The Crying Question.

(Author's Note: This is for the "Canary Cry" day in Lauriver week. This is a S1 AU. Here, well, the particle accelerator explosion happens in Starling City right as Oliver goes to meet Laurel.)

8 Years Ago in Starling City…..

Laurel Lance was angry. As she saw the news footage telling her that her damnable boyfriend Oliver Queen was alive, and not consigned to an ocean-based hell, she was angry at him for having been the one who did survive. Her sister had gone on the boat with that CHILD, and she was the one who had drowned in the ocean instead of him.

Absentmindedly she noticed that it seemed like everyone else in CNRI was looking at her, so she wondered if her inner monologue of anger had bled out into actual speech. Looking around, then, she realized to her dawning horror that the reason everyone was staring at her was far worse than her mind-mouth filter had sprung a leak.

HE was here. Looking tall, with short blond hair and an expression that seemed broken, Oliver Queen stood in front of her with sorrow in his eyes.

She was still angry, though. Angry as she had a right to be for what he had done to her. Later, after everything that happened, she could find herself being amused by this. But in the moment, she felt anger coursing through her veins like molten steel. So, she stomped over to him and grabbed him by his collared shirt and literally dragged him outside of the building into an alley.

As they made it to the alley, though, she idly noticed people leaving over their cars and running into buildings. Turning to see what was going on Oliver tried to pick her up and take her back into the building, only to see Laurel shove him out of the way and begin to scream in his face about how he didn't get to touch her ever again.

Right then, however, Dinah Laurel Lance heard a boom and was sent flying into Oliver Queen before they both fell back-first against a dumpster. Before she passed out, though, she could have sworn she heard him say "I failed you once, and I won't do it again."

The next morning…

She had absolutely no idea where she was. As she woke up, Laurel Lance looked around and suddenly felt a lump in her throat that felt like there was another person in there somehow. Shaking that off, there was one thought in the front of her mind. She needed coffee. If she was going to figure out wherever in the holy hell she was, her mind needed to be awake.

Then she saw it. Sitting on a chair next to the cot she had been asleep on was a coffee cup, made to the exact order she always had whenever she had bought coffee for herself and…. OH SHIT.

Oliver. She was angry at him, sure, but he had saved her. She was sure, in her bones and soul, that she'd be dead right now if not for him.

Getting up, noting with no small amount of fear that SOMEONE had dressed her in what looked like a gray t-shirt that had Russian and Chinese writing on it and black sweatpants, she wandered around this open area looking for either a door or someone to explain what in the world was happening.

And then, like a vision, she saw him. Her ex-boyfriend, the man who saved her life. Only he wasn't like she remembered.

For one, he wasn't in the bag on cheap beer and chicken wings. Looking at him now, she thought he hadn't had beer or wings in five years. Oliver Queen was well put-together now, in a way he hadn't been before.

Secondly, he had a bow in his hands and was firing them into tennis balls from what looked like a rapid-fire cannon of some sort. What she knew about archery could fill a shot glass and have room left over, but this looked like somehow he had developed a tremendous set of skills.

Quickly, then, her mind worked on pulling the pieces of this situation together, aided by coffee. She was in an abandoned warehouse somewhere. Oliver Queen had taken her here, and Oliver Queen was an archer.

Could he be…. Trying to do something with those skills, and asking for her help?

But why would he be asking for her help? Didn't he know she still hated him?

In this moment, she knew what she had to do. The best part of having dated the man in front of her, who was currently firing arrows into tennis balls, is that she knew what he responded to.

"Oliver Jonas Queen!" she yelled, and then when she noticed something. Two things, actually.

She could literally SEE the soundwaves coming out of her mouth. That was new.

And then, after that was done, she glanced over at Ollie. He was crumpled on the floor, not hurt. He was having…. Was that a panic attack? Oh no. She might have been angry with him, but that wasn't an excuse for her to try and drive her into a panic.

As she went over to him, she realized she didn't hate him anymore. He had tried to save her life, at the cost of his own.

"Ollie. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you like that. Tell me about what this is, though. Can you do that for me?" begged Laurel, expericning a strange need to know that he's ok.

"While I was on that island, Laurel, I found a purpose. One day, I'll tell you how I found it. But for right now, I just… I need to save this city. But I can't do it, and lose myself. I need you. Ever since I could remember, you've always seen something better in me. DO you want to help?" asked Oliver, and in that moment, she knew she had a decision to make.

She could leave, forget she saw any of this, and work on that weird thing that happened when she yelled.

Or, she could stay and help Oliver do what he said he would try to do.

In the end, there wasn't even a question.

"Yes. Yes I want to help."

Laurel Lance had no idea what she was in for.

The next morning….

Laurel Lance woke up and noticed that Oliver Queen was perched on her windowsill, with a gym bag and an impossibly healthy-seeming breakfast in a plastic container. Shaking the sleep out of her eyes, and thanking god that she slept dressed this morning, she frowned when she realized that yesterday wasn't a nightmare.

Taking the breakfast, and grabbing a mug filled with green tea to go with it, Laurel rolled her eyes and simply said "What's first, drill sergeant?"

"Laurel, I didn't ask you to help to come around and be a drill sergeant. I had to deal with people like that, on the island, and I hated every last second of it. We're going to start with the basics. After you have breakfast, get showered and get dressed. We're heading on a little trip to see a friend of mine in Havenrock" Oliver said, with that slightly amused glint that both did THINGS to Laurel and made her worried for her health.

"Who is this friend? And did you sleep with her on the island?" she asked, more accusingly than she might have initially intended.

"Of course I didn't. Bringing Sara on that boat was, without question, the dumbest thing I ever did. I swore an oath to never touch anyone but you, ever again. Besides, I'm not her type. The person I'm bringing you to is how we'll deal with that scream you had" Oliver said, and Laurel could tell he had become something of a planner.

She liked that about him. Hell, she was finding she liked HIM again.

So she had breakfast, and they went.

When she got there, she embraced Dr. Eunji Pak of the Seoul branch of Queen Consolidated's applied sciences division and Laurel got to work.

And she screamed. She knocked down a pallet of wood, crushed the windows of a Honda Civic about 150 yards away, and broke several panes of glass.

After she broke that last pane of glass, before Oliver handed her a pitcher of iced tea with liberal amounts of honey in it, she did the only thing she could think of.

She leapt into his arms and hugged him. She had started on the road to understanding her cry, and she had Ollie back. Things were ok.