Conflict Resolution
When Thea walks into the underground lair, she is met with the place being trashed, although she can tell that some of the mess has been cleaned up already. There's still shattered glass everywhere and she watches her step as she looks around for any clue of the team.
"Ollie? Are you here?", Thea calls out and as she round the corner, Oliver turns around to face her, a somewhat shocked look on his face.
"Thea.", he says; sighs, more likely, as if he's tired. There's a look on his face, too, which Thea knows better than she should. The look he wears when he has to disappoint her but doesn't want to, which is why she indulges herself enough to allow him to stall; just to make it easier for him, not because she's scared. Or at least that's what she keeps telling herself.
"Aren't you supposed to be at the conference?"
Thea looks around, shrugging. "When your best friend comes back from the dead, going on the first plane back home is a thing you do.", when she faces him again, that look on his face deepens.
Thea calculates how long it took from when Laurel called her to when Thea reached the lair, and if she's learned anything from Malcom it's that any time is enough time for someone to die. Of course it's in her luck that her best friend would die again before she got to see her; life was never on Thea's side, it seemed. She tries to push back tears. It was all too good to be true, anyway. In the end, she finds it best that they haven't called Quentin yet.
"Is she-", she chokes up on the word 'dead' (people would think it would get easier after all these years - it doesn't), but Oliver shakes his head to cut her off, stepping closer to her.
"No, she's..", he keeps hesitating and Thea just wants him to get on with it, but a part of her understands. "She's alive.", there's this shudder of relief that passes through her and she sighs, looking down. But, when her eyes find her brother's again, the weight is back on her shoulders.
"But what, Ollie?", Thea says and her voice is weaker than she'd want it to be. She wishes things would be easy just this once.
Oliver takes another step forward, putting a hand on her shoulder, moving it then so it rests on her elbow. His eyes don't move away from hers - although Thea can tell it's hard for him to look at her - and Thea leans into his touch, knowing she'd need it.
"It's not our Laurel, Thea.", he says and this time, Thea can't stop the tears. "It's not her."
She remembers Central City reports on Black Siren - how they all talked about a copycat (amongst puns having to do with cats and birds), but Cisco told them it was a matter of a whole other Earth. How even then there was a part of Thea mourning her friend all over again.
Thea takes a few moments to compose herself before she lifts her chin up, looking at her brother with a new strength that she doesn't even know where she manages to find anymore.
"Where is she?", she says, leaving no room for argument. "I want to see her."
Oliver nods and shows her the way, his hand now resting on the small of her back and she pulls closer to him.
It never fails to give her comfort.
As they walk into the room, she can feel Oliver stiffen beside her just as Laurel comes into view. Thea stops the sob that threatens to leave her lips, and she turns around quickly, a hand over her mouth as tears start to fall again. Because, God, she looks exactly like her. She looks like Laurel and every part of Thea screams for her best friend.
Thea takes deep breaths, grounds herself to the feel of her brother's hand on her shoulder. Her fingers itch to do something - to punch, to grab a flask or even just a cigarette, but she resists. Instead, after composing herself - her tears now dry and her breathing normal - she turns back around and gives Oliver a look that clearly tells him to leave her alone. For a moment, he looks ready to fight her on it but Thea can point out the exact moment when he gives in, and she thanks him with a smile.
"I'll be fine, Ollie.", she says. "Go."
Thea can hear the doors close behind him (although she knows he will stay on the other side until she's done, listening carefully for any sound of trouble) and makes her way towards the cage where Laurel - no, where Black Siren - is.
The woman in the cage looks at her carefully as she approaches the bars, but Thea can't read her features. The expressions that were once so familiar on Laurel - her Laurel - are somehow so entirely different on this woman.
Thea decides she misses the kindness with which Laurel always looked at her. It leaves her with an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach, as if she's mourning all over again. This is something Thea knows all too well; mourning. She's felt it since she was twelve, and understands the neverending cycle of it.
She still isn't any more used to it than she was as a teenager, no matter how much time has passed. She also still hates it just as much.
But, even though kindness is missing from the woman's features, she does have something Thea saw in Laurel: there's history - too much history for a young woman to have - full of pain and hardship so obvious on her face. But, where her Laurel lifted herself above her bad decisions, this Laurel lifted herself in them.
"You remind me of her.", is the first thing Thea says, and it surprises even her. Black Siren, to her credit, only lifts an eyebrow. Its as if she's amused: yes, I remind you of your friend because I wear her face and share her name, because - in another world - I am her.
But, also to her credit, Black Siren stays quiet.
"But you're nothing like her.", Thea continues. "Why?", Thea asks and she hates how desperate she sounds. "Why do this?"
Black Siren shrugs. "Why does anyone do anything?", she replies. "Survival."
"That's where you're wrong.", Thea says. There's rage boiling in her veins, because she knows Laurel would never say anything like this. "You don't need to kill to survive. I know that. Sara knows that. Laurel-", she can almost feel her voice cracking. "Laurel was one of the strongest people I knew."
Black Siren scoffs.
Thea impulsively approaches, hitting the bars with her arms in anger. The movement surprises Black Siren, causing her to step back. Thea can feel a sting of pain in her hand, but ignores it. She's had worse.
"You're a coward.", Thea hisses. "You think you're brave, but you're not. You're selfish.", Black Siren's lips form a thin line and Thea smiles. "You think of Laurel as weak, but she would wipe the floor with you.", she says confidently. "Stop hiding behind your scream and face your fucking demons."
Black Siren walks closer and even though Thea can feel anger seeping off the woman, she doesn't flinch. "I have no one.", Black Siren hisses. Suddenly, her eyes feel incredibly empty to Thea. "I've lost everything. Don't talk to me as if you know how it feels."
"I know exactly how it feels.", Thea is quick to reply. "But I also know that - even when you have nothing - you still have a choice. A choice to either let your pain consume you until you can't live, or to create something new. Something worth living for. Worth fighting for.", Thea says. "You get to choose to be brave."
There's a moment of silence and Thea moves away, loosening the grip on the bars. She walks backwards until she's halfway to the door before speaking again. "You just have to make it."
Thea turns around and walks to the door. She reaches for the doorknob, but is stopped by Black Siren calling out to her. "Why do you care so much?"
There is something missing in her voice, replaced by a tone Thea hasn't heard from the woman before. In that moment, she sounds so much like Laurel it makes Thea's heart clench.
Thea turns her head, her hand still on the doorknob. "Because she would've.", she says and leaves.
When the doors close behind her, it's like she can finally breathe again.
"Black Siren's escaped.", Oliver is a man on a mission, suit on and bow in hand. He gathers the team but Thea can sense a feeling a reluctance to it, and she knows he's not ready to trust them but decides to.
She decides to help him with that.
"Let me suit up.", she says and Oliver looks at her, eyebrow raised but gratitude in his eyes. He always could trust his sister unconditionally. He nods.
In the back, Felicity takes a seat and starts working on the computers to locate Black Siren. Thea can see a small amount of dried blood still around her ears and notices that the blonde talks just a bit louder.
Moving to suit up, she can catch Curtis talking about a way to control Black Siren's powers.
Thea takes a deep breath and lets the adrenaline lead her. It's been a while.
She hasn't really missed it. Although, she can't say if it's having a mission in general, or because this mission is Laurel.
Thea decides she doesn't want to know, anyway.
"You think that'll work?", Thea asks Curtis as they sit in the back of the van. They're fully suited and he's working on the device to dampen Black Siren's cry.
He looks at her, a bit of anxiety in his eyes. "That's the plan.", he says and Thea manages to give him what she hopes is a reassuring smile. She believes in him, even if he might not have been believing in himself lately. They all go through rough times, especially doing what they do, and Thea hopes he knows she'll be there for him if he needs her. God knows how much she needed Laurel or Ollie in her corner in her most desperate of times.
"Let's do this.", she says and they jump out. Soon, they're met with blasting screams, curtesy of Black Siren. They're piercing and Thea's sure her ears will bleed - even if she is wearing earplugs - but she pushes through it.
When they catch up with Oliver, Thea can see him talking to the woman, as if trying to get through to her. Thea's almost surprised, but she knows Ollie saw something in this Laurel that might be worth saving, and she also understands he feels he owes it to their Laurel to at least try.
And, dammit, if she doesn't owe her that, too.
"There's still a choice!", Thea yells to her. "It doesn't have to end like this. You don't have to be a villain for the rest of your life. You don't have to be at the beck and call of others."
"I am not anyone's puppet!", Black Siren hisses.
"Are you sure about that?", Thea says. "You say you're doing this for survival but you don't need Prometheus to survive.", Thea makes a decision to out her bow down and takes a careful step towards the other woman. "You can do it on your own. Laurel did. And you can, too. And if you need help, I'm offering, just like she offered it to me. I believe that there is good in you. Laurel would've seen it as well, I know it. I can feel it."
Thea can see Black Siren's defenses go down, so she takes another step.
"And you know what?", Thea says. "I think you can feel it, too."
This time, it's Black Siren who takes a step and closes the distance between her and Thea. She almost falls into Thea's arms, as if she's been carrying such weight for so long, and now she's overwhelmed by it being lifted off her.
"I can't be alone anymore.", she says and Thea thinks she can hear tears in her voice.
She hugs her, giving her bow to Oliver, and softly runs her hand through Black Siren's hair, comforting her.
"You don't have to.", Thea whispers. "You don't have to."
In the back, she can hear Oliver telling everyone to stand down.
And she lets out a breath of relief she didn't know she was holding.