Disclaimer: I do not own nor make profit off of Arrow. It belongs to The CW and DC Comics, etc.
A/N: I had this one-shot sitting on my drive for a long time without even realizing it. It was posted on my Arrow tumblr blog: HoodSmoaked, but I never put it on any other site for some reason. Ah well. Here it is at last! First (and possibly only) Thea-centric piece from me.
All Her Best Faces
Attacking Roy is easy. There are visible signs of attack, of pain, in their past history. It's easy to ignore the drug's previous control over Roy by focusing only on the pain he caused her. And he lied. How he lied, time and again, telling her he was done with the vigilante when he really wasn't. Roy spends a full month in the hospital.
Laurel is easy, too. The new crime-fighter had lied longer than almost everyone. She had known of Malcolm, known it since Moira's trial. When she remembers that fact, the sisterly affection Laurel had so often planted in her head struck her just aggravating enough to push her attacks forward. Laurel spends two weeks in the hospital.
Attacking Sin is less easy, but necessary to hurting Roy. It's easier when she reminds herself that Sin knew of the Canary and never told her. Sin knew about the drug in Roy's system, but never told her. The lies make it easier to attack. Sin stays in the hospital four days.
Diggle is difficult to attack. He's too full of honor, too respectable, for her to really want him hurt. And he had tried to give her good advice once, tried to protect her from Roy's rage, and he had protected people she loved. The lies were part of his profession, part of the job description if that was how he had to protect his client. Diggle stays overnight at the hospital.
Felicity is not to be damaged. The woman in the background is honest and selfless. It was never Felicity's place to tell her the truth that was needed. They had known the same pain, the same fear. The awkward woman had been threatened with her greatest fear and passed the test. Her lies do not hurt. Felicity walks away frightened, but unharmed.
Oliver is impossible. And he shouldn't be. She should want him to understand how his lies hurt her. She should want him to hurt as she hurt. But the hosen burns her pocket and reminds her of his scars, inside and out. She remembers when he came back, broken and changed by things she couldn't understand. Only now she does understand.
It should make her angry, his secret.
It explains so many things. Things that made no sense for a normal person. She remembers how hard it was for him to talk, to eat, to sleep, to write… He didn't laugh, didn't smile, didn't wink with any substance. It was all fabricated to make them feel comfortable around him, to make him seem normal. But he wasn't normal anymore.
They allowed his façade to continue because they were too afraid to accept change in their lives. Five years had become stale. They were dying. Every one of them had allowed themselves to start dying when Ollie Queen died. He may have lied and cheated, he may have been careless and thoughtless… but he was also full of love. He was the glue in their family. Ollie Queen was Moira's beautiful boy, Thea's knight in shining armor, and Tommy's brother at heart. The love left when Ollie did.
When he came back, he still called her Speedy. It wasn't playful and cheery, it wasn't full of laughter and big smiles… It was protective and sentimental, it was full of wistfulness and affection. He still saw his little sister standing there. The love was still there. She just hadn't looked for it in the right places.
She had prepared herself for all the old fun and games, all the old silliness and joy, for their family to somehow be whole and happy once more. She had waited for the same love to fill their lives. She had expected Ollie Queen to come back, the glue pulling them all back together again.
Now she faces Oliver Queen, with all of his faces and lives and personas rolled into one growing, maturing identity. He is the little boy who held his baby sister whenever he felt alone, the teenager who let her catch him on the staircase because she was too small to match his long legs, and the young man who called her Speedy because she had become fast enough to catch him.
He is the man who died on an island and came home broken and damaged. He gave her a symbol of reconnecting, wanted her to have a better life than the clubbing and drinking that pockmarked his own, he made sure she got to safety before anyone else. He is the prodigal son who tried to bring his family together in spite of his own demons, and felt guilty because his family didn't appreciate his efforts. He is the friend who stood by her when she took drugs and wrecked her car, held her hand going into her hearing because he knew she was scared, met with an insane drug dealer so she wouldn't become the poster child for Vertigo, and pushed for a plea deal to get her out of a prison sentence.
He is the vigilante who saved the life and hope of a guy she loved, rescued Walter, and was willing to die to stop Malcolm's Undertaking. He returned to his broken city to support his family. He is the hero who put the hood back on the save her, put an arrow in Roy to save him from a dangerous situation, brought Roy home when the idiot followed that danger anyway, and gave Roy a purpose to save him from the drug in his system.
He lost Queen Consolidated because he cared more about finding her than controlling a company. He let her go because he loved her and wanted her safe more than he wanted to give himself a chance to fix things with her. He is the brother whose last words to her were that not a day had gone by since she was born that he hadn't cherished her.
They battle bow against bow, with hoods up. He, because he's protecting those he loves. She, because she's afraid if he looks at her with those hopeful, protective eyes, she will trust him again and her anger will die.
She is selfish, and always has been. Regardless his own pain, she had wanted Oliver to fix her life. Everyone else had failed to 'make it better.' And she poured the full weight of her need onto her brother. She pushed and shoved and bullied him because what she really wanted wasn't for him to heal… it was for him to heal her.
But he couldn't heal her, can't heal her. And that makes her angry.
The hosen slips from her pocket as if of its own mind, and falls to the ground between them. Their battle freezes, he stares uncomprehendingly. He throws his weapon away as though it burned him.
When he pulls back his hood, those eyes she feared are staring back at her.
Oliver stands still there in front of her, weapon cast aside because he can't hurt her. Yet his blue eyes do make her hurt. They hurt her because even when she hides behind a hood and foreign clothes, even when she points a steady arrow at his heart, his eyes say he loves her more than life itself. And it is the one thing she always trusted.
She had told Roy that Thea Queen was trusting. But Thea Queen had yet to truly exist. The Thea that Roy knew – the selfish teenager and half-baked club manager – was Thea Dearden Queen, daughter of Robert and Moira Queen. And she was never trusting. Not because everyone lied to her, but because she never trusted herself.
Speedy was trusting. That twelve-year-old little girl who plastered her full name on her bedroom door and expected her big brother would come home no matter how long it took or what obstacles he had to face. That little girl waited hidden away in growing teen Thea Dearden Queen, and Thea Dearden Queen waited hidden away in the darkness of Thea Merlyn.
Like her brother, she is a mixture of many different faces now. Trusting little Speedy who followed her big brother everywhere, selfish woman-child Thea Dearden Queen who loved Roy Harper, angry Thea Merlyn who followed a psychopath because it was the easy way out.
Trusting or not, each of her old faces are selfish. They only want what Oliver can give of himself. Thea Merlyn wants to hate her half-brother for lying to her. Thea Dearden Queen wants to push her brother away because he couldn't carry the world for her. Speedy wants her big brother to protect her from everything.
She wants to hate him, to hurt him. But she can't hurt him any more than he can hurt her.
She has to stop holding him responsible. She has to heal herself. She has to fix herself. She has to make her own life better and stop depending on everyone else to do it for her.
She will remember Thea Merlyn because Thea Merlyn was weak. And she needs to be strong.
She will save Thea Dearden Queen because Thea Dearden Queen was loving. And she needs love in her life.
She will honor Speedy because Speedy was trusting. And she needs to trust herself.
She will become Thea Queen because Thea Queen is a combination of all her best faces. And she needs Thea Queen to exist.
-The End-