Keepsakes

Laurel left Starling.

Oliver supposed he shouldn't have been surprised about that too. Other than a few friends, she had nothing left tying her back to the city. Tommy was dead, and for all that it mattered, Oliver might as well be too. Her family was shattered, this time for good. Sara was back in the League and had no intentions of leaving them ever again, Quentin was once more a drunk, except one without a job now, and Mrs. Lance had fled back to Central City, unable to bear another crushing failure her atrocious parenting had wrought. Even Laurel's job was no longer an option; Donner and Spencer had apparently offered it back, no strings attached and with the disciplinary hearing dropped, the moment she had been publicly revealed to be alive. A blatant publicity stunt, she had understandably thrown the offer back in their faces.

But even with all that, there was still a lingering hope in Oliver's heart that she'd stay. That her anger would one day pass and she would give him whatever little grace she had left to afford. A chance that he would seize with everything he had and not take for granted, not ever again.

That hope died when John appeared one day in the foundry, carrying a large cardboard box. He handed it to a confused Oliver, and gestured for him to set it down and open it. He did, and what he saw might as well have killed him all over again.

They were keepsakes. Old keepsakes, of his relationship with Laurel. Gifts like that old sweater and that stuffed bear he once won her at the fair, photos of their trip to Coast City and intimidate dates, of far happier times. Even that stupid "Dear Jane" letter he had given her all those months ago, and the small photo that came with it. The photo that he had carried with him through five years of hell.

When Oliver picked up that photo, he was trembling with guilt and grief. "And the jewelry?"

"She sold it," John revealed, grim. "Said she needed the cash."

Of course. She wasn't rich like him after all. Oliver was far beyond the point where he was willing to hide his pain, and was grateful John didn't comment on his tears.

There was only one reason why Laurel would send all of this back to him, and that was to say goodbye. For good this time. Nothing in the world could make up for what he'd done, not anymore, and she no longer wanted him to be a part of her life. This was the final punctuation to that statement, and Oliver was in no position to challenge it. He had lost that right a long time ago.

Five years in hell, his father's death, Sara's supposed death, Tommy's death, and yet nothing in the world could compare to this, could hurt more than this. And this time, there was nothing he could do to make it go away.

Bottom

In a way, Oliver was grateful for Slade Wilson's reappearance from the dead. Not in the traditional sense — Slade's return was an old nightmare come to life, and he was danger to all of Oliver's loved ones, whether they were still with him in Starling or not. But for all that it was terrible, Slade also served as a sufficient distraction from everything else going on in his personal life. From being reminded of what he had done to Laurel and her family, and all it had cost him in the end.

Between protecting the city, training Roy, and trying to find Slade, to running the company and supporting his mother's campaign (surprisingly still alive despite his most recent and colossal fuck-up) Oliver's life was busy. Then things took a turn for the worse after Isabel made her move and made her true allegiances known to him. Thea finding out her father was Malcolm added to the disaster, and then the ultimate affliction of them all: his mother's murder.

Oliver couldn't even bring himself to go to the funeral. All his training, all those years in hell, and he had failed yet again to protect someone he loved. His own mother no less. Part of him just wanted to curl up and die, and not face the world at all.

Then John showed up and told him Slade was dead.

"What?" The question escaped Oliver's mouth before he could really think it through. "How?" With the Mirakuru in him, Slade was practically invincible.

"Laurel," John answered, and Oliver's confusion only increased. How had Laurel managed to kill Slade? He wasn't surprised she was present in the city, she would be at the funeral if only for Thea's sake, but that was one thing. Killing Oliver's worst enemy was another.

Then his memory flashed to that horrible day in Nanda Parbat, and the realization hit. "She used her scream."

His best friend and bodyguard nodded. "Slade showed up to kidnap her and Thea. Roy tried to fight him off and failed. So Laurel allowed him to approach them instead, and once he was close enough, used it point blank, right in his face. With the insane volume and the advanced hearing the Mirakuru gave him, he couldn't handle the sound and it scrambled his brain."

And just like that, Oliver's greatest nightmare was dead. Gone as if he had never been back at all. He should be elated, and part of him was, but it was mixed with a million different other feelings that he couldn't even begin to sort out. Not least of which was because he would never be able to thank Laurel for what she did, if only because she would never accept it from him.

That should've been the end of it. With Slade gone, that left only Isabel as a threat, and Oliver was confident he could find some evidence of her collaboration with Slade and get her arrested. John agreed, and had reported that ARGUS had found clues to where Slade had been staying these past several months. Surely, if there was any proof to be found of their partnership, it was there.

And it was there. Along with proof of his partnership with Sebastian Blood.

Thea had been giving him a dressing down in the Foundry when they learned about their now-former mayor. After the confrontation with Slade, Laurel and her had figured out Oliver was the Arrow and had confirmed it with Roy. Understandably, his sister wasn't happy with him at all. Between keeping who Slade was a secret from Mom and her, everything that happened with Laurel, keeping her real parentage a secret, and also trying to force Roy to break up with her, all in the service of keeping his vigilante secret…

His baby sister was angry at him. And he couldn't blame her. But then the word about Blood came in, and Oliver couldn't hide his guilty expression at that. Something that Thea noticed immediately.

"Ollie? Did you know something about Blood?" she had asked, a bit warningly.

Another wince. "Laurel came to the Arrow about her suspicions about Blood months ago," he admitted, and even saying Laurel's name felt like ash on his tongue. "We did some investigating, but it seems Blood covered his tracks well, so we didn't find any of the proof she originally collected. So I chose to ignore the accusations."

There was a brief moment of silence. Thea inhaled a deep breath. "So what you're trying to say is that you've known for months that he might be dirty, and did nothing about it. And it turns out, he was dirty, to that point that he used his partnership with Slade to murder our mom so he could be mayor, and almost got away with it," she stated tonelessly.

Oliver opened his mouth to defend himself, but found that he couldn't. What could he say? That he couldn't trust Laurel's word thanks to her addiction issues? The same addiction issues he had failed to support her through, that he had thrown into her face weeks later and driven her to suicide over. Thea already hated him plenty for what happened to his ex-girlfriend. Trying to even use that as an excuse, however rightful, would just be digging himself deeper.

He had acted reasonably with all the information he had available to him at that time. But that really didn't matter, did it? He had still been wrong in the end. And their mother had paid the price.

Oliver noticed John look away from them in the corner of his eye. He was the one who had told him to trust Blood over Laurel, making it his mistake as well. But throwing him under the bus wouldn't help either. It would just make everything worse. All it would do was emphasize the fact that he had chosen two virtual strangers over one of his oldest and closest friends, just because he didn't want to help her through her problems. That he had prioritized his life as a vigilante over the wellbeing of the people he supposedly loved most.

"I love you, Ollie," Thea finally said through that uncomfortable silence. "But I can't be around you right now. If I do…" She grimaced, and turned around, walking away. Roy, who had been standing next to her, followed her with barely a glance back at his mentor. Oliver couldn't blame him.

With them gone, it was just John and him. And then John had to leave, because Lyla had something to tell him that couldn't be said over the phone. That left Oliver all alone once more, by himself. What he had wanted all along. And now, it was finally his.

He was alone, and it was the worst feeling in the world.

Alone

Once the cure for the Mirakuru arrived and was administered, Roy left to join Thea. "It's not that I'm not grateful for everything you've done for me, Oliver," he said as he made his goodbyes to the rest of the team — all two members of it. "But I love her more than I want to be a vigilante with you."

Oliver didn't miss the nuance. Roy didn't necessarily say he'd stop trying to be a vigilante for Thea's sake. Thea had never seriously protested his decision to be one, after all. But he was no longer going to deliberately seek out that path through Oliver specifically. Because Oliver, for all he had done for Roy, was not the kind of man he wanted to be anymore. The kind of man Oliver was… well.

It was for the best. Roy was better off this way. He made Thea happy, happier than Oliver had these past several years, and it was no wonder Thea had been furious when she learned he had tried to force Roy to end their relationship. He had a serious chance at a happy life with Oliver's sister, and Oliver had nearly ruined it for both of them because of his own self-serving fears. The fact that Ray was willing to leave the only home he had ever known to go to a place that was even more crime-infested than the Glades just for her was proof that he was the real deal.

So Oliver let him go with his blessing and focused back on the Mission. It's not like he had much else going for him these days. QC had reverted back to his ownership with Isabel's arrest and soon-to-be imprisonment, but the Board had universally declared he was unfit to be CEO, and he couldn't help but agree. An arrangement had been made with one Ray Palmer to delegate the job to him while Oliver simply remained majority shareholder, and Oliver had taken that offer gratefully. His operations as the Arrow would remain funded, and he didn't have to go out in public as Oliver Queen anymore if he didn't want to. A true win-win scenario.

The Arrow was all he was good for now. He had already fucked up enough lives as Oliver Queen, and he had no intentions of ruining any more.

Wrong

John was going to be a father.

Apparently in the rush of their renewed relationship, Lyla and him had neglected to use protection far more than they should have, and she had fallen pregnant as a result. It wasn't really a horrific discovery so much as an unexpected and ultimately welcome surprise. Perhaps the first bit of pure joy that Oliver had experienced ever since he had completely ruined his life for the second time.

But it got him thinking, thinking a lot. About all the events of the past few months. All the ways he had screwed up.

"I think it's best for you to leave the team," Oliver told him once the euphoria faded. 'Team' was a bit of a misnomer, there was only two of them left now and if John was gone it was just going to be him, but Oliver didn't know any other way to describe it. "You've got a baby to think of now, you can't keep risking your life like this."

His friend frowned. "Oliver, man, you just can't decide something like that for me," John replied. "I'm not going to leave you in a lurch like this, if I leave there's no one left to have your back."

The archer shrugged half-heartedly. "I'll manage somehow. I did for the first couple of weeks," he pointed out.

"Yeah. But could you have lasted much longer?"

"Look, John, I'm doing you a favor, alright!" Oliver snapped, suddenly on edge. "You're better off leaving this all behind, living a normal life with Lyla and your child. Not stuck down here with me, trying to fight a losing battle that we were never going to win."

John gave him a piercing look. "What is this really about? Do you really want me to go?"

No. No, he didn't. But it was better for John this way, and therefore better for both of them in the long run. "Please, John. Just go."

"Oliver—"

"GO!"

It was the final push his friend needed. John gave him a final, sad look before getting up to leave, and Oliver allowed his resolution to remain on his face until his now-former bodyguard was out of sight. The moment the Foundry's door shut behind him, the expression crumbled and he slumped into Felicity's old chair, the very picture of misery.

This was for the best. The reality was, there was something wrong with Oliver. There had to be. What he had done to Laurel and her family, all his mistakes with Slade, driving Thea away… Everything he touched was poisoned. John was better off getting out when he had the chance, and if Oliver had to be a little mean about, so be it. It was not like there was much of a reputation left for him to salvage.

Raisa

Despite the cold reception he had received in the wake of Laurel's 'death', Raisa had been the one person that had refused to abandon him. With the Queen Mansion once again under his ownership, she had dutifully returned to maintaining the old structure like always, no matter how much Oliver tried to push her away. "You will have to fire me to get rid of me, Mr. Oliver," she had said to him. "And if you do that, I will have no job to support my sister's family. You do not want that, do you?"

It was blatant manipulation and they both knew it. But even though he was determined to keep everyone else away, Oliver selfishly couldn't help but be grateful he had some reason to keep her around. Even if he didn't see her as often as he used to, since he liked to avoid the Mansion as much as possible. Too many memories.

But after John was gone, Oliver couldn't help but ache for the comforts of home. So he had gone back to the Mansion, where Raisa waiting for him with a cup of warm hot chocolate and some cookies like always. "It's for the best, Raisa. I know it is. He doesn't deserve to be caught up in all my problems," he confided to her.

Raisa hummed noncommittally, just listening silently.

"The thing is… there's something wrong with me Raisa," Oliver continued, just… speaking. It was always easy to talk to her, more than even his own mother at times. "There has to be. What happened with Laurel, how I was treating her…" He grimaced.

She didn't say anything in response. Just took his hand, and squeezed it comfortingly.

He swallowed at the familiar gesture, and carried on. "On the island, I was injected with this drug. It made me hallucinate a friend, one I met there, one that died. He egged me on, telling me that I should kill myself, that I infect everything I touched. And I… I nearly went through with it."

The grip on his hand tightened.

"But then, another hallucination, one of Laurel… she stopped me. She told me I need to live, or else Dad, Sara — they would've died for nothing. That I needed get back to my family, my friends… her. So that's what I did."

Oliver's lip trembled. "For five years, I carried her picture in my pocket. She was my home, the one I was so desperately trying to get back to. I knew that she might not want to be around me again, but I wanted the chance to at least apologize to her, to make things up to her. That's how much I loved her. That's how much she meant to me."

"But I failed. I failed so badly, Raisa. When it was her turn to suffer, when she needed help, all I did was just scorn her and left her on her own. I drove her to the one thing she saved me from, I destroyed her family all over again, and now…"

He buried his face into his hand, not quite sobbing, but close to it. Raisa caressed the side of his face, and Oliver leaned into the familiar touch. "I thought the island made me better, Raisa. That I wasn't so selfish anymore, that I had learned to think of others beside myself."

"It is not that simple, Mr. Oliver," she replied, voice gentle. "Just because you learn how, does not mean you practice it."

Oliver looked up at her, stunned.

Raisa sighed. "Think, Mr. Oliver. Was making good with Laurel about helping her, or helping yourself?"

The archer swallowed, and looked down. It was a daunting, provocative question, one that Oliver didn't like the answer too. Because Raisa was right. Somewhere down the line, all his attempts to reconcile with Laurel since his return had become less about making things up to her and helping her move on from her pain and more about absolving himself of his sins and making himself feel better.

That was what really had caused him to lash out the way he did that night, at that stupid dinner. Because Laurel reacting the way she did was proof he had failed to help her after all, that he hadn't redeemed himself. That she was still suffering, and he didn't know how or why. And without any discernible reason, he had blamed her instead. He had always failed to make her happy and he never understood why, and he had erroneously come to the conclusion that he had never really been at fault at all, that none of them had been.

You're as selfish as you've ever been.

The answer was obvious now. Laurel's suicide note had spelled it out to him. He had been unable to help her because he hadn't really been there for her. Protecting her as the Arrow wasn't the same as listening to her, being the confidant she had been for him so many times. If he had been that person, he would've known about all the other troubles in her life, all the ways her family had wronged her. Quentin's verbal and emotional abuse and Dinah's betrayal, in many ways so much worse than Sara's had been, and subsequent abandonment when Laurel had needed her most.

If he had known those things, he could have told Sara about their behavior, allowed her to see things from her sister's perspective better, maybe even convince her to tell Laurel the truth about the past several years. Laurel would've been far more understanding of Oliver's presence at the dinner if she had known the real extent of Sara's doubt and self-loathing, that he had been there to support Sara, not flaunt their relationship in her face. Or better yet, Sara would've never had any reason to fear her sister's reaction to her presence and would've gone by herself. Or maybe the sisters could've banded together and thrown out their toxic parents out of their lives for good.

But he hadn't known any of what they had been doing to Laurel. He had just assumed that Laurel was just being difficult for the sake of being difficult, not because she had just thrown it back into her face how little her family really cared about her. No matter what he had said, the reality was that Laurel hadn't owed her family anything, not after all the years of mistreatment they had put her through. And Oliver was the fool for ever trying to make her believe otherwise.

It was the same with Starling, wasn't it? Saving his city was no longer about the city but about himself. About redeeming his sins, about getting the people to see him as a hero like Felicity and John said he could be. That was the real reason why he had kept the truth about Slade a secret from his family — he had made the excuse that it was to protect them, when in reality it was about protecting himself. About preventing them finding out all the terrible things he had to do to survive, and their judgement for it. He just hadn't been willing to admit it.

And that was why Slade had been able to so easily manipulate him. Because he knew how selfish Oliver could be without even realizing it, and had used it to further his plans. In the end, Oliver was too blinded by his own hubris to see it.

Raisa reached over, and took something out of her pocket. A slip of paper, with a number on it. "Mr. Diggle gave this to me. His friend, Lyla, she said she can get you a therapist you can talk to," she explained. There was a knowing gleam in her eye, and Oliver wasn't surprised to see it. It figured out of all the people in his life, she would be the one to figure out who he was on her own.

Oliver took the paper carefully, and smoothed it out. A single line of numbers, and they were the most intimidating thing he had ever seen. "You need help, Mr. Oliver," Raisa finished.

It wasn't even an argument anymore. It was the simple truth. So Oliver didn't protest, and took out his phone instead.

Yeah, Oliver is not having a good time right now. Everything is just now sinking in, and that regret and guilt is overwhelming. But at least he's finally getting the help he needs.

It might seem like everyone is being too hard on him, but reality is what he did was flat-out unforgivable, even if he genuinely didn't mean to do it. Combined that with his past history, where they let his countless wrongs slide again and again — it's no wonder why they've finally had enough and taken a hard stance on him. Thea especially. Unlike Laurel's situation, where she's only been acting out recently, Oliver's been acting like this for years, and at this point this is the only way he's really ever going to learn.

Don't worry, next chapter we're getting back to Laurel and her journey to becoming BC. A little less angstier than what's going on in Oliver's life, to be certain.