A/N: Hello and welcome to my Arrow fanfiction. In this story, Oliver Queen finds himself thrust backward in time by a mysterious stranger to stop his greatest enemy before it's too late. With all of the knowledge of the past, will he be able to save the future? The 'past' portion of this story takes place well after the end of Season 5, in a time when Star City is being terrorized by an unstoppable villain known only as the Juggernaut, while the 'present' portion of this story begins shortly after the sinking of the Queen's Gambit. Flashbacks work in this story like they do in the show, with the first part of the chapter being what is currently happening with Oliver, and the second part (if there is a flashback for that chapter) being what happened to Oliver before he was sent back in time. Both parts will tell their own stories, with the flashbacks elaborating on how and why he was sent back.

I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoy writing it, and if you do, please leave a review or a comment so I know if this is a story worth telling.

On another note, Oliver will face many daunting challenges and dangerous foes on his journey to put an end to his adversary, so this story comes with a T-rating for violence.

Enjoy!

-Jenthewarrior

XxX

Chapter 1.

Beyond the Sea.

Cold water, rumbling thunder, and the smell and sound of death.

It woke him so suddenly that for a time he was sinking, falling, getting sucked sideways into the waves with no sense of time, no sense of direction, no sense of self.

He was deep down, looking up at the flashing surface, the way it writhed and shifted. He was getting closer, closer, closer, until the water broke around his face and he got a glimpse of the world around him. A twisting, hellish world of thrashing shadows, with a ferocious sky up above. Rain blanketed everything, stung his eyes, pelted his hair. Lightning struck out across the sky, slapping the water, giving shape to the sinking yacht in front of him, a behemoth on its side being drawn bodily into the sea.

The Queen's Gambit.

Voices were calling, "Oliver! Oliver!"

Here! he wanted to scream, but the water was so cold his teeth chattered. He recognized the name, recognized the voice, but instead of giving him comfort it made him panic. I have to find her. She was on the boat. He groped at the black water, croaking, "Sara! Sara!" He shouted again and again, until his voice broke, "Sara!" Saltwater lunged down his throat like an icy lance, and even then, in a burning gurgle, he screamed, "Sara!"

He knew she was out there, and he had to find her. Not this time. I'm not losing her again. Flashes of her came before his eyes – blonde, beautiful, rising from his bed, swinging a silvery blade, intense blue eyes peering at him.

A hand reached out of the darkness, touching his shoulder.

He dodged away from it, not daring to look back. He knew what he would find floating behind him – a black and orange raft with two dead men inside. But Sara was still in the water.

His heart rocked along with the waves. He struck out again and again, throwing all of his strength into the inky mass. It was strength he should not have, the ghost of a warrior breathing life into his exhausted limbs. It was an adrenaline-fueled desperation.

Lightning struck the water again and he saw her.

Or that must have been her, a drenched, humanoid shape hunched over a broken board, surging ten feet in the air on a rippling wave.

"Sara!" he called, but his voice was drowned out by the rain, and overwhelmed by the thunder. As the wave carried her back down, the terrified girl became more than a shadow.

She looked right at him.

He rode a wave up several feet, stomach clenching as debris rushed past his legs, and when he came back down the board was empty.

A moment of dread, a split second to grieve, and then she was closer, reaching out for him, screaming as a wave swelled up between them and split them apart. Thunder went off like a gunshot in the night. BOOM. He reached out for her, but missed by a mile, and a wave capped over his head and thrust him underwater again.

He opened his eyes in the blackness, fear overriding the burning of the saltwater, and there was a light spinning down and down, further than he could imagine, until it was like a candle against the sky. It showed him that he was drifting in a vast, empty space. He panicked, clawing for the surface, but the wave was still turning him and he lost his sense of direction. Up or down, left or right, it was all the same. It was all the same cold, the same pressure, the same emptiness.

Finally, the surface found him, and she was there again. He grabbed at her before the waves could split them up again, dragging her toward him by her wrist. Sara made it to him this time, throwing her arms around his neck in a desperate embrace. He let her cling to his back, her hands weak on his shoulders, and she whispered his name, "Oliver," and tried to grasp what was happening, "What did we… where is the-?" – BOOM – "Oliver!"

He put the last of himself into swimming, dedicating everything. Stroke after stroke, his arms screamed and cramped, his legs began to waver, his torso burned, his lungs choked on saltwater, his eyes felt more swollen, and the world became blurrier. His mind shifted from one absurd thought to the next, from pretty white sand beaches to slicing blades. He fixated on one line of thought, on one idea, to keep his head above water. I'm not losing her again. I'm not going to die out here. I'm not losing her again. I'm not going to die out here.

BOOM.

A vicious peal of thunder shook the water around him, and the voices came again,

"Oliver! Oliver!"

He was much closer this time. He wheeled toward them, clamping his eyes shut as a wave capped over his head. I'm not going to die out here. I'm not going to die out here.

Oliver crashed blindly into something rubber, almost going under it as a wave rose up behind him. Sara vanished and he had no energy left to reach for her. He floated, limbs giving out, rolling through a wave like driftwood.

I'm not going to die out here.

Strong hands dug into his shirt, lifting him from the waves and dumping him in the raft. He hit the floor and flopped, gasping for air, shrinking back when lightning illuminated black clouds above them, and a resounding BOOM following. He was rattled to the bone, shaking, aware of little beyond the storm and its terrible shrieking. Sara was there, sitting up, holding herself and trembling, her mouth opening like she was crying.

Someone took his face – hard – and held him still. He blinked over and over to force the saltwater away before the face seemed familiar.

Dad.

Robert Queen was dead, and so was the blurry man behind him. Gus. Oliver knew it. He knew it. Memories flashed before his eyes, painting a disturbing picture – the raft, the gun, the hunger, and a long, twisting shoreline that filled him with misery.

He gave himself over to the fear and threw his arms around his father, full of childish terror at the storm, at the sight of the yacht descending into the depths, at the memories that were haunting him. He felt trapped, a terrible blend between a little boy and a man, hardly able to understand how he had come to be here with his spine trembling the way it was.

His father, his ghost, held Oliver tightly, and whispered, "Oliver… I thought I lost you."

Oliver did not – could not – respond. His throat was raw from calling to Sara, and holding his father made it clench up. His strength was fading rapidly. He wanted to sleep, but he resisted, convinced that when he woke up his father would be dead again.

When Robert released him, Oliver withered against the side of the raft and looked at the girl beside him. Sara was barely dressed, wearing pink lingerie and a thin, satin robe. She was young again, barely twenty years old, and for a moment he struggled to recognize her.

Oliver reached out, his arm lolling against her thigh before he managed to take her hand, and he squeezed it. She was not looking at him, and she didn't seem to feel his hand through her fear, and his throat was still locked up and raw from the saltwater. He thought it instead, made his promises inside. We're gonna be fine. I'm not letting go this time.

In an ocean storm nothing separated night from day. Oliver stayed awake as long as he could, but gradually the lighting striking the water was less climactic, and the BOOM of thunder barely made his eyes open. He had seen the Queen's Gambit go down twice now, and there was still no match for the fury of the ocean, in all the terrible things he had witnesses since then. It was cold and uncaring, sweeping them off course, dragging them relentlessly toward that rocky shore.

He relaxed only when the sea settled and the clouds allowed a brief glimpse of daylight, and let himself sleep. His dreams were short and violent, and he woke constantly to the sound of Sara heaving over the side of the raft, or crying softly to herself.

Oliver stayed out of the sun, restless, and put walls up in his mind, careful not to lose who he was, in the wake of who he had been the first time this happened.

You have to go back, she had said. You told me you could do better.

Her voice haunted him, and the raft rocked on the waves, and the promises he had made in the past, or in the future, wherever it was now, were the glue that held him together. Whatever happened, he would live to make them a reality.

I'm not going to die out here.