A/N: Hello! So while Arrow is on hiatus for the time being and I seem to have a lot of free time on my hands during the day after classes, I'm going to write. I received some really good support for a little one-shot I did called "Far Worse Than Death" regarding the season finale, so this full length story will investigate the ramifications of the finale—and honestly, although I know how it starts, I have no idea how it will end, so feel free to provide any input you wish! I do know that I want to focus on Oliver and Felicity (of course) but also, in a smaller sense, Roy and Thea and maybe even Diggle and Lyla. Enjoy lovely readers!
"You don't have to outsmart him—just let him outsmart you,"
The plan had been simple and it had started to form the moment he had seen the trust in her eyes. She trusted him not to kill, she trusted him to save Laurel, she trusted him to save the city.
She should have never trusted him with her.
When he had tugged her into the abandoned Queen mansion, he had almost turned back, thinking it was a mistake, but he knew that just the simple act of leaving her there, leaving her out of the battle, would draw Slade's attention.
And she just wouldn't stay put.
So he did the one thing he had sworn he would never do—used Felicity Smoak against herself.
Then, on the island, when she had mumbled through a very one-sided conversation about the incident, he had stood there, near-wordlessly, like the ass he was. He watched her blush and stutter and stammer and he had never wished more that he could be capable of loving someone.
He didn't understand that—if he had won, if Slade Wilson was safely locked away on Lian Yu—why he felt like he was the one walking through Purgatory.
Oliver paced the cluttered floor of the foundry trying to push aside overturned tables and destroyed computers. He knew he had a mess to clean up and that it was more than the tangible.
He pulled out his cell phone, his thumb hovering over Felicity's number, when the screen lit up with Laurel's face. He considered ignoring it.
"Hello," he answered gruffly. Sometimes, the past was hard to change.
"Ollie," she sobbed into his ear, causing him to stand straighter. "It's dad," she whispered.
He hung up, grabbing his keys as he headed for Starling General, telling himself that he would call Felicity later.
Life was full of choices, and sometimes, without realizing it, people made the wrong ones.
"Slade wants to kill the woman I love," Oliver's words swirled in Felicity's brain until they blurred before her eyes, as if she were reading them on the screen of one of her computers.
"I know, so?" she challenged, anxious to prove that she didn't want to be safe, she wanted to be useful.
"So he took the wrong one," Oliver stated clearly. Felicity knew what was coming. She tried to scream. She tried to back away, to run, to escape. It was futile, of course, no one could escape a nightmare, especially when, for over a year, you had dreamed for this moment nearly every night.
"I love you," he whispered.
She sat up in bed, gasping for breath, clutching her chest trying to fill the empty hole where, once, her heart had been.
She had been captured, a sharp blade had been held to her threat, her life had been physically threatened and yet she was having nightmares about the moment her heart shattered.
Oliver Queen might no longer leave a path of dead bodies in his wake, but apparently broken hearts were still fair game.
Roy sat on his bed, phone in hand, telling himself that she would call. Thea had nowhere to go, no one to run to, and most importantly, he needed her.
He had been officially cured of the Mirakuru for several days now, but that didn't seem to cure the rage that coursed through his body, flowing through his arms as his hand connected with the wall.
He redialed her number, cursing under his breath when it went straight to voicemail. He should have never left that night. He had been trying to prove himself, right his wrong. If Roy hadn't went crazy and nearly killed her, if Slade hadn't used his blood to make that army, he and Thea could have been half way to happiness by now.
But Roy knew that was a lie, just like he knew that he had lied to her before he had left—just like she had lied when he had asked if something had happened to her. They had both nodded, pretending that lies would be enough to block out the destruction underneath. People say that no one willingly believes a lie—that the truth will set you free. Bull shit. Lies are easier to swallow and the easiest person to lie to is yourself.
Thea cried out as the bamboo came down across her arms, knocking her weapon from her grasp as she fell to the ground.
"Up!" someone shouted at her.
"Yes, teacher," she mumbled incoherently. She hadn't slept in days and she was almost certain that her left wrist was broken. Sharp pain cracked across it as the bamboo came down across the break.
"I am not your teacher," the man shoved her to the wall, outweighing her and nearly crushing her, his arm to her throat. If she could have breathed, she would have begged him to end it. "I am not you're teacher," he repeated. "I am your enemy—and trust me, that is the best teacher you will ever have," he grinned a bloody grin at her and she was reminded of the one good hit she had gotten across his face—probably breaking his nose—a weakness.
As he backed away, she brought her fist up, smashing it into his already broken cartilage, cringing at the sound.
This is what strength felt like. She was broken and bloodied and tired and she felt near death, but she had learned that strength, true strength, wasn't she had thought it was—it was who you were when you least expected it, when left with no other options.
The desperate, she had learned, succeeded because they were left with no other choice.