Oliver had a mission. Sometimes it wasn't enough. It didn't stop the feelings or the flashbacks. He pushed his body trying to give himself some sort of peace, but that didn't help either.

Fighting with Diggle seemed to ease some of the tightness in his chest by making his head hurt more. Oliver watched Diggle shake his head again and this time it just hit something in Oliver.

"I don't know. Okay?"

Diggle blinked, frowned, and cocked his head a tiny amount. "Know what, Oliver? Know that you are taking the stupidest risks when you don't need to?"

Oliver forced himself not to get up, not to just move and find safety. Peace and safety he hadn't had...wouldn't have again. "I'm...not talking about the risks."

Diggle rolled his eyes. "No, of course, you aren't. You think that you are, what, invincible?"

Oliver pulled his shirt off. He was too hot and it was too soft against his skin. He balled up the shirt and threw it across the room. "I'm not stupid, Diggs, and that's not what I meant."

Diggle frowned. "What did you mean?"

Oliver wanted to strip out of his pants, they were too...too something. He didn't have the right term for it. It just wasn't... "Diggs?" Oliver brushed his hands over his arms trying to make the rising feeling of insanity go away.

Diggle moved closer, but didn't touch him. "Oliver, where are you right now?"

Oliver bit his lip, trying to control his breathing. He had to breathe. He had to...Oliver fell to the floor and Diggs was right there trying to say something to him. It was just noise. He was hearing it, but not understanding.

With a sharp shake of his head, Oliver scrambled away before he could forget that Diggs was post-Island and attack him. Oliver didn't want to hurt him or anyone else in his life. He didn't want to talk about what had happened because no one...no one would understand.

"Oliver, I'm going to touch your arms."

Oliver blinked, trying to work out why Diggs was warning him. Then there were hot brands on him. Oliver bucked, trying to disloge them before they burnt him, and he ended up with more scars.

Diggle had thought they were just fighting. They did that a lot. It seemed to help Oliver to have a person to vent at, so Diggle made himself pick at things until Oliver could yell. This time, it was different. Oliver's expression had gone wooden far earlier in the fight than would be normal.

When Oliver had stripped his shirt off over his head, Diggle knew something was wrong with him. Oliver never used his body as a point or a distraction from a verbal argument. Diggle had been ready for a ill-thought out rant about Oliver's scars, when instead Oliver had just looked lost.

Oliver had started brushing his hands down his arms like he was trying to brush off dirt and Diggle's military training about PTSD popped into his head. Moving slowly, Diggle tried to get Oliver to look at him, but Oliver was lost in a flashback or panic attack. Maybe both at once.

Diggle tried to help Oliver focus on his breathing, but it didn't look like he was hearing him at all.

"Oliver, I'm going to touch your arms." Diggle moved deliberately slow and was barely touching Oliver's forearms when the man cried out like Diggle was killing him.

Oliver thrashed, trying to scramble away, yelling, tears staring to spill down his cheeks.

"Oliver!" Diggle caught him by the ankle and Oliver started begging under his breath, begging for mercy. Diggle pulled Oliver into a tight hug, clammy skin cold against his own hands, and held him tight as Oliver struggled. "I'm Diggle and I won't hurt you."

It took time, but Oliver's body finally sagged limply. Oliver was still panting, his breathing sounding harsh in the emptiness of the workspace.

Oliver's only saving grace was that he didn't come back to himself choking his mother this time. He rubbed his hand over his face and Diggle kept him in a tight embrace. "I'm fine."

Diggle snorted. "We both know when you are lying, sir."

"Still." Oliver tried to pull away, but Diggle wasn't letting go.

"Let me tell you a story."

"What? Like a bedtime story?" Oliver tried to make it sound as sarcastic as he could.

Diggle's arms tightened around him just a little. "Shut up and listen for a minute. There was this soldier and this soldier worked hard. They did their job, they...followed orders. After years in combat they went home. Only they were different and their homefront hadn't changed that much. The soldier felt unsafe everywhere because they knew, knew they could die any moment. That nothing was safe."

Oliver frowned.

Diggle's arms loosened. "They didn't want to touch people, but they did it with deliberate intent. They didn't want to eat because nothing tasted right, but they did it to keep from worrying everyone. They were trying too hard to be what everyone needed or wanted that they didn't give them self time to relearn these things without the reactions they had."

"Are we talking about you?'

"No. I can turn off my hyper-vigilance when I want. They couldn't. You can't."

Oliver blinked. "What happened to them?"

Diggle let Oliver go and moved away a few feet. "They survived. That's what soldiers do. Its the how that's the important part."

"Okay?"

"Even though they didn't want to, they talked. To someone, to a stuffed animal, to a damn wall, they talked about how they felt, about what happened to them to someone or something."

Oliver pushed himself to his feet. "I don't need to talk."

Diggle looked sad. "Yeah, you do." He gestured towards the box that held Oliver's bow. "You've got scars and things in your head that can hurt you. That do hurt you."

Oliver glared at his hands. "I can't talk."

Diggle came closer and gently touched Oliver's elbow. "Cry or scream if you can't talk yet, but you need a release that you aren't getting now. I know you aren't sleeping and food trips you up. I've watched you try to think through if you are going to have to touch people. You're losing the battle in your head, Oliver."

He glared at Diggle. "So, what? Are you going to try to sit on me until I tell you what happened? How stupid I was? How arrogant?"

Diggle shook his head. "I'm not going to sit on you. I'll listen. Even about how stupid or arrogant you think you were. I'll help you if you want."

Oliver frowned and hunched in on himself. "I just...I'm tired."

"Yeah, you are." Diggle's hand wasn't so hot this time when it touched him. "Come on, Oliver. Why don't we put down a few blankets on the floor and see if you can sleep. I'll keep watch if you want."

Oliver sank down on the spot of floor Diggle had maneuvered him to, it was warmer there due to the way the air currents moved in the warehouse. Diggle dropped blankets on him and unceremoniously wrapped Oliver in a couple of layers of blanket.

Diggle settled on a folded blanket, with his back to the wall he'd put them against. Oliver's head was just touching Diggle's outer thigh. Diggle watched Oliver as he finally started to warm back up from his shocky clamminess. "I fight with you to give you a safe place to vent."

Oliver's eyes stayed closed, but he pushed his head against Diggle's leg just a little. "I know."

Diggle mentally nodded and let his hand come to rest on Oliver's shoulder. "I thought you might."

Oliver's body settled as he relaxed slightly. "I should have died."

"You think that or are you repeating someone else's words about you?"

"Both."

Diggle's first thought was Thea and his next was Laurel. "Do you want to die?"

Oliver's head lolled and he looked up bewildered. "What?"

Diggle smiled and patted Oliver's shoulder. "Nevermind. Go back to trying to sleep."

"Sleep is dangerous." Oliver's words were loose and slurred slightly as he fell asleep.

"Yeah, it can be." Diggle kept watch.

Oliver snapped out of his dream, nightmare, or whatever he was going to label that one, to find himself wrapped in three blankets, while a bleary eyed Diggle was leaning against the wall keeping watch.

Diggle smiled at him. "Morning."

Oliver felt like he'd been asleep for days. "Morning." He sat up and frowned. "You didn't sleep?"

"I said I'd watch over you." Diggle dropped his head to the left and then to the right, his neck making a loud cracking sound. "I need to stand down soon."

Oliver scrambled up and pulled on a shirt. "You can stand down, Diggle. I'm fine."

Diggle smiled and then yawned. "You're better than you were, yes, sir."

Oliver smiled at him.

After seeing Diggle to his home and an actual bed, Oliver took one of the arrowheads with him as he went out of the mansion beyond the treeline at the back of the property to the huge tree he had liked to climb as a boy.

Oliver settled in the groove made by two of the roots of the tree. "I...uh, I used to talk to you." He leaned his head back against the tree, the smooth spot still there, even though he had to wiggle a little further down into the groove to get it under the back of his head since he was taller than the last time he'd come as a child.

"You were my unconditional listener and of all the things Diggle said last night there was one that's true. Nothing is ever safe."

Oliver walked himself through relaxing his legs and arms, focusing on the arrowhead in his hands. "I don't react. I have to think about how I'm going to react and it takes just a fraction of a second too long. That's long enough for the other person to know, even if it is at an instinctual level, that I didn't follow the unspoken rules of social interaction. It makes them uncomfortable and in turn makes me tense..."

Diggle watched over the next week as Oliver became more in the now with less flashback blankness. Oliver seemed not to need as much fighting to keep from exploding at his family. Diggle wasn't expecting Oliver to talk to him or explain or even say thank you. It just wasn't the way Oliver had been trained growing up.

Which meant that when Oliver sat down across from him to eat a lunch of burgers and fries, Diggle was not expecting what came out of of the man's mouth.

"I wanted to thank you for the advice...about talking." Oliver looked up from his hands, right at Diggle. "I'm not fine."

Diggle passed him the ranch dressing for his fries, the weird man with his weird tastebuds. "I know, but you'll get there."