex girlfriends may or may not have come back from the dead. Again.''

Easier to summon up some rage over that one. She didn't even use her name. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean catches sight of Sara. She mouths, looking too stunned to be pissed off, ''Wow.''

There is an incredibly tense moment of silence and then -

''My name is Laurel.''

Felicity goes eerily still, and all eyes shift over to Laurel. She's slowly sitting up, wincing in discomfort, but determined. There is a second, just one second, where Dean looks at her and it's like opening that front door all over again. Briefly, he wonders how long it's going to take for this awe to wear off, and then he launches himself into action. ''Laurel.'' Both he and Sara are at her side in an instant. ''Hey, babe. Slow down, okay?'' He fits a smile on his lips and helps her swing her legs over the side of the cot.

She reaches for him blindly, curling her cold hands around his, and then she looks at him. She meets his eyes and then suddenly his heart is in his throat, trying to claw out of his mouth to get to her. The eyes that are staring at him are soft and familiar. They're no longer vacant or confused or terrified. Pained, yes. Worried, yes. But knowing. She's not a stranger anymore. This is not the barely there amnesiac startled by her own skin, an intruder in her own home. This is Laurel. She looks at him, and it's Laurel.

He stands straight, staring down at her dumbly. He can't think of a single thing to say to her. He just keeps staring.

For a fraction of a second, a smirk curves over her lips. ''Dean,'' she says. When she says his name this time, there is a world of recognition. ''Hi.''

He physically cannot respond to her.

''Laurel,'' Sara says. ''Laurel,'' she says once more, just to be able to say her sister's name without choking on the pain of her loss. ''How - How do you feel?''

Laurel balks at the question, swinging her gaze away from Sara. How is she supposed to answer that question anyway? She looks over Dean's shoulder, clutching his hand tighter when she catches sight of her former teammates standing there, gaping at her. She grimaces lightly and drops her gaze down to the whimsical kiddie band aids adorning her fingers. Finally, she licks her lips and releases a strangled breath of laughter. When she lifts her eyes, a familiar resolve has clicked back into place. ''I feel like I need a drink,'' she deadpans.

Dean rapidly snaps out of his trance when he hears that, a small laugh of his own pushing its way out. When she moves to slip off the cot, he loops an arm around her waist and lifts her to her feet, eliciting a tiny squeak from her. ''Sweetheart,'' he says. ''I've needed a drink for four years.''

She laughs again. It's tired but it's genuine.

No one else seems to find it funny.

''What?'' He bites out. ''We can joke about it.''

''It's called gallows humor,'' Laurel nods. She's shaky on her feet, body wiped from the seizure but she still stubbornly pushes away from him, determined to stand on her own two feet with no help from anyone. ''Also,'' she adds, looking back and forth between Sara and the rest of the team. ''Um, hi?'' She tosses them a fleeting smile. ''I'm so sorry,'' she tells them. ''About all of this. I know you all probably have better things to do with your day and I didn't mean to - ''

''Better things?'' Oliver interrupts. He sounds incredulous. ''Laurel,'' he says. ''You're alive.''

She blinks slowly. She looks at him blankly, one hand slowly moving up to rub at her throat, and then she smiles at him. It's one of those soft, sweet, unwaveringly kind smiles of hers meant to comfort. Dean knows these smiles of hers well. About half the time, they're a lie. She uses them to draw people's attention away from her trembling hands. She was so irritated when they stopped working on him. He watches her as she swallows visibly, fighting a wince, hands twitching at her sides. ''I am,'' she agrees. She doesn't move to hug them, any of them, remaining right where she is, side by side with Dean.

''Felicity doesn't think you're you,'' Sara states, inching closer to her sister and away from Oliver.

Laurel doesn't look at all concerned with that. ''That's a reasonable concern,'' she says easily. ''She should be wary. I would be too. It's only logical.''

Dean turns his head to stare down at her, mouth twitching. It takes his brain a minute to restart after that one. No one else seems to get it, blowing past what she just said without a pause. He can't help but chuckle, lips curling up into a grin so genuine it hurts his face. It's pathetic that out of everything that's happened so far, it's his wife quoting Star Trek that slams into his chest like a brick. It knocks the wind out of him.

''Okay,'' he clears his throat. There's no time for this gooey crap right now. ''Look, Felicity, I get that you're scared but I don't have the patience for this right now. Laur,'' he swings his attention to his wife. ''Imagine it's the Superbowl. The Seahawks are playing. We're throwing our annual party.''

''We throw amazing Superbowl parties,'' she states with a firm nod.

''Everything's going great. And then I tell you I'm rooting for the other team. What do you do next?''

She stares at him, perplexed. For a second. Then her nose wrinkles in complete and utter disgust and she says, ''I immediately file for divorce.''

''That's my girl,'' he declares, and sends Felicity A Look.

She rolls her eyes and throws her hands up in the air. She glares over at Oliver like she's waiting for him to do something. He's still got his eyes on Laurel.

''Well,'' says John. ''Sounds like her to me.'' He moves first, breaking away from the group to move over to Laurel. He pauses briefly before he wraps her up in a big bear hug. She laughs, carefree and happy, and throws her arms around him.

Dean is not one for these emotional reunions unless he's a part of it so when she winds up being bombarded with hugs, he steps back. He stays close enough to watch her face to make sure she's comfortable with all of this touching, but he doesn't belong in this moment and he's not enough of a controlling jerk to try and force himself into it. Besides, his phone starts vibrating as soon as he steps back. He glances at Laurel one last time and then walks away from the group.

''Hello?''

''She had a seizure?!''

Dean grimaces at the sound of his brother's booming voice, holding the phone away from his ear. ''Lower the volume.''

''Why didn't you tell me about the seizure?'' Sam demands. ''I asked you how everything was going and you didn't think to mention that?''

''Who even told you?''

''Thea called,'' Cas cuts in over the speaker phone. ''And you're avoiding the question.''

''It's not a big deal.''

Sam sputters. ''How is it not a big deal?''

''She's dehydrated,'' Dean says, clenching and unclenching his fist at his side. ''She's exhausted, she's still in shock, and I think - It looks like her memories came back to her all at once. I should have been expecting a seizure. You should know that.''

There's silence on the other end, followed by a sigh from Sam. Dean pinches the bridge of his nose, guilt pooling in his gut. He doesn't often like to bring up the year after the wall went down because it just brings up way too many bad memories. It was a rough year for all of them. Bobby died, Sam's mind was in pieces, Cas tore out his grace and Fell as some twisted form of penance for everything that happened with the Leviathans, and Dean... It's hard to call it the worst year of his life because it's also the year his daughter was conceived and born, the year he got married, but it wasn't a year full of sunshine and roses. It's not something they talk about a lot.

What's happening to Laurel isn't the same as what happened to Sam but Dean has watched the both of them seize as their own heads attacked them. It's hard not to compare the two situations. He looks back over at Laurel. She doesn't look all that comfortable or at ease around her team anymore, not the way she used to, but the smile on her face tells him she's clearly trying for her friends. He watches her clear her throat, one hand moving up to rub at her throat like it's sore. There's something about the look on her face that's making him uneasy but he's not sure why. Something about it is familiar but he can't quite place it.

''She got her memories back?'' Cas asks.

''Seems like it.''

''And how is she now?''

''Better than before,'' is Dean's careful answer. ''Not as good as she was before April.''

''But she seems... She seems like herself?''

''Who else would she be?''

''...A mind controlled zombified killing machine?'' Sam suggests, uncharacteristically blunt.

Dean swallows and feels the familiar feeling of dread curling around his insides. ''What did you find at the cemetery?'' Neither of them answer him and his white knuckled grip on the phone tightens until he worries he's going to break it. ''I swear, if you two don't start talking - ''

''It's witchcraft,'' Sam says.

Dean feels a disconcerting cold spread throughout his body. Witches. Of course it's witches. They can't keep their goddamn noses out of anything. He looks over at Laurel, suddenly desperate to see her, to make sure she's still here. She's standing over there, speaking quietly with Oliver. He looks far more into the conversation than she does. He's all soft eyed and mushy looking, guilt weighing his shoulders down. He has one hand resting on her right shoulder like he just wants to touch her. Meanwhile, she's dutifully peering up at him, listening politely, but toying with her wedding rings nervously. He can tell by the way her feet are planted on the ground, back ramrod straight, right hand flexing at her side, that she's uncomfortable. He can't tell if it's Oliver or something else that's rattling her.

''Witchcraft,'' he repeats. ''How do you know that?''

''There's evidence that a spell was done here,'' Cas sighs.

''We're not sure what kind of spell,'' Sam adds. ''But it looks like...''

''This is dark, dark magic, Dean.''

''So they were there?'' Dean demands. ''Whoever did this? They were there last night?''

''Well,'' Cas sounds reluctant. ''They would have had to be there to - ''

''And they just let her wake up in the ground? They went to all this trouble and they just let her - '' He cuts himself off, sucking in a sharp breath. There is a nagging sensation of impending doom itching away at him as he watches her move her hand from her rings to her throat. ''Someone who gave a crap about her would have at least dug her up.''

''Dean,'' Cas sighs. ''It's just a theory.''

''But we still don't know who did this spell? And why would she be a mindless killing machine?''

''There was this one case that I was working with Eileen in August and - ''

Whatever the rest of Sam's sentence is, Dean doesn't hear it. He has gone completely numb, muscles tensing. August. Oh, shit. Dinah. He remembers her sitting in the passenger seat, trembling and twitching, drugged to the gills and losing control of the power inside of her. She sat there, suffocating on her own screams like she couldn't breathe through it. He snaps his attention back to Laurel. She looks pale and pinched, determinedly waving off Sara's concern as she clears her throat like she's trying to get something unstuck. ''Holy shit, I have to go.''

''What? Wait, Dean, what's - ''

He ignores his brother's voice and ends the call. Off to the side, still waving off everyone's concern, Laurel starts to cough. Goddamn it. Dean barrels into the fray, shoving himself in between her and the rest of them. These people, regardless of how he feels about them, are way too close to her to escape the blast zone unscathed. He doesn't even know if there's enough time to get them out. ''Laurel.'' He grabs her face in his hands and tries to meet her eyes but they're glazed over and not like hers. She's breathing heavily, clearly trying to keep the scream in. She looks so uncomfortable. He knows this. He's seen this before. He can't help her with this. His eyes scan the underground bunker. How structurally sound is this place anyway?

''All right,'' he lets go of her and steps back. He turns just in time to scowl at Oliver, stopping him in his tracks. ''All right, you all need to back up,'' he orders. ''Right now.''

''Dean - ''

''Get your team out of the building, Oliver,'' the deadly calm tone of his voice seems to jar them because Oliver actually takes a step back, one hand reaching to grab Felicity's elbow. ''You,'' Dean points a finger at Sara. ''Go with them.''

''What? No.'' She sounds offended. ''I'm not leaving her. What's going on?''

''H-He's right,'' Laurel manages to get out. ''He's right. You have to - You have to...'' She breaks off in a groan, one hand jerking up to clutch at her throat, and her entire body starts shuddering.

Everything happens very fast after that. She sinks to the ground, unable to support herself as the grenade inside of her goes off. When Sara rushes toward her, Dean goes after her, latching onto her wrist, and then Laurel screams.

It explodes out of her, this white hot burst of energy and strength and pure power. And there is nowhere to run. Not down here. This place is big but it's not nearly big enough. The scream reaches every corner of the space they're in, filling it up, bouncing off the walls. It almost seems to zero in on the life inside of the cold bunker. It's like it's alive. In the span of maybe five seconds, before the sound waves fully crash into him, Dean does what he can to do protect Sara. He yanks her away from her sister and takes off running, managing to make it over to a table just in time. He kicks it over to create a half assed makeshift shield, even though it really won't do much, grabs her around the waist, and throws her down to the ground.

The scream that follows after them is excruciating. It's beyond that. This is torture, and he knows a thing or two about torture. This is a weapon. An effective but uncontrollable and unstable weapon.

Somehow, in the twelve hours since she has been back, Laurel has gone from powerless to the most powerful person in the room.

Even his muddled brain filled with screams understands that.

Dean is going on instinct here, reflexively working to protect Sara from the noise. It's natural to him to throw his own body to the wolves to protect someone else. He covers her body with his own to shield her from the shattering glass and tries to keep her as physically close to him as possible to keep her from doing something stupid like running right at the sonic sound waves coming right at them. He can tell that she's got her hands covering her ears, which is a relief because at least it's giving her head a little bit of protection, but his hands are trying to cover her head from the debris. He doesn't have anything to protect his ears.

The noise is unlike any noise he has ever experienced. Even when Dinah unleashed her ridiculously named Siren Song on him over the summer, it didn't feel like this. Not only does it physically slam into you like some sort of unseen wave of pressure that has the force to send you flying through the air, but it gets in your head. It's like it takes everything else and stuffs itself in until all you know is the noise. It bounces around in your skull; a pulsating, constant agony that threatens to turn you inside out at any given moment. It's the kind of pain that can drive you mad. Make you want to bash your head against the wall to get it out. The whole thing lasts ten seconds, fifteen at the most, but it feels like it goes on forever.

It makes you feel like you're melting away and Dean - thoughtlessly unprotected, too busy worrying about Sara to bother to cover his own ears - is melting away fast. His body is beginning to feel boneless and oddly far away, like it's disconnected from him. It's a damn good thing he managed to get his girls out of here.

The last thought he manages to have before he loses all coherency is that if he can't save Laurel from whatever the hell is happening - witchcraft and uncontrollable sonic screams - then Sara better get her head on straight and do her damn job as a sister. Because regardless of whether or not Laurel is supposed to be here, she's here, and he has the distinct feeling that this is only the beginning of the unraveling.

.

.

.

end part three

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Spoiler warning: The beginning portion of the chapter deals primarily with Laurel's past and present issues with addiction, major depressive disorder, panic disorder, and a past suicide attempt.