Time, Truth, Tragedy

Family meals

Chapter 2

Family meals

"Family dinners have the power to heal, to mend broken hearts, and to remind us that we always have a place to belong."

-Unknown

Katie figured Oliver would be late dealing with this other Laurel and whatever she and Alex Faust are getting into, so she figured she should be the one to head up tonight's family dinner. She knew she'd probably burn the house down trying to cook, so instead she just ordered pizza. While waiting for it to be delivered, she made a large bowl of salad that she brought out to the dining room table. She lifted her head at the sound of the doorbell and headed for the door.

"Kids, pizza's here!" she yelled grabbing her purse. She pulled open the door. "Today is your lucky day, because I have no small bills." she lifted her eyes and sighed because it wasn't the pizza delivery guy. It was Oliver holding their pizzas. "You're not Todd." she reached forward and grabbed the pizzas from his hands.

"And you didn't ask who was at the door before opening it." Oliver pulled off his jacket and hung it up before following her into the dining room. "Why do you know the pizza delivery guy's name?"

"He volunteers at the clinic." Katie says sitting the pizza down before looking back over to him. "I didn't expect you home this early. Ethan was here, and told me about evil Laurel and said you guys had a lead."

Oliver looked over to her for a moment. For the past couple of months, she hadn't asked him about any of their vigilant cases, so he was surprised she was inquiring about this one.

"Apparently she calls herself Black Siren and tonight didn't turn out the way I thought it would. Rene was hurt and she and her mercenaries got away."

"Is Rene ok?"

"He's at the hospital, Ethan is taking care of him." he noticed her turn away before they heard the sound of hurried footsteps. A smile came to his face when Ari and William came into the dining room. "So pizza gets everyone out of their rooms." Will looks over to Oliver before turning to Katie and just takes a step back. "Will, it's-" the boy doesn't say anything before turning and heading back upstairs to his room.

Oliver's shoulders dropped before he turned off to go grab Robyn for dinner. When he came back into the dinning room, he noticed Ari was gone now as well.

"Maybe I should've stayed out later." he sighed before placing Robyn into her booster seat. "Seems like no one wants to be in a room with me."

"Ari will be back down. She went up to talk to Will to see if she could get him back down." Katie replied. "He's been having nightmares." Oliver looked over to her with a quirk brow. "He told me about them last night after you left. He's been dreaming about the bad man who took his mom away."

Oliver sighed, "Adrian."

"That's what I thought." Katie replied as Oliver stepped over to her. "I think it's you. I think you're the bad man in his dreams."

Oliver sighed, turning away unsure what to do with that. Katie placed a hand on his chest and he turned back to her.

"Right now all he sees when he looks at you is the guy from his dreams, you just have to let him know that's not who you are." Oliver smiled at her, before his hands came around her waist, slightly tugging her toward him.

"Did you want to talk about earlier?"

"Still no." she replied tugging herself from his grasp before going to grab Robyn a slice of pizza.