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I came back to Lian Yu because I wanted, needed, to find the numbness again. I'd learned to isolate myself within myself there because survival had demanded I wall myself off from feeling anything. I couldn't allow physical pains to slow me down and I couldn't let emotional pain drag me into despair.
Should have known it wouldn't work. I'm not that Oliver anymore. Just like I'm not really the spoiled-brat playboy I'd been ... before. I can still wear those masks, playing the game with people who expect nothing deeper.
The need to complete my father's mission, his dying gift, became a lifeline I'd held onto until I'd come home. But I'd failed it and him in fairly spectacular fashion, at the cost of hundreds of lives. Including Tommy's. I'd destroyed our friendship to save his father only to have his father's mad plan kill him before I could make it right.
Staying here isn't going to fix any of that. Hiding from my failures, from my losses, dishonors both Tommy and my father. I hadn't been able to stop the Undertaking and that will always be a weight on my soul. I just hadn't found the courage to face that none of that meant I had nothing more to offer my city or my family.
When Felicity and Digg came for me, I knew it was time to go back. Digg alone I could have resisted; he's seen his fair share of lost causes and good lives thrown away on bad ideas. But how do I resist her?
How do I resist a woman who flew out here in a plane older than all of us, who jumped out of said plane in spite of her fear of heights, who's so certain I can succeed where all I've done so far is fail?
After I was stranded here, I made Laurel the symbol of the life I'd lost. It took actually coming back to realize that the woman and the symbol had never been the same thing. I thought that if I could win her forgiveness I could release some of the guilt I felt for surviving. In the end, I realized that while I still love her, will always love her, I am not in love with her.
That blinding revelation came when Felicity stepped on that damned mine. My heart stopped while Diggle looked to see if he could disarm it. The possibility that it could be a type of mine Special Forces might recognize, given the uncounted number of groups that might have left it behind, wasn't a chance I could trust her life to.
And in spite of everything, they trust me to save her. Digg moves back because I tell him to and she moves just enough for me to grab her as I swing by. She never loses her head even as I can feel her heart thundering against me when we land. I'd forgotten how good she smells.
I don't know what she sees in me. Because of what I do with my nights, what I've done with my life so far, I'm only barely human. She doesn't understand that.
Going back out into the world, for any reason, will be like being dipped in acid. I know I have to go because the only thing this island still has to offer me is a place to simply be the man it made me, and that's not enough. In Starling City I'll have to be the Oliver Queen the world expects, hiding behind suits and ties the way I've hidden the vigilante beneath Shado's hood. But I'll go because, whatever it is she sees in me, I can't disappoint that face. I can't resist the look in her eyes.