C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - F I V E
SOMETHING TO FIGHT FOR
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A/N: Sorry I haven't update in a few days! I've been without WiFi, but luckily I was still able to write some! This chapter is a lot of character interactions and kind of fluff-ish, but it's important fluff
A soft knock on the open hospital door distracted me from the news. Even though I was in the hospital, I was determined not to let it distract me from my research and work for the paper. Diggle removed his knuckle from the door and sent me a warm smile. I picked up the remote from next to my hip and turned off the TV, even though the volume was already very low.
"It okay if I come in?" He wondered and I smiled gratefully, nodding my head. He stepped into the room, nodding to the small bouquet in his hand, "I brought you flowers. I didn't know what you like so I just got you a mix." Diggle neared the side of the hospital bed and set the round glass vase on the bedside table.
As he did, I attempted to push myself up so I was sitting up more, but as I did, sharp, hot pains tore through my abdomen and I winced in pain, clenching my teeth. "Easy, easy" Dig coaxed, helping back down into a comfortable position on the bed.
"Thanks. And thank you for the flowers. They're beautiful and it was really sweet of you." I said with an appreciative tone and expression as I began absentmindedly fiddling with the wire attached to the small monitor on my finger. "I was really sorry to hear about you leaving the bodyguard position."
"Actually, the job's mine again. I'm in charge of watching after that knucklehead again." Dig joked and I couldn't help but chuckle.
"So where is the knucklehead then?" I wondered.
"He, uh, gave me the day off," Diggle responded. "Is it okay if I sit?" He asked, pointing to the chair pushed to the side of the room, which Tommy had been sitting in earlier.
"Of course." I invited.
"The Queens are sure glad you're awake." He said, taking a seat after dragging the chair a little closer. Dig wasn't dressed in his usual suit. Instead, he wore a black polo shirt under a dark brown suede jacket and dark jeans. "I am, too," he added.
"Thanks, John. It really means a lot to me that you're here."
"I imagine you've had a lot of company. Just say the word and I'll leave to let you rest."
"No, I'm actually glad you're here. Tommy was here earlier, but other than that, it's just been a bunch of nurses and doctors." I informed him. "I was getting kind of bored."
"What about the Queens? Moira, Walter, Thea...?" Dig questioned.
"Moira and Walter had a meeting. They insisted they reschedule, but I wouldn't let them. And I wasn't letting Thea miss another day of school." I explained to him and he nodded in understanding.
"What about Oliver?"
"I haven't heard from him, actually. Not since before he was arrested and I passed out again."
"He's probably just busy after the trial and then getting things worked out for the club," Diggle assured me.
"Yeah, I guess."
"I'll tell you what. Next time I see him, I'll tell him to get his ass down here to keep you company." Dig promised and I smiled.
"No, it's alright. He's got his own stuff going on. He has no obligation to be here."
"Aside from the fact that he's your best friend and you're his."
"It's okay. Really." Diggle observed me carefully as if he was trying to decipher my expression. "Really, Dig," I repeated when he gave me a dubious look.
"But you'd feel better if he was here."
I sighed. "I wouldn't oppose to his presence. Is that what you wanna hear?" I responding, pretending to grow impatient and annoyed with Diggle. I couldn't actually be cross with him. I appreciated him being here too much. He was an employee of Moira and most of those employees tended to avoid having anything to do with me unless explicitly told to, but Diggle had gone out of his way just to make sure I was okay and to keep me company. I appreciatively glanced at the flowers, which were a mix of bright colored flowers. The pigments were a welcome change from the monotonous white and grey of the hospital room.
"Oliver's kind of your person, huh?" Diggle said, lounging in the chair casually.
"What do you mean?" I responded.
"You seem to understand him when no one else can. Even Thea and his own mother."
"Yeah, well, I guess being as close of friends as we were will have that effect." I spoked, absentmindedly beginning to fidget with the monitor clipped onto my finger, which was carrying information like my pulse and temperature to the monitor next to me, which beeped softly in the background.
"'Were'?" Diggle repeated, noticing the tense.
I hesitated as if I was debating whether I should open up to Diggle. I glanced at his face and something in my mind deemed him a trustworthy ally. "Ever since Oliver got back, I've had this feeling that he's hiding something from me. He's secretive, he disappears all the time, he's always giving you the slip. And I understand that everyone has their secrets and has their own times they deem it necessary to share certain information. When Tommy and I were together, we were waiting to tell Oliver until he had adjusted more to being back in Starling City, but it's just... I'm worried about him. And I'm worried he feels like he can't trust me anymore." I said. Suddenly, my voice grew soft. "I'm worried he doesn't trust me after what I did before the boat when down. He says he forgives me, but what if he doesn't?"
"What happened?" Diggle wondered, his eyebrows furrowing with an expression of genuine interest.
Again, I was reluctant, but I explained it anyways. "Oliver was dating Laurel, but in the weeks leading up to the boat going down, he had started sleeping with Laurel's sister."
"Sara." Diggle added, implying he was familiar with this piece of the story.
"Yeah. Sara." I confirmed. Tears began welling in my eyes. They were tears of guilt, stinging my eyes and burning my ducts. "I knew. I knew her and Oliver were sleeping together, I knew they were planning to leave on the yacht. I didn't tell anyone. I didn't tell Laurel, or Detective Lance, or their mother. But if I had, they could have stopped her from leaving on that boat with Ollie. She would still be alive. She was on that yacht because I didn't say anything. Sara's dead because of me."
Diggle examined my face with sympathetic, chocolate brown eyes. "Karter, leaving on that yacht was Sara's own decision. From what I've heard about her, she was a spitfire that would have gone no matter what if that is what she had set her mind on. Oliver doesn't blame you. You're one of the most important people in his life. You're really special to him and him keeping things from you, it's not out of a grudge he has against you. He's trying to protect you."
"Protect me from what?"
This time, Diggle was the one to hesitate. "From himself."
Diggle's POV:
Just as I stepped out of Karter's hospital room, gently closing the door behind me, my cell phone vibrated from the inside pocket of my jacket.
"Diggle. I thought you were supposed to be on the plane by now." Oliver's flat voice came from the other line of the call.
"I stopped by the hospital to see Karter," I reported to him.
"We can't waste any more time."
"I know. I'm on my way to get on the plane now." I told him as I walked down the hall of the hospital wing. "Until I can get the antidote for Karter, how about you come down her and keep her company?" I suggested, trying to get through his thick skull. Even though Karter was yet to find out that she was slowly dying of a lethal neurotoxin, I could tell she was still scared and even more than that, she was lonely and bored. I had seen the way they interacted and I knew Oliver being there would comfort her immensely. "She said she hadn't heard from you all day," I added.
"Diggle, I..." He trailed off and I could imagine he had sighed and was shaking his head. "I'm not what she needs right now. She needs the antidote."
"Man, I admire how perceptive you are as the Hood, but as Oliver Queen, you're a bit of a blind dumbass," I swore. "Your best friend is dying alone in a hospital room and you're, what? Giving her some space? Why don't you get your ass down here and sit next to her? Talk to her." I proposed... more like, demanded. "Look, Oliver, if I can't find this magic herb, or I don't get it to her in time, you could lose Karter. And you're seriously telling me there's nothing you'd wanna say to her, just in case?"
"I don't know what I'd even tell her," Oliver admitted, his voice softer than it had been before.
"How about telling her the truth?" I suggested.
"You want me to tell her I'm the Hood?"
I chuckled and shook my head. Oliver could shoot a tennis ball with a bow and arrow with little to no effort, he could sense the exact trajectory of a bullet flying towards him, and he could predict a bad guy's move before he even made it, but when it came to Karter, he could be so incessantly blind. "No, I was actually thinking you should tell her that you love her."
"Love her?" Oliver repeated as if he had just learned a new, foreign concept. "Dig, she's my best friend."
I rolled my eyes. "Tommy's your best friend. Karter... she's something else to you. Something special. I would've thought you'd want her to know that before she... you know."
Oliver was silent for a few moments and I figured he was processing the information I had just had to spoon feed to him. Eventually, he responded, "I told you, Diggle. I'm not what she needs right now. She needs a cure."
Oliver Queen: Called Ended.
Oliver's POV:
I carelessly tossed the cell phone aside. Tell her I love her? Dig needed to stay focused on the task at hand and so did I. I had sent Dig with coordinates, maps, and previsions, but I would still be monitoring him closely. I had sent him with some tracking and communication devices, but there was no telling how well they would work on the island once he got there. I knew the island had signal scramblers and devices to prevent transmissions, but there had been working landline phones when I was there and the people on the island needed ways to communicate.
I watched the trackers carefully, which showed Diggle hadn't left Starling City yet. I was growing impatient. He shouldn't have stopped by the hospital. It had wasted time.
But I tried to imagine what Diggle was thinking and I suddenly understood that he had gone to the hospital to see Karter one last time. Not because it could be the very last time he saw her, but because he needed another look at the reason he was about to risk his life, diving into uncharted territory that had been my own inescapable hell for five years. He needed something to fight for.
If anyone deserved being fought for, it was Karter. Katie had always perplexed me. She had always seen the good in me, even when I didn't think there was any good to be seen. She had an unwavering faith in me, and now, she was determined to have faith in the Hood, as well.
Karter had never been anything but light, but now she was dying, alone in a hospital room, not even aware of the impending death. Suddenly, I realized that Diggle was right. She couldn't be alone right now.
I grabbed my jacket from the back of a chair and tugged it on, hurrying out of the factory to get to the hospital and see Karter for what could be the very last time.