What's wrong with us when happy hurts

I don't see you like I should you look so misunderstood I wish I could help

Diggle & Lyla

"And how was it? How's Oliver?" Lyla looked expectantly at him after he stepped into the kitchen of their apartment. He just came back from Laurel's.

He took a deep breath before answering his wife, while taking their daughter from her arms to give her a proper hello, he had missed her.

"Honestly, would you believe me when I tell you that was by far one of the strangest afternoons of my life." John still wasn't sure what to make of it all. He felt as if he had stepped into the twilight zone for the last couple of hours.

"What do you mean? Because of Sara? Laurel and Thea had mentioned that she was troubled." Lyla tried to clarify her husband's answer, he tended to be easily bothered by things which led to him being a little overdramatic and blowing things out of proportion. It was all part of his black and white world view. Which was especially problematic when it came to people like Oliver and Sara that moved entirely in the grey areas, dark and ominous grey sometimes, but it was never black and white for them, or her. She would never have joined Argus if she saw the world in black and white like her husband. Argus lived by the words: "There are people in this world that only deal in extremes, and it would be naïve to think that anything less than extreme measures will stop them". Amanda Waller's death had not changed that. Words Oliver used to live by too, or at least to some degree.

John let a fussy Sara down and watched her run away, taking another deep breath to try to gather his thoughts in order to explain everything that had happened that afternoon to Lyla.

"There was something off about Oliver. I mean he pretended to be all right and did an excellent job but there was just something about him that seemed a bit off or wrong even. And Sara..." he exhaled loudly, "man," he shook his head and took another deep breath, "I don't know where to start when it comes to Sara. I told you that there was something wrong with her after the whole resurrection, returning of her soul thing but that was nothing compared to now... I swear if I hadn't known for a fact that it was Sara I would've sworn it was someone else, maybe a twin. I don't know what happened to her in the last eight months and she literally wasn't talking, not even a hello or goodbye. Oliver talked for her, he even told Laurel what drink her sister currently preferred. It was seriously weird. Sara used to be so straightforward and independent and now she's mum and glued to Oliver's side. I swear you could've sworn that she was permanently attached to his arm." Lyla looked at him, very intrigued and worried. He still didn't know what to make of Sara's behavior. His mind refused to make the connection between the young, battle hardened but kind hearted and vocal woman he first met more than two years ago and the ghost of a person he saw today. There was no way this was the same person. Something must have happened to her, but he could by god not think of anything that might have led to this huge change in her. What could've happened to her that was even worse than anything that had happened to her during her six years away from home? He honestly didn't want to think about it. So, he changed the subject from one person to another.

"And Oliver didn't really tell us anything about the five months he was gone either. I swear something happened to him too, but he was just talking about scenery and food, and some knew recipes he wants to try, that were inspired by food that he had tried. Or sleeping under the stars in South Africa. How he never realized how much he had missed that, and the quiet that came with being so far removed from civilization, until that moment. And how great it was to watch the wildlife, that Sara especially enjoyed some strange, colorful birds. He personally preferred the wild cats over the birds. Seriously, it sounded as if they were on safari. But it was all superficial bullshit and he and we all knew it. He didn't even answer the simple question when he and Sara met up or how long they've been travelling together. Something's wrong here. And experience says nothing good ever comes out of Oliver or Sara keeping secrets." He suddenly felt exhausted and some dread spreading in his body. The secrets Oliver and Sara shared usually got people killed and led him to question his worldview.