Stand your ground

Felicity almost didn't hear it when the program beeped and a notification jumped out on the desktop. For a moment she assumed that it was just another end-of-search no-results information window and continued to concentrate on adjusting the path finding algorithm to guess Laurel's movements for better chance of actually finding her. She listened to three messages from hospitals calling back to tell her that they had not admitted anyone under the name of Laurel Lance or any Jane Doe's fitting Laurel's description.

Then she turned to the desktop that had given the notification and… Jumped with a triumphant squeal. That was Laurel's face. Her heart switched gears, beating a mile a minute with excitement. She couldn't believe that she had actually found Laurel. Well… Judging from the time stamp that was just at 2 AM the previous night, but still. She had a new starting point. Previously – following Laurel from her apartment, Felicity had lost her at about 10:30 rounding into a street that had no surveillance.

Then she noticed expression on Laurel's face. And her excitement dispersed. "Was a tough night for you, wasn't it?" Felicity muttered as her fingers flew over the keyboard, uniting the algorithm, with the starting point she now had, and quickly finding where Laurel went – catching her either on one street corner or another, the tails of her coat as she turned somewhere else - until she walked out of another street footage (just a silhouette that Felicity knew had to be her).

Map showed that there was only one place that street lead into – a bridge. Unless Laurel took to underground, because there was a metro station there too. The bridge had a live feed CCTV that was publicly accessible so that the city's residents could check traffic conditions, but Felicity wasn't interested in the live feed. She pulled up the database records (they were a part of the city's CCTV database, and she had already hacked that earlier) and did a search for early morning hours.

Her hands froze over the keyboard as still images started playing a slideshow on her screen. The bridge camera took an image every three seconds instead of a continuous stream to save space, but… It was enough.

Felicity sat frozen and pinned to her chair as she saw a pixelated silhouette walk along the bridge sidewalk. Stop. Stand, facing the railing. Stand. She felt her heart hit her thorax painfully with every image. Stand. Stand. Stand. A thousand images of Laurel not moving at all. Disappear. Felicity nearly screamed, she was so tense. Until she noticed that Laurel hadn't disappeared. The picture quality was just so bad that it was nearly indistinguishable whether she was on the other side of the railing – melting together with the background of the night and dark water or… Gone. "Please, please, please, no…"

It was horrifying. How could it not be? She was watching someone at the end of their rope, ready to end it all, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing she could do to reach out and help, because she was over twelve hours late. "Please, please, please, don't…" She begged as she searched through the images to find the outcome. Her hands felt stiff and cold with horror. She could barely hold the mouse.

And then she saw it. Two figures on sidewalk. A car stopped in the middle of the bridge. She didn't breathe out until she saw both figures step in the car. "Thank…" before she even finished that thought, another came to her. Laurel had gotten into a car with, likely, a complete stranger, in the middle of the night after… after… Felicity swallowed heavily, her throat hurting.

She tried to enhance the image well enough to get a look at the plate number, but the camera at the bridge really didn't have enough depth. She tried to follow it through the streets, but within three minutes she lost it. She lost Laurel. "Oh, god," she felt her hand tremble as she pressed it against her mouth to silence herself.

She needed a moment. How was she… How was she supposed to tell this to Oliver? To Sara? To detective Lance? Like a subroutine her mind kept repeating her that it had been more than twelve hours since that moment and nobody had heard from Laurel. What if she tried again? What if that other time there was nobody there to stop her? What if the person who picked her up from that bridge wasn't a good person?

Her stomach was upset, roiling with the implications, with the dilemma. She may not have known Laurel personally, but she knew her through other people. She knew Laurel through her work and accomplishments. Felicity did feel a little like a peeping-tom, but it was impossible not to know Laurel when she knew Oliver. And during the last few hours when she had tried to dig up every piece of information about the attorney hoping that something, anything of it, would help to find her - Felicity felt like they had become friends, even though Laurel was likely barely aware of her existence.

And now she had been witness to her suicide attempt. What was she supposed to do now?

She hastily wiped the tears, she hadn't noticed spilling, when she heard the door opening. And then Diggle announced what felt like a death sentence of entirely different kind. Oliver would be in soon.

IKYWT

Oliver had never doubted his love for Laurel. Just as he had never doubted that he didn't deserve hers.

At first – his grades weren't good enough, he didn't pay enough attention in school. He couldn't be bothered to participate in school clubs and activities while she did it all, along with volunteering to help teach disadvantaged children at a district school. While she taught kids math and history, giving her time and energy, he just opened his wallet and paid for a new computer class out of his own allowance. And even that money his father, impressed by the gesture, gave him back, making the entire thing void and null in Oliver's eyes. Laurel had been happy anyway, and Oliver learned the taste of how he didn't deserve her gratitude.

Then college. Laurel got in one of the top colleges in the country on her own merits (though he had been prepared to make a donation as large as necessary just so she got what she wanted), and he… Well, he also got in, but he always suspected that it had something to do with who he was. Anyway, it didn't keep. Even his name and money was not enough to cover for all his misdeeds. He was just so… bored there. Laurel was a star student – the favorite of staff and students, she was in her element, but he… He never had a love for academia.

And so he bounced around while she studied – always on the straight and narrow, that was his Laurel. And he? He was like a broken compass, the only true thing about him, that the arrow always pointed at her.

But did Laurel know that? Lord knows, he'd done everything under the sun to get her to think otherwise. He'd half expected her to drop his ass since the day they got together. He'd had his eye on her for years so when he cracked that stupid joke about going on a date, and she agreed… It had felt like heaven. And barely a day later he had cheated on her for the first time – afraid of loving someone so damn much. Afraid that the happiness was real. The guilt made him throw up for two days straight and Laurel came to Queen manor and nursed him, thinking he had a stomach bug.

He didn't deserve her. It was cemented in his mind. Reinforced with every other action that he took as if he was deadly afraid of being worthy. But Diggle was right… Felicity was right… What Oliver was painfully realizing now was something he had never thought of before. He may be afraid of making her believe he was worthy and then letting her down – but far more horrible was the thought of losing her. A world without Laurel was not something he was capable or willing to imagine.

Sure, she'd been in danger before, but never, never ever before he had felt so helpless in the face of it. So uncertain. He had no idea where she was. He had no idea who she was with. If she was okay. And the last words he said to her were breaking his heart over and over again. It was his fault. It was all his fault. It was always all his fault.

Oliver tried to curb the rage within that urged him to lash out at every inanimate object in vicinity. He'd show her he loved her. He made it a vow and resolved to keep it. He had no idea yet how – he kept a million secrets from her, and how should he go on conquering her love again, when she had no idea how undeserving he was? And not just because of what he did as the Arrow, not even because of her sister and the Gambit, but all the other times before when he cut her out of the loop of his life. How does he tell her that he loved her infinitely yet had cheated on her nearly a dozen times, not counting the disaster with her sister? Without even touching the darkness that was his life as Arrow? How could he go around showing her what she meant to him without him dragging her down in the mud with him?

It was a vicious circle where he always returned to the conclusion that she was better off without him. And yet he couldn't live without her in his life. So he always tried to pull her back in some way, anyway. And that's how he ended up with moments like this. Oliver gave in to his frustration and kicked the trash container. Once. Twice. Until it was dented and he noticed that his phone was ringing.

"Thea," he tried to control his voice.

"Ollie, hi," it sounded like she had her hand in front of the receiver.

"Why are you whispering?" he frowned. His mind automatically jumped to worst possible conclusion. If on top of everything his little sister was in danger, he'd kill the bastards who endangered her, and he wouldn't even lose sleep over it.

"I…" there was some clanging, as if doors opening and closing. "I ducked out to bathroom. I just wanted to let you know that Laurel's okay, I …"

"Laurel?" he interrupted her. "You're with Laurel? Where are you? How is she? Is everything ok?"

"Jeez," Thea laughed. "Calm down, Ollie," she took a deep breath that was calming for her, and unnerving for Oliver. "It's alright. I think. I'm with her now, so it's all going to be okay. I just wanted to let you know."

"Where are you?" the demand was unmistakable in his voice.

"Look, I also kinda wanted to let you know that I might be going away for a few days. With Laurel," Thea ignored his tone with all the charm and grace of a little sister.

"What's going on, Thea? Are you both ok?" concern was rounding the vowels in all his words.

"I'm ok. We're all fine. Physically," she winced. "Look, she needs some time off. And I'm going with her."

"We'll talk about this at home…"

"No, Ollie," this time Thea interrupted him. "I'm not going home. After observatory, I'm going straight to Laurel's and we're leaving tomorrow."

"Then I'm coming to you," he was an immovable force.

"No," Thea hissed. "Look, don't press this. You have your secrets – have some respect when other people need some space too."

"Speedy…" he warned.

"No, Ollie," Thea could be immovable as well. "Leave this be. We're ok. See you in a few days," she dropped the call.

Oliver's mouth was a thin line as he watched the signal beep into non-existence on his phone. Something had happened, he was sure of it. And his sister didn't want him to know about it. Too bad. He was not going to ignore something that affected both his sister and Laurel. Thea had mentioned something about observatory – that was probably where they both were at the moment. He snapped his phone shut and went to give Felicity and Diggle the good news – they'd have to inform Sara while he was off to see what was going on with his little sister and errant love.