A/N: So I think I have a fic "type." Regardless of what my fics may suggest, I love Oliver Queen dearly. I promise. Reviews would be great. :) Thanks for reading!

It comes at him hard and fast and it hits him like nothing he's ever imagined. And he's imagined plenty; wayward vehicles careening towards him at ungodly speeds, busy intersections rushing up to greet him after a fall from the roof, arrows sticking out of him like he's some hyper-realistic pincushion, just name it. He's imagined it all, this included. But this doesn't match up. Not quite.

He supposes it's just difficult to imagine the shockwave. He never thought he'd feel something before hearing it first, but what do you know? Here he is, sprawled out gracelessly across the pavement with all the air knocked out of him, staring up at the frayed edges of towering buildings. And then he hears it, the loaded cracks of a distant handgun and the drag of running feet against the ground.

He's heard it all before, really. He's felt it before, if he's honest – just not like this. Something similar. When his mother shot him at point blank in some other lifetime, it was different. He could still breathe. Move. Get up and run.

But he can't quite do that now, and at first he's not sure why.

The only thing that's even remotely similar to the last time is the blood spreading on the ground beneath him. The rest is all a changing background curtain, with the carpet traded out for asphalt, the degree-plastered walls for blood-splattered bricks, his mother hiding behind her desk for a pair of urgent hands shoving against his chest.

There's also a voice drifting in and out, and it takes him far longer than he'd like to place it as Detective Lance's. Wait, shit, no – Captain. Captain Lance. It's Captain Lance's voice in his ears and Captain Lance's face swimming blearily above him, and apparently Captain Lance's hands on his chest trying to keep his blood inside his body.

Well, Oliver's no expert, but he thinks Lance might be failing in that respect. He tunes in.

"Hey, kid," the man is saying, not even bothering to conceal the worry in his tone. "Hey, hey, you with me?"

And he's not quite sure about that, but he's sure about one thing. He takes as deep a breath as he can manage, which really isn't that deep at all, and listens to the rattle in his chest as he actually wheezes.

"Y-you – the – he's getting away…."

And Lance just looks at him for a long second, his expression carefully toeing the line between concern and mild annoyance. The officer glances for a second over his shoulder at the empty alley and turns his head back again.

"Come on, if you think for a second I'm leaving you here to go after that guy," the older man is saying, putting more pressure onto the holes in the green leather. "You're even crazier than I thought."

The Arrow coughs under Lance's hands, and is largely unsurprised when he feels the drip of blood at the corner of his mouth.

"Not… crazy. Just… realistic."

Lance frowns.

"What do you mean?"

He means exactly what he says. He means that the more pressing matter in this moment is by far the armed criminal who's running away on foot, and that if Lance can't run after him, he should be using his free hand to call for backup, not an ambulance. The priority should be taking the bad guy off the streets, not wasting time and energy trying to save a man that won't last another ten minutes.

Because look – Oliver Queen has always been a fighter; but on the other hand, he's also a realist. He can feel time slipping away from him, exposing his life to the open air, and he's well aware of what it means. A few bullets in the chest, he supposes, will do that to a man.

He tries to say as much. He really tries. But to his absolute, all-consuming terror, he opens his mouth and starts to choke. Whether it's on air or blood or anything else, he can't exactly tell, but it hardly matters. All that matters is that he's trying to say something, damn it, but all he can manage to get out is a series of booming coughs and mouthfuls of hot blood. Lance's hands on his chest start to hurt far more than they did just a second ago, and his face starts to blur.

He tries one more time to get the captain to go. And he'd like to think it almost works, too. Or, rather, he'd like to think that it might have worked, if he could wheeze and stutter out a few more words. But alas.

"Can't – can't save me," he tries, and gulps down half lung-fulls of air that don't stick around for long enough. "Might as w-well… c-ca –"

And suddenly he's choking again. He can tell it's on blood this time around, and he's not sure what to think at first when one of Lance's bloodied hands moves from the bullet holes in his chest to his sweaty cheek in an odd, terrifyingly gentle attempt at a comforting gesture. But then he gets it.

Suddenly Oliver Queen feels nothing but pure, arrhythmic fear. Because he's lying on the pavement in the middle of some alley, in a small pool of his own blood, and he can't breathe. Everything's spinning and dulling before his eyes and he can't believe he was just telling the only other person nearby to leave. In the span of mere seconds, he's gone from wanting the captain to just leave him and do the right thing to realizing that if Lance followed his stupid orders – he'd be alone. He'd die all alone, choking on his own blood, on the pavement with no one around, and in that moment, he is absolutely terrified.

So he panics, in spite of himself.

"I can't –" he gasps, wheezes. "Can't – can't breathe… can't breathe…"

He thinks there might also be tears leaking out from the corners of his eyes, but he can't control that. He might even be embarrassed about it, too, if he wasn't so terrified of dying and the fact that his chest is burning him alive and the fact that black spots are clouding his eyes like some miserable fog.

The captain's hand is still placed gently on his cheek, right by the edge of his hood. They both know what has to happen next. And the Arrow doesn't particularly mind it; what better time for the hood to come down, of course, than when its wearer is dying underneath it?

"Alright," Lance says slowly. "Alright, I'm gonna – I'm gonna pull the hood down. It'll help you breathe."

The only response that earns is another round of harsh, wet coughs. Still, he considers this an okay if he's ever going to get one.

Carefully, he takes the leather hood and pulls it down, revealing the pale, vaguely blue face underneath. And strangely enough, as he goes back to putting both hands over the bullet holes, he manages a smile.

"You know, I wish I could say I knew it was you, Queen. But I'll be honest. You threw me."

That earns the captain a soft, red-tinted grin from the man on the ground that just seems to radiate all of his exhaustion, his fear, and just the tiniest hint of pride.

"Had'ta… b'done…" he says, and his tiny grin fades just as quickly as it appeared. And his tone changes into something far heavier, more serious and impossibly vulnerable. "'m sorry."

And Lance just looks at him, confusion and fear plain to see. He starts to question it, but Oliver beats him to it, demanding his attention in so few words.

"'m sorry 'bout… 'bout Sara…. 'Bout… breakin' everything… in your office… all the time…. 'Bout Laurel… and everything…"

His voice breaks, and he coughs and he sputters and he very nearly sobs, but he manages.

"Sorry for… for everything…."

"No," the captain says before he can think about it, because if Oliver thinks these are his last words, he's sorely mistaken. "No, Oliver, don't you dare apologize. Because you don't have to be sorry for any of that, not now. The only thing you'll need to apologize for is thinking that I'd leave you here to die, okay? And you'll have plenty of time to apologize later, you hear me? You're gonna be fine, Queen, I'm telling you. You got that? Look at me, Oliver. Look at me."

But he's not looking at him. Oliver Queen is looking past him, out towards the night sky, as his breaths start to slow. Sirens are echoing from somewhere in the city, but he doesn't seem to hear them.

"D'ya think… ya think there's… there's a Heaven… for guys… for guys like me?"

There's a certain rawness to his words that Lance has only ever heard from dying men. And God, he wishes he could do something – anything – to keep this kid here, but all he can offer is pressure on the wounds and the small amount of fatherly wisdom he's still got stored.

And so he doesn't hesitate when he answers, "Of course. Of course there's a Heaven for you, Oliver. Because if you just take a look around – you'll see all the good you've done for this city. All the people you've saved. You know I hated you when you came back from that island, kid, but I'm serious, here; you're one of the best men I've ever known. Your parents should be proud of you. I'm proud of you. So yeah – there's a Heaven for you, kid. But you're not going there yet, alright? Not today."

Oliver tries his best to decide if the captain is lying to him or not. Oddly enough, he can't really tell. But it's no matter. He smiles his crooked, bloody smile, regardless. He wants to say thank you. So he tries to draw in the breath, but the only thing that comes out is a quiet, airy, "Okay."

The last thing he sees before his eyes slip shut is Quentin Lance's blurred, worried face and the stars in the sky that blend together and shine their light down like nothing he's ever seen. He thinks, in that moment, that the Captain might have been telling him the truth.

And the world drops away. Just like that.

When he opens his eyes again, the curtain's changed again. The alley's been switched out. The asphalt and the buildings and cool night air have all been traded for this dim room with white walls and steady, rhythmically beeping monitors and the thick smell of ammonium chloride and ethanolamine.

So not quite Heaven. But he supposes it's close enough. Just the feeling of air on his face and – miraculously – in his lungs is enough to make it comparable, even if it is being provided by some clunky, uncomfortable mask over half his face. For once, Oliver Queen just doesn't have it in him to complain.

He tilts his head one way and sees Thea, leaned to one side and asleep in a large chair. In lieu of blankets, she's outright consumed in one of his own hoodies, and she's got her jacket folded up underneath her as a makeshift pillow.

He doesn't have the heart or the energy to wake her.

His head swivels back and overshoots, and he expects to face the opposite wall. And he does, sort of. It's just that in between him and the wall is none other than a slowly waking Quentin Lance, is all. It didn't so much scare him – because nothing scares the Arrow or Oliver Queen, of course – as it did surprise him. And there's a tiny gasp, a small intake of air that a sharp pain in his chest would reveal came from his own mouth, and before he can blink, the Captain is awake and glancing around the room.

Lance's eyes settle on Oliver in half a second. And he breathes a sigh of relief.

"Hey, kid," he says softly, leaning back against the plastic chair he must have dragged in from the hallway. He's sporting a five o'clock – or whatever time it is – shadow, a pair of circles under his eyes, and generally exhausted demeanor. Even so, he smiles. "Gave us a scare, there."

Oliver can only blink back. Even if he had the energy to speak, whatever words he could find would just end up as fog in the mask, muffled and meaningless. Thankfully, Lance doesn't wait for a response.

"Well, why don't I fill you in? Just let me know if I forget anything. First of all," he launches into his recount without waiting to see if Oliver is even still listening. He is. But still. He pulls his phone out and checks the screen. "It is currently… ten to five in the morning. It's Saturday, so it's been about two days. My daughter and your little team just left a couple hours ago. Your sister stayed, obviously. According to the doctors, your left lung completely collapsed from the shots, but you should be fine as long as you don't do anything stupid."

He gives the vigilante a pointed look, almost something of a warning. As if to say that if he does do something stupid, his lung won't be the only thing that hurts him. Still, it's without heat.

"You don't have to worry about… you know. No one knows about you."

He looks around, first, before elaborating. He reaches down and pulls a tiny pocket knife from his boot, flips out the point, and puts it away again before continuing.

"A handy little thing I started carrying with me. Cut you out of everything but the pants, but no one questioned it. I'm sure they've seen stranger fashion statements. Oh – and one more thing…."

The captain goes back into his phone and types a few things in. When he holds the screen up for Oliver to see, there's a headline by the top.

Crime-Ring Leader Detained by SCPD, Awaits Trial

"Don't underestimate a police captain's ability to multitask, kid," he says as he places his phone back in his pocket. And he looks Oliver right in the eye. "And don't ever think I'd leave you to die, either."

The sigh Oliver breathes turns to fog on the plastic over his face, and he's not quite sure if Lance can see him smiling underneath it. As gently as he can, he gives the biggest nod he can manage – which is admittedly quite small, but still – and hopes the message gets across.

"You're welcome."

And what do you know? It did. Lance smiles back at him, and Oliver feels his eyelids grow heavy again.

"Now get some sleep. You look like hell."

Oliver Queen, for once, listens and does just that. The last thing he sees before his eyes slip shut is this tiny hospital room, where he is safe, warm, and alive. It's not quite Heaven, but he supposes it's the next best thing.