Chapter 21
A/N: Too long since the last update, I know, but I had to spend a lot of time drafting up the next few chapters. I am happy to see most of you enjoyed the duel; I worked quite hard on that. I just hope I can continue to live up to your expectations.
Note to Bloodsong 13T: Thanks for pointing out the mistake with the shirt. This is what happens when I write for five hours straight and post without editing because I can't bear to look at a laptop screen any longer. That goes for everyone: if you can spot a mistake, let me know and I will be happy to fix it in the next update. Disclaimer: My team of lawyers have informed me that I still do not own Arrow.
Laurel arrived at the courthouse twenty minutes early, as she did for every case, regardless of its significance. It was a matter of professionalism, a consistent habit that she never departed from, even though this might very well be the biggest trial of her career.
But as she strode briskly through the mob of reporters that congregated around her on the courthouse steps, ignoring their shouted questions and flashing cameras with the practiced ease that came from years of litigating, she knew that this day was different.
For one, the District Attorney now followed behind her, giving far more courteous smiles and waves to the cameras, Harvey's natural ebullience only bolstered by the press coverage given to his miraculous recovery. His presence was at once welcome and daunting, a friendly face amidst the throng but also one that she felt obligated to impress. He had, after all, reassigned her as first chair for this trial; surrendering that leading position was almost unheard of for any DA, let alone one as vaunted as himself. She knew that he had been grooming her to take his place for a while now, though to what end, she remained unsure; he had yet to mention any plans beyond the DA's office.
Regardless, a great deal was riding on this day for her, professionally and personally. A chance to put away the bastard who stole Oliver's company and to watch Terrance Elliot pay the piper was something she did not intend to waste, a small smile spreading across her face as she stepped through the courthouse doors and felt a small rush of adrenaline.
This was her turf, her arena. And today, she was not taking prisoners.
"You ready?" Harvey asked as they passed through the courthouse metal detectors, shooting her a teasing smile.
"I am," Laurel confirmed with a quick nod. They retrieved their briefcases and headed towards the courtroom, the building's other occupants parting before their purposeful strides. "I'd like to thank you, Harvey," she said as they approached the doors. "For trusting me with this." She paused, turning to look at him. "That was a big decision on your part, and I really appreciate it."
"It really wasn't," Harvey said with a wave of his hand. "I'd spent the past few weeks in a hospital bed; you're far better prepared to take this on than myself." He scratched his chin. "I hope you don't expect much from me in there, because the only reason I'm here today is to watch you destroy this guy."
Laurel snorted, but smiled nonetheless. "Are you ready, then?"
Harvey gave her a mock exasperated glance. "Are you kidding me? I was born for this." He grinned, and pushed open the doors for them.
The gallery was packed, with media and observers alike, and all of them turned as one to watch as the prosecutors strode towards their table. Laurel ignored them, settling into her chair and noting with appreciation that Harvey, who always insisted on holding doors or pulling out chairs for her when they were in private, declined to do so before the audience. It was a small gesture, but one that further showed his confidence in her own capabilities. Giving him an appreciative smile, she retrieved her copy of her opening statement, reading it over one last time, though it was already burned into her brain.
She barely had time to make a few final edits before the doors opened again and opposing counsel arrived, a smiling Terrance Elliot walking a few steps ahead of his client. Latimer, free on bail, strode down the aisle with his usual arrogant swagger, and as he made to settle into his own chair, he turned his head towards her, some undoubtedly-snide remark preparing to roll of his tongue.
The look in her eyes stopped him cold.
Unflinching, Laurel maintained eye contact until the weasel looked hurriedly away, and she smiled. This was going to be even more fun than she had anticipated.
Elliot, however, would not be as easily cowed as his client. As he unfasted the straps on his briefcase, he looked over towards their table with a smile. "You know, I must say that this is an honor," he said, "being in the same courtroom as the vaunted Harvey Mitchell. It's a shame you felt the need to promote your subordinate to lead counsel. I've always wanted the chance to best you properly, man to man."
Laurel's nostrils flared, her lips curling back as she prepared an acidic response, but Harvey placed a hand on her arm under the table, forestalling her.
"Come on, Elliot," Harvey said with that unflappable smile of his, "we both know what the outcome of that would be. Just like I know that my subordinate is going to rip your case apart and stich it back together with what's left of your client's tacky suit, after he trades it in for prison orange." He shifted his gaze to eye Latimer with something that bordered between disappointment and contempt. "Brioni, really? What is this, a casting call for a Bond villain?"
Latimer sputtered, indignation flaring in his eyes, but Harvey gave him no further heed, instead settling his gaze back on Elliot. "If there's anything left of your legal career after she's done with you," he said, indicating Laurel with a shift of his eyes, "then I'll gladly take that challenge."
Laurel felt a surge of pride, and enjoyed the sight of the ever-cool Terrance Elliot momentarily at a loss for words. Unfortunately, it didn't last nearly as long as she would have liked, as the bailiff entered the room a moment later.
"Docket ending 2443, State versus Stephen Latimer," he called out. "Star County Superior Court is now in session, the honorable Diane Bowden presiding. All rise."
Laurel rose, smoothing out her skirt as Judge Bowden took her seat and tapped the gavel. "All members of the jury have received their instructions?" she asked.
"Yes, your honor," Laurel and Elliot replied at once.
"And both parties are ready to proceed?"
"We are."
"Then this court is ready to hear opening statements," Bowden announced, nodding to Laurel. "The floor is yours, counselor."
"Thank you, your honor," Laurel said with a smile, stepping out from behind the table, her pace deliberate and measured as she approached the jury box, the words of her exhaustively-memorized statement coming immediately to mind.
This was her time.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," she began, "this case is about democracy. It is about the right that you have as citizens of this city to control your fate, and to make your voices heard, an ideal that this country was founded upon, and towards which we have always striven. A right necessary to the exercise of all others." She pointed to Latimer. "A right which that man sought to take from you."
She paused, letting her introduction seek in, before turning, opening herself up to the courtroom and all who sat in the gallery. "Over the course of this trial, the prosecution will prove beyond a reasonable doubt, through evidence and testimony, that the defendant, Stephen Latimer, knowingly and deliberately funneled millions of dollars in dark money to a leading political campaign in this city, and through his ties to organized crime also reaped the benefits of crimes such as fraud, bribery, and racketeering." She looked to Latimer, who lifted his chin, defiant as ever, and Laurel fought to keep her expression free of the disgust that filled her mind.
"The defense will tell you that this was never his intent," Laurel asserted, turning back to face the jury. "That Mr. Latimer wanted only to do good for this city, to support a cause he believed in, and that his crimes are victimless. But I ask you this: is robbing an entire city of the right to choose their mayor victimless? Is aiding and abetting the bribes that corrupt our government victimless? Is running a criminal enterprise which sought to profit off of your disenfranchisement…" she paused, letting the word hang in the air, "…victimless?"
She shook her head. "These crimes are not minor. And they were not accidental. They were a deliberate attempt to deprive every single resident of this city of their rights under the law, and to elevate himself and his cronies above that law." Laurel gave a small smile. "Well unfortunately for the defendant, today, in this courtroom, you are the law. Each one of you, whatever your profession or nationality, whatever your race or creed, you are all citizens of Starling City, and you are the embodiment of that law. You have the chance to seize control of your lives once again, to take back this city from men who think themselves better and wiser than you, who think they know what's best for you. Today, you are the ones who can ensure that justice is done. You are the ones who can right these wrongs."
She drew in a breath, looking around at their faces once more as her voice rang out, strong and clear. "Show the world that Starling City is better than this. Show it that we are stronger than this. Convict Stephen Latimer, and take back the democracy he sought to steal from you."
She dipped her head. "Thank you." Lingering a moment longer to ensure that her words had sunk in, she turned on her heel and strode crisply back to her seat.
"Not bad," Harvey whispered with fierce pride as she sat, and she lifted a hand to rub at her nose, hiding her smile from the room.
"We now turn to the defense," Bowden announced. "Counselor, your statement."
"Thank you, your honor," Elliot said respectfully, standing up and buttoning his jacket as he took the floor. Laurel retrieved her pen, preparing to jot down anything the defense attorney might reveal about his trial strategy.
"Esteemed jury," the man began, his sonorous voice echoing around the room, "the assistant district attorney is right…about a few things. She is right to say that this case is about democracy, and there is no man more committed to that cause than Stephen Latimer."
Laurel rolled her eyes, but kept listening. All of this was to be expected. "She is also right to say that you hold in your hands the power to make things right." He paused. "But what is right? Is it to convict, on questionable grounds, a man who only sought to help this city, and to support the causes he believed in? Is it to upset the scales of justice by inflicting a punishment wholly unproportioned to the alleged crimes?" Elliot shook his head, pacing a few feet over before looking up to address the jury again. "Beyond a reasonable doubt, ladies and gentlemen. That is the degree to which the prosecution must prove their case, and it is a high bar indeed. I know we hear those words a lot, in all our favorite television courtroom dramas, but this is real life. And in real life, those words carry weight. They carry meaning, invested in them by hundreds of years of jurisprudence and philosophy. They entrust you with the ability to decide Mr. Latimer's fate, but also with the responsibility to do so by considering only the facts presented in this trial, and not the conjecture and hypotheses that the prosecution will attempt to construct out of them."
Here he paused again, and Laurel gritted her teeth in frustration as she saw Elliot doing what he did best once again, appealing to a jury with apparent honesty and forthrightness while actually manipulating them with all the skill of a practiced puppetmaster. "You must make a decision in this trial, ladies and gentlemen. You must decide whether to give in to a prosecutorial witch-hunt, and to imprison a man whose only crime was to contribute to the political process, or whether to uphold the tenets of free association, to maintain that he is innocent until proven guilty. It is laws like these which define our society, which make it worth living in, and which provide us all the security to believe in higher things. Without them, we are lost, and alone."
Elliot paused one last time. "When all of the prosecution's evidence has been rebutted, and all their witnesses disproved, you will have to make the choice. A man's freedom hangs in the balance. Do not consider it lightly."
With that he dipped his head, and returned to his table, but the moment his back was turned on the jury and Judge Bowden, he flashed Laurel a cocky smile.
It took all of her willpower to stop herself from ripping it off of his face.
"Thank you, counselor," Bowden stated, reaching up to adjust her glasses and glance down at the papers in front of her. "The prosecution may open its case."
"Thank you, your honor," Laurel said, stepping out from behind the desk and proceeding to the jury box, where a presentation stand had been set up, its slides selections of evidence.
"Exhibit A in this trial will be the evidence collected from the laptop of a one Mr. Nikolas Sokolov," she told the jury, reaching up to pull away the first slide. "As you will see in the following charts, this laptop contained statements and transfers from a series of bank accounts controlled by Mr. Latimer and his conspirators, which were funneled to-"
"The defense objects," Elliot interrupted, standing up.
Laurel looked over with exasperation. "I hadn't even finished my sentence."
"On what grounds, counselor?" Judge Bowden asked, steepling her fingers.
"The laptop, and all evidence connected to it, are inadmissible," Elliot declared, his voice calm and unperturbed, as if he were merely observing an obvious fact.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Laurel snapped.
"Language, prosecutor," Bowden chided her, and Laurel bit her lip to keep from letting Elliot know what she really thought. "Both of you, up here," the judge said, twitching a finger.
Laurel gritted her teeth in frustration and stalked over for the sidebar, even as Elliot smoothly buttoned his suit jacket and meandered casually up to the judge's seat.
"Your honor, this is ridiculous," Laurel said immediately. "He had weeks to object to this evidence during discovery but never did. This should be dismissed on face."
"The prosecutor is correct, counselor," Bowden said, peering at Elliot over her glasses. "Objections to evidentiary exhibits must be raised prior to the trial unless-"
"-unless new facts questioning the legitimacy of that evidence arise during the trial," Elliot finished for her with a smile. "I know the law. Which is why I know that once you see what's on this, you'll be throwing that laptop out." He reached into his jacket and retrieved a CD case with the SCPD logo on it, laying it before the judge.
Laurel's brows furrowed in surprise and confusion, but she recovered quickly. "If that's supposed to be some evidence to support your bullshit objection, you needed to declare it and share it with us as soon as possible," she stated.
Elliot gave an apologetic shrug. "It just very recently came into my possession," he said by way of explanation. "I got it to the court as soon as I could."
"You've got to be kidding," Laurel hissed, turning on Eliot. "You can't just spring this on us in the middle of trial. You are in violation of no less than four rules of court procedure, including the obligation to share evidence with opposing counsel-"
"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not," Elliot said with a wave of his hand, before pointing at the disc. "But regardless, you're going to want to see what's on that disc. Both of you. After that, you can decide whether to fine me for minor procedural issues."
Laurel opened her mouth to object again as Bowden considered the disc, but the judge held up her hand. "My chambers," she said, stepping down from her chair, and Laurel let out a huff of disbelief as Elliot smiled, pocketed the disc again, and set after her.
As she turned to follow, she saw Harvey frowning, briefly holding his hand palm up in a gesture of confusion as he tried to catch her gaze.
Unable to give him an answer but not wanting to show uncertainty before the jury, she merely shook her head in response before following Elliot out of the courtroom and into Bowden's office.
"This had better be damned important, counselor," she told Elliot as she sat down, "or I'll hold you in contempt right now."
"I appreciate the warning," Elliot said, flashing another smile, "but as I promised, you'll both want to see this. May I?" he asked, indicating her computer. At Bowden's acquiescence, he inserted the disc into a drive.
A few clicks later, a video was playing on the computer screen, and Elliot rotated the monitor to face both Bowden and Laurel.
Laurel frowned. The footage was from what appeared to be a security camera, surveying a room with row upon row of shelving units, themselves filled to the brim with ordered, notated tubs and other containers.
She recognized it instantly: it was the evidence lockup at the SCPD's headquarters. What could Elliot possibly have to show them about-
And then her heart fell as a familiar face appeared on the camera.
"That," said Elliot, with an aggravatingly triumphant pause, "is an SCPD detective—who, by the way, also happens to be the ADA's father—illegally entering a laptop into evidence lockup."
Laurel swallowed, trying to keep from wincing as she saw Quentin slip the laptop into a tub before quickly exiting.
Holst. It had to have been Holst. He was the only one who would have access to the security footage from lockup, and her suspicions that he was conspiring with Latimer and Elliot were now all but confirmed.
This could cost her father his job. But if she didn't act quickly, it could also lose them the case.
"That proves absolutely nothing," Laurel said emphatically. "That laptop was listed in the record of items seized from Sokolov's mansion. The detective was probably just returning it from the lab."
"Then why is there no footage of it being removed from lockup for that purpose prior to this timestamp?" Elliot challenged. "All evidence is accounted for in lockup before being sent for testing, and yet if you scrub back through this footage," he pressed a key, causing the camera to rewind rapidly, "there's no sign of the good Detective Lance, or anyone else, removing it." He crossed his arms. "So if no one brought it in, where did it come from?"
"From the crime scene, as legitimate evidence," Laurel reiterated slowly, trying to keep the anger out of her voice. "I can produce the record if you wish."
"Those records are digital," Elliot said. "They can easily be altered with by an individual with the resources and intent."
"Are you accusing me of evidence tampering?" Laurel asked, no longer bothering to keep the venom from her tone.
"Never," Elliot said with a cocksure smile. "I don't need to. Even if that laptop was legitimately seized, as we can see from this video, its whereabouts are unaccounted for until Detective Lance returns it to lockup. Thus, the chain of custody with respect to the laptop has been breached, and all evidence contained on it-"
"-cannot be admitted due to the possibility of alteration during the unaccounted-for period," Bowden finished, rubbing her temple. "Yes, I know the law, too."
"Then you know what you have to do," Elliot said.
"What you have to do is throw out this absurd challenge," Laurel said vociferously. "He was obligated to make this evidence known to the court as soon as it entered his possession, not when it suits his purpose in court to bar evidence that proves his client is guilty."
"And as I said," Elliot replied, "I only received this disc very recently. I requested the footage from the SCPD weeks ago, but it only arrived just this morning."
"How incredibly convenient for you," Laurel said sarcastically. "Your honor, defending counsel has shown a complete disregard for the rules of the court and common courtesy. Throw this out so that we can get back to the trial."
"You know I can't do that," Bowden said, laying her glasses on the desk. Laurel opened her mouth to protest, but Bowden forestalled her with an upheld hand.
"Defending counsel will be reprimanded by the court for failure to fully comply with reporting regulations for new evidence, but this video clearly shows that the chain of custody has been breached. I'll be instructing the jury to disregard all evidence and testimony related to the laptop."
"Thank you, your honor," Elliot said, dipping his head.
"This is absurd!" Laurel insisted. "He clearly-"
"Enough!" Bowden interrupted, sitting upright and pointing at the computer. "With evidence like that, you should be thankful I'm not recommending you to be investigated for prosecutorial misconduct. I don't know whether that laptop was planted or not, but I do know that there's a period of time where we can't account for its whereabouts, and that's clearly a breach of custody. Now both of you get back in there and wait for me."
Laurel let out a frustrated breath, but it was clear from her expression that Bowden would brook no further argument as she reached for a form on her desk. Whirling around, Laurel saw Elliot ducking out the door.
"You!" she called out, her voice echoing through the halls of the courthouse as she strode after him, heels sounding like staccato gunfire on the tile. "Is it ever possible for you to win without cheating?"
"Cheating?" Elliot repeated, turning around to face her. "No, you've got this all turned around. You're the one cheating now: the SCPD didn't bring that laptop in, and you know it."
"You're stalling," Laurel snapped. "Latimer is guilty."
"So prove that in a court of law with legitimate evidence," Elliot fired back. He snorted. "You know, I'm disappointed in you, Laurel. You were always the one so concerned with the sanctity of the law and those absolutist notions of right and wrong, always making me out to be the bad guy. But now that you've got your own white whale to pursue, you'll stop at nothing to put him away, will you?"
"You son of a bitch," Laurel hissed, stepping closer, lips curling back. "How dare you-"
"You know," Elliot interrupted, "you're being awfully confrontational for someone who could easily be prosecuted right now. In fact, you should be thanking me for not heading to the DA's office this very second to report you."
"So why aren't you?" Laurel challenged. "If you're so sure I orchestrated this."
Elliot smiled. "Because I don't need to. Because I know you won't care if I go after you, but you will if I go after someone else."
Laurel lifted her chin. "What are you talking about?"
"You're a smart girl," Elliot said. "Figure it out."
It didn't take her long.
"You're going to have my father fired unless I drop this case," she said.
"Fired?" Elliot's eyebrows jumped up, his eyes wide with amusement as he chuckled. "Oh no, nothing so pedestrian. We'll bring charges against him unless you drop this case."
"You've got nothing," Laurel snarled. "That video doesn't prove that he tampered with anything."
"I wouldn't be so sure," Elliot said, turning away and striding back towards the courtroom as he said over his shoulder, "You said I had nothing at the start of this trial, and look where we are now."
Fuming, Laurel watched him go, hands curling into fists.
She would not let him get the better of her, not again. But without the laptop, and the hard evidence it provided, she would have to seriously change her strategy. The case was far from lost, but it had just become much more difficult.
She couldn't drop this case. She wouldn't, no matter what Elliot threatened her with. She just needed to figure out a way to make sure that Quentin wasn't charged. She felt a flash of guilt, knowing that her father was only caught up in this because of what she had asked of him, because she had been cooperating with Oliver's team and needed him to receive the evidence they stole.
Oliver had yet to return, but it was only four days since he had left. That didn't stop the black pit of worry from opening in her stomach when she thought about him again, but as callous as it sounded, she couldn't afford to dwell on that now. She needed to protect her father.
She made her way quickly back into the courtroom, ignoring the smug smile on Latimer's face to start collecting her things.
"Hey," Harvey interrupted her, placing a hand on her arm. "What the hell happened in there?"
"A lot," Laurel said simply. "I'll explain more later, but the laptop is now inadmissible."
"What?" Harvey said. "I need an explanation now."
"No, what you need to do is ask Judge Bowden for a reprieve while I go make a call," Laurel told him, grabbing her phone.
"A reprieve?" Harvey repeated incredulously. "For how long?"
"For as long as possible," Laurel said. "Just get us out of this courthouse for today." Without pausing, she made for the exit.
Harvey's questions were still clearly not answered, but she didn't have time, not now. He would manage without her.
Selecting the contact in her phone, she pushed open the courtroom doors and made the call.
000
Malcolm Merlyn hated waiting.
It wasn't that he lacked patience; on the contrary, that was a skill he had learned to cultivate in earnest, a necessity to the success of the endless schemes which always kept him a step ahead of his enemies. But patience was different from waiting. The former was a quality, one he was comfortable with because it meant that he was in control.
Right now, waiting outside one of the inner chambers of Nanda Parbat, Malcolm was not in control.
Everything that he had planned, the months of painstaking preparation, had all led up to this moment. If the council of senior League members deliberating within chose another path, it would all be for naught.
He had done everything in his power to ensure they would choose the way he needed them to: had ordered the bodies retrieved from the duel site, shown them the gunshot wound that had felled Ra's al Ghul, and the bearer of the weapon that had dealt it. The story was clear, from his own mouth and the fixed evidence: Oliver's second had concealed a weapon, and murdered Ra's, a treachery Malcolm had punished by death.
It should have been a simple decision. And yet he had been waiting in the hall for hours like a dog waiting on scraps from the dinner table, a man who had always controlled his own fate forced to wait outside while others decided it for him. It was humiliating, frustrating, and unnerving.
Malcolm took a deep breath, forcing himself to remain calm. He had given them no reason to doubt him, and he could not afford to question himself now.
He had just begun to close his eyes in an attempt to meditate when the door to the chamber swung open.
No one came through to summon him. The message was clear. Gathering himself, he fixed his features in an expression of impassiveness and stepped through the portal, closing it behind him.
It was a small room, a meditation chamber of some sort. It was occupied by a handful of assassins, the League's most seasoned members standing in a semicircle before him.
Malcolm did not speak, waiting for them to address him. The silence dragged on, the incense-laden air growing heavier and thicker with every passing moment.
Finally, from the center of the group, al-Namir spoke. "We have reached a decision."
Malcolm nodded. "And?" he said, careful to avoid any trace of emotion in his voice, anything that might betray the stakes behind this moment.
Al-Namir drew in a breath, as if bracing himself for a deeply uncomfortable act. The swordsman had never liked Malcolm, even before he was cast out of the League, and Malcolm hadn't exactly had time to mend bridges in the time he had been back.
"The facts are clear," al-Namir said. "Ra's al Ghul was slain by treachery, a treachery rightly avenged."
Malcolm inclined his head, a simple show of thanks that belied the relief sweeping through him. Al-Namir, however, was not done.
"The other decision was not so simple," the assassin said. "This is an unprecedented situation. Never before has a Ra's died without appointing a successor. Never before has the prophecy failed to deliver an heir. There is no law, no contingency, for this. Even this council has no true authority, according to our codes, but it is all that we have left."
Malcolm remained still, even as apprehension began to creep back into his mind.
"The Demon cannot survive long without its Head," al-Namir continued, "and no council could ever take such a place. It is a position ordained for one."
The scarred assassin lifted his chin. "A position which we do not grant you."
Malcolm's eye twitched, the only physical indication of the anger now building in his gut. This council of purists did not respect him, feared that he might compromise the League's principles once again. He had hoped they would not prove a barrier to his ascension, that he would not have to resort to civil war, pitting his loyalists against Ra's' old guard.
But if it came to that, he had to admit that he would relish putting an arrow through each one of their eyes.
"We need a leader," Malcolm spoke, keeping his voice as guarded as possible. "You know this. If we are divided, we will fall, and the Great Enemy will be unchecked. Even now they have surely learned of Ra's' death; they will be emboldened, unless we act-"
"Do not presume to lecture us on our duty," al-Namir interrupted. "We are not finished."
Still playing the dutiful soldier, Malcolm sealed his lips, and al-Namir examined him, their eyes boring into each other in a struggle for dominance, neither willing to give ground.
"We will not recognize you as Ra's, for you were not delivered by the prophecy," al-Namir stated. "Nor as Warith, for neither were you designated as his heir." He paused, his jaw swiveling, and Malcolm felt satisfaction begin to grow within him again as he could tell that al-Namir was chewing over the words.
"But we cannot deny that Ra's elevated you once again to the status of his second, the closest to an heir that yet survives." Al-Namir set his mouth in a straight line. "And so we recognize you, Eyad al'Ghul, the Hand of the Demon. You shall be given the opportunity to ascend to Ra's, by the same way as all others: the cleansing of your home, and the destruction of all influences of the Enemy within it. If you succeed, you will be deemed worthy to lead us against them."
Malcolm knelt. "By the Founders, I swear, I will see it done."
And as his head bowed, he smiled.
000
Roy Harper exhaled slowly and steadily, keeping both eyes open as he peered down the shaft of the arrow, elbow high. Then, he pulled quickly back to full draw and fired.
The arrow buried itself in the target at the end of the range, no more than a finger's breadth away from the center of the bulls-eye.
Roy merely scowled and reached for another arrow. Oliver never missed, so neither could he.
In the days since Oliver and Diggle had left, the young man had thrown himself into his training, spending nearly every waking moment in the Foundry. It was all he could do to keep his mind occupied, to avoid thinking about the fate of his mentor, half a world away.
He had just nocked the arrow and begun to draw it back when he heard the familiar sound of the Foundry door opening.
"Oliver?" he asked, his inflection raising. The older vigilante had said that he would return in a week, and it had only been four days, but that didn't stop Roy from hoping.
Instead, another familiar form made its way to the bottom of the stairs.
"Hello, Roy," Felicity said quietly, fingers tightly clutching her purse.
"Felicity," Roy said, lowering the bow. "What are you-?"
"-doing here?" Felicity finished, stepping forward. "I'm not quite sure, honestly. I know it's only been four days since he left, and that doesn't mean anything at all, really, but I can't stop thinking about it and it was making me crazy so I went to go for a drive, just to clear my head, and I…" her voice faded out as she arrived at her chair, one hand trailing along an armrest. "…I ended up here."
Silence fell between them, Felicity staring absently at the dark monitor screens of her workstation. Uncertain of what to say, Roy plucked the arrow from the string, sliding it back into its quiver.
The sound startled the woman out of her reverie. Abruptly shaking her head, she apologized. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you would be down here. I'll just leave you train-"
"No," Roy interrupted, setting the bow aside. "Really, it's…it's fine. We haven't talked in a while. Not since they left."
A sad smile tugged at the edges of Felicity's lips. "We haven't, have we?"
Roy shook his head. "No," he confirmed, stepping away from the range and towards her station. The relationship between them had always been a bit different than those they had with the other members of the team. It wasn't tense or untrusting, but simply more distant, a natural function of the comparatively small time Roy had spent with her and the closer bonds each had to others.
To Oliver.
He leaned back against a table, crossing his arms. "So now that it's just the two of us, we should probably be better about that."
Felicity started, and Roy immediately realized his mistake. "Sorry," he said, "that's not what I meant. I mean, it's the two of us for now, until-"
"-until they get back," Felicity completed his sentence hurriedly. "I know." She gave a hesitant smile. "The verbal slips are usually my job."
Roy chuckled momentarily, but quickly back lapsed into silence, the brief interjection of humor dissolved into the anxious cloud that seemed to hang over the Foundry.
"Are you alright?" Roy asked when the silence became unbearable once again. He winced as he finished the question, knowing how completely inadequate it was.
Felicity spun the chair around, slowly sitting and crossing her legs. "No," she said honestly, her voice rough. In that moment, with her shoulders bent as if carrying some invisible weight and her eyes dull with worry, she looked so frail and small that Roy barely recognized her. Even her hair seemed less vibrant, its color leeched away by the pale lights of the Foundry overhead.
"I know that he said he would return in a week, and that it doesn't help to worry," she said, shaking her head, "but that doesn't stop me."
"Of course it doesn't," Roy told her. "It doesn't stop me, either."
"He always comes back," Felicity said, seeming to speak more to herself than to Roy. "He's survived more than anyone I could ever imagine. I've seen him do it time and time again."
She looked up to Roy. "So why can't I sleep?"
The young vigilante breathed deeply, her words piercing deeper than he cared to admit. As he held her gaze, however, it told him all he needed to know.
"He told you he loved you, didn't he?" Roy asked. "Before he left."
Felicity nodded, a rough, jerky motion. "He did."
Roy drew in a breath. "And you love him, too."
She pursed her lips, but the truth was evident even before she spoke. "I do."
"Then there's your answer," Roy said. "I wouldn't expect you to feel any other way."
Felicity swallowed, a hand going to her forehead. "If this is what loving Oliver feels like," she said, "I don't know if I can take it."
"No," Roy stated emphatically, and Felicity looked up in surprise. "You can't think that," he said.
At her questioning look, Roy sealed his eyes shut tight for a moment, trying to find the words he needed, emotions long sealed away now welling up once more.
"After…after Thea left," he began, "I was devastated. Hopeless. You probably heard where Diggle found me."
"In the police station," Felicity recalled, and Roy nodded.
"Yeah," he said. "I was just...so angry. At her, for leaving. At myself, for making her want to. And even at Oliver, for pulling us apart." He grimaced, unused to this level of openness but knowing that Felicity needed to hear it. "It was like there was this gaping void inside of me that nothing could ever fill, and sometimes, I would catch myself wishing that I had never met her. That none of it had ever happened."
He cast his head down, gathering himself once more, and when he looked up, he caught Felicity's gaze again, her face a mix of surprise and sympathy.
"It took me a long time to get past that," he admitted. "And it wasn't easy. It hurt like hell. There were days that I could barely get out of bed to go train. But eventually, I came to accept it. And I realized that I could never regret loving her, because it had driven me to become what I am now. Because the time we shared was a gift, a gift that showed me a world and a life beyond the Glades, beyond petty crime and..." He coughed. "And I realized that I had to take the good with the bad. That love may not always work out, but it's always worth it, because if it's really love, then it makes you a better person."
He paused, the outpouring of words and emotion suddenly catching up to him, self-consciousness returning. Sheepishly, he reached up to scratch the back of his neck. "I know that all probably sounds ridiculous."
"No, Roy," Felicity said, standing up, her eyes glimmering. "It's not ridiculous at all."
The next thing he knew, Roy was being enveloped in a crushing hug. He returned the embrace, uncertainly at first, but then with greater strength as he felt something give way inside of him.
He had needed this, too, he realized, needed some catharsis for all the emotion that he had bottled up inside for months. And so for a long time they remained locked together, each acknowledging their grief in a moment of shared emotion.
"Thank you," Felicity said as they finally broke apart, dabbing at the corner of her eye. "I…I needed to hear that."
"I needed to say it," Roy replied simply, and Felicity cast her gaze down.
"I'm sorry, I never even thought to ask you how you were doing after Thea left," she confessed. "I should have known that it was difficult for you, but I just-"
"-you were busy, all of you," Roy dismissed her apology with a wave of his hand, and gave a self-deprecating smile. "Besides, contrary to what you just saw, I don't really do touchy-feely that much."
"Well, you should try it more often," Felicity said in reply with a wan smile of her own.
Roy snorted in amusement, and Felicity reached out to place a hand on his shoulder. "Hey," she said, looking into his eyes. "I promise you, once Oliver and Digg get back, we're going to find Thea. And you're going to show her what a huge mistake she made."
Roy swallowed. "Thank you," he said, and Felicity smiled back.
It was then that they were interrupted by the cheerful ringtone of Felicity's phone. Fishing it out of her purse, she frowned.
"It's Laurel," she told him, and Roy quirked his head in interest as she took the call.
"Hello? Yes…no, not yet…thank you…now, what? What happened?" Felicity pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm so sorry, I thought it would work, I didn't even think to…oh, you need us to…it's just the two of us now, I don't know if we can…"
She paused, looking over to Roy, who raised an eyebrow and darted his eyes sideways to indicate the mannequin where his suit stood, unblemished and beckoning.
And Roy watched as resolution formed on Felicity's face, the blonde turning back to her computer bank and powering on the machines. "I mean, we'd be happy to help, Laurel. Let us know what you need and we'll get right on it."
Laurel's instructions were evidently succinct, as Felicity was saying goodbye and hanging up moments later.
"What happened?" Roy asked.
"Latimer's lawyer had video of Lance entering Sokolov's laptop into police evidence lockup," Felicity said. "They're threatening to press charges against him unless she drops the case."
Roy frowned. "That's terrible," he said, "but how can we help?"
Felicity was already hammering away at her keyboard. "Laurel thinks that the police commissioner is in Latimer's pocket and is feeding his lawyer information."
Roy stepped away from the table, the dots connecting. "And she wants us to convince him to back off."
Felicity nodded. "Don't confront him directly, obviously," she said, "or suspicion will immediately fall on Laurel. Just follow him, and see if you can find something useful."
Roy looked up at his suit, and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Oliver had put his faith in him; he wouldn't let him down now.
"Done."
00
In the great glacier east of Nanda Parbat, many fractures marred the surface of the ice. There was one, however, which served a purpose far different from the rest. A rift just wide enough for a man to fit inside at the opening, the crevasse was a favored place for the League to dispose of corpses, mostly initiates who had not survived their training, or those who had died during the climb to the monastery. A hundred paces deep, the crevasse narrowed, the blue ice walls closing in to trap the bodies that were dumped into its expanse.
It was here that one of the more grisly sights in the world developed, as the biting cold acted as a natural preservative for the corpses, slowing the decay of the flesh but tinging it with an unnatural shade. Al-Qitta could not count the number of twisted, mummified bodies caught in between the ice walls, their skin blackened from the cold, nor did she care to. Lying in their midst was more than enough to sate her curiosity.
It was for the sake of concealment, of course, so that the men who came to dump the corpses of Oliver Queen and John Diggle did not notice the decidedly-living body amongst the rest. This deep in the ravine, the light from the sun was faint, shining only weakly through the crack in the ice far above, but the chance of detection was one that they could not afford to take. Al-Aqrab was somewhere up above, lying hidden atop the glacier, waiting to throw down the rope they had procured to retrieve the bodies.
In her time with the League, al-Qitta had become well acquainted with death. And yet, lying perfectly still atop the piled corpses, the cold slowly seeping into her body as surely as it had consumed theirs, she could not deny that she felt a thrill of fear.
It was an alien feeling to her, both the recognition of the cold and the fear that came with it, thoughts that only a week before would have been dismissed out of hand. What was there to fear for a member of the League of Assassins, after all? Death in the service of the League was an honor sought by all.
But now the League had changed. Ra's al Ghul was dead, slain by a loathsome betrayal, and the traitor Malcolm Merlyn appeared on the verge of taking his place. Her father appeared on the verge of taking his place.
So much had changed for her in such a short time that she supposed it was only inevitable she would begin to question things, but that did not make the experience any more pleasant. She was always remembering now, often unconsciously, piecing together more and more of her life, more and more of the person who had been Thea Queen.
It was not a pleasant process. With each memory that surfaced, more doubt grew within her. She thought she had found a home in the League, but Malcolm had duped her from the beginning; it had all been a part of his plan to gain yet more power for himself. She wondered now if she was ever even worthy—
No. Al-Qitta squeezed her eyes shut tight, banishing that thought from her mind. She had passed the trials the same as every other initiate, had been baptized into the League by the true Ra's. Everything that had happened since was the fault of her father, the betrayer. It was her duty to save the League from his influence, which was why she was here in the ravine, waiting for her chance.
It was not long after her reaffirmation that she heard the first faint sounds, crunching ice from beyond the crevasse's opening. Taking a deep breath, she willed herself once again to be completely still, indistinguishable from the frozen corpses piled around her.
A moment later, two more bodies were shoved through the gap in the ice, careening off the ice walls before landing in unnatural heaps atop the pile of their predecessors.
Al-Qitta waited until she heard the telltale crunching recede before chancing movement, willing her freezing limbs to move and crawling over the corpses towards the newest additions.
There they were, as she had seen them not long ago at the Place of Proving, but clearly enfolded in death's embrace. Their wounds had long since been sealed by the cold, but the blue tinge to their skin and the expressions still frozen in pain told the story clearly enough.
Oliver Queen. John Diggle. Another surge of memories flooded her mind as the sight of her dead half-brother and his bodyguard stirred within her the unfamiliar sensation of grief. Such emotion was unbefitting an assassin, but the sight of their lifeless forms sprawled ignominiously in a mass grave stirred something within her that no conditioning or training could ever undo, whatever semblance of a soul remained in her crying out in protest against the evil that had been done here.
"You will have your vengeance, I swear it," al-Qitta vowed, her breath coming in frozen plumes as she reached out to close their eyes, brushing the accumulated frost from their lashes.
"Coming down!" came a cry from above, and al-Qitta looked up just in time to see al-Aqrab tossing the rope down to her.
Breathing over her fingers to coax some warmth back into them, al-Qitta went quickly about the gruesome business of tying the rope around Oliver's body. When it was secure, she gave a sharp tug, and al-Aqrab began to pull, slowly raising the corpse from the pile below in some maudlin mockery of an ascension.
When at last Oliver's body was pulled completely out of the crevasse, al-Aqrab threw the rope down again, and al-Qitta repeated the process for Diggle. The process repeated, albeit visibly slower as al-Aqrab raised the dead weight.
Now it was al-Qitta's turn to escape the crevasse. Eager to put the place of death behind her, she retrieved the climbing spikes from her belt and fastened them around her hands, driving them into the ice as she hauled her way up the sheer walls, leaving the blackened, frozen corpses behind.
When she at last hauled herself over the edge, she found al-Aqrab sitting on the ice, breathing heavily, with the two bodies sprawled beside her.
"Next time," the Russian girl said after catching her breath, "I'm tying the knots and you're hauling the human slabs of muscle out of the crevasse."
In spite of everything, and for what felt like the first time in forever, al-Qitta smiled. "Agreed."
The rare moment of humor having passed her, al-Aqrab stood. "We have to move. Ra's' funeral will be soon, and Malcolm will know if we are missing."
Al-Qitta turned her head up to look towards Nanda Parbat, and the peak that thrust through the clouds above.
The climb was perilous alone. To transport two corpses, locked in rigor mortis, up the mountain in addition to themselves, whilst remaining undetected, was a task almost too demanding to comprehend.
But with the fate of the League hanging in the balance, it was one that al-Qitta knew they could not afford to fail.
Turning back to her companion, she nodded. "Then let us make haste."