"The vigilante is still being hunted by police as the mystery of the green hooded man continues and grows, some report the vigilante is even some sort of superhero, eyewitness accounts claim the vigilante has ..." Her brother's obnoxious voiced drowned out the news she was trying to listen too. Unlike what he might think not everyone in the car was interested or even cared about hearing some stupid excuse for why he crashed another car. Thea blew out her breath as she leaned her head against the car window. Her Father was mad, again. Her brother was arguing back the two locked in a shouting match that always bordered on climatic. You should be more responsible, blah blah blah, someday your going to be the head of the family blah blah blah insert your the heir lecture blah blah blah. Then her brother, I don't care blah blah blah, it was only a car, it was only a night, I'm trying blah blah blah. It was always something that was really the same big thing. Her Father was disappointed in him, and her stupid brother was too weak to do anything about it. Weak wasn't the right word...he just didn't have the guts so to speak. And he never would. You couldn't learn to be the man her Father wanted his son to be, Thea had understood that a long time ago. It was something you were born with, something you either had or you didn't. And her brother didn't and her Father deep down knew that and resented him for it. It caused every situation to pulse with buried anger and disappointment. Every conversation the two had ended in a fight; not a mega-I'll-never-speak-to-you-again-your-disowned sort of fight but tense jabs back and forth that cause either one or both to leave the room shaking their heads and muttering under their breath. Thea smirked to herself, that's what made car rides special. No way out and only a couple of inches between them. It had begun with a, "How has school been?" Two minutes in and now they were yelling over the radio. She only got bits and pieces of the sound bite.
"Hooded vigilante seen at dark hours of the night on roof-tops..."
"Captain Lance here to tells us if he poses any real threat to Starling..."
"I have no respect for a man who murders people who he doesn't appear to 'like", the vigilante seems to target a large range of victims having no particular connection, he's killed members of the Triad to local CEO's of Starling there doesn't seem to be any particular pattern except..."
"WHY DO YOU WASTE ALL THE OPERTUNITES I GIVE YOU?" Her Father's voiced boomed over the radio, Thea just shivered imagining a dark figure stalking villains in the night. Killing them. The man seemed to kill anyone he wanted. How did he do it? She wondered, looking out the window at the blurry cityscape. What was the pattern to his crimes?
"What do you want me to do?' Her brother snapped. "You so obviously have this fantasy of your perfect son, who do you want me to be Dad? Just tell me so at least I know!"
"I all want is for you to be a man!" Her Father hissed. That shut her brother up, immediately he crossed his arms and looked out the window. Her Father sighed but said nothing. Thea swallowed. The silence hung thick around them.
"If anything all this vigilante stuff worries me!" Said a woman's voice on the radio. "Here is some random guy and he thinks this is just okay, just acceptable. Now that's a dangerous mentality, some where there is someone who thinks this is okay and I worry, I really do. What does this open up Starling too? If we let this continue it's going to be the beginning of something terrible, I can feel it. I say this as a warning to Starling City, this dark vigilante will only be the beginning. I sense darkness in this city." She shifted in her dress smoothing out the lilac satin in her lap over and over. The car stopped and her Father gave her brother a very long intense look. It always made him shift and squirm.
"I only want you to be strong." He said. Her brother didn't move still looking out the window. "Some day your going to understand that." With a huff her brother swung the door open and slammed it shut. Thea watched him walked away toward the Queen family mansion, it cast a very large shadow. She and her Father sat in the car for a second before she swallowed again. It wasn't her fight.
They exited the car and began the walk up to the house. "I can't believe it." She said. Her Father looked down at her.
"What Speedy?"
"That he's still alive." Her Father smiled at her. "I mean all those years and he suddenly just comes back.!"
"Hmmmm well stranger things do happen." They were quiet the rest of the way.
All three of them waited at the front door. A maid answered taking their coats and hats before leading them to the parlor. Like everything in the house it was rich and grand, antique boats and landscape paintings hung on the walls. The entire house smelt of old wood. They stood behind a crackling fire when they entered.
"Malcolm, thank-you so much for coming!" Mrs. Queen hugged her father.
"How could I not welcome your boy home?" He asked. She smiled and hugged her brother before glancing down at Thea.
"Mrs. Queen." She said, Mrs. Queen always stared directly into Thea's eyes. She smiled back and hugged her.
"I am so happy Oliver's back." She said. Mrs. Queen never embraced her back. She just slid from the hug and gave her a smile, an odd twinkle in her eyes.
"We all are." She said. Thea looked past the group to see Oliver, he was turning from the fire. He looked nothing like the Oliver Queen she knew. He seemed taller and more muscular, his face sharper and harder, everything about him seemed darker. His face, yes it was in his face, he was still very handsome and his smile was still the familiar devilish playboy grin. But there was something different about him, the way he walked and held himself. Something in his eyes just like Mrs. Queen. They both held a darkness in their blue eyes only Oliver's wasn't as deeply buried. He shook her Father's hand.
"Mr. Merlyn." He said. She had forgotten how deep his voice had been. Her Father and Oliver looked at each other for a moment before he looked down at Thea and smiled.
"Hey Speedy." He said grinning, she almost blushed.
"Hey Ollie." Thea murmured, she felt the overwhelming need to hug him. Stupid and by the way smooth. She thought embarrassed. He hugged her instead. "I missed you, all of you." He said talking to the group. "I'm just grateful to be home now."
Mrs. Queen lead them to the dinning room. She sat next to Mr. Steele as Oliver and Tommy talked back and forth, she couldn't quite hear but Mrs. Queen and her Father were having a discussion, most likely about business. She focused on her eggs and watched Oliver. There was defiantly something different about him. If she didn't know any better she would call it something off. He caught her stare and smirked.
"And what have you been up to Speedy?" He asked, leaning over. She smiled, quickly hiding another blush and crossed her arms.
"Nobody calls me Speedy any more Ollie."
'Nobody calls me Ollie any more Speedy." She grinned.
"Fine, but my life so far will not be as interesting as yours, what was it like on the island?" The whole table stopped talking and Oliver stiffened.
"It was the worst time of my life." He said after a long moment. "But I became stronger you could say." Mrs. Queen tensed, her Father was giving one of those looks she could never decipher. Mr. Steele looked confused. Tommy gave a nervous laugh.
"Heard you were giving out little gifts too, do I get one of those T-shirts where it says my friend was marooned on an island and all I get is this lame T-shirt?" Everyone gave a laugh and brunch continued with a dessert of rich bunt cake. She only felt Mrs. Queen's eye on her a couple of times before the woman broke the stare to look down at her plate or out a window.
Only she and her Father road home, Thea fearing it would be another one of those months when Tommy and her Father barley acknowledged each other. It was a sort of game the two would play. Their own little power struggle to see who would cave in first and try to make peace. Tommy had never won. The radio featured another news update on the vigilante.
"Think he's really that evil?" She asked. Her Father chuckled.
"It is only a matter of time before a man has to take matters in his own hands. Most people just aren't strong enough to do it." She shrugged.
"Do you think I would make a good vigilante?" He gave her a sideways look.
"A vigilante?" He turned down the radio.
"Yeah, like the bad men who killed Mom, they were never caught but their some where out there. I think I could do it. I could track them down and take justice into my own hands too. I'm strong enough. You train me every day. I could do it." He was quiet and she continued. "I'm not weak you know. I would track down Mom's killers and give them justice. I'd give lots of villains justice, I'd be different from the vigilante cause I'd actually get bad guys." He reached across and stroked her hair.
"This city is full of too much evil for even you to cleanse."
"But I could at least get the real bad ones!" She said. He smiled and Thea saw sadness.
"But that's the thing Thea, even if you cut the weed, as long as the roots still fester in the soil it will simply grow right back. The only was to get rid of the evil is to destroy it all. Everything. That is the only true way to cleanse. We must..." Thea frowned. As her father eye's took on the empty look Tommy had once talked of. She saw his hands tighten on the steering wheel.
"You mean cut the roots out of the soil?" She asked. He looked at her as if remembering then nodded.
"No, no one must do more that. We have to dig all the soil out too, and plant something else in its place. That is the only way Thea. You must trust me." She leaned back in her seat, frustrated at not understanding the look in everyone's eyes. She turned away and stared at the rear-view mirror, objects in mirror are closer than they appear it read, she saw her own face, almost identical to her fathers. The same dark brown hair pulled back in a braid falling down her shoulder. She would be lying if she said it didn't slight both her. Every problem could be solved. She had been taught that from an early age. There was no enemy a great warrior couldn't defeat, that's what her Father had told her. He seemed to think that there was no solution to the evil that roamed Starling and something inside Thea, something she very rarely felt, something she couldn't identify, slid to the bottom of her stomach just thinking about. It almost went against her life philosophy.
"I could make you proud, I could be the strongest in the family Daddy." She stiffened not being able to stop the thought that escaped her lips. To her surprise her Father just smiled and said quietly,
"Every warrior must learn the simple truth, that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional." Thea didn't understand what he meant.