To Embrace

Disclaimer: I don't own Arrow.

Chapter 1: Lucky

Thea Queen stared at the reflection of her naked body in curious wonder. This examination wasn't for vanity or some self-exploration. Her fingers traced memories on her own flesh. Marks of events both painful and those remembered with fondness were missing from pale skin.

The thin line that bisected her left elbow, a memento to commemorate Oliver's failure to teach her how to rollerblade when she was seven was still there. But a jagged scar which once claimed the space on the forearm of the same limb, a gift from training with Nyssa was now missing. Her digits passed over the smooth void with near longing. It was a painful lesson, but one that ended up saving her life several times.

Part of her wished she still had the mark. It was just another of many physical reminders of the path she walked to get to this point, a path she erased.

The brunette's hazel eyes walked up and down her body accompanying her fingers on their journey of cataloguing changes and seeking out other absences. When touch and sight finally fell upon her own face she stepped closer to her mirror image. It was a truly singular experience to look at yourself in the mirror and not recognize the person staring back and not in some psychobabble way. The person she saw in the mirror now only appeared in those godawful flashback posts on Facebook. Thea Queen was no longer Thea Queen.

Sort of.

Fingers tugged on the long bouncy curls that graced her bare shoulders. It was odd to have long hair again. She cut her hair short when she left Starling City for the first time. It kept getting shorter as the years progressed and the losses piled up, losses that pressed lines into her face prematurely.

Those lines were gone and in their place the full cheeks of youth. Every physical representation of her past was gone. Now she needed to focus on not letting it happen again. Her attention moved from her own body to the external representation of her self. Damn. Even at sixteen she had fabulous fashion sense and a wardrobe to die for.

A lesson learned early on in life from her mother, clothes, makeup and a good blow out were armor to be worn at all times. After her father and brother were tragically lost at sea Moira temporarily took control of Queen Consolidated and grieving was put to the side. The paparazzi getting a shot of the Queen matriarch or the princess breaking down would apparently be devastating for QC stock.

So instead, the tabloids would only get shots of her perfectly coifed mother handing over the reigns of the family company to the man who would lead it to record shattering growth and that man would eventually become her step-father. Even Thea's image was perfectly crafted to fit what was expected from the now only child of the Queen family.

Until she hit fourteen and figured out rebellion was much, much more fun.

When the media got wind that Thea was following in the wild child footsteps of many rich privileged teens before her it was a feeding frenzy that her mother's PR people worked overtime to squash. They truly earned their salary as keeping the newly awakened party girl out of trouble was more than a full time job.

It wasn't like she had any reason to act out and go a little crazy. After all she was a spoiled princess who was driven to an Ivy League prep school in a Bentley every day. A girl who wore $40,000 in jewelry to a high school dance. She had the world at her finger tips and surely could want for nothing.

Except of course her dead father and brother. But people tended to forget about that. Even her own mother forgot she wasn't the only one who lost something. Moira Queen lost a husband and a son, but at least she found a replacement for the former.

The lips of Thea's reflection turned downward in a grimace. All this time and she still harbored such anger for her mother. It was hard to be angry at the dead, or at least admit you were. But now her mother wasn't dead. She was somewhere in this house that Thea never thought she would step foot in again.

The not sixteen year old dressed in casual summer clothes. Her phone told her it was Sunday, June 21st, 2011 and not even nine o'clock yet. Her mother and Walter were no doubt downstairs in the brunch room catching each other up on events, gossip and QC business.

It was time to go down and join them but she remained in her room, not quite sure this was all real. Collapsing into her vanity chair she stared at her reflection again. Her face should have been proof enough that everything she had worked, struggled and hoped for for the last two months had come true.

This was no dream. This was real.

Oliver was alive. She had no idea where he was, perhaps back on Lian Yu perhaps not, but most importantly he was alive. Her hands, which were once covered in her brother's life blood as she held his dying body shook with the knowledge. Oliver lived.

Tears burned her eyes and she sucked in a deep breath through her nose to stem the tide. Now was not the time to lose control. Picking up her eyeliner she willed her hand to be steady. Makeup was armor. A put together appearance was just what she needed. She could never cry knowing it would absolutely destroy a good paint job.

Once the eyeliner and mascara were perfectly applied she reached out for her lip stash. The bag was crammed full and she upended the whole thing rather than dig around for an hour. Her eyes landed on a bright pink Dior that added just the right pop of color to her messy up do and low key look.

Finishing, she took in her unfamiliar face in the mirror once more. A teenager looked back, a girl who had not witnessed her whole world burn to the ground around her. She had what most people dreamed of their entire lives, a second chance. She knew what Oliver would say if he were here, not the Oliver that was probably running around some Chinese island at the moment, but her Oliver. He would tell her she should take this opportunity to start fresh, to let go of the past, yadda yadda yadda, kumba-fucking-ya. Even after finding his own so-called balance he was still a hypocrite.

Her body may no longer show proof of the life she had led up to this point but she could not forget. Her past was a part of her and she wouldn't be letting it go any time soon.

But she needed to move forward. She was steps away from her mother who was murdered in front of her eyes. The only man she ever loved was somewhere in this city, probably lifting a wallet. Her unknowing half brother could be slipping out of some girl's apartment very much not dead from a man made earth quake.

With the exception of her father, Robert Queen every person she ever loved or cared for in her life was currently alive. Thea was the perfect definition of the color that coater her lips. She was Lucky.

Using her thumb she made one more swipe at the edge of her bottom lip to ensure that the line was perfect. She stood and with her armor in place strode to the door of her childhood bedroom. Opening it and stepping out she made her way down the familiar hallways.

Her hand dragged down the banister partly in remembrance and partly in dread. Doubt began to cloud her mind. Perhaps this was some strange fever dream, or perhaps she was in fact dead and this was one messed up after life.

Her heart hammered as her ears caught familiar voices drifting from exactly where they should be. Swallowing tightly she took hallway to the brunch room's entryway and stopped short of the corner. It was time to embrace whatever awaited her. Drawing on her hard earned strength she stepped around the corner and into the room.

The conversation stopped and Thea's breath caught in her chest at the sight of her mom, sitting in sunlight and looking just as she remembered. For a second the world seemed to stop. "Well," her mother said, raising an eyebrow in what Thea didn't register as her patented look of disapproval. "Look who actually dragged herself out of bed before one. I didn't think we would be seeing you given the state you came back home in last night. I truly hope that you have more plans for this summer than-"

Whatever else her mother said after that was lost as Thea began to giggle hysterically at the situation. Turns out the roaring headache she woke up with that morning wasn't from magically sending her consciousness back to 2011, but instead was just a symptom of a simple hangover. And of course the first words her mom said to her were scolding. For the first time in too many years Thea Queen felt lucky.

A/N: I am rewriting this story because I feel like I can do better. I want to tighten the plot and cement the time line more. I also want to take this story in a different direction than I originally thought and I need to lay that groundwork in the earlier chapters. I'm sorry if I went about this the wrong way. There will be chapters that I use from my original post but they will be altered at least in part and there will also be completely new chapters. The next chapter will be posted tomorrow.

A big thank you to those of you who have reviewed. I hope this doesn't frustrate you too much and you let me know what you think.