Caught in the Eye

In a nondescript abandoned warehouse, per the norm for secret lairs, team arrow waited.

They were antsy in the knowledge that they had only gone through half of the storm that was their lives this year. Their home for the past three years had finally been compromised for the last time and Oliver's secondary lair was out of the question considering that Waller knew its location. Their individual residences were out of the question. So, here they were, holed up with a few cots, the barest of Felicity's computer systems, and their merry band of misfits/family.

On the outside it would appear that there was a false sense of calm, but between the nervous glances and over all sense of impending doom, it was obvious that this was just the eye of the storm, quickly passing them over and laying way for the shit storm that started with Sarah's death in the fall.

But really hadn't all of this started for each and every one of them so long ago. For all of Oliver's talk of guilt and being the root cause of everything terrible, the stones in each of their paths were laid long before "team arrow's" existence.

Diggle didn't know that falling in love with a future Argus agent would lead him here, not to mention the cloud of suspicion around his brother's death.

Roy couldn't have known that the mistakes of his parents and pain of growing up in the Glades would lead him to meet the love of his life, the love that started him on this journey of becoming more than what or where he was from.

Laurel's steadfast hold onto justice had been prevalent from the beginning of her journey, and was surely the only reason she had survived the twists and turns, lies and deception, grief and remorse that consisted of the past 7 and a half years. Wearing a mask was always going to be the end result.

Felicity, with all of her light and brightness, had chosen this path the day she found out that Cooper had killed himself. She chose then to do something more with her life. Without that conviction, she never would have looked over all of those lies in the beginning if it wasn't for her gut instinct telling her that she was doing something right. That conviction and those gut instincts were confirmed when he landed in the back of her car that fateful day.

And Oliver, well, it really was as simple as getting on a boat.

The opposition, consisting of a horrific combination of Waller and her omega virus combined with Ra's and his purging ways, was mounting. The five members of team arrow were done. Done waiting, preparing, and anticipating for the next onslaught from their enemy. This wouldn't be a repeat of the undertaking. There would be no army of super soldiers descending on their beloved city, ready to lay way to siege. No…this time they were bringing the siege. The only waiting they would be doing, is for their flight to Nanda Parbat.

So they waited and tried to rest, mentally and physically, despite it being the middle of the day. They were in hiding and wouldn't be leaving until they could use the cloak of night to their advantage.

Diggle, sans Lyla who was being held by Waller, was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, absently flipping through pictures of his family, well accustomed to that feeling of being on the edge of a precipice that came just before a battle. Baby Sarah was with the only two people left that team arrow trusted, Quentin and Thea. The two of them were staying back in one of Malcolm's abandoned properties. He had sacrificed himself to save Thea, and in doing so, had inspired Thea to be more than her parent's mistakes. She tasked herself with protecting Baby Sarah, her soul's attempt at righting the mar on itself caused by taking Sarah's life. The two of them, Quentin and Thea, would be the last line of defense if the team failed in Nanda Parbat. Quentin would call for an evacuation within a certain timeframe without hearing from the others.

Roy, atypical of his personality, was calmly reading on his cot. He'd taken to reading, finding solace in the words of dreamers, believers, and leaders of days past. It was a balm to his psyche, losing himself in the world and words of others, real and made up, who had gone through their own crucibles and stepped out on the other side. It gave him hope, and if nothing else, a damn good distraction.

Laurel was about 10 feet from one of the walls of the warehouse, absentmindedly flicking knives into a crudely handmade target. She adapted to knives during her short stint training with Nyssa. The repetition was almost hypnotizing, and therefore she wasn't thinking about all the cocktails she'd like to be swigging down at the moment. As much as she wanted a drink though, she wanted to end the injustice that was being brought down on them more. She steeled herself for what was coming.

Felicity, typical of her personality, was sat behind her less than stellar computer network, doing her best to keep tabs on any of their known enemies who may have decided to up their timeframe and ascend on them sooner than planned. Her thoughts whirled around in her head, the "what ifs" of their plans and unknown variables colliding into a ball of jumbled thoughts that would snowball and eventually lead to her self-inflicted mental countdown of 3, 2, 1. The process would start over again.

Out of everyone, the most surprising was Oliver. Tucked under a sheet on a cot squared away behind Felicity's computer desk, he slept. Surely only a psycho could sleep under these conditions. Surprisingly peaceful, he dreamed, as usual, of a life he couldn't have. He dreamed of a life where he had made a million different decisions, many of which included Felicity, but all resulted in his own personal happily ever after. Those personal happily ever after's were slowly starting to resemble his actual life. After going through the fire, so to speak, with Ra's on more than one occasion, after dealing with Sarah's death, the person that was most like him, after dealing with Felicity staying steadfast to her integrity, after witnessing Diggle have his happily ever after, after seeing Maseo fall to Sarab the Phantom, his dreams were starting to change. Despite these changes in his dreams, including the one he was having right now, they still left him hoping and wishing for them to be real. The dream Oliver was having right now was seemingly insignificant. He was with his patchwork family, sitting in the foundry. Baby Sarah was toddling around in her play pen, Roy and Thea were goofing off on the training matts while Laurel gave them her opinions on their technique. Diggle and Oliver were sitting across from one another, absentmindedly tossing a tennis ball back and forth while discussing the merits of guns versus bows and arrows. Sitting next to Diggle was Lyla, bouncing back and forth between the weapons conversation and the tech conversation she was having with Felicity, who was sitting next to Oliver, possibly closer than what was absolutely necessary. In his dream, Oliver registered this, and took it all in.

A loud gasp startled and stopped what everyone was doing. Oliver had woken up with a start, his dream still heavy in his mind, laying way for the epiphany he just had. His team members, no family members, looked at him curiously. Felicity looked at him with worry and started to open her mouth to ask if he was ok. He cut her off with a small smile. She was taken aback. He rarely smiled that smile. Something was different. She didn't know what it was but it didn't frighten her. That small smile on his face, while barely perceptible to others, was setting her soul on fire. He looked like her Oliver for the first time in months, if not nearly a year. Now her questioning look of concern morphed into curiosity. The others were still looking on with mild concern as she quietly asked, "Oliver, what is it?"

He looked around the room at everyone slowly, making sure to initiate eye contact. He wanted to know they were listening, truly hearing what he was about to say. His eyes landed back on Felicity, his small smile still in place. For the first time in 8 years, he was confident in something and he couldn't wait to share it with his family, with the people that he just now realized comprised his happily ever after, the happily ever after he already has.

"We're going to win."