#myrlns

two. they're twenty three years old when he gets into a fight at one of his house parties — laurel breaks it up because... it's her, and even though she's a little out of practice, taking down a couple of drunk frat boys barely breaks a sweat, but doesn't get the reason behind it later, until she's smearing neosporin over his busted knuckles and wrapping them with the tape and gauze she'd dug out of the back of a medicine cabinet. apparently thea'd snuck in, and managed to get molly off of some dickhead business major. laurel purses her lips, makes a mental note to talk to her later, but there's not much she can do about that now. " you know — if i'm gonna play bouncer at your parties, i think you oughta pay me for it, " she teases, quietly. tommy makes some joke about her not taking the money, which... that's true. and then he says she could enjoy the party like everyone else, and laurel chews on the inside of her cheek — she tells him she's not sure how to do that right now, and tommy gets it, decides not to push the matter. he dutifully changes the subject, tells her that he likes her shoes, asks if she'll change the oil on his car in exchange for breakfast later, ponders on the sorority girls that may or may not have been hitting on him. it makes laurel smile in the kind of way that she hasn't smiled in a while. she finishes her work in short order, gently smooths the tips of her thumbs over the back of his hand, and the feeling in her chest is warm, and safe. the way it always has been with tommy. so they just kind of sit on the floor in his bathroom and smile stupidly at each other for a minute, and someone — laurel's not sure who, but someone leans in. the kiss is soft, and tommy's non-bandaged hand lands at the back of her neck, and laurel's fingers wind up cupping his face, and — for a second, it's everything. it's everything in the kind of way that scares the shit out of her. when she realizes that, she remembers that oliver's dead at the bottom of the ocean, and so is sara, and her dad's at the bottom of a bottle, and his wife's run away to central city, and — he's all she's got right now. " i can't — tommy — " laurel's the one who pulls back, swallows and has to work around her words like she's been drinking. " it's — i can't do this now. not in a i don't want this way, but... you're the only constant in my life, and — if we happened and something went wrong right now, it would break me. " she leans her head against the wall, watches his face, wants to cry about it. " maybe it's shitty of me, but i need this to stay the same. for now. if that's... okay with you. "

three. they are thirty four years old, and dinah pukes once in the lair, twice while out on patrol. roy keeps side-eyeing her, even after she waves it off as bad rice and beans. it would track for who she is as a person, but they both know she's full of shit right now. roy doesn't say anything, though, because he's got her back through everything, regardless of how stupid he thinks it is. he always has. he takes most of the legwork in taking down a drug den, and she lets him without argument. she just tells him not to tell oliver or felicity, for now, and he nods dutifully, looks almost offended that it even needs to be said. dinah stops by the pharmacy on the way home, downs a liter of dr. pepper, and pees on four sticks in the bathroom there. she makes plans on the way home to wake tommy up, but they get thwarted the second her head hits the pillow — she's out cold after a shower and a snickers bar, tucked up under the arm tommy tosses over her. she does tell him in the morning — he's up first, as per usual, just getting out of the shower when she wakes up. dinah rolls onto her side, and at the same time he tells her good morning, she opens her mouth and says, " i'm pregnant, " in a hoarse voice that's still not entirely awake. tommy starts a bit, frozen in the bathroom doorway, and dinah waits for a moment before sitting up, hands pushed into her lap. " my period's like two weeks late, and i took four tests in a walgreen's last night — " he's across the room and kissing her before she finishes her thought. they're both grinning, elated and terrified — because this is new, and scary, and sure they were just letting the pieces fall as they may, but a baby in theory is different from an actual baby —and then laughing when dinah gets enough leverage with an arm hooked over tommy's shoulder to drag him back into bed so she can kiss him more there.

four. it is nine o’clock in the morning, and she’s been under the 1976 corvette since seven.  it’s technically  his  —  he says he bought it for himself, but she's listed as the primary driver on the insurance.  she does the upkeep — which, to his credit, she's been doing maintenance on his cars since they were kids — and vintage cars were never really his thing anyways. so he says that it's his, but he also knows how to give her things in a way that she'll actually use them. tommy grabs her for breakfast minutes later.  she knows it’s breakfast, because breakfast time is around nine, no matter where you are in the world, and she knows it’s tommy by the way he stands next to the car.  it’s breakfast time, he tells her.  breakfast is at nine.  

dinah waits a moment, nods, and then rolls herself out from under the car.  the morning sun hits his left cheek through the window, and tommy looks like an angel from this angle.  she does not tell him this.  his ego will get even bigger.  instead, she sticks out one dirty, grease-covered hand, and wordlessly, he takes it, and pulls her to her feet.  and then he turns her hand over, kisses the backs of her knuckles, and tells her she’s filthy.  they stand in the garage, grinning like idiots.

five. liv is born at nine thirty seven pm on a friday evening, and the planning had been nothing short of chaotic. per ted's account, dinah senior had given birth in the kitchen, surrounded by two vigilante friends she'd made over the years. and tommy, oliver, thea — all of them had been born in fancy hospitals surrounded by the best kind of medical care money could buy. she leans towards the former early on, but eventually settles on a center with the promise that tommy never lets her see the bill. and then there's the discussion on pain management, which scares the shit out of her for obvious reasons. she changes her plan a frightening number of times over the course of a handful of months.

the only easy questions are who she wants in the room — ted stays for a while, and then ultimately waits in the waiting room, a move which dinah is later grateful for, and then tommy, and that's it. and names — oliver starts as a joke, but they've been unironically calling the baby liv for four months now, so it's sort of stuck. but for as chaotic as the planning had felt, in true dinah fashion, dinah feels almost eerily level-headed throughout the event. she walks around until she can't, sleeps when she can, watches fresh prince reruns when she can't.

and tommy is a rock— he feeds her soup and a banana, plays card games with her, reminds her dutifully of the breathing exercises from the classes that she'd thought were useless and overpriced but actually come in handy, laughs when she asks jokingly if he wants her right now as a means of trying to lighten up the situation. takes her socks off when her feet get hot, puts them back on when her feet get too cold.