Title: Blanket Down (The Fur Is On Your Mind)
Fandom: Arrow
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 380
Summary: Moira has received an almost stranger in the form of her son.

They talk around it, the nurses and doctors, give significant nods and looks and coach every other sentence directed her way in inferences, like she is a retiring maiden to be shielded from harsh truth rather than a mother of two. Moira knows that it’s not, cannot be alright. Not after so long.

(It is quite, perfectly alright. Oliver is home. He is alive. He is here.)

 

Her son is no longer the bright boy who set out with his father. May never be that boy again. What he is, is home. Moira can work with that.
Oliver needs, not in any particular order; therapy, nutritional supplements, down time to reacclimatize to interacting with society, a new wardrobe – or wardrobe, full stop, she hadn’t seen what he was wearing when the transfer team brought him in and assumes it was burned - to not leave her sight for the next four years - a thousand and one things that Moira will walk over glass to give him, if need be.

And he needs support. Unconditional, nonthreatening, the kind that she is, intellectually, aware humans will not be able to provide without intruding upon at least some of his need for privacy. Oliver is not the sort to look after a dog. That might have changed – he has changed, so much, so quickly – but Moira is not prepared to deal with the mess of a dog in her carefully curated living space. Not unless she has no choice. And she does. She is Moira Queen, in a city half built with her money - she has all the choices.

It, in the end, is the furthest thing from standard supervillain imagery imaginable. Fat, half squashed, lurid orange fur broken only by asymmetrical splotches of white. Placid, and solid – and uncaring of human plans as a cat can be. Thea, after grabbing a seat while Moira talks her way through their options with the shelter’s receptionist slash all seeing eye, is trapped, and when she turns around and sees her daughter, pouting like she hasn't since the last time she was refused chocolate sprinkles on her cake, she knows exactly what cat they need.

Hopefully Oliver has a better name in mind for the new member of their household than Mr Grumpyface.