A/N: Short chapter for the holidays <3 Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays! I hope everyone is well, and heading into the new year with light hearts!

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"Oh (left my sweet soul)

I've got something in my throat (beneath the bedclothes)

I need to be alone (I'm not coming down)

While I suffer"

STARSAILOR - 'Way to Fall'

.                         .                      .

The problem was, of course, that she missed him.

It followed her from her dreams to her waking hours, trailed every breath until it was charring her lungs and blackening her veins. She missed Oliver, missed how easy it had been to love him, missed how much she'd wanted his touch, missed his smile and his laugh, missed him so fiercely that it almost outshone the pain of Tommy's death.

So when she opened her eyes to see his face staring back at her as they lay on their sides, facing each other amongst fluffy white pillows, she refused to acknowledge the dream, just so she could have him for a little while longer.

"Hi Ollie," she whispered to him, moving one hand to brush against his fringe. His eyelashes fluttered, brushing the sensitive skin at her wrist. "I've been waiting for you."

Gentle sunlight painted his skin golden and glistening, and his smile was sugar-sweet and sleepy as he watched her with soft green eyes. "Hey," he murmured back, leaning into her touch. "I'm sorry for how we left things at the cemetery."

Cali shook her head minutely, dropping her fingers to his stubbled cheek. "My fault," she said. "I shouldn't be angry at you for coming back."

Oliver tilted his face just slightly, using a free hand to capture her wrist, pressing a kiss to her palm. Everywhere they touched tingled pleasantly, and Cali sighed, relaxing further into the absurdly soft bed.

"Did you wait for me?" Oliver breathed against her hand, lips just barely ghosting over her skin. "Did you sit and wonder if I was ever coming home?"

"I waited for you every day," she answered - and it was a confession, ripping apart her tongue as though it were a razor, and blood fell from her mouth with every word. "For a month, I sat by Tommy's grave and I waited for you. To come back. To save me."

A single glittering tear fell from his crystalline eyes, mirroring the diamond tear on her own perfect cheek.

"You abandoned me," Cali whispered. "You left me in that cemetery. You left me alone, and I hate you for it. I hate you."

Oliver's smile was sad, like he was watching some beautiful fall from Heaven. "You could never hate me."

Her wrist was still cradled in his hand, her fingers lingering just above his mouth. Such gentleness for her, such reverence.

Such heart-breaking love.

"You left me," she wept.

"Don't you get it?" Oliver reached for her, pulled her against his warm chest and held her close, like a baby. "Don't you get it, Cali? It's Latin. It's always been in Latin."

Things were blurring, her eyes hurt - the pillows under her head were shifting just slightly so her neck was craned awkwardly. She kept her attention on Oliver, desperate and unwilling to let him go just yet.

"Latin for what?" She asked breathlessly, because everything was slipping away and she wasn't ready to let him go yet. "You're not making sense."

He held her so tenderly, like every touch was some heavenly reward. "Grief, Cali. It's Latin for grief."

When she opened her eyes, the bed was cold and she was alone.

.                         .                      .

She searched it up on the internet - went looking for the Latin translation. And then she lay there and stared at the result and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Gabriel, Tommy, Janet, Malcolm. All buried in that cemetery together. Her legacy sharing the same soil.

Dolor.

The Latin word for grief was dolor.

.                         .                      .

John was the one who found her with the gun on the table.

She didn't know why he'd chosen that night to come looking for her, didn't know who had tipped him off that she was doing this, but she hated him for it. Hated the way he went still as soon as he'd taken a step over the threshold into the room with her, his eyes locked on the weapon.

"What are you doing, Cali?" he asked carefully, voice going rough and deep like it did when he switched into his soldier-mode, as she liked to call it. "Why do you need the gun?"

She was so, so tired. "You know why, John," she said, quiet and subdued. "You know this wasn't going to end any other way."

There was nobody left. Felicity and John were working together to keep the Hood's cause going, Thea had Roy and her mom. Parker and Cassidy... they would find a way to move forward. She was the only by-product of a business deal, after all.

Everybody had somebody, except her. Because she'd just buried the three people who might've been able to hold her together, and the fourth had walked away. She was alone in a mansion that was too fucking big, and there was a gun on the table and she was so, so, so fucking tired.

"It's so quiet," she said, refusing to look at John. "And-And I don't know how to make people understand that." She hit at her chest with one shaking hand. "It's quiet. In here." She moved to tap on her head. "It's quiet in here."

John took a single step forward and Cali's hand dropped back to her lap. "Give me the gun, Cali."

"So quiet," she repeated hopelessly. "I've buried my baby boy, and my mom, and my dad, and my brother, and my Janet. I've buried Oliver once before. I'll bury him again soon enough. And it's just- It's so quiet."

"Cali," John said with rising urgency, chancing another step forward until he was almost flush with her. Something in his dark eyes were wild and unrestrained. Like he was looking at the gun and seeing something else. "Cali, let me take it."

She watched as he scooped up the weapon and tucked it away, and she didn't say anything else as he called Thea and then Felicity and then Parker, and she didn't resist when he tugged her out of the chair and led her out of the apartment and put her in the car and drove her to the Queen mansion, and she let Thea hug her and let Thea cry on her shoulder, and she let them put her to bed, and she pretended not to hear them talk in low tones about what to do with her - like she was a problem instead of a person. Because she'd lost family where they had lost friends.

She didn't care. She was tired, and it was quiet, and everyone she loved was dead.

She went looking for that ever-growing pit of greyness inside the yawning cavity of her chest, and fell into it without hesitation, and let it swallow her whole.

.                         .                      .

For a long time, the two of them just sat in silence and stared at each other.

Felicity's hair had gotten a bit shorter since Cali had last seen her, held up in a high ponytail by a hair band with pink baubles attached. Sometimes, if Felicity turned her head too fast, the baubles clinked together. She was dressed in a long, flowy brown skirt, paired with a simple black tank top. Her caramel coloured cardigan lay draped over the armrest of the chair she was lounging in.

Cali cleared her throat. "You look good," she said, nodding at her friend. A stupid, feeble attempt at wiping the frown off Felicity's face, but it was all she had left to offer.

Felicity shifted in her chair, one hand reaching up to tug anxiously at her ponytail. "You don't." A split second of panic across those pretty features. "Not that you're not good looking, I just mean that you look ill with your colouring and how thin you are and- oh god, not that's not- I mean, you look good considering that you're being beaten up all the time." Her eyes widened. "Not that I- Uh, I mean-"

"Flick." Cali quirked her lips in an attempt to smile reassuringly. "Hey. Slow down. Take a breath. Think your words before you say them."

But Felicity's words had already dried up, her attention already locked on Cali's left hand, where two broken fingers had been strapped together after being bent horrifically out of shape. Or maybe she was looking at the purple marks around her wrist, where she'd been gripped by an overly large hand and shaken.

"Felicity," Cali said quietly, trying to draw her attention away. "Why are you really here? Social visits haven't really been on the table lately."

Felicity's face crinkled. "Because of him," she retorted scornfully.

"We're not doing the judgement tour again, Flick."

They'd been down this road once, so long ago. The fight had been nasty, had resulted in shouting and crying and accusations. Felicity had stormed out, and they hadn't spoken since. Three days later, Felicity had brought Oliver home.

Cali didn't want to think about what that might mean - if Felicity might have brought back Oliver for her, if she'd done the only thing she could think of to give Cali back that tiny little piece of her heart.

Cali didn't want to think about it, because that kind of deep-souled friendship was too much for her bruised shoulders to take.

Felicity took a deep breath, crossing her legs and adjusting her skirt. "Right," she said, blowing out a breath. "Um, look, John and I have been wondering about you and Oliver. He didn't tell us much after seeing you but, uh..." She trailed off, looking a little dazed. "God, there's something about watching him beat through several of the training dummies that really just-"

"He begged me," Cali cut her off flatly, trying desperately not to picture Oliver, chest bare, sweat glistening, working out his rage and frustration and pain in what had to be a truly awe-inspiring display of male beauty. "He asked me to leave. To go and stay with him."

He didn't know about Michael - not yet. Couldn't. Or Cali would find Michael dead, with arrows in his chest, splayed proudly across their bed like some kind of fucked up present.

"Cali." Felicity's tone had gentled, some of its coolness melting away until Cali could hear the smallest thread of love. "The threats are dying down. Parker and Cassidy have been monitoring for any dangers, and they're not finding anything anymore. You're in more danger here, with him, then you are at home with Oliver and Thea."

Cali was already shaking her head. "Felicity. Please. Stop pushing this."

"Why don't you get it? Oliver's back - you don't need to be with this monster anymore!"

"I didn't get with Michael because Oliver left!" Cali snapped, stung. "Don't you get it? You know, this whole time, everyone's been assuming that Michael forced himself back into my life, but he didn't. He showed up one day, while I was still at the Queen mansion, and he asked me how I was doing and he made me dinner and he was-he was nice and he was familiar and-"

Felicity's voice had gone high and strangled. "You asked him to stay?!"

"I had just buried my entire family!" Cali shouted back, pushing out of her chair. Anger, hot and tight, squeezed her chest with a ferocity that startled her. Emotions had been slow to wake up in her since Tommy's death - like they'd frozen solid when the Glades had collapsed, and had only thawed enough to ooze over her bones like molasses.

Emboldened by the white hot tingling at the tips of her fingers, she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. "You have no right to judge me," she said to Felicity, and for the first time in months, her voice held firm. "You have no right to tell me what to do with my life, or who gets to be in it. Oliver walked away. I picked myself up and I found someone to help me cope."

Felicity also rose from her seat, expression twisted in upset. "You had us," she said, sounding suspiciously choked up. "You had me. You had Thea, and John, and Parker, and Cassidy. People who care about you, who want you to be safe. I was the one who helped you put yourself back together-"

"Well, you let me do it wrong." Cali's hands were trembling now, that fire inside her flickering and dying. That ugly grey blankness was circling her heart again, reaching for her with clawed fingers. "You did it wrong. Because I'm wrong. And-And being with Michael makes that feel normal, so that I-I don't have to think about it, because if I think about it, then I think about Tommy and how disappointed he'd be in me-"

"And I am so, so sorry that Malcolm took Tommy away from you," Felicity said, reaching for her cardigan and gathering her bag. "And I'm sorry, genuinely sorry, that you feel like we've somehow abandoned you throughout this, but I am tired of you justifying putting yourself through hell by blaming us. Blaming me for somehow failing you when I have done nothing but support you and love you."

It hurt - it hurt.

Everything about this hurt.

But that dark, empty nothingness had already engulfed her once more, so Cali turned away from one of the best friends she might ever have and she waved her hand carelessly.

"There's the door," she said, numb and cold and suddenly so very lonely. "Don't let it hit you on the way out."

There was a moment's hesitation, and then she heard Felicity scoff, heard her heels click on the floor, heard the door open and slam closed.

It was quiet, without Felicity. So quiet.

Tommy would be so fucking disappointed in her.

In her choices, in the way she insisted on keeping everyone at arms distance, in the way she'd gone crawling back to Michael without a fight, in the way that she insisted to herself that it was everybody's fault but hers that she was still stuck fast in her grief instead of moving forward.

Movement from the corner of her eye. A figure, stepping through a doorway from inside the house. She stiffened on instinct, arms wrapping around her own waist as she exhaled slowly though her nose.

"That sounded rough," Michael said, infinitely gentle and quiet. He was by her side in a blink, warm palms settling on her arms, rubbing up and down soothingly. "Hey, princess, talk to me."

-John made the sweeping motion again, eyes twinkling. 'Princess.' She'd just held a gun to her father, and he was naming her 'princess'-

Cali clenched her teeth, the words caught in her throat, and moved into his embrace, burying her face in his shoulder. His arms came up to encircle her, pulling her tight against him, and when he pressed a soft kiss to the side of her hair and whispered sweet and soothing nothings in her ear, she closed her eyes and let herself fall silently to pieces.

"You don't need them," Michael murmured. "They're just hurting you. You heard Felicity. You're a problem they need to solve so they can stop feeling guilty. I'm all you need, because I love you. I'm here for you, whatever you need."

The bruises that were branded into her skin ached and throbbed - a reminder of everything she was sacrificing.

Well.

It didn't much matter anyway. There would be no need to stop the world from burning down, no need to stop it shaking apart at the seams.

She didn't have many people left to lose.

.                         .                      .

There was a glint of something bloodthirsty in Sebastian Blood's eyes as they locked onto Oliver's, pinning him to the doorstep of the Glades Memorial Hospital. Blood's nose was flared, his cheeks rosy, his jaw clenched. His righteous anger was only inflamed by the media, by the signage, by the clamouring voices that overlapped each until they reached a deafening pitch.

"Oliver Queen, isn't it?" His voice was sharp, clear, accusing. This was not a man who would favour Oliver in any circumstances, nor would he ever pretend to. This was a man who would jaw a knife into his spine the second Oliver hinted that he might turn his back.

So Oliver drew back into himself - left that camera-ready pleasantness front and centre. "Alderman," he greeted politely.

"What brings you to Glades Memorial, Mister Queen?" There was only a smug kind of meanness in those pointed words. "I assume someone of your means can afford the best medical treatment money can buy. And I can assure you, you're not going to find that here."

Moira had caused most of this problem. The way Oliver figured it, if she hadn't associated herself with the destruction of half the Glades, his appearances would've been welcomed, not shunned. He would've been able to step forward, work collaboratively, instead of always being on the back step.

He was tired of being blamed for everyone's problems. He'd tried to save people. He was already serving penance for failing.

"That's wrong, sir," he said to Blood with forced calmness. "The people of the Glades have suffered too much not to have access to medical services."

Blood scoffed, breaking through the crowd to approach Oliver directly. A bold move that not many people dared to make. "Well that's very compassionate of you to say, although I wonder where your family's concern for its fellow citizens was when they ordered the construction of the earthquake machine that killed five hundred and three people." A cruel smile carved through his face. "Have you seen Calissa Merlyn since your return, Mister Queen? Have you condemned her? Because this city has. Just like it condemned you."

Oliver's fingers twitched towards a sheath of arrows that wasn't there, and it was only Diggle's grip on his wrist that kept him from swinging. From the way Blood was watching him, that detail hadn't gone unnoticed.

So Oliver bit back that venom and waited until Dig was pushing through the throng of people to make a path to the car before he said to Blood, voice low, "I will do everything in my power to atone for my family's culpability in this tragedy." He didn't bother waiting to cop the retort straight to his face, instead choosing to follow John.

"I'm sure the people of the Glades that I represent will sleep better knowing that!" Blood called to his retreating back, and Oliver paused, spinning on his heel. "If they still had a place to sleep. If their homes hadn't crumbled around them. If their stores and their businesses hadn't been condemned."

'Walk away,' Cali's voice breathed in his ear. 'Take it on the chin and just walk away, Ollie.'

So he did, forcing one step after another as the on-lookers and protestors spat barb after barb at him, as Blood yelled, "Spare us your mercy visits, Queen! You've done enough for this city already!"

The problem, he thought, was that they were right.

Glass rained down on him as someone broke the window. In the front seat, Diggle cursed and hit the gas, speeding them out of there with a sharp jolt.

"Are you okay?" Dig asked through gritted teeth as he gracefully got them back into mainstream traffic and aimed them towards the Queen Consolidated building. "None of that glass cut you?"

Oliver glanced at the broken window as the wind whistled past, carrying the sounds of car horns and birds and people going on with their lives. The city lived and breathed with these sounds. "I'm fine," he answered his friend. "I expected the animosity."

John snorted an unhappy laugh. "Right, of course. 'Animosity.' Oliver, these people - Sebastian Blood and his acolytes - they are so far past reason right now. You know that, right? I mean, these are the same people who threw bricks at Cali's apartment, and who sent your sister letters in the mail. These people are angry, and they want their blood debt paid."

"Did he threaten Thea or Cali directly? Not his followers - Blood, personally."

John's entire body was like a livewire - taut and volatile. "No," he said. "No. But he's the one who drags her name through the mud on TV. The things he says about her..."

Oliver didn't need to guess. He'd already pulled up some articles while John had been talking, and every headline and quote made his grip on his phone tighter and tighter until pain ricocheted down his wrist.

"There's a video on the Channel 7 website," John said, voice thin and furious. "You're not going to like it, but I think you should watch it. To understand exactly what kind of trouble you're dealing with."

Oliver was already clicking play on the pixelated, shaky recording.

"The Merlyn family is a virus!" Blood screamed from a stand a fair distance away, his face only just in focus. Whoever was recording had zoomed in as far as their device allowed, distorting the quality. "If we allow a trace of it to survive, it will infect us! The people of the Glades have already lost so much - if we allow Calissa Merlyn to go unpunished, what's to say that it won't happen again?! She's the only surviving Merlyn! Why are we allowing her to go free? Why should she escape the death penalty when the rest of us were ushered straight into death's arms?!"

The world tilted, just a little bit, and Oliver paused, glancing up at Diggle. "He wants the death penalty?"

Diggle kept his attention on the road, clutching the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were pale. "Keep watching."

"If the justice system has failed us, we have to take matters into our own hands! I say that we should be allowed to even the score! Why does Calissa Merlyn get to sit in her ivory tower? Why is she allowed to keep her hands clean? Is she afraid of getting dirt under her nails like the rest of us? Her family caused this!"

Oliver turned off his phone, disgusted, stomach roiling. Thea had told him that it had been bad, but he hadn't ever imagined that it would've been like this.

He said nothing, and Diggle said nothing, and Sebastian Blood's words hung between them as they arrived at Queen Consolidated, strolled into the building, got into the elevator, and arrived on the top floor, where Felicity was waiting for them.

"I quit," was the first thing she said as he stepped out of the elevator and headed for his office.

It took everything in him not to put his fist through the wall. "No you don't."

She followed him, heels clacking rapidly on the tiles. "Yes, I do. Not my old job in the IT Department, but my new job as your executive assistant. Which you think I am going to accept, but your thinking could not be more wrong in this matter."

Oliver stopped short and spun to face her, uncowed by the fire in her expression. "I need a Girl Wednesday."

"It's Friday, and the answer is no."

Once, just once, he wished that people would just obey without question. Five years away from Starling City had bred him a soldier's mentality - a 'shoot first, ask questions later' philosophy. But these people hadn't adopted the same thinking in his absence. He forgot, sometimes, that they were still soft and good and whole.

They weren't made for war, so Oliver took a moment to reign in his temper and gestured to the desk he'd set up for her. "These computers have been upgraded," he told her, a bit too loudly. It was testament to her own frustrations that she didn't shy away from him like she used to do when they didn't quite know each other yet. "They've got far more processing power than your typical secretary."

Still apparently unsatisfied, Felicity shadowed his steps as he re-entered his office space. "Did you know I went to M.I.T?" She barked. "Guess what I majored in - hint: not the secretarial arts!"

"Felicity!" He shouted, fed up and strung tight. In the wake of everything he'd discovered today - about Glades Memorial, about Blood's fear-mongering, about death threats and media unrest regarding Cali - her upset seemed juvenile. "We all need to have secret identities now! If I'm going to be Oliver Queen, CEO, then I can't very well travel down 18 floors every time you and I need to discuss how we spend our nights."

"And I love spending the night with you-"

If he'd been in a better headspace, Oliver might have laughed out loud at the way her cheeks flushed, a gentle pink hue creeping up her neck as she blew out a breath and quietly counted down from three.

"I worked very hard to get where I am," Felicity continued, steadily ignoring the blush that had draped itself across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. "It wasn't so I could fetch you coffee!"

Oliver flicked his eyes to Diggle, who was giving them both an amused grin, and pleaded silently for his friend to say something. Except John said nothing - not until Oliver had walked over to his own desk and settled himself in the padded chair, Felicity hovering like a rather agitated wasp.

It was only when Felicity inhaled to continue her tirade that Dig said, "Well, it could be worse." He glanced over at them, smile turning wry. "My secret identity is his black driver."

...Okay, maybe it was in poor taste, but Oliver needed him close. Close enough to kill, to protect. To hold him back from that line.

"Right now," Oliver said firmly, in an attempt to regain some semblance of control over the situation, "I need you to figure out how the hijackers are getting a line on the goods earmarked for Glades Memorial. If we know how they're picking their targets-"

"-We'll know when and where to stop them," Diggle finished, with a nod at Oliver.

A heartbeat passed where Felicity glanced between them, face pinched, before she acquiesced with a snarled, "Fine." She was halfway to the door when she stopped with an, "Oh!" The pleasant tilt to her lips was entirely fake when she asked, sickly sweet, "May I get you a cup of coffee?"

For a second, Oliver was tempted to take up the offer, and then he saw the way her shoulders were too tense, the lines in her forehead just a little bit too pronounced, and he let out a breath. "You're not actually offering to get me a cup of coffee, are you?"

Felicity snorted, stomping out of his office. "Yeah, nope," she tossed over her shoulder. "That won't be happening. Ever!"

Oliver dropped his head into his hands as Felicity very loudly and very obviously threw herself into her chair and logged onto her computer, muttering angrily to herself the whole time at a volume that suggested she wanted him to hear it.

And it was-

Look, he was trying. It seemed that every way he turned in this godforsaken city, there was some kind of blockade or challenge or problem. And he was doing his absolute best to face each situation with level-headed confidence, but his patience had never been his strong suit, and with Tommy dead and Malcolm dead and Moira going to trail for mass murder-

He was trying. And it might be selfish and spoiled and short-sighted, but he really wanted someone to just cut him some slack for a second.

"Give her time," Diggle said quietly, approaching Oliver's desk with the type of silent grace only a military man could hope to possess. "She'll come around to it. She's just upset about a lot of things right now, and you're an easy target."

Oliver glanced up at his friend, all at once feeling very small and unsure. "What if she's right to be angry? What if I'm making all the wrong moves?"

Dig assessed him for a moment, brown eyes warm and glittering. "The Oliver I knew before the earthquake never would've asked me that." There was a note of pride hidden in his voice. "The old Oliver would never have admitted he had doubts about his choices."

"The old Oliver died with Tommy," Oliver said, unable to help the catch in his throat as he tripped over the name. "I just- I just can't afford to keep making mistakes anymore, Diggle. Because my mistakes just keep getting people killed. I mean, look at Cali - I killed her entire family."

"You didn't kill Tommy, Oliver."

"I killed Malcolm. I shot an arrow through his chest. And I did that knowing that he was the father to two of the only people who loved me unconditionally." Oliver dropped his head back in his hands. "And now Felicity is mad at me, and Cali is trapped in some safe house somewhere, and I can't see her because only Felicity and Thea are allowed to visit. I mean, I've been back for a week and I've already-"

Diggle leaned forward, dropping his head down close to Oliver's and cutting him off with a murmur. "Cali and Felicity had a fight this morning. That's why she's pissed off. Not because of you." He flicked his gaze over to the girl in question, who was very conspicuously not looking at them and typing angrily on her keyboard. "Well," Diggle amended, "Not entirely because of you."

Oliver followed his line of sight. "A fight?" He repeated. "How bad?"

Diggle shook his head and straightened up, fixing his suit jacket to smooth away any lines he's creased into it. "I don't know, Felicity's been pretty tight lipped about it. But if I had to guess? It was a particularly nasty one. I haven't seen her like this before."

"And Cali? Do you know?"

John's expression turned sad, even as he kept his focus on Felicity. "It's been hard on all of us. We're all just coping the best that we can."

Pretty words - compassionate and understanding - but Oliver knew deflection when he saw it. It sat in the tension Diggle carried in his knuckles, in the way his jaw clenched once, twice whenever he said Cali's name. It was the way his face went a little distant when he talked about her.

Oliver sat forward. "You know something."

It wasn't a question.

But John was already drawing away, muscles tensed in preparation for his departure. "You're doing well, Oliver," he said as a farewell. "Keep going."

Keep going.

Oliver watched him walk out the door, watched him say something to Felicity, watched him disappear around the corner and leave him all alone in an office that was all at once far too large and too empty.

Keep going.

Right.

Oliver shook himself, turned on his computer, and got to work.

.                         .                      .

"Do you think he can hear us?" Cali wondered out loud, her head resting on her brother's shoulder as they lay side by side on a blanket in front of the two gravestones out behind the Queen mansion. The sun was out in full force, bright beams reaching down and warming their skin.

Tommy hummed thoughtfully, eyes closed against the brightness of the day. He'd never been one for cloud-spotting. "I think he'd be bored out of his mind, if he could."

"Yeah." Cali tracked a particularly fluffy white cloud across the sky with her eyes, squinting against the sun. "You're probably right."

"I usually am."

She nudged him playfully, ignoring his yelp and his attempt to squirm away from her. It wasn't the first time they'd sprawled out in front of Oliver's grave, and it wasn't the first time she'd wondered if there might be some chance of Oliver hearing them from the afterlife - some way of him knowing that they came to see him all the time, that they hadn't forgotten him.

She'd asked the question before. Tommy had answered almost exactly the same way. And she knew that if she asked again next time, he would humour her once more.

They all coped differently, after all.

"I hope he found peace," she sighed, finally closing her eyes and settling in for a small nap. "I hope they all did. And I hope that wherever he is, he can feel that we love him still."

Tommy shifted against her, using one hand to adjust her to a more comfortable position. She always tended to fall asleep at an angle that hurt her neck. "I hope he's proud of us," he said in a rare moment of sincerity. "I hope he knows that we're proud of him too."

A breeze picked up some dust particles, dragging them across Cali's arm in a delightful tickle, and she smiled, even as she burrowed into Tommy's side. Sometimes, if she closed her eyes and tried really hard, she could imagine that those phantom sensations were from Oliver's fingers, where he was reaching for her or standing nearby. Sometimes she thought she could hear his voice in the trees, a perfect imitation by the rustling leaves.

It was why the two of them came here so often, even now that Thea had decided that it was too much to come back. Because in the quiet moments, when the two of them stopped trying to be anything but themselves, that they found Oliver in the world around them.

"Do you think Mom can hear us?" Cali whispered.

"I think she can," Tommy whispered back. "I think she's proud of us too."

"I miss her."

His hand wandered up to rest gently against her head, fingers twirling in the strands of her hair. "I know, bub," he said oh so softly. "I miss her too."

When Cali drifted into the gentle embrace of sleep, Oliver was waiting for her, and he swept her into a dance that lasted until Tommy woke her, hours later.