The reunion with Laurel went exactly how I expected it to.

I wore one of Oliver's sweatshirts I had pulled from his closet when I rolled out of his bed this morning, threw my hair in a braid, and pulled on a pair of jeans.

We had promised Tommy we'd stop by the party venue to help plan out the decorations, guest list, and food and drinks to be offered. Tommy was off talking with someone about the drinks at the bar, and Oliver with the caterers.

There were boxes from Amazon with all the décor items in piles by the doors. The people who worked at the building- I couldn't remember what this place was even called- were pulling out the carts stacked with chairs and a few tables to line the walls for seating other than the bar.

It was a big deal.

Laurel had been invited, by Tommy, without telling either Oliver or me. Any drama that was to come from her, I decided, would be his fault. And I'd tell him so.

Laurel and I were like fire and water. Where one tended to excel at something, the other, at something the polar opposite. Laurel was pretty, and she had a fierce, unwavering boldness and an inability to sit in silence to her that conflicted with my quiet. I never cared about saying much to her in return to her insults towards me: Laurel Lance favored the last word, and I refused to indulge her.

Then again, that was the old me.

Apparently, Laurel lives in a fabulous apartment in Star City now, and works at a law firm in the Glades, which, apparently, means she knows more about the area that I, who's lived there all my life, does. Typical Laurel Lance audacity, is what I call that.

She was already insufferable, and I had only been in her presence for 10 minutes after five whole years.

We met in middle school at the same time we met Oliver and Tommy, and it was like we were meant to be enemies. To her, everything was a competition, and I was never her favorite person in the group.

But now? I left five years ago with her man and her sister, and came back without her sister and with Oliver. Her reasons to hate me basically tripled in an instant, and as much as I loved Oliver, I wanted to strangle him for choosing to kiss my cheek when we welcomed Laurel earlier. Wearing his sweatshirt only served to make Laurel's eye twitch more.

And the guys decided to sit her at a table with me for this Welcome Home Bash planning. I hadn't spoken a word to her, considering the first thing out of her mouth to me was, "Why is she here?"

I sat in uncomfortable silence typing up and adding emails to a list to send out the invitations to, most of the names I didn't recognize, but I did recognize the names of my friends and some of our school and college friends.

"Mia? Can I ask you something?" Laurel asked stiffly from across from me.

I looked up from the laptop to find her staring at me intensely, and I met her eyes squarely.

"Of course," I replied, smiling a little, and picked up my iced mocha to take a sip. "How can I help you?"

Laurel glanced back at Oliver and Tommy before looking back at me at me. Her hands were fiddling with the stamp she was holding that was for the thank you's we'd hand out to everyone there. They were already typed out and printed, ready to just be handed to people as they left, and contained my and Oliver's signatures. We had spent about three hours doing that, and Laurel was stamping a flower on the back of each one to make them fancier, I guess.

She sighed, then asked, "Did you know Sara was on the boat with Oliver? That she was going with you? And don't lie about this. I know you've been lying about other things lately, and I need honesty from you now."

I stopped typing, dropping my hands into my lap, feeling a tightness form in my chest. I didn't need to pretend that Laurel Lance made me anxious, that was for certain. I considered for a long time what to say to her, and if she even deserved the truth at this point, with her accusations and attitude towards me all day.

I settled on no. But, I could provide some truth.

"No. I didn't know she was there at all because she didn't leave the room. Oliver's room. She stayed in there hiding or some shit, until I caught her but I wasn't supposed to, I guess. She got mad I saw her," I replied, and when I saw her glaring at me, I continued, "I called her and Oliver out for cheating on you, you should know. Their actions weren't acceptable."

She looked away from me, considering my words, and nodded her head. She ran a hand through her hair, seeming to be wrestling with herself for a moment, then finally asked, "Do you realize how much it hurt me? To lose my sister like that? And to come to find out that you watched it happen, and did nothing? And then you come home with Oliver yourself?"

I clenched my fists in my lap and resisted rolling my eyes. "Yes, Laurel. I can completely understand that. What is your point in asking me all this?"

"Then why didn't you do something? You could have called me, you could have done something, Mia." She waved a hand exasperatedly.

"Laurel, I didn't know she was there until three days into the trip. I get you're mad, but it's not like I caused the ship to explode."

She glared at me. She was wrong, but admitting she was wrong isn't in her vocabulary.

"You've always acted like you're better than us, Mia. You never went and did the things we did, and yet you were friends with Oliver and Tommy. You're part of the problem."

"And what problem is that, Laurel?" I asked calmly, my eyes flicking up to meet hers as I shuffled some papers on the table and tried to go back to typing up the emails.

"That you're a prude, and because Sara and I weren't, you believe that you're better than us," Laurel hissed.

I raised an eyebrow, resisting the urge to laugh. "So... Wait. Let me get this straight. You are telling me that you're mad at me because I've never been in a relationship before Oliver? That's fucking insane, you realize that, right?"

"So you admit it, then? That you and Oliver did come back together."

I sighed heavily, rubbing at my eyes before moving my hands back to the laptop. "Laurel, if you're only here at this table to grill me about my lack of relationship experience, I suggest fucking off to plan the alcohol for the evening with Tommy. Like you're supposed to be doing. But apparently stamping a flower on envelopes and blaming me for things that happened to me is more of a priority for you."

She clenched her fists. "Mia, you don't get it! It's your fault- it's Oliver's fault- that Sara is dead! And that I am still here, stuck to deal with the life you both shattered for me and my dad. You just had to go and do your little experiments for your stupid degree. If it weren't for you, Sara would be alive and I'd still be with Oliver."

Her words stung, and I couldn't pretend they didn't. It wasn't my fault- I knew that- but, strangely, I could empathize with how she felt and viewed the situation.

I closed the laptop and closed my eyes, letting out a slow breath before saying, "Blaming me for your sister's choice is easier for you, isn't it? You're mad that your sister of all people decided to screw your boyfriend, and because I'm the odd one out, I'm an easy target. Totally get that. But it doesn't make you valid."

She blinked. "Mia-"

"I'm not finished," I snapped. "You wanted honesty, Laurel? The ship exploded inwards. I was dragged out to sea, and so was Sara. I almost drowned. Three times. Oliver watched her get sucked away and under the ship, and she never surfaced. We looked for her for days. She was gone with all the other crew members, but strangely, you're the only family member blaming the survivors for their deaths. How are we supposed to react to an explosion that happened without any of knowing it would? Your expectations on us are way out of line. Sara could have also, I don't know, chosen to not want to go for Oliver, but she did. I am not at fault for her choice to betray you like that. And it was a mistake. A mistake Oliver has to live with way more than you do. So shut the fuck up."

She glared at me, her eyes filling with tears. "Even so, you're with Oliver now, and that makes you just as much at fault for him cheating as Sara. You have to know how that feels to me, Mia. To see you all leave as my friend and boyfriend, only to find out my sister went with you both to be with Oliver, and then you come back with Oliver and you two are together and my sister is dead."

I had never seen Laurel Lance so angry before, and I felt my heart beginning to chest faster in my chest. I took another sip of coffee, attempting to hold onto some semblance of decorum as I met her eyes.

Oliver had turned to look back at us, a frown on his face, and his eyes met mine from across the room. He angled himself in his conversation with the man for the catering to watch us closely.

"We always knew it would happen. You and Oliver," she said quietly.

I began to pick at a hangnail on my thumb anxiously. I couldn't figure out what to say to her that I hadn't already said. I wasn't in the mood to fight with her, but it was too late now.

"It wasn't supposed to happen that way, Laurel," I said softly, forcing the tremble out of my lips as my thumb began to bleed and I pressed my other thumb onto it. "But you can't blame me for a choice Sara and Oliver willingly made. It's not my fault, and I can't apologize for something that had nothing to do with me. I don't know how many times I can say that to you."

She rolled her eyes, leaning back in her chair. Her eyes scanned my face, searching for one final dig at me until she found one. "Of course you wouldn't understand, Mia. Oliver is your first, isn't he?"

I felt my hands begin to shake. "Laurel..." I warned.

"Honestly, Mia. Have some respect, if not for me for yourself. You and Oliver came back and all you've done is lie to me, to Tommy, to your families, to me. I hope you enjoy my leftovers. It's all you're good for," she snarled the last bit in my face, slamming her palms on the table as she stood, the chair screeching across the floor loudly, and I flinched away from her, my whole body tensing up immediately.

She paused, staring at me in surprise as my hands began to shake, my body going into freeze mode. My heart was pounding faster now as flashes of that tent went through my mind and I lifted my hands to cover my face, my shoulders beginning to shake. She merely picked up her bag and left, the voices of Tommy calling after her muffled in the background.

My vision was going blurry, I realized with tears, and I felt it beginning to get hard to breathe. I moved a hand to cover my mouth, and I registered movement to my left, and I stiffened. I looked to see Oliver kneeling next to me, his eyes searching mine, and he only held his arms out to me.

I forced my body to obey me, and managed to lean forward, slumping against him, and his arms moved around me securely, holding onto me as he whispered that it was ok and that he was there. That he had me.

Slowly, I sat up, and Oliver's hands moved to my arms to support me and I lifted my hands to my eyes, wiping away at the tears as they fell down my cheeks, and rested my forehead against his.

"Mia? What happened?" Oliver asked softly.

I glanced over at Tommy, who was talking with Laurel in angry, hushed voices, then said, "Laurel... she is angry and hurt I'm here instead of Sara and that..." I met Oliver's eyes. "That you and I are..." I couldn't finish it, my eyes glistening with tears.

I shook my head, my fingers knotting into my hair. "I... I need to take a walk," I said finally, and stood. Oliver stood with me and I stood on my toes to kiss his cheek before picking up my jacket and leaving the room, shoving past Tommy as he tried to stop me and failed.

******

***On the Island***

I sat on a log stump, rubbing the salve Slade had made for me into the wounds on my wrists and forearms, shifting uncomfortably, the movement causing pain to flare through my hips and wherever I had healing cuts. He was sitting at the fire across from me, stirring something around in a pot- a lemur, I guess. I was trying not to think about it being an actual lemur and that it was just chicken or something else.

I hadn't touched the bowl of lemur stew he had set next to me before returning to his spot a few feet away from me to eat his own breakfast. It had been a week since he rescued me from the camp, and a week later still that I was in pain. He had made it a point to constantly keep distance between us, and never made contact with me, and I was grateful, because if he did, I would probably kill him.

I began picking at a scab on my thumb before asking blankly, "Why are you helping me?"

He released a sigh, then said, "As I've told you several times already, I hate that bastard, and what happened..." he drifted off, his eyebrows drawing together in anger. "What happened to you is not right."

"That doesn't answer my question, you know," I said blankly, staring at him.

He looked up and met my eyes squarely. "What do you want to hear, Maria? Can't someone just want to help?"

"Evidently not on this island," I replied, narrowing my eyes. "I assumed I could trust any people that I did find in this hellhole, that they'd help me when I watched my best friend get shot and watched other people die in front of me. I thought maybe human decency existed out here, too. I guess not. So no, I don't trust anymore that anyone here just wants to help out of the kindness of their hearts."

He nodded slowly. "I'll give you that," he said finally. "The only difference to me and them is that I've been fighting them since before you arrived. I've been trying to stop them from starting a war, sneaking into their camp to get an idea of what they're planning, and to stop them. I heard screaming. I... know how Wintergreen tortured his female victims, and I.. I had to stop it. But I was too late, and for that, I don't think I could ever apologize enough."

I clenched my jaw, wiping the blood from my picked scab onto my pants. "I used to get teased for being a virgin," I said softly. "I hated it. I used to hate it. I'd give anything for that teasing back."

"Hey, you look at me," he said severely and I looked up to meet his eyes, tensing slightly. He released a steady breath, then said more gently, "You are not tarnished after that. You are still you. Now stand up."

He stood and I frowned, and he took a step towards me and offered me a hand. I hesitated, then took it, and he pulled me to my feet, his brown eyes gazing into mine.

"If you don't trust me fully yet, trust yourself, Maria," he said earnestly, looking into my eyes. "You're not much younger than I am, and look at you, overcoming greater odds than I ever did. That man does not own you. He does not have a say over you. He has nothing. He is nothing. Do not give him anything but this knife in his throat."

He pulled a dagger with a serrated edge from his belt and handed it to me, the handle facing me.

I swallowed hard and took it. "And what if all that's easier said than done, Slade?"

He nodded. "It always is easier said than done, Maria. It's up to you to prove them wrong, and do it yourself. No one owns you other than yourself. No one can determine for you what you can or cannot do. So you take that dagger and you throw it at that target until you never miss the bullseye."

I stared between him and the strange looking dummy dressed as one of Fyre's soldiers, stuffed with hay. There was a drawn on target on the chest.

I looked down at the knife in my hand, my fingers tightening around the hilt. I released a steady breath, then said,

"Then teach me how to throw this fucking thing, Slade Wilson, so I'll never miss that target, and never be so defenseless again."

He smirked, his eyes sparking with a sort of mischief and light that made my heart skip a beat.

"I'll teach you that and so much more, Maria. No one will hurt you again. Not with me around."

And I believed him.