Second Chances: Arrow

Chapter 3

The last thing Laurel Lance remembered was sleeping deeply in what had to be a dreamless sleep. A sleep where she had no memories of her past or future, hell, she could barely remember her own name. All she really knew was that she was sleeping peacefully and suddenly, she heard a loud bang and suddenly, she found herself being snapped awake and suddenly, she knew who she was again and what had happened to her.

She hadn't been sleeping, she'd been dead. Damien Darhk had stabbed her at Iron Heights, but now, she found herself, well, she shouldn't say alive, but she wasn't dead either. If anything, she found herself in some kind of in between state, in some kind of limbo.

"Where am I, what the hell is happening?" Laurel asked, looking down at her body to see that while she wasn't a ghost, her body wasn't solid either.

"You've been brought here to make a very important choice Ms. Lance." a new and unfamiliar voice said and Laurel turned to see a grown man with head ridges and one of the most ridiculous costumes she'd ever seen and considering the line of work she was in, that was saying something.

"Who are you?" Laurel asked.

"An ally of Oliver Queen. I go by the name of Mar Novu or the Monitor." Novu said.

"And I'm just supposed to believe that you know Oliver?" Laurel asked.

"Perhaps this will convince you." Novu said as he waved his hand and suddenly Laurel saw images of this creep talking to Oliver, and Oliver working with him.

"Why the hell was Oliver working with you? Or for you by the looks of things?" Laurel asked, since the Oliver she knew was many things, but a blind follower was not one of them.

"He made a deal with me to save the lives of his friends and we were trying to save the multiverse. Unfortunately, we failed." Novu said.

"Then what's going on?" Laurel asked.

"The multiverse may have been destroyed, but Oliver Queen gave his life to create a new one." Novu said.

"Ollie's dead?" Laurel asked, not sure how to feel about that.

"I thought that Crisis would mean his end, but I thought you would know better than anyone that Oliver Queen is not a man who allows anyone else to decide his destiny." Novu said and Laurel felt her spirits lift.

"So he's alive." Laurel said.

"And yes and that is why you are here." Novu said.

"I don't understand. I'm guessing that there's already a me in this new world that Ollie made?" Laurel asked, confused.

"There is, but I brought you here because you have a choice to make." Novu said.

"What kind of choice?" Laurel asked.

"There's a reason why your soul was simply in an endless sleep before the big bang woke you up and a reason why your form is not fully solid yet. It's because you're neither living or dead. Ever since your body died in the old reality, your soul has been in a kind of limbo for reasons that even I don't know." Novu said.

"I don't understand?" Laurel asked.

"Contrary to what many might think, I do not know everything. My guess is that your soul could not move on because you weren't meant to die yet. Someone altered the course of your life and you died much earlier than you were supposed to." Novu said.

"But since my body was already dead, there was nothing for my soul to possess, so I basically stayed in limbo, but why wake me up now?" Laurel asked.

"Because you have a choice to make now." Novu said.

"What kind of choice?" Laurel asked.

"A choice about where you want me to send your soul, since I can either release it from limbo to allow it to enter the afterlife or I can send your soul to take the place of your counterpart in this new world. Essentially bring you back to life. The choice is yours." Novu said.

"Will I remember the old reality?" Laurel asked, since she wanted to get all the details before she made her choice, though she was pretty sure she knew what her choice would be.

"Yes. I will make it so that you don't just remember the old reality, but you'll also have the memories of your counterpart from this reality to allow you to blend in, just like all the others. Including your sister and Mr. Queen." Novu said.

"I think you know my choice then." Laurel said and Novu chuckled.

"I do, but I needed to be sure that I was right before I did anything. Especially since this will also be my way of paying a debt to Oliver Queen." Novu said.

"What?" Laurel asked as Novu chuckled.

"He was never the same after you died and he'll need you in multiple ways before what's coming is over. Don't give up on him." Novu said and before Laurel could question it, Novu snapped her fingers and suddenly, she felt her body become solid before she was sent away and she felt new memories enter her mind as her soul merged with the soul of her double from the new world and she saw this version of her life was a lot better than the old one.

Her life on this new world was pretty much the same, though she did remember that Oliver was a much more loyal boyfriend to her in this reality, something she was very happy about, though she wasn't thrilled that Oliver had gone off to be a soldier in this reality, mainly because it meant that she spent pretty much her entire time in law school worrying about whether or not he'd come back to her safely, but he did.

However, the first real change didn't come until the Queen's Gambit, since her sister was not on the boat, something that Laurel was very happy about, however, that didn't mean that Sara didn't still go missing, since she'd been kidnapped while she was studying abroad for a semester, but anyways, that was when the dominoes began falling that led to the real changes in her life.

The first change was with how her father reacted after Sara's disappearance, since he didn't blame Oliver for her disappearance, since he had no reason too, but he still did keep drinking to the point where her mother had left them both to move to Central City. However, in this reality, instead of being bitter and alone, Laurel had helped her father move on again and she was very happy to see that he'd found a new love with none other than Felicity's mom, Donna Smoak and about a year later, they'd remarried, making her and Felicity stepsisters, something Laurel was very happy about, since she'd always thought of Felicity as another sister.

But the biggest change in her life was that shortly after losing both the love of her life and her little sister, Laurel discovered that she was a metahuman with an actual canary cry. However, she had no idea how she'd become a meta, since the particle accelerator was still being built at the time it had happened, so there was no way it could've blown up by then.

But however she got her power, Laurel knew that she'd been given it for a reason and she wanted to use it to help other people in a way the law couldn't. But to do that, she'd need help and training. And she knew where she could get both. Gotham.