Yvette Knight was the epic love of Oliver Queen's life. As the daughter of a French heiress and an American media mogul, their families had always had close ties, and the two had been raised side by side. Best friends since infancy, childhood puppy love turned high school sweethearts, everyone expected them to be engaged as soon as they finished college. It never happened. Instead, when Ivy returned to America after four years at Oxford, she came back with James Bishop on her arm, and his ring on her finger, and to Oliver Queen in bed with Laurel Lance. Heartbroken by his ex-girlfriend's engagement, Oliver was quick to agree to join his father on the Gambit to go to China. To his death.

Five years later, Oliver Queen is back from the dead, and he hardly recognizes the world he's returned to. The one thing he does recognize? The family's publicist, the woman who held his family together through his death and now his resurrection, none other than Ivy Knight herself. Still engaged and still unmarried, a bit older and sadder than she used to be, she's a dead man's dream come true. And Oliver can't pretend that he's any less in love with her than he'd ever been.

Disclaimer: I don't own Arrow or anything associated with it, I only own the idea for Ivy (and James) and the changes I've made from canon

WARNINGS: canon-typical violence, grief, mental illness

Faith Forgotten Land

Prologue

Ivy Knight didn't fidget, thank you very much. Fidgeting was for people who were nervous or uncomfortable, and she was neither. No, she was just... admiring her engagement ring. Yes, that's why she kept twisting her hands together. She most certainly wasn't fidgeting because of an uncomfortable feeling in her gut.

"Yvette?" James asked, from his seat beside her in the limo.

Ivy turned to look at him, offering him a charming smile. His dark eyes, always so intense, bore into hers, and she hoped that face didn't betray her anxiety.

"I'm alright, James," she assured him.

And she was, really. There wasn't anything wrong, save for a general sense of unease that had left her rather on edge. A remnant of the childhood anxiety that she'd spent years trying to overcome.

James smiled back at her, lifting her hand and kissing the back of it, his cheek just barely brushing the edge of the large engagement ring snug on her finger.

"Have I told you how lovely you look tonight?"

Ivy giggled, light and airy. "Only three times."

"Well, it certainly deserves to be said."

Clad in a knee-length dress, tight through the top and flaring out towards the bottom, Ivy was a vision of classic elegance. The top of the dress was white with a v-shaped neckline and ruffled straps while the bottom half was a solid black, accentuating her toned legs down to her open-toed black stilettos, while a silver chain with a single pearl highlighted the length of her neck and her defined collarbone. With her dark hair curled to perfection, Ivy could just as well have been headed to a fashion show, rather than a dinner reservation.

James was her perfect match, in a black suit with a crisp white dress shirt, his silk tie an off-white that matched the pearl around her neck. His dark hair was neatly styled, accentuating his cheekbones, and his sharp angles created an undeniably appealing contrast to Ivy's soft edges.

A silence, familiar but not quite comfortable, fell over the car. Ivy hated to admit how used to it she really was; she loved her fiancé dearly, she really did, but the easy conversations that had followed them through their years at Oxford were lost to time. They were five years engaged, but at times, James still felt like a stranger to her; a man with whom she shared a home, not a life. She felt her phone buzz in her purse, not bothering to check it before folding the bag back over her lap.

"My flight got pushed up," James told her, glancing up from his own phone and pulling Ivy's thoughts away from hers. "I'll be leaving early in the morning."

"So soon?" Ivy asked. "I thought you said you would be here until the contracts were finalized in Chicago."

"That's what they told me. But apparently the Washington office is unhappy — again — and I need to smooth things over."

Ivy nodded, saying nothing. She understood the importance of his job, and the urgency that came with any word from Washington, but she couldn't deny the fact that his constant travels were painfully reminiscent of her father's. He had always been away too, and Ivy had never felt like she actually knew the man. In some ways, she found herself sympathizing with her mother in a way she never had before — she finally understood how lonely it really was, how tempting it was to be somewhere else. But the difference was, even if she did leave, she wouldn't be leaving behind a child, waiting up for her every night.

But still, she was used to it. She'd known it even before James had put his ring on her finger; political consultation was a job that required travelling, and Ivy's job hardly allowed time for any of her own. It was difficult at times, yes, but she'd made her choice several years ago.

"I'm sorry, my love. If there were anyone else they could send—"

"It's alright, James," she told him, reaching out to twine one of her hands with his. The action was stiff, though filled with affection — much like the rest of the relationship, the feelings were there even if the easy familiarity was lacking. "Really, I understand. If you're needed in Washington, then of course you should be there. I'll reschedule this weekend's dinner with the Bradfords, sometime after the meetings with Chicago wrap up, and Thea and I were planning to have dinner tomorrow. Your job is important, I know that."

James tried to smile, but it was tight. Ivy knew that his family, while it might not have been perfect, had been far more functional than hers. His father had come home for dinner, his mother went to parent-teacher conferences, they'd had a son and not just a pretty doll to take off the shelf to impress guests. It made it harder for him, in some ways, the distance that they could never quite close. He knew what better was, well enough to want it, even if he was as unable as Ivy was to make the sacrifices that would take. Ivy wasn't sure if she envied or pitied him, sometimes; envy that he'd experienced the normalcy he dreamed of or pity that life had come to shatter it. Both, if she were being honest, to some degree.

He pressed another kiss to the back of her hand, but the moment was interrupted by the sudden beep of a horn as their chauffeur cut off another driver. Ivy jumped slightly, smiling apologetically at her fiancé.

The returning silence was far more comfortable than it had been, only broken up by the occasional buzzing from Ivy's phone.

After what must have been at least the tenth buzz, Ivy sighed, finally pulling her phone out. Fifteen new messages, all from Walter Steele. That wasn't particularly unusual, given Ivy's job, but he usually preferred calling to texting — and always tried his best to not need her outside of his own working hours.

"Is everything okay?" James asked, as Ivy unlocked her phone.

"It's nothing, darling," she said. "Just a text."

But then she opened Walter's messages.

And as soon as she did, she froze. Her phone fell from her hand, clattering on the floor of the car, the screen still lit up with his last message.

Oliver is alive.

Thank you so much for reading! Although Ivy is a relatively new OC for me (I've only had her since February) this feels like a long time coming! She's an OC who came to me just about fully formed and I haven't been able to stop thinking about her for months, and I'm so so so excited to finally share her story with all of you!

This story is dedicated to randomfandomingwrites, darknightfrombeyond, and witchofinterest on tumblr, because their immediate enthusiasm when I told them about this idea is the only reason this story got published! I really hope that you all love Ivy as much as I do, and you can find more content for her on my tumblr randomestfandoms-ocs