Arrow: Earth-Q

A/N: I considered Season 3's finale to be the point where Arrow pretty much lost me. Season 1 was great, Season 2 was awesome, Season 3 was good sans-Olicity. However, Season 4 was an absolute train wreck. Season 5 was okay, though I really don't think it was as good as everyone likes to make out it was. Like Season 4, it made Oliver weak both emotionally and physically and even tried to rewrite him into a blood-thirsty killing machine. Season 6 was just awful, except for the Deathstroke episodes and the Roy episodes. This fanfic will basically be me course-correcting to how I believe that the end of Season 3 should have played out.

This will pick up halfway through episode 20 of Season 3. This is where I think the show completely lost it.

This story will finish Season 3 how I believe it should have ended. If there is a good reception to the story, I will write my own version of Season 4 & 5.

Chapter 1: This is who I am

Oliver sat on his own, deep in his thoughts. He pondered the decision he had just made in saving Thea. He knew that he had potentially been selfish, but he just couldn't bare the thought of losing another person that he loved. He'd lost his father, Yao-Fei, Shado, Akio, Taiana, Tommy, his mother and now Sara. He was not going to lose his baby sister too.

Suddenly, a knock at his door brought him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah." He responded tiredly.

"Hey." Felicity said quietly, cracking the door open. "You okay?"

Oliver looked at her as if that was perhaps the most insensitive question she could have asked.

"Sorry, that's a stupid question. You just saw your sister come back to life after being mostly dead and you are about to give up everything you know and love, so you're probably not." Felicity rambled.

Oliver sighed, "I remember the first time I thought I'd never see Thea again. It was when my father's boat went down." He remembered it solemnly. It was his greatest fear ever since returning to Starling. That one night, he would go out as The Arrow and never return. That he'd never see his baby sister again. It ached in his very soul.

"But you did." Felicity quickly responded as she moved in to take a seat, closing the door behind her. "But you did. And you'll see her again – again," she fumbled her words.

{[A/N: Brief note: this is where the Earths diverge.]}

"I know." Oliver nodded. "But for almost two years, since after the Undertaking, I've been struggling with who I am." Oliver was confessing something that he knew Felicity would not understand. "I've been denying who I am. I've been lying to myself and everyone around me. I achieved more in my first year back, than I have for the past two years combined. Either I'm willing to do what's necessary, or I shouldn't be out there at all. This is who I am, it's who I've always been and I'm okay with it."

"And who you are, is the next Ra's al Ghul?" She asked timidly.

"Yes. Everything that I've done, everything that's happened has led me right here to this moment. I've been afforded the opportunity to do more good than just in Starling. I can make the entire world a better place."

Felicity strode over to him and sat in front of him. "Oliver, I love you. How can I change your mind?" She asked timidly.

"You can't." He told her simply.

"Leaving you here is going to destroy me, I love you."

"I'm sorry Felicity, but I don't feel the same way." He meant it.

"How can you say that? You told me you loved me right before you went off to face Ra's!" She cried.

"I know. And I'm sorry. But I know now that when I said that, I was still clinging to the hope that I could be the hero you thought you saw. But that isn't me. I take lives. I put people in the ground and I do it, because sometimes it needs to be done. You, John and even Laurel hold me back. You ask me to take half measures, but I can't do that anymore. Too many suffer as a result."

Oliver stood up and took Felicity gently by the hand. He led her to the door and showed her out, closing the door behind her.

END

A/N: I hope you all liked it. Feel free to comment/criticize/praise the work.