Arrow – Years In The Making

What if Oliver was alone on the island?

His mom and sister didn't understand. Tommy didn't understand.

He had recently returned to the land of the living, to Starling City, to being Oliver Queen, except he wasn't. He was a quiet shadow lurking just out of sight of those he once loved and cared for, and just like back on the island, he spent long stretches of time in silence, his own thoughts his only companions. In the beginning, he had talked to himself all the time, but as time passed and he realized just how alone on the island he was, he gradually stopped.

No wonder his voice sounded so rough, no wonder his family winced whenever he opened his mouth and heard the awful grunts that came about. Five years alone had made him into a lonely, skittish creature, and as much as he had gotten used to it, his loved ones had only mourned him for five years, not imagined what could have happened to him, all alone with no skills to sustain him.

They were trying, though. Wary and uncomprehending as they were, they were trying, for which Oliver– Whatever came back of Oliver Queen, was grateful.

Tommy wanted to act like nothing had changed, but Oliver was no longer comfortable under dim club lights, and alcohol burned his throat after five dry years. His sister had turned to drugs and partying in the aftermath of her dad and brother's deaths, and he couldn't blame her, he could hardly even get the courage to ask her not to do it. And Laurel was quietly furious at him, for cheating, for causing Sara's death, and he took it all. Why shouldn't he? It was his fault.

"Son, you can't just stay in this house, day in, day out, doing nothing" – his mom attempted, being as soothing as she possibly could. He had not reacted well to touch any of the times even a doctor did it, so she wisely kept her distance.

"What should I do?" – he questioned, still not completely used to talking to actual people.

"Maybe go into business with Tommy, he was talking about opening a club, wasn't he?"

"I don't know anything about business" – he said harshly, trying not to remember the reckless idiot Oliver had been. Moira looked at him with sad, regretful eyes.

"Oh, baby" – she had never been an emotional woman, but she had never had to care for a completely traumatized, near feral child either.

"Can I go back to school?" – he asked hesitantly, and she widened her eyes in surprise. Oliver had squandered his every chance at higher education, but after five years of no entertainment, he wanted to know more about what he'd missed out on, and what Oliver had never had the time for.

"Anything you want"

No smile came from him, but he'd only had trees and dirt to smile at until recently, so it was just the same.

It had been big news, the return of Oliver Queen, however him going back to school? Not so much after a week or two where he was nothing but boring, dutiful and a pariah. The teachers were all too happy to suck up to him, or to give him a break, with some eyeing him interest – a party boy lost in a lone island for years on end? He avoided them like the plague. His mom wanted him to talk to a shrink, and talking to a scholar about what it was like to curl up on the floor and nearly freeze to death during the winter before he learned how to warm himself–

No, he couldn't.

Thea started to warm up to him, sitting with him as he attempted to make head and tails of all the new technology being presented to him. She was kind, softly telling him how to do things, asking him about how his classes were going without expecting much in return, unlike their mom, who tried to be enthusiastic about it (but failing miserably, even as Walter tried to soothe her fears and frustrations).

"Do you want to go out tonight? Friday night, big brother" – she teased him about a month into the school year.

"Sorry, no" – she wasn't pushing him just yet, maybe because of the way he still tried to make himself small and invisible sometimes, maybe because he still slept on the floor of his room with barely a sheet to cover him. He wasn't himself yet, and he knew it got to his mom, his sister, Tommy.

The shrink was still off the table, though. He couldn't.

"Do you want to go to the movies then?" – she tried next, and when he made to shake his head, she continued on quickly – "Movie night in then? Ooh, we can get a projector, a big screen, huh? We can do a kind of drive–in movie night, invite Tommy, what do you think?"

"Sure" – he replied, though he didn't want to be in such close quarters to anyone. His sister's bright smile was what made him do it, because slowly but surely he was starting to care about making the people who loved him happy.

Thea made a spectacle of the whole thing, inviting Tommy, Laurel (who actually came), Moira, Walter, renting convertibles for them to curl up in, getting a projectionist and a huge screen to show a marathon of Oliver's old favorites, even a candy machine, fresh popcorn, sodas. He sat just a half arm away from Thea, trying to enjoy his treats, and in the end, he kind of did.

Whatever everyone was waiting for, the return of Oliver to true form, to being goofy, carefree, happy, never came to pass, and he didn't think it ever would. That person died a long time ago, and he was trying to build something new for himself, something just his own, something that didn't make him think about all the lone nights staring at the starry sky and desperately wishing he could go back home.

No, he went to school, he did well, he started hanging out with Thea, with Tommy, even Laurel, who, despite still being angry, seemed to accept that the Oliver she knew and loved had gone down with his sister on the Queen's Gambit, and the man who returned to Starling, who could only rarely smile, had suffered enough to have to keep receiving her scorn.

It was difficult, it was slow, but he slowly started to go back to accepting that he was no longer that stranger on the island, the ghost that haunted the Queen Mansion, he was Oliver Queen, and maybe it was finally okay to curl up in his bed because it wasn't going to be yanked away from him any time soon.

And if it were, he would be ready. Oliver had learned a thing or two in five years of lone survival, after all.