Hearts don't break evenly

"I found Laurel," Oliver announced walking in quickly, and shaking his phone between his fingers as emphasis.

"What?" Felicity jumped from her seat. "I mean; you did?" she wiped her eyes for the tenth time. She hadn't yet said anything to Diggle – he had asked if something was wrong, and she had just run out of words. "Is she ok?"

"She's fine," Oliver frowned at Felicity, but his attention was fleeting as he turned to Diggle. "Thea says she's fine."

Coincidentally the first instinct for both Oliver and Felicity was to protect what they knew. Felicity couldn't just blurt out what she knew - first it was the surprise that Laurel had been found, but as seconds trickled by, Felicity felt intense need to protect Laurel from Oliver. And Oliver omitted the fact that his sister's words made him doubt how well Laurel truly was, because his first desire also was to protect Laurel and her privacy, and Diggle's words were still echoing in his ears – everyone but Laurel knew who she was to him. Well, no more.

"Alright, I'll call Lyla and call off the cavalry," Diggle said, pulling out his phone.

"Could you tell Sara too?" Oliver asked.

And Felicity released the back of the chair that she had been holding on so hard, that her fingers were cramping up. She straightened as if she'd been hit with electricity. "Why can't you tell Sara?" she asked in an odd, cold voice.

"I'm going to Laurel's," Oliver replied, quickly, easily, as if there was never any doubt about that. His whole posture was different than before – he was relaxed, easy. Laurel was found – whatever else was wrong, he was sure he could fix it now.

"You can't," Felicity objected, her words were lightning quick, her tone unyielding.

"What do you mean… I can't?" Oliver nearly laughed, more amused than worried. Diggle, though, paused.

"Did… Do you…" Felicity grasped for something to say. "Did Thea ask you to come? Did Laurel?"

"No, but…" Oliver blurted out.

"Then why would you go? Why do you have to intrude if you're not asked?" she demanded viciously. Knowing what she knew, Felicity was cold with fear that if Oliver went to Laurel's – then he'd be Oliver. An attractive bull in a china shop. She was afraid that he would push Laurel over the edge again. More than that she was terrified that that would happen whether she told him what she knew or not. It was not possible to reason with Oliver at times. He was a force of nature, and she used to love him for it. But now it terrified her. "Do you ever think about anyone but yourself?!"

"Felicity!" Oliver protested, eyes wide – her words actually hurt.

"What is going on, Felicity?" John was much calmer. He had seen Felicity crying as he walked in, he suspected that behind her outburst was something she wasn't telling them.

"What's going on?" her voice went several tones higher and sharper. "Nothing! It's as usual – Oliver being his selfish self. For goodness' sake, do you even think a little before you do anything?" she felt tears spilling, she was high-strung like a violin string pulled too tight. "Laurel disappeared and it wasn't me, it wasn't you, it was your sister who found her, and you want…"

"I have to check that she's alright," Oliver replied.

"Didn't Thea already tell you that? Was she as thoughtless as to just give you three words and leave you hanging? I have Laurel, that was it? That was your whole conversation? Or did she tell you that she has her, that it's alright and that you should stay away?" she was ranting, she knew, but by everything that was good in the world, she could not stop herself anymore. She knew what she would have told Oliver if she'd been the one to find Laurel. It definitely wouldn't have been – come here, see if you can do more damage. She could guess what Thea had said.

"Felicity…"

"Don't – Felicity – me," she snapped. "Wasn't that awful dinner enough? Now that Laurel's back you have to go and darken her doorstep again? You just have to go, because YOU have to make sure she's okay, for YOU. Can't you think about her for a moment? Just a single moment? Just let her breathe for a while," let her remember she's strong. "Can't you just find Sara and leave Laurel alone?"

She was cold. And trembling. She knew what happened to people pushed too far. Cooper's face flashed before her eyes. She suddenly realized that it wasn't just sympathy – Laurel's torment hit in a very particular spot for her. Paralyzing dread overtook her as she relived in flashes how they told her that her boyfriend had hung himself in prison for the piece of code that she had written.

"Don't be ridiculous," Oliver snapped back at her "You both told me – I should…"

With what felt like effort far beyond human capacity, Felicity gathered herself enough to walk, to talk. "If you care for her, you'll let her have peace."

Oliver shook his head, he was done with people telling him what to do, how to love. None of them had any idea how all-encompassing his passion for Laurel was. How it would never go away. How it was always at the center of his being – guiding him, lifting him up when he fell down. How even when he was utterly convinced that she wasn't for him – Laurel still was his home, his light. She was his happy ending whether he got to live it, or just imagine it.

"I wish with all my heart, that you'll never be in my shoes," she couldn't say it without anger. She had tried to save Cooper and Oliver… He'd probably try to save Laurel too. And every heartbeat following that hurt with realization that it would mean that both of them had pushed the people they loved to their destruction. Felicity had never before thought of herself as similar to Oliver. She left.

"What's with her?" Oliver turned to Diggle, utterly bewildered.

"I don't know," John replied, though close to that sentence was the thought that he would find out. "Look, go to your girl. I have that call to Lyla to make, and I'll deal with Sara too."

"Yeah," Oliver glanced back in the direction Felicity had left, a bit stupefied, but the past few hours had exhausted him. He just needed to see that Laurel was alright, and whatever was wrong with Felicity – he figured he'll find out later. "Thanks," he clapped Diggle on the shoulder and left too. A wide smile, that he couldn't quite contain, on his face.

"Yeah, don't mention it," John couldn't quite look at Oliver – in a space of a few minutes, with a single call, Oliver's whole demeanor had changed. It was terrifying how much power Laurel's very name obviously held over him. He wondered whether he'll come to regret encouraging Oliver to act on his feelings.

IKYWT

Oliver watched, hidden and in secret, as Laurel gently ejected Thea from her apartment.

"You can't stay, Thea," Laurel spoke softly, gently.

"Laurel!" Thea objected – with her signature energy underscoring every letter in the word. Her body nearly jumping in protest.

"I'm fine, I'm good, I'm home," Laurel exhaled the words. "And I'll be here tomorrow," and that was a promise. Her lips were pulled in a soft smile. If Thea hadn't seen Laurel shaking when she came to her in the café, she would even believe that right now everything was truly ok.

"Yeah, and I can stay here, you're surely not ejecting me in the cold night?"

Laurel laughed, lightly. "You won't sleep on a park bench, Thea," she remarked. "Go home. You need more rest than my couch. And you need to pack. And say goodbye to your family, I'm sure your mother will at least want to know where you're going…"

"I can call mom, and I can buy all that I need," Thea was immovable.

"Thea," Laurel pulled on her authoritative tone from her lawyer days. It was strange to realize that those days were truly past her. Whatever decision the board would come to – her reputation was tarnished. But she didn't dwell on the realization, "Thea, if we're really going tomorrow – we both have a lot to do tonight."

"But Laurel…"

"You'll have me for days," she said softly. "I promise," she bound herself to her words. "We'll talk then. Tonight… I'm tired. Please, Thea. Go home and rest."

Thea looked skeptical for a moment, and Laurel wondered whether she had any more strength to try and fend her off. But then Thea relented. She hugged Laurel, squeezed tight before letting go, "Tomorrow then."

"Bright and early," Laurel acknowledged.

Oliver waited for his sister to leave the building and get in her car. Then he quickly climbed up the fire-escape stairs to the roof and entered the building, just so he could knock on Laurel's door as a civilized person. Knock, knock.

The first thing that Laurel got stuck on shortly after Thea left was… ridiculously… her sugar and spice shelf in the kitchen. She'd opened it when she offered Thea tea, and she'd barely batted an eyelid over what she saw there then, but when Thea left… It was insignificant. Truly, before she rarely paid it any attention, but now it infuriated her as much as it hurt. Her mother always reorganized her kitchen shelves whenever she was left in there. It wasn't even that her mother was much of a cook, she just liked things her way. And as Laurel had come home to her perfectly cleaned apartment and reorganized kitchen… Knock, knock.

Carelessly she put down the parcel of sugar, spilling the white granules everywhere. She opened the door with Thea's name on her lips. And froze when she saw who was standing on her doorstep.

"Hi… uhm… Laurel."

She felt the muscles in her hands clench and unclench. She felt an irresistible urge to slap him. It was too late for that – she knew. If she wanted to do it, she should have done it that night. That terrible night when he had shown up at her place with her sister. Again. If she did it now - it wouldn't fix anything that was wrong with her, and he'd only pretend to understand why.

"What do you want, Oliver?"

"I was worried," he said, edging closer. Slightly wondering why, she hadn't invited him inside yet. Surely things between them weren't as bad off as when he had first come back.

"Why?" it was more of a sigh than a question.

"I was worried about you," he said as if that explained everything.

"Yes, you said that," she kept the door handle firmly in her hand, and braced herself against the frame of the door. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted to check up on you," he replied, a little flustered.

For a moment Laurel wondered whether Thea had sent him. Whether she had told him to check on her. But she dismissed that thought quickly. She knew Oliver. He did what he wanted to do. Whatever Thea had said or not said to him didn't matter.

"I thought you were done running after me," she had wanted to say – fine, now you have, please go. But she hadn't. It felt rather masochistic – to pick at the dead carcass of her own soul. Then again, she realized she probably needed him to say that again. Needed closure. After all she wasn't done with him. She was heartbroken and plain broken. She was angry and hurt, and lost. But she wasn't done. Oh, how she wished at that very moment that she had jumped and spared herself this confrontation.

"Laurel, you have to know, that…"

"What? What do I have to know?" she interrupted, everything bubbling over. "That you promised you'd never leave me, but you always do? Or that you're sleeping with my sister? Again? What do I have to know? That you came back and apologized, and we… And then you did it all again!" she was nearly screaming by this point. Against all odds, she had given him her heart again, and he had left her. He left when Tommy died and she needed him. And when he came back… And Sara came back. He fell in with her sister, again. She clung to the doorframe, as if it was the only thing holding her upright.

"That is…" not true, he wanted to say. He wanted to deny everything she said, because it couldn't be true. He loved her. He protected her. He built his morality around her. And here she was… Saying that he betrayed her, left her as if he had never cared for her.

"I don't want to hear it," she gasped, trying to speak and breathe. Just to breathe.

"Laurel, please…"

"Leave."

"Laurel," listen to me.

"I swear to god, if you don't leave right now I will file a restraining order and call the cops every time you're within a hundred paces of me," she spat angrily, venomously. In that moment everything that had festered for years came out like pus from infected wound.

"You don't….," Oliver could hardly speak, his throat felt so tight. "You don't have to do that. I'll go."

"Good. Go," she threw all that was left of her strength in those words. In that defiance.

He retreated. "I…"

"No," she interrupted. "You don't get to say that. You don't. Go."

But he hadn't wanted to apologize like she thought. There were no entreaties that he wanted to plead with her. I love you. He wanted to confess. And she was deaf to his words. Everything he had feared, everything he had worked for and simultaneously tried to avoid had just come true – she hated him, and she was perfectly justified. He flinched when he heard her door slam closed.

IKYWT

She slammed the door closed. And fell to her knees. Her first breath was a shuddering sob and the next wasn't better. It hurt like her bones were breaking apart inside, she thumped on her chest with her fist once, twice – it didn't get easier to draw breath. She tried to cover her mouth, to quieten the noise, but the whole world was falling apart and she couldn't, she couldn't, she couldn't. She slid backwards, her hands catching her on the floorboards of her apartment. The lines between the boards seemed so sharp, the wood so rough. It was like her whole world narrowed on that small spot.

And tears were still falling. She cried, merciless to her vocal cords. She loved him and it hurt more than hating him ever would. She had danced around it for years. She had been wary of falling for him. She had been blind to him when she had been in love, and for all the years he had been presumed dead – she had loved him. And she had tried to reason herself out of it with grief, and with anger and betrayal, but it just didn't work that way. She couldn't reason out of how just seeing him made her heart beat faster.

She couldn't take it anymore. Some days were perfect. Some moments were so magnificent that everything else seemed to pale in comparison. There had been days when she had known that he was there for her. That she was important to him. She knew – just like she knew every smile he had. She knew when he smiled for her. And when he did not.

Because there were days when he tore her apart, and all she could do was try and not to show the damage done. There were days when in the morning he promised her the world and in the afternoon he destroyed it. There were days when she wasn't important enough. There were days when he didn't understand her at all. There were days and weeks and entire years when he had left her all alone in the darkness and cold.

And she really tried – to live for the moments when everything was perfect, because… She wouldn't want to change him. It wouldn't be fair to him. How could she explain what was missing if she hardly understood what it was that she needed? And she didn't want to demand anything of him. He was… Like he was. And it would be delusional to try and change him, but honestly – she realized, it wasn't fair to her either. How many times she had to let her heart be broken by him until it was enough?

Was it to be – until there was nothing left? As she gasped for breath only to cry again, she knew there was nothing left. She was at the very end of her rope. She wept as if she could somehow scream, cough or tear out of her chest the monster that seemed to have taken residence there. It was strangling her and she cried with force and with pain.

And, yes, it was unfair to him – but Oliver was at the center of it. Somehow her love for him had changed – from apples and ice-cream that lit up her every day; it had turned into ibuprofen that just masked the symptoms of a disease. And making him leave now… It felt like amputation. A gaping, bleeding wound that wasn't as much a cure as just a different way of dying.

IKYWT

And despite Laurel's threats – Oliver hadn't left. He went out of her sight, and found his perch on her fire-escape again. She had banished him, but he couldn't leave her now, just like he hadn't been able to stay away from her as the Hood, or Arrow, or in any version of himself and the vigilante that he brought forth. And he heard her.

He could only wonder how she didn't hear him, because hearing her cry out made him miss a step and land hard on the stairs. At first he had been ready to charge in and defend her from whoever was attacking her – he had been already at her window, when he realized that she wasn't being attacked. At least not by anything that he could defend her from.

Then he just sat down – his knees shaky and weak. He had never heard her cry like that. She sounded like she was being torn apart. It took a moment for him to gather himself enough to crawl up a few steps and hide. He pressed his back against the wall of the building, his ear near her window. He heard everything.

The sounds of her wet sobs ravaged him. He'd take any hit, knife, bullet or arrow if it would only stop her from crying. He scrunched his eyes shut as if that would help him escape the reality, but it only enhanced his hearing. Every shuddered breath she took, every scream ate at him – he'd much rather experience acid on his flesh, tearing it off than the way she cried, because this hurt more. And yet he stayed.

He didn't move an inch. He didn't even notice when answering tears wet his eyes. He just listened to her torment wishing with all his heart that there was anything he could do to stop it. He wished he could swoop in and cradle her in his arms, and hush her cries, and give her everything – the world and every star in the sky. He wished she never had to know how it felt to cry like this. To him – she was made for smiles and sunbeams shining off of crystal ornaments. And yet, he knew that he had caused this. He knew that she wouldn't accept any comfort he might give, and the only thing she had asked for – he couldn't give. He couldn't leave her. So he endured the only punishment he could now devise for himself – he stayed, and he listened.

He had heard many people scream – he had heard them scream in torture, in pain. He remembered his own screams. He remembered those of people that he had made to scream. None of it – before or after he embraced his darker side made his blood run as cold as Laurel. She sounded like she was dying. And there was nothing he could do. When he heard a broken hitch in her cry, he banged the back of his head against the wall he was hiding behind. He wanted to feel pain, any pain – but more than anything – her pain, just so she wouldn't have to.

He stayed until she fell silent. He stayed until darkness turned to pink dawn. He stayed.

IKYWT

Neither of them noticed the hairline cracks in her windows come morning.