Promises

Beyond Redemption

I walked down the street excited to see Laurel after her spa day with Thea. Although she hadn't been gone long I still missed her. 7 years gone definitely changes you. I walked through the door and saw Laurel, Diggle and Thea. "Guessing he didn't tell you what we're doing here, either." Thea asked. "No. He just had a perma grin on his face the whole way here." I replied. Laurel and I made eye-contact and I gave her a warm smile but she didn't return it. "Okay, now I'm worried." "He said he had some big announcement to make." Oliver and Felicity walked in and Thea asked them. "Oh, my God, wait, where is it? Why aren't you wearing it?" "Wearing what?" Oliver walked passed her and gave her a look. "Uh... What is it that you wanted to tell us?" "And why are you telling us here?" I asked. "Remember this office?" He asked. "Yes. This was Sebastian blood's campaign office." Felicity replied. "And now it's mine. Anyone who's qualified is afraid to run, for a good reason. But I can protect myself. So... I'm running for mayor." I chuckled not believing a word. "Uh, don't everyone congratulate me at once." "Oh, you're serious!" Diggle asked almost as shocked as I was. "Yes! The other week, Lance was saying that this city needs someone to stand up, who isn't hiding behind a mask. It needs a leader." "But why does that person have to be you? I mean, don't get me wrong, but you're not a politician." Diggle pointed out. "Well, maybe that's the best reason for me to be elected." "What are you going to do for a staff, or campaign manager--money?" Laurel asked. "Money part's taken care of. Palmer Tech has funded enough to kickstart the campaign. Another decision my board of directors are going to be thrilled with." "What platform are you going to run on?" I asked. "I'll figure it out." He replied. "What qualifies you to be mayor?" Thea asked. "I care about the city." "But you can't say that you're going to run because being the Green Arrow isn't enough." Laurel said. "I'm working on that." "We are going to brush up on those answers before the first press conference." Felicity said then mouthed to us "Obviously." "I kind of thought everyone would be a little bit more supportive." "Oh, it's not that we're not supportive, Oliver, it's just that-" Diggle sad before getting interrupted by Laurel. "We just want to make sure that you're not in over your head." "Maybe the other announcement will go over better." Felicity suggested. "Okay..." He walked away and we followed intrigued. The wall opened to reveal and elevator. "Ha! For real?" Thea asked excitedly. While the elevator went down Oliver began to talk. "There's a reason we had Felicity buy Blood's campaign office. Blood also needed his own lair." I looked at Felicity. "Don't--don't worry, I--I burned a lot of incense." She promised. I nodded. The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Oliver clicked something on his remote and the lights turned on. The entire downstairs was a new bunker. It was full of equipment. I walked by some arrows and saw my bow sitting next to them. "Is this for me?" I asked. "Yeah." Oliver replied. "Sweet! This is sick!" I said excited. Laurel put  hand on my shoulder. "You sound like an over eager chipmunk." "I'll take that as a compliment." I replied. She sighed. "Oliver, how did you-" "How did you do this all by yourself?" "Oh, I had help." "He had a lot of help. Cisco and S.T.A.R. Labs." I followed Oliver over to some whitish cases. They opened to reveal our suits. "Four polycarbonate cases, each keyed to your individual bio-metrics." "Ha! God, I didn't even think you could pronounce bio-metrics." Thea teased. "I had some design input." "Wow." "Oliver, this is amazing." Diggle complemented. "Well, when I set up shop in the foundry, it was just me. That's not the case anymore, so I thought we could use a little more space." He explained. I heard some beeping and so did the others. "What was that? What-- did it break?" Laurel asked Felicity. "No." She replied sort of spinning around on her chair. "You okay?" I asked. "Yeah, I'm just not used to this chair yet. I'm feeding police emergency services and Homeland Security radio transmissions through a processing algorithm 24/7. This way, if anything happens in the city, we will--we will know about it. Two police detectives found shot to death responding to a code three. Um, there's no record of them calling dispatch for back-up." "Which means either their comms failed or they were ambushed the moment they arrived on the scene." I pointed out. "Thea and I will do recon, see if there's anything the CSI missed at the crime scene." Diggle said walking over to suit up. "All right. I'll talk to Lance." Oliver said leaving. "Maybe skip the part about running for mayor, because I'm pretty sure you're not going to have his vote." "That'll have to change. Can't run the city without the help of the SCPD." "What did Thea think that you were wearing?" Laurel asked Felicity. "No idea." I shifted uncomfortably. 'I need to talk to her.' I told myself. I tapped Laurel on the shoulder. "Hey, can we talk?" I asked her. She nodded. "In private?" I asked. "Sure." I couldn't tell the emotions in her voice but lead her away from Felicity. "We need to talk about the ki-" "No we don't." She replied. "Laurel, I can't run from my problems any longer-" "Then don't. It didn't mean anything." "Well that's obviously not true. Look, I still... I still... care about you... and even though it's been-" "No. Lyam, I made a mistake. I'm not making it twice." She told me and walked away. I stood there and watched her go. After a bit I decided to go for a walk by myself.