A/N: There are depictions of unhealthy relationships and unhealthy mindsets in this chapter. Please use personal discretion when reading.

. . .

"Darling, you've been my greatest defeat

So hate me to death if you must"

KEATON HENSON - 'Prayer'

. . .

'Welcome home', the text read.

Two words. Two words sent from an unfamiliar number. That was all.

It was enough.

Oliver had typed and re-typed his response a million times or more, his questions tripping over each other and becoming an incomprehensible mess. He wasn't quite sure what he wanted to ask her - wasn't quite sure what questions she would even answer. If she would deign to answer at all.

He didn't know how she'd gotten his number, given that his phone had shattered in the Quake and he hadn't bothered to carry the old number over to his new phone. She'd probably gotten it from Felicity, maybe even Thea.

'I'm so sorry,' is what he ended up writing back, heart in his throat and fingers trembling just slightly. 'I'm so, so fucking sorry, Cali.'

The guards at Iron Heights had taken his phone away before he could check for a response, and he hated them for it, hated Malcolm for putting his mother here, hated himself for not stopping everything when he could've.

When Moira entered the room, stripped of her pretty dresses and her make up and her loose-curled hair, it took a moment for Oliver to recognise her as his mother, to place her in his memories. Prison had aged her, no matter how little time she'd spent there.

He couldn't bring himself to greet her with a hug, even when she hesitated a moment and watched him with cautious eyes. Shame was painted over every single one of her pores like greasy foundation, even as her smile warmed and relaxed in his presence.

"Hey," he said softly, and didn't stand up to offer her a hug. There would be no way of surviving the feel of her, not when the betrayal was still fresh.

"Hey," she said back, in the same quiet tone, taking the seat opposite him.

It was awkward - no wonder Thea hadn't wanted to come, not with this silent weight of expectation from her. "I'm sorry I didn't make it sooner," he managed, swallowing down the nastiness he'd kept locked away since she'd confessed on live television.

Moira was already shaking her head. "No, no, no. Please, Oliver. There are gonna be enough apologies with me apologising to you for the rest of my life."

Apologising for conspiring, for bowing to Malcolm, for getting Robert killed, for lying to him and to Thea and to Walter. Apologising for his grief, for Cali's grief, for the city's anger. Apologising for waiting so long to speak up.

But she had spoken up. "You don't have to," he told her, and somehow managed to make himself believe it. "You saved hundreds of lives."

"And killed hundreds more." Moira's tone was flat, matter-of-fact. Clearly, she'd spent her days thinking about the devastation and the decay and the death. Pain soaked her eyes. It made her hard to look at. "Including Tommy. And Janet Parker."

He couldn't bare to have a murderer for a mother, not when Tommy had condemned him for the same thing. "That was Malcolm," he said, because his mom had spoken up, had made that choice. It had redeemed her just enough - just enough for him to shoulder the rest of the blame instead

"Your sister doesn't see it that way. Nor, I believe, does Calissa."

"Cali lost her brother. Don't mistake her grief for her conviction."

Moira nodded once, sharply. Oliver knew that meant she didn't believe a word he said. "And, you know, my attorney is thrilled. If my own daughter can't forgive me, she's not too optimistic about twelve strangers in a jury box." She sounded bitter, and resigned, and some kind of misplaced hope that had hidden itself away in his chest flickered and died.

"Mom-" He started, only to cut himself off with a frustrated sigh.

But Moira was already brushing through onto another topic. "All right, enough of that. How has it been going at Queen Consolidated?"

Of all the topics to choose from, she chose that? How did she ever know about that? He'd been back in town for a measly few days - had only been in the QC building once. And given that Thea was seemingly allergic to coming to visit, there was nobody to bring the announcement to his mother.

His confusion must have shown on his face, because Moira huffed a little laugh and said, "Yes, we do get the news in here Oliver."

The media. "Right," he said, and felt a little more of that delicate, sunshine emotion he kept hidden behind his breastbone wither away.

"You know, if I'd known the key to you taking your rightful place at the company was its demise, I would have declared bankruptcy a year ago."

His 'rightful place' was on some spit of land a million miles away from this soul-sucking city, but there was no way for him to make her understand that without showing her the twisted thing that lived in the cage of his bones. "I don't know if I'll get to run it for long," he said instead, and when she gave him an expectant look, eyebrows raised, he explained, "Stellmoor. Their VP is coming after us hard."

Moira's expression clouded over, jaw tightening. "Isabel Rochev."

"Yes."

"Do not trust that woman, Oliver," Moira told him, as though he was stupid enough to let Isabel Rochev get her teeth around anything soft. "She is dangerous."

So was he - so was he.

He shifted, snorted out his next breath. "Well, Mom, everywhere I look, there are no good options." He was dangerous, but not for this. Not yet. Five years away from the city had taught him how to survive everything but the political spheres of civilisation. So he pried the next confession from the depths of his thrice-damned soul and offered it to the woman who had birthed him. "Mom, I don't know what to do."

And there was nothing but a mother's love in Moira's voice when she leaned forward and said, "You don't have to do it yourself. This is a family business."

He didn't really have that much family left was the problem.

A scoff, and Oliver leaned into that sharpness - that spite and acrimony - for his retort. "I love Thea," he said ruefully. "But I don't think that she wants anything to do with it."

"I wasn't talking about Thea."

But that only left...

Oh. Oh, well, that was certainly a bold choice to make. He would have to grovel, would have to try and push past the divide that Moira had carved. But he could - he would. It was the only reason he'd come back here.

"You're a smart boy," Moira said quietly, catching his eye. "I know you'll figure out how to get Walter on your side. Even though we...parted ways, he still thinks of you as family."

It chafed, a little bit, that knowledge that Walter still loved him like one of his own. Despite their fucked up family, despite the distance, despite half the city collapsing, despite Oliver failing again and again and again. Despite everything, Walter was still on his side.

"Speaking of family," Moira continued, and Oliver steeled himself for the volcanic eruption that would be their conversation about Thea, but instead, Moira breathed a different name. "How is Cali doing, Oliver? We get the news, but there's no more mention of her anymore. Is she safe? Is she, uh, coping?"

How did one cope with the loss of a sibling? The loss of a girlfriend? The loss of a father?

And he knew, in his heart, that Moira was barely asking out of love. Maybe, once upon a time, many years ago before Robert died, she had cared for Cali as one of her own. And then Malcolm. And the Undertaking. And all that love had dried up.

She was asking out of guilt. Because she had planned the Quake, had worked with Malcolm to achieve the very thing that killed Cali's entire family.

And it was that knowledge, that absolute certainty about her motives, that gave him the steel he needed to straighten his jacket and rise from the seat. "I'll talk to Walter," he promised. "Uh, I'm working on getting Thea here to see you. Thank you for meeting with me."

There was nothing but pain and resignation in Moira's eyes as she watched him prepare to leave. "I love you," she said. "I love you, and I am so, so sorry."

Oliver paused, considered her. She was a sad sight - a mere shadow of the woman he'd come to know. "It's not me you need to apologise to."

But she shook her head. "You have no idea how much it hurts me to hear you say that. You've always worn your heart on your sleeve, despite your best efforts. And I can see the cracks that I've caused. So if you don't think I need to apologise for that, I have done you a great disservice in the way that I raised you, as your mother."

"Bye Mom," he whispered, and took his leave.

He could feel the weight of her gaze on his back until he disappeared through the door and heard it slam closed behind him

. . .

The feather-light bones in her wrist shifted and ground together and sent sparks of white-hot agony racing up her arm. She wouldn't scream, not for this. For worse, maybe. But not for a too-tight grip, not for spittle flying from angry lips, not for Michael's red face and blind rage.

She'd dropped a plate. One of the ceramic ones she'd picked up from a thrift shop just down the road last week. It had cracked right down the middle when it hit the tiled floor, and she'd had a mere few seconds to stare blankly at it before he'd started shouting.

She'd dropped it because he'd slammed the door. But to tell him that would be to invite death.

She might not have cared, if Oliver hadn't come home a few days ago.

"You're not even listening to me," Michael snarled, shaking her roughly. "You're thinking about him again!"

"I'm not thinking about anything," she told him tiredly. "I already said I'm sorry."

Disgusted dripped down his expression, and he threw her hand away from him. "You're pathetic," he said. "I came to find you after they let me out - I came to take care of you, and love you, because you had nobody left. And this is how you thank me? I should've left you behind. Let you destroy yourself."

"Michael-"

"I saved you." His white teeth gleamed as he bared them at her, his entire face twisted into an ugly glare. "I saved you, you ungrateful bitch."

Cali lifted her chin, some of that weak fire threading through her veins. "That was your mistake," she said, as bitterly as she dared.

And for a moment, she saw him contemplate it. Hitting her hard enough to shut her up permanently. Nobody would know - not for a long time - not if he did it right. He could make her go away, could finally stake that ultimate claim. She saw it in his eyes as he considered the opportunity.

But his fists stayed by his side, and after another moment, he turned on his heel and left her there.

That smouldering fire inside her sputtered away into ash, and Cali sank back into that sickly sea of greyness that had filled her since the funerals.

It was as simple as picking up the two fragments of the plate and dropping them in the bin, and sweeping the floor for good measure. Then she went back to drying the dishes, ignoring the way her wrist screamed in pain, and then wiped down the bench. Dinner simmered on the stove top - a hearty tomato soup that used to be Michael's favourite. She hated the taste of it. But she didn't dare make something else for herself.

It wasn't until she'd run out of things to do that she sat herself down at the table with the first aid kit she kept tucked in the cupboard under the sink. It was a barren mess of mismatched items that she had found in the safe house and hidden away. Michael would be most upset if he found them, and he would take them away.

And she might not survive this place if he took them away.

Slowly, she eased out a small tin of an unnamed salve that she'd found helped to ease bruising. It had a handmade quality about it, and it smelled of nothing in particular, and it always seemed to be warm when she smoothed it on her skin.

Her phone buzzed on the table, screen lighting up with a text. She knew, without looking, who it was from.

She shouldn't have texted Oliver. She'd told herself that she wouldn't risk it - she'd told Felicity and Thea the same thing when they'd checked on her. But Michael hadn't been home, and she'd seen him on the news, and her heart had ached so fiercely for one breath-taking moment that she'd just had to say something.

It was a stupid idea, and she'd regretted the text immediately after she'd sent it.

She didn't want to see him, didn't want to talk to him. He'd left her alone, had walked away when she'd needed him. He hadn't gone to Janet's funeral with her, hadn't spoken about Tommy-

She took a deep breath. It would do her no good to have her thoughts stray so far away.

Her phone buzzed again - a phone call this time.

She wouldn't answer. Wouldn't give him that victory, that satisfaction of reducing her to that shaking, pathetic little thing she'd been before he'd abandoned her to a cold and cruel city. That girl who'd kept her ribcage bared, oozing and bleesing and vulnerable, because she'd believed in something as stupid as love. Because she'd been naive enough to think that the people closest to her were immune to death.

Tommy had died, and he'd taken that softness with him when he'd gone.

And yet, some fluttering, ash-soaked, half-alive thing buried far, far down inside her hollow sternum wanted.

Her hand crept across the table to her phone. And she pressed answer.

Crackling silence over the line, and then a quiet inhale, and then, "Cali?"

Something had changed during his time away, something in the way he had to chew on his words now - had to hold them in his mouth before spitting them out, as though he'd forgotten how to speak. How not to be some feral, snarling monster. How to be hers.

It was a stranger on the phone, so she spoke to him that way. "Who is this?"

A catch in his breathing, clear as a bell. And when he spoke again, he sounded wounded. "It's, uh, it's Oliver. How-How are you?"

She'd thought it might've hurt to hear his voice. To be reminded of him, and to think about him, and to see his face in her mind so clearly he might as well be in front of her. She'd thought hearing him say her name would burn her up inside, would send sparks catapulting out of her skin.

There was only a ringing, desolate emptiness. And, like always, she didn't try to fight it.

"What do you want?" She asked, voice dead. "I don't want to talk to you."

There was pain edging his next words. "I know. I know I'm supposed to keep my distance, and I'm sorry, but Thea's been taken. And-And I don't know what to do."

Thea's been taken.

-eld her tightly, rubbing soothing hands over her wet shoulders as Cali shook apart, right there on the bathroom tiles.

"He's gone," Cali sobbed hysterically, even as Felicity's soothing shushing rolled over her. "They took him from me. They took him. He's gone. Oh my god."

Because they'd taken her heart too, and buried it in the ground at Dolor Cemeta-

Cali was only very distantly aware of herself asking, "What happened?" Everything felt out of focus, surreal, like she'd torn part of her consciousness out of her body and was only watching life go by as some kind of useless spectator.

Oliver's voice was jagged. "Those fucking Hoods. The wannabe vigilantes. The reason John brought me back to the city." One of her ribs twinged with phantom pain at the admission. "They want me. The Oliver Queen version of me. I don't know what I've done." A cut-off breath and then, quieter, "Cali. Tell me what I'm supposed to do."

She shouldn't do this. She shouldn't allow this, shouldn't let him use her to get his own life in order. He shouldn't need to come crawling to her to do the one fucking thing he knew he had to do since he got back to this god-forsaken place.

But there was some part of her that settled at the familiarity - that had needed, for so long. Needed him to come back to her, to ask her what to do, to put that trust and blind faith back in her hands.

"You didn't come home for me," she said, voice rough. "So go downstairs, pick up that bow, put on your hood, and go get her back."

A heartbeat of quiet, where the two of them sat and breathed together. Then Oliver cleared his throat. "I'm sorry about Tommy. I'm sorry about Janet. I didn't know. And I'm sorry that I left you here. God, Cali - I'm just so sorry."

Finally, the tiniest tendril of torment threaded her up left forearm. "Goodbye, Oliver," she said into the phone, and she was hanging up before he had time to respond.

Her phone buzzed in her hands mere seconds later. And then again, after the first call went to voicemail. And then again and again and again until she turned the blasted thing off and just sat in the soundless room and waited for the shaking to pass.

And then she got up, carefully packed away her small medical kit, and went to bed, where Michael was waiting with open arms and a serpent smile.

. . .

He stared down at his phone for a long, long time before he found the strength to move. Felicity and John, politely pretending they hadn't been listening to his conversation, only turned to face him when he'd walked back over to the computer and taken up his place beside them.

"Where are we on the amputee?" He asked roughly, tucking his phone back into his pocket. HIs skin was prickling under the weight of their attention.

Felicity turned back to her computer and taped a few keys. John didn't look away from Oliver's face until she started speaking. "After cross checking race and age against people with surgical amputations, I found one Jeff Deveau. He's African American, late 30s."

"What else can you get on him?"

A few more clicks. "Ex-marine," Felicity reported.

John shifted his weight, leaning forward slightly to peer over her shoulder. "Would explain how he could handle himself. Did he lose his hand overseas?"

Somehow, Oliver knew what the answer was before Felicity shook her head. "No," she said, tone regretful. "In the earthquake. Says here he and his wife were trying to make it across the 52nd Street Bridge, but it collapsed. She didn't make it."

How many people had suffered because of his failures? It felt cataclysmic - the weight that had dropped on his shoulders since leaving the island again, the weight that kept increasing every time he learned just how much decay and destruction he'd let happen to his once proud and beautiful city. The wounds ran deep - maybe too deep - and he was starting to think that he would never be able to help it heal.

Just like he would never be able to help Cali heal.

God, the way she'd been on the phone... He'd done that to her. If he'd been quicker to get to Tommy, if he'd known about Janet, if he hadn't abandoned her here in the rubble while Starling tore her to shreds for having her father's name...

He'd done this to her. And now he had to live with that every second of every day.

"Phone records, please," he requested from Felicity, feeling slightly faint. This man, this angry man who had lost so much, had Thea. Had come for Oliver and taken his sister instead, and Cali had told him to get her back. "I wanna know who he's in contact with." He would rain fire down on all of them. And if they'd touched a hair on her head, he would make their deaths so much slower.

He was just evaluating the arrows tucked away in the glass case when Felicity gave him the information he was looking for. "He's made a lot of calls to a church in the Glades. Something called Standing Strong. It's a support group for those lost loved ones in the quake."

Would Cali be in one of those groups if the media hadn't forced her into hiding? Would Laurel-

No. He couldn't take the guilt of Laurel's grief right now. Not with Cali filling up so much of his thoughts that he barely knew how to be himself.

"Standing Strong is a great place to meet three other guys as angry as you are looking for a little payback," John said casually.

Without looking away from the arrows, Oliver said, "Get me an address please."

A moment of silence behind him, before the sound of Felicity standing up, and then the clicking of her heels across the floor. "You're gonna need this," she told him, and he spun to watch her open a large black case. "I had it custom made."

His eyes landed on the bow.

It was a beautiful thing, all wicked curves and sleek angles. It was a compound bow - clearly Felicity had gone for technological advantage rather than the raw aesthetic of a recurve. It would take a slight adjustment period until he got used to the different draw strength needed, the different weight distribution, the power difference.

He slipped shaking fingers around it and lifted it out of the case. It felt strong and sure in his hand, the grip supple, the string taut and ready.

But it wasn't the bow he'd brought from the island. Or the bow he'd gotten from his time outside the island. The callouses he'd worn into his palms from those bows now sat crooked against what Felicity had gotten him.

"How'd I do?" She asked quietly, unsure.

He tested the weight one more time. "It's perfect," he exhaled, because it was. It just wasn't what he was used to. But he couldn't fault Felicity for her optimism. Not when she'd stayed to pick up the pieces of everything he'd broken.

"You were right," Felicity continued. "Once I signed on, I stopped thinking about all the bodies you dropped. Because I knew that being the Hood meant, occasionally, being a killer." His attention turned to his suit, displayed proudly in another case, and she followed him over to it. "Maybe there's another way."

It was something Cali had mentioned to him once, long before he knew the horrors lying in wait for him. She'd said it nonchalantly, over milkshakes, and he'd made a small, noncommittal noise, and that had been that.

But he couldn't afford to have those doubts now.

"They have my sister," he murmured, dangerously smooth. "What other way is there?"

. . .

Hunting them was easy, really.

He didn't make the conscious decision not to kill them until he'd gotten Thea clear. Until one of them was dangling, was looking at him with such desperate defiance and saying to him, "I know you. You're a killer."

Just like Tommy used to tell him. Just like Felicity knew and John knew and Cali knew. The way that Moira was and Malcolm was.

Oliver was a killer.

"You write your own legacy," Cali had told him that day in some no-name little café. "You're upset that Tommy calls you murderer? Prove him wrong. You think you know what you're destined for? Ollie, you have all the power in the world. And one day, you're gonna have to make the choice that defines everything that comes after."

He hadn't been ready to believe her then. Hadn't been ready to believe her until he was pulling up that man, until he was tying them up behind Lance's car, until he admitted to trying a new way, until he was walking away without a drop of blood on his hands.

Until he could admit to himself that finally, finally, he'd walked away from a fight without losing a part of himself along the way.

It wasn't until he'd finished the long process of going back to Verdant and changing out of the suit, cleaning his arrows and tucking them and his bow away into their glass cases, shutting down their systems, and getting into the backseat of the car with John behind the wheel that he turned his thoughts back to Thea.

She'd looked unharmed when he'd told her to run, but he hadn't time to check for anything internal, and her hands had been bound so tightly, and they'd held a knife to her throat, and-

He was out of the car and hurrying to her before John had finished pulling to a stop. She was wrapped in a blanket, still in that stupidly impractical orange dress, eyes glazed with Roy by her side when she caught sight of him, and then she reached for him and he crashed into her much harder than he anticipated.

But she clutched him back just as tightly, and he rested his chin on her head as he held her as closely as he could, closing his eyes and taking the first deep breath of the night. Safe. She was safe, with no bandages on her, and no blood, and in his arms. He'd gotten to her in time. He'd saved her.

"Are you okay?" He demanded, pulling back to check her face.

She nodded, tears gathering, and yanked him back into a hug. "I'm fine," she breathed into his shoulder. "The Hood got me out. I'm okay."

"I'm so sorry." He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. "They wanted me, and I wasn't there, and then they took you and-"

Thea's laugh was mangled but genuine as she stood back and peered up at him. "Ollie, no. You're not allowed to blame yourself for this. You didn't kill their families. You didn't send them after me. They probably would've killed you quicker if they'd gotten you instead of me."

He managed a strained smile for her benefit before she leaned back into him. "As long as you're okay," he said.

She nodded against his chest. "I'm fine," she promised. "And... I think I'm going to go and see Mom tomorrow."

His jaw clenched, but he fought to keep the tension out of his shoulders. "Okay," he ground out. "Do you want me there with you?" Silently, he begged her to say no. Whatever Thea and Moira had going on was something he emphatically did not want to get caught up in.

Thea, thank the heavens, shook her head. "I think I want to see her on my own. I don't know if I forgive her yet."

"You don't owe her anything," he told her, even as he thought back to his own time with their mother. Seeing her like that, in the jumpsuit, her face completely stripped of her makeup and masks - it had been so, so hard to remember that she was a liar and a murderer. "I love you."

Thea's shoulders shook just slightly. "I love you too."

. . .

He opened the front door to the mansion and felt the yawning blanket of heaviness that came from the empty house. He wished that Thea had come home with him instead of going with Roy, wished that she hadn't abandoned this place after the press had come for Cali. He wished that she'd stayed and she'd fought with that spectacular strength she kept in her heart.

But she hadn't, and so nobody had been here for a long time.

A thin layer of dust coated most things - they'd had to lay off their staff after the quake, he'd been told. No more Raisa. He wondered how Andrew, their chief groundskeeper, had been after the quake. He had grandchildren living in the Glades.

Loosening his tie, Oliver collapsed on the dusty couch, ignoring the way his pants immediately collected the dirt, and pulled out his phone.

No missed calls. No text messages.

Just him and an empty house.

But nobody had ever accused him of being selfless before, so he opened up the text chain between him and Cali once more, and tapped out a message. 'I'm seeing Tommy tomorrow. Will you come with me? I want to see you.'

It wasn't everything he wanted to say, not even close, but it was all he could manage to put into words. Maybe tomorrow, if the sun came back out, he might find it inside of him to tell her every twisted, monstrous thing he kept hidden away inside his head.

Or maybe, he thought as he fell sideways onto that dirty couch and closed his eyes, he would see her coming and he would run away, like he always did.

When he did at last fall off that edge into sleep, it was with Cali's laugh in his ears and a picture of her misery seared into his eyelids.

. . .

The sun blazed happily overhead him as he knelt in the grass in front of the gravestone.

Tommy Merlyn.
Beloved brother.
Half of a whole heart.

The tang of grief was almost tangible, coating the soft underside of his tongue. It made his eyes water. Made his skin crawl. Made him feel so incredibly small. He could imagine Cali here in the days and weeks after the funeral, her body bowed over under the force of her overwhelming sadness. Her tears would water the fluffy grass around the stone. There were withered flowers from where someone had abandoned them.

Footsteps sounded behind him, hesitant and uncertain, and Oliver pushed himself to his feet, turning expectantly.

"I didn't mean to disturb you," Laurel said, one hand outstretched between them like she was trying to keep him away. "I was just... I come here a lot." She looked so pretty in her soft pink dress, her hair down. For a moment, Oliver looked at her, and felt the briefest flash of muted longing. "I can go."

He started for her. "No. It's... You don't have to." She wavered for a moment, and he remembered how things had been left between them, remembered the mess he'd made in those few days before everything had gone so wrong. "Look, what happened before the earthquake was a mistake. I love Cali. Our relationship is over, and I know that now. But I still need you in my life."

Laurel stared at him for another heartbeat before something snapped into place in her eyes and she made her way down to join him at Tommy's gravestone. "We've been through too much for it to be any other way," she said forgivingly, and slotted her hand into his.

Together, the two of them looked down at Tommy's name. "I feel like I betrayed him, too," he confessed lowly.

Laurel's posture straightened. "Before the Hood, we didn't have things like earthquake machines or copycat vigilantes-"

"Laurel." He couldn't stop the sharp edge to his voice, couldn't stop the way he was immediately defensive. He couldn't lose her down the same path that Tommy went down. "Malcolm killed Tommy."

But there was no mercy on her pretty face. "He was killed in the crossfire between two archers." Her tone was icy. Oliver was sure the crack in his heart was loud enough that everyone in the city heard it. "And now that Malcolm's dead, there's only one archer left. And I'm going to help my boss catch him."

And really, what could he say?

. . .

Cali watched them from the treeline, her hand pressed against her raw throat. She hadn't planned on coming, not after seeing that Thea was safe and sound thanks to the Hood. But Michael had left early today, had been in a good mood after the night they'd had together, and she'd read and re-read Oliver's message enough times that she'd asked Cassidy to drive her before she really even knew what she was doing.

Seeing him with Laurel, their hands clasped, reminded her why she shouldn't have left the safe house.

Because no matter how much Oliver claimed to need her, to care about her, there would always be another woman in line. In fact, she wouldn't be surprised if Felicity was on the list somewhere. The two of them had such chemistry that it set Cali's teeth on edge sometimes.

But jealousy took too much of her energy, so Cali chewed on her bottom lip and decided to cut her losses. If anything, the disappointment would work to dispel her of this ridiculous notion that Oliver could save her. From Michael, from a city that hated her, from the crippling silence where all her emotions used to sit. From that safe house and its bare walls and bland carpet and too-small kitchen.

She hadn't wanted Oliver because she'd known, deep down, that he would be the thing that would break her out of the cell she kept herself confined to, and she couldn't let that happen. Not yet. Not until she'd been punished enough for getting Janet and Tommy and half the damn Glades get murdered.

That was why she let Michael back into her life. Not because she loved him - but because the only thing she knew how to feel was pain. The only thing that could possibly ruin her more than the emptiness was rough sex with a hand around her throat, was someone else's hair on his jackets, was blows to the face and the chest and the stomach and legs, was the accusations spat at her every day and every night.

She'd wanted Oliver to come back for her. She'd wanted something to fight for, something that gave her the energy to stand up and walk out and live again.

Oh, he'd come back alright. He just hadn't come back for her.

She was almost back to the car when Oliver caught up to her, and she was reeling away from his touch before he'd managed to properly grab her arm.

"Woah!" He cried as she jerked violently, stumbling backwards until there was an arm's distance between them. His eyes were red, like he's been crying during his time by her brother's grave. It triggered no sympathy in her. "Cali, hey! It's me!"

"What do you want?" She snapped, hugging her arms close to her torso. Her hair was standing on end, her body tense. If he fought for her to stay here, with him, she wouldn't have the physical strength to stop him. But she sure as hell wouldn't make it easy.

Too late, she remembered the bruise around her neck, as Oliver's eyes settled on it and went ice-cold. His hands, once lax by his side, curled into fists. She cowed slightly, curling into herself and waiting for the blow.

"Who did that?" He growled, stepping forward, closer to her.

Cali took one step back to keep the distance between them. "It doesn't matter, Oliver. I shouldn't have come. It's risky for me to be out in public."

"Cali."

She shouldn't have come to see him. Not when he wasn't entirely off the island yet. Starling had kept him on edge, had facilitated the need for that snarling, rabid thing living inside him. He still needed some time to relax into his role here, to learn how to hold fragile things with gentle hands. Needed to learn her again. What to say. What not to do.

She raised her palms up, surrendering. "Please," she whispered. "Ollie, please."

He was a wrathful god incarnate, drawn up to his full height, nothing but frozen fury on his face as he stared her down. "Give me a name, Cali. I'll deal with whoever it is. You'll be safe again, I promise."

"You promise?" She repeated, disbelieving. "Oliver, you gave up any right to protect me the minute you abandoned this city. Abandoned me. Do you think people had any love for me after everything my father did? At least your mom is alive to catch some of the heat. My entire family is dead. I am left to shoulder the blame. And if that manifests in some bruises, so what?"

"So what?! Cali, you are being assaulted for something you didn't do!"

She should be getting angry, should be matching his temper, should be getting louder and louder alongside him. She should be fighting for herself, should be stronger than this.

But there was only that unending nothingness where her heart used to be.

So she dropped her hands, dropped her feeble defences, and said, "This isn't your fight anymore."

A flicker of something angry and haunted before that cold mask shattered into splinters, giving way to something tortured and pleading. "Cali-"

"Please let me leave."

It drew him up short, she could see it. It might've been that he hadn't expected her to back down, might've been that he was expecting her to be the same girl who hadn't been afraid to tell him to shove it. Or maybe it was the way she'd gone still, because being with Michael had taught her that it was worse if she ran.

Whatever it was, it had crushed something delicate in Oliver. His green eyes had gone glassy, his lips pulled down into a miserable grimace. "So this is it? You hate me now?"

She was already shaking her head, mouth twisting. "I don't hate you, Oliver. I just...don't think I love you anymore. Or I just don't feel anything for you anymore."

"Don't feel anything for me, or don't feel anything at all?"

The smile that stretched across her face was bland and lifeless. "You've always been too clever for your own good."

"I don't know," Oliver said humourlessly, matching her grin. "Sometimes I think I'm the stupidest man alive."

Her phone buzzed in the pocket of her jeans, and Cali reached for it without breaking eye contact with Oliver. She didn't trust him not to snatch her away as soon as she wasn't looking. "I didn't want to come see you," she told him, opening her phone on autopilot, still holding his gaze.

Oliver dipped his chin just once. "You can look away," he said gently. "You can trust me, Cali."

She couldn't, not anymore, but she glanced down at her phone anyway, scanning the text from Parker.

'Miss Cali, Michael is asking after you. He is quite incensed. I've contacted Cassidy, and he is awaiting your decision about whether you're coming home. I am prepared to remove your partner from the premises if you wish.'

Yeah, well, Parker had been against Michael from the beginning.

Cali tucked her phone away without a response, and glanced back up at Oliver. For a moment, she let herself take him in - handsome in all regards, with broad shoulders and large hands, a strong jaw. He was lean and mean, but she could also remember how it felt to have his fingers drag through her hair, how it felt to kiss him.

She had loved him so fiercely, once.

She almost mourned that she could not love him like that now.

"Cali," Oliver tried again. "Come home with me. Please. Just...let me get you out of whatever situation you're in. Don't make me lose you too."

And if he'd offered her this a month ago, she might've agreed. Might've let him be the knight in shining armour, let him carry her away from the bad man, let him solve all her problems that she had caused herself. Because she wanted to be saved, she wanted someone else to do the work for her.

She was tired. So tired. And it was easier to just let it happen than try and do it herself.

But she had let Michael back into her life. So she would be the one to suffer the consequences. She knew exactly what would happen when he'd found her at the mansion, knew exactly what would happen when she didn't tell anyone he was moving into the safe house with her. She knew exactly what would happen when she let him hit her again for the first time, even though he promised he wouldn't.

She had done this to herself. There was nobody else to blame. She'd wanted to hurt, and now she was hurting.

She would rather be thrice damned and bound to hell for eternity rather than confess to Oliver the shame of it all.

So she just looked down at the ground and managed a feeble, "I'm leaving now."

"Cali-"

"I'm leaving, Oliver. I'm sorry that I came here. It wasn't fair."

He reached for her. "No, please just let me-"

But she was already leaving, her strides long and hurried. Cassidy was parked a street over, she could make it in a few minutes if Oliver decided to give chase. She wasn't really sure if she wanted him to or not.

He made the decision for her, because when she looked back over her shoulder, he was still stood there, silhouetted against the sky.

As she slid into the back seat of Cassidy's car, the hollowness crept up from the pits of her ribcage and swallowed the rest of her stupid, foolish hope whole.

. . .

The meeting room they were sprawled in was overly bright and painted a stark white, and Oliver hated every goddamned inch of it. He'd been in an awful mood since seeing Cali - something that hadn't been missed by John or Felicity - and now he had to play nice with Isabel Rochev. It was something he might've enjoyed a little bit more, had he not watched Cali slip through his fingers like sand.

"You can't win this," Isabel purred. "I now own fifty percent of the stock. By tomorrow, I'll have the outstanding five percent and I will control your company." Satisfaction crept into her tone. "Any attempt to fight me will lead to litigation and leave you penniless. And trust me, poverty isn't as glamorous as Charles Dickens made it look."

'Come on,' she was saying. 'Play with me. We were having so much fun. Let's keep it going.'

Oliver faced her, pasting on an expression of mild curiosity and pleasantness. "What if I found someone to invest new equity capital?"

"A white knight?" The words were dripping with distaste and skepticism. Oliver made sure there was just enough 'dumb, spoiled, rich boy' showing to irritate her when he nodded. "With all due respect, your last name is now associated with mass murder. Even you don't have that good a friend."

"You're right," he conceded, and felt a little twinge of sick satisfaction at the look on her face. They were too alike - if he wasn't as tangled with Cali as he was, he might've taken her to bed, just to see if she used teeth. "I have family."

It was then that Walter entered, suit impeccable, and Oliver watched with delight as Isabel Rochev straightened and then stood, her body language positively screaming her outrage. "Mister Steele, it was my understanding that you had resigned as CEO."

"I did," Walter agreed cheerfully, making his way to Oliver's side. "I'm now chief financial officer of Starling National Bank. And my institution has committed rescue financing for Mister Queen. We bought out the remaining shares of Queen Consolidated when they were released this morning."

"I know I majored in dropping out," Oliver said, just to fuel the fire he could see building in her, "but I'm pretty sure that makes us partners going forward, so I guess we will be seeing a lot of each other."

Her smile was more of a baring of teeth, and there was a threat lingering in those soulless eyes of her. "You aren't at all what people say about you."

"Most people fail to see the real me."

Let it never be said he wasn't some cheesy moron, but it felt nice to score a win. Just one. And watching Isabel Rochev walk out the door without another word felt like a major win. It wasn't quite enough to lift his mood, but it had softened the blade of his temper much more than he'd expected.

He let out a breath and turned to the only father figure he had left. "Thank you, Walter," he said, offering a handshake.

Walter's palm was warm against his. "Thank you for reaching out to me. Whatever's happened between your mother and me, I'm gratified that you know you can still count on me." And oh, how Oliver wished that he'd had those years with Walter. Yes, Robert had been his dad, and Oliver loved him, but there was a warmth and honesty to Walter that brought peace to Oliver in a way he'd not really experienced.

"Your father would have been very proud of you, Oliver," Walter added softly, and Oliver could only beam at him as he scrambled desperately for the right words.

Words that Walter didn't wait for. Instead, he clapped Oliver on the shoulder and made for the door, stopping to greet Felicity with kindness before exiting completely.

Oliver collapsed into one of the seats, tilting his head back and sighing.

"You did it," Felicity said happily, moving over to him. "Not bad for someone who got a D in tenth grade algebra." Which...is something he never told her? His confusion must've shown, because she grinned as she sat down. "If it's online, I can find it."

He huffed a laugh, because this wonderful woman - who had kept Cali above water in his absence, who had come to Lian Yu just to bring him home, who had worked tirelessly with him both as the Hood and as Oliver Queen - she was still somehow by his side.

"Well, it was just like a good friend once told me," he said to her. "I had to find another way."

And it was that look between them, that look of hope and sadness and understanding, that reaffirmed his belief that he was doing the right thing.

Even if he feared he'd driven Cali too far away from him to bring her back again.

Even if he still wasn't sure if he could stop himself from going under too.