"I've been thinking lately

What would you say if you saw me?

Would you be proud of what I've become?"

MICHAEL SHULTE - 'The Love You Left Behind'

.                   .                  .

Standing in front of Starling City Public Library felt a little bit like coming home, and a little bit like getting stabbed by ten knives coated in poison. The doors, brand new and made of beautiful carved oak, looked entirely natural against the cracked but still proud stone that the front face of the building was made of. Still standing, despite the quake. Despite everything Cali had inadvertently done to it.

She didn't know who was inside. Who wasn't, anymore. She hadn't let herself look into it since Tommy's - something she was kicking herself about now.

She'd abandoned the people here. Had left them to their own devices while her father killed almost everyone that she loved. How many people had he taken from her that worked here? How many lives had she forfeited by taking this position when he bought it for her, by getting close to them and bringing her problems right to their front door. For not warning them, like she hadn't warned Janet.

She took a deep, fortifying breath and ran her fingers over the wrinkled sticky note in her pocket, decorated with Oliver's messy scrawl.

'Had to go into the office. Didn't want to wake you.'

He wasn't in the habit of leaving her messages when his responsibilities called him away; clearly, the conversation they'd had had unravelled something in him, had shaken him in some way that had left stains of guilt and regret in the loops of his handwriting.

But despite whatever reason had prompted him to write her the note, she treasured it all the same.

The first step she took inside the foyer knocked any sense of calm she'd been clinging to.

The space where towering bookcases once stood proudly was now hollow and cold, the dizzying height of the ceiling now sent even higher to the naked eye. The luminous chandeliers that Cali had introduced during her first month there were gone, the metal couplings still attached, suggesting that they'd been torn from the roof and shattered on the ground, rather than manually dismantled.

Blankets were piled neatly away in three stacks beside the battered desk that had once been Nancy's pride and joy, and boxes of canned food lingered off in the dark corner by the office, where the general public wouldn't take care to look. Remnants of its time as a safe haven for the people, she imagined.

"Took you long enough to come back here."

And it...it still sounded like her. Was still her voice, no matter how many jagged edges had been carved into it. Cali turned around slowly, uncertainly, scared of what she would find, and...

Martha still looked the same. A bit haggard around her eyes, one of which seemed a bit more cloudy than the other. But her short hair was the same shade of auburn, her lips still pursed, still that look of general disdain for Cali's entire existence. She was dressed down - black slacks and a pale yellow top - and she still managed to look effortless.

The wheelchair she was in was scuffed and slightly dented, the leather handles supple under Naomi's perfectly manicured fingers.

Cali cleared her throat, swallowing thickly in an attempt not to burst into tears. "Hi," she croaked, shuffling her feet uselessly and not meeting either of their expectant gazes. "Um...Just came to see the place. See how it held up."

Martha hummed, clicked her tongue. "Not to see us? To see how we held up?" She tilted her head, looking remarkably like a panther ready to strike. "Do you care? Did you think about us in those months after your father tried to kill the whole city?"

"We're not saying we don't understand what you went through, Boss," Naomi added, unnaturally subdued. "Because we do. We went to bat for you, when they wanted to pin Malcolm's crimes on you too. But we all lost someone. And we worked to rebuild, with no help from you."

"And I'm sorry," Cali said, uselessly, splaying her hands. Unbidden, tears filled her eyes. "God, I'm so sorry. I know that I-"

"Why are you here?" Martha cut her off bluntly. "To make yourself feel better? To see the finished product so you can lie to yourself about what it must've taken to get here? Because what you see - we did that. We put this place back together as best we could. We fixed ourselves and our home, while you-"

"While I hid," Cali said, pretending she couldn't hear her own voice wobble. "While I was protected from the very same city that you were helping. Because they wanted to kill me for the exact same reason you're in front of me, hating me, now. And that makes me a coward, I know. I could have done more, I know. But please. Please. I need to know what's happened here. I need to know who...who made it. And who didn't."

Silence reigned between the three of them for a long moment; Cali's chest was heaving both from her own words and the effort not to start sobbing. Martha's face was unflinching as she stared at Cali, but Naomi's was conflicted, her mauve lipstick smudged in sections as she gnawed on her bottom lip in thought.

The pattering of small footsteps broke the standoff as a tiny figure scampered around the corner, hurrying right up to Martha's side without pause. "Miss Martha! Ness won't let me in the kitchen, and I'm hungry."

And just like that Martha's attention shifted, skimming right over Cali as she turned to set her hand on the young girl's head, a gentle smile flickering to life. "You know how Ness can be, baby. You know how she can be about food these days. I've packed sandwiches in the bag under my desk, you can go have one of those if you're hungry."

At that, the little girl cheered, leaning forward on her tip-toes to press a slobbery kiss against Martha's cheek. And then she turned, and Cali's breath caught in her throat, a subconscious whine tearing from her throat as she caught a glimpse of fine features and pale skin and dark hair and those eyes-

Those mournful, icy blue eyes-

God, they were Tommy's eyes.

This girl, this young, miracle girl. Everything about her looked like Tommy. She had his nose, his eyes, his hair. It was like looking at a memory.

"Tommy?" Cali whispered, barely more than a cracked sob, and half started towards the child.

The young girl frowned at her, adorably confused and breathtakingly innocent. "I've seen you on TV," she said, a little warily. "Your daddy was the bad man that took everyone away."

This was a young, impossibly young, Tommy that was accusing her right now.

Naomi stepped away from Martha's wheelchair, picking up the small girl and settling her in Martha's lap. "This is Gabriella," she introduced, voice hushed. "Gabby, sweetheart, this is Cali. She used to work here with us. Be nice, alright?"

("This is Gabriella-"

-"Gabriel," she whispered. "Because you're my little angel-")

"Okay," Gabby agreed sweetly, and turned to blink Tommy's eyes at Cali. "Hello Miss Cali. You look really pretty."

"I'm so sorry," Cali breathed desperately, to Martha and to Naomi and to that beautiful little girl clutching onto Martha just a shade too tightly. "I can't do this. I'm so sorry."

And then, like the shameful coward she'd just been accused of being, she spun on her heel and all but ran for the door, disappearing out into the daylight and leaving the ghosts of her past behind.

.                    .                   .

Oliver's head was swimming. Every flash of the cameras reminded him that his reactions were live, being eaten up by the wolves that inhabited this city. Every second he let the horror show on his face was another second someone could use against him later on. No matter that it was the natural human reaction to this situation, someone would find a way to twist, to use his expression to hurt his mom or Thea or him or his company.

But they were trying to kill his mother.

He knew - he knew - okay, that she had played a direct part in killing 503 people. He knew that he'd needed time to get over it too, that he had blamed her for a long time too. But back then...they'd had Walter back then. If they took his mom away, it would just be him and Thea, and he couldn't take care of her like he was supposed to. Killing Moira would be effectively killing their family too.

Thea trembled in the circle of his arms, wrapped in his embrace and feeling small, so small. She couldn't be without her mom yet. She couldn't...she was so strong, stronger than him, but in all the ways that mattered, she was still five years old and crying about being left behind.

So Oliver crammed everything down, into that pit where he buried everything else that threatened to break the mask he needed. It toppled into the blackness with a very real crack that he could feel reverberate throughout his whole sternum.

He and Thea were ushered outside the court room, Moira disappearing somewhere else with her lawyer, and Thea broke away with her phone already pressed to her ear. Calling Roy, presumably. Oliver was glad that she had him, all of his misgivings aside. Because Thea would need someone that wasn't her brother - because there was no way Oliver could commit one hundred percent of himself to her, and she needed someone who could.

Which was why it was kind of fitting that his phone rang the minute he had a moment to himself.

He was answering it before he could fully register the name flashing across his screen, and he could barely find his own voice to speak. "Cali?" He hummed, inhaling sharply through his nose when all he heard was unsteady breathing. "Cali? What's going on?"

"Did I ever tell you about Gabriel?" Cali asked, voice low and jagged. Oliver's throat kind of closed over a little bit at the question. He hadn't expected anything like this. "I mean, I'm not stupid, Oliver. I know that you know about him. But was it me that told you?"

"No," he said, quietly.

"No," Cali repeated, barely above a whisper. "No, of course I didn't."

Oliver knew about Gabriel, of course. Heard about him in passing from Tommy, from Thea, even from Moira. He'd seen the records in his research from when he'd first come back from the island. But he'd never asked her about him. Never mentioned the name. Played dumb whenever the name slipped into conversations. He hadn't been brave enough to challenge the vacant, faraway look Cali got in her eyes. Hadn't dared to dip his pinky into that ocean of pain lest it drag him the rest of the way in.

"I went to the library," Cali told him miserably. "I had to see what I- what Malcolm did to them."

"You should've called me." He would've told her not to go, or at least not to face it alone. Not with the stories Diggle had told him, the things he read about online. That place had saved a lot of people in the immediate panic after the quake. It hadn't come free.

Cali's laugh was little more than a rattling exhale. "You would've talked me out of it. And I needed- I just needed to know. If there was any way I could possibly make up for it all. If I could do anything for them. But I can't. I mean, Martha's in a wheelchair for fuck's sake. Nancy wasn't even there. I don't think I've ever seen the library without Nancy in it. I don't even know if she's dead. I didn't stick around to ask." Another one of those bitter, huffed, almost-laughs. "How selfish of me to not even ask."

And Oliver was powerless about a lot of things in his life at the moment, but this was a comfort he could afford to offer.

So he took a deep, deep breath, glanced over at Thea just once, and let that softness bleed through him. "Nancy is fine," he soothed. "She just stays home most days now. She adopts cats that lost their owners in the quakes. Naomi visits her regularly - brings her food and makes sure her house is fine. If something needs fixing, they call for Brendan. He's okay too, Guppy. He lost his mom, but he's been running a support group. They meet on Wednesdays. Martha sits in his role now. And Vanessa lives in the library almost full-time. She helped run the shelter while Martha was in hospital. Everyone is okay, Cali. Yes, some of them are missing little pieces of themselves, whether it be physically, emotionally, or mentally. But they're okay. You didn't do this to them."

For a lengthy pause, there was silence between them. It was like Cali had stopped breathing altogether, like she had disappeared on the other end of the call and left him with the heavy quiet.

But then, just as he was about to check that the call was actually still connected, Cali said, "How can you be sure?"

He smiled to himself, gentle and small and lovely. "Would I lie to you?"

Cali hummed. "About this? No. No, of course not." There was the slightest hesitation; long enough for Oliver to detangle the hidden dagger of truth in those pretty words. "I trust you to tell me the truth about the things that matter."

It was an admission that wandered that line between fact and fiction. It didn't quite call him a liar, but it wasn't crafted entirely out of honesty. Because Cali might think that she believed in him, believed that he would tell her the truth about the things that mattered, but they both knew that he was still lying about the island. That he'd lied about being the vigilante.

They both knew he'd lied that night he'd told her he didn't love her.

"There's a girl at the library," Cali said, changing the subject before they could both choke on their unspoken understanding. "I looked at her and I saw exactly what Gabriel would've looked like. She even had Tommy's eyes. And when Martha told me her name was Gabriella, I ran. I just had to run, Ollie. Like a damn coward."

"Not a coward. Just a survivor."

"Martha wanted me to look her in the eyes, to show her that I was better than my father, and I didn't even last ten minutes in the building before I bailed."

This edge that she insisted on lingering at... Oliver had let Cali claim many parts of him. Parts that nobody else would ever get to have. But no part of him that had her name on it knew how to stop her from tipping over. Not now. Not while he was juggling Felicity and Diggle and Thea and his mom and Isabel fucking Rochev.

Cali had many parts of him. But she didn't have all of him.

"One day," he said, watching Thea laugh at something Roy said on the phone before she hung up and simply grinned to herself for a moment. "One day, I hope you start to believe that who your father was doesn't dictate who you are."

"I know who I am-"

"I don't think you do, Cali." Oliver tilted his head as Thea glanced around to find him, her familiar eyes locking on him through the crowd. "Because I know who you are, and it doesn't match what you think of yourself. Because I know you're kind, and warm, and somehow, you manage to love everyone who hurts you. So you can call yourself a coward, and you can call yourself evil, and you can say that you don't deserve all the bright things in the world. But I'll know the truth."

Thea was battling her way over to him now, the slight flush to her cheeks the only proof of her earlier distress. She looked so much like Moira sometimes, in the slope of her jaw and the crinkle of her nose, but there were moments where he liked to imagine he could see a little of Cali in the set of her mouth and the gentle arch of her eyebrows.

"Cali," he said, gently. "I'll always know who you are."

She was quiet for a moment, just for a heartbeat, and then with infinite devotion, she said, "Go be with your sister, Oliver. I love you."

She ended the call softly, before there was any expectation for him to say it back.

Because he wasn't ready yet. He wasn't the version of himself that she deserved - the one with careful hands and unscathed palms, who could come home to her every night, who wasn't wound so tightly around this city that it was hard to see where he stopped and the blood-stained concrete started.

But the time would come when he could tell her. When he could find that tiny sliver inside him that knew peace. That knew kindness. The part of him that had once belonged to Slade, and then to Shado, and then to nobody.

But for now, Oliver slid his phone into his back pocket, reached for Thea just as she made it to his side, and drew her close enough that the caramel smell of her perfume stung his nose. "How's Roy?" He asked.

Thea shrugged, but the happy twist of her lips betrayed her. "He's doing good. He takes care of Verdant for me when I'm not there."

Oliver leaned down to press a kiss to the side of head. "Come on," he said. "Let's go say hi to him in person."

Thea stuck close to him as they pushed through the throng of people out to the car, but even once they were tucked away in the sanctuary of the backseat, she kept close enough that their arms touched. It shouldn't have meant so much, that touch, but it warmed Oliver right down to his bones.

As long as he had her, as long as he had Cali, he might just make it through this in one piece.

.                    .                   .

"Tell me about them," Slade said one night, his gruff voice surprisingly mellow and quiet in the face of the flickering fire stoked in front of them. Rain gently pinged against the metal cocoon around them, lending to the tranquil ambience of the night. The two of them, Slade and Oliver, were sprawled against the riff-raff they'd turned into a home, skin gently heated by the flames.

Oliver rolled his head to look at his friend. "Who?"

Slade didn't move his attention away from the fire, something wistful drifting across his scuffed features. "The people you have waiting for you at home. The ones you call for at night, sometimes."

Oliver winced at the reminder of his weak resolve. Slade had been trying to toughen him up, to prepare him for life here on the cursed piece of land, and they'd both thought it was working. Because Oliver was strong during the day. He could chew up and spit out that stupid, naive little boy he'd been when he'd first washed up here.

But when the sun went away and the stars came out and he settled down for sleep, that was when that boy came crawling back. His dreams were troubled - faded little flashes of faces he was almost starting to forget. Names that were tattooed into his very DNA.

"It's okay, kid," Slade murmured, perhaps reading Oliver's mind in that way of his. "I don't think less of you for it. It just reminds me what you have to lose."

"You have things to lose too," Oliver argued.

Slade's mouth pinched into a haggard smile, the kind that Oliver rarely saw. "Nah," Slade said. "Not really. My partner is already gone, kid. ASIS left me here. I don't got anybody who misses me." Finally, he flicked his gaze over to Oliver, who had fallen still at the unexpectedly fond look on the other man's face. "You're the only friend I got, Oliver. And I wanna get you home. So I want you to tell me about it, about the people you have waiting for you."

It's not the type of confession Oliver had ever thought he'd hear from Slade Wilson. He'd never in a thousand years dreamed of seeing this kind of vulnerability, this kind of affection from a man who'd threatened to kill him at least a dozen times when they'd first met.

And yet, he found himself opening his mouth, lulled by the fire and the rain and the unexpected sweetness Slade was offering him.

It came spilling out of him, all of it. From the parties with Tommy, to the relationship with Laurel, to his parents, to Thea, to Cali. To Sara, and the fact he'd killed her on that boat. To Malcolm, and the way he'd buried his love for his children with their mother.

He spoke for what felt like hours, until his throat was raw and every word cracked and hissed out his mouth, and then when he finally fell quiet and leaned in closer to the beckoning comfort of the fire, Slade made a soft sound and sighed wistfully.

"Ah, kid," he rasped, looking up at the roof with glimmering eyes that were as damp as the grass outside. "Sometimes I forget how much capacity you have for love. I hope this island doesn't take that from you before you get to understand what kind of power that gives you in this world."

"We're gonna get out of here, Slade," Oliver promised earnestly, moved by the unexpected emotion. "We're gonna get out of here, and I can show you Starling City, and then you can go home and learn how to love again."

Slade shook his head once, his smile growing just a little bit sadder. "Go to sleep, kid. I'll take the first watch tonight."

Oliver watched his friend for just a bit longer before obeying, tugging the ratty blanket he'd found over his shoulders as he slid down to properly lay on the ground, head cushioned by a rough sack he'd stuffed with his old clothes. He faced Slade, still not used to showing his back to someone who could stab him within seconds, and in those few seconds before he closed his eyes, he wondered how the rain had gotten inside the plane.

After all, that was the only logical explanation for the wetness on Slade's cheeks as he watched over the fire and Oliver; the little family the two of them had built for themselves in the midst of hell on Earth.

That night, when Oliver called out names in his sleep, Slade tucked them away in the little box in the back of his mind that kept the memory of Oliver's lilting voice, painting Slade a picture of a family that he would never be able to have for himself.

.                    .                   .

Cali wasn't sure that Felicity would show up.

Not just because of the time she'd had to spend helping Oliver track down Barton Mathis, the time she'd had to spend bringing Quinten and Laurel home safely, the time she'd had to spend covering their tracks and getting Oliver back home without any risk.

Not just because of that - but because they hadn't spoken in a long, long time. Because the last things that they'd said to each other had been said out of anger, and pain, and embarrassment, and frustration.

Cali was terrified - terrified - that Felicity wouldn't be able to forgive her this time. For the vial. For shutting it all away to protect herself and damn everyone else. For Michael. For punishing herself too harshly for something her father did. For throwing everything Felicity had done to keep her above water back in her face. For lying. For asking Felicity to lie. For stripping Felicity of the period of grieving she was owed, just because Cali couldn't hold herself together properly.

They hadn't spoken about it - about any of it.

But sometimes, in the very early morning when Cali couldn't sleep, she remembered the way that Felicity had helped her bathe in those days after the quake, when Tommy's loss had been the only thing Cali could think about. In those weeks after, when she cried herself sick every day over Janet, her beautiful waitress, and Checkers, who hadn't made it either.

Felicity had gotten her through those days. And Cali desperately hoped that whatever love had driven her to do those things was still buried there somewhere, under whatever reasonable fury and disgust she might be harbouring.

Oliver's words had shaken something loose in her. So she'd texted Felicity an address, and a time, and an 'I'm sorry', and then she'd waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Long into the night and then into the soft beginnings of dawn, Cali sat in the 24-hour cafe and waited. The elderly gentleman by the register with friendly eyes brought her coffees and wavered off her offers to pay, and cooked her some toast with marmalade when her stomach grumbled, and told her his name was Vien, and he hoped that she was okay after the loss of her brother.

Her throat tight, Cali could only nod at him.

And then, just as the sun was sleepily leaking over the horizon and spilling into the pink sky, the cafe door opened and the soft click of heels on tile made the hair on Cali's arm stand up.

"Detective Lance and Laurel are fine," Felicity said from behind her, and Cali whirled around in her seat to look desperately up at her, taking in the soft, supple dress and the beige coat and the perpetually crooked glasses. Felicity offered her a lopsided smile. "I mean, if you were worried about that - which you would be! Of course! I just mean, I didn't know if you knew about them, or-"

"Felicity," Cali interrupted easily, relief warming her from the inside out and subduing whatever anxieties had plagued those lonely hours with Vien. "I know. Thea texted me the link to the news article. Diggle let me know that Oliver got them out. Thank you for keeping them all safe."

Felicity's cheeks pinked just a little, and she scuttled into the vacant seat opposite Cali, shimmying out of her coat and immediately snatching the mostly full cup of coffee from in front of Cali's hands.

"Sorry," she muttered after downing most of the drink in one go. "It's been a really long night."

"After everything I've said and done," Cali said, "I figure the least I owe you is a lukewarm coffee."

"You owe me a lot more than a coffee, Cali."

It wasn't said with malice, or meanness, but Cali winced nonetheless. She should've done this so much sooner, once that vial had worn off. It shouldn't have taken a conversation with Oloiver to remind her that she owed a lot of people a lot of apologies. Tommy and Janet would've expected her to know what to do on her own, would've expected her to be the better person.

Then again, neither Tommy nor Janet would've ever expected her to do what she did. So perhaps she would've disappointed them anyway.

"After Tommy died," Cali started, voice tight as she very carefully didn't look Felicity in the eye, "It got very quiet. In my-In my heart. Like everything inside me kind of...stopped. And when I was in hospital after the quake, it wasn't until you took me home and put me in the bath that a little bit of noise got through. And you made me stay with you, for weeks. You made me food, and you washed my hair, and every single day that you made me get out of bed, a little bit more noise broke through."

"And then you left," Felicity said tiredly. "I just woke up one day, and you were gone. I thought you were in danger. I called Detective Lance because I thought-"

"I know."

"No, Cali, I don't think you do." Cali hadn't heard her friend sound quite this defeated before. It stung, much more than she thought it would. Felicity was always so...vibrant, so lively. Cali was responsible for dimming that light. "I was beside myself thinking you'd gone and killed yourself while I was sleeping."

She would've, is the thing. If John hadn't thought to check her apartment, if he hadn't found her with that gun on the table, if she'd been left there with only herself for company...

Well. Perhaps some kinds of hurt were best left unsaid.

And yet, Felicity had softened in that moment of remembering, like she'd seen Cali's regret spelled out across her face and forgiven her for it. "It's been a long night," Felicity said lowly, with some of that lovely sparkle that Cali held close to her heart. "I have no interest in holding grudges or losing friends. So maybe, if you'd like, you can meet me the next time Oliver is doing a shirtless workout, and we can totally check him out together."

Cali couldn't help the laugh that burst out of her, made entirely out of relief and gratitude. "First person to drool buys a round of drinks."

Felicity's smile was radiant and beautiful as she slid her hand over the table and offered her pinky. Cali linked their fingers wordlessly, caught up in the sheer magnetism of her friend.

They stayed there long into the day, and when they finally gathered themselves to go home and sleep, Vien offered her a wink and a brief kiss on the cheek.

"Friends like that are rare," he whispered to her while Felicity shrugged her coat on a few paces away. "Don't let her wander far beyond your reach."

"Don't worry," Cali replied, watching Felicity fondly. "I'm not letting her go anywhere."

.                    .                   .

Laurel stared down at her phone screen, cradled oh so tenderly in her scraped hands, and gnawed on her lip anxiously as she waited for a response to her text. It had been twenty minutes already without an answer, or a reaction, and the regret was unfurling in her stomach. The nurses had given her something to battle the nausea an hour ago, but it had never kicked in. She regretted not mentioning now that her stomach was churning with guilt and nerves mixed together.

Her father was dozing next to her. He was going to have a nasty wakeup call if she couldn't swallow this back.

She'd argued against staying here at all, but her father had insisted. Said something about trauma, about sleeping it off. He was just worried after her meltdown; she'd known even in the moment that the tears had condemned her to a terrible fate.

Or maybe she'd always be damned. Maybe that was why the universe had taken Tommy away from her. Had taken Oliver. And Sara. And in a way, her mom.

She really was destined to be alone.

The slightest vibration against her palm and her entire body went electric.

'I'm so sorry for Tommy,' was what she'd texted Cali. 'It's all my fault and I'm so sorry.'

And finally, after waiting for so long for forgiveness, Laurel opened Cali's response.

It was like the world cleaved in two beneath her.

Because in three words, Cali broke her heart.

'You should be.'

Laurel dropped her phone like it burned her skin, threw her head backwards into the pillow, and began to cry.

.                    .                   .

"It's not that I don't approve of you and Laurel," Cali said flatly, keeping her attention on her phone so she didn't accidentally feed into Tommy's anxious pacing. He hadn't been all that impressed with her reactions to his crisis thus far, and in true sibling fashion, she endeavoured to make it harder on him.

Tommy ran a hand through his hair. "But you don't think it's a good idea for us to be together."

Cali hummed low in her throat and clicked over to the next chapter in the book she was reading. "She makes you happy, Tommy. And that's all I want for you."

At that, his pacing slowed as he turned to face the couch she was curled up on. "Well, well," he teased. "Someone's getting emotional."

Cali rolled her eyes. "Piss off."

It was true, though. She hadn't seen Tommy smile the same since Oliver's boat went down. He'd been hurting, somewhere inside where even she couldn't reach but Laurel could. He laughed easier now, ate more, slept better. His skin, usually so prone to stress-induced acne, was clearer than it had been in a year. She was good for him. Good for him in a way that maybe she hadn't been for Oliver.

Cali had never not been jealous of Laurel Lance. But for the life of her, she couldn't find many faults in the relationship Laurel was building with Tommy.

"Just promise me you won't let her break your heart," Cali said jokingly.

Later - so, so much later - she crouched in front of his grave and wished that she'd made him promise not to let Laurel get him killed instead.

He'd always kept his promises, after all.