After Laurel returned to Star City, she quickly began setting up shop as the city's new protector as the Black Canary, since she took the same name as her grandmother had during world war 2, since Laurel had wanted to honor her.

When she returned to the city, she found that she was just in time, since it turned out that while she was processing her grief and learning to control her power in Gotham, she'd learned about another improvement in this reality. While her mother had still walked out on her father after Sara disappeared, in reality, Quentin had found love again with someone new while she was gone and it was a relationship she fully supported. Mainly because it was the same second love he'd found in the original universe, Donna Smoak.

Except in this universe, he'd taken it all the way and by the time Laurel returned to Star City, she found out that her dad was engaged to Donna, something she was very happy about, since truly, all she wanted was for her dad to be happy, but she did wish that he'd told her sooner, since she had no problem with him dating again and she was kind of hurt and offended that he'd ever thought otherwise, though her father had been quick to assure her that it was only because this felt more like an in person conversation and he didn't feel right dropping in on her while she was in Gotham and she never answered the phone when he'd called to try and find a time to come out and visit her and she'd need come back to Star City until now, which she'd accepted. Her only regret was that Sara wouldn't be at the wedding.

However, her dad's marriage to Donna gave Laurel a new sister, who was actually another old friend from the new reality. Felicity Smoak. Who just so happened to be the new CEO of Queen Consolidated, since after Oliver had enlisted in the military and Thea had shown no interest in running the company and since Emiko was not a Queen by blood, since the official story was that Queen Family had adopted an orphan as some kind of PR stunt to make themselves look good. Or at least that was the story that the Queen Consolidated Board had put out when Emiko had first come into their lives.

But Laurel knew the real story. That Emiko was really Robert Queen's illegitimate daughter, born to a woman Robert had a fling with a few years after Oliver was born. Emiko's mother had held custody of her for a few years, but Robert had kept tabs on her and it turned out that Kazumi was not mentally fit to be a parent, so Robert had taken Emiko in, with Moira's blessing and she'd quickly become integrated into the Queen Family, but apparently the board wouldn't back her as CEO because they didn't want to risk the potential scandal that would happen if the truth about Emiko's parentage were to come to light.

Anyways, because of this, Moira had been forced to select someone else from inside the company to start grooming to take over, and she discovered in Robert had actually been preparing for the eventuality, since he'd been preparing one Felicity Smoak to take over the business in the event that neither Oliver or Thea wanted it and the board would not back Emiko due to her origin, so he chose Felicity, though Felicity was quick to assure her that she'd never once slept with Mr. Queen and after Moira had confirmed it, she began grooming Felicity to take over the family business, which would be very useful for Laurel's crusade to protect Star City, especially since something about what happened to the love of her life didn't make sense to her.

Anyways, Laurel had had mixed feelings about Felicity at first, since she'll admit, she was worried that Felicity might try to take Sara's place in her life as her sister, but Felicity had been quick to assure her that wouldn't happen and Laurel decided to give her a chance, which turned out to be a good decision, since not only did letting Felicity in help fill the void in her heart that losing Sara had created, though as Felicity had promised, she did not try to take Sara's place in her life.

However, Laurel did bring her into her crusade, since she'd need a person in a chair backing her up, not to mention money and resources and her future step sister could provide her with both.

While Felicity had needed a little convincing, she'd eventually agreed to help Laurel, since she came around to understand the purpose of Laurel's mission.

Laurel spent the next year serving as Star City's silent guardian, protecting the city from the shadows.

Then came the night of Tommy's birthday party. After a drug dealer had been killed there, Laurel had suited up as the Black Canary to find the killer and led to her being reunited with the last person she ever expected to find. Her supposed to be dead boyfriend, Oliver Queen.